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London cleric issues 'fatwa' against Musharraf

Shyam Bhatia in London

A leading Muslim cleric in London has issued a fatwa (religious edict) against Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, declaring him an apostate and thus giving religious sanction for a Muslim believer to kill him in defence of the faith.

"Musharraf will have a lot of problems internally," said the Syria-born Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed. "I think a general is going to kill him and get rid of him. It's a matter of time."

Bakri Mohammed, a founder of the Al-Muhajiroon and Al-Khalifa movements in the United Kingdom, also warned of instability in South Asia.

The fatwa, which virtually amounts to a death warrant against General Musharraf, was signed and issued on September 18, the same day that the former Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence chief, Lt Gen (retd) Hamid Gul, warned that Gen Musharraf risked a civil uprising if he maintained his support for the United States.

"The decision to support America under pressure is that of the military leadership, not of the army as an institution. The nation will never accept it," Gen Gul is reported to have said.

On the same day, demonstrators held a rally outside the Pakistani high commission in London, protesting against Gen Musharraf's decision to support the US against the Taleban in Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden resides.

In an exclusive interview with India Abroad, Mohammed clarified that the fatwa was issued because Gen Musharraf had invited American forces to Pakistan to attack Afghanistan. "To invite non-Muslim forces to set foot on Muslim land is a complete crime," he said.

"Gen Musharraf has now become an apostate and a security problem. Under Islamic law, his wife is no longer allowed to sleep with him and his life has no sanctity," declared the cleric.

Mohammed, however, insisted that he had not sought the Pakistan president's death. "I have not said 'go and kill him'. I have only said that his actions have made him an apostate, and anyone who supports him is also an apostate," he remarked.

He said Muslims in Pakistan should not obey Gen Musharraf. "If they [the Pakistanis] believe Musharraf is a traitor, they should put him on trial and punish him as defined by Islam," he declared.

The fatwa, claimed Mohammed, has also been signed by an unnamed cleric in London, Sheikh Mohammed Aldali in Syria, Sheikh Ibrahim Awad in the United Arab Emirates, religious scholars from the shariat (religious) court in Lahore, and Sheikh Mohammed Fadlallah from Beirut, patron of Lebanon's extremist Hizbollah.

The fatwa is described as 'kafir harbi murtad'. A translation, left on the door of the Pakistani high commission in London, states: "If Muslims ally with the kafirs [non-believers], supply them weapons, praise them, formulate or sign contracts with them, or assist them in military action to kill other Muslims in any way, such Muslims become apostates.

"Allah has warned us against this crime, saying, 'The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this: that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement'."

Bakri Mohammed said Gen Musharraf was guilty of "permitting American forces to use Muslim land, prostituting Pakistan's air, sea, land to US forces to bomb 26 million Muslims in Afghanistan".

He defined Muslim land thus: "Any country where Islam has entered or where there are Muslims living, that is a Muslim land."

"Therefore an attack on Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, or Palestine is an attack on Muslims. The Taleban are Muslims, they are not some people who have come from the moon," he said.

The cleric added, "Muslims are a brotherhood. Anybody who attacks the Taleban attacks Muslims. If they are attacked, it is obligatory for all Muslims to stand together with full support -- verbal, physical, financial."

Asked the difference between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, which allowed American forces on its soil in the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq, Bakri Mohammed replied, "Both instances are wrong, but in the case of Saudi Arabia, foreign troops were there to help and defend, not fight (sic). In Pakistan's case, they called non-Muslim forces to come and fight against Muslims."

Describing Gen Musharraf as a "foolish man", Bakri Mohammed said, "He wants to prove that he is a civilised person and can solve economic problems and thus become closer to the West. He knows he will soon go because of the coming elections and nobody supports him at all. If the people rise up against him, he will use force to show the West he is moderate and a copy of Mustapha Kemal [founder of modern Turkey], who destroyed the Islamic state [of Turkey] in 1924.

"Musharraf will destroy fundamentalists just to show he is part of the international community."

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