Special Dispatch - Egypt/Reform Project
January 14, 2005
No. 847

Egyptian Progressive Criticizes Muslim Intellectual Doublespeak

In an article posted on www.metransparent.com, Egyptian progressive Dr.
Sayyed Al-Qimni attacked the shapers of Muslim public opinion who cling to
Islamic traditions which are out of touch with modern times, yet they are
ashamed and embarrassed by those same traditions when confronted with them,
and outwardly deny elements of Islam that they know to be part of it. He
specifically criticized the U.S.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR) for lying to the American public, and prominent Islamist cleric
Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, for declaring Jihad against American soldiers
while his son attends university in Florida. The following are excerpts from
the column:(1)

Arab Officials Lie to the Western Media about Islamic Traditions

"In the past, we used to mention the tradition attributed to the Prophet of
Islam about the [final] battle between good and evil prior to Judgment Day.
[According to this tradition,] the stone and the tree will talk in this
battle, and call to the Muslim: 'O Muslim, a Jew is [hiding] behind me, come
and kill him. Except for the gharqad tree, which is the tree of the Jews.

"This tradition is studied by the pupils of the great Arab state [Saudi
Arabia] in the Al-Tawhid [school] curriculum, and the [curriculum] author
adds, in his well-known wisdom, that today the Jews frequently plant their
tree, the gharqad, in Israel, so that it will not give them away to the
Muslims on the day of the great battle.

"Television broadcaster Barbara Walters raised this subject to the foreign
minister of this great Arab country, and read him the text of the tradition.
The minister's response was most surprising. First, he expressed great
amazement, as if he were hearing about this tradition for the first time.
Then, he vehemently denied that such a prophetic tradition existed, and
stressed that the statements are incorrect from the point of view of Islam,
and that there is some confusion in this matter - doubtless stemming from a
mistake in the school textbooks...

"[With his response,] the minister denied a tradition that appears in
virtually every book of reliable [Islamic] traditions. Thus, he denies
something that is known with certainty in the religion ... and there is a
penalty for this set out in the Koran, and sanctions set out in the
religious law - which the vile sheikhs, ministers, and rulers implement upon
us whenever and wherever they please.(2)

"So we cannot accept the minister's amazement on this issue at face value...
[The amazement he demonstrated] is a denying, affected amazement that
rejects [the fact] that there is a tradition, in [precisely] these words and
this content, about an ancient and historic hostility that must continue
almost to Judgment Day...

"The honorable minister's [denial of this] indicates two things: First, a
position of contempt for Islam because of this tradition - and this is an
accusation for which we [the progressive Muslims] have been banned and put
on trial for a long time ... [and second,] embarrassment about the religion
that he abandoned when he concealed himself in the garb of affected
amazement.

"[The minister] presented himself to us as one who knows the proper
religion, and [claimed] that this tradition does not belong to this proper
Islam which he knows. In this matter, we have an ongoing problem without a
solution, as everyone is talking about the proper Islam without us truly
knowing what this proper Islam is, that is compatible with the
characteristics of the era in which we live and its ways of thought..."

'You Can No Longer Rape Women and Take Them as Slaves'

"The problem of the minister, and of all our leaders ... whether they are
clerics or regime officials is that they want Islam to be like it used to
be [in the time of the Prophet], so as to act in accordance with it 1400
years later...

"The Jews, the Christians, and [those of] other religions have simply
acknowledged [that the time of past laws is over]. Thus, for example, you
can no longer rape women and take them as slaves in wars... What makes the
burden of relinquishing some of our traditions lighter is that all the
religions had to extricate themselves from what prevented them from being
appropriate to our time.

"There are many things in the history of nations of which [these nations]
are ashamed today. [For example,] Judaism [once] permitted marrying
relatives such as sisters - as in the marriage of the Prophet Abraham to his
sister Sarah [sic], and the marriage of the Prophet Moses to his aunt
Yocheved [sic], with no shame at all...

"There is no escape from deviating from the [prophetic] tradition of 'the
best century is my century' - because the best century is always the most
recent and [reflects] humanity's latest scientific and ethical
[achievements]...

"His Honor the Minister argued that a mistake was made in the Al-Tawhid
school textbook in our country ... but he did not put on trial the authors
[who included in the book this tradition] of powerful hatred, loathsome
violence, and incitement to murder... And if what the honorable minister
said is correct, why are they continuing, until today, [to teach from] these
books to young pupils?"

A Nine-Year-Old Wife was Once Widely Accepted; Al-Qaradhawi Married a Girl
Younger than His Youngest Granddaughter

"The Reverend Jerry Falwell spoke about the Prophet of Islam and said that
he gathered many women, including a nine-year-old girl, A'isha, when he was
52.

"What the attackers of this form of marriage [did not say] was that [at the
time,] this was a highly accepted social custom, and that refraining from
marriage to little girls began only recently because of the development of
the customs and traditions.

"[This development] should also have pushed our sheikhs to relinquish their
adherence to out-of-date customs. To this very day, [it is permitted by] the
Sunna to marry a nine-year-old girl, in accordance with the Sunna [of the
Prophet]. This is a frightening and dangerous stagnation, which is also
against [civil] law.

"What is important [here] is that Falwell angered the Muslims, and when
Hussein Ibish, spokesman for the ADC, responded to Falwell on 'Crossfire,'
he vehemently denied [Falwell's] statements, and presented them as
mendacious slander of Islam and false accusations against the Prophet of
Islam.

"[At the same time,] we learned from the Internet that the 'moderate
democratic [Sheikh Yousef] Al-Qaradhawi' ... married Asma, who is younger
than this 'democrat's' youngest granddaughter, and that there are 60 years
or more between them. Mr. [Al-Qaradhawi] did not deny this news item, and
did not claim that it was false..."

'CAIR Makes a Mockery of American Democracy through Deception'

"Another instance of the same kind ... occurred when I appeared on the MBC
network, and to my left sat the well-known American Islamist Mr. Nihad Awad,
who heads the American-Islamic organization CAIR.

"I am not referring to the organization CARE. [This organization's] activist
in Iraq, Margaret Hassan, had her throat slashed by the 'heroes of Iraq.' [I
am referring] to the organization CAIR, whose areas of interest are
different - and they are not humanitarian services.

"The program's subject was 'Islamophobia' ... and it took place before the
events of September 2001. Mr. Nihad Awad brought with him a film prepared by
his organization, and screened it for us in order to prove to us that
America was hostile to Islam and hates Muslims, and that American Muslims
are subject to ethnic discrimination and racist fanaticism and that the
organization therefore requires financial support from Muslims in order to
protect the Muslims in America.

"As proof of CAIR's activity in the U.S. and in order to attract the
required support, he related a story about a book that was in front of him.
He [claimed] that this book was written against Islam, was used for teaching
American pupils, and contained grave damage to the Prophet of Islam -
because it discussed the Prophet's marriage to Safiyya bint Huyay ibn
Akhtab, after her father, her brother, her husband, and all her tribe were
killed. [Nihad Awad added that] CAIR sued [in the matter] and won, and that
this section was removed from the book...

"I reached out my hand and picked up the book, and was surprised by its
title: 'The Religions in the World.' It was not a book dedicated to Islam. I
skimmed the table of contents and saw that it presented all the world
religions in general, apparently because they [the Americans], with their
civil education, do not teach so-called Islamic or Christian education.

"Do you feel, as I do, the magnitude of this tragedy? It is our tragedy, not
the Americans'. This is because the story [about the Prophet's marriage to
this woman after killing her family members] is historical truth and there
is a consensus [regarding its truth], and it is written in all the Islamic
traditions. [Our heritage] sets out in detail the reasons for this incident,
the kind of war that was being fought then, and the rules of war [that
prevailed at that time] - according to which the women of the defeated side
were the captives of the victor.

"But the organization CAIR vehemently denies that this incident even
occurred. This is denial of something that is known for certain in the
religion, because it is linked to the history of Da'wa and the history of
the Koran and Islamic law...

"This is also a mockery of the democracy and noble laws of America, by a
deception that exploits the progress [that guides American] legal values,
and by a blatant lie in order to eradicate the story from an American
[school] book.

"The Americans, out of respect for Muslims and their religion ... ordered
that the story be expunged from the [school] book, and even accused its
authors of ethnic extremism - which is a terrible accusation in America..."

'An American Sheikh Denied Slavery Ever Existed in Islam... Then the Basra
Imam Issued a Fatwa Permitting Taking Western Women Soldiers as Slaves'

"In a fourth incident, and I don't remember the satellite channel on which
it was broadcast, an American sheikh denied that slavery had ever existed as
a legitimate and permitted principle in Islam... [Yet] two days later, the
imam of the Great Mosque in Basra issued a fatwa [permitting] the granting
of a Western female soldier, if taken captive, or an Iraqi woman accused of
collaborating with the Americans, to her captor. [The fatwa also allowed]
him to lie with her, with permission [even] clearer than the permission to
drink mother's milk..."

Fahmi Huweidi's Hypocrisy

"[The fifth example is from a November 2, 2004 article by Islamist
intellectual Fahmi Huweidi in the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram,
stating that] [President George W.] Bush's religious sentiment was
unprecedented in American history, because the period of his presidency is
thought to be the first attempt in the history of the United States to
exploit religion for political goals...

"Mr. Huweidi was very angry that Bush exploited religion to accomplish
political goals ... [while] Mr. Huweidi [himself] is the philosopher of the
longed-for Islamic state...

"[All of these people] defend Islam in a false and distorted way. They want
it as it is, so that they can continue getting their benefits and to control
the people and to keep applying secretly what they deny in public, just like
Al-Qaradhawi's secret marriage. They are all merchants in religion."

'Al-Qaradhawi Permits Killing Americans in Iraq - but Did Not Demand of His
Son to Leave University in Florida to Wage Jihad'

"The 'democratic' Al-Qaradhawi issued a fatwa permitting the killing of
Americans in Iraq. But he did not demand of his son Muhammad to leave his
university in Florida to join the mujahideen. He did not demand of his
youngest son to leave the American University in Cairo and seek martyrdom.
When he demanded a boycott of America and England, he had three daughters
studying in England, and one daughter studying in Texas...

"At the same time as the Muslims were stressing that America was sinking in
the Iraqi quagmire, they fell upon the Iraqi dinar following the [U.S.]
invasion, buying up many, because in their hearts they knew that the value
of the Iraqi currency would rise because of the invasion. This is tremendous
self-deception... We buy Iraqi dinars as an investment, and give 96% of our
votes to support Al-Qa'ida's massacres in Iraq..."

'Imagine What the Free World, Headed by America, Could Do to the Muslims if
It Wanted'

"Can you imagine what the free world, headed by America, could do [to the
Muslims if it wanted]. Some of our intellectual rabble ... talk of the
heroes of Fallujah and what they did to the greatest country in the world
[i.e. America]. They do not think for one moment - [assuming] that they
think [at all] - that America was capable, with one push of a little button,
of permanently wiping Fallujah off the map of the world, particularly after
80% of the civilians had left it.

"But the concern for the rest of the civilians [who remained] within [the
city] pushed America to fight from house to house, while it had weapons of
destruction that could have preserved it so it wouldn't lose a single
soldier.

"If these weapons of destruction were in our hands ... wouldn't we - out of
loyalty to our forefathers - act like Khaled bin Al-Walid [in the battle]
against the Iraqi Bakr bin Wa'il tribes, and slaughter them as we pleased
... or like Said bin Al-'Aas, who destroyed everyone in the city of
Tamisa...

"This world that we fight against, covet, and hate [i.e. America and the
West] has in the past sacrificed 40 million to defend its freedoms -
[freedoms] that we do not understand - and is more zealous about them than
we are about our Islam... We all know that they obtained their rights in the
past and that they know how to obtain them [today], and are capable of doing
so.

"Are there any wise [men] in the nation of the Bedouin? Is anyone listening?
I call upon you ... to awaken from the death throes of your legends, because
every one of us has children whom we want to live in a different time and a
different culture..."

Endnotes:
(1) www.metransparent.com/texts/sayyed_qimni_who_is_the_crook.htm, November
24, 2004.
(2) Someone who denies something that is known with certainty in the
religion is considered an apostate [Murtad] and is sentenced to death,
unless he recants.

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