By Linda Sax Snaid
SAN DIEGO –Professor Ghada Osman has been invited repeatedly by the Agency for Jewish Education (AJE) to lecture on “Encounters Between Islam and Judaism.” Her most recent presentation at the Dove Library in Carlsbad on February 28, 2011, is part of the AJE ‘Scholar Lectures on Jewish Studies.’
I was extremely interested in what Prof. Osman had to say because for over a year I have worked with two colleagues to produce a 21-page analysis that corrects errors, omissions and distortions on Islamic medieval history published in a middle school textbook used throughout California.
Professor Osman’s lecture emphasized similarities and what she claimed were “centuries” of good will between Islam and Judaism. She was well received by an attentive audience. A few attendees, including myself, perceived significant omissions that seemed to sanitize Islamic history.
Prof. Osman started by presenting over a dozen verses of the Qur’an to her largely Jewish audience. She explained that the righteous “people of the book,” Jews and Christians, who believe in the last day would be rewarded.
Prof. Osman then described the Islamic concept of abrogation, a replacement of earlier verses by superceding contradictory revelations received by Muhammad. She didn’t mention that her first verse, about reward for the Jews (2:62) is considered abrogated by most Islamic jurists.
Prof. Osman did not describe any verses, which generations of Islam’s rulers and followers have used to guide them through brutal warfare, subjugation of non-Muslims and enslavement of captives.
Prof. Osman did not depict the dhimmi class, an inferior status reserved for the people of the book living under Islamic rule. She mentioned the slaughter of Jews in the Arabian oasis of Khaybar by Muhammad and his followers. She indicated that the “jizya” tax was then instituted for people of the book who did not convert to Islam, as “protection.” She did not mention other typical restrictions imposed on dhimmi throughout Islamic history with respect to clothing, property, housing, synagogue building and transportation. Carrying weapons is forbidden. Dhimmis lack legal rights against Muslims in court.
Maimonides describes the affliction s applied to Jews in 1172 (p.11, Legacy of Islamic Anti-Semitism edited by Andrew G. Bostom):
“The nation of Ishmael…persecute us severely and devise ways to harm us and to debase us…None has matched it in debasing and humiliating us…we are not spared from the ferocity of their wickedness, and their outbursts at any time. On the contrary, the more we suffer and choose to conciliate them, the more they choose to act belligerently toward us.”
Prof. Osman suggested the websites of CAIR (Council of American-Islamic Relations) and MPAC (Muslim Public Affairs Council) for information. CAIR was declared an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the seminal Holyland terror-finance trial. Both organizations are desirous that the observance of Sharia Islamic law spread in this melting pot of a country. In my opinion, the Constitution and imposition of Sharia Law are not compatible. Sharia law does not recognize freedom of religion, speech, assembly, press or equality under the law. Cruel and unusual punishments are condoned.
As an alternative, Prof. Osman could have recommended the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, an example of a Muslim organization that respects American liberties and our constitution.
Prof. Osman spoke of Israel saying, “The problem has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with land.” This claim ignores too much of the historical record and too many facts on the ground.
In the twentieth century approximately 800,000 Jews had their businesses, property and land usurped by the Arab countries that exiled them. Continuous Jewish presence in Israel predates Islam. Many Arabs living within Israel willingly abandoned their abodes when neighboring Arab rulers told them they would eliminate the Jews in the War for Independence. Contemporaneous newspaper records from around the world reported that Arabs were encouraged by Jews not to flee. Those who stayed are arguably the freest of all Arabs living in the Middle East. Neighboring countries intermittently declare their intent to “wipe Israel off the map.” Clarity about all the history is critical to developing a better future.
During the Q and A Professor Osman examined the difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims, acknowledged the brutality of the Almohads toward the Jews of Spain and clarified her statement that the Talmud was influenced by Islam.
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By Michael Hayutin
SAN DIEGO — For better than a year I have worked with two colleagues to correct errors, omissions and distortions in a history textbook used throughout California in middle school. We have done hundreds of hours of research to produce a 21-page analysis of the 60 pages in the text that covers Islam and Islamic culture. We understand that the first and most significant challenge of the 21st Century will be the battle to preserve western values under assault by radical Islam. Hence, it is essential that our young people get an honest and unvarnished history of the roots of today’s radical Islamic threats. To be very clear, Moslems as a whole do not pose that threat. But within the ranks of religious Moslems resides the core of that threat. This is a very simple concept that has been manipulated by the uneducated, the biased and the politically correct to be deemed bigotry.
But our work and the nature of our analysis is not the point of this piece. To put it mildly, our efforts have not made us the most popular people on the block. This is not an easy subject to tackle. There are those who choose to call us bigots for having focused on the negative religious, social and cultural aspects of Islam. Others just don’t like to deal with politically sensitive topics. Still others prefer to put whatever energy they have into their kids’ grades and college admission, largely ignoring the content of their studies. We anticipated these hurdles.
But I did have a bit of a surprise from a segment of the population I would have expected to support our efforts. In the same week that our analysis was the subject of a school board meeting and our local college campuses were filled with partisans trashing Israel with lies and invective, a local Jewish organization sponsored a lecture full of inaccuracies, distortions and critical omissions about the most troubling aspects of Islamic history. By implication they gave this lecturer their seal of approval.
So not only do we have the universities, an alphabet soup of Islamic organizations and a gutless P.C. crowd lined up against us, we face a capitulating segment of the Jewish community. My co-authors tell me I should not be surprised. A segment of the Jewish community suffers from of inexplicable form of myopia playing right into an odd streak of self-destructiveness. They can’t see beyond the Ph.D. in a lecturer’s title. Despite 2,000 years of clarifying history (intellectuals either supporting or ignoring evil), virulent anti-Semitism throughout the Islamic world, dozens of American organizations of every leftist variety lined up to apologize for radical Islam, our local Agency For Jewish Education feels the need to host diversified “perspectives.”
In plain English and in practical terms this means that it will host speakers who do Jews, America and free people everywhere harm. Again to be perfectly clear, the lecturer in question probably meant well. But motivations are irrelevant. Whether out of ignorance (she was educated at Harvard’s Middle Eastern Studies Department – Saudi funded), innocence or malice the result was the same. Those in the audience who knew little or noting about Islam, Jews and Israel left the lecture with a thoroughly sanitized understanding of Islam.
Deadly ideologies don’t arise from a magical mist. They arise from ideas that are taught and become accepted concepts in societies. In this case radical Islam’s dangerous ideas find root in passages in the Qur’an. Those ideas have been intimately woven into a culture that rejects basic western values of democracy, pluralism, human rights and free markets. It is a supremacist culture that seeks to dominate. This is an ugly and uncomfortable truth. But it is the truth nevertheless.
Well-meaning, highly educated, perfectly politically correct Jews are complicit in passing along the inaccuracies that camouflage this truth. Instead of getting behind our effort to accurately educate, they hinder our efforts with complicity.
All we can do is continue to spread the truth as best we can and hope the open-minded will listen and learn.
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Editor’s Note: We invite the Agency for Jewish Education and Professor Osman to respond.