Fort Hood in light of the Quran

How the Media keeps on allowing Taqiyah

By Nakdimon

An Open Letter To CNN

Dear CNN,

I have been engaging with Muslims for the past two years and have been studying their sources intensively, scrutinizing the Quran, the authentic Hadith collections and the commentaries on the Quran. I have also been following the events surrounding the Fort Hood Massacre as the events unfolded for the past weeks. I read the article on your website called Murder has no religion written by Arsalan Iftikhar, and I noticed that the author quoted a verse from the Quran which he completely altered and misapplied. He begins his article with these words:

I’m sure that Mr Iftikhar knows full well that the text from Chapter 5:32, that he quotes to show that Islam is peaceful, is completely butchered to make it say what it actually doesn’t say. I will quote it in it’s entirety to show how Mr. Iftikhar is trying to dupe the masses, with the parts he had removed now highlighted with capital letters:

See the difference if you quote it all? This is not a verse that applies to Muslims, it applies to the Children of Israel. This has nothing to do with Islamic behaviour and he knows it. Moreover, these soldiers at Fort Hood were not innocent people according to Islamic standards. They were on their way to Muslim countries to fight Muslims (Taliban) and spread mischief (Unbelief/Democracy) there. In fact, this verse has nothing to do with the killing of non-Muslims. This is about killing of someone within the believing society. One must take into consideration that, according to Islam, Moses preached Islam to the Children of Israel, NOT Judaism. So when this was revealed to the Israelites, this is talking about Israelites killing Israelites, in other words, Israelite Muslims killing Israelite Muslims. Medieval commentator Ibn Kathir, who wrote “the most renowned and accepted explanation of the Qur'an in the entire world”, supports this view and says that the phrase “whoever slays a soul” is only applicable to Muslims:

So this is not talking about the souls of non-Muslims. Nidal Malik Hasan was not in violation of anything that the Islamic sources teach Muslims. When taking the entire verse into consideration it mandates the actions of Nidal Hasan, not the other way around as the edited version of the verse seems to imply. This whole thing becomes really interesting when we take a look at the following verse that does speak about how Muslims should deal with non-Muslims who oppose Islam:

This is one of the most barbaric verses in the Quran and THIS verse is a command given to Muslims. Iftikhar simply tries to pull the wool over the eyes of the people. Not only that, he doesn’t read the very next verse that tells us that those that “wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land” are to be butchered. Now if we take the terms “wage war against Allah and His messenger” and “make mischief in the land” we see that, according to Ibn Kathir,

Making war against Allah and his messenger:

And making Mischief in the land  “refers to various types of evil” (Ibid.).

I want to strongly emphasise that Ibn Kathir is not a “Wahabi” or an “Islamic extremist”. This man lived in Medieval times in a land where Muslims were dominant and had nothing to conceal from non-Muslims and therefore could speak forthright about Islam and what it really teaches. So in short this is what Islam is all about when it is dominant. Spreading disbelief, opposing the spread of Islam (i.e. nearly all non-Islamic behaviour) equals waging war on Islam. And that is precisely what Muslims think the US is doing in Afghanistan.

I wonder how much of the classical commentaries Mr. Arsalan Iftikhar has even read. If he had at all done so he would have known that Islam, as the early Muslims have practiced it, allows Muslims to lie to non-Muslims and pretend to be friends with them, lest Islam’s true face becomes apparent to the infidel and the infidel discovers how the Muslim is to treat him. This practice is known as “Taqiyah” or “Tuqiyah”. In fact, according to the classical Islamic teachings, Muslims aren’t even allowed to take Jews and Christians as friends. We go, again, to Ibn Kathir and his commentary on chapter 3 verse 28 of the Quran:

Then, in Ibn Kathir’s explanation of the Quran, chapter 5 verse 51, we read:

Anyone who has seen the PowerPoint presentation of the traitor¹ Nidal Malik Hasan and studied the foremost Islamic sources knows that what he did was in complete agreement with classical and authentic Islamic teachings.

Could this be a case of Taqiyah on the part of Mr. Iftikhar? Well, we shouldn’t be surprised if that were the case, since Islam allows him to behave as such. And sadly Mr. Iftikhar doesn’t stand alone and many more have used this verse in a similar fashion to make it say what it doesn’t in an attempt to endorse Islam. After the planes crashed into the Twin Towers eight years ago, President Bush was given this same verse from the Quran (5:32) to be included in his speech to the nation in order to convince the citizens of America that Islam is actually a religion of peace. I don’t know if, up till then, President Bush had ever in his life read so much as a single verse from the Quran, but I’m pretty positive that the verse must have been handed to him this way by someone that was indeed familiar with the Quran. Needless to say that this person also heavily edited the verse and never mentioned the following verse, nor even bothered to reference where to look for the verse, just like Mr. Iftikhar hasn’t bothered to reference the verse from the Quran when he misquoted it, lest someone looks it up and finds out what’s really going on.

Whatever the case, one can see from the authentic sources of Islam, that were a Muslim to behave like Nidal Malik Hasan did at Fort Hood, he would not violate the stipulations of classical and authentic Islamic teachings. Therefore, anyone that claims that what Nidal Malik Hasan did at Fort Hood is “un-Islamic” is either ignorant of Islamic teachings and doesn’t know any better or is simply deliberately trying to deceive the people who are indeed ignorant of Islam. I hope that Mr. Iftikhar will be called into account for his misrepresentation of his own sources to make them say what they actually don’t.

In conclusion, we have seen that Mr. Arsalan Iftikhar has been dishonest to the readers of CNN and the entire media. He has done so by taking a verse, chopping it into bits and pieces and take the parts out that may make Islam look like it condones the actions of Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood. However, when reading the entire verse and consulting the classical commentaries of Islam, the very text from the Quran that Mr. Iftikhar used to try to prove that the Quran repudiates the actions of Nidal Malik Hasan actually proves that the Quran endorses such actions. Were this to happen the other way around, i.e. a non-Muslim chopping up Quran verses to misrepresent the Islam and make the religion look bad (which I personally would condemn), I know for a fact that Muslims would be up in arms and all over the US media to have the writer, that misrepresented Islam and put it in a bad light, either fired or at least publically exposed. I think that when the opposite happens, i.e. a Muslim misrepresenting verses from his holy books as Mr. Iftikhar has clearly done in this case, this also should get the necessary attention.

Sincerely, a European concerned for America’s well-being,

Nakdimon