ISLAM
To say that the History of Israel has been influenced by the religion of Islam would be an understatement. The thread that is Islam weaves a very dark pattern through the tapestry of Israel and therefore an understanding of Islam and how it relates to Israel and the Jew is extremely important.
The Ideology of Islam
Islam proclaims that Mohammed the Prophet is the final revelation of Allah. Mohammed fulfils all that was previously established by Moses and Jesus and is deemed superior to both. The Islamic idea of God is deistic in nature: there is a great and powerful deity but he is divorced from his creation. In the Quran, Allah is depicted as not being limited by anything, so Allah can do anything at any time, unlike Yahweh who is limited by His own unalterable, unchanging nature. So, Yahweh cannot do anything and everything; He cannot tell a lie (Titus 1:2) and He cannot act against His own divine nature (2 Timothy 2:13). God is Love, and all His actions are controlled by that dominant aspect of His nature. God is therefore totally trustworthy by the fact He is limited by His own righteous nature. Allah, on the other hand, is able to operate without reason, in any way or form he wishes. The chief aspect of Allah is that he is above everything, so we do not find love as being high up on Allah’s priorities. Allah demands absolute obedience from his followers, which means that they must submit blindly to all that is in the Quran.
“Islam is actually the ‘deification’ of 7th century Arabian culture. In a very profound sense Islam is more cultural than religious” (Robert Morey, The Islamic Invasion) so whenever Islam becomes the dominant religion in a country, it alters the culture of that nation and transforms it into the culture of a 7th century Arabia. Islam dictates how Muslims must live every aspect of their lives, to the point that culture, religion and politics are inseparable. Morey says that “Islam is fuelled by a subtle form of racism in which 7th century Arabian culture in its political expression, family affairs, dietary laws, clothing, religious rites, language, etc. is to be imposed on all other cultures”.
The tribes of Mohammed’s 7th century life were nomadic and lived by a harsh set of rules for their survival; vengeance was extracted whenever anything was done to harm any members of the tribe. Violence was the norm in Arab societies, and violence is still the norm in Islamic societies. Morey further explains some of the harsh laws that people in Muslim nations must live under: “Incarceration without due process; the use of torture; political assassination; the cutting off of hands, feet, ears, tongues, and heads; and the gouging out of eyes – all of these are part of Islamic law today because they were a part of 7th century Arabian culture.” The morals of the day were that killing a member of your own society was wrong but that killing a member of a stronger tribe that threatened their way of life was actually acceptable.
Abrogation
‘Abrogation’ is a term used in Islam to explain some of its apparent contradictions. That which is written later in the Quran supersedes that which is written earlier if there is a contradiction. The dichotomy over whether Islam is a peaceful or a violent religion is explained by abrogation. In his early days in Mecca (612-622 AD), Mohammed tried to convert followers by peaceful means. After being rejected and moving to Medina (circa. AD 632-633), Mohammed turned to violent means to convert followers. This explains why Muslims can quote Suras from the Quran that show the Quran as peaceful, but these scriptures are abrogated by the Suras that promote conflict and war because these were written at a later date.
It was while he was in Medina that Mohammed came to the conclusion that the Jews were not going to convert to his new faith, which was a combination of Roman Catholicism and Judaism. Mohammed dropped some of his new faith’s religious observances that followed Jewish practices, such as the Saturday Sabbath, which was moved to the pagan holy day on a Friday. As the Jews were successful businessmen in the Middle East, his raids on Jewish communities became a lucrative business, making him very wealthy and funding his ever-growing violent empire.
Study of the Quran shows that Islam not only condones such violence but actually commands it: Sura 9:5 states, “Fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war.” A ‘pagan’ would be anyone that does not believe that the Quran is the holy word of Allah. This scripture gives permission for any plan that will succeed in slaying the infidel, which would include suicide bombings. Sura 5:33 deals with what must be done to people who resist Islam: “Their punishment is… execution, or crucifixion, or cutting off their hands and feet from the opposite sides, or exile from the land.” Mohammed did not hesitate to use violence to force people to give up their idol worship and accept Islam.
The English word “assassin” actually has its roots in Arabic. Hashshashin was the name given to a man who smoked hashish in order to stir himself into a frenzy before going out to kill his enemies. “The Assassins” was a group from the 11th to the 13th centuries that believed that it was called by Mohammed to murder people as a sacred duty.
Islam and anti-Semitism
The anti-Semitic nature of Islam, as has been explained, goes back to the very origins of when Mohammed was in Medina targeting Jews as part of his expansionist ideals. So to blame Muslim enmity towards the Jews in modern times because of the hard-handed manner the Jews deal with the provocations from the so-called oppressed Palestinians is unfair.
Mohammed’s change in attitude towards the Jew is another example of abrogation in the Quran. Scriptures from the Quran that are favourable to the Jew can be found, but these were written during the time Mohammed was in Mecca and trying to persuade the Jews to follow his new belief. An example would be Sura 17:104, “…and we said after him to the children of Israel ‘dwell in the land, then when the time of the second promise comes, we will bring you all together as a mixed crowd’.” This scripture clearly reveals an open-arm welcome to the Jews to join the Arabs, but this would soon change.
The majority of the Quran’s writings on the Jews came later when Mohammed was in Medina and these relate to his antagonism towards the Jew and reveal the hatred he had developed against them. Because these writings were completed at a later date, they therefore determine the attitude a Muslim must have towards the Jew today.
Examples of anti-Semitism in the Quran
(Sura 4:6) “Allah has cursed them [Christians and Jews] on account of their unbelief.”
(Sura 5:33) “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and his apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned.”
(Sura 5:51) “Do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends.”
(Sura 5:64) “Amongst them we [Allah] have placed enmity and hatred till the day of judgement. Every time they kindle the fire of war, Allah doth extinguish it; but they (ever) strive to do mischief on earth. And Allah loveth not those who do mischief.” This verse makes it clear that there will be “enmity and hatred” against the Jews until the very end of times.
(Surah 5:60) “Those [the Jews] who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath, those of whom some he transformed into apes and swine, those who worshipped evil; these are (many times) worse in rank and far more astray from the even path!”. Similarly, (Surah 2:65) “And well ye knew those amongst you who transgressed in the matter of Sabbath: we said to them: ‘Be ye apes, despised and rejected’.” Just as Nazi propaganda declared the Jews to be subhuman “vermin” during World War II in order to justify the Nazi’s barbaric treatment of the Jews, so the Muslim world is using the Quran and Hadith anti-Semitic statements to dehumanise the Jewish race. Textbooks are being printed that teach this doctrine to children in schools throughout the Middle East, ensuring that the hatred of the Jews is indoctrinated into the future generations of Muslims.
The apocalyptic belief of a future battle against Israel and the murder of all the Jews is a deeply held belief among many Muslims. Islam’s End Times narrative for the Jews is that of absolute and total slaughter. Muslims believe that the conquering and ruling the land of Eretz Israel means that the land belongs to Allah. Islam will therefore not recognise any Biblical claim that the Jews have of the land, so they will take the land by force. The idea that their “messiah” the Twelfth Imam (or Mahdi) will not appear until all the Jews are eradicated, is engrained in the minds of Muslims.
The West does not understand the Muslim hatred for the Jews, and so it continues to pressurise Israel into giving up land for a peace that will never be honoured by the Arabs.
The Hadith
In Arabic the word “Hadith” means “a piece of information conveyed in a small or large quantity”. The Hadith are narrations concerning the words and deeds of the prophet Mohammed, and are used by Muslims as an important tool in understanding the Quran. Hadith were evaluated and gathered into large collections mostly during the 8th and 9th centuries. These works are referred to in matters of Islamic law and history to this day. The two main denominations of Islam, Shi’ism and Sunnism, have different sets of Hadith collections.
Anti-Semitism is seen in the Hadith (Book #52; Hadith #176): “The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree, and a stone or a tree would say: ‘There is a Jew behind me; come and kill him’; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.”
Hate speech by Islamic religious clerics
Hatred for the Jews is indoctrinated into the Arab peoples by their religious clerics who use the Quran’s and Hadith’s anti-Semitic statements to engender an ideology that Jews are the enemy of Allah, and fuel the Jihad (holy war) movement against Israel. Quotes from an Islamic cleric regarding the Jews:
Ziyad Abu al-Haj, Hamas cleric: “The Jews today are leading the all-encompassing war against Muslims… We, the Muslims, know the nature of Jews the best, because the Holy Quran taught us… it is a cancer that wants to rule the world… The time will come, by Allah’s will, when their property will be destroyed and their children will be exterminated, and no Jew or Zionist will be left on the face of this earth.” (Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Apr. 3, 2009).
PA cleric Dr Mahmoud Mustafa Najem: “The Prophet Muhammad, whom the Jews tried to murder more than once, by poisoning, by witchcraft, by throwing stones at him and by all kinds of political assassination. He warned us of the Jews, the evil of the Jews and the deceit of the Jews… He waged war on them and expelled them from Arabia, saying: ‘There shall not be two religions in Arabia.’ He explained the character of the Jew in the Quran and in the Sunna (Islamic traditions) so that we would beware of them all the time and so that we would know how to deal with the Jews… Say to the Jews: ‘Expect your graveyard! Expect the final battle'” (Palestinian TV (Fatah), Feb. 8, 2002).
Hamas enshrines this religious teaching in its charter in article 7: “Hamas has been looking forward to implementing Allah’s promise, whatever time it might take. The prophet (Mohammed) said: ‘The time (of Resurrection) will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews; until Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him!’” (Sahih Muslim, Book 41, Number 6985).
The following is a quote from a sermon given over PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Hamas controlled Palestinian TV (Fatah) 29 January 2010: “O Muslims! The Jews are the Jew. Even if donkeys would cease to bray, dogs cease to bark, wolves cease to howl and snakes to bite, the Jews would not cease to harbour hatred towards Muslims. The Prophet said that if two Jews would be alone with a Muslim, they would think only of killing him, Oh Muslims! This land will be liberated, these holy places and these mosques will be liberated, only by means of a return to the Quran and when all Muslims will be willing to be fighters in the jihad for the sake of Allah and for the sake of supporting Palestine, the Palestine people, the Palestine land, and the holy places in Palestine. The Prophet says: ‘You shall fight the Jew and kill him…’”
Mosab Yousef in his book Son of Hamas (2010) explained the philosophy of suicide bombing and Jihad by saying, “Islamic life is like a ladder, with prayer and praising Allah as the bottom of the rung. The higher rungs represent helping the poor and needy, establishing schools, and supporting charities. The highest rung is Jihad”.
It is interesting to note that although the Palestinian religious clerics passionately encourage suicide bombing as a righteous path and a means to attain the highest rung of Jihad to their congregations, none of the clerics are ever motivated to become suicide bombers themselves.
The lies that Muslims tell
The Muslim doctrine of taqiyya, translates as ‘lying for your faith’. In other words, lying is permissible in Islam. It is interesting to note that the Hebrew letters ‘alef’, ‘lamed’ and ‘heh’ together pronounce “Allah”, and they mean “to curse, to lie, to lament.” To an Arab, lying to an infidel is not a sin but it is a holy duty to deceive and therefore gain an advantage over unbelievers. This means that Muslims can make up whatever reality they want and put it forward as the truth. The former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, phrased it best when he said, “What they want is a Palestinian state in all of [Israel]… They are products of a culture in which to tell a lie… creates no dissonance. They don’t suffer from the problem of telling lies that exist in the Judeo-Christian culture. Truth is seen as an irrelevant category. There is only that which serves your purpose and that which doesn’t. They see themselves as emissaries of a national movement for which everything is permissible.” The fact that Palestinian authorities will not allow foreign cameramen into Palestinian areas, and that journalists must use Palestinian cameramen for their news sources is evidence of this. The American news programme 60 Minutes has exposed what it calls “Pallywood”; “news” that comes out of Gaza is actually a carefully choreographed production of lies, where directors use actors, make-up, props, special effects and extras to make up their own reality for the world to view.
Hitler noted that people will fall victim more easily to a big lie, repeated often, than a little one. Here are some of Hitler’s big lies that are still purported throughout the Islamic world:
- Jews regularly murder non-Jews to use their blood in religious ceremonies, especially when baking matzos for Passover. In 2003 the Saudi government’s daily newspaper warned people to beware of Jews who were preparing to do this; the paper even printed a supposed recipe for the bread to prove that the ingredients included Islamic blood.
- Jews are biologically inferior people; part pig or ape with evil genes that will destroy the human race if they are not destroyed first. The Quran likens Jews to pigs and monkeys as seen in Sura 5:60 mentioned previously.
- Jews harbour a pernicious plot to subvert and take over the world, as revealed in their book “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” This book proved to be a forgery written by the Russian army over a century ago, but remains a best seller in the Arab world and was presented at the UN in 2003 by an Egyptian diplomat as historic truth.
- Jews caused the Black Plague that decimated Europe in the 1300s. The Jews will cause other life-threatening diseases if not killed first.
- Jews are Satan’s agents on earth, which is why they killed Christ. Jews control the world’s economy and are at fault for every nation’s money problem.
- Jews control the media, feeding the world false information to dispute all of the above.
Whole populations have been indoctrinated since early childhood with Draconian lies about the Jews – lies that inflame jihad against Jehovah’s people.
The world’s mass media are responsible for the beginning of a new anti-Semitism by placating Arab whims for their stories. Palestinian officials hold tight reign over the media, carefully scrutinising, censoring and even inventing the news. Any journalist reporting news unfavourable to the Palestinian cause will not be allowed back.
Most of the news is filmed by cameramen hired by the Palestinian Authority on whom foreign agencies become dependent for news footage of events in Palestine. Several investigations have revealed that these photographers actually stage “news” events to shoot. An example is the televised death of a twelve-year-old Palestinian boy, aired on 30 September 2000. Mohammed al Dura was murdered by Palestinian terrorists while being filmed by a Palestinian cameraman. His murder was edited into footage of a shootout between the Israeli Defence Force and Palestinian terrorists and made to look like the child had been cruelly shot by an Israeli soldier. It was this deceitful, staged footage that made international news.
The double standards of Islam
Muslims are forbidden to question their Islamic faith and must blindly accept its validity, as seen in this scripture: “O ye who believe! Ask not questions about things which if made plain to you, may cause you trouble. Some people before you did ask such questions, and on that account lost their faith.” (Surah 5:101-102). Under Islamic law no questioning or criticism of Islam is allowed, and freedom of religion is also not allowed in Muslim countries. Criticism of Mohammed or the Quran is punishable by death in those countries, as is proselytising. Muslims are easily enraged if Islam or Mohammed is criticised. However, criticism by Muslims of other religions is totally acceptable and the standards they hold for Islam are by no means held for other religions. They are blinkered by indoctrination that the Quran is the word of Allah and is infallible, and cannot be held up for questioning or criticism, while all other religions, holy books and beliefs are false and must be criticised. This explains why Muslims will feel that it is perfectly acceptable and just to criticise the Bible as being corrupt and contradictory, but will turn on anyone by labelling them as rude, hateful and even racist for daring to criticise the Quran. Robert Morey (1992) summed up this duplicity best when he said, “Any religion that refuses to allow people to examine its sacred book using the normal rules of research and logic evidently has something to hide.”
Muslims are the first to cry out and riot when they feel that their religion is persecuted in any way, yet Christians are continually being martyred in religiously intolerant Islamic countries. On 22 February 2012 Iran sentenced Youcef Nadarkhani, a Christian Pastor, to death for refusing to renounce his faith. Nadarkhani, a 34 year-old father of two young boys, was arrested two years before on charges of apostasy. He defied the opportunity to repent of his “sin” in an Iranian court and was sentenced to be hanged. In Iranian law, the sentence could be carried out at any time without prior warning. Youcef Nadarkhani was finally released from prison in October of 2012 after intense international pressure on Iran.
Radical Islam
There is no such thing as an Islamic democracy; a nation that votes in an Islamic party will fall under the Draconian 7th century laws of Islam. Radical Islam is the militant branch of Islamic fundamentalists who will seek to fulfil all that the Quran requires to bring about a Muslim-ruled world. This ideology is the same ideology that motivated the government of Sudan to kill thousands of Christians. It inspires terrorist attacks against women and children. This religious fervour was behind the pictures of Daniel Pearl’s beheading, that was used as a recruiting tool by his Islamic kidnappers and as a message to the world of what should be done to the Jews. This indoctrinated belief is also what makes parents rejoice when they hear that their son has blown himself to pieces whilst killing innocent civilians, as long as he killed Jews in the process.
Islam supports barbaric terrorism that attacks innocent civilians. Evidence of this is the September 2001 attack on the Twin Towers; this can hardly be seen as being the isolated act of fundamental al-Qaeda extremists when there was dancing in the streets throughout the Middle East, with people openly celebrating and identifying with the extremist ideology behind the devastation of 9/11.
Sound the Warning 