Qatar Retracts Fatwa Permitting Burning People

It appears that Islam Web, a popular website owned by Qatar’s Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, may have been responsible for the rationale used by the Islamic State to burn alive a Jordanian pilot captive.

On February 7, 2006, the widely accessed Arabic website issued Fatwa No. 71480, titled “The Burning of Ias bin Abdul Yalil by Abu Bakr.” The fatwa, or Islamic decree, concluded that burning people as a form of punishment is permissible.

Ironically, hours after the Islamic State burned the pilot alive, Fatwa No. 71480 was removed from Islam Web.

What is interesting to note is that the more recent fatwa issued by the Islamic State to justify the burning of the pilot makes the very same arguments as this 2006 Islam Web fatwa did — citing the same sources, hadiths, tafsirs, even the logic of “humility” — implying that IS may well have relied on this fatwa from the Qatari website when writing its own to burn the pilot alive — hence, why the fatwa has now “mysteriously” disappeared from Islam Web.

Read complete report and original Fatwa @
http://www.meforum.org/5025/better-late-than-never-qatar-retracts-2006-fatwa

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