Sunday, March 24, 2013

On the bomb that killed Shaykh Al-Buti in Syria

Regarding this article, here is my reaction to its author:
1) When you say this, Thomas: “‘Compensation’ for these declarations included a crackdown on women rights activism...” Are you implying that Al-Buti was more reactionary and more misogynistic than the clerics who are on the side of the opposition? Are you implying that Al-Buti was, say, was more reactionary that Ahmad Mu`adh Al-Khatib who spent years railing against Facebook, masturbation, and who hailed Saddam Husayn for “terrifying Jews”? Or do you concede that the clerics of the opposition are in fact more reactionary than Al-Buti, who was influenced by the Nasserist-reformed Al-Azhar where he studied? Also, what crackdown of women rights activism are you talking about? Are you referring to the time when Al-Buti convinced Bashshar to rescind an order to ban niqabs on college campuses in Syria?
 
2) Your last section is rather confusing and appears to be propagandistic in purpose when you write: “Therefore, regardless of who actually committed Thursday’s bomb attack (those who accuse the regime stress the fact that the attack took place in a heavily guarded neighbourhood, the al-Iman mosque being located a few meters away from the headquarters of the Ba‘th party; they also insist on the fact that bombing a Sunni mosque is an unprecedented pattern of operation on the part of Syrian insurgents (but it has been witnessed in Iraq), the tragic demise of al-Buti means that the regime has now ceased to enjoy any meaningful source of religious legitimacy among the Sunni clergy.” So you are here recycling the standard unfounded, unsubstantiated accusations by the armed opposition (who basically accuse the regime of every crime and bombing in Syria, including bombs that target the regime or even `Alawite neighborhoods) in order to echo the trend of Saudi-Qatari media which insist that every bomb in Syria (especially when children are killed, as was the case in this particular bomb in a mosque which killed scores of people other than Al-Buti) in order to accuse the regime of killing a man who you yourself label as “the last credible ally among Sunni `Ulama’”? Do you see how the paragraph does not cohere unless you are telling readers that the regime is now going on a rampage to kill its “last credible allies”? You need to decide here: either the regime killed him or he was not then the “last credible ally” of the regime. In fact, Thomas: the opposition realized that the attempt to blame the regime for this murder is quite odd and bizarre, so some opposition groups in fact claimed (rather laughably and posthumously) that Al-Buti joined the cause of the opposition (quietly and silently) only days or hours before he was killed (although, of course, there is no evidence of that whatsoever and the cleric remained loyal to Bashshar’s regime to his last days). 
 
3) What is missing from your piece is that the exile opposition and armed groups have been denouncing Al-Buti and even calling for his murder for long months. The campaigns against Al-Buti have been relentless by various parts of the opposition particularly because he was a “credible”—to use your language—clerical ally of the regime. What is also missing is that Al-Buti recently supported the Fatwa by Mufti Hassun which attempted to monopolize Jihad in Syria by calling on Syrians to join the cause of the Syrian army, which may have sealed his fate.