Nor will the students be told about the magnitude of the destruction and killing wrought by Muslim armies. The ferocity of the Muslim attacks, the gigantic loss of life, can be elided: “Muslim armies tried repeatedly to conquer India, and to spread the faith of Islam; ultimately they succeeded at both.” That is one way to tell the story of the Muslim conquest of India. Another way, which Mansur Saddiqzai will certainly not attempt, would be to tell the students that 70-80 million Hindus were killed in India over several centuries of Muslim (Mughal) rule, and tens of thousands of Hindu temples and temple complexes destroyed. I suspect more attention will be given in these classes to the mythical harmonious “convivencia” (co-existence) of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Islamic Spain, to the “peaceful” spread of Islam to the East Indies, and to the Crusades, where the Crusaders, those “barbaric Franks” who made Jerusalem’s streets run with blood, are contrasted to that paragon of Muslim magnanimity, the noble Saladin.
As for the “identity struggles” and “feelings of alienation” of the students, isn’t it the Islamic supremacy instilled in them that makes it hard for them to reconcile their being Muslims, “the best of peoples” (3:110), with living alongside, and having to treat as equals, the “most vile of created beings” (98:6)? They ask: “Do I fit in?” “Why do Germans reject me?” Could it have anything to do with the behavior of a great many Muslims all over the world? Might the way non-Muslims are treated in Muslim lands — think only of how many churches have been blown up in recent years, of how many Copts, Catholics, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Yazidis have been murdered by Muslims — suggest why some Germans “reject” Muslims? And how could Germans fail to be influenced by the more than 30,000 attacks by Muslim terrorists, all over the globe, since 9/11?
Mansur Saddiqzai should have his students discuss what the texts and teachings of Islam inculcate, and why many Germans believe those texts cannot be reconciled with an advanced, tolerant, Western society. The students should be told that 109 verses in the Qur’an command Muslims to wage violent Jihad against the Unbelievers. They might discuss in class a few representative verses that instruct them to kill the Infidels — 2:191-193, 4:89, 9:5, 9:29, 47:4 — as well as those that explicitly call for Muslims to “strike terror” in the hearts of their enemies, such as 3:151, 8:12, and 8:60, and be asked how, if they were not Muslims, they would react to such verses. Might some of the students even display a glimmer of understanding, and empathy, for Horst Seehofer, and Thilo Sarrazin, and the AfD? Dare one hope?
“When a German asks me which country I’m from, I tell them Turkey,” said Gulendam Velibasoglu, 17, who is taking Seddiqzai’s 10th-grade Islam class this year. She was born and raised in this western German city. Still, she says, “If I said ‘German,’ they wouldn’t accept the answer. They will see me as a foreigner, even though I’m a German citizen.”
Again, we are led to conclude from this girl’s self-pitying tale that Germans inexplicably do not consider even Muslims who are born and bred in Germany to be true Germans. It must be their intolerance, their baseless Islamophobia — for what other explanation could there possibly be? Does Mansur Saddiqzai feel the need to discuss those verses in the Qur’an that teach a murderous contempt and hatred for all non-Muslims? Does he explain that these texts, along with the observable behavior of Muslims, are what prompt German alarm? I suspect he does not.
Germany has the European Union’s second-largest Muslim population after France, according to estimates by Pew Research. In 2016, 4.95 million people, or 6.1 percent of the German population, were Muslim. But less than half of those pray regularly, and even fewer regularly attend a mosque, according to the latest government surveys.<
The country’s leaders have expressed an ambivalent view of Islam, at best. Seehofer’s statement that “Islam does not belong to Germany” came just months after the Islam-bashing AfD, or Alternative for Germany, entered parliament. Merkel denounced the statement and ruled out sharing power with the AfD. Nevertheless, the AfD has steadily gained support over the past two years: On Oct. 14, it scored the biggest electoral gains of any party in Bavaria, Germany’s most populous state.
The AfD is again consigned in this report to the outer darkness, this time described not as “far-right” but as “Islam-bashing.” Why not describe its policy, less tendentiously, as being “islamocritical”?
mortimer says
Islamic Victimology 101 – in this course, students will learn about the systemic origin of Islamophobia since the time of the prophet of Islam (see Koran 9.56-57 … where we read about people in the early Islamic community who were pretending to be Muslims, because they were Islamophobic and afraid of being killed by Muslims). We will discuss where such Islamophobia against the religion of peace comes from and discuss how Muslims have traditionally defended themselves against Islamophobia and how they pushed back against anti-Muslim forces and smashed resistance to the religion of peace. We will discuss how we can STOP ISLAMOPHOBIA today through various means by imitating what the prophet did in 7th century Arabia.
(sarc/off)
gravenimage says
+1
mortimer says
It’s ironic, but the clueless leaders of Germany don’ see it. Their policy of ENCOURAGING THE GROWTH of Islam in Germany is EXACTLY THE WISH of Adolf Hitler.
Hitler thought ISLAM was more suited to VIOLENCE, AMORALITY and a CONQUERING WARRIOR-SPIRIT.
In addition, Islam is SYSTEMICALLY very ANTI-SEMITIC, having more anti-Semitism in its texts than there is in Mein Kampf !
So, the leaders of Germany are following HITLER in matters of religion. THEY ARE ISLAMIZING GERMANY.