Muslim Heretics Conference

The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism
By Andrew Bostom
Prometheus
768 pages; $39.95

Following the recent publication of his massive compendium The Legacy of Jihad - a breakthrough inasmuch as the enormous task of assembling together all the major sources which govern the holy war in Islam had never been attempted before - this amazingly prolific writer has completed another, no less imposing, collection of sources, Islamic and others, which testify to the long and sorry history of anti-Semitism in Islam. This too had never been undertaken before on such a scale, mainly due to the constrictions of political correctness that posited that Islam, unlike Christianity, had not entertained a systematic persecution of the Jews.

This apologetic for Islam has now been shattered by Andrew Bostom, who painstakingly but thoughtfully collected and collated this documentation that would have been a stunning and innovative undertaking for any scholar of Islam to pursue, let alone for a professional in medicine whose research on Islam has been merely a secondary career.

Appropriately, Bostom begins his volume with a well-tailored survey of the theological, historical and juridical origins of Islamic anti-Semitism, including the Koran, the Hadith and the Sirah, then proceeds to an insightful description of the dhimmis in the main lands of Islam, to test the theory of the cited sources against the practice of Muslim rulers in the entire area spanning the Middle East, North Africa, the Iberian Peninsula (Andalusia) and the Ottoman Empire.

The picture these documents give reverses in a dramatic way many of the ill-conceived and misjudged information that had attempted in the past to ascribe to the lands of Islam a much more benign and idyllic image of their (mis)treatment of the Jews. The coalition between the Palestinian mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis during World War II is conjured up to conclude this introduction.

Secondly, the author delves in considerable detail into the main sources of Islamic jurisprudence - the Koran and the Hadith, complemented by the Sirah (the earliest pious Muslim biographies of Muhammad), where an abundance of references, usually not complimentary but rather derogatory, are made to Jews, collectively known as Israi’liyyat (Israelites’ stories). This is a trove of anti-Jewish stereotypes that have become the Shari’a-based uncontested “truth” about the People of the Book. Those accounts are invariably cited in sermons during Friday prayers, thus assuring their universal diffusion among Muslim constituents and the constant poisoning of the souls of young and adult Muslims alike, something that renders their fundamentally negative attitudes to Jews and Israel unchangeable.

This extremely important collection from the holy sources is supplemented by the thinking and judgment of the most authoritative jurists whose every word has been awaited and avidly digested by Muslim constituencies the world over. The great medieval masters, such as Tabari and Jahiz, are reinforced by more recent ones such as the Egyptian Tantawi and Egyptian-in exile Qaradawi, who represent the two poles of established Islam and popular Islam in our contemporary world.

An impressive selection of observations made by prominent Western scholars, complemented by the eyewitness reports of travelers, consular representatives and journalists and writers about the condition of the Jews in Arab lands, are adduced to support the basic and well-documented thesis of the author, that the anti-Semitic record of the Islamic world leaves much to be desired.

Bostom provides the first full English translation and detailed analysis of a seminal, if repellent 1942 essay (”Judaism and Islam as Opposites”) by Johannes von Leers, the infamous Nazi propagandist of extermination. The essay (and its explication by Bostom) demonstrates Leers’s thorough, reverential understanding of the sacralized Islamic sources. Leers’s personal career trajectory - as a favored contributor in Goebbels’s propaganda ministry, to his eventual adoption of Islam (as Omar Amin von Leers, in 1956) while working as an anti-Western and anti-Semitic propagandist under Nasser’s regime from the mid-1950s until his death in 1965 - epitomizes the modern convergence of Islamic anti-Semitism, and racist, Nazi anti-Semitism.

It is worth noting that the blood libel, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the world Jewish conspiracy, which were borrowed by Muslims from classic European anti-Semitism since the 19th century and the infamous Damascus blood libel (1840), are still recurrent and popular themes in books, posters, cartoons, sermons in mosques, TV series and radio programs produced throughout the Islamic world, including in countries that concluded peace with Israel (Jordan and Egypt). Moreover, the fortunes of the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially the escalation of latter years, have by themselves occasioned an unprecedented campaign of demonization of Israel in the Islamic media and public discourse. The main argument being, of course, that Israel, being a Nazi accursed regime, draws its inspiration from the traditional Jewish sources and from the more recent colonialist, oppressive and imperialist nature of Zionism. The nation of Israel and its movement of national liberation, according to this rationale, cannot be better than the sum total of its members.

One can hardly exaggerate the vast importance of this volume, which will henceforth become indispensable for any student of Islam, of Judeo-Islamic relations, of anti-Semitism in particular and of hate-literature in general. The variety of materials assembled here, which makes a fascinating, if disagreeable, reading, for all the splendid and insightful overview offered by this incredibly energetic and imaginative author, will continue for times to come to constitute a mainstay of Muslim sources which will have to be referred to by future researchers, scholars and the general educated public which aspires to comprehend the significance of the new outburst of anti-Semitism, clearly articulated by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, among Muslims worldwide.

The writer is a professor of Islamic, Middle

Bostom’s legacy | Jerusalem Post

New dictionary to explain points of Islam, Christianity

By JO NAPOLITANO
Chicago Tribune

Martin Forward, a religion scholar at Aurora University in Aurora, Illinois, is the lead editor of a new book being written called the Dictionary of Christian-Muslim Relations.

CHUCK BERMAN: CHICAGO TRIBUNE

CHICAGO — Christians believe in just one God, a God who is merciful, compassionate and who calls people to a life of goodness. So do Muslims.

Christians refer to Jesus as “Messiah.” So do Muslims — although the word has a different meaning in their faith.

Muslims follow the teachings of Muhammad, who they believe to be the final agent of God. Christians believe the final agent of God is Jesus, who they believe is God’s son.

Such similarities and differences in the faiths will be highlighted in a Christian-Muslim Relations Dictionary slated for release in 2012 by Cambridge University Press.

Martin Forward, executive director of Aurora University’s Wackerlin Center for Faith and Action, will lead the project with the help of two other editors.

“We want people who are going to be ordained, people in Muslim religious schools, people in communications, government and business, to be aware of the importance of the relationship between these two religions,” Forward said.

The editors are asking religious scholars from around the globe to contribute to the book, which will include about 900 entries focusing on a vast array of people, places, theologies, denominations, scripture and other core texts.

Its 60 contributors will have varied backgrounds: Some will be professors who have taught religion for years while others will be priests, imams or the heads of interfaith or nondenominational religious centers.

Forward already contributed to a similar book, A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations, published in 2006. The 507-page book begins with entries on abortion and absolution and ends with zealotry and Zion.

The new book will have a broad scope and will include entries on art, cinema and feminism as viewed from the perspective of the Christian-Muslim relationship.

Another editor, Scott Alexander, associate professor of Islam and director of the Catholic-Muslim Studies Program at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, said he hopes the book will provide a common vocabulary for those engaged in religious debate.

“This inter-religious dialogue movement is found all over the globe,” he said. “But it doesn’t get much press.”

Forward said Christianity began about 2,000 years ago and was based on the life and teachings of Jesus, who most Christians believe is the son of God. Islam began about 600 years later, Forward said, based on Muhammad’s first revelation, around the year 610.

Although Muslims also call Jesus “Messiah,” the term as used in the Quran seems more like a courtesy title than one of any significant meaning, he said.

Forward, a British Methodist and a pastor for 13 years, said he wants readers to know there have been times throughout history that people of both faiths have lived peacefully side by side.

Religious fanatics on both sides who “dehumanize” others do not represent the masses, he said.

A. Rashied Omar, another of the book’s editors, said there has been “a phenomenal growth of inter-religions dialogue and outreach between Christians and Muslims across the United States and the world” since the 2001 terror attacks. He said that although there was some backlash against Muslims, the bigger story was that Christians were visiting mosques to learn more about Islam.

Omar is a research scholar of Islamic studies and peace-building at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

He expects to write entries on Jesus, Abraham, Moses and Mary. He said he’s been asked to speak to numerous churches over the years to teach people about his faith.

“As a Muslim scholar, I find that whenever I’ve spoken, there was a tremendous sense of sincere curiosity,” he said. “People wanted to find out more.”

New dictionary to explain points of Islam, Christianity | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

What makes a radical?

When asked why they supported the 9/11 attacks, the radicals gave political rather than religious reasons.

from the May 16, 2008 edition

Reporter Jane Lampman talks with Dalia Mogahed, executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

Various studies of Muslim terrorists show that most are not graduates of madrassahs but of private or public schools and universities; most are from middle- and working-class backgrounds; some are devout and others are not. This survey confirms these findings:

•Among the Muslims surveyed, 7 percent condoned the 9/11 attacks. The study terms these the “politically radicalized.”

•When asked why they supported the attacks, the radicals gave political rather than religious reasons. They have a sense of political frustration and feel humiliated and threatened by the West. Those who opposed the attacks often gave religious reasons for doing so.

•The radicals, on average, are not the down-and-out people in society. They are more educated than moderates, and two-thirds of radicals have average or above-average income. Forty-seven percent supervise others at work. They are more optimistic about their own lives than are moderates (52 percent to 45 percent).

•Radicals are no more religious than the general population and do not attend mosque more frequently.

•What distinguishes them is not their perception of Western culture or freedoms, but their perception of US policies. Even radicals say they support democracy. But 63 percent of radicals do not believe that the United States will allow people in the region to fashion their own political future without direct US influence.

What makes a radical? | csmonitor.com