Turkish cleric issues Islamic license to kill ISIL militants

ISTANBUL

After declaring that oral sex is not forbidden in Islam, a popular Muslim televangelist in Turkey has issued another sensational fatwa, issuing a religious license to kill Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants.

“If you run across them, slaughter them like you fight with the people of Ad and İrem [two places destroyed by God]. Those who kill them will be awarded and those who are killed by them will be martyrs,” Ahmet Mahmut Ünlü said in his July 23 column for daily Vahdet, adapting a quote by Prophet Muhammad to today’s ISIL militants.

Ünlü, popularly known as “Cübbeli Ahmet Hoca” (Robed Ahmet Hoca) among his followers, also described ISIL militants as “the dogs of Hell.”

The Turkish state had appointed a security detail to protect Ünlü after he was threatened by ISIL earlier this year. “If I am on God’s list, I will die anyway. If I am not on that list, then ISIL cannot intervene [to kill me],” he said at the time.

More recently, Ünlü hit Turkish media headlines with a debate on venereal issues, slamming a colleague for describing “advanced oral sex” as religiously forbidden, claiming that there was no such ban in Islam.