Profile of Sheikh Dr. Yussuf al-Qardawi, chairman of the board of the Union of Good

Appendix G
Profile of Sheikh Dr. Yussuf al-Qardawi, chairman of the board of the Union of Good
	Dr. Yussuf Mustafa al-Qardawi was born in Egypt in 1926. He studied at Al-Azhar University, where he was active in the resistance to the British presence in Egypt (1881-1956), subscribing to the radical Islamic ideology of Hassan al-Banna, who founded of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. Because of his preaching against the British, and later against President Nasser’s régime (1954-1970), he spent many years in prison. It is possible that his extremism led to his dismissal from Al-Azhar in 1961 and to his being appointed head of the university’s branch in Qatar. However, that might have been the event that made him a prominent autonomous cleric who was not dependent upon the institutions of the Arab countries. 1. Al-Azhar is the most ancient and respected Muslim institution of higher education in the Sunni Muslim world, founded in 971 A.D, to spread the word of Shiite Islam. In due course it became a Sunni Muslim institution. Located in Cairo, Egypt, it served as a Muslim religious institution for training Muslims to become qualified scholars from all over the world. In 1961 it became a university, serving its original purpose with branches in several countries and maintaining its world-wide reputation. In modern times it has become a hotbed of radical Muslims who spread its strict view of Islam all over the Muslim world as well as in Muslim communities in the west. It also has a council of Muslim scholars who occasionally publish Islamic religious edicts (fatwas) expressing their extremist views. Nevertheless, since it is under the control of the Egyptian government, its head, Muhammad al-Tantawi, duly serves the interests of the régime and takes a cautious tack. Accordingly, his views reflect the mood or policy of the régime, which changes from time to time, regarding such matters as, for instance, its attitude toward Israel and the Jews. For example, al-Tantawi either supported or banned the perpetration of Palestinian suicide bombing attacks in Israel and has participated in meetings of the so-called inter-religious dialogues (an international forum in which representatives of the main world religions participate, including religious Jews from both Israel and abroad.)
	In 1977, with the support of the Qatar régime, he established the Department of Islamic Law (Shari’a) at the University of Qatar, and at the same time founded an institute for Sunnah research.² To this day those institutions are an important focus of his religious activity. In addition, he advances positions contrary to the cautious official line taken by Al-Azhar (See footnote) and operates without interference from the authorities in Qatar. 2. Sunnah literally means “way of life, custom.” The Sunnah is the Islamic oral religious tradition and is based on the prophet Muhammad’s life as it appears in stories, sayings attributed to him or those close to him and in the decisions he handed down.
	Today, for many Sunni Muslims, in both the Middle East and the rest of the Muslim world, as well as among Muslim communities in the West, al-Qardawi is the main authority on Muslim religious law. He is also a source of religious and spiritual authority for Hamas in the PA-administered territories and even for the Islamic Movement in Israel. Furthermore, he also provides Hamas with practical support in financing its terrorist activities through his role as director of the Union of Good.
	By virtue of his being both an Islamic law authority and heading the UG, al-Qardawi gave Islamic legal justification to transferring charity funds to terrorist organizations such as Hamas under the heading of “financial jihad ” [al- jihad bil-mal ] . In a lecture given in the UAE in 2002 he noted that collecting money for the mujahideen (jihad fighters, or “Muslim holy warriors”) was not a donation or a gift but a duty necessitated by the sacrifices they made for the Muslim nation.³ He was also appointed to the board of directors of the Al-Taqwa (“Muslim Piety”) Bank, which was designated by American Executive Order 13224 as involved in financing terrorism. 3. Akhbar al-Khaleej, UAE, May 4, 2002. Al-Qardawi later published another article in the same spirit.
	Al-Qardawi has learned to use the mass media to improve his status and to spread his doctrine: he has his own program on Al-Jazeera (the Qatar-based most popular Arabic satellite TV network), an Arabic Internet site and an English language site called Islam-Online. As chairman of the European Fatwa Research Council, which he founded in 1997, he is also involved in Muslim affairs in European countries, and as recently as July 2004 he was officially invited (by Mr. Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London) to Britain to expedite the establishment of a world union of Islamic scholars, whose goal would be to serve as a common source of authority for the entire Muslim world.
	Al-Qardawi’s high position in Sunni Islam adds authority to the fatwas he issues regarding Palestinian terrorism against Israel, which has become central to fomenting anti-Israel opinion throughout the Arab and Muslim world. He authorized, among other things, religious justification for Palestinian suicide bombing attacks, even if the victims were women and children ( Al-Watan, Qatar, December 16, 2003). He was also the first to give a green light to the perpetration of suicide bombing attacks by Muslim women, and even encouraged them to do so (See Appendix E).
	In August 2004 a conference to discuss pluralism in Islam was held in Cairo under the auspices of the Egyptian journalists’ union. There Al-Qardawi presented a fatwa allowing the kidnapping and murder of American citizens in Iraq as a means of pressuring the American army to withdraw its forces. He noted that “all the Americans in Iraq are soldiers, there is no difference between enlisted soldiers and civilians, and they must be fought because American citizens came to Iraq to serve the occupation. The kidnapping and killing of Americans in Iraq is a [Muslim religious] obligation to force them to leave the country immediately. Desecrating the bodies of the dead [on the other hand,] is forbidden by Islam.”⁴ Ten days later, in the wake of the strong reactions which followed, Al-Qardawi sent a fax to the editors of the Arab daily Al-Hayat in which he denied everything the press attributed to him relating to his statements.⁵ 4. Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, September 2, 2004. 5. Responses of Muslim clerics and Arab intellectuals to al-Qardawi’s opinions can be found in the MEMRI bulletin of September 14, 2004 which appears on our Website, www.intelligence.org.il
	Al-Qardawi is viewed as a relatively moderate religious authority with regard to social Islamic issues. However, his overall doctrine, especially its political aspects, especially regarding Israel, and despite its inter-Islamic reformist nature, does not reflect real openness to Western values and norms. That is evident not only from his strongly-worded anti-Israel rulings but also from his controversial outlook regarding relations between Islam and Europe, which proposes the “new conquest” of the European continent through Islamic religious-political preaching, (i.e., propaganda) and indoctrination (da’wah).⁶ 6. Al- Sharq Al-Awsat, Qatar, December 6, 2003.

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Appendix H