The Quran and the Jewish Temple

Did you know that the Quran confirms the existence of the Jewish Temples?

Here, at Sura 17:7

Whenever you did good, it was to your own advantage; and whenever you committed evil, it was to your own disadvantage. So, when the time of the fulfillment of the second promise arrived, (We raised other enemies that would) disfigure your faces and enter the Temple (of Jerusalem) as they had entered the first time, and destroy whatever they could lay their hands on

And here are excerpts from a commentary,:

The historical background of the second degeneration and its chastisement is as follows: The moral and religious fervor with which the Maccabees had started their movement gradually cooled down and was replaced by love of the world and empty external form. A split appeared among them and they themselves invited the Roman General, Pompey, to come to Palestine. Pompey turned his attention to this land in 63 B.C. By taking Jerusalem he put an end to the political freedom of the Jews. But the Roman conquerors preferred to rule their dominions through the agency of the local chiefs rather than by direct control. Therefore, a local government was set up in Palestine which eventually passed into the hand of Herod, a clever Jew, in 40 B.C. This ruler is well known as Herod the Great. He ruled over the entire Palestine and Jordan from 40 to 4 B.C. On the one hand, Herod patronized the religious leaders to please the Jews, and on the other, he propagated the Roman culture and won the goodwill of Caesar by showing his loyalty and faithfulness to the Roman Empire. During, his reign, the Jews degenerated and fell to the lowest ebb of moral and religious life.

...In order to have a correct estimate of the condition of the common Jews and their religious leaders, one should study the criticisms leveled by Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) on them in his sermons contained in the four Gospels...when Pontius Pilate asked these depraved people, which condemned prisoner he should release, according to the custom, at Passover, Jesus or Barabbas the robber, they all cried with one voice Barabbas. This was indeed the last chance Allah gave to the Jews, and then their fate was sealed.

Not long after this, a serious conflict started between the Jews and the Romans, which developed into an open revolt by the former between A.D. 64 and 66. Both Herod Agrippa II and the Roman procurator Floris failed to put down the rebellion. At last, the Romans crushed it by a strong military action and in A.D. 70 Titus took Jerusalem by force. About 133000 people were put to the sword. Sixty seven thousand made slaves, and thousands sent to work in the Egyptian mines and to other cities so that they could be used in amphitheaters for being torn by wild beasts or become the practice target for the sword fighters. All the tall and beautiful girls were picked out for the army of conquest and the Holy City of Jerusalem and the Temple were pulled down to the ground. After this the Jewish influence so disappeared from Palestine that the Jews could not regain power for two thousand years and the Holy Temple could never be rebuilt. Afterward the Roman Emperor, Hadrian, restored Jerusalem but renamed it Aelia. The Jews, however, were not allowed to enter it for centuries. This was the calamity that the Jews suffered on account of their degeneration for the second time.

Jewish history, Jewish sovereignty confirmed.

^ 

Speaking of Apes

Jews in the Quran -

Quran 2:65:

And you had already known about those who transgressed among you concerning the sabbath, and We said to them, "Be apes, despised."

Quran 5:59-60

Say, "O People of the Scripture, do you resent us except [for the fact] that we have believed in Allah and what was revealed to us and what was revealed before and because most of you are defiantly disobedient?" Say, "Shall I inform you of [what is] worse than that as penalty from Allah ? [It is that of] those whom Allah has cursed and with whom He became angry and made of them apes and pigs and slaves of Taghut. Those are worse in position and further astray from the sound way."

Quran 7:163-166:

And ask them about the town that was by the sea - when they transgressed in [the matter of] the sabbath - when their fish came to them openly on their sabbath day, and the day they had no sabbath they did not come to them. Thus did We give them trial because they were defiantly disobedient.

And when a community among them said, "Why do you advise [or warn] a people whom Allah is [about] to destroy or to punish with a severe punishment?" they [the advisors] said, "To be absolved before your Lord and perhaps they may fear Him."

And when they forgot that by which they had been reminded, We saved those who had forbidden evil and seized those who wronged, with a wretched punishment, because they were defiantly disobeying.
So when they were insolent about that which they had been forbidden, We said to them, "Be apes, despised."


Explained:

Allah says in numerous places in the Quran that those who reject his gift of grace will be despised as a lower form of or lowest of creation. I will add more specific references below as I find them and sort them out.

Al Quran (95:4-5)

We created man in the best design. Then reduced him to the lowest of the low.

My humble opinion is that a human turning into an ape is a metaphor rather than actual physical transformation. It would symbolize an animal who cannot make distinctions between right and wrong, can't reason beyond his immediate desires and needs, doesn't recognize rights of others, no moral or ethical considerations in his actions, no sense of gratitude or thankfulness for the providence of his creator, and no concept of worshiping his creator.

Actually, the animal is better than the kufar, because, an animal will only take what it needs from the dunya to satisfy his own hunger and that of its own immediate offspring.
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Trying to Understand a Quranic Passage

In Sura 26, the Quran retells its version of the Exodus from Egypt by the Israelites*. Verse 59 is quite forthright, the Children of Israel are "caused to inherit" the Land of Israel ("goodly dwellings", M. H. Shakir; "a fair estate", Muhammad M. Pickthall.)
by Allah.

Here is one discussion of the verse 59 which mixes up a country, "Palestine", which didn't exist at the time, with the historic Jewish Homeland to where the Israelites were going:

The relevant verses of Surahs Al-Baqarah, Al-Maidah, Al-Aaraf and TaHa confirm that after the destruction of Pharaoh in the sea, the Israelites did not return to Egypt but proceeded towards their destination (Palestine) and then, till the time of Prophet David (973-1013 B.C.) all the major events of their history took place in the lands which are now known as the Sinai Peninsula, northern Arabia, Transjordan and Palestine. As such, in our opinion the verses mean this: On the one hand, Allah deprived the people of Pharaoh of their wealth, possessions and grandeur, and on the other hand, He bestowed the same on the Children of Israel in Palestine, and not in Egypt. This same meaning is borne out by (verses 136-137 of Surah A1-Aaraf): Then We took Our vengeance on them and drowned them in the sea because they had treated Our signs as false and grown heedless of them. And after them We gave as heritage to those who had been abased and kept low, the eastern and the western parts of that land, which had been blessed bountifully by Us. The epithet of the blessed land has generally been used for Palestine in the Quran as in (Surah Bani Israil, Ayat 1); (Surah Al-Anbiya, Ayats 71-81); and (Surah Saba, Ayat 18).

*

[26:16] "Go to Pharaoh and say, 'We are messengers from the Lord of the universe.

[26:17] "'Let the Children of Israel go.'"

[26:18] He said, "Did we not raise you from infancy, and you spent many years with us?

[26:19] "Then you committed the crime that you committed, and you were ungrateful."

[26:20] He said, "Indeed, I did it when I was astray.

[26:21] "Then I fled, when I feared you, and my Lord endowed me with wisdom and made me one of the messengers.

[26:22] "You are boasting that you did me a favor, while enslaving the Children of Israel!"

[26:23] Pharaoh said, "What is the Lord of the universe?"

[26:24] He said, "The Lord of the heavens and the earth, and everything between them. You should be certain about this."

[26:25] He said to those around him, "Did you hear this?"

[26:26] He said, "Your Lord and the Lord of your ancestors."

[26:27] He said, "Your messenger who is sent to you is crazy."

[26:28] He said, "The Lord of the east and the west, and everything between them, if you understand."

[26:29] He said, "If you accept any god, other than me, I will throw you in the prison."

[26:30] He said, "What if I show you something profound?"

[26:31] He said, "Then produce it, if you are truthful."

[26:32] He then threw his staff, whereupon it became a profound snake.

[26:33] And he took out his hand, and it was white to the beholders.

[26:34] He said to the elders around him, "This is an experienced magician.

[26:35] "He wants to take you out of your land, with his magic. What do you suggest?"

[26:36] They said, "Respite him and his brother, and send summoners to every town.

[26:37] "Let them summon every experienced magician."

[26:38] The magicians were gathered at the appointed time, on the appointed day.

[26:39] The people were told: "Come one and all; let us gather together here.

[26:40] "Maybe we will follow the magicians, if they are the winners."

[26:41] When the magicians came, they said to Pharaoh, "Do we get paid, if we are the winners?"

[26:42] He said, "Yes indeed; you will even be close to me."

[26:43] Moses said to them, "Throw what you are going to throw."

[26:44] They threw their ropes and sticks, and said, "By Pharaoh's majesty, we will be the victors."

[26:45] Moses threw his staff, whereupon it swallowed what they fabricated.

The Experts See the Truth
[26:46] The magicians fell prostrate.

[26:47] They said, "We believe in the Lord of the universe.

[26:48] "The Lord of Moses and Aaron."

[26:49] He said, "Did you believe with him before I give you permission? He must be your teacher, who taught you magic. You will surely find out. I will cut your hands and feet on alternate sides. I will crucify you all."

[26:50] They said, "This will not change our decision; to our Lord we will return.

[26:51] "We hope that our Lord will forgive us our sins, especially that we are the first believers."

[26:52] We inspired Moses: "Travel with My servants; you will be pursued."

[26:53] Pharaoh sent to the cities callers.

[26:54] (Proclaiming,) "This is a small gang.

[26:55] "They are now opposing us.

[26:56] "Let us all beware of them."

The Inevitable Retribution
[26:57] Consequently, we deprived them of gardens and springs.

[26:58] And treasures and an honorable position.

[26:59] Then we made it an inheritance for the Children of Israel.

[26:60] They pursued them towards the east.

[26:61] When both parties saw each other, Moses' people said, "We will be caught."

[26:62] He said, "No way. My Lord is with me; He will guide me."

[26:63] We then inspired Moses: "Strike the sea with your staff," whereupon it parted. Each part was like a great hill.

[26:64] We then delivered them all.

[26:65] We thus saved Moses and all those who were with him.

[26:66] And we drowned the others.

[26:67] This should be a sufficient proof, but most people are not believers.


[26:68] Most assuredly, your Lord is the Almighty, Most Merciful.

^

Why Are We 'Desecrators'?

This short clip carries with it the notation that

Settlers desecrate the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the festival "Shushan Purim"!!

( مستوطنون يدنسون المسجد الأقصى و في عيد " شوشان بوريم" !!)

Do they really look like 'desecrators' to you? To me, the Muslims who write this, and think this and then throw rocks to injure those Jews who enter Judaism's mots holy site, one which the Quran recognizes:

JERUSALEM IN THE QUR'AN
The most common argument against Muslim acknowledgment of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem is that, since al-Quds [Jerusalem] (4) is a Holy Place for Muslims, Muslims cannot accept that it is ruled by non-Muslims, because such acceptance amounts to a betrayal of Islam. Before expressing our point of view on this question, we must reflect upon the reason for which Jerusalem and Masjid al-Aqsa [the Al Aksa mosque] hold such a sacred position in Islamic faith.  As is well known, the inclusion of Jerusalem among Islamic holy places derives from al-Mi'raj, the Ascension of the Prophet Muhammed to heaven. The Ascension began at the Rock, usually identified by Muslim scholars as the Foundation Stone of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem referred to in Jewish sources. Recalling this link requires us to admit that there is no connection between al-Miraj [the Ascension] and Muslim sovereign rights over Jerusalem since, in the time that al-Miraj took place, the City was not under Islamic, but under Byzantine administration. Moreover, the Qur'an expressly recognizes that Jerusalem plays for Jews the same role that Mecca does for Muslims.  We read:

"...They would not follow thy direction of prayer (qiblah), nor art thou to follow their direction of prayer; nor indeed will they follow each other's direction of prayer..." (5)

All Qur'anic commentators explain that "thy qiblah" [direction of prayer for Muslims] is clearly the Ka'bah of Mecca, while "their qiblah" [direction of prayer for Jews] refers to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  To quote only one of the most important Muslim commentators, we read in Qadn Baydawn's Commentary:

"Verily, in their prayers Jews orientate themselves toward the Rock (sakhrah), while Christians orientate themselves eastwards..." (6)

In complete opposition to what "Islamic" fundamentalists continuously claim, the Book of Islam [the Qur'an] - as we have just now seen - recognizes Jerusalem as the Jewish direction of prayer. Some Muslim commentators also quote the Book of Daniel (7) as a proof for this

4. Arabic name of Jerusalem, from the root q-d-s, meaning "holiness". It is an abridged form of Bayt al-maqdis, "the sanctified House" or "the House of the Sanctuary", an exact equivalent of the Hebrew Beth ha-mikdash. The name originally referred only to the Temple Mount, and was afterward extended to the City as a whole. This extension of meaning became common among Arabs from the tenth century C.E. onwards. Earlier Islamic sources use the name Iliyia, an adaptation to Arabic pronounciation of the Roman name Aelia.
5. Koran 2:145.
6. M. Shaykh Zadeh Hashiyaah 'ali Tafsir al-Qadn al-Baydawn (Istanbul 1979), Vol. 1, p. 456.
7. Daniel 6:10

Another commentary:

Perhaps the most explicit reference in the Qurān to the Jerusalem temple can be found among the stories of the prophet-king Solomon... n this regard the demons and jinn are said to have performed unspecified “tasks” for Solomon (Q 21:82), which are most likely associated with building the Temple...This is most explicit in Sūrah 34:12b-13a...

  ﴿١١﴾ وَلِسُلَيْمَانَ الرِّ‌يحَ غُدُوُّهَا شَهْرٌ‌ وَرَ‌وَاحُهَا شَهْرٌ‌ ۖ وَأَسَلْنَا لَهُ عَيْنَ الْقِطْرِ‌ ۖ وَمِنَ الْجِنِّ مَن يَعْمَلُ بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ بِإِذْنِ رَ‌بِّهِ ۖ وَمَن يَزِغْ مِنْهُمْ عَنْ أَمْرِ‌نَا نُذِقْهُ مِنْ عَذَابِ السَّعِيرِ‌ ﴿١٢﴾ يَعْمَلُونَ لَهُ مَا يَشَاءُ مِن مَّحَارِ‌يبَ وَتَمَاثِيلَ وَجِفَانٍ كَالْجَوَابِ وَقُدُورٍ‌ رَّ‌اسِيَاتٍ ۚ اعْمَلُوا آلَ دَاوُودَ شُكْرً‌ا ۚ وَقَلِيلٌ مِّنْ عِبَادِيَ الشَّكُورُ‌

perhaps most importantly, Solomon is described in these verses as making “places of worship.” The Arabic plural here is maḥārīb; its singular is the more familiar miḥrābt may be plural here in reference to the multiple rooms within Solomon’s temple complex. At this point I will only note the appearance of the word miḥrāb in this verse. As I will argue below, the word miḥrāb in the Qurʾān seems to be a technical term for the Jerusalem temple.  Taken together, all of the elements mentioned in this passage--Solomon as builder of a place of worship, the massive use of bronze, the jinn as workers, the images, and water basins-- make it certain that this passage is describing the building of Solomon’s Temple, viewing its construction as having been ordered by God and facilitated by divine intervention.

...[and as regards  the Queen of Sheba] in Q 27:44 she was brought to Solomon’s crystal palace, where she mistakenly assumed its transparent crystal pavement was water:

قِيلَ لَهَا ادْخُلِي الصَّرْ‌حَ ۖ فَلَمَّا رَ‌أَتْهُ حَسِبَتْهُ لُجَّةً وَكَشَفَتْ عَن سَاقَيْهَا ۚ قَالَ إِنَّهُ صَرْ‌حٌ مُّمَرَّ‌دٌ مِّن قَوَارِ‌يرَ‌ ۗ قَالَتْ رَ‌بِّ إِنِّي ظَلَمْتُ نَفْسِي وَأَسْلَمْتُ مَعَ سُلَيْمَانَ لِلَّـهِ رَ‌بِّ الْعَالَمِينَ ﴿٤٤﴾

...[and a more explicit mention in Sura 17:7]:

  وَعْدُ الْآخِرَ‌ةِ لِيَسُوءُوا وُجُوهَكُمْ وَلِيَدْخُلُوا الْمَسْجِدَ كَمَا دَخَلُوهُ أَوَّلَ مَرَّ‌ةٍ وَلِيُتَبِّرُ‌وا مَا عَلَوْا تَتْبِيرً‌ا ﴿٧﴾

 If you do good, it is your own souls you do good to, and if you do evil it is to them likewise.’ Then, when the promise of the second [apostasy] came to pass, We sent against you Our servants [the Romans] to discountenance you, and to enter the Temple (masjid), as they entered it the first time, and to destroy utterly that which they ascended to.

A tour from last Succoth it would seem.

____________________

UPDATE

Dozens of Jewish settlers stormed the holy Aqsa mosque in occupied Jerusalem on Monday morning amidst heavy police presence. Eyewitnesses said that around 40 settlers broke into the holy compound and roamed in its plazas focusing on the Dome of the rock and the main Aqsa mosque. They said that the settlers provoked worshippers and assaulted one of them, moderately injuring him.

^

Quiz on Apes and Pigs

Borrowed from Ruth King at OUTPOST:

EVOLUTION OF HATRED 

Question: Who said that Jews are descended from apes and pigs?

a. Bashar Al Assad of Syria
 
b. The Moslem Brotherhood


c. President Morsi of Egypt
 
d. Charles Darwin


e. Al-Azhar Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the highest-ranking cleric in the Sunni Muslim world

f. Saudi sheikh Abd Al-Rahman Al-Sudayyis, imam and preacher at the Al-Haraam mosque – the most important mosque in Mecca

g. Sheikh Ibrahim Madhi, PA official and imam of the Sheikh Ijlin mosque in Gaza City.

h. Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah

i. Salim ‘Azzouz, columnist for the Al-Ahrar Egyptian opposition daily, affiliated with the religious Liberal Party

j. British-Palestinian Muslim cleric Haitham al-Haddad

k. The Koran

Answer: All of the above except for D.

^

So, The Qur'an Relates Temple Tales

Excerpts from a paper, The Temple in the Qurʾān, presented by William J. Hamblin, Professor of History, Brigham Young University today

Taken together, all of the elements mentioned in this passage [Sūrah 34:12b-13a] --Solomon as builder of a place of worship, the massive use of bronze, the jinn as workers, the images, and water basins -- make it certain that this passage is describing the building of Solomon’s Temple, viewing its construction as having been ordered by God and facilitated by divine intervention.

In these Qurʾānic narratives about Mary, the temple appears in Qurʿān 3:35-37, describing the birth of Mary and her dedication as a youth to serve in the temple, where she is miraculously fed by God. 

The Qurʾān also includes a rather detailed description of the destructions of the Jerusalem temple       by the Babylonians and the Romans in 17:4-8. 

and

The Qurʾān views the temple of Jerusalem through three different lenses.  First, the Qurʾānic temple was an Israelite holy place intimately tied to the lives of the ancient prophets.  Solomon built it by divine decree and with miraculous assistance.  It was commemorated as a place of repentance and miracles.   Second, it was a Christian holy place, where God fed Mary miraculous food, and angels spoke to Zachariah.  Finally, it was a contemporary Muslim sacred place, directly linked to the spiritual life of the Muslims, where Muhammad ascended to heaven in vision.  But, despite its holiness, it was destroyed because of the apostasy of the Jews.  For the Qurʾān, the Jerusalem temple is thus a sign of God’s miraculous power, and a warning, that sacredness does not derive from a place alone, but from submission (ʾislām) to the will of God. 

Interesting but I think there is room for debate on sum of his interpretations.

Temple Denial anyone?

-------------------------

UPDATE

I forwarded the lecture to Dr. Mordechai Kedar and he sent Hamblin this letter:

Dear Prof. Hamblin,

I read your article "The Temple in the Qurʾān" and I was surprised to find no mention to the well-established evidence (based on Islamic sources) that the al-Aqsa Mosque was ORIGINALLY in the Arab peninsula, between Mecca and Taʾif, near the village of al-Ji‘irrana. In addition, it is not mentioned in the Qurʾān, in any of its four names: ʾIlya, Urshalim, Bayt al-Maqdis or al-Quds.

And the fact that Jerusalem, traditionally, is not sacred to Shi‘ites, (Najaf in Southern Iraq is the third place in holiness for Shi‘ites) hints to the possibility that the whole issue of holiness attributed to Jerusalem in Islam is connected to politics more than anything else.

Ibn Taymiyya in his Ziyarat Bayt al-Maqdis relates to the status of Jerusalem in Islam in a rather negative way.Al-Ghazali places the al-Aqsa Mosque in heaven, something like the concept of Civitate Deo....

Please read my piece on this matter: How did Jerusalem come to be so holy to Moslems? 

Please note that it was written 12 years ago, when Arafat was still alive..

.

I'd appreciate your comments,

Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Bar-Ilan University

Israel

^

Laugh at a Muslim 'Scholar' on Jerusalem

Here, over at EoZ.

^

Reading The Quran Backwards

I have selected a few verses from the Quran (Koran?) and I suggest the real meaning:

1)

And We conveyed to the Children of Israel in the Scripture that, "You will surely cause corruption on the earth twice, and you will surely reach [a degree of] great haughtiness.

Surat Al-'Isrā' (The Night Journey) - سورة الإسراء 17:4

Ask yourselves, if we Jews caused corruption twice, is that a reference to the existence of the two Temples in Jerusalem and the two exiles, by Babylon and Rome?  After all, Solomon is mentioned.

Does that mean that to deny the Temple Mount as the site of our Temple is anti-Koranic?

2)

And We said after Pharaoh to the Children of Israel, "Dwell in the land, and when there comes the promise of the Hereafter, We will bring you forth in [one] gathering."

Surat Al-'Isrā' (The Night Journey) - 17:104  سورة الإسراء

Ask yourselves, where is that "Land"?  Could it be the Land of Israel?  "Palestine" didn't exist then, sorry, Filastin didn't exist.
 
Does that mean that the Israelites really did come out of Egypt, according to the Koran, form themselves into a nation and then enter the Land of Israel, there to establish the Jewish national home, which was "reconstituted" with the major approbation of all the civilized world via the Balfour Declaration, the Versailles Peace Conference, the Weizmann-Feisal Letter, the San Remo Conference, the Mandate decision of the League of Nations and the Anglo-American Convention and the UN Partition recommendation?
 

3)

O Children of Israel, remember My favor which I have bestowed upon you and fulfill My covenant [upon you] that I will fulfill your covenant [from Me], and be afraid of [only] Me.

Surat Al-Baqarah (The Cow) - 2:40  سورة البقرة

Does that mean that Jews were in a special covenental relationsip with God, one that assured them their residency rights in the Land of Israel as an eternal inheritance?

And is that strenghtened by this verse, which also resources the Torah (!):

And [recall] when We took your covenant, [O Children of Israel, to abide by the Torah] and We raised over you the mount, [saying], "Take what We have given you with determination and remember what is in it that perhaps you may become righteous."

Oh, the "Mount" is Sinai - or Moriah?
 

One more verse:
 
4)

O Children of Israel, remember My favor which I have bestowed upon you and that I preferred you over the worlds.

Jews had preferential treatment? Do accomplish what? To be a light unto the nations? To teach the moral values of the Ten Commandments? To spread the words of the Prophets? To demonstrate how a nation can live on the Land in the proper fashion?

Please, read the Koran carefully.

It can teach you something.

^

Let's Read The Quran (Koran)

On the Ark of the Covenant, that very Jewish and Biblical item:

In chapter 2 (Verse 248), the Children of Israel, at the time of Samuel and Saul, were given back the 'Tabut E Sakina' (the casket of Shekhinah) which contained remnants of the household of Musa and Harun (Moses and Aaron) carried by angels which confirmed peace and reassurance for them from their Lord. It is mentioned in the middle of the narrative of the choice of Saul to be king. The Qur'an states:

And (further) their Prophet said to them: "A Sign of his authority is that there shall come to you the Ark of the covenant, with (an assurance) therein of security (Sakina) from your Lord, and the relics left by the family of Moses and the family of Aaron, carried by angels. In this is a symbol for you if ye indeed have faith. (Qur'an 2:248)

The Islamic scholar Al Baidawi mentioned that the Sakina could be Tawrat, Books of Moses. According to Al-Jalalan, the relics in the Ark were the fragments of the two tablets, rods, robes, shoes, mitres of Moses and the vase of Manna. Al-Tha'alibi, in Qisas Al-Anbiya (The Stories of the Prophets), has given an earlier and later history of the Ark.

According to most Muslim scholars, the Ark of the Covenant has a religious basis in Islam, and Islam gives it special significance. Shia sect of Muslims believe that it will be found by Mahdi near the end of times from Lake Tiberias.

And there's still Islamic denial of our historical presence in the Land of Israel!

^

Amazing Islamic Statement

This statement made by Hussein Mubarak, Consul General of Egypt, New York, in his letter to the NYTimes today:-

A Muslim cannot exist without a belief in Christianity and Judaism. The Bible and the Koran have several common convictions, including the irrefutable belief in a monotheistic God, Judgment Day and the existence of heaven and hell. Therefore, Muslims believe that Islam, Christianity and Judaism do not need to confront one another.

Well, what about this Koranic conviction that I posted a while ago:

THE QUR'AN SAYS THAT ALLAH GAVE THE LAND OF ISRAEL TO THE JEWS AND WILL RESTORE THEM TO IT AT THE END OF DAYS

THE QUR'AN SAYS:

"Pharoah sought to scare them [the Israelites] out of the land [of Israel]: but We [Allah] drowned him [Pharoah] together with all who were with him. Then We [Allah] said to the Israelites: 'Dwell in this land [the Land of Israel]. When the promise of the hereafter [End of Days] comes to be fulfilled, We [Allah] shall assemble you [the Israelites] all together [in the Land of Israel]." [Qur'an, "Night Journey," chapter 17:100-104]

SHAYKH PROF. PALAZZI COMMENTS:

God wanted to give Avraham a double blessing, through Ishmael and through Isaac, and ordered that Ishmael's descendents should live in the desert of Arabia and Isaac's in Canaan.The Qur'an recognizes the Land of Israel as the heritage of the Jews and it explains that, before the Last Judgment, Jews will return to dwell there. This prophecy has already been fulfilled. The fundamentalist Muslim program to use Islam as an instrument for political warfare against Jews finds a major obstacle in the Qur'an itself.

Both the Bible and the Qur'an state quite clearly that the right of the Israelites to the Land of Israel does not depend on conquest and colonization. This right flows from the will of almighty God Himself. Both the Jewish and Islamic Scriptures teach that God, through His chosen servant Moses, decided to free the offspring of Jacob from slavery in Egypt and to constitute them as heirs of the Promised Land. Whoever claims that Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel is something new and rooted in human politics denies divine revelation and divine prophecy as explicitly expressed in our Holy Books (the Bible and Koran).

The Qur'an relates the words by which Moses ordered the Israelites to conquer the Land:"And [remember] when Moses said to his people: 'O my people, call in remembrance the favour of God unto you, when he produced prophets among you, made you kings, and gave to you what He had not given to any other among the peoples. O my people, enter the Holy Land which God has assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin.'" [Qur'an 5:20-21]

Moreover - and those who try to use Islam as a weapon against Israel always conveniently ignore this point - the Holy Qur'an explicitly refers to the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel before the Last Judgment - where it says: "And thereafter We [Allah] said to the Children of Israel: 'Dwell securely in the Promised Land. And when the last warning will come to pass, we will gather you together in a mingled crowd.'" [Qur'an 17:104]

And see the original Arabic here (at the end of the post).

Getting Abreast of Those 70 Or So Virgins

Found in this article:

...the pseudonymous Christoph Luxenberg’s The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran, first published in 2000.

Luxenberg’s best-known argument involves the qur’anic term hur, which Islamic tradition understands as a reference to virgins awaiting the believers in the garden of paradise. By one account, Muhammad described the hur as fabulous women with faces shining with divine light, who have the name of God inscribed on one breast and the name of the believer for whom they are destined on the other. Luxenberg argues that the word hur, which literally means “white,” refers instead to crystal-clear grapes. It is, he concludes, a reflection of the Syriac-Christian tradition of heaven as a garden—and thus the heavenly reward of the believers is not sex but fruit.

Some scholars find Luxenberg’s work to be cavalier and wrongheaded. At a conference I recently attended in Berlin, one respected German professor stood up and lamented that some scholars today act as though the Qur’an was revealed in Antioch and Jerusalem, not Mecca and Medina. Others, however, claim that Luxenberg’s book is momentous...

And while we are dealing with sex and the Quran, how about this?

Muslims explain a celebrated passage on sexual relations in the Qur’an’s second chapter, which instructs (male) believers: “Your women are your field. Go into your field as you wish.” The agricultural metaphor is clear enough, but a historical context for this passage is provided by Islamic tradition. In the words of a modern Muslim interpreter: “When the Muslims migrated from Mecca the men found the women of Medina bashful and only willing to sleep with their husbands lying on their side. So the Muslim men asked the Prophet if there was anything wrong with such sexual positions.”

As it happens, the Qur’an has nothing to say about the bashfulness of women in Medina, the city to which Muhammad is said to have emigrated in the year 622.

I Didn't Say It

“Many men who had anal sex with men before marriage want the same thing with their wives, because they don’t know anything else, this is one reason we need sex education in our schools.”

So, if Medad didn't say it, who did say it?

Wedad.

Wedad?

Her:



Yes she did:

Wedad Lootah, a Muslim and a native Emirati, who wears a full-length black niqab — with only her brown eyes showing through narrow slits — and sprinkles her conversation with quotes from the Koran, is the author of the book, “Top Secret: Sexual Guidance for Married Couples” and for eight years a marital counselor in Dubai’s main courthouse.

"Nothing"? Not A Thing?

Wakf allows journalists to enter al-Aksa

The Wakf (Islamic Trust), which administers the Temple Mount, opened the doors of al-Aksa Mosque Wednesday for a rare visit by a group of about 40 journalists, mostly from the foreign press.

But Muhammad Abu Aktesh, the group's guide, said the Wakf had no plans to lift the general prohibition against non-Muslims visiting al-Aksa or the Dome of the Rock imposed eight years ago following then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount and the eruption of the second intifada.

...The rare visit Wednesday was facilitated and accompanied by Amir Cheshin, late Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek's longtime adviser on Arab affairs, and organized by INFO-Mishkenot, a forum which initiates meetings between foreign journalists and Israeli news makers.

Abu Aktesh told the group that the Haram al-Sharif Compound was "holy Muslim land" and that he hoped peace would be attained here soon...

...Before ascending the mount, Cheshin briefed the group from a vantage point above Robinson's Arch, near the junction of the Western and Southern Walls. He described the archeological history of the site, highlighted discoveries relating to the era of the Jewish temples and pointed out the cleared Herodian pavement at the corner of the walls below. He said the best archeological evidence of the Herodian temple was an eight-ton stone, now housed at the Israel Museum, which was unearthed by archeologists at that corner and bore the inscription: "Belonging to the place of the trumpet blowing" - which accords with accounts of priests sounding trumpets from the Temple at the beginning and end of Shabbat.

Abu Aktesh, however, adamantly maintained that "the Jews had nothing here."

Speaking as the group walked around the Dome of the Rock, he said that Muslim rulers had given Jews permission to pray at what he called the "Western wall of al-Aksa" as an act of goodwill - an apparent reference to the dispensation by Suleiman the Magnificent in the late 16th century.

But here's another Muslim voice:-

Recent Palestinian Muslim statements denying a Jewish temple ever existed on the Temple Mount site that now houses the Muslim al-Aqsa Mosque is a distortion of traditional Islamic opinions, according to the Muslim head of Italy's Muslim Association.

Moreover, Abdul Hadi Palazzi told an interfaith meeting..."It is shocking to hear a mufti say that there was never a temple there," Palazzi said. He was referring to recent comments by Jerusalem Mufti Sheikh Ekrima El Sabri in which he said "there is not even the smallest indication of the existence of a Jewish temple on this place in the past. In the whole city (of Jerusalem) there is not even a single stone indicating Jewish history."

"Saying such a thing doesn't just contradict the Bible, it contradicts the Koran," said Palazzi, a lecturer at Italy's University of Velletri and a graduate of Egypt's al-Azhar Islamic University.

...And he said he saw no reason why Jews couldn't be permitted to pray on the mount, in coordination with Muslim authorities, or ultimately even to build another temple alongside the existing Islamic structures.

And more:-

"Today, official Palestinian Authority propaganda denies any connection of the Jews to Jerusalem," Palazzi says. "In doing so, they are not only revising history but also classical Islamic sources. The Koran presents the same history as the Bible. This was clear to Muslim scholars for centuries - Al Aksa and Solomon's Temple are in the same place. When the Caliph Omar first arrived in Jerusalem, he called the city Bayet Al Makdis - Beit Hamikdash or the House of the Temple. This was shortened to Al Quds."

So, who is telling the truth?

New Meaning to "Scrolling on the Internet"

Remember the Dea Sea Scrolls? Well, they aren't really 'dead'.

And watch out Internet, here they come:-

In a crowded laboratory painted in gray and cooled like a cave, half a dozen specialists embarked this week on a historic undertaking: digitally photographing every one of the thousands of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of making the entire file — among the most sought-after and examined documents on earth — available to all on the Internet.

Here's a photo of an infrared scan by Rina Castelnuovo of The New York Times

Equipped with high-powered cameras with resolution and clarity many times greater than those of conventional models, and with lights that emit neither heat nor ultraviolet rays, the scientists and technicians are uncovering previously illegible sections and letters of the scrolls, discoveries that could have significant scholarly impact.

The 2,000-year-old scrolls, found in the late 1940s in caves near the Dead Sea east of Jerusalem, contain the earliest known copies of every book of the Hebrew Bible (missing only the Book of Esther), as well as apocryphal texts and descriptions of rituals of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus. The texts, most of them on parchment but some on papyrus, date from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D.

Will the Arabs and antizionists claim it's another Jewish plot to prove that Judea preceded "Palestine"? Darn that Bible. Even the New Testament refers to the country and Judea and Samaria. Check out Acts 8:1 - "...all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria". Or, in Greek: ιουδαιας και σαμαρειας.

And thanks to Shaykh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi, we know it is in the Quran as well, "Night Journey," chapter 17:100-104:

"Pharoah sought to scare them [the Israelites] out of the land [of Israel]: but We [Allah] drowned him [Pharoah] together with all who were with him. Then We [Allah] said to the Israelites: 'Dwell in this land [the Land of Israel]. When the promise of the hereafter [End of Days] comes to be fulfilled, We [Allah] shall assemble you [the Israelites] all together [in the Land of Israel]."(*)

Read Arabic?




(*)
But to be fair, the Hizbullah has a different take:

Allah saying "We shall gather you altogether" doesn't mean it's their right or privilege. He is just saying it is going to happen. Their gathering might be nothing but a way to punish them. Anyway, the majority of them never believed in Allah's messengers(as). All they did was rejecting the truth and killing prophets and those who believed. They never did anything good to deserve any land as a gift from Allah.

And what good have the Hizbullah ever done, to anyone?

Ver-r-r-y Interesting - Quran in Doubt

What if scholars can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Koran was not dictated by the Archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Mohammad during the 7th century, but rather was redacted by later writers drawing on a variety of extant Christian and Jewish sources? That would be the precise equivalent of proving that the Jesus Christ of the Gospels really was a composite of several individuals, some of whom lived a century or two apart.

It has long been known that variant copies of the Koran exist, including some found in 1972 in a paper grave at Sa'na in Yemen, the subject of a cover story in the January 1999 Atlantic Monthly. Before the Yemeni authorities shut the door to Western scholars, two German academics, Gerhard R Puin and H C Graf von Bothmer, made 35,000 microfilm copies, which remain at the University of the Saarland. Many scholars believe that the German archive, which includes photocopies of manuscripts as old as 700 AD, will provide more evidence of variation in the Koran.

The history of the archive reads like an Islamic version of the Da Vinci Code. It is not clear why its existence was occulted for sixty years, or why it has come to light now, or when scholars will have free access to it. Higgins' account begins,
On the night of April 24, 1944, British air force bombers hammered a former Jesuit college here housing the Bavarian Academy of Science. The 16th-century building crumpled in the inferno. Among the treasures lost, later lamented Anton Spitaler, an Arabic scholar at the academy, was a unique photo archive of ancient manuscripts of the Koran.

The 450 rolls of film had been assembled before the war for a bold venture: a study of the evolution of the Koran, the text Muslims view as the verbatim transcript of God's word. The wartime destruction made the project "outright impossible", Mr Spitaler wrote in the 1970s.

Mr Spitaler was lying. The cache of photos survived, and he was sitting on it all along. The truth is only now dribbling out to scholars - and a Koran research project buried for more than 60 years has risen from the grave. Why Spitaler concealed the archive is unknown, but Koranic critics who challenge the received Muslim account suspect his motives. Higgins reports,

"The whole period after 1945 was poisoned by the Nazis," says Gunter Luling, a scholar who was drummed out of his university in the 1970s after he put forward heterodox theories about the Koran's origins. His doctoral thesis argued that the Koran was lifted in part from Christian hymns. Blackballed by Spitaler, Luling lost his teaching job and launched a fruitless six-year court battle to be reinstated. Feuding over the Koran, he says, "ruined my life".

He wrote books and articles at home, funded by his wife, who took a job in a pharmacy. Asked by a French journal to write a paper on German Arabists, Luling went to Berlin to examine wartime records. Germany's prominent postwar Arabic scholars, he says, "were all connected to the Nazis".

Why were the Nazis so eager to suppress Koranic criticism? Most likely, the answer lies in their alliance with Islamist leaders, who shared their hatred of the Jews and also sought leverage against the British in the Middle East. The most recent of many books on this subject, Matthias Kuntzel's Jihad and Jew-Hatred, was reviewed January 13 in the New York Times by Jeffrey Goldberg, who reports

Kuntzel makes a bold and consequential argument: the dissemination of European models of anti-Semitism among Muslims was not haphazard, but an actual project of the Nazi Party, meant to turn Muslims against Jews and Zionism. He says that in the years before World War II, two Muslim leaders in particular willingly and knowingly carried Nazi ideology directly to the Muslim masses. They were Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, and the Egyptian proto-Islamist Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.

It may be a very long time before the contents of the Bavarian archive are known. Some Koranic critics, notably the pseudonymous scholar "Ibn Warraq", claim that Professor Angelika Neuwirth, the archive's custodian, has denied access to scholars who stray from the traditional interpretation. Neuwirth admits that she has had the archive since 1990. She has 18 years of funding to study the Bavarian archive, and it is not clear who will have access to it.

Read more.

Don't Touch the Quran

Someone visiting from Egypt with an American academic program said to me that it seems there's an "optimistic" mood to the country with peace looming up again.

I replied that it's always nice to know that the country leading this peace process chops off hands and heads, their women can't appear in public unescorted and a few other items.

He got my point.

Wait til he sees this:-

Muslim School kids Beat Christian Teacher to Death for Unintentional Koran Disrespect

Nigerian police have arrested some 12 people in connection with the gruesome killing of a schoolteacher after students said she desecrated Islam's religious text the Koran, local media reported on Thursday.

Oluwatoyin Oluwasesan had allegedly collected books from her students before they were to write an exam and tossed them outside of the classroom. A copy of the Koran was apparently among the texts, sparking uproar by the pupils, Nigeria's This Day newspaper said.

'The school principal said before they knew what was happening, the students started shouting 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great). It was gathered that all efforts at controlling the rampaging students proved abortive,' This Day reported.

Oluwasesan, a Christian, taught at the school on a contract basis and was assigned to watch over the students as they wrote the exam.

According to police, the students beat the teacher to death, although This Day said she and parts of the school were set on fire. Apparently this kind of incident is quite common.

Here, too.