Understanding Islam: The Verse of The Sword (Great Read!)

Family Security Foundation ^ | 6/22/06 | Scott McKay

[wagglebee]

Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the jizya (poor-due), then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

-          Qu’ran, 9:5

 

If the above might look familiar, it’s known as Ayat al-Sayf, or the Verse of the Sword. And unfortunately, it’s quite a significant passage in governing the relationship between Muslims and the rest of the world.

 

Obviously, as is true with any passage from the Holy Books of the world’s great religions, this one is open to various interpretations. But for nearly 1400 years, it has provided a major impetus in fueling the imperialist zeal behind Islamic jihad in the military sense most of us understand that word to signify.

 

In fact, many prominent and mainstream Islamic scholars throughout the length of that 1400 years, including a prominent, active Saudi cleric named Sheikh Muhammad Saalih al-Munajid (whose pronouncements can be found at www.islam-qa.com), not only fail to denounce this rather noxious passage but claim that because it was laid down as part of the last chapters, or Suras, of the Qu’ran, it abrogates or negates some 124 other Qu’ranic passages seen as more tolerant and friendly to those of us who aren’t Muslims.

 

It would be easy – and comforting – to dismiss the rantings of people like al-Munajid as simply crackpot theology not informing any significant proportion of the Muslim world. More moderate Muslim elements say that the Verse of the Sword only really applied to pagans and polytheists who tooled around the Arabian deserts during Muhammad’s time in the 7^th century. Other passages say that because Christians and Jews are “People of the Book” they shouldn’t be dealt with in such harsh terms.

 

But we dismiss this at our peril, for two main historical reasons.

 

First, we must remember that Islam has spread by the sword since its earliest days. Muslim armies, infused with the zeal of Qu’ranic verses like the one above, spread from Arabia in every direction until the Dar al-Islam, or Islamic community, stretched from Morocco and Spain in the Atlantic to Indonesia in the Pacific. And when those armies conquered a given territory and the usual three days of rape and pillae were finished, the survivors were given three choices, as loosely described in the Verse of the Sword – convert to Islam, pay the jizya, or face execution. In other words, this isn’t idle verse – it’s standard operating procedure. If it wasn’t, we might still call the place Constantinople and not Istanbul.

 

Second, once the forces of Islam had imposed their rule on a given territory and set about governing the population of that territory, the second option opened up the subjugated peoples to the wonderful world of what’s known as dhimmitude. A dhimmi, or “protected person,” is one who essentially accepts second-class citizenship. Paying the jizya, which is translated as a poll tax or poor-due and which is paid by non-Muslims to the Muslim governing authority, isn’t something you do with an American Express Card or a check. Those subject to the tax would under Islamic Sharia law have to physically appear to pay it on demand of the authority, and to submit to a particularly demeaning ceremony in accordance with Qu’ranic verse requiring that “they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” (Qu’ran 9:29)

 

And being treated worse than the IRS typically treats folks in a tax audit isn’t all. According to Islamic tradition, dhimmis are forced to wear hairstyles and clothing identifying them as non-Muslim, forbidden from building structures taller than Muslims build, forbidden from displaying crosses or other religious symbols on churches and synagogues, ride on saddles or own weapons, among other things.

 

Being treated in such a manner over time tends to have the effect of making it inconvenient – to say the least – to resist conversion to Islam in a newly-Islamic country. This largely explains how there was once a thriving Christian majority in most of what is now the Islamic world – North Africa, Egypt, what is now the Holy Land, Asia Minor and Central Asia, for example – and now there are scant few Christians or Jews in any of those areas.

 

Dhimmitude is largely a thing of the past, because Islamic rule has had a rather tough run over the past century or so – in particular since Kemal Ataturk led Turkey away from Sharia and toward a secular republic in 1924. But on the other hand you won’t see any Catholic churches in Riyadh or Tehran, and the occasional stories about interfaith relations coming out of places like Pakistan and Indonesia hardly inspire confidence that diversity and tolerance in Islamic societies is a major strength.

 

What’s the point of this little history and theology lesson? Specifically this – when you ask “What do these people want from us?” after seeing the standard soliloquies of Osama bin Laden or bombs going off in front of a church, a pizza parlor or a bus stop someplace, it’s nothing more than people acting on a verse they saw in the Qu’ran.

 

And unfortunately, the interpretations of that verse which create the atrocities we see aren’t extreme. Fundamentalist, maybe. But not extreme.

[RS]

" I also wonder whether there are actually any non-Muslims who currently enjoy the forebearance commanded by 9:4. "

Foturnately, what you wonder dosen't matter -

The premise here was that Islam commands Muslims to kill all non-muslims due to this verse ... it dosen't.

The billion or so Muslims who are NOT planning ways to kill you tonight can rest assured that they are not violating their beliefs.

For example, in the U.S. we have laws regarding religious freedom. As an American you have agreed to honor the Constitution - American Islamics therefore have an individual agreement to allow religious freedom that they cannot break.

[RS]

So is it the 9:3 you posted in this one or the 9:3 you posted in your earlier post http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1655361/posts?page=32#32 ?

[Fred Nerks]

The Koran tells how Mohammed made a peace treaty with the Jews of a certain city in the Arabian peninsula. But within two years, he found a pretext to suddenly break the treaty, attack his surprised victims, and then behead all the Jewish men in the public square. Mohammed's tactic is held up by the Muslim Arabs as a hallowed model. It is enshrined in Muslim legal practice which has it that Muslims are not obligated for long to honor peace treaties with non Muslims -- infidels.

The concept of JIHAD or Holy War has been understood by most of us but there is another concept in the Koran with which few of us are familiar. But it is essential to understand this concept when relating to Moslems. That is the law of HUDAIBIYA which dates back to Muhammad and states clearly that "Muslims are permitted to lie and break agreements with non-Muslims." This applies to business, personal life and politics. Would a peace treaty be worth much if the other party is Moslem?


http://www.yahoodi.com/peace/muhammad.html

[RS]

Hi Fred -

Check your sources - The Koran says God will forgive a Muslim who lies when their life is threatened.

You spin a good line, but don't give sources ... how about a link to where the Koran tells this tale ?

If it exists I'm sure you could find it on your PROFITofDoom site ...

[anglian]

So is it the 9:3 you posted in this one or the 9:3 you posted in your earlier post?

the same 009.003 in full PICKTHAL: And a proclamation from Allah and His messenger to all men on the day of the Greater Pilgrimage that Allah is free from obligation to the idolaters, and (so is) His messenger. So, if ye repent, it will be better for you; but if ye are averse, then know that ye cannot escape Allah. Give tidings (O Muhammad) of a painful doom to those who disbelieve

[RS]

... and what is the first word of 9:4 ?

[Fred Nerks]

The Koran says God will forgive a Muslim who lies when their life is threatened.

-----

maybe it says Allah will, but GOD never said any such thing...

and allah was nothing but mohammad's sock puppet.

[RS]

"maybe it says Allah will, but GOD never said any such thing... "

moot point ... one concept against another, but the word translates...

BTW- isn't there a Saint who denied Christ 3 times ? ... guess he got cleared - is it only the average peon who gets nailed for this ?

[Fred Nerks]

Were Muhammad's Wars in Self Defense?
By Ali Sina

Dear Ali

I was debating with one of my religious relatives and when I showed her this verse (9:5) she accused us (you and I) of misinterpretation. According to her we are reading this verse in the wrong context. Her interpretation of this verse is that Muslims are asked to fight back in self defense only and we should read verses 9:04 - 9:06 in order to get the correct meaning. She looks at it from Yusuf Ali's tafsir which states fight only if the pagans make war against you.

Regards

Gus




Dear Gus,

Sura 9 consists of two main discourses:

The first discourse (vv. 1-37), is called Bara’at. This discourse basically is the edict of intolerance that Muhammad issued one year after his victory in Mecca and only a few months before his death. The other main discourse of this Sura is called Taubah or repentance and has to do with the conditions that he imposed for accepting the repentance of those who did not go to war with him to Tabuk. Your question is about the first discourse which is actually, chronologically speaking, the last verses of the Quran.

Quran must be read in its context i.e. the context in which it was written (Sha’ne Nozool). You have to know the history behind every verse and Surah to understand what it says.

Bara’at means deliverance. In the year seven of Hijra Muhammad had signed a peace treaty with the Meccans, a few miles away from that town, in a place called Hudaibiyah. The treaty stated that for 10 years Muslims would leave the Quraish and their caravans unscathed and would not harass them by waylaying their caravans and plundering their properties. In exchange the Quraish would allow the Muslims to perform Hajj starting from the subsequent year.

After signing that accord, Muhammad concentrated on the North and raided the Northern populations of Arabia , starting with Khaibar, which was a prosperous Jewish town and then subdued many other smaller populations, casting terror in the hearts of the majority of the Arabs.

Only two years after the treaty of Hudaibiyah he felt strong enough to attack Mecca and was able to gather 10,000 men to accompany him in the expedition. (At Hudaibiyah he had only 1500 men). Not all those who accompanied him were Muslims. But he was an emerging tyrant and some of the tribes feared that refusing his demand would anger him and they too could become his subsequent victims. In other words they tried to stay out of his harm by appeasing him. Among them were the two big tribes of Sulaim and Tamim. To sweeten the deal Muhammad offered them a share of the booty. Carrot and stick are the preferred tools of narcissists.

But Muhammad had signed a treaty with the Meccans. How could he get around it? Not that the treaty itself was any deterrent, what Muhammad needed was an excuse to justify his treachery. The solution to all Muhammad’s problems was Allah and in this case also it was Allah who gave him deliverance.

Dr. M. Khan the translator of Sahih Bukhari and the Quran into English writes:

"Allah revealed in Sura Bara'at the order to discard (all) obligations (covenants, etc), and commanded the Muslims to fight against all the Pagans as well as against the people of the Scriptures (Jews and Christians) if they do not embrace Islam, till they pay the Jizia (a tax levied on the Jews and Christians) with willing submission and feel themselves subdued (as it is revealed in 9:29). So the Muslims were not permitted to abandon "the fighting" against them (Pagans, Jews and Christians) and to reconcile with them and to suspend hostilities against them for an unlimited period while they are strong and have the ability to fight against them. So at first "the fighting" was forbidden, then it was permitted, and after that it was made obligatory " [Introduction to English translation of Sahih Bukhari, p.xxiv.]

Ali read the Bara'at to the crowd of the pilgrims in Mecca one year after the conquest of that city. That year was the last year that the Pagans were allowed to come close to Mecca and its mosque. In this edict Muhammad announced, "the Pagans are unclean; so let them not, after this year of theirs, approach the Sacred Mosque" (9.28)

In this discourse Muhammad declared that all the treaties that he had previously signed with the Pagans are null and that the Pagans had four months of grace to submit to him and after that they would be hunted and as the verse 2 says; “covered with shame”.

The verse 3 clearly states that after the lapse of those four months, Muhammad would unilaterally dissolve his treaties and obligations with the Pagans "and will inflict grievous penalty on those who reject his Faith."

The pretext to declare null his treaty with the Meccans was soon found.

In the vicinity of Mecca there were two tribes with a long standing feud between them. One was Bani Bakr who had Meccans for allies and the other was Bani Khoza’a. They sought the protection of Muhammad when he was stationed in Hudaibiyah. It happened that several men of the Bani Bakr, in their traditional custom of hostility, effected a petty raid on their enemies, the Bani Khoza’a, and killed a few of them. The victims took their complaints to Muhammad to punish the aggressors. Entreaty was hardly necessary. The opportunity that Muhammad had been waiting for had finally arrived. He immediately gave his word to avenge their blood: "If I assist you not with the same aid as if the cause were mine own, then let Allah never assist me again!" But it was the invasion of Mecca that Muhammad was really coveting.

Instead of Bani Bakr, Muhammad started making preparation to attack Mecca . This was a continuing war between two unrelated tribes. The treaty of Hudaibiyah was signed between Muhammad and the Quraish. In no logical terms one can find an excuse for Muhammad to annul the treaty and attack Mecca . To justify this war he accused the Meccans of furnishing weapons to Bani Bakr. The history is written by the Muslims and we have no way to verify their claims against their enemies, but even if this accusation was true, still the Meccans cannot be blamed for selling arms to their allies. One can find no justification for Muhammad for invading Mecca .

The verse 4 of this Sura refers to this episode where Muhammad spells out his pretext. In this verse Muhammad shifts the blame on his victims and makes his Allah say that the treaties are “not dissolved with those Pagans with whom ye have entered into alliance and who have not subsequently failed you in aught, nor aided any one against you.”

In other words the reason this treaty is dissolved, according to Muhammad was because the Meccans aided one against him. Of course this is a lie. The Meccans did not help Bani Bakr against Muhammad. This verse is basically an excuse, a face saver. Here Muhammad implies that the reason for the attack is because the Meccans aided the Bani Bakr. To see the absurdity of this excuse imagine that America and Russia sign a peace treaty but Russia supplies India some arms which the Indians use against Pakistan . Would America be justified to declare war on Russia accusing the Russians of the breach of their peace accord because America and Pakistan are allies? This makes no sense at all and it is clear that Muhammad was looking for an excuse to renege his treaty...

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina41019.htm

[TheBattman]

But it all boils down to one simple fact - THEY want to kill us all - but those that they don't kill, they plan to subjugate, opress, and enslave.

[RS]

What would you like to hear ?

What Muhammond did or did not do has no bearing on what the Koran states, and as long as people who believe in it have a reason to believe that it says that they DON'T have to kill people, I'm happy ...

Are you so dead set on convincing Islamics that they have to fight you ?

[RS]

"But it all boils down to one simple fact - THEY want to kill us all - but those that they don't kill, they plan to subjugate, opress, and enslave"

LOL - negates the entire point you made earlier ...

You've opened Pandora's box my FRiend ...as YOU pointed out, it says they have to kill AND capture us ... deal with it ...

[Fred Nerks]

What Muhammond did or did not do has no bearing on what the Koran states,

------

I can't believe you wrote that.

[RS]

"I can't believe you wrote that."

LOL - My FRiend -

You seem to persist in pushing people who want to believe the Koran into the direction of killing non-belivers, saying that this is what it tells them to do.

I prefer to label those as an aberation, that the Koran does NOT require Muslims to kill non-believers.

Which of us is helping the terrorists ?

[RS]

Hey Fred ,

Not that I don't enjoy sparing with you - but when you say things like " the Koran says " could you actually source and refer to something the Koran says ?

[Fred Nerks]

Is Islam a religion of tolerance, allowing freedom of speach, thought, faith?

"Any Muslim who hears an insult to the prophet must kill the person who commits the insult. It is better that those closest to that person try to kill him first."
[Morteza Moqtadie, Iranian Chief Prosecutor, 199?]


The mealy-mouthed and apologetic character of so much Western scholarship on Islam springs from the fact that many of these scholars were, and are, believers, in the rival creed of Christianity. While they might be willing to show Muhammad in a poor light compared to Jesus, they were not keen to press the non-historical and non-divine arguments too far, since they realised that such arguments could just as well against their own cherished beliefs. They preferred a complicity of intellectual dishonesty with the Muslims in the face of an increasingly sceptical and secular environment.
Islam is fundamentalist by nature, and not by some peculiar and aberrant recent development. All Muslims, not just the fanatics, believe that every word of the Quran is quite literally the word of God, absolutely and unquestionably true for all times, places, and people, and practically the same goes for the hadith and the sharia.

...the myth of Islamic tolerance, a myth largely invented by Jews and Western freethinkers as a stick with which to beat the Catholic Church. Islam was never a religion of tolerance and is not tolerant by nature. Despite the way the apologists would like to depict it, Islam was spread by the sword and has been maintained by the sword throughout its history, not to mention the scourge and the cross. In truth it was the Arab empire that was spread by the sword and it is as an Arab empire that Islam is maintained to this day in the form a religion largely invented to hold that empire together and subdue native populations. An unmitigated cultural disaster parading as God's will. Religious minorities were always second-class citizens in this empire and were only tolerated under sufferance and in abject deference to their Arab/Muslim masters; for polytheists and unbelievers there was no tolerance at all, it was conversion or death.

These repulsive characteristics are written into the Quran, the hadith and the sharia, and are an ineradicable feature of the religion. There is no way that Islam can reform itself and remain Islam, no way that it can ever be made compatible with pluralism, free speech, critical thought and democracy. Anyone convinced they already possess the truth have no need for such things. Although Muslims resident in non-Muslim countries clamour for every kind of indulgence for their own beliefs and customs, there can be no doubt that given any kind of power they would impose their own beliefs and eliminate all difference. ...Islam is religious fascism, and it is only a feeble-minded political correctness that prevents it from being recognised as such.

- Ibn Al-Rawandi New Humanist, Dec. 1995

http://www.yahoodi.com/peace/islam.html

[Fred Nerks]

PS. I don't know why I bother, you evidently NEVER read anything I post. There's 1400 years of history to study and you get stuck on the meaning and context of THEN?! It's like communicating with an islamic cleric.

bye bye.

[Keisha]

what the freadyfreak are we going to do about it? before it's too late, with the dems supposedly taking over the elections in Nov. , just wait and see this country fall right into their hands, the dems are teaching in the schools, oooh,eh, it is not politically correct to protect yourself, from evil, horror from the devil himself who has also taken many innocent people and thrust this way of life upon them, or else, MICHAEL SAVAGE MAY BE RIGHT, HATE TO SAY IT, BUT FORCE IS THE ONLY THING THEY UNDERSTAND, AS THEIR LIFE IS CONTROLLED WITH IT, NOW I KNOW ALSO WHY JESUS SAID'FATHER FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO' HE WASN'T TALKING ABOUT THE FEW NAILING HIM ON THE CROSS, HE WAS TALKING ABOUT THE MANY WHO WERE SOON GOING TO BE OVERTAKEN BY SATAN, MUHAMMED HAD EPILEPTIC FITS, HE THOUGHT HE WAS HAVING THE ANGEL GABRIEL VISIT HIM, LIES, LIES , LIES, WHY AREN'T THE AMERICAN PEOPLE VOICING OUT LOUD AND STRONG, KBECAUSE THE RED DIAPER DOPER BABIES LOVE THE JIHAD!

[Keisha]

TO WHOMEVER, across the street is a conv store owned by a muslum from Jerusalem, he informed me, as he approached me at the bus bench trying to find out where I lived, knowing it was me who went back in their store complaining that they overtaxed me 1.50, yet they insisted the tax was fair!!!when I told them that to find out the tax for pop you don't tax the total for all the items, like frozen food, which is not taxed here in MN , I had to ask for a receipt and then it was a plain old adding machine one with no store name on it......they never give receipts usually so I can imagine how much they get in their coffers by doing it all day, students etc. never are concerned, I figured a good sum of money every month to be sent to the Palestinian Jihad, as he was firm in telling me he was not from Jordan, an ally of America, he was from Jerusalem, and was Palestinian, right here, right across the street from where I live, I have to put up with this crap, and they are building a mosque a couple blocks away, yup , right here in good ole Minnesota, home of the lumberjack, well now , it is home of the Jack

[Keisha]

really, oh really, says who? it is obvious your thinking pattern is disrupted with sheer , determined foolishness......I am sick and tired of hearing from so called rationalists for jihad, ask the Greeks how it felt, the Christians in Lebanon to be almost extinct, the many groups that underwent their violence in the name of their God, how could it , when the big M is just a copy cat, what he wants, and demands the other by his sword, an instrument of the devil himself, sorry but I don't have time, I had a near death , a core one, and their God is not one of love, which that is who He is, I saw his throne, I went before the counsel, I saw St. Michael, not like M saw the Angel Gabriel either........I am outa here, I get so infuriated with this Islamofacist and the stupid Americans that are only concerned about their piddley dowinky junk,,,,,,,,,,,eeeeek