I recently travelled from Morocco to Fishers, Indiana, to lead funeral prayers for Peter Kassig, an American aid worker killed by terrorists belonging to Daesh (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). On behalf of the Syrian people, I offered my condolences to Kassig’s parents and extended my thanks for his heroic efforts. It was the least I could do for a courageous American who gave up his comfortable life in the US to serve desperate civilians in war-torn Syria.

Unfortunately, it is not surprising that Daesh brutally beheaded Peter — who was also known as Abdul Rahman Kassig, the name he took after his conversion to Islam following his capture — even as he was fulfilling Prophet Mohammad’s (PBUH) directive to “show mercy towards those on earth, so that you may receive mercy from heaven”. His killing goes against every Islamic principle that Daesh claims to embrace.

Daesh is likely the most extreme group in the history of Islamist terrorism. It can be compared to the 7th-century Khawarij, which zealously executed even fellow Muslims for apostasy to the extent that Muslim travellers through their lands would pretend to be pagans seeking conversion. Daesh, likewise, brutally slaughters devout Muslims for their advocacy of democracy, although the majority of Sunni scholars have said that democracy is compatible with Islam. The group also engages in sectarian cleansing of Yazidis, Christians and those of other faiths, despite well-established Sunni jurisprudence protecting the rights of non-Muslims.

Sunni scholars across the world have condemned Daesh’s crimes and sought to rebut its flimsy arguments. I joined more than 100 other prominent Islamic scholars to issue a fatwa, or Islamic edict, that refutes the deviant Daesh ideology from the perspective of Islamic jurisprudence, showing how the group has twisted the words of the holy Quran and the prophetic tradition. In a statement last month, I further noted that Muslims have a moral duty to warn law enforcement agencies if they know of anyone travelling to join Daesh.

However, more needs to be done. To defeat Daesh, we need to take serious steps to deprive it of the political justification for its existence on Syrian soil: The regime of dictator Bashar Al Assad. For centuries, my home town of Damascus was renowned as a beacon of religious coexistence among Sunnis, Shiites, Jews and Christians. In 1944, almost two decades before the US passed the Voting Rights Act and more than half a century before Americans elected Barack Obama as President, Syrians had chosen Fares Al Khoury, a Protestant Christian, as their prime minister.

The Syrian uprising of 2011 was based on a desire to return to its grand past. It was a protest movement of all faiths, as Syrians of all stripes took to the streets chanting for freedom and democracy. But the Al Assad regime cracked down with unspeakable horrors. More than 200,000 people have been killed as the regime deployed its full arsenal, including barrel bombs and sarin gas, against civilians. More than nine million Syrians have been displaced, including more than three million refugees, and thousands have been tortured to death in Al Assad’s dungeons. All this occurred while the world looked on.

If the West truly wants to destroy Daesh, it should force the Al Assad regime — through diplomatic and military pressure, including air strikes against the regime’s power centres — to negotiate a political transition, by which, it will hand over power so that the Syrian people can unite to rebuild the country and fight terrorism.

Daesh has benefited from the world’s inaction; had it not been for the tyrannical Al Assad regime and its genocidal campaign against its people, we would not have seen foreign fighters pouring into Syria or witnessed the group exploit the chaos and suffering to develop its own state apparatus. Further inaction in toppling the regime will threaten the entire region and the US.

Kassig, a hero to the Syrian people, risked his life to provide a healing touch and hope to Syrians amid the carnage and despair. For the sake of his noble sacrifice, we are duty-bound to defeat Daesh, end Al Assad’s reign of terror and continue the quest for healing.

— Washington Post

Muhammad Al Yaqoubi was an imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria, until his exile in 2011.