Regarding this article, here is my reaction to its author:
1) When you say this, Thomas: “‘Compensation’ for these declarations included a
crackdown on women rights activism...” Are you implying that Al-Buti was more
reactionary and more misogynistic than the clerics who are on the side of the
opposition? Are you implying that Al-Buti was, say, was more reactionary that
Ahmad Mu`adh Al-Khatib who spent years railing against Facebook, masturbation,
and who hailed Saddam Husayn for “terrifying Jews”? Or do you concede that the
clerics of the opposition are in fact more reactionary than Al-Buti, who was
influenced by the Nasserist-reformed Al-Azhar where he studied? Also, what
crackdown of women rights activism are you talking about? Are you referring to
the time when Al-Buti convinced Bashshar to rescind an order to ban niqabs on
college campuses in Syria?
2) Your last section is rather
confusing and appears to be propagandistic in purpose when you write: “Therefore, regardless of who
actually committed Thursday’s bomb attack (those who accuse the regime stress
the fact that the attack took place in a heavily guarded neighbourhood, the
al-Iman mosque being located a few meters away from the headquarters of the
Ba‘th party; they also insist on the fact that bombing a Sunni mosque is an
unprecedented pattern of operation on the part of Syrian insurgents (but it has
been witnessed in Iraq), the tragic demise of al-Buti means that the regime has
now ceased to enjoy any meaningful source of religious legitimacy among the
Sunni clergy.” So you are here recycling the standard unfounded,
unsubstantiated accusations by the armed opposition (who basically accuse the
regime of every crime and bombing in Syria, including bombs that target the
regime or even `Alawite neighborhoods) in order to echo the trend of
Saudi-Qatari media which insist that every bomb in Syria (especially when
children are killed, as was the case in this particular bomb in a mosque which
killed scores of people other than Al-Buti) in order to accuse the regime of
killing a man who you yourself label as “the last credible ally among Sunni
`Ulama’”? Do you see how the paragraph does not cohere unless you are telling
readers that the regime is now going on a rampage to kill its “last credible
allies”? You need to decide here: either the regime killed him or he was not
then the “last credible ally” of the regime. In fact, Thomas: the opposition
realized that the attempt to blame the regime for this murder is quite odd and
bizarre, so some opposition groups in fact claimed (rather laughably and
posthumously) that Al-Buti joined the cause of the opposition (quietly and
silently) only days or hours before he was killed (although, of course, there is
no evidence of that whatsoever and the cleric remained loyal to Bashshar’s
regime to his last days).
3) What is missing from your piece is that the
exile opposition and armed groups have been denouncing Al-Buti and even calling
for his murder for long months. The campaigns against Al-Buti have been
relentless by various parts of the opposition particularly because he was a
“credible”—to use your language—clerical ally of the regime. What is also
missing is that Al-Buti recently supported the Fatwa by Mufti Hassun which
attempted to monopolize Jihad in Syria by calling on Syrians to join the cause
of the Syrian army, which may have sealed his fate.
