Global Ifta Index: Turkish fatwas serve Erdogan’s ambitions, justify his military interventions in Syria, Libya

Mustafa Hamza

The Global Fatwa Index (GFI) of the Egyptian Ifta House and the General Secretariat of the role and advisory bodies in the world revealed that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan employs religious and fatwa speech at a rate of (40%), either internally or externally, to support his expansionist actions, as a legitimate cover for his military interventions in the region.

This is like the terrorist groups and organizations that export to the peoples and nations that they hold the banner of the caliphate, and that they are responsible for the victory of Muslims in the world and their salvation from oppression and injustice.

The Ifta Index affirmed that the Turkish president uses all his weapons and soft powers to achieve hegemony in the Middle East region, pointing out that he seeks to dominate and consolidate his dictatorial rule through the fatwas of the Turkish interior by (30%), and the abroad by (70%); by recruiting some muftis of political Islam groups such as the terrorist Brotherhood and extremist militias.

The index indicated that 30 percent of the political fatwas issued by Turkish sheikhs related to supporting government policy, and 90 percent of them supported the dictator Erdogan, stressing that some of the muftis gave him the rank of the prophets.

The index pointed to a number of external fatwas that supported Turkish crimes in Libya, such as the fatwa of the Libyan Sheikh Omar Mawloud Abdel Hamid, in which he said: “The request of the National Accord (Libyan) government for assistance from the Turkish government is a legitimate right that cannot be defeated. Libya is a Muslim country and we support our government for what it is doing, because among the items of this memorandum is our victory over a liquid enemy (meaning Russia) that has no right to what it does.”

As for the Libyan preacher who is close to the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood, “Al-Sadiq Al-Gharyani”, he stated that this Turkish intervention is “lawful and legal in law,” citing Quranic verses that he deducted from its context.

He said in an interview with a Brotherhood TV channel broadcasting from Turkey, “The two memoranda of understanding the President of the Libyan Presidential Council, Fayez al-Sarraj, signed it with the Turkish President on the demarcation of maritime borders and military cooperation, a legitimate opportunity that we must seize, because it is an alliance against an enemy that has left.”

He continued: “This does not mean humiliation or occupation, but a victory for us and a recovery of our pride.” Al-Gharyani stressed that granting a foreign country the ability to establish military bases in Libya does not lend us the right as long as it supports the right because it is a legitimate and familiar matter from the major countries such as France, Britain and Germany that have foreign military bases.”