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From: martillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Shemtob Martillo)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: MUSLIM LAW???
Message-ID: <372@ihuxt.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 1-Apr-84 01:08:27 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxt.372
Posted: Sun Apr  1 01:08:27 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Apr-84 08:18:33 EST
References: <642@pyuxa.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
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>Now just hold it right there a minute.

>Mr Martillo makes the statement that Jews are supposed to be
>harrassed according to Muslim law.  That is just not a true
>statement of fact.  If Mr martillo would care to pick up a
>copy of the Koran and read it, he would discover that what
>he thinks to be Muslim law is NOT in the Koran.  Quite the
>opposite is true.  To paraphrase the Koran, members of the
>Muslim faith are to regard the Jew as their brother, but
>all others are to be considered infidels.

Clearly, the writer and I do not read the same Qur'an.  I read the one
written in Arabic.  Here are some relevant passages:

	O you who believe!  Take not the Jews and the Christians as
	friends.  They are friends to one another.  Whoever of you
	befriends them is one of them.  Allah does not guide the people
	who do evil. (Sura 5:51)
	
	Fight against those to whom the Scriptures were given, who believe
	not in Allah nor in the Last Day, who forbid not what Allah and
	His apostle have forbidden, and follow not the true faith, until
	they pay the tribute out of hand, and are humbled (hatta
	yu`tu 'l-jizyata `an yadin wa-hum saghirun). (Sura 9:29)
	
	I include the Arabic for the last clause, because the exact
	meaning is slightly fuzzy.  I translate according to later
	understanding (from around A.H. 300) which has governed Muslim
	treatment of Jews over the last millenium.
	
	The Qur'an only makes favorable statements about banu Isra'il the,
	children of Israel, who no longer exist.  All Qur'anic statements
	about al-Yahud (Jews) are negative.
	
>That the Muslims don't practice what they preach is not
>surprising to me.  Neither do any of the other religeous
>groups.  At the time the Koran was written, the Muslims
>had scant knowledge of Christians and therefore lumped them
>in with all of the othes who did not recognize their God.

This statement shows immense ignorance about the redaction of the Qur'an. 
If the writer wrote this passage in Saudi Arabia, he would probably have
been executed for blasphemy.  Orthodox Islam holds the Qur'an uncreated.

>The Muslims did recognize that the Jews worshiped the same
>God that they did.  Christians were not too plentiful, nor
>were they called Christians in those days.  The Muslim
>faith, however, does recognize Jesus and Mary as being
>a major prophet and his mother.  In fact, there is a
>shrine in Saudi Arabia where it is claimed, by the Muslims,
>that Mary is buried.  The Muslims recognize many of the
>same prophets that the Jews venerate.

Sura 9:29 above belies the first sentence. Christian influence on Muhammed
is subject to serious scholarly debate.

>To say that it is Muslim law to harrass Jews is false and
>only shows a lack of knowledge in the true nature of another's
>religion.  Read the Koran, it won't burn your fingers if you
>pick it up.  You might open your eyes a little and begin to
>see what it is that the other person is saying to you.  You
>will not harm your faith by trying to understand, you can
>only strengthen it by gaining knowledge.  To pass on falsehoods
>that Muslims are out to get the Jews because of some law can
>only perpetuate the assinine turmoil in the Middle East.  If
>both the Jews and the Muslims were to act according to their
>respective religeous teachings, the Middle East would be the
>quietest area on the globe.

Merely reading the Qur'an will give almost no incite to Islamic social
structure.  An alim (Jurist) is not permitted nowadays to learn fiqh
(Islamic Law) directly from the Qur`an.  A scholar who ignores the body of
Islamic `ilm (science, scholarship, wisdom) of previous scholars is a
heretic.  (I am only discussing Sunnis.  I cannot read Persian.)  I have
studied the four madahib (orthodox schools of Islamic Law).  If  the
writer had also, he would realize what asinine nonsense he has written.

The writer seems unaware that religion is not separate from politics in
Islamic countries.  Islamic Law was the law of the governments under which
Arab Jews like my family lived.