Gorilla’s Guides

What was so strange about it? What was strange was that according to Aswat Al Iraq nobody was killed or injured between two in the afternoon and nine in the evening.

The reference article on Fatwas  has been published and can be found in the “Gorilla’s Guides For The Perplexed” permanent pages at the following address Fatwas A Brief Guide .

An extract:

Fatwas Affecting The Community As A Whole

The situation becomes more complex when the jurist is required to exercise his* judgement on matters that apply to an entire community. For example, it is generally accepted that citizens are required to give allegiance to their nation and, if necessary, to engage in war to defend its integrity and freedom. There are specialised societal agencies, the political, diplomatic, and military arms of government, to perform the assessments and carry out the tasks necessary to maintain a state’s integrity and freedom. That their job is to protect both the citizenry and the state does not empower them to issue a fatwa decreeing jihad, preparing for war, and then to escalate those preparations from a defensive posture to going on the offensive. Such decisions cannot be left solely to the arms of the state precisely because of their specialised role in society.

A religious authority empowered to issue a decree of war must consult those specialised social agencies and then exercise his judgement to clearly establish several points such as:

• Has the point been reached where all political, diplomatic, economic, propaganda, and other peaceful alternatives been exhausted? — In other word is a recourse to military force now the only available alternative to repel aggression?
• Has the point been reached where it is licit to take up arms against an enemy?
• If the answer to that question is “yes” to whom, exactly, does the term “enemy” apply?  Does it apply only to enemy invading forces or does it also apply to civilians, such as diplomats and “reconstruction teams” who are their as part of the invasion?
• Does the term “enemy” also apply to domestic forces and civilians who are assisting the invader?
• Is it acceptable to seek the assistance of foreign fighters to help repel the invader?

* It is worth pointing out that at the time of writing (April 2008) there are female students in some of the seminaries in Qum and have been for some years now. I am in my late forties assuming a normal lifespan I expect there to be female Ayatollahs within my lifetime.

Read in full:  Fatwas A Brief Guide .

Comments are closed on that page so if you have any comments please make them here. As with all the guides we will make available as a PDF to anyone who asks for it. Usually we have the PDF ready within a day or so.

Fatima

“IRAQ: Authorities destroy Kerbala farms, displacing peasants” — Updated.

BAGHDAD, 13 January 2008 (IRIN) - Local authorities in Kerbala, a southern province of Iraq about 120km south of the capital, Baghdad, have destroyed thousands of hectares of agricultural land, putting dozens of peasant families at risk of being displaced, according to residents.

“The farmers had been warned since last September to leave their farmland as plans have been drawn up by local authorities to turn the area into a residential one for the families of victims of the previous regime,” Amal al-Hir, head of Kerbala Agricultural Directorate, said.

According to al-Hir, the late former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 1991 granted 10-year contracts to peasant farmers in a desert area that he designated as a new green belt for Kerbala.

Facing international economic sanctions after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Saddam re-allocated this land in a bid to expand the country’s agricultural areas, al-Hir said.

Within a few years, peasant farmers transformed the barren land near Kerbala into fertile farms growing a range of produce, such as tomatoes, wheat, fruits and potatoes.

“But when these contracts expired in 2001, these people continued farming the land and ignored all official warnings. In September 2007, local authorities warned them for the last time,” al-Hir said.

More displacement

Mohammed Hassan al-Hilali, 55, was among about 30 peasants who witnessed government bulldozers destroy their agricultural land.

“We are not against helping the families of Saddam’s victims but this should not be at the expense of the suffering of other families,” al-Hilali said.

“Compensation should be paid to us, whether in the form of money or another piece of land to cultivate. Otherwise we are going to join the country’s army of unemployed and displaced persons,” he added. The unemployed father-of-six now lives with a relative in a Kerbala suburb.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, some 2.4 million people have been driven from their homes to other parts of Iraq since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003. In the same period, an estimated 2.2 million Iraqis fled to neighbouring countries, largely Syria and Jordan.

IRIN Middle East | Middle East | Iraq | IRAQ: Authorities destroy Kerbala farms, displacing peasants | Early Warning Refugees/IDPs | News Item

A woman holding the the feet of her son’s corpse. He was one of the children who was killed in a bomb attack targeting a U.S. foot patrol in Baqubah. The bomb killed at least three children, two of them siblings, and wounded seven people, police said.