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Oops: The ‘Angel Gabriel’ Explains Human Reproduction To The ‘Prophet’ Of Islam … Incorrectly

03/12/2014 2 comments

Matthew 7:15-21a, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them… A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire… Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven …”

By David Wood, Answering Muslims – “Muhammad was once asked, as a challenge to his prophethood, why a child sometimes resembles the mother’s side of the family and sometimes resembles the father’s side of the family. Muhammad said that he received the answer to this question from the Angel Gabriel. The answer, however, is scientifically false. So if Muhammad got a false revelation from the same ‘angel’ that was giving him Qur’anic revelations, how can we believe the Qur’an?

In case you want to read it for yourself, here’s the hadith we were quoting:

Sahih al-Bukhari 3329—Narrated Anas: When Abdullah bin Salam heard of the arrival of the Prophet at Al-Madina, he came to him and said, “I am going to ask you about three things which nobody knows except a Prophet:

(1) What is the first portent of the Hour?
(2) What will be the first meal taken by the people of Paradise?
(3) Why does a child resemble its father, and why does it resemble its maternal uncle (mother’s brother)?”

Allah’s Messenger said, “Jibril (Gabriel) has just now told me of their answers.” Abdullah said, “He (i.e., Jibril), from amongst all the angels, is the enemy of the Jews.” Allah’s Messenger said, “As for the first sign of the Hour, it will be a fire that will collect (or gather) the people from the east to the west; the first meal of the people of Paradise will be extra lobe (caudate lobe) of fish-liver. As for the resemblance of the child to its parents: If a man has sexual intercourse with his wife and gets discharge first, the child will resemble the father, and if the woman gets discharge first, the child will resemble her.” On that Abdullah bin Salam said, “I testify that you are the Messenger of Allah.”

Source – Answering Muslims.

Categories: Radical Islam, Theology and Eschatology

Iraqi Cabinet Approves Draft Law Allowing Marriage Of Nine-Year-Old Girls

03/12/2014 1 comment

For peaceful purposes …

By Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch – “I explained in detail here that few things are more abundantly attested in Islamic law than the permissibility of child marriage. Islamic tradition records that Muhammad’s favorite wife, Aisha, was six when Muhammad wedded her and nine when he consummated the marriage. That is one reason why we see support for this barbarity recently in Pakistan and Turkey (and elsewhere), as well as in Iraq.

‘Iraqi women protest against proposed Islamic law in Iraq,’ by Suadad al-Salhy for Reuters, March 8 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – About two dozen Iraqi women demonstrated on Saturday in Baghdad against a draft law approved by the Iraqi cabinet that would permit the marriage of nine-year-old girls and automatically give child custody to fathers.

The group’s protest was on International Women’s Day and a week after the cabinet voted for the legislation, based on Shi’ite Islamic jurisprudence, allowing clergy to preside over marriages, divorces and inheritances. The draft now goes to parliament.

“On this day of women, women of Iraq are in mourning,” the protesters shouted.

“We believe that this is a crime against humanity,” said Hanaa Eduar, a prominent Iraqi human rights activist. “It would deprive a girl of her right to live a normal childhood.” Read more…

Categories: Radical Islam

Turkey: More Than 500,000 Child Brides In The Last Ten Years

03/12/2014 1 comment

For peaceful purposes …

By Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch – “Few things are more abundantly attested in Islamic law than the permissibility of child marriage. Islamic tradition records that Muhammad’s favorite wife, Aisha, was six when Muhammad wedded her and nine when he consummated the marriage:

“The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)” (Bukhari 7.62.88).

Another tradition has Aisha herself recount the scene:

The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became Allright, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, “Best wishes and Allah”s Blessing and a good luck.” Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah”s Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age. (Bukhari 5.58.234).

Muhammad was at this time fifty-four years old.

Marrying young girls was not all that unusual for its time, but because in Islam Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur’an 33:21), he is considered exemplary in this unto today. And so in April 2011, the Bangladesh Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini declared that those trying to pass a law banning child marriage in that country were putting Muhammad in a bad light: ‘Banning child marriage will cause challenging the marriage of the holy prophet of Islam, [putting] the moral character of the prophet into controversy and challenge.’ He added a threat: ‘Islam permits child marriage and it will not be tolerated if any ruler will ever try to touch this issue in the name of giving more rights to women.’ The Mufti said that 200,000 jihadists were ready to sacrifice their lives for any law restricting child marriage.

Likewise the influential website Islamonline.com in December 2010 justified child marriage by invoking not only Muhammad’s example, but the Qur’an as well: Read more…

Categories: Radical Islam

UK: Muslim Hate Preacher Anjem Choudary Drives ‘Al-Qaeda Van’ Through Streets Of London

03/12/2014 1 comment

Now he could face prosecution for his ill-conceived da’wah. Let’s see how soft that slap on the wrist will be …

Anjem Choudary

Anjem Choudary

Al Arabiya News – “An extremist preacher who recently drove a van emblazoned with al-Qaeda logos on a busy London high street could face prosecution under the UK’s anti-terror laws, according to The Sunday Times.

Hate preacher Anjem Choudary and his followers staged what is being called the ‘al-Qaeda van’ stunt last Saturday, on a busy road in northeast London.

The YouTube footage of the stunt was uploaded by a group called Need4Khilafah, the newspaper said.

The ‘road show’ featured a white van with posters on its bonnet and back doors of the logo used by the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS), a radical Islamic militant group fighting in war-torn Syria.

Choudary appears halfway through the footage, while chants of praise for Dawlet al-Islam, or ISIS, can be heard in the video.

‘The former lawyer is careful not to be filmed with the ISIS logo, which is also seen on a badge being pinned to a child’s coat,’ The Times said, referring to Choudary.

Abdul Muhid, one of Choudary’s followers, used a loud-speaker from inside the van to shout: ‘Islam is the solution for Great Britain, Islam is the solution for the world.'” Read more.

Categories: Radical Islam

Crisis: Islamists Cause ‘The Whole Healthcare System’ To Collapse In Northern Nigeria

03/12/2014 1 comment

Behold the fruit of Islam …

By Aminu Abubakar, AFP – “Healthcare services have collapsed in the northern part of Nigeria’s Borno state as doctors, nurses and pharmacists flee for their lives from brutal violence unleashed by Islamist Boko Haram militants.

Medical professionals say health services in the region have largely shut down, with mortality rates and vaccination programmes severely hit and pressure heaped on the skeleton staff that remain.

‘The whole healthcare system in northern Borno has collapsed and healthcare delivery is nil,’ said Musa Babakura, a surgeon at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH).

Babakura said the situation was a ‘growing health crisis’, with the sick forced to trek vasts distances to receive medical attention and vaccination programmes for children compromised.

Violence by Boko Haram militants has raged since 2009, but has been particularly ferocious in recent weeks, with some 500 people killed in suspected Islamist attacks since the start of the year.

Worst hit by militant attacks are villages in remote, rural areas near Borno’s border with Cameroon, despite an increased military presence in the state.

Hospitals and clinics have not escaped raids, even after Nigeria’s government imposed emergency rule on Borno and two other northeastern states in May last year.

Medical personnel have been kidnapped, either for ransom or to treat wounded fighters in Boko Haram’s ranks, while pharmacies — mostly run by Christians — have faced armed robberies and looting.” Read more.

Unsealed: A Closer Look At Revelation 6 And ‘The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse’ – “John describes the rider of the Black Horse in Revelation 6:5 as having ‘scales’ or ‘balances’ in his hands, employing the Greek word ‘zygos‘ which is also used metaphorically to refer to any sort of ‘burden’ or ‘bondage’ as well as the imposition of ‘troublesome laws’… Because of ‘Sharia lawlessness’ the ‘Religion of Peace’ is typified by widespread destruction and disparity, and any number of recent headlines bear this out all too well… In Mali, 4.6 million people are threatened with starvation following Islamist advances in the north. Starvation threatens more than 7 million citizens in Afghanistan as over 90% of the country’s agriculture is destroyed by drought. In Somalia, Islamist militants deprive 1.3 million people of food, clean water and health care after banning humanitarian aid… The fruit of Islam and its laws have produced and will continue to produce the type of conditions that precipitate and perpetuate all sort of pestilences, all manner of plagues, any number of conflicts and hardships both inside and outside the Islamic world.” Read more.

Categories: Man-Made Disasters, Radical Islam, Wars and Rumors of War

Islamic Cleric: The Religion Of Islam Justifies The Killing Of Innocent Women And Children

03/12/2014 2 comments

Islam is at war with everything non-Islamic, and when at war even the women and children of non-Muslims are considered fair game for jihadists …

Hadith, Bukhari 52:256, “The Prophet [Mohammed] … was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, ‘They [the women and children] are from them (i.e. pagans).’”

By Aymeric Vincenot, AFP – “When Islamist gunmen stormed Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall on a busy Saturday in September, the ensuing carnage also intensified fears that Kenya’s homegrown Islamists were on the rise.

Although the attackers were from Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab rebels, the group’s ability to infiltrate and operate in Kenya, as well as find a stream of willing recruits, has focused attention on radical Islamists based down the coast in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa.

At the heart of the steamy port hub sits the Musa mosque, seen by Kenyan authorities as the epicentre of a new terrorist threat. Its key figure, Abubaker Shariff Ahmed, better known as Makaburi, does little to hide his firebrand leanings.

‘It’s our innocents for your innocents. It was justified. As per the Koran, as per the religion of Islam, Westgate was 100 percent justified,’ the Muslim cleric said of the attack that left at least 67 dead, among them women and children cut down by machine gun fire or grenades.

‘Are the ones being killed and raped in Somalia not innocent?’ Makaburi said in an interview with AFP in his austere Mombasa office, seizing on Shebab’s justification for the mall attack — Kenya’s military presence in southern Somalia.

‘The KDF (Kenyan army) is doing the same thing and worse in Somalia than what happened at Westgate. So as per the Islamic religion, they had every right to avenge whatever the KDF is doing in Somalia.’

Makaburi asserted that no real Muslims died in the upmarket, part-Israeli-owned mall.

‘How come a Muslim is at a shopping mall instead of being at a mosque?’ he said …

… Makaburi presents himself as a simple man promoting ‘true Islam’, and not the kind practiced in Saudi Arabia, which he dismisses as ‘a Christian country ruled by somebody who pretends to be a Muslim’.

In his view the best examples of Islam are found in parts of Fallujah in Iraq, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and Shebab-held areas of Somalia.” Read more.

Flashback: The Jerusalem Post: Radical Islam Is, In Truth, The Normative Islam – “When will we believe the threat in the words of Mohammed?  When will we believe the Muslims’ word when they proclaim their intention to kill us?  When will we believe that they proclaim their intention to wipe Israel off the face of the map?  When will we believe that they want to see the entire world including Europe and America, under submission to Islam and Muslim law? After the Fort Hood killings of a dozen innocent people by a Muslim traitor, the Boston Marathon killings by two Muslim immigrant brothers and the beheading of a British soldier in May by two Muslim men in broad daylight, we have got to ask, what is there about Islam that stirs up these horrendous murderous actions?” Read more.

Flashback: Jonesing For Jihad: A Psychological Examination Of Islamic Terror – “For 20 years I studied and interviewed Islamist mujahedeen (jihad fighters) imprisoned in Israeli jails, examining their inner worlds and discovering the obsessive thoughts leading them to carry out terrorist attacks. They were addicted to fantasizing about an alternative reality, describing their compulsions in metaphors similar to those used by obsessive gamblers and drug addicts. They likened them to ‘worms’ (duda in Arabic) burrowing into their brains and driving them to seek not another game of cards or a fix, but dead Israelis, Americans, Europeans, or anyone else they considered infidels. They did not try to resist their compulsions or consider that their actions might be wrong, because they felt completely controlled and manipulated by the concept of jihad, which dictated their behavior in every sphere of life.” Read more.

Categories: Radical Islam

Pakistan: Islamic Council Declares Ban On Pedophilia As ‘Un-Islamic’

03/12/2014 4 comments

According to Islam, if their “prophet” did it then so can they. In fact, Muslims are encouraged to emulate what any rational mind would otherwise consider murderous and perverse behavior …

Qur’an Sura 33:21, “Indeed in Allah’s Messenger (Mohammad) you have an excellent example to follow for him who hopes in (meeting with) Allah and the Last Day …”

Revelation 9:21, “And they did not repent of their murders … or their sexual immorality …”

PakTribune – “The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) on Tuesday ruled that Pakistani laws prohibiting marriage of underage children are un-Islamic.

At the end of its two-day session on Tuesday, the CII said that according to Islam there is no minimum age of marriage. Islam does not forbid marriage of young children, the council said. However, the rukhsati (consummation of marriage) is allowed only in the case that both husband and wife have reached puberty.

The CII’s ruling comes a day after its chairman, Maulana Muhammad Khan Sheerani said laws regarding second marriage of a man in the presence of the first wife were against religious principles.

‘Sharia allows men to have more than one wife and we demand that the government should amend the law,’ he told reporters after a CII meeting.

The laws require a man to have written approval from his existing wife or wives for another marriage. Sheerani urged the government to formulate sharia-compliant laws related to nikah, divorce, adulthood and ‘will’. According to the constitution, the CII is a recommendatory body that advises parliament in the law-making process, but cannot enact laws on its own.

On Monday a meeting of the CII held under the chair of Maulana Sheerani discussed exhaustively the Islamic Family Laws 1961. The CII declared one section of the law un-Islamic under which a man is bound to seek explicit approval from his first wife for second marriage. ‘Under shariah a man is not bound to seek approval for second marriage from the first wife,’ declared Maulana Sherani.” Source – PakTribune.

Categories: Radical Islam

Iranian General: “Our Hands Are On The Trigger” To Destroy Israel As Soon As We Receive The Order

03/12/2014 Leave a comment

The “promise” of utter destruction must be Iran’s idea of “non-threatening” language. Besides, it’s all for peaceful purposes, you see …

The Times of Israel – “The air force commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps was quoted by Iran’s Fars news agency as saying Tuesday that Iran’s military has its finger on the trigger to destroy Israel as soon as it receives the order to do so.

In an article headlined ‘IRGC Commander: Iran’s Finger on Trigger to Destroy Zionist Regime,’ Fars wrote that Brigadier General Hossein Salami had declared that Iranian military commanders are prepared to attack and destroy the Zionist regime of Israel as soon as they receive such an order. ‘Today, we can destroy every spot which is under the Zionist regime’s control with any volume of fire power (that we want) right from here,’ Fars quoted Salami as telling a conference in Tehran Tuesday on ‘The Islamic World’s Role in the Geometry of the World Power.’

Iranian leaders regularly issue threats against Israel and the United States, but the wording ascribed to Salami on Tuesday was particularly aggressive.

‘Islam has given us this wish, capacity and power to destroy the Zionist regime so that our hands will remain on the trigger from 1,400 kilometers away for the day when such an incident (confrontation with Israel) takes place,’ he was also quoted saying in the speech.

The comments came a day after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a shipment of what he said were Iranian arms intercepted at sea last week, which he charged were intended for terror groups in Gaza. Netanyahu castigated the West for clinging to the illusion that Iran had changed, and said it remained relentlessly committed to fostering terrorism and advancing a nuclear weapons program.

Last month, Iranian state TV ran a documentary featuring a computerized video of Iran’s drones and missiles bombing Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ben Gurion Airport and the Dimona nuclear reactor in a hypothetical retaliation for an Israeli or American strike on the Islamic Republic.” Read more.

Flashback: Iranian President To Generals: ‘Formulate One’s Sentences And Speeches In A Way That Is Not Construed As Threat’ – “This speech will shore up Rowhani’s reputation as a ‘moderate’ in the international media, but essentially he is just telling the generals, Tone it down, the Infidels are catching on. And indeed, Iranian spokesmen have been indulging in quite a bit of virulently hostile rhetoric toward the U.S. recently, belying the media and Obama administration insistence that Iran is ‘moderate’ now.” Read more.

Categories: Radical Islam, Wars and Rumors of War

Muslim Father Arrested After Daughter Who Converted To Christiany Is Attacked, Killed Inside Church

03/07/2014 2 comments

Luke 21:16, “You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake.”

Hadith, Bukhari 9.84.57, “Muhammad said, ‘Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.’”

Update: Father arrested for killing daughter over Christianity conversion …

OsunDefender – “The Oyo State Police command has arrested a suspect in connection with the killing of his daughter, Miss Kausara Isiaka for allegedly converting to Christianity.

The suspect was alleged by Reverend Daniel Oladimeji, one of the four persons he attacked with machete that he suspected him to be the brain behind the attack.

According to the Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Olabisi Ilobanafor, one Mary Oladimeji, of Calvary Church, Ayekale, Ibadan reported the incident at the station at about 02:00 hours of February 26th 2014.

Though, the police are yet to determine his culpability or otherwise, the suspect allegedly sneaked into the church premises and inflicted machete cuts on the four persons.

The victims’ names, according to the police, are Mary, Kausara Isiaka, Aanu and the pastor of the church.
It was further gathered that the father of the deceased who is a Muslim, allegedly pleaded severally with his daughter and threatened her to review her decision.

The police stated that the girl had to take refuge in the church.

But, on that fateful day, a yet-to-be identified attacker broke in and inflicted machete injuries on the victims while they were sleeping.

Out of the four victims, the police confirmed that her injuries were more severe than others.

Mary, the daughter of the suspect and other victims were rushed to Mobolaji Hospital, Oremeji, Ibadan where she later died.” Read more.

Flashback: Senior Cleric For American Muslim Group: The Punishment For Leaving Islam Is Death – “Dr. Hatem al-Haj, a senior committee member for the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA), confirmed in the below fatwa from July 2011 that the Islamic punishment for apostasy is death. A couple of things stand out to me about this fatwa. First, this fatwa was taken down from AMJA’s website as far back as October 2011, along with other fatwas on the same topic, possibly in response to an article written by my colleague Andrew Bostom exposing the rulings in that same month… So either AMJA changed their minds about the penalty for apostasy; or, more likely, they just don’t want non-Muslims seeing what they really think on controversial topics. If that’s the case, then what else are they not telling us?” Read more.

Categories: Radical Islam Tags:

Saudi Fighter Returning From Syria Jihad: All The Factions Are Fighting One Another, Not The Regime

03/06/2014 1 comment

Sounds like the microcosm of a much larger battle that is brewing on the horizon …

Ezekiel 28:21, “‘I will call for a sword against Gog throughout all My mountains,’ says the Lord GOD. ‘Every man’s sword will be against his brother.'”

Zechariah 14:13, “It will come about in that day that a great panic from the LORD will fall on them; and they will seize one another’s hand, and the hand of one will be lifted against the hand of another.”

Suleiman Al-Subaie, Syria Jihadist, 3/5/2014: “… At first, we all concentrated on how to fend off the regime, and to bring an end to the injustice and massacres from which the Syria people suffer. But then all the discussions took a different direction. Recently, all the factions have begun to accuse one another of heresy. Each faction would accuse the other of heresy in order to fight it. The takfir [a Muslim declaring another Muslim an apostate/unbeliever/infidel] was also directed outside of Syria: They accused the Saudi rulers, some clerics, and rulers of other countries of heresy… After a while, there was another development. The ISIS organization and Jabhat Al-Nusra began fighting each other. There was also fighting between them and the other factions. The most disturbing thing was that Saudis were fighting Saudis, although, if you asked them, they would all tell you that they came to fight the regime… All the fighting takes place between the factions. The regime use to be the only target, but now there is no fighting against it. All the factions are fighting one another…” Watch video.

Categories: Radical Islam, Wars and Rumors of War

Muslim Cleric: ‘Killing you… Slaughtering You… And Cutting Off Your Heads Is All Good’

03/06/2014 4 comments

Exodus 20:13, “You shall not murder.”

Isaiah 5:20a, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness …”

Cleric: Murder is a good thing.

Cleric: Murdering You Is A Good Thing.

By Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch – “How did a Muslim cleric get the crazy idea that his jihad against China should have something to do with killing Chinese people? Where did he get the idea that beheading was something ‘good’ in the eyes of Allah? Could it have been from Qur’an 47:4, which tells Muslims to ‘strike at the necks’ of the unbelievers? Naah — that couldn’t be it. To think that would be ‘Islamophobic.’

‘VIDEO: Cleric of Chinese Muslim (Uighur) Group Threatens Chinese And Buddhists: ‘Killing You… Slaughtering You… And Cutting Off Your Heads Is All Good,’’ from MEMRI, February 25 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

On February 24, 2014, the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) released a video-recorded message titled “We Are Coming O Buddhists.” The message is presented by Sheikh Abu Dhar ‘Azzam, who extols the acts of the foreign fighters (muhajireen) coming from Eastern Turkestan and calls upon Muslims to support them with money and men. Addressing the “Chinese and Buddhists,” Abu Dhar warns them of dire punishment for their crimes against Muslims and Islam, and says that killing them and shedding their blood is “good.”

Source – Jihad Watch.

Categories: Radical Islam

Exposing The Qur’an: Islamic Jihad And The Doctrine Of Abrogation

03/06/2014 Leave a comment

2 Thessalonians 2:9-10, “The coming of the [lawless one] is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”

So much for the Qur’an being a “timeless” and “eternal” miracle from “Allah.” If this miraculous “fire from heaven” were truly divine in origin then there would have been no need for later verses to cancel out earlier verses. They would all have been true from the very beginning. Bear witness yet again to even further evidence that Islam is nothing more than a false religion …

Qur’an Sura 2:256a, “Let there be no compulsion in religion …”

Qur’an: Sura 4:89, “Have no unbelieving friends. Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them.”

54710-evil2bquranBy Raymond Ibrahim, FrontPage Mag – “While other scriptures contain contradictions, the Koran is the only holy book whose commentators have evolved a doctrine to account for the very visible shifts which occur from one injunction to another. No careful reader will remain unaware of the many contradictory verses in the Koran, most specifically the way in which peaceful and tolerant verses lie almost side by side with violent and intolerant ones. The ulema were initially baffled as to which verses to codify into the Shari’a worldview — the one that states there is no coercion in religion (2:256), or the ones that command believers to fight all non-Muslims till they either convert, or at least submit, to Islam (8:39, 9:5, 9:29). To get out of this quandary, the commentators developed the doctrine of abrogation, which essentially maintains that verses revealed later in Muhammad’s career take precedence over earlier ones whenever there is a discrepancy. In order to document which verses abrogated which, a religious science devoted to the chronology of the Koran’s verses evolved (known as an-Nasikh wa’l Mansukh, the abrogater and the abrogated).

But why the contradiction in the first place? The standard view is that in the early years of Islam, since Muhammad and his community were far outnumbered by their infidel competitors while living next to them in Mecca, a message of peace and coexistence was in order. However, after the Muslims migrated to Medina in 622 and grew in military strength, verses inciting them to go on the offensive were slowly ‘revealed’ — in principle, sent down from God — always commensurate with Islam’s growing capabilities. In juridical texts, these are categorized in stages: passivity vis-á-vis aggression; permission to fight back against aggressors; commands to fight aggressors; commands to fight all non-Muslims, whether the latter begin aggressions or not.[1] Growing Muslim might is the only variable that explains this progressive change in policy.

Other scholars put a gloss on this by arguing that over a twenty-two year period, the Koran was revealed piecemeal, from passive and spiritual verses to legal prescriptions and injunctions to spread the faith through jihad and conquest, simply to acclimate early Muslim converts to the duties of Islam, lest they be discouraged at the outset by the dramatic obligations that would appear in later verses.[2] Verses revealed towards the end of Muhammad’s career — such as, ‘Warfare is prescribed for you though you hate it'[3] — would have been out of place when warfare was actually out of the question.

However interpreted, the standard view on Koranic abrogation concerning war and peace verses is that when Muslims are weak and in a minority position, they should preach and behave according to the ethos of the Meccan verses (peace and tolerance); when strong, however, they should go on the offensive on the basis of what is commanded in the Medinan verses (war and conquest). The vicissitudes of Islamic history are a testimony to this dichotomy, best captured by the popular Muslim notion, based on a hadith, that, if possible, jihad should be Read more…

Categories: Radical Islam, Theology and Eschatology