|
A Muslim Scholar comments on Tancredo's Statement
Does Congressman Tancredo Really Want to Bomb Mecca?
Dr. Sheikh : Ahmed Subhy Mansour
Dr. Sheikh : Ahmed Subhy Mansour
Islamic thinker and political asylee in the U.S
mas5949@yahoo.com
Tom Tancredo is facing an enormous storm following statements in which he
said the US could "take out" Islamic holy sites, and bomb Mecca, if
(Muslim) fundamentalist terrorists attacked the US with nuclear weapons. Later
he added quickly, "I don't know, I'm just throwing out some ideas, because
it seems that at that point in time you would be talking about taking the most
draconian measures you could imagine. Because other than that, all you could do
is tighten up internally." Tancredo's office clarified the comments, saying
Tancredo was not advocating an attack on Muslim holy sites.
Ever since the remarks were made, the attack against Tancredo has been nothing
short of fierce. In fact it only served to belittle the hideous murder of civilian
women and children in Iraq, and the killing of Egyptian workers and others in
Sharm el-Sheikh.
However, an objective assessment of Tancredo's statement must claim that any
US official, concerned with the lives of his civilian countrymen, is likely to
make such a remark as a way of deterring terrorists from carrying out their threats
with a primitive dirty bomb that could annihilate a whole innocent US city that
has nothing to do with the Middle East or Middle-East terrorists or tyrants.
It may be curious that extremists want the US congressman to sanctify Mecca
the same way Muslims do and say nothing about it, even in the event of a nuclear
attack they may launch against US civilians.
I must admit I felt hurt when I read Tancredo's remark. But, in situations
like these, in which one has to respect objectivity and be objective oneself,
I usually imagine myself the other person, and wonder what I should do if I were
in his shoes and in his very situation. When I imagined myself a US Christian
official who had experienced the slaughter of thousands of my innocent countrymen
on 9/11, I thought I would probably say the same thing if my countrymen were threatened
with nuclear bombs.
But objectivity has no place in the Salafi (ancestral) and fundamentalist thinking.
Fundamentalist Salafis think they have the right to kill anybody who disagrees
with them or is just different from them, yet they deny others the right to object
or protest. The minute you protest, it's your doomsday. Fundamentalist Salafis
in the Muslim community in the US are no different than Bin Laden's followers
in the Middle East. They led a fierce campaign against Tom Tancredo, and then
asked to meet him. This is perceived as odd in the US culture which does not understand
how you can attack an official and then ask to meet him? What is understood, though,
is that they were acting in accordance with their fundamentalist notion of "pre-penalization
repentance chance giving", and were thus giving the Christian congressman
the chance to repent. Tancredo refused to meet them.
Only one Islamic organization did the US congressman agreed to receive. This
was an organization that refused to get involved in attacking him, but asked to
see him in his office and have an honest discussion about his views. This organization
is the Free Muslim Coalition (FMC) Against Terrorism, an organization founded
and led by Kamal Nawash, a Palestinian American lawyer, who asked me to be FMC's
Islamic Advisor.
FMC is now playing an increasing role in defending Islam in the US and pointing
out the stark contrariety between Islam and Salafi Wahabism with its sanguinary
culture. Thanks to FMC, many angry Americans came to understand that not all Muslims
are Bin Ladins.
On Wednesday July 27 afternoon, Tom Tancredo met with an FMC delegation made
up of FMC president Kamal Nawash, Board of Trustees member Belal Abderahman, and
the Islamic advisor (the author of this article). The meeting took place in Tancredo's
office in a Congress building and continued for an hour or so, while some reporters
were waiting in the lounge.
Mr. Tancredo looked very sad when we told him how his remarks hurt the feelings
of millions of Muslims, especially us, who stand firm against terrorism. Nawash
said he did not want him to apologize, but he wanted a clarification. I told him
that his remarks gave an opportunity to extremist fundamentalists, who carried
out a campaign that overshadowed gross crimes committed by terrorists. I also
asked him to forget about that episode and to talk instead about his statement
concerning the intellectual confrontation of this culture of terrorism, from within
Islam, in order to save thousands of victims and billions of dollars, spare the
war machinery, and settle peace and the culture of democracy.
We talked and talked and talked. Tancredo reiterated his respect for Muslims
inside and outside the US. He said he never meant to attack Islam or hurt the
feelings of Muslims. He said he wanted Muslims to enjoy their religious freedom
inside and outside the US. The victims of terrorism, he said, were mostly Muslims,
citing as evidence the incidents in Iraq. He wished Muslims a sound democratic
life. The point I wish to stress here is that he repeatedly apologized for having
hurt the feelings of Muslims with his remarks.
When the meeting was over we answered the reporters who asked us about the
meeting, and we expressed our admiration for Mr. Tancredo, who, unlike the small
senior officials in the Middle East, was not too proud to apologize without even
being asked, which shows his high manners and broadmindedness.
One word remains to be said about our Arabic concept of Mecca and the holiness
of Al-Ka'ba Sanctuary:
1. There's a difference between the holiness of Ka'ba and the sanctification
of Ka'ba stones.
Al-Ka'ba, as a structure, is not sanctified in Islam, but the Great Mosque
Sanctuary (known in Islam as Al-Bayt Al-Haram) has an inviolability that has to
be observed by Muslims. Part of this inviolability relates to "Ihram"
rites in which pilgrims enter upon the sacred state (Ihram). This inviolability
also means the banning of fighting in the Sanctuary and the preservation of the
lives of visitors and animals and birds in this holy refuge.
In Islam, no stone or person is sacred. The stones of Ka'ba are not sacred.
They are just stones, like the stones we walk on or use in construction. Ka'ba
is a man-made structure that has been rebuilt and demolished several times in
history. Ka'ba has been built to be a focal point towards which Muslims turn in
their prayers, and to which they make the pilgrimage. It was on that spot that
God designated the first House of worship for people. After it was destroyed,
God guided Abraham to its site, so that he and his son Ishmael would rebuild it.
God has also commanded Abraham to call for people to make a pilgrimage there.
The holiness and inviolability of the Ka'ba Sanctuary does not mean the sanctification
of the Ka'ba stones: the holiness consists in a set of religious duties to be
performed by pilgrims the minute they start Ihram until this sacred state of Ihram
is over. This sanctity has to be observed by anyone who enters the Sanctuary.
As a result, whoever enters the Sanctuary must be safe. Furthermore, animals or
birds in the Sanctuary cannot be hunted. And in doing their circumambulation round
Ka'ba (Tawaf), circumambulators may not touch the structure of Ka'ba, so that
it does not become a sacred idol. Circumambulation must be around Ka'ba without
touching the structure itself. The Black Stone does not bear any sanctity, either;
its only purpose is mark the beginning of circumambulation. This is the real religion
of Islam.
2. Most Muslims are drifted away from Islam, since they both sanctify the stones
of Ka'ba which must not be idolized, and violate the holiness of the Sanctuary
by failing to observe the human rights of visitors or the rights of animals and
birds in and around it.
Most Muslims idolize Ka'ba as a structure; they touch it in the same way they
do their holy shrines and local idols. The most idolized thing in their pilgrimage
is the Black Stone. Other idolized things include Zamzam Well, other places in
the Holy Mosque, and even the place, where, according to a myth, Satan is stoned.
Not only have they idolized Ka'ba as a structure, but further they have violated
the sanctity of this Sanctuary numerous times. God's command that whoever enters
this mosque shall be safe has not been fully observed throughout all the epochs
of Muslim history. Aggression on pilgrim convoys was a usual practice in the Middle
Ages.
Ka'ba was attacked with fireballs only half a century after the death of Prophet
Mohamed during the reign of Caliph Yazeed Ibn-Mu'awia, and then by Marawan Ibn
Alhakam. When Abdallah Ibn Alzubair revolted against the Umayyads following the
murder of Al-Hussein, he declared himself Caliph, and sought refuge in Ka'ba,
naming himself "the Ka'ba Refugee." Then the Umayyad army blockaded
Mecca and attacked it with fireballs, setting Ka'ba on fire. Ibn Alzubair waited
till Ka'ba was totally burnt to the ground just to disgrace the Umayyads, then
had it reconstructed.
In the Second Abbasid era, Shiite Karametas seized Mecca and killed all pilgrims
with the help of some Mecca residents. Then they threw the bodies of the dead
in Zamzam Well, and took the Black Stone to their capital Hajar in Najad, where
they kept it for a long time. Before and after this event, the violation of the
Ka'ba Sanctuary and the murder of pilgrims was a normal annual practice, as we
are told in history books, such as "Al - Montazem" written by the famous
historian Ibn Al Jouzy. Nothing matched the frequency of these annual attacks
except the attacks on pilgrims on their way between Iraq and Hijaz, or between
the Levant and Hijaz.
Furthermore, there were many battles in Mecca among the Hijaz rulers who belong
to the Prophet Mohammed’s family. Some of those "noble" rulers
were the meanest of all people. Many innocent people were killed in the Holy Mosque
in these battles in a bold defiance to the religion of Islam.
This violation of the Holy Mosque and the human rights of its visitors continued
into modern times. When the Saudis emerged with their Wahabi call, they have repeated
the sanguinary story of Karametas, horrible massacres and raids were staged in
Iraq, the Levant, Arabia, Hijaz and Mecca, which resulted in the fall of Hijaz
twice in the hands of Saudis: the first time during the First Saudi State, the
second during the third and current Saudi State in 1925.
Finally, in they year 1979, at the beginning of the current Hijri century,
another Wahabi fundamentalist, called Juheyman Al-Otaybi, occupied the Holy Mosque
and took all worshippers hostages. Saudi Arabia relentlessly broke into the Sanctuary
with foreign troops, and the holy place was turned into a battlefield.
Wars and battles aside, strong pilgrims hand in hand, and shoulder in shoulder
in circumambulation and in the stoning myth, cooperate in trampling hundreds of
weak and old pilgrims who die under their feet every year. Others go the Holy
Mosque during the pilgrimage season to steal and swindle. Some Mecca residents
go there to touch and seduce women.
3. The issue of Ka'ba sanctity does reveal details of this incongruity between
Muslims and Islam. While most Muslims sanctify the Ka'ba as a structure, they
violate its sanctity. If you talk about this contrast and call for reforming Muslims
with Islam, all you get is accusations from every side. The reason is no secret:
terrorists dislike those who advise them. That is why they are hopelessly irreformable.
What is funny, though, is that they forget all their misdeeds, a sample of
which was mentioned above. In this oblivion, they carry out a tempestuous campaign
against Tom Tancredo for a word that he said and later interpreted. Theirs is
the "culture of the slaves", who are too proud to admit their mistakes,
and who feel no pricking of conscience, simply because their conscience has long
been on open leave.
Congressman Tancredo said a word in a justifying context, yet he was courageous
enough to apologize for it, and he does not see a problem in admitting a mistake
if he made one.
Now tell me which Arab leader has ever made a mistake and admitted it, let
alone apologized for it. If it ever happens, I shall give up writing about the
bad and the ugly, and start a new career writing in praise of them.
P.S.
This article was written and published in Arabic to face the fanatic campaign
against Congressman Tom
Dr. Sheikh: Ahmed Subhy Mansour
Muslim Thinker
Former Assistant Professor at AlAzhar Univerisity
Former visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School
Mas3192003@yahoo.com
Alexandria, VA USA.
top
For information or comments, write to Feedback@IslamReview.com
|
