NAQBAH: THE SELF-INFLICTED CATASTROPHE
by Asher Eder
Facing Jihad
The following is a reprint of an essay on the subject of "Jihad
against Israel
" written in the mid 70's. It is not
outdated, rather it shows the severity of the idea of Jihad imposed
upon the minds of the Arab and Muslim peoples. Suicide bombings are
but one fruit of this constant preaching of hatred in the name of
Islam. Or, rather it is an awful distortion of the teaching of the
Koran, the holy book of Islam.
Obviously, this distortion, hammered as motivation into the minds
of adults and even of children, cannot be corrected neither by police
and military actions (as necessary as they are for defense); nor by
receding territories or other compromises. Nor is PLO chieftain Arafat
the proper address for peace negotiations as he is but the symbol
figure and spearhead for the Arabs' Jihad against Israel. Rather,
the starting point for any peace agreement worthy this name has to be
the abolishment of the Jihad against Israel. This abolishment needs to
be based upon the Koran, the holy book of Islam (as shown in my essay
"Peace is possible between Ishmael and Israel according to Koran
and Tanakh"; see Appendix).
Dr. Asher Eder
Jewish Co-Chairman
Islam-Israel Fellowship
Root and Branch Association Ltd, Jerusalem/Israel
Jerusalem, 6/6/02
ISLAM VERSUS ISRAEL: Religious Aspects of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
By Dr. Asher Eder
Introduction
When I heard in a news broadcast, some when in 1968 that the then
Egyptian President Gamal Abd-el-Nassr called for a scholarly Bible
study to understand better the underlying motives of the Zionism, it
gave me some hope that such a study might be a step forward towards a
dialogue between Muslims and Jews and in its wake, between Arabs and
Israelis. I was, however, aware of grievous obstacles, one of the
severest of them being an Islamic teaching that denies the authority
of the Bible, condemning it even as a rabbinic forgery which a Muslim
was discouraged from reading it. In an attempt to help overcome such
obstacles I wrote then an open letter titled
Sayings of the Holy Koran on the Arab Israeli
Controversy
How unfounded my hopes were I had to learn recently when I got the
"Proceedings" of that Conference, printed and published by the
Government of Egypt, and entitled "Arab Theologians on Jews and
Israel". It contains a reproduction of the speeches delivered at
that "Conference". Reading this paper causes the sad feeling
that this conference was not one dedicated to find the truth but
rather to preach hatred against the Jews, and to forge the Islamic
religion into a weapon to be used in a long-term war --
"Jihad" - against Israel. The partakers of that conference did
not shrink neither from vilifying the Jewish religion as a whole, nor
from distorting historic facts, and from twisting and misrepresenting
Bible verses as well as Koran verses. Only preconceived willful hatred
could lead scholars to such an unscholarly and pseudo-religious
preaching of blatant hatred.
When a friend of mine suggested to write a comment on these
speeches delivered at that Fourth Conference, I had some doubts
whether it would make sense to deal with a basically senseless and
illogic pamphlet.
However, horrible events like the massacre in Lod airport, or the
kidnapping and killing of the Israeli sportsmen in Munic, and even
more so the attitude of most of the Arab governments and people
towards these events, show how urgent it is to deal with the
underlying religious and pseudo-religious aspects of the Arab --
Israeli controversy.
These aspects shall be examined in the following five chapters:
1.) Historic resentments
2.) Some "Fourth Conference" speeches reviewed.
3.) Islam in harmony with the Prophets and the people of Israel
4.) Legal ownership of the Land.
5.) Our own stand.
6.) Appendix - open letter (essay)
1.) Historic Resentments
These can be categorized in
a) resentments against Jews, dating back to the first
decades of the Islam, and
b) resentments against the Western people with the sad remembrance
of the Crusader period as their strongest impetus.
At least the latter one is quite vivid amongst Arab people, and in
fact the partakers of the Conference refereed to it times and again.
However, they stress the first one,too, apparently in an attempt to
revive it. It is a known fact that Jewish tribes who lived at the time
of the Prophet Mohammed and the first Caliphs in the land of Saudi
Arabia, refused to embrace Islam. The Rassul then accused in a lot of
Quranic verses these tribes of sinfulness, stiffneckedness, idolatry,
treachery, etc. Becoming aware that neither the Jews would give up
their identity, nor that his Arab followers were meant to become Jews,
he ordered the change of the qiblah, i.e. the Muslim's direction of
player towards Mecca, instead of the direction to Jerusalem as he had
it originally in common with the Jewish rite. Moreover, he waged war
against these tribes, and called for, and sanctioned the murder of the
Jewish poet Kaab Ibn Al Ashraf (as related by Muhammed Azzaah Darwaza,
page 485 of the "Fourth Conference" Proceedings). His last
will: "Drive out the Jews From Hijaz and the people of Nagram from
Arabia" was carried out by Omar, and thus Arabia was purged from
the Jews during the Era of the prophet" (page 491, also page 456).
It is not the place here to examine whether these Jewish tribes
have really been idolatrous and treacherous. The point here is that
these historic events are put in a straight line with some prophetic
rebukes mentioned in the Koran against certain attitudes or sins of
the Jewish people, furnishing thus a "religious" background for
present accusations.
A "masterpiece" of mixing up such historic events,
prophetic rebukes, general accusation, and conclusions of his own was
delivered by Sheikh Abd Allah Al Meshad at that Conference
(pages 440-462). It is worthwhile to bring a few quotations to show
his kind of arguing for hatred's sake.
After having accused the Jewish people of being filled with the
very type of envy that lead Cain to slay Abel, and of stubbornly
resisting to embrace Islam, he continues (on page 460 and on): "It
is but a few of the many acts committed by the jews to oppose the
Islamic call and to conspire against the Muslim during the first era
of Islamic history. This unveils the vicious qualities which they were
accustomed to inherit in them. It is preferable to compile some of
them in a list (quoted or extracted from Holy Koran) to define lucidly
their personality as follows: "
(He brings now a long list of Koran verses by which he wants to
prove the Jewish vices. Most of his quotations are willful
misrepresentations, mainly by relating them to the Jewish people as a
whole; or by applying headlines to the quotations which bend them to
fit his interpretation). x)
-----------------
x) A parallel to that do we find later on in Germany's Martin
Luther. He, too, had first the hope that his pro-test (i.e. pro
testament would incite the Jews to embrace the Christian Gospel, but
finally since his hope did not realize, he blackmailed them, and
branded them in the worst terms
-----------------
May it be mentioned here that the people of Israel never claimed to
be free of sin, We all are fallible human beings. However, a
remarkable difference exists between Israel and other peoples also
insofar:
Israel had from the days of the lawgiver Moses always prophets who
reminded the people of the law and rebuked them for their
transgressions, whilst to other people a messenger or apostle was sent
once (Paul, the Apostle, to the Gentiles; and Mohammed the Prophet of
Islam); and, having heard something about their messages, these people
believe that they are now justified and righteous, and are entitled to
judge Israel.
Sheikh Abd Allah Al Meshad goes in this respect even so far
as to say that "they (Israel) deserved to be called "the worst
of beasts in the Quran, where it reads :" For the worst of beasts
in the sight of God are those who reject Him :' They will not
believe and they have not the fear (of God).((Anfall 55,56).".
-- Although the Quran speaks here about idolaters and heathen in
general, the Sheikh has no qualms to attribute this vice to Israel in
particular.
The Sheikh imputes even the murder of Omar to the Jews. He says:
"He (Omar) felt that a hand of a pagan would kill him and thus
Allah bestowed upon him the honour of martyrdom one day. When we look
at the recent pictures of the Jew's conspiracies and how they
design precisely and accurately for the long run or forever in such a
subtle technique that never we suspect of its safety we think it is
not impossible that the Jews were those who drew the plans and plotted
for killing Omar or at least, they had known that conspiracy and did
not ferret it cut". A mere supposition, scholarly dressed, brought
before a research conference with only one goal: to stimulate
historic resentments for the sake of hatred against the Jews.
Resentments against the western people. These resentments are a fact
which should be taken into consideration. The partakers of the
Conference refer to it times and again, yea, as it seems they make it
a starting point to their train of thoughts. These resentments
developed in the course of history. Their beginning may well be dated
back to the days of the Byzantine Empire. Its continuous attempts to
expand towards Persia and Arabia, supported by Emperor
Constantine's a vision: "Under this sign (i.e. the cross) thou
wilt gain victory ", caused not only the Persian retaliation
and occupation of Palestine in 614/17, but also Mohammed's reaction.
He said :" If they attack you, then you (Muslims) should not offer
them your other cheek for the next blow. You ought to defend
yourself and try to defeat them in a counterattack and teach them the
One God. For the very fact that they attacked you is a clear
proof that they don't know the One God as the Creator of All".
Taking this teaching to heart the Muslims tried to carry their
counter -- attacks to Byzanz, and then through North Africa to
Rome where they hoped to strike at the root of the evil, and eradicate
it. They did not achieve their goal but were stopped in the battle of
Poitiers in 711.
Worse than that, they had then to suffer the invasion of the
Crusaders (12th and 13th century). It were
especially these latter ones who left the worst impression upon all
the people in this area of the Near East, upon Muslims as well as upon
Christians and Jews. Amongst the Christian Arabs of the Syrian
Orthodox and Greek Orthodox creeds goes till to day the saying
:"Better Muslim rule than Roman rule". Another proverbial saying
reads :" Whatsoever comes from north of the Mediterranean Sea, is
evil".
The period of colonialism did certainly not lead to any improvement
of that image. It influences till to day Arab thinking and politics in
not to small a degree.
The tragic thing for Israel is that we (Israel) are depicted by the
Arab propaganda as "Westerners". From thence the Arab
accusations against Israel and Zionism as aggressors, imperialists,
bridgehead or spearhead of Western imperialism colonialism, and the
like. Some quotations from one of the papers delivered at the
Conference may, in the following, show the vividness of these
resentments.
Ustad Abdullah Kamoun, of Maroc, expressed his thoughts on the
subject as follows:
"... Muslims by keeping silent or taking a spectator's attitude
towards the Zionist aggression, will be submitting to the return of
imperialism in its most horrid form to the Muslim world which have
struggled for over a century to chase it and to throw it into the sea
the Zionist aggression representing the forces of evil from
almost every Western state, apart from those belonging to major
imperialist countries which support Israel to annoy Islam and restore
the defunct age of the crusaders" (page 254).
"It will be gathered from the above that the cause of Palestine
with all the possibilities is a Muslim and not purely Arab cause, that
Zionism is but the foster child of imperialism and that imperialism is
only a disguised form of the crusades launched by the Christian West
against the Muslim East to subjugate Muslims and bring them under
Western nomination."(page 256).
"When Imperialism collapsed in the first half of this
century the cursed Imperialists had no alternative but to
drive the rotten wedge of Zionism in the heart of the Muslim world" (p.256)
"We, the scholars of Islam declare it far and wide that a
crusade is being launched against us "(page 258/9).
May be such are the feelings of a part of the Muslim people in the
Near East and North Africa, and Arab politicians may instigate them
and use them as a weapon in their struggle against Israel
.x.) Yet it is an entirely different question whether it is
a scholar's task in a research work to do likewise. We shall deal
with this question later on, after we will have dealt with some other
points brought forth at the Conference.
-----------------
x) similar to the device of Hitler who said
that the prevailing anti-Semitism comes in handy to be used as a
weapon in his struggle for a "Greater Germany"
-----------------
2.) Some Conference speeches reviewed.
In the inauguration speech delivered by his Eminence, Grand Imam
Sheikh Hassan Ma'moun, Rector of Al-Azhar (= the leading
university of the Islamic world, in Cairo), we read:
"In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful, I open the
fourth Conference praising God
"The bitterness (i.e. of the defeat in 1967) was further
intensified by the fact that the unexpected event occurred before a
roguish Zionism whose adherents had been 'distinct to dispersion by
the Deity:' And humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon them
and they were visited with wroth from God.
"How much did we like to have this session held after having
quenched our thirst for revenge and having gained a decisive victory
We, Ulemas, have, also, to make clear to the Arab ration and
Islamic peoples that the lingering spirit of the past Crusades that
had been utterly rooted by the feats of valor and heroic resistance of
our forefathers, had made the present day Zionism a spearhead launched
against Arabs and Muslims by the enemies of humanity and advocates of
imperialism and colonialism.
Thus we would deserve to be the servants of God to whom we had
referred and intended to rouse against the Jews, as started in His
saying: "So, when the time of the second of the Judgments came We
roused against you (i.e. against the Jews) others of our servants to
ravage you, and to destroy what they got the upper -- hand with utter
destruction" (XVII,7)
So far the quotation from the Grand Imam's and Rector's
speech. It isalready amazing how a learned man can "in the name of
God, the Beneficent, the Merciful" express a "thirst for
revenge", but it is even more shocking to see that a whole audience
of scholars and spiritual leaders from many Muslim nations can adhere
to such a blaspheme call for revenge -- in the name of the Merciful
(whose name is "the Compassionate", in Arabic, too). It seems
the spirit which put such words of hatred and revenge in the mind and
mouths of these scholars is much more related to the Crusaders'
spirit than to the spirit of Servants of the Merciful, the
Compassionate.
How much preconceived opinions and hatred can mislead even
scholars can clearly be seen from the Rector's application of the
verse XVII,7 ( Sura "The Night Journey") to the present
situation. With the help of this verse he wants "to rouse against
the Jews", picturing the hoped for "utter destruction" as the
will and decree of God.
As can be seen from the very quotation the verse refers to
the period and the destruction of the Second Temple by the hand of the
Romans (similar as the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonian,
mentioned too , in the same verse). Besides, every that one knows
that there is no Temple in the present Jewish state, and thus already
from this point of view this verse cannot be applied to the present
situation. Should the Rector of the Al-Azhar have been so blinded by
hatred that he was not aware of it, or should he willfully have taken
to a way of interpretation which is meant solely "to rouse against
the Jews" and their "utter destruction If so, it would have been
an act of his which was defined by at the Nuremberg Trial as crime.
In this context it should be noted that the Rector does
speak here against "the Jews" as a whole. He does not merely
speak against some undefinable "-ism"(like Zionism, imperialism,
etc) against which most of the hostile Arab politicians pretend to
direct their fight. The use of the words "the Jews" was not an
accidental slip of the tongue. It was simply an expression of what he
had in mind as can be seen from an other phrase of his in which he
speaks of "the adherents of a roguish Zionism who had been destined
to dispersion by the Deity". Adherents of Zionism are, from the
days of King David, all Jews who pray for Zion, and it is the Jewish
people as such (and not any -ism) who was "destined to
dispersion" for a certain period.
Other speeches delivered at that Conference do not only
line up with the Rector's utterances but go even more to the
extreme. It is not the purpose of this article to deal with all of
them, but a brief review of some of them may express still clearer the
spirit which prevails now in the Arab countries, and with which Israel
and the other nations find themselves confronted.
As the Rector spoke of "Zionism as a spearhead launched
against Arabs and Muslims by the enemies of humanity and advocates of
imperialism and colonialism", so did likewise some other partakers
of the Conference.
Syria's Muhammed Azzah Darwaza said plainly: "The
Muslims and the Arabs cannot agree to that (i.e. to a Jewish State)
even if the Jews leave some parts of what they have usurped and remain
in the sections which the U.N has allotted to the Jews. It is the
homeland of the Muslims and the Arabs and thus the U.N has no right at
all to permit the Jews to possess any small part of it. None of the
Muslims or the Arabs have the right to accept that matter. Any pliancy
or submission in this matter is a treachery to Allah, His Apostle, and
to the Muslims ".
Dr Mahmud Hobballah, Secretary of the Islamic Research
Academy, said" Lastly, the enemies of Islam have thrown in the
backs of the Muslims and Arabs a poisonous dagger by allowing Zionists
to settle in Palestine and to occupy land and arrogate Jerusalem for
themselves".
His Eminence Sheikh Hassan Khalid, Mufti of the Lebanon,
said on behalf of the delegation to the Conference: "All Muslims
expect you to expound Allah's decree concerning the Palestinian
cause, to proclaim that decree, in all clarity, throughout the Arab
and Muslim world ... We do not think this decree absolves any Muslim or
Arab from Jihad (=Holy War) which has now become a duty incumbent upon
the Arabs and Muslim to liberate the land, preserve honor, retaliate
for dignity, restore the El-Aqsa Mosque, the Church of Resurrection,
and to purge the birthplace of prophecy, the seat of revelation, the
meeting place of prophets, the starting point of Isra ,and the
scene of the holy spirits, from the hands of Zionism- the enemy of
man, of truth, of Justice, and the enemy of Allah".
O Mufti of the Lebanon that thou wantest to purge the
birthplace of prophecy from that very people of Israel that gave Zion
and the prophets and the holy spirit to mankind. Do not be tricky by
using the word "Zionism" instead of "Israel", for both
these terms go inseparably together since the days of King David the
founder of Zion. But as his kingdom was then attacked by the
surrounding enemies x) who did not want to come to terms
with its establishment, likewise it is to day.
------------------
x) Interestingly enough, the word Palestine derives from the
Latin pronunciation of the Hebrew word Philistine.
------------------
Another participant of the Conference, Sheikh Nadim Al
-- Jiar, a Lebanese member of the Islamic Research Academy, appeals
straight away to anti-Semitic feelings of Christians, and hopes for a
combined struggle against the Jewish people as a whole. First, he
prepares his auditory, respective readers, with a peculiar
interpretation of history: "And what about that state that had been
established by Saul, David, and Solomon, the glory of which is so
vividly depicted in pseudo-historical literature as to make us fancy
that it had been an illustrious and sublime state?
"As a matter of fact, it was a small, nay tiny state the area of
which did not exceed a sterile narrow strip of the Palestinian region,
encompassed between the mighty neighboring empires of the ancient
world: the Pharanoiac, Chaldean, Persian, Macedonian, and
Roman, amongst whom raged endless wars...
"Apart from its heavenly message it had been charged
to convey, this ancient Hebrew State with its inadequate area, and
sparse population, was nothing more than a tiny bit of territory, to
be trampled down from time to time (sic), by these mighty
empires that had been rising,,,
But the Kingdom of David and Solomon had been set up
by God's Leave to realize a sublime and wise resolution the purpose
of which had been exhausted since twenty
centuries
"Thereafter the Christians subjected them to various
sorts of persecution. Thus, they were continually harassed with
murder, torture, and abasement, to which the Quran made reference by
saying: "And humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon them,
and they were visited with wrath from
God ".
The Lebanese Sheikh asserts then that the modern State of Israel
would never last. In his opinion its collapse is inevitable. He sees
one of the reasons for that in the Zionist's appeal to the age-old
hope of the Jewish people for its restoration in the land, a hope
which he dispatches as self-deceit. He said:
"It is also because the Zionist philosophers who
thought out the creation of the Jewish State had really deceived
themselves when they stressed the appeal of religious propaganda,
thought to be most enchanting to every Jew to whom it was said that he
would revive the Kingdom of David and Salomon and re-establish the
Temple
"How dull-witted had been these Zionists only had they
thought of spreading such attractive religious doctrines, while
overlooking the violent reaction (sic) that would inevitable
take place among Muslim ...
"It is clear from the above how far is it hard to
create a state in this sterile and narrow stripe of the Palestinian
region, inadequate as to area and natural resources...
"If you, young Muslims, were told that such an
artificial state would everlastingly be backed by the Western powers,
you should never take that assumption for granted: because there are
no natural or historical considerations that would lead to bring about
that protection forever.
"Such security is either provided through sympathy or interest.
As to the former, there is nothing of that sort. The attitude of the
Christians towards the Jews reveals an uninterrupted record of
persecutions, extending as is well known throughout two thousand years
from the massacres perpetuated against them by the Romans up to the
Nazi gas chambers and crematoria."
So the young Muslim should not feel alone in his hatred
against the Jews. The Sheikh
assures him of the potentiality of Christian
anti-Semitism. He spins the thread even further:
" If there had been any sympathy - had it not
been for the interests of the colonialist and expansionalist policies
of long -- standing history -- it would have been more possible to
take place between Christians and Muslims.
" In that strain did the Holy Quran provide Glad
Tidings, enunciating such close friendly sentiments: 'And thou will
find nearest of them in affection to those who believe (i.e. the
Muslim) those who say: we are Christians'(v, 82)".
The struggle would then go on till the last Jew would have been
killed, an outlook for which the Sheikh finds support in the "Good
Tiding from behind the Unseen": "I t is reported on the
authority of Abu Huraira that the Prophet (Muhammed) -- P. B. U. H.
-- had said, 'The Hour would not come until you fight against the
Jews: and a stone would say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew behind me,
come and kill him." (The hour is the resurrection, i.e. the final
salvation. Its arrival is made conditional upon the battle against the
Jews that has to proceed it).
Thus, for these Muslim scholars the so-called Palestinian conflict
is foremost a religious challenge. One of them, Dr. Kamel El Baker,
President of Om Dorman Islamic University (Sudan) expresses it in the
following words:
"Judaism is a religion in which the believers follow
certain creeds. Zionism is the same as Judaism, but through political
action. The document declaring the establishment of the state of
Israel asserts this fact, for it does not hide that the state of
Israel is but the name for a Jewish state. Zionism, therefore, is the
means employed by the Jewish religion for self -- realization, and the
Jews' method of establishing their unity vis -- a-vis others in the
area
"Thus, then, is the essence of the Palestinian problem
- and of the religious state founded by Zionists -- even though it
may appear in the form of political implications guised by the
successors of the Crusaders in modern garb".
In deed, the Jewish people needs the land for
self-realization. Even the enemy has to concede it, and to express it
in these clear words. Only since he decided to be against this
self-realization, he concludes that it ought not to take place at all.
Thus, in his eyes, the main fault with Zionism lies in the fact that
it exists. In order to eradicate it, he has, in his logic, to wipe out
the Jewish State, and to chase its people into the Mediterranean.
In fact, the hostile Arab leaders aim publicly at it,
depicting that hostility toward Jewish self-realization as Jihad --
Holy War -, i.e. a religious duty commanded by Allah to which every
Muslim is bound.
Consequently, by labeling their enmity towards the Jewish State as
a "Holy War", they feel it necessary to defame Israel and the
Jewish people as unholy, ungodly, and evil. Even the scholarly
partakers of the "Fourth Conference" term Israel frequently as
"beasts; pests disease; hypocrites; barbarians; horrible criminals
slaying women and children, and ripping up pregnant women; liars
assassinators;cowards; hostile towards man; :robbers and criminals to
whom trust, faith and confidence mean nothing, who came to this area
in a bid to extinguish the light of God: : usurpers > :
aggressors, imperialists who, on the ruin of Hitlerian Nazism,
have established a Zionist Nazism more horrible and monstrous and more
disregardful of human rights; dogs of mankind;:a plague that is
cursed like Satan who was expelled by God from the realm of His
mercy:">etc". Quite in this line,
the word Jew is usually written jew in the "Proceedings"
published by Egypt's Government Printing Office. (All of these
terms are quoted from difference speeches delivered at the Fourth
Conference, and can be found in its "Proceedings" reviewed
here).
Also the Mufti of the Lebanese Republic, Sheikh Hassan
Khaled, follows this line, and said: "Particular this battle is not
a mere combat between two parties, but it is a battle between two
religions. Zionism in fact represents a very periculous
cancer ". He ended his speech with the following wishes for
Israel: "God sent them the deviates of all the world. Those
wrong-doers deserved the wrath of Allah, His curse, and they would go
to hell which was their bad destiny. They lived in humiliation and
misery: and the wrath of God fell upon them. God
instigated these deviates to torture and to humiliate them and
desecrate the sanctities of their holy places" (page148).
Another one of these illustrious gentlemen, Sheikh
Muhammad Abu Zahra, Member of the Academy of Islamic Research,
expresses this wish for Israel: "let them (the Muslim) set out to
the usurpers harassing them with incessant attacks until the land they
had seized turns to be for them an abode for everlasting torment
instead of being a country they had intended to be flowing with milk
and honey" (p.103).
The partakers of the Conference, however, did not suffice
to blame and to condemn Israel, they felt also competent to set up
guiding principles for the fight against Israel.
Sheikh Abdullah Ghoshah, the Grand Kadi of Jordan, in his
definition of Jihad, said:
"The Muslims are also free to break their covenant with
the enemies if they are uneasy lest the enemy should betray them
"Telling lies in war is permitted so as to comfort the
Muslims when they are in need of it as in the time of fighting.
"Arrogance is disliked except in case of war. Allah,
the Almighty, loves the Muslims to be arrogant while he is fighting as
it manifests that he is indifferent of his enemy and that he
determines to vanquish the enemy. (pages 239-249).
" War is the basis of the relationship between the
Muslims and their opponents unless there are justifiable reasons for
peace such as adopting Islam or making an agreement with them to keep
peaceful" (page 184).
Yet Syria's Muhammad Azah Darwaza declaims "about making
conciliation with the Jews":
"In (the Quran in) Anfal Chap. 55-64, Allah said:
"But if the enemy incline towards peace, do thou also incline
towards peace: and trust in God.
" The aforesaid Quranic sentence is an important point
in this topic, as the Jews announce from time to time that they long
for reconciliation with the Arab Muslims. They naturally declare that
this pacification with the Arab Muslims is to be termed with their
recognition of their state in Palestine.
"This is mere sophism. The Quranic sentence is applied
to make peace with an enemy who has his own country and state, but the
Jews in Palestine are our enemies who have made their aggression upon
a country of the Arab Muslims. The Jews usurped the country with the
help of the Imperialist tyrants.
"These Imperialists are the enemies of the Arab Muslim
and they waged the fiercest wars against the Muslims
"Therefore we cannot resort
to the peaceful means in dealing with them (i.e. Jews) as long as they
keep what they have abducted and usurped of the Arab countries and as
long as they form their state upon the ruins of an Islamic state.
"The Muslims and the Arabs cannot agree to that even if
the Jews leave some parts of what they have usurped and remain in the
sections which the U.N. has allotted to the Jews. It is the
homeland of the Muslims and the Arabs and thus the U.N. has no right
at all to permit the Jews to possess any small part of it. None of the
Muslims or Arabs have the right to accept that matter. Any pliancy or
submission in this matter is a treachery to Allah, His Apostle and to
the Muslims" (page 495-6).
The content of the speeches and papers delivered at the "Fourth
Conference" are summarized in the "Resolutions end
Recommendation issued at the end of the first session of the Fourth
Conference", and "the Conference, hereby, solemnly declares:
"First:
That the causes for which combat and Jihad must be taken up as
defined in the Holy Quran are all manifest in the Israeli
aggression
Fourthly:
a) The Conference urges all Muslims everywhere not to overlook for one
moment their religious duty of liberating Jerusalem and all the
occupied land ...
Sixthly:
The Conference denounces the support or certain countries for Israel
and Israeli aggression, and declares such support: a challenge at
Muslim people, a demonstration of enmity towards them, and a total
disregard of their sentiments.
The Conference declares that Muslims everywhere will not remain mere
spectators in the face of Zionist racist convetousness
(covetousness?) in the Arab and Islamic worlds nor will they shrink
from giving their lives in defense of their countries and sanctities,
and for the restoration of their usurped land" (pages 921-924)
The conclusions we have to draw from all these declarations,
resolutions, etc, are as follows:
1.) The Islamic Research Academy Fourth Conference, purposely
"held in support of struggle against Israeli", urges on a Jihad,
i.e. a Holy War that would bind religiously all the Muslims all over
the world to make the utmost efforts to achieve the
annihilation of Israel as proclaimed goal.
2)The Conference, by appealing frequently to "Muslims and
Arabs" presses also upon non-Arab Muslim to engage in the
propagated "Holy War" of the Islamic world. That implies the
thread for every non Arabic Muslim living in an Islamic society that
he might be considered a traitor if he should not share in all the
efforts of the Islamic Holy War.
3.) The declaration of a Jihad is not just a propaganda slogan
which may be altered any time. Jihad is a long-termed basic religious
(or pseudo-religious) principle wich may destine the life's of all
the Muslims for generations, as it was indeed proclaimed and demanded
by leading Arab politicians (Nsser, Sadat, Chadafi
and, others)
4.) A set back or a defeat would not end the Jihad. It
would go on, and all means would be justified to achieve its goal,
inclusive mock treaties and mock covenants with the enemy.
5.) Not only Israel is considered an
enemy but all the countries which are of any help to that victim of
the Jihad. Therefore, treaties with them may also be broken any
time it seems convenient to the Muslims. The Russians, although
certainly not amongst the helpers of Israel, had to feel the result of
this "theology" when they were asked to pull cut
from Egypt, just for the sake of some Muslims who got angry with them.
6.) The idea of Holy War,
once inculcated into the minds of primitive and religiously fanatic
people, thrives them to all kind of' actions "to strike terror
into the hearts of the enemy", be it even by air piracy, mailing
letter bombs, hiring foreigners as mass murderers (as in Lod airport),
kidnapping and killing sportsmen as in Munic, etc Fanaticized people
will get the more incited to commit such crimes as the call for a
fierce Jihad comes directly from the mouths of spiritual leaders and
academics who do not even shrink from a coarse language and mean lies.
7.) Their call cannot be taken seriously
enough, not only by Israel but also by other nations. Any kind of an
agreement between an Arab country on the one side and Israel and / or
a country considered to be a helper of Israel on the other side, is
bound to he broken by the Arabs at any convenient moment, as long as
they see the conditions for a Jihad prevailing, i.e. as long as Israel
exits. An armistice agreement about 'safe borders' for Israel,
or the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Suez Canal, would
be in the eyes of the Jihad minded people only another round in a long
chain of battles till the achievement of their final goal, i.e.
Israel's annihilation. This explains also why the Arabs never stuck
really to the armistice treaty they signed in l948 Fedayeen and
guerillas, publicly supported by Arab governments, play an
important part in this kind of warfare. They have to carry on
the struggle till the Arab governments feel strong enough to engage in
full-scale war, as in 1967 (and 1973)
8.) Israel and the other nations are fully
entitled, and for the sake of true peace even have to demand the
revocation of the call for a Jihad by an Islamic institution equal in
its importance to the Islam Research Academy.
By far not all Islamic scholars share in the ideology of Jihad
against Israel. Interestingly enough, not a single representative from
of Saudi Arabia, the homeland of Mecca and Medina, took part in that
Fourth Conference (or at least is not mentioned in the list of the
partakers) which was joined by scholars from 24 different nations.
Moreover the Grand Kadi of Jordan was careful enough to put his words
thus: "Scholars have disputed about the reason for which Jihad is
legislated. Some of them said: Jihad is legislated in order to be one
of the means of propagating Islam War is of the relationship
between Muslim and their opponents unless there are justifiable
reasons for peace such as adopting Islam or making an agreement with
them to keep peaceful" (page 184). His words indicate that there
are scholars who share other views. According to his interpretation it
were possible to come to terms with an opponent (even Israel) who
agrees to keep peaceful.
From the days of early Nazi Germany it should be remembered that it
does not pay out to appease fanatics. The Islamic society counts for
certain a big number of peacefully minded people and scholars.
Unfortunately they cannot dare, under the present rulers, to come
forth into the public, but they should be encouraged before another
genocide can be plotted and executed.
9) The U.N. is directly challenged by the call for a Jihad. The
resolution adopted at the Conference urges not only the liberation of
"Jerusalem and all occupied land" (which could be interpreted as
the territories occupied in 1967) but in conspicuous differentiation
from it calls also for the restoration of their (the Muslim) usurped
land". The resolution repeats here the same word "usurped"
which was used by Muhammed Azzah Darwaza (quotation see above page 9)
in connection with"the sections which the U.N.
allotted to the Jews", to which allotment, he declares,the
U.N. has no right at all.
This plain negation, declared in the name of religion, of a basic
U.N. decision, i.e. "the allotment of sections (of Palestine ) to
the Jews", and the recognition of Israel as a member of the U.N.,
questions not only the existence of Israel, but simply also the U.N.
as such. If the U.N. will not find a proper answer to this challenge,
it cannot expect of Israel or of any other member either, to obey its
decisions and resolutions.
3.) Koran and Tanakh (Bible) in Harmony
The fact that the religious feelings of many Muslims could be
raised against a decision of the U.N. which is a worldly body and not
a Divine authority, may rouse doubts even among non-Muslim people
whether the U.N. had really the right to allot sections of Palestine
to the Jews, i.e. whether this decision was made in
congruence with the Divine Law, or in contradiction to it. This
question may be asked the more as the decision was passed by a
majority of non-Muslim, mainly Christian, nations, against the votes
of the Arab nations, a fact which indeed plays its role
in Arab minds. Arab leaders even claim that these Christian nations,
suffering from their bad conscience because of the Holocaust, burdened
simply the Arabs with the solution of the Jewish problem by
demanding from them to provide land for the Jews.
Even if these Arab arguments were right, it would not yet
answer the question whether the U.N. decision is
in contradictions to the Divine Law, or in conformity
with it, and thus also with the Quran believed by the Muslims to be
the final Divine revelation.
Obviously, if there is One Divine only, non of its of
revelations can ever contradict another one. If there should be
contradictions then either one of the revelations was not a true one,
or the believe in the Oneness of the Divine would be but
superstitious, God forbid. Thus, no one should be surprised by the
fact that the two books, Bible and Quran, are in
fact perfect harmony in view of the subject.
First of all, the Quran speaks frequently very highly of
"The Book" (i.e. the
so-called Old Testament) as well as of the Prophets of Israel, and
confirms them.
However, modern Muslim scholars are inclined to vilify the Bible
and defame it as changed and falsified by the rabbis. The baselessness
of this accusation should be clear to every one at least since the
finding of the so-called "Dead Sea-Scrolls" by Bedouins
near Qumran in 1947. These scrolls which were written many centuries
before the Quran was compiled, show the same Hebrew text as our
present Bible.
Besides that, the Quran speaks clear enough to those who read it
without preconceived opinions, even if they don't know
anything about the Bible. Instead of many, let us check some
relevant verses of the Quran:
"Indeed, we gave the Children of' Israel the Book, the
Judgment, and the Prophethood, and We provided them with good things,
and we prefer them above all beings..."(Sura
'Hobbling", 15).
"And when Moses said to his people, '0 my people,
remember God's blessings upon you, when He appointed among you
prophets, and appointed you kings, end gave you such as He had not
given to any being. My people, enter the Holy Land which God has
prescribed for you" (Sura "The
Table", 24). (Str16)
"And we decreed for the Children of
Israel in the Book: 'You shall do corruption in the earth twice,
and you shell ascend exceedingly high! So when the promise of the
first of' these came to pass, we sent against you
servants of ours, men of great might, and they went through the
habitations, and it was a promise performed (i.e., the
destruction of the First Temple by the Babylonians). Then we
gave back to you the turn to prevail over them, and we succored you
with wealth and children, and We made you a greater host. If you do
well, it is to your own souls you do well to, and if you do evil it is
to them likewise! Then, when the promise of the second (corruption,
see above) came to pass, We sent against you our servants (i.e.
the Romans) to discountenance you, and to enter the Temple, as
they (i.e. the Babylonians) entered it the first time, and they
destroyed utterly that which they ascended to. Perchance your Lord
will have mercy upon you (i.e. will pardon and
restore you); but if you return, we shall return, and we have made
Gehenna a prison for the unbelievers" (Sura Night Journey, 4-8; the
remarks in brackets are explanations, and not original text of Quran).
This passage speaks clearly of the two
destructions of the Temple, even as pre-ordained, and of the final
return. Some may doubt whether this final return is to take place now
in our days, or in some distant future. Neither the Quran nor the
Bible give a fixed date for it, but that is certainly not a lack. The
very prediction of the return forbids already to speak of an actual
return as of an "usurpation of the land"
That brings us to the problem whether the
land (of Palestine) which the Quran denotes as "prescribed" for
the Children of Israel became an integral and inseparable part of the
Islamic territories. Muslims deduct from Quran passages which speak of
"the lands of the Muslim people" that any land which once in the
course of history became subject to the rules of Islam, must remain
incessantly an Islamic country. In view of this doctrine Spain might
be brought into discussion, a country having been subjugated to
Islamic rule for many centuries before the Christians regained it, a
loss to which the Muslim world apparently resigned. But to make this
resignation an argument in the dispute over Palestine
would not do justice to the Muslim people because it would demand of
them to concede to any further loss just because they resigned to a
previous one.
The case with the Holy Land lies anyhow differently. The question
here, felt by many Muslim people basically a religious one, is whether
the promise resp. "prescription"of the land for the
Children of Israel became exhausted or nullified by a sinfulness of
Israel, by the Roman conquest, or by the Arab conquest, or by the "
Isra" (=Mohammed's Ascension from the Temple Mount), or by the
subjugation. of Palestine to Islamic rule. If that would be the case,
than any one, or the sum of these events would have proved
stronger than the Divine Promise, resp. "Prescription"
- in which case the latter one would not deserve the attribute
"Divine". The question comes thus simply
down to whether one believes and accepts Divine Promise, or whether
one replaces it by one's own wishes.
Alas, there are indeed some Muslim scholars who try to argue by
saying, that the promises were cancelled because of "Israelis
wickedness". Another argument says that these promises for Israel
were fulfilled in the past, and have run out, leaving for Israel
nothing else but eternal curse and punishment.
Needless to say that none of these arguments stands.
Wickedness would cause chastisement, but not cancellation of the
Divine Promise. Neither was the latter one limited by a set time, nor
does the fact that the Jewish people did not embrace Islam, nullify
and void it. The Divine Covenant which includes the Promise of the
land was declared from its beginning as an eternal covenant,
notwithstanding the different pre-ordained and pre-told dispersions.
In this context we should pay attention to a very peculiar
fact which may cause us to give a second thought to the problem of the
dispersions: When Abraham received the Promise of the Land for his
seed he was instantaneously told that they, i.e. his descendants who
were not yet born, would be strangers in a land which is not theirs
and would be enslaved there for four generation -- not because of
their wickedness but because of the wickedness of the local Amorites
which would have culminated only after that period ! (see 1.Mose
15:13-21).
Apparently, the wickedness of the nations plays no minor
role in the drama of the Land. Who, then, dares to throw the first
stone?
Besides that, the Jews were never meant to embrace Islam as
a religion different from the Law of Moses. The Quran stresses again
and again the lasting validity of that law, and rebukes in very
harsh words those Jews who neglect it. E.g., the keeping of the
Shabbat is one of the signs of the Covenant, and its breaking is
condemned by the Prophets as well as by the Quran (Sura The Women
154). Now, then, can Muslims expect the Jewish people to change from
keeping Shabbat to observing the Muslim Friday as the weekly holiday,
with a quiblah (direction of prayer) towards Mecca, instead of
Jerusalem which the Jew in conformity with Solomon's Prayer (vs
1.Kings 8:38,42) proclaims, in the words of the Psalm, as his highest
joy, and whose neglect as neglect of his right hand (Ps. 137:6,7)?
Muslim practices and Jewish law differ in many other
details. As a matter of fact, the Quran never intended to make
them uniform: Sura The Table 53,54 speaks explicitly of different
rites, and in the same context encourages the differing groups to
emulate in good deeds. That does certainly not mean that the Muslims
should the differing Jewish people keep permanently in their
dependence, or in dispersion, and refuse their restoration in the land
of their destination.
It should be further mentioned that the question whether
Abraham was ready to sacrifice Isaac his son from Sarah, or Ishmael
his son from Hagar, has no impact whatsoever on the ownership of the
land:
a.) The Bible speaks explicitly of the sacrifice of Isaac,
whilst Sura The Rangers 99-112. in mentioning the qsacrificial act
leaves it open to refer it to Isaac or to Ishmael. In fact many
discussions about this matter were going on amongst Muslim scholars
during the early centuries of Islam, till a majority accepted the view
of Ishmael's. sacrifice. This majority tries to explain away the
plain Bible statement by reviling the Bible as a rabbinic forgery,
Perhaps, the New Testament's Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 11:17,
which repeats the Bible version, would than also be a rabbinic forgery?
b.) Neither the Bible nor the Quran links the sacrificial
act with the Promise of the Land. Even if one admits the Muslims'
view of the sacrifice of Ishmael, it would not be of relevance in this
context.
c.) The Quran speaks nowhere of the land of Palestine as
promised, or belonging, to Ishmael the Patriarch of the Arabs, and/or
to his descendants. Only a certain kind of wishful thinking could lead
those (above quoted) Muslim scholars to their views, which must
necessarily turn into hatred against the original heir.
I don't know whether this category of Muslim scholars
developed these views of theirs independently, or whether they took it
over from Christian theologians. Similar as the latter ones were used
to quote passages from the "New Testament" which sound hostile
to Israel, so do some Muslim scholars quote certain passages from the
Quran to support their hostility. How that is done we saw already when
reviewing the Al Azhar Rector's willful interpretation of the
passage which speaks of the First and the Second Temple, but which he
puts before his auditory as a call for the destruction of the modern
State of Israel.
Instead of many, we shall see another two willful
interpretations of that kind, worthy a "research conference"
purposely "Held in support of the struggle against
Israel":
The Mufti of Tursos. Syria, Prof. Abdul Satter El Sayed,
said:
" God sent upon them (i.e. the Jews) those who may
torture them. He said: 'and remember when they proclaimed that. He
will raise against them till the day of Resurrection those who would
lay on them a cruel torment. Lo, verily thy Lord is swift in
prosecution and lo: verily He is Forgiving, Merciful! "
(Sura "The Heights", 167).
"For this reason God decreed that they should be
scattered all over the globe so that no nation would be made out of
them. They would rather live as an evil. on earth, or like diseases
and pests. Their evil is thus not confined to one people or one
nation: 'And We have sundered them in the earth as separate
nations'(The Heights,168)".
It is not the place here to discuss what the term "till
the resurrection" means (i. e. Whether the
Quran differs in this respect from passages like Ezekiel chapters 36
and 37 which speak of both the national and spiritual resurrection of
Israel). Even if we admit the Muslim scholar's interpretation that
this term means infinitely, till a final spiritual judgment of the
dead, it would hardly justify his depicting the Jews as "diseases
and pets" who had to be tormented infinitely, even by the hands of
his Muslim listeners. Or, does he really mean it is upon the Muslims
to behave towards the Jews as the pagan Romans or the pagan Babylonian
did? The saying of his: "We as Arabs did not regard the Jews in a
different light from that of other peoples ", indicates that he,
after 1350 years of Islamic religion, still shares this pagan
attitude
Another quotation from the Quran taken out of its context and put
forth solely to call for making war by all means, is the following
one, found in the final resolution of the Conference's first
session: "Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of
your power, including steeds for war, to strike terror into the hearts
of the enemies of God and your enemies, and others besides whom ye may
not know, but whom God does know" (Sura "The Spoils, 60)
This Quran verse, in continuation of its preceding one (which the
resolution does not quote), is directed against" the unbelievers
", a term which is not used in the Quran for depicting Israel or
the Jewish people. The resolution does not use it either; it simply
omits the quotation of the proceeding verse 59, with the intention to
present the Jews as "the enemies of God and your enemies",
making them thus the target of a Jihad.
I quoted these "scholarly"
interpretations at length to show that we are confronted with
two phenomena: one is the harshness of some Quran verses dealing with
Israel, and the other is the way of application of those
verses to the present situation.
Concerning harshness of speech we may concede that our own
prophets rebuked the people sometimes in a very stern, yet never
coarse or rude, manner. They also approached either their own
people, or addressed their prophecies directly to certain other
nations, but they refrained from blackmailing one people in the eyes
of another people. Besides that, the concerning verses can be seen
entirely in line with the Bible where we can find the same rebukes as
well as the same prophecies about Israel's dispersions and final
re-gathering.
Thus we find it is not the Quran, which would contradict the
Bible; it is rather the way of interpretation and application of some
of its verses that matters. That is of validity the more as this way
of "interpretation", as we saw, often falls not short of a
willful twisting. Here, the question of a scholar's task would come
up, i.e. whether lie has to try to understand and explain such verses
in their context and their proper meaning or
whether he can, like a hothead, take just a handy one and make
it fitting in a pre-fabricated structure of hatred and revenge.
Of course, the question whether Israel's return to, and
existence in the Holy Land is in congruity with the Divine Law is by
far not only a matter of juggling Quran or Bible verses. Divine Law
may be made known and confirmed by such verses, but its existence does
not depend on them (as e.g. the so-called Ten Commandments were
existent even before they were written upon the stone tablets on Mount
Sinai). How much Israel's existence in Palestine is in fact in
harmony with the Divine Law could not be better expressed than by the
words of one of the partakers of the Conference: "Zionism is the
means employed by the Jewish religion for self -- realization".
Self -- realizations is considered in general as the highest goal and
Divine task of every one. How much less should it be denied to Israel,
its return to the land being in perfect harmony with both the Bible
and the Quran. Moreover, Jewish self -- realization in Palestine does
not question at all Islamic self -- realization, whilst vice verse the
partakers of the Conference suggest that Islamic self -- realization
-- as they see it -- could be achieved only on the base of
Israel's defeat and destruction. That is entirely not Divine.
Remains only one point to deal with, namely Mohammed's.
Night Journey to Jerusalem and Ascension from the Temple Mount
("Isra"), an occurrence, which lead the Muslim world to
adopt Jerusalem as their third holiest place (after Mecca and Medina).
Evidently, as we saw already, this ascension, whether one takes
it literally or allegorically, has not nullified God's
"prescription" of that particular land to Israel. One might
rather ask, why had Mohammed to come precisely to Jerusalem for that
ascension? Why could it not have taken place in Damascus or Baghdad,
in Byzanz or Rome? Or any other place? Putting this question, shows
already its absurdity. Only Jerusalem could be of relevance. It got
its significance, however, only through the Jewish prophets and
people, and it was only here that Mohammed could join the other
prophets, be it literally, be it symbolically. But that does not mean
that Jerusalem had therefore to be handed over to his followers for
good. True, Jerusalem and the Land of Israel was to be delivered into
the hands of the nations and to be trodden down by them for a certain
period, as foretold in many prophecies, but these very same prophecies
foretell also the redemption of the Jewish people from the dispersion,
and the return into the land. We can leave the question
undecided whether history backed prophecy, or whether prophecy backed
history. The historic event of the Jewish re-gathering in the
land is at least in line with that prophecy, whilst on the other side
the Arabs allegation of a perpetual Jewish dispersion finds no backing
in any prophecy whosoever.
The quest of Jerusalem has amongst other aspects also the
following specific and peculiar one, which should be mentioned
here:
One may ask why is there at all such a thing like a "Promised
Land" "prescribed' for as certain people, Israel?. No other
people, and no other religion. raises such a claim.
As the Bible states plainly, it is neither by largeness nor by a
special righteousness of the people of Israel that a claim to a
promised land would be justified. In. 5.Mose 7:7 it reads: "The
Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you
were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of
all people"; and in chapter 9:4-6 Israel is told: "Speak not in
thine heart, after that the Lord thy God has cast them out from before
thee, saying, for my righteousness the Lord has brought
me in to possess this land, but for the wickedness of
these nations the Lord does drive them out from before thee. Not for
thy righteousness, or the uprightness of thine heart, dost. thou go to
possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord
thy God does drive them out before thee, and that he may perform the
word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob. Understand therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth
thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou
art a stiff-necked people".
These verses put forth two basic principles:
1) The promised land should not belong to the largest but to the
"fewest" people; for if it would belong to the largest nation
every one would ascribe its possession to that nation's
might, instead of God's will.
2)Beside the promise given to the
fathers, it is the nations' exceeding
wickedness, which finally justifies Israel to possess the land. The
Scripture, at other portions, specifies this
wickedness as resulting not only in the usually know crimes like theft adultry, etc, but
foremost in rejection of, and mockery at, the
Lord's Law as a whole which includes the Promisw of the Land. Crimes
like theft etc can be seen as human weaknesses and
fallibility, whilst the question of rejection or acceptance of
Jerusalem's peculiar and unique status is inseparably interwoven
with the question of either egotism and self-esteem or submission to
God's will as revealed in the Mosaic Law and recognizable in
Jerusalem's unique history. This question, which is basically of a
religious and not mere moral nature, touches everyone, not only
politicians and clergymen.
King Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire 2500 years
ago, as a God fearing man behaved righteously towards his Persian
subjects as well as towards all the different subjugated peoples of
his huge empire, including the Jews whom he released from the
Babylonian slavery, and helped them to rebuild the Temple in
Jerusalem. The result was peace and splendor in all his empire, and
Jerusalem was indeed the "City of Peace", as her
name could be interpreted (Interestingly enough, the Quran refers to
King Cyrus as "Dhool Quarnain" = the ruler of the Medo-Persian
double-monarchy, in Sura "The Cave", 86-90. (The term "Dhool
Quarnein", literally "Double-Horn", cannot be applied to
Alexander the Great as done usually as he did not rule a double
monarchy). On the other hand, lack of fear of God will
necessarily lead to unrighteousness and injustice with all the evil
consequences thereof for individuals and whole nations, and Jerusalem
will be unto them "a burdensome stone",
and "a cup of trembling", as Prophet
Zechariah terms it (ch.12:2,3).
Thus, we see that Jerusalem which is also called Zion,
serves in that whole context as the visible "foundation stone, test
stone, and corner stone", as Is. 28:16 puts it X)
------------------
x) the Hebrew text reads "test stone", not tried stone as
usually rendered, incorrectly so
------------------
No wonder then that in our age of fast communications which
make us feel the oneness of the world more than ever before, Jerusalem
became a focus in world events, yea a test for the nations: Will they
go in the footsteps of King Cyrus, an "Anointed of the Lord
" (Is. 45:1), or must Jerusalem become "a
burdensome stone"?
All that has nothing to do with Jewish arrogance, or hypocrisy, or
imperialism, etc, of which our enemies accuse us. Israel is in so far
not master of its own fate but is delivered "chosen" - which is
a passive form) into the Divine Will, as a servant to his master,
without escape. Even if a Jew does not want to be a Jew anymore,
his enemies would remind him, and make him feel, that he is. It is
God's love for all that makes Israel a servant for the sake of all.
4. Legal ownership
So far we have
dealt with the question of the scriptural Promise of the land. We
should, however, pay attention also to the legal aspect of the
ownership, the more so as Divine will and legacy should go
together. Apparently this axiom was known, and respected, already
at the days of the foundation of the Jewish kingdom: the
II. Book of Chronicles, ch.21:l8-35, relates
that King David bought Mount Moriah from
the local King, Ornan, and insisted on paying him the full amount of
money for it, although the latter one was willing to give it to King
David as a gift. Mount Moriah became then under David's successor
King Salomon the Temple mount known till to day as such. This
mount is known from the days of King David also as "Zion:" It is
the heart of Jerusalem.
The I. Temple, or "Salomon's Temple",
was destroyed in 587 B.C.E. by the Babylonians, but King Cyrus the
Great who defeated them in 539 B.C.E. honoured the religious and legal
right of the Jewish people, and helped them to rebuild the Temple on
Mount Moriah (see lI.Books of Chronicles, 36:23; Ezra
1:1-4). This Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. The
Arabs after their conquest of Palestine in 637/8 erected upon its
place in the 8th century the "Dome of the Rock"
(erroneously often called "Mosque of Omar") which, together with
the El-Aqsa Mosque on the same Mount Moriah, became Islam's third
holiest place, after Mecca and Medina, and the most
controversial one now in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Now, by
what rights can the Arabs dispute over it? They claim more than a
thousand years possession of it. Well, possession by conquest.
If conquest establishes rights, then Israel, the present victor,
may claim it, too, even with some better arguments then anyone else
had, or has.
What is true in regard of the Temple Mount is even more
obvious in regard of the land itself. Till 1948, i.e. till the
foundation of State of Israel, not a single Jew claimed, or possessed,
even the tiniest plot of land that was not bought legally and in free
bargain from the registered landholder, mostly an effendi. Jewish
individuals as well as the Jewish National fund followed insofar
the axiom of King David mentioned above. They did not
investigate how such an effendi became registered,
whether by purchase of the plot from a previous Jewish owner, or
whether by right of conquest. Simply, the Jews bought their land back.
It was only after 1948, i.e. after the Arabs made war against
the newly born State of Israel, and after they lost this war that Arab
fields were confiscated, however fields only near borderlines or of
abandoned villages, whilst estates of those Arabs who remained were
left untouched in their hands. There are books with more details on
that subject on the market, but a brief hint at it seemed necessary
here, the more since it is certainly not without significance that the
Bible points out the purchase of Mount Moriah by King David, as a
guiding principle also for our days.
5.) Our own stand.
As baseless and unsound the Arab call for a Jihad may appear
to those who preserve clear thinking, it must yet be taken quite
seriously by all concerned.
As we had to learn from statements of prominent Arab
scholars, no agreement, treaty, armistice etc, with anyone of these
Jihad intoxicated countries would be trustworthy as long as the
Al-Azhar (the leading university of the Muslim world) keeps up the
call for a Jihad. In order to prepare the way for a mutual trust as a
pre-requisite for an agreement worthy this name, it is inevitably
necessary that either Al-Azhar or any other authoritative institution
at least equal in its importance to that university, withdraws
definitely the call for Jihad and replaces it by a call for peaceful
relations and neighborhood with Israel.
Such a call for, or commitment to peace cannot come
authoritatively by Egypt's or Syria's government alone, they
being not religious but worldly authorities.
Such a call, however, would gain considerable weight
throughout the Muslim world if it could be brought forth by the King
of Saudi Arabic he being the guardian of Mecca and Medina, or by the
Hashemite King of Jordan after he should have succeeded in
re-establishing the Khalifat as this dynasty hopes for.
Such an authoritative call for peace and neighborhood with
Israel has to be made an integral part of a peace treaty.
Instantaneously all kind of Jihad teaching or instigation has to be
quelled rigorously, and to be declared punishable as a crime violating
the teaching of the Quran, as well as an international crime defined
as such in the Nuremberg Trial of 1946/7.
Unfortunately history teaches us to be very careful and even
suspicious in this respect. Let us remember that
already in 1929 the then "Grand Mufti of Jerusalem" could
instigate widespread riots in Palestine in a "religious' call pertinent to that end. These
riots, besides causing a lot of other causalities and damages,
culminated in the extinction of the Jewish community in Hebron. The
same Grand Mufti who became later on a personal friend of Hitler,
raised for him during the Second World War the
"Muslim SS-Division" composed of Muslim
from the German occupied territories. The flame of hatred he has
kindled is still burning, and the speeches delivered at the "Fourth
Islamic Conference" were imbued by this spirit.
Deadly threatened Israel cannot be expected to make
dangerous concessions or retreats, or to trust in a
paper agreement may it be signed by whomsoever, as long as this basic
condition aforesaid is not fulfilled.
Unfortunately there seem to be no prospects that such
condition can come about in the near future. During the present stage
of hostility Israel has thus no other choice than to remain highly on
guard.
Yet on the other side, we should take
into consideration the Arabs' resentments towards the West. We
expect everyone to understand the pogroms and the holocaust as
the awful background of our politics. It is by no means unfair if
the Arabs expect us likewise to understand their feelings and bad
experiences. It is anyhow a fact that both Arabs and Jews suffered
most from the hands of Western i.e. European powers. We should, in
this context, try more and more to make it clear to the Arabs as well
as to the rest of the world that Israel neither had nor has the
slightest intention to become a spearhead of Western interest against
the Arab or Islamic world. It was rather the Arab hostility which
forced Israel since 1948 into the arms of the Western powers.
It is hatred and hostility that impose upon both sides to waste
billions and billions of Dollars for buying arms, instead of using
these tremendous amounts of money to develop the whole area for the
benefit of both sides, as envisioned by the Prophets.
There remains the hope the day's will down that our Arab
neighbors realize the true chance is not Jihad against, but peace with
Israel.
Jerusalem/Israel, Oct. 1976
6. Summary from an essay, updated version of 1996, and
entitled "Peace Is Possible Between Ishmael And Israel According To
The Koran".
Dr. Asher Eder
The ruling wing of Islam has severed its original ties with the
"Book" (the Tanakh, Hebrew Bible) and the "People of the
Book", Israel.
It plays out the
idea of Jihad, and the quest of Jerusalem.
In Islamic view, a Jihad can end only with a complete victory
- or else with an unreserved admittance that its whole concept was
wrong from the start.
The Koran itself suggests this change of
attitude, and can help paving the way to mutual understanding and
co-operation:
1. it stresses the continued validity of the
"Book" -- Jonah 38; Table 52; Cow 172;
Believers 56; Bee 45-47; and others;
2. it recognizes the teachings of the Prophets, even of the
rabbis -- Table 48,
(notwithstanding Repentance 30-35)
3. it recognizes the peculiarity of Israel and the
unparalleled gifts to its people
(including the Land Promise) - Hobbling 15; Cow 44, 116; Smoke 30
4. the Holy Land prescribed for Israel - Table 23
5. it was Allah who settled the Children of
Israel there - Jonah 93
6. Israel rebuked for not fighting for her land - Cow 60,
247
7. David's kingdom (Zion), and Psalms, confirmed, and he
being acknowledged as a
Divine viceroy and
judge on earth - Zad 19, 25; Cow 252 [cf Is.
28:16]
8. the Psalms and the Prophets speak of Israel's return to
the land and to Jerusalem,
and so does the Koran - Bani Israel 8, 105
9. Israel often harshly rebuked in the Koran, but there is no
cancellation of the
Covenant or of the Promises
10. on the contrary, the words of the Prophets shall surely
be established -Greeks 5;
11. Abraham is called a true Muslem - Imram 60; Pilgrimage
77; Cattle 162; and so
are the Prophets - Table 48, notwithstanding their keeping
Shabbat and their
direction of prayer toward Jerusalem [cf. 1,Kings 8:30,42]
12. Abraham established
a) Mount Moriah in Jerusalem for Israel - Gen. 22:2;
2.Chron.3:1;
b) the Kaaba in Mecca for Ishmael -
Cow 119, 123
13. Quiblah (direction of prayer) for
Muslims to Mecca, and for Jews to Jerusalem -
Cow 140, 143
14. Koran admits different religious rites, and urges us to
emulate in good works -
Cow 143; Table 53; Pilgrimage 66
15. Allah wants to be honored by forgiveness and love - Table
15-17;
Woman Tested 7; Counsel 14.
It is the words of the
Prophets which provide the base for true peace
-----------------------------------------------
The brochure is available from:
Root & Branch Assoc. Ltd, P.O.B. 8672, Jerusalem/Israel
e-mail rb@rb.org.il
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