Texas Imam “killing civilians and whatnot” “But we cannot ignore provocation”

Premiered Nov 2, 2020 Imam Yasir Qadhi is responding on, Thinking Muslim’ Podcast: Difficult Questions About the Situation in France, the increasing tensions in France, that has, in the last several days, been stricken with two jihadist attacks. French teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded & 3 people in church in Niece were killed an elderly woman was decapitated.

The following description is from Imam Yasir Qadhi’s you tube channel: Shaykh, Dr. Yasir Qadhi speaks about the French Policy towards Muslims, the potential for the ‘French model’ to be exported to other countries where Muslims are a minority. He also touches on the Islamic justifications for violence, how we (Muslims) should defend the honour of the Messenger of Allah. (SAW) Below is an excerpt of this interview.

If you listen to my lectures throughout Al Qaeda and ISIS era I was always without exception bringing up American foreign policy as a primary cause of those jihadist movements. I gave a number of lectures that went viral. That once again, yes I criticize the beheading of journalists. I criticize a lot of the errant views that Al Qaeda and ISIS had and the killing civilians and whatnot. But I never stop speaking of the broad picture which is, these movements are, a reaction to your invasion

The same applies over here now. What we’re seeing now is wrong. What these people are doing is wrong. But we cannot ignore provocation. We cannot ignore…

This is what I call it asymmetric warfare. You have the state on one side, you have the media, you have the president, on one side that is prodding and poking and provoking and wanting to incite, continuously demonizing the entire faith. And on the other side you have a bunch of citizens like us expected to monitor each and every individual. That’s impossible… It is the government that should think about its future course of action. Not as a threat to for a future attack but as a sensible policy. In this case secularism has become an excuse to be anti-Muslim. Therefore even when this one attack happened, or three attacks or two attacks, we criticize those attacks. But we always jump to the broader narrative. And Allah knows best this is what has been my philosophy pretty much from the beginning.

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi is a Pakistani-American Islamic scholar, theologian and preacher. Since 2001, he has served as Dean of Academic Affairs at the Al-Maghrib Institute, an international Islamic educational institution with a center in Houston, Texas. He also taught in the Religious Studies department at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. He is currently the resident scholar of the East Plano Islamic Center in Plano, Texas.

Qadhi has written numerous books and lectured widely on Islam and contemporary Muslim issues. A 2011 The New York Times Magazine essay by Andea Elliott described Qadhi as “one of the most influential conservative clerics in American Islam.

Qadhi was previously affiliated with the Salafi movement but has since left the movement and now identifies as a Sunni.

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