"Muslims Can’t be Anti-Semites”

Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, the current Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)

These kinds of assertion are self depicting images of men in white sheets, lynching in the night, and praying in church. These kinds of assertions which should beggar the imagination of critically thinking, educated individuals are the food of the ignorant, and feed the compulsion of those who hunger to hate.

But of course, that is really a fundamental FUNCTION AND PURPOSE of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and it’s leaders such as Mahathir

We [Muslims] are actually very strong, 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million [during the Holocaust]. But today the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them. They invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong so they may enjoy equal rights with others. With these they have now gained control of the most powerful countries. And they, this tiny community, have become a world power

Bostom:

For over a thousand years, since its founding in 792 A.D., Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, has served as the academic shrine — much as Mecca is the religious shrine — of the global Muslim community. Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi was Sunni Islam’s “ moderate” papal equivalent, Grand Imam of this Muslim Vatican, Al-Azhar, from 1996 until his recent death on March 10, 2010.

Tantawi was born in 1928 in Selim Al-Sharqiya, Egypt. He graduated from Al-Azhar University’s Faculty of Religious Studies in 1958 and received his Ph.D. in 1966. Tantawi’s  Ph.D. thesis, Banu Israil fi al-Quran wa-al-Sunnah (Jews in the Koran and the Traditions), was published in 1968-69 and republished in 1986. Two years after earning his Ph.D., Sheikh Tantawi began teaching at Al-Azhar. In 1980, he became the head of the Tafsir (Koranic Commentary) Department of the University of Medina, Saudi Arabia — a position he held until 1984. Sheikh Tantawi became Grand Mufti of Egypt in 1986, a position he was to hold for a decade before taking on his final post, first assumed in 1996 and serving for fourteen years, as the Grand Imam.

Lengthy extracts translated into English from Tantawi’s 700-page magnum opus Banu Israil fi al-Quran wa-al-Sunnah,are provided in my compendium, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism. This brief excerpt summarizes, in Tantawi’s own words, the salient features of the Koran’s normative Muslim Jew-hatred:

[The] Koran describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics, i.e., killing the prophets of Allah [Koran 2:61 / 3:112], corrupting His words by putting them in the wrong places, consuming the people’s wealth frivolously, refusal to distance themselves from the evil they do, and other ugly characteristics caused by their deep-rooted lasciviousness…only a minority of the Jews keep their word [Koranic citation, here] … [A]ll Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims [Koran  3:113], the bad ones do not.

.. anyone who avoids meeting with the enemies in order to counter their dubious claims and stick fingers into their eyes, is a coward. My stance stems from Allah’s book [the Koran], more than one-third of which deals with the Jews…[I] wrote a dissertation dealing with them [the Jews], all their false claims and their punishment by Allah. I still believe in everything written in that dissertation [i.e., Jews in the Koran and the Traditions, cited above].

Unfortunately, Tantawi’s antisemitic formulations are well-grounded in classical, mainstream Islamic theology. The Koranic depiction of the Jews — their traits as thus characterized being deemed both infallible and timeless — highlights, in verse 2:61 (repeated in verse 3:112), the centrality of the Jews “abasement and humiliation” and being “laden with God’s anger,” as elaborated in the corpus of classical Muslim exegetic literature on Koran 2:61, including the hadith and Koranic commentaries. The terrifying rage decreed upon the Jews forever is connected in the hadith and exegeses to Koran1:7, where Muslims ask Allah to guide them rightly, not in the path of those who provoke and must bear His wrath. This verse is in turn linked to Koranic verses 5:60 and 5:78, which describe the Jews’ transformation into apes and swine (5:60), or apes alone (2:65 / 7:166), having been “… cursed by the tongue of David, and Jesus, Mary’s son” (5:78). Moreover, forcing Jews, in particular, to pay the Koranic poll tax “tribute” (as per verse 9:29) “readily,” while “being brought low,” is consistent with their overall humiliation and abasement in accord with Koran 2:61 and its directly related verses.

An additional, much larger array of anti-Jewish Koranic motifs build to a denouement (as if part of a theological indictment, conviction, and sentencing process), concluding with an elaboration of the “ultimate sin” committed by the Jews (they are among the devil’s minions [Koran 4:60], accursed by God [Koran 4:47]), and their appropriate punishment: If they do not accept the true faith (i.e., Islam), on the day of judgment, they will burn in the hellfire (Koran 4:55). As per, Koran 98:6, “The unbelievers among the People of the Book and the pagans shall burn forever in the fire of Hell. They are the vilest of all creatures.”

From the Quran itself which I hasten to remind readers is supposed the be the uncreated words of the perfect being …though apparently a racist one…

“Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews…” (5:82).

 “Curses were pronounced on those among the Children of Israel who rejected Faith, by the tongue of David and of Jesus the son of Mary: because they disobeyed and persisted in excesses.” (5:78).

 “Is it ever so that when they make a covenant a party of them set it aside? The truth is, most of them believe not. And when there came to them a messenger from Allah [Muhammad], confirming what was with them [the Torah], a party of the people of the Book threw away the Book of Allah behind their backs, as if (it had been something) they did not know!” (2:100-101).

 “The People of the Book know well that that is the truth from their Lord. Nor is Allah unmindful of what they do” (2:143-144).

“Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (9:29).

 “And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. Allah (Himself) fighteth against them. How perverse are they!” (9:30)

 The Jews killed their prophets (2:61; 2:87; 2:91; 3:21; 3:112; 3:181; 3:183; 4:155; 5:70), and boast “we killed the Messiah, Jesus the son of Mary” (4:157).

“Allah hath heard the taunt of those who say: ‘Truly, Allah is indigent and we are rich!’ We shall certainly record their word and (their act) of slaying the prophets in defiance of right, and We shall say: ‘Taste ye the penalty of the Scorching Fire!’” (3:181)

 “Why do not the rabbis and the doctors of Law forbid them from their (habit of) uttering sinful words and eating things forbidden? Evil indeed are their works.” (5:63)

 “The Jews say: ‘Allah’s hand is tied up.’ Be their hands tied up and be they accursed for the (blasphemy) they utter. Nay, both His hands are widely outstretched: He giveth and spendeth (of His bounty) as He pleaseth. But the revelation that cometh to thee from Allah increaseth in most of them their obstinate rebellion and blasphemy. Amongst them we have placed enmity and hatred till the Day of Judgment. 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” (5:64).

The Jews “strive to do mischief on earth” – that is, fasaad, for which the punishment is specified in 5:33: “they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land.”

But it can’t be racism if god said it… is that it?