Most problematic of all is the fact that, neither Pakistani cleric Munib ur-Rehmen, nor Ayman Zawahiri, nor yet Osama bin Laden are responsible for these notions or what constitutes “innocence” in Islam. Rather, their views are grounded in the verdicts of Islam’s revered ulema and fuqaha, who, in their turn, came up with these conclusions after grappling (ijtihad) with Islam’s core texts — the way all of sharia law has been articulated. In short, though much of what was quoted here comes from the writings of al Qaeda, such notions are not original to al Qaeda but trace back to the ulema and sharia.