Historical and theological Islam

[nonsumd]

You really do like the Moslem way, don’t you?

No, I just prefer history rather than propaganda. I meant only to point out that the history of Muslim-Jewish relations cannot be reduced to Muslim antipathy towards and persecution of the Jews. Muslims historically have shown solidarity with Jews particularly against a common enemy they have seen in Christianity and offered them better, if still inequitable, conditions of coexistence than Christians have.

That is simply untrue as consultations were going on before the 1920’s, and if you think the Israel/Palestine is unfair then so is the same body (League of Nations) that established the other Moslem nations such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan…at the same time. Many Jews and Christians lived in those lands as well, and they were expelled, killed, or further subjugated as the dhimmi they had been for centuries. Where is your compassion for them?

I have compassion for my fellow Christians and for Jews.

Are you claiming that Muslim persecution of Christians and Jews since the 19th c. have been unconnected with Western imperialism and Zionism (which Muslims generally see as just another form of Western colonialism)?

As I see it, Middle Eastern Christians have gotten the worst of it, caught in the middle of the conflict between Muslims and the Western powers, Western powers that do little to help and do much to hurt the Christians’ position in Muslim-majority societies.

As for the rest of it, first of all, this is the first time that I have heard that Iran was created by League of Nations mandate. In any case, as we all know, a League of Nations fiat did not mean Arab states were created that were legitimate in the eyes of the mass of the Arabs – how much less legitimate to them would a Jewish state created or pledged to be created by such a body!

The British were interested from before WWI in creating a non-Muslim client state in the strategic Middle East. The French wanted one too. So we ended up with Israel and Lebanon (at least the Maronites and other Christians had been continuously in residence in Lebanon throughout their existence as groups).

A larger point I would like to make is that the ethnic cleansing that we have seen and are still seeing in the Middle East may resemble policies of Muslim and Christian states in pre-19th c. history, but in fact modern ethnic cleansing, whether it is in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, or indeed in Europe, is a by-product of nationalism, which is very modern and to which religion per se (as opposed to religion as a marker of cultural identity) is often incidental.

Minus the recent influx of Third World/ex-colonial immigrants, most European nation-states are strikingly homogeneous ethnically. This situation has been produced by the past two centuries of ethnic cleansing – and this process is being replicated throughout the world where once ethnically mixed societies are being homogenized in the interests of nationalism.

 

[nonsumd]

cont…

Except that the Jews are correct. Palestinian Moslems can live under Israeli rule just as Iranian Jews can live under Persian rule. Do the Jews have anything similar to the Pact of Umar like the Moslems have regarding non-Moslems living under their dominion? Are the Christians in Egypt treated fairly, or the Jews of the Yemen?

The Jews don’t have the equivalent of dhimmitude: they either have Western freedom of religion that is not derived from their scripture or they have the incitement to ethnic cleansing from what Christians call the Old Testament.

Again, why would someone necessarily prefer to live under foreign rule in what he considers his homeland, even if that foreign rule is not oppressive?

I am not making excuses for how Muslims are treating Copts in Israel or Jews in Yemen nor more than I am making excuses for how Jews treat Palestinians in Palestine. So don’t make me out to be.

Russia exported their Jewish communities for reasons not so noble as you claim. Many wanted to stay in Russia as that was now their home.

I think you are confusing Soviet policy in the late 1940’s (which I would only call “noble” if I were a communist, which I am not) with the policy in the 1970’s and 1980’s when the Soviet government was indeed interested in dumping its Jews on foreign countries.

The Jews largely invited the Moslems to remain at first, but the Moslems are a all-or-nothing people. They chose nothing…or rather the other Moslem nations chose for them and have kept them destitute to sway world opinion. It is shamefull.

Some of those Arab countries have not been able to keep the majority of their own populations from being destitute, so how can you expect them to have given Palestinians a comfortable, assimiliation-promotion standard of living?

It was being dispossessed of their lands that forced Palestinians into poverty not the “stinginess” of neighboring Arab countries (maybe it’s the stinginess of the rich countries outside the region that are stingy with the UN that established the camps).

Again, I say that I believe the Jews and Palestinians both have a right to the Land, but how can we expect the Palestinians to be generous to an incoming, in their eyes invading, population in a way we would not expect any other people on the planet to be generous?

May Israelis are Palestinian if you want to use that term to describe the indiginous. When Jews come from Russia or Yemen or Egypt to populate Israel people like you point to the “fact they are outsiders”, but when any disposed Moslem be it in Jordan or Algeria, or Syria…it is those Moslem governments that refuse to integrate them as other nations do, but fill the ranks of the growing “Palestinan problem”.

Why should Arab countries integrate Palestinians into their national communities when they regard the Palestinians as a nation of their own with a homeland of their own from which they have been unjustly dispossessed? Why should they feel they should do Israel such a favor? In any case, the Palestinians in the neighboring countries generally do not want to be so assimilated.

 

[Montalban]

No, I just prefer history rather than propaganda. I meant only to point out that the history of Muslim-Jewish relations cannot be reduced to Muslim antipathy towards and persecution of the Jews. **Muslims historically have shown solidarity with Jews **particularly against a common enemy they have seen in Christianity and offered them better, if still inequitable, conditions of coexistence than Christians have.

So the Jews caused Moslem aggression too?

as to the bolded text… your view is based on what?

"Islam has ordered us Muslims to fight against the enemies of Islam and not be like the Jew and make other nations fight their wars. **We as Muslims may share in Hitlers hatered for the Jews **but we cannot praise him for the manner in which he went about killing the jews (if the history books are correct). But rather we as Muslims are governed by the Shariah which prohibit the killing the old and the weak etc.

and Allah Ta’ala Knows Best "

Mufti Ebrahim Desai
FATWA DEPT.
islam.tc/ask-imam/view.php?q=1554
(note that they don’t even acknowledge the holocaust ‘if the history books are correct’) Note they simply object to him killing old and weak Jews

 

[Montalban]

"When Jews were perceived as having achieved too comfortable a position in Islamic society, anti-Semitism would surface, often with devastating results: On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot was incited by Muslim preachers who had angrily objected to what they saw as inordinate Jewish political power.

Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in “an offensive manner.” The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.(6)

Other mass murders of Jews in Arab lands occurred in Morocco in the 8th century, where whole communities were wiped out by Muslim ruler Idris I; North Africa in the 12th century, where the Almohads either forcibly converted or decimated several communities; Libya in 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews; Algiers, where Jews were massacred in 1805, 1815 and 1830 and Marrakesh, Morocco, where more than 300 hundred Jews were murdered between 1864 and 1880.(7)

Decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted in Egypt and Syria (1014, 1293-4, 1301-2), Iraq (854-859, 1344) and Yemen (1676). Despite the Koran’s prohibition, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in Yemen (1165 and 1678), Morocco (1275, 1465 and 1790-92) and Baghdad (1333 and 1344).(8)"
jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Jews_in_Arab_lands_(gen).html

“In the late 1800’s the Jews continued to suffer the same discriminatory practices as other non-Muslim “infidels” (58) which “in many places throughout Syria and Palestine” meant “oppression, extortion, and violence by both the local authorities and the Muslim population.” (59) [p. 180]”
quoting Joan Peters book “From Time Immemorial–The Origins Of The Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine (New York: Harper & Row, 1984.)” at
rachelstomb.org/dhimmi.html

And it continued on to the present where the Arab nations expelled large numbers of Jews following the creation of the state of Israel.

Here are some passages from the Sira revealing Muhammad’s hatred of the Jews :

1. “Kill any Jews that fall into your power” said the Prophet: p.369
2. The killing of Ibn Sunayna, and its admiration leading someone to convert to Islam: p.369
3. The killing of Sallam ibn Abu’l-Huqayq: pp.482-483
4. The assassination of Ka’b.al-Ashraf, who wrote verses against Muhammad: pp.364-369
5. The raid against the Jewish tribe of the Banu’l-Nadir, and their banishment. pp.437-445
6. The extermination of the Banu Qurayza, between 600-800 men. pp.461-469
   gamla.org.il/english/article/2005/jan/win2.htm
   also cited at
   goldwater.mideastreality.com/2004/dec/13_03.html

Back in WWII the Muftif of Jerusalem said
“[T]he Germans have never harmed any Muslim, and they are again fighting our common enemy… But most of all they have definitely solved the Jewish problem. These ties, and especially the last [the “Final Solution”], made our friendship with Germany not a provisional one, dependent on conditions, but a permanent and lasting friendship based on mutual interest.”
quoted at
mideastnewswire.com/archive/muslim_antisem_danger.html

 

[Montalban]

in AD 640, the status of the dhimmi was revoked throughout the whole Arabian peninsula and the remaining Jews and Christians were expelled. (from Arabia)
churchisraelforum.com/the_dhimmi_jews_and_christians_under_islam.htm

The Moslems built their mosques on the sites of some churches and temples… where do you think the “Dome of the Rock” is?

• dhimmi people had to cede the center of the road to Muslims;
• the only animal they could ride was a donkey;
• they could not testify against a Muslim in court;
• they could not build houses taller than those of Muslims;
• they could not build new places of worship;
• they had to pray quietly so as not to offend the ears of passing Muslims;
• a dhimmi man could not so much as touch a Muslim woman, but a Muslim man could take Jewish or Christian women as wives;
• a dhimmi could not defend himself if physically assaulted by a Muslim;
• dhimmis could not bear arms;
• dhimmis had to pay a special tax every year and were treated in humiliating fashion when paying it;
• in public, dhimmis had to wear distinctive clothing, intentionally designed to be humiliating;
• at least in the 9th century, dhimmis had to nail wooden images of devils to their doors;
  ourjerusalem.com/opinion/story/opinion20030907.html

" Jews were forced to do the hardest and most distasteful labor without pay, preferably on their Sabbath.

Jews were forced to live in a mellah or other restricted ghetto-like area. They were forbidden to ride horses or camels. They were required to step aside for any Muslim passing on the street or road."
shalomjerusalem.com/jerusalem/jerusalem65b.html

Liturgical forms were strictly controlled. It was generally prohibited to ring church bells, sound shofars (ram’s horns used in Jewish ceremony), publicly display crosses, icons, banners and other religious objects…
In many Muslim lands, Jews and Christians had to bury their dead without mourning. Dhimmi graves had to be specially marked lest a Muslim should accidentally pray over the grave of an infidel. The cemeteries of dhimmi were not respected since they were considered as being from the realm of hell. Commonly they were desecrated or even destroyed completely…
churchisraelforum.com/the_dhimmi_jews_and_christians_under_islam.htm

 

[Montalban]

No, it is a reasoned position.

It’s difficult when dealing with Moslem apologists to get ‘reason’.

 

[Verisimilitude]

Why should Arab countries integrate Palestinians into their national communities when they regard the Palestinians as a nation of their own with a homeland of their own from which they have been unjustly dispossessed? Why should they feel they should do Israel such a favor? In any case, the Palestinians in the neighboring countries generally do not want to be so assimilated.

I would call it unfortunate, not neccessarily unjust.

Favor? Do you think God has recinded His promise of a homeland for Jews?

There are less than 15 million Jews in the world. They represent the foundation of my own faith. It/they are legitimate and honorable though stubborn.

Islam is illigitimate and I apologize if that sounds harsh to some, or uncharitable to others, but it is a fact I believe and there are few pleasant ways of saying something is intentionally and obviously false.

Why should the third most holy site in Islam trump the most Holy site in Judaism whaich has far deeper and significant history than Mohameds vison? Personally I don’t think re-building Solomons Temple is a good thing because even if the Ark were returned I do not think God would reside there as in antiquity. Because of Christ. Though I think the Temple Mount and all of Jerusalem should be in Israel and even her capital until- if there ever is an end- the end.

Biased? Maybe. Catholics have Rome. Moslems have Mekka and Medina. Jews should have Jerusalem and all of Palestine to be modern day Israel.

Applying Muslim or Arab to anything has become a sacred cow even (especially) if the application is false. Jews and Christians, Hindus and Atheists… are acceptable to disparage because we should practice tolerance…except the sacred cow Islam which loves to be insulted so it may exact vengence in the name of allah.

When Islam cares about anything other than Moahmed and stops playing victim wake me up.

 

[Montalban]

Biased? Maybe. Catholics have Rome. Moslems have Mekka and Medina. Jews should have Jerusalem and all of Palestine to be modern day Israel.

Even Moslem claims to Jerusalem as *their *“Holy City” (albeit third in rank) are faulty.

In the Koran there’s a passage about Muhammed going to ‘the furthest mosque’.

After capturing Jerusalem the Moslems dedicated one area as ‘the furthest mosque’ and Moslems have retrospectively declared that this must then be the one mentioned in the Koran

 

[Montalban]

"In 690 CE, after the Islamic conquest of Palestine, an octagonal Muslim shrine (but not a mosque) was built around the rock, which became known as the Dome of the Rock (Qubbat as-Sakhra قبة الصخرة ). In 715 CE the Umayyads built a mosque on the Temple Mount; they named this Mosque al-Masjid al-Aqsa المسجد الأقصى, the Al-Aqsa Mosque or in translation “the furthest mosque”.
nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Temple-Mount

 

[Verisimilitude]

It’s difficult when dealing with Moslem apologists to get ‘reason’.

It is frustrating. It is also surprising in many ways. People will believe the darndest things to placate their conscience.

Both nonsumd and Contarini have recently responded in depth to some of my posts…Sometimes it takes more effort than I care to gve to correct what seems obvious error. Their sincerity not withstanding. For the most part we all see the same evidence but draw different conclusions. Somethings cannot be justified, but almost everything is, if not justified by them, excused.