Muslim clerics refute ISIL taraweeh prayer ban

The "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) is flagrantly violating sharia by issuing fatwas such as a recent one that bans taraweeh prayer, declaring it a "fad", leading Muslim clerics told Al-Shorfa.

Egypt's Dar al-Ifta Fatwa Observatory responded to ISIL’s latest edict in a June 8th statement, declaring it to be contrary to Islam and the Prophet’s Sunnah.

ISIL’s claim that taraweeh prayer is a "fad" is a violation of the established sharia methodology of drawing inferences from religious texts, it said.

The Observatory has repeatedly stressed that this type of extremist conduct "goes too far in disallowing as fads customs and forms of worship to which Muslims are accustomed", the statement said.

Even if it sometimes appears as if this is a legitimate expression of opinion, it is in flagrant violation of the scientific and sharia methodology used by Al-Azhar and its peer institutions around the world, the Observatory said.

"Al-Azhar did well to quickly respond to ISIL’s fatwa disallowing and banning the Taraweeh prayer as a fad," Sheikh Rajeh Sabri of the Egyptian Ministry of Religious Endowments told Al-Shorfa.

"This prayer is sanctioned by most Islamic groups, and therefore ISIL’s fatwa on the subject has no value, even if it is enforced in the areas under ISIL’s control in Syria and Iraq," he said.

Muslims in ISIL-controlled areas have not been adhering to this ruling out of conviction, he said, but rather out of their fear of the group's brutality and oppression.

"This fatwa will certainly die out once ISIL’s control over the areas in which it currently has a presence ends," he added.

Taraweeh prayers a Sunnah practice

Sabri said such fatwas bode ill for new generations, which ISIL is steering away from "true religion and the Prophet’s Sunnah, and instilling in their place dark teachings and fatwas that serve only its terrorist interests and aims".

The taraweeh prayer is established as Sunnah by all imams and scholars, he said, "and therefore the ruling that it is a fad is a lie and not unexpected from the terrorist group that has distorted and made a mockery out of everything related to Islam".

"The taraweeh prayer is a Sunnah practice that Prophet Mohammed decreed as a practice particular to the month of Ramadan," said Sheikh Abdul Thaher Shehata, who lectures at Al-Azhar University’s faculty of sharia.

It also has been sanctioned by scholars of Islamic sciences as a Sunnah, and validated in many of the Prophet’s hadith, he said.

"It was agreed upon that it is favoured but not mandatory, and has passed through many phases over the long history of Islam, wherein it was permanently agreed upon as a prayer to be performed either individually or en masse, in a mosque or at home", he said.

Shehata said taraweeh begins after the isha (evening) prayer and continues until the fajr (dawn) prayer, and is performed by men as well as women.

ISIL enforces ban from al-Raqa mosques

Before Ramadan began, mosque preachers in the Syrian city of al-Raqa announced ISIL's ban on the performance of the taraweeh prayer in the city’s mosques, under the penalty of punishment.

The group also mandated that they not be performed in homes either, on the grounds the prayer is a "fad" that was not attributed to the Prophet, retired teacher and al-Raqa resident Mahmoud al-Amin told Al-Shorfa.

This has fostered resentment among city residents, since the taraweeh prayer is a ritual observed by most of them, he said, among many other social and religious rituals observed by al-Raqa residents in the month of Ramadan.

The taraweeh prayer is "passionately observed by Muslims since the Prophet used to perform it and it became very important for that reason", he added.

Members of the community used to gather daily during Ramadan to perform it collectively, he said, adding that it served to bring them closer to each other.

Entire families head to the mosques to perform it, he added, creating a beautiful social setting that complements the objective of the prayer itself.

ISIL wants to erase this beautiful ritual to increase societal disintegration in the areas it controls, he said, noting that the group bans people from coming together as that will naturally lead them to unite against it.