A shield for Gaza’s innocent
After 13 months of mass destruction, the war in Gaza has taken an unexpected turn for peace.
In a religious ruling, the most prominent Islamic scholar in the Palestinian enclave says Hamas failed to keep its fighters “away from the homes of defenceless [Palestinian] civilians” – or, in effect, it used innocent people as shields against Israeli attacks on Hamas positions purposely placed in or under civilian buildings.
“Human life is more precious to God than Mecca,” stated Professor Salman al-Dayah, a former dean of the faculty of sharia and law at the Hamas-affiliated Islamic University of Gaza, in a six-page document.
The BBC, which reported on the religious edict, notes that Dr. Dayah cites Islamic principles that require Hamas to avoid “actions that provoke an excessive and disproportionate response by an opponent.”
In the past, Dr. Dayah has been respected enough to mediate disputes between Islamist militant groups within Gaza. His edict, or fatwa, could now further undercut Hamas’ claim that much of its legitimacy rests on its obedience to Islam.
Since the group’s Oct. 7 attack last year on Israeli civilians, many in the Muslim world have debated how much Islamic law and international law regarding rules of war apply to the conflict in Gaza.
The Global Imams Council, for example, condemned the massacre of Israelis. The world’s largest and most moderate Muslim movement, Nahdlatul Ulama in Indonesia, urged “that religious inspiration – including the values of universal love and compassion, human fraternity, and justice – be brought to the forefront of public awareness at all times, to help resolve conflict.”
Dr. Dayah’s ruling echoes similar calls by Jewish scholars for the Israeli military to honor international and Jewish law by protecting Palestinian noncombatants in both Gaza and the West Bank.
The core of the differences between Israelis and Palestinians “is the ability and willingness to empathize with innocent victims on both sides,” wrote Singapore-based scholar James Dorsey after the Oct. 7 attack.
Such empathy is shared by the three Abrahamic faiths of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. The late chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks, wrote that all three faiths must contend with a dualism that claims there is not one reality but a grand conflict between two realities, good and evil. To end interfaith conflict, he said each faith must rely on its respective belief that every human being is created in the image of God.
“Can I see the image of God in one who is not in my image, whose color, culture, and creed are different from mine?” he asked in a 2015 speech. “That is the theological challenge, and it’s there in the Bible.”
