Dr. Emmanuel Navon..
i24 News..
10 September '14..
As America commemorates the 13th anniversary of 9/11, a paradox emerges from the tragic opening act of the 21st century. On the one hand, Osama Bin-Laden was eliminated and al-Qaida is mostly on the run. On the other hand, Bin-Laden’s dream of re-establishing the Caliphate is still alive and lethal – as recently proven by the progress and barbarism of ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). The fact that America is trying to build an international coalition to defeat ISIL is in itself a reminder that Bin-Laden has not been defeated.
Like his predecessor, George W. Bush, President Obama keeps repeating that America is not at war with Islam. Obama even added that ISIL “is not what Islam is about.”
President Obama’s attempts to distinguish between ISIL and Islam were recently challenged by Brother Rachid, a Moroccan Muslim who spent 20 years studying Islam and eventually converted to Christianity. Rebuking Obama’s declaration that ISIL does not speak on behalf of Islam because its members behead American journalists, Rachid said: “Beheading is commanded in the Quran in Surah 47, verse 4 … Ironically, this Surah is called the Surah of Mohamed.” Telling Obama about his own Muslim education, Rachid explained: “We have been brainwashed to hate all of you … and to make Islam the religion of the whole world, as the Quran says … ISIL is just one symptom; if it disappears other ISILs will appear under a different name … If Islam is not the problem, then why is it that there are millions of Christians in the Middle East, and yet none of them has ever blown himself up to become a martyr, even though they live under the same economic and political circumstances? Why have new converts to Islam become terrorists? I am imploring you to take a stand … for the future of democracy: speak the truth about the real threat that is facing all of us.”
The European converts to Islam mentioned by Brother Rachid enter Syria and Iraq via Turkey’s “jihadist highway.” Turkey is a member of NATO, the organization around which Obama is trying to build to anti-ISIL strategy. The irony does not end here.
ISIL’s spin-off in Sinai calls itself “Ansar Bait al-Maqdis.” Literally, this means “The Faithful of the [Jerusalem] Temple.” “Bait al-Maqdis” is the Arabic pronunciation of the Hebrew “Beit Ha-Mikdash,” whose meaning is “The Holy Temple [of Jerusalem].”
Jerusalem was conquered by Muslims in 638. The modern Arabic name of Jerusalem, al-Quds, can be traced to the 9th century, but it only became widely used in the 11th century. “Al-Quds” derives from “Bait al-Muqaddas” which is a different pronunciation of “Bait al-Maqdis.” ISIL’s branch in Sinai is using the original Arab word for Jerusalem, a word that in itself testified to the fact that the Arabs used to recognize Jerusalem as the site of Solomon’s Temple. Indeed, after the Arab conquest of Jerusalem, Jews were allowed to pray freely on the Temple Mount because the Arabs recognized that this is where their Temple once stood. A tourist guidebook published by the Supreme Muslim Council in 1924 says the Temple Mount “is among the oldest in the world. It is, beyond any doubt, where King Solomon’s Temple once stood.”
Today’s denial of the Temple’s very existence by Arab leaders is a recent phenomenon that does not reflect Islam’s traditional stance. When Arafat shocked the Israeli and American delegations at the Camp David summit in July 2000 by saying that there had never been a Temple in Jerusalem, he was expressing a new Palestinian myth. This myth has been endorsed and repeated by Sheikh Ra’ed Salah (the head of the northern branch of the Islamic movement in Israel); by Arab MKs (and former MKs) Abdulmalik Dehamshe and Muhammad Barakeh; and by Shauki Khatib (chairman of the Israeli-Arab Follow-up Committee). “Temple denial” is truly a recent phenomenon. Even Araf al-Araf, a Palestinian historian close to Hadj Amin al-Husseini, wrote in his 1951 book Tariah al-Quds that “Al Aram Al Sharif [the Temple Mount] is on Mount Moriah, mentioned in the Book of Genesis … It was bought by David to build the Temple, but it is Solomon who built it in 1007 BCE.”
So Brother Rashid is right: ISIL does represent Islam – not least because it recognizes Jerusalem’s Jewish past. In Israel, there is also a movement called “The Temple Mount Faithful,” an organization that militates for Jewish freedom of worship on the Temple Mount – a freedom that is denied today by the Israeli government but that was respected in the 7th century by Muslim rulers. On the question of the Temple Mount, the gap is wider between Israel and the PLO than between Israel and ISIL. Too bad they would behead us before giving us a chance to explain this to them.
Link: http://www.i24news.tv/en/opinion/43258-140910-what-israel-and-isil-have-in-common
Emmanuel Navon chairs the Political Science and Communication Department at the Jerusalem Orthodox College and teaches International Relations at Tel-Aviv University and the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center. He is a Senior Fellow at the Kohelet Policy Forum.
Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.
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