Recently I explained how, by Muslims’ own (inadvertent) logic, various Koran verses stand to be banned on the basis that they defame and incite violence against non-Muslims. Two days later, the French newspaper Le Monde published a letter signed by some 300 French public figures across the party lines including former president Nicolas Sarkozy. In it, they “ask that the verses of the Qur’an calling for the killing and punishment of Jews, Christians and unbelievers be obsoleted by theological authorities.”
Titled “Manifesto against the new anti-Semitism,” the signed letter focuses especially on the rise of Muslim violence against France’s Jewish minority: “French Jews are 25 times more likely to be attacked than their fellow Muslims. 10% of the Jewish citizens of Ile-de-France—that is to say about 50,000 people—were recently forced to move because they were no longer safe in some cities and because their children do not could attend the school of the Republic more. This is a low-noise ethnic cleansing…”
Of course, the notion that Muslims will willingly strike out certain verses from the Koran because they upset or threaten infidels is a nonstarter. From a Muslim perspective, because the Koran is Allah’s word, it cannot be tampered with or altered in anyway (if Sarkozy et al made these claims in certain Muslim countries they would either be incarcerated on blasphemy charges or killed outright).
But while more forthright Muslims base their rejection of the French call on this simple fact, those more skilled in “dialoguing” with the West follow a different strategy.
Enter Al Azhar. Located in Cairo and attached to the government of Egypt, it is the Muslim world’s most prestigious “university” (that is, madrasa) and regularly hosts—and engages in “dialogue” with—the likes of Barrack Obama and Pope Francis.
Responding to the French letter, the deputy chief of Al Azhar, Dr. ‘Abbas Shuman, said that “The call from 300 French persons to freeze verses in the Noble Koran, which they claim urges the killing of non-Muslims, is unjustifiable and unacceptable.”
And if that wasn’t clear enough, he exclaimed, “No to freezing one letter from the Koran—and those calling for it can go to hell!”
As usual, however, whereas entities such as the Islamic State proudly embrace the fact that the Koran does call for enmity and violence directed against non-Muslims, Al Azhar went into apologetic mode.
“For we have no verses,” insisted Shuman, “that command the killing of others, unless they commit one of the crimes that do earn the death penalty, such as murder, or raising weapons against us. Nor are we responsible for those [e.g., ISIS] who do not correctly understand the verses, who take them at face value without referring to the tafasir [exegeses] of the ulema.”
Perhaps he had forgotten about Koran 9:29: “Fight those among the People of the Book [Christians and Jews] who do not believe in Allah nor the Last Day, who do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden [i.e., embrace sharia law], and who do not embrace the religion of truth [Islam], until they pay the jizya [extortion money] with willing submissiveness and feel themselves utterly subdued.” All authoritative exegeses see this verse as enshrining Islam’s “messianic” mission of subjugating infidels by force.
Not only is Allah’s command here rather straightforward in meaning, but for a millennium Muslims executed it—and conquered some three-quarters of the original Western world in the process (as recounted in my new book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West).
It is only now, when Muslims are militarily/economically weaker than and vulnerable to the Western world that claims that such verses don’t really mean what they plainly say have become popular among Muslims, especially those involved in “dialogue” with the West.
I have in my possession an authoritative Arabic manual titled Al-Tarbiya al-Jihadiya fi Daw’ al-Kitab wa al-Sunna (“The Jihadi Upbringing in Light of the Koran and Sunna”), written by Dr. Abd al-Aziz bin Nasir al-Jalil. After providing several proofs, he concludes that “jihad is when Muslims wage war on infidels, after having called on them to embrace Islam or at least pay tribute [jizya] and live in submission, and then they refuse.” In other words, Koran 9:29, as it is.
As for Al Azhar’s reliance on the ulema and their exegeses, the book contains terse summaries of the word “jihad” as defined by the four schools of Sunni jurisprudence, which have the final say as to how Islam—or in this case, jihad—is articulated:
- According to the Hanafis—the madhhab (school) Egypt follows—jihad is “extreme and strenuous warfare in the path of Allah, with one’s life, wealth, and tongue —a call to the true religion [Islam] and war to whoever refuses to accept it.”
- According to the Malikis, jihad is “when a Muslim fights an infidel [non-Muslim] in order that Allah’s word reigns supreme.”
- According to the Shafi’is, jihad is “fiercely fighting infidels.”
- And according to the austere Hanbalis, it is “fighting infidels.”
Needless to say, fighting infidels in the name of Islam leads to killing infidels—untold millions over the centuries—in the name of Islam, which is precisely what Al Azhar denies.
During his dissembling, Al Azhar’s Shuman went so far as to insist that “Those [French] who think that there are [Koran] verses calling for their killing are unaware that those are really verses of peace. All verses that call for fighting are done in the context of self-defense … and this is a principle that even those calling for the freezing of Koran verses do not dispute. For all religions confirm the right to self-defense.”
Here again is another falsehood; while the Koran does have defensive verses, it has even more offensive verses. The great Muslim philosopher Ibn Khaldun (d.1406) explained the differences between Jews and Christians on the one hand, and Muslims on the other, centuries ago:
In the Muslim community, the holy war [jihad] is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force … The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense … But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.
Even so, despite the clear words of the Koran and hadith, and the clear words of the ulema and their tafasir—to say nothing of the continuum of violence committed against infidels at the hands of Muslims across centuries and continents—Al Azhar, like all apologists, still insists that it’s all a misunderstanding. Or, as Shuman reiterated in closing: “So let them [the French signatories] understand the book of Allah correctly. But if they rely on their own, mistaken understandings, then let them go—with their understandings and requests—to hell!”
Mohammed set their example. The earlier Scripture I believe is love your neighbor and d not murder
Islam has always claimed to be the new, IMPROVED version of the “Abrahamic religions ! “
islam has NOTHING to do with Judeo-Christianity. It is an antithesis. The koran was inspired by Satan himself.
Religions are complete walks of life, they are a take or no take(either work or doesnt work for u)…..no room for Equalizer……
The French should stop disturbing pipo
Yet most religions, especially the two Abrahamic ones, have adapted, and modified in line with changing cultural mores. As late as 1965 the Catholic Church reversed its basic stance—that Jews killed Christ, which enabled the Holocaust. Surely it is not too much to ask that Islam remove verses which incite to persecution of Jews in our lands where it is illegal as well as immoral ? The reality is, Islam wants to take , take ,take from us, but will not yield an inch to our laws or even respect our culture. And they are aided and abetted by suicidal socialists and blinkered liberals obsessed with “white man’s guilt ” Something has to give.
islam is SUPREMACIST, UNFORGIVING, it has an obligation to KILL the INFIDEL KUFFARS, it has an obligation to TAKE the LANDS of the INFIDELS.
SHARIA FOR THE WORLD. There is NO discussing ANYTHING with islam.
May piss be upon mohamed.
Too true for most Muslims–or certainly the most vocal and visible of them. Yet there are many Muslims who recognise Islam has to change. There are Muslim groups who even identify as Zionists, stating Israel’s right to exist is written in the Quran, and scholars who denounce hostility to Israel as being against the will of Allah . But the modernists get imprisoned or killed, and we only listen to the killers and ranters, because THEY THREATEN US. (Abused children cling to the abuser, because they recognise power )When the reformers of the then all powerful Catholic Church first began criticising it, they were burnt at the stake,persecuted from country to country, almost like the Jews. Remember the Wars of Religion, St, Bartholomew’s Day massacre, 70,000 French Protestants assassinated by deliberate order of their Catholic king ( and his Medici mother ) ? Christianity has been through that, yet Catholics are still regarded by other Christians as fiends from hell, worshipping Satan. Hatred persists. We made vast fortunes from the slave trade. Some of our greatest cities were built with the proceeds of human misery. And we justified it by claiming we were bringing Christ to the Heathen. Ditto colonialism. Not often achieved with love and the Holy Book. Our version of jihad. Yes, colonialism brought certain advantages to the conquered, but much more to the conqueror. And no, I ain’t about to surrender my hard earned culture to compensate their descendants.
The response of the Islamic scholars that the Koran does not mean what it says is laughable. In countries where Muslims have the power to enforce it, no one claims the Koran does not mean what it says. Otherwise, I was surprised not to see the name of Bernard-Henri Lévy on that list. He is usually a very thoughtful guy who is not afraid of reality, and is someone I’d very much like to see you debate.
If Bernard -Henri Levy is not among the signatories, remember he has always maintained that the majority of Muslims ,especially in France, carry a tolerant religion of peace, not to be conflated with fanaticism. In February 2016 he was still convinced “Islam is not intrinsically anti Semitic ” (to Anne Sinclair ). Surely this is consistent with the rose spectacles mandated by philosophy ? I remember his impassioned rhetoric against our Brexit decision— a more poetic way of calling us knuckle dragging troglodytes , would be difficult to find.
“children do not could attend” ???
Odd.
And… There is No Jihad unless led by a Righteous Caliph.
And, there is No Righteous Caliph and none have been for at least 1200 years…
So?
Nu?
Muslims do Not need to change their Koran.
They simply need to follow it.
Yes the conundrum is, will I be a Medina Muslim or a Mecca Muslim?
Erdogan is furiously working at bringing back the Caliphate. Iran is eagerly waiting for it’s mahdi.
That 300 supposedly intelligent people signed a letter asking that the Koran be altered, to me astounding. The absolute stupidity shown by these signatories is the very reason Islamism has made such a remarkable progress in democratic societies in Europe, Australia , America and Canada amongst many others.
It is all but impossible to fight an enemy when you have no understanding of the enemy or even realize that your in a war !! I can see some signs that there are some leaders moving toward a better understanding of Islam, Islamism, shariah, jihad and the Koran, but we are still at a point in time where our leaders are still asleep.
We must all learn about Islamism and the extreme threat it poses to everyone. This threat is, I believe, even greater than either the First or Second World Wars.
The point is to clearly and formally MAKE the request and let them reveal their colors to even the most dense by the way they respond. They’ve done this well. But allowing them to get away with misleading the audience into thinking only a “FREEZE” was requested, is to cloud the great, significance of the demand and the significance of the disgusting reply it elicited. These “holy men and their minions” prefer to deny reality. It’s who they are.
Think of Islam as the cancer in the body of humanity; you cannot reason with it, ignoring it will not make it go away, and you certainly can’t compromise or cohabit with it; it WILL KILL you eventually, unless you kill it first.
Egypt and all of islam: GO TO HELL!. Actually, you are. Correct, islam is an even bigger threat than the Nazis. At least the West recognized it’s enemy in 1939. Today, 2018, the West has allied with islam, an enemy that will prove to be Nazis on steroids.
Maybe the French should study Islam first before making such a foolish request. Islam tenets teach their converts that Islam is supreme over all the earth. There has to be a more intelligent way to alter Islam’s ideology.
How? Bombs first, requests later?
I’ll leave those questions to experts. I’m just knowledgeable enough to be considered dangerous.
drop an MOAB on each of the 56 muslim countries, then deport the ones in the West to their old lands. Drastic? Not really, these savages only understand brute force.
I’m surprised you make no mention of the fact the petition did not ask that the verses be “frozen”, it asked that they “be OBSOLETED”. Shuman is misleading – to suggest these intellectuals have asked for a “freeze” implies the ball of judgment is wishy washy and has not dropped. The only place it hasn’t dropped is where it should drop – on Al Azhar’s head. If ISIS is so contrary to the true meaning, then why no FATWA?? Only meaningless words that in actuality signal to the ummah that all is well.