Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the former spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement and who approved Palestinian suicide terrorist attacks on religious grounds, has contracted COVID-19, according to a message on his official Twitter page posted Saturday.
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The Islamic religious scholar now lives in Qatar. His advanced age, 94, puts him in a high-risk group for the virus. The Twitter message said Qaradawi was still in good health and that he was under medical observation.
In 2018, Qaradawi announced he was resigning as head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. For years, Hamas viewed Qaradawi as its religious authority
In 2001, after the outbreak of the Second Intifada, Qaradawi published a ruling that specifically allowed Muslim men and women to perpetrate suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, claiming that such attacks were an act of "sacrifice" and that the bombers were sacrificing themselves for the sake of the Muslim religion and nation in a war against Israel.
Over 10 years later, Qaradawi stepped back from this position, arguing that the Palestinians had rockets and other forms of weaponry, rendering suicide bombings unnecessary.
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