Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah, former Mauritanian Justice and Endowment Minister, and Professor of Islamic Studies at King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, expressed his objection to general invocations against non-Muslims. He asserted that the Islamic Shari`ah (Islamic law) enjoins us to consider the consequences of our deeds, words, and behaviors including supplications made from the pulpits of mosques.

It also forbids us to do anything that may stir enmity and dispute with non-Muslims. Sheikh Bin Bayyah quoted as evidence the prohibition of insulting idols before those who may be provoked by this, as the Qur’anic verse states: “And insult not those whom they (disbelievers) worship besides Allah, lest they insult Allah wrongfully without knowledge.” (Al-An’am 6:108)

Sheikh Bin Bayyah also stressed that Muslims’ supplication for themselves and their invocations against those who wrong and oppress them is a human inheritance that all nations share. The issue needs a balance of moderation that neither makes generalization, nor insults or provokes the other. But at the same time one should not feel subservient or humble before those who do not keep a covenant or treaty. This is what imams and callers to Islam should consider when they are standing at the pulpits of their mosques. Enthusiasm and ecstasy should not drive them to transgress the limits with regard to supplication, which is contrary to the Islamic values of tolerance, mercy, justice, and moderation.