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Rabat – In the wake of Angela Merkel’s re-election as German Chancellor, the religious scholar Mohamed Abdelwahab Rafiki, known as Abu Hafs, has questioned the validity of the hadith, “Never will succeed such a nation as makes a woman their ruler.”
The German national elections on September 24 saw Merkel and her Christian Democratic Party (CDU win 33 percent of the vote, assuring her a fourth term as chancellor in Germany.
Merkel’s victory “makes us question the truth behind the hadith, which states that nations ruled by women cannot succeed,” wrote the religious cleric in his Facebook page.
“Should we believe what is stated in the hadith or should we believe that is concrete and visible?” he asked, referring to Merkel’s presidency in the past three terms and her victory in achieving a fourth.
“While the hadith [was] itself said by the Prophet and transmitted by Al Bukhari, is Merkel a lie and a Zionist conspiracy to destroy Islam and to deny the Prophet of Islam?” he questioned sarcastically.
“We must make peace with the idea [of women rulers] and its manifestation in reality,” he stressed.
Abu Hafs suggested that not all hadiths can be applied literally to the contemporary world. “We must recognize that many texts, even if they are correct, they are not for us, nor for our reality or a solution to our problems. We need to make sure that many texts have their own contexts, circumstances, and reasons.”
The former Salafi preacher has received criticism for his turn towards “reformist” positions by conservative Moroccan religious scholars.
