Category Archives: Judaism

Watch Out for Jihad Watch

Among the cyber Islamophobes, few are more obsessed than Robert Spencer, a self-styled expert whose The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and The Crusades) should be published in a new version without the word “Politically” in the title. Spencer writes for a specific audience, either those who already hate Muslims or others lacking the knowledge and common sense to see through his rhetorical jihad against Islam. There are numerous rebuttals to Spencer’s work available on the web. Some of the best comes from the pen of Dr. Khaleel Mohammad, whose website is worth looking at.

I attach below an excerpt from Khaleel Mohammad’s “Robert Spencer’s Obsession With Islam: What Would Jesus Do?” published in The American Muslim, September 30, 2008.

Here is something that Spencer might consider next time he chooses to pray to the Creator—while ranting and raving about Islamic radicalism and the threat it presents. Spencer should examine himself and his agenda and motivation closely. The danger to this country presented by radical Islamists is an overt one and is being confronted. Spencer, on the other hand, turns a blind eye to the extremists who are not Muslim who would see this country turned into a theocracy that imprisons people simply because they are Muslim. Continue reading Watch Out for Jihad Watch

Jews of Yemen prefer to stay


Group of Yemenite Jews, postcard c. 1910

by Salma Ismail, The Yemen Times, June 28

SANA’A, June 28 The death sentence passed on Abdulaziz Al-Abdi, charged with killing Yemeni Jewish and father of nine Masha Al-Nahari last December, heeds mixed reactions among the Jewish community in Yemen.

Despite growing US and Israeli pressure to bring them out of Yemen and settle them in other destinations, the majority of Yemen’s Jews prefer to stay in their ancestral homeland, as long as the government ensures their safety.

Last Sunday’s ruling overturned a previous March sentence that deemed the defendant, a retired pilot in the Yemeni air force, “mentally unstable” and ordered him to pay a “blood fine” of YR 50.5 million, about USD 25,000. Continue reading Jews of Yemen prefer to stay

On God and Obama: When Wright is Wrong

A new book with the promising but pathetically journalistic title The Evolution of God has just appeared with media fanfare. The fanfare I have seen thus far is an op ed piece and a Time Magazine article by the author, Robert Wright. In both the author’s lack of knowledge brands the work fiction from the start. Let’s start with the Time Magazine article, which is entitled “Decoding God’s Changing Moods.” As a veteran journalist, Wright knows that Bible codes sell well, even though there is nothing to decode in his supposed code. Continue reading On God and Obama: When Wright is Wrong

God, the Devil and Pakistan


Iblis (the Devil) from The Book of Nativities (Kitâb al-Mawalid) by Abû Ma’shar, 15th Century.

by Suroosh Irfani, Daily Times (Pakistan), May 7, 2009

Jewish denial during the war is perilously instructive for Pakistan today: a country where the founding spirit of justice and democracy is blighted by falsehood and fear. Small wonder that last month, Prime Minister Gilani virtually ignored the seditious speech of Sufi Muhammad.

Noted Saudi novelist Turki al Hamad’s novel, Kharadib, has sold over 20,000 copies in the Arab world since publication in 1999. Al Hamad continues to live in the Saudi capital Riyadh, despite fatwas of Saudi clerics against him, and Al Qaeda branding him an apostate.

The reason? Hamad’s teenaged protagonist in the controversial novel dares to ponder the question of God and the devil.

King Abdullah, then the Crown Prince, reportedly offered Hamad bodyguards for his protection, while reputed Saudi scholar Sheikh Ali al Khudair, who initially censured Hamad, withdrew his fatwa in 2003.

The retraction suggests that the musings of Hamad’s protagonist on “religion, sex and politics, the three taboos in Saudi society” had triggered a rethink on an issue that Muslim luminaries like Jalaluddin Rumi (d.1273) had addressed, long before German writer Goethe cast the devil in new light in his epic poem Faust in the 19th century.

However, it remained for Allama Iqbal’s genius to bring together Goethe and Rumi in a discourse on the devil, burnishing wisdom of the past with his own insights on evil. The upshot of it all is a realisation that “evil is not mere darkness that vanishes when light arrives. This darkness has as positive an existence as light,” as Javed Iqbal, former Chief Justice of Lahore High Court, notes in “Devil in the triangle of Rumi, Iqbal and Goethe” in Iqbal Review. Continue reading God, the Devil and Pakistan

Blood money for Killing Yemeni Jew


Yemeni Jews: source: Yemen Observer

by Nasser Arrabyee, Yemen Observer, March 3, 2009

A Yemeni primary court in Amran, north of the country, ruled on Monday a payment to be made of 5.5 million YR (US$ 27,500) in blood money for the murder of a Jewish man by Yemeni, Abdul Azeez al-Abdi, last December.

The court, chaired by Judge Abdul Bari Aqaba, also ordered that the convict should be placed in a psychotic sanatorium. The father of the Jew refused the sentence and asked for an appeal to be made to demand the death penalty against the convict.

“As long as there is no justice for us, then (they should) deport us to Israel, it’s better for us.” Continue reading Blood money for Killing Yemeni Jew

Entitled to consideration and respect


Illustration of “Persian Jews” from the People’s Magazine, 1879

The current fighting in Gaza is a tragedy of Greek dramatic proportions. On the one hand a highly sophisticated military machine wielded at present with Hawkish intent, on the other a ragtag guerilla group bent on lobbing barbs at the Hawk’s fortified lair. And in the middle frightened civilians in a humanitarian nightmare of medieval mindset. The problem is that neither side is really willing to treat the other with consideration and respect. In this unethical tie, of course, the onus must be on the stronger to recognize the limited options of the weaker.

The tragedy does not end with the present loss of life, limb and hope for Gazans. Unfortunately, it overshadows a historical trajectory that created the rise of Zionism as a political ideal in Europe. There is no excuse for the present punishing policies of Israel towards the residents of Gaza. Indeed, it is all the sadder given the sordid history of anti-Semitism in both the Christian-dominated West and Islamic-dominated Near East. Recently I picked up an old magazine from 1879, published exactly 140 years ago. On one page I was struck by the extraordinary pathos of an image of “Persian Jews.” Continue reading Entitled to consideration and respect

Murder in ‘Amran


Children of deceased Masha Nahari, playing in their front yard. Because of hostility against them and fear of harm they remain indoors as must as possible. (YT Photo by Amira Al-Sharif)

While Gaza crisis causes more hostility against Yemeni Jews,
murdered Jewish family demands transferring trail to Sana’a

by Mohammed bin Sallam, Yemen Times, January 4, 2009

SANA’A. During the second court session of the trial of Abdul Aziz Al-Abdi, who is accused of murdering Jewish citizen Masha Al-Nahari this past December 31, journalists and lawyers said that “the court session was full of chaos and quarrels. A soldier was attacked by one of the family members of the accused. In addition, the Jewish family received death threats from the murderer’s relatives.”

Advocates of Al-Nahari demanded to transfer the case and trial to Sana’a due to lack of proper security at the Amran Court and dominance of Al-Abdi’s relatives who �control the events of the session and create chaos inside the court hall,” said Abdul Rahman Barman, a lawyer from Allaw Law Foundation which volunteered to defend Al-Nahari’s case in the court. Continue reading Murder in ‘Amran

David vs Goliath, the IDF vs Hamas


Lithograph letter illustrating The Child’s Bible Illustrated from a 19th century serial publication.

When the once holy land of Biblical proportions is the issue on the front page of every newspaper, politics must make way for metaphor. The Israeli plan to bring down Hamas echoes with Samson bringing down the temple on the Philistines. Lots of Philistines were killed that memorable day, but only with a martyr’s mentality. Plug in “Gazans” or “Israelis” for “Philistines,’ and the martydom makes both scenarios equally mad. Moving forward in Biblical time, the Philistines did not disappear as a thorn in the side of Israel. Today, well beyond the world of the prophets, the jet fighters and tanks of the IDF have replaced David’s sling, but search as the military scanners may there is no Goliath in modern Gaza. Was Sophocles still writing for the stage, the ongoing Israel/Palestine tragedy would make Oedipus Rex look like Twelfth Night. How unbiblical a thought. Continue reading David vs Goliath, the IDF vs Hamas