He clarified after his sermon that the pleasures of Paradise will belong to any type of object used in an attempt to kill Jews.
Jerusalem, October 7 - A leading Muslim cleric has declared that attacks on Jews involving rocks or other projectiles also guarantee a place in Heaven for the projectiles, not only the perpetrators, sources reported this morning (Wednesday).
Imam Awil Qillemal of the Al-Aqsa Mosque called on fellow Palestinians to use any hard object to hurl at Jews, saying that no item is too lowly to be admitted to the Afterlife if it has been used in the sacred task of trying to kill the Jewish infidel. His exhortations come against the backdrop of heightened tensions in Jerusalem and surrounding areas, where Palestinians have been protesting the presence of Jews on the Temple Mount - Judaism's holiest site and the location of Al Aqsa. The protests have included firebombs, rocks, cinder blocks. stabbings attacks, shootings, fireworks aimed at police, and, this morning, an attempted lynch of an Israeli motorist south of the city.
Qillemal said he was moved to make the pronouncement amid concerns that the movement to banish Jews from their holy places and shed Jewish blood might be tainted by unfairness. "It must be made clear that all entities are equally obligated, eligible, and rewarded for participating in the holy work of shielding Al Aqsa - and the rest of the Earth - from the filthy feet of the Jews," said the Imam, using phraseology that echoed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's address to his people two weeks ago. He clarified after his sermon that the pleasures of Paradise will belong to any type of object used in an attempt to kill Jews, whether Molotov cocktail bottles, butcher knives, motor vehicles, firearms, or construction materials.
Scholars expressed interest in the ruling, notably regarding the question of the number and nature of virgins to be allotted to the inanimate objects. Issa Araq of a madrassa in Gaza hopes his colleague at Al-Aqsa will share more on the nature of Paradise for rocks and knives. "I, too, wish to call on my people to use every object at their disposal to attack Jews, but I wish to act responsibly, and need more information before embracing the same approach," he said.
Other unresolved points include the implications of a single object being used in multiple attacks on Jews, and the eligibility of, for example, cars that kill Jews but only by accident. Imam Qillemal's secretary Badass Wanabbi promised to collect inquiries related to the topic and to submit them to his superior. "Personally, I'm wondering about cinder blocks. If only a piece of the block is broken off and used to kill a Jew, does the whole block get into Heaven?"