A Shrewd Message

While pondering acknowledgements for my thesis, I came across The Amman Message, and was struck both by the sagacious goal and lack of awareness – indicated further by the site’s ardent effort to gage both current awareness of the initiative and encourage readers to spread the word on the three point plan.

Released on the 9th November 2004, by King Abdullah II, the statement sought to define what Islam is, and what it is not, what actions represent it and which do not, and clarify to the modern world the true nature of Islam, while laying to rest the negative perceptions that run rife both within, and outside of, the Middle East.

To provide a religious gravitas to the initiative, three questions were sent to twenty-four senior religious scholars – including Ayatollah Sistani and Sheikh Qaradawi – who comprehensively represented the branches and schools of Islam. The questions were:

1. Who is a Muslim? 
2. Is it permissable to declare someone ‘takfir’? 
3. Who has the right to undertake issuing fatwas?

Once all responses had been accounted for, an international Islamic conference comprising two-hundred Islamic ‘Ulama from fifty countries was convened in Amman, from which the ‘Three Points of the Amman Message’ were formulated. The final conclusions were as follows:

1. They specifically recognized the validity of all 8 Mathhabs (legal schools) of Sunni, Shi’a and Ibadhi Islam; of traditional Islamic Theology (Ash’arism); of Islamic Mysticism (Sufism), and of true Salafi thought, and came to a precise definition of who is a Muslim.
2. Based upon this definition they forbade takfir (declarations of apostasy) between Muslims.
3. Based upon the Mathahib they set forth the subjective and objective preconditions for the issuing of fatwas, thereby exposing ignorant and illegitimate edicts in the name of Islam.

While the objective of the Three Points has been lauded as an aid in the war against terrorism, on a purer level they provide a basis for cohesion and a solution to the infighting that afflicts too many societies in the Middle East.

As the vaster global powers battle it out in the framework of the war on terrorism, on a regional and local level the Amman Message makes perfect sense: unity. It’s the way forward.