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In the featured article at FrontPage today I discuss the latest fulminations by the "reformist" Sheikh Qaradawi against the great Wafa Sultan:
Wafa Sultan appeared on Al-Jazeera again earlier this month, and the shock waves are still reverberating throughout the Islamic world. The day after her appearance Al-Jazeera issued a public apology for her “offensive” remarks, but did not specify what exactly she said that was so terrible. Last week, however, the influential Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi was not so circumspect. Qaradawi, whom Saudi-funded academic John Esposito has praised as a “reformist,” in 2006 exhorted Muslims to fight against Israel by invoking the notorious genocidal hadith in which Muhammad says that on the Day of Judgment “even the stones and the trees will speak, with or without words, and say: ‘Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there’s a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’” But now he has directed his rage against Sultan, a fifty-year-old Syrian-American psychologist: “She said unbearable, ghastly things that made my hair stand on end.” Specifically, “she had the audacity to publicly curse Allah, His Prophet, the Koran, the history of Islam, and the Islamic nation.” He repeated that she “leveled accusations against Islam and the Muslims, and cursed Allah, His Prophet, the Islamic nation, the shari’a, and the Islamic faith and culture.”These are serious charges, and Qaradawi states them in terms that his jihadist minions will understand as meaning that she must be killed. Given that Qaradawi has justified suicide attacks against Israeli civilians and American soldiers in Iraq, it is clear that he has no distaste for violence, and thus law enforcement officials should take his latest fulminations against Wafa Sultan very seriously indeed.
But for Sultan herself, of course, they are nothing new. This courageous woman has been a target of jihadist outrage ever since she burst onto the international scene with an interview also on Al-Jazeera on February 21, 2006. The video of this interview has now been viewed over a million times, and led to Sultan’s receiving numerous death threats. In it, she excoriated the violence that all too many Muslims have committed in the name of Islam, and the tendency of all too many others, both Muslim and non-Muslim, to justify that violence by pointing to mistreatment that Muslims have allegedly suffered:The Jews have come from the tragedy [of the Holocaust], and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. Fifteen million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn down a mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.Reasonable enough. And so was what Sultan said on Al-Jazeera this month. Defending the notorious Danish cartoons of Muhammad that continue to roil the Islamic world, she pointed out:
But if Islam were not the way it is, those cartoons would never have appeared. They did not appear out of the blue, and the cartoonist did not dig them out of his imagination. Rather, they are a reflection of his knowledge. Westerners who read the words of the Prophet Muhammad ‘Allah has given me sustenance under the shadow of my sword’ cannot imagine Muhammad's turban in the shape of a dove of peace rather than in the shape of a bomb. The Muslims must learn how to listen to the criticism of others, and maybe then they will reexamine their terrorist teachings.Qaradawi, however, was in no mood to reexamine anything. Sultan’s statements were “all based on ignorance,” he complained. “If only she had some knowledge... But she doesn’t have any knowledge. She doesn't know the Koran or the Sunna. When she cited a hadith to back up her statements, she used a hadith that scholars consider unreliable.” Which unreliable hadith? Muhammad’s statement that “Allah has given me sustenance under the shadow of my sword.” Qaradawi asserted: “This hadith is unreliable. The Prophet did not get sustenance by the sword. If she had read the Koran, she would have known that it forbids killing people: ‘Anyone who kills another person for any reason other than manslaughter or spreading corruption in the land – it is as if he has killed all of mankind.’”
Of course, anyone can see that “other than manslaughter or spreading corruption in the land [fasaad]” is a rather large exception, and the next verse makes Qaradawi’s claim that the Qur’an “forbids killing people” even more questionable. He quoted Qur’an 5:32, which immediately precedes a verse directing Muslims to crucify or amputate a hand and a foot on opposite sides from someone who fights against Allah and Muhammad or spreads “corruption in the land.”
And as for the unreliability of the hadith about the shadow of Muhammad’s sword, Qaradawi doesn’t bother to tell us that a hadith in which Muhammad says “Know that Paradise is under the shades of swords” appears in Bukhari, the hadith collection that Muslims consider most reliable, and in which only a very few ahadith are considered unreliable by any Islamic scholars. Not only does it appear, but it appears in three different places in Bukhari and in two places in Sahih Muslim, the hadith collection considered second most reliable. This repetition is further attestation of its authenticity from a Muslim standpoint, since the multiple renderings are considered to have come from different narrators, indicating that many people heard Muhammad say this.
Qaradawi made even wilder charges, falsely claiming (with stinging irony in light of his support for suicide attacks) that Sultan “sanctions the killing of Muslims in Gaza and elsewhere, claiming that they deserve to be killed.” Such charges, and Qaradawi’s claim that Sultan “had the audacity to affront all that is sacred – the entire Islamic nation, its past, its present, and its future.” Yet as we have seen, it was she who was telling the truth, not this renowned “reformist” Sheikh, and thus it is she who has yet again shown up the hollowness of the denial, obfuscation, and finger-pointing that all too many Islamic leaders engage in rather than embarking upon the searching self-reflection urged upon them by Wafa Sultan and other defenders of universal human rights and human dignity.
Wafa Sultan is a national and international treasure. The American government should be rushing to protect her against any who might be motivated to act by the distortions of the thuggish Qaradawi. Is that happening?
Posted by Robert at March 25, 2008 6:50 AM
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It's great that Qaradawi has his priorities straight: threaten to kill a woman because she has made perfectly reasonable criticisms about Islam (and Qaradawi's hypocrisy confirms all of her statements of course) but don't bother to say anything or take action of any kind when it comes to the mass slaughter of civilians that is happening in Sudan and elsewhere where Muslims murder others. Even when Muslims murder Muslims.
Yes. What does Ibrahim Hooper have to say about this? Or was Qaradawi just "mistranslated"?
Posted by: S Perry![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 25, 2008 7:02 AM
She should have cursed him too.
Too bad she didn't..
Btw: Did you know that old women don't get to go to Muhammedan heaven?
From a Muhammedan website:
http://sheikyermami.com/2008/03/25/islam-online-falsehood-bullst/
http://www.sunnahonline.com/ilm/seerah/0004.htm
at March 25, 2008 7:17 AM
Btw: Did you know that old women don't get to go to Muhammedan heaven?
No I didn't.
I guess you may as well blow yourself up then.
Posted by: S Perry at March 25, 2008 7:28 AM
Islam Online: "the Jews in Palestine have emigrated from various countries, and they have no right in this land"
4. When the enemies kill Muslim civilians, for then their civilians may be treated the same.
5. When a civilian "accepts" usurping a (Muslim) land, he is considered an occupier, and is not a civilian any more.
6. When children themselves are not intended (or targeted) to be killed (deliberately) without doing anything wrong or committing any crime.
It is well known that Israelis, men and women, indulge in war against Palestinians, so they are warriors. They are also usurpers of the (Palestinian) land, because the Jews in Palestine have emigrated from various countries, and they have no right in this land. In Islam, it is obligatory to liberate any Islamic land from occupation. It should also be known that jihad against the Jews is not because they are Jews, but because they are usurpers and warriors.
Glad that was straightened out.
http://judeopundit.blogspot.com/2008/03/islam-online-jews-in-palestine-have.html
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at March 25, 2008 7:33 AM
Wafa Sultan- a Women gifted in the art of deskunking.
Posted by: flowerknife_us at March 25, 2008 7:54 AM
I hope and pray that Dr. Sultan has good security. I'm sure that she is a marked woman.
Posted by: Always On Watch at March 25, 2008 8:56 AM
shiek - is that a real sign in France? - "Sex with the goats is not recommended"
If so, where is it? And how long has it been there?
Posted by: darcy at March 25, 2008 9:12 AM
Kill those who disagree with you. Kinda makes her point.
Too bad thay wont have here on any more. Thay need more strait talk devlivered in Arabic.
Posted by: Ruebacca at March 25, 2008 9:15 AM
>>Btw: Did you know that old women don't get to go to Muhammedan heaven?
No I didn't.--S Perry
Women in general don't go to heaven, according to Mo's "Night Journey." When he visited Hell, he saw all the women being roasted and hung.
at March 25, 2008 9:22 AM
Wafa Sultan should walk into the nearest police station where she lives and register a complaint against Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi has unabashedly conspired to murder Wafa Sultan. His fatwa is no cover from incitement to murder or from conspiracy to murder. Her complaint, at the very least, should keep Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi out of the United States if he seeks medical treatment here which he tried unsuccessfully to obtain recently in the United Kingdom. File a complaint against this criminal. Let him be indicted.
Robert Spencer and many others can help fill out the police report of this wink and nod Muslim ordering the murder of Ms. Sultan as Mr. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi has done on others. A fatwa for death of anyone is a crime in the U.S. It should be a worldwide crime.
Ms. Sultan should immediately file a criminal complaint in any nation that allows it where she travels!
Posted by: David England at March 25, 2008 9:50 AM
shiek yer'mami,
Apart from the Islamic given, that Hell is populated by a majority of women, the Muslim explaination of these ahadith is that pious old women are transformed into beautiful young maidens.
Posted by: John C at March 25, 2008 9:56 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Darcy...being ungrateful is the bottom line:
Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 28:
Narrated Ibn 'Abbas:
The Prophet said: "I was shown the Hell-fire and that the majority of its dwellers were women who were ungrateful." It was asked, "Do they disbelieve in Allah?" (or are they ungrateful to Allah?) He replied, "They are ungrateful to their husbands and are ungrateful for the favors and the good (charitable deeds) done to them. If you have always been good (benevolent) to one of them and then she sees something in you (not of her liking), she will say, 'I have never received any good from you."
So you see Darcy women go to hell, because they are ungrateful to their husbands...Pretty simple huh?
Posted by: duh_swami at March 25, 2008 10:03 AM
Anyone know how to silence these threatening, hate spewing dolts? Let's develop of list, by name, of all of them, and publish it over and over again, so that they will be repeatedly recognized for who and what they are.....islamic idiots of the first water.
Posted by: spartanoak at March 25, 2008 10:06 AM
Qaradawi doesn't like Wafa Sultan, but he is very fond of Ken Livingstone, who is running for re-election as Mayor of London, and Ken Livingstone has been very fond of him. If you take an interest in that election, and perhaps need a little more ammunition to convince people to vote for the unkempt bicycle-riding Boris Johnson (who has a virtue: he is not Ken Livingstone) google the phrases "Redken" and "Qur'an-quoting Qaradawi" and "Hugh Fitzgerald." That will produce a discussion of Livingstone and his honored guest, Yousef al-Qaradawi.
Posted by: Hugh at March 25, 2008 10:12 AM
Darcy...being ungrateful is the bottom line:
Bukhari Volume 1, Book 2, Number 28:
Narrated Ibn 'Abbas:
The Prophet said: "I was shown the Hell-fire and that the majority of its dwellers were women who were ungrateful." It was asked, "Do they disbelieve in Allah?" (or are they ungrateful to Allah?) He replied, "They are ungrateful to their husbands and are ungrateful for the favors and the good (charitable deeds) done to them. If you have always been good (benevolent) to one of them and then she sees something in you (not of her liking), she will say, 'I have never received any good from you."
So you see Darcy women go to hell, because they are ungrateful to their husbands...Pretty simple huh?
Posted by: duh_swami at March 25, 2008 10:03 AM
Right, duh_swami, it's the "ungrateful" thingy. What misogyny! I suppose the women should all be grateful for the beatings Allah recommends they get from their husbands. Islam is the biggest joke of all time. How can it be that so many are still falling for what is obvious fakery?
at March 25, 2008 10:34 AM
Great woman Wafa Sultan. I am amazed that Al Jazeera had her on again and that Qaradawi appeared with her.
Does anyone really know if she is a psychologist or a psychiatrist. I have seen her described both ways.
Posted by: Papa Bear at March 25, 2008 11:47 AM
"I am amazed that Al Jazeera had her on again.."
--- from a posting above
They won't make that mistake again. Too dangerous for "Dr." Faisal al-Qassem, and for Al Jazeera, and -- most importantly -- too dangerous for brittle, defensive, self-doubting Muslims everywehere.
Posted by: Hugh at March 25, 2008 12:02 PM
Wafa Sultan is the kind of psychologist I would choose if I ever needed any kind of mental health care.
Posted by: PersonOfTheBook at March 25, 2008 12:11 PM
If muslims really are against "occupation", what will they do about all of the muslim-occupied lands? We really need to deal with that problem.
Posted by: PersonOfTheBook at March 25, 2008 12:14 PM
So you see Darcy women go to hell, because they are ungrateful to their husbands...Pretty simple huh?
Posted by: duh_swami at March 25, 2008 10:03 AM
Right, duh_swami, it's the "ungrateful" thingy. What misogyny! I suppose the women should all be grateful for the beatings Allah recommends they get from their husbands. Islam is the biggest joke of all time. How can it be that so many are still falling for what is obvious fakery?
Posted by: darcy at March 25, 2008 10:34 AM
-----------------------------------------------
Contrast that with America -- my wife recently bought a car, against my wishes, and she had absolutely no trouble doing it.
So while I am slightly ticked that she bought the car against my wishes, I am very grateful to live in a country where a woman can do that.
Posted by: PersonOfTheBook at March 25, 2008 12:17 PM
I have this sickening feeling Wafa Sultan may be next on the Muslim 'hit' parade. Imams look like they will fall dead from a stroke just listening to her. Their fury is RABID.
Posted by: poetcomic1 at March 25, 2008 12:32 PM
I have followed Wafa Sultan and admire her great courage and intelligence in confronting medieval throwbacks like Qaradawi. She is one of very few who has the fortitude and conviction to directly face her oppressors whoever they are and in their language, and show the world what these people really stand for- a totalitarian, violent, supremacist ideology posing as a religion. Yes, we should support and protect her, but how can we do that? How do we show Wafa Sultan that Americans stand behind her in her lonely battle?
Posted by: Saxonman at March 25, 2008 1:24 PM
How should we converse with the muslim who responds to a god unbound by man's categories.
Can you see the muslim making two stacks of grievances, one muslim, the other non-muslim and declaring that whoever has the taller stack is the more righteous? Why do so many of you answer by making your own stacks?
A jewish or christian (or even greco-platonic) mind understands this folly. Contrary to muslim philosophy, god is constrained. He is bound by his love for man and could not, by any logic, divide man against man as the muslim does. That is what you need to say to him.
at March 25, 2008 2:44 PM
Right, duh_swami, it's the "ungrateful" thingy. What misogyny! I suppose the women should all be grateful for the beatings Allah recommends they get from their husbands. Islam is the biggest joke of all time. How can it be that so many are still falling for what is obvious fakery?
Well, darcy, even if us 'wemen' are 'doomed' to Hell...I'll just do some beating & cursing back. We'll see how that bastard Allah likes that, eh? I mean, I'm destined to be there, right? I might as well enjoy myself! ;)
I'd just love to be part of Sultan's protective guard! Where do I sign up?
Posted by: Miss_Anthrope at March 25, 2008 2:57 PM
Please quote the Quran 5:32 properly and in full. It does not call for Muslim's to avoid killing people.
Yusef Ali translation 5:32:
"On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our apostles with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land."
Unless Muslim's are 'The Children of Israel'. Also who are 'Our apostles'?
It is interesting that the Quran is so bereft of peaceful verses that they have to pinch ones out of context which in full in this case is actually a threat to Jews. Also gives the excuse to start a war over nothing, one death can then justify many.
From Robert's Blog on this verse:
"it comes within the context of a warning to the Jews, and is not presented as a universal principle; it contains the important exception “unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land,” "
" Ibn Warraq sums it up: “The supposedly noble sentiments are in fact a warning to Jews. ‘Behave, or else’ is the message. Far from abjuring violence, these verses aggressively point out that anyone opposing the Prophet will be killed, crucified, mutilated, and banished!" "
Posted by: James at March 25, 2008 4:14 PM
>>We'll see how that bastard Allah likes that, eh? --Miss_Anthrope
LOL! Oh, "he" is that - and much more!
Posted by: darcy at March 25, 2008 5:56 PM
We need a new award called the 'Jihadwatch Asma Bint Marwan Memorial Prize', to be granted each year to the woman who, whether originating from within the Muslim world or outside it, most courageously, rationally, cleverly and consistently challenges the dark side of Islam.
Perhaps the appropriate bodies could be approached in order to attach to the award a substantial prize, to wit: a good quality firearm (if the lady recipient resides in a country where such may be legally owned and carried) together with a free professional-level course in maintaining and using same, and a year's membership in a top Rifle or Pistol Club; and a full course of personal one-on-one instruction in unarmed combat, donated gratis by a charitably minded and public-spirited Karate, Judo, Kung Fu or Krav Maga expert instructor.
Then let the spirit of Asma Bint Marwan enjoy her revenge when some would-be jihadi assassin, attempting to sneak into the target lady's house by night, finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun, or, alternatively, rolled into a ball around a small private universe of pain, after sustaining a well-aimed kung fu kick.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at March 25, 2008 8:39 PM
Enough of Jubilation and self praising; is here any one who can really say that he or she are serving God Almighty; the way God wants?
------------------------------------
Love for all, Hatred for None
at March 25, 2008 9:04 PM
Enough of Jubilation and self praising; Now...is here any one who can really say that he or she are serving God Almighty; the way God wants?
------------------------------------
Love for all, Hatred for None
at March 25, 2008 9:05 PM
Personally, Wafa Sultan is my hero and the hero of the free world, which she positively RULES!!!!
And, by the way, those "unbearable, ghastly things" Dr. Sultan said about Islam WERE unbearable and ghastly simply because they are the TRUTH about Islam. Islam itself is unbearable and ghastly in every possible way that can be imagined (now THERE'S something we can ALL agree on!!!!).
Posted by: pythagoras at March 25, 2008 10:17 PM
Wafa Sultan Needs to Study More
I agree with Wafa Sultan's stance basing on her sketchy observations in a way that certain Islamist groups are some how are seen obsessed with their Mythology of supremacism in the fields of religion and may be seen resorting to even extremism in their conducts. But her lack of study of Islamic teachings at its base has probably failed her to fully grasp and realise that this religion business has passed by many myths and beliefs and now has reached a strange turn on to a summit where Islam as a universal religion is waiting with open arms to receive the whole of mankind to unify them all in one blessed Ummah of God.
This may be trouble some for few but God has very openly and explicitly revealed to Muslims in the Latest Book of Commandments-…the Holy Quran that the old denominations i.e. Jews and Christian and others had previously adopted wrong routes; they violated the teachings on the day and exceeded the limits. Thus they wronged their souls and ultimately earned the wraths of God. Every nation has its time before God turns to new people and replaces the old. God reveals that He has placed these previous denominations as defunct,rejected and replaced them with Muslims. The history tells us that our living God has always been doing the same. Many a ruins from the old civilizations are the glaring signs for the peoples who reflect.
In the present day the chosen people of God are the Muslims. They are firmly admonished and very strongly warned that they better pull up their socks and be vigilant in their conduct lest their failures fetch them even severer punishments. While the older denomination are found sticking to their bygone days beliefs and myths and are very vehemently resisting the new terms out lined by the Holy Book of Quran. Islam is there to extend the bondage of brotherhood for all and to unify the whole of mankind in one Ummah of God. Islam bears the most befitting divinely solutions for the peace and prosperity that this world desperately requires.
God says in [5:4] …..This day have I perfected your religion for you and completed My favour upon you and have chosen for you Islam as religion. [3:20] Surely the true religion with Allah is Islam.
Allah gives a glad tidings to Muslims [3:111] ‘You are the best people raised for the good of mankind; you enjoin good and forbid evil and believe in Allah.’
------------------------------------
Love for all, Hatred for None
at March 26, 2008 6:44 AM
A Khokar,
"In the present day the chosen people of God are the Muslims."
Would it suprise you that in truth, it is whom the Muslims call "the peoples of the Book", the Jews and the Christians whom the God of the Holy Bible calls them to be "a light unto the nations". Do not be surprised why a former Muslim was baptized a few days ago. He has seen this light.
Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at March 26, 2008 11:25 AM
OT but i'd thought i'd share this..
I was in charity shop/thrift store today called "help the aged"
I often get good bargains and have a browse,particulary the books section.
Lo and behold but what did I see today?..a full bound 9 volume edition of Bukhari.
Now i'm sure Robert could correct me as i'm no islamic scholar.But isn't it a little odd for someone to get rid of their Huge hardback embossed collection of Bukhari?
Is it a sign of the faith/ideology slipping even further into the charity shop of history where it belongs?
Posted by: ovinesongs
at March 26, 2008 1:40 PM
I can't believe Khokar is still out peddling his hypocritical, two-faced wares after the unmasking he got toward the end of this thread.
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at March 26, 2008 11:39 PM
Dear All,
We need to under stand Islam. The first and foremost will be that we should bear in mind that Islam has not come as rival of other religions. Rather Islam confirms and validates the previous divinely teachings [1] and offers higher degree guidance in accordance with universal divinely plans of God Almighty, destined for the future of the mankind. A higher education is never against the basic or primary educations; rather they are interdependent in bringing the improvement and enlightenment in the society.
It has always been difficult for the humans to shed and shake the adopted myths because humans by nature love and relish remaining restrained and bound by mysteries and illusions. If these myths happen to be religious myths; it is more so difficult in leaving those self imposed mythical confinements because these myths are also influenced and rightly or wrongly, strongly guarded by the religious authorities and other groups having their vested interests.
The preset mind and preconceived ideas so created keep us at distance. It keep us bound in the old ruts and restrict us to think without prejudice.
Let’s build the bridges; not the barriers and look for the common terms.
----------------------------------------
Love for all, Hatred for None
[1] Primary Teachings contained in the books of Torah, the Bible and other Holy
Posted by: A Khokar at March 28, 2008 1:40 AM
The double thread posting doesn't make you sound any smarter, con man. Go crawl back in your cave, and worship Satan just like your master Mohammed did. You know nothing about spirituality. Islam is the antithesis of spirituality. How spiritual is dismemberment, raping, burning alive, torturering and terrifying people whose only offense is the thoughts in their heads and the words on their lips?
Jesus said "Love your enemies". Mohammed said it is better if you don't pull out, because if Allah wants a child (of the captive man's raped wife) to be born, it will happen.
Sick, Khokar. Bukhari. You're stuck with it.
No bridges for you, sicko.
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at March 28, 2008 3:15 PM
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