Sayyed Fadlullah: America created terrorism in our region and in the world in general, and we should do our best to end it

Asked in his weekly seminar the following question: As the Americans try to link the successive acts of violence with Islam, don’t you think that there is a need to clarify the Islamic stance concerning violence?

The Religious Authority Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah said:

Islam did not need violence whether in the past or the present. On the contrary, it called for leniency following what our Messenger (p.) has said in one of his traditions that Allah is Kind and Merciful, and that He would give for leniency what He would not give for violence.

If Islam has legalized fighting in self-defense, it has done so strictly in the framework of respecting life and not killing any human, unless he puts himself in a state of aggression that cannot be confronted by any other means, taking at the same time all the precautions necessary to protect civilians, women, children and prisoners.

Therefore, the violence phenomenon in the Arab and Islamic countries or in the Middle East in general is not Islamic, especially that it resorts to means that Islam does not accept. Many of its forms were practiced first in the West and were later imitated in the Arab and Muslim world without studying them from the religious point of view. They were actually encouraged by some Western Administrations in the beginning since they served their on-going confrontation with the Soviet Union.

We believe that what is responsible for the violence that takes the form of terror in the region and the world is the American logic, which encouraged it in the beginning, and which helped in creating a favorable political and social environment afterwards. This kind of violence was sponsored by the U.S. It was not a product of the Islamic culture, but rather of a backward mentality, and misguided teachings. When America accuses some Arab and Muslim countries of supporting this trend or these groups, it can not deny that it was the one that urged such a support.

The U.S. also supported state terror by supporting the Israeli’s terror and trying to find unjustified pretenses for it. It also supported Saddam Hussein and enabled him to kill his people by means of chemical weapons, before it overthrew him when the need for him no longer existed.

The U.S. supported such phenomena to enable it to enter to the countries that were not under its direct control under the pretext of terrorism. To prove this, it is enough to remember that the plans made by the new conservatives for this region were laid out in the eighties. Nevertheless, our reaction falls politically in the category of rejecting occupation. The Islamic stance is very clear in this respect: Resistance against occupation is not an act of terror especially that we have always repeated that we condemn any targeting of civilians outside the circle of war. Thus, we condemned what happened in 9-11as well as the massacres in Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco…etc, and targeting civilians and policemen in Iraq. Such operations are by no means Islamic and they have been denounced by Muslim scholars of all sects.

We believe that there is a dire need to found a political and humanitarian global movement that condemns terror and makes every effort to stop its expansion. To do this, this movement should fight the political tyranny and brutality that dominate the world, as well as the American logic that seeks to globalize terrorism. Therefore, there is a dire need for an Islamic, Christian and international movement to prevent America from tampering with the destiny of the world, and stop such terrorist phenomena that run counter to the interests and values of humanity.