Thursday, June 4, 2009

Muslim- Jewish Relations, What is Wrong Here?

I found this website that translates the Sura book 2. Honestly, I am very confused by Islam. Let me just bring a couple of quotes from there that talk about what Islam should think about other religions.

"[2:62] Surely, those who believe, those who are Jewish, the Christians, and the converts; anyone who (1) believes in GOD, and (2) believes in the Last Day, and (3) leads a righteous life, will receive their recompense from their Lord. They have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve."

Here it seems like the religion of Islam is supposed to respect and accept the other monotheistic religions. It even says that these other monotheistic religions "have nothing to fear."

[2.120] "And the Jews will not be pleased with you, nor the Christians until you follow their religion. Say: Surely Allah's guidance, that is the (true) guidance. And if you follow their desires after the knowledge that has come to you, you shall have no guardian from Allah, nor any helper."

This passage, that i found here, that if you follow Judaism or Christianity you will not be saved. Apparently, unless you follow Islam, you will not be saved. This seems to contradict the previous quote.

At the same site I found this: [5.51]" O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people."

This is troublesome since it seems like the Koran teaches Muslims not to befriend non-Muslims. In fact, it goes so far to say that Muslims that befriend non-Muslims must not be real Muslims. This completely destroys any chance of Muslim-non-Muslim relations.

These sources are a little confusing and leave me befuddled. Why does the Koran seemingly contradict itself? Why does the Koran seem to tolerate Jews and Christians and then completely reject them?

Leaving these issues aside, there seems to be an immense hatred for Jews, even from countries that are supposed to be Israel's allies. I found on this site an article in a widely read Egyptian magazine something very disturbing. It was written in The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), August 17, 2004 authored by Hussam Wahba.

At the beginning of the article it says this:
"... The Jews forgot that their primary constitution, on which they rely, is full of intellectual religious terrorism against all other nations. Aqidati decided to wage a battle against International Zionism in order to expose the extent of terrorism that exists in the Zionist doctrinal mind.

The truth of the matter is that the Jews themselves do not deny [the existence of] Zionist terrorism. Whoever visits the Israeli parliament known as 'The Knesset' will notice at the main entrance a sentence written on the wall saying: 'Compassion towards a non-Jew is forbidden, if you see him fall into a river or face danger, you are prohibited from saving him because all the nations are enemies of the Jews and when a non-Jew falls into a ditch, the Jew should close the ditch on him with a big boulder, until he dies, so that the enemies will lose one person and the Jews will be able to preserve their dream of the Promised Land, the Greater Israel!"

If this is how an article starts, doesn't that show a few problems? How can you START a conversation with a hateful lie? This just shows where this article is going.

There are several other hateful lies that are contained within this article, but there is one major one that I would like to bring. This part focuses on blood libels and other false ideas of how Jews treat Gentiles.

"Dr. Jama al-Husseini Abu Farha, instructor in theology at the University of Suez, points out that what the media shows us every day about Israeli conduct in the occupied territories is no different than what their history shows us about their inhumane practices towards humanity as a whole.
One need only point out that they are 'blood suckers' according to the Talmudic dictates, which urge them to murder and draw the blood of Muslims in particular, and Christians even more so, and to use this blood in religious Israeli rituals."

What is almost comical about this statement is its inherent ignorance. The Talmud was written before Muslims existed, so it is impossible that the Talmud teaches that Jews should draw bloods from Muslims. This is besides the fact that it is a straight out lie. The Talmud, nor the Torah, ever says that we should draw blood from Gentiles.

Another ridiculous claim to "prove" that blood libels actually occurred is this:

"Since admission is the highest form of evidence, we will present to the reader a letter of confession written by the Jewish Rabbi known as 'Neophytos the Convert [to Christianity].'(4)
The letter has to do with the Jews slaughtering non-Jews, draining their blood, and using it for Talmudic religious rituals. Neophytos called his letter 'The Secret of the Blood'; in it he said that 'from a young age, the Jewish Rabbis teach their students how to use non-Jews' blood to treat illnesses and for sorcery..."

Does the Author of this article realize that a Jew that converts to Christianity is not an admission from a Jew. It is an admission from a man that hates Judaism, this is why he converted. At the very least he was trying to gain favor with the Christians of the time. Therefore, it is not an admission of guilt in any way, it is a way for this man to get in good standings with his Christian brothers and prove he is a "good" Christian of that time.

If anyone would actually like to know the truth of how Jews are supposed to treat non-Jews, based on the Talmud and Bible, I wrote a post on it here and here.

Hopefully, we will all be able to get along. I hope that Muslim countries will read this verse and hold by it: "[2:62] Surely, those who believe, those who are Jewish, the Christians, and the converts; anyone who (1) believes in GOD, and (2) believes in the Last Day, and (3) leads a righteous life, will receive their recompense from their Lord. They have nothing to fear, nor will they grieve."

However, right now it seems like they are following this: " O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people."

3 comments:

Garnel Ironheart said...

Remember that the chapters of the Koran are arranged in terms of length, not the order in which they were written so later opinions might show up before earlier ones.

Remember also that early in his career Moe admired Judaism and created Islam to resemble it in many ways, hoping the Jews would convert and join his cause. When they rejected him, he rejected them and announced "two religions will not share Arabia".

It's been downhill since.

E-Man said...

Yeah, I realize these ideas. However, I am just stating how the Muslims treat Jews and the contradictions within the Koran. Basically, how can that be a G-Dly work if it contradicts itself with how to treat others. And furthermore, how can its people lie so blatantly? Especially the people that are supposedly our friends??

Daniel Greenfield said...

There actually is no contradiction

in 2:62, it a reference to those Jews and Christians who convert to Islam

see

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/016977.php

"Anyway, the Jews can get back into good graces with Allah by converting to Islam (v. 43). This might sail right by the English-speaking reader, since the translations exhort them to “steadfast in prayer” and to “practise regular charity” (as Abdullah Yusuf Ali has it), but in Arabic the word used here for prayer is salat (الصَّلاَة) and for charity zakat (الزَّكَاة); these refer specifically to Islamic prayer and almsgiving. Non-Muslims cannot pray salat or pay zakat. About the need for this conversion Ibn Kathir is forthright: “Allah commanded the Children of Israel to embrace Islam and to follow Muhammad.” Sayyid Qutb says that here Allah “invites the Israelites to join the Muslims in their religious practices, and to abandon their prejudices and ethnocentric tendencies.”