By: Tashbih Sayyed
There is no doubt that in Muslim societies, Child marriage is an institution, honor killings are encouraged, gang rapes are sanctioned, organized murders of non Wahabbi Muslims and other minorities are approved by dogmatic clergy. And since no Muslim scholar or Islamic leader raises his voice against these beastly traditions, impression that Islam inspires cruelty instead of nobility is gaining currency. Listening to obscurantist and dogmatic Mullahs, spreading hatred and sectarianism from the pulpits of their mosques, leaves no doubt in the minds of non-Muslims that there is definitely something in Islam that lends itself, more than other religions, to exterminations and totalitarian politics. How can the world be stopped from thinking that "Islam is an evil religion' when Islamist leaders like Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid Al-Tantawi uses his "religious authority" to define Jews as "the descendants of apes and pigs." There is a growing consensus among educated Muslims that such dogmatic leaders claiming to represent Islam are not only abusing their position but are also destroying the message of Islam's Prophet - one of the most merciful messengers of God - who preached nothing but the love for the humanity.
In his weekly sermon (April 2002) the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid Al-Tantawi, the most senior authority in the Sunni Muslim world, described the Jews as "the enemies of Allah, sons of pigs and apes."(1)
Statements like that by Sheikh of Al-Azhar forced non-Muslim commentators to look deeper inside the teachings of Islam. Their research revealed that viewing Jews as the 'descendants of apes and pigs' is grounded in the most important Islamic religious sources. They concluded that both in divine revelation in the Koran,
(2) in the Hadiths (traditions about the Prophet Muhammad), and in the most reliable compilations of traditions collected by the leading ninth-century sages Al-Bukhari and Muslim [both mention transformation into mice and lizards as well]. The notion of transforming Jews into animals appears also in ancient Arabic literature.(3)
The commentator continued, "It should be noted that the religious Muslim sources also mention transformation of Christians
(4) and sinful Muslims (5) into apes and pigs. However, in the case of Christians and Muslims the sources are not Koranic – as in the case of Jews - but are Koranic commentary and traditions. Furthermore, the number of references to Jews as apes and pigs in these sources is greater."
The non-Muslim researchers looking for the sources of such statements say, "these beliefs about the Jews were common not only during the period in which they arose, but also in the pre-Islamic era, and clearly since then. The belief that people could be turned into animals, statues, or stars by supernatural intervention – primarily by divine punishment – was prevalent in the pre-Islamic era among Arabs and other peoples.
In North Africa, under the Muslim Aghlabid dynasty (9th through 11th centuries), Jews were forced to wear a shoulder patch with a picture of a monkey and Christians had to wear a patch with a picture of a pig. These images had to be affixed to the doors of their respective homes. In Spain, during periods of friction between the various religious communities, the Muslims called the Jews "apes" and the Christians "pigs and dogs."(6) Furthermore, the concept of transformation of humans into animals influenced Islamic dietary law.(7)" Being a Muslim, I do not feel comfortable with this situation and would like some Muslim scholar to come forward and reject Muhammad Sayyid Al-Tantawi's hate-filled sermon. This is not dark ages when one could get away by inciting a whole nation to hate other nations and peoples. We are living in an age of globalization. One man's sick mind can threaten the future of the whole civilization. (8)
True Muslim leaders should stand up and tear down this "Green Wall Of silence" before it brings down the whole faith.
This is true that the Islamists who have interpreted their religion in this manner are our enemies. This is also true that they are not the entire Muslim world, but they are not a tiny and isolated minority of it either. Since they claim to speak for all Muslims, the world, so rudely awakened on September 11, 2001, is justified in demanding that the Muslims who reject the Islamists' views-including, yes, Muslim immigrants to America- should repudiate them in word and deed. Educated Muslims should also look into the causes and circumstances that have brought the world of Islam to this pass.
The most important factor in the spread of obscurantism in Muslim societies has been the absence of democratic culture. Undemocratic governments and false leaders supported the dogmatic mullahs in order to win their backing to legitimize their rule. This combination of temporal and "spiritual" authority has toiled over centuries to nurse and nurture this mole so that it develops into a monster to ensure the longevity of their hold on uneducated masses.
Mullah's control over pulpit and the state's control over media scratched each others back. Creatures of dark ages know that their survival depended on a hateful mind. And they were very well equipped to keep the Muslims from moving forward. Wahabbi occupation of Islam's holiest places in Saudi Arabia, gave the religious fanatics the ultimate power over the world of Islam. The pulpits and loud-speakers of Saudi Arabia's mosques have a unique place in the hearts and minds of Muslims all over the world. Any thing even distantly related to Saudi Arabia has a halo of sacredness and divinity around it. And when an Imam of a Saudi Mosque calls upon Muslims to consider a people, a system or a state fit to be demolished, it becomes a cardinal virtue for them to act upon.
Today, it seems impossible to challenge the Wahabbi Pharaohs as there is no Mosses among Muslims, committed enough, to ask the Saudi Pharaoh to let his people go. The Muslim will have to realize that the liberation of Mecca and Medinah is more vital for the rehabilitation of Islam's true image than any dispute over Jerusalem. The issue of Jerusalem is only a ploy to keep the Muslim mind filled with hatred against other faiths.
Wahabbism's control over the world of Islam is so absolute that it defines Islam today. Take for example the issue of women's rights. The Islamist preachers view women no more than a chattel. They instruct women how to behave so as not to slide down the slippery slope of the "moral degradation" pervasive in the West. The sermon of Sheikh Hamad Ibrahim Al-Hariqi at Al-Basateen mosque in Al-Riyadh is one example of many: "One of the mistakes made by women with regard to their husbands is to avoid [joining] the husband when he calls her to bed claiming that she is fatigued, or simply because she wants to anger him, or because she is ignorant and does not know that by doing so she denies her husband the greatest of his rights and places herself under serious threat… As it was said: 'If a man calls his wife to his bed and she refuses to come, the angels curse her until she wakes up'…"
Under the influence of such preachers, marital rapes are not only permissible but recommended. Women in a traditional religious family have virtually no rights. That's why, when a feudal establishment in a Muslim society, decides to punish a woman by ordering her gang raped, the religious authorities look the other way. This was exactly what happened in a dusty village in Pakistan.
To be continued....
