Just Your Everyday "Rally for Justice in Palestine and the Oppressed Everywhere" (Except In Israel)

by Daled Amos

"The time has come that we must stir up our 'religious leaders' in this country to speak the truth about Israel. They must put their hands on the Quran and say that they do not recognize Israel as a legitimate entity. If they cannot do that, they must be branded as kaffirs [infidels]. It's as simple as that. Because the Quran says – drive them out from where they drove you out."

Kaukab Siddiqi

Here is the video--from the "Annual Al-Quds Day Rally for Justice in Palestine and the Oppressed Everywhere." The video automatically starts with Siddiqi:

When you have an associate professor of English haranguing a crowd about the Koran, you know it's not because of his knowledge of the Islam or Koran, but because he'll say anything to stir up a crowd.

His reference to the Korah is to Sura 2:191--Kill them whenever you confront them and drive them out from where they drove you out...

The reference is not to a general command but to a specific battle--of Badr, and raises an interesting side point. Islam 101 quotes from Toward Understanding The Qu'ran:

In verse 2.190, God instructs Muslims to fight back, but not to transgress and remain just even during the battle. "They are told that material interests should not be the motivation for their fighting, that they should not take up arms against those were not in opposition to the true faith, that they should not resort to unscrupulous methods or to the indiscriminate killing and pillage which characterized the wars of the pre-Islamic era, the Age of Ignorance. The excesses alluded to in this verse are acts such as taking up arms against women and children, the old and the injured, mutilation of the dead bodies of the enemy, uncalled for devastation through the destruction of fields and livestock, and other similar acts of injustice and brutality. In the Hadith all these acts have been prohibited. The real intent of the verse is to stress that force should be used only when its use is unavoidable, and only to the extent that is absolutely necessary." (note 201, page 151, Towards Understanding the Quran, Volume 1)

In his book The Crisis of Islam, Bernard Lewis gives a similar description of Sharia itself:

Because holy war is an obligation of the faith, it is elaborately regulated in the sharia. Fighters in a jihad are enjoined not to kill women, children, and the aged unless they attack first, not to torture or mutilate prisoner, to give fair warning of the resumption of hostilities after a truce, and to honor agreements. [p. 39]

Besides dictating who can be attacked, Sharia also dictates how:

The medieval jurists and theologians discuss at some length the rules of warfare, including questions such as which weapons are permitted and which are not. There is even some discussion in medieval texts of the lawfulness of missile and chemical warfare, the one relating to mangonels and catapults, the other to poison-tipped arrows and the poisoning of enemy water supplies. On these points there is considerable variation. Some jurists permit, some restrict, some disapprove of the use of these weapons. The stated reason for concern is the indiscriminate casualties that they inflict. At no point do the basic texts of Islam enjoin terrorism and murder. At no point--as far as I am aware--do they even consider the random slaughter of uninvolved bystanders. [p. 39.]

Would Siddiqi agree that Hamas, which transgresses the Koran by its indiscriminate attacks on women and children, is a terrorist group?

We are left with the question as to what degree self-described "Muslim" governments like Hamas or "resistance" groups like Hezbollah--or demagogues like Siddiqi--really take the Koran into account.

by Daled Amos

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.