A Hamburg imam has, for the first time in Germany, proclaimed a Muslim legal pronouncement against terrorism.
Terrorism and killings of innocent people are "criminal misdeeds," and should be outlawed by Islamic law, said Seyyed Abbas Ghaemmaghami, the imam at Hamburg's Islamic Center. It was unclear when Ghaemmaghami made the pronouncement, called a fatwa.
Ghaemmaghami, a Shiite imam, is the only ayatollah living in Germany, and is considered the religious leader of the German Shiites, who make up roughly 4 percent of 3 three million Muslims in the country.
Ghaemmaghami's fatwa should be binding for Muslims in Germany, a spokesman of the center told the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which reported the fatwa Thursday. |