Honoring a tradition that dates back to America’s first President, George Washington, in New York (described here, The Daily Advertiser, New York, Thursday, April 23, 1789, p. 2.), Saturday, 1/21/17, within 24-hours of his swearing-in, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence attended a prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral.
The Saturday prayer service was a modern “interfaith event” which included (as described here, “The National Prayer Service for The Fifty-Eighth Presidential Inaugural Saturday, the Twenty-First of January Two Thousand Seventeen The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul Washington National Cathedral,” p.11), and seen in this video clip, a recitation by Sajid Tarar, Advisor, Medina Masjid (mosque), Baltimore, Maryland, of the Koran’s very brief first sura, or chapter, the so-called “Fatiha”, or “Opening,” consisting of 7 short verses (verses 1-6; verse 7). But as I noted in a tweet shortly after viewing Saturday’s event, riveting upon the recitation of verse 7, “At Natl Cathedral Today ,1/21/17, Koran 1:7, A Curse on Jews, & Rebuke of Christians Recited in Front of Pres Trump.”
This high profile ecumenical event illustrates starkly the conundrum of mainstream Islamic practice within our precious free, multi-confessional, but overwhelmingly non-Muslim, U.S. society. Pious Muslims repeat the Fatiha, including verse 7, up to 17 times per day during their 5 requisite prayer sessions, and the accompanying “subunits” of prayer (see pp.49-50). While verses 1-6 are confined to Muslims re-affirming their personal devotion to the Islamic creed, and its deity, Allah, verse 7 launches into open condemnation of other faiths, Judaism, and Christianity, specifically.
An authoritative modern Koranic translation by Drs. Muhammad al-Hilali and Muhammad Khan (p.12) of the Fatiha’s concluding verse 7 includes parenthetical references to the Jews (after the word “anger,” or in the translation distributed at the inaugural prayer service, p.11, “wrath”), and the Christians (after the word “astray’): “The Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace, not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger (such as the Jews), nor of those who went astray (such as the Christians).”
The Hilali-Khan translation of Koran 1:7 provides a detailed justification of its references to the Jews as those who have engendered Allah’s anger, and the Christians as the ones who have gone astray. As I will demonstrate, the specific references to Jews and Christians in the Hilali-Khan translation of the Fatiha’s final verse comports both with the canonical hadith (the sacred “traditions” of Muhammad and the early Muslim community) interpretation of these verses, and classical and modern Koranic commentary (“tafsir”) interpretations by the leading luminaries of this discipline in Islam—a consensus of thought stretching literally from the 7th, through the late 20th century. Moreover, I will further show that leading contemporary, mainstream scholars of Islam—both non-Muslim and Muslim linguistic and textual analysts—presently share this understanding of how Koran 1:7 is to be interpreted, with the authoritative Muslim commentators.
For over thirteen centuries, through our contemporary era, the consistent, collective understanding of Koran 1:7—the Fatiha’s last verse—is that Jews and Christians are being insulted, even cursed (especially in the case of the Jews), eternally, for their “spiritually aberrant” ways. Accordingly, utterance of this verse must be expunged from all federal, state, and local government events, and in an even more egregious breach of ecumenical civility, our Navy Military Funerals sea burial ceremony, and all comparable funeral ceremonies, conducted within the other branches of the US military.
Authoritative Muslim Commentators on Koran 1:7, Seventh Through Late Twentieth Centuries
Professor Andrew Rippin, an esteemed contemporary Koranic studies scholar, translated two of the earliest commentaries on Koran 1:7, by Ibn Abbas (d. 687), and Muqatil ibn Sulayman (d. 767). Both commentators of course assert that Islam represents “the straight path” in Koran 1:6. Ibn Abbas continues, referring to Koran 1:7,
“Not those against whom You have sent your wrath”: other than the religion of the Jews against whom You have been wrathful and have abandoned…”Nor those who are astray”: nor the religion of the Christians, who err away from Islam.
