Egypt’s top Muslim cleric and head of Al Azhar, Dr. Ahmed al-Tayeb, recently spoke before the religious representatives of some 50 nations during a Cairo-based conference. The sheikh demonstrated once again that he is a master of exhibiting one face to fellow Muslims — one that supports the death penalty for “apostates,” calls for the totality of Sharia rule, and refuses to denounce ISIS of being un-Islamic — and another face to non-Muslims, Jews and Christians in particular.
Instead of honestly admitting that a special problem exists between Islam and violence — the way his president al-Sisi did a couple of years ago when he flatly declared before Egypt’s Muslim clergy, with Tayeb sitting in the front row, that Islamic teachings are “antagonizing the whole world” — Tayeb spent his time denouncing “Islamophobia” and bemoaning how “painful” it is to see so many people around the world associate Islam with violence and terrorism.
At one point he even boasted that, from its very beginnings, Islam has always treated non-Muslims — “infidels,” the Arabic kuffar, that is, the most despised forms of humanity whose blood can be shed with impunity in many cases according to Sharia — as equals.
But the farcical claims did not end there. The Al Azhar sheikh insisted that, when it comes to its capacity to “radicalize” its followers, Islam is no different than Christianity or Judaism. Rather, only Jewish and Christian “double standards” make Islam appear more violent and intolerant. In his own words:
There is an obvious double standard in the world’s judgment of Islam on the one hand, and [its judgment of] Christianity and Judaism on the other — despite the fact that all are guilty of one and the same thing, that is, religious violence and terrorism. Christian and Jewish violence is a cool and casual matter for the West, which never besmirches the image of these two religions. Only their third brother [Islam] stands trial alone on the dock, where his image is constantly marred.
This assertion flies in the face of reality. Not a day seems to pass by without some Muslim(s) attacking some non-Muslim(s) somewhere around the world — and almost always in the name of Islam and/or jihad.
Moreover, in his speech Tayeb spoke of “Christian” and “Jewish” “terrorism and violence” — as opposed to merely “Christian terrorists” or “Jewish terrorists” — thereby portraying Christianity and Judaism, the religions themselves, as equally liable to prompt their followers to terrorize, subjugate, behead, crucify, mutilate, enslave, and — why not? — extract jizya from non-Christian and non-Jewish “infidels.”
At one point, perhaps to give his otherwise abstract claims of equivalency some substance, Tayeb named as “Christian terrorists” Michael Bray (arrested in 1985 and imprisoned for four years in relation to abortion clinic bombings); Timothy McVeigh (1995 bombing of Oklahoma City federal building); and David Koresh (cult leader, killed during shootout in Waco, Texas, 1993).
Just how analogous these three men are to the question of Islamic terrorism is debatable. For starters, none of them cited authentic Christian teachings — or quoted Jesus — to justify their violence, the way Muslims regularly cite mainstream Islamic teachings and quote Muhammad verbatim; McVeigh referred to himself as an agnostic and Koresh was a cult leader denounced by practically every American Christian aside from his immediate devotees.
That Tayeb, who seems to have combed through every terrorist-style incident that can possibly be associated with Christianity could only come up with three — in 1985, 1993, and 1995 — further begs the question: how are these three examples, which span the course of more than 30 years (from 1985 to the present), supposed to be equivalent to the thousands if not tens of thousands of incidents of violence and terrorism committed around the world by highly pious and observant Muslims over the same time frame?
Indeed, since July 2011 alone, I have been compiling monthly reports of Muslim persecution of Christians, for a total of 66 reports. Each of these contains dozens of anecdotes of Muslims around the world — Egypt, Tayeb’s homeland never misses a month — persecuting, raping, enslaving, and slaughtering Christians, and attacking their churches, on the basis that they are undesirable “infidels.” While the majority of anecdotes in these reports are deemed “un-newsworthy” by Western mainstream media, if the persecutor was a Christian and the victim a Muslim, they would likely receive 24/7 blanket coverage.
That’s the real “double standard” we should all be decrying — not Tayeb’s imaginary “Islamophobia.”
Wayne says
Islam spead by the sword initially, and has NEVER stopped! The acts of these splinter groups like ISIL, Talaban , PLO etc are ONLY extremist examples of the proselytizing efforts of the “religion” in total.
Frank says
This is the same moron who wants to ban art after seeing his own face painted. Muslims breed terrorism but we breed American hero’s who exterminate evil.
Henner720 says
Sorry danish language. Plz put in a translator or sometjing. I wrote a message to dr.ahmed :
Jeg tænkt mig at skrive til Ahmad Muhammad Ahmad al-Tayyeb påal-azhar i cairo, og sige at jeg er påbegyndt på en q2 ( koran version 2). Jeg tænker enhver nu vil tænke idiot. Hvem kan f.eks ikke den legendariske oswald helmut fortolkning af brevet til bulganin.Det der skulle stå i brevet var :” kære ahmed, jeg er en mand fra scandinavien, som vil minde dig om en enestående chance for at gå over i verdenshistorien som en af de HELT store. Understøt min q2 som opliner et komplet alternativ til Deres nuværende q1, som er udmærket men mangler et par fornyelser. Q2 vil således frigøre hele den arabiske befolkning for et bagudskuende perspektiv på tilværelsen , og sætte en masse positive og glade tanker i gang i hele den islamiske sphære, til Deres og samt alle øvrige, ja faktisk hele verdens fordel.Alt skal komme Dem til ære, og det kan snart være nok med lutter kritik her fra vesten, vi må istedet hjælpe og forfatte den nye begyndelse, og hvorfor er det egentligt jer selv der skal tage hele slæbet? De forstår at vore ledere er idioter, merkel med hendes nedladende rigdoms pral, og trump med hans narcissisme. Beklager disses ubehjælpelighed, men tillad mig at ønske tillykke med Deres snarlige verdensberømmelse. Det forekommer Dem utvivlsom særdeles overraskende at løsningen kommer fra denne kant, og for at berolige Deres nerver kan vi opstille et narrativ, hvor allah ikke giver garantier mere.
De kommer til at fremstå som modtager af budskabet, hvorfor ved De ikke men når allah kalder, skulle man være st skarn for ikke at modtage budskabet ikke sandt.” Tillad mig en frist på en måned på det endelige manuskript, da mine facebook følgere lige skal have chancen for et par ideer til indholdet. Deres erbødigste scandinaviske mand.
mortimer says
The Koran, hadiths and other primary Islamic writings cannot be re-written or modernized. Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb upholds the jihad doctrine. He could easily call for a world-wide jihad at any moment.
mortimer says
Danish researcher Tina Magaard, Ph.D. concluded that Islam is the most warlike religion. After three years analyzing the original texts of ten different religions, Tina Magaard concluded that the Islamic texts stand out by encouraging terror and violence to a larger degree than other religions do. She stated that ‘Islamic texts encourage terror and fighting to a far larger degree than the original texts of other religions. The texts in Islam distinguish themselves from the texts of other religions by encouraging violence and aggression against people with other religious beliefs to a larger degree.’
“What is striking is not in itself that one can find murderous passages in the Islamic texts, as such passages can also be found in other religions. But it is striking how much space these passages take up in the Islamic texts, and how much they focus on an us-and-them logic in which infidels and apostates are characterized as dirty, rotten, criminal, hypocritical and dangerous. It is also striking how much these texts demand that the reader fight the infidels, both with words and with the sword. In many passages, Muhammad plays a central role as one who encourages the use of violence, whether it comes to stonings, beheadings, acts of war or execution of critics and poets.”
RationalVoice says
Yes that was my first impression of Islam. The sheer call to hatred and violence to Jews, Christians polytheists etcetera. Now there is violence in the Old Testament but not nearly so much and in the New Testament also but really in 2017 we should be over all this ancient rubbish and embrace solely the true enlightenment of Science and common sense when we are talking about morals
mortimer says
There are an average of 4.5 DEADLY JIHAD ATTACKS every single day of the year. One person KILLED by jihad every three minutes since Mohammed!
Total Death Toll from Jihad:
-270,000,000 KILLED / 1400 years = 192,857 deaths per year since Mohammed began his attacks.
-192,857 KILLED / 365 = 528 deaths per day since Mohammed began his attacks.
-528 KILLED / 24 (hours) = 22 deaths per hour since Mohammed began his attacks.
-22 KILLED / 60 minutes = 0.3669 per minute or one person KILLED by Islam every 3 minutes since Mohammed began his attacks.
Angemon says
What can I say? Islam is the gift that keeps on giving 🙂
Voytek Gagalka says
Master of Taqiyya (spreading lies in order to protect and promote Islam) at his best. No wonder they have chosen him, and no one else, as the top cleric and head of Al Azhar.
T.G. says
Hey. Liberals/Democrats. Anything for votes. Trudeau does today what his father did years ago. Wynn has her own equal and insane agenda. Both are on the same bus. Why they get away with it??? Canadians are easily bought. If you follow what these two did and are doing you’ll find them using Obama’s blueprint. Remember, the only democratic process we have is our vote. After that we pay the price. Does that make sense?
Will Doohan says
Do you mean Ahmed al-Tayeb or Raymond Ibrahim?
Ted says
Our Prime Minister of Canada sits in a Mosque, garbed in white robes with his Islamic friends in the front row. Our Female, Lesbian Premier cowers in the back corner with a rag on her head. Does this seem unusual to anyone else?
Kasey says
This is the guy who, in response to Egypt’s President al Sissi’s call for reform within Islam, says : that he can’t condemn ISIS terrorists for the brutal violence because “they still believe in Allah and the Last Days.”. It seems Islamic loyalty, no matter how brutal the activity, take precedence over all else!
Helene Shaw says
NOT ISRAEL… DON’T DRAG THEM IN THERE… THEY WANT THEM DEAD! THEY ARE NOT TERRORISTS.