To this date, there is extreme confusion among Muslims and non-Muslims alike regarding who was Mustafa Kemal, the dictator of Turkey. Recently, new evidence has surfaced that Mustafa Kemal, the ruthless dictator of Turkey, was not only a non-muslim, but a secret Jewish descendant of the Jewish Sabbati Zevi! The evidence comes not from tracing his genaology, but from the statements he himself made. Check out the following:
When Ataturk Recited the Jewish "Shema Yisrael":
Ataturk confessed: "It's My Secret Prayer."
By Hillel Halkin
01-28-1994
ZICHRON YAAKOV -- There were two questions I wanted to ask, I said over the phone to Batya Keinan, spokeswoman for Israeli president Ezer Weizman, who was about to leave the next day, Monday, Jan. 24, on the first visit ever made to Turkey by a Jewish chief of state. One was whether Mr. Weizman would be taking part in an official ceremony commemorating Kemal Ataturk.
Ms. Kenan checked the president's itinerary, according to which he and his wife would lay a wreath on Ataturk's ...
Excited and DistressedI thanked her and hung up. A few minutes later it occurred to me to call back and ask whether President Weizman intended to make any reference while in Turkey to Ataturk's Jewish antecedents. "I'm so glad you called again," said Ms. Kenan, who now sounded excited and a bit distressed. "Exactly where did you get your information from?"
Why was she asking, I countered, if the president's office had it too?
* Because it did not, she confessed. She had only assumed that it must because I had sounded so matter-of-fact myself. "After you hung up," she said, "I mentioned what you told me and nobody here knows anything about it. Could you please fax us what you know?"
I faxed her a short version of it. Here is a longer one.
Stories about the Jewishness of Ataturk, whose statue stands in the main square of every town and city in Turkey, already circulated in his lifetime but were denied by him and his family and never taken seriously by biographers. Of six biographies of him that I consulted this week, none even mentions such a speculation. The only scholarly reference to it in print that I could find was in the entry on Ataturk in the Israeli Entsiklopedya ha-Ivrit, which begins:
"Mustafa Kemal Ataturk - (1881-1938), Turkish general and statesman and founder of the modern Turkish state.
"Mustafa Kemal was born to the family of a minor customs clerk in Salonika and lost his father when he was young. There is no proof of the belief, widespread among both Jews and Muslims in Turkey, that his family came from the Doenme. As a boy he rebelled against his mother's desire to give him a traditional religious education, and at the age of 12 he was sent at his demand to study in a military academy."
Secular FatherThe Doenme were an underground sect of Sabbetaians, Turkish Jews who took Muslim names and outwardly behaved like Muslims but secretly believed in Sabbetai Zevi, the 17th-century false messiah, and conducted carefully guarded prayers and rituals in his name. The encyclopedia's version of Ataturk's education, however, is somewhat at variance with his own. Here is his account of it as quoted by his biographers:
"My father was a man of liberal views, rather hostile to religion, and a partisan of Western ideas. He would have preferred to see me go to a lay school, which did not found its teaching on the Koran but on modern science.
"In this battle of consciences, my father managed to gain the victory after a small maneuver; he pretended to give in to my mother's wishes, and arranged that I should enter the (Islamic) school of Fatma Molla Kadin with the traditional ceremony. ...
"Six months later, more or less, my father quietly withdrew me from the school and took me to that of old Shemsi Effendi who directed a free preparatory school according to European methods. My mother made no objection, since her desires had been complied with and her conventions respected. It was the ceremony above all which had satisfied her."
Who was Mustafa Kemal's father, who behaved here in typical Doenme fashion, outwardly observing Muslim ceremonies while inwardly scoffing at them? Ataturk's mother Zubeyde came from the mountains west of Salonika, close to the current Albanian frontier; of the origins of his father, Ali Riza, little is known. Different writers have given them as Albanian, Anatolian and Salonikan, and Lord Kinross' compendious 1964 "Ataturk" calls Ali Riza a "shadowy personality" and adds cryptically regarding Ataturk's reluctance to disclose more about his family background: "To the child of so mixed an environment it would seldom occur, wherever his racial loyalties lay, to inquire too exactly into his personal origins beyond that of his parentage."
Learning HebrewDid Kinross suspect more than he was admitting? I would never have asked had I not recently come across a remarkable chapter while browsing in the out-of-print Hebrew autobiography of Itamar Ben-Avi, son of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the leading promoter of the revival of spoken Hebrew in late 19th-century Palestine. Ben-Avi, the first child to be raised in Hebrew since ancient times and later a Hebrew journalist and newspaper publisher, writes in this book of walking into the Kamenitz Hotel in Jerusalem one autumn night in 1911 and being asked by its proprietor:
" 'Do you see that Turkish officer sitting there in the corner, the one with the bottle of arrack?' "
" 'Yes.' "
" 'He's one of the most important officers in the Turkish army.' "
" 'What's his name?' "
" 'Mustafa Kemal.' "
" 'I'd like to meet him,' I said, because the minute I looked at him I was startled by his piercing green eyes."
Ben-Avi describes two meetings with Mustafa Kemal, who had not yet taken the name of Ataturk, 'Father of the Turks.' Both were conducted in French, were largely devoted to Ottoman politics, and were doused with large amounts of arrack. In the first of these, Kemal confided:
"I'm a descendant of Sabbetai Zevi - not indeed a Jew any more, but an ardent admirer of this prophet of yours. My opinion is that every Jew in this country would do well to join his camp."
During their second meeting, held 10 days later in the same hotel, Mustafa Kemal said at one point:
" 'I have at home a Hebrew Bible printed in Venice. It's rather old, and I remember my father bringing me to a Karaite teacher who taught me to read it. I can still remember a few words of it, such as --' "
And Ben-Avi continues:
"He paused for a moment, his eyes searching for something in space. Then he recalled:
" 'Shema Yisra'el, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Ehad!'
" 'That's our most important prayer, Captain.'
" 'And my secret prayer too, cher monsieur,' he replied, refilling our glasses."
Although Itamar Ben-Avi could not have known it, Ataturk no doubt meant "secret prayer" quite literally. Among the esoteric prayers of the Doenme, first made known to the scholarly world when a book of them reached the National Library in Jerusalem in 1935, is one containing the confession of faith:
"Sabbetai Zevi and none other is the true Messiah. Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one."
It was undoubtedly from this credo, rather than from the Bible, that Ataturk remembered the words of the Shema, which to the best of my knowledge he confessed knowing but once in his adult life: to a young Hebrew journalist whom he engaged in two tipsily animated conversations in Jerusalem nearly a decade before he took control of the Turkish army after its disastrous defeat in World War I, beat back the invading Greeks and founded a secular Turkish republic in which Islam was banished - once and for all, so he thought - to the mosques.
Ataturk would have had good reasons for concealing his Doenme origins. Not only were the Doenmes (who married only among themselves and numbered close to 15,000, largely concentrated in Salonika, on the eve of World War I) looked down on as heretics by both Muslims and Jews, they had a reputation for sexual profligacy that could hardly have been flattering to their offspring. This license, which was theologically justified by the claim that it reflected the faithful's freedom from the biblical commandments under the new dispensation of Sabbetai Zevi, is described by Ezer Weizman's predecessor, Israel's second president, Yitzchak Ben-Zvi, in his book on lost Jewish communities, "The Exiled and the Redeemed":
'Saintly Offspring'"Once a year (during the Doenmes' annual 'Sheep holiday') the candles are put out in the course of a dinner which is attended by orgies and the ceremony of the exchange of wives. ... The rite is practiced on the night of Sabbetai Zevi's traditional birthday. ... It is believed that children born of such unions are regarded as saintly."
Although Ben-Zvi, writing in the 1950s, thought that "There is reason to believe that this ceremony has not been entirely abandoned and continues to this day," little is known about whether any of the Doenmes' traditional practices or social structures still survive in modern Turkey. The community abandoned Salonika along with the city's other Turkish residents during the Greco-Turkish war of 1920-21, and its descendants, many of whom are said to be wealthy businessmen and merchants in Istanbul, are generally thought to have assimilated totally into Turkish life.
After sending my fax to Batya Keinan, I phoned to check that she had received it. She had indeed, she said, and would see to it that the president was given it to read on his flight to Ankara. It is doubtful, however, whether Mr. Weizman will allude to it during his visit: The Turkish government, which for years has been fending off Muslim fundamentalist assaults on its legitimacy and on the secular reforms of Ataturk, has little reason to welcome the news that the father of the 'Father of the Turks' was a crypto-Jew who passed on his anti-Muslim sentiments to his son. Mustafa Kemal's secret is no doubt one that it would prefer to continue to be kept.
The above article was sent to me via email from: ww.islamservices.org
Saturday, May 12, 2007
One in 10 Muslims are in 7/7 denial
At least one in 10 British Muslims is in denial about the 7 July bombings in London, David Cameron is warning.
The Tory leader raised his concerns after staying with an Islamic family in Birmingham. Arguing that parts of the Muslim community are in denial about terrorism, he writes on his website: "In the mosque and elsewhere I got the familiar depressing questions about who was really responsible for 9/11 and even 7/7.
"Dig a bit deeper and it all comes out, 'CIA plot ... Jews told to leave the twin towers'. Even when it comes to 7/7, 'how do we know the suicide bomber videos are real and not fakes?' "Even if this is a view held by five or 10 per cent of British Muslims - and I suspect it is at least that - this is a real problem which we have all got to get to grips with."
However, after staying with a Muslim couple and their three children in the Balsall Heath area of Birmingham, he also accused the media and MPs of causing anger among some Muslims with inappropriate language.
Calling for people to stop using the words "Islamist terrorists" he adds: "It's hard to over-emphasise the importance of language. "Every time the BBC or a politician talks about Islamist terrorists they are doing immense harm."
He also voiced concerns among some Muslims that not enough is being done to stop extremist preachers coming to Britain and radicalising young people.
Source: ThisIsLonon.co.uk
The Tory leader raised his concerns after staying with an Islamic family in Birmingham. Arguing that parts of the Muslim community are in denial about terrorism, he writes on his website: "In the mosque and elsewhere I got the familiar depressing questions about who was really responsible for 9/11 and even 7/7.
"Dig a bit deeper and it all comes out, 'CIA plot ... Jews told to leave the twin towers'. Even when it comes to 7/7, 'how do we know the suicide bomber videos are real and not fakes?' "Even if this is a view held by five or 10 per cent of British Muslims - and I suspect it is at least that - this is a real problem which we have all got to get to grips with."
However, after staying with a Muslim couple and their three children in the Balsall Heath area of Birmingham, he also accused the media and MPs of causing anger among some Muslims with inappropriate language.
Calling for people to stop using the words "Islamist terrorists" he adds: "It's hard to over-emphasise the importance of language. "Every time the BBC or a politician talks about Islamist terrorists they are doing immense harm."
He also voiced concerns among some Muslims that not enough is being done to stop extremist preachers coming to Britain and radicalising young people.
Source: ThisIsLonon.co.uk
Hijab ban lifted in Quebec
Competitors at a world Tae Kwon Do tournament to be held in Quebec City May 31 will be allowed to wear a hijab, an international federation governing the sport has ruled.
According to a temporary decision handed down by the International Tae Kwon Do Federation, wearing the Muslim veil while practicing the sport is "neither dangerous nor unfair."
The association has created an ad hoc committee to study the question further.
The Quebec Tae Kwon Do Federation had submitted the question to the sport's international body after the April 15 instance in which two young Muslim girls were barred from competing with hijabs underneath their helmets.
The Quebec federation had refused to authorize the wearing of hijabs themselves even in a version modified for sports.
Source: The Gazette
According to a temporary decision handed down by the International Tae Kwon Do Federation, wearing the Muslim veil while practicing the sport is "neither dangerous nor unfair."
The association has created an ad hoc committee to study the question further.
The Quebec Tae Kwon Do Federation had submitted the question to the sport's international body after the April 15 instance in which two young Muslim girls were barred from competing with hijabs underneath their helmets.
The Quebec federation had refused to authorize the wearing of hijabs themselves even in a version modified for sports.
Source: The Gazette
Blair Meets Sarkozy (their photo with a touch of art)
Prime Minister Tony Blair had talks with Nicolas Sarkozy Friday, in the French president-elect's first meeting with a foreign leader.
Blair arrived at Sarkozy's temporary offices on Paris's Left Bank shortly after 6:00 pm (1600 GMT) for talks expected to focus on Europe and climate change.
Sarkozy, 52, takes over from Jacques Chirac next Wednesday.
On Thursday Blair announced that he will step down as Britain's premier at the end of June.
Francois Fillon, who is expected to be named next week as Sarkozy's prime minister, also attended the talks along with the British ambassador to France, Peter Westmacott.
Earlier Blair paid what was described as a farewell visit to Chirac at the Elysee palace.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20070511/tuk-france-britain-sarkozy-a7ad41d.html
Israeli who served in the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces) may join Sarkozy cabinet
Klarsfeld, when he served as a border policeman.
Photo: AP
Arno Klarsfeld, the son of renowned Nazi-hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, is rumored to be the top candidate to become minister of immigration and national identity when French President-elect Nicholas Sarkozy chooses his cabinet in the coming weeks.
Arno Klarsfeld, a 41-year-old lawyer, undertook several missions for Sarkozy when he was interior minister, dealing with France's illegal immigration problem.
Born in France, Klarsfeld aligned himself with Sarkozy and the Right after he fell out of favor with French leftists when he acquired Israeli citizenship in 2002 and joined the Border Police. He served at checkpoints around Bethlehem.
When he worked for Sarkozy, Klarsfeld prepared reports on the deportation of illegal immigrants and helped negotiate a deal to end protests by homeless campaigners.
Sarkozy gets nearly 90% of Israeli votes
Klarsfeld has also undertaken several human rights cases, campaigning to create international criminal courts on the genocides in Kosovo and Rwanda. He has championed Jewish causes, representing the Association for the Sons and Daughters of the Deported Jews of France, who sought damages in their case against French Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, who died in February.
Because Klarsfeld has served as a mediator for Sarkozy and is familiar with the region, some believe he could serve as a special envoy for Sarkozy.
But officials from Sarkozy's party, the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), told The Jerusalem Post Tuesday no final decisions had been made on ministerial appointments. They said they had not heard speculation about Klarsfeld's appointment, as was first suggested by Le Figaro, also on Tuesday.
According to one UMP official, although it is just conjecture at this point, anything is possible. "He is charismatic and well-liked, but you have to see if he is the best suited for the job," the official told the Post.
As for Klarsfeld serving as a special envoy to the Middle East, the official said Klarsfeld's IDF service could present a problem for hard-liners and moderates in Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority.
"Around 70 percent of Lebanese Frenchmen voted for Sarkozy, so they also have a lot of expectations of him," the official said. "When you're talking about Hizbullah, for example, they would have to recognize that someone like Klarsfeld is first a French citizen, not Israeli. They must recognize him officially, not personally."
Klarsfeld has been outspoken in the past on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and has said Palestinians were responsible for some of the casualties of the Holocaust.
In an article he wrote in Le Monde in 2001, he said: "If the persecuted Jews of Germany, Poland, Hungary and Romania had been permitted to immigrate to Palestine... it is certain that the number of Jews exterminated would have been far less."
Klarsfeld has also been outspoken on Palestinian statehood, something he believes should become a reality, but that Israelis and Palestinians should not be forbidden to live in each other's territory.
"It is said that Jewish policies in the occupied territories are an obstacle for peace. Maybe," he said. "But we can also turn the question around and ask, Why can't Jews live in the West Bank and Gaza while one million Arabs live in Israel?"
According to reports coming out of Paris, others being considered to sit on Sarkozy's cabinet are outgoing Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and Alain Juppe, a former prime minister and foreign minister. Both are seen as front-runners for the position of foreign minister, though some suggest Juppe would rather be president of the National Assembly.
"The Israeli's won't be happy, especially with Juppe," the UMP official said. "Juppe is seen as very pro-Palestinian and has made statements regarding Jerusalem that Israelis don't like. He has said that Jerusalem is disputed territory and does not belong to Israel, and he believes what he says."
Alliot-Marie has also evoked criticism over statements on the region, with her condemnation of Israeli flyovers in Lebanon, which the IDF said were efforts to deter Hizbullah from rearming in violation of the UN brokered cease-fire.
"I think she learned her lessons about being too outspoken, especially over matters in the Middle East," the official said. "All statements regarding Israel must be carefully articulated and she spoke without thinking and without proper information."
Friday, May 11, 2007
Islam and Other Religions
Say: We believe in God, and in what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and in (the Books) given to Moses, Jesus, and the Prophets from their Lord: We make no distinction between one and another. (Aal `Imran 3:84)
As is borne out by this command of God in the Qur’an, Muslims must believe in all the prophets of God previously sent to humanity. This means that they are not permitted to show any disrespect to any prophet or to the religion he taught to his followers. To a Muslim, religious belief must come out of a person’s free choice, as God has also commanded not to use any kind of coercion in the matter of religion:
Let there be no compulsion in religion, truth stands out clear from error. (Al-Baqarah 2:256)It is the conviction of a religion’s adherents, not the compulsion they can impose on others, that establishes its moral force on earth. This was a principle evident in the life and practice of the
Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) as well as the Constitution of Madinah which he drew up with the multi-religious community of Madinah.
This document guaranteed the freedom of worship to all religious communities. This was the spirit of the Qur’an that shines into the hearts of all its perceptive readers: the spirit of tolerance and understanding. Allah says in the Qur’an that He has made people into nations and tribes so that they can know and deal with each other in an equal temper of kindness and generosity:
O humankind! We created you from a single pair of a male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know and deal with each other in kindness (not that you may despise each other). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of God (is he who is) the most righteous of you, and God is Knower, Aware. (Al-Hujurat 49:13)
The above verse emphasizes the point that in Islam there is no place for intolerance, prejudice, or bigotry based on color, race, nationality or any such considerations. This all-encompassing tolerance of Islam applies to all elements of life and all affairs of Muslims.
The Muslim's acceptance of the Jews and Christians (referred to in the Qur'an as People of the Book) as authentic religious communities is made clear:
And dispute not with the People of the Book, except with means better (than mere disputation), unless it be with those of them who inflict wrong and injury. (Al-`Ankabut 29:46).
This verse tells Muslims that they should take all measures to avoid dispute, anger or other negative feelings between themselves and others.
A Historical Context
In his book, More in Common Than You Think: Bridge Between Islam and Christianity, Dr. William Baker explains how Muslims view the Torah and the New Testament as inspired revelations of God and how Islam neither targeted the Jews nor Judaism.
In his article "The Prophet of Islam and the Jews: Basis of Conduct, Acceptance, Respect and Cooperation", Fysal Burhan quotes Dr. Baker: "It is a fact of history that when the Jews were being persecuted in Europe during the middle ages they found peace, harmony, and acceptance among the Muslim people of Spain. In fact, this was the era of Jewish history that they themselves refer to as "the golden age."
Marmaduke Pickthall, whose translation of the meanings of the Qur'an remains one of the most popular today, also commented on the subject:
In Spain under the Umayyads and in Baghdad under the Abbasid Khalifas, Christians and Jews, equally with Muslims, were admitted to the Schools and universities - not only that, but were boarded and lodged in hostels at the cost of the state. When the Moors were driven out of Spain, the Christian conquerors held a terrific persecution of the Jews. Those who were fortunate enough to escape fled, some of them to Morocco and many hundreds to the Turkish empire, where their descendants still live in separate communities, and still speak among themselves an antiquated form of Spanish. The Muslim empire was a refuge for all those who fled from persecution by the Inquisition.
The Western Christians, till the arrival of the Encyclopaedists in the eighteenth century, did not know and did not care to know, what the Muslim believed, nor did the Western Christian seek to know the views of Eastern Christians with regard to them. The Christian Church was already split in two, and in the end, it came to such a pass that the Eastern Christians, as Gibbon shows, preferred Muslim rule, which allowed them to practice their own form of religion and adhere to their peculiar dogmas, to the rule of fellow Christians who would have made them Roman Catholics or wiped them out…
If Europe had known as much of Islam, as Muslims knew of Christendom, in those days, those mad, adventurous, occasionally chivalrous and heroic, but utterly fanatical outbreak known as the Crusades could not have taken place, for they were based on a complete misapprehension…
It was not until the Western nations broke away from their religious law that they became more tolerant; and it was only when the Muslims fell away from their religious law that they declined in tolerance and other evidences of the highest culture. Before the coming of Islam it had never been preached as an essential part of religion.” (Madras Lectures on Islam)
The Prophet's Pluralistic Constitution
The Qur’an never claimed to teach a new religion. It consistently contextualized the Prophet Muhammad as being the final messenger in a long line of messengers from Allah confirming the truth of all earlier scriptures. This continuity is clear in the respect the Prophet showed to people of other religions.
Muhammad's mission was to restore the pure religion of Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus. The Islamic view of earlier religions is clear from the following verses of the Qur’an:
The same religion has He established for you as that which He enjoined on Noah--which We have sent by inspiration to thee (O Muhammad)--and that which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses, and Jesus… Call (them to the Faith), and stand steadfast as thou art commanded, follow not thou their vain desires; but say: "I believe in whatever Book Allah has sent down; and I am commanded to judge justly between you. Allah is our Lord and your Lord: for us (is the responsibility for) our deeds, and for you for your deeds. There is no contention between us and you. Allah will bring us together, and to Him is (our) final goal. (Ash-Shura 42:13 & 15)
It was in the year 622 CE that the Prophet came to Madinah after a period of thirteen years of preaching Islam to the Quraish tribe in Makkah. In Madinah he found many who were ready to receive him and help him in his mission. At that time, the city of Madinah and its surrounding area was home to many Jewish and Arab tribes. There were also people of various racial and national origins including Romans, Persians and Ethiopians living in Madinah.
Taking into consideration the hopes and aspirations of this community of multi-religious background, the Prophet Muhammad drew up the basic principles of a pluralistic constitution. In addition, it established the rights and equality of every citizen before the law, as well as freedom of religion, trade and speech. The constitution spelled out the political rights and duties of both the Jews and Muslims to protect each other from every threat to their security and to uphold moral conduct and fair dealing.
Part of the constitution reads as follows:
The Jews of Banu `Awf are one nation with the Muslims; the Jews have their religion and the Muslims have theirs, their freedmen and their persons shall be protected except those who behave unjustly or sinfully, for they hurt but themselves and their families. The same applies to the Jews of Banu an-Najjar, Banu al-Harith, Banu Sa'idah, Banu Jusham, Banu al-Aws, Banu Tha'labah, and the Jafnah, clan of the Tha'labah and Banu al-Shua'ibah. Doing good deeds is a protection against sinfulness. …….There is no responsibility except for one's own deeds….This document shall not constitute any protection for the unjust or the wrongdoers.
Whoever goes out to fight or stays at home is safe in the city, unless he has committed an injustice or a crime. God is the protector of whoever honors his commitment to this document, and is God-fearing and so is Muhammad, the Messenger of God. (Ibn Hisham)
The Constitution of Madinah was a historical document authored and dictated by Prophet Muhammad as the law of a land inhabited by different ethnic groups and nationalities. The document secured and promoted cooperation and fraternity among all people of any creed, color, ethnicity, and lineage, and set down the criterion of righteousness as the base of distinction.
A Human Soul
In addition to the legislation that the Prophet laid down in Madinah, he also practiced the spirit of acceptance and respect for those who were different in his daily life. The Prophet used to visit the sick people among the Jews as well as the Muslims; and when on one occasion the funeral procession of a Jew passed before him, he stood up as a sign of respect for the deceased. “Why did you stand up for a Jewish funeral?” he was asked. The Prophet replied: "Is it not a human soul?" (Al-Bukhari)
In this age of racial profiling and targeted killings directed at Muslims this attitude of the Prophet may sound other-worldly.
www.islamonline.net
As is borne out by this command of God in the Qur’an, Muslims must believe in all the prophets of God previously sent to humanity. This means that they are not permitted to show any disrespect to any prophet or to the religion he taught to his followers. To a Muslim, religious belief must come out of a person’s free choice, as God has also commanded not to use any kind of coercion in the matter of religion:
Let there be no compulsion in religion, truth stands out clear from error. (Al-Baqarah 2:256)It is the conviction of a religion’s adherents, not the compulsion they can impose on others, that establishes its moral force on earth. This was a principle evident in the life and practice of the
Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) as well as the Constitution of Madinah which he drew up with the multi-religious community of Madinah.
This document guaranteed the freedom of worship to all religious communities. This was the spirit of the Qur’an that shines into the hearts of all its perceptive readers: the spirit of tolerance and understanding. Allah says in the Qur’an that He has made people into nations and tribes so that they can know and deal with each other in an equal temper of kindness and generosity:
O humankind! We created you from a single pair of a male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know and deal with each other in kindness (not that you may despise each other). Verily the most honored of you in the sight of God (is he who is) the most righteous of you, and God is Knower, Aware. (Al-Hujurat 49:13)
The above verse emphasizes the point that in Islam there is no place for intolerance, prejudice, or bigotry based on color, race, nationality or any such considerations. This all-encompassing tolerance of Islam applies to all elements of life and all affairs of Muslims.
The Muslim's acceptance of the Jews and Christians (referred to in the Qur'an as People of the Book) as authentic religious communities is made clear:
And dispute not with the People of the Book, except with means better (than mere disputation), unless it be with those of them who inflict wrong and injury. (Al-`Ankabut 29:46).
This verse tells Muslims that they should take all measures to avoid dispute, anger or other negative feelings between themselves and others.
A Historical Context
In his book, More in Common Than You Think: Bridge Between Islam and Christianity, Dr. William Baker explains how Muslims view the Torah and the New Testament as inspired revelations of God and how Islam neither targeted the Jews nor Judaism.
In his article "The Prophet of Islam and the Jews: Basis of Conduct, Acceptance, Respect and Cooperation", Fysal Burhan quotes Dr. Baker: "It is a fact of history that when the Jews were being persecuted in Europe during the middle ages they found peace, harmony, and acceptance among the Muslim people of Spain. In fact, this was the era of Jewish history that they themselves refer to as "the golden age."
Marmaduke Pickthall, whose translation of the meanings of the Qur'an remains one of the most popular today, also commented on the subject:
In Spain under the Umayyads and in Baghdad under the Abbasid Khalifas, Christians and Jews, equally with Muslims, were admitted to the Schools and universities - not only that, but were boarded and lodged in hostels at the cost of the state. When the Moors were driven out of Spain, the Christian conquerors held a terrific persecution of the Jews. Those who were fortunate enough to escape fled, some of them to Morocco and many hundreds to the Turkish empire, where their descendants still live in separate communities, and still speak among themselves an antiquated form of Spanish. The Muslim empire was a refuge for all those who fled from persecution by the Inquisition.
The Western Christians, till the arrival of the Encyclopaedists in the eighteenth century, did not know and did not care to know, what the Muslim believed, nor did the Western Christian seek to know the views of Eastern Christians with regard to them. The Christian Church was already split in two, and in the end, it came to such a pass that the Eastern Christians, as Gibbon shows, preferred Muslim rule, which allowed them to practice their own form of religion and adhere to their peculiar dogmas, to the rule of fellow Christians who would have made them Roman Catholics or wiped them out…
If Europe had known as much of Islam, as Muslims knew of Christendom, in those days, those mad, adventurous, occasionally chivalrous and heroic, but utterly fanatical outbreak known as the Crusades could not have taken place, for they were based on a complete misapprehension…
It was not until the Western nations broke away from their religious law that they became more tolerant; and it was only when the Muslims fell away from their religious law that they declined in tolerance and other evidences of the highest culture. Before the coming of Islam it had never been preached as an essential part of religion.” (Madras Lectures on Islam)
The Prophet's Pluralistic Constitution
The Qur’an never claimed to teach a new religion. It consistently contextualized the Prophet Muhammad as being the final messenger in a long line of messengers from Allah confirming the truth of all earlier scriptures. This continuity is clear in the respect the Prophet showed to people of other religions.
Muhammad's mission was to restore the pure religion of Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus. The Islamic view of earlier religions is clear from the following verses of the Qur’an:
The same religion has He established for you as that which He enjoined on Noah--which We have sent by inspiration to thee (O Muhammad)--and that which We enjoined on Abraham, Moses, and Jesus… Call (them to the Faith), and stand steadfast as thou art commanded, follow not thou their vain desires; but say: "I believe in whatever Book Allah has sent down; and I am commanded to judge justly between you. Allah is our Lord and your Lord: for us (is the responsibility for) our deeds, and for you for your deeds. There is no contention between us and you. Allah will bring us together, and to Him is (our) final goal. (Ash-Shura 42:13 & 15)
It was in the year 622 CE that the Prophet came to Madinah after a period of thirteen years of preaching Islam to the Quraish tribe in Makkah. In Madinah he found many who were ready to receive him and help him in his mission. At that time, the city of Madinah and its surrounding area was home to many Jewish and Arab tribes. There were also people of various racial and national origins including Romans, Persians and Ethiopians living in Madinah.
Taking into consideration the hopes and aspirations of this community of multi-religious background, the Prophet Muhammad drew up the basic principles of a pluralistic constitution. In addition, it established the rights and equality of every citizen before the law, as well as freedom of religion, trade and speech. The constitution spelled out the political rights and duties of both the Jews and Muslims to protect each other from every threat to their security and to uphold moral conduct and fair dealing.
Part of the constitution reads as follows:
The Jews of Banu `Awf are one nation with the Muslims; the Jews have their religion and the Muslims have theirs, their freedmen and their persons shall be protected except those who behave unjustly or sinfully, for they hurt but themselves and their families. The same applies to the Jews of Banu an-Najjar, Banu al-Harith, Banu Sa'idah, Banu Jusham, Banu al-Aws, Banu Tha'labah, and the Jafnah, clan of the Tha'labah and Banu al-Shua'ibah. Doing good deeds is a protection against sinfulness. …….There is no responsibility except for one's own deeds….This document shall not constitute any protection for the unjust or the wrongdoers.
Whoever goes out to fight or stays at home is safe in the city, unless he has committed an injustice or a crime. God is the protector of whoever honors his commitment to this document, and is God-fearing and so is Muhammad, the Messenger of God. (Ibn Hisham)
The Constitution of Madinah was a historical document authored and dictated by Prophet Muhammad as the law of a land inhabited by different ethnic groups and nationalities. The document secured and promoted cooperation and fraternity among all people of any creed, color, ethnicity, and lineage, and set down the criterion of righteousness as the base of distinction.
A Human Soul
In addition to the legislation that the Prophet laid down in Madinah, he also practiced the spirit of acceptance and respect for those who were different in his daily life. The Prophet used to visit the sick people among the Jews as well as the Muslims; and when on one occasion the funeral procession of a Jew passed before him, he stood up as a sign of respect for the deceased. “Why did you stand up for a Jewish funeral?” he was asked. The Prophet replied: "Is it not a human soul?" (Al-Bukhari)
In this age of racial profiling and targeted killings directed at Muslims this attitude of the Prophet may sound other-worldly.
www.islamonline.net
Iraqi infant mortality soars by 150 percent—a damning revelation of US war crimes
The infant mortality rate in Iraq has increased by a shocking 150 percent since 1990—the highest such increase recorded for any country in the world—according to an annual report issued by the child advocacy group, Save the Children.
According to the report, in 2005, the last year for which reliable data is available, one in eight Iraqi children—122,000 in all—died before reaching their fifth birthday. More than half of these deaths were recorded among new-born infants, with pneumonia and diarrhea claiming the greatest toll among Iraqi babies.
The infant mortality rate has long been considered one of the key measures of societal progress and wellbeing. The astounding figures recorded in Iraq are an accurate reflection of the social devastation wrought both by the US invasion of 2003 and more than a decade of US-backed economic sanctions that preceded it.
“Conservative estimates place increases in infant mortality following the 2003 invasion of Iraq at 37 percent,” according to the Save the Children report. The implications of such a change—in the space of just two years—are staggering. Given the steady escalation of the armed conflict in Iraq and the continued deterioration of social conditions for masses of people in the country, the rate of increase in infant and child deaths was no doubt even greater over the course of 2006.
The report blamed the horrific decline in infant and child health since the invasion on the steadily worsening living conditions for the Iraqi population as a whole, including “electricity shortages, insufficient clean water, deteriorating health services and soaring inflation.”
This overall destruction of basic social infrastructure unleashed by the US invasion and occupation has been translated into a horrendous decline in child health. “Only 35 percent of Iraqi children are fully immunized, and more than one-fifth (21 percent) are severely or moderately stunted” as a result of malnutrition, the study found.
The statistics compiled by Save the Children indicate that in 1990 the mortality rate for children under five in Iraq stood at 50 for every 1,000 live births—among the best outcomes reported for the entire Arab world at the time. In 2005, the figure was 125 per 1,000 live births—roughly equivalent to the figures recorded in countries like Malawi, Mauritania, Uganda and Haiti.
While some countries—all with one exception in Africa—have higher death rates than Iraq, none came even near the rate of increase in infant mortality recorded by the US-occupied country (Botswana came closest, with a 107 percent rise, while still recording a slightly lower rate of 120 deaths per 1,000 live births).
The destruction of the conditions and very lives of Iraqi children began well before US troops invaded the country in 2003. The 1990-1991 Gulf War saw more than 90,000 tons of US bombs and missiles dropped on Iraq, smashing much of its essential infrastructure, including power plants and water and sanitation systems and creating the conditions for a public health disaster.
The war was followed by a decade of punishing sanctions that deprived Iraqi children and the population as a whole of essential medical supplies and adequate nutrition. Even chlorine, needed to purify water, was embargoed, depriving infants and small children of a clean water supply and condemning many to death.
US-backed sanctions killed 500,000 Iraqi children
It was during this period that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated that an additional half a million Iraqi children had died between 1991 and 1998 as a result of the sanctions.
In 1998, the coordinator of United Nation humanitarian operations in Iraq, Denis Halliday, resigned in protest calling the sanctions a form of “genocide” and “a deliberate policy to destroy the people of Iraq.” Halliday said at the time, “We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral.”
President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, confronted in a television interview with the UN estimate of 500,000 children having died as a result of the US-backed sanctions, famously answered, “We think the price is worth it.”
The rise in infant mortality rates represents the starkest manifestation of the murderous impact that US aggression upon Iraq and its children over a protracted period. But there are many other indications that for those who survive, conditions of life have become increasingly unbearable.
According to figures reported by the Iraqi government, some 900,000 children have been left orphans by the carnage that has swept Iraq since the US invasion of 2003. It is estimated that at the present levels of violence, some 400 children are left orphaned every day in the country.
The Iraqi Ministry of Education, meanwhile, estimates that barely 30 percent the country’s 3.5 million elementary school children are attending classes, a sharp decline from 75 percent last year. A study sponsored by the World Health Organization in the Iraqi city of Mosul, found fully 30 percent of school children surveyed suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder.
Significantly, the other country that is presently occupied by the US military and remains the scene of a bitter counterinsurgency war—Afghanistan—ranks as the second worst in the world in terms of its infant mortality rate, with 257 deaths for every 1,000 live births. In other words, more than one out of four Afghan children dies before the age of five. On average, every Afghan mother sees two of her children die as infants, while one in six women die in childbirth.
According to the Save the Children study, 40 percent of Afghan children are malnourished and less than half have access to safe water. The report also notes that, while “1 child in 100,000 in the United States dies of pneumonia each year, roughly 1 in 15” dies of the disease in Afghanistan.
On a world scale, Save the Children reports, “Every year, more than 10 million children die before they reach the age of 5, most from preventable causes and almost all in poor countries.” It adds that while infant global infant mortality rates had improved in previous decades, “rates of progress are slowing and in many countries, child death rates are getting worse.”
The organization insists that available and low-cost solutions could easily prevent 6 million of these deaths annually. These include, “skilled care at childbirth, breastfeeding, measles immunization, oral rehydration therapy for diarrhea and medical care for pneumonia.” But for many of the most impoverished countries, and for many others in the most oppressed layers of society elsewhere, these elementary forms of health care and education are not provided.
The statistics included in the report also indicate that the problems of infant mortality reflect the worldwide growth of social inequality, which is literally killing millions of children every year.
“A child in the poorest fifth of a population is more than twice as likely to die compared to a child from the richest fifth,” the study finds. “Eliminating health-care inequities—and bringing mortality rates among the poorest 80 percent of the population down to those prevailing among the richest 20 percent—would prevent about 4 million of the 10 million deaths each year.”
In addition to the growing impact of social inequality within each country, the gap between the wealthiest and most impoverished countries has also continued to widen. While in 1990, the child mortality rate for sub-Saharan Africa was 20 times higher than for the industrialized countries, by 2005, the rate was 28 times as high, the study said.
The above article was sent to me from www.islamservices.org
According to the report, in 2005, the last year for which reliable data is available, one in eight Iraqi children—122,000 in all—died before reaching their fifth birthday. More than half of these deaths were recorded among new-born infants, with pneumonia and diarrhea claiming the greatest toll among Iraqi babies.
The infant mortality rate has long been considered one of the key measures of societal progress and wellbeing. The astounding figures recorded in Iraq are an accurate reflection of the social devastation wrought both by the US invasion of 2003 and more than a decade of US-backed economic sanctions that preceded it.
“Conservative estimates place increases in infant mortality following the 2003 invasion of Iraq at 37 percent,” according to the Save the Children report. The implications of such a change—in the space of just two years—are staggering. Given the steady escalation of the armed conflict in Iraq and the continued deterioration of social conditions for masses of people in the country, the rate of increase in infant and child deaths was no doubt even greater over the course of 2006.
The report blamed the horrific decline in infant and child health since the invasion on the steadily worsening living conditions for the Iraqi population as a whole, including “electricity shortages, insufficient clean water, deteriorating health services and soaring inflation.”
This overall destruction of basic social infrastructure unleashed by the US invasion and occupation has been translated into a horrendous decline in child health. “Only 35 percent of Iraqi children are fully immunized, and more than one-fifth (21 percent) are severely or moderately stunted” as a result of malnutrition, the study found.
The statistics compiled by Save the Children indicate that in 1990 the mortality rate for children under five in Iraq stood at 50 for every 1,000 live births—among the best outcomes reported for the entire Arab world at the time. In 2005, the figure was 125 per 1,000 live births—roughly equivalent to the figures recorded in countries like Malawi, Mauritania, Uganda and Haiti.
While some countries—all with one exception in Africa—have higher death rates than Iraq, none came even near the rate of increase in infant mortality recorded by the US-occupied country (Botswana came closest, with a 107 percent rise, while still recording a slightly lower rate of 120 deaths per 1,000 live births).
The destruction of the conditions and very lives of Iraqi children began well before US troops invaded the country in 2003. The 1990-1991 Gulf War saw more than 90,000 tons of US bombs and missiles dropped on Iraq, smashing much of its essential infrastructure, including power plants and water and sanitation systems and creating the conditions for a public health disaster.
The war was followed by a decade of punishing sanctions that deprived Iraqi children and the population as a whole of essential medical supplies and adequate nutrition. Even chlorine, needed to purify water, was embargoed, depriving infants and small children of a clean water supply and condemning many to death.
US-backed sanctions killed 500,000 Iraqi children
It was during this period that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated that an additional half a million Iraqi children had died between 1991 and 1998 as a result of the sanctions.
In 1998, the coordinator of United Nation humanitarian operations in Iraq, Denis Halliday, resigned in protest calling the sanctions a form of “genocide” and “a deliberate policy to destroy the people of Iraq.” Halliday said at the time, “We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral.”
President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, confronted in a television interview with the UN estimate of 500,000 children having died as a result of the US-backed sanctions, famously answered, “We think the price is worth it.”
The rise in infant mortality rates represents the starkest manifestation of the murderous impact that US aggression upon Iraq and its children over a protracted period. But there are many other indications that for those who survive, conditions of life have become increasingly unbearable.
According to figures reported by the Iraqi government, some 900,000 children have been left orphans by the carnage that has swept Iraq since the US invasion of 2003. It is estimated that at the present levels of violence, some 400 children are left orphaned every day in the country.
The Iraqi Ministry of Education, meanwhile, estimates that barely 30 percent the country’s 3.5 million elementary school children are attending classes, a sharp decline from 75 percent last year. A study sponsored by the World Health Organization in the Iraqi city of Mosul, found fully 30 percent of school children surveyed suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder.
Significantly, the other country that is presently occupied by the US military and remains the scene of a bitter counterinsurgency war—Afghanistan—ranks as the second worst in the world in terms of its infant mortality rate, with 257 deaths for every 1,000 live births. In other words, more than one out of four Afghan children dies before the age of five. On average, every Afghan mother sees two of her children die as infants, while one in six women die in childbirth.
According to the Save the Children study, 40 percent of Afghan children are malnourished and less than half have access to safe water. The report also notes that, while “1 child in 100,000 in the United States dies of pneumonia each year, roughly 1 in 15” dies of the disease in Afghanistan.
On a world scale, Save the Children reports, “Every year, more than 10 million children die before they reach the age of 5, most from preventable causes and almost all in poor countries.” It adds that while infant global infant mortality rates had improved in previous decades, “rates of progress are slowing and in many countries, child death rates are getting worse.”
The organization insists that available and low-cost solutions could easily prevent 6 million of these deaths annually. These include, “skilled care at childbirth, breastfeeding, measles immunization, oral rehydration therapy for diarrhea and medical care for pneumonia.” But for many of the most impoverished countries, and for many others in the most oppressed layers of society elsewhere, these elementary forms of health care and education are not provided.
The statistics included in the report also indicate that the problems of infant mortality reflect the worldwide growth of social inequality, which is literally killing millions of children every year.
“A child in the poorest fifth of a population is more than twice as likely to die compared to a child from the richest fifth,” the study finds. “Eliminating health-care inequities—and bringing mortality rates among the poorest 80 percent of the population down to those prevailing among the richest 20 percent—would prevent about 4 million of the 10 million deaths each year.”
In addition to the growing impact of social inequality within each country, the gap between the wealthiest and most impoverished countries has also continued to widen. While in 1990, the child mortality rate for sub-Saharan Africa was 20 times higher than for the industrialized countries, by 2005, the rate was 28 times as high, the study said.
The above article was sent to me from www.islamservices.org
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