Wanly did not offer chapter and verse in this report, but we’re probably going hear a lot about apologists’ favorite verse to cherry-pick, Qur’an 5:32 (no one ever includes 5:33 for fuller context, of course), which reads: “We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.”
“For other than…”: “That’s the problem: there is always an “except,” an “unless,” a “but.” And “corruption in the land” as an offense has a certain, inherent elasticity. Conveniently, the imam utterly leaves out the complete, clear, textual exhortations (to paraphrase his emphatic, threefold modifiers) to open-ended warfare (9:5) to subjugate unbelievers (9:29) and the Qur’an’s denunciation of them as apes and swine (2:63-66, 5:59-60, 7:166), and as the vilest of creatures (98:6).
Could some of that have influenced Mohamud, a young Muslim wanting to bring about Allah’s will on earth, and whose hatred was validated by Allah’s own words?
After all, Allah doesn’t exactly mince words there. “FBI: attempted tree-lighting bomber Corvallis resident, former OSU student,” by Kelly Koopman for KVAL, November 27:
CORVALLIS, Ore. — Those who know 19-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud say the Somali-born man seemed to be a normal American trying to make a change in the world around him.
“He seemed like he wants to do something to change something,” said Yosof Wanly, an imam at the Al-Farisi Islamic Center. “That’s what he thinks in his own mind and he took that initiative.”
Wanly said Mohamud had a difficult childhood moving from Somalia at a young age with his father before relocating to Beaverton.
If Mohamud wanted to change something, at the very least the naturalized U.S. citizen has created a major stir among law enforcement and millions of Oregonians. […]
… Mohamud said he had been devoted to carrying out violent jihad since the age of 15. According to the affidavit, Mohamud also wrote that he chose Oregon because “it’s Oregon and Oregon, like you know, nobody ever thinks about it.”
When asked by the undercover agents why he wanted to attack the Portland Christmas tree lighting, he said he chose it because he was looking “for a huge mass that will…be attacked in their own element with their families celebrating the holidays.” He also explained that he wanted “whoever is attending that event … to leave either dead or injured.”
But those words of violence never came up between Mohamud and his imam Yosof Wanly. Wanly said he had “average teacher-student” conversations with Mohamud and that he never thought an attack like this would even cross Mohamud’s mind.
“In my humble opinion, there were wasn’t [sic] anything that would prompt me to think he would plan this. It’s completely, clearly, textually denounced in the Islamic religion,” said Wanly. “He took that initiative without seeking any advice from anybody and he went overboard.”
Wanly said Mohamud had visited the Islamic center on an inconsistent basis for the last year and a half….
…And so it can’t possibly have anything to do with Islam. Back to sleep, everybody.