Reuters is reporting on one of the first reactions to the a list published by the UAE that designates as terrorists a large group of organizations in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. The Reuters report details the reaction of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) to its inclusion on the list:
International Union of Muslim Scholars
November 17, 2014 (Reuters) – A group of Islamist scholars led by an influential Qatar-based cleric expressed ‘astonishment’ on Monday that their organization had being designated a terrorist group by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The International Union of Muslim Scholars urged the UAE to remove it from a list of 85 banned groups that the country, one of several Gulf Arab states that view political Islam as a security threat, had named on Saturday.
The inclusion of the group was ‘not based on any analysis or investigation, whether legal, logical or rational’, the scholars said in a statement, which was co-signed by the union’s chairman, Egyptian-born Youssef al-Qaradawi.
‘The Union expresses its complete and extreme astonishment of its inclusion by the UAE among the terrorists groups and rejects this description completely,’ said the group, which says it seeks to promote scholarship and awareness of Islam.”
Criticized French military intervention in Mali aimed at Al Qaeda
Helped Qatar draft a law aimed at banning attacks on or offenses to religion
Demanded that Pope apologize “just as he apologized to the Jews”
Called for punishment of U.S. soldiers who burned Korans
In 2004, the IUMS ruled that “resisting occupation troops in Iraq is a ‘duty’ on able Muslims in and outside the war-torn country and that aiding the occupier is impermissible.”
