Le Statut des Moines

"Le Statut des Moines" is a short text by a classical Muslim jurist taken out of context by an extreme radical group as justification for the murder of unarmed civilians committed to inter-faith dialogue. In 1996 in Algeria the "Groupe Islamique Armé" (Armed Islamic Group or GIA) published an announcement that it had authorized the murder of seven Trappist monks in Tibhirine and quoted from the text of the great Muslim jurist Ibn Taymiyyah.

In his short treatise "On the status of Monks", Ibn Taymīyah had argued that those in the religious orders who were found outside their monasteries might in certain circumstances be killed; they might also be killed if they had dealings with people outside their monastic community rather than living a completely isolated life. Ibn Taymīyah's intention was to stop monks abusing their status and participating in the social and economic life of the Muslim community while enjoying fiscal exemption.

Nearly seven hundred years after it was written, this tract was reprinted in Beirut in 1997 by Nasreddin Lebatelier (the Belgian Muslim convert Jean Michot) under the title "Le Statut des Moines", with an introduction which discussed the Groupe Islamique Armé’s communiqué number 43, which justified their murder of the seven Trappist monks in Algeria the previous year.

Subsequently, Dr Michot issued a statement which made clear that he had ‘never developed any kind of apology for murder’ in his writings or statements. He ‘completely endorsed the condemnation of the GIA by the consensus of the Muslim community’ and had always considered that ‘these killings were a particularly tragic event in Islamo−Christian relations’.

The purpose of Dr Michot's editing the text for publication was to explain the historical context of Ibn Taymīyah's text to demonstrate that the GIA's purported justification was unwarranted.

The significance of the event is that, given the extreme polarization of opinion concerning violent radical groups and their self-justifications, scholars risk vilification and/or being misunderstood if they enter into the arena of debate. Yet if they do not enter into the arena, the debate risks sensationalism or being trivialized.

References

* Ibn Taymiyya. "Le statut des moines" (Beirut 1997). Nasreddin Lebatelier = Yahya Michot. (Only the Beirut edition contains the statement from the GIA in Algeria.)
* "Jihad from Qur'an to Bin Laden". Richard Bonney, p. 122 (quotes Michot's repudiation of the GIA).