Hassen Chalghoumi is an imam in Drancy, France who is that rare thing: a real, and not a feigned, Muslim moderate. That is, he dares to preach respect for Jews, calls for peace with Israel, asks that commemoration of the Holocaust be respected, and deplores the antisemitism displayed by so many Muslims. For this he has received thousands of death threats, his house has been ransacked, his car torched, and members of his family must live under assumed names. A report on his calvary is here: “French imam recounts death threats from Islamists for asking to respect Holocaust,” Times of Israel, January 29, 2022:
A French imam known for his involvement in interfaith initiatives said he and his family have been living under threat from Islamists for years, emotionally recalling the toll the assaults and harassment have taken.
In an interview with France 2 TV this month, Hassen Chalghoumi said he first started receiving death threats in 2005, after calling for commemorations of the Holocaust to be respected.
“I made a solemn appeal to respect the memory of the Holocaust, to also think about what people did to their fellow human beings, the consequences of racism, hatred, antisemitism… But unfortunately, my words were misunderstood. Two days later, they ransacked my house,” he said, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute.
He spoke first about the Holocaust in 2005, but in the twisted minds of his fanatical enemies, to express sympathy for the Jews murdered by the Nazis was an act of treason. Showing sympathy for Jewish victims meant to take Israel’s side in its conflict with the Palestinians. In fact, at that time Chalghoumi had said nothing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No matter. He recognized the Holocaust as a great historical wrong and for that, he deserved to have his house ransacked, and death threats made against him. Ever since 2005, those death threats have not ceased.
“I started to receive death threats in the name of a cause that has nothing to do with [my words] — the Palestinian cause, in the name of an ideology of hatred, perhaps against Israeli policy, or out of actual antisemitism,” Chalghoumi continued. “And then I received anonymous calls and letters. In 2009, they torched my car, and they attacked my house.”
He and his entire family received death threats on the telephone and in the mail, and along with having his house ransacked several times, beginning in 2005, angry Muslims, determined to harm him, in 2009 set fire to his car, and smashed the outside of his house.
Many of the death threats Chalghoumi has received have been over his friendly ties with CRIF, the umbrella group representing French Jewish communities, and for visiting Israel several times.
Muslims are not supposed to make friends with Jews and Christians, “for they are friends only with each other” (Qur’an 5:51). Furthermore, the Qur’an tells Muslims that while they are “the best of peoples” (3:110), non-Muslims are “the most vile of created beings”(98:6). To a True Believer, Chalghoumi’s friendship with members of CRIF, the umbrella organization of French Jews, is intolerable. Still more appalling is the fact that Imam Hassen Chalghoumi has visited Israel several times, not to express solidarity with the Palestinians, but simply to see the Jewish state for himself, given how much ill has been said about it by his fellow Muslims. He apparently liked what he saw, and has returned to Israel on several occasions.
During a tour of the West Bank with settler leaders in 2019, Chalghoumi said support of boycotts of Israel ran against Quranic law, and that he hopes to encourage dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians so “no mother — not Israeli nor Palestinian — will cry” in the future.
Chalghoumi not only has visited Israel, but has toured the West Bank with leaders of the settler movement. For the Palestinians, this is intolerable lèse-majesté, a betrayal, a treasonous abandonment of the “cause of Palestine.” Muslims became even more enraged with Hassen Chalghoumi as a result.
Chalghoumi is something of an outlier in Muslim religious discourse, and was notable for supporting France’s ban on the burqa, or full face-covering….
“Something of an outlier”? That’s the understatement of the year. There is no other Muslim cleric quite like Hassen Chalghoumi.
Chalghoumi is not only a friend to French Jews, and a defender of Israel against its Muslim enemies, and even a friend to those stage-villains of the mainstream media, “Israeli settlers,” who took him on a tour of the West Bank, but is also a firm secularist in France. He understands, and supports, the French law that bans the burqa, which he regards as a symbol of misogyny and of Muslim defiance of the principle of laicité.
Chalghoumi blamed the head of a pro-Hamas group in France for some of the threats and said several terror groups have issued religious edicts calling for his death.
“In 2015, I had the Islamic State [against me]… In Syria, too, they issued a fatwa against me. Hezbollah, too, and Hamas. All those small groups don’t believe in light. You should know that the words of a moderate man of faith is a source of trouble for them. That’s why they issued a fatwa against me,” he said….
In other words, his sympathy for Jews, his insistence that Muslims, too, should commemorate the Holocaust and denounce the antisemitism that caused it, his willingness to embrace French Jewry, to visit Israel, to travel with Israeli settlers through the West Bank – all these admirable acts have made his life hell. His house has been ransacked several times, his car has been torched, the walls of his family home have been ’smashed and defaced, his own mosque in Drancy was invade by 80 angry Muslims who denounced him in front of his own congregation. Then there are the endless death threats made against him, the assault on his wife, the harassing of his children by Muslim classmates, the impossibility of going out with his family to a restaurant or a movie because of the constant threat of attacks not just on Chalghoumi himself, but on his wife and children too – all this, carried on with impunity, has transformed his existence. But he won’t stop, he won’t give up in the face of all these threats. He’s A Man For All Seasons.
The fanatics do not spare his family. His wife was spat upon, and told to divorce her husband. One of his daughters was assaulted,. All five of his children have been subject to verbal attacks by school classmates. Both his wife and his children have taken other names as a precaution. After he denounced the decapitation of Samuel Paty, whom he described as a “martyr for freedom of expression,” he received a new surge of death threats and at that point decided he had to have police protection, which President Macron granted. He now has two guards with him at all times, even when he is preaching in the mosque.
So far, he’s surviving. And in many ways, thriving. He hasn’t backed down an inch. His own mosque, in Drancy, is very large, with 3,000-4,000 worshippers, who obviously approve of what Chalghoumi preaches, for if they did not, they would simply go to a different mosque. If Islam is to have a future in France, it will have to be led by people like Hassen Chalghoumi. Right now, there is no one else in France quite like Hassen Chalghoumi. Cometh the hour, cometh the man….
mortimer says
Hassen Chalghoumi is the exception, rather than the rule in the Islamic community. He must realize (if he is realistic) that anti-Semitism is normative Islam, rather than an aberration.
Hassen Chalghoumi is trying to reform Islam, but he must know there is no mechanism in Islam to conduct reform. The so-called ‘doors of Ijtihad (the possibility of further theological development) were closed shut by the imams in 1111AD. Islam is thus considered to be theologically complete as of that year. Further discussion of Islamic theology or ideology is therefore heresy or KUFR.
Hassen Chalghoumi will continue to be punished if he contradicts mainstream anti-Semitic Islam.
Chess says
Better get some guts in the US, too.
John says
He’s an apostate according to his koran, and should recant his heresy or be killed. He needs to announce a reformation or new religion that takes all the hate and political system out of the koran. If you did that, however, you’d end up with something very similar to the Old Testament.
CogitoErgoSum says
So just exactly what is it that he likes about Islam and what does he find in the Koran that supports his position? What is his view on the abrogation of verses?
Infidel says
The question I’d have for Hassen Chalghoumi is, “Why is he still a muslim?” A few months ago, in India, a shi’a ex-Waqf official named Wasim Rizvi was getting death threats from muslims, as well as boycott calls, and after discussions w/ some Hindu priests, he converted to Hinduism. Hassen Chalghoumi should explore the religions aside from islam that makes sense to him and convert to one of those. There is no reason for him to keep on his islamic identity when he’s being hounded in spite of it
john smith says
I was thinking exactly the same thing Infidel, “why is he still a muslim.”
Janetmarie says
Thinking Hassan does not believe Islam ☪️ ACTUALLY can be such a vile religion and not support the entire human race. He is ATTEMPTING to move Islam out of the geo-political realm and into a philosophy of benefit to mankind..
James Lincoln says
He should be asked that question, Infidel.
“Why in the world are you still a muslim?”
gravenimage says
First thing I thought of.
gregbeetham says
He sort of explained that, the congregation who attend his Mosque, 3000 odd, like what he says so most of his congregation are probably apostate too.
Infidel says
In addition to apostatizing himself, he should encourage his congregants to do the same
Barbara says
Why are there not more speaking out as this man? Since he has the courage to speak out why are there more to follow his lead. Not all Muslims are terrorists, so the people need to follow his lead.
gravenimage says
Very few Muslims actually oppose the savage diktats of Islam.
gravenimage says
Hassen Chalghoumi and the Price He Pays
………….
If Hassen Chalghoumi is a genuine “moderate” Muslim, no wonder he is getting death threats from his orthodox coreligionists. *Ugh*.