Staring at the View

The Koran and the Basmala

2011-12-18T10:42:00.006-05:00

The Arabic expression Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem, in the name of God, the Compassionate and Merciful One, is one of the most famous in the entire language. It begins all but one of the Koran's 114 suras, and is commonly used among Arabic speakers when saying their prayers, before eating a meal, or giving a formal speech. It even has its own abbreviation and is known simply as "the Basmala".

Since the expression is the very first sentence of the Koran (surat Al-Fatiha, Koran 1:1) and is later repeated 113 times, Muslims believe it is an essential part of the revelation given by God to Muhammad. Is that true, or was the Basmala inserted into Islam and the Koran at a later date? That question was discussed on this Arabic TV program Daring Question, in which host Rashid presented the following evidence that this well-known expression was not a part of the original Koran.

1. The Basmala does not appear in the story of Muhammad's first revelation. According to Islam, an angel appeared to Muhammad and told him to recite. When Muhammad repeated several times he did not know what to recite, the angel squeezed him tightly and said in Surat Al-Alaq, "Recite 'In the name of your Creator who created humanity from a blood clot.' Recite 'Your Lord is generous, who with the pen taught men what they did not know." (Koran 96:1-5).

If the Basmala was part of the Koran, why did it not appear in the first revelation of Gabriel to Muhammad? Why did the angel not begin with, "In the name of God, the Compassionate and Merciful One, Recite..."?

2. Muhammad and his early successors did not pray using this expression. An authentic Hadith from Sahih Muslim recounts that Anas, a servant of Muhammad who was with him for many years, said, "I prayed with the Prophet, and with Caliph Abu-Bakr, and with Caliph Umar, and with Caliph Uthman (the first three leaders succeeding Muhammad). I never heard any of them say, "In the name of God, the Compassionate and Merciful One."

Muslims who perform the five daily prayers repeat the Basmala 17 times in one day. Why do they repeat thousands of times throughout their lifetime an expression Muhammad and his companions never used once in their prayers?

3. Except for Surat Al-Fatiha, the Basmala always appears in the Koran as an introduction to the chapter and not as the first verse. If the Basmala was in each sura as originally revealed, why is it merely an introduction and not the first verse of the sura?

4. The 114 suras of the Koran do not represent 114 revelations given by God to Muhammad; Muslims believe their Prophet received thousands of revelations that were combined in these chapters long after Muhammad's death. If revelation ceased with Muhammad, how could each chapter begin with the Basmala as part of the original revelation?

5. Muslim claim not a single letter has been added to the Koran. The Basmala, however, contains 4 words in Arabic. If that expression was affixed to 113 suras, does that not mean a total of 452 words have been added to the Koran?

As could be expected, these arguments are not new to Muslim scholars and Rashid next played a video from a Saudi Shaykh who offered his explanation. The Shaykh said that when the Basmala came within the verse, as in the first ayah of Al-Fatiha (Koran 1:1), it was part of the inspired text. When it appeared outside the text, as in 112 other suras, it was not part of the inspired text but a Tabarruk, a blessing or working aid given to separate the suras from each other.

Rashid noted in his response that even the Shaykh admitted that the Basmala was added to the Koran; who knows what else has been added? The problem with this explanation, continued Rashid, is the Shaykh's insistence that the Basmala in Koran 1:1 is the exception. Surat Al-Hijr (Koran 15:87) is interpreted by Muslim scholars to mean that the first chapter of the Koran, Surat Al-Fatiha, must contain seven verses. Since Al-Fatiha's first verse is the Basmala, was it not simply added to the sura to give it the required seven verses?

In another authentic Hadith, Anas continued, "I prayed behind the Prophet and his companions. They would always open their prayers with 'Praise God, the Lord of the Universe, but never mentioned the Basmala."

Why do Muslims not begin their prayers as Muhammad did? Was the Basmala added to Surat Al-Fatiha just to give it the required seven verses? When Muslims use it in their prayers today, are they repeating a phrase their Prophet never used in his prayers?

Apart from Koran 1:1, and appearing 113 times as a sura designator, the Basmala appears one other time in the Koran. This is in the chapter of the ant, Surat al-Naml (Koran 27:29, 30), in which the Queen of Sheba informs her cabinet, "Oh my ministers, I have received a letter from Solomon that begins, In the Name of God, the Compassionate and Merciful One."

Note that the Basmala in the above verse is not portrayed as revelation from God to Muhammad, but as simply the introduction of a letter from Solomon. Solomon was a Jewish king, and naturally began his letter with a common Jewish greeting.

Surat Al-Anfal (Koran 8:31) states that the Quraysh often responded to Muhammad's alleged revelations by saying they had heard these expressions before, with Surat As-Saffat (Koran 37:36) adding they were not prepared to leave their gods to follow "a mad poet". To his own people, Muhammad simply repeated religious expressions with which they were already familiar and claimed they were inspiration from God.

Why is the chapter entitled Repentance (Surat At-Taubah, Koran 9) the only one in the Koran that does not begin with the Basmala? Mufassir (Koranic expositor) Uthman claims it is a continuation of the previous chapter, The Spoils of War (Surat Al-Anfal), and therefore does not need the Basmala to separate it from the previous sura. Al-Qurtubi, on the other hand, claims that the beginning of Surat At-Taubah with its attached Basmala has been lost to history.

Since surat At-Taubah contains the famous "Verses of the Sword", in which Muslim warriors are commanded to fight unbelievers wherever they find them, it is perhaps poetic justice that this chapter does not begin with the usual reference to the mercy and compassion of God.

Rashid then introduced an Arabic scholar to explain the linguistic origin of the four words of the Arabic Basmala. The first word bism or "in the name of" is a contraction of the preposition "b" (in) and the noun (ism) "the name of". The Arabic word for "name", however, begins with an "a" that was deleted in the contraction of the preposition and the noun. This contraction is a feature of Aramaic and Syriac, not Arabic, giving evidence that the Basmala was an Aramaic/Syriac expression. These two languages were spoken by the Christians and Jews of the era.

The second word of the Basmala, Allah, also finds its origin in the word "Elohim", which is a common word for God in the Syriac and Aramaic languages. The following word Rahman is from the Syriac active participle Rahma meaing the Lover, with the "n" added in Arabic to turn it into an adjective. The final word Rahim also comes from Syriac and is a passive participle meaning the Beloved. The Basmala, according to the linguist, was a common expression used by Jews and Christians in Arabia at the time of Muhammad and as a result found its way into the Koran.

As noted in previous postings, comparatively few Muslims will have the courage to present the Imam at their local mosque with the evidence given above that the Basmala was not revelation given by Allah to Muhammad, but simply an expression their Prophet adopted from the religious vocabulary of the Christians and Jews of his day. Some individual Muslims, however, might seriously think about it on their own, and thinking is always a good thing.

The Koran and the Year of the Elephant

2011-12-12T17:37:00.010-05:00

Scriptural literalists believe every word of their sacred texts is true historically as well as in every other way. For Christians and Jews, this means believing the sun was created four days after the earth as described in Genesis 1. And for Muslims, it includes believing in the battle of the elephant.

Surat Al-Fil, the chapter of the elephant (Koran 105), is considered to be an early Meccan sura and is one of the shortest in the Koran. Its text reads simply, "Have you seen what your Lord did to the owners of the elephant? Did not he ruin their plot when he sent flocks of birds to attack them with pellets of baked clay? He made them like the stalks of an empty corn field after its ears were devoured by the cattle."

This short video gives the version of the story first recorded by Muhammad biographer Ibn Ishaq and taught to millions of young Muslim children around the world. In 570 AD, the year of Muhammad's birth, Abraha was the governor of Yemen which was part of the Ethiopian Kingdom ruled by the Negus. With the Negus' permission Abraha built in Sana "the greatest cathedral in the world at that time" (Al-Qullays in Arabic, the word is from the Greek word for church "ekklesia"). Abraha's reason for building the church, according to Ibn Ishaq, was not to establish a house of worship but to divert Arab pilgrims from going to the Kaaba in Mecca. When an infuriated Arab visitor from Mecca took revenge by urinating and defecating inside the church, Abraha decided to invade Mecca and destory the Kaaba. With a huge army that included elephants (although Ibn Ishaq says it was one elephant named Mahmud, other accounts give numbers varying from 13 to 1000), Abraha headed towards Mecca defeating every Arab tribe he met along the way. As he approached the city, his army was suddenly attacked by flocks of thousands of birds who hurled pellets of hardened clay that caused their flesh to explode and destroyed the entire army. "Such was the victory bestowed by Allah, the All-Majestic, All Powerful, to the people of Mecca and such was the protection provided by him for his house the Kabaa in Mecca," concludes early expositor Ibn Kathir.

Apart from bringing back memories of Alfred Hitchcock's movie The Birds, the story poses the more basic question, Is is True? That question was recently discussed here on the Arabic program Daring Question.

In addition to Islam's default position that anything in the Koran is true simply because the Koran says so, Muslim scholars have argued the story must be accurate because we have no evidence of Meccans contradicting Muhammad when he first recited it as revelation from God. But the fact is that no contradiction of Muhammad was allowed at all, with writers and poets such as Asma bint Marwan killed simply for challenging him. There is no way of knowing, 14 centuries later, how the Meccans responded to Surat Al-Fil when they first heard it, because the voice of Islam is the only voice that remains from that time.

The description of the birds who attacked the army in the story suggests legend rather than fact. According to Ibn Ishaq and other Muslim historians, they had shoulders of dogs and each one carried three pellets with the bird's name written on each one. Many temples in Greek and Hindu mythology have similar stories of deities magically protecting them from attacks by their enemies.

The most famous Byzantine historian of this era was a scholar who lived in Palestine named Procopius. His volumes give many details of the rule of Abraha, but make no mention of a journey across the desert with an army containing elephants. Elephants graze most of the day and consume as much as 600 pounds of food and 60 gallons of water per day. They are not desert animals, and an elephant marching across the Arabian desert would require even more water. Although the Ethiopians used elephants for battle in areas where water and food was readily available, they never used them in the desert. The distance from Sana to Mecca is over 500 miles, and it would have been highly unlikely for an army of elephants to cross that distance.

Apart from the issue of whether Surat Al-Fil is accurate historically, another interesting question is when it was written. Muslim scholars have always claimed it was an early Meccan sura, but this was during the time when the Negus of Ethiopia welcomed Muslim refugees sent by Muhammad from Mecca because of the hardships they were experiencing there (described here). The relationship between Muhammad and the Negus was good, with the Muslims enjoying his hospitality. It is difficult to relate this hospitality with Islam's rendition of the Negus building a temple in Sana to detract from the Kaaba and then sending an army to destroy it. Had his entire army been destroyed by Muhammad's machine-gun firing birds, why would the Negus turn around and welcome the Muslims as guests to live in his country for years?

An additional point is that the Quraysh of Mecca sent emissaries to Ethiopia in an attempt to persuade the Negus to repatriate the Muslims who were living there. If the Koranic story of the elephant had been given by Muhammad before that time, it stands to reason the emissaries would have used it to inform the Negis of what Muhammad said about them. There is no evidence, however, that this story was used in their arguments to the Negus.

What makes more sense is that this sura was written later in Medina, perhaps when Muhammad was preparing to invade the Christians of Tabuk. It was during the Medinan period that Muhammad began to demonize regional Christians in his preparations to attack them. What better way to motivate his army than to create a story of a Christian general who wanted to destroy the Kaaba but whose army was destroyed by the miraculous power of Allah!

There are additional problems with the Islamic account of the story. According to Ibn Ishaq, the Christian Abraha built his church to divert Arab pilgrims from Mecca to Sana for economic reasons. When the Arab defecated in the church, Abraha determined to attack the Kaaba both for revenge and to destroy the competition to his church. The problem is that Muslims, from ancient historians to those alive today, view history and religion from an Islamic perspective. The idea of a Haj, or pilgrimage to a holy location where one's sins will be forgiven, is a Muslim and not a Christian concept. It is true that Christians visit revered sites, but not for the reasons Muslims do. Christians also do not try to entice non-Christians to visit their sites. The idea that Abraha would build a pilgrim site to attract non-Christian pilgrims is not a Christian concept and has never happened throughout Christian history. As noted above, it is more likely the story was created to increase antagonism against Christians attacked by the Muslims at the end of Muhammad's life and in the decades following.

Although Muslim scholars claim that all the Arabs made pilgrimages to Mecca and its Kaaba, which they believe was built by Adam and restored by Abraham, non-Muslim history tells a different story. At least 21 regional cities are recorded as having temples called kaabas where people came for pilgrimages and religious practices. A Greek historian named Diodorus and other pre-Islamic historians described one such location in present day Tabuk in northern Saudi Arabia as being where "all the Arabs came for pilgrimage". The idea that Mecca was a famous religious center and that Abraha would come from Yemen to destroy its Kaaba because it provided competition to his church in Sana is nothing more than Muslim fiction.

Here is a short review of how Surat Al-Fil contradicts historical records:

1. Historians of the era including Procopius detail in history the reign of Abraha in Yemen. These details include how he came to rule, accounts of his wars, and his death in about 535 AD. They make no mention of his crossing the desert with elephants to attack Mecca, or of his death after being blitzed by Muhammad's magical birds.

2. These historians state that Abraha died about 545 AD, 25 years before Muslims claim he died during the year of Muhammad's birth, and that following his death his sons took over his kingdom. When the Persians invaded about 570 AD and defeated them, these sons had already been ruling many years.

3. The Muslim claim that Abraha built a cathedral to divert pilgrims from Mecca has no historical basis apart from the Quran-based claim of Muslim historians. Engravings found at Yemen's Dam of Marab, one of the eight wonders of the ancient world, detail various events of Abraha's kingdom, but none of them mention his cathedral or any attack against Mecca.

4. The Himyar Kingdom was at enmity with Abraha, and assisted the Persians in defeating him in 570 AD. The Himyars left extensive engravings of their battles with Abraha. Had he been killed by a magical bird attack following his raid against Mecca it is highly improbable this would not have been noted in their historical engravings. As can be expected, there is no mention of such an event.

5. The Ethiopian Kings of the time also left records of their territories and rulers. There is no mention in ancient Ethiopian history of Abraha attacking Mecca and dying as a result.

6. Ibn Ishaq is the only reference for the story as believed by Muslims. Even later Muslim historians acknowledge that Ibn Ishaq often exaggerated in some of the accounts he created surrounding Muhammad's life. These same historians, however, have no other source to authenticate the events described in Surat Al-Fil.

And here is a short list of why Muslim historians deliberately distorted the historical records concerning Abraha:

1. Their claim that he died during the year of Muhammad's birth gave added importance to the birth of Islam's Prophet.
2. The story created animosity against Christians, in preparation for the attacks carried out against them by Muslims beginning near the end of Muhammad's life.
3. The Koran says so.

For believing Muslims, "The Koran says so" is the most important reason of all. Very few have the courage to publicly question the historical accuracy of the Koran.

The Koran and the Samaritans

2011-12-08T19:56:00.007-05:00

Arabic last names often indicate where someone comes from. Yahya al-Libi is known to be from Libya, Hasan al-Masri from Egypt (Masr is Egypt in Arabic), Rashid al-Maghrabi from Morocco (al-Maghrab in Arabic), and Yunis al-Iskandarani from the city of Alexandria (al-Iskandariya).

It follows logically that for an individual to bear the laqab (last name) of a location, that location must have been there when the person was named. If Alexandria was formed by the Greek emperor Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC, it stands to reason that anyone with the name al-Iskandarani lived after that time and not before. If a folk tale claimed to be from the 10th century BC with a hero named al-Iskandarani, it would be easy to conclude the story was false.

Such self-evident fact was apparantly of no interest to the compilers of the Koran, as seen in the attention given to someone named "al-Samari" (the Samaritan) in the story of Moses and his brother Aaron. The city of Samaria, from which this person was named, was built in the 9th century BC. Moses, liberator of the Hebrews from Egypt, lived at least six centuries before. How does the Koran have a Samaritan speaking to Moses six centuries before the city was even created?

The story of Moses is found in surah Ta-Ha (Koran 20). On the trek across the Sinai desert from Egypt to what is now Palestine and Israel, Moses left his people and went to meditate for 40 days on Mount Sinai. The following conversations then took place (verses 83-97):

Allah: Why did you leave your people, Moses?
Moses: They are always bothering me, and I wanted to be close to you, Allah.
Allah: Well, we tempted them during your absense, and they failed the test.
Moses: (rushes back to his people): Why did you melt all your gold jewelry to make a golden calf?
People: It's not our fault. The Egyptians gave us all that gold just to get rid of us. The Samaritan put it in the fire, and out came this golden calf?
Moses to Aaron: Why did you allow them to do this?
Aaron: Don't blame me, it's not my fault. If I would have tried to stop them it would have started a riot. It's his fault (pointing to the Samaritan).
Moses to the Samaritan: Why did you do this, Samaritan?
The Samaritan: It's not my fault. I just threw some dust from the footprint of the angel Gabriel's horse into the fire after we threw in the gold and voila - out came this live golden calf!
Moses: Get the hell out of here - and go to hell, by the way! We're going to burn this golden calf and scatter its ashes in the sea.

Like many stories in the Koran, it's an interesting read. But is it true?

Early Koranic expositor Qatada explained that the Samaritan in this story was a Israelite from the tribe of Samaria who lost his faith in Allah during the long trek across the Sinai. The Samaritan pretended to accept the monotheism of Moses, but retained his desire to worship the cow as his people had done in Egypt.

To protect himself from accusations of wrongdoing (such as the rumors that swirled when he married his daughter-in-law as described here), Muhammad invented the concept that prophets could not commit major sins. According to the Bible, Aaron is the one who instigated the making of the golden calf. Since Aaron as a Prophet in Islam could not have done this evil deed, Muhammad created the fictitious Samaritan to be the culprit.

The book of I Kings in the Bible describes a king of northern Israel named Omri who "bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver and built a city on the hill. He called it Samaria, after Shemer who was the former owner of the hill" (I Kings 16:24). This was in the 9th century BC, 600 years after Moses.

II Kings 17:1-6 describes the defeat of Samaria by the Assyrian emperor Shalmaneser V in 722 BC when he deported its residents to Assyria (present day Iraq) and brought people from Iraq to repopulate the city. This Biblical account was confirmed by an engraving discovered by French diplomat to Iraq and archeologist Paul Emil Botta in 1842 that reads, "In the first year of my reign I laid seige to the city of Samaria. I deported 27,290 of its citizens and replaced them with people from other areas."

The people Shalmaneser brought to Samaria from Iraq were not Jewish monotheists, but idol worshippers deported from areas conquered by the Assyrians. These Samaritans did not speak Hebrew, and never assimilated into the culture of their Jewish neighbors. They were hated even in the time of Jesus, and one of his most famous parables, The Good Samaritan, tells the story of a young man beaten and left to die by the side of the road. Religious rabbis passed by the young man without helping him, said Jesus, but a Samaritan outcast rescued him and nursed him back to recovery.

As early Koranic expositors such as Qatada realized that the Samaritan invented by Muhammad and described in the Koran did not even exist, they tried to cover his mistake by insisting this was the name of one of the ancient tribes of Israel. All the tribes of Israel are listed in the Bible, however, and there is no evidence that a tribe by that name ever existed.

Is there any historical figure to whom Muhammad could have referred when he described this Samaritan who pretended to be a follower of Moses but remained an idolater in his heart, and who had the magical power to create a live calf from gold and dust thrown in a fire? The New Testament book of Acts, chapter 8, describes a first century AD Samaritan named Simon the Magician popular in Samaria. Jealous of the miracles committed by the Apostle Peter when he visited the city, Simon offered him money for the same power. When Peter refused, Simon pretended to follow him but later recanted of his Christian faith and founded a heresy known as Simonianism which contained a mixture of Christian belief and magical practice. Members of the Ebionite sect, discussed here as having a direct influence on Muhammad, describe in available writings from the 4th century AD the considerable influence of Simon. One text, entitled The Recognitions of Clement, even recounts that Simon claimed he could bring statues to life. This is exactly the same as the Koranic account of the Samaritan bringing life to the golden calf.

Could Muhammad's relative Waraqa bin Naufal, himself probably an Ebionite priest in Mecca, been the one who first told Muhammad about this Samaritan with his magical powers? And could Muhammad, never one to quibble about historical details as evidenced here when he confused tribes living soon after Noah with the Nabateans who lived milennia later, simply thrown al-Samari into his story of Moses and Aaron to prove his point that a real Prophet never commits great sins, thus distancing himself from any similar accusation?

Many Muslims who have read thus far will at this point simply grit their teeth and press their heels against the floor. There he goes again, attacking our Prophet and our Holy Book! Relatively few will seriously think the story through and try to find an answer that makes sense. It's much easier - and safer - to simply believe.

The above material was adapted from this Arabic TV show Daring Question

Hillary Clinton and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

2011-10-24T18:02:00.000-04:00

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was quick to respond when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested in a recent interview with Fareed Zakaria that Iran would be willing to train Iraqi troops after American forces leave.

We have bases and allies in the region, she blustered. Iran should think twice before it makes any plans to train Iraqi soldiers.

I thought it was the silliest statement I've heard a Secretary of State make since Condoleezza Rice stated that Sunnis and Shias needed to resolve their 1400 year old conflict by just "getting over it". Actually she was correct - they do - but to base American foreign policy on the hopes that they would was insane.

I understand that Secretaries of State are not allowed to think creatively and speak independently. If they want to keep their jobs they can only say things the Boss will approve. But the reality is that Iraq is now an independent Shia-majority nation and Iran is its closest ally. There is nothing America can do - except bluster - if it invites Iranian soldiers to train its own. America handed Iraq to Iran eight years ago on a silver platter and Iranian influence is now entrenched from Basrah to Beirut. Now is the time to experience the results.

The Machine Gun Preacher

2011-10-02T19:34:00.002-04:00

I knew I was listening to something unusual when I heard my drive-to-work buddies The Broads speak favorably of someone who had "got saved" in a church in Pennsylvania. They were talking about the movie The Machine Gun Preacher, based on the book Another Man's War. It's the true story of a rough and tumble man whose life was turned around when he accepted the challenge to visit east Africa with a church construction team. That short-term trip turned into a life mission as author Sam Childers determined to build an orphanage and help rescue children in the south Sudan and northern Uganda. The movie tells the result of that decision.

I saw the movie this afternoon. The theater was almost empty, but I'm glad I went. The film probably won't win Oscars at next year's Academy Awards, but for me it was a gripping story that raised some uncomfortable questions. According to the movie and the author's own claims, he has killed soldiers in The Lord's Resistance Army to rescue children and stop others from being killed. To what extent does a Christian use violence to stop violence? How often does one kill to stop killing? Is the author correct when he says, "If your child is abducted by a brutal rapist and murderer and I bring her safely home, does it matter what I did to rescue your child?"

The words "evangelical" and "missionary" don't usually get good press in the American media, and it's easy to overlook activists like Sam Childers who really try to make a difference. I'm glad they made a movie of his life, and kudos to the Broads for promoting his movie.

Can We Call It Islamic Terrorism?

2011-09-25T17:26:00.007-04:00

A debate is taking place across the political, academic, and religious spectrum about whether acts of terrorism committed by Muslims should be called Islamic Terrorism. I've recently attended conferences where I've heard alleged experts state that it should not be. If terrorism committed by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka is not called Hindu Terrorism, they argue, and if the terrorism of Norwegian Anders Breivik is not Christian Terrorism, why are acts of terror committed by Muslims called Islamic Terrorism?

It is a good question deserving a thoughtful answer which was given, in my opinion, by Rashid and Middle East Forum director Magdi Khalil in this recent Arabic program. Rashid noted that terrorism could be described as religious terrorism if it fulfilled the following four criteria:

1. The individuals carrying out the operation were devoted to their religion.
2. These individuals used religious texts to justify their operation.
3. The individuals carried out their operation to achieve religious objectives.
4. Religious leaders supported the operation and praised those who carried it out.

Rashid and Magdi then applied these four criteria to the perpetrators of 9/11, the Oklahoma Bombing, and the Norwegian Massacre. In his final testament, suicide pilot Muhammad Atta mentioned three times in four short pages that he would soon be meeting the virgins of paradise promised him by his prophet Muhammad. In his justification for 9/11, Osama bin Ladin did not inform his fellow Muslims it was intended to punish an imperialistic, political enemy. He did say that it was a blow against the rayyis al-kuffar, a religious expression meaning the leader of the infidels. The writings of bin Ladin, as well as Ayman al-Zawahiri and other al-Qaeda Sharia or religious leaders are filled with references to the Koran, the Hadith, and early Islamic history to justify their strategy. The 1500 page manifesto of Anders Breivik, in contrast, does not mention the teachings of Jesus or the Bible a single time. His only reference to Christianity is a generic one in which he envisions a Christian Europe being changed to a Muslim one. And Timothy McVeigh, rather than fantasizing about virgins in paradise, acknowledged that if there was a hell he would probably be going there.

What were the objectives of McVeigh and Breivik, as compared to Muslim terrorists? Again, the first two had nothing to do with achieving the goals of Christianity. McVeigh was angry at his government, and Breivik was fearful for his culture. Muslim terrorists, on the other hand, state again and again that their goal is to establish Deen Allah, the religion of God, throughout the earth as Islam was practiced by Muhammad and his early followers.

It was in the response of Muslim religious Shaykhs to the death of Osama bin Ladin that the contrast is most clear. Rashid played a montage of Arabic-speaking Imams across the Middle East eulogizing the death. Without exception they attacked and blamed the United States but praised bin Ladin. He was a sincere Muslim, they reminded their viewers, and it is our responsibility to pray Salat al-Ghaib, the prayers for departed souls asking God to receive them into Fardous or Paradise. We might have had our differences with him, they added, but these differences were only minor points of disagreement. What I find interesting is that the "minor points of disagreement" were the practice of al-Qaeda of declaring Muslim governments Takfir or infidel. It would understandably be difficult for an Egyptian, Moroccan, or Saudi Shaykh who only holds his position with the blessing of his government to join Ayman al-Zawahiri in condemning that government as apostate.

I've noted before that the difference between the public stated positions of Muslims in the West and their counterparts in the Arab World is striking. I've also noted that most Western non-Muslim academics and politicians, very few of whom know Arabic, have as their sources English-speaking Muslims who tell them what they want them to believe. Even those non-Muslim experts who claim to know Arabic, in my opinion, don't really know it well enough to listen to the Osama bin Ladin eulogies played by Rashid and really know what is going on.

Magdi Khalil then divided Islamic history into five stages. The first, he said, was the Islamic conquest of the 7th and 8th centuries, followed by the Crusades in which Europe attempted to regain the territory it had lost to Islam. The third stage was the Ottoman Empire in which Islam again tried to reconquer Europe and famously reached "the Gates of Vienna" in 1683, followed by the European imperialism and colonization of the next two centuries. The last forty years, said Magdi, have seen the beginning of the fifth stage, the revival of political Islam which again strives to reign throughout the world.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the show was when Khalid called in from Jordan. "Hello Rashid," said Khalid. "I was a terrorist. I left Jordan to go to Iraq in 2003. I had been a university student and a moderate Muslim but left university to devote myself to Islam. I first went to Syria, where all the incoming Mujahideen and Jihadists stayed together. We were given food and everything we needed until it was time to depart to Iraq. We travelled to Abu Kamal, which is a town on the Syrian-Iraqi border, and entered with no difficulty because we had been given passports and all the necessary travel documents. We first went to Al Qaim, then to Ramadi, and finally arrived in Baghdad where we were divided up into different groups. There were young Jihadists from all parts of the Arab World including Tunisia, Syria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. You name the country, they were there. We were all young extremists who had come for Jihad. We were not interested in politics, but based our beliefs upon the Asoul, the original texts of Islam. If the texts supported fighting and killing, we were prepared to fight and kill."

"But some Muslims argue," interrupted Rashid, "That you misinterpreted the texts of Islam."
"That is incorrect," replied Khalid, "We followed the exegesis of Ibn Taymiyah. He said that when Muslims were living in a state of weakness they should follow the peaceful suras of the Koran that were written in Mecca, but when they became powerful they should follow the suras of Medina."

"Why did you change your mind about Jihad?" asked Rashid.
"The reason I left Iraq and returned to Jordan was not for religious reasons or because I thought I had misinterpreted Islam," replied Khalid. "I returned because my family needed me. But after my return I began to ask myself why I was being told to hate and fight Christians and Jews. I discovered that the reasons were religious, not political."

When Rashid asked Khalid where he was now in his spiritual journey, Khalid replied he no longer believed in Muhammad but was beginning to investigate the teaching of Jesus.

I find stories like this very encouraging. When I say my goal is to convince Muslims that Muhammad was just a man and the Koran is just a book, I am often informed it will never happen. The experience of Khalid tells me that it can happen, although just one person at a time. I believe that is much more intellectually honest than trying to convince Khalid he merely misinterpreted the peaceful message of Muhammad and the Koran. And yes, I do believe it should be called Islamic terrorism.

The Final Testament of the Holy Bible by James Frey

2011-09-21T19:38:00.000-04:00

I'm embarrassed to admit that I am influenced by the media. The reason I watch neither Sean Hannity nor Rachel Maddow is not that I don't believe they are both gifted, charismatic individuals, but that I realize how easily I could be sucked into their respective and polarizing agendas.

I am one of millions of people who, a half dozen years or so ago, was captivated by James Frey's book A Million Little Pieces. And I am one of millions who was angered and disappointed when The Smoking Gun website followed by Oprah exposed him as "a liar and a fraud". Oprah was particularly incensed because she had both interviewed him and endorsed his book on her television show. She was merciless with him afterwards. Along with many others, I tossed James Frey into the rubbish bin never to think of him again.

Until last week that is, when I listened to an extensive recent interview between Oprah and Frey. She was apologetic, seeking his forgiveness (well, not in so many words) for her role in the hell he went through. She acknowledged that she had judged him. He explained he had written his book, which was loosely based upon his own life experiences, as a novel and only changed it to a "memoir" when publishers told him it was the only way they would publish it. He noted that he saw himself as an artist as much as an author. Just as Pablo Picasso painted "self-portraits" that in no way resembled himself except in his own imagination, James had written his book as a self-portrait only loosely connected to documented times and events. But unlike Picasso, James was exposed to a scrutiny of his life by the American media and public that could have destroyed a lesser man. One of the most poignant moments of the interview was when he described a painting in his house called Public Stoning. Every time he looked at the painting, said James, it reminded him of what he had gone through and exhorted him never to go through that again.

He then described a book he had just written, a reinterpretation of the life of Jesus called The Final Testament of the Holy Bible. I'm reading and enjoying it. If reading about a bisexual, alcoholic Jesus who lives in the slums of New York City and impregnates a young Puerto Rican stripper is too much for your theological tastebuds, I wouldn't recommend it. But if you are open to new insights from a young, gifted author, this might be your kind of book. I'm reminded of a pastor friend who once told me he never formed his theology from the movies he watched. The same should hold true of books as well.

The Jack Mormon Coffee Company

2011-09-13T21:39:00.002-04:00

I spent last weekend visiting my son in Salt Lake City and we spent Saturday morning at the Mormon Temple. It was my first time in SLC, and I had not realized a trip to the temple carries almost the same significance to Mormons as a pilgrimmage to Mecca for Muslims. Groups of converts from all over the world were walking around the compound and there were numerous wedding parties. It makes sense to a believer; what could be better than getting married on the temple grounds? I found myself gawking like any other tourist at the groups of clean-cut people, men all wearing white shirts and black trousers and many of the women modestly dressed also in black and white. I wanted to take photos (which I didn't because I've never been a camera person), and realized how the Amish must feel in my homeland of Pennsylvania when tourists flock to take pictures of them.

We then walked to a nearby farmers market where along with the fresh produce were dozens of booths of jewelery makers and other crafts. We wanted a cup of coffee, and then noticed the booth with the title The Jack Mormon Coffee Company. As we ordered our coffee I told the hostess that I imagined a lot of out of state visitors did not understand the significance of the name. She said that was correct, and I asked my son if he had ever heard the expression. He had not, and I explained that a Jack Mormon was a non-practicing or ex-Mormon. Mormons are not allowed to drink coffee (unless the reigning Prophet has had a recent revelation of which I am unaware); thus the name The Jack Mormon Coffee Company.

Sunday morning some friends I had known overseas invited us to attend a special church service commemorating 9/11. Their non-Mormon church began only four years ago and now has hundreds of weekly attendees. Many of these are ex-Mormons and they even have special seminars on "Confronting Mormonism with Courage and Compassion".

I find the reasons people leave religions even more interesting than the reasons people convert to them. The reasons people join a religious group are often predictable; they are lonely, going through a difficult period in their lives, or meet someone from that religion who impresses them. I would guess that ninety percent of the women who convert to Islam did so because of the influence of a Muslim man in their lives. But the reasons people leave religions are fascinating. They all seem to share the commonality of realizing that things they once believed or are commanded to do no longer make sense. As I've noted before, I think that is a good thing.

Remembering 9/11

2011-09-03T19:11:00.004-04:00

We're all going to hear and read a lot over the next few weeks about how 9/11 changed America. The reality is that 9/11 did not change America; it was our leaders' reaction to 9/11 that changed America.

In 2006 I had the opportunity to go to Baghdad and ended up working there for the next two years. At one point I asked a coworker back in America if she had ever considered going there as well. "I don't think so," she replied. "I'm too much against the war to go to Iraq." My unspoken response was, "And you think that all of us who are out here thought the war was a good idea?"

A few months ago I was having a drink in a neighborhood Irish Pub. It is near a military hospital and some of our "wounded warriors" are bussed there once a week to get them out of the hospital for a few hours. (The expression Wounded Warrior, by the way, is an euphemism if there ever was one; it sounds so much more noble than truthfully describing someone as a triple amputee or a paraplegic). One young man was sitting there in his wheelchair. His legs had been blown away, and he was trying to manage a beer with his two prosthetic arms and hands. It was his face though, untouched by his physical wounds, that looked the most tragic. The look in his eyes was one of intense hopelessness and loneliness.

As I watched him, I felt a wave of anger sweep through me. What was there in Iraq or Afghanistan that was worth the loss of his arms and legs? What was worth the blown apart arms, legs, and lives of many more thousands of young men and women than those killed killed on 9/11?

Vice President Cheney's new book is just the latest of a series of accounts written by officials in the Bush administration. They all justify themselves and defend their publicly-declared reasons for taking us to war from the comfort of their million-dollar homes.

As I remember 9/11 a week or so from now, I won't be thinking very much about where I was when I first saw those planes crashing into the Twin Towers. I'll be thinking about Colin Powell informing the United Nations that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and understanding the administration had already made their decision to go to war. I'll be thinking about President Bush standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier announcing that the Mission was Accomplished and realizing he did not have a clue about what he had gotten us into. I'll be thinking of President Obama's decision to send 30,000 additional forces to Afghanistan, and knowing that hundreds of them would soon be maimed or dead. And I'll be thinking of the young man at the Irish Bar with the incredible sadness on his face trying to drink his beer with his prosthetic hands.

My Father Was a Freedom Fighter by Ramzy Baroud

2011-08-29T22:19:00.001-04:00

I've always considered myself a non-traditional Christian Zionist. The difference between me and traditional Christian Zionists, as I imagined it, was that they had eschatological reasons for supporting Israel at all costs (eschatology, for non-native speakers of English from Malaysia, means a theological perspective for events scheduled to happen at the end of the world). Eschatological Christian Zionists believe that God gave the land of Israel to the Jews for all time, and the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 set in motion events that will culminate in the end of history as we know it. Well-known Christians preachers such as John Hagee have built an entire career on this conviction.

A non-traditional Christian Zionist - of which I might be the only one on the entire planet - takes a slightly different perspective. I believe that Israel needs to remain planted where it is because it is impossible to undo the last 60 years of history. I also believe that a one state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians live together on the same territory, is impossible because, frankly, I don't trust Islam. Muhammad laid out as clear as a bell that according to his plan Muslims were to rule. Non-Muslims would not be forced to accept Islam, but would be required to live in subjugation to their Muslim rulers. For 1400 years Jews in Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, Tunis, and many other cities lived under those constraints. For the last 60 years they have been free, and they aren't about to go back. As long as one Muslim standing believes that the teachings and actions of Muhammad are still binding today, Israel is in danger.

Perhaps another difference between me and a traditional Christian Zionist is that the traditionals tend to support Israel no matter what. Israel is always right, and the Palestinians are always wrong. Israel is never to be blamed, and the Palestinians are never to be taken seriously. Israel is never to be criticized, judged or condemned, and the Palestinians are always to be ignored.

If I am really honest, however, I have to acknowledge there hasn't been that much difference between me and a traditional Christian Zionist. More than I would want to admit, I have accepted the Israeli narrative of what happened in the first half of the last century. Jewish settlers began to arrive in Palestine from various parts of Europe, the narrative goes, and lived in peace with the Palestinians from whom they purchased land. Arabs arrived from Yemen, Iraq, and other countries to work for the Jews in the economy that was growing there. There were minor skirmishes, but for the most part life between the two communities was peaceful and prosperous. It was only after the United Nations declared Israel to be a nation and the Palestinians refused the proposed settlement that the trouble began. Egypt's Gamal Nasser promised to drive Israel into the sea, Arab armies attacked the fledgling country, and Palestinians by the tens of thousands voluntarily left their homes thinking they would return in triumph just a few weeks later. When they realized they could never return home, they turned into relentless enemies determined to destroy both Israel and its Jewish population.

It was only when I read Ramzy Baroud's book, My Father Was a Freedom Fighter, that I experienced the eye-witness account of the Palestinian diaspora as told by a Palestinian whose parents made the trek from what is now southern Israel to Gaza. As I read I realized I had two choices. I could either choose to believe that Ramzy was exaggerating or lying, or accept that the expulsion of the Palestinians was a well-thought out and executed operation that totally ignored the rights of hundreds of thousands of people.

As a typical man, I'm always looking for solutions. Is there any possible solution to the "Palestinian problem" that will soon, no matter how much Israeli and Western politicians try to ignore it, become a serious "Israeli problem"? Allow me to make a few suggestions.

1. The first step towards true reconciliation always comes from the party in power. That party is Israel, and Israel must take the first step. Although I would not expect Israel to say it is sorry for forcibly expelling the Palestinians in 1948, they can at least admit that is what they did. And although Israel might be unable to give Palestinians the right to return to their farms and villages, they can at least pay them a fair remunerations for the land that was stolen from them.

2. Palestinians must make a clean break from Muhammad. All that the Koran and the Hadith teach about the Jews and about the need for Islam to rule must be seen as merely the teaching of a 7th century Arab tribal commander that has no relevance for today.

3. Both Jews and Muslims must take a little more seriously the teaching of a Jewish Rabbi who lived in Palestine seven centuries before Muhammad. "Love you enemies," said Jesus, "And do good to those who hate you."

An impossible, unrealistic command? Yusuf al-Qaradawi believes so. I heard him explain on al-Jazeera TV that the teaching of Jesus to love your enemy was an impossible one that no-one was able to keep. Muhammad was much more practical, continued the Shaykh, because Muhammad did not tell you to love your enemy but only to be just to him. The problem, of course, is that the justice of Muhammad leaves much to be desired.

So there you are, a three-step solution to begin solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I think it would be a great start, but whether anyone will be willing to put it into practice is another story altogether.

Non-Muslims in the Arab Spring and Religious Rights

2011-08-28T09:53:00.001-04:00

The Arab Spring, of which Muammar Qaddafi is the latest victim and Bashar Assad likely soon to follow, is the result of millions of people who had no voice, few rights, and little power suddenly discovering all three. The voice they found was not that of Arabic satellite TV, the rights they demanded were not willingly given them by their governments, and their weapons were not drone aircraft and Abrams tanks. Instead they discovered that by communicating under the radar of government intelligence services using Twitter, Facebook, blogs and cell phones, they could unite to organize demonstrations and eventually bring down governments. Their demands were for the fall of dictators, the end of emergency rule under which people could be arrested and held without charge, the opportunity to elect their own political leaders, and religious freedom.

Wait a minute; did I just say "religious freedom"? I was kidding, of course. That is the definitive difference between the Arab Spring and other famous revolutions such as the American Revolution of 1776. The settlers who came to America from Europe were looking for the opportunity to practice religion according to the dictates of their consciences. When they established the American Constitution, they took care to ensure that no religion would ever be imposed upon the American people and that individuals would have the right to believe whatever they wanted about deities, religious systems and holy books. Freedom of religion is an essential part of our constitution and legal system.

You might argue that we haven't always done it very well, and that reminds me of a conversation I had with an Indian woman from Bombay many years ago. We were both in Capetown for a few weeks during the time of apertheid, and she commented how uncomfortable she felt by the way white South Africans looked at her as she visited a local mall. When I reminded her that even in America blacks did not always feel welcome in public places she replied, "Yes, but the difference is that in America racial discrimination is against the law. Here, it is part of the law."

And that's the reason religious freedom, the right to believe or disbelieve whatever you want about Muhammad or Allah or the Koran, is not even part of the equation when it comes to the Arab Spring and the new Middle East. Most Muslims never even consider how discriminatory their faith is to non-Muslims in general and ex-Muslims in particular. They love to quote La Ikrah fil-Deen, "There is no compulsion in religion" from Surah al-Baqarah in the Koran, but do not realize that their own most famous Koranic expositors such as Ibn Kathir interpret that verse to describe how Muhammad broke up Muslim families in Medina who had given their children to be raised by Jewish women. When Muhammad expelled the Jews from Medina and the Muslim women wanted their children back, Muhammad refused to allow it saying, "La Ikrah fil-Deen" (I have described this in detail here).

The new constitutions being written in countries that have experienced recent upheaval, such as Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, all include sentences containing something like "Islam is our religion and Sharia is our law." People who leave Islam in these "Arab Spring" or "America liberated" countries have no more rights than they ever did. It is still against the law, subject to persecution, prosecution, and imprisonment to say nothing of social rejection, to openly and boldly simply leave Muhammad behind.

This Arabic Television program, hosted by Rashid, recently dealt with the question of why Muslims who have exchanged Muhammad for Jesus in Arab countries - and there are thousands if not more - are not vocally demanding their religious rights just as they are joining with others in demanding political rights. Even apart from Muslim converts to Christianity - they call themselves the Abireen, or the people who have "crossed over" - why are not the millions of Copts in Egypt demanding full religious equality with their Muslim fellow citizens? Why are they not demanding the right to build churches as easily as Muslims build mosques, to call Muslims to Christianity as boldly as Muslims call Christians to Islam, and the right to run for high political office as easily as Muslims do?

The guests who appeared on Rashid's television show believe without exception that the Arab Spring is a good thing that will eventually result in increased rights for all people, non-Muslims as well as ex-Muslims. I hope they are right.

Why Do We Kill: The Pathology of Murder in Baltimore - Kelvin Sewell

2011-08-21T15:12:00.006-04:00

I've just read the sobering book Why Do We Kill? The book is unique because it was written not by an academic, sociologist, or psychologist, but a policeman who walked the streets of Baltimore for 22 years and asked himself how people could do the things he's seen people do.

The book was special to me because I lived in Baltimore the early years of my marriage. My children were born there. We lived in a rowhouse in Butchers Hill, one of the previously-deprived neighborhoods being upscaled for a new population of white professionals like me. Every day I took my dog for a run around Patterson Park. I still remember the shout I got one day from a snarky local. "Hey, is that your dog?" "It sure is." "It sure looks like you!"

As I look back 30 years later, I realize I was never a part of Baltimore - I just lived there a few years. Besides, what could it mean to be a part of Baltimore? Neighborhoods changed completely from one block to the next, even from one side of the street to the other. Walk one block from my rowhouse on Baltimore Street, and I was in a neighborhood of Polish immigrants who had lived there for generations. Walk a block on the other side, and I was in the black ghetto.

In a very real sense, that has been a part of my entire adult life - I've never lived in a community of which I felt a part. I was always a foreigner during my 15 years in the Middle East, living and working with other expatriates isolated from the local culture and community. Even though I made more of an effort than most to learn the language, culture, and history of the countries I lived in, I was still a stranger. This was followed by several years living in Georgia, which was no different. I wasn't really a part of the south; I was just a Yankee temporarily living there. I lived in a modern subdivision inhabited mostly by geographical transplants like myself. The company for which I worked had very few genuine Southerners in it. Even my church was not local - it was part of a denomination started by a southern Californian and pastored by a New Englander.

So what does my experience have to do with a book about murder in Baltimore? Although the author could not come up with a single definitive answer for why hundreds of young Baltimoreans point their guns at other people every year and pull the trigger, I came away with the impression that these young people experience a deep, deep sense of isolation. Unlike me, however, they do not have positive influences in their lives that enable them to move beyond their isolation. Their inability to emotionally enter into the life of another person makes it much easier to end that life.

As I began to read the book, I carried many of the judgments against the young murderers that other White Christian Baby Boomers might carry. "I bet almost all of them are black....I wonder how many of them came from broken families?....Do they even know what it means to have a father?"
Actually, these are relevant questions, but they don't cut to the heart of the issue. The author points out that our cities are still neglecting their poor. In the case of Baltimore, billions of dollars have been invested in developing the Inner Harbor skyline that attracts millions of tourists and catches the eye of everyone taking I-95 South from New York City all the way to Miami. City officials have dealt with Baltimore's legendary murder rates by building larger and newer prisons and exploiting every statistic that points to a lower ratio of any type of crime. But the teenagers whose case files are examined by Kelvin Sewell still continue to kill, and too few people are asking the question, "Why do they do it, and what can we do about it?"

The Pangs of Ramadan

2011-08-14T13:57:00.002-04:00

"Wallahi this is hard," complained Abderrahman as he stopped by my desk the other day. "Ramadan in August is not easy! We have finished eight days, and still have 22 more to go."

He was perhaps expecting a word of encouragement or commiseration from me, but when none was forthcoming his tone picked up. "I've been reading articles about the benefits of fasting," he assured me. "It cleans out your digestive system and purifies your kidneys. It removes toxins from your body and gives it an entirely fresh start."

As Abderrahman left to wait anxiously for six more hours until he could swallow a taste of water or a morsel of food, I realized there was no way I could tell him what I was really thinking. Do Muslims realize how often people do not respond to them simply because of the realization the conversation will go nowhere? If I could have said what I wanted to, it would have been, "Abderrahman, God could care less whether you wait until sundown to swallow your saliva, have something to eat or drink, smoke a cigarette or have sex. He's not going to forgive any more or less of your sins based on how well you keep Ramadan. Fasting during the sacred month was only one of many Jewish pre-Islamic religious practices Muhammad adopted in his attempts to make the Jews believe he was the Prophet he claimed to me. You fast because you have been socially conditioned your entire life to do so, and the shame, fear, and guilt you would feel by not fasting far outweighs the physical discomfort of doing so. Most of all, just keep in mind the spiritual pride you will feel when it is all over!"

To be fair, Muslims are not the only people who live within the framework of the religious insanity that results from keeping man-made traditions intended to impose spirituality and morality. Yesterday I visited the land of my roots, the Pennsylvania Dutch country. As I followed Amish slow-moving horse-drawn buggies and saw Mennonite women with their plain dresses and white hair-coverings, I had the same question. "Do you really think God cares whether you drive a buggy or a Buick, whether you wear jeans or a long skirt?"

What I find interesting is how young Mennonites and Muslims, particularly teen-age girls, try to break away from the constraints of their religious communities. Anyone who has been to Cairo has noticed young Muslim girls wearing the hijab and long skirts - but with those skirts hugging their hips as tightly as they can wear them. Yesterday I saw young Mennonite girls wearing not the unattractive white hair coverings of their mothers, but thin slivers of black cloth that only covered a fraction of their hair. They almost looked as if they were cut out of black lace panties! (OK, I'll admit that is a very bad pun). The point is that Mennonite teenagers in Lancaster Pennsylvania and Muslims girls in Cairo Egypt are both suffering under the constraints of the religious systems imposed upon them, and both want escape. The more young people question why they do what they are told they must do, and have the courage to break with traditions that really make no sense, the better off they - and all the rest of us - will be.

Blessed Holy Ramadan

2011-08-11T21:31:00.003-04:00

Islam is the only religion in the world that forces its adherents, under penalty of law, to keep its religious traditions.

On this Arabic TV show host Rashid recently listed the penalties for eating publicly in Muslim countries during Ramadan. Morocco's criminal code stipulates that any Muslim found eating in a public place during Ramadan will be fined and imprisoned from one to six months. In Qatar the penalty is not limited to Muslims; anyone including non-Muslim expatriates and foreign workers caught eating, drinking, or smoking in public will be fined and put in prison up to three months. The penalty in the UAE and Kuwait also applies to all, Muslims as well as non-Muslims, although the imprisonment is only one month.

Egypt's constitution does not ban eating publicly in Ramadan, but 155 Christians were arrested in one province alone, Aswan, in 2009 for eating publicly. With the collapse of the government and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist movements, there is no telling how many will be arrested, persecuted, or harassed this year.

In Iran in 2004, a 14-year old youth died as a result of the 85 lashes he received for eating during Ramadan. In Algeria in 2010, Algerian Christians who were tried for eating publicly during Ramadan were sentenced to three years in prison, although the sentence was commuted as a result of media attention. At the beginning of Ramadan each year in Saudi Arabia, guest workers are warned that if they eat publicly during the month they will be arrested and subject to imprisonment and deportation.

Muslims in the West love to talk about the spiritual benefits they achieve from Ramadan. It brings them closer to God, they say, increases their Patience and gives them opportunity to focus their attention on matters of the spirit.

That could be true. Spirituality is incredibly subjective, and if someone says that going without food from dawn to dusk makes him or her a more spiritual person who am I to question?

What I find interesting, however, is that young Muslims living in Muslim societies overseas are questioning more and more the regulations that force them to follow particular religious practices whether they want to or not. A young Moroccan blogger named Kacem El Ghazzali, whose English blog can be seen here, posted an Arabic video on youtube in which he forcefully and eloquently argued that penalizing people for eating publicly during Ramadan is a violation of personal freedom and human rights. Not only does it violate the human rights of Muslims, he argues, but it represents an Islam that imposes itself upon Muslims and non-Muslims whether they want it or not. More than 200,000 Arab-speaking people have viewed his video.

I find this amazing. Had he posted the same video just a few years ago, he might have received only a few hits. But young Muslims are questioning as never before tenets of their religion that their ancestors accepted without argument for centuries. Why does anyone, they are asking, have the right to tell me that I cannot have a sandwich in public for an entire month? What right does anyone have to inform non-Muslim visitors they cannot eat in a restaurant because that might offend Muslims? Why do we belong to a religion that imposes itself upon others whether they want it or not?

Much of this questioning is beyond the radar of the Western media. You probably won't read an article in the Huffington Post about Kacem El Ghazzali's 200,000 hits for his "Let's All Eat in Ramadan" campaign. I would suggest, however, it is much more important than opeds you will read there by Western Muslims telling us how much closer they feel to God during the Holy and Blessed month of Ramadan.

Dr. Laura and Gay Marriage

2011-08-10T18:35:00.005-04:00

Today a man called radio talk-show host Dr. Laura with an interesting dilemma. He was gay, he said, 51 years old and had been celibate his entire life. He had a female friend whose company he enjoyed. They were both growing older, and the prospect of being old alone was not attractive to either of them. Would it be wrong for them to get married, he asked, with the understanding they would sleep in separate bedrooms and never have a physical relationship?

Dr. Laura reminded the caller that women enter marriage with expectations and fantasies of what the relationship will develop into. Did his friend secretly hope she might un-gay him? Was she really prepared to spend the rest of her life without physical intimacy? What would happen if she came to his bedroom one night needing something more and he refused her?

I'm really looking out for you, Dr. Laura informed her caller. You are the one who stands to get hurt if this marriage doesn't work out.

But as she often does, Dr. Laura was not content to let the matter rest but went a little deeper. If you are gay, she asked, Why have you spent your entire life celibate?

In his response the caller revealed he had come from a conservative, non-gay-accepting background, and had always been fearful and ashamed of his homosexuality.

But aren't you even now, probed Dr. Laura, Avoiding the reality of your gayness? Instead of marrying a straight woman and setting yourself up for heartbreak, why don't you find a mature gay man with whom you can have a real relationship?

And here is my question for Dr. Laura. She is against gay marriage. But she is also against "shacking up", as she calls it when two unmarried people live together. She is against sex outside marriage, often describing women who engage in it as "unpaid whores". But didn't she just go against her own principles by advising her caller to find a gay man with whom he could have a relationship? She was encouraging a relationship that would naturally include physical intimacy, as far as I could tell, and at the same time asserting he and his partner could not get married. I don't get it.

Spiritual DNA and Tithing

2011-08-08T16:24:00.007-04:00

A psychiatrist once told me that it takes three generations to move out of a cult. I'm not sure if that is correct or not, but it was true in my case. My grandfather was a member of the Amish church, a cult that does not allow its members to use electricity or drive automobiles. He left that to join the Mennonite church which was a little less strict - you could drive a car, but women were expected to have long hair and wear little white caps known as "coverings". My father left the Mennonite church to join a fundamentalist church, and I have moved away from that. So there you are, three generations.

But I haven't completely escaped - there are still aspects of the fundamentalist Christian world view that permeate my spiritual DNA and are hard to break. Take the principle of tithing, which means you give a full ten percent of your gross income (for overseas readers, that means before taxes are taken out) to your local church. If you do this, God will "bless" you and your family. If you don't, God will get that ten percent one way or the other because it belongs to him and according to one well-known verse from the Old Testament you are "robbing God". God's ways of getting his due money are numerous including job loss, ill health, wayward children, and car wrecks.

One might wonder where such a grotesque idea came from. It began in the book of Genesis, when Abraham went out with a small army to attack a king who had robbed and kidnapped his relatives. Abraham defeated the enemy king and on the way home was met by a mysterious priest called Melchizedek who blessed Abraham for his victory. Abraham responded by giving the priest ten percent of the spoils of war.

Fast forward to the end of Leviticus, where an elaborate religious system had been established for the nation of Israel. Leviticus 27:30 says, "A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord." Since the word "tithe" by definition means ten percent, farmers were expected to donate ten percent of their grain and fruit crops to support the priests and their families. Deuteronomy 12:17 adds that the people were not simply to eat their donations at home, but were to take them to the tabernacle where they were to be shared with family, friends, and the priests. It was actually a beautiful idea. As people made their pilgrimages to the tabernacle, they took food with them to share in great communal feasts that included the entire community.

The only other reference to tithing in the entire Bible, as far as I know, is the reference in Malachi where the author warned the people that if they refused to bring this food to the temple they were in fact robbing God.

The New Testament does not mention the tithe a single time. Jesus, Paul, the other apostles and authors - not a single word. The emphasis shifted from giving an obligatory ten percent to donating what you could to help people in need.

So why did I, when I got my first real job that paid seventeen thousand dollars a year, make sure that seventeen hundred of that went to my church? Was it fear that if I didn't God would zap me one way or the other? Was it really based upon a desire to give? I'm still not sure. All I know is that it was a part of my spiritual DNA, something I felt obligated to do.

American Christianity is now a multi-billion dollar enterprise, and God seems to have an insatiable thrist for new buildings. Each of these buildings costs millions of dollars, to say nothing of the staff and programs required to run them. What better way to finance the entire operation than to at least once a year have a few sermons on tithing? These sermons typically dangle before the congregation both the carrot and the stick. God's blessing is waiting to be received by those who tithe, but beware if you don't.

Part of this makes sense. If you belong to a country club you are required to pay annual dues - often thousands of dollars - to keep the club in the red. If you attend a church that has buildings to maintain, staff to pay and programs to run, you should do your part in meeting expenses. I'm just not convinced that the high-pressure tithe is the way to do it.

In a very real way, the tithing principle corrupts faith. The idea behind it is that you give ten percent to God, and the rest is yours to do with as you like. A person with disposable income can pay the tithe and have money to waste with no sense of responsibility to the person sitting next to her who doesn't have money to feed her children.

Imagine, for example, that you make two hundred thousand dollars a year and want a luxury car. The principle of tithing says that you give twenty thousand to the church and God will bless you as you enjoy your car. But if you skip the tithe and purchase the car, watch out! You might not make it home from the dealership.

Aren't there other principles that make a lot more sense? If you want a nice car, why not just save your money until you have the cash to go buy it? Or if you decide you can do with a lesser car, or drive the one you have a few more years because you would like to have more money available to help others, go for it. The money you give does not need to be an obligation. I don't think that is what God intended.

So why do I still feel the need to tithe? Remember what I said about your spiritual DNA, those principles you inherited from your childhood that are extemely difficult to erase or overcome? I'm still not sure that God is not out to get me if I don't put ten percent of this month's income in the offering plate next week.

The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole who Infiltrated the CIA by Joby Warrick

2011-08-07T14:27:00.006-04:00

I've recently read - and highly recommend - The Triple Agent. It is the story of how al-Qaeda agent Himam Balawi was trusted by the CIA well enough to be allowed onto their base in Khost, Afghanistan, where he blew himself up as well as several CIA case officers. It was one of the most tragic days in the history of the organization. Rather than review the book, I'd rather just comment on a few quotes. At one point, the author wrote:

"But somewhere Balawi had fallen off a cliff...against all logic and his own self-interest, he had embraced a virulent philosophy that threatened to destroy everything that Jordan had achieved in a half century of faltering progress toward modernity. He had risked his reputation and his own family in the service of fanatics living in caves two thousand miles away. How such a thing could happen to such a clever, world-wise young man as Balawi was unfathomable."

I've gone way past amazement - although I am still disappointed - when I hear otherwise intelligent, educated, articulate individuals such as Joby Warrick (and almost everybody else in the intelligence and academic communities as well as the media and the government) describe the radicalization of young Muslims as "unfathomable". It's like hearing someone describe Warren Jeff's belief in polygamy as "unfathomable". Excuse me, that's what your prophet did! Just as Mormon polygamists justify their behavior with chapter and verse from their holy books and the life of their prophet, so do Muslims Jihadists justify their terror, chapter and verse, from the Koran, the Sunna and the Sira (the life and sayings of Muhammad). And just as progressive Mormons try to argue - often with great difficulty and little success - that trying to model Joseph Smith in the 21st century is not a viable option, so moderate Muslims face an impossible task when they protest that the Jihadists are taking verses from the Koran and examples from the life of Muhammad out of context when they carry out their acts of terror.

At one point in the book the author described the efforts of Jordanian intelligence officer Bin Zeid to deradicalize Balawi. "Osama bin Laden's vision of Islam is distorted," Bin Zeid would say. "The Koran forbids the taking of innocent life."

There is nothing more amusing - although tragic - than reading the attempts of Muslims who are not Islamic scholars as they try to convince the Jihadists that they have Islam and Muhammad all wrong. At this post, I described the futile efforts of Tawfik Hamid to do just that. Bin Zeid might argue that the Koran forbids the taking of innocent life, but he completely skirts the questions of who is innocent in Islam. According to the Koran, no-one who denies the message of Muhammad can be described as innocent. Shaykh Yusuf Qaradawi argues that no Israeli can ever be considered innocent. It is only a step further for al-Qaeda to argue that no American is innocent. Again, the Jihadist Sharia scholars trump non-scholars like Bin Zeid and Tawfik Hamid every time.

Towards the end of the book, just before the explosion in Khost on that fateful day, Warrick discussed some of the questions being raised about allowing Balawi on the compound.
"The Mukhabarat had been dealing with jihadists of all stripes for many years, and it knew a few things about them, including which ones could be flipped. The low-level types - the thugs and opportunists who glommed on to terrorist movements for personal advantage - could be transformed and might even become useful informants. But radicals and ideologues never truly switched sides. A true believer might lie and deceive, but deep down he could never betray his cause. And Humam al-Balawi had all the markings of a true believer."

This is probably the most important paragraph in the entire book. How naively we seem to believe Saudi claims that hundreds of former jihadists have been "reformed" by taking them through a comfortable rehabilitation program and then giving them a car, an apartment, a job and a wife. As Warrick accurately noted, these are not the true believers. Those who are truly convinced will never change.

They will never change, that is, unless they have a complete paradigm shift - to use a hackneyed phrase - and dare to ask the questions no Muslims yet dare to raise publicly, "Is it possible that Muhammad was not a Prophet of God? Could it be that he was nothing more than a seventh century military and political commander who had nothing to do with God? Is it conceivable that the Koran could be just a collection of sayings that was presented to the Muslim community as the word of God?"

"I'm a Muslim," a lawyer told me recently in Tunisia, "But I'm an atheist." Well I'm not an atheist, but I admire his courage. I'm just looking for the day when he will be able to make that admission, not to a visiting American infidel, but to his own Muslim community without fear of reprisal or condemnation. I'm hopeful enough to believe that day will come.

Sex, Mom, and God

2011-07-31T13:34:00.001-04:00

I've recently read Sex, Mom, and God by Frank Schaeffer. Although I highly recommend the book, I would suggest that if you haven't read Crazy for God you read that first. Crazy is autobiographical, tracing Frank's life as the son of evangelical Christian leaders, and Sex fleshes out a few developments that were left uncovered in the first book.

One of the things I like about Frank's writings is that he and I have followed similar spiritual and intellectual paths. As a gifted and professional author, however, he has more time and skill to articulate his thoughts than I do. Things that I fleetingly think about find full expression in his paragraphs, and I find myself in agreement with much of what he has to say.

One particular example of this is his view of the Bible in general and the Old Testament in particular. As a critic of Islam as expressed and practiced by Muhammad, I've found myself looking more judgmentally at objectionable parts of early Islamic history than I have at objectionable parts of early Hebrew history. I criticize Muhammad for slaughtering 800 Jewish boys and men at Medina for not accepting him as a Prophet but gloss over Joshua and Saul slaughtering the populations of entire towns including newborn infants for not worshipping the God of the Jews. I condemn Muhammad for stoning to death an adulterous couple in Medina, but ignore the fact that the God of Moses ordered the stoning of married brides who were found to not be virgins. I scorn Muhammad for initiating a sexual relationship with a nine-year-old child (Aisha) that could only be described in today's terms as rape, as well as marrying his own daughter-in-law (Zaynab) and raping another wife (Sofiya) after torturing, robbing, and beheading her husband (Kinana of Khaybar), but skip right over Soloman's Biblical sexual conquest of not dozens but hundreds of women.

What I've done is simply use the excuses Christians have always used and continue to use. It's true that Joshua slaughtered children, they argue, but we don't do that anymore. Besides, maybe those people were so evil their babies needed to be sliced through with those swords. That was for a special time, they argue, only temporary whereas the injunctions of the Koran are for all time and all people everywhere. Jesus has taken us beyond the law of Moses, they argue, and now Muhammad wants to take us back to the law.

All of the above might be true, but they miss the main point which is that the Jehovah of Moses and the Allah of Muhammad both commanded the slaughter of innocents, allowed the sexual conquest of women as the property of men, and ordered the stoning of women who did not abide by the rules.

Maybe it's time for Christians to think a little more clearly, and be a lot more honest. If we are going to argue that their book is flawed and human, is it time for us to admit the same about ours? That's not saying both books are the same, or communicate the same basic message (which I don't think they do). It's just looking at our book with the same critical stance that we use when we look at theirs.

A Wedding Conversation

2011-07-27T13:18:00.005-04:00

Last weekend I attended the wedding of two Muslim family friends. The groom’s family is from Pakistan and that of the bride from Bangladesh. As the Imam emphasized in his sermon before the marriage contract was signed, the marriage was bringing those two families and their respective communities closer together.

At the reception dinner I sat next to a university professor who had taught the bride in a few of her graduate classes. The professor and I were talking about retirement, and when she asked me if I had post-retirement plans she might have been surprised by my answer. “I’d like to convince one and a half billion Muslims,” I replied, “That Muhammad was just an ordinary man and the Koran is just a human book.”

“I was recently in Tunisia,” I continued, “And had a conversation with a taxi driver. ‘We just want to be free,’ he said. ‘Let those who want to pray go to the mosque, and let those who want to drink go to the bar.’”

“That’s fine,” I told him. “But there’s only one problem. Muhammad said you can’t go to the bar. As soon as you try to exercise that freedom, someone will grab you from behind and remind you that Muhammad or the Koran said you are not allowed to do that.”

“Educated people might agree with you,” the professor countered. “But the key to change is education. The average Muslim would never accept what you are trying to say.”

"Ordinary people can change,” I replied. “I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family where we were taught every word of the Bible was literally true. But now as I read the first chapter of Genesis, it sounds much less God’s description of how the universe came into existence than a man living in the Bronze Age four thousand years ago imagining how he thought it came to be.”

“A few minutes ago,” I continued, “The Imam read words from the Koran describing God as being the Great One, the Compassionate One, the All Powerful Creator, and the Righteous Judge. As I listened to those words, it sounded much more to me like someone 1400 years ago describing what he imagined God to be like, rather than God’s description of himself.”

“But how would you persuade Muslims that Muhammad was not a Prophet of God, or the Koran was just a human book?” the professor inquired.

“Most Muslims know very little about the life of their Prophet,” I replied. “From before they can walk or talk they are taught to believe in this compassionate, wise person they imagine existed. The average Muslim knows next to nothing of his true history. I would begin by just pointing out events in his life they perhaps haven’t thought about that portray him in a less-than-prophetic light. For example, the fact that he persuaded his own son to divorce his wife so that he could marry his daughter-in-law, and then justified the whole sordid affair by stating that God had commanded him to do it.”

Had we more time to continue the conversation, I might have pointed out to her that many, many Muslims, including the couple whose wedding we had just celebrated, are wonderful loving people. Well, not all of them of course. Not the pick-pocket who had stolen my wallet a few weeks before at the entrance of the old souk in downtown Tunis. But the shopkeeper who recovered my wallet with documents intact and went to quite a bit of trouble to get it back to me certainly was. I just believe that what their Prophet and his book teaches them about God and people holds them back from being all they can be.

One thing the professor said stuck with me. We both have two daughters, and I commented to her that three of the greatest blessings we can give our daughters are to be whoever they choose to me, to marry whomever they choose to marry, and to believe whatever they want to believe. “Islam grants daughters none of those rights,” I said. “Muslim women are not allowed to publicly acknowledge they are lesbian even if they are, Muslim women are not allowed to marry non-Muslim men, and they are not free to let it be known publicly that they are atheists or do not believe Muhammad was a prophet.”

“But that is not true only of Islam,” the professor replied, “Many orthodox Jewish women or evangelical Christian girls are not free to say similar things."

I agreed with her. We might disagree on the penalty - Muslims can be killed for criticizing Muhammad, and although ex-Amish Christians and ex-Orthodox Jews can be shunned by their respective communities for leaving the faith I haven't yet heard of it costing them their heads. But I would agree with her that devotion to any inspired text, and in particular allowing religious leaders to interpret that text to you as a mandate to how you are expected to believe and behave, can be a dangerous thing.

Williamsburg and Tunis

2011-04-27T17:18:00.003-04:00

I spent the weekend in Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown, Virginia, where the first settlers arrived from Europe 400 years ago. The tours, scenery, and bike trails were spectacular. On Easter morning I visited the Bruton Parish Church where most of Virginia's eight Presidents attended services. The highlight for me was not sitting in the pew occupied by George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, but climbing the stairs to the Slaves Gallery for the personal slaves of the Williamsburg elite. The day before I had learned that notices announcing runaway slaves often contained St. Paul's admonition that "Servants are to Obey their Masters".

I could not help making a comparison between four stages of Williamsburg history and that of Tunisia. Stage One, from 1611 until 1776, saw Virginia living under British rule. Stage Two, for almost the next hundred years, had Virginia experience independence and freedom - but only for its white population. More than half of Williamsburg during that time were slaves. Stage Three began with Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation, and the freedom of the slaves. It was only Stage Four, under leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, when blacks were legally integrated into all parts of society.

One might think this was a 400-year process, but in reality the changes came in short powerful spurts of energy. The years just before and during the Revolutionary War set the course for the next one hundred years, and the few short years surrounding the Civil War propelled events for the century to come. The Civil Rights Movement of the sixties, again a focal point of activity compressed into a few short years, set the pace for the next fifty years until the present time.

Tunisia has experienced not four, but three stages of recent history. First was living as a French Protectorate from 1881, second was independence under President Habib Bourguiba in 1956, and the third was the Jasmine Revolution of 2011. The question to be asked now is, Will there be a Fourth Stage? Will a Martin Luther King arise to lead Tunisians into true freedom, or will the country sink into a morass of Islamists and Power Hungry politicans?

I'm not optimistic about Tunisia's short term prospects. The last thing Muslims want to hear, but to me the most rudimentary truth, is that they have to make a choice between Muhammad and freedom. They simply can't have both.

The words "free" and "freedom" are mentioned dozens of times in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. The second chapter of Genesis, the Bible's first book, announces, "You are free to eat from any tree of the garden." (well, except one!) One of Jesus' primary messages was, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

How many times do you think "freedom" is mentioned in the Quran? The Arabic verb to be free is Hurr, to set something free is Tahrir, and freedom is Huriyah. The verb Hurr does not appear in the Quran a single time. Tahrir is mentioned a few times, but only in a legal sense - if a Muslim kills another Muslim, he must set free a Muslim slave in compensation (not a non-Muslim slave, mind you!). And the most important word of all - freedom? It is not found in the Quran a single time. There is a reason for that, you know.

The Buddhist New Year

2011-04-17T22:30:00.003-04:00

Today I joined literally thousands of Buddhists in our area as they celebrated the Buddhist New Year at the local temple. I've driven past the temple hundreds of times - an inauspicious building off the highway - but except for a few saffron-robed monks in front had never seen much activity. I never would have imagined our city had so many Theravada Buddhists; they are the ones who celebrate the New Year this weekend. It was a festive, family occasion with stalls selling types of food I've never even seen much less tasted and people wearing jeans, tee-shirts, miniskirts and tank tops. Everyone was welcomed inside the temple, non-Buddhists as well as believers, women as well as men, where people sat together and waited patiently to receive individual blessings from the main monk.

I could not help but compare the experience with the recent CNN program "Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door". When the several hundred Muslim families of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, decided to build a 52,000 square foot Islamic center in the middle of town, local residents responded with protests, vandalism, arson, and lawsuits. To me the difference is striking. In my neighborhood, thousands of Buddhists who blend into the general culture in their mannerisms and dress turn out to celebrate their faith at a small, inconspicuous temple. In Tennessee a few hundred Muslim families whose women, children, and even men often stand apart from the dominant culture even in their dress decide to build a large, imposing center and refuse to back down when asked to reconsider. I have the impression that Islam seeks to impose its presence whenever possible, and when that imposition is resisted cries of Islamophobia are quickly heard.

Even though I enjoyed the day, I'm not about to become Buddhist. I like Jesus, thank you, and still have problems with Siddhartha Gautama abandoning his young wife and newborn child forever to seek enlightenment. Even more significantly, I think Buddhism is way too pacifist. Afghanistan was once a Buddhist country, but because there was no emphasis on self-defense they had nothing with which to resist Islam when it steamrolled in and demolished Buddhism there forever.

But I welcome the Buddhists in my neighborhood. And by the way, CNN, I welcome Muslims as well. I would actually love to have "Muslims Next Door".

Where are the Christian Pirates?

2011-04-16T08:09:00.007-04:00

After hearing a Democracy Now story last year linking suicide bombings in Pakistan to poverty and hopelessness, I posed what seemed an obvious question. "If poverty causes extremism, why are there no suicide bombers from among Pakistan's poorest of the poor? Where are the Christian Suicide Bombers?"

A similar question came to mind today after hearing this NPR story about the pirates of Somalia. Poverty and lawlessness, claimed the author, are the main reasons for the piracy. The question that came to my mind probably never even crossed the mind of the author, "If Somalia were a traditionally Christian country, like Uganda or Ethiopia, would international piracy even be an issue?"

From year one of the Muslim Hijri calendar, which began when Muhammad traveled as a Muhajir, or migrant from Mecca to Medina in about 623 AD, two Arabic words became an important part of the lexicon of the language. These are Ghazawat, the raids of the Prophet, and Anfal, the spoils of war. Muhammad had only been in Medina a few months when he realized an easy and effective way to meet the economic and financial needs of his growing community was to attack trade caravans passing through the area. Rather than combine the desert expertise of Medina's Arabs with the agricultural and industrial success of the Jewish tribes who had lived there for centuries to develop caravans of his own, Muhammad found it easier to simply condemn the Jews for not accepting him as a Prophet and attack the caravans of others. Literally hundreds of pages of the earliest biographies of the Prophet are devoted to accounts of these raids, and most of the second part of the Quran, those suras authored in Medina, are related to the same subject.

The death of Muhammad ten years later did not signal the end of the Ghazawat, but only their beginning. In swift order his warriors swept north, south, east, and west, continuing the raids (which had by now developed into full-scale attack and conquer) and reaping the benefits. Christian societies (Egypt and the Copts) were given the choice of conversion or subjugation. Societies containing "pagan idolaters" - the Zorastrians of Persia and the Buddhists of Afghanistan - simply saw their religious traditions wiped out. Those who were strong enough to resist Arabization as well as Islamization - Turkey, Iran, etc - were able to maintain their traditional languages. Weaker societies - Egypt and the countries of North Africa - saw their traditional languages obliterated and replaced by Arabic.

The Muslim pirates of Somalia are simply carrying on a time-honored tradition hallowed by the example of their Prophet. In their mind, they really deserve the wealth of the people they plunder.

Do poverty and lawlessness, as suggested by the NPR reporter, play a role? Of course. Are the "Christian" countries I mentioned, Uganda or Ethiopia or others in the region, glowing examples of Christ-like character and behavior? Not by a long shot. But at the same time I think it is a mistake not to acknowledge the fact that it is the life of Muhammad, not Jesus, that provides a model for attacking the wealth of others and appropriating it as something that you deserve. And that, not only poverty and lawlessness, is at the heart of Somali piracy.

Georgetown's Common Word Conference

2011-04-13T23:07:00.017-04:00

I recently attended John Esposito's Common Word conference at Georgetown University. Listening to charismatic and eloquent speakers took me back three decades to being mesmerized by the lectures of Dr. Ismail Al Farouki and Sayyid Hossein Nasr as a student of Islam at Temple University. And now as then, it was only afterwards that I realized I was left with many more doubts than assurances.

One of the speakers was Bob Roberts, who blogs here and is pastor of the Northwood Church in Dallas. He engages the Muslim community there, and is going turkey hunting with the Imam this Saturday. He informed us that when he meets Muslims who remind him that according to their religion he is going to hell, his response is that according to his religion they are hellbound as well. "Now that we've gotten that behind us," he urges them, "Let's be friends."

Does Pastor Roberts really believe that, or was he just being cute? If he does, it stands to reason that his desire is for Muslims to escape hell by accepting what he believes about Jesus. I wonder how successful he has been. How many of his 2000-plus congregation are ex-Muslims? What would happen to his vaunted relationship with the Muslim community were he to appoint an ex-Muslim from that community to a position of leadership within his church? Would he have the courage to do so?

Another participant was Nigerian diplomat John Gana, a Christian whose ancestors converted from Islam as a result of Christian missionaries. Emphasizing the fluidity of Muslim and Christian relationships in his country, he informed us that his younger brother had converted to Islam to marry a Muslim woman. He seemed not at all concerned that his brother was forced to change his religion to marry the woman he loved, nor that their children would be raised Muslim without the freedom to change their religion back to Christianity even if they wanted to.

Henry Izumizaki, a Japanese American who is CEO of the One Nation Foundation, told us about the millions of dollars his foundation spends to improve the image of Muslims in America. He said he is neither a Muslim nor a Christian, and that one of the early productions of his company was the movie Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet.

Am I the only one who found it ironic that the man who produced the Legacy of a Prophet does not believe that Muhammad was a Prophet? As not even part of the Ahl Al Kitab, the People of the Book, does Henry Izumizaki know what Muhammad said about him? Does he realize that none of his Muslim co-panelists would allow their daughters to marry his sons?

Shamil Idriss of Soliya described the Muslim-non-Muslim relationship as akin to people throwing sparks into a tinder dry forest. He was not the only person to bring up the TJ factor - no, that is not Terrorist Jihadi but Pastor Terry Jones. Shamil did not bring up the more appropriate analogy that a spark dropped in a tropical rain forest causes no reaction at all. Why is attention focused on the person dropping the spark rather than changing the nature of the forest?

"As I condemn Terry Jones for burning the Quran," continued Shamil, "I condemn President Karzai in Kabul for exacerbating the situation." It seems that even when Muslims criticize the response of other Muslims, they draw a moral equivalence between the initial act and the riposte. I draw a cartoon you don't like, you respond by killing my son, but in your mind the two acts are morally equal? Ya Shaikh!

Other panelists assured us that "studies all show" that poverty breeds extremism, and that "nobody in America" wants Sharia law. It is simply not true that the hundreds of Jihadi foreign fighters in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and a host of other locations are there because of poverty. And if the panelists truly do not want the path of Allah and his Apostle to be followed in the West, it is only because they have become "Westernized, Christianized Muslims" who have strayed a long way from their Prophet.

Three freedoms I grant my daughters are to be whoever they decide to be (including lesbian), believe whatever they want to believe (including atheism), and marry whomever they choose (regardless of religious creed or lack thereof). Islam grants women none of those choices. If the panelists truly granted their daughters those freedoms, I might believe they were free from the binding grip of Sharia. I might question, however, if they were still Muslim.

Professor Bart Ehrman at the University of North Carolina grew up as an evangelical Christian. He attended the best fundamental and evangelical Christian schools, the Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College. Somewhere along the way he lost his faith. He no longer describes himself as a Christian, and does not believe the Bible is the Word of God nor that Jesus is the Son of God.

Would John Esposito have the courage to bring a "Muslim Bart Ehrman" unto the staff of his Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding? Someone who like Bart Ehrman had really believed and attended the best Muslim universities, but who like Ehrman "let the scholarship take them where it would" and reached the conclusion that Muhammad was not a Prophet of God, the Quran was not a book from God, and Islam was not true? I would like to believe the answer was Yes, but I have my doubts.

In spite of the considerable amount of money spent to bring in speakers from all over the country the conference seemed sparsely attended with many empty seats. Was the lack of attendance due to a lack of interest, or did others sense as I did that conversations would only go in one direction and not very far at that?

If I were to summarize my take-away for the entire day, it would be that there is an increasing problem in America betweeen Muslims and non-Muslims, but always to be blamed is the ghayr Muslim - the non-believer. It's the fault of Pamela Geller, Newt Gingrich, Barack Obama for flipping on Afghanistan and Guantanamo, birthers and anti-mosquers, Tea Partyers and Terry Joneses. The list is endless. Am I the only one asking the question, "Who's this big guy sleeping in the hallway that everyone is gingerly stepping around but no one is talking about? I think his name is Muhammad."

Miral

2011-04-12T20:06:00.004-04:00

It's been a weekend of emotionally-draining movies. First was Of Gods and Men, about which I wrote here. That was followed by Miral, the story of four Palestinian women whose lives intersected in Jerusalem over a period of several decades.

The movie literally left me speechless, but with a strange feeling of hope. It took a day or so for my emotions to process to the point that I realized why a movie that was depressing in many ways would leave me hopeful. I then understood it was the emphasis that was placed upon the education of women in general and Palestinian Muslim girls in particular. One of the main characters of the film is a Palestinian Christian who dedicated her life to the education of these girls including the main character Miral.

Dr. Izzaldin Abuelaish, about whom I write here and here, argues that the key to a successful future for the Palestinians is the education of Palestinian girls, and Miral presents a visual example of that argument.

By coincidence - although I don't believe in coincidence - I had a most interesting conversation today with a young woman from a Brahmin family in India who is now an American citizen. One of the formative experiences of her life was being taught by Catholic monks as a young girl in Bombay. Again, it's the story of young girls being influenced and benefited by dedicated Christian educators.

Of Gods and Men

2011-04-09T19:05:00.010-04:00

Cet apres-midi j'ai vu le film francais Des Hommes et Des Dieux, l'histoire incroyable des pretres en Algerie qui etaient tues...oops, sorry, I'm reliving my days of college French. Anyhow, this afternoon I saw the movie Of Gods and Men, the story of French monks in Algeria who were killed during the uprising of the 90s. It is a powerful film, and I encourage everyone to watch it.

The sadness I felt watching the film was probably different than the emotions experienced by most of the others in the theatre. What caught my attention as much as the devotion of the monks was the concentrated effort made by the film producers to make a distinction between "Islam" (good) and the "Islamism" (bad) of the extremists who murdered them. The pattern is so common it is predictable. Verses quoted from the Quran are peaceful, references to non-Muslims are positive, and terrorists are presented as people who know nothing of Islam, the Quran, and their Prophet Muhammad.

It is simply not true. Even grammatically the distinction between "Islam" and "Islamism" does not exist. Islam is an Arabic word meaning "to surrender". (Muslims who argue that it comes from the verb meaning "peace" are not quite telling you the truth; in Arabic the "peace" arrives after the surrender has been made; peace is a result of surrender). The Arabic verb is Aslama, to surrender, and the gerund or verbal noun is Islam, the act of surrender. Although neither the verb nor gerund originally had a religious meaning, by extension they have come to mean surrender to Allah. Since Muhammad never told anyone to obey or follow Allah without adding on himself as well, Islam now means to surrender to the will of Allah and his Apostle. The word "Islamism" does not exist in any original Arabic text.

The Salafis and the Jihadis, not the moderates, are the ones who have the Quran, the Hadith, the life of Muhammad, and Islamic history on their side. The distinction to be made is not between "Islam" and "Islamism", but between Islam and Muslims. It is peaceful Muslims who do not really understand Islam, the Quran, and Muhammad, not the extremists. The greater the distance between these moderate Muslims and the Prophet they think they follow, the better off we all are.

Izzaldin Abuelaish and a Palestinian Activist

2011-03-30T21:23:00.010-04:00

Dr. Izzaldin Abuelaish, about whom I write here, recently gave this talk at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington DC to a standing ovation. I encourage everyone to watch his moving speech.

When it was over, the Jewish moderator said to the spellbound audience, "Let us take a minute of silence to absorb the powerful and beautiful message of love, faith, hope, and action that Dr. Abuelaish gave us. Let's sit quietly for a minute before we ask our questions."

A minute later the floor was opened to questions, after the moderator reminded the audience, "Please ask only questions and keep your speeches to a minimum."

The first person to the microphone was a Palestinian woman. She knew she would be on c-span TV watched by the nation, and was conspicuously wearing her chic keffiyeh. Her "question", which begins at 43:15, was as follows, "Thank you, doctor, for your very profound message. I believe in your message of love and peace and everything you were saying tonight. I want to know your opinions on the following. First of all, the practicality of the colonization of Palestine. I'm working with a group of Arab-American activists who are calling for the dissolution of the Palestine Liberation Organization because they are helping the Israelis manage the occupation. I also want to know your opinion on boycott divestiture and sanctions of Israel. I want your thoughts about why the Palestinians are not taking to the streets to demand their freedom and their rights from their occupiers and oppressors and colonizers. Why aren't prominent Jewish Americans coming forth all across the world demanding as they did for South Africa and apartheid. Why aren't Jewish Americans, Jewish European, and Jews all over the world demanding peace and justice for the Palestinians? Thank you."

I can't imagine how this woman could have made a greater tactical blunder. It has famously been said that the Palestinians never miss the opportunity to miss an opportunity, and she blew this one. For the past forty-five minutes, Dr. Abuelaish had been speaking directly to the conscience of his Jewish audience. His simple but powerful message was, "I am a Palestinian doctor from Gaza, the first to work in an Israeli hospital. I have devoted my life to the care and healing of both Israeli and Palestinian patients. My life changed forever on January 16, 2009, when an Israeli bomb struck our Gaza family home and instantly killed my three lovely daughters. But I will not stop doing all I can do bring our two peoples, Palestinian and Israeli, together in peace."

It was a hard-hitting message to the heart, but the self-described "activist" didn't hear it. She was probably rehearsing her own speech the entire time he was talking, waiting for her opportunity to rush to the microphone. She wanted to talk about boycott divestiture! And in her two short angry minutes she completely undid all that the doctor had worked for 45 to accomplish in the hearts of his audience. The sad part is that she is completely unaware of what she did.

For six decades the Palestinians have fought the Israelis with wars, demonstrations, boycotts, United Nations and Arab League resolutions, skyjackings, suicide bombers, and Qassam rockets. As Dr. Phil often says on his TV show, "So how's that working out for you?" The simple reality is that Palestinians in Gaza are living worse today than ever, and as long as those rockets keep coming over or they have dreams of retaking Jerusalem, the Israeli government won't give a damn. And when someone comes along like Dr. Abuelaish, to plant a message with humility and dignity that can touch hearts and bring change, activists such as this young woman in her keffiyah chic and angry rhetoric rip out the seed before it can even begin to grow.

The Experiment

2011-03-28T21:00:00.009-04:00

Here's an interesting two-part experiment. It can be conducted by anyone at all, regardless of religious persuasion or lack thereof.

Part 1: Choose a Muslim neighbor, friend or colleague, and ask three simple questions. Although the answer to the first question might appear obvious, ask it anyway, "Are you a Christian?" Without hesitation she will reply she is not a Christian but a Muslim.

Question number two: "Christians believe that Jesus is God and died on the cross for our sins, so I assume you don't believe that. Is that correct?" Again without embarrassment she will inform you she does not believe Jesus is God, nor did he die on the cross for our sins.

Now the final question: "Could you give me a few reasons you don't believe that?" She won't have to think a minute before giving them. They will probably include the fact that Islam does not believe Allah can be associated with any created being, no individual can bear the sins of another, and the Quran says that Jesus did not die.

Now it's time for part 2. Ask a non-Muslim the same questions but with a slight twist, "Are you a Muslim?" When he says that he is not, continue with, "Muslims believe that Muhammad was a Prophet from God, so I guess you are saying you do not believe he was a Prophet. Is that right?"

Chances are you will already sense some discomfort, some hesitation in the reply. Your interlocutor might explain that he is an agnostic, that he knows Muslims believe Muhammad is a Prophet, or that he's not really sure. If he does agree that he does not believe Muhammad to be a Prophet, proceed with question number three.

"Could you give me a few reasons why you don't believe Muhammad was a Prophet of God?" I doubt if one American in a hundred could give an intelligent, cohesive reply.

If you do carry out this experiment, I'd love to learn the results. Leave a comment or send me an email.

PS - There are variations to the experiment. For example, ask the Jewish professor of religious studies at your local university (or any Jewish friend) if she is a Christian. When she replies she is not, confirm it is correct that she does not believe Jesus was God and learn her reasons. Then ask her if she is a Muslim. Again when she replies she is not, confirm it is correct she does not believe Muhammad was a Prophet of God, and again inquire about her reasons. The purpose of the experiment would be to see if she was as forthright in her second response as she was in her first.

Quranic Numerology

2011-03-27T10:54:00.010-04:00

For centuries the main Muslim argument for the Muajezat Al Quran, the miracle of the Quran, has been the challenge thrown out by Muhammad 1400 years ago, "You produce poetry this good if you don't think mine is from God (Quran 10:38)".

I've always thought the Prophet's argument (or Allah's depending on your perspective) was quite juvenile. Determining the best poet is like choosing the best musician on American Idol - it's all subjective. Not only that, in Muhammad's version of Saudi Arabian Poet the runner-up lost not only the contest but her head as well. Muhammad was so threatened by the poetry of the Jewish poetess Asma bint Marwan that he sent one of his brave Mujahidin to kill her at night as she laid in bed with her nursing child. Can you imagine what he would have done to someone who wrote poetry claiming it was from God and equal to his?

Actually, we don't need to imagine. When Muhammad conquered Mecca, the city from which he had fled 10 years earlier, he had a list of people who were to be killed "even if they were seeking protection behind the curtains of the Kabah". One of these was Abdallah bin Saad, who had previously copied Muhammad's revelations but then left Islam. According to these sources, Abdallah made suggestions to improve Muhammad's recitations, but when Muhammad accepted the improvements, Abdallah gave up all belief that the recitations were from God. The Prophet certainly didn't want to take a chance Abdallah would produce poetry similar to that he had heard from Muhammad, or spread the news of how he had improved Muhammad's recitations, so he was killed. A woman named Fartana committed the crime of "singing satirical songs about the Apostle", and she was killed as well. I find it interesting that on the one hand Muhammad would challenge people to produce poetry like his, and then on the other certainly kill anyone who tried. And I find it amazing that Muslims today see this as evidence of the inspiration of the Quran.

It's not really that difficult to produce poetry equal to the Quran. Surah 108 describes a mythical river in paradise named Kauthar and the first ayah is Innana Ataynaka Al Kauthar (We have given you Kauthar). In a conversation between a Kafir and a Mumin (a non-Muslim and a Muslim), the Kafir said, "I can produce poetry as good as the Quran, and here is an example: Innana Ataynaka Al Fauthar." When the Mumin asked, "What is Fauthar?", the Kafir replied, "It's the river next to Kauthar!"

With non-Muslims around the world beginning to examine not the poetry but the content of the Quran, and Muslims unable to respond to that criticism, they are increasingly resorting to other techniques to prove its miraculous nature with websites like this one. One of these techniques is numerology, or assigning spiritual significance to the repitition of a word in the Quran. Many online articles emphasize that the word Al Yaum, which means the day or today, is mentioned 365 times in the Quran.

I find it quite impressive that Allah would choose the calendar of the Kuffar rather than that of the Mumineen to express his miracle. It is the pagan Julian calendar that has 365 days, not the Islamic lunar calendar with ten days less. Muslims, of course, argue this only increases the validity of the miracle - it was intended to persuade the unbelievers!

Speaking of numerology, the word Muhammad is mentioned 4 times in the Quran. Guess how many times Khanzeer (pig) is mentioned? You are absolutely right. Now there's a miracle for you!

Homegrown Terrorism and Deradicalization

2011-03-26T16:20:00.012-04:00

Just google the terms "homegrown terrorism" and "violent radicalism" and you will see how seriously law enforcement and intelligence agencies are taking the threat of young Western Muslims becoming radicalized to the point that they either travel overseas to engage in militant Jihad or prepare to carry out acts of terror within their own countries.

There seem to be two broad approaches to the problem. One is to minimize or pay little attention to the belief system of the radical, and only put him or her on the radar screen when there is evidence they are actually planning a terrorist operation. This seems to be the general principle of law enforcement agencies, and theoretically fits in well with the American ideal that you can believe anything you want as long as you don't disobey the law. The second approach, adopted by the current administration with the appointment of radicalization czar Professor Quintan Wiktorowicz to the National Security Council, includes engaging Muslim scholars such as Dr. Tawfik Hamid, whom I have written about here, to deradicalize the belief system of young Muslims. The idea seems to be that moderate Muslims are to show extremist Muslims how they understand Muhammad, the Quran, and Jihad all wrong.

I have a problem with both approaches. My objection to the first is that belief is important, with one's system of belief laying the groundwork for action to come. The reason I could never be enticed in a thousand years by a FBI sting operation to set off a bomb in Times Square or bring down an aircraft with explosives hidden in my underwear is that there is nothing in my belief system allowing me to do that. If I believed it was a noble thing to do that would gain me the pleasure of Allah, it might be a different story.

My problem with the second approach is that when it comes to the Quran, the Hadith, and the Ghazawat or wars of Muhammad, the extremist wins every time. Anyone well-versed in Ilm Al Sharia, or Islamic law, will laugh at Dr. Hamid's protestations that the Quranic exhortations to kill Al Mushrikun, the unbelievers, only referred to the unbelievers of Muhammad's day because the Quran uses the definite article the unbelievers. The definite article is the default article in Arabic grammar; even a simple proverb like "Patience is a virtue" becomes "The patience is a virtue" in Arabic.

Here's a radical approach to deradicalization. The irreducible conviction of every Muslim, radical or moderate, is that Muhammad Rasoul Allah, Muhammad is the Prophet of God. That is either true or false. If it is true, we should all convert to Islam and become Muslims - you and I, Hilary Clinton, Charlie Sheen and Lady Gaga included. If it is not true, we should all exert considerable effort to present historical and moral evidence to the Muslim Ummah that Laysa Muhammad Rasoul Allah - Muhammad is not a Prophet of God (something I did here and in the following dozen or so posts). Were we to be successful, that might make the deradicalization of radicalized young Muslims much more effective.

The predictable and immediate response of many people to my suggestion above is that it is both impractical and impossible - Muslims, they say, will never abandon Muhammad. I think that is a condescending attitude that underestimates the intelligence of still-believing Muslims. We as non-Muslims, after all, have reached the conclusion that Muhammad was not a Prophet of God, and many thousands of ex-Muslims have done the same. Why should we assume we and they are more intelligent and capable of critical thought than those who still believe?

Yasir Qadhi and America as Abyssinia

2011-03-25T21:08:00.010-04:00

In this important article about influential American Muslim leader Yasir Qadhi, author Andrea Elliott compares him with another young American Muslim with a significant following, Anwar Al Awlaki. She writes that Qadhi sees America as Abyssinia whereas Awlaki views it as Mecca. The difference is worthy of note.

I've often noted that Western non-Muslims have no idea how important events in the Prophet's life are to Muslims. These references to Abyssinia and Mecca refer to the thirteen years Muhammad spent in Mecca before migrating north to Medina with about 100 fellow Muhajirun (immigrants). Muhammad's proposal that the Quraysh of Mecca accept him as a Prophet of God had fallen on deaf ears except for some mostly poor individuals and slaves who responded to his leadership. When the Quraysh turned against them, Muhammad sent 83 of them to Abyssinia, now the Christian country of Ethiopia. Their Christian ruler was the Negus, and he not only welcomed the newcomers with full hospitality but allowed them to practice their faith without opposition.

The Quraysh were not happy that their fellow tribesmen had migrated to Abyssinia, and sent two emissaries to persuade the Negus to repatriate them. Although Islam's oldest historical reference, that of Ibn Ishaq, states that the Quraysh wanted to get them back "so they could seduce them from their religion and get them out of the home in which they were living in peace", it is important to realize this history was written 200 years after the events took place and was based upon generations of undocumented oral history. Mecca was a slave-driven society, and it is probable the Quraysh simply wanted to get back the slaves who had believed Muhammad's promise that by abandoning their former masters and following him they would obtain the wealth of the Persian and the Roman Empires.

The Quraysh emissaries, whose names were Amr and Abdallah, had a careful strategy to ensure the success of their mission. Knowing that fine leather was treasured in Abyssinia, they gave leather skins to each of the Negus' generals asking them to present their petition to their ruler. The generals did so, but the Negus said he would not return exiles who had come to him for protection without questioning them first. When the Muslim immigrants were summoned before the Negus and he asked them to explain their new religion, they replied they had been idolaters before Muhammad persuaded them to worship only one God. When the Negus asked if they had anything written from this God they responded by reciting Surat Maryam from the Quran, the chapter of the Virgin Mary.

They could not have chosen a better chapter. It begins with the miraculous birth of John the Baptist to his aged parents and continues with the equally miraculous birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary, adding a non-Biblical account of Jesus speaking as an infant. The surah goes on to describe the prophetic ministry of Moses and his brother Aaron before the Egyptian ruler Pharaoh, and freely intersperses Muhammad's conviction that he himself was a Prophet not only equal to but superior to all of those.

The Negus was impressed with the reading, and swore again that he would never betray the people who had come to him for protection. Amr and Abdallah, however, were not about to give up, and believing they still held the trump card informed the Negus that Muhammad and his followers did not believe that Jesus was God. The ruler responded by calling the Muslims again to ask them personally what they believed about Jesus.

Now the Muslims were in a quandary. Should they tell the truth and admit they did not believe Jesus was Divine, thus risking being forced back to Mecca? They decided to take another approach and informed the Negus their Prophet had informed them Jesus was "the slave of God, his Apostle, and his Word which he cast into Mary the Blessed Virgin". The Negus was pleased with their response, and reaffirmed his willingness for them to remain in his country as long as they wished. Children were born to the Muslims in Abyssinia, and they lived there in peace until some of them returned to Mecca some time later where soon afterwards they migrated with Muhammad to Medina. Others remained in Abyssinia for years, only returning at Muhammad's orders after he defeated the Jews at the Battle of Khaybar. Still others never returned but became Christians in Abyssinia, including Ubaydullah whose spouse later became one of Muhammad's wives.

How could Yasir Qadhi imagine that America is Abyssinia? In some ways the answer is obvious. America is the majority Christian country that opened its doors to Muslims fleeing oppression and poverty from all over the world. America has allowed them to prosper and practice their faith, and has rejected the call of those who suggest it should send them back. Muslims are indeed living in America today as their spiritual ancestors 1400 years ago lived in Abyssinia.

Anwar Al Awlaki sees it differently. America to him is Mecca, the city where Muhammad warned of the coming judgment of God. America-also-known-as-Mecca is the city that rejected the message of the Prophet, forcing him to flee until he could equip an army that would bring it to its knees. Just as Muhammad conquered Mecca ten years later with an army of ten thousand warriors, Anwar Al Awlaki and his army of Mujahidin are determined to obey the command of their Prophet to fight the Mushrikun and the Kuffar - those who reject the message of Muhammad - until only Allah is worshipped and his Deen established throughout the land (Quran 2:193).

Just as I've noted that we in the West have no idea how important Muhammad is to Muslims, I've also noted that the majority of Muslims follow the Prophet they wish had existed rather than the Muhammad who really did. Salafi leaders such as Yasir Qadhi and Anwar Al Awlaki are different in what they know exactly who Muhammad was and what he did. The position of Qadhi, in my opinion, is much weaker than that of Awlaki.
Muhammad never went to Abyssinia, and there is no indication his followers saw their stay there as anything more than a temporary respite from the troubles of Mecca. Rather than honestly state they did not believe in the divinity of Jesus and take the risk of being repatriated to Mecca, they couched their response to the Negus' questions about Jesus in terms that would satisfy him. There is no evidence that they tried to convert the Abyssinians to Islam, and there is also no indication they adopted the adversarial position to the Christians there that Muhammad later adopted towards the Jews of Medina.

I've written here that after reading Tareq Ramadan's What I Believe I really had no idea what he believes. The same is true of Yasir Qadhi. Even after reading Andrea Elliott's article carefully, not once but twice, I still do not know what he believes. Nor do I believe he would tell me if I asked.

Anwar Al Awlaki is, in more opinion, both more honest and more consistent. His message is short and sweet, "Watch out, America, we're coming to get you!" Although American law enforcement agencies might see Qadhi as their ally if not their friend, and view Awlaki as the enemy, I'm not sure the situation is that black and white.

A Model for Middle East Dialogue - and why it won't work

2011-03-19T19:12:00.010-04:00

Some time ago I heard former Secretary of Defense William Cohen (white) and his wife Janet Langhard Cohen (African-American) discuss their book Love in Black and White. One thing they said caught my attention, "There needs to be much more dialogue in America between blacks and whites, but white people have to start the conversation."

I decided to try that the following day with an African-American colleague at work. We had been cordial, the usual professional relationship, but not close. I asked her if I could tell her a story, and simply recounted my experience of hearing William and Janet Cohen the previous evening. She gave me a quizzical look, as in "And why are you telling me this?", but listened to my story. It was the first of some good conversations, and we have become friends.

I was reminded of the Secretary and his wife's advice today on the subway. A young black man came through the car handing out cards. I noticed he was only giving them to African-Americans, and sure enough he walked past without offering me one. When he sat on the seat behind me, I turned around and asked if I could have one. It was an invitation to attend a play at a local college about the ancient Egyptian queen Hatshepsut entitled His Majesty herself.

As soon as he realized I was interested in what he had to say, he couldn't stop talking. He informed me he had also studied and written about Hatshepsut, and I told him I had visited her temple in Upper Egypt. He said he thought Hatshepsut was much more impressive than Cleopatra, and I agreed. Cleopatra, after all, slept her way into the history books with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, but Hatshepsut did it all herself.

"There needs to be much more dialogue in America between blacks and whites, but white people have to start the conversation." Let's unpack this sentence a little. Why did the young man not initially hand me the card? The only reason I can think of is he could not imagine that an old white dude would be interested in a play a young black guy was advertising.

Throughout America's history, whites have held both wealth and power. What the Secretary and his wife were suggesting was that those in power, those who have traditionally held the upper hand, need to initiate dialogue with those who have been under their thumb. It's not going to be the other way around.

If that works in America, can it work anywhere? Could it work in Israel where the Israelis hold the power and the money and the Palestinians are under their thumb? Could it be successful in Egypt, where the Muslim majority places limits and restrictions on the minority Copts? Is the secret for success between the Israelis and the Palestinians for the Jews to initiate the dialogue, and could the Copts and Muslims in Egypt be reconciled if Muslims were willing to do the same?

I don't think so. The key ingredient for this model of dialogue is that each party must accept the other as equal. Because my belief system is that we are all created of equal value before God and each other, my mandate is to treat others as they would like to be treated by me. Throughout much of its history, America has strayed from this core conviction but it can return for the simple reason that it is a return to America's ideological roots.

What are the ideological roots of Islam? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Muhammad never envisioned his people living as a minority among a non-Muslim majority. His earliest message to impoverished slaves in Mecca was that if they followed him they would overthrow the rulers of the Byzantine and Sassanid Empires, and his final instructions to his followers in Medina were they were to continue to engage in Jihad fi Sabeel Allah, fighting for Islam, until only Allah was worshipped everywhere (Quran 2:193).

Again correct me if I'm mistaken, but Muhammad never intended for non-Muslims to live within a Muslim society in full equality. His instructions for Jews and Christians in Arabia, followed later by the Muslim generals who conquered Egypt, were very clear. Non-Muslims were to live as Dhimmis within the Muslim majority. Argue all you want about whether Dhimmi means "protected citizen" or "second-class citizen", but one thing is clear - it does not mean "equal citizen".

Twenty-five years ago, American government employees were not allowed to talk to the Palestine Liberation Organization. I was lying by a hotel pool in Tunis one day when a friend who worked for the BBC thought he would do something "illegal" - introduce me to a Palestinian official who was also at the pool. The official was Yasser Arafat's Public Affairs Chief, and we talked for an hour. I've never forgotten one thing he said, "We will regain Israel and Jerusalem even if it takes until 2050. The simple reason is we will have more children than the Israelis."

And that is why the "Cohen Model of Dialogue" can work in America, but will never work in Israel. As long as Palestinians harbour the hope that Israel will once again be theirs, with them in control and the Jews a minority, there will be no peace. The Jews remember what happened to them in Medina 1400 years ago, and it will not happen again. And as long as Muslims in Egypt see the Copts as less than them in any way, there will be no reconciliation.

Perhaps young Palestinians today are different than the official I met 25 years ago at the pool in Tunis. And perhaps young Egyptian Muslims are different than their ancestors who would allow their Muslim son to marry a Copt (with the stipulation that the children be raised Muslim and she receive no inheritance if he died), but would never allow their Muslim daughter to marry a Coptic man. If these young people are indeed different, which would include the willingness to distance themselves from the historical Muhammad, there can be hope for peace.

Dishonesty!

2011-03-18T17:37:00.003-04:00

Loonwatch has said that I am dishonest. For those not following the story, I came to the defense of Al Mutarjim at Translating Jihad when Loonwatch pointed out his mistake of using a passive participle "that which is translated" rather than the active participle "the translator" for his screen name. I continued in his defense when Loonwatch criticized him for translating the word Nikah as "sex" and not as "marriage", noting that I thought the word meant both.

At the addendum of this recent posting, Loonwatch said the following about me:

SATV’s dishonesty can be gauged by his conciliatory comment on our site. He said, "I believe that much of your response to Translating-Jihad was also quite good. I won’t speak for him, but I agreed with much of your grammatical analysis. Where I disagree is your assumption that people critical of Islam deliberately mistranslate Arabic.

SATV takes, however, a completely opposite attitude on his blog. Would SATV like to be honest and state on his blog that he agrees with our grammatical analysis of Al-Mutarjim’s “translation”?

Also, note here the invocation of a “whenever” and “anybody” argument once again: “your assumption that people critical of Islam deliberately mistranslate Arabic“. Here, we are talking about one particular person and one particular site. Each stands on its own merits. Al-Mutarjim specifically and Translating-Jihad specifically are deliberately mistranslating and obfuscating Arabic. The evidence speaks for itself, and SATV’s refusal to admit this speaks to his own dishonesty."

I have carefully read Loonwatch's grammatical analysis of the Fatwa that caused this duststorm, and I can say that I agree with that analysis. I agree that the primary meaning of the word Nikah is marriage, and I agree that the Mufti who issued the Fatwa was not advocating sex with young girls. I also appreciate Loonwatch's stated position of opposing the Mufti's argument that engagement with young girls is allowable in the 21st century.

Call it a platform, an agenda, a modus operandi - everybody has one. Al Mutarjim stated his openly and clearly when he said, "I resolved to work to expose this darkness, in order to defend this country and its inhabitants, and also to open the eyes of those already enslaved by Islam."

With this stated agenda, it is only natural that Translating-Jihad would feature articles that represent, from his perspective, "this darkness". My question to Loonwatch is, Why are you leaving this responsibility to Al Mutarjim? Why is is Al Mutarjim, and not Loonwatch, who points out the glaring inconsistency between the Arabic and English al-Qassam Brigades website coverage of the slaughter of the family at Itamar? Why does Loonwatch not find these articles, translate them correctly rather than simply criticize the translations of Al Mutarjim, and then explain how they do not represent the religion Loonwatch purports to be the true Islam?

I've never stated my agenda, but it's quite obvious to anyone who has been reading SATV for awhile that I believe most Muslims follow the Prophet they wish had existed rather than the Muhammad who really did, that Islam has a tight grip on them, and I hold great admiration for those who have the courage to break away.

So, Loonwatch, have I been honest enough? If so, let's share a beer together.....or would it have to be a coke?

I Shall Not Hate by Dr. Izzaldin Abuelaish

2011-03-17T20:30:00.002-04:00

A few years ago at an anti-Israel seminar on the West Coast I almost caused a riot when I stated that Hamas could have peace with Israel the next day if it wanted to. The Palestinian moderator asked me if I had ever visited the West Bank or Gaza. When I replied I had not, he said I was in no position to judge if I did not know how his people were living.

Although I thought his was a foolish thing to say - after all, I've never heard anyone argue that a condition for criticizing the Iraq War is to have personally spent time in Baghdad - I took his advice seriously and determined to follow it at the next opportunity. I was working in Iraq at the time, so instead of returning to California as usual for my next vacation I traveled to Israel and spent some time exploring it and the West Bank (there was no way I could get into Gaza). It was a wonderful trip, and I wrote it all down. Following is my journal account of traveling overland from Jerusalem back to Amman at the end of the trip:

"When I caught the bus to Jerusalem from Ein Gedi the following morning, I knew it came close to the Allenby Bridge before turning left and passing Jericho on the way to Jerusalem, but because the bridge is in the West Bank and Israeli buses don't go there I assumed I needed to return to Jerusalem, go to the Palestinian bus station, and get a shuttle to the bridge. I also knew that all the guide books say you need to get a Jordanian visa at the Jordanian consulate in Tel Aviv to enter Jordan. For that reason I had specifically requested a visa at the airport in Amman that would get me back into the country from Israel. While leaving Jordan on the way to Israel, I had shown the visa to at least two officials to make sure I could get back into Jordan on that visa, and they assured me I could.

"When I got off the bus in Jerusalem, a taxi driver immediately offered to drive me to the Allenby Bridge for 100 dollars. When I told him I would just go to the bus station and take a shuttle (for 1/20th of the price) he gave me the predictable...you need reservations to get on those shuttles, they go through all the checkpoints and sometimes the Israelis don't let them go, etc. The bus driver was listening to this conversation and asked me, "Why you no tell me you want to go to Allenby Bridge? I drop you off at Jericho and you catch a local taxi, very easy." For some reason, knowing I didn't have a lot of time and having a couple hundred dollar bills left over in my pocket, I said to the taxi driver, 'OK, take me to the bridge.' As always, the conversation on the way there was in itself worth the price. I hadn't even known there were Kurdish Jews, but his father had come to Israel from Iraqi Kurdistan. He didn't speak much English and I don't speak Hebrew, but we got along in Arabic just fine. He told me about his kids, and his daughter who worked on the border police and her Ethiopian husband who also was a captain with the border police. He asked me if I had gotten the Jordanian visa in Tel Aviv, and I said I had gotten it in Amman before coming. He gave me a strange look and said, "Well....I don't want to say what you have to do, but I brought an American here last week and he did not have the visa and I had to take him to the border point way up north and he had to pay me a few hundred more dollars."

"We finally got to the checkpost at the Israeli side of the border, and a young female soldier came out to look at my passport. I showed her my Jordanian visa and she replied, "This is no good....where's the other one?" Suddenly I had the sinking realization that this particular location was not really part of Israel or Jordan but under a separate status. It wasn't the Jordanians who required the visa to get into Jordan; it was the Israelis who demanded it to get to the bridge and into official Jordanian territory. She gave me my passport and told me my visa was no good. It was exactly three o'clock, and as she handed me my passport she got her jacket and walked to her vehicle because it was the end of her shift. A new team was coming on, and the taxi driver said to me, "Uskut! La Tatakalam!" Shut up and don't say a word! So I uskutted, and the soldier on the new shift walked up to us. The taxi driver began speaking to him in Hebrew. "How are you doing....do you know my daughter so-and-so who is on the border police and her husband is Captain so-and-so? This poor stupid American didn't even know he had to get a visa and he has to go to Amman today....." Before I knew it, the barrier was lifted and we were on our way. When we got to the crossing, the driver asked me to give him some extra so he could give some Bakshish to the soldier who had let us through. I gave him a twenty; I'd be quite surprised if he actually gave it to the officer, but it was certainly worth it to me. If I'd taken the shuttle from Jerusalem as I'd planned, I might still be there."

The checkpost I crossed was the same one Dr. Izzaldin Abuelaish describes in his book I Shall Not Hate. If I as an American made it across a checkpost merely on the whim of the Israeli border guard, I can only imagine the frustration and humiliation Dr. Abuelaish experienced the thousands of times he crossed the border from Gaza into Israel.

Izzaldin, as far as I can tell, is one of those rare individuals who has always tried to do the right thing. He was born in poverty in a Gazan refugee camp, and the family farm his parents had evacuated is now the home of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Rather than dropping out of school, as his Palestinian classmates did like flies, Izzaldin determined to persevere, learning both English and Hebrew in the process. He became a doctor, the first Palestinian doctor to work at a prestigious Israeli hospital, and established deep friendships with his Jewish counterparts. His entire world came crashing down on January 16, 2009, when in the midst of Israel's war on Gaza two rocket shells tore into his house and blew the bodies of three of his daughters and a nephew into kingdom come.

But Dr. Abuelaish refuses to hate. He argues that Palestinians and Israelis can and must share a common future. He believes that leaders on both sides are entrenched in fear and hatred, but hope lies in a new generation of young people who desire peace more than conflict.

Do I agree with everything Dr. Abuelaish says? Not at all. Do I believe that he, along with Muslim reformers such as Tawfik Hamid about whom I write here, believes in the Prophet he wishes had existed rather than the Muhammad who really did? Yes, indeed. Do I think that his message of loving your enemies and praying for those who mistreat you sounds a whole lot more like Jesus than Muhammad? Again, a resounding Yes.

But the message of Dr. Abuelaish is powerful, and I urge you to read his book. If you are inclined to listen rather than read, you can watch a compelling interview here. And if you have an electronic book reader (much more important than your TV or microwave), you can simply type in the title of his book, click the purchase button, and you'll be starting the first chapter in less than 15 seconds. And it's less than half the price you'd pay in the bookstore!

Coexistence: How Egypt Can Succeed Where Muhammad and the Palestinians Failed

2011-03-15T16:20:00.010-04:00

In 623 AD the majority Jewish population of an Arabian settlement named Yathrib, now known as Medina, looked with probable benign interest at the arrival of an itinerant preacher named Muhammad bin Abdallah and a hundred or so of his followers from the town of Mecca 250 miles to the south. The Jews had lived in Yathrib for centuries, with a history that stretched back to their exile from Jerusalem after it was destroyed by the Roman Emperor Titus in 73 AD. They worked hard to make a living, and were known for their olive groves and their craftsmanship. They also maintained their faith, with rabbis teaching and guiding them from their Scriptures.

Harsh living conditions and wars in the Yemen to the South had forced Arab tribes such as the Khazraj to also wend their way to Yathrib in the generations before the arrival of the preacher. Uneducated and seeking employment, the Arabs worked for the Jews but the relationship was not always a good one. The Arabs often stole from the Jewish agricultural settlements, with the Jews threatening retaliation. At the same time, Arab women who had a high infant mortality rate sometimes gave their newborn infants to the Jewish women to be raised so the children could have a chance to live and grow.

When some members of the Khazraj tribe led by Abbas ibn Ubada (I've told the story here) met the preacher at a fair near Mecca, they realized that with his leadership they might be able to gain the upper hand over their Jewish rivals if he came to Yathrib. The preacher had been trying for 13 years to persuade any tribe to accept him as its leader, and saw this as his golden opportunity. He went to Yathrib anticipating that he would be able to persuade both the Jews and the Arabs to welcome him as a Prophet (I've told this story as a three-part series here and here and here). When the Jews rejected his message he turned against them. He and his army destroyed their olive groves, appropriated their property, and expelled them from the city. In a single day Muhammad slaughtered as many as 900 men and boys by beheading them and dumping their bodies into a mass communal trench.

Muhammad could have used his influence to develop a prosperous working relationship with the Jews, but he did not. Of utmost importance to him was that he be acknowledged as a prophet, and rather than cooperate with the rabbis he attacked them. Rather than unite the desert expertise of the Arabs with the industrial and agricultural skill of the Jews to develop trade caravans he could send to Damascus and Yemen, he found it easier to simply waylay the caravans of others. He could have coexisted with the Jews in peace and prosperity, but he failed.

Thirteen hundred years later in the middle of the 20th century, the Arabs of Palestine also faced a unique opportunity for prosperity and coexistence with the Jewish population of the newly-formed nation of Israel. Just as the Jews arrived from Europe to establish a homeland, many of the Arabs had migrated in the preceeding few generations from countries such as Yemen and Iraq to seek employment in Palestine. The Arabs were unwilling, however, to accept the new Waaqia Siyasi, or political reality. Leaders including Yasser Arafat and others amassed personal fortunes while promising their Palestinian followers that someday they would all gather together for As Salat fil Quds (prayers in Jerusalem). Sixty years later, the Palestinians languish by the millions in poverty and refugee camps scattered throughout Lebanon, Gaza, and the rest of the area. Rather than seek peace, many still live in hatred and dream of Intiqam (revenge). They could have worked it out, but they failed.

Following the 25 January Revolution, Egypt now faces the same opportunity for freedom, prosperity, and coexistence with its non-Muslim citizens that Muhammad encountered in Yathrib and the Palestinians faced in Israel. Under the influence of Muhammad, Egypt has been reluctant to allow Copts positions where they have authority over Muslims. Other than a few token Christian Ministers in the government and members of Parliament, few if any Copts are department heads - let alone directors - of Egyptian hospitals and universities. Copts are rarely, if ever, appointed judges where they administer justice to Muslims. Muslim women are not allowed to marry Coptic men, and it is inconceivable in today's Egypt to imagine a Coptic President.

Is it possible that Muslims in Egypt can break away enough from Muhammad, can leave him far enough behind, to really accept the Copts as equal in every way in their own country? Is it possible that every barrier preventing the Copts from advancing in every way can be removed in Egypt? Removing references to religion from Egypt's constitution will be a beginning, but only a beginning. Removing the prejudices placed by Muhammad in the hearts of his Egyptian followers will be a much greater challenge.

Muslims, Moses and the Raids of Muhammad

2011-03-08T21:29:00.015-05:00

I've often noted that one of the reasons it is difficult to talk with Muslims about Muhammad and Islam is that Muhammad and Islam are the last things they want to talk about. Ask a Muslim a question about Muhammad, and he'll ask you a question about Moses!

True to form, Loonwatch introduced an announced series on Jihad by talking about - guess who - Moses. Following a detailed analysis of his wars, Loonwatch said they would continue with a discussion of the wars of Muhammad. I'm looking forward to that, and wonder which approach they will take.

Will it be the classic "Stages of Jihad" approach taught by Muslim scholars such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi? He states that Jihad was revealed to Muhammad in three stages. When Muslims first faced opposition in Mecca, Allah's instructions were to be patient, pray, and not retaliate (Quran 4: 77). After the first Muslims migrated to Medina, permission to fight was given to "those who were fought against" (Quran 22:39). In the final stage, Muhammad was ordered to fight the unbelievers until there was no more Fitnah (Quran 2:193), defined by Qaradawi as persecution or oppression of the believers, and until Allah alone was worshipped (Quran 8:39). If Loonwatch takes that approach, it will be interesting to read their explanation of how Usama bin Ladin is wrong for believing that same war is continuing today.

Or will Loonwatch choose the rose-tinted glasses approach of Reza Aslan, who in No god but God describes Muhammad's practice of robbing trade caravans as follows, "Just to make sure the Quraysh got Muhammad's message challenging Mecca's religious and economic hegemony over the Peninsula, he sent his followers out into the desert to take part in the time-honored Arab tradition of caravan raiding. In pre-Islamic Arabia, caravan raiding was a legitimate means for small clans to benefit from the wealth of larger ones. It was in no way considered stealing, and as long as no violence occurred and no blood was shed, there was no need for retribution. The raiding party would quickly descend on a caravan - usually at its rear - and carry off whatever they could get their hands on before being discovered. These periodic raids were certainly a nuisance for the caravan leaders, but in general they were considered part of the innate hazards of transporting large amounts of goods through a vast and unprotected desert."

So robbing caravans carrying the foodstuffs entire Arab tribes depended upon for survival was just a matter of boys will be boys, like university students on spring break in Daytona? Tell that to Amr bin al-Hadrami. He was leading a trade caravan carrying dry raisins, leather, and other goods when Muhammad's marauders decided to attack. Historian Ibn Ishaq records that the Muslims determined to kill as many caravan personnel as possible before making off with the booty. Amr was killed with an arrow, the others were taken prisoner and later released for ransom, and Muhammad was given one-fifth of all the stolen merchandise.

Perhaps Loonwatch will adopt the argument of Tariq Ramadan, who justifies the raids in his book The Footsteps of the Prophet by saying they were to take back the equivalent of the properties in Mecca that were expropriated from the Muslims who migrated to Medina with Muhammad. I like this! So if someone from Philadelphia steals my car, I can just go to Philadelphia and steal someone's car in retaliation? I wonder how far that would get me in court! But even more serious is the fact that Tariq's claim is without any historical documentation. It is important to understand that there are only a few extant writings of the early history of Islam. Their well-known authors include Ibn Hisham, Ibn Ishaq, Al-Wakidi, Ibn Sa'd, and al-Tabari. Apart from that, there is nothing. If what Tariq said was true, it would have been recorded by these early historians, but there is nothing there. It is easy for Tariq to claim to unknowing and gullible Westerners that the properties and belongings of the immigrants were stolen after their departure, but it is only his speculation, his attempt to justify Muhammad's raids.

Perhaps Loonwatch will take the even more fanciful approach of author Muhammad Haykal in his book The Life of Muhammad. Haykal argues that the raids were really intended to make peace with the Quraysh and other enemies of Muhammad. The Muslims had to show themselves strong, according to Haykal, to entice the other tribes to seek peace with them.

Behind all these justifications is the claim that Muhammad's raids were somehow a form of self-defense. It is impossible to read them in the original Islamic source documents - not the apologies written by Aslan and Ramadan and others 14 centuries later - and conclude they were in any way undertaken in self-defense. Page after page of the original biographies read like this, "And after three months in Medina, the Prophet sent out his army against this or that tribe." These raids were aggressive acts of war to gain wealth and power.

The camel caravans were the economic life-line for the Arab tribes in Muhammad's day. The goods that were bought and sold in destinations such as Damascus provided the foodstuffs and supplies that enabled the Arabs to live. When Muhammad moved to Medina, he could have developed his own caravans, but found it easier to simply rob the caravans of others. It will be interesting to see how Loonwatch handles that.

Missing the Forest for the Trees

2011-03-07T21:57:00.092-05:00

Following my recent post on defending Muhammad, an editor at Loonwatch correctly pointed out a mistake I made in transcribing an Arabic sentence. Instead of the correct, "I ask forgiveness from God," I had rendered it as "May God forgive me." I appreciate the editor's correction.

But I wonder if he missed something. The point of the story I was telling was that a Christian friend had shouted out loud, "God you suck!" and did not fear God's retribution because her relationship with him is based on love. A Muslim woman, I suggested, would never dare shout openly, "Allah you suck!" because her relationship with her Deity is fear-based. Throwing in the Arabic phrase as I did was simply for fun; it added nothing but a little spice to the story. And like a cougar pouncing on its prey, the editor leaped at my mistake and completely missed the point of the story.

It wasn't the first time. In two recent posts, available here and here, I noted that the Quran, believed my Muslims to be perfect in every way, contains at least one if not several apparent grammatical mistakes in Quran 5:56. I noted, as I describe in detail here, that Muhammad thought the structures carved from the rocks at Madayn Saleh were houses built by the Thamudians when in fact they were tombs built by the Nebateans. I suggested that the Quran's explanation of fetal development is unscientific, and asked Muslims how Muhammad's "marriage" to Safiya (discussed at length here in my review of a book by Omid Safi) can be considered anything other than rape.

Responses from Muslim readers were predictable. I was insulting the Prophet, said some, while others condemned my alleging the Quran contains mistakes. Others thought I was ignoring the issue of whether Translating-Jihad had mistranslated the Arabic word Nikah. But no-one even tried to answer my questions.

Speaking of Nikah, Translating-Jihad initially translated the word as meaning Sexual Intercourse, and Loonwatch replied that it means Marriage. Although I don't have a pony in this race, I would simply suggest it means both. Correct me if I'm wrong but in Muhammad's time there were only two kinds of sex, Nikah which was sex within marriage that was Halal (permitted), and Zina or sex outside of marriage that was Haram (prohibited).

When Translating-Jihad says that Nikah means sexual intercourse, and Loonwatch replies that it means marriage, they are both correct. The Aqd Al Nikah is the Marriage Contract - give one point to Loonwatch. On the other hand incest in Arabic is known as Al Nikah Al Maharim, or illegal sexual activity within the family - give one point to Translating-Jihad.

Of much more significance to me is that marriage in Islam equals the permission to have sex. When the Prophet allowed his warriors to "marry" female captives of war, he was allowing them to have sex with them. It granted sexual gratification to soldiers far from their homes, and had nothing to do with love, faithfulness, or mutual respect.

Marriage is viewed much differently in Christian and Muslim societies. Christians view marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman in which they both vow faithfulness to each other for the rest of their lives. Marriage in Islam is not a covenant but a contract, the Aqd Al Nikah, which allows a man to have sex with a woman. As far as the legal aspect is concerned, it's not that much different than purchasing a camel. Just as he can purchase a second or third camel without informing the first, he can yuzawwij alayha, or marry a second wife without even informing the first, much less receiving her permission. Just as a man beats a disobedient camel, the Quran commands him to beat a recalcitrant wife. And just as a man can sell his camel anytime he wants to purchase a better one, all he has to do is pronounce his wife Mutalaqa three times and she is divorced. Shaykhs have even recently issued Fatwas that this can take place on Facebook and as text messages on mobile phones.

Loonwatch's argument with Translating-Jihad also included whether sex with young girls (call it marriage if you will) was encouraged or discouraged within Islam. Again that seems to be missing the point. The problem is not that it is encouraged or discouraged, but simply that it is allowed. The reason it is allowed is that Muhammad did it.

The question to be asked is, "Is sexual intercourse between a 50-year old man and a nine-year-old child ever justified, in any circumstance?" My answer is "No", Muhammad nonwithstanding. The second question is, "Is a man ever justified in beating his wife, in any circumstance?" My answer again is a firm "No", the Quran nonwithstanding.

Article Two of Egypt's Constitution

2011-03-05T14:35:00.010-05:00

A raging debate, which unfortunately seems far beneath the radar screen of the short attention span of the Western media, is currently taking place in post-Mubarak Egypt about what kind of country Egypt will become. At the heart of the debate are 13 short Arabic words that make up Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution.

Egypt's first modern Constitution was written in 1923, soon after Egypt achieved independence from the British. The Constitution was significantly changed with the overthrow of the monarchy in 1953, and has been modified several times since. The current Constitution, available in English  here, contains 211 short Articles all of which are subject to amendment.

Article 2 reads as follows:  Islam is the Religion of the State, Arabic is its official language, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia).

This article did not always read this way. It did not appear at all in pre-modern constitutions before 1923, and even then only stated that "the religion of the state is Islam and its language is Arabic". In 1971 Anwar Sadat added the clause, "Islam is a source of legislation," and President Mubarak in 1981 changed it to its present form as the principle source.

The reason President Sadat added the additional clause to Article 2 is a fascinating story. The present Article 77 states, "The term of the presidency shall be six Gregorian years starting from the date of the announcement of result of the plebiscite. The President of the Republic may be re-elected for other successive terms."

Article 77 did not always read that way, but originally limited a President to two terms. Anwar Sadat wanted more, and struck a deal with the Muslim Brotherhood to amend Article 77 in exchange for the additional Sharia clause in Article 2.

Soon afterwards Sadat began giving public speeches wearing the traditional gelebiya, calling himself Ar Rayyis Al Mumin (the Believing President), and reminding Egyptians that An Nabi wal Khulafa Ar Rashidun (Muhammad and his four immediate successor) had all been Rulers for Life. Although the   Brotherhood recognized this as a farce and did not for a second believe Sadat was one of the Awliya As Saliheen, or faithful Muslims, they accepted his political stunt because they got Article 2.

When Sadat was assassinated and Mubarak realized the Brotherhood posed a threat to him as well, he further placated them by again amending Article 2 to read that Sharia would be the main source of Egyptian law.

Much of the above information was given by Coptic writer and political observer Naji Youssef during this Arabic interview with host Rashid. Naji advocates removing Article 2 in its entirely.

"The problem with Article 2," he said, "Is that when it states that Sharia is the main source for legislation, there is no room for Ijtihad (independent thought), Tafsir (critical analysis) or Muarada (opposition). To oppose it is to oppose Allah and his Sharia, which is not allowed in Islam."

"The basic definition of a Dawlah Medaniyah (civil state)," continued Naji, "Is a state ruled by law not based on religion. Law must be firm and clear, reflecting the needs of the people and applied to everyone irrespective of their religion or beliefs. This is not a political clash between Muslims and Christians with Muslims wanting Article 2 and Christians demanding its removal, but is important to everyone because we are all citizens of one country."

"Some people," added Naji, "Believe that if we oppose Article 2 we are doing something against Islam. This is not the case, and I am convinced that Muslim intellectuals who were not thinking merely from the religious perspective understood the danger of this Article from the very first day."

When asked if Article 2 guaranteed the rights of all of Egypt's citizens, Naji replied, "It does not guarantee human rights for any Egyptian citizen, not just the Copts. If you claim that Sharia is the main source for Egyptian law, what Sharia are you talking about? Are you talking about the Sharia of the Sunnis, or the Shia, or the Christians, or others?"

Rashid quickly retorted that "Christian law" certainly would have no place in Egypt's constitution, but acknowledged Naji's point that there were different interpretations of Islamic law. Naji then said, "If you tell me, as an Egyptian Christian, that the principles of Sharia form the basis of law I want to know what you are talking about. At the very outset, Muslims should agree on these principles if they want to say they are the source of law. If they cannot agree among themselves what Sharia is, how can they say it is the basis for Egyptian law? As a Christian citizen, I should not have to study Islamic law to know how Egypt's law apply to me."

"What does Article 2 mean," Naji continued, "When it says Islam is the religion of the state? The state is made up of institutions and interests. Can I say that Islam is the religion of the Ministry of the Interior, Islam is the religion of the Ministry of Agriculture, or Islam is the religion of the Egyptian Military? What do they mean when they say the religion of the state is Islam?"

"This does not only apply to Christians," added Naji, "But to Muslims as well. Where is the place for a Muslim who does not agree with another Muslim's interpretation of Sharia?"

"The Quran-only Muslims," noted Rashid, "Do not believe in the Hadith or the Sunnah (the sayings and life practices of Muhammad), but claim to be true Muslims. Sharia to them is not the same as for the Salafists, which in turn differs from the Sharia of the Muslim Brotherhood. And all of them are different from the Sharia of the Sufis!"

"That is why I am arguing," replied Naji, "Not from the standpoint of a Muslim or a Christian or an atheist or anyone else but as an Egyptian citizen. I am saying we need civil law that is not based on religion, and treats everyone exactly the same way."

"When I stand in front of the judge," continued Naji, "It should make no difference what his religion is or mine. The same law should apply to all. As it stands, if I am a Shia wanting a ruling about Zawaj Mutaa (temporary marriage), I will seek out a Shia judge because Sunni Islam does not recognize temporary marriage. When you tell me that the religion of the state is Islam, I feel that as a Christian I am not a part of this state."

"Should religion be mentioned at all in the Constitution?" asked Rashid. "The state is made up of Muslims, Christians, Bahais, atheists, rationalists and agnostics. They all need to be able to stand equally in front of the law."

"There is absolutely no need," replied Naji, "To mention religion in the Constitution. I want to repeat that this is not intended as an attack against Islam. I remind you again that this phrase was originally included in Article 2 for the political purposes of Presidents Sadat and Mubarak, not to serve the society. When you insert a clause in the Constitution merely to achieve your own political interests, knowing that others will exploit it for their religious interests, you have not served your people."

"Shaykhs are now describing this as the line in the sand," continued Naji. "They are accusing us of trying to remove the law of God from the Constitution. They know that the easiest way to inflame the passions of uneducated people is to claim that we are trying to remove Islam from the Constitution. As soon as you say, "This is against Islam," people stop thinking."

Comments:

1. Recent media reports such as this in the New York Times note that Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi is also calling for a Dawlah Medaniyah, or civil government, in Egypt. Are Yusuf Qaradawi and Naji Youssef advocating the same thing? The more I follow unfolding events in the Middle East and North Africa the more I realize how critical definitions are, particularly in the realm of religion and politics. As noted above, the word Sharia has different meanings even to different groups of Muslims. The term Dawlah Medaniyah is the same. It is extremely important to know whether a "civil government" means the same to Dr. Qaradawi as it does to Naji Youssef. I strongly suspect it does not.

2. Dr. Qaradawi warned Egyptians in his Tahrir Square sermon, "Do not let the enemies of Islam take this revolution from you." But who are the enemies of Islam? In an incredibly vitriolic sermon only available in Arabic, Shaykh Mohamed Hassan recently described any Egyptian who would want to change "even a single letter" of Article 2 of Egypt's Constitution as an "enemy of Allah and of Islam". Are Shaykhs Qaradawi and Hassan on the same page, or poles apart?

3. "As soon as (a Muslim apologist) says, 'This is against Islam,'" said Naji, "People stop thinking." Unfortunately, this is as true in America as it is in Egypt. Muslims here have even come up with a name for it. They call it Islamophobia.

Loonwatch and Defending Muhammad

2011-03-03T19:19:00.004-05:00

Many websites dedicate themselves to the defense of Islam, a religion that seems to continually require defending. One site I've recently come across, Loonwatch, does this by attacking critics of Islam. Their title says it all; if you don't see things the way we do, you are crazy, incompetent, and a loon.

I've often thought that Muslims have a love-hate relationship with their Prophet and his Deity. It's like a relationship with someone who accepts no criticism, who always tries to make you feel that every problem in the relationship is your fault. Unable to criticize Muhammad, or even verbalize or discuss doubts and questions they might have about him, Muslims are forced to attack those who do.

I recently attended a church-related class taught by a woman who is a serious Christian. She related that during a moment of frustration the day before had she shouted out, "God, you suck!"

"Immediately," she continued, "I felt as if God responded to me, 'Good for you! I'm proud of you. You've finally reached the point where you tell me honestly how you feel!'"

A Muslimah reading the above would be shocked. "Astaghfir Allah, may God forgive me!" she would say. She would never dare even think, much less say, such a thing.

One of the most amazing suras of the Quran that emphasizes the dysfunctional relationship between Muhammad and his followers is Al Tahrim (Quran 66). I've told the story here, and won't repeat it again except to say that Muslim apologists in the West love to say Muhammad was upset with his wife Hafsah because she told Ayesha he had bad breath from eating honey. It was in Riyadh, where Muslims are much less concerned with presenting a white-washed version of the Prophet's life than their Western counterparts, that I learned the true story. At any rate, whether the issue was honey or Muhammad sleeping with Mary the Copt in Hafsah's own bedroom, the result was the same. Rather than accept any responsibility for his behavior he put all the blame on his young wives (Ayesha was still a teenager and Hafsah in her early twenties), threatening to divorce them and using his trump card that Allah would be really angry at them if they ever did this again. It is always the fault of the Muslim or the Muslimah, never the fault of the Prophet.

I was once in a group discussion where an associate I'll call Mansour was explaining to us the "true meaning" of Jihad. He gave us the usual line of how it means a peaceful struggle to achieve spirituality, and repeated the weak Hadith, so often used in the West, of Muhammad telling his warriors they had finished the lesser Jihad of battle to dedicate themselves to the greater Jihad of spirituality.

Mansour had no idea I knew the difference between a Sufi and a sunflower seed, and when he was finished I told him I'd never heard an Arabic-speaking Shaykh in the Middle East even mention that Hadith, because it was not authentic. I reminded him there are entire chapters of the authentic Hadith collections entitled Jihad and they refer without exception to the primary meaning of the word, which is effort put forward for the strengthening and conquest of Islam.

After the discussion was over, another Arabic-speaking colleague said to me, "Don't you know that Mansour was upset by what you said today? Why do you ask him those hard questions? Why don't you just let him be a happy Muslim!"

And so I say to the writers and readers of Loonwatch, "Baraka Allah fikum, wa uwafiq-kum fi Nasr Rasul Allah wal-Deen". May God bless you, and grant you success as you strive to achieve victory for the Prophet of Allah and his Religion. And may you continue to be happy, happy Muslims!"

Egypt at the Crossroads

2011-02-27T19:39:00.010-05:00

Muslim apologists including Shaykh Yusuf Al Qaradawi often allege that the Copts of Egypt welcomed the invasion of Muslim Commander Amr Ibn Al Aas in 639 AD or 17 AH (Islam's calendar begins with Muhammad's Hijrah from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD). The fact that Amr could conquer Egypt with an army of only 4,000 men, said the Shaykh on a recent Shariah and Life interview, indicates that he was welcomed by its Christian population.

As with Muslim apologists across the board, Dr. Qaradawi is misleading and deceptive even when he is partially correct. The reality is that some Egyptian Christians initially welcomed the Muslim invaders. Far from a cakewalk, Amr completed his conquest of Egypt only after many months of bitter warfare with a reinforced army three times its original size.

The Copts at the time of Amr's invasion were not a free people. Their country had been torn apart by an ongoing struggle between two great external powers, the Byzantines and the Sassanids, both eager to exploit Egypt's agricultural wealth as well as protect their kingdoms from enemies who could penetrate Egypt's southern border. The Byzantines were Christian as were the Copts, but theological differences caused bitter rivalry between the two groups and as I discuss here the Christian church has not always dealt with dissension in a Christlike way.

Although Egypt's Christians welcomed the forced expulsion of the Byzantines, they did not equally welcome their new conquerors and as the Muslims forced their way south they met with increased and stronger resistance. The warriors of the southern Christian kingdom of Nubia were skilled archers, with the Muslim commander Uqba bin Nafe initially forced to retreat after Nubian arrows took out the eyes of hundreds of his soldiers.

It did not take the Copts long to realize one oppressive system had replaced another, and they were trapped between a rock and a very hard place. The only remaining history of the entry of Noor Ad-Deen (the light of Islam) to Egypt from their perspective was written by John of Nikiu, a Coptic bishop who in 696 AD was appointed head of the monasteries in the Nile Delta (comment: the Nile river splits near Cairo and forms a triangle as it proceeds north to the Mediterranean Sea. The fertile soil within this triangle is known as the Nile Delta).

I find it interesting that Muslims consider the first two generations of Islam, the Sahaba and Tabieen (the Companions of Muhammad and their Followers) the closest period to heaven on earth ever known to man. But hearing Yusuf Qaradawi explain the life of Egypt's Copts during that time is like hearing a 19th century Georgia plantation owner describe the wonderful life of his slaves. A much more realistic picture will be gained by listening to the slaves themselves, and the only way to understand the fate of the Copts is to listen to their story.

How did Bishop John describe life under Muslim rule? Only fragments of his book remain, available here. His fascinating account of the 639 AD Muslim invasion begins with chapter 111 (CXI), and I will quote a few verses beginning with chapter 120:

120-34. Amr subdued the land of Egypt and sent his men to war against the inhabitants of Pentapolis. After he had subdued them, he did not permit them to dwell there. He took from thence plunder and captives in abundance.

120-36. The patriarch Cyrus was greatly grieved on account of the calamities which had befallen the land of Egypt. Amr had no mercy on the Egyptians, and did not observe the covenant they had made with him, for he was of a barbaric race.

120-69. The general Valentine and his troops were not able to give any assistance to the Egyptians; but the latter, and particularly the Alexandrians, were very hard pressed by the Moslem. And they were not able to bear the tribute which was exacted from them.

121-1. The Coptic Patriarch Benjamin returned to the city of Alexandria in the thirteenth year after his flight from the Romans, and he went to the Churches, and inspected all of them. 2. Every one said : 'This expulsion (of the Romans) and victory of the Moslem is due to the wickedness of the emperor Heraclius and his persecution of the Orthodox through the patriarch Cyrus. This was the cause of the ruin of the Romans and the subjugation of Egypt by the Moslem.

121-3: Amr became stronger every day in every field of his activity. He exacted the taxes which had been determined, but he took none of the property of the Churches, and he committed no act of spoliation or plunder, and he preserved them throughout all his days. When he seized the city of Alexandria, he had the canal drained in accordance with the instructions given by the apostate Theodore. 4. He increased the taxes to the extent of twenty-two batr of gold till all the people hid themselves owing to the greatness of the tribulation, and could not find the wherewithal to pay.

121-10. Many of the Egyptians who had been false Christians denied the holy orthodox faith and lifegiving baptism, and embraced the religion of the Moslem, the enemies of God, and accepted the detestable doctrine of the beast Mohammed. They erred together with those idolaters, and took arms in their hands and fought against the Christians. 11. One of them, named John the Chalcedonian of the Convent of Sinai, embraced the faith of Islam, and quitting his monk's habit took up the sword, and persecuted the Christians who were faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ.

122-1. Let us glorify our Lord Jesus Christ and bless His holy name at all times; for unto this hour He hath preserved us Christians from the errors of the erring heathen, and from the transgressions of the apostate heretics. 2. And may He also strengthen and help us to endure tribulation through hope in His divinity. And He will make us worthy to receive, with a face not put to shame, the inheritance of His eternal (and) incorruptible Kingdom in heaven. And (let us bless) His Father, (pre-eminently) good, and the Holy Lifegiving Spirit for ever and ever, Amen.

As Egyptian Christians rejoiced to see the departure of the Byzantines 1300 years ago, they celebrated the departure of Husni Mubarak on Tahrir Square this month. But will they again find themselves between the hammer and the anvil as they did then, or has anything changed?

A few years ago at the American University in Cairo on Tahrir Square, I heard Saad Eddin Ibrahim give an impassioned appeal for a Egypt and an Islam led by enlightened Muslim liberals. As I looked around the hall and saw the hundred or so elderly, English-speaking, Western-educated, European-dressed Egyptians who had turned out for his speech I thought, "He must be dreaming." I couldn't help but compare that audience with the thousands of young hijab-clad (hip-hugging long black skirts nevertheless) Egyptian girls and young Egyptian men I saw packed into the metro every morning. No, it's not going to be Dr. Ibrahim's version of enlightened Western-educated Muslim liberals who will lead the new Egypt. I'm just not yet sure who it will be. I've always considered myself an optimist, but my fear is that in Egypt things might get much worse before they get better. And I'm particularly concerned for Egypt's Copts.

Loonwatch vs. Translating Jihad - Part Two

2011-02-25T19:15:00.004-05:00

In defending himself against critics, the Apostle Paul regretted in 2 Corinthians chapters eleven and twelve that his enemies forced him to adopt the same methods they used to attack him. "Since you are boasting about how much you have accomplished and how great you are," he said in essence, "Let me do the same thing."

Similarly in defense against a critic who points out a mistake, one is at times obliged to note that the critic makes the same type of mistake. Loonwatch recently went to great lengths to "expose" an innocent grammatical mistake committed by Arabic translator Al Mutarjim, but the writing of Loonwatch itself leaves much to be desired. At one point Loonwatch wrote:

Just imagine if a Chinese immigrant applied to be a fifth grade English teacher in Texas and if he stated that “I was official translated at other school I work for.” Immediately the employer would know that this applicant has very poor English and would not be appropriate for the position of English teacher.

I find it curious that a writer who just spent pages and pages criticizing an American who mistakenly chose an Arabic passive participle instead of the active participle for his screen name has no understanding of the use of the subjunctive case in English grammar. The subjunctive is used in "contrary to fact" sentences, or "what if" sentences. As soon as the writer began with "Just imagine if a Chinese immigrant applied...." he put his sentence into the "what if" category. The English rule of maintaining case is to continue using that case as long as the writer continues in the "what if" scenario. English uses past tense verbs in the subjunctive tense so that instead of "has very poor English", as Loonwatch wrote, it should be "had very poor English".

Loonwatch is also unaware of the difference between direct and indirect discourse. The same paragraph read, "....and if he stated that "I was official...." Loonwatch had the choice of either using indirect discourse with the word "that", or direct discourse with quotation marks in the first person, but he couldn't do both. In other words, the sentence could correctly read ..and if he stated that he was (indirect discourse). It could also read...and if he stated, "I was..." (direct discourse) But you can't have both.

While we're at it, Loonwatch does not even know how to use the simple English article. He can either write "for the position of an English teacher" or "for the position of the English teacher", but he can't just leave it out.

A correct (although still not very-well written) paragraph would have read:

Just imagine if a Chinese immigrant applied to be a fifth grade English teacher in Texas and if he stated, “I was official translated at other school I work for.” Immediately the employer would know that this applicant had very poor English and would not be appropriate for the position of the English teacher.

So a writer who does not understand the use of the subjunctive case, has no awareness of the difference between direct and indirect discourse, and cannot even correctly use a simple English article criticizes an Arabic translator who mispronounced a single vowel in his screen name. Brilliant!

I am sure that Loonwatch would assure us that he understood English grammar perfectly well, but was just writing bil-ajalah (hastily). Haram alaykum Loonwatch! Have you no shame?

Loonwatch also states that students of Arabic learn the difference between Al Murtajim and Al Murtajam in Arabic 101, and proves this by showing a vocabulary list containing the word Al Murtajim "the translator". Loonwatch is being deceptive and misleading. The student might learn that particular vocabulary item in the first semester, but will not be taught the intricacy of the difference between an active and a passive participle in the derived verb measures until much later. Ayb alaykum Loonwatch! Shame on you!

American students, on the other hand, do learn how to use the definite and indefinite article in English in first grade, and the difference in direct and indirect discourse as well as the correct use of the subjunctive tense not much later. I wonder where Loonwatch was during those classes? Maybe his mind was wandering and he was thinking about his Hot Mama. Perhaps a friend just told him he looked like his mother, and he remembered his Prophet had stated a child would resemble the parent who first achieved orgasm in intercourse!

Hopefully Loonwatch is more proficient with Arabic grammar than he is with English. If so, I look forward to his grammatical explanation of the mistakes in ayah 56 of surat Al A'raf. Why is the ta in rahmat an open ta and not a ta marbutah as it should be? Why does qarib have tanween in the nominative case, rather than the accusative case as it should with an open ta? And if rahmat is being used as an adjective in the feminine gender, why is qarib masculine?

Loonwatch could scurry to find online sources that provide an explanation, but I can assure him none of them will be satisfactory. As is always the case, Muslims will do anything to avoid the issue. Rather than honestly answer my question, Loonwatch will probably pour over my blog to find something to attack me. After all, that's what he did with Al Mutarjim.

Loonwatch vs. Translating Jihad - Part One

2011-02-24T20:44:00.006-05:00

A number of years ago reading Foreign Policy Magazine, I came across a scathing review by a Muslim Arabic-speaking professor of a State Department diplomat who had delivered a lecture in Arabic. The criticism was not directed at the ideology of the diplomat, nor the content of his lecture. What aroused the ire of the professor was that the speaker had mispronounced an Arabic word; he had pronounced it with a fatha (the short "a" vowel), when it should have been a kesra (the short "i" vowel). "What could he possibly have to say of value," fulminated the professor, "When he cannot even speak Arabic properly?"

It takes a lot to shock me, but I remember being astounded by the emotional immaturity and intellectual dishonesty of that professor. He was totally unable to grasp the import of the diplomat's lecture because he could not get beyond the fact that he had mispronounced a word in Arabic.

I had forgotten the incident until I noticed today that the website loonwatch did the same with Translating Jihad, whose author calls himself Al Mutarjim (the translator). When he first began the website, he made the grammatical mistake of calling himself Al Mutarjam (that which is translated). Ironically, he made the same mistake as the diplomat by using a fatha when he should have used a kesra. And just as the professor in his immaturity was unable to see beyond that mistake, loonwatch is the same.

I find it interesting that the mistake Al Mutarjim made is the same one Arabic speakers make all the time. Since words are usually unvowelled in Arabic, the words Al Mutarjim and Al Mutarjam in the Arabic press look exactly the same, AL-MTRJM. I can't tell you how many times I have been listening to an Arabic lecture or interview and heard the speaker self-correct as in, "wal-mutarjam la la, al-mutarjim" - "and the Mutarjam...no, I meant to say the Mutarjim."

After spending pages attacking Al Mutarjim, loonwatch then mocked the fact that after he recognized his grammatical faux pas he went back and corrected it. Hello? Is anybody home? That is what makes America great. When we make mistakes we correct them.

And that is the very thing Muslims are not allowed to do - recognize mistakes and self-correct. Muslims are the only people in the entire world who live in voluntary enslavement, unable to criticize their Prophet, his book, or their religion. Ask a Saudi archaeologist why the Quran describes the dwellings carved in the rocks at Madayn Salah as houses built by the Thamudians when he knows they were tombs dug out by the Natabeans, and sense his discomfort. Ask an Indonesian embryologist why the Quran describes the fetus as an initial skeleton when her sonogram informs her that is not true, and watch her response. Ask an Islamic scholar why Muhammad promised heavenly rewards to those who killed geckos with one strong blow, and listen to him try to explain. Ask a doctor if it is true that you don't need to worry about insects dropping in your soup, because "one wing carries the illness, but the other carries the cure".

And if you are an intelligent young 17 year old Muslim girl, ask yourself if you could imagine yourself falling in love with the 62 year old man who had exiled your family from their home, beheaded your father and brother on the same day, tortured and beheaded your husband, and then raped you that night? Then ask yourself how you could possibly believe that about Muhammad's wife Safiya.

These are hard questions Muslims don't even allow themselves to think about, much less discuss. It's much easier to just kill the messenger. Or, in this case, attack Al Mutarjim.

A Family United

2011-02-22T20:24:00.006-05:00

Many Muslims who leave Muhammad behind leave their families behind as well. Khaled was an unusual exception in that his wife Rena chose to remain with him after he left Islam, and eventually joined him in crossing the bridge to a new life. Their story was given in Arabic here. I would like to repeat it, and then add a few comments.

Khaled introduced himself as originally from the Shemer tribe in northern Saudi Arabia although he was born and raised in Jeddah. As a youth he was a serious Muslim, memorizing over 20 suras of the Quran and regularly practicing the Arkan Al Islam (the pillars of daily Salat or prayer, Sawm or fasting the month of Ramadan, giving Zakat or charity, and fulfilling the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca).

Rena is from a Sunni Muslim family in Damascus, and was the first woman in her family to wear the hair covering of the Hijab. After hearing a well-known Shaykh say that even his place in Jannah or heaven was not guaranteed, Rena wondered what chance she had and decided that wearing the veil might help gain Allah's approval.

When host Rashid asked the obvious question of how a Saudi man and a Syrian woman had came together Khaled replied he and his first wife, a Saudi woman, had divorced. Syrian women were known for their beauty and compatability, many of his friends and relatives were happily married to Syrians, and he decided to try his luck. Saudi men must receive a special license to marry an Ajnabiya, or foreign woman, but one of Khaled's friends knew the Emir who could grant the required permission. Armed with permission to marry a woman from As Sham, or Syria, Khaled made the trip. Rena, for her part, wanted a husband who was as serious a Muslim as she was. When she learned that Khaled not only prayed regularly but worked in Jeddah, she decided that someone who lived only a few miles from Mecca's Kabah was as close to Allah as one could get and gladly married him.

The couple spent a three-month honeymoon in America, and during that time met a lawyer who suggested they migrate to the United States. Although they did not take his proposal seriously and returned to Saudi Arabia, they made several more visits to America and deepened their friendship with the lawyer. He began to talk to them about his Mormon faith, but Rena was unimpressed. "How could they believe," she asked, "In a God that ate and drank and had lived as a human being?" She visited his church, but to show her contempt tore off a long strip of toilet paper in the restroom, wrote all her questions on it, and took them to their friend.

"Toilet paper?" asked an astonished Rashid. "Why would you use that?"

"I'm embarrassed to admit I did that," replied Rena. "It was just to show him that I was superior to him. I was raised to believe we Muslims were the best people raised up for mankind (Quran 3:11). In Saudi Arabia I had begun to wear the Niqab and I even wore it in America. When we flew from Jeddah to the States, I was the only woman on the entire plane who did not remove her Abaya during the flight.

"When I handed him the strip of toilet paper and told him these were my questions," continued Rena, "I was sure he would be shocked. But I was the one to be shocked when he just smiled and said, "I hope I have the answers." They then sent missionaries to our house to try to convince us, but I refused their message."

"Why would you go with him to church in the first place?" asked Rashid.

"I was curious," replied Khaled. "I had never been to a church. There are churches in Syria, and Rena had attended the Christian weddings of her friends. But there are no churches in Saudi Arabia. I had no interest in what they believed, but was curious to see the inside of a church.

"After I returned to Saudia Arabia," continued Khaled. "I had a dream in which Jesus appeared to me. I knew immediately that he was God."

"Just like that?" asked an astonished Rashid. "You had never read the Bible or anything?"

"The only thing that had happened," replied Khaled. "Was that in America my friends had asked me to pray about whether Mormonism was true. When I next performed my prayers, I asked God to show me the truth and protect me from error. Nothing happened, except that after I returned to Saudi Arabia I had this dream and thought God was telling me to read the Bible. It is impossible to obtain the Bible in Saudi Arabia, but I found it online. Since I was interested in Jesus, I began to read the New Testament."

"My response," interrupted Rena, "Was to tell him the Bible was Muharraf (corrupted), as we learned in Islam. He insisted on reading it, and to my amazement when he reached the crucifixion of Jesus he began to cry. "Why are you crying?" I asked him, "That is just a fairy tale."

When Rashid asked Khaled why he was crying, he had a simple response. "Can anyone read the story of the crucifixion and not weep? I was the one who should have been on that cross, not him. He gave his life for me."

"You understood that?" asked a surprised Rashid. "And you knew nothing of Christianity?"

"I understood it from the first instant," replied Khaled. "I realized that he had the option not to die, but he choose to die for me."

"And I was laughing at him," interrupted Rena. "I didn't believe a word of it."

"As I continued reading in the New Testament," contined Khaled, "I saw references to people with names like Daniel and Isaiah. I didn't know anything about them, so began reading the Old Testament. I am a scientist, and was looking for evidence that what I was reading was true. One day I reached the sentence, "You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews (Job 10:11)."

"I was in the kitchen," said Rena, "And I suddenly heard him shout Allahu Akbar!"

"Which is our Arabic Hallelujah!" added Khaled."

When Rashid asked why that verse caused such a strong reaction, Khaled explained. "I have studied the human embryo. The Quran says that Allah first created the bones, and then clothed them with flesh (Quran 23:14). I had always realized this Ayah did not make scientific sense, but never challenged it. When I read the description in Job, it was much more precise and correct."

"He called for me," added Rena, "And told me to come see where the Quran was wrong. My immediate response was, "Allah forgive him for this great sin." I told him that the Quran must be correct, and that he should ask a scientist. He went to a professor of human development who told him, "I know that the Quran is wrong, but as Muslims we must accept it. If I ask you about the embryo on a university exam, however, I want you to reply scientifically and not according to the Quran." I was upset when Khaled told me what the professor had said, and told him to ask a religious Shaykh."

When Rashid asked Khaled what the Shaykh said, he replied, "He simply said he did not want to talk about it and suggested I ask the author of a Saudi university textbook that tries to relate the Quran to science. I sent him an email, but of course never received a response. I also asked the popular preacher Amr Khaled, who also did not reply."

"I was terrified," said Rena, "To realize my husband no longer believed in the Quran. He had become a Murtedd bound for Jehenim, an apostate going to hell. We were in Saudi Arabia, where he could be killed. He stopped saying his prayers and going to the mosque. When I told my mother that my husband was thinking about leaving Islam, she told me that if he did so I should leave him and return to Syria. It would be Haram and Zina (forbidden and adultery) for me to stay with him."

"I began to express my doubts to my work colleagues," continued Khaled. "Soon some of them made a formal complaint about me to the authorities and I was questioned. At that time I denied everything, and swore I was a good Muslim. I returned to the mosque and started saying my prayers. I became a coward. I was interrogated three times, and I denied each time."

"I've interviewed many people who left Islam," said Rashid. "Some of them are very bold, and others like you buckle under pressure. Why do you think there is this difference?"

"I was frightened of the sword," replied Khaled. "If you saw the public executions that take place in Saudi Arabia, you would understand. It is a terrifying sight to see people beheaded in the public square."
"I perhaps had a role in this," added Rena. "I told him to be quiet, and not to admit his doubts about Islam. I would say things like, "I love you...think of me and your children...don't leave me a widow." I wanted him to return to Islam and receive God's forgiveness. I did not want him to die a Murtedd."

When Rashid asked how Khaled's family responded to his doubts, he replied they took him to a psychologist. It was at this time that he decided to leave Saudi Arabia. He informed Rena that he loved her and wanted her to stay with him even if she did not believe as he did, showing her the Biblical instruction that Christian husbands were not to divorce wives who did not share their faith (1 Corinthians 7:12). Rena recalled American movies she had seen in which husbands and wives committed themselves to each other "for better or for worse, until death do us part". She realized she would rather leave with Khaled, even though the marriage would be considered Haram, than stay in Saudi Arabia without him or return to Syria as a divorcee.

Khaled then told the amazing story of how they left the country. Having been investigated three times, he realized he was probably on the Saudi no-fly list. Remembering the Biblical story of Moses and the Children of Israel crossing the Red Sea (Exodus 14), Khalid prayed, "Lord, miraculously take us across the Red Sea as well (comment: the Red Sea crossed by Moses becomes much wider as it extends towards Jeddah and into the Arabian Gulf)." As they stepped up to airport passport control, the officer informed them the computers were down but he would write down their passport information and enter it into the computers later! They gave him the required information and an hour later were flying away. Khaled had not informed his family he was leaving the country, and when he called his mother the next day she informed him the Muhabarat (the Saudi Intelligence Service) had come to the house looking for him.

Rena then described the family conflict they experienced after they left Saudi Arabia. They first went to Jordan, where she knew no one and felt completely alone. She was determined to raise her children Muslim, and included them in her daily prayers and Quran reading. When asked if he objected to this, Khaled replied that the most important thing to him was his relationship with his wife, and he would not stand in the way of the religious training she gave the children. He jokingly commented that one of the reasons Saudi men like to marry Syrian women is that they have the reputation of being willing to put up with a lot, and Rena had certainly done that with him!

They remained in Jordan for three difficult years, with Khaled unable to work and their children not allowed to attend school. Rena continued to argue with Khaled about Islam, and when she was unable to win the arguments because his background in Islam was stronger than hers she decided to do a comparative study between Muhammad and Jesus. She suddenly discovered that all the questions she had harbored in her heart since childhood about Muhammad and Islam, questions Muslims habitually repress and do not persue, rose to the surface.

She gave the example of Muhammad ignoring the blind Abdallah bin Umm Maktum while he was trying to impress the leaders of the Quraysh (Quran 80:1,2). How would she have felt, she asked herself, if she were Abdallah? She read the story of Muhammad ordering the stoning of an adulterous woman, and listened to Khaled's explanation of Jesus forgiving the woman taken in adultery. She was still unwilling to read the New Testament for herself, feeling strongly that it was not "her book", but began to allow herself to question Islam's Prophet.

"One day," continued Rena, "I decided to have a long conversation with God. I told him the story of my life, with all my dreams and fears. I felt him telling me to open my heart to him, and I asked my husband to pray with me. I asked God to come into my life, and for the first time in my life I ended my prayer with the words "in the name of Jesus, amen." As soon as I said those words, I felt God's Spirit fill me from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes. My immediate reaction was to take off my Hijab and never wear it again."

"As soon as I removed the Hijab," said Rena, "Threats and persecution began to come from our neighbors. We were forced to move six times in Jordan, three times because of poverty and three times as the result of threats. Each time we moved to a smaller and poorer residence."

"I know that you came to the United States through the United Nations as refugees," asked Rashid. "Was that difficult?"

"When we first applied for refugee status in Jordan," replied Rena. "I was still a Muslim wearing the Hijab. The Muslim lawyer who handled our file informed me he would not allow my husband to travel to the United States. He could either return to Saudi Arabia, the lawyer said, or remain in Jordan and experience a moderate Islam far removed from Wahhabi influence. When I informed the lawyer that if my husband returned to Saudi Arabia they would cut off his head, he passed me to another UN official. This person asked me if I was proud of my husband for leaving Islam. They were both lawyers, but acted as if they were the people whipping us. We complained to the UN in Geneva, and they offered us an interview. Following the required procedures, we were admitted to the United States."

At one point in the program, Rashid opened the phone lines. "I wish," said one caller, "That all the terrorists who travel from Saudi Arabia to Iraq via Syria could follow Khaled's example. He also went from Saudi Arabia to Syria, but eventually to America for the sake of freedom."

"I've always had a negative opinion of Saudis," said another caller, "Until I heard Khaled's story. He is a wonderful example of a noble Saudi man."

Comments:

1. Muslims love to boast that the Quran explained embryology hundreds of years before modern science. As Khaled pointed out, the Quranic explanation (which, by the way, was copied from a Greek physician named Galen who lived 450 years before Muhammad) that the fetus is first a skeleton on which flesh is added makes no scientific sense. An aborted fetus is made up of flesh and tissue, not a sack of bones.

2. The response of Saudi scientists to the Quranic myth of the embryo is the same as the response of Saudi archeologists to the Quranic myth of Thamudians building houses in rocks at Madayn Salah (it was the Nabatians building tombs, as I have discussed here). In both cases the response is, "We know it is not true, but we dare not question the Quran."

3. Were the American ambassador in Riyadh to ask a Saudi official whether Khaled would have been mistreated, imprisoned, or killed had he remained in Saudi Arabia, the official would probably say No. He might even quote "there is no compulsion in religion" (Quran 2:256). Whether Khaled or the official is lying is up to you to decide.

4. Were the American ambassador in Amman to ask a UN official whether Muslim UN lawyers would discriminate against individuals seeking refugee status because they had left Islam, the official would probably deny it. Again, whether that official or Rena is telling the truth is yours to decide.

Muslims and Mennonites Defecting

2011-02-22T09:29:00.001-05:00

I recently attended the funeral of an uncle who lived his entire life in the Pennsylvania Dutch country among the Mennonites and the Amish. Fifty years ago, however, my uncle and his young wife made the step, unusual at the time, to leave the Mennonites and join the local Methodist church in which his funeral was held.

By coincidence (although I don't really believe anything happens by coincidence), my young cousin is now the pastor of the Mennonite church my relatives left. He was asked by the family to deliver a eulogy. During his speech, he looked directly at our bereaved aunt and said the following:

"The Mennonite church has many strengths, but it also has weaknesses. Among our weaknesses has been a tendency to judge those who leave us. I know that you and your husband experienced pain by the way we treated you. I want to apologize for that, and ask your forgiveness for our judging you when you left our faith community many years ago."

"I ask your forgiveness...for judging you when you left our faith community." What incredibly powerful words. I couldn't help but compare them with the experiences of Muslims I have written about, such as Ibrahim, Youhanna, Ruba, and Wajdi, who were criticized, threatened, disowned, imprisoned, and tortured for their decision to leave Muhammad behind. And those are just the lucky ones who made it to America! They have certainly never heard the words from the Imams of their former "faith community", known in Arabic as the Ummah, that my aunt heard from the Mennonite pastor last week.

There is a reason for that. My cousin understood that the jugdment inflicted by the Mennonite church on those who left was an aberration of true Christianity. The message of the Prodigal Son, one of Jesus' most famous and enduring stories, is that you give people the freedom to make important decisions even when you disagree. The Mennonite church of my uncle's day had abandoned that message, as the broader church has at times throughout its 2000 year history, but the hope is that it will always return to its roots.

There is also a reason ex-Muslims never hear the words my aunt heard. The message of Muhammad was clear, "If anyone leaves Islam, kill them." As I discuss here, Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi believes this punishment for Ridda, or apostasy, is to be applied today. The only condition, according to Dr. Qaradawi, is that the structure of an Islamic state must first be established in which the Hudud, or physical punishments of Islam, can be carried out.

Dr. Qaradawi recently addressed hundreds of thousands of Egyptians in Cairo's Tahrir Square. As could be expected in his first public sermon in Egypt in 30 years, it was relatively low key. But make no mistake about it - the Egypt envisoned by Qaradawi is one in which the commands of Muhammad concerning those who leave Islam will be taken very seriously. If Qaradawi's dreams come true, it will be a long time before any of them ever hear what my aunt heard last week, "We want to apologize, and ask your forgiveness for judging you when you left our faith community."

From the Muslim Brotherhood to Jesus

2011-02-13T21:53:00.005-05:00

Immediately after Egypt's Facebook revolution culminated in the resignation of President Mubarak, Rashid at the Arabic TV program Daring Question had this interview with a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood who is now a Christian. Ibrahim's demeanor and speech might correspond with his background as a simple Egyptian villager, but he is an intelligent man with the famous stubbornness and humor of Egypt's fellaheen. What I found interesting from a linguistic point of view is that, as is often the case in similar interviews, he started out speaking his best formal Arabic but quickly lapsed into his rural dialect as he excitedly became immersed in his subject.

As could be expected, Rashid's first question was what Ibrahim thought of recent events in Egypt. "What is happening in Egypt and other parts of the Arab world brings much joy to our hearts," replied Ibrahim. "Egyptians are revolting against political oppression as are other Latin American and non-Arab countries that have lived under oppression. Men and women are standing together for their human dignity, which makes me feel happy and proud as an Egyptian and an Arab. The true meaning of Arabism is when Arabs rise up for their honor and refuse dictatorship and repression. You only get one life. If you live it in freedom, you can truly be said to have lived a life of dignity."

When asked about his background, Ibrahim said he was a simple Egyptian villager surrounded by people struggling to make a living. His education began in the village Kuttab, where he learned to read by memorizing the Quran. "If I could meet today the Shaykh who taught us," said Ibrahim, "I would bow before him and kiss his hands. He taught me to read and write, and how to follow my conscience. He awakened in me the sense of right and wrong, and people rarely leave the life principles they learn as a child."

"I then began elementary school," continued Ibrahim, "Where we learned many beautiful Ayahs of the Quran that caused us to reflect upon God's creation, such as "In the creation of the heavens and the earth, and in the alternation of night and day, and in the ships sailing through the seas carrying cargo beneficial to mankind ....are signs for people of understanding (Quran 2:164)".

Rashid's next question whether his parents were ordinary or fervent Muslims led to Ibrahim's analysis of the word Mutashedid (definitions of this word range from "fervent" to "extreme"). "My parents were not extremists," said Ibrahim, "But actually to be Mutashedid is not a part of the Egyptian personality. The term Islamic extremist is a very fluid expression. We describe people as "extremists" or non-extremists".

"What I meant," interrupted Rashid, "Was your father fervent in the practices of Islam, such as growing his beard but shaving his moustache, wearing Islamic dress, saying the prayers five times a day including the Salat Fajr (dawn prayer), and regularly reading the Quran?"

Ibrahim replied that his parents were not fervent to that extent, but continued with his definition of Mutashedid. "We have limited the word "extremist" to particular Islamic organizations," he said, "But the fact is I can be a moderate Muslim but have attitudes that are extreme. I can simply hear the word Masihi (Christian), and feel a strong negative feeling rise within me. A Masihi? He is Najis (impure) and a Mushrik (unbeliever)! May God protect me from him! A Muslim can be moderate, without a beard and wearing Western clothes, but still have these automatic reactions when he hears the word Christian. He has been raised to believe the best people are Muslim."

"In high school," continued Ibrahim, "I met two young men at the mosque who were extremely polite, well-cultured, and deep thinkers as compared to the general public. They befriended me and invited me to some Quran memorization sessions. I still remember the first Sura we memorized. It was Al Mulk (Dominion) which begins, Blessed is the One in whose hand is dominion, who is able to do all things, who has created life and death to test which of you have the best deeds (Quran 67). Then we memorized Al Maarij (Quran 70), which describes the tortures of hell for all who do not believe in Muhammad. Surat Ya Sin (Quran 36) was our favorite, because it compares the joys of Paradise with the torment of those who reject Allah's Messenger.

"Did you know then," asked Rashid, "That they were members of the Muslim Brotherhood?"

"I had never heard of the Muslim Brotherhood," replied Ibrahim, "And they made no mention of the organization. It was only when some Sufis began to complain to my father that I had left them to associate with the Muslim Brotherhood that I learned who they were."

"I had gone a few times to Sufi meetings," continued Ibrahim, "Where we sat and practiced Dhikr (repeating aloud the names of God). I thought they were nice people, but shallow in comparison to my Muslim Brotherhood friends. We would sit and repeat again and again the names of God - Allah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Allah al-Rahman ar-Rahim, Allah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim (God the Compassionate, the Merciful One). I thought, This is fine, but then what? I was also upset that they had gone behind my back to complain to my father."

When Rashid asked if his father was upset with him, Ibrahim replied, "Yes, indeed. He told me not to associate with the Brotherhood anymore, and I told him I would. He then beat me, which made me even more determined. I am very stubborn in everything."

"I can see that," commented Rashid.

"Well," countered Ibrahim, "If you are going to believe in something, then believe in it! I began to read the books of Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (the 18th century Saudi founder of Wahhabism) and really liked them. People say they are extreme, but they are only interested in going back to the Asl (source) of Islam. They argue that the Salaf (original) is better than Takleed (imitation). Isn't having the original of anything better than having the imitation?"

"So," asked Rashid, "You became more extreme?"

"You can call it Mutashedid," replied Ibrahim, "But I saw it as imitating the Prophet in everything he did. It all depends on how you see things. When I meet someone now who sees things differently than I do, I don't get upset. I realize he sees things from his Zawiah (perspective), which is different than mine"

"My father threatened to disown me if I continued to meet with the Muslim Brothers," continued Ibrahim. "But I did. This was the most severe thing - I couldn't see how my father could threaten to cut me off just because of my association with them."

"Then one of our neighbors, with my father's permission, took all my Salafist books and burned them. This was extremely difficult for me - to this day I feel sad when I think of how he burned those books (comment: like the day my brother burned my Elvis records). That was the greatest crime anyone has ever committed against me. Why? Because you don't end a person's thinking by burning his books. You give people freedom to spread their ideas, and if you don't like them you argue against them. I tell Salafists today I welcome their spreading their ideas. But how can ideas spread if you destroy the books of those who oppose you? At the same time I criticize Salafists who take copies of the New Testament and throw them in the garbage. Brother, accept the humanity of the other, and may he accept your humanity as well."

"But now you are a Christian," noted Rashid, "How did you first become interested in Christianity?"

"Even though I was with the Muslim Brotherhood," replied Ibrahim, "Something about Christianity attracted me from the inside. I would see the cross on churches, the smiles of the Copts, their humility and calm, their lack of shouting and fighting. They were hated and oppressed, but they were kind."

"Is that true of all Copts?" asked Rashid. "They aren't all like that, are they?"

"I'm talking about the Copts I saw in the villages," replied Ibrahim. "The Copts I knew among the fellaheen were like that. You felt you were with the Christians of the first century. Their quietness and inner beauty attracted me. When I first asked them what in their religion made them like that, they replied, "God is love." I was shocked - the idea that God is love does not exist in the Quran. The teaching about God in the Quran is completely different than that of the New Testament. The entire Injil can be summarized in one phrase - God is love. If you read only that one phrase, you have understood the entire New Testament."

"I wanted to convince Christians of the truth of Islam," continued Ibrahim. "I was eager to spread Islam. I began to correspond with Christians, and send them Islamic books. I wanted to turn Christians into Muslims, and have other Muslims more committed to Islam."

"Wait a minute," interrupted Rashid. "You just said you were attracted to Christians."

"It's not that simple," replied Ibrahim. "It's not black and white. Even though you like them, you feel you have to convert them. Your religion tells you it is the only religion accepted by God (Quran 3:19), and everyone else is condemned. You think, Ya Haram, (Oh my goodness) all those nice people are going to hell. I have to do something."

"I ordered a New Testament through the mail and began to read it to find its mistakes. I listened continuously to Anasheed (hymns) about Muhammad, as well as poems and lectures about him. I myself wrote poetry praising him. Then I began to listen to Christian radio programs and loved to mock them. Look at what they are saying...they say Jesus is the Son of God....hahaha!"

'I began to read the Old Testament as well, and made a list of all the contradictions I found. I soon had a list of 23 questions. I said, If they can answer all these questions to my satisfaction I will become a Christian, but if they can't they need to become Muslim."

"My questions weren't new question," continued Ibrahim. "They were the same questions Muslims have been asking for centuries, such as how could Jacob wrestle with God (Genesis 32:24)? How could a mere human being wrestle with Almighty God?"

"But something unexpected happened. The more I read the Bible, the more I found myself confronted with the personality of Jesus. I felt as if I was in front of an indescribable light. It seemed as if I were reading a living book, with Jesus speaking to me face to face. I realized the purpose of the words I was reading was not merely to give me instruction, but to change my heart."

"Even the great Egyptian poet Ahmad Shawqi (1869-1932) experienced this," continued Ibrahim. "He wrote in one of his poems,

"Mercy began with the birth of Isa (Jesus),
Isa, your way was mercy, love, perfection and peace to the world,
You did not come to shed blood,
The weak and orphans were not insignificant to you,
You are the bearer of the sufferings of the world,
And yet sufferings are multiplied in your name.
You made the world into one family,
But in your name relationships are severed."

"I faced a great struggle," said Ibrahim. "The person of Jesus attracted me, but I did not want to be a Murtedd (apostate), a Kafir (unbeliever). I realized I had to choose, because the Jesus of the Gospel is much different than the Isa of the Quran. My religion told me that when I prayed with my face on the carpet, I was as close to God as I would ever be. I prayed in that position continuously, "God show me the truth. If it is in Muhammad, show me. If it is in Jesus, show me."

"After a week of intense prayer," continued Ibrahim, "Jesus appeared to me in a dream and said, "I love you" (comment: I commented on another ex-Muslim and his dream here). What shocked me was that this love was his initiative, not mine. Islam tells me what is Halal and what is Haram, what to do and what not to do, but the message of Christianity is, "This is my life and I offer it to you." I woke from the dream with tears on my face. Even today, years later, I consider this dream the turning point in my life."

"I realized I was no longer a Muslim," continued Ibrahim, "But I continued going to the mosque because I did not want people to consider me a Murtedd, an apostate. One day, however, a friend said to me, "What has happened to you? You have changed, and become like one of them." When I asked who was the "them" he was talking about, he replied, "The Christians. Your speech betrays you."

"I began to pray," said Ibrahim, "And it seemed as if God was answering many of my prayers. One person began to give me a really hard time, and I asked God to help me. Soon afterwards, he was transferred to another location. I began to write down my experiences and my answered prayers in a journal I kept in my room. One day someone took my journal, made copies of all I had written, and distributed it all around the village. The next Friday I was beaten up in front of the Mosque. National Security arrested me and tried to persuade me to return to Islam. They showed me the same problems in the Bible as if they thought I was seeing them for the first time. But I remembered the words of my Savior - what is said in darkness will be shouted from the rooftops. Now I am shouting my experience from the rooftop. They lost, but I won."

"So you left Egypt?" asked Rashid.

"I was forced to," replied Ibrahim. "I left Egypt, never to return."

"Was it difficult?"

"Of course it was," said Ibrahim. "A person is torn from his roots. I've discovered that no matter how much I master English, it will never be my language."

Comment: Egypt now stands at a crossroads. No one knows how many people, like Ibrahim, have been forced to leave simply for exercising a freedom of choice that we in the West take for granted. Will Egypt continue to oppress those who decide that Muhammad is not their flavor of choice, or will it continue to practice his 7th century dictate that those born Muslim have no choice but to follow him?

May 21, 2011 - The End of the World As We Know It

2011-02-13T15:18:00.003-05:00

In a remote corner of Saudi Arabia a few years ago (referred to here), I met a young Saudi who informed me that every day he listened online to an American preacher named Harold Camping. I was unfamiliar with the name, but did some research and discovered that he believes the end of the world will occur in just a few months, May 21 to be precise. Mr. Camping believes all churches have gone apostate and warns Christians to leave their churches to avoid the upcoming judgment. He encourages them, as could be expected, to follow him.

I hadn't thought much about Mr. Camping and his predictions since then, until I noticed a few trucks driving around town today with his message emblazoned brightly upon their sides. Since Camping is a strict predestinist, meaning God chooses those who he will save and who he will damn, and there isn't a damn thing you can to turn the tables, I'm not sure what anyone could do to avoid this judgement (except perhaps not using the word "damn").

At any rate, I have a proposition for Mr. Camping. I have been looking for a good investment opportunity. I am willing to contribute ten thousand dollars to his ministry - on condition that he pay me back twenty thousand on May 22. If he accepts my offer, I'd even be willing to take out a huge loan and contribute some more. I could retire a millionaire after all!

James Clapper and the Secular Muslim Brotherhood

2011-02-13T14:20:00.002-05:00

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper raised eyebrows all over the place the other day when he stated before a House Intelligence Committee that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was a "largely secular organization".

The Arabic word for secular is Almani, and secularism is Almaniyah. This is anathema to a committed serious Muslim. For a Muslim Brotherhood leader to describe himself as Almani would be like the Pope announcing he was agnostic. Had I been at that Senate hearing, I would have loved to ask Mr. Clapper to name one Muslim Brotherhood leader who has ever publicly stated that he was secular.

As could be expected, conservative columnists are already calling for the DNI to resign. But I think the issue is much broader than one official minimizing the religious element of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is a failure across the board throughout our government - Republicans as well as Democrats - to understand the religious motivation of organizations such as the Brotherhood. To interpret the fact that they build schools and stock clinics as meaning they are "secular" is to miss the point completely.

Not many of our government officials are sitting in church Sunday morning. That's not a problem to me; what I find difficult is their conclusion that because religion is not very important to them as secular people, it must not be that important to everyone else. Because they are not religious, they find it difficult to understand the significance religion plays in the lives of others. And that includes every single member of the Muslim Brotherhood. There is a reason it's not called the Egyptian Secular Brotherhood.

Jesus and Muhammad

2011-02-08T19:56:00.079-05:00

"I have read and reread with great interest your Impossible Task thread," wrote a reader recently (that post and the following dozen or so gave reasons I do not think Muhammad was a Prophet from God). It would seem to me plenty of scholars might come up with a similar list about any of the prophets you speak of, including Jesus, that's all."

Actually you don't need to be a scholar to come up with a similar list about Jesus; I could do so in a heartbeat. Here is a baker's dozen, just off the top of my head.

1. Jesus was a narcissist who thought he was God - John 10:30
2. Jesus was suicidal, mesmerized with thoughts of his own death - Matthew 16:21
3. Jesus had dreams of invincibility, convinced he would not remain dead - Mark 8:31
4. Jesus was hallucinatory, imagining armies of angels coming to rescue him - Matthew 26:53
5. Jesus advocated violence, telling his followers to purchase weapons - Luke 22:36
6. Jesus practiced violence, damaging public property - Matthew 21:12
7. Jesus was racist, calling a Canaanite woman a dog - Matthew 15:22
8. Jesus was misogynistic, calling a Canaanite woman a dog - Matthew 15:26
9. Jesus was gay, with John as his lover - John 21:20
10. Jesus was homophobic, advocating human castration - Matthew 19:12
11. Jesus was sadistic, encouraging his followers to mutilate their own bodies - Matthew 18:8
12. Jesus was sarcastic, describing rabbis of his own faith as vipers - Matthew 12:34
13. Jesus was disrespectful of even his own mother - John 2:4

You can make Jesus into anyone you want him to be, and you can do the same with Muhammad. The question is, where is the truth?

The same reader asked, "Something has been troubling me about your post What I Believe. You wrote that God used Noah in spite of his drunkenness and Lot in spite of his incest. How do you reconcile the fact that God may in fact use people like those, but not Muhammad?"

Another good question that requires a thoughtful response. There are two ways to look at the life of any individual, including Muhammad. One is to choose anecdotes, incidents, quotes, and stories from that individual's life and use them as representative of their entire life. Muslims love to do this with their Prophet. Ask a Muslim about Islam's relationship with the Jews and she will quote a Hadith about Muhammad being nice to a Jewish neighbor who threw trash in his yard. Inquire about Islam and education and listen to a Hadith about seeking knowledge even if you have to go to China. Ask about Islam's relationship to non-Muslims, and hear the Quranic verse "there is no compulsion in religion".

The second and much more important way is to look at the trajectory of the individual's entire life, from birth to death. I believe that Muhammad learned the stories of the Biblical Prophets from his uncle Waraqah bin Naufal, who wanted Muhammad to succeed him as leader of the Ebionite Christian community in Mecca. Muhammad's 25-year marriage to Khadija, a monogamous relationship as far as we know, was performed by Waraqah and was essentially a Christian marriage. Muhammad's call for 13 years in Mecca was not to a new religion, but a return to the monotheistic faith of Abraham, Moses, and David.

Muhammad was ambitious, however, with dreams far greater than leading a flock of poor followers and slaves in Mecca. He began to promise them that if they followed him they would hold the treasures of Caesar and Khosrau, leaders of the Byzantine and Sassanid Empires. He understood that the Biblical heroes he longed to emulate were not only religious leaders, but held political and military power as well. After Khadijah and Waraqa died close to the same time, Muhammad migrated to Medina where he had persuaded members of the Khazraj tribe to accept him as leader. Medina was a Jewish majority city, and Muhammad had the naive idea that its Jewish rabbis would accept him as the Prophet he wanted to be. It was only when they rejected him that he changed the direction of prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca and the day of prayer from Saturday to Friday, laying the basis for a new religion.

The rest of Muhammad's life was an unceasing campaign of battles to extend his new empire. He expelled the Jews from Medina, apart from the 900 men and boys he beheaded and whose heads were thrown in trenches. His final act of conquest was to rape the daughter of one of his Jewish opponents in Khaybar the same day he tortured and beheaded her husband Kinana for refusing reveal the location of the family treasures. At the time Sofiya was 17 and Muhammad was 62.

It is possible, of course, that Muhammad was indeed being used mightily by his God. It's just that that isn't a deity I want anything to do with.

Tawfik Hamid and Islamic Reform

2011-02-05T17:29:00.006-05:00

The War on Terror has made a number of sharp turns as it has lurched forward over the past decade or so. Even the acronym WOT now seems so retro, so Bushie, so yesterday. For a short time it was the War on Extremism, but even that expression carried a negative connotation for some people. Radicalization is the new buzzword and the now defunct War on Terror has become the campaign to counter radicalization.

Professor Quintan Wiktorowicz, discussed here on NPR, is the new radicalization czar at the National Security Council, and his "broad tent" approach will certainly include moderate Muslims such as Tawfik Hamid who is the Chair for the Study of Islamic Radicalism at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. Tawfik recently gave this lecture at the Institute, and also appeared as a guest on the Arabic program Daring Question. His subject on both programs was his plan to deradicalize Muslims by presenting them with a new approach to the Quran. What caught my attention was that none of the attendees in the English lecture, even though they are educated and influential people, knew enough about Islam to counter anything presented by Tawfik. It was quite different in the interview with ex-Muslim Rashid, and I would like to concentrate on Rashid's comments. The material presented by Tawfik was basically the same in both lectures and readers can watch the English lecture to fully understand his perspective. I'll add a few comments at the end.

Rashid began the discussion by asking Tawfik to define moderate Islam. Tawfik said his definition was, "I love you; I don't hate you because you are different than me, and I leave the final judgement to God."

The next question was what it means to reform Islam. Tawfik responded that the relationship of a believer to his religion contains three basic elements. First is the Nuss, the sacred text, second is the Tafsir or interpretation of the text, and final is the thought process of the believer. A radicalized person can take even a peaceful text and reach a violent conclusion based upon his interpretation of that text and the way he thinks.

"We cannot change the original texts," said Tawfiq, "But we can change the way people interpret them by changing the way they think."

"Where does your role come in?" Rashid asked. "Do you begin with the text, or do you teach the radical to interpret the text and think in a new way?"

Tawfik replied that he began with the text itself. The Quran, he said, does not teach Hudud (capital punishment) for Riddah (leaving Islam), and no Ayah commands Rajam for Zina (stoning for adultery). On the contrary, it declares "there is no compulsion in religion" (Quran 2:256), and "whoever chooses can believe, and whoever chooses can disbelieve" (Quran 18:29). No one has the right, asserted Taufik, to deny anyone the freedom of belief that has been given them by God. By placing our priority on the Nuss of the Quran itself, rather than the Hadith and Sira (sayings and biography of Muhammad), we avoid many problems.

Does this mean, asked Rashid, that you are a Qurani, a "Quran-only Muslim"? (comment: I have discussed this group here). Tawfiq replied he did not follow their ideology because of the Quranic verse "those who listen to the Word and follow that which is good are guided by God and given understanding" (Quran 39:18).

"All truth is the Word," said Tawfik, "Even if it comes in the writings of a Buddhist. I accept what is good in any text. My only criterion is that it not contradict the Quran."

"Does that mean," asked Rashid, "That you accept the peaceful and tolerant Hadith that go along with the Quran, but refuse the violent ones that are not in line with the Quran?"

When Taufik said that was correct, Rashid continued, "Do you reject the saying of Muhammad, "If anyone leaves Islam, kill him."

"I absolutely reject that Hadith," replied Tawfik. "The Quran says that God did not choose to make all people Muslim, and you cannot force anyone to be a Muslim (Quran 10:99). That Hadith contradicts the plain teaching of the Quran."

"But the Ulama," replied Rashid, "Have determined that "if anyone changes his religion, kill him" is an authentic Hadith and its Sanad, or train of transmission, goes directly to Muhammad. It is something that Muhammad said. Even if the scholars agree this is true, do you still refuse it?"

"Of course," replied Tawfik. "I am not refusing anything the Prophet said, but I am suggesting that he did not really say it. There is always room for human error in the Sanad, and just because the scholars agree that Muhammad said something it does not necessarily make it true. The Quran tells us not to think that we are above mistakes (Quran 53:32). The Ulama are great scholars, but they can still make mistakes. I am not denying anything the Prophet actually said, and I am not even questioning the integrity of the Ulama. I am simply stating there is always room for human error."

"But the first Caliphs after Muhammad," countered Rashid, "Were the Sahaba, the companions of the Prophet. They were close to him and received his instructions. They practiced the Hudud for Riddah (capital punishment for leaving Islam). They certainly didn't make this up themselves. They knew that Muhammad said this Hadith, and they carried out his instructions. It sounds to me as if by refusing the Hadith you are saying that Caliph Abu Bakr did not understand, and neither did Caliphs Umar or Uthman or Ali. No one has understood for 1400 years except Dr. Tawfik Hamid!"

"No," replied Tawfik. "I look at it from another perspective. Those generations are gone, with their accomplishments and their mistakes. They have nothing to do with me. On Judgment Day, God is not going to ask me what so-and-so did many years ago. They were not perfect. The Quran says, "Muhammad is no more than a messenger, and there were many messengers before him. If Muhammad dies, will you turn away from him? (Quran 3:144). Who am I to say whether the Sahaba followed him correctly, or turned away from him to use Islam for political purposes? My methodology is to examine the text in front of me, and to understand it irregardless of its traditional and historical context. I set history aside and look at the text as if it were revealed to me just now."

"But that is exactly what the first Muslims did," replied Rashid, "They practiced the Quran as it was revealed to them, with the result that they enforced the punishments of Hudud (capital punishment) including Rajm (stoning)."

Realizing he was on shaky ground, Tawfik quickly shifted direction. "They weren't all the same," he said. "There were always people who disagreed. For example, the poet Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi (1165-1240) wrote,

My heart is capable of everything.
It is a pasture for gazelles, and a monastery for monks.
A temple for idols, and the Kabah of the pilgrim.
It holds the scrolls of the Torah, and the text of the Quran.
I follow the caravan of love, wherever it may take me.
Love is my faith and my religion."

"Dr. Hamid," said Rashid. "Ibn Arabi was rejected by the Muslim majority, who considered him a Sufi Kafir (Sufi unbeliever). Sufism is the result of Christian influence on Islam. When you study the Sufi books, you see the deep influence of Christianity. I am not talking about individuals outside the mainstream who were influenced by other ideologies. I am talking about Orthodox Islam. The first four Rightly Guided Caliphs were not ordinary people. They were the successors of the Prophet and they ruled in his name."

Tawfik simply repeated his earlier assertion that no Muslim could justify his actions before God on the Day of Judgment on the basis of what these Sahaba had done, because they were not perfect.

"Let's look at the verses you mentioned," said Rashid, "That say there is no compulsion in religion and everyone has the right to believe as they choose. The Ulama say these verses are Nasikh wal Mansoukh (abrogated). They were revealed in the early Medinan period, soon after Muhammad arrived from Mecca and before he instituted Jihad. Some of these verses were given for extenuating circumstances. For example, Quranic Mufassir (commentator) Ibn Kathir gives the historical context for the phrase "there is no compulsion in religion." The Arab women of Medina had a high infant mortality rate, and would sometimes give their infants to the Jewish woman to raise (comment: The Jewish tribes of Medina followed the dietary and sanitary laws of the Torah and as a result were more healthy than their Arab neighbors). When the Jews of Medina refused to accept Muhammad as a Prophet, he exiled them from the city. The Arab women wanted to bring their children back but Muhammad refused saying, "There is no compulsion in religion; you cannot force your children to return." (comment: rather than being a verse of tolerance, this phrase resulted in the disruption of families). That verse was revealed for a specific situation, but the general rule was to kill those who left Islam."

Dr. Tawfik suddenly looked like a deer caught in the headlights, and it was apparent he did not know the context of the very verse he was quoting. "If you say that verse was revealed for an extenuating circumstance," he said. "You can say the same about the verses of violence. They were also given for specific situations, and are not applicable today."

"Just as others have the right to interpret the Quran as they choose," continued Tawfik, "I have that same right. The Quran testifies that if it were not from God, it would contain many contradictions (Quran 4:82). When there are differences in interpretation we must return to the original text to remove the contradictions. The text does this by saying "there is no compulsion in religion".

"I also do not believe in the principle of Nasikh wal Mansoukh (aprogation)," said Tawfik. "First of all, the Quran says that the Word that comes from God cannot be changed (Quran 50:29). Secondly, the traditionalists say the fighting verses of Medina cancelled out the peaceful verses from Mecca. But the famous phrase "kill the unbelievers wherever you find them" (Quran 9:4) is followed by the verse "if any of the unbelivers ask you for protection, grant it to them so they may hear the Word of God" (Quran 9:6). If the verses of mercy were cancelled out, why would a verse offering mercy immediately follow Quran 9:4? Even the Medinan suras contain messages of mercy."

"The problem," replied Rashid, "Is that the Quran is not arranged chronologically. The fact that verse 6 follows verse 4 in the text does not necessarily mean they were both revealed at the same time."

When Tawfiq repeated his earlier assertion that he was only concerned with the words of the text and not its historical context, Rashid replied that the trajectory of the entire Quran moved from from the peaceful to the violent. In Mecca, Muhammad tried to gain converts by "preaching that which is better" (Quran 16:125). When he went to Medina he began to fight the Quraysh of Mecca, and by the end of the Quran he was preparing to attack neighbouring countries. The violence followed a pattern of escalation.

"If that were true," replied Tawfik. "Muhammad would have slaughtered the citizens of Mecca when he returned ten years after leaving. Instead it was a peaceful conquest."

"It was not a peaceful return," replied Rashid. "There are many Hadiths that speak of Muhammad's return to Mecca. He was determined to kill his enemies there, and he ordered they be seized even if they were clinging to the Kabah. Why would he kill all the people? He had an army surrounding Mecca of 10,000 soldiers. As soon as he killed the leaders, the city was his."

"The problem," continued Rashid. "Is that Muslim scholars who look at Islam from a historical perspective have evidence for their positions. They have the Hadith and the Sira. You come with just your opinion, and there is nothing historically to support you."

Tawfik responded that those scholars were not always in agreement with each other, and repeated his earlier assertion that if the verses of the Quran were all placed side by side, without bringing in extraneous texts, they would present a peaceful message. He then continued with his reasons for not believing abrogation.

"One of the justifications for the principle of abrogation," he said, "Is the verse that reads "Whenever we Nasikh (abrogate) a verse, we bring a better one (Quran 2:106). The word Nasikh has two meanings in the Quran. One is to erase, or abrogate. The Quran uses this meaning when it says, "Whenever we give a message to a Messenger, Satan comes and tries to Nasikh (remove) it (Quran 22:52)."

"But there is another definition of Nasikh in the Quran," continued Tawfik, "That means to confirm. The Quran says that on the Day of Judgment the angels will open the books on which they have written down, or confirmed, all our good deeds (Quran 45:29). The verb "to write down" is from the same root as Nasikh.

"If we think of Nasikh as confirmation and not abrogation," said Tawfik. "And apply that to Quran 2:106, it means that the message God gave to Muhammad was a confirmation of earlier messages God gave to Moses and Jesus and all the other Prophets. It is not speaking of abrogating Muhammad's peaceful revelations, but confirming all that was said by the previous Prophets."

"I can appreciate this Tafsir (explanation)," replied Rashid. "But the problem is that you are simply expressing your own opinion. You have nothing to support your exigesis. If we look at Islamic history and all its texts, whether in the Sira or Tafsir or Hadith, we find them in agreement on the principle of Nasikh as abrogation.

"Let's look at alcohol," continued Rashid. "In the beginning Muslims were allowed to drink but commanded to not perform Salat (the prayers) when they were drunk (Quran 4:43). The scholars have explained that Muslims were coming to the Mosque so drunk that when they tried to recite the verse, I do not worship what the unbelievers worship, and they do not worship what I worship (Quran 109:2,3), they got the words all turned around. For that reason the verse was revealed they were not to pray if they were drunk. In a later revelation, Muhammad stated that alcohol was a work of Satan and was to be avoided altogether (Quran 5:90), and this has been applied throughout Muslim history. No scholar would argue today that a Muslim can drink as long as he does not come to the mosque drunk, because that verse was abrogated by the later one forbidding alcohol. The principle of abrogation is an essential part of Muslim theology."

"I completely agree with you, said Tawfik, "That this is the traditional approach. Any child who reads the Hadith and the Sira and the Tafsir will find the principle of Nasikh wal Mansoukh. But even in the verses you mentioned I find a ray of hope. For example, the first verse you quoted said that believers were not to say their prayers when they were intoxicated. Not only alcohol, but some medications and even a lack of sleep can give one a sense of intoxication. So the verse might not have been referring to drinking alcohol, but the intoxication that can result from other things."

Tawfik quickly responded to the look of incredulity he saw come across Rashid's face. "I don't disagree with you," Tawfik said, "Muslim scholars have always looked at that verse in reference to people coming to the Mosque drunk. I'm just saying there could be another way to look at it."

"Dr. Tawfik," responded Rashid, "You are making things up. You are trying to make the text say what you want it to say. Scholars throughout history have made a connection between the revelations given in the Quran and the Sabab al-Nazoul (reasons they were revealed). Do you believe in the Sabab al-Nazoul?"

"No, I don't," replied Tawfik.

Rashid was astonished, "So you want to completely strip the Quran from its historical and cultural context," he asked, "And give it a 21st century meaning as if it were revealed today!"

"I am talking about the meaning of the Quran," Tawfik replied, "I agree with you that Ibn Arabi was persecuted as a Sufi, but his poetry reflects the meaning of the Quran. That is why I said in the beginning I do not rely on the Nuss only, but on a new Tafsir (interpretation) of the Quran."

With this segue Tawfik introduced his second element of deradicalization, a new way of interpreting the Quran, by telling a story from his younger days in Cairo. "I was reading the Quran," he said, "And I came to the verse, "Kill Al Mushrikun (the non-believers) wherever you find them" (Quran 9:5). The verse startled me. Even the thought of harming our Coptic neighbors was impossible to me. I went to a friend who was involved in Islamic Jihad to ask him what the verse meant. He replied that even if we could not kill the Christians now, we were to harbor enmity against them in our hearts for their refusal to accept Muhammad. I could not accept his explanation and went to see a Sufi Imam. His response was simply that we were to love all people and leave the final judgement to God. This was a better answer, but it still seemed as if he were evading the actual text."

"One day I was pouring over the verse," Tawfik continued, "And I realized it was not addressed to Mushrikun in general (an indefinite noun), but to Al Mushrikun (a definite noun). The Quran was not addressing unbelievers in general, but a particular group of unbelievers."

When Rashid asked who the verse was referring to, Tawfik replied it was the Quraysh who had opposed Muhammad in Mecca. He then explained how he used that verse in his work, "If I am speaking to a young radical, I show him this verse and ask him why Allah was angry at those unbelievers. He will reply it was because they persecuted Muhammad and his followers. I will then remind him that at the time the Muslims were the minority, and God was displeased with the Quraysh for mistreating this minority. If you mistreat Christian or Jewish or Buddhist minorities today, God will similarly be angry with you. I turn the verse around, and use it to teach a lesson."

Rashid had a perplexed look on his face at Tawfik's explanation. "In the first place, Al Mushrikun is always used in the Quran to refer to unbelievers everywhere. If the text mentioned the Mushrikun of Quraysh, or the Mushrikun of a certain time, I could accept your interpretation, but it doesn't."

When Taufik defended his argument by quoting that Muhammad "was granted permission to fight those who persecuted him" (Quran 22:39), and that this was a reference to the Quraysh, Rashid noted this was only the first stage of Jihad. In the final stage, Muhammad was ordered to fight unbelievers everywhere "until Allah alone was worshipped" (Quran 2:193).

Rashid then noted that the verse saying Al Yahoud (the Jews) were the strongest enemies of the Muslims (Quran 5:82) was also a definite noun, but Muslims have always interpreted this to mean that Jews in general are enemies of Islam. "If Muhammad would have specified "the Jews of Medina", or "the Jews of Arabia", said Rashid, "I could agree with you. But the Quranic reference is to all Jews."

Taufik responded by repeating his assertion that this reference was only to the Jews of Medina during the time of Muhammad. "How can you hate and insult all the Jews," he asked, "When the Prophet Moses was a Jew, and many of the other prophets mentioned in the Quran were Jews?"

Rashid replied that official Islam excepted the Prophets in its condemnation of the Jews, and then added, "It seems to me that you are an anomaly, a lone wolf in your understanding of Islam. You do not represent official traditional Islam."

"That is true," Taufik responded, "And I am proud of that."

Rashid continued, "To understand how the Ulema have interpreted Islam's relationship to the Jews, we must take it in its historical context. In the beginning Muhammad had no hostility against Christians and Jews, and even sent some of his followers to Ethiopia which was a Christian nation. When Muhammad migrated to Medina he thought the Jews would accept his ideas. It was when he put pressure on them to accept him that the conflict began. At that time, the attitude of the Quran changed towards the Jews and the Christians. It is true there is a verse that says "preach to them nicely", but that verse was from the early Meccan period."

When Taufik countered there were also peaceful verses in the Medinan suras, Rashid replied this was in the first two years of Muhammad's time there, when he was still trying to persuade the Jews to accept him. It was only when they rejected him that he turned against them by changing the direction of prayer from Jerusalem to Mecca and the holy day from Saturday to Friday. "But you don't believe any of this," commented Rashid, "You refuse the Hadith and the Sira and the Tafsir and say there are no problems in anything the Quran says."

Taufik reiterated that he did not believe any of the Hadiths that went against his understanding of the Prophet, including Muhammad's marriage to Ayesha when she was nine years old, the benefits of drinking the Prophet's urine, and the need for a woman to nurse adult men if she wanted to be in the room with them.

"That goes against my logic," he said. "How can I believe it?"

"But what are the things you accept?" asked Rashid, "And what are the things that you reject?"

"What I believe in," replied Taufik, "Is freedom of belief. Because the punishment for Riddah is not in the Quran, I reject it completely. I reject stoning for adultery, because that is not in the Quran. I reject the description of Jews as "monkeys and pigs", because that reference was only directed to the Jews of one particular tribe. I reject the choice between accepting Islam or paying the Jizya tax, because the Quran says God does not like aggression. Killing homosexuals is not mentioned in the Quran and I reject it. I reject the idea that Muslims must fight the Jews before the Day of Judgement because that is not in the Quran."

"But Jald (whipping) is clearly mentioned in the Quran," said Rashid, "And so is the amputation of hands. Do you reject that as well?"

"There is another verse," countered Taufik, "That enjoins Muslims to follow the Uruf (Quran 7:199) (comment: English Qurans translate this word as "good", but the Arabic conveys the meaning of the common good or common law). The Uruf in our day is the Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention, and we want Muslims to follow this. Even the Caliph Umar suspended amputations for theft during the Year of Poverty, when many Muslims were suffering from hunger. Is anyone going to accuse Umar of Kufr (unbelief)? He did not follow the letter of the law at that time, but adapted the law to the situation."

"The Quran allows men to have four wives," said Rashid. "What is your position on that?"

"When God first created Adam," replied Taufik, "He told him to live with his wife, not wives, in Paradise (Quran 7:19). He created Adam and Eve, not Adam and several wives. For that reason we say God's plan is for men to live with one wife. But when Muhammad lived, polygamy was common. The situation is similar to a man who becomes a Christian in Africa today and has multiple wives. Is he to divorce them, when divorce is not allowed in Christianity? In the same way in Islamic history, there was a time when it was necessary to deal with the problem of polygamy, and Allah allowed men to have more than one wife."

"The example you gave of Africa is different," countered Rashid. "It is one thing for someone to become a Christian when he already has multiple wives, and quite another to tell a man he can marry four. Muhammad did not find men with multiple wives, as the missionaries did, but he told them they could marry four women."

"Let me use this example," replied Taufik, "To move into my third main point, which is to develop a new way of thinking. It is well known that women feel oppressed and mistreated when their husbands take additional wives. The Quran warns that God will severely punish those who oppress others (Quran 25:19). If a Muslim marries a second wife and his first wife feels oppressed, he is in danger of God's punishment. My opinion is that oppression and mistreatment is present in multiple marriages and God hates oppression, so polygamy is not good."

"What about the command to beat disobedient wives?" asked Rashid. "That is a clear command in the Quran (Quran 4:34)."

"First of all," replied Taufik, "There is another verse that commands husbands to treat their wives reasonably (Quran 2:231) (comment: since this is a verse telling husbands how to treat divorced wives, it seems to me Taufik is stretching a little). If the Quran has a general amicable approach for marital relations, the "beating" verse must have another meaning. If a man finds his wife in bed with another man, the Quran orders him not to beat her but to produce four witnesses (Quran 4:15) (comment: Taufik does not mention the second part of this verse, which is that the adulterous woman is to be sentenced to life imprisonment within her house). If a husband does not even have the right to beat a wife he finds in bed with another man, how could he beat her at any other time? I admit, the beating verse presents problems, but there are other ways to look at it."

"Let me be frank with you," asked Rashid. "Is the problem just with the way people interpret the text of the Quran, or is it with the Nuss itself? I am looking at Quran 4:34. It says clearly in classical Arabic, "Beat them."

Taufik repeated his earlier argument that if a man was not allowed to beat a wife in bed with another man, there must be another explanation to Quran 4:34. He suggested that since the verse referred to "women" and not specifically to "wives", it might mean that Muslims at the time of Muhammad were allowed to beat disobedient women in the society, but this did not refer to husbands and their wives.

"I agree with you," said Taufik. "If we take the texts literally there are problems. But we must reinterpret them in light of today. I encourage people to not take the text literally, to not think only in black or white, but to take a deeper approach. The problem in traditional Islam is that every situation is viewed from the perspective of whether it is Halal (allowed) or Haram (forbidden). With polygamy, for example, Muslims have traditionally not questioned it because according to the literal text it is Halal. A Muslim can look at a Christian or a Jew and conclude he is a Kafir bound for Jehenim (hell) based upon the text of the Quran. I want people to look at others from a different perspective."

"Are you trying," asked Rashid, "To establish a new Fiqh (system of Islamic law)? Traditional Fiqh in Islam was built upon a particular way of interpreting the texts. Do you want to do this again?"

Taufik replied he was not necessarily trying to do that, but wanted Muslims to look at their own religion and at non-Muslims in a new and different way.

"But who," asked Rashid, "Will lead this reformation of Islam? Is is you? Al Azhar University? The official organizations of Islam?"

"The leaders of a reformed Islam," replied Taufik, "Do not need to come from Al Azhar University. Although I don't agree with them, the fact is that the most influential Muslims of the past century, men such as Hasan al-Banna (founder of the Muslim Brotherhood) and Sayyid Qutb (a writer who has influenced violent Muslim organizations) did not come from Al Azhar. Current popular preacher Amr Khalid is not from Al Azhar."

"Do you believe," asked Rashid in the final moments of the interview, "That everything Muhammad did was right and he never made a mistake? Do you believe in Usmat Muhammad (the infallability of the Prophet)?"

Taufik replied that Muhammad at times needed to be corrected and guided by God, but that the Prophet always responded to the correction. The Prophet once turned away from a blind man to give his attention to a rich man (Quran 80), but received God's correct guidance and never repeated the same mistake. The Muslim world, he concluded, made a great mistake by concentrating on the externals of Muhammad's behavior such as how he brushed his teeth, washed his hands, or went to the bathroom.

Comments:

1. I believe that Dr. Taufik Hamid is between a rock and a hard place, and it's not just because his interpretation of Islam differs from that of Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Muhammad has a iron tight grip on Dr. Taufik. As a lifelong believer, he is intellectually incapable of leaving Muhammad behind as Rashid has done. On the other hand, as a upright and moral person, he is unable to accept the Muhammad of history. His solution is to create the Prophet he wishes had existed, the Islam he wants to believe in, and the Quran he wishes were true.

2. Because American policy makers are not themselves scholars of Islam, they rely on people such as Taufik Hamid to teach them about Islam. They rarely realize the extent to which the fanciful information given them differs from the reality of Islam as it exists throughout the world.

3. Taufik's exegesis of Arabic grammar leaves much to be desired. He bases his conclusion that Quran 9:4 refers not to unbelievers in general but only to the unbelievers of Muhammad's day on the fact that the Arabic uses the definite article Al Mushrikun. A grammatical rule of Arabic, however, is that definite nouns are regularly used to express indefinite meaning. To say in Arabic, "I don't like American foreign policy", one says "Ana la uhibb Al siyasah Al Amrikiyah Al Kharijiyah" which is literally "I don't like the American foreign policy." The definite noun is used to express an indefinite meaning.

The reality is that the Quran consistently uses the definite noun to deal with all classes of people. Believers are Al Mumineen, Christians are Al Nasarah, Jews are Al Yahoud, the people of the book (Jews and Christians together) are Ahl Al Kitab, infidels are Al Kuffar, and unbelievers are Al Mushrikun. For Dr. Taufik to argue that the definite article in Quran 9:4 means it refers only to the unbelievers in Mecca is not only bad grammar, but also nothing more than wishful thinking.

4. Dr. Taufik also stated that husbands were not allowed to beat adulterous wives, but commanded to produce four witnesses against them. Apart from the obvious ridiculousness of finding four eyewitnesses of adultery, unless she was sleeping with the entire hockey team, Dr. Taufik ignored the law of Sharia that a husband cannot be prosecuted for murdering a wife who has committed adultery. Taufik's response, of course, would be that even if the entire Muslim Ummah followed this ruling it would mean nothing to him unless he could find it in the Quran.

Yusuf Qaradawi: Muslims Protect Muslims

2011-01-29T16:58:00.004-05:00

Repercussions of the relationship between President Bill Clinton and a young woman named Monica Lewinsky in 1998 occupied the media and paralyzed America's political system for an entire year. Some commentators noted that if an European Head of State had done what President Clinton did, it would hardly have raised a yawn. Less noted was that if it had happened in an Arab or Muslim country, it would not have even seen the light of day. This is not just because Arab rulers control the media, which they do, but because of an important Muslim principle little understood in the West in which Muslims are commanded to conceal - not reveal - shameful or embarrassing deeds committed by themselves or other Muslims.

Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi explained the doctrine of Sitr in this recent Al Jazeera TV interview. The word itself is related to the Arabic word for a curtain or a veil, and carries the meaning of drawing a blind over something that is not to be revealed. I would like to summarize what Dr. Qaradawi said, and then add a few comments.

Moderator Uthman opened the interview with a quote from sura Nur. After Muhammad ruled that a woman could not be convicted of sexual immorality without four witnesses, the Prophet chastised the men who had raised the accusations against her. "Why did you speak about something when you should have kept quiet?" he asked. "Allah forbids you from doing this, and warns you not to do it again. Those who spread allegations of sexual misconduct among the Muslims will suffer a painful torment both in this world and in the Hereafter." (Quran 24:16-19).

What is the importance of Muslims practicing Sitr to protect other Muslims, asked Uthman. And how is this related to Aurah, or shame?

Dr. Qaradawi noted that Aurah is the common Arabic word for both the male and female genital organs. Just as these genital organs are covered, there are actions and deeds that also need to remain protected and covered. The Aurah are not limited to our physical bodies, but there are also social Aurah. People often do things of which they are embarrassed and ashamed, things they want to conceal from others. Each individual has his or her own weaknesses, things they do not want others to know. These are all Aurat (the plural of Aurah) that are to be protected. A man might hit someone in rage, for example, or engage in a sexual digression, or get drunk. He would be ashamed if others found out about his action. For this reason the Prophet said in an authentic Hadith, "The Muslim who protects another Muslim will himself be protected by Allah." The Hadith says that Allah is both a Protector and a Lover of Modesty. That means that Allah not only protects the Believers, but also wants them to protect each other. If a man falls into a transgression, he is not to be publicly exposed. Exposure only comes if he blatantly and flagrantly continues in the wrongdoing; then he must be punished.

This is true for all Muslim relationships. A Muslim is not to broadcast the sins of his neighbor, and a Muslim wife is not to make known the faults of her husband. They are instead to give the transgressor time to repent and seek forgiveness from Allah.

But what if the relationship has gone bad? asked the moderator. Can ex spouses badmouth each other after divorce, or neighbors criticize each other publicly after their friendship has come to an end?

Dr. Qaradawi replied that the principle of Sitr still applied. The neighbor should remember the good times they had together, and the divorced spouse should do the same. The Quran reminds Muslims in sura Baqarah to be generous to the wives they divorce (Quran 2:237).

Children should be taught from their youth that some things are to be kept private and not disclosed to others, continued Dr. Qaradawi. When the young Joseph dreamed that even the moon and the stars bowed down to him, his father Jacob warned him not to tell the dream to his brothers because they might plot against him in jealousy (Quran 12:5). (comment: the Biblical rendition of this same story in Genesis 37 does not contain this warning).

In a seeming reference to a parable of Jesus in Matthew 7, Dr. Qaradawi noted that some people were quick to notice a small speck of dust in their neighbor's eye, but oblivious to the log in their own eye. Similarly, he added, some people were more than willing to spread the word if a friend or neighbor committed sexual immorality, got drunk, or did something else shameful. The principle of Sitr requires that such behavior, whether committed by you or someone else, remains forever hidden behind the veil.

Comments:

1. At first blush, the principle of Sitr seems admirable. We in America live in a society that has perhaps gone overboard in the other direction. Just walk through the supermarket checkout line and see the tabloids, or listen to the TV political talk shows. Every real or imagined faux pas of politicians, athletes, and celebrities is broadcast for the world to see.

2. But I'm not so sure. Keeping secrets and shame locked behind closed doors is not always healthy. Many visitors to Muslim countries have noted that one striking difference is that here in America we do not keep children with mental or physical disabilities locked up at home. Walk through a mall in the Gulf and see how few families bring these children out with them. I still remember my conversation with a blind young man from Jordan who came to America as a teenager, learned English, and when I met him was about to graduate from an American University. Had he stayed in Jordan, he told me, he would probably still be a beggar on the street.

3. Law enforcement officers in the United States have noted that sometimes - not always, but sometimes - Muslims are reluctant to inform them about friends, family members, and neighbors who express radical tendencies and sentiments. I doubt if many of these officers have taken the time to inquire whether the principle of Sitr might have anything to do with the silence.

What I Believe

2011-01-29T07:02:00.004-05:00

After I posted my interest in having Muslims consider the possibility that Muhammad was not a Prophet of God and the Quran not a book from God, a reader responded, "If you wouldn't mind, providing your readers the courtesy of describing why you - as a Lutheran, no? - believe Jesus is the Son of God and the Bible is the Word of God would be most appreciated."

It is common for Muslims to respond with a question to a question. Ask a Muslim about Muhammad, and he'll ask you about Moses. Raise a question about amputated hands flying in the Quran, and she will inquire about stones hurled in Leviticus.

But this was different. It was an honest question that deserves a serious answer. What do I believe, and why?

Before I get into it, let me present a few alibis. First of all I'm a Lutheran because, as I describe here, I made a spur-of-the-moment turn off the highway last year. The label of the church that attracted me was merely incidental (and what Martin Luther wrote about the Jews in his later years was, in my opinion, indicative of a person who had become mentally unstable).

Secondly, have you noticed how much easier it is for people to talk about what they don't believe than what they do? People proudly describe themselves as agnostics, or doubters, or atheists. Ask them what they do believe, rather than proclaiming what they don't, and you get an glazed stare.

One more thing. In religion, as in politics, it is imperative to define the terms you are talking about. What does the reader mean when she uses the terms "word of God" and "son of God"? If she is thinking Islamically, she means that God dictated words to Biblical writers who wrote them down as Muhammad recited verbatim the messages given him from Allah via Gabriel. She also means that a human, Jesus, somehow became God and Christians call this man-god the son of God.

Back to what I believe about the Bible and Jesus. I believe the Bible is a unique book that conveys two powerful messages: the presence and the purpose of God. God is present with us, and our lives have purpose. We are not alone, and the things we do as well as what happens to us is not meaningless.

Tell me about Noah's drunkenness, Lot's incest, Moses' murder, David's adultery, Samson cavorting with prostitutes, Joshua's plundering, Ezra forcing men to divorce their wives because they did not belong to the right tribe - and these were the good guys! - and my response is, "Yes, that's who people are and what people do. And the incredible message of the Bible is that God uses people like this to accomplish his purposes." People who, in spite of their weaknesses, want to live close to him. People like Martin Luther, and you and me.

So what do I believe about Jesus? Well, I do believe that for the only time in history a young virgin became pregnant without the input of male sperm. God himself impregnated her, and just as my sons carry characteristics of me Jesus carried the supernatural characteristics of his father. God expressed himself uniquely in human form (which is quite different than a man becoming God, and is also quite different than describing someone such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, or Nelson Mandela as being godlike).

I also think that Jesus died and physically came back from the dead, and that somehow his death means that my shortcomings, sins, and failures are forgiven. The most important moment of my week is when the pastor says every Sunday morning, "You are forgiven of all your sins."

Why can't God just forgive sins? Why did he require the blood of a human sacrifice? I don't know, but I believe there was a necessary link between the death of Jesus and the pardon of my trespasses.

I believe one more thing. I think the Golden Rule is really important, but it is a lot harder to do consistently than people imagine and we often get it wrong. It's not just to treat other people the way you want them to treat you, it is to treat them as they want to be treated. When my housekeeper cleans my house, the Golden Rule is not for me to treat her the way I want her to treat me. I want her to clean thoroughly and not steal my valuables, but that's not the point. What is important is that I treat her with the respect and honor that she deserves as a human being, including not trying to get as much from her for as little money as possible.

Well, there you are. In a nutshell, that's what I believe.

Yusuf Qaradawi and Applying Sharia Law

2011-01-22T21:19:00.013-05:00

What exactly is Sharia anyhow? What do Muslims mean when they talk about applying Sharia today? Does a Shaykh addressing an Arabic-speaking audience explain it differently than a Muslim apologist talking to Americans? If so, does that matter?

Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi recently devoted an entire interview on Al Jazeera TV to this important subject. I would like to summarize what Dr. Qaradawi said, and then add a few comments. For those looking for a quick thirty-second read, I apologize. Dr. Qaradawi is a significant scholar in the Sunni Muslim world, and I want to accurately present what he said and believes.

Moderator Uthman began by quoting from the sura Talaq (Divorce), "These are the Hudud, the set limits of Allah, and anyone who transgresses them harms himself (Quran 65:1). He then posed his first set of questions. Why are people today calling for the application of Sharia? What does that mean? Are the corporal and capital punishments in Sharia relevant today? Can Sharia be applied in Western countries?

For 13 centuries, Dr. Qaradawi responded, Muslims were ruled only by Sharia which can be defined as the judgements of Allah and his Prophet as laid down in the Quran and the Sunnah (the life and teaching of Muhammad). Muftis, judges, and jurists all based their rulings on Sharia. This only changed when 19th century Imperialists entered Muslim countries and replaced Sharia with European law. Since then, Muslim reformers have been calling for the restoration of Sharia. This is to be expected, because Muslims must be governed by the laws that came down from Allah. It is only natural that people today are calling for a return to the rule of Sharia, and we are among those people.

The application of Sharia, however, must be governed by Ijtihad, or creative thought, to determine how it can be enforced today. It would not be helpful to simply take rulings from ancient texts and apply them carte blanche to modern societies. Just as the Ulama, or Muslims scholars, used Ijtihad in the past to determine how to apply Sharia, scholars today must do the same. Sharia is applicable for all societies throughout all time, but the Ulama must engage in Ijtihad to determine exactly how to apply it today. Most Muslim countries today are governed by civil law. This is often compatible with Sharia, with the main difference being that Sharia incorporates the corporal and capital punishments represented by Qisas and Hudud. Qisas is the element of recompense, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and Hudud refers to the limits determined by Allah beyond which which physical punishment is required.

Sharia, continued Dr. Qaradawi, cannot be divided up into sections with some accepted and others rejected. If we are going to apply Sharia, we must apply it all. The controversial elements of Sharia, those of Qisas and Hudud, are contained in the final revelations of Allah to his Prophet (comment: the later suras of the Quran, in Islamic theology, are considered the most important because many of the earlier suras were abrogated or cancelled out by later revelations).

There are five rulings in the Quran that include corporal and capital punishment, including one for Qisas and four for Hudud. The text about Qisas is in Baqarah (Quran 2:178), which stipulates that a murderer is to be killed unless the family of the victim is willing to accept blood-money instead of the life of the killer.

The four rulings for Hudud are sex between unmarried people, falsely accusing women of immorality, opposing Allah and his Prophet, and theft. Sura Nur (Quran 24:2) states that unmarried people who engage in sexual activity, or Zina, are each to be flogged 100 times. The same sura (Quran 24:4) declares that men who falsely accuse chaste women of immorality are to be flogged 80 times. Sura Maidah rules that those who "wage war against Allah and his messenger and do mischief in the land" (Quran 5:33) are to have their hands and feet cut off from opposite sides. The final Quranic ruling, which is from the same chapter, states that both male and female thieves are to have their right hands amputated (Quran 5:38).

These few verses, however, represent only a small part of Sharia. There are thousands of verses in the Quran that lay out the way Allah commands people to live (comment: the literal meaning of Sharia is "the path Allah intends people to follow"). Sharia includes religious, civil, moral, cultural, and commercial rulings. It governs personal, family, national, and international relations. All of these are included under the rubric of "Sharia Law".

At this point in the interview, a viewer noted that videos splashed across Youtube and the Internet showing hands and heads flying off were giving "enemies of Islam" ammunition to attack Allah's religion. Isn't there a problem, the viewer asked, with the literal application of the Hudud of Islam?

The problem, replied Shaykh Qaradawi, is that the Hudud are being enforced before the conditions for their application are met. The first goal of Muslims is to establish true Islam, and then they can apply Sharia with the Hudud. Muhammad fully established Islam in Medina, with its rules for social and economic justice, before ruling the hands of thieves were to be cut off. The Quran states in 2:43 that "prayers are to be conducted and charity is to be given" in the Muslim society, and this refers to establishing true Islam. If this is done in equity, with money taken from the rich and given to the poor, and opportunities for employment given to all, there will be no need for the thief to steal. When a wealthy merchant informed the Caliph Umar that he wanted to cut off the hand of his slave because the slave had stolen his camel, Umar replied, "Had you properly fed and cared for your slave, he would not have needed to steal your camel. Go and meet his needs as his master, or I'll cut off your hand!" Islamic justice must first be established in Muslim countries, and then the Hudud can be applied.

Dr. Qaradawi followed this with an anecdote from an eighth century scholar in Basra, Iraq, named Imam Hasan al-Basri. During one of Hasan's sermons, a clamor arose in the street. When Hasan asked what the noise was about, he was informed that a thief had been arrested. Hasan commented, "So the thief who steals secretly (the government official) has arrested the thief who stole openly." Corrupt businessmen today, noted Qaradawi, who are close to Arab rulers and who steal millions from the national treasury are not prosecuted, whereas an unemployed laborer who steals to feed his family is punished.

It is also important, added Shaykh Qaradawi, to be sure that the accused really is guilty before applying the punishments of Hudud. For the ruler to err by granting pardon to a guilty man is better than his erring by punishing a man who was in fact innocent.

"That all sounds fine," responded moderator Uthman, "But are Sharia and the Hudud really applicable in the 21st century?"

Scholars have argued across the centuries, replied Dr. Qaradawi, whether Allah ordained the Hudud as a deterrent to crime or a purification for crimes committed. In reality they are both. They are a purification and a motivation for the individual who has been punished not to repeat his crime, and they provide a deterrent to others who see the severe punishment meted out upon the criminal. Some people argue that the Hudud of Sharia are overly severe, but what is the alternative? The alternative in civil law is imprisonment, but in reality prison is neither a deterrent nor a punishment. Many thieves who go to prison are released only to repeat their crimes. Even worse, they meet criminals in prison who teach them to become experts in crime. The individual with a high school education in crime gets his BA in prison, and the criminal with a BA gets his PhD! They meet people in prison with 50 years of criminal experience, and learn all the tricks of the trade. The thief who goes to prison because he stole a sheep learns how to steal the whole herd.

The Islamic law of corporal punishment is more severe, but more effective. The basic principle is that the individual must know that if he or she commits the crime the punishment will follow. The Caliph Umar said, "The punishment is only to be given to the person who knew it was coming." If the society does not know the difference between what is Hilal and Haram (right and wrong) in Islam, society must be taught.

Many people do not understand the principle behind the Hudud. They think, for example, that a man who commits fornication should be punished. But Sharia states that he is only to be punished if he does this flagrantly and openly with four witnesses. If a man commits fornication privately and seeks Allah's forgiveness, he does not need to be punished. But if there are four witnesses who testify before a judge that the man committed fornication, he is to be lashed. This is the punishment for a man who has sex with an unmarried woman; if she is married and there are four witnesses they are to be stoned to death.

When Islam has been established in the society, the rules of Hudud are to be strictly enforced. After the Prophet established Islam in Arabia, he commanded that a woman from the Beni Makhzum tribe should have her hand cut off because she had stolen. Her tribe sent spokesman Usamah bin Zayid to plead for mercy for her. Muhammad became angry and demanded, "Are you asking me not to apply the punishment that Allah has commanded? Are we to perish like those before us, who punished only the weak and did not punish the strong? I swear by Allah that if my own daughter Fatimah committed theft, I myself would cut off her hand."

The moderator next asked if the rulings for Hudud were only in the Quran, or were also found in other sources. Dr. Qaradawi replied that many were also located in the Hadith and the Sunnah, the sayings and life examples of Muhammad. The difference is that punishments not specified in the Quran are open to Ijtihad. As an example, the Quran forbids the drinking of alcohol, but does not specify the punishment for imbibing. Some scholars ruled that the punishment for drinking alcohol was 80 lashes, but others said 60 and still others 40. Some scholars, on the other hand, believe that the punishment for drinking alcohol should be merely a slap or a fine.

Capital punishment for the crime of Ridda, or leaving Islam, is also specified not in the Quran but in the Sunnah. Many people know the Hadith narrated by Ikrima, "The Prophet said, If a Muslim leaves Islam, kill him," but there are many similar Hadiths. Abdallah narrated, "The blood of a Muslim can only be shed in three cases: if they commit murder, adultery, or leave Islam."

Abu Musa recounted that after Muhammad sent him to Yemen as a governor, the Prophet sent Muadh bin Jabal to assist him in his duties. As Muadh rode into Abu Musa's court, he saw a man bound hand and foot as a prisoner. Before Muadh dismounted from his horse, he inquired why the man was bound and was informed he was a Jew who had become a Muslim and then left Islam. Muadh refused to get off his horse until the man was killed, saying, "I will not sit with you until he is killed in accordance with the decree of Allah and his Apostle." Only after he was killed would Muadh dismount and sit with Abu Musa.

The Quran also indicates the death penalty is to be applied for those who leave Islam, said Dr. Qaradawi. Sura Maidah (Quran 5:54) says that if Muslims leave Islam, Allah himself will bring people to fight against them. The meaning of this verse is that Ridda is to be resisted in the strongest possible terms, especially when it is a community or society that is turning away from Islam.

The interview concluded with Dr. Qaradawi giving his opinion on various details of Hudud; should the hand of a thief be cut off at the wrist or the elbow? The Shaykh says it is the wrist.

Comments:

1. A professor I had years ago used to say, "Consistency, thou art a jewel!" If nothing else, Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi is consistent. Unlike most Muslim apologists in the West, he does not water down his message to meet the expectations and assuage the concerns of his audience. With Shaykh Qaradawi, what you see is what you get.

2. His message is not only consistent, it is also perfectly logical if you accept his basic presupposition that Allah revealed his perfect and final revelation to Muhammad. If that is true, then whatever Allah told Muhammad is as relevant and applicable today as it was in Medina 1400 years ago.

3. The argument of Muslims in the West (as well as the Archbishop of Canberbury) that parts of Sharia can be adapted to Western civilization while other aspects can be rejected makes no sense in light of Qaradawi's primary argument. If Sharia is from Allah, his followers do not have the right to pick and choose what they want while rejecting the rest.

4. Western Muslim apologists often deny that Islam calls for the death penalty for those who leave Islam, as well as the stoning of married people who commite adultery. Based on the texts provided by Dr. Qaradawi, I don't think these apologists are telling the truth.

4. Media commentators have recently mocked the voters of Oklahoma for voting not to apply Sharia law in any form in their state. In the context of how Dr. Yusuf Qaradawi interprets Islam and Sharia, my opinion is that those voters probably made a pretty good choice.

Matt Lauer and the Dr. Laura Interview

2011-01-19T17:26:00.003-05:00

I don't watch much TV, but a recent snow day kept me in bed a few extra hours and flipping through the channels I noticed the Today show was about to interview Dr. Laura to discuss her new book Surviving a Shark Attack. I thought the interview was one of the dumbest I've ever watched. I encourage readers to view it here and let me know whether or not they agree.

Matt found it necessary to say repeatedly that Dr. Laura was "controversial". In today's media parlance, someone who is controversial is someone you don't respect very much. He inquired about the subject of her book, which deals with betrayal and revenge, but interrupted her midway through her response to indignantly inform her he did not agree because he prefers the "turn the other cheek" approach.

He looked down at his list of questions and proceeded to the next. He wanted to know more about the nude photos of Dr. Laura that a former lover had strewn over the Internet. She replied, probably for the 1000th time, and he again looked down at his paper for the next question. This one was about her use of the N word that garned much media attention last year. She patiently responded again, probably for the ten thousandth time, but halfway through they cut off for a commercial break and that was the end of this dumb interview.

Matt had no interest in really discussing her book, or learning what she thought about anything. He just wanted to put her down.

In ninth grade I was on my High School Junior Varsity basketball team. It was a lousy team; we didn't win a game all season. After each loss, however, we praised each other with High Fives and compliments. Way to go, Rich! Great jump shot, Ron. Nice rebounding, Bill!

Finally the coach had enough. In the locker room after yet another blowout, he threw his cap to the floor. "You guys are terrible," he shouted. "And yet you think you are fantastic. You keep telling yourselves how great you are. You have no idea how bad you play."

I think TV broadcasters are like that. They hang around with each other, interview each other, and tell each other how great they are. Just last night Anderson Cooper added Dr. Laura to his Ridiculist. They don't realize how shallow and dumb they often are.

Matt Lauer found it necessary to remind Dr. Laura that she had repeated the N word 13 times. Never mind that she repeated it merely for emphasis to get her point across. It's like my saying I thought his interview was dumb, dumb, dumb. And the questions he asked were dumb, dumb, dumb. And Anderson Cooper's reaction was equally dumb, dumb, dumb. There you go; I've outdone Dr. Laura. If I had a radio show, I'd probably be toast as well.

PS. By the way, Dr. Laura is now on SIRIUS radio. If you aren't a member, I encourage you to join. Her show alone is worth the subscription.

Jared Loughner and the Tucson Shootings

2011-01-17T20:44:00.002-05:00

Dr. Christopher Lillis at this link provides a thoughtful and professional diagnosis that Jared Loughner suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. Rather than pretend to be a doctor myself and cut and paste a description of this tragic and ferocious mental illness, I encourage readers to read his article.

That's not enough for not-very-thoughtful and non-professional bloggers, columnists and pundits of all types who are finding a link between conservative politicians and talk show hosts and the killings.

Some conservatives, on the other hand, are claiming that President Obama's Tucson memorial speech was a "campaign speech." Since politicians have been known (I know this is hard to believe) to use such occasions for political gain, I carefully read the President's speech to see if I could detect any political bias in anything he said. If it was there, it would take a more astute reader than me to find it.

So the left thinks conservative politicians and talk show hosts fueled Jared Loughner's rage, and the right thinks the President's response in Tucson was a campaign speech. It seems to me there is more than enough stupidity going all the way around.

Fallout from the NPR Juan Williams Firing

2011-01-09T18:44:00.009-05:00

A number of years ago I had the opportunity to spend some work-related time in New York City. I'm originally from the country, a dairy farmer's son, but now I love cities and enjoyed every moment in the Big Apple.

One Saturday morning I decided to walk Fifth Avenue as far as I could go. I began in midtown Manhattan, walked all along Central Park, and continued North until I was well into Harlem. At about 120th street - I don't remember where exactly - I realized I was in unfamiliar territory. Words we don't use much anymore, such as "slums" and "the ghetto" came to mind. It seemed as if I was the only white person in sight. I felt uncomfortable, turned around, and quickly scurried back.

Psychiatrists say that feelings are neither good nor bad - they are simply an expression of our emotional state at the moment we have them. Were my feelings of discomfort in Harlem justified? Probably not. Do they indicate that I am a racist? I hope not. Would I have those same feelings if I walked those streets today? I doubt it.

Apparently it is not safe in America anymore to publicly express personal feelings. When NPR veteran reporter Juan Williams said in October that he felt uncomfortable in an airport when he saw Muslims dressed in traditional garb, it cost him his job. Last week NPR senior vice-president Ellen Weiss was forced to resign for the clumsy way in which she handled his firing.

Here's what I find interesting. Juan Willians was raised in Brooklyn's rough-and-tumble Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. He probably would not have felt the discomfort I felt walking Fifth Avenue through Harlem. I, on the other hand, lived in the Middle East for years and never felt uncomfortable on an aircraft surrounded by Muslim men wearing traditional clothing. If it happened to me here in the States, rather than being afraid I'd probably engage them in conversation.

The discomfort we both felt was, I would guess, at least partly due to the fact that we were in an unfamiliar situation, a little out of our comfort zone. I would hope that no one would interpret my feelings to assume that I was racist, and I think it is very unfortunate that Juan Willians lost his job after expressing his.

NPR Vice President Ellen Weiss took the fall recently for firing Williams over the telephone. She handled it clumsily, the top brass said, not professionally, so she had to go as well. The real tragedy is not that Williams said what he felt, or whether he was fired in person or over the telephone, or that Weiss also took the blame. It is that all CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, had to do was call NPR as soon as they heard Juan Williams' comments on FOX and express their "deep concern" that he might be "Islamophobic" (in quotes because it is only a cleverly-invented word intended for occasions such as this), and his comments could be "fear-mongering". That NPR would be so fearful of CAIR's bluster that it would immediately call Juan Williams to inform him he was history is the real tragedy.

The Alexandria Coptic Christmas Bombing

2011-01-04T10:34:00.007-05:00

Now that I am technically a Lutheran, I'm getting used to the idea that major holidays are seasonal events that not only begin long before the week of the celebration, but continue afterwards. I have always been accustomed to weeks of Advent before Christmas, but to hear a sermon on "The Slaughter of the Innocents" the first Sunday after Christmas, when gift wrapping was still scattered around my living room floor, was a bit disconcerting. For those who don't know the story, the Wise Men who came to see the infant Jesus announced they were coming to greet a King. The local ruler Herod was threatened by this news of another King, and immediately killed all male children under two years of age. Jesus was only saved by the fact that his parents whisked him off to Egypt before the soldiers got to him.

Having heard the sermon, in which the Pastor reminded us that children are still being unjustly killed in many parts of the world, I should have been prepared for the news of the bombing of the Coptic Church in Alexandria in which 25 people lost their lives. I'm not sure why this particular story has saddened me so much. After all, Muslim suicide bombers have killed hundreds of people - not only Christians but Shia and innocent Sunnis as well - over the span of only the past few weeks. Maybe it's because I've walked the streets of Alexandria and visited Coptic churches in Cairo. Maybe it's because I've had Coptic friends. Perhaps it was seeing this Facebook page of Mariouma Fekry. Her last post, just a few hours before she went to church where she was blown to little pieces, was: 2010 is over...this year has the best memories of my life...really enjoyed living this year...I hope 2011 is much better...i have so many wishes in 2011...hope they come true...plz god stay beside me & help make it all true. :)

In the midst of Muslim denial, denial, denial, writer Hani Shukrallah in this article which is well worth reading gets closer to the truth than most. He at least acknowledges the thinly-veiled resentment, jealousy, and hatred many Middle Eastern Muslims feel towards the Christians living in their midst. But as a Muslim, Hani cannot go to the root of the problem. It is not only that he is unwilling and unable to, he is not allowed to. The one thing Hani Shukrallah cannot do is consider the possibility that the hatred many Muslims harbour toward non-Muslims finds its source in their Prophet and their Book and their Religion.

The most important thing in understanding Islam is to see it from the perspective not of a 21st century Muslim academic living in the West, but of Muhammad. To the Prophet and his early followers, the world was divided into two groups of people. Those who accepted Muhammad as Allah's Final Prophet were the mumineen, the true believers. All who rejected the message were the kuffar.

This is where the story gets interesting. The Quran has nothing good to say about the kafir (singular) and the kuffar (plural). Ask your Muslim friends if they consider you a kafir, and they will assure you that you are not. "You are a Person of the Book," they will say. "The Quran says that Christians are the closest people to the Muslims. It would never use the word kafir to describe a Christian."

On the surface, that sounds nice. The reality is that the only reason Christians and Jews were called "People of the Book" is because they had books - the Torah and the Injil - that they could read, whereas the Arabs were mostly illiterate and had no books. The Christians whom the Quran describes as close to the Muslims were those who accepted Muhammad as a Prophet. But what about the statement that the Quran never called a Christian a kafir?

It is true - technically - that the word kafir is not used in the Quran to describe Christians, but a quick look at Arabic grammar gives a different story. The difference between a verb and an active participle, or the person doing the action of the verb, is a simple change of vowelling and pronunciation. The verb sakana means to reside, and a resident is a saakin. Kataba means to write, and a writer is a kaatib. Qatala means to kill, and a killer is a qaatil. Saraqa means to steal, and a thief is a saariq. Kafara means to disbelieve in Muhammad, and an unbeliever is.....you guessed it, a kaafir.

When your Muslim friends tell you the Quran does not use the exact active participle kaafir to describe a Christian, they are correct. But the Quran does say in surat al-Maidah (5:17) that those who believe Jesus was the Son of God are guilty of kafara. Following Arabic's own rules of grammar, they are the kuffar.

It is ironic, if not tragic, that the country the infant Jesus fled to in order to escape a Roman King would, 2000 years later, blow up 25 of his followers as they were leaving a celebration of his birth. 2010 began with the slaughter of 7 Copts as they were leaving a church in Nag Hammadi, and ended with the massacre of four times that many in Alexandria. Until Muslims become willing to look at the source of this hatred, my fear is that things will get much worse before they get better.

There You Go

2011-01-03T19:31:00.002-05:00

The other day I heard a stand-up comic give a routine about the common expression "There You Go". "It's a great phrase," he said. "Some idiot comes up and tells you something that's really stupid. You don't want to get in an argument or fight with them, so you just listen until they finish and then you say, "There you go." They walk away impressed with what they have told you, not realizing that to you it makes no sense at all."

A Muslim neighbor engaged me in conversation today about the recent church bombing in Alexandria. "Some people think the Mossad were behind it," he said. "Even a Coptic Member of Parliament publicly stated that Israel is trying to separate the Christians and the Muslims in Egypt. Israel wants to divide the entire Middle East into little countries that will have no influence."

Well, there you go.

America, I Don't Like You!

2010-12-26T20:51:00.002-05:00

Soon after I posted my chance meeting with a young African girl coming from Saudi Arabia to study in America, I came across this poignant account of a Saudi woman also living in America as a student. My translation is from her Arabic blog which can be viewed here.

"Before I came to America, the idea of independence attracted me more than anything else. Even though my father was never involved in my personal decisions and allowed me full responsibility, the lifestyle of my country forces women to be dependent for the simplest of things. Besides that, my father spoiled me so much that he would not even allow me to move a glass from its place - that was the job of the servants!

So I came to America with the dream of benefitting from the experience of freedom. I wanted this experience to strengthen and develop my personality. I wanted to learn to depend on myself, which was hard in a country controlled by masculinity.

But I no longer want this independence, nor the responsibility that I used to dream about. I want to return to my parents. I want to wake up to find my breakfast prepared and waiting for me. I want to finish eating breakfast and have my coffee ready. Then I want to get in the car and have the driver drop me off at the university, or the mall, or wherever I want to go. When I'm finished, I want him waiting to take me home.

I don't want to have to look for a parking spot. I don't want to pay the rent and the utility bills. I don't want to think about anything except my dreams. I don't want daily responsibilities that weigh me down.

Who is at fault for my fear and inability to accept responsibility? Is what I feel normal? Is the lifestyle I am accustomed to the reason for this? Should I blame myself, or the society that demands the permission of my father for everything?

I don't like the American life. I find it pushes people down. It forces you "to be or not to be". You can't be just an ordinary person living an ordinary life. You either succeed, or you are forced to work three jobs to live a respectable life. There is no place for the family. There are no boundaries placed in front of trying to get money.

This is what I have observed in my small environment, and is not a generalization. I prefer the pretense and windowdressing of my own country. I prefer the dichotomy, and the lack of freedom. I want to live my life and defend my principles, with all the limits and restrictions, but with my family. I want to be with my daddy and mommy, with my brothers and sisters and my relatives. I want to be my father's spoiled child who arranges the entire house according to her whims.

There is something about my country that makes me crazy about it. In spite of all my criticism and my rebellion, I love it more than any other country.

I know many will not agree with me, but I am speaking about my personal experience. Many people love life in America, and they have that right. Yes, there are many positive aspects, but they mean nothing to me. None of them make up for what I am missing. What I have lost is much greater than I can put into words. America, I am sorry but I don't like you!

Life in America is not right for me. That does not mean it is not right for all the women from my country. I am merely speaking for myself. I was much happier in Saudi Arabia. There is a spirituality I have lost here. What I have lost is much deeper than the feelings of independence and self-reliance, and that I am equal to a man in every way. I have lost something that all those things are not able to cover. I have been in America more than six months, and these feelings are still with me.

I still view America as being green, the color of money. Its nights are depressing, and its streets narrow. Life here is frightening. I would prefer an hour in the Empty Quarter to these dreary woods behind my house.

This is my personal perspective, nothing more."

Welcome to America!

2010-12-26T17:30:00.002-05:00

I was waiting at the King Khalid Airport in Riyadh to board the Swiss Air flight that would take me on the first leg from The Magic Kingdom to America. Among the usual crowd of well-heeled Saudis and bewejelled expats I noticed a young, comparatively poorly-dressed dark-skinned girl waiting to board the plane. In Zurich we went to the same gate to catch the onward flight to Washington, and I struck up a conversation with her. Her family was from Guinea in West Africa, but she had been born in Saudi Arabia and lived there her entire life. Her father was one of millions of foreign workers who did the jobs Saudis were unwilling or unable to do, and her family was far from rich. They had saved enough money, however, to send their oldest daughter to America to study where she had been accepted at the University of Washington.

She said she had never really felt at home in Saudi Arabia or welcomed there, even though it was the only country she had known. She had returned to Guinea for a few months after graduating from high school, but felt even more of a stranger there. Like millions of others have done for centuries, she was coming to America to start a new life.

I was behind her as she put her suitcase on the conveyor belt to go through security, and it set off enough alarms to raise the dead. Security officials quickly opened the suitcase to reveal the metal sauce pans and silverware, along with bags of rice and beans, that her mother had packed for her so she would be able to survive in America. I realized that if she was having that hard a time getting out of Europe she might have a real hard time getting in America, so I made sure to keep her in sight to vouch for her if necessary after we reached DC. They let her into the country, and at the luggage carousel I saw her for the last time.

When I shook her hand to say farewell I handed her a crisp 100 dollar bill. "Life's not always easy in America," I told her. "You are going to meet people who mistreat you, and some who try to take advantage of you. No matter what happens, I want you to remember that the first person you met in America welcomed you here."

As she looked at my gift her eyes got large and her mouth dropped open. She could only say three words, but they were more than enough. "Oh my God!"

A few weeks ago I learned that a young Egyptian couple was making their first trip to America to interview in hopes of being accepted at a university in New York City. At the last moment the person who had said they could stay in her apartment backed out of the invitation. Determined to make the trip anyhow, the couple sold their car in Cairo to be able to afford the cheapest hotel they could find in Brooklyn.

After they finished the interviews, I offered to host them for a few days in the DC area. I took a day off from work, and we walked around the White House and the Mall. I introduced them to the Lincoln Memorial and explained why Abraham Lincoln was such an important President that he merited his own temple. We visited the Vietnam Memorial, and watched the veterans who after all these years still shed tears as they touch the engraved names of fallen comrades. And I said to them, "This is America."

Like most of us, I continue to make New Year's Resolutions even though I usually fail to keep them. My resolution for 2011 is to be more active in welcoming newcomers to our country. Many refugees have recently arrived from war torn countries such as Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan. I've just filled out the application forms to serve as a volunteer teaching English as a Second Language to some of them. It's only a two-hour per week commitment, and even I can handle that. Hopefully I'll do a good job and will be able to say to them, along with the many others involved in their resettlement, "Welcome to America!"

What Sarah Palin Has That Everybody Wants

2010-12-19T14:25:00.001-05:00

In her December 17 interview with Sarah Palin, Good Morning America correspondent Robin Roberts noted, "I have to tell you, the first thing I noticed when I walked into the Palin home is that it's all about family."

America is a country filled with millions - perhaps tens and scores of millions - of lonely people. Many of us are divorced, or the children of divorced parents. Others stay in empty relationships long after the spark of romance and the warmth of intimacy have gone. Unmarried teenage girls choose to become pregnant and have babies just so they can have someone to love or to love them. People move from one empty relationship to another, or give up hope of a good relationship at all. Married couples choose not to have children for the sake of their careers, or carefully calculate how many children they can have without putting those careers on hold. Infants live their lives in daycare because their parents choose lifestyles that demand both incomes.

And along comes Sara Palin, a woman who loves a husband who adores her, with a big, messy family. Her critics use words such as "polarizing, fanatic, radical, right-wing extremist, Christian fundamentalist conservative" to describe her, and that's just the beginning. I don't need to mention those critics by name, and you could probably make a list far longer than mine. My suggestion is that she has something most of them are longing for.

It could well be that Sarah Palin will be the next President of the United States. If so, she will continue to be the person she has always been, a mother working out of the house balancing the needs of her family and her job. Like radio talk-show host Dr. Laura, I could imagine President Palin greeting foreign dignitaries by saying, "Good morning King Abdallah and Queen Rania, and welcome to the White House. I am Sarah Palin, and I am my kids' mom."

Jihad: Doctrine and Reality

2010-11-28T11:14:00.002-05:00

Critics were quick to notice that President Obama adeptly sidestepped the question when asked a few weeks ago by a young student in India to define Jihad. "The phrase Jihad has a lot of meanings in Islam and is subject to a lot of different interpretations," the President replied. Without giving any of those meanings, the President went on to assure the student that most Muslims are peaceful, and that Islam is one of the world's great religions.

For those willing to invest 90 minutes for a deeper understanding of Jihad as understood by those who take it most seriously, this link is worth following (immediately under the video, click to watch the English version). I watched the documentary when it first appeared in Arabic a year or two ago, but this link provides English subtitles. As host Rashid says, "I'm not going to say "Happy viewing", because what you are about to watch is not Happy. But it is important, and it is real."

Learning to Die in Miami (and Whale Watching in Baja California)

2010-11-25T10:54:00.004-05:00

The other day I caught this NPR interview with Yale Professor Carlos Eire, who was discussing his new book Learning to Die in Miami. I realized immediately it was a book I wanted to read, and thanks to the electronic wizardry of the Kindle was beginning the first chapter less than a minute later.

Professor Eire was one of 14,000 Cuban children airlifted from Havana fifty years ago in the Peter Pan operation, a Kennedy era pre-Bay of Pigs historical event about which I had almost forgotten. The book is his memoir of arriving in Miami and his first years in America. One sentence that grabbed my attention was this description of the Jewish couple who were his first foster parents in America, "I've said it before, and I'll say it again and again until the day I die: such good people, such brave people, such transparent proofs for the existence of God. Little did they know what was in store for them, entangling their lives with ours."

It probably goes back to my own insecurities, but there was something reassuring about reading a distinguished professor from Yale University say his reason for believing in God is simply the good things that have happened to him. At this post, I noted that my reason for belief is not much different. And reading the Professor's statement reminded me of the day my daughters and I went whale watching in Baja California.

It was one of those spur of the moment trips. I was back in California from working overseas, and we decided to jump in the car and head south. A few days later we were on the southern tip of Baja California (for overseas readers this is not the state of California, but an 800 mile strip on the Western coast of Mexico). We enjoyed the beach and art colonies for a few days, and then headed back home. We stopped in a small coastal hotel for the night, where my daughter noticed a sign advertising Grey Whale watching and suggested we do that the following day. Having learned at least one important lesson in 25 years as a parent, which is never to say No to your children unless necessary, I agreed.

I was sceptical, however. I'd seen the tourists lined up on Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey California to lay down their money for a "whale watching trip" that involved going out into the bay for an hour or so and if they were really lucky seeing something at a distance their guide told them was a whale. But I was willing to give it a chance, and at seven the next morning we were waiting for the van to take us down to the boat.

My first surprise when we arrived and saw the old motorboat waiting for us offshore was that we were not alone. It was a local holiday, described by our guide as Mexico Family Day, and he had brought his extended family to go with us. Little children were dressed up in their Sunday best, with the girls wearing ribbons in their hair, all excited about the trip out in the water. We all piled in the boat, he started the engine, and off we went.

It was about an hour later that we noticed the huge grey lump on the surface we had come to see. The guide cut the engine until it was barely purring and we moved slowly towards the whale. To our surprise, rather than submerge itself and swim away, the gigantic grey whale moved towards us until it was parallel to our boat, rubbing itself against the side.

And that's when it all began. From out of nowhere - well, actually, from underneath the surface of the ocean - another whale emerged and then another. Soon there were half a dozen surrounding our small boat, engulfing it from all sides, pushing against it and spouting all over us. We reached over the sides pushing our hands into their rubbery skin, and the children went wild. The whales remained for what seemed like hours, swimming around us, spouting on us, pushing against us, having as much fun with us as we were with them. Then it ended as quickly as it had begun, with the whales giving one last push against the boat and then submerging themselves once again into the ocean to swim away.

That evening we stopped to fill up the car at a gas station. I recounted the adventure to an American couple who was there, and their jaws dropped open. "We've been coming here whale watching for the past 30 years," they said to me. "We've never seen anything like that."

Well - and here is where I know the atheists, agnostics, and sceptics will all have a field day - I think God gave my daughters and me that special experience just because he likes us. It was simply an unexpected gift from a friend.

Would I still believe in God had I been born a cripple, a refugee, homeless, or unloved, or all four at the same time? I don't know. Would I still believe in God if, at this stage in my life, I became an unloved, crippled, homeless refugee? Absolutely.

In her book Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali describes the moment she first dared to utter aloud the words, "I don't believe in God." The sentence came after months of struggling with the fact that the 9/ll suicide bombers had carried out their operation in the name of Allah.

I often wonder if Ayaan hasn't thrown out the baby with the bathwater. In one fell swoop, she went from "Allah is not God" to "There is no God". She seemed to dismiss the possibility that God does exist but he is not Allah. What is interesting to me is that as I follow the course of Ayaan's life from being an oppressed Muslim girl in Somalia to becoming a voice for the oppressed in America, I visualize the hand of God guiding her just as clearly as that wonderful day he brought those grey whales to our little boat in Baja California.

The Coming Out of Bishop James Earl Swilley

2010-11-20T09:59:00.005-05:00

A dozen or so years ago my daughter and I were taking highway I-20 across Georgia (no, it wasn't the sad Highway 20 Ride) when just outside Atlanta we noticed a church with a huge cross and the unusual name of Church in the Now. Seeing some cars in the parking lot, we realized a service was going on and whipped off the highway to check it out (life's adventures often come from these little whims). As we walked in, I realized that it was trying to be as "modern" as it could be to attract as many of "the lost" as possible. My daughter remembers the large disco strobe lights in the center of the auditorium, and I remember thinking that, like many churches, it seemed to be centered around the personality of its leader, Bishop James Swilley.

I hadn't thought much about it afterwards until my daughter told me a few weeks ago that Bishop Swilley was in the news; he had just informed his congregation he is gay. The sermon in which he did so, available here, is well worth hearing. A few days later he and his business partner, who is also his ex-wife Debye, were on the Joy Behar show on an episode, available here, which is also worth watching.

As I watched them on Joy Behar I realized that what they were saying needed to be analyzed and interpreted to a non-religious audience just as I usually analyze and interpret Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The Bishop, of course, did not describe Debye as his "business partner", but as his "ministry partner". This in itself requires an explanation that was probably lost to Joy Behar.

Religious people who belong to comparatively small groups often see those groups as larger than they really are. From their vantage point at the center of the group, it is not just a small sub-set of American religious culture, but a main ingredient. Many of them adopt the name of their founder. Jimmy Swaggart, Benny Hinn, and Kenneth Copeland are only a few of dozens of examples that could be given. It's not coincidence that the name of Bishop Swilley's business is JESM, James Earl Swilley Ministries.

If I were to define the word "ministry" in a religious context, it would be "a non-sustainable religious enterprise centered around the personality and vison of its founder and supported by his followers." It is non-sustainable because the founder will inevitably die or become involved in a crime or scandal and lose the financial support of his followers. The exceptions are people like Oral Roberts or Jerry Falwell who founded successful universities, or Billy Graham whose legacy lives on in his son's international relief organization Samaritan's Purse. The ministry is an enterprise because it is a business and its bottom line is money. Without financial support, the ministry collapses. This support is given by followers who are often convinced they themselves will receive spiritual and financial blessings by giving money to the ministry's CEO.

In the Joy Behar interview, Debye described her abiding love and respect for her now ex-husband. If she ever asked my advice, I would encourage her to take a deep step back, forget the "ministry" for a long while, and give herself lots of time to think about what really happened. She might begin by looking a little more deeply at the religious beliefs or psychological motivations that led her to marry a man she knew was gay. She might ask herself what was so compelling about this "ministry" that caused her to sacrifice the values of honesty and intimacy for so many years.

I wish both Debye and Jim Swilley the best. You don't get many shots at happiness in this life, and I hope they both get another one. I especially hope they open themselves to the possibility that this happiness could lie outside their acclaimed "call to the ministry" and all that that entails.

Dr. Yusuf Qaradawi and the Sahaba, the Companions of Muhammad

2010-11-08T13:47:00.003-05:00

Dr. Yusuf Qaradawi devoted a recent Sharia and Life program on Al Jazeera to the Sahaba, the Companions of Muhammad. Islam divides the earliest Muslims into several categories including the Muhajireen (the immigrants who migrated from Mecca to Medina with their Prophet), the Ansar (those supporters who accepted Islam in Medina), and the Tabieen (the followers, or Muslims of the generation following Muhammad's death). Those who personally knew Muhammad are accorded the highest category of Sahaba.

The occasion for Dr. Qaradawi's discussion was the fatwa (I wrote about it here) pronounced against Kuwaiti Shia dissident Yasser Al Habib for suggesting that Muhammad's wives Aisha and Hafsah killed their husband so their fathers (Abu Bakr and Umar bin Khattab) could take charge. Qaradawi praised the fatwa, but regretted that Kuwait had withdrawn Al Habib's citizenship. "Anyone who insults the Umahat Al Mumineen (the Mothers of the Believers, or wives of Muhammad) deserves to be punished," said Qaradawi. "Rather than withdrawing his citizenship, Kuwait should have brought him back for a public trial, so that everyone can see what happens when someone speaks against the wives of the Prophet."

Even this sentence is interesting on a number of levels. Qaradawi seems to think that the United Kingdom, where Al Habib now lives, would be interesting in extraditing one of its residents back to Kuwait to stand trial for what the West has traditionally understood to be an expression of free speech. Secondly, Qaradawi obviously believes that speaking critically of even those associated with Muhammad is worthy of a public trial. Thirdly, Yusuf Qaradawi wants Yasser dead but is very skilled at not publicly saying exactly what he means. Ask any of the estimated 40 million Arabic-speaking people who watched this program what he meant by the comment, "So that everyone can see what happens when someone speaks against the wives of the Prophet," and they will unanimously tell you he is calling for Yasser's death. Ask a Muslim or non-Muslim apologist on CNN, FOX, or any of the other Western channels if Qaradawi was advocating the death sentence and they will deny it.

Some additional background information might be helpful. Some of Muhammad's followers thought the first three Caliphs Abu Bakr, Umar bin Khattab, and Uthman usurped the position that should have gone to the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law Ali. They became known as the Shia, who are even today given the derogatory title of the Rafideen, or Rejectionists, because they rejected the idea that Muhammad's successor should be chosen by a Shura council rather than following his blood line. Some modern Shia clerics have been quite vulgar in talking about the early Caliphs and their families, using the Arabic and Farsi equivalent of English four-letters obscenities to describe them. Recent Shia pilgrims to Medina have gone as far as to desecrate the graves of the Umahat Al Mumineen to show their contempt for the women buried there.

Dr. Qaradawi defined the Sahaba as "any Muslim who saw the Prophet, met with him, or heard him speak even once in their lives". They represent a unique generation that can never be repeated, he said, because they were "the students in the school of Muhammad". No other generation will have a better teacher, and no Muslims will ever again equal the Sahaba. Their relationship to Muhammad was different than the relationship of other followers to their prophets. They were willing to follow him to the death, whereas the Children of Israel continually rebelled against Moses and were unwilling to follow him into the land of Canaan (Qaradawi then quoted the relevant verses from Quran 5:20-26. The fact that the Bible indicates the "two spies" were sent into Canaan under the leadership of Joshua, not Moses as recounted in the Quran, seems irrelevant to Muhammad who never was a stickler for historical Biblical detail).

The Sahaba, explained Qaradawi, were not Maasoum or protected from sin as was Muhammad, but they had a strong sense of Adalah, or justice. They read the Quran with such devotion that they insisted the punishment of Hadd, or death, be imposed upon them if they broke its commands. Qaradawi then recounted the Hadith of the Sahaba woman from Juhaina who became pregnant as a result of Zina (either adultery or sex outside of marriage) and asked Muhammad to put her to death because of her sin. The Prophet replied that only she could be judged, not the child growing in her womb, and asked her to come back after giving birth. She did so, again pleading with Muhammad, "Please purify me now." Islam's Prophet told her to wean her child, and then return to him. She returned a few years carrying the child in her arms, fed him a piece of bread in the presence of Muhammad to prove that it could eat, and said, "Oh Apostle of Allah, the child has been weaned." At that moment Muhammad pronounced judgment upon her and she was stoned to death.

It's difficult to find a more vivid contrast between the message of Jesus and that of Muhammad than to simply read Jesus' encounter with the adulterous woman in John 8 and compare it with the above story. Dr. Yusuf Qaradawi would have us believe that the woman from Juhaina wanted to be killed because of her sensitivity to God's law, and that the Prophet of Islam carried out the sentence in obedience to the same law. I find this really hard to believe. It is true that Islam has produced a shame-based society, and I can imagine this woman's sense of shame being so strong she would see no advantage to staying alive. But Islam has also produced a very judgmental society, and I can also see Muhammad killing her simply because she had transgressed a rule he established for that society. In either case I, apparently unlike Dr. Qaradawi, don't see in the story a model for life and behavior to be followed in the 21st century.

Revolution Sunday

2010-10-31T15:33:00.000-04:00

I've recently joined a Lutheran Church so am now learning something about Lutheranism. Today was Reformation Sunday, the anniversary of Martin Luther's nailing his convictions to a church door that sparked the Protestant Reformation.

The pastor caught my attention when he pointed out that the famous verse in Habakkuk 2:4, "the just shall live by faith", later taken by Paul as the linchpin of his understanding of the Gospel and still later picked up by Luther as the foundation for the Reformation, does not quite mean what the English translation indicates. The verse more accurately reads, "the just shall live by faithfulness". Even more significantly, the same Hebrew word used throughout the Torah or the Old Testament always refers to God's faithfulness, not ours.

Why did that catch my attention? Assuming there is an afterlife, millions of Christians as well as Muslims are hoping to reach Paradise by believing the right thing (faith) or doing the right thing (faithfulness). But just like the spiritual struggle of Martin Luther, how can you ever be sure that you have the right faith, or enough faith, or that you have been faithful enough? The realization that one's eternal destiny is determined not necessarily by my faithfulness but by that of God really could make this a Revolutionary Sunday!

Dr. Yusuf Qaradawi and the Slippery Path of Jihad

2010-10-30T20:10:00.022-04:00

Dr. Yusuf Qaradawi has just published a 1400 page, two volume Arabic text entitled Fiqh Al Jihad, The Correct Understanding of Jihad. He has been working on the book for the past eight years, and discussed its contents on two recent Al Jazeera programs of Shariah and Life. I would like to summarize what Dr. Qaradawi said during those programs, and then add my comments.

Jihad Al Qital, which is Jihad carried out by military means, is a Sunnat-Allah, one of God's principles. It falls under the rubric of Sunnat Al Defaa, the principle of self-defense or the defense of the weak.

Jihad was revealed to Muhammad in three stages. When Muslims were first persecuted in Mecca, Allah's instructions were to be patient, pray, and not retaliate (Quran 4: 77). After the first Muslims migrated to Medina, Muhammad was authorized to "fight against those who are fought against" (Quran 22:39). Jihad was allowed to defend not only Muslims but "the churches and synagogues that would otherwise be destroyed" (Quran 22:40). In the final stage, Muhammad was ordered to fight the unbelievers until there was no more Fitnah (Quran 2:193), defined by Qaradawi as persecution or oppression of the believers, and until Allah alone was worshipped (Quran 8:39).

The purpose of Jihad is not political, economic, or military gain, but to protect the weak who call out, "Oh Lord, protect us from the oppressors" (Quran 4:75). Although the enemies of Islam claim that Islam was spread by the sword, that is not true. "The sword may open a new territory, but it will never open a heart," said Dr. Qaradawi, and Islam spread peacefully throughout much of Africa and Asia by Arab traders and Sufi preachers who persuaded multitudes of its truth.

Muslims today adopt three attitudes towards Jihad. These are Tafrit (neglecting its true meaning), Ifrat (taking it to the extreme), and Wasat (the moderate and true meaning). Those guilty of Tafrit water down the true meaning of Jihad. They love to repeat a weak Hadith (meaning it is inauthentic) in which the Prophet allegedly informed his soldiers on their way home from a battle that they had completed Al Jihad Al Asrar, the lesser Jihad, and were now to perform Al Jihad Al Akbar, the struggle for holiness and spiritual purity.

Many of the Jihadist or Salafist groups go to the other extreme and are guilty of Ifrat. They want to fight everyone who is not Muslim throughout the entire world, but do not understand that Allah wants Muslims to live in peace with those willing to live in peace with them. Great Muslim theologians such as Ibn Taymiyya and Shaykh Qayyim argued that Muslims should live in Musalamah, peaceful coexistence, with peaceful non-Muslims.

The correct approach to Jihad, the Wasat, is between these two extremes. It recognizes that Jihad Al Qital is necessary to defend against aggression, but does not advocating attacking non-Muslims everywhere.

Muslim scholars have traditionally divided Jihad into two categories, Jihad Al Talab (offensive Jihad) and Jihad Al Defaa (defensive Jihad). In Jihad Al Talab, the Muslim is the invader. He attacks the enemy in his territory and fights him there. This is considered Fard Kifayah, meaning not everyone is obligated to go off to war as long as there are enough warriors willing to go.

Jihad Al Defaa is different. Here the Muslim is engaged in a war of resistance, fighting the enemy who has attacked, invaded, and occupied his country. This is Fard Ayn, meaning every single Muslim must be involved. Even the servant who cannot leave his field without permission of his master, and the woman who cannot leave her house without permission of her husband, are excused from seeking that permission when they are exercising Fard Ayn, involved in defensive Jihad to attack the enemy who has invaded them.

"Muslims," said Dr. Qaradawi, "Are never allowed to initiate hostilities." The Prophet never began a battle, but always sought peace with those willing to live in peace with him. Muhammad's Ghazawat, or raids, were never started by him. His first attacks against the Qafilat, the Quraysh caravans carrying foodstuffs back and forth between Mecca and Syria, were to recover the goods confiscated from the Muslims who had migrated with Muhammad from Mecca to Medina. The later raids, including the famous battles of Badr, Uhud, and Al Khandaqah (The Battle of the Trench), were all struggles of self-defense. Even the first battles against the Byzantine Empire were defensive. When the Prophet sent letters to Byzantine rulers inviting to them to "Islem wa Tuslem", accept Islam and live in peace, they responded by tearing up the letters and planning traps against him. His invasions of their country were only to defend the Muslims from their plots.

The Prophet was so peace-loving that he hated even the word Harb (war). When his son-in-law Ali announced he had named his first-born son Harb, Muhammad persuaded him to change the name to Hasan (good). When Ali announced he had given the same name, Harb, to his second son, the Prophet told him to change it to Hussayn (goodness). When the persistent Ali stated he would give another son who did not survive the same name, Muhammad told him to change it to Muhsin (better)!

My comments:

1. We've all heard Muslims living in the West expound upon the "greater Jihad", the struggle for moral purity and spiritual self-improvement. It is significant that this so-called greater Jihad is given no significance by true Islamic scholars living in the Arab world.

2. Any military historian looking at a historical military figure, such as Napoleon Bonaparte or Rommel "The Desert Fox", has the freedom to examine both his successes and his failures. He can determine which moves were brilliant and led to victory, and which were misguided and resulted in failure. Only the Muslim historian is not allowed that freedom. He or she is obligated, literally under penalty of death, to do nothing that could be construed as museeat al-nabi, insulting or criticizing the Prophet.

For this reason, Dr. Qaradawi has to construe all of the Prophet's raids as defensive. He must find not only justification but also victory in some of Muhammad's failed battles, such as the raid of Mutah, in which Muslim armies were both out-manned and defeated by their non-Muslim enemies. I find it impossible to objectively read the earliest accounts of these battles and see them as defensive, much less always victorious, but Muslims scholars are not allowed that objectivity. They must defend their Prophet at all costs.

3. But that is only a small gripe with Yusuf Qaradawi's position; my second concern is much greater. Dr. Qaradawi arbitrarily draws the line, not based upon the Quran or the Hadith but simply upon his own Ijtihad, or personal conclusion, between which manifestations of Jihad are legitimate and which are not at the present time. He says that Jihad Al Defaa, or defensive Jihad, is permissible in Iraq and Afghanistan where the Mujahideen are fighting the American aggressors. At the same time, he argues that Jihad Al Talab, offensive Jihad, is not allowed at the present time meaning Muslim Jihadists are not allowed to attack Americans within the United States. But where is the basis of his argument? How is his position more defensible than that of Usama bin Ladin, Dr. Ayman Zawahiri, Anwar Al Awlaki, or Anjem Chaudary who argue that Jihad Al Talab is not only permissible but required at the present time and who encourage Muslims in America to engage in terrorist acts to kill Americans here? If Jihad Al Defaa is permissible against Americans in Afghanistan, why is not Jihad Al Talab allowed against Americans at home?

4. Dr. Qaradawi draws another arbitrary distinction between Israel and other non-Muslim countries. Although Muslim men are allowed to marry Christian and Jewish women, Qaradawi says no Muslim is permitted to marry an Israeli woman. Although he condemns suicide bombings in Europe, he encourages them in Israel. And although he tells Muslims they are not allowed to engage in Jihad Al Talab in America, he encourages them to do so in Israel. Again, why is the voice of the aging Qaradawi any more authoritative than those voices of younger, more radical Muslims who do call for offensive Jihad within the borders of not only the United States but also all other countries that do not follow Islam as they want it to be followed?

Is there an answer? I think there is. It is for individual Muslims, one by one, to give themselves the freedom to look at their Prophet critically and determine whether the actions he took, the beliefs he held, and the decisions he made were conducive with freedom for all in the 21st century. Some Muslims are taking that step, but many more need to come on board.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on NPR: Is Islam a Religion of Peace?

2010-10-27T19:13:00.004-04:00

I noted here that non-Muslims often do not fare well in debates with Muslims. Fortunately, liberated Muslims do much better. At this link is a recent debate on the subject "Is Islam a Religion of Peace?" with participants Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Douglas Murray, Zeba Khan, and Maajid Nawaz. I invite you to watch the entire debate, and then to my comments as follows:

1. One of the problems with debating Muslims about Muhammad and Islam is that they insist on talking about anything except Muhammad and Islam. Ask a Muslimah about the high rate of female illiteracy in the Muslim world (a subject that I discussed here and here). She will quote a Hadith about "seeking knowledge even if you have to go to China" and tell you how her parents came to America (to escape the craziness of living in the Muslim world) and sacrificed so she could go to Harvard. She won't tell you that the Middle East pays little attention to the education of women for the simple reason that Muhammad paid no attention to the education of women.

Ask her about Islam's relationship to the Jews. She will tell you a story about Muhammad's concern for the Jewish neighbor who threw garbage in his yard and inform you, as Zeba does, that her parents sent her to Hebrew school for nine years. She won't tell you (if she even knows) that Medina was a Jewish city when Muhammad first went there with Jewish tribes who had lived there in peace and prosperity for hundreds of years. Ten years later, they were all exiled or beheaded simply for refusing to accept him as a Prophet of God. Nine hunded males, including boys as young as 10 years old, were beheaded in one day. She won't tell you about the vicious murder of Asma bint Marwan, the Jewish mother of five, at the Prophet's command for writing poetry he found threatening. She certainly won't tell you about the rape of the Jewess Sofiyah bint Huyayy the night after Muhammad tortured and beheaded her husband for refusing to reveal the location of his treasure. Sofiyah was 17 and Muhammad was 62.

She will tell you that the Quran states "there is no compulsion in religion". She probably doesn't know that according to the Quran's greatest expositor, Ibn Kathir, that verse was a response to the Muslim women of Medina who gave their sons to Jewish women to raise (since the Jews followed the dietary and hygenic laws of the Torah, their infant mortality rate was much lower). When Muhammad expelled the Jews from Medina, some of the Muslim mothers wanted their sons back. The Prophet's response? "They cannot come back, because there is no compulsion in religion."

Ask her about Jihad, and she will quote a Hadith about the greatest Jihad being spiritual self-improvement. She won't inform you that Jihad is mentioned well over 100 times in the Quran and that 97% of those references are to its primary meaning, the spread and domination of Islam.

Ask her about terrorism. She will inform you, as Zeba did, that only a small minority of Muslims espouse violence. She probably won't tell you about the first victim of Muhammad's terror, a caravaneer named Amr bin al-Hadrami who was carrying foodstuffs back to Mecca when Muhammad's warriors attacked. I'm not sure if the terror he felt when they descended upon him shouting Allahu Akbar is any different than that experienced by those who leapt to their deaths from the Twin Towers on 9/11.

2. Muslim debaters love to erect straw figures they can demolish, rather than discuss the main subject of the debate. Maajid Nawaz was quick to respond when his opponents referred to Usama bin Ladin as an Islamic scholar. "He's an engineer," scoffed Maajid, "He's only an engineer. How can you describe him as an Islamic scholar?"

I doubt if Maajid has carefully read The Al Qaeda Reader, or Al Qaeda In Its Own Words. Both books document the hundreds of references to the Quran, Hadith, Sira, and Tafsir in bin Ladin's speeches. A full fifty percent of Ayman Zawahiri's voluminous writings are expositions of the same texts. Maajid chose not to go there, preferring to simply mock Ayaan Hirsi Ali for not stating that by training UBL was originally an engineer.

As I noted at the beginning of this post, non-Muslims often perform poorly in debates with Muslims. Ex-Muslims who are well familiar with the modus operendi of their former co-religionists do much better. At the beginning of this debate in front of a New York City audience, only 25 percent of the audience believed that Islam was not a religion of peace. By the end of the debate, that number had risen to 55 percent. In the end, truth trumps fantasy every time.

Feeding the Homeless

2010-10-27T05:11:00.004-04:00

I live in a county that takes pride in its wealth, high standard of education and low unemployment, and enviable standard of living. It was a lesson last evening to take part in providing dinner for 35 of its homeless women.

(For readers outside America, that's "county", not "country". America is divided into 50 states, and each state has dozens of counties).

My impression of the homeless has always been someone sleeping over a grate to keep warm, an alcoholic with mental problems trying to hit you up for some change to buy the next beer. This was not the case with these women. Some of them were professionals, college educated. I talked to a few who had migrated to America from English-speaking countries for purposes of employment. But along the way something happened. It could have been a layoff, a company closure, or a divorce. Sometimes it was a personal problem - alcohol or drug use - that began as a hobby and ended as an addiction.

One of the staff members informed me there were 30 women living there last year, and this year there are five more. If you are a single adult in America, even professional and well-educated, a layoff with not enough money to pay the mortgage can easily and quickly be followed by foreclosure and no place to live.

What I felt most keenly was the sense of shame in the women as I handed them their dessert. Some tried to cover it with bluster, "What do you mean I need to wait until everyone has eaten until I have a second serving of ice cream?" Others were unable to hold their head high or look me in the eye. Life had dealt them a hard, unexpected blow, and now they were reduced to accepting dinner from a stranger.

I know the phrase "There but for the grace of God go I" can sound like an empty cliche, but as I got in my car after dinner to drive home I realized anew that there was not that much difference between those women and me. I also understood why it's important for me to be part of a faith community. The shelter is in partnership with 52 churches in the area. Each church takes one week per year to provide meals to the women residing there, and this week it was our turn. It was an honor to participate.