Who Knew? At Inaugural Interfaith Gathering, Muslim Recites Arabic Prayer Attacking Jews and Christians

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Let's stipulate, for the sake of argument, that interfaith prayer gatherings are a good thing and that Catholics, including Catholic clergy should participate in them.

Questions immediately arise as to what prayers are most appropriate. Should you choose an "innocuous" prayer - for example, a prayer than doesn't explicitly include any specifically Catholic or even Christian referents - or should you "show the flag," as it were, expecting the other attendees to understand.

Whatever way you come down on that question, I think it's pretty clear that - again, stipulating that interfaith meetings are a good idea in the first place - one thing you shouldn't do is to pick a prayer that specifically condemns or attacks one or more of the other religions in attendance. That's only common courtesy if nothing else. So for example, here's one prayer or passage that I, as a Catholic would not read at such a gathering. It's from 1st Thessalonians 2:15-16:

(The Jews) Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their (the Jews') sins always: for the wrath is come upon them (the Jews) to the uttermost.

Am I condemning or renouncing that passage or claiming that it shouldn't be read at, say, an appropriate Mass (if it's even in the traditional liturgy anywhere - I have no idea whether it is)? Of course not. I'm just saying that there are certain obvious contexts where it would be inappropriate. 

If I did read such a passage at an interfaith meeting, I assume it would cause a sort of scandal.

Now, suppose, at an interfaith meeting, I read it in Latin or Ancient Greek, and assume most of the audience didn't understand those languages. For obvious reasons, that might cause even more of a scandal (at least if any non-Catholic eventually got ahold of a translation).

Luckily, 99.9% of the Bible is made up of passages that do not attack other modern religions. So choosing an alternative wouldn't be difficult.

Flash forward to reality. On Saturday, at an interfaith prayer meeting that was part of the inauguration festivities, the Islamic representative read a prayer that attacked Jews and Christians.

Yes, you heard that correctly. And, no, it's not fake news. It can be easily verified on the video (if you know Arabic).

The prayer was read in Arabic (as most Muslim prayers are), so no one, at least initially, noticed. Here is the prayer. It is simply the text of the first Sura (chapter) of the Koran:

I seek refuge in allah from Satan. Thanks be to allah the merciful one. Guide us on the right path for those whom you blessed (Muslims), not the path of the ones you are angry at (Jews) or the ones who went astray (Christians).

Now, I do think this is a sort of scandal, but perhaps not for the reasons you might at first think.  Let me clarify by making three points:

1. The prayer was read by Sajid Tarar. He is the bald, bow-tied Pakistan-born businessman who spoke at the RNC convention. Tarar founded Muslims for Trump and (unlike many of his Muslim peers in the public eye) he appears to have no ties to radical or supremacist Muslim groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood. For obvious reasons, many Muslims who do have ties to those groups and many on the left despise him.

2. The prayer is not exactly obscure. In some ways it is one of the most famous passages in the Koran as it serves as a kind of Introduction to that religious book. Open up a Koran and you will find it on the first page. If you want to read the Koran straight through, it's the first thing you will read. And it's one of the most popular prayers in the Muslim faith - a sort of Muslim "Our Father" or "Hail Mary." Indeed, most Muslims have to recite it at certain times and at certain intervals.This is no doubt why it was read at the meeting. 

3. In some translations of the Koran, the words in parentheses, "Muslims," Jews" and "Christians" do not occur, but all Muslims who study the Koran know who "whom you blessed," "who you are angry at" and "the ones who went astray" refer to. That these are the intended referents is one of the reasons the prayer is so much used. It sets Islam apart and sort of defines the stakes, as it were, as was intended by Muhammed and/or those who originally compiled the Koran.

So the basic point is not so much that Mr. Tarar made some sort of sly attack on Jews and Christians at the meeting, but that the Koran and Koranic prayers are shot through with this sort of thing. And this is one of the ways in which the text and traditions of Islam differ from other faiths. It's as if, all Christians recited "Our Father who art in Heaven and who hates the Jews" every day or Catholics said Grace with "Bless us oh god, but do not bless the Protestants" at every meal.

Can one find passages implicitly or explicitly "hostile" to other religions anywhere in the Bible? Of course (see above). But they are the exception, not the rule. The Old Testament opens with "In the beginning, God created heaven and earth." The Gospel of John opens with "In the beginning was the Word." The Koran, essentially opens with, "God loves Muslims but hates Jews and Christians."

I'm not of course arguing here that, for a Catholic, the differences between faiths or the stakes in recognizing those differences should not be strongly defined and proclaimed. Indeed, it is one of the most obvious and prominent failures of the post-Vatican II Church that they have generally not been. But whatever anyone else says, most of the day-to-day religious life of a Catholic does not consist in an "Us vs. Them" narrative against others. Sorry but it just doesn't.

And it never has.

But the religion of Islam was birthed in violent and bloody opposition to the major two other contenders. And it's been engaging in violent and bloody opposition ever since.

The fighting never stops.

For Islam and Muslims, the reason that the fighting never stops is because it's infused in the text.

Ideas matter.

And even if you're a well-meaning "Muslim for Trump," you cannot avoid the text and its emphasis. Even at a Saturday morning interfaith prayer meeting. Even with allies and friends.

The translation was done by Sandra Solomon (who I believe is associated with Gates of Vienna), and the subtitling was done by Vlad Tepes. There is an error in the text of the video. The man reciting Sura 1 is not Mohamed Magid (an Imam linked to the Muslim Brotherhood who spoke just before) but Sajid Tarar. 

Muhammad: Destroy all Musical Instruments

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"Sorry"

Yesterday I wrote about the Ayatollah Khomeini's negative views about fun, joy and humor.

It's tempting to dismiss this sort of thing as a manifestation of modern-day Islamic "extremism". After all, weren't Muslims in the "golden-age" of Islam trilling flutes and strumming harps, composing love-poetry and eating sherbet, while Europeans were scrambling around in the mud bashing each other with crude clubs?

We'll discuss the Islamic view of music and musical instruments shortly, but first let's backtrack for a moment and ask: How do we know what Islam itself allows or prohibits?

Well, as all faithful Muslims would agree, first you look at the Koran to see what Allah, or through him Muhammad, commanded or said. Then you look at the Hadith--accounts of what Muhammad said or did. That's pretty much it. As far as I can tell, there's no Natural Law tradition in Islam. In other words, the commands or prohibitions don't obviously have to make sense. If God said it or Muhammad said it or did it, that's good enough.

So, with reference to Muhammad. If he treated captives in a certain way--executing some, sparing others, selling still others into slavery, etc.--then your job is to figure out the pattern and imitate it. If he had this to say about how to treat political enemies, then that's how you treat them. If he liked cats, then cats are good. If he made love in this position but not that one, then guess what? If he smoked cigarettes in a cigarette holder, then you...

Okay, sorry, that was Ayn Rand, but the point stands.

Now, the question arises as to what to do if it appears that Muhammad said or did two contradictory things. If both are verified and accepted as true, then the latter one rules. Muhammad changed his mind, or circumstances changed or whatever, and you go with the last and basically ignore the first. The first one is abrogated.

And by the way, the changing one's mind thing applies to Allah himself in the Koran. Indeed, there are so many seeming instances of this that to the skeptic it gets a bit comical. Sure enough, the Koran has more than a few things to say about the phenomenon:

If We abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten, We will replace it by a better one or one similar (2:106). 

God abrogates and confirms what He pleases. His is the Decree Eternal (13:39). 

If We pleased We could take away that which We have revealed to you (17:86). 

When We change one verse for another (God knows best what He reveals), they say: "You are an impostor" (16:101).

You got that one right, Skippy.

It is this that lies at the heart of the issue of those "peaceful" versus "warlike" parts of the Koran. The peaceful ones are all chronologically earlier. Muhammad began by attempting to spread Islam in a non-coercive manner. When that didn't work, he took up the sword. It worked better. And that's where things stood when he died, and where they have stood ever since. The sword rules.

Now in the Hadith--the gathered sayings and deeds of Muhammed--there is sometimes a bit more controversy about which sayings are "verified". There are tens of thousands of the things and multiple compilers. I think it's fair to say that there's a great deal of agreement on much of the important stuff with some arguments around the edges.

So what did Muhammad have to say about musical instruments?

Bukhari, perhaps the most accepted and respected of the Hadith compilers has the Prophet saying:

From among my followers there will be some people who will consider illegal sexual intercourse, the wearing of silk, the drinking of alcoholic drinks, and the use of musical instruments as lawful. And (from them), there will be some who will stay near the side of a mountain, and in the evening their shepherd will come to them with their sheep and ask them for something, but they will say to him, "Return to us tomorrow." Allah will destroy them during the night and will let the mountain fall on them, and Allah will transform the rest of them into monkeys and pigs and they will remain so till the Day of Resurrection (7:494).

Another compiler, Qudsi, relates:

The Prophet said that Allah commanded him to destroy all the musical instruments, idols, crosses and all the trappings of ignorance. Allah said that if a man took even a mouthful of wine, He would make him drink the same quantity of pus of the wounds of the people in Hell (19:5).

By the way, the pus thing is not unique. The Koran is filled with similar grotesque imagery.

It should be said that the Koran and Hadith are somewhat mixed when it comes to singing. On the weight of the overall evidence some have said that all singing is condemned, though this is hard to square with the preferred quasi-musical chanting of the Koran. The majority view, perhaps, is that while some singing is permitted, especially if for a religious or other serious motivation, in general, singing is frivolous and potentially dangerous.

It could lead to musical instruments.

In fairness, many Islamic scholars have interpreted the musical-instrument "prohibition" in a milder manner similar to the way singing is regarded. Some instruments in some contexts might be allowable as long as their purpose is not for frivolous enjoyment or entertainment. The scholar I just linked to even goes so far as to say that "the use of the drums are unequivocally permissible for festivals and weddings and joyous times." Take that, Ayatollah Sourpuss.

So, do people in Islamic countries use musical instruments? Even for entertainment? Do they do it even (close your eyes and cover your ears) just for fun?

Of course. Whatever the ruling ideology or government says, when it comes to fun, people are always trying. Perhaps it's evolutionary. Or if you prefer, God (the real God) has built the thirst for joy into our very spirit.

But when, say, ISIS in some new outrage, melts all the brass instruments of the Mosul Symphony Orchestra into war materiel, or bans whistling or cuts off the hands of twenty marimba players or whatever, and you hear or read people scolding, as you just know they will, that's not authentic Islam! Actually...

It is.

Don't blame me, man.

It all goes back to Muhammad.