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Muslims around the Kaaba in Mecca (AP)
This is part of the jihad against history: dhimmi populations must accept an Islamic rewriting of their past that brings the facts into line with the Islamic doctrine that everyone is originally Muslim, and only turns to other religions as a renegade. It springs from the same impulse that destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan: either the pre-Islamic doesn't exist, or it (if it can't be denied) was trash. From Haaretz, with thanks to Mrs. Obelix:
Years ago, a group of archaeology students from Bar-Ilan University went to Jerusalem's Kidron Valley, hoping to save archaeological remnants from earth the Waqf [Muslim religious trust] had dug up on the Temple Mount and dumped in the riverbed. A Waqf official who noticed the students began yelling at them. One sentence struck them in particular: "You have nothing to look for here, just as the Crusaders had nothing to look for here. Jerusalem is Muslim." In the past, such comments could be seen as the exception. All of that changed at the Camp David Conference of June 2002: it was then that senior Israeli officials became aware that the claim that the Jews have no real connection to Jerusalem and the holy sites had not only been disseminated and become entrenched in Arab and Muslim communities and part of the public discourse, but was also been adopted by the Palestinian leadership.Indeed, a new study by Dr. Yitzhak Reiter, conducted for the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies states: "In the last generation, the Islamic and Arab history of Jerusalem has gradually been rewritten. At the heart of this new version is the Arabs' historic right to Jerusalem and Palestine. The main argument is that the Arabs ruled Jerusalem thousands of years before the children of Israel. In addition to building the Arab-Muslim case, the Muslim thinkers are formulating a denial and negation of the Jewish-Zionist narrative. Included in that effort is the de-Judaizing of the Temple Mount, the Western Wall and Jerusalem as a whole.
All Palestine is Al-Aqsa
Reiter, of the Hebrew University's Truman Institute, is a long-time specialist in the modern history of the Middle East. He reviewed a collection of religious rulings by key muftis in the Muslim world and Internet sites of Islamic movements; he pored over many of the popular theoretical books in Arabic that deal with Jerusalem and sifted through reports and articles on the issue, dating back to 1967; and he says: "New myths, some of them fictitious and some of them based on facts on the ground, transform the stories about Al-Aqsa into furious struggle"; Yasser Arafat and Sheikh Raed Salah, like the grand mufti of Jerusalem at the turn of the previous century, Sheikh Haj Amin al-Husseini, along with many others "are using the religious symbols of Jerusalem to enlist the entire Muslim world in its struggle," and this is being done in several ways.
The Muslims are slowly dropping use of the name given to the Temple Mount complex - Haram al-Sharif, which gave it its status as the third holiest site in Islam and reverting to exclusive use of the earlier name, Al-Aqsa, which appears in the Koran.
"Al-Aqsa" now refers to the entire Temple Mount complex, including the Western Wall, and not just the mosque. The tradition connecting the three mosques in Mecca, Medina and Al-Aqsa is being used by the Palestinians to exert pressure on Muslim states by saying that "making a mockery of Al-Aqsa will lead to a mockery of the holy sites in Mecca and Medina, because there is a connection between that must not be broken" (the Palestinian minister of Waqf affairs, Sheikh Yusef Salameh, in November 2002).
At the same time there is growing use of the term "Al-Aqsa" as a symbol and a name for different institutions and organizations, be it a Jordanian army journal, a Palestinian police unit established by the Palestinian Authority in Jericho, the Fatah terrorist cells known as the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade or Internet sites of the northern and southern branches of the Islamic Movement and organizations they have set up and, of course, in the current intifada and the Arab summit convened in its wake.
Contrary to the standard history whereby the Al-Aqsa mosque was built in the seventh century, in recent years an ancient tradition from the beginning of Islam has been gaining ground. According to it, the Al-Aqsa mosque was built 40 years after the construction of the mosque in Mecca by Adam (i.e., close to the seven days of creation). Other traditions that appear in the Waqf administration offices in Jerusalem attribute the building of the mosque to Abraham and Solomon, as Islamic figures, with no connection to Judaism. The former Jordanian minister of Waqf affairs, Abed al-Salaam al-Abadi, Sheikh Raed Salah and Islamic Internet sites refer to Abraham as the builder of the Al-Aqsa mosque 4,000 years ago.
For hundreds of years, Jerusalem has been known in Islam as a sanctified place first and foremost for having been designated as the place where prayers should be directed (kabila) before Mohammed adopted the Kaaba in Mecca as the kabila. In general, Jerusalem was the direction of prayers for 16 months. However, now the view that Jerusalem served this purpose for some four years and four months is experiencing a revival. The Palestinian Authority-appointed mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Akram Sabri and Sheikh Yusef Kardawi, the most popular mufti in the Muslim world, who currently lives in Qatar, are only two heralds of this message. The verse in the Koran that mentions Al-Aqsa mosque and goes on to explain "whose surroundings we have blessed" is meriting an expanded interpretation. The surroundings of Al-Aqsa mosque are not narrowly defined, as was the case in the past, and they are now providing an opening for the interpretation that Al-Aqsa refers to all of Jerusalem, and most recently, it refers to all of Palestine.Members of the Saudi royal family, Palestinian archaeologists (such as Dr. Dimitri Baramki), Sheikh Kardawi, Syrian clerics and others all identify the Jebusites as an ancient Arab tribe that wandered from the Arabian peninsula, together with the Canaanites, around 3,000 years B.C.E. and therefore predated the children of Israel in the land.
The "fabricated" Temple
The new history most jarring to Jewish hearers is that the First and Second Temple are lies fabricated by the Jews. In public discourse among Arabs, participants regularly add the word "al-maz'um" - that is, the presumptive or fabricated - when referring to the Jewish Temple. Mufti Sabri says that there are no remnants proving the Jews' claim that there was a temple on the site.
The current Jordanian minister of Waqf affairs, Ahmed Khalil, said last year that Israel is trying to intervene in Al-Aqsa affairs and conduct excavations beneath the mosque in order to build the fabricated temple there. Arafat Hajazi, a member of the southern branch of the Islamic Movement, asks in an article published in 2002 on the movement's Web site why the Jews did not build their Temple during the longer than 500-year period between the time it was destroyed a second time by Titus and Abed el-Malik built Al-Aqsa mosque; he also notes that hundreds of archaeological delegations have conducted excavations in the vicinity of Al-Aqsa and not one of them has found remnants of the Temple.
In another article, which recently appeared on the Internet site of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, Egyptian archaeologist Abed al-Rahim Rihan Barakat, the manager of the archaeological site at Dahab in Sinai, writes, "The myth of the fabricated Temple is the greatest crime of historical forgery."
A fatwa on the Internet site of the Waqf in Jerusalem states that David, Solomon and Herod did not build the Temple, rather they repaired something that had been there since the time of Adam.
There is a similar campaign of denial with regard to the Western Wall and it has two aspects: one is the identification of the Western Wall as a sacred place for Muslims because the prophet Mohammed tethered his horse Al-Buraq there and that it is part of the Al-Aqsa mosque; and the other is the argument that the Jews fabricated the Western Wall as a place that is sacred to them, and they have no historical connection to it. Palestinian and Egyptian religious authorities have issued fatwas to that effect.
"Al-Aqsa is in danger" continues to be the motto of articles by Muslim figures and the focus of mass rallies organized each year by the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel. "The most far-flung Muslim communities hear the stories about the Palestinian struggle over their sacred site and through the political tale the revised religious traditions are also internalized," says Reiter. The fact that Israel's official policy - as embodied in the decisions of the Chief Rabbinate Council, the government and the High Court of Justice - leaves the administration of the Temple Mount in the hands of the Muslim Waqf is not recognized in the contemporary Muslim world. On the contrary, "the activities of extremist Jewish entities, some of them minuscule, to revive the [First] Temple ritual, is perceived and disseminated by Palestinian sources as if it is a reflection of official policy," says Reiter.
Reiter's work was delivered as a position paper to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was discussed yesterday at a seminar at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. Two main conclusions emerged from the discussion. One is that Jerusalem, today, more than in the past, is a pan-Muslim Arab issue and therefore a decision regarding it cannot be made by the Palestinians alone. Secondly, any Arab official seeking to work out an arrangement for Jerusalem and the holy sites is constrained by the Islamic religious world and thus as a negotiator has little room to maneuver.
Posted by Robert at May 11, 2004 10:21 AM
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What a load of utter bollocks! The nazis had their own version of history too.
Posted by: Crusader Front at May 11, 2004 10:59 AMIn the world of advertising they know when you have something that works, stick with it, reinforce the message. The intifadah works. It is bulletproof in the media, the U.N., Europe, and the Muslim world. Blaming the Jews works. It is a time honored tradition. It is so much easier than fixing problems in their society. Indeed, if they address their problems it would lead to revolution. Blaming the Jews for everything keeps everybody happy and busy little hands occupied; it keeps nice vibes coming from Europe. Plus, the message is easy to understand, especially among the uneducated. Just don't let them know that Jews represent one quarter of one percent of the world's population or they might start to see through the cracks.
Posted by: Luigi at May 11, 2004 11:13 AMKeep in mind that Islamists also claim to have discovered the Americas AND that there were Muslim Indian tribes.
Now, how long before those myths get as entrenched as the "Al'Aqsa" lie?
Posted by: Robert Crawford at May 11, 2004 11:40 AM"All propaganda has to be popular and has to adapt its spiritual level to the perception of the least intelligent of those towards whom it intends to direct itself."
"The great masses of people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one."
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, ch.2
"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
"The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history."
"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."
"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
"He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him."
George Orwell
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/george_orwell.html
Posted by: Mentat at May 11, 2004 12:32 PM"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
I didn't understand (had been brainwashed to some degree, I admit it) the whole idea of men until I read a book called SEX IN HISTORY. No, it's not about sex. I finally could see that without men and their "rough" nature, humanity wouldn't have survived. Of course without women and their qualities, humanity wouldn't have survived either.
But today in this Alice Thru the Looking Glass society we inhabit, men are supposed to wear Birkenstocks, eat quiche and get in touch with their feminine side. Violence is bad--except if we see it on screen from Quentin Tarentino then it's art--woe be to anyone who hurts someone's feelings etc. We are going to be Politically Corrected to death literally. We're getting softer than well-aged Brie.
War is terrible. Everyone should die of old age in their sleep. But that's not the way it is. And our guys are going to go out there and kill people, sacrificing themselves the way men have always done, so the rest of us survive.
Except that now this whole notion is coming under fire. We have the leftists who seem to be willing to cave to the jihadists and take away the true strength of our military and men across the board.
This is a very sad time in our culture and we better start to get it right or we won't have a culture to lament much longer.
Posted by: Jem Blume at May 11, 2004 1:00 PMHistory should certainly be studied, but the results will not be as the Muslims claim. There is evidence, for example, of the non-Hijazi origins of Islam; Mecca was, it appears, not even noticed by 7th century travellers. The Arabs did not exit Arabia, swords swinging, Qur'an in hand. No, they had been leaving Arabia for quite some time, and settling among the much more advanced, wealthy, populous peoples of the Middle East, both Christians and Jews. Some of those Christians and Jews spoke Aramaic, or Greek, or other tongues; some spoke Arabic.
Who, or what group, began to concoct a new religion, by weaving fabulous tales of a Muhammad ("The Praised One"), needs to be investigated. Some suggest it was Abdel Malik, he who took a typical Byzantine martyrium, put on it some inscriptions in Arabic that are generally passed off as "Koranic" but are not canonical, and made it into the Dome of the Rock, which has very little Islamic about it.
In any case, it was hardly surprising that the new belief-system, which was designed to appeal to those who had been conquered, or who would be conquered, by Arabs, would have taken large amounts of Judaism and Christianity (rather imperfectly recalled -- even wildly distorted at times, as with the story of "Uzra" whom the Jews believed, according to the Muslims, to be the Son of God), and added it to the pre-existing Arab pagan beliefs -- djinss, what have you. It went into the stew of Islam, and so too did elements, when Persia was conquered, of Zoroastrianism and manichaeism. Far better, when you are conquering others, to offer them something, designed to justify and promote your own sugjugation of them, that is familiar to them in some way, contains elements of their own pre-existing beliefs.
And that's how Islam was born. And like Topsy, it just grew. Had it remained the belief-system, say, of 50,000 people, rather than 1 billion, we would have no difficulty in seeing it for the dangerous and mentally-stunting set of beliefs that it is, like some of the other cults we have confronted. Non-Muslims are refusing to see Islam for what it is, and has been, and instead solemnly according it respect because of the sheer numbers of its believers. Silly, but humanly understandable.
Posted by: Hugh at May 11, 2004 2:21 PMHugh: " Non-Muslims are refusing to see Islam for what it is"
Not me mate, I woke up sometime ago. We need to start prodding other people.
Posted by: bob at May 11, 2004 2:53 PMRe: "Years ago, a group of archaeology students from Bar-Ilan University went to Jerusalem's Kidron Valley, hoping to save archaeological remnants from earth the Waqf [Muslim religious trust] had dug up on the Temple Mount and dumped in the riverbed. A Waqf official who noticed the students began yelling at them. One sentence struck them in particular: "You have nothing to look for here, just as the Crusaders had nothing to look for here. Jerusalem is Muslim."
BUT I SAY: Why take the trouble to dump this excavated earth in the riverbed? The action contradicts the words. They must have had a concern, a worry, which they do not admit. Otherwise the dirt would have been disposed of nearby, like any ordinary dirt. It must follow that they did not want anyone looking through this earth. But if there can be nothing Jewish in it, why be concerned?
To all,
After reading all the views here, i personally feel that something said by prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that some of the non-believers will always question the legitimacy of Islam and adviced Muslims(followers of Islam) to tell to such people that 'Your faith is with you and my faith with me' and asked muslims not to criticise other's faith.
As this site seems to attract an awful lot of Jewish and a one or two christian people, i would like to ask something
1) Do Jewish people believe that prophet Isa (Jesus) ever existed?
2) Christians in the same way don't agree prophet Muhammad to exist
3) Jews and Christians (both people of the scripture) deny existance of the last prophet Muhammad.
I think to the best of my knowledge none of the series of great prophets (including Abraham, Moses and jesus (peace be on all of them) mentioned that they were the last and no other prophet will come after them.
Neither the holy Torah nor Injeel (Gospel) claims Moses(peace be upon him) and Jesus(peace be upon him) to be the last prophet.
So is it just because that prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) came after Moses and Jesus, Jews and Christians should unite in disregarding Islam by calling it as a religion prepared in an Arab backyard.
As a Muslim i can tell you from my understanding of the holy Kuran, that there are dedicated chapters in Kuran about the greatness of Prophets like Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus (peace be upon all of them) and also on Maryam(mother of Jesus).
If Islam was just a cooked up religion, then why all the praises of the great prophets and confirmation of what they confirmed already in the Holy Koran.
Open your eyes mates. May Allah guide us all to the straight path of Islamic Monotheism.
All the best.
Posted by: Rashid Siddiqui at May 11, 2004 5:57 PMDear Rashid,
Get your facts right! Jews do believe Jesus existed. They just deny that He is the Messiah.
Christians and Jews do believe in the historicity of Mohammed, we just think that he was deluded and a false prophet. If you can't take that withot getting violent then you have no place in the society of civilised nations.
The Qu'ran tells us that Jesus was born of a virgin, worked miracles, rose from the dead and will return before the end. It denies that Jesus died on the cross. If He didn't die, how could He rise from the dead? The Resurrection is proof that the Cross was an injustice. But Mohammed never understood this.
Mohammed,himself, affirmed that he, Mohammed, did none of these things. How then is he the greater prophet? Surely we should listen to the teachings of someone whom God raised from the dead and not to the ramblings of a self-confessed illiterate who had to ask his wife if his visions were from God? She was wrong.
Posted by: Corin at May 11, 2004 7:03 PMRashid, "As a Muslim i can tell you from my understanding of the holy Kuran, that there are dedicated chapters in Kuran about the greatness of Prophets like Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus (peace be upon all of them) and also on Maryam(mother of Jesus)."
If I write a book after someone read me the quran, and included all the people I had heard about, would that mean I could claim all of Islam is mine. No obviously not.
But mohommad just plagiarised (badly) on the sources available to him, the old and new testament, the talmud, arab folklore. Plagiarism is not a mark of prophecy. Especially when it is done badly.
Mohommad for instance confuses the mother of Jesus with the sister of Aaron. They lived a millenium apart.
In the end Muslims will justify their faith though the most infantile of circular arguments.
1-Quran holy book because mohommad said so.
2-Mohommad holy prophet because gave quran.
Rashid, look at Mohommads life. His murders, his rapes, his genocide in Medina, his temper tantrums, his assasinations of aged critics, his paedophilia and worst of all his claim that his life was a high example to live up to. Compare him with the life of Jesus and ask yourself one simple question. Who should guide me, a good man or a bad man.
Posted by: peter at May 11, 2004 7:25 PMRashid:
"Muslims are the first victims of Islam. Many times I have observed in my travels in the Orient, that fanaticism comes from a small number of dangerous men who maintain the others in the practice of religion by terror. To liberate the Muslim from his religion is the best service that one can render him."
Enerst Renan
Why did Allah change the Qibla? If he is all powerful and all-knowing, why did he make a mistake?
Why did Allah allow Muhammad to have more wives than other Muslim men?
Why did Allah allow Muhammad to marry his sister-in-law?
Why did Allah give Muhammad a fifth of the booty from his caravan raids?
Why did Allah make mistakes with his revelations and have to abrogate verses?
If Allah has no sons or daughters, what are the angels and jinn?
Why do Muslims no longer practice slavery openly? Allah permits it and does not forbid it. Why then do you not practice it openly? Are you ashamed that Allah permits slavery?
Why did Muhammad insist on attacking and killing innocent people who did not want to join his religion? How could a great religious figure order and condone assasinations? How could a great religious figure actually kill another human being in battle?
How could a great religious figure such as Muhammad be so interested in sex and booty and the things of this world?
Why did Muhammad make Safa and Marwa, two hills that were held in reverence by pagan arabs, "beacons of Allah"? 2:157 Why should these pagan objects of worship concern Allah?
Why has Allah favored Western civilization? Could it be that Allah likes us and not you?
Rashid,
Actually, the New Testament is clear: There is to be no further prophets after Jesus EXCEPT false prophets, with the exception of exactly TWO, who will appear at the same time, at the end of days.
If what Mentat writes above is true ["Why did Allah make mistakes with his revelations and have to abrogate verses?"] then you must admit that Mohammed was a false prophet, since even one falsehood negates the entirety, according to the Old Testament. There are no abrogations in true prophesy.
Posted by: urthshu at May 11, 2004 8:44 PMThanks for pointing out how the falsification of History is such an important aspect of Islamic Jihad.
This is indeed neglected, whilst so many concentrate on the horrors commited by Islam.
In the background the web is constantly being spun.
The history of Israel has been one of the main targets of their revisionist.
I tremble with a deep fear and horror when I see the the Falastin Arabs, Muslim and Christian alike, claiming a Canaanite and Jebusite heritage. What happened to Ishmael and Aram? Do not the Syrian Christian clerics, who once claimed the heritage of Aram know the Old Testament, and that these were an accursed people; and that Israel's expulsion from the land was because Israel imitated their abominations? I fear that the world--and the Middle East in particular--is in for a very rocky road ahead
The Prophet (PBUH) married a nine year-old girl when he was 63. They were engaged since she was 6 and he was 60. Then he (PBUH)married her but it was a REAL MARRIAGE, this 63 year-old man penetrated and used sexually a 9 year old girl. Well, in my book, that is a GREEEEEEEEATTTT man of GOD. O yes, sure.
Urthshu: Yes, the Koran has several places in which verses are abrogated and the Eternal Decisions of The Most High are changed over night.
I do not really care what the Koran says. I care what people who practice Islam do. I judge Islam by its actions, not its words.
Muslims use Islam to justify injustices such as murder, enslavement and other evils.
Islam is a handy tool of injustice and evil.
Islam does not kill people; people who use it do.
Posted by: Lawrence at May 13, 2004 2:44 AM
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