Ali Qaradaghi and the Tyranny of Islam Over Human Rights

Killing in the name of belief through ritual subjugation

Twana Muhammad Nuri | Exclusive to iKurd.net
Translated by iKurd.net from Kurdish Awene

When you read that “clarification” by Ali Qaradaghi—a Kurdish Sunni Muslim scholar who, in January 2024, was elected President of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) following the death of its former leader, Yusuf al‑Qaradawi—which seems to respond to a question about Kurds and sects, you might initially feel a kind of “sympathy.”

The words are chosen with political precision to appear soft or gentle at first glance. But when you look past the ethical veil and examine the core of his reasoning, a more frightening reality emerges: this is a manifesto of human subjugation and the killing of “sameness.”

Ali Qaradaghi proudly states: “My first and final intimacy is with Islam, and under this framework, human intimacy comes second.”

This sentence alone shows that we are facing a mindset in which humanity itself is killed. When the category of “human” is placed second and “belief” is first, there is no longer talk of citizens as equals, only of “followers.”

From a freedom-loving perspective, all humans are equal without condition. But Qaradaghi ties human rights to one condition: “as long as one does not oppose the fundamentals of Islam.” This divides society into two categories: believers (who have privileges and rank one) and everyone else (who are deprived of rights and protection).

Qaradaghi says he opposes secularists because “their beliefs are corrupt.” To be honest, the most terrifying word in political Islam is “sameness.” Qaradaghi’s problem with secular powers is not that they are enemies, but that they recognize equal rights and freedom of religion.

In Qaradaghi’s view, men and women cannot be equal; women are half of men in terms of rights, while men may have up to four wives.

When a force comes and says, “men and women are fully equal in all things and religion has no legal relevance,” this becomes a “corrupt belief” in his eyes. He wants women to remain silent under the veil, not equal to men in public life.

Ali Qaradaghi has been active for 40 years. But the essential question is: service to whom? To humans as humans, or only to those who occupy a place in his ideology?

In this mindset, a citizen who does not believe in God, a woman who does not wear hijab, or a young person who chooses modern music and art, is not worthy of support. This means they do not have human value; they only have “assigned existence.” This is not support for the people, it is support for creating a closed society.

The hidden goal behind Qaradaghi’s seemingly “gentle” words for the youth is the process of “erasing will.” Religion, in essence, teaches humans to depend on “fate” and “divine will,” not their own strength and intellect.

Qaradaghi explicitly wants people to be without will, because a human without will is easier to control. When you believe that your destiny is not in your hands and you must only “obey,” your ability to think, resist, or change disappears. This is an attempt to create a “sheep” that only follows a leash, not a conscious society that owns its own decisions.

A very important point must be understood: Islam always speaks of “justice,” but never speaks of “equality.” Because in their culture, “justice” means dealing with everyone according to their legal rank: men as men, women as women (second rank).

But we are talking about equality without any asterisk. Equality means:

The value of every human is the same, whether religious or not.
Women have the same power and freedom as men, without “ifs” or “buts.”
The law is the same for everyone, and no “holiness” allows one person to dominate another.

What we need today is not a return to the “religious framework” where humans are subjugated and ranked by belief. We need a society in which equality is not only a formality but a law. A society in which women are not punished for their gender and youth are not punished for their thinking.

To be liberated from this mindset, we need a complete reversal of its fundamental logic. As Feuerbach clearly says: “Man made religion; religion did not make man.”

It is time for humans to bring their own creation to its rightful place (their own hearts), and not allow it to become a chain or restriction for society. Humans are free only when no text or law controls their will.

This article was originally published in the Kurdish language in Awene Newspaper on February 11, 2026.

The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of iKurd.net or its editors.