Freedom of Philadelphia

Hat tip to Blue Collar Muse for turning me onto this article. It’s originally posted over at God, Guns, Glory and it immediately brought to mind this quote.

“We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”

Go here and read the entire post over at God, Guns, and Glory. Then ask yourself the obvious question, are you a sheep, a sheepdog, or a wolf? Here’s a taste of the article.

If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior’s path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.

I gave the post to my 11 year old to read. Hoping he would understand. His response “it’s something that was definitely written by someone aware of life around him”. That’s my future Republican Sheepdog right there! Read the article, then ask yourself, who is the party of sheep, who is the party of sheepdogs and who are the wolves in our world?

Here’s the latest from Robert Spencer’s blogging the Qur’an series. As always it’s enlightening. Remember the old saying, know thine enemy. Thanks again to Mr. Spencer for writing all this down and explaining the Qur’an to us infidels!

Blogging the Qur’an: Sura 2, “The Cow,” verses 75-140

posted at 9:00 am on June 24, 2007 by Robert Spencer
Send to a Friend | printer-friendly

The next segment of Sura 2, verses 75-105, continues the Qur’an’s criticism of the Jews. When you read statements by Hamas leaders or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about Israel, remember that they view Israel and Jews through a Qur’anic prism. They have learned, if they have studied the Qur’an at all, that the Jews are the most perverse and guilty – as well as the craftiest and most persistent – enemies of Allah, Muhammad and the Muslims.

In verse 75 Allah asks the Muslims how they can hope that the Jews will come to believe in Islam, since “a party of them used to listen to the word of Allah, then used to change it, after they had understood it, knowingly?” In his Tafsir Anwar al-Bayan, the twentieth-century Indian Mufti Muhammad Aashiq Ilahi Bulandshahri notes that some commentators “have mentioned that the verse refers to the adulteration of the Torah. The Jewish scholars used to accept bribes from people to alter certain injunctions to suit their desires.” Expanding on this in connection with verse 79, Bulandshahri says that the Jews “commit a dual sin by altering Allah’s scripture and by accepting bribery as well.” This is a traditional view: the Tafsir al-Jalalayn says that the Jews “altered the description of the Prophet in the Torah, as well as the ‘stoning’ verse, and other details, and rewrote them in a way different from that in which they were revealed.”

In their arrogance they also think they will only be in hell for a few days (verse 80). Bukhari recounts that after Muhammad conquered the Jews of Khaibar, an Arabian oasis, they roasted a sheep for the Prophet of Islam – and poisoned it. Sensing their stratagem, he summoned and questioned them. In the course of this, they told him, “We shall remain in the (Hell) Fire for a short period, and after that you [Muslims] will replace us.” Muhammad responded indignantly: “You may be cursed and humiliated in it! By Allah, we shall never replace you in it” and revealed that he knew of their plot to poison him.

Verses 81-105 remind the Jews again of Allah’s favors, favors from which most of them “turned back” (v. 83), and chastise them for their willfulness and disobedience. Verse 85 summarizes their various acts of disobedience, culminating in the assertion that the Jews believe in “only a part” of their sacred writings, and “reject the rest.” Ibn Kathir says that they rejected parts of the Torah, and also: “they should not be believed when it comes to the description of the Messenger of Allah, his coming, his expulsion from his land, and his Hijrah, and the rest of the information that the previous Prophets informed them about him, all of which they hid. The Jews, may they suffer the curse of Allah, hid all of these facts among themselves…” Verses 88 and 89 emphasize that they are accursed for rejecting Islam. (This is why most Muslims don’t accept the idea that the Jews have any right to the land of Israel, despite 5:21 and other verses: an accursed people doesn’t receive Allah’s gifts.) Verse 98 says that their enemy is Allah himself.

Verses 94-96 issue a challenge: if the Jews’ claim that Paradise is reserved for them alone, why don’t they seek death, instead of being the people “most greedy for life”? This is the foundation of a jihadist taunt, as an Al-Qaeda warrior in Afghanistan put it a few years ago: “The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death.” The true believers long for Paradise and disdain this world.

Verse 106 interrupts the condemnations of the Jews to introduce the Islamic doctrine of abrogation, in which Allah replaces what he has previously revealed with “something better or similar.” The Tafsir al-Jalalayn says that this verse was revealed because “the disbelievers began to deride the matter of abrogation, saying that one day Muhammad enjoins his companions to one thing and then the next day he forbids it.” The Tanwîr al-Miqbâs min Tafsîr Ibn ‘Abbâs says that it refers to “what was abrogated of the Qur’an and that which was not abrogated.” Sayyid Qutb maintains that “partial amendment of rulings in response to changing circumstances during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad could only be in the interest of mankind as a whole.” The concept of naskh, abrogation, is the foundation of the widespread Islamic understanding that the violent verses of sura 9 take precedence over the more peaceful verses revealed earlier, since they come later in the lifetime of Muhammad – an idea we will return to later. (For a full discussion of the Islamic idea of abrogation, see Ahmad Von Denffer’s ‘Ulum al-Qur’an.)

Verses 107-121 warns the Muslims to keep up their religious duties and not to allow themselves to be led astray by the Jews and Christians, who will try to deceive the Muslims (v. 109) even as they fight among themselves (v. 113). Verses 111 and 120 (as well as v. 135) deride Jewish and Christian attempts to proselytize Muslims, and verse 116 marks the first appearance of the oft-repeated rejection of the Christian belief in Jesus as the Son of God. The idea that Allah could have a son is considered to compromise monotheism: “Nay, to Him belongs all that is in the heavens and on earth: everything renders worship to Him.”

Verses 122-140 return to the Jews, reminding them of the covenant Allah made at the Ka’ba in Mecca with Abraham and Ishmael (v. 125). The Jews are reminded that even as Abraham prayed that Mecca would become a “City of Peace,” Allah answered that “such as reject Faith” would soon taste his “torment of Fire” (v. 126). If you’re surprised to find a Jewish patriarch, Abraham, linked to an Islamic holy site, the Ka’ba, remember that only the perverse “say that Abraham, Isma’il, Isaac, Jacob and the Tribes were Jews or Christians” (v. 140). In fact, they were submitters to Allah – Muslims (v. 128). If they weren’t believers in Muhammad as a prophet, they were at least hanifs: pre-Islamic monotheists.

This underscores the recurring Qur’anic theme that the people we know of today as Jews and Christians are only renegades from the true religion actually taught by Abraham and Moses, as well as Jesus – and that true religion was Islam. As we have seen, much of sura 2 is devoted to addressing the renegade Jews who have rejected Muhammad and calling them back to the true faith, the faith of Abraham and Moses as well as Muhammad. Thus Islam challenges Judaism and Christianity by claiming that the true and original form of both religions is Islam. Today Islamic spokesmen in the West often present the status of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus as Muslim prophets as evidence of Islamic open-mindedness and ecumenical-mindedness. In fact, however, it is only a declaration of the supremacy of Islam and the illegitimacy of Judaism and Christianity.

Next week: sura 2, verses 140-210, containing instructions on Ramadan, the Hajj pilgrimage – and jihad.

Here is a link to Bryan Preston’s introduction to the series, where you’ll find links to the earlier segments.

(Here is a good Arabic/English Qur’an, here are two popular Muslim translations, those of Abdullah Yusuf Ali and Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, along with a third by M. H. Shakir. Here is another popular translation, that of Muhammad Asad. And here is an omnibus of ten Qur’an translations.)

Thanks to Hot Air.Com for hosting these interesting pieces from Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch on the Qur’an. Follows of Islam take the Qur’an so seriously that you can’t help but start to understand why they hate Jews so much when the Qur’an refers to Jews and “apes and pigs”. Disgusting cult. Once again much much thanks to Robert Spencer for these works. Here is the post.

Verse 40 of Sura 2 addresses the “Children of Israel,” beginning an extended meditation on all that Allah did for the Jews, and the ingratitude with which they repaid him. Verse 41 warns them to “part not with My revelations for a trifling price,” which the Islamic commentators generally interpret as an exhortation to put the service of Allah before the concerns of this world. Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi, a renowned twentieth-century Islamic intellectual and exponent of political Islam, says in his massive Towards Understanding the Qur’an that this verse “refers to the worldly benefits for the sake of which [the Jews] were rejecting God’s directives.” However, many have speculated that this verse amounts to Muhammad’s rebuke of those who sold him material that they told him was divine revelation, but wasn’t – people who are raked over the coals again in 2:79.

Anyway, the Jews can get back into good graces with Allah by converting to Islam (v. 43). This might sail right by the English-speaking reader, since the translations exhort them to “steadfast in prayer” and to “practise regular charity” (as Abdullah Yusuf Ali has it), but in Arabic the word used here for prayer is salat (?????????) and for charity zakat (?????????); these refer specifically to Islamic prayer and almsgiving. Non-Muslims cannot pray salat or pay zakat. About the need for this conversion Ibn Kathir is forthright: “Allah commanded the Children of Israel to embrace Islam and to follow Muhammad.” Sayyid Qutb says that here Allah “invites the Israelites to join the Muslims in their religious practices, and to abandon their prejudices and ethnocentric tendencies.”

Starting with verse 47, says Maududi, “reference is made to the best-known episodes of Jewish history. As these episodes were known to every Jewish child, they are narrated briefly rather than in detail. The reference is intended to remind the Jews both of the favours with which the Israelites had been endowed by God and of the misdeeds with which they had responded to those favours.” These include the Israelites being rescued from Pharaoh (vv. 49-50); the golden calf episode (vv. 54-55), and the feeding of the people with manna and quails in the wilderness (v. 57, 61), culminating in the avowal that the Jews “were covered with humiliation and misery; they drew on themselves the wrath of Allah. This because they went on rejecting the Signs of Allah and slaying His Messengers without just cause. This because they rebelled and went on transgressing” (v. 61).

Ibn Kathir applies these words to all Jews: “This Ayah [verse] indicates that the Children of Israel were plagued with humiliation, and that this will continue, meaning that it will never cease. They will continue to suffer humiliation at the hands of all who interact with them, along with the disgrace that they feel inwardly.”

It may seem jarring that immediately following this comes one of the Qur’an’s “tolerance verses,” verse 62, which seems to promise a place in Paradise to “those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians.” Muhammad Asad exults: “With a breadth of vision unparalleled in any other religious faith, the idea of ‘salvation’ is here made conditional upon three elements only: belief in God, belief in the Day of Judgment, and righteous action in life.” Not, apparently, acceptance of Islam. But he contradicts himself by adding “in this divine writ” after the words “those who have attained to faith” in his translation of verse 62 – that is, to be saved, one must believe in the Qur’an as well as the earlier revelations. And indeed, Muslim commentators are not inclined to see this as an indication of divine pluralism. The translators Ali and Pickthall, as well as Asad, all feel it necessary to add parenthetical glosses that make the passage mean that Jews and Christians (as well as Sabians, whose identity is disputed) will be saved only if they become Muslims. And according to Ibn Abbas, this verse was abrogated by Qur’an 3:85: “If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (submission to Allah), never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter he will be in the ranks of those who have lost (all spiritual good).” Qutb opines that 2:62 applied only before Muhammad brought Islam to the world, a view supported by a saying of Muhammad recorded by Tabari, in which the Prophet of Islam says that Christians who died before his coming will be saved, but those who have heard of him and yet rejected his prophetic claim will not be.

Then follows the first of the three notorious “apes and pigs” passages. Jihadists today routinely refer to Jews as apes and pigs; this idea is rooted in Qur’an 2:63-66; 5:59-60; and 7:166. The first of these depicts Allah telling the Jews who “profaned the Sabbath”: “Be as apes despicable!” It goes on to say that these accursed ones serve “as a warning example for their time and for all times to come.” Traditionally in Islamic theology these passages have not been considered to apply to all Jews. Ibn Abbas says that “those who violated the sanctity of the Sabbath were turned into monkeys, then they perished without offspring.” Others, however, such as the early Islamic scholar Ibn Qutaiba, held today’s apes are the descendants of the Sabbath-breaking Jews.

This is widely used today as a metaphor for the Jews’ corruption, even unto bestial status. Muhammad himself began this when he addressed the Jews of the Qurayzah tribe, which he was about to massacre, as “you brothers of monkeys.” Today, the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, called Jews “the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs.” The Saudi Sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis, imam of the principal mosque in Mecca, the Al-Haraam mosque, expanded on this, saying in a sermon that Jews are “the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs.” Another Saudi Sheikh, Ba’d bin Abdallah Al-Ajameh Al-Ghamidi, made the connection explicit: “The current behavior of the brothers of apes and pigs, their treachery, violation of agreements, and defiling of holy places… is connected with the deeds of their forefathers during the early period of Islam – which proves the great similarity between all the Jews living today and the Jews who lived at the dawn of Islam.” For more on this, see the excellent study by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Verse 67 takes up the reproaches again, with the Israelites reacting with haughty rebelliousness to Allah’s command, given through Moses, that they sacrifice a heifer (the “cow” of the sura’s title). We hear that the Jews’ hearts are hardened (v. 74) and ultimately that they are accursed of Allah (v. 89). To that curse and its implications, and other matters extending to verse 140 of sura 2, we will turn next week.

Here is a link to Bryan Preston’s introduction to the series, where you’ll find links to the earlier segments.

(Here is a good Arabic/English Qur’an, here are two popular Muslim translations, those of Abdullah Yusuf Ali and Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, along with a third by M. H. Shakir. Here is another popular translation, that of Muhammad Asad. And here is an omnibus of ten Qur’an translations.)

Robert Spencer has laid out part 2 of his blogging of the Qur’an. It’s posted at HotAir.com but here it is for those who don’t want to go over there to see it. The forums are open to discuss it.

Sura 2, Al-Baqara (”The Cow”), like almost all of the chapters of the Qur’an, takes its title from something recounted within it – in this case, the story of Moses relaying Allah’s command to the Israelites that they sacrifice a cow (2:67-73). It is the longest sura of the Qur’an – 286 verses – and begins the Qur’an’s general (but not absolute) pattern of running from the longest to the shortest chapters, with the exception of the Fatiha, which has pride of place as the first sura because of its centrality in Islam. Surat Al-Baqara, “The Cow,” was revealed to Muhammad at Medina – that is, during the second part of his prophetic career, which began in Mecca in 610. In 622 Muhammad and the fledgling Muslim community moved to Medina, where for the first time Muhammad became a political and military leader. Islamic theologians generally regard Medinan suras as taking precedence over Meccan ones wherever there is a disagreement, in accord with verse 106 of this chapter of the Qur’an, in which Allah speaks about abrogating verses and replacing them with better ones. (This interpretation of verse 106, however, is not universally accepted. Some say it refers to the abrogation of nothing in the Qur’an, but only of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. More on that when the time comes.)

Sura 2 contains a great deal of important material for Muslims, and is held in high regard. The medieval Qur’anic commentator Ibn Kathir (whose commentary is still read and respected by Muslims) conveys in an earthy way that recitation of this sura distresses Satan, recounting that one of Muhammad’s early followers of Muhammad, Ibn Mas’ud, remarked that Satan “departs the house where Surat Al-Baqarah is being recited, and as he leaves, he passes gas.” Without Ibn Mas’ud’s poor taste, Muhammad himself says: “Satan runs away from the house in which Surah Baqara is recited.”

The chapter begins with three Arabic letters: alif, lam, and mim. Many chapters of the Qur’an begin with three Arabic letters in this way, which has given rise to a considerable amount of mystical speculation as to what they might mean. But the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, another classic Qur’anic commentary, succinctly sums up the prevailing view: “God knows best what He means by these [letters].”

The verse immediately following those letters contains a key Islamic doctrine: “This is the Scripture whereof there is no doubt.” The Qur’an is not to be questioned or judged by any standard outside itself; rather, it is the standard by which all other things are to be judged. That, of course, is not significantly different from the way many other religions regard their Holy Writ. But there has been no development in Islam of the historical and textual criticism that have transformed the ways Jews and Christians understand their scriptures today. The Qur’an is a book never to be doubted, never to be questioned: when one Islamic scholar, Suliman Bashear, taught his students at An-Najah National University in Nablus that the Qur’an and Islam were the products of historical development rather than being delivered in perfect form to Muhammad, his students threw him out of the window of his classroom.

2:1-29 is an extended disquisition on the perversity of those who reject belief in Allah, and sounds several themes that will recur many times. The Qur’an, we’re told, is guidance to those who believe in what was revealed to Muhammad as well as in “that which was revealed before” him (v. 4). This involves the Qur’an’s oft-stated assumption that it is the confirmation of the Torah and the Gospel, which teach the same message Muhammad is receiving in the Qur’anic revelations (see 5:44-48). When the Torah and Gospel were found not to agree with the Qur’an, the charge arose that Jews and Christians had corrupted their Scriptures – which is mainstream Islamic belief today. Muhammad Asad states it positively: “the religion of the Qur’an can be properly understood only against the background of the great monotheistic faiths which preceded it, and which, according to Muslim belief, culminate and achieve their final formulation in the faith of Islam.”

Another theme is Allah’s absolute control over everything, even the choices of individual souls to believe in him or reject him: “As to those who reject Faith, it is the same to them whether thou warn them or do not warn them; they will not believe. Allah hath set a seal on their hearts and on their hearing, and on their eyes is a veil; great is the penalty they (incur)” (vv. 6-7). The Qadaris of early Islamic history held that mankind had free will, and was thus capable of choosing to do good or evil. Their opponents maintained that Allah determined everything. While both sides had abundant Qur’anic citations to support their views, eventually Muslim authorities condemned Qadarism as a heresy, as it restricted Allah’s absolute sovereignty over all things. Thus those who reject faith do so because Allah wills it, as per these verses, not because they have free choice. Says Ibn Kathir: “These Ayat [verses] indicate that whomever Allah has written to be miserable, they shall never find anyone to guide them to happiness, and whomever Allah directs to misguidance, he shall never find anyone to guide him.” (A good brief overview of the Qadari controversy can be found in the renowned Islamic scholar Ignaz Goldziher’s Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law.)

Then comes the condemnation of hypocrites and false believers, who frequently bedeviled Muhammad during his career as a prophet (vv. 13-20). And finally there is the assertion of the sublimity of the Qur’an, such that doubters are challenged to produce a sura like it if they refuse to believe its divine provenance (v. 23). This is a challenge many have taken up, but of course it is the kind of challenge that can never be successfully met in the eyes of those who issue it – “they could not produce the like thereof” (17:88).

2:25 introduces the famous gardens of Paradise, wherein the believers shall reside – about which more later.

2:30-39 tells the story of Adam and Eve, in a manner suggesting that the hearers of the recitation are already familiar with the story. Allah tells the angels to prostrate themselves before Adam (v. 34), a command that appears to depend upon the Biblical notion of mankind’s having been created in the image of God, although that idea does not appear here. According to Ibn Kathir, “Allah stated the virtue of Adam above the angels, because He taught Adam, rather than them, the names of everything.” Satan refuses to prostrate himself, thereby becoming an unbeliever (v. 34), and tempts Adam and Eve with the forbidden fruit. Allah promises revelations to guide mankind, warning them that those who ignore these revelations will be punished with hellfire.

Then the sura turns in verses 40-75 to the Children of Israel, who play such an important role in the Qur’an – and, not coincidentally, in the modern Islamic consciousness – that we will devote next week’s Qur’an blog to them.

Here is a link to Bryan Preston’s introduction to the series, where you’ll find links to the earlier segments.

(Here is a good Arabic/English Qur’an, here are two popular Muslim translations, those of Abdullah Yusuf Ali and Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, along with a third by M. H. Shakir. Here is another popular translation, that of Muhammad Asad. And here is an omnibus of ten Qur’an translations.)

Robert Spencer, writer over at Jihad Watch and a leading expert and critic of Islamic jihadists, has started to blog the qur’an each Sunday as a way to explain it and the meanings therein to us good old infidels. It’s enlightening reading. He will be posting them weekly over at Hot Air. I’ll try to remember each week to link to them from here. You can see the 1st week’s installment here.