|
Useful Fools Report Moslem Scholarsâ Denials of Beheadings in Koran
From Slate, an article by Lee Smith.... "Beheadings are not mentioned in the Koran at all," Imam Muhammad Adam El-Sheikh, co-founder and chief cleric at the Dar Al Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va., told USA Today. Yvonne Haddad, a professor at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University agreed, telling New York Newsday, "There is absolutely nothing in Islam that justifies cutting off a personâs head." If reporters bothered to open up a copy of the Quran, say, N.J. Dawoodâs Penguin Classics translation, theyâd find at least two relevant passages: God revealed His will to the angels, saying: "I shall be with you. Give courage to the believers. I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the very tips of their fingers." (Sura 8, Verse 12) ... it is simply wrong to say that the Quran does not mention beheadings or that there is absolutely nothing in Islam that justifies decapitation. Islamic history is giddy with heads separated from their bodies, a tradition detailed in news outlets that are generally considered right-wing and on conservative Web sites, but apparently whitewashed in the mainstream press. .... We really wish the Muslims who are lending their expertise to our infidel press would tell the truth. Otherwise, this conversation between cultures isnât going to work. We are surely destined for a very violent clash of civilizations if one dialogue partner will lie about something that is written down for anyone â even American journalists if they make the effort â to read. ... A group of American journalists has just returned from a trip to Syria and Lebanon, where they met with Syriaâs president, Bashar Assad, and the one-time spiritual guide of Hezbollah, Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. What are these Americans reporting from their travels? That Arabs like Americans but not U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Is this true? Well, it is surely in the interests of an Arab dictator and a Muslim cleric who wrote fatwas permitting suicide bombings against Israeli civilians to say it is true. If U.S. journalists are going to serve as dragomans for various sponsors and theorists of terrorism to the American public, at least they could push their interview subjects a little harder. .... One common complaint about Americans, including our press, is that we know very little about the Middle East. That may be true, but as complex as the subject is, knowledge of the Middle East is hardly gnostic wisdom available only to a few initiates. Thanks largely to the efforts of the oft-despised Orientalists, much of the history and literature of those cultures is accessible to anyone who is interested (a service, as this Muslim scholar explains, rendered to both the West and Islam). Much of it is even on the Internet. Certainly the press, when reporting on the Middle East and Islam, should question its sources at least as rigorously as it interrogates athletes suspected of steroid use, be more inclined to doubt than belief, and report fact rather than serve agendas. That is to say, whether or not beheading actually appears in the Quran is a matter of verifiable fact and not subject to the opinion of imams and professors who are apparently interested in advancing a message. If Americans have to start sorting through their news in the way that consumers of Arab media must, wondering which piece of information serves whose interests, we are inviting what would be a very ugly result of our current engagements in the Middle East: the Al-Jazeera-fication of the U.S. press. Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2004-07-02 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=36963 |