WASHINGTON; More than 120 Muslim scholars from around the world  joined an open letter to the “fighters and followers” of the Islamic  State, denouncing them as un-Islamic by using the most Islamic of terms.

Relying  heavily on the Quran, the 18-page letter released Wednesday (Sept. 24)  picks apart the extremist ideology of the militants who have left a wake  of brutal death and destruction in their bid to establish a  transnational Islamic state in Iraq and Syria.

Even translated  into English, the letter will still sound alien to most Americans, said  Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council of American-Islamic  Relations, who released it in Washington with 10 other American Muslim  religious and civil rights leaders.

“The letter is written in  Arabic. It is using heavy classical religious texts and classical  religious scholars that ISIS has used to mobilize young people to join  its forces,” said Awad, using one of the acronyms for the group. “This  letter is not meant for a liberal audience.”

Even mainstream Muslims, he said, may find it difficult to understand.

Awad  said its aim is to offer a comprehensive Islamic refutation,  “point-by-point,” to the philosophy of the Islamic State and the  violence it has perpetrated. The letter’s authors include well-known  religious and scholarly figures in the Muslim world, including Sheikh  Shawqi Allam, the grand mufti of Egypt, and Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad  Hussein, the mufti of Jerusalem and All Palestine.

A translated  24-point summary of the letter includes the following: “It is forbidden  in Islam to torture”; “It is forbidden in Islam to attribute evil acts  to God”; and “It is forbidden in Islam to declare people non-Muslims  until he (or she) openly declares disbelief.”

This is not the  first time Muslim leaders have joined to condemn the Islamic State. The  chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, Aiman Mazyek, for  example, last week told the nation’s Muslims that they should speak out  against the “terrorist and murderers” who fight for the Islamic State  and who have dragged Islam “through the mud.”

But the Muslim  leaders who endorsed Wednesday’s letter called it an unprecedented  refutation of the Islamic State ideology from a collaboration of  religious scholars. It is addressed to the group’s self-anointed leader,  Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, and “the fighters and followers of the  self-declared ‘Islamic State.’”

But the words “Islamic State” are  in quotes, and the Muslim leaders who released the letter asked people  to stop using the term, arguing that it plays into the group’s unfounded  logic that it is protecting Muslim lands from non-Muslims and is  resurrecting the caliphate — a state governed by a Muslim leader that  once controlled vast swaths of the Middle East.

“Please stop  calling them the ‘Islamic State,’ because they are not a state and they  are not a religion,” said Ahmed Bedier, a Muslim and the president of  United Voices of America, a nonprofit that encourages minority groups to  engage in civic life.

President Obama has made a similar point,  referring to the Islamic State by one of its acronyms — “the group known  as ISIL” — in his speech to the United Nations earlier Wednesday. In  that speech, Obama also disconnected the group from Islam.

Enumerating  its atrocities — the mass rape of women, the gunning down of children,  the starvation of religious minorities — Obama concluded: “No God  condones this terror.”

1.  It is forbidden in Islam to issue fatwas without all the necessary  learning requirements. Even then fatwas must follow Islamic legal theory  as defined in the Classical texts. It is also forbidden to cite a  portion of a verse from the Qur’an—or part of a verse—to derive a ruling  without looking at everything that the Qur’an and Hadith teach related  to that matter. In other words, there are strict subjective and  objective prerequisites for fatwas, and one cannot ‘cherry-pick’  Qur’anic verses for legal arguments without considering the entire  Qur’an and Hadith.

2. It is forbidden in Islam to issue legal rulings about anything without mastery of the Arabic language.

3. It is forbidden in Islam to oversimplify Shari’ah matters and ignore established Islamic sciences.

4.  It is permissible in Islam \[for scholars] to differ on any matter,  except those fundamentals of religion that all Muslims must know.

5. It is forbidden in Islam to ignore the reality of contemporary times when deriving legal rulings.

6. It is forbidden in Islam to kill the innocent.

7.  It is forbidden in Islam to kill emissaries, ambassadors, and  diplomats; hence it is forbidden to kill journalists and aid workers.

8.  Jihad in Islam is defensive war. It is not permissible without the  right cause, the right purpose and without the right rules of conduct.

9. It is forbidden in Islam to declare people non-Muslim unless he (or she) openly declares disbelief.

10. It is forbidden in Islam to harm or mistreat—in any way—Christians or any ‘People of the Scripture’.

11. It is obligatory to consider Yazidis as People of the Scripture.

12. The re-introduction of slavery is forbidden in Islam. It was abolished by universal consensus.

13. It is forbidden in Islam to force people to convert.

14. It is forbidden in Islam to deny women their rights.

15. It is forbidden in Islam to deny children their rights.

16. It is forbidden in Islam to enact legal punishments (hudud) without following the correct

 procedures that ensure justice and mercy.

17. It is forbidden in Islam to torture people.

18. It is forbidden in Islam to disfigure the dead.

19. It is forbidden in Islam to attribute evil acts to God.

20. It is forbidden in Islam to destroy the graves and shrines of Prophets and Companions.

21.  Armed insurrection is forbidden in Islam for any reason other than  clear disbelief by the ruler and not allowing people to pray.

22. It is forbidden in Islam to declare a caliphate without consensus from all Muslims.

23. Loyalty to one’s nation is permissible in Islam.

24. After the death of the Prophet, Islam does not require anyone to emigrate anywhere.

Source:Huff. Post