AUTHOR! AUTHOR!
The Islamic sword is mightier than the pen! From uncovered meat to uncovered
brains!
From ‘uncovered meat’ to ‘uncovered brains.’
--Sheikh
Taj Din al-Hilali
Quraish Shihab is an expert on the Quran. That means he knows as much about Islam as Michael Moore knows about Stupid White Men and Opie Taylor knew about Hopalong Cassidy and maybe as much as Rosie O’Donnell knows about melting steel. Shihab, an Indonesian author, has released a 90-page book, The Verses of Fitna, a small part of Islamic culture in the middle of prejudice. A long title for a short book—Tom Paine has nothing to worry about. The oversized pamphlet is an attack on Geert Wilders and Fitna. Shihab says the film is full of errors and misinterpretations, a collection of mistaken Quranic interpretations. Wilders took quotes out of context, he says
Of course! Out of context! He took them out of context! Who
in all of Islam doesn’t know that—though few if any Muslims have seen the film;
it is haram.
Dhimmis are always taking things pertaining to Islam out of context. Why only a few days ago, April 22, 2008, it was asserted in the dhimmi press that a group of Muslims attacked Christian worshippers leaving the Christian Orthodox Church of Abu Fana, Hor Palace in Upper Egypt. The attackers supposedly used sticks to beat the worshippers. Women were grabbed by the hair and pushed to the ground. Eyewitnesses (probably dhimmis) said some of the attackers feigned injuries to make it seem like it had been an altercation and not an unprovoked Muslim attack on Christians. There were cries of Allahu akbar, perhaps the only thing the press did not take out of context.
Meanwhile back in Indonesia, there were cries of Allahu akbar in front of the Dutch Embassy in Jakarta and more Allahu akbars as students attacked and damaged the Dutch consulate in Medan. Out of context…not at all. Shihab’s book is being distributed free of charge in mosques throughout Indonesia.
Shihab is not the only Muslim cleric to take up the pen. Sheikh Taj Din al-Hilali is also busy putting words to paper. Ah-Hilali achieved worldwide notoriety two years ago when he compared Western women to uncovered meat. “Place it outside in the street,” he sermonized, “or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats will come and eat it…whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?”
Al-Hilali was lamenting the fate of a group of poor Lebanese immigrants who had been attracted by uncovered meat—Australian women that wore makeup and swayed suggestively. “Then you get a judge without mercy (rahma),” he said, “and get you 65 years.” And they didn’t need four eyewitnesses to get a conviction in Australia! What kind of justice was that? Women were weapons used by Satan to control men said the Sheikh.
Al-Hilali’s soon to be published book, The Legitimacy of the Veil for Women of the Scripture—Evidence of the Veil in the Bible, will raise awareness and understanding and eliminate apprehension and misunderstanding. It will also hit back at the critics of his uncovered meat comments, comments that were deliberate misinterpreted with the intention of slandering him. He had not intended “to denigrate immodestly dressed women,” he had meant “to denigrate those men who set aside their humanity and turn into predators.” One must not mistake him for Vladimir Nabokov.
Al-Hilali suggested Christian women should wear the veil. He did not suggest that Muslim men should wear chastity belts. Yet it might be an idea whose idea has come. They are not as cumbersome as they look and they don’t pinch—except on sexist chauvinist pig egos. No Lebanese immigrant to Australia should be without one. Besides, the Bible, according to al-Hilali, says you should dress appropriately.
Muslims must be more careful than Christians. The slightest lapse in behavior will be taken out of context like what happened in Kano in Northern Nigeria on April 20, 2008. My—April 20! These disturbances seem to happen every few days. Yes, it seems they do.
It was Sunday and thousands of Christians were at Church when hundreds of angry Muslims took to the streets, apparently for no reason. Christian shopkeepers were beaten, their stores were looted and burned and cars were torched. A regular reign of terror! Thousands of Christians cowered in their churches, afraid to show their faces in the streets. A few were rescued in a shopping mall and taken to a police station. A crowd of Muslims (Were they sure they weren’t Asians?) gathered in the street. They threatened to burn the station if the gendarmes didn’t release the Christians into their custody so they could be stoned to death as called for by Islamic Law. They had blasphemed the Prophet! Yes, blasphemed the Prophet! It was outrageous…inexcusable! So what appeared on the surface to be a riot was not actually a riot! It was a reaction—a justified reaction—to an insult! Once again a normal response to an insult by the religion of peace and toleration had been taken out of context! An unidentified Christian—yes, an unidentified Christian—had scribbled some words on a wall that had disparaged Mohammed! Mohammed PBUH! What else was a true believer to do? Wring his hands? Turn the other cheek? Play the spineless dhimmi? Blasphemy was blasphemy! To call a response to blasphemy a riot was absurd!
So the Quran was taken out of context in Fitna and al-Hilali’s uncovered meat comments were deliberately misunderstood and in Upper Egypt at Hor Palace the Christians had been as much responsible for the altercation as the Muslims and at Kano, there had been widespread blasphemy. Why are they always picking on Islam? Why is there so much misunderstanding, so much taken out of context?
Could there be something in the Quran? Sure, Surah 4:18 says,
“For the disbeliever, We have prepared a
painful doom.” And Surah 9:5 says, “Slay the idolater
wherever you find them.” And Surah 9:73 says “Fight the disbelievers and
hypocrites. Be harsh with them. They are going to hell anyway.”
These are
troublesome words…perhaps Shihab and al-Hilali could put them in a context so
simple even Robert Spencer and Serge Trifkovic
could understand them. The only version the West has is the one written by
Osama bin Laden on September 11. 2001.
The pen is mightier
than the sword…it says to in the Quran. So get to work, boys, forget Fitna and the veil… get out the quill and the ink…you have work to do.
Wait a minute! Wait
a minute! There is nothing in the Quran about the pen being mightier than the
sword! That’s something George Costanza said on Seinfeld. The Prophet
didn’t like writers and poets; he hated them; he ordered them—hopefully this is
not out of context—he ordered them murdered! Yes, murdered! How do you explain
that? Anyone care to ask Ibrahim Hooper?