Abu Ishaq Quotes

At the time, most Muslims and Jews of Andalusia lived together very amicably. Ibn Hazm was a brilliant scholar of philosophy, law, theology, and science and the leading Islamic intellectual of Andalusia. However, he had one major rival, a Jew named Samuel ibn Naghrela who was just as brilliant a scholar, but also one of the best military leaders, and physicians of the kingdom. (See {623786} & {623774}) Ibn Hazm was very jealous and tried to turn the Muslim Berber King Habbus al-Muzaffar against ibn Naghrela and other Jews. The king however made Samuel ibn Naghrela his hajib (prime minister / vizier) of Grenada in 1037. He was also made military commander and excelled at both areas while continuing his scholarly activity. Samuel ibn Naghrela held his political and military positions for 17 years and both these intellectuals wrote brilliant books in several field which added to the reputation of this era as the Golden Age of Islamic Spain.

Many Muslims did not want science and technology to fall into the hands of the heathens. Even today America limits the information and technological products that can be exported to the Islamic nations. At the time it was the case that some Christian and Jewish Scholars translated Islamic scientific treatises and promoted them under their own name, but most of the translations were published and labeled as such .The reason was that at that time Europe was emerging from the Dark Ages and was scientifically relatively ignorant whereas the Muslims had the best scientists and mathematicians in the world. It was more prestigious and credible to attribute science material to Muslims. At the same time, a good bit of the Islamic science texts were translations of the great Greek scientists and some Muslims offered it as their own. Most however translated the Greek works and labeled it as such. Ibn Abdun quotations are very important because he wrote many of the Islamic legal opinions that governed Muslim Spain and influenced the Arabs of North Africa.

Most people are familiar with the people are familiar with the terrible persecution of the Jews in Spain by the Christians. Although there were a few examples of tolerance to Jews by Muslims when they controlled Spain and instances like modern Turkey. Generally however there is and has been Islamic persecution of Jews, Christians, and other non Muslims in almost all nations where Muslims have been in control. Until the Enlightenment, Christian persecution of other religions was just as bad if not worse.

From a religious point of view a Christian or Jew was cursed, but ibn Naghrela had the respect of most (See {623787} ) and was the most influential citizen of a Golden Era of Muslim Spain. In 1056 he was assassinated by jealous Muslims.

The same article denies the fact that the Holocaust ever existed. Al-Akhbar was not just an ordinary newspaper. It is the Egyptian Government’s Official Daily Newspaper—the same Government that was the recipient of the second largest amount of United States foreign aid.

These kinds of inflammatory sermons are delivered with the approval of the king and royal family who crack down on any cleric who preaches what they do not approve of.

Toleration is a relative term. The Muslim Moors made Christians (and Jews) pay a special tax. At times they were forced to wear special clothing so that they could be readily identified. And they could not build churches larger or taller than the smallest mosque in the community. At times, their occupations were restricted but at other times Christians and Jews were appointed to the highest positions like Vizier. The Inquisition, in contrast, forced all Muslims (and Jews) to leave the country without any of their property or money or be tortured and killed—usually by burning at the stake unless of course that they converted to Christianity.

His quotations are very important because he wrote many of the Islamic legal opinions that governed Muslim Spain and influenced the Arabs of North Africa. This is yet another example of the classic antipathy that many Muslims have for People of the Book—Christians and Jews.

The attitude of the non-Muslims at that time was based on the Muslim attacks in the Punjab on Sikhs where entire Sikh villages and neighborhoods in towns and cities were murdered—every man woman and child. In many cases women were first raped. The Muslims had been whipped up by the leaders of the Muslim League to put terrorist pressure on the Sikh, Hindu and British to meet the League's political and territorial demands for an Independent Pakistan. Soon there was retaliation in kind and there were many Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims engaged in internecine slaughter and behaving "little better than animals".

The Nazis and most of the Arabs were allies in WWII. The Jews of Palestine—although they were opposed to many of the British policies regarding Palestine—were active in the Allied cause contributing units to the British Army. Although the Germans were brutal to civilians, murdering millions, they refrained from public pronouncements or exhortations to kill civilians in most cases. The Arabs did not. The Mufti was actually given the rank of General in the Nazi SS and had his own SS unit. In this despicable exhortation he actually uses a concept and wording from the Koran. See {584355}. This quotation is important in that it refutes a common claim by some Palestinians that it was only the Germans who were responsible for the Holocaust and the post war Jewish Refugee problem and that the Palestinians had to bear the price rather than place Israel in Europe. This quotation and the other by the Grand Mufti prove that Palestinians were not only complicit in persecution of Jews but took a leadership and advocacy role.

Formally and informally orthodox Islam is one of the most sexist of the religions. In addition to the fundamentalist Christian and Orthodox discriminatory view of females, Sharia—Islamic Law—makes a woman’s testimony in court with half that of a man, prohibits women from clerical leadership, will not allow females to pray in Mosques in the main section but segregates them, and many others. Islamic customs require women to be covered head to toe in a cloak, forbids them from driving in some countries, does not allow them to be in the presence of men outside the family, mutilates young girls in brutal circumcision rituals, and many others. Not all Muslims are sexist and many call for reforms like Nomani. Turkey, the most modern and successful Islamic nation, outlawed all these discriminatory aspects of Sharia, and gave women the vote BEFORE America did.

In September of 2005 a Danish Newspaper published some political cartoons showing the hypocrisy of some Muslims who use Islam to justify murder of innocents and terrorism. Months later, in January of 2006 many in the Middle East protested vehemently and Muslim riots broke out because the Prophet Muhammad's visage was depicted against Islamic tradition. Many Muslim nations started a boycott against Denmark. Many Muslim leaders claimed that insulting religion was an “abuse” of freedom of speech including those from nations which regularly publish material that is virulent against Christians and Jews.

Son of Reverend Billy Graham. The statement was made in the aftermath of September 11.

Anthony Ashley Cooper

This sura has been in great controversy throughout the Muslim Empires. In part it separates many of the Arab cultures from the Ottomans. The latter had an organized meritocracy whereby Jews, Christians and other “heathens” of exceptional talent were sought out for advisory and leadership positions. In part this was justified as requiring that the Caliph and the Sultans had the power of life and death over their key appointees, hence they had to be slaves and other suras prohibited Muslims holding other Muslims in slavery. Even in modern times some Muslim countries have had key non-Islamic appointees and others would not. In historical practice, the Ottoman Empire utilized far more Christians and Jews that those societies involved Muslims until relatively recent historical times.

The Jews were the first people in the Middle East who were known to the early Muslims who as a rule did not change their religions and convert to Islam. For the Fundamentalist Muslim like Khomeini, Jews espousing their religion is propaganda in as much as it differs from their view of the word of God. While the Jews did not all accept Islam, they did not physically attack the new Muslims the way the Christians did in the Crusades which have been a traumatic memory for Muslims of the Middle East. The particular enmity for the Bhai stems from the fact that this religion was an outgrowth of Islam. Christians and Jews never accepted Islam. Bhai repudiated it and changed, hence are more Satanic. Many Bhai are executed as apostates in Iran and some other countries.

Sirhindi is a very important Muslim Imam and is credited with breathing new life and energy into the 2nd millennium of Islam. An irony of this quotation is that Sufi’s are often characterized as “moderate” Muslims. The quotation is extremely important in that there are some who attribute the anti-Semitism of the Muslims to the dispute over the State of Israel. However, it was the anti-Semitism that caused the problems with Israel. This quotation is from the 17th century—more than 300 years before Israel was established and over 200 years before the Zionist movement even thought about recovering Palestine for the Jews. Islamic anti-Semitism and anti-Christianity began in the Prophet’s lifetime and continued thereafter. It is as vicious today as it was 500 years ago, except for the fact that there is now an Islamic Reformation that despite the Koran’s statements regarding non-believers, they have a more modern view of the world and the people within it. Islamic cultures like Indonesia and Turkey do not have the same degree of anti-Semitism as Pakistan and the Arab Countries.