NEW DELHI: In what is being projected as the “biggest fatwa (religious edict)” against Islamic State (ISIS) by Indian Islamic scholars, as many as 1,050 muftis and imams from all over the country have jointly condemned the killing of innocent people by ISIS and posting of images and videos of the crimes online as “un-Islamic” and contrary to the tenets of Shariat (Islamic religious law).

The fatwa was shared with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on August 15. “We filed a petition before the Islamic scholars about the said acts of ISIS (killing innocent people, clicking their images or recording videos and posting them online) and in a fitting reply more than a 1,000 muftis and imams stated that it is absolutely un-Islamic and inhuman,” said Dr Abdul Rahim Anjaria, president of Islamic Defence Cyber Cell and chief adviser of Darul Uloom Ali Hasan Ahle Sunnat who had moved the petition.

Through the fatwa, also shared with the heads of state of around 47 countries including the US, the UK, China, France, the UAE and Turkey, the clerics have ruled as “absurd” the ISIS claims that its violent acts were Islamic and done lawfully as per Shariat. “In fact, by the un-Islamic and inhuman views and practices, the representatives of this terrorist organization have evidently proved that it has no relations with Islam or its teachings,” Anjaria said.

Jurist Mohammed Manzar Hasan Khan Ashrafi Masbahi said, “Islam never permits such an unlawful act (of killing children, woman and old people)… the holy Quran has declared killing of one innocent life as killing the entire humanity.”