A Palestine-born Scholar of Islam’s Advice for President Trump (video)
http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2017/01/a-palestine-born-scholar-of-islams.html
Dear Mr President,
Please let me address to you this message as a Christian with a Palestinian origin living in Switzerland. I am an expert on Arab and Islamic law, a field that I taught at various universities in Italy, France and Switzerland, and on which I published more than forty books, including an Arabic edition, an English translation and a French translation of the Koran in chronological order.
It is the duty of each of us to support the efforts of our leaders towards a better society and to wish them success in fulfilling their obligations.
The society, as a statue, has two legs: the public authority, and the scholars who have the knowledge. The public authority executes, and the scholars enlighten the public authority.
When an epidemic occurs, it is necessary that scholars are able to identify it … But still they must have been trained and are free to express themselves. Then the scholars must inform the public authority in order to take the necessary measures to counter this epidemic.
Your country, like Europe, the region where I come from, and the world are facing the rise of violence in particular by various Islamic terrorist groups. This violence is one of the causes of immigrant waves breaking on the shores of Europe, the US and other countries. In your statements, you highlighted these two issues.
You described “radical Islamic terrorism” as an “evil” unseen before, adding that it should be just “eradicated off the face of the earth”: “we gonna end it. It’s time. It’s time right now to end it”. But you have not said how you will achieve this goal. You also called Angela Merkel’s open door policy to refugees a “catastrophic mistake”, saying that Berlin, instead of hosting refugees, would have done better to advocate more for the creation of no-fly zones in Syria in order to protect the local population from the bombing. “The gulf states should have had to pay for them. After all, they have money like hardly anyone else has”.
Let me give you my humble opinion on these two issues.
Regarding radical Islamic terrorism, it is certainly necessary to fight it with weapons, but weapons alone will not suffice. It is also particularly important to eliminate the ideology on which radical Islamic terrorism is based, namely the Islamic ideology. To take adequate action we must call things by their name.
The radical Islamic terrorism is based on the Koran, the Sunnah of Muhammad and the teachings of Islam. Radical Islamic terrorist groups are only putting into practice what universities, Islamic centers, schools and mosques have been teaching for fourteen centuries in all Muslim countries, and even in Western countries, including yours. Egyptian journalists and intellectuals continue to denounce this teaching, which is the source of terrorism that destabilizes Egypt. This teaching is conveyed by mosques, schools and universities of Al-Azhar, the most important religious institution in the Sunni world. Without a radical change of this teaching, it is impossible to end the radical Islamic terrorism. But how to proceed?
The Sudanese thinker Mahmud Muhammad Taha, known as The African Ghandi, had proposed to Muslims to follow the Koran and Islam of the Meccan period, more or less peaceful, and to abandon the Koran and Islam of the Medinian period:
- which advocates discrimination against women and non-Muslims;
- which prescribes war against the disbelievers until the conversion of the whole humanity to Islam, giving the People of the Book the choice between conversion to Islam, payment of tribute, or killing and enslavement of their children and women. As for those who are not part of the People of the Book, they have only the choice between Islam or killing and enslavement of their children and women;
- which prescribes cruel punishments violating human rights (amputation of a thief’s hand, stoning for adultery, killing of those who leave Islam, etc.). These punishments are also included in the unified Arab penal code signed by all Arab Ministers of Justice and published on the website of the Arab League, which I translated in French.
ISIS and other radical Islamic terrorist groups faithfully apply the teachings of Islam. Western leaders who claim that the practices of these terrorist groups have nothing to do with Islam are misled and are in turn misleading their citizens. This is why they fail to eradicate radical Islamic terrorism. A doctor who wrongly diagnoses a disease exposes the patient to fatal danger.
If the proposition of Mahmud Muhammad Taha had been accepted by Muslims, the current radical Islamic terrorism would not have appeared. But unfortunately Mahmud Muhammad Taha was hanged in 1985 on the instigation of Al-Azhar and other Islamic organizations such as the League of the Muslim world whose headquarters are in Saudi Arabia.
To end the radical Islamic terrorism, we must take the necessary steps to change its ideological basis.
We must therefore encourage the Muslim world to restrict the dissemination of the current Koran that mixes more or less peaceful Meccan chapters with the violent and discriminatory Medinian chapters, and impose new editions of the Koran in chronological order, separating the two parts, so that Muslims and the rest of humanity can distinguish between them. That’s what I did in my Arabic edition and my translations of the Koran.
We should also require from Muslim countries a radical change of their teachings in schools, universities and mosques, and impose respect for religious freedom as defined by Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
The Arab countries must also formally withdraw the unified Arab penal code published on the website of the Arab League, which I translated in French.
Finally, universities and research centers in Western countries, including yours, must work for such a change to take place.
Regarding immigration, it is extremely likely that if Western countries open their doors, some hundred million Muslims will emigrate to escape the hell of the Arab and Muslim countries. Thousands of Muslims are trying to cross the borders risking their lives and finding themselves in inhuman situations. These Muslims carry the ideology that destroyed their own country, an ideology that will ultimately destroy the West too. On the other hand, many Muslims are incarcerated in Western prisons where they are further radicalized. It is estimated that 70% of prisoners in France are Muslims. When these prisoners will leave their prisons after they have completed their sentences, they will destroy the West. Terrorists who committed attacks in Europe and in your country went through these prisons, which are real terrorist nurseries.
Faced with this reality that nobody can deny, would it not be wiser to create a new state on half of the territory of Saudi Arabia, under international protection, which can accommodate at least one hundred million Muslims wishing to leave their countries of origin as well as the Muslim detainees in Western prisons? This “new country” should be placed under international protection, managed according to international standards of human rights, and funded by half of the oil revenues of Saudi Arabia, which is the main provider of funds to terrorist groups and the main country propagating radical Islamic ideology on which Islamic terrorist groups are based. In doing so, we give a chance to these Muslims to be rehabilitated and get a new life, which is both dignified and humane.
In short, Mr President, it is not enough to send planes to bomb Islamic terrorist groups in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. We must also, and above all, dismantle the ideology that is the basis for these Islamic terrorist groups who are also active in Europe and in your country. To eliminate epidemics, it is not enough to treat the symptoms, it is also as imperative to address their causes and sources.
I wish you, dear Mr President, full success in your job for the good of your country and that of all humanity.
Dr Sami Aldeeb, University Professor
Director of the Centre of Arab and Islamic Law
Translator of the Koran into French and English, and author of numerous books
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