An imam, and a fatwa, I can get behind.
How about it, Jordanian imams?
A Calgary imam will take the bold step of issuing a fatwa – an official religious edict pronounced by a scholar of the Muslim faith – against honour killings and domestic abuse on Saturday.
Imam Syed Soharwardy, who is head imam at the Al-Madinah Calgary Islamic Centre as well as the founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, will deliver the fatwa at a mosque in Mississauga, Ont. He will be backed by more than 30 imams and Muslim scholars.
“Within the Muslim community, there are a few clergy people who misinterpret the Qur’an and say it is OK to beat a wife,” Soharwardy said. “That kind of mentality has to be changed, and has to be confronted.” Soharwardy said that it was the recent Shafia murder trial that prompted him to take action. The prosecution’s case was built around the premise that the Shafias murdered four of their relatives because they had stained the family’s “honour.”
“Those people who justify these crimes in the name of Islam, they are dead wrong,” Soharwardy said. “There is no place for these crimes in our faith.”
