The Amman Message by Prince Ghazi Bin Muhammad

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The Amman Message

by Prince Ghazi Bin Muhammad

14 August 2007

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AMMAN - Islam today faces many challenges and problems. Perhaps one of the greatest of these is misunderstanding and confusion about the true nature of the religion of Islam amongst Muslims and non-Muslims alike. This has led to erroneous interpretations of Islamic texts and thus illegitimate religious edicts (fatwas) by people who are intellectually and morally unqualified to make them. Correcting this situation through proper understanding of the traditional Islamic texts is thus of profound importance to the future of Islam and Muslims.

To address this issue, King Abdullah II of Jordan and senior Islamic scholars developed the Amman Message, which started as a simple but detailed statement issued in November 2004 in Amman. It described what Islam is and what it is not, and what actions represent it and what actions do not. Its goal was to clarify to the modern world the true nature of Islam and the nature of true Islam.

In 2005 King Abdullah II sent the following three critical questions to 24 of the most senior religious scholars from all around the world representing all the branches and schools of Islam:

(1) Who is a Muslim?
(2) Is it permissible to declare someone an apostate (takfir)?
(3) Who has the right to undertake issuing fatwas (legal rulings)?

Based on the fatwas provided by these great scholars (including the Sheikh Al-Azhar Ayatollah Sistani and Sheikh Qaradawi), in July 2005 King Abdullah II convened an international Islamic conference of 200 of the world's leading Islamic scholars (orulama) from 50 countries. The scholars unanimously issued a ruling on three fundamental issues, which became known as the 'Three Points':

1. They recognised the validity of all eight Mathhabs (legal schools) of Sunni, Shi'a and Ibadhi Islam; of traditional Islamic Theology (Ash'arism); of Islamic Mysticism (Sufism); and of true Salafi thought, and came to a precise definition of who is a Muslim.
2. Based upon this definition they forbade takfir (declarations of another's apostasy) between Muslims.
3. They set forth the subjective and objective preconditions for the issuing of fatwas, thereby exposing ignorant and illegitimate edicts in the name of Islam.

Over a period of one year, from July 2005 to July 2006, the Three Points were also unanimously adopted by over 500 leading Muslim scholars worldwide.

This document is of the greatest importance because it amounts to a historical, universal and unanimous religious and political consensus (ijma') of the nation in our day, and a consolidation of traditional, orthodox Islam. It is the first time in over a thousand years that the ummah has formally and specifically come to such a pluralistic mutual inter-recognition that is religiously legally binding on Muslims and that addresses one of the most critical problems facing Muslims today: lack of agreement about what constitutes Islam, and thus lack of agreement about who is a Muslim and what is truly Islamic.

There is nothing essentially new in the Amman Message, nor could there be for it to be truly authentic, for Islam is a religion revealed by God, and therefore not changeable by man. The Amman Message is merely a concrete restatement and crystallisation of the common principles of traditional, orthodox, mainline Islam — in all its traditional schools of thought and law — the Islam to which the vast, overwhelming majority of the world's approximately 1.4 billion Muslims belong.

With proper awareness, education and understanding of the Amman Message and its Three Points might, God willing, prevent Muslims from being influenced by illegitimate fatwas and from sliding into takfir and terrorism as a visceral overreaction to poverty, injustice and mistakes in Western foreign policy.

Proper awareness of The Amman Message may also, by exposing the illegitimate opinions of radical fundamentalists and terrorists, help prevent calls in the West for hostility against Muslims as such.

The Amman Message is good news not only for Muslims but also for all non-Muslims. It assures balanced Islamic solutions for essential issues like human rights, women's rights, freedom of religion, legitimate jihad, good citizenship of Muslims in non-Muslim countries, and just and democratic government — all key issues that are essential to world peace and harmony.

In order for the Amman Message not to remain merely a historical agreement on basic principles, various steps are being taken to introduce it through pragmatic and institutional means, such as : (1) inter-Islamic treaties; (2) national and international legislation using the Three Points of the Amman Message to define Islam and forbid takfir; (3) the use of publishing and the multi-media in all their aspects to spread the Amman Message; (4) instituting the teaching of the Amman Message in school curricula and university courses worldwide; and (5) making it part of the training of mosque Imams who would include it in their sermons.

You can help by adding your voice to this unique and historic international Islamic consensus. Add your name to the list of people worldwide that have endorsed and supported the Three Points. Your endorsement of the Amman Message is one way to contribute towards peace in the world.

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* H.R.H. Prince Ghazi is chairman of the Amman Message Committee. The Amman Message can be found online at www.ammanmessage.com. This abridged article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (www.commongroundnews.org) with permission from On Faith (www.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/), an online conversation on religion on washingtonpost.com and Newsweek.com.

Source: On Faith, 24 July 2007, www.washingtonpost.com/onfaith
Reprinted with permission from On Faith (www.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/), an online conversation on religion on washingtonpost.com and Newsweek.com. (c) Copyright 2007, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. All rights Reserved.

Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.


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