Category: Islam

There’s an interesting interview with Robert Spencer (a Catholic author on Islam) over on CatholicReport.Org.

EXCERPT:

Pope Benedict is taking a different   direction from Pope John Paul II. I don’t think we will see Pope Benedict XVI kiss the Koran as Pope John Paul II did. I think Pope John Paul II tried to reach out to Islam but the Jihadists have made it clear that Rome and much of Europe will eventually be in Islam’s possession. I think Pope Benedict XVI realizes the seriousness of these statements.

GET THE STORY.

That’s a question that some in St. Blog’s need to be asking themselves. If they don’t understand the question then the answer is "No" or, more properly, La’.

The question means "Do you understand Arabic?" and the reason that they need to ask themselves this is that some folks in the Catholic blogosphere have been freaking out over the fact that Cardinal McCarrick has (again) used the word "Allah" when referring to God in a speech made to a Muslim audience.

To tell you the truth, I wasn’t happy when I saw the transcript of his remarks. Since it’s vanished from the main server at CUA, here’s what he said:

Remarks by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick
Archbishop of Washington and CUA Chancellor

CUA Columbus School of Law

Sept. 13, 2005

Your Majesty, King Abdullah

Your Majesty Queen Rania

Prince Ghazi

Members of the delegation from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Father President

Distinguished guests from many faith communities

Dear friends all,

Your Majesty,

A few months ago, when I was privileged to pray for you on another occasion in this capital city, I asked Allah, the compassionate and merciful Lord of all the world, to bless you and to help you make your country a bridge across which all nations might walk in unity, fellowship and love.  As I listened to your words today, I believe my prayer is being answered.

Indeed, the Amman Message of November of last year is a blueprint and a challenge not only to the great world of Islam, but to the whole human race.  Your thoughtful leadership is a stirring invitation to all of us, especially to the people of the Book, the family of Abraham, who share so much and who are called to be brothers and sisters in God’s one human family.

You have taken to heart the words of Pope Benedict XVI when he addressed the Muslim leaders gathered with him in Germany last month and invited them all to join him in eliminating from all hearts any trace of rancor, in resisting every form of intolerance and in opposing every manifestation of violence.  As you quoted in your splendid talk to us today, Pope Benedict called his listeners, in this way, to turn back the way of cruel fanaticism that endangers the lives of so many people and hinders progress for world peace.

Your Majesty’s call and that of the Holy Father are in so many ways the same.  May Allah, the merciful and compassionate, continue to guide your steps along this noble path.  May He guide and protect you, your family and your beloved country and may peace and justice come to all lands and all peoples through your efforts, your vision and your courage.

In the name of Allah, the merciful and compassionate God, we pray.  Amen.

Now the reason I wasn’t happy when I read this is that I knew it would be taken the wrong way by a great many Catholics. Had he asked me if he should refer to God in this way in this speech, I would have advised against it. I suspect that the confusion it would cause would outweigh whatever slight diplomatic edge it might give the talk.

But one should not freak out about this, as some in the blogosphere have been doing.

The fact is that Allah is simply the standard Arabic word for "God." It is used by Arabic-speaking Muslims and Christians alike–including Arabic-speaking Catholics. If you read an Arabic New Testament, it’s going to have Allah where "God" appears in the English version. When they say prayers in Arabic (e.g., the Rosary) and the prayer refers to God, they use the word Allah.

I have more experience on this point than many English-speakers do since I have a lot of Arabic-speaking Catholic friends (Chaldeans, Maronites, etc.). I hang out with their priests, go over to their houses, spend time at their churches, go out to lunch with them, work on projects with them, discuss the situations in their home countries, inject snatches of Arabic into talks I give at their parishes, etc., etc., etc.

And this is just not a big deal.

Not only do Arabic-speaking Christians use Allah amonst themselves, they use it when speaking to Muslims . . . just like Cardinal McCarrick did!

So no freaking out is required over this issue. In fact, it’s counterproductive.

Then there are some folks who see past the word "Allah" but are bent on committing the genetic fallacy, claiming based on dubious historical arguments that the word "Allah" is originally derived from the name of a pagan mood god. This is open to severe objection, but even if it were true it would prove exactly nothing regarding whether the word today is being applied to the true God or not.

Fact is, it doesn’t matter where the word came from. It matters how it’s used. If the word is today used for the true God then that is what it refers to when people today use it. It doesn’t matter how their ancestors may (or may not) have used it.

If it did, we’d be in big trouble because parallel arguments can be made that the divine names Yahweh and Elohim were also based on terms originally applied to pagan deities.

When it comes to the question of whether the word Allah is being used today by Muslims to refer to the true God (y’know, the one who created the universe and appeared to Abraham), not only does the Qur’an indicate that the answer is yes, the Catechism of the Catholic Church does, too (CCC 841).

The Catechism doesn’t always say things perfectly, and I’d say that this passage is one that itself could stand some clarification, but the basic conclusion is correct: Whatever flaws Muslims have in their understanding of God (e.g., failing to believe that he is a Trinity, as our Jewish friends also don’t when they worship the true God), they still intend by their use of the word Allah to pick out the being who created the universe and who appeared to Abraham, and that’s a definite description of the true God.

So one can, if one wants, think it ill-advised for a churchman to use this term for God in a public address given in English, but one does not have grounds for freaking out as if the term Allah were itself anathema or as if the Cardinal were deviating from what Church teaching is regarding the question of whether Muslims (however imperfectly) worship God.

Jewish World Report carries a worthwhile story by Daniel Pipes on the persecutions Christians are facing in Palestinian-held lands.

EXCERPTS:

What some observers are calling a pogrom took place near Ramallah, West Bank, on the night of Sep. 3-4. That’s when fifteen Muslim youths from one village, Dair Jarir, rampaged against Taybeh, a neighboring all-Christian village of 1,500 people.

The reason for the assault? A Muslim woman from Dair Jarir, Hiyam Ajaj, 23, fell in love with her Christian boss, Mehdi Khouriyye, owner of a tailor shop in Taybeh. The couple maintained a clandestine two-year affair and she became pregnant in about March 2005. When her family learned of her condition, it murdered her. That was on about Sep. 1; unsatisfied even with this "honor killing" — for Islamic law strictly forbids non-Muslim males to have sexual relations with Muslim females — the Ajaj men sought vengeance against Khouriyye and his family.

The article notes that many Christians have been fleeing the Holy Land due to Muslim persecution:

The campaign of persecution has succeeded. Even as the Christian population of Israel grows, that of the Palestinian Authority shrinks precipitously. Bethlehem and Nazareth, historic Christian towns for nearly two millennia, are now primarily Muslim. In 1922, Christians outnumbered Muslims in Jerusalem; today, Christians amount to a mere 2 percent of that city’s population.

"Is Christian life liable to be reduced to empty church buildings and a congregation-less hierarchy with no flock in the birthplace of Christianity?" So asks Daphne Tsimhoni in the Middle East Quarterly.

GET THE STORY.
(CHT to the reader who e-mailed.)

While checking out another article on the the Arab news site Aljazeera.net, I stumbled across an interesting editorial on the history of relations between Islam and the West, as seen by a female Muslim scholar who works at the University of London:

"Why are negative images of Islam more prevalent than any others? Why is it still acceptable to say things about Muslims that would simply be deemed unacceptable of Jews, Christians, or Buddhists?

"That years of inter-faith dialogue have done little to advance a better understanding of the Islamic faith in the western world is an indication of how profoundly entrenched in the Western psyche crude misrepresentations and vulgar stereotypes of Islam are.

"Indeed, much of what is said of Islam today is in reality medieval in origin. The terms might have a modern ring to them, but the content remains very much medieval in essence. The roots stretch as far back as the 7th century, to Christianity’s earliest encounter with Islam.

[…]

"The medieval Christian view of Islam as a deviant, violent, licentious and heretical creed was secularised, stripped of its transcendental character and rearticulated within a modern essentialist philosophy that continues to define the terms of western discourse on Islam, in its mainstream at least.

"The correspondence between what is said and written today and the medieval texts we have inherited on the subject of Islam is so striking that I often have to remind myself that it is not the words of a medieval author I am reading, but those of a contemporary writer. True, the language is modern, but its content is largely medieval."

GET THE STORY.

Reading carefully through these arguments, I was struck by how very similar they are in some respects to Catholic arguments againts Protestant polemicists, and even Christian arguments against agnostic and atheistic polemicists. The root of the argument on all fronts is that apologists for a particular religion often perceive that there is a good deal of misunderstanding of what that religion actually teaches or what its adherents actually believe.

Since this article does not offer much by way of example about how Islam is allegedly misinterpreted by its Christian critics, I cannot comment on the merits of this scholar’s complaint.

But it does demonstrate one point that I think we can take to heart: Before critiquing another religion, listen to its adherents and evaluate what they say they believe. Compare and contrast to the historical teachings of the religion as needed, of course, but take seriously the explanation offered by those who believe in the religion. 

Hard as it may be to believe, it is likely that a believer in a particular religion, however incomplete that religion may be, really does understand better what it teaches than does an outsider.  The outsider may or may not have a more complete religion to offer, but he won’t get a hearing for it until he takes seriously the concerns and religious commitments of the person he’s evangelizing.

In other words, just as there is nothing more frustrating for a Catholic than to be told "You worship Mary," or for a Christian, "The idea of a god is just a crutch religionists use to avoid reality," so it must equally be frustrating for a Muslim to be told "You worship a false god." With such frustrations clouding the air, there is little likelihood that anyone is going to listening — really listening — to each other and thus furthering the spread of the gospel.

UPDATE:  Thanks to the reader who corrected my Latin grammar.  I is grateful. 😉

I mean, how many Islamic dudes do you get writing for the L.A. Times who say things like:

One can appreciate the Koran’s inherent worth, as I do, while recognizing that it contains ambiguities, inconsistencies, outright contradictions — and the possibility of human editing. This is not simply a reform-minded Muslim speaking. This is Islamic tradition talking.

For centuries, philosophers of Islam have been telling the story of the "Satanic Verses." The Prophet Muhammad accepted them as authentic entries into the Koran. Later, he realized they deify heathen idols rather than God. So he belatedly rejected the verses, blaming them on a trick played by Satan. Which implies that the Prophet edited the Koran.

Let’s push this point further. Because pious Muslims emulate Muhammad’s life, those who compiled the Koran’s verses after his death might have followed his example of editing along the way. The compilers were, after all, only human — as human as Muhammad himself.

Moreover, they collected the Koran’s verses from sundry surfaces such as bones, stones and bark. How did the passages get there? According to Islamic lore, the Prophet, an illiterate trader, couldn’t personally record them. His companions served as scribes, often writing from memory. Given so much human involvement, isn’t it possible that errors infiltrated the "authoritative" Koran?

In asking this question, I’m neither impugning the allegorical wisdom of the Koran nor inviting another fatwa on my life [EARTH TO THOUGHTFUL DUDE: Actually, you are inviting "another" fatwa against your life, but more power to you]. I’m saying that Muslims have to get comfortable asking such questions — and not merely whispering them — if we’re going to avoid a further desecration of human life. Riots in Afghanistan have already resulted in at least 14 deaths. Aid workers have been attacked; their offices burned. How does this benefit the cause of dignity — for anyone?

What this gentleman points out is all true, and all part of Islamic tradition, but it is deliberately neglected. It’s surprising to find a Muslim willing to take on this subject with such frankness in such a major newspaper–even here in America.

The guy’s got moxie!

GET THE STORY.

I mean, how many Islamic dudes do you get writing for the L.A. Times who say things like:

One can appreciate the Koran’s inherent worth, as I do, while recognizing that it contains ambiguities, inconsistencies, outright contradictions — and the possibility of human editing. This is not simply a reform-minded Muslim speaking. This is Islamic tradition talking.

For centuries, philosophers of Islam have been telling the story of the "Satanic Verses." The Prophet Muhammad accepted them as authentic entries into the Koran. Later, he realized they deify heathen idols rather than God. So he belatedly rejected the verses, blaming them on a trick played by Satan. Which implies that the Prophet edited the Koran.

Let’s push this point further. Because pious Muslims emulate Muhammad’s life, those who compiled the Koran’s verses after his death might have followed his example of editing along the way. The compilers were, after all, only human — as human as Muhammad himself.

Moreover, they collected the Koran’s verses from sundry surfaces such as bones, stones and bark. How did the passages get there? According to Islamic lore, the Prophet, an illiterate trader, couldn’t personally record them. His companions served as scribes, often writing from memory. Given so much human involvement, isn’t it possible that errors infiltrated the "authoritative" Koran?

In asking this question, I’m neither impugning the allegorical wisdom of the Koran nor inviting another fatwa on my life [EARTH TO THOUGHTFUL DUDE: Actually, you are inviting "another" fatwa against your life, but more power to you]. I’m saying that Muslims have to get comfortable asking such questions — and not merely whispering them — if we’re going to avoid a further desecration of human life. Riots in Afghanistan have already resulted in at least 14 deaths. Aid workers have been attacked; their offices burned. How does this benefit the cause of dignity — for anyone?

What this gentleman points out is all true, and all part of Islamic tradition, but it is deliberately neglected. It’s surprising to find a Muslim willing to take on this subject with such frankness in such a major newspaper–even here in America.

The guy’s got moxie!

GET THE STORY.

Y’know why (sane, theologically-balanced) Christians aren’t willing to use violence in the name of their religion any more?

The Reformation was part of the reason.

Specifically: The Wars of Religion that followed the Reformation were so horrible that they forced Christians on both sides of the confessional divide to re-think the degree to which those Old Testament texts dealing with the religious use of violence were really applicable to our society today.

In the end, folks concluded that they weren’t.

Problem is: Muslims have never had a Reformation and have never been forced to conclude that those texts in the Qur’an that talk about the religious use of violence need to be declared inapplicable to today. As a result, many (though by no means all!) Muslims are willing to use violence to advance their religious goals.

It is therefore an urgent priority for the future of world affairs that Islam go down the path that Christianity went down and learn not to use violence in the service of religion.

How that might happen is unclear, but

ACCORDING TO ONE GUY, THE ISLAMIC REFORMATION IS HERE.

YEE-HAW!

A group representing 70% of Spain’s mosques has issued a fatwa against bin Laden.

(WHAT A FATWA IS.)

According to this fatwa:

"[T]he terrorist acts of Osama bin Laden and his organization al-Qaida … are totally banned and must be roundly condemned as part of Islam."

It added: "Inasmuch as Osama bin Laden and his organization defend terrorism as legal and try to base it on the Quran … they are committing the crime of ‘istihlal’ and thus become apostates that should not be considered Muslims or treated as such." The Arabic term ‘istihlal’ refers to the act of making up one’s own laws.

Take that, UBL! In your face!

Now, unfortunately, a fatwa ain’t as good as a ruling from the Vatican because Islam has no central hierarchy, and Muslim clerics can and do issue contradictory fataawa (i.e., "fatwa"s). The Evil One has issued some fataawa himself.

Nevertheless, the fact that a group of clerics has had the guts to issue one against him is itself a sign that Muslim opinion is turning against UBL and that the War on Terror is being won.

More:

The commission [that issued the fatwa]’s secretary general, Mansur Escudero, said the group had consulted with Muslim leaders in other countries, such as Morocco — home to most of the jailed suspects in the bombings — Algeria and Libya, and had their support.

"They agree," Escudero said, referring to the Muslim leaders in the three North African countries. "What I want is that they say so publicly."

GET THE (HEARTENING!) STORY.

Oh yeah, and one story I saw indicated the fatwa-issuers took a bit of a rhetorical swipe at the U.S. for overreacting after 9/11, but I can put that aside. The big news is the denunciation of UBL.

WHOA!

Powerline is reporting that Bat Ye’or is going to be on Bill O’Reilly tonight!

What is "Bat Ye’or"? The pseudonym of a Jewish woman from Egypt. Hence "Bat Ye’or" means "Daughter of the Nile" (in Hebrew).

Why does Bat Ye’or use a pen name? Because she is the foremost scholar of dhimmitude.

What is dhimmitude? The condition of  the dhimmi (THEM-ee), the "protected" non-Muslim peoples in Muslim society (e.g., Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians), whereby they are allowed not to be given the choice of convert-or-die as long as they pay special taxes Muslims don’t have to pay and live in subjugation to Muslims.

Who is Bill O’Reilly? Y’know . . . "the crabby man."

I’m amazed at Bat Ye’or going on TV. I was surprised before when I heard she was doing a public talk. Putting her face on international television is a whole ‘nuther deal! God protect her!

WHOA!

Powerline is reporting that Bat Ye’or is going to be on Bill O’Reilly tonight!

What is "Bat Ye’or"? The pseudonym of a Jewish woman from Egypt. Hence "Bat Ye’or" means "Daughter of the Nile" (in Hebrew).

Why does Bat Ye’or use a pen name? Because she is the foremost scholar of dhimmitude.

What is dhimmitude? The condition of  the dhimmi (THEM-ee), the "protected" non-Muslim peoples in Muslim society (e.g., Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians), whereby they are allowed not to be given the choice of convert-or-die as long as they pay special taxes Muslims don’t have to pay and live in subjugation to Muslims.

Who is Bill O’Reilly? Y’know . . . "the crabby man."

I’m amazed at Bat Ye’or going on TV. I was surprised before when I heard she was doing a public talk. Putting her face on international television is a whole ‘nuther deal! God protect her!