Qaradawi Lashes Out at Hizbullah, Urges Sunnis to Join Syria War
Influential Muslim cleric Youssef al-Qaradawi has called on Sunni Muslims to join the rebels fighting the Syrian regime, as he lashed out at Lebanon's Hizbullah for sending its men to fight the mostly-Sunni insurgents in Syria.
Qaradawi, a controversial figure in the West but who has millions of supporters, mostly from the Muslim Brotherhood, also hit out at Iran for backing the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad.
"Every Muslim trained to fight and capable of doing that (must) make himself available" to support the Syrian rebels, the cleric said at a rally in Doha late Friday.
"Iran is pushing forward arms and men (to back the Syrian regime), so why do we stand idle?" he said, branding Hizbullah, which means the party of God in Arabic, as the "party of Satan".
Hizbullah, a close ally of Iran and the Syrian regime, is openly engaged in the fight against the rebels in Syria. It has also fought for years against Israel, arch rival of Iran and Syria.
"The leader of the party of the Satan comes to fight the Sunnis... Now we know what the Iranians want... They want continued massacres to kill Sunnis," Qaradawi said.
"How could 100 million Shiites (worldwide) defeat 1.7 billion (Sunnis)?" he exclaimed, "only because (Sunni) Muslims are weak".
The cleric blamed himself for previously backing Hizbullah and its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah who gained popularity after steadfastly leading his group in the fight against Israel in 2006.
"I defended the so-called Nasrallah and his party, the party of tyranny... in front of clerics in Saudi Arabia," which is wary of neighboring Shiite Iran and its allies.
"It seems that the clerics of Saudi Arabia were more mature than me," Qaradawi said.
But the cleric insisted that his call to fight Hizbullah is "not against all Shiites".
Fighters of Hizbullah are engaged in fierce battles against the rebels to capture the Syrian town of Qusayr near the Lebanese borders.
The party has already lost dozens of its men in the battle for Qusayr.
Qaradawi hosts a popular show on Al-Jazeera satellite television and has backed the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria.
01 June 2013, 13:08
88
Well said this cleric should be thinking of a way to bring peace instead he is urging people fight , what would the sunni be fighting for freedom, revenge?
01 June 2013, 13:19
1011
yes let's talk peace with a regime that has killed close to 100000 of its citizens and is bombing them from the land, air and sea...
01 June 2013, 13:20
914
really? so hizbocrap, Iran and the alawite regime are NOT bombing the Sunni majority by the land, air and sea?
01 June 2013, 16:38
96
Both of you are right. But there are good Muslims, and bad Muslims. Obviously, Nasrallah and Bachar are the bad ones.
02 June 2013, 01:21
52
Flamer yes I remember bouti and the video that showed how he died and it wasn't the explosion that killed him but the regime. Fail.
01 June 2013, 13:41
97
as the old bloke from bab al harra used to say......ARABEEEEEET!!!
soon brothers soon.
after we destroy hizb al shaytan......baath, then we free the iranians from there tyrants too.
then on to russia. the source of our problems.
01 June 2013, 16:21
47
All he will acomplish is create more sectarian violence and hatered this guy is supposed to be a man of god , well the last time i checked GOD never said kill naother person based on his beiliefs . all this will do is cause more death and more pain.
01 June 2013, 16:36
77
What book did you open! ? Hezb Ebola is killing innocent civilians for their beliefs so is Assad.
01 June 2013, 17:12
37
This is called throwing oil on fire instead of calming the situation and calling for peace.
01 June 2013, 18:13
63
so it is final: it has officially been declared a sunni/shia war.
this war is going to last.
01 June 2013, 18:45
74
I don't really like this guy but is anyone surprised? The shia can't expect to gang up on the sunnis in Syria and not expect a response.
01 June 2013, 18:57
75
Qaradawi is a known terrorist and Al Qaeda sympathizer, I'm trying to sit here and act surprised but it's not working.
01 June 2013, 19:44
42
Yes, really. Arab/Muslims, shame on you! Most of you don't care about the petty difference between the two sect, and we are proud of you. It is time for you from both side to bring these so called "clerics" and other oppressive actors in your communities, mosques, political offices down to their knees and away from unrestrained mind control. Otherwise, nuclear Persian/Farsi hegemony is coming soon, and the Arab/Muslim word is deserving of this faith.
01 June 2013, 20:57
63
of course god doesn't want anyone to fight in his "holy name" because he never existed in the first place. i encourage this moderate cleric to practice what he preaches, go martyr himself in syria and be one with it.
01 June 2013, 21:41
43
there are also shias from yemen and elsewhere fighting alongside hezbis....
01 June 2013, 23:32
00
All leb Sunni or Shia or whatever should fight for Lebanon not for Syria , or Iran or tambuctu... Enough we need to pull our resources together n make something for our country.!
02 June 2013, 00:02
00
Those people Sunnis and Shiites will never grow up and become civilised, religion dominates 80% of their thinking and education, they have been fighting each other Since Karbala, I wonder when these people will stop looking backward and start looking forward into the 21st century civilisation. Protestants and Catholics fought each other bitterly in the middle ages, now those events and religious wars are history.
02 June 2013, 02:15
53
Qaradawis is right ...because its this nassarraah who started secterionism ..assads hands are with blood any body sound mind will say this ....why kill innocent people ......now all the sunni from all over the world will reach to syria .....
02 June 2013, 02:43
24
Why just sunnis? This is not a war of religions, it is a war of freedom getting kidnapped by some extremists ( on both sides). The only good would be that Christians and the whole world joined to free the oppressed Syrian people and not let them fall into the hands of extremists. When nobody is defending you, except of the extremist, you won´t have any other solution...
02 June 2013, 04:44
23
You r very right and very wise. The western world and the Shia want to make it sectarian yet it's as u say a revolution against pitiful living condicions. If people were happy kaddhafi, Salem, bin Ali would still be around. Only the butcher of Damascus and his assassins are fighting the will of the people that will eventually prevail.
02 June 2013, 04:27
22
Lol DW FT, some people Ma beyl2o maz7a...
FT if I out nadrallahs face there too do u think prime suspect will calm down? Lol
02 June 2013, 04:29
00
The old lunatic said if he were young he would have gone in person and fought in Syria. We all know how fiercely he fought the Israelis and badly defeated them. Oh, he never fought the just fight? Oops!
02 June 2013, 05:41
12
@Prime suspect - well look at these clerics and what they are saying?...
"I call on Muslims everywhere to help their brothers be victorious," Yusuf al-Qaradawi said in his Friday sermon in the Qatari capital of Doha. "If I had the ability I would go and fight with them."
He denounced Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, as "more infidel than Christians and Jews" and Shiite Muslim Hezbollah as "the party of the devil."
... This is something that naharnet failed to show in its article- obviously these clerics are the devil, calling all others as infidels
02 June 2013, 08:05
21
Flamer I seem to recall that it was hizbocrap supporters that demonstrated and caused chaos when LBC portrayed nasrocrap in a skettch...
02 June 2013, 08:29
00
Let them massacre each other out so that non remain. Goodbye extreemism, radicalism, ignorance. Let's stay out of and let them exterminate each other. The sooner, the better :)
02 June 2013, 10:13
01
So if im leader a country and a minority wants to over throw my position break the law and kill the soliders of my country I should just stand down? Im going to slaughter them people think its easy to be president but a president at war with the the zionist is even harder. God help the hezb and syria and eventually we will slaughter the ones who threaten the way of the syrian life
02 June 2013, 12:29
00
The extremists have hijacked the Syrian revolution, just like they did in Tunisia, Lybia and Egypt. That doesn't mean every Syrian fighting Bashar is an extremist. There are many peaceful Syrians out there who just want a democracy. Hezbollah's decision to intervene in Syria, despite Lebanon's claim of neutrality, has opened the doors of hell. I think they're the ones to blame.
And let's not sanctify Shia clerics. In Iran, they still issue death fatwas against apostates. Remember Sulam Rushdie?
03 June 2013, 07:23
00
Why does he not go himself ??. Also he says 100 m shias and 1.7 bn sunnis and then says he is only wanting to kill hizbullah members. If hizbullah means party of satan does this finally admit that allah IS satan which is what so many non muslims have been thinking for so long.
