The Curious Case of the Alcoholic Sheikh

How much does it matter if a Muslim religious figure was in possession of alcoholic beverages at the time of his murder?

The killing of Sheikh Ahmad Abdel-Wahed at an army checkpoint back in May sparked a furious reaction in Lebanon; angry mobs all over the country burned tires, blocked roads and made their displeasure widely felt at such an intolerable act. Politicians in Tripoli and Akkar lobbied hard for the soldiers suspected of the murder to face trial, and then pushed back against the perceived leniency in dealing with them.

Enter MP Michel Aoun, a self-appointed defender of the army and an expert at angering Sunnis with a habit of publicly impugning their dead (some say at the behest of Hezbollah). Why, Aoun railed, won’t the authorities reveal the content of the Sheikh’s car as per the police report? Shouldn’t the people know that their esteemed sheikh had whiskey, vodka, wine and other ungodly spirits in his car’s trunk?

Naturally, the highest Sunni religious authority took the bait and demanded an apology for “offending Muslims and the ulamas”. Aoun duly refused and conjured up a leaked police report that does indeed show that the Sheikh’s car at the time of his murder contained a trove of liquor. [1]

Don’t play along

What MP Aoun said could be true, but it is irrelevant to the murder or to the political jockeying over the trial of the soldiers; the Sheikh’s supporters were not angry because they admired his religious standing (although some did), they were angry because he was politically active in helping the Syrian opposition against Bashar al Assad. Religious men are famous for doing all sorts of weird stuff, but in the end, Abdel-Wahed was the victim of a political murder that had nothing to do with his religious practice.

This is why it will be wrong for the Sheikh’s supporters to give up on his cause because they now have doubts about his conduct. Instead of denial and conspiracy theories about the origins of the alcohol, the best thing they can do right now is to ignore Aoun’s provocation and push on with the trial. The Sheikh may have been a flawed man — and we can never really know — but that doesn’t make the murder any less heinous or his cause any less just.

In the end, whether he’s in heaven or hell is only God’s business…

Footnotes:

[1] Some are disputing the relevance of the document. Please read Saleh el Machnouk’s comment on this post