After 10 years, a fatwa reaches to the UN

US has considered a fatwa by the Leader of Islamic Ummah and Oppressed People Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei as a prelude to a possible agreement; but the fatwa had been issued 10 years ago.
To remember a historic fatwa after 10 years. A hint by the US President to the Leader of Islamic Ummah and Oppressed’s fatwa on the prohibition of using WMD and possible agreement on this has won the headlines of different international news outlets. In his yesterday’s address to the UN General Assembly, Obama commented on his administration’s position about Iran’s attempt to obtain nuclear energy, saying that “the Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons, and President Rouhani has just recently reiterated that the Islamic Republic will never develop a nuclear weapon”

“These statements made by our respective governments should offer the basis for a meaningful agreement. We should be able to achieve a resolution that respects the rights of the Iranian people, while giving the world confidence that the Iranian program is peaceful.”

In April 2012, Hilary Clinton, the former Secretary of State had alluded to the Supreme Leader’s fatwa, saying that “ the leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei considers using WMD religiously sanctioned and an non Islamic practice, and we will negotiate with Iranians to find a way to see this belief in practice. I have studied the fatwa, and examined it with religious scholars and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkish Prime Minister.

While Barack Obama has considered a fatwa by the Leader of Islamic Ummah as a prelude to a possible agreement, during past 10 years, the Supreme Leader has emphasized on the haram (prohibited according to the Islamic principles) nature of using WMD and nuclear weapons as well in different occasions in his speech. In October 2003 he clearly stated that using WMD was banned religiously. The following are some such occasions:

“In different occasions, Iranians and their leaders have announced that they do not want nuclear weapons; it has no place in the hierarchy of our weapons system and needs. We have announced that using nuclear weapons is banned in Islam as being haram. And stockpiling it brings great troubles and danger as well; we do not seek it and do not want it; even if we are paid and said that do this, the Iranian people will not; neither will the authorities. However, during many years of propaganda by the opposition and the West, they intentionally replaced the term ‘Iran seeking peaceful nuclear energy, with ‘Iran seeking nuclear weapons’ to justify their false claim! Is not this sacrificing justice?” (Address in Commemoration of the 20thAnniversary of Imam Khomeini’s Demise, June, 3rd 2009).

“The trite and meaningless remarks about making nuclear weapons in the Islamic Republic reveal their extreme helplessness even in propaganda. The Islamic Republic does not even need to resort to sentimentality to defend itself; no, we do not believe in the [effectiveness] of nuclear weapons; nor will we seek it. According to our religious teachings, using any sort of WMD is inherently banned as haram; this is to spoil the generation and cultivation in the holy Quran; we will not seek it.”(Address to the staff of Jamaran Destroyer, February 19 2009).

“We believe that in addition to nuclear weapons, using other sorts of WMD such as chemical and biological weapons is a serious threat to humanity. Iranians are the victims of chemical weapons, and more than any other nation feel the threat of proliferation and stockpiling these weapons, and it would mobilize all its capabilities to prevent using these weapons. We deem using these weapons haram, and any attempt to save the humanity from the great peril as a public duty.”(Message to the First International Conference on Disarmament and Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation, April 18 2010).