Iran’s most senior Shiite religious authority issued a fatwa on Sunday against President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, in a move analysts are calling a provocation that borders on incitement to terrorism.
Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, one of Iran’s most influential clerics, declared in his religious edict that Muslims worldwide must rise up against any individual or regime that undermines the unity or leadership of the Islamic world. According to The New York Sun, the ruling categorizes such people as mohareb, a term in Islamic law used to describe those who are at war with God. Iranian law prescribes harsh punishments for mohareb, including death, amputation, crucifixion, or exile.
“Those who threaten the leadership and integrity of the Islamic Ummah are to be considered warlords,” the Ayatollah wrote in the fatwa. He concluded his decree with a supplication for divine protection from the “enemies” of Islam and a plea for the Mahdi’s quick arrival.
The ruling was sharply criticized by British-Iranian commentator Niyak Ghorbani, who labeled it a direct endorsement of global religious violence.
Posting to his X account, Ghorbani asserted that the Iranian regime’s threat extends far beyond its borders and warned that the fatwa reveals the Islamic Republic’s wider strategy of exporting extremist violence.
“The West must realise: the Islamic Republic is not only targeting its own people — it is preparing for global violence in the name of religion,” he wrote in the post.
This pronouncement came in the aftermath of what observers have dubbed the “12-Day War,” a fierce round of hostilities that reportedly saw Iran’s nuclear infrastructure significantly degraded by Israeli and American strikes.
{Matzav.com}