p. 21. Quoting Kamal El Helbay, a Muslim Brotherhood leader who helped wrest the Finsbury Park, London mosque from its shari’a violating former firebrand al-Qaedists’: “No government, no police force, is achieving what these [religious] scholars are achieving. To defeat terrorism, to convince the radicals . . . you have to persuade them that theirs is not the path to paradise,” Ibid., p. 21. The difficulty of this task of differentiating lawful jihad from unlawful murderous terrorism remains, however, for it is not just a matter of convincing, but of first penetrating an extremist, arrogant, hostile, self-righteous mindset, often entirely ignorant of crucial Islamic tenets, and one that is self-insulating since all scholars, clerics, and observant Muslims not engaged in the terrorist project are viewed as internal enemies. For a real sense of the difficulty facing these salafi sheiks, even highly-regarded ones, on the front lines—not only among the youth, but from among fellow sheikhs, see the article by Sheikh Salman al-Oadah, and Comments by Shaykh Yaser Birjas in “UPDATE: Standing United Against Terrorism & Al-Qaeda – Salman al-Oudah (with Yasir Qadhi, Yaser Birjas, Tawfique Chowdhurry, and Waleed Basyouni), http://muslimmatters.org/2009/10/12/standing-united-againstterrorism-al-qaeda-salman-al-awdah-with-yasir-qadhi-and-yaserbirjas/. 32. Islamic jurisprudence, which presumes a foundation in Fiqh—the science of shari’a (sacred Law)—is, as in other religious and secular traditions, highly specialized and contentious owing to differing traditions and principles of legal interpretation. The authority of a given legal scholar resides in his proven expertise in the sources and methods of the shari’a. The four traditional sources for shari’a comprise, in order of their authority: Qur’an (Islamic sacred scripture), Ahadith (traditions of varying soundness and quality concerning what Prophet Muhammad, and also his earliest companions, said and did), Ijma (unanimous scholarly consensus, which functions like precedent), and Qiyas (the use of simile or analogical reasoning). In addition, Tafsir (Qur’anic commentaries), Handbooks (handbooks of the various legal schools, e.g., Hannafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali, that present binding law), and Fatawa (compendia containing authoritative legal opinions or verdicts) are used. The range of legal/moral permissibility of a given action is five-fold: [1] absolutely required or commanded (fard); [2] recommended, but not required (mustahabb); [3] indifferent, neutral, permissible (mubah); [4] discouraged or reprehensible,
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