Professor Francesco Zannini, who teaches at the Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies in Rome, ignores the Qur'an's injunction to "strike the necks" of unbelievers (Sura 47:4) and finds "no justification" in Islam for the recent spate of beheadings. From AsiaNews, with thanks to JRH:
Rome (AsiaNews) - If killing enemies is a precept of Islam, then "live-broadcast decapitations" are the result of a "radical leap" in fundamentalism. According to Professor Francesco Zannini, an expert on Islam, this type of killing finds justification nowhere in the Koran nor in any traditional maxim. The choice to decapitate and use telecommunications is a way "to bring the West to its knees...By cutting off a person's head, [fundamentalists] inflict, thanks to mass media, mass destruction by striking the psychology and the fear of the Western world".Professor Zannini, who teaches at the Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies in Rome (PISAI, according to its Italian acronym), says that fundamentalist terrorists in Iraq "have taken an ideological leap: they have redefined the figure of the "enemy". For traditional Islam, women, children, farmers, young people could not be killed. But, by now, for these groups "the enemy has become the West as such. Every Western, even if a child, is someone who "attacks Islam", a militant that wants to destroy Islam and, as such, must be annihilated. It is an ideological framework that justifies total Jihad".
I'm amazed that this man can teach Arab and Islamic Studies and not know that many traditional and contemporary Islamic legal sources justify actions against women and children if they are seen as aiding the war effort. It prohibits the killing of women and children "unless they are fighting against the Muslims" ('Umdat al-Salik o9.10, cf. al-Mawardi, al-Akham as-Sultaniyyah, 4.2).
According to Zannini, faced with this latest evolution in extremist Islam, the world of Islam is appalled, even the fundamentalist Islam of the Muslim Brothers of Egypt. And many Muslims see the urgent need to give new ideals to young Muslims "to avoid a future of darkness".
Great. Let's see some evidence of this.
Zannini says:
Decapitations exist in the history of Islam. But decapitations, cutting off heads are not a punishment foreseen by Islamic rules. It may have existed in the past but it was not a specific punishment. And above all it is not specified as for use against enemies. There are texts that order the killing of enemies of Islam, but they do not order decapitations. The Koran does not mention it. Nor do the hadith (the Prophet’s maxims). But the choice to decapitate and the use of media to broadcast such killings are made precisely to attract attention and to intimidate. Kidnappers are using decapitations to bring the West to its knees. They are seeking to attack people psychologically. Cutting the head of one person, they are inflicting, thanks to mass media, mass destruction by striking the psychology and the fear of the Western world. Strangely enough, the kidnappings themselves, the hostages, etc., are more part of the Western world, which fundamentalists use to have greater media impact.
"Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks..." (Sura 47:4). The Qur'an nowhere mentions it, eh?
These terrorists are going against every traditional rule. The killing of women is explicitly condemned by Islamic tests. The most accredited hadith (the collection of the Prophet's maxims) say that women, children, clergy, even farmers cannot be killed, nor can young men of military age who are not in the military.
"It is not permissible to kill women or children UNLESS THEY ARE FIGHTING AGAINST THE MUSLIMS" (Umdat al-Salik, 09.10). Emphasis, as you may have guessed, added.
Even some members of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt have admitted their astonishment. The Muslim Brothers see that the Iraqi terrorists go partly by their ideology, but they themselves feel that, to some extent, "they are giving Islam bad publicity". Iraqi groups have by now surpassed the horror of Al Qaeda. In the Islamic world, the attack against the Twin Towers was seen as a start to Jihad. But, in Iraq, it is a question of total and idealess slaughter.
Now wait a minute, Professor. The Twin Towers attack was the start of jihad? But there were lots of innocent non-combatants in the Towers. Why, then, didn't the Muslim world react with revulsion then, if what you say about non-combatants in Iraq is true?
The dancing in the streets, the gloating, the glee was caused by an enormous solar flare, chemically treated by Jews so that only Muslims would be affected: the chemicals, riding on solar waves across the solar system, timed perfectly to coincide with the attack, all planned by Jewish scientists in Israel and the United States, attacked the webs of neurons that express the Muslim belief system in the brain and shut them down.
The response: temporary behavior that is utterly uncharacteristic of Islam.
What utter nonsense this Zannini spouts. Does he not know the Qur'an and hadith? Does he not know the history of Muslim conquest? He is really beyond belief -- and that is not a good thing if you are teaching at a Pontifical Institute. Who wants to expose and mock this man? Surely there are those in the Vatican who know better. Cardinal Biffi? Sandro Magister? Why don't they discharge the fool -- or send him far away, as a Christian scholar-in-residence to Al Azhar, or some such, where he can learn about Islam in situ. He cannot really expect to be taken seriously, at least not by anyone other than John Esposito, can he?
I guess from this comment that they don't have TV in the Vatican or that this guy never gets out, since everywhere you go in Italy these days the people are not full of fear, they are full of outrage and resolve and are universally inspired by their national hero, Fabrizio Quattrocchi, whose name and valor will be recited by Italian school children for centuries.
How can these idiots in the Vatican know about Islam, when they don't even know (or worse water dowm) their own beliefs?.
I suggets that the vacuous "professors" like this air head, go to Saudi Arabia wearing is collar and hat around the streets for a day.... he will see Islam in action then, on his person.
Can you believe the absurd ignorance of these people, and the tripe that they dish out to their own. They deserve the contempt that Muslims have for them, in fact they deserve the contempt , and condemnation for bringing reproach on the very Book and beliefs they claim to follow.
The Vatican is and always will be a Prostitute.
Way off topic here, but another study shows that Muhammad was a total charlatan.
If he was in direct communication with the Almighty, then why would the all-knowing God not correct him in his denigration of the canine species?
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Study Shows Dogs Can Smell Cancer
Friday, September 24, 2004
LONDON — It has long been suspected that man's best friend has a special ability to sense when something is wrong with us. Now the first experiment to verify that scientifically has demonstrated that dogs are able to smell cancer.
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This study certainly shows a dogs usefulness, doesn't it?
Only a madman would shun "man's best friend".
I feel like the people here know the Qur'an better than most Moslems....
That is really sad....
You are so right
Joe Bananas...in Pyjamas
I just heard the if Kerry is elected he will ban the bible, not sure dan rather said it.
Ever time Mr Kerry opens his mouth I think damn his is a lot dumber then I though..
He thinks if he get Osama it’s the end.. What a dip... He is on glue also...
How dumb can this guy get....
Taken from faithfreedom.org
A recent 'fatwa' posted on a popular Islamic Web site in Saudi Arabia explains when a Muslim may mutilate the corpse of an infidel.
The ruling was written by a Saudi religious sheik named Omar Abdullah Hassan al-Shehabi, decrees that the dead can be mutilated as a reciprocal act when the enemy is disfiguring Muslim corpses, or when it otherwise serves the Islamic nation. In the second category, the reasons include "to terrorize the enemy" or to gladden the heart of a Muslim warrior.
'Nuff said, huh-
To be fair, the US Army, USAF, and USMC are doing a lot of "disfiguring" right now. Of course, the US military is only interested in disfiguring live ones, which they appear to be doing to plenty of jihadis who have traveled from throughout the defunct Islamic empire to places like Fallujah to fulfill their destiny.
just read a newspaper article (in Swedish), in which the writer, after visiting Afghanistan, dares to criticize the burqa as a dehumanizing garment. She also softly criticizes the PC folks for being too willing to "understand" the Taliban (what a progress!). Of course, she is careful to mention that burqa "has nothing to do with Islam".
Has anyone ever seen just one person wearing the burqa (or forcing his wife or daughter to wear it) who is not Muslim?
Just why is it that whenever the Western media dares to mention anything negative about Islam (like the burqa, or beheadings, or honor killings etc), then it is always added that these things and acts have "nothing to do with Islam" (or with REAL Islam, if the connection is otherwise too obvious)?
Scandi,
Because they're afaid of being labeled as racist.
One reporter in England was recently fired for telling the truth about Islam.
Look at the policy Rueters has or had on how they were reporting anything to do with terrorist.
Some agencies are just too dam afraid, because the moment they do report anything honestly, the death threats start pouring in.
Off topic I know but couldn't let this pass without sharing it at dhimmiwatch. it looks like Britain's senile judges have introduced dhimmitude on the roads. Yesterday an Afghan asylum seeker was given TWO years in prison for driving without a licence, driving without insurance and for killing another motorist through his dangerous driving. The maximum sentence for "dangerous driving" is 14 years but our young muslim friend got only two (which in Britain actually means ONE). The British victim's widow was disgusted at the sentence but the Afghan's lawyer rubbed salt into the wounds by saying that his clients wife and three children will be coming to Britain next year. Last year failed asylum seeker Kamel Khan , from Algeria, killed a nine year old British boy when he struck him in an uninsured and untaxed car. He was jailed for just two years but this was reduced on a technicality. Neither man has been deported. Thus the life's of British citizens are only worth a year in prison if their killers are muslim. When our establishment refuses to protect us it is time for a purge of our "establishment" !
"to bring the West to its knees...By cutting off a person's head, [fundamentalists] inflict, thanks to mass media, mass destruction by striking the psychology and the fear of the Western world".
I suggest that rather than bringing the West to its knees, that these murders spawn new demands in the entertainment industry.
For example, in Bagdad as you have already reported, these are sold as a kind of "snuff film" in the pornography section of various stores.
"Surely there are those in the Vatican who know better..."
Indeed, the Vatican does know better than anyone about islamic history and its dismal consequences!
"He cannot really expect to be taken seriously, at least not by anyone other than John Esposito, can he? "
With alacritous enthusiasm, the students under Zannini's tutelage will take the bait-- hook, line, and sinker!
The Vatican is an interesting composition of metaphysical, secular, economic, and political aspirations.
It is a kind of vast personage comprised of such elements, and seeks survival as an entity for its own sake.
Having said that, it is possible that a new generation of scholars will need to be spawned, such that their discernment of islam is viewed through a new filter which allows the Vatican to survive in an otherwise hostile environment -- to wit, an environment decidedly "islamic."
I believe what we see in evidence here, through
Professor Zannini, who teaches at the Pontifical Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies in Rome, is a manifestation of the Vatican's "future plans" which it apprently feels will be required -- if is to exist at all.
The self-perpetuating nature of this institution and the lengths to which it will go to ensure its own survival -- is a marvell to behold!