Dr. Andrew Bostom has written a scholarly analysis of some of the wonderful “ecumenical” themes featured during the last Friday’s Islamic prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral. The following article was originally published at Dr. Bostom’s website.
Dr. Bostom sends his thanks to ritamalik, who did the initial analysis of the Arabic-language content of the service, and compared it with portions of the supposed English translations.
Keynote Muslim Sermon Recites Koranic Themes of Conquering and Condemning Christians and Jews at National Cathedral “Ecumenical” Event
by Andrew G. Bostom
This past Thursday (11/3/14) in anticipation of a midday Friday Islamic service, to be held, November 14th in the National Cathedral I noted the willful obliviousness to a grim centennial remembrance: November 11, 1914, when the Ottoman Sheikh ul-Islam (supreme Muslim religious authority) issued fatwas (religious edicts) declaring a jihad against non-Muslim state enemies of the last Muslim “Caliphate.”
Subsequent Ottoman Muslim fatwas (see here; here) promulgated during the World War I era would target Christian minorities, under Sharia-based Ottoman Muslim rule, for genocidal jihadism against these hapless non-Muslim victims. The Ottoman jihad ravages were as barbaric and depraved as the recent horrific spate of ISIS atrocities in Iraq and Syria, and far more extensive. Occurring, largely between 1915-16 (continuing through at least 1918), some one million Armenian, and 250,000 Assyro-Chaldean and Syrian Orthodox Christians were brutally slaughtered, or starved to death during forced deportations orchestrated by their Ottoman Muslim rulers, through arid wastelands.
Following the Friday November 14th event (which can be viewed in its entirety, here; or here; see also this useful written summary account ), Dean of the National Cathedral, Gary Hall, when questioned about this cruelly ironic timing, conceded, “I did not know that it was that anniversary” — but then segued into an unconscionable immoral equivalence defending the “ecumenical” Muslim prayer service.
But knowing it now, it actually seems to be more appropriate to have an event that is on an anniversary of a hard time… There have been atrocities on both sides. There have been extremists on both sides.
After viewing Friday’s ostensible exercise in “ecumenism” at The National Cathedral, it is impossible for me to discern whether the Christian event organizers are more ethically, or intellectually cretinous. Consider the main khutbah (or sermon) delivered by Muslim South African Ambassador to the U.S. (and champion of the jihadist Muslim Brotherhood), Ebrahim Rasool.
Extolling his National Cathedral Christian hosts, the good ambassador Rasool quoted (video here; hat tip Ken Sikorski) — in deliberately truncated fashion — only the latter portion of Koran 5:82 (equivalent to this: “…and you will find the nearest in love to the believers (Muslims) those who say: ‘We are Christians.’ That is because amongst them are priests and monks, and they are not proud.”) What Mr. Rasool omitted is the virulently Jew- and “pagan”-hating, opening half of verse 5:82: “Verily, you will find the strongest among men in enmity to the believers (Muslims) the Jews and those who are Al-Mushrikun (i.e., “idolatrous” Hindus, Buddhists, and Animists).” The Jew-hating nature of this verse — well-established by classical Koranic commentaries, spanning over a millennium — was re-affirmed by Sunni Islam’s most prestigious center of religious education, Al-Azhar University, and its current leading cleric, Grand Imam, Ahmed al-Tayeb. During an interview with Al-Tayeb, which aired on Channel 1, Egyptian TV, October 25, 2013, Al-Azhar’s Grand Imam gave a brief explanation of the ongoing relevance of verse 5:82 which has been invoked — “successfully” — to inspire Muslim hatred of Jews since the advent of Islam:
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