Tehran Again Offers Khamenei's Nonexistent Fatwa In Negotiations As A Guarantee That It Is Not Developing Nuclear Weapons

Tehran Again Offers Khamenei's Nonexistent Fatwa In Negotiations As A Guarantee That It Is Not Developing Nuclear Weapons. (MEMRI).

As November 24, 2014, the target date for reaching a P5+1-Iran nuclear agreement, approaches, the issue of the nonexistent fatwa by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that allegedly bans developing nuclear weapons is again being brought up by Iran.

Recently, Iranian regime officials Majlis speaker Ali Larijani and President Hassan Rohani raised the matter. On November 8, Larijani said, "Leader [Khamenei's] nuclear fatwa is above all legislation."[1]

On November 12, President Rohani clarified that "the Islamic Republic of Iran is bound by all the international regulations [in nuclear matters] and is committed to carrying out the fatwa of Leader [Khamenei], which is the greaest guarantee that Iran['s nuclear program] will move [only] along the civilian track."[2]

In recent days, Khamenei's office has been posting almost daily on its official Twitter and Facebook accounts about the fatwa's ban on nuclear weapons.

 The issue of guaranteeing that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons is at the focus of the nuclear negotiations, and it seems that, in addressing this issue, the U.S. is taking the approach of accepting the existence of this fatwa as fact, and demanding that its content be anchored in the international agreement.[3]

In contrast, the Iranian position is that the fatwa is an alternative to any international agreement guaranteeing the peaceful character of Iran's nuclear program, and indeed to any international law banning nuclear weapons. That is, they claim is that the fatwa renders such international guarantees superflous.[4]

But, as stated, the fatwa does not in fact exist. Supreme Leader Khamenei has never issued such a fatwa and it exists nowhere in any online record of his official fatwas, even years after the issue has become central to the negotiations.

Though Khamenei has in the past issued political delcarations against nuclear weapons, these do not have the religious legal status of a fatwa. Further proof of this is that, in a June 2014 publication by the Iranian Foreign Minister which listed fatwas by Iranian clerics against nuclear weapons, the alleged Khamenei fatwa is conspiciuous in its absence (for the list, see the Appendix).

See several MEMRI reports on the matter of the nonexistent fatwa:

• MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No. 825, Renewed Iran-West Nuclear Talks – Part II: Tehran Attempts to Deceive U.S. President Obama, Sec'y of State Clinton With Nonexistent Anti-Nuclear Weapons Fatwa By Supreme Leader Khamenei, April 19, 2012  
• MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1080, U.S. Secretary Of State Kerry In New And Unprecedented Statement: 'President Obama And I Are Both Extremely Welcoming And Grateful For The Fact That [Iranian] Supreme Leader [Khamenei] Has Issued A [Nonexistent] Fatwa' Banning Nuclear Weapons, April 1, 2014.
• MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5406, Release Of Compilation Of Newest Fatwas By Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei – Without Alleged Fatwa About Nuclear Bomb, August 13, 2013 
• MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5461, President Obama Endorses The Lie About Khamenei's 'Fatwa' Against Nuclear Arms, September 29, 2013.
• MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No.1022, The Official Iranian Version Regarding Khamenei's Alleged Anti-Nuclear Weapons Fatwa Is A Lie, Oct 4, 2013.
• MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 5681, Prominent Iranian Analyst, Author, And Columnist Amir Taheri: Nobody Has Actually Seen Khamenei's Anti-Nuclear Fatwa, Which Obama Often Quotes, March 17, 2014.

This report will review two publications by Iranians that cast doubt in recent months on the estixtence of the fatwa that the Iranian regime calims that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei issued against nuclear weapons.

Iranians Question Existence Of Khamenei Fatwa Banning Nuclear Weapons.

In the summer of 2014, the existence of the alleged fatwa by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei banning nuclear weapons was questioned in two publications by Iranians. A July 16, 2014 BBC Farsi website article by Iranian law expert Bahman Aghai Diba, titled "Where is the Iranian Leader's Fatwa About Nuclear Weapons?", noted that the traditional Shi'ite fatwa format consists of a question posed to a senior ayatollah and, following that, the ayatollah's response. It pointed out that Khamenei's alleged fatwa did not conform to this format, since it was apparently delivered as part of a message by Khamenei to a conference in Tehran. He stressed that the fact that the fatwa was not posted on a single one of Khamenei's websites – which feature many of his other fatwas – raises questions regarding its very existence and makes it impossible to examine its sources and its content.
Additionally, on July 24, 2014, exiled Iranian cartoonist Nikahang Kowsar published a cartoon in the e-daily Rooz mocking the regime's claim that such a fatwa exists.
The following are excerpts from Aghai Diba's article and a translation of Kowsar's cartoon:

Bahman Aghai Diba: "Where Is The Iranian Leader's Original Fatwa Banning Nuclear Weapons?... [This] Fatwa... Was Published Nowhere, Its Form And Content Are Unclear... Thus Far, No One Claims To Have Seen [It]"

"The Iranian government claims that the Islamic Republic of Iran does not aspire to use nuclear energy for military [purposes], and that this is proven by a fatwa published by Iranian Leader [Khamenei] banning the use of weapons of mass destruction. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif recently said that this fatwa would become law in order to assure several countries that Iran's nuclear program [is civilian].
The U.S. Secretary of State also said that this fatwa is important but must become law. Previously, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman [Marzieh Afkham] said that the Islamic Republic intends to register this fatwa as a UN document.

"But where is the original Iranian leader's fatwa banning nuclear weapons? And what does it say? In fact, thus far no one claims to have seen this fatwa.

"Every fatwa has a legal-religious procedure that is unique [to fatwas]. There are rules for the form and content that a fatwa must have. A fatwa is usually presented as a question [to a Shi'ite religious authority], and the religious authority provides an answer based on Islamic legal sources.

"Since the Iranian leader's fatwa banning nuclear weapons was published nowhere, its form and content are unclear. Who asked the question (a layman? a legal expert)? What formulas and rules from Islamic law were used to answer it? For instance, does the word 'forbidden' appear in it, and does it include stipulations regarding the ban?

According to the accepted definition of a fatwa ([i.e.,] according to the explanation in existing sources known to all), it is to include a public-religious directive on a specific topic and based on the four sources: the Koran, the Sunna [tradition], Ijma'a [consensus] among clerics, and a logical interpretation by the jurist.

"The Iranian leader's fatwa banning nuclear weapons is said to have been published around 2005. On October 31, 2013, Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said that the Iranian leader had banned the use of nuclear weapons and that the Iranian government wished to register [this ban] as a UN document. It is therefore clear that at least until the above mentioned date [October 31, 2013], the fatwa had not been presented to the UN in any way. Additionally, there is no historical precedent of registering such a fatwa with the UN.

"When a fatwa is published by a Shi'ite jurist, this religious directive reaches the public in various ways. In this era, when clerics have extensive public and private means [for publishing them], their fatwas appear on on many websites, including the official websites of the individual jurists. The Iranian leader's religious directives and fatwas regarding almost every topic are posted on his personal and official websites in a detailed and organized manner, and hundreds of additional sources reiterate them.

"These directives are also [easily searchable, as they are] arranged by word, language, and terminology. But such an important fatwa – banning nuclear weapons – which is relied on by various officials in the regime of the Islamic Republic, appears nowhere in any of the aforementioned sources. Its text does not appear in any language on any website or in any of the multitudes of collections published by various individuals and organizations, such as The Center for Preserving and Publishing the Works of the Leader.

"This fatwa's unavailability prevents it from being read in order to understand on what basis it bans weapons of mass destruction. What level of mass destruction does it include? 

When Iranians and Iraqis died en masse in the (1980-1988) Iran-Iraq war (particularly because of Iran's human wave war strategy), no jurist, including Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a directive banning massacres, or called all this destruction and slaughter non-Islamic.

"Ayatollah Khomeini didn't even declare Iraq's nuclear program to be un-Islamic, even though it was clearly military in nature (this project was stopped when Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear facilities).

"Several sources tried to say that Ayatollah Khamenei's fatwa was [actually] his April 4, 2010 message to an Iranian conference on demilitarization condemning the use of weapons of mass destruction, and in which he called WMDs 'a violation of human rights and a prominent example of war crimes.' But this claim is unacceptable, because the message did not constitute a fatwa.

"The Iranian leader's fatwa banning nuclear weapons remains a mystery."[5] Read the full story here.

Related: Don’t Misunderstand Khamenei’s Nuclear Fatwa