Anger, grief over IS killing of pilot

Associated Press

CAIRO

The horrific fate of a captured Jordanian pilot, burned to death by the Islamic State group, unleashed a wave of grief and rage Wednesday across the Middle East, a region long riven by upheavals and violence. Political and religious leaders united in outrage and condemnation, saying the slaying of the airman goes against Islam’s teachings.

The gruesome militant video of the last moments in the life of 26-year-old Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, whose F-16 crashed in Syria in December during a U.S.-led coalition raid on the extremist group, crossed a line — beyond the beheadings of Western hostages at the hands of Islamic State extremists.

From the world’s most prestigious seat of Sunni Islam learning, Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque, Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb said the IS militants deserve the Quranic punishment of death, crucifixion or the chopping off of their arms for being enemies of God and the Prophet Muhammad.

“Islam prohibits the taking of an innocent life,” al-Tayeb said. By burning the pilot to death, he added, the militants violated Islam’s prohibition on the immolation or mutilation of bodies — even during wartime.

Under many Mideast legal systems, capital punishment usually is carried out by hanging. In Iran and Pakistan, stoning to death as punishment for adultery exists in the penal code but rarely is used. Beheadings are routinely carried out in Saudi Arabia, and Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers have on occasion publicly shot to death Palestinians suspected of spying for Israel.

But burning to death as a punishment proscribed by an Islamic court — such as the self-styled tribunals set up by the Islamic State militants in areas under their control — is unheard of in the contemporary Middle East. The IS extremists captured a third of both Iraq and Syria in a blitz last year, proclaimed their caliphate and imposed their harsh interpretation of Islamic law.

In Saudi Arabia, prominent cleric Sheik Salman al-Oudah cited Wednesday a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, which reserves for God alone the right to punish by fire.

In Qatar, cleric Youssef al-Qaradawi — respected by the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists — issued a five-page statement listing Quranic verses and sayings, also attributed to the prophet and telling Muslims to not mistreat prisoners of war.

But al-Qaradawi tempered his admonishment of the immolation death of the Jordanian pilot by criticizing the international community’s “laxity” toward Syrian President Bashar Assad, saying such an attitude “created these extremist groups and provided them with a fertile environment.”

However, some sought to justify the Islamic State’s killing of the pilot.

Hussein Bin Mahmoud, an Islamic State-linked theologian, cited a Quranic verse that requires Muslims to punish their enemies in kind. Since U.S.-led airstrikes “burn” Muslims, he argued, the IS group must burn those behind the raids.

But that view has been embraced only by a radical fringe, and mainstream Muslims united in condemnation of the killing Wednesday.