Answering my critics, Part 2
Let us, first of all, be crystal clear about one thing: if I could become Jewish and Israeli tomorrow, I would seize the opportunity with both hands.
In the famous, now legendary, holes-in-the-narrative interview of Sheikh Dr Yasir Qadhi by Oxford graduate, academic, political philosopher and philosopher of religion Mohamed Hijab back in June 2020, amid the excitement over the implosion of the perfect preservation of the Qur’an, hardly anyone noticed the other, in my opinion, far more devastating, catastrophe the brothers had set off. Of course, Yasir Qadhi did not want the world to know about all the squabbles and fights amongst scholars over the famed perfect preservation of the Qur’an, and he fought hard to evade Mohamed Hijab’s insistence on a definite answer. But what went unnoticed was an exasperated Yasir Qadhi saying, “it is not wise” that lay Muslims, “the masses”, as he put it, know this. The question is, why should it be “unwise” for Muslims to know more about their own religion, and why was this sheikh so panicked by the prospect?
It turns out it was for the same reason that my own sheikh in my childhood madrassa made sure that I never understood what I read in the Qur’an (when I wasn’t crying). Lay Muslims, the congregations in mosques, are generally decent, inoffensive folk whose highest aspiration is to go on pilgrimage to Mecca before they die. Some of them do know that there is a lot more to their religion than their scholars let on. Some are aware that what the scholars hide from them is evil, but shut their minds to it, while others either justify, downplay or obfuscate it. But most lay Muslims only listen to their sheikh, as they are supposed to, and genuinely believe that Islam is all the nice, fluffy stuff. They are aware of hotheads in their mosques and in their communities, but dismiss such people as fanatics who give Islam a bad name. They also know that the zakat they pay funds these fanatics. After all this time, I still cannot be sure, hand-on-heart, that the peaceful Muslim before me is really a peaceful Muslim. I marvel at the certainty with which people who have never been Muslim can pronounce on this.
Some of my critics are Western ex-Muslims. Most of them ascribe the freedom with which they are able to cherry-pick their way through Islam not to the free society in which they practise religion, but to Islam itself. The undeniably horrific things that Muslims do around the world is not really ascribable to Islam, they hold, and such people are not really Muslims; they merely act “in the name of Islam”, or they “use religion to justify their actions.” These ex-Muslims, too, dabble in strange paradoxes. The rigid ideology of the killers is not Islam, but “Islamism.” Muslims, basically nice people, can be persuaded to reform Islam. But if “Islamism” is the bad stuff and Islam is the good stuff, then why did they leave Islam and why should they wish for it to be reformed? So is Islam good or is Islam bad? I do not expect a resolution.
I should admit that there are good and bad things in Islam, my critics say. I am not sure what these bad things might be, since they have already moved the bad things out of Islam and over to “Islamism.” But if we were, for sake of argument, to accept that there are good thing and bad things in Islam, and since we already have some hint of just how bad those bad things are (not just the religion on the surface, but, and especially, the Shari’a beneath it), the good things are going to have to at least balance out the bad. Nothing in Islam comes even close to counterbalancing the bad. Again, for sake of argument, let us say that the good in Islam is so good that it does counterbalance the bad, then these critics are saying that with one foot in boiling water and the other in ice, you’re basically ok. Another analogy might be: you can’t only say bad things about Nazism; you’ve got to say good things, too, else you are not objective. A more honest group of ex-Muslims, though still not honest enough, contend that Islam is not a religion at all, but an ideology. I do not know whether I have critics amongst them.
All these ex-Muslim positions share two common traits: simplistic thinking; and identity politics. Lacking any understanding of totalitarianism, the profoundly-evil ideological and legal system of Shari’a concealed beneath the rules and rituals of the religion on the surface eludes them. It is as if to acknowledge that such evil exists in Islam is to deny the good in Muslims. Such ex-Muslims' herd mentality, a hangover from their Muslim past, keeps their thinking in line with that of their peers, whose endorsement they will not risk for anything. I am critical of both Islam and Muslims, but each for its own reasons. I understand the role each plays in the totalitarian system that is Islam. My critics do not understand this, and so muddle up my critique of Islam with my critique of Muslims. They are careful not to criticise Muslims for fear of being called “Islamophobic”. I recognise “Islamophobia” for the totalitarian bludgeon that it is. So to those critics who would accuse me of “Islamophobia,” I say bring it on. I am more than ready.
Some of my critics are the kind of people who can witness the massacre of 1200 people on one day and completely forget about it the next, if that is what everyone else is doing. Before a herd-position emerges, they will not stick their necks out, lest they say something that will later place them at odds with the herd. As Muslims, they had no opinion until their sheikh told them their opinion. When 7 October rolled around, most of them fell into line behind Muslims, becoming extensions of terrorists, while the United Nations ensured that everything it said and did, and everything it did not say and did not do, complied with Shari’a. This brings us nicely to the Israel that I am supposed to be an instrument of.
Where my head is at
Let us, first of all, be crystal clear about one thing: if I could become Jewish and Israeli tomorrow, I would seize the opportunity with both hands. I have friends and colleagues in Israel, and have been a visiting lecturer at Israeli universities. I buy Israeli products whenever possible and have resolved to have all my overseas holidays there. I am learning all I can about Judaism, Jews and Israel, including Hebrew. The country is beautiful and Israelis are the most generous people I have encountered anywhere. They are easy-going and interesting to talk to, especially the religious ones. All this effort is making up for time lost while Muslim.
I care very deeply about the Jews and their country, and not only because my former religion insists that I be killed. It also insists that all Jews be killed, not only in Israel, but everywhere. You may notice a confluence of interests here: we are in the same boat. But a special place in my heart is reserved for the people of Judea and Samaria, because I know what it means to be hated and hounded by your own people. And just to be clear, yes, I have Jewish critics, too.
This is also why I am so moved by the life of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, in my opinion, the most important Jew of the modern period. There is a Jabotinsky Street in Tel Aviv, one in Jerusalem, and probably one in several other places in Israel. This is misleading, because it also seems Jews avoid mentioning his name. I get the feeling that Jews are embarrassed about Jabotinsky, if they’ve heard about him, that is. Ze’ev Jabotinsky, together with his colleague, organised Jewish defence units during the Kishinev pogrom in 1903. Till then, Jews simply paid the money so the beating would stop, and got on with their lives. It continues to this day, only in a different form.
Jabotinsky was instrumental in organising Jewish entry as Jews into the British Army during WWI, so that when Jews finally got their state back, they would have the core of a fighting force already in place upon which they could build a national army. Yes, the IDF owes its existence to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, and had that debt been acknowledged, Jabotinsky’s warnings might have been heeded, and the Simchat Torah massacre become highly unlikely, if not impossible. Ze’ev Jabotinsky warned the Jews throughout his life, the most prescient warning he delivered in August 1938, in no more significant a place than Warsaw:
It is for three years that I have been calling on you, Jews of Poland, the glory of world Jewry, with an appeal. I have been ceaselessly warning you that the catastrophe is coming closer. My hair has turned white and I have aged in these years, because my heart is bleeding, for you, dear brothers and sisters, do not see the volcano which will soon begin to spurt out the fire of destruction. I see a terrifying sight. The time is short in which one can still be saved. I know: you do not see, because you are bothered and rushing about with everyday worries … Listen to my remarks at the twelfth hour. For God’s sake: may each one save his life while there is still time. And time is short.
I want to say one more thing to you on this day of the Ninth of Av: Those who will succeed to escape from the catastrophe will merit a moment of great Jewish joy — the rebirth and rise of a Jewish State. I do not know if I will earn that. My son, yes! I believe in this just as I am sure that tomorrow morning the sun will shine once again. I believe in this with total faith.
By September 1939, twelve months later, escape was no longer possible. In the event, Ze’ev Jabotinsky died in June 1940, having worked himself to death to save the Jews, and right up to his untimely death, they savaged him and sabotaged him. Ten months later, in August 1941, three years after his Warsaw speech, the Holocaust began. The Jews had cast out their prophet. Some would say it’s a story they’ve heard before. I’d say we’re dealing with a people who both take themselves too seriously, and don’t take themselves seriously enough. What does it mean, for instance, if someone insists, “Never again” after 7 October has already happened? It is the sickest of jokes. To Jabotinsky, such an insistence would not only be absurd, but an affront to hadar.
My critics charge that I am not objective, yet they keep reading my website, often via TOR. For some years now, I have been coming across my words approvingly quoted verbatim, without the source ever acknowledged. In one YouTube video, an ex-Muslim had printed out an email I had sent him, read out the printed email on camera, said that I was right, and never mentioned my name. Apparently a subjective, Israel-linked source can be useful sometimes, provided you never endorse it. No doubt, they would not care for the counsel of ninth-century philosopher Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Kindi:
We ought not to be embarrassed of appreciating the truth and of obtaining it wherever it comes from, even if it comes from races distant and nations different from us. Nothing should be dearer to the seeker of truth than the truth itself, and there is no deterioration of the truth, nor belittling either of one who speaks it or conveys it.
Al-Kindi’s attitude towards sources is also my own. If the source is reliable, then I will use it, regardless of what that source might be. Of course this means approaching every source with a critical eye. But to reject a source because it is “far-Right”, or conservative, or Israeli, or even from Satan, or to prefer a source because it says what you want to hear, is to place allegiance above truth, which is halfway towards equating loyalty with truth, as Shari’a obligates Muslims to do. This is why, to Muslims, criticism of Islam and Muslims equals lies, anything that praises them is truth, and why those nice Muslims will never speak up, no matter how many innocents the “handful of extremists” murder.
One cannot at the same time seek both endorsement and truth. Where the search for truth stands above endorsement, the seeker of truth will easily forgo endorsement, for it means nothing, and readily stand alone against all, as the sole defender of truth. History offers many such people, Abu al-ʿAlaʾ al-Maʿarri being a particularly courageous example. Where the first priority is to secure endorsement, then truth becomes the whore of the herd, and the purveyor of such truth its pimp.
The list of crowd insanities is very long, indeed. Who does not know of L’affaire Dreyfus? Who can forget the Stalinist hold on the minds of anyone who dared to wonder whether the USSR was really a paradise on earth, or the feminist silence on the position of women in Islam. Who has not seen the tsunami of crazies condemning Israel for genocide on the say-so of an avowedly genocidal organisation that had just itself attempted a genocide in Israel? George Orwell captures this moment well:
…Against that …world in which black may be white tomorrow, …there are in reality only two safeguards. One is that however much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing, as it were, behind your back, and you consequently can’t violate it… The other is that so long as some parts of the earth remain unconquered, the liberal tradition can be kept alive. Let Fascism, or possibly even a combination of several Fascisms, conquer the whole world, and those two conditions no longer exist. (My emphasis)
With even the United Nations now a vehicle for imposing Shari’a upon the world, there is no solution to Islam, except through Muslims themselves realising that the scholars, their sheikhs, have conned them, negated them, and kept them alienated from themselves. That the reader might find such words distressing has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the reality of the jihad against Israel and the Jews, amongst whom the fantasy has taken hold that they had peace on 6 October 2023. The UN response to the Simchat Torah Massacre demonstrates that nothing could be further from the truth. The Muslims the world over who celebrated the rapes, burnings and murders of 7 October are the same Muslims with whom the Jews supposedly had peace of the 6th. One of my criticisms of Israel is that she continues to waste her time and money on the UN, instead of focussing on “extirpate: complete destruction of the jihadist forces,” regardless of 7 October.
The history of the people I am so keen to be part of is a history of great promise frustrated by capitulation. The capitulators were in that hall on that fateful Tisha B'Av in Warsaw in 1938, they were there in 1950, when the Arab refugees in Gaza were not expelled to Egypt, they were there in 1967, when the Temple Mount was casually handed back to the Muslims, they were there in 1973, when conquered territory was given back to the Syrians, they were there in 1993, when the Oslo Accords were signed, they were there in 2005, when the Jews were torn out of Gaza, and now they are there, straining every fibre of their being, to save the “Palestinians”.
If my critics had taken the trouble to read my website properly, they will have been struck by how fiercely I criticise Jews, Israelis and especially Israeli leaders, most of whom are vacuous non-entities beside Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the one Jewish leader who understood what is to be done, and had the courage to do it.
Finally, after so many years of political correctness, multiculturalism, identity politics and, lately, wokeness, many of my non-Muslim critics will one day take to Islam like fish to water. The poor things in Queers for Palestine will discover, to their bewilderment and horror, that, actually, it’s not okayyy. As for the charge that I am somehow an instrument of Israel, my critics can go jump.
Picture credits:
Unknown author - Unknown source, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=535645
Branch of the National Union of Journalists (BNUJ). - https://web.archive.org/web/20080608013945/http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/pics/orwell-unioncard.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2001660
Al-Ma'arri - archive.org, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115813321
Egyptian Post Office, 1975
On 27 May 2024 at 3:27, Jalal Tagreeb wrote:
Dear Anjuli,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for publishing and replying to my previous comment on Part-1. I think Muhammad Ali was mature and aware enough of Islam and his surrounding culture during the time he converted to Islam.
"Nothing in Islam comes even close to counterbalancing the bad".
This is more of a personal opinion, you can always meet people including women who are happy to be a Muslim/Muslima and they are convinced in Islam as a religion of peace which gives positive spiritual meaning of life and afterlife. It can be argued that there is nothing bad in Islam, it depends on how it is perceived or the way people interpret and want to understand it. The goodness or evilness are inside us as human beings.
In Part-2 and elsewhere, the events that took place on 7 Oct. were always referred to as massacre; however, the response to that "massacre" was a super massacre as well, more than 30,000 civilian Palestinian were killed and we are still counting ... despite of that, many analytics including people from Israel see that Israel could not achieve the goals it set for itself and therefore it lost. Hamas still exists, POW (or hostages as referred to by Western media) are still unfreed and even more have been taken by Hamas yesterday – which further complicates the situation. Israelis and Palestinians always exchange claims that the other side committed a massacre. You can see examples since 1982, this one was supported by the IDF and it was massive but not as massive as the response to 7 Oct.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre
Hamas will die, because the idea to resist occupiance will always remain. Civilians are paying the price. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? How can this be stopped?
Good luck in your writings.
Jalal.
On 27 May 2024 at 8:13, Anjuli Pandavar wrote:
Dear Jalal,
Thank you for your reply.
Let me begin here:
"Nothing in Islam comes even close to counterbalancing the bad".
This is more of a personal opinion, you can always meet people including women who are happy to be a Muslim/Muslima and they are convinced in Islam as a religion of peace which gives positive spiritual meaning of life and afterlife.
I have addressed this here:
Lacking any understanding of totalitarianism, the profoundly-evil ideological and legal system of Shari’a concealed beneath the rules and rituals of the religion on the surface eludes them. It is as if to acknowledge that such evil exists in Islam is to deny the good in Muslims. ...I am critical of both Islam and Muslims, but each for its own reasons. I understand the role each plays in the totalitarian system that is Islam. My critics do not understand this, and so muddle up my critique of Islam with my critique of Muslims.
Lay Muslims, the congregations in mosques, are generally decent, inoffensive folk whose highest aspiration is to go on pilgrimage to Mecca before they die.
In other words, "They are convinced in Islam as a religion of peace which gives positive spiritual meaning of life and afterlife." We are in agreement on this.
You say:
It can be argued that there is nothing bad in Islam, it depends on how it is perceived or the way people interpret and want to understand it.
Certainly it can be argued, but it would not be a very convincing argument, since it would have to show how laws such as those previously discussed here and repeated below, and volumes of others like it, are "nothing bad" and can be "perceived", "interpreted" and "understood" as good:
If the offender is someone with the capacity to remain chaste, then he or she is stoned to death. ...A person is not considered to have the capacity to remain chaste, if he or she ...is prepubescent at the time of marital intercourse. (Reliance of the Traveller, Book O12.2)
In other words, Shari’a recognises that children are incapable of sexual motivation and, by implication, as such can only be raped, a point reinforced elsewhere:
When a woman who has been made love to[2] performs the purificatory bath [ghusl], and the male's sperm afterwards leaves her vagina, then she must repeat the ghusl if two conditions exist: (a) that she is not a child, but rather old enough to have sexual gratification; (b) and that she was fulfilling her sexual urge with the lovemaking, not ...forced. (Book E10.3)
"Forced", dear reader. Let us dwell for a moment on the word forced. Since the wives we are discussing here are children, possibly “in the cradle”, possibly still suckling, they suffer severe, crippling and fatal injuries from male penetration. Many end up with painful, life-long, debilitating fistulas, their lives ruined. Yet, Islam is not barbaric, as so many Islamophobes allege, no-no-no, because, “A full indemnity is paid ...for injuring the peritioneal (sic, peritoneal) wall between vagina and rectum so they become one aperture.” (Reliance of the Traveller, Book O4.13).
I would like to see an argument that shows the above is good.
You say:
The goodness or evilness are inside us as human beings.
You cannot make our species as a whole take the blame for norms, practises, laws and obligations that have arisen within specific cultures, especially where they have deliberately and with great care been formulated over centuries, with mechanisms securing their permanence built in. Scholars insisting that it is "unwise" to divulge the details of Shari'a to, "Women who are happy to be a Muslim/Muslima and they are convinced in Islam as a religion of peace which gives positive spiritual meaning of life and afterlife," is one such mechanism. Others are a bit more bloody.
You say:
The events that took place on 7 Oct. were always referred to as massacre; however, the response to that "massacre" was a super massacre as well, more than 30,000 civilian Palestinian were killed and we are still counting ...
And the source of this "super massacre" of "more than 30,000 civilian Palestinians"? Why, the very people who perpetrated the massacre of 7 October. This is a source that took every opportunity to document their massacre in all its horrific detail and broadcast it to all the world, yet are a bit coy about showing us their enemy's "super massacre of 30,000 Palestinian civilians." Even their greatest supporters, the United Nations, began to realise that they can't keep this up. My source for this claim is Arutz7, a source that published your op-ed, so, presumably, you consider it a reputable source:
On May 6, OCHA's daily report on casualties in Gaza stated that 9,500 women and 14,500 children had been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The report relied on the figures provided by the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry.
On May 8, two days later, OCHA's daily report slashed the number of women down to 4,959, while the number of children killed fell to 7,797 children.
The revised figures show 4,541 fewer deaths among women and 6,703 fewer deaths among children.
The OCHA report stated that 24,686 people had been killed as of the end of April, more than 10,000 less than the 35,000 figure Hamas has claimed.
You say:
Many analytics including people from Israel see that Israel could not achieve the goals it set for itself and therefore it lost.
Who are these analysts, especially the ones in Israel. Maybe they are right, maybe they are wrong. Perhaps you've already laid this out elsewhere, but for a claim like this, I need to know what sources I'm dealing with. I, too, am critical of many aspects of this war, for example, I doubt that the Israeli War Cabinet ever intended defeating Hamas. Its very composition is the basis for my doubt. But I smelt a rat already in Netanyahu's speech on 7 October. However, I am not yet sure that Israel has lost. It might be that I am hoping against hope, but I think there are still several wild cards to be played, for if Israel were to lose, she will not be the only one losing. One of my frustrations is that I cannot be in Israel right now. I can only work with what I have.
You say:
Even more have been taken by Hamas yesterday
Do you mean the IDF soldiers that Hamas may or may not have captured in Gaza? If you are, then even if this were true, it is a very different kettle of fish to raiding into Israel and abducting people into Gaza. Of the latter, I have seen no evidence. If I'm out of touch, please help me out here. Give me some sources.
You say:
Israelis and Palestinians always exchange claims that the other side committed a massacre.
Sometimes it is a massacre, sometimes it is not. You have to at least interrogate such claims. You could just as easily be saying, both sides commit massacres, or, neither side is committing massacres. Be that as it may, only one side boasts of committing massacres and providing the evidence of their massacres to the world. Perhaps the Israelis are just extremely good at hiding the 35,000 people they massacred so the Palestinians are unable to show them.
This is far from a simple war between the IDF and Hamas. Certainly, the defeat of Hamas is critical. Whether the War Cabinet actually wants to do that or not, the soldiers in the IDF, the squaddies, left their lives and families in Israel to destroy their enemy in Gaza, and if the government does not let them complete this job, for which they are risking everything, then all bets are off. A cleaning out of the stables might well come from this. And that can only be a good thing.
Finally, you say:
I think Muhammad Ali was mature and aware enough of Islam and his surrounding culture during the time he converted to Islam.
By "Aware enough of Islam" so he "converted to Islam," do you mean just aware enough to think Islam is great and so convert, or do you mean aware enough to know Islam is great and so convert. The first means he knew very little and so fell for it, as with most converts, or he knew so much that he was unable to resist its attraction. From Muhammad Ali's utterances, I very much doubt whether the latter was the case. If the latter were the case, i.e., the more that people knew about Islam, the more likely they would be to convert to it, it would not be "unwise" for lay Muslims to know the secrets of Islam and for scholars to lie to them. Da'wah would not be such a disaster for those who do it, for they would not need to lie to non-Muslims, and ex-Muslims would not leave Islam after learning more. It would strengthen their faith. All the "women who are happy to be a Muslim/Muslima and they are convinced in Islam as a religion of peace which gives positive spiritual meaning of life and afterlife," would become so much more pious to the learn about babies' vaginas and rectums torn into a single orifice. Had I known about this all those years ago, I might never have left Islam. Right?
I hope you're doing what I think you're doing. If so, I'm ready to keep going.
Best regards,
Anjuli
On 27 May 2024 at 17:55, Jalal Tagreeb wrote:
Hi Anjuli,
Thank you for your comprehensive reply to my comment and thank you for publishing it. I did not understand your last sentence, can you please clarify it:
"I hope you're doing what I think you're doing. If so, I'm ready to keep going."
Kind regards,
Jalal.
On 27 May 2024 at 18:28, Anjuli Pandavar wrote:
Hi Jalal,
Thank you for engaging so thoroughly. You are helping me respond quickly and accurately. I enjoy this very much and only wish more people would challenge me as you do.
I was wondering whether you're throwing arguments you've heard elsewhere my way, so my response to them ends up in the public domain.
Have a good evening,
Anjuli
On 27 May 2024 at 22:05, Jalal Tagreeb wrote:
Hi Anjuli,
Even if I am not a Muslim apologist now, I can still stand as the character who represents the Muslim scholars' opinions and ideas to create a typical dialogue scenario of a Muslim apologist. I mean to act as a mock Muslim apologist because: 1) I was one of them in the past and I know how many of them think, what resources they use, tricks, etc 2) A chance for compensation work to spread the truth 3) Remembering the past attempts and reinforcing the new transformation. I will do my best.
We can discuss via emails and at the end you can make the whole dialogue public or take parts of it and make it public, alternatively we can discuss things directly in public.
What do you think?
Kind regards,
Jalal.
On 28 May 2024 at 08:45, Anjuli Pandavar wrote:
Dear Jalal,
Playing Devil's Advocate is a far more constructive idea. I like it. Respond to my writing with your Muslim apologist best. Brilliant!
Have a good day,
Anjuli
On 28 May 2024 at 19:05, Anjuli Pandavar wrote:
by sheer chance, I stumbled across this:
enjoy!
On 28 May 2024 at 20:59, Jalal Tagreeb wrote:
Have you seen this comment below the video – see attached file.
Kind regards,
Jalal.
On 28 May 2024 at 21:11, Jalal Tagreeb wrote:
BTW, this also applies to the things you mention in your last reply to my comment. The things you mentioned existed before Islam and it was of Arab culture and Islam fought against it. Things were documented in Arabic/Islamic literature, but it is difficult to blame Islam for it.
Kind regards,
Jalal.
On 28 May 2024 at 21:40, Anjuli Pandavar wrote:
You forget something rather important: I'm not a Muslim. I did not provide the video to support my case. I don't need it, since my case is stronger than that in the video. I provide it simply as a footnote: someone else had addressed the same question.
As for the comment, I repeat: I am not a Muslim. That standard of argument does not impress me. I want to see evidence, not a repetition of a claim. "Look. He says so, too. That proves it." That's Muslim logic.
"Islam fought against it [slavery]." Ah, maybe Reliance of the Traveller is a pre-Islamic book, which is why it had all that slavery stuff in it. The fact that the Muslims deleted all the slavery sections proves that Islam fought against slavery. I get it now. Thank you.
On 28 May 2024 at 21:47, Jalal Tagreeb wrote:
The RoT represents an opinion Anjuli, the prophet PBUH himself, asked his companions not write anything after him except the Quran. So, the Quran should be the reference. Most of the RoT content is not even mentioned in the Quran, where did the author get this material from!? It is the Arab culture. Even the tafseer books, it is sort of Ijtihad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ijtihad). It is not necessarily true. Muhammad Ali was a mature person, he was not deceived by Islam in my opinion.
Kind regards,
Jalal.
On 28 May 2024 at 22:46, Anjuli Pandavar wrote:
The RoT is not just one opinion, but a volume of opinions, legal opinions, from four different schools of jurisprudence. Those opinions that the four schools have consensus on are permanent and non-negotiable. As for the rest, qualified Muslims may pick and choose between them, even combine them, but they may not go outside of them.
"Not write anything after him except the Quran." Curious that Al-Gazzali, As-Shafi'i, Ibn Hanbal, Abu Hanifa and Malik ibn Anas did not know this, neither did Ibn Taymiyyah and all the other top-top scholars of Islam. It makes me wonder whether the Muhammad really said told them to not write down anything after him except the Qur'an. I doubt that this is true, because so many times the Qur'an commands the Muslims to obey "Allah and his messenger". If the Qur'an is the book of Allah handed down to Muhammad, then where are the Muslims to find the commandments of the messenger of Allah that the Qur'an commands them to obey, if not in the Hadith? Without the Hadith, they cannot obey the Qur'anic command that they obey the messenger as well. Of course, it is possible that the Qur'an has given Muslims commandments that it is impossible for them to obey, in which case the Qur'an turns every Muslim into a murtadd. That's rough, man.
"where did the author get this material from!?" From the Qur'an, the Hadith, and the opinions of the four scholars who founded the schools. The ROT is actually quite good at citing its sources. Just read it.
"Even the tafseer books..." Er, you've just dismissed anything that is not the Qur'an as invalid. Have you forgotten? You said it just three sentences earlier.
"It is not necessarily true." This is a silly comment. It is not a book of claims. It is a book of laws. The truth or falsehood of its contents does not arise. It is about legal reasoning, stipulating obligations and detailing punishments.
"Muhammad Ali was a mature person, he was not deceived by Islam in my opinion." I repeat: I am not a Muslim. You need to prove this. Even the footnote video I shared proves the exact opposite. I have other proof that your claim is false, but I'm not making the claim, you are. So you have to provide the proof. That's how it works.
On 28 May 2024 at 23:11, Ben Dor A. wrote,
I will reply tomorrow, because I am tired tonight. I enjoy discussing such issues with you Anjuli.
Thanks.
Good night!
On 28 May 2024 at 23:26, Jalal Tagreeb wrote:
When the book "100 Authors against Einstein" was published to disprove General Relativity, Einstein replied: "To defeat relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact.." As Einstein's prominence grew due to the success of his theories, a wave of opposition emerged.
On 29 May 2024 at 01:41, Ben Dor A. wrote:
Dear Anjuli Pandavar
May I translate part of your essay to Hebrew starting from:
Where my head is at
Best Regards
Ben Dor
On 29 May 2024 at 09:59, Anjuli Pandavar wrote:
Dear Ben Dor A.,
This would be a great honour for me. I ask only that you translate it from where you ask, all the way to the end, leaving nothing out.
I have a dream, and that is to one day be able to read out loud on Israeli radio, the part you are about to translate. I think it is the most powerful tract I have ever written, and I want to read it both as a gift to Israel, and as a personal acknowledgement of my debt to Ze'ev Jabotinsky. If someone in Israel can make that happen, it would be the crowning glory of my life.
With warmest regards,
Anjuli