On Tuesday, 3rd of June 2014, IIIS co-hosted a meeting with renowned writers and researchers, Gareth Porter, Sergei Markus, Katariina Simonen and, Kevin Barret. The meeting was on Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa regarding the usage of Nuclear Weapons.
After H. I. Mohaddes’s introduction, Ayatollah Alidoost delivered his speech. First, he talked about the NPT, and its weaknesses, and then he explained how Islamic rulings are issued. Pointing out to hadith and Qur’anic verses, he described the Islamic stance regarding weapons of mass destruction, and the prohibition of using such stealth. He also explained about the various kinds of religious rulings, whereby fatwa holds a position of absolute certainty, therefore, a possible change is impossible.
The board explained that the fatwa was not a new understanding of Islam regarding such weaponry, and the Islamic understanding regarding the usage of weaponry existed from the beginning of Islam, but with respect to the technology of that time.
The meeting was followed by a question and answer session where issues such as conflict of fatwa and military needs, Takfiri and Salafi opinions compared to the Shia regarding WMDs, history of Fatwas on WMDs etc. were discussed.
At the end, one of the guests expressed that he was surprised about the qualities of a fatwa, and was uninformed on that. He believed this would make a significant difference on the issue.
