By Rashad Ali
Sometime around the beginning of the millennium, the Palestinian-American literary critic Edward Said appeared at an event in London. During the Q&A, he was asked about a military option to liberate Palestinian territory under Israeli occupation. Said replied: “No Salahadin is going to come to liberate Palestine.” Negotiating peace and aiming for a two state solution was the only solution, he argued — at that time, at least.
This casual reference to the famous 12th century military leader, Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (aka “Saladin”), shows how deeply etched he is in the minds of Muslims and Arabs, and how easily he is invoked, especially in the context of the Holy Land. After a century of sectarian crusader rule of Jerusalem, it was Saladin who reconquered the Holy Land, securing his enduring heroic image, not only in the Middle East but in European literature, too. Dante, drawing on his reputation as a benign and just ruler, awards him a position of honour in limbo, the highest possible place for a “pagan.”
In order to reconquer Jerusalem, Saladin had to rally and unite a range of Muslim leaders and fighters, which he did through the use of a fatwa obligating jihad. “Fatwa” has become a contentious word due to high profile cases such as the Salman Rushdie affair, but it is simply a religious ruling in response to a question or issue, from how to pray to launching war. Saladin’s edict made it a religious and moral duty to fight to liberate land occupied by the crusaders.
900 years later, we are seeing a new wave of fatwas encouraging jihad in the Holy Land. They are not, as we have come to expect in recent years, from extremist groups like Al-Qaeda, but from mainstream institutions, major scholarly bodies, and Islamic scholars internationally. Furthermore, the rulings are resonating widely, not only with Palestinian-specific militia groups and Islamists, and not restricted to one particular sect or school of thought. This unity and clarity of rulings has major implications for the future of conflict in the Middle East and beyond. Muslim scholars from around the world are arguing that it is not only permitted, but obligatory, to fight against Israel in the light of the ongoing genocide, a call that is unlikely to go unheeded, and could redraw the frontlines of the battles being fought today.
Continue reading “How Gaza has changed the narrative on global Jihad”
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