“Out of context.” “Anti-Muslim prejudice.” Not: “We repudiate now and forever any Islamic tradition or teaching that teaches hatred of and/or violence against Jews, and pledge to do all we can to offer benign reinterpretations of this material if it cannot be rejected outright, and to work against the effects of such teachings within the Muslim community.”
“New Cleveland imam hopes to ease Muslim-Jewish relations,” by David Briggs in the Cleveland Plain Dealer blog (thanks to Mary):
Ahmed Alzaree was looking forward to his new job as spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Cleveland. The stocky, spirited 38-year-old, who five years ago left his job as a physician in Egypt to become an imam in Omaha, Neb., wanted to be a voice for “tolerance, harmony and understanding.”
No sooner did Ohio’s largest mosque announce Alzaree’s hiring last month, than bloggers posted a portion of a 4-year-old end-times sermon in which the imam quoted the Prophet Muhammad saying one sign of the approach of the Day of Judgment is that “the Muslims will kill the Jews.”
Yes indeed. And it’s all the bloggers’ fault, you see. No would ever have gotten the idea that “The Muslims shall kill the Jews” meant anything crazy like “The Muslims shall kill the Jews” if it hadn’t been for those evil bloggers. Alzaree himself was “stunned” that anyone could have mistaken this as anything but an appeal for peace, love, and understanding:
Alzaree was stunned by the ensuing uproar. The Islamic Center of Omaha took his sermons off its Web site as allegations circulated on the Internet that Alzaree associated with an Egyptian cleric suspected of having terrorist ties.
In interviews this week, the imam said he and his wife considered backing out of the Cleveland offer. He said he knew about the lingering tension in Cleveland, where his predecessor, Fawaz Damra, had been deported, but “I did nothing wrong to defend myself [against].”
After lengthy conversations with his family and mosque leaders, the imam put aside his worries and will begin work Thursday at the center in Parma. He has vowed to make an extra effort to meet area Jewish and Christian leaders “to explain Islam, to explain myself to them.”
[…]
Muslim-Jewish relations in Northeast Ohio have been troubled since fall 2001 when a decade-old videotape of Damra, the previous imam, surfaced. It showed him railing against Jews “as the sons of monkeys and pigs” and raising money for Palestinian militant groups. Damra apologized, saying he made the remarks when he did not know the Jewish and Christian communities, and the mosque retained him as imam. But some members left in protest, and the center’s interfaith work was severely curtailed. In January, Damra was deported to the Middle East on charges he falsified his citizenship application by failing to disclose ties to extremist groups.
The celebration over Alzaree’s hiring was short-lived.
Bloggers quickly posted the 2003 sermon in which the imam included a controversial Hadith, a saying of Muhammad. “The hour of judgment shall not happen until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Muslims shall kill the Jews to the point that the Jew shall hide behind a big rock or a tree,” the Hadith reads in part.
Bloggers such as Patrick Poole of Central Ohioans Against Terrorism noted that Wagdy Ghoneim, a controversial cleric who left the country after being charged with violating his visa, spoke at the Omaha mosque when Alzaree was imam. Many in the Islamic community believe Ghoneim is a respected scholar, but some terrorism watchers say he preached hatred against Jews and raised funds for militant groups. Poole also wrote that the mosque’s Web site contained photographs and statements comparing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the Holocaust.
Steven Emerson, executive director of the Washington-based Investigative Project On Terrorism, said based on his study of Alzaree’s sermons and the mosque’s speaking invitation to Ghoneim, the imam “is a fairly typical Islamic fundamentalist who believes in a literal translation of the Koran. . . . In our parlance, he would be called a militant.”
Yehudit Barsky, director of the Division on Middle East and International Terrorism for the American Jewish Committee in New York, said the Hadith in Alzaree’s sermon is used today in the Muslim world to legitimize suicide bombings. “If one believes in interfaith dialogue, one should not use that Hadith,” she said.
Others offer a different view.
Zeki Saritoprak, professor of Islamic studies at John Carroll University, said the Hadith is part of the ambiguous, allegorical sayings of the prophet. He said Alzaree seemed to be using the saying as part of a discussion of the end times, and not in a political sense encouraging violence against Jews.
“We shouldn’t immediately accuse someone just for saying a saying of the prophet,” Saritoprak said.
Ashfaque Hussain, treasurer of the Islamic Center of Omaha, said Alzaree visited temples and participated in interfaith programs and gave no indication of being anti-Semitic. “When you talk to some people, you can feel that. He’s nothing like that,” Hussain said.
Alzaree said the allegations against him are unfounded.
He said the sermon gave many examples of Islamic teaching on the Day of Judgment, including such signs as the rising of the sun from the West, the appearance of an animal or beast to face the unjust and three eclipses. Alzaree said it was clear he was not urging action against any group, and the end-time events the prophet spoke of were in the future. The sermon began with a reminder that no one but Allah knows when judgment day will occur, and in the interim people are encouraged to “strive and struggle in the world doing the good and avoiding the bad and forbidden.”
Alzaree also said it was the administration at the Omaha mosque that invited Ghoneim to speak, and the cleric said nothing inflammatory. He said he was unaware of the Holocaust photographs and commentary on the Web site.
Of course.
Islamic Center of Cleveland leaders defended Alzaree. Abu-Shaweesh said the Islamic teaching was taken out of context, and the bloggers’ response is an example of anti-Muslim prejudice that undermines the mosque’s efforts to rebuild interfaith and community relations.
Out of context. Are we ever going to be told the context in which such statements become harmless?