BAGHDAD (Dispatches) -- Iraq’s top Shia authority
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Sistani has issued a fatwa banning Muslims from doing business with companies that support the occupying regime of Israel.
Ayatollah Sistani issued the fatwa, which is a religiously binding edict, in response to a question about buying goods from the stores which give part of their profits to the Zionist regime.
The top Shia authority, who lives in the holy Iraqi city of Najaf, said if it’s proven that a company effectively supports Israel, it’s not permissible to do business with them.
“Once proved for certain that companies are supporting Israeli regime, then any trade or purchase of goods or products from such centers is not allowed” Ayatollah Khamenei’s fatwa read.
Israel is widely seen by the vast majority of people in Muslim countries as a pariah, an occupying regime and an outlier in the Middle East.
However, some Arab regimes have diplomatic relations with Israel, while others maintain secret dealings with Tel Aviv.
Other countries, organizations and institutions have previously banned any trade with occupying regime of Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians.
The Arab League decided to boycott economic and other relations between Arabs and the Zionist regime, stepping up the decision in a second move to boycott all non-Israeli companies that do business with the occupying regime and later a third boycott which blacklisted firms that do business with other companies that do business with Israel.
However some Arab states have signed U.S.-brokered deals for normalization of ties with Israel beginning with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in 2020 in a bid to resume political and economic relations with Tel Aviv.
There is also the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which is an amalgam of groups, institutions and individuals calling for economic and cultural pressure on the Zionist regime in solidarity with Palestinian people.