Al –Liwa' Jordanian daily 6/3/2007 A.D, 16 Safar 1428 H
Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah's Fatwa and the
Required Jurisprudential Revolution
Bilal Hasan At-Tal
A few days ago, the Religious Authority, Sayyed Muhammad Hussein
Fadlullah issued a fatwa prohibiting insulting the Prophets'
Companions or abusing them under any consideration. Despite of the
importance of the content and the source of this fatwa, neither the
mass media nor the circles that are concerned with observing the
recent developments in our countries applauded it. Thus, it has become
obvious that these media and circles salute all what ignites the fire
of strife and deepens the means of discord whatever their source was,
while ignoring all what quenches this fire in its cradle and
reinforces the nation's ranks before its real enemies.
The Sayyed, through his fatwa and its timing, is making significant
progress in preventing strife on the one hand and unifying the nation
on the other hand. That is because the issue of abusing some of the
Companions remained one of the suspended issues that causes discord
among the Shiites and the Sunnites. These discords were political
ones, which all turned with time into sectarian ones. Hence, in the
period of backwardness and deterioration they did not take long before
they were turned into political differences that were used for tearing
up the nation. As a result, the faithful religious scholars started to
confront these discords bravely, and that is what the Religious
Authority, Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah, did in his latest fatwa
in which he deemed it prohibited to abuse the Companions under any
consideration.
The Fatwa issued by H.E. is one of a series of his special stands
that serve the nation. Therefore, it should be met with brave steps by
the other parties. We have to acknowledge that there are some ignorant
people of both parties who are unconsciously exchanging insults,
accusations and charging each other with unbelief which would lead to
dividing the nation and tearing up its ranks, especially that some of
those ignorant people were permitted to ascend the mosques' platforms
to spread their ignorance among the nation's ranks. That is why we
call for not using sects for the purpose of achieving political goals
because this exploitation turns the sectarian differences from an
element that enriches the nation's thought and jurisprudence into an
element that weakens its political, social and jurisprudential
structure, and consequently the differences turn from a mercy into a
torment.
As we highly appreciate the importance of The Sayyed's fatwa, we
call upon the Religious Sunni Scholars to respond by similar steps
that intend to unify the nation's ranks and return the jurisprudential
differences to their appropriate position and real role as an element
of enriching the nation's thought and jurisprudence. Such a move
requires firstly a careful examination of the cognitive and
educational positions of those who are ascending the mosques'
platforms. It also requires an Islamic informative and effective
effort to bring the sects closer to each other. This rapprochement
should move away from its ceremonial political context to be
represented in a scientific jurisprudential context. In addition,
every one who ever tries to use the differences in the sectarian
jurisprudence for instigating internal fighting among the nation's
people should be stopped. That is because jurisprudence was used for
the purpose of justifying and strengthening the political discords.
For this reason the nation needs a jurisprudential revolution to
prevent it from being confined with the past, especially in the dark
political aspect of our history. Hence, this revolution needs brave
and bold religious scholars who are able to free themselves from the
political power after being armed with the truth that enables them to
launch the real expected jurisprudential revolution that will
rehabilitate the ranks of the religious scholars and perform their
role as leaders.