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The Muslim "Debate" on Hostage-Taking and Beheading

(Wall Street Journal) Amir Taheri - The seizure of hostages and "exhibition killing" go back to the early stages of Islamic history. In the Arabia of the seventh century, where Islam was born, seizing hostages was practiced by rival tribes, and "exhibition killing" was a weapon of psychological war. A survey of Muslim views shows overwhelming, though not unanimous, condemnation of the Beslan massacre. But in all cases the reasons given for the condemnation are political rather than religious. Muslim commentators assert that Russia, having supported "the Palestinian cause," did not deserve such treatment. Sheik Yussuf al-Qaradawi, a Sunni Muslim scholar based in Qatar, was among the first to condemn the Beslan massacre. At the same time, however, he insists that a similar attack on Israeli schools would be justified because Israeli schoolchildren, if not killed, could grow up to become soldiers. Implicit is that killing innocent people in the lands of the "infidel" is justified as long as the victims are not citizens of states sympathetic to "the Arab cause," whatever it happens to be at any given time.
2004-10-08 00:00:00
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