On July 2, the Wall Street Journal carried an article by Shawki Allam, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, who claimed that “violent extremists” are distorting the true purpose of fatwas and thereby, the true meaning of Islam. He goes on to extoll the virtues of Muhammad’s many roles – calling him a divine inspiration, social reformer, military leader, statesman, and also a Mufti.
Shawki Allam claims that among the many fatwas issued by Muhammad were included those that “banned burying baby girls alive; asserted a woman’s right to choose her husband and to seek divorce; and emphasized women’s rights of inheritance.” He goes on to state that Muhammad “established a safe environment for religious minorities and laid out principles for equality and citizenship.” Allam claims these fatwas were offered as guidelines for later Muslim clerics to follow on the path of mercy, justice and compassion. Breathtaking!
Aside from what might charitably be called the Mufti’s rather loose treatment of actual Islamic doctrine, law, and scripture, what he also fails to mention is that most of these so-called fatwas (or pronouncements of Muhammad recorded in the hadiths) were issued before the hijra, when Muhammad moved from Mecca to Medina, where he expanded his forces until they were strong enough to annihilate all opposition to his new teaching, including three entire Jewish tribes of the Peninsula. Here, as all too often, slyly deceitful Islamic explanations for Westerners are strictly limited to an incomplete understanding Islam in its early, pre-violent Mecca phase, when, for lack of capability, the early Muslims were limited to preaching. Clearly, the Mufti’s intent is to support the wishful claim of many Western leaders that “Islam is a religion of peace.” Therefore, the atrocities and barbarism we are subjected to by the Islamic State (IS) as reported by the mainstream and other social media are a perversion of Islam. If it were only true.
The actual biography of Muhammad aside (which is a veritable litany of rape, pillage, and plunder), there are at least 109 verses in the Koran that sanction violent acts against the “unbelievers” or “infidels.” For example, Koran 2:191 compels Muslims to “kill the unbelievers wherever you find them.” IS and its affiliates demonstrate this on a daily basis in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Koran 5:33 lays out the penalties for those who “wage war against God and His Apostle” [i.e.,fail to submit to Islam] or commit “mischief through the land”: “execution, or crucifixion or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides.” The Istanbul Process, a campaign to impose Islamic blasphemy law on all non-Muslim societies, is led by the 57 Muslim members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which has sponsored (with U.S. support) a UN resolution insisting that all countries “criminalize” what it calls “defamation of religions” (code for Islam). The OIC rejects our First Amendment rights of free speech and religion.
While calling for UN resolutions to limit speech, the Muslim OIC nations withdrew from the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1990, replacing it with the Cairo Declaration, which states that the only human rights they would recognize are those granted under Islam’s shariah (Islamic law).
Koran 9:12 condemns Muslim apostates: according to both hadiths and the shariah, one who leaves Islam, whether to convert to another religion or not, must be killed. Regrettably, shariah is as actively enforced today in places under Muslim rule as it was 1,300 years ago. It is this penalty of death more than anything else that prevents more Muslims from leaving Islam. It should be noted that in Sura 2 verse 106 (on abrogation), the Koran makes it clear that all the later violent verses take precedence over the early, less violent ones. Actually, it is nearly impossible to understand the full import of Islam without mastering the doctrine of abrogation and its associated doctrine of progressive revelation.
Islam is generally acknowledged to be a “complete way of life” and at the core of this code is Islamic law or shariah. Of course, shariah is incompatible in the most fundamental ways with the United States Constitution.
Mufti Allam goes on to claim that ill treatment of women is forbidden. He states that Islam in its true form is also adamant about finding balance with religious minorities. He states that people of differing faiths are not to be treated as second-class citizens, and that their right of religious freedom and worship is to be respected. Of course, this conflicts completely with the so-named “Sura of the Sword (the 9th Chapter).” The doctrine is clear for Christians and Jews (aka ‘People of the Book’): they must either convert or die, or accept the third choice and pay the jizya (blood tax), then willingly submit to live under Islamic law as dhimmis (9:29). So much for tolerance.
Finally, Koran 3:85 states that “If anyone desires a religion other than Islam, never will it be accepted of him…” It should be clear to any thinking person that Islam is a totalitarian political movement bent on world domination (same as communism), but masquerading as a religion.
In view of the above, how can the Mufti of Egypt stand by his claims that Islam is being distorted and perverted? In my opinion, clearly the propaganda the Mufti is promulgating falls under the well-known Islamic principles of “Taqiyya” and “Kitman” – “lying” to advance the cause of Islam. The Mufti, if he wants to advance the cause of Islam and bring it into the twenty-first century, should embrace President al-Sisi of Egypt’s call on January 1, 2015, before the leading Sunni clerics at al-Azhar, for the reformation of Islam, which has not occurred in over 1,300 years. “That corpus of texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the centuries, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible, is antagonizing the entire world,” Sisi said then, asserting that a “religious revolution” is needed.
James A. Lyons, U.S. Navy retired Admiral, was commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior
U.S. military representative to the United Nations.
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