Anti-Jewish Screed on Luton Mosque Website

With the Muslim community in Luton forcefully repudiating the handful of belligerent “anti-war” Islamist extremists who protested a military parade in March, local anti-Muslim blogger Paul Ray has been looking around for some other reason to keep the heat on  following the recent football hooligan rampage through the town. And none other than Robert Spencer has come to the rescue, by pointing out that the local mosque  – the  recently-firebombed Masjid al-ghurabaa’ – carries on its website a number of unpleasant documents, the most egregious of which is “The Prophesy Of The Utter Destruction Of The Yahood Will Only Occur At The Hands Of The True Worshippers Of Allaah” . It is a summary of a discourse by Shaykh Saleem Al-Hilaalee (var. Salim Al-Hilali, known as a Salafi reformist), and the pdf gives the impression of being actively endorsed by the mosque.

The author takes several verses from the Koran and constructs a grimly fascinating mirror-image of apocalyptic Christian Zionism, but with “the Jews” as the bad guys. Discussing Israel:

We recognise that this return to grandeur [of the Jews] shall be short lived, by the leave of Allaah (Subhanahu wa ta’ala). When Allaah (Subhanahu wa ta’ala) speaks about the destruction of Bani Israel after the second occurrence of corruption He uses the letter “faa” to imply that soon afterwards after their return to grandeur, their destruction shall come about. The faa indicates that it is a short, defined period of time wherein they shall gather in the Holy land and assemble uniformly so as to meet their demise together at the hands of the soldiers of Allaah from the ‘Ibaad ur-Rahmaan.

Thus the establishment of the modern state of Israel is read into the ancient sacred text – exactly the same hermeneutic that is used by Christian Zionists regarding the Bible. Also:

All the different initiatives that have been put forth to solve the Palestinian Muslim Arab-Jewish conflict have all failed miserably since this matter is with Allaah (Subhanahu wa ta’ala) and not by the directives of the UN or other councils.

John Hagee himself wouldn’t phrase that very differently – for apocalyptic Christian Zionists, there must be a future battle of Armageddon, and the idea that peace can be achieved by other means is simply a deception from Satan.

And just as Jews are idealised in Christian Zionism, so “the Jews” are here objectified in the opposite direction:

The Zionist expansion grew with the aid of Communist manpower (European Jews) and Capitalist monetary reserves. The Jews suddenly became a formidable force and attained grandeur never before achieved by their predecessors…

The Zionists strategy will not stop extending its malicious hand, gesturing peace, while simultaneously plotting extermination of those it is courting. This has always been the attitude of the Jews, past and present.

Also, we’re asked:

Is there greater deviance than setting the Masaajid wherein Allaah (Subhanahu wa ta’ala) is worshipped ablaze?

This is a reference to the 1969 arson attack on the Al-Asqa mosque in Jerusalem. But the perpretrator wasn’t Jewish, nor was he acting on instructions from Israel. In fact, he was a mentally-ill Australian tourist who subscribed to a heterodox form of Christian Zionism promoted by Herbert Armstrong.

Certainly there are plenty of reasons to criticise Israel, but this document is anti-Semitic, conspiratorial, crude, and eliminationist. Despite being himself Palestinian (born in Hebron, according to one source I consulted), the author is completely uninformed about the real complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he appears to lack any ability to understand the human dimension. This kind of material undermines community relations, and nothing good can come of failing to challenge it.

7 Responses

  1. You are right Richard – clear parallels between Ismaic and Christian apocalyptics. Here’s more on their influence over G.W. Bush http://stephensizer.blogspot.com/2009/05/george-w-bush-and-road-to-armageddon.html

  2. Minor correction; it is ‘hermeneutic’.

  3. It is very difficult to be empathetic when one finds this sort of horseshit bandied about.

  4. Thanks, fixed.

  5. […] Filed under: Uncategorized — seismicshock @ 12:01 pm This post at Bartholomew may be of interest to readers. Comments […]

  6. Rev Sizer,

    Why not engage properly with criticisms people make of you. for once?

    Or are you going to threaten police action again, because you have no answers, again?

    http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/03/21/if-i-was-stephen-sizer-christian-antizionist-james-mendelsohn/

  7. […] perhaps even more effective in causing people to fear the religion (and I have written about those, too). But as with the 1950s “Red Scare” (and other situations), the existence of a real […]

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