To counter rise of Islamic State, Jordan

imposes rules on Muslim clerics

Hundreds of protesters gather for a demonstration to protest alleged police

brutality and the death of a local in a recent house raid, in Maan, Jordan on
June 25, 2014. Tens of the marchers unfurled black banners in support of
the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in what marked the second public
showing support of the Islamic State in the kingdom in less than a week.
(Taylor Luck/For The Washington Post)
By William Booth and Taylor Luck November 9 at 8:26 PM

ZARQA, Jordan Several hundred robed Muslim clerics

recently packed themselves into an auditorium to hear the minister of Islamic affairs
issue their new marching orders. The meeting was mandatory.
You clerics are our ground forces against the extremists, Hayel Dawood told them.
Then he made himself clear: Preach moderate Islam or else.
Once you cross the red line, Dawood intoned, you will not be let back in.
Stunned by the rapid advance of the Islamic State in neighboring Syria and Iraq,
Jordan has fortified its borders and put its air force and intelligence service to work in
the U.S.-led alliance against the self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq. To counter
the low thrum of support for extremist movements on the home front, the kingdom is
not only prosecuting Islamic State recruiters and cracking down on anyone waving an
Islamic State banner, but it has turned its attention to the nations 7,000 mosques.
Jordanian authorities have begun a
campaign to coax and, when necessary,
pressure Muslim clerics to preach
messages of peaceful Islam from their
pulpits. The main targets are Jordans more
than 5,000 imams, including lay clerics and
Zarqa, Jordan.

prayers.

those on the government dole, who give the

traditional sermon that follows Friday

Jordans security apparatus has always kept a close eye on known radicals and has
pursued a policy in the past of allowing even prominent al-Qaeda-affiliated clerics to
preach as long as they watched what they said. The idea: It was best to grant
opposition figures a sliver of political space, to better monitor, co-opt and control
them.
But with the sudden rise of the Islamic State, Jordans religious authorities are taking a
more active stance. The Islamic affairs minister is touring the kingdom to announce
new rules in a remarkable series of meetings for anyone who wants access to the Friday
flock.
Specifically, Jordan is demanding that preachers refrain from any speech against King
Abdullah II and the royal family, slander against leaders of neighboring Arab states,
incitement against the United States and Europe, and sectarianism and support for
jihad and extremist thought.
Dawood also suggests that clerics keep sermons brief.
Fifteen minutes is okay, he told the crowd in Zarqa. He reminded them that the
prophet Muhammad was short and to the point often 10 minutes, no more.
For those who adhere to the new guidelines, there are government salaries of about
$600 a month, religious workshops, travel assistance for pilgrimages to Mecca, and
weekly guidance.
The ministry is providing suggested topics for Friday sermons, available for download
from the governments Facebook page. Recent suggestions included:
Oct. 17 Security and Stability: the Need for Unity in a Time of Crisis.
Oct. 24 The Hijjra New Year Lessons Derived From the Prophets Flight From
Mecca.

 Oct. 31 The Beginning of the Rainy Season Safety Measures in Preparation for
Winter.
For those who stray? Banishment from the pulpit for life.
The worst offenders, those who openly praise the Islamic State, might be hauled into
the newly empowered State Security Court to face charges under the countrys
enhanced anti-terrorism law.
Jordans soft-power press for moderate Islam, a personal project of Abdullah, has been
applauded by U.S. officials for its proactive approach and its emphasis on Islams
positive messages of charity, respect and tolerance.
Some clerics, though, bristle at being told what to preach. What some see as moderate
Islam, others decry as state Islam, foisted on them by a pro-Western monarchy
kowtowing to foreign powers.
Theyve left no space for us in the mosques, said Mohammed al-Shalabi, a senior
leader of ultraconservative Muslims known as Jihadi Salafis in Jordan. Theyre not
even allowing anyone to use the words Islamic State.
Shalabi complained that the mosques were filled with informants from the Jordanian
intelligence agency. They write down everything you say, he said.
That is probably an exaggeration. Currently, Jordan employs 60 monitors to listen in
at the countrys 5,500 mosques that regularly host Friday sermons. Dawood told the
meeting in Zarqa that he was planning for 200 monitors but thought he needed 400 to
do the job right.
In an interview, Dawood said he was limited by budgetary and logistical constraints
that is making policing the mosques that much more difficult.

Not a new policy

State control of religious life is nothing new in the Middle East. Close monitoring of
sermons is common in the oil-rich states in the Persian Gulf. Likewise, many of the
regions current and former despots, in Libya, Algeria and Syria, were obsessed with
imprinting their message on Islam.
But message control has grown in the wake of the Arab revolutions and the rise of the
Islamic State. Recently, state-sponsored clerics in Jordan long at the forefront of
promoting religious moderation and throughout the region have been especially
vocal in denouncing the Islamic State.
Arab media report the Saudi Interior Ministry may require clerics to pass a security
screening before they can preach. Egyptian authorities havebanned tens of
thousands of unlicensed clerics, especially imams linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Centralized Islam is not a new policy, said Omar Ashour, a senior lecturer in Middle
East politics at the University of Exeter. But, he added: It has been tried before, with
mixed results.
You have a segment of society that will seek out other messages, other voices, he
said, perhaps in underground settings with outlaw imams. In an earlier age, extremist
messages on cassette tapes were passed hand to hand; now, all it takes is typing a few
search terms on YouTube.
Jordan employs about 3,400 Muslim preachers about 2,000 clerics and 1,400
caretakers to staff the countrys 7,000 mosques. The deficit has forced the Ministry
of Islamic Affairs to grant more than 2,200 permissions for sermons to unofficial
clerics educators, tribal sheiks and ordinary citizens.
Those wishing to ascend the pulpit are supposed to register with the ministrys
directorate. Applicants are subject to a security check and must receive approval from

the intelligence service. Even so, Jordanian officials say dangerous preachers have
slipped through their filters.
We have preachers using the pulpit for political means, to launch attacks on private
individuals and the state, Dawood said. This will not be tolerated.
Jordan has barred 30 preachers from delivering sermons so far this year. The ministry
banned six clerics in October for allegedly denouncing Jordans participation in the
U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State, referring four to the State Security Court
for attempting to disseminate terrorist ideology and gathering support for the
Islamic State.
Ahmed Abu Omar was among them. The Amman cleric, who declined to use his full
name out of concern for his safety, said he delivered a Friday sermon on Oct. 3
denouncing coalition airstrikes he feared were targeting Syrian and Iraqi civilians.
I was only speaking the truth, that Jordan should not participate in the killing of
civilians, which is forbidden in Islam, he said. I was told later that this was inciting
terrorism.
According to people who attended the sermon, Abu Omar went on to call on
Jordanians to show solidarity with the Islamic State, which was defending Islam
against the United States and the crusaders.
Rules welcomed in Zarqa
The meeting outlining the dos and donts appeared to be welcomed in Zarqa, long a
bastion of al-Qaeda supporters, including an eclectic mix of salafists, sufis and
jihadists who, some state-supported clerics said, have posed a challenge. (Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda in Iraq leader who was killed in an American airstrike in
2006, hailed from the city.)
We have extremists come to our mosques. We know who they are, and they make

their presence known, said Mohammed Mushagbeh, 70, a cleric in the village of
Hashmiyeh, outside Zarqa. But our words can only go so far; we cannot just be in the
defensive, we must go on the offensive.
According to Mushagbeh, a ministry-employed cleric for more than a decade,
extremist preachers in Zarqa have also used the pulpit to attack Jordanian authorities.
It is up to all of us to root them out, he said.

William Booth is The Posts Jerusalem bureau chief. He was previously

bureau chief in Mexico, Los Angeles and Miami.
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