When Tehran lashed out at its Gulf neighbours in the wake of US-Israeli attacks on Iran, GCC countries were deeply alarmed by the scale and direction of the strikes. Many Gulf governments and analysts describe the situation as a “nightmare scenario” they had worked hard to avoid.  Iranian strikes on their cities and infrastructure have generated shock, anger, and frustration. Reports indicate that in the first days of the war, Iran fired more than twice as many ballistic missiles and about 20 times as many drones at Gulf states than they did at Israel.

This shock around the region is likely compounded by the fact that Islamic teachings strongly condemn the killing of fellow Muslims and, more broadly, any unjust killing of innocents. Open aggression by a state that constantly invokes Islam feels religiously hypocritical as well as politically reckless. Iran’s emphasis on targeting civilian targets in the Gulf as has added to the outrage.

Classical Islamic sources treat the deliberate killing of a Muslim as a particularly grave sin. The Sunnah, an important source of Islamic law and teaching, contains multiple edicts from the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed and other founding fathers of Islam concerning not killing other Muslims, particularly civilians. At........

© Eurasia Review