Dubai, Amman: Muslim clerics widely condemned the burning to death of a Jordanian pilot by Daesh, saying such a form of killing was considered despicable by Islam, no matter the context.
Daesh militants released a video on Tuesday appearing to show captured pilot Muath Al Kasaesbeh being burnt alive in a cage. Jordan, which has participated in a US-led military campaign to bomb Daesh positions, responded overnight by executing two Al Qaida convicts on death row.
Egypt’s top Muslim authority, the 1,000 year old Al Azhar university revered by Sunni Muslims around the world, issued a statement expressing “deep anger over the lowly terrorist act” by what it called a “Satanic, terrorist” group.
The Grand Shaikh of Al Azhar, Ahmad Al Tayyeb, said the killers themselves deserved to be “killed, crucified or to have their limbs amputated.”
Saudi cleric Salman Al Odah wrote on his Twitter account: “Burning is an abominable crime rejected by Islamic law regardless of its causes.”
Torture by fire
“It is rejected whether it falls on an individual or a group or a people. Only God tortures by fire,” he added.
Daesh posted a religious edict on Twitter, which ruled that it is permissible in Islam to burn an infidel to death.
But even clerics sympathetic to the radical cause said the act of burning a man alive and filming the killing would damage Daesh, an Al Qaida offshoot which controls wide territory in Syria and Iraq.
“This weakens the popularity of Daesh because we look at Islam as a religion of mercy and tolerance. Even in the heat of battle, a prisoner of war is given good treatment,” said Abu Sayaf, a Jordanian Salafist cleric also known as Mohammad Al Shalabi who spent almost ten years in Jordanian prisons for militant activity including a plot to attack US troops.
“Even if [Daesh] says Muath had bombed, and burnt and killed us and we punished him in the way he did to us, we say, OK but why film the video in this shocking way?” he said. “This method has turned society against them.”
SITE, a US-based monitoring service, quoted Abdullah Bin Mohammad Al Muhaysini, whom it described as a Saudi militant, as saying on Twitter it would have been better if Kasaesbeh’s captors had swapped him for “Muslim captives”.
His killing would make ordinary people sympathetic to Kasaesbeh, he said.
Some cheered
Still, some admirers of Daesh cheered the killing.
In a Twitter message, a user called Suhaib said: “To any pilot participating in the crusader coalition against the holy warriors — know that your plane might fall in the next mission. Sleep well!”
The killing was denounced in the Arab press. The pan-Arab Al Hayat newspaper published the report on its front page under the headline “Barbarity”.
Saudi Arabia’s Arabic daily Al Riyadh newspaper wrote that Daesh had “deepened its savagery and its bloody approach” by burning Kasaesbeh.
