PART 3 VOLUME III: THE TRUE 5 PILLARS OF THE SET QURAN HADITH SIRA AND SHARIA FIQ MADHAHIB.

(The distinction/discrimination Muslim / non-Muslim, jihadist / non-jihadist *, man / woman,

Free / slave, People of the Book / other unbelievers).

The closing of the gates of Ijtihad, Insidad bab al Ijtihad in Arabic, ordered by the Caliph al Qadir in 1019 (Risala al Qadiriya) is certainly difficult to date in practice, but it coincides at least with the rise of the four schools of law in Sunnism and with the concomitant extinction of the last fires of Mutazilism, i.e., a period from the 11th to the 13th century, and has been an UNPRECEDENTED CIVILIZATIONAL DECLINE FOR MANKIND, a twilight of old age before the time when imagination is reduced, creative faculties diminished and thought ankylosed (Mohamed Charfi, Islam and Freedom. Paris 1999).

*Suras 4: 95, 9: 19-20, 57:10. Translation The Skeptic's Annotated Quran).

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PART 3 VOLUME III: THE TRUE 5 PILLARS OF THE SET QURAN HADITH SIRA AND SHARIA FIQ MADHAHIB.

(The distinction/discrimination Muslim / non-Muslim, jihadist / non-jihadist *, man / woman,

Free / slave, People of the Book / other unbelievers).

*Suras 4: 95, 9: 19-20, 57:10. Translation The Skeptic's Annotated Quran).

ODE FOR THE HIGH-KNOWERS.

Half of Mankind’s woe comes from the fact that, several thousand years ago, somewhere in the Middle East, peoples through their language conceived spirituality OR MYSTICISM….

-Not as a quest for meaning, hope or liberation with the concepts that go with it (distinction opposition or difference between matter and spirit, ethics, personal discipline, philanthropy, life after life, meditation, quest for the grail, practices...).

-But as a gigantic and protean law (DIN) that should govern the daily life of men with all that it implies.

Obligations or prohibitions that everyone must respect day and night.

Violations or contraventions of this multitude of prohibitions when they are not followed literally.

Judgments when one or more of these laws are violated.

Convictions for the guilty.

Dismissals or acquittals for the innocent. CALLED RIGHTEOUS PERSONS.

THIS CONFUSION BETWEEN THE NUMINOUS AND THE RELIGIOUS, THEN BETWEEN THE SACREDNESS AND THE SECULAR , MAKES OUR LIFE A MISERY FOR 4000 YEARS VIA ISRAEL AND ESPECIALLY THE NEW ISRAEL THAT CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM WANT TO BE.

The principle of our Ollotouta was given us, long time ago already, by our master to all in the domain; the great Gaelic bard, founder of the modern Free-thought, who is usually evoked under the anglicized name of John Toland. There cannot be, by definition, things contrary to Reason in Holy Scriptures really emanating from the divine one.

If there are, then it is, either error, or lies!

Either there is no mystery, or then it is in any way a divine revelation!

There is no happy medium...

We do not admit other orthodoxy that only the one of Truth because, wherever it can be in the world, must also stand, we are completely convinced of it, God's Church, and not that one of such or such a human faction … We are consequently for showing no mercy to the error on any pretext that can be, each time we will have the possibility or occasion to expound it in its true colors.

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1696. Christianity not mysterious.

1702. Vindicius Liberus. Response of John Toland to the detractors of his "Christianity not mysterious."

1704. Letters to Serena containing the origin of idolatry and reasons of heathenism, the history of the soul's immortality doctrine among the heathens, etc. (Version Baron d’Holbach, a German philosopher).

1705. The true Socinianism * as an example of fair debate on matters of theology *.To which is prefixed Indifference in disputes, recommended by a pantheist to an orthodox friend.

1709. Adeisdaemon or the man without superstition. Jewish origins.

1712. Letter against popery, and particularly against admitting the authority of the Fathers or Councils in religious controversies, by Sophia Charlotte of Prussia.

1714. Defense of the Jews, victims of the anti-Semite prejudices, and a plea for their naturalization.

1718. The destiny of Rome, of the popes, and the famous prophecy of St Malachy, archbishop of Armagh, in the thirteenth century.

Nazarenus or the Jewish, gentile, and Mahometan Christianity (version Baron d’Holbach), containing:

I. The history of the ancient gospel of Barnabas, and the modern apocryphal gospel of the Mahometans, attributed to the same apostle.

II. The original plan of Christianity occasionally explained in the history of the Nazarenes, solving at the same time various controversies about this divine (but so highly perverted) institution.

III. The relation of an Irish manuscript of the four gospels as likewise a summary of the ancient Irish Christianity and what the realty of the keldees (an order half-lay, half-religious) was, against the last two bishops of Worcester.

1720. Pantheisticon, sive formula celebrandae sodalitatis socraticae.

Tetradymus.

I. Hodegus. The pillar of cloud and fire that guided the Israelites in the wilderness was not miraculous but, as faithfully related in Exodus, a practice equally known by other nations, and in those countries, not only useful, but even necessary.

Il. Clidophorus.

III. Hypatia or the history of the most beautiful, most virtuous, and most accomplished lady, who was stoned to death by the clergy of Alexandria, to gratify the pride, the emulation and even the cruelty, of Archbishop Cyril, commonly, but very undeservedly, styled Saint Cyril.

1726. Critical history of the Celtic religion, containing an account of the druids, or the priests and judges, of the vates, or the diviners and physicians, and finally of the bards, or the poets; of the ancient Britons, Irish or Scots. In plus with the story of Abaris the Hyperborean, priest of the sun.

A specimen of the Armorican language (Breton, Irish, Latin, dictionary).

1726. An account of Jordano Bruno's book, about the infinity of the universe and the innumerable worlds, translated from the Italian editing.

1751. The Pantheisticon or the form of celebrating the Socratic-society. London S. Paterson. Translation of the book published in 1720.

"Druidism" is an independent review (independent of any religious or political association) and which has only one purpose: theoretical or fundamental research about what is neo-paganism. The double question, to which this review of theoretical studies tries to answer, could be summarized as follows:

"What could be or what should be a current neo-druidism, modern and contemporary?”

"Druidism" is a neo-pagan review, strictly neo-pagan, and heir to all genuine (that is to say non-Christian) movements which have succeeded one another for 2000 years, the indirect heir, but the heir, nevertheless!

Regarding our reference tradition or our intellectual connection, let us underline that if the "poets" of Domnall mac Muirchertach Ua Néill still had imbas forosnai, teimn laegda and dichetal do chennaib 1) in their repertory (cf. the conclusion of the tale of the plunder of the castle of Maelmilscothach, of Urard Mac Coise, a poet who died in the 11th century), they may have been Christians for several generations. It is true that these practices (imbas forosnai, teimn ...) were formally forbidden by the Church, but who knows, there may have been accommodations similar to those of astrologers or alchemists in the Middle Ages.

Anyway our "Druidism" is also a will; the will to get closer, at the maximum, to ancient druidism, such as it was (scientifically speaking). The will also to modernize this druidism, a total return to ancient druidism being excluded (it would be anyway impossible).

Examples of modernization of this pagan druidism.

— Giving up to lay associations of the cultural side (medicine, poetry, mathematics, etc.). Principle of separation of Church and State.

— Specialization on the contrary, in Celtic, or pagan in general, spirituality history of religion, philosophy and metapsychics (known today as parapsychology).

— Use in some cases of the current vocabulary (Church, religion, baptism, and so on).

A golden mean, of course, is to be found between a total return to ancient druidism (fundamentalism) and a too revolutionary radical modernization (no longer sagum).

The Celtic PAA (pantheistic agnostic atheist) having agreed to be the defense lawyer of ancient Celtic paganism and to sign jointly this small library *, of which he is only the collector, druid Hesunertus (Peter DeLaCrau), does not consider himself as the author of this collective work. But as the spokesperson for the team which composed it. For other sources of this essay on druidism, see the thanks in the bibliography.

* Socinians, since that's how they were named later, wished more than all to restore the true Christianity that teaches the Bible. They considered that the Reformation had made disappear only a part of corruption and formalism, present in the Churches, while leaving intact the bad substance: non-biblical teachings (that is very questionable in fact).

.** This little camminus is nevertheless important for young people ... from 7 to 77 years old! Mantalon siron esi.

1) Do ratath tra do Mael Milscothach iartain cech ni dobrethaigsid suide sin etir ecnaide 7 fileda 7 brithemna la taeb ogaisic a crech 7 is amlaidsin ro ordaigset do tabairt a cach ollamain ina einech 7 ina sa[ru]gad acht cotissad de imus forosnad [di]chetal do chollaib cend 7 tenm laida .i. comenclainn fri rig Temrach do acht co ti de intreide sin FINIT.

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WARNING TO THE READER.

MOST TRANSLATIONS OF THE QURAN VERSES ARE FROM THE WEBSITE, THE SKEPTIC’S ANNOTATED QURAN.

And in this short essay we will apply the analytical method used until then in our study of Irish legends and developed in our numerous counter-lays (no jealous!) And we will therefore proceed to 100 SOUNDINGS IN THE FALSE ISLAM (We are not talking here about the true Islam that is Sufism or Mu’tazilism of course).

This opuscule is not intended to be proselytizing for any religion, but it goes without saying that this Islam can be given the same substantive criticism as that which can be addressed to other religions on the ontological level.

Apart from the crude evidence that "there is something" (but it can be a something that becomes aware of itself) and not "the nothingness," there is no evidence that there was one day an ex nihilo creation and therefore a creating demiurge. There was be simply perhaps a cosmic being passing alternately through phases of deployment OR withdrawal.

In this case exit God Allah or Jehovah.

If there is something that transcends raw matter, nothing proves that this something is not also immanent to it. Nothing proves that this something beyond matter has a personality that can be described (that it is jealous, lenient, merciful, just, great , good, that it is love, etc. in short, to see what apophatic theology says about this subject) and that it does more than underlying the material world, a little like an ocean bears a bubble or a ship.

It goes without saying that the hell or heaven so often evoked by the Quran and the hadiths cannot be places, that they are only states of being evoked more or less roughly by images borrowed from human language (houris delicious drinks, etc.).

NB. Heaven according to Islam is very comparable to the next world of the Celtic-Druidic legends preserved in Ireland (the eternal brawls in less) and its hell makes quite think of the medieval visions, still Irish on the same subject (for example that of Adomnan, Tondale, St Patrick, etc. which in our mouth is not necessarily a compliment). With some specificities in addition but a lot of imagination in less.

We are experiencing a great time where anti-essentialism is king (nations do not exist individualism does not exist, pollution does not exist, racism exists but races do not exist, nor religious ideologies). In this modest essay devoted to the religion founded by a man called Muhammad, we will nevertheless start on the basis that there have been for more than 1500 years on earth something, which makes that women and men who call themselves or are called "Muslims" and there that there can be a group or set of religious groups combined with this notion of submission (to the Lord) called Islam. Since this is the etymology of the word. The word Islam comes from the fourth verbal form of the root SLM / ASLAMA "to submit" and means "submission" (implied to God). Muslim is the active participle: "he who submits oneself" (still implied to God).

But.... when a number of Muslims, following a literal reading of the Quran, as some did with the part Old Testament of the Bible in the Middle Ages, essentialize kuffar, polytheists, Jews or Christians. For example " May God destroy them –Christians- , how perverse are they (yufakuna)”. Chapter 9 verse 30). While many journalists or speakers in the media-political realm, without being useful idiots for all that, inversely essentialize the men and women who are critical regarding religious ideologies and especially that which has been manipulated by Salafism (all Christian fundamentalists, ignoramuses and hypocrites); AS FAR WE ARE CONCERNED, WE DO NOT ACT LIKE THE QURAN, WE ESSENTIALIZE NOBODY FOR THERE ARE ALL KINDS OF PAGANISM, philosophic and thought out paganism to the pantheism of the free-thinker John Toland.

This essay aims therefore precisely...

-NOT THE TRUE ISLAM (yours, dear friend of islamophile org)...

-NOT ISLAM IN GENERAL...

- Of which we admit we do not know what it is (and which does not interest us besides)

- BUT THE EXTREME, POLITICAL, VIOLENT, UNEQUAL, AND INTOLERANT FORMS (in short, contrary to human rights, for we admit humbly not knowing what the rights of God are which neither interests us besides) OF TRADITIONAL SUNNI SALAFISM (non-Sufi non-Mu’tazilite).

That for different reasons......

WE DISTINGUISH CAREFULLY FROM SHIA ISLAM.

Shiite radicalism is in fact of much more recent invention than its Sunni counterpart, the Hanbalism. It was Ayatollah Khomeini who presided over his birth in the 20th century by expressing his doctrine of velayat-e-faqih, that is, the pre-eminence of the religion over politics, while the Shiite mullahs had, hitherto, favored a quietist approach to the question in which the religious had to maintain a neutral

and prudent attitude towards politics. The original quietism of Shiism, shaped by centuries of persecution of Shiism by Sunni, is still firmly represented by grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, the highest authority of Iraqi Shiism, who opposes Muqtada Al Sadr, the extremist leader of the Shiites in Baghdad, in the latter's will to import the Iranian revolution into Iraq.

Islam is not its heresies or minorities like the Sufis. Islam is not the Quran (an anti-book that's sure), Islam is the Quran + the hadiths + the life of Muhammad (isma) + the tradition concerning them (sunna = 85 % of Muslims) + the reflection of doctors in Muslim laws (sharia and fiqh). These are the five true pillars of Islam.

Etymologically speaking, "salafism" comes from the Arabic word salaf, "predecessor" or "ancestor," which designates the companions of the founder of Islam as well as the two successive generations. The spread of Islam is generally attributed to the purity of their faith.

Within the Muslim world, the contemporary Salafist movement is nevertheless a problem. In particular, it is accused of having a narrow understanding of the various religious texts, especially Quran and Sunnah, by favoring a literalist approach and neglecting the context of these writings.

Salafism is also a Muslim movement claiming a return to the Islam of origins, based on the Quran and the Sunnah, i.e., the set of hadiths, the facts and words ascribed to Muhammad or his companions, while neglecting the background as we have said. Now circumstances have changed considerably. We are no longer in the Middle Ages, what the Devil!

The word today refers to a fundamentalist composite movement, particularly made of a traditionalist movement and of a jihadist movement. All these movements affirm to constitute the continuation without change of the Islam of the first centuries. The Salafists claim so to imitate Mahomet in everything, including in their dressing and eating (ISMA).

The desire to find again the Islam of the Salafis in all its purity is not recent.

We find in Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, in the ninth century, the first literal interpretation of Islam, based on a call to ancestors and a condemnation of theological innovations (bid’ah). Ibn Taymiyyah in the fourteenth century also used it, while the Middle East underwent the Mongol invasions. Ibn Taymiyyah and his pupils (Ibn Al-Qayyim and Ibn Kathir) are therefore one of the main references of contemporary Salafist movements.

In the eighteenth century, Muhammad Ibn Al Wahab (1703-1792) will also preach a literal and puritanical reading of Islam, in keeping with the Hanbalist tradition and inspired by Ibn Taymiyya. In his preaching, he allied himself with Ibn Saud, founder of the dynasty that today governs Saudi Arabia. Wahhabism will thus become, until now, the official religious doctrine of Saudi Arabia.

From then on, Salafism became a political-religious ideology whose thought was widely distributed successively by the leading preachers of the modern Saudi state, led by the Ulama Muhammad Ibn Ibrahim Al as-Sheikh (1893-1961), Abdul Aziz ibn Baz (1910-1999) and Muhammad ibn Salih al-'Uthaymeen (1925-2001).

Theological elements communal to Salafist currents.

The various Salafist currents see themselves as a movement of the revival of Islam, by a return to the faith of the origins, that of the "pious predecessors". They reject all that they perceive as human interpretations later to the revelation made to Muhammad.

It is therefore a movement that condemns both the practices of popular Islam, accused of being "superstitions," but also a large part of Muslim theological reflection, considered as the bearer of "innovations" (bid’ah) , that is to say, creations of human reason moving away from the original divine message. The Salafists refuse particularly democracy and secularism, which they accuse of corrupting the Muslim faith.

Alongside this denunciation of everything they consider to be "innovations" (bid’ah) compared with the Quran and the Sunnah, the various Salafist currents insist on the principle of divine oneness, tawhid. God is the one and only creator (Tawhid rububiya, oneness of Lordship). All acts of worship must belong to him (Tawhid ul uluhiyya, oneness of worship). All divine names and attributes that appear in the Quran and the Sunnah are accepted, but are not treated metaphorically or anthropomorphically (Tawhid asma wa s-sifat, oneness of the names and attributes).

The quietist Salafism.

This Salafist trend, developed in particular by imams close to the Saudi regime, refuses the jihadist path which tries to impose a Muslim regime by violent and revolutionary action. This path seems to it doomed to failure. One of the great figures of this orientation, from the 1960s until his death in 1999, Sheikh Muhammad Nassiruddine al-Albani (because born in Albania), thought that the most effective political action should be more the preaching of a regenerated faith, the re-Islamization of Muslim societies, rather than a direct political action of controlling the power.

For al-Albani, it was therefore necessary to pursue a strategy of "at tasfiyatu wa tarbiyah" (purification and education) that is to say on one hand to regenerate faith by purifying it from theological

"innovations" (bid’ah) taking it away from the genuine faith, that of origins, as he defined it; on the other hand, to educate the Muslims to this regenerated faith, so that they give up all religious practices considered corrupted. It is from the general spreading in society of this Muslim piety that political change must take place.

This Quietist Salafist Branch therefore pursues a strategy of "re-Islamization" of Muslim societies through a nonviolent and not directly political preaching, but by possibly resorting to the well-known Muslim principle of dissimulation or taqiyya. It intends to change these societies through the spreading of a literalist faith which must regenerate them and thus give them the prominence in the world.

These quietist Salafists, often close to the Saudi power, criticize the jihadist Salafists who try for some to overthrow the Saudi royal family. They also criticized the Muslim Brotherhood for not following a rigorous practice of Islam, forgetting the Tawhid principle, and trying to get power instead of saving the souls of Muslims by changing their religious practices.

The jihadist movement of Salafism refuses to limit religious action to preaching and makes lesser jihad the heart of its activity. The Salafists of this orientation are thus favorable to the armed struggle, in order to overthrow the regimes of the Muslim countries that they consider impious like Syria in the 2010s , and to establish there a genuinely Islamic State.

This branch of Salafism was born in the 1980s in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviet occupation. During this war, Salafists from Saudi Arabia met with Muslim Brothers. This led them to integrate into the political speech of the Muslim Brothers the traditional literalist preaching of the Salafists, centered on Muslim piety and morality. For these Salafists, the traditional Salafists who favored only preaching, especially the sheikhs close to the Saudi authorities, such as Ibn Baz and Ibn Salih al- 'Uthaymeen, then appeared as hypocrites in the pay of the United States. These Salafists criticize even more the Muslim Brothers who are condemned because of their faith judged insufficiently literalist and, for the most moderate of the Brothers, for their commitment in the political game of State considered impious and to be eliminated by strength.

These leanings is therefore pursuing a violent revolutionary strategy aimed at overthrowing the states of Muslim countries like Syria in the second decade of this century in order to establish in them an Islamic state by force. This also leads them to undertake violent actions against Western countries seen as supporters of these states, especially Russia or the United States. They are called Takfiri or Kharijites by quietist Salafists because of the war crimes that characterize them: violation graves, destruction of mausoleums, and places of worship; atrocities, sometimes filmed, used to intimidate and terrorize populations.

Each of these Salafist currents pretends, of course, to embody the true Salafism and they criticize each other strongly even virulently.

Editor’s note. “After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global totalitarian threat: Islamism. After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global totalitarian threat: Islamism. We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all….. We defend the universality of the freedom of speech, so that a critical spirit can exist in every continent, towards each and every maltreatment and dogma. We appeal to democrats and free spirits in every country that our century may be one of light and not dark.”

Signed by: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Chahla Chafiq-Beski, Caroline Fourest, Bernard-Henri Levy, Irshad Manji, Mehdi Mozaffari, Maryam Namazie, Taslima Nasreen, Salman Rushdie, Antoine Sfeir, Philippe Val, Ibn Warraq.

THE PROBLEM OF SOURCES (NOT THAT OF ZAM-ZAM).

There are very few elements in the Quran concerning the life of Muhammad , whereas the four Gospels contain many on the life of Jesus. The life of Muhammad is therefore known to us by two series of sources.

-An official biography in every sense of the word (it was a question of answering a request of the caliph Mansur).

The first rudiments of the gospel appear around 70 of our era, a few decades after the death of the Nazarene high rabbi that Jesus was. In the case of the son of Amina, who became the last of the Prophets, it would be necessary to wait for about 150 years and the Sira of Ibn Ishaq.

Four copies of his Sirât Rasûl Allah have been made.

A first copy was made by Salama ibn-Fadl al-Ansari, who quoted the original according to Ibn Fadl.

A second copy of the original was written by Yunûs b. Bukayr. It was used by Ibn al-Athir in his Usud al-Ghabah, which means that until the first third of the thirteenth century a complete copy of the original still existed.

Finally, two copies by Al-Bakka'î, one of his students, were taken up and edited by Ibn Hisham around 834. But the latter himself acknowledges that he has carried out a certain filtering.

The first hagiography of Muhammad was therefore that written by Ibn Ishak, circa 767. The text was lost, but it was widely taken up by a second biographer, Ibn Hisham (circa 834) who quotes it abundantly, while stating in his preface that he rejected some doubtful data according to him. Thank God, the morals of the time having nothing to do with ours, Ibn Hisham believed to do useful work by keeping from this sira or biography of Muhammad many war episodes now become quite embarrassing but nevertheless very informative. This compilation provides therefore many details to better understand certain passages of the Quran.

-But we also have the biographical indications contained in the millions of hadiths collected several generations after his death.The most well-known collections of hadiths are those of Bukhari, that of Muslim and that of Abu Dawud.

The Shiites have in common with the Sunnites the hadiths compiled by Al Bukhari but have also their own collections of later hadiths, gathering mainly the words of the imams of the family of Muhammad (Ali and Fatima).

They play a major role in the shaping of the Sharia. For example, in the case of stoning. "Discoveries" or "fabrications" of these hadiths were, of course, used or encouraged, or even remotely controlled, by the various established powers. The Shiites (20%) have therefore their own collections of hadiths, but they are less concerned with Muhammad himself than with his cousin and son-in-law Ali. In these millions of anecdotes, there are things that are unlikely. Again, therefore, the question of their authenticity arises. An expert in Tehran once believed that there were only about 30 or 40 (out of millions) of authentic hadiths.

As we have seen with the work of R.B. Serjeant on the so-called Constitution of Medina, when we speak of true Islam or, let us say, of historical Islam, of facts having really existed, we must always beware of infantilizing and tearful hagiographies and carry out cross-checks.

Another set of data on the biography of Muhammad will be therefore constituted by what is called in Arabic the "asbab al-nuzul" or "circumstances of the revelation."

The Quran is a corpus of which the rare historical indications are only allusive: no narrative framework specifies who or what it is. It was therefore necessary to provide the Quranic texts with the narrative framework which they lacked and to be able to say that it was in such and such a circumstance that such a passage of the Quran, such chapter, such verse, had "descended" upon the prophet.

We find, moreover, a little the same phenomenon with the New Testament, and certain passages of the Gospels; which were obviously introduced in the original text in order to justify subsequent positions on ritual or organization. See our essay on the subject.

The ancient biographers of Muhammad lived at a time too distant from his time to have real data; far from being objective, these elements were based on tendentious fiction; often self-justification of pro-domo from crooked lawyer or level schoolyard whimper , kind of "it's not me who began it's the other! "According to them, the Muslims would always have been the most persecuted people in the world and from the far south of Spain to the far banks of India they would have built their immense empire only with legitimate defensive wars “they have to do.”

The aim of these tearful hagiographers was not to know things as they had really happened, but to build an ideal vision of the past. On the empty framework of the verses of the Quran that needed to be explained, scholars boldly embroidered scenes adapted to the desires or ideals of their particular group.

Contrary to the ambitions displayed in the opposite direction, the personality of Muhammad played therefore a considerable part in the development of the new religion. In the Quran God is even obliged to take the defense of Muhammad against the accusations which are fired from all sides on his subject.

The most obvious case of this phenomenon is that of suras 33 and 66 which can only be explained by Muhammad’s desire to have sexual intercourse with his daughter-in-law Zenobia (Zeynob). This has had the consequence of prohibiting the full adoption in Islamic land and the racist over-valorization of biological filiations alone.

We will therefore not consider hagiographic data and here we will content ourselves with the main lines or likely factual data what doesn’t mean proven by applying to them the well-known methodological principle worked out by Christians with the crucifixion: “which is embarrassing, what nobody would have had the idea of inventing so much that damages the branding but which has nevertheless imposed itself as a constant in the stories, could be thus only because there were too many witnesses.”

THE ARABIA OF ABD MANAF KNOWN AS ABU TALIB UNCLE OF MUHAMMAD.

Most sincere or most self-interested religion was to play a very important part in the Mecca of Muhammad’s time and this explains that perhaps.

Now it remains to say a few words of an explosive question by definition: what was the religious beliefs of Muhammad before his first visions on this subject, which occurred when he was around forty years old?

The part of the life of Muhammad previous to the beginning of the “Revelation” and therefore pagan by definition has always been an ideal focus for Christians. The question, which is innocuous for us and almost sympathetic, does not make the pious Muslims laugh because it contradicts the fundamental Muslim dogma of the isma: the idea that the prophet was always impeccable, that he was never soiled by paganism.

Shame is a formidable force in the establishment of any religious ideology. Now, unlike the other founders of great religions, it is evident that Muhammad despises his previous state that he called the Jahiliyya ( barbarism, Dark Ages).

For Jesus the question does not arise: Jesus was Jewish and remained so until his death. He was not even conscious nor willing to found a new religion.

But for Muhammad it is different.

To this question the pious Muslims answer: Muhammad was a hanif, that is to say a kind of monotheist before the word is invented, but in this brief paper about the Jahiliyya (pre-Islamic Arabia), for want of time, we will move quickly on the dogmas of the kind :

- The true religion was revealed by God Himself to Adam and Eve.

- Adam and Abraham lived in Mecca and built the Kaaba there.

-The tribe of Muhammad had kept elements from this primitive Abrahamic monotheism.

We will instead borrow our response to the website "Islam-documents." Without hesitating to resort to traditional Muslim sources but also Christian sources which, of course, are not likely to fall into infantilizing and tearful hagiography, quite the contrary.

There is what is necessary of malevolence, but sometimes they can be more reliable than the Muslim sources themselves. What amuses them is precisely the part before the "revelation," which in itself discredits Muhammad. Because the hero of their initiatory novel or of their pleading is immediately beneficiary of the status of Messiah son of God whereas Muhammad as for him spends forty years and more to reveal himself. This delay in the vocation is therefore a sign of non-sincerity.

Indeed, it was impossible for an Arab of the 600s to remain outside of any religion: either he followed the customs of his tribe, and venerated gods, or he was more or less Jewish or Christian, even very vaguely. If he was not in one of these situations, then he was an atheist, and this status was impossible to be lived.

It is evident, indeed, in a milieu as structured as that of the Arab tribes of the 6th century, with so much asserted personal relations, that Muhammad could only fully live with his during the first 40 years of his life.

The texts that have escaped censorship are rare and difficult to understand but the Quran nevertheless indirectly recognizes itself this evidence and the life of Muhammad also because all the religious activism of Muhammad tended to confirm then reinforce the pre-eminence of the sanctuary in Mecca over all the other Arab sanctuaries.

The examination of the sources makes it possible to distinguish either real proofs of his participation including in the cult of gods, or the change by tradition of customary rituals, or rituals followed as such, but with a different intention.

In the uncontrollable mass of information carried by the Islamic Tradition, a few rare and precious elements have passed through the censors' screen up to us. They had to abound in the first version of the official biography of Muhammad, the Sira written by Ibn Ishaq around 767. The fact that another author has rewritten and corrected it (Ibn Hisham) confirms this impression. The original version found in the state of fragments in Morocco by the British Orientalist Alfred Guillaume contains precisely some of these exceptional data.

It is therefore the biographies, especially in their non-expurgated versions, which deliver the information; in the hadith, the subject is too burning, and it is ignored.

But the truth as usual is found in the Quran.

Uthmanian Corpus: 4:113. " God revealed unto you the Scripture and wisdom, and taught you that which you did not know…"

Uthmanian Corpus: 42:52. " You did not know what the Scripture was, nor what the Faith.”

Uthmanian Corpus: 28:87. " And let them not divert the from the revelations of God after they have been sent down unto you; but call your Lord, and be not of those who ascribe partners (unto Him)".

Uthmanian Corpus: 40: 55. " Ask forgiveness of your sin, and hymn the praise of your Lord at fall of night and in the early hour!”

And lastly….

Uthmanian Corpus: 93: 7. “Did He not find you wandering ?”

The word used is DALLAN. Muslim exegesis tries to reject this obviousness by pretending to believe that Muhammad one day was really lost in the desert.

Other clues.

-The sacrifices offered to the gods (or goddesses) by Muhammad young.

Hisham ibn al Kalb, The book of idols (kitab al asnam). Translation from the Arabic by Nabih Amin Faris 1952.

“ We have been told that the Apostle of God once mentioned al-Uzza saying: I have offered a white ewe to al-'Uzza, while I was a follower of the religion of my people."

The Quraysh were wont to circumambulate the Ka'bah and say: "By Allat and al-'Uzza, and Manaf, the third idol besides.

Verily they are the most exalted females whose intercession is to be sought."

These were also called "the Daughters of Allah," and were supposed to intercede before God. When the Apostle of God was sent, God revealed unto him [concerning them] the following: Have you seen Allat and al-'Uzza, etc..”

Sahih al Bukhari 7 : 407. “Narrated 'Abdullah: God's Apostle said that he met Zaid bin 'Amr Nufail at a place near Baldah and this had happened before God's Apostle received the Divine Inspiration. God's Apostle presented a dish of meat (that had been offered to him by the pagans) to Zayd bin 'Amr, but Zaid refused to eat of it and then said (to the pagans), "I do not eat of what you slaughter on your stone altars (ansabs) nor do I eat except that on which God's Name has been mentioned on slaughtering."

Bukhari, in his collection marked by the obsession with orthodoxy, tries to restore order in this embarrassing confusion. But despite the fact that the parenthetical statements — "that had been offered to him by the pagans" and "to the pagans" — are not part of the original text, the point is still clear that Muhammad ate meat sacrificed to gods while Zaid refused to eat it.

Alfred Guillaume gives us also a tradition recorded by the first Muslim biographer, Ibn Ishaq, but unpublished. “Ibn Ishaq says: ‘I was told that the apostle of God while speaking of Zayd ibn 'Amr ibn Nufayl said, ‘He was the first to blame me for worshipping idols and forbade me to do so. I had come from al-Ta'if with Zayd ibn Haritha when I passed by Zayd ibn 'Amr on the high ground above Mecca, for Quraysh had made a public example of him (shaharathu) for abandoning their religion, so that he went forth from among them and (stayed) in the high ground of Mecca. I went and sat with him. I had with me a bag of meat from our sacrifices to our idols which Zayd ibn Haritha was carrying, and I offered it to him. I was a lad at that time. I said, ‘Eat some of this food, O my uncle.’ He replied, ‘Nephew, it is a part of those sacrifices of yours which you offer to your idols, isn’t it?’ When I answered that it was he said, ‘If you were to ask the daughters of ‘Abdu’l-Mutalib they would tell you that I never eat of these sacrifices and I want nothing to do with them.’ Then he blamed me and those who worship idols and sacrifice to them saying ‘They are futile: they can do neither good nor harm,’ or words to that effect.’" The apostle added, "After that with that knowledge I never stroked an idol of theirs nor did I sacrifice to them until God honored me with His apostleship." (Guillaume, New light on the life of Muhammad).

Commentary by Alfred Guillaume: “ This tradition clearly shows how the boy Muhammad was influenced by a monotheist of whom we know but little. The prohibition against the eating of meat offered to idols is, of course, originally Jewish, but as it was taken over into [non-Pauline] Christianity it is impossible to say whether Zayd was a Jewish or Christian proselyte. Arabic tradition represents him as a man dissatisfied with both Judaism and Christianity and utterly hostile to heathenism » (Alfred Guillaume Islam).

Alongside the rituals that he necessarily respects, Muhammad was therefore neutral towards the polytheist and ritualist Arab system of his time and of his tribe. An exegete as Tabari admits it besides without ambiguity in his commentary (tafsir) about the verse 7 of the surah 93 but here again the non-expurgated Sira of Ibn Ishaq remains the fundamental source. The original Sira is indeed still capable of distinguishing the paganism from the stain of paganism.In its phrases, simple in appearance, we find all the contradictions that affect Muhammad before his change in a statue of the Commendatore.

This tradition has been expunged from Ibn Hisham’s recension altogether, but there are traces of it in S. (p. 146) and Bukhari.This testimony is essential because it shows us again Muhammad practicing the "religion of his tribe," according to the commonly used expression. It proves that Muhammad is absolutely not a hanif, a forerunner of monotheistic religion at that time, for he is represented precisely at the moment when he realizes the break that he must accomplish with paganism (under the

influence of these hanif precisely). The awkwardness of the documents proves indirectly that he had hitherto followed the religion of his tribe since he broke with it.

The Israeli historian M.J. Kister devoted an entire article to this exciting question. He notes the large number of divergent versions that relate to the event, a manifest sign of nervousness and anguish from the Muslim authors, who gnaw at the hairs of their beards. Shi'a as for them have totally rejected such narratives, which are so many attacks against the notion of impeccability (isma) of the character, even before the revelation.

When Muhammad "young" devotes himself to the typically pagan spiritual retreats (tahannuth, on the mount Hira or Nur ) evoked by certain traditions (not all), he does not give up the traditional religion of his tribe: in other words, he continues to turn with others around the Kaaba.

Ibn Hisham's As-Sira an-Nabaviyya. Biography o the prophet. “The apostle would pray in seclusion on Hira' every year for a month to practice tahannuth as was the custom of Quraysh in heathen days. Thannuth is religious devotion. Abu Talib said… Every year during that month the apostle would pray in seclusion and give food to the poor that came to him. And when he completed the month and returned from his seclusion, first of all, before entering his house he would go to the Ka'ba and walk round it seven times or as often as it pleased God; then he would go back to his house until in the year when God …..”

The fact is of importance: it shows indeed that Muhammad still participated then in the rituals of his tribe in the common sanctuary, the Kaaba, although having already had his first visions. The consequences of these indeed have had to be slow to materialize at the level of ritual and social behavior. For the audience of the sanctuary, nothing differentiated these faithful from the other participants in the ritual.

The verse 189 of the chapter 2 of the Quran (It is not righteousness that you go to houses by the backs thereof, but the righteous man is he who wards off (evil). So go to houses by the gates thereof...) suggest that Muhammad, like other citizens of Mecca, was a member of a fraternity devoted to the shrine of the Kaaba: the Hums, some devotees ready to do everything to ensure the pre-eminence of the Kaaba over the other sanctuaries of Mecca, Safa, Marwa, Arafat, Muzdalifa, etc.In short, they are fervent partisans of henotheism or monolatry, of the domination (which becomes exclusive) of a god over others.

The life of Muhammad. A translation of Ishaq’s sirat rasul Allah by Alfred Guillaume. “The Hums strictly observed the sacred months and never wronged their proteges therein nor wronged anyone therein. They went round the Ka'ba wearing their clothes. If one of them before and at the beginning of Islam was in a state of taboo if he happened to be one of the house dwellers, i.e., living in houses or villages, he would dig a hole at the back of his house and go in and out by it and not enter by the door….. They were called Hums because of their strictness in their religion. . . . ….The year of Hudaybiya the prophet entered his house. One of the Ansar was with him and he stopped at the door, explaining that he was an Ahmasi. The apostle said, 'I am an Ahmasi too. My religion and yours are the same,' so the Ansar went into the house by the door as he saw the apostle do”.

CONCLUSION.

Before the caesura of the "revelation," the behavior of Muhammad is strictly pagan. After it, it is complex and ambiguous, since it contains actions, words, thoughts that remain dependent on the former system, others coming from Christianity, Judaism, and lastly others which are pure and simple inventions.

Signed Abd al-Uzza, for the Islam-Documents website.

Purpose and philosophy of this site according to its authors. Religions and gods are human inventions, without exception. Islam does not escape this iron law, and anyone who contests it and claims to be a scientist is a man whose faith has nothing to do with reason.

To summarize, and as examples below some axioms of this site.

1-Islam is a hotchpotch of Arab rituals, shrines and deities, combined with a heterodox Jewish tradition, and with marginal Christian tendencies, the whole being rewritten to seem more or less coherent.

2-Islam is an ideology that has developed for several decades or even centuries, according to expansions, schisms, influences. Islam gradually, in the course of this process, reconstructed its own past, according to the imperatives that were contemporaneous with it.

3-the character of Muhammad is very largely synthetic, and idealized, until he no longer seems to be a man. There was undoubtedly a real individual at the base, an Arab reformist, very Judaized, and a formidable war chief, but we know almost nothing about him. Then, in order to compete with the Abraham, Moses, Mani and Jesus, a Muhammad was made.

4-The Quran is a collection of documents dating back to a century before and a century after Muhammad, witness of the religious and cultural state of the Near East of that time. The whole thing

was hastily shaped, so as to give Arab conquerors something to show the Jews and the Christians who had their books.

From this point on, it is possible to begin to think, and to present all possible theses. Proposed then rejected, then changed, they form precisely the scientific approach, which is to be developed out of all compulsion. Anyone who knows the French academic world knows that research on the true origins of Islam is discouraged or marginalized, even taboo.

This website therefore aims to cause a reaction, by piling up documentation, so that everyone takes sizes it, and that research is freed from all constraints.

Next, we would like to present, with regard to the method, how a religion which is being constructed elaborates its own history as well as its idea of man, world and others. It does so by publishing a multitude of documents, and we would like to present of them as much as possible on this site, in order to counter those who want to impose their vision of the Muslim doctrine by presenting only carefully chosen extracts. By the mass of documentation, criticism, and sometimes irony, we aim to ensure that historical research into the origins of Islam is not confiscated by a few religious hypocrites.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE I’JAZ (OF QURAN).

The inimitability or miraculous nature of the Quran (Arabic: i'jaz) is the dogma which has it that the Quran, as divine revelation to Muhammad, cannot be imitated, whether in the beauty of its language or in the ideas it expresses. Of relatively late creation, this dogma was the subject of many divergences before being fixed.

This dogma of the inimitability of the Quran is, of course, to be related to that of the "moral infallibility of the Prophet" (ismah).

The Quran's inimitability (i'jaz) is an article of faith which was established by the grammarian Ar-Rummani (died in 994), but the Iranian-Arab author Ibn al-Muqaffa (720-757) had already been implicated in controversies concerning this miracle of Quran.

Quranic foundations.

Holy Quran chapter 2 verse 23:" If you are in doubt concerning that which we reveal unto our servant, then produce a surah of the like thereof.”

Holy Quran chapter 5 verse 3: " This day have I perfected your religion for you and completed my favor unto you, and have chosen for you as religion Islam.”

Holy Quran chapter 6 verse 114: “Shall I seek other than God for the judge, when He it is Who has revealed unto you (this) Scripture, fully explained?”

Holy Quran chapter 10, verse 38: " Then bring a surah like unto it."

Holy Quran chapter 11, verse 13: " Then bring ten surahs, the like thereof.”

Holy Quran chapter 17, verse 88: " Though mankind and the jinn should assemble to produce the like of this Quran, they could not produce the like thereof though they were helpers one of another.”

Much of the superiority complex of some Muslims is based on this mantra or on this autosuggestion of the inimitability of the Quran, Word of God made a book, as Christ is Word of God made man for the Christians.

Coupled with the idea thus expressed: "You are the best community that hath been raised up for mankind. You enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency” (chapter 3 verse 110 of the Holy Quran), all this is frightening, at least has reason to worry legitimately.

This dogma has also been put forward by some Arabic speakers to forbid the translation of the Quran. They are based for that on the link between religion, language and sacred writing. Certain currents of Islam still pretend that the Quran can exist only in Arabic and that it cannot and should not be translated. This insistence on the Arabic language, of course, can give rise to all kinds of racist nationalist or xenophobic slides, at least in the eyes of non-Arabic-speaking populations.

EDITOR’S NOTE. In addition to being inimitable or unsurpassable (i’jaz) the Quran claims to be complete, claims that nothing is missing in its corpus. Verse 2, chapter 2. " This is the Scripture whereof there is no doubt." Verse 38, chapter 6. " We have neglected nothing in the Book." Verse 111, chapter 12. " Detailed explanation of everything." Verse 89 chapter 16. « A report of all things." Etc.

ABSURDITY AND NONSENSE OF THIS CHALLENGE.

Since everything is based on a challenge that has no rule, no judge, no meaning, the affirmation of the unsurpassable or inimitable character of the Uthmanian corpus (i'jaz al Qurani) is therefore only a dangerous mantra.

Let us note indeed that we don’t know the criteria that, as in a competition (for example to grade thoroughbreds), would make it possible to distinguish the competitors. It would therefore be useless to present a work capable of rivaling the supposed literary or spiritual qualities of the Uthmanian corpus. Indeed, without criteria or rule, no judgments may be delivered ...

If the criteria for the judgment are not provided the potential judges themselves are not appointed either. Knowing that these judges may not be Muslims, since we may not be both judge and jury, which judges are Muslims ready to accept to determine whether or not this challenge has been successfully met.

The third reason is that a masterpiece is necessarily inimitable in itself, because it is always the work of a singular author with a natural sensibility, culture and gifts. Two geniuses do not resemble each other, and every imitation of their work can only be a plagiarism. This is why nobody may establish a grading between them without resorting to the arbitrariness of subjectivity. Christians could equally well present the style of the Bible as unsurpassable, the Mormons do the same for the Book of Mormon, the Hindus for the Vedas, the Taoists for the Tao Te Ching, and so on.

In any case, if the Muslims repeat ad infinitum the challenge that it is impossible to imitate the Uthmanian corpus, that does not mean that they allow such an imitation. Anyone proposing a work

competing with the Quran undergoes the worst criticism and risks his life as it was the case of the great rival prophet in Central Arabia, Musaylima (died in 633) and before him of the great poet of Mecca Al Nadr Ibn al-Harith (died in 624 ).

BUT FIRST ABOUT WHAT TEXT ARE WE TALKING ?????

HISTORY OF THE PUBLISHING OF QURAN.

This assertion of the I’jaz of the Quran, in addition to the morally unacceptable character of its consequences in terms of human relations, since it results in an incontestable sense of superiority among pious, convinced, fundamentalist, Muslims, is problematic. Let's see this together. And, first of all, about what are we talking?

Ancient versions of the Quran have come down to us, such as the Samarkand Codex (dated 654), preserved in the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul; the London Codex (dated 772), preserved in the British Museum; or the Qurans discovered in the Great Mosque of Sana'a (Yemen) in 1972, dated from the first two decades of the 8th century. All contain significant textual and graphical variations in relation to the present Quran (about 750 for the first two) and a different order of chapters. Thus, after studying the Sana'a manuscripts, Gerd-Rudiger Puin was able to write that the Uthmanian corpus “was a kind of cocktail of texts that were not all understood even at the time of Muhammad. Many of them may even be a hundred years older than Islam itself. Even within the Islamic traditions, there is a huge body of contradictory information, including a significant Christian substrate.”

According to Muslim tradition, the Quran was written by God himself before the creation of the world, in the clearest Arabic (almubinu chapter 12, verses 1-2), because God speaks Arabic. Any Muslim challenging this assertion is heretical and deserves death. Apart from Western scholars, including those who take up the Muslim theological thesis, the linguistic peculiarities of the Quranic text are problematic and enter the Arabic language system with difficulty. For if the CLASSICAL AND LITERARY Arabic language did not exist at the supposed time of the descent of the Quran, the Aramaic existed: " We never sent a messenger save with the language of his folk, that he might make (the message) clear for them.” (14.4) Because it would have been an interest to speak to a people in a language it doesn’t know, or is it question here to justify the preaching in Arabic of a text written in Aramaic? The very term "Quran" and most of the vocabulary of the Arabic language come from Syriac-Aramaic, the culture language then dominant throughout Western Asia and used by the Christians of northern Iraq (bishop see as early as 410).

If the Quran is a book (3:7) descended in a perfect Arabic (12:2, 26:195, 41:44), how can we explain that there are between 107 and 275 grammatical words and grammatical suffixes that are not Arabic? In order to overwhelm this difficulty, several hypotheses have been proposed, according to which the origin of the Quranic language would be in a dialect - let us say rather a "vernacular koine (common language)" - of Western Arabia marked by the influence of Syriac, and therefore of Aramaic.

The Arabian peninsula, where the Quran is supposed to be born, was not closed to the ideas conveyed in the region in the broadest sense of the term. When Muhammad reported his first revelations, one of his opponents objected that he had already heard this (83:13, 8:31….). In another passage of the Quran, Muhammad is accused of being told this by a stranger who spoke either a bad Arabic or another language (16:103).

It is true that a large number of obscure expressions in the Quran are cleared if some seemingly Arabic words are translated from Syriac-Aramaic, the language of culture dominant at the time. Certain specialists recognize in the Quran obvious traces of Syriac language. Beginning with the word Quran itself, which in Syriac means "collection" or "lectionary." Without the Syriac influence how can we understand that the Quran could have taken over the theme of the seven sleepers of Ephesus, which is of Christian origin? Moreover, the Christology of the Quran is a low Christology influenced by some apocryphal gospels. We can therefore assume that the group in which the primitive Quran was born was one of the offspring of Judeo-Christian groups attached to a pre-Nicene Christology, with also some Manichaean traces.

Verse 12 of chapter 46: a confirming book in the Arabic language.

There were in the nineteenth century in France Celtomaniacs like Le Brigand, Le Clec'h, La Tour d'Auvergne, Bullet, Pezron (The Antiquities of Nations; more particularly of the Celts or Gauls) having been as far as to say that Breton was the original language of Mankind, that God had spoken in Breton to Adam and Eve when they still lived in the Garden of Eden. Similarly, it is inaccurate to note that the fundamental Muslim dogma of the uncreated Quran written in Arabic is an article of faith that has nothing to do with Reason. It would be more accurate to say that this idea is an offense to human reason. How can man think for a moment that the mother tongue of God or of mankind could be Arabic? Or Hebrew? Or Javanese? I leave such an aberration, such an intellectual regression, to racists of all kinds.

It goes without saying that the language of God cannot be more the Arabic who did not exist at the origin of the world than another language and that in any case God, if he exists, does not need the help of a human language to make oneself understood.

What is interesting is that this statement comes in response to the following objection: “they say: only a man teaches him. His speech at whom they falsely hint is outlandish” (chapter 16 verse 103).

The insistence on the fact that it is "good" Arabic is perhaps simply intended to emphasize the quality of a possible translation from documents written in Syriac or in any dialect of the Aramaic language.

Chapter 16 verse 103: The Quran is pure Arabic speech......

There is only one plausible explanation for this contradictory assertion with the notion of an uncreated Quran (for it goes without saying that the native tongue of God could not be Arabic no more than Hebrew or Chinese): to make us forget, under the effect of the repetition or the autosuggestion, that entire sections of the divine pseudo-revelations made to Muhammad are in fact translations or borrowings from documents written in Aramaic, or even more precisely perhaps in Syriac.

There are in the Quran passages that are visibly inspired by the Christianity of the time. Here is an example.

Verse 286, chapter 2.

"God tasks not a soul beyond its scope.

For it (is only) that which it hath earned,

And against it (only) that which it hath deserved.

Our Lord!

Condemn us not

If we forget, or miss the mark!

Our Lord!

Lay not on us such a burden

As you did lay on those before us!

Our Lord!

Impose not on us that which we do not have the strength to bear!

Pardon us, absolve us

And have mercy on us.”

This surah being a medina surah, it is a safe bet that these verses have been copied from a Syriac Christian prayer that came to the knowledge of Muhammad or of one of his collaborators.

The influences of Nestorian and Monophysite Christianity, widely spread in Arabia at the time of Muhammad, are obvious. About 25% of the Quranic text is the literal recopying of apocryphal books such as the Gospel of the pseudo-Matthew, the Gospel of James the Less (3:35-37), the Gospel of Thomas (5: 110), the History of the Nativity of Mary and the Early Childhood of Jesus (19), the Book of Jubilees, which contains the story of Satan the Stoned (3:36) and the reproaches of Abraham to his father (19:41). The denial of the crucifixion of Jesus who would have been replaced by a double, crucified in his place at the last moment (4:157), was already the creed of several Gnostic movements who thought that Simon of Cyrene had been crucified in the place of Christ.

Even by simply analyzing the poetic style, supplementary sentences can be detected which have been added, because they break the rhythm and the versification.

Thus a break in rhythm visibly affects verse 51 of chapter 5:

" O you who believe! Take not the Jews and the Nasara for friends. They are friends one to another.

We can see that it is the mention "and the Nasara" that is too many, because it breaks the original phrasing. It is therefore a late addition, probably inserted to discredit the Nasara in question. Besides we can even notice that the passages containing the word "Nasara" are practically all interpolations, for example in the chapters 2: 111, 2: 120, 2: 135, 2:140 and 5:18.

The word nasara is usually translated as "Christians." However, we can doubt the relevance of this term because

It is known today that there existed a Jewish sect called the Nazarenes and that Yehoshua Bar Yosef of Jerusalem himself (Jesus) was one of the most listened to. See our essay about or more exactly against, Christianity.

Similarly, a gloss was added to chapter 104 in to “explain” the meaning of the word hutama because it is a hapax.

The Quran also takes over some Middle Eastern tales and legends such as the story of the ant and of the hoopoe talking with Solomon (27:18), that of the camel who became a prophet (7:73-77; 91:14, 54:29), that of the twelve springs (2:60), the famous iron wall which is already in the pseudo-Callisthenes, the legend of Alexander the Great (18: 92-97), or the Jewish legends showing all the inhabitants of a village changed into monkeys for not respecting the Sabbath (2:65, 7:163-166) ...

These different influences, perceptible also through the diversity of their styles, are enough to show that, contrary to what Muslims imagine, the Quran is not the Word descended from Heaven where it remains immutable. These sources do not explain the disjointed aspect of the Uthmanian corpus, which is in line with the assessment that the Christian Iraqi great scholar and philologist Al-Kindi (the author of the famous apology) reported in the ninth century: " The result of all this is patent to you who have read the Scriptures, and see how in your book stories are all jumbled together and Intermingled; an evidence that many different hands have been at work therein, and caused discrepancies, adding to the text, or cutting out there from whatever they liked or disliked.”

More philosophically, how to understand the Muslim theological notion THAT MUHAMMAD IS THE SEAL OF THE PROPHETS, THE LAST OF THE PROPHET? That is to say that, since Muhammad died GOD CANNOT SPEAK TO MEN? THAT SINCE MUHAMMAD DIED THE DIVINITY CANNOT SPEAK TO MEN? We shall return to the criticism of Al Kindi in the following chapter.

At the death of Mahomet, no one by definition had a complete and definitive edition of the revelations made by the archangel Gabriel. The tradition, that famous and irreplaceable tradition which also plays such a great role in Catholicism, the Muslim tradition, tells us that certain companions of Muhammad had memorized them, learning them and reciting them by heart. Some, however, had been transcribed on various materials, such as palm leaves or camel scapulae.

The Quran, whose definitive text was not fixed until well after Muhammad's death, was then illegible. In fact, it could be read in fourteen different ways and for good reason, Arabic was then written without vowels and certain consonants were not defined. The vowels known as short deeply changing the meaning were also absent.

A first "complete" writing down would have been made on the request of Umar who feared that the Quran would disappear because its memorizers were dying in battle. He convinced Caliph Abu Bakr (632-634) to make write down what people knew and what was written about various materials. This work of collection was directed by one of the scribes of Muhammad, the Medina Zayd ibn Thabit. Umar's intention was undoubtedly to have a corpus and not to make a final "edition." At the death of Abu Bakr, these first sheets of the Quran were handed over to Umar, who became a caliph (634-444), then to his daughter Hafsa, one of Muhammad's widows.

The next caliph, Uthman took over the corpus held by Hafsa and had it completed by other characters, still under the leadership of Zayd ibn Thabit. He then made destroyed all the original materials, and imposed a first "canonical" version of the Quran by sending it to the most important metropolises of the young Empire.

The Muslim tradition knows nevertheless some fifteen pre-Uthmanian texts and a dozen secondary texts. Today we have none of these variants of the Othmanian "vulgate." But we also know that in 934 and in 935 the exegetes Ibn Miqsam and Ibn Shannabudh were condemned for having recited unapproved variants. This shows that they have circulated for a long time.

It should also be noted that the text distributed by Othman could itself give rise to different readings and interpretations. And this for two reasons. The first is that the text did not include short vowels and not always the long ones, which induces choices in the interpretation of the words. Secondly, early Arabic writing was not endowed with diacritical points which fix the exact value of the signs and which distinguish one consonant from another. Of the twenty-eight letters of the Arabic alphabet, only seven are unambiguous, and in the oldest fragments of the Quran, ambiguous letters constitute more than half of the text.

It is during the Umayyad period, and the reign of Abd al-Malik (685-705) more precisely, that we can place the third phase of the history of the Quran. For as a written text, the Quran has a history, of course.

Some attribute to the formidable governor of Iraq, al-Hajjaj ibn. Yusuf (714), several modifications to the Quranic text, but in this regard, the sources are contradictory. For some, he would have only put the verses and chapters back into order, and rectified deficient readings; for the others, he would have specified the spelling by introducing points. Despite the contradictions, the caliphate of Abd al-Malik constituted a decisive moment for the constitution of the texts that have reached us.

The first criticisms came from certain companions of Mahomet who had their own text. Others went so far as to consider certain texts as unauthentic for theological and ethical reasons. In particular, they aimed at verses 111:1-3 against Abu Lahab, one of Muhammad's great opponents, and 74:11-26. Basra theologians questioned the authenticity of these passages, as some Kharijites believed that chapter 12 (Sura of Joseph) was not part of the Quran, because, according to them, this non-religious story could not have its place in the Quran.

Of course, the most vigorous accusations are in the Shiite sources before the middle of the tenth century. For the latter, only Ali, the legitimate successor of Muhammad, had kept the genuine revelations made by the archangel Gabriel. At that time, with the establishment of Sunni orthodoxy

under the Abbasid Caliphate, of which one of the major dogmas was the divine and eternal character of the official Quran (thesis of the uncreated Quran), it became extremely dangerous to question the integrity of this one. Only a minority among the Shiites continued to discreetly support the thesis of the falsification and this until our time. The obscurity of the Quranic text was then considered by these Shiites as resulting from this falsification of the original Quran. Suppressions and additions, work of the enemies of Muhammad or Ali, would have altered the Revelation and shaken its initial clarity (cf. The Silent Quran and the Speaking Quran. Scriptural Sources of Islam Between History and Fervor. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi).

The version which is now considered THE official Quran is that of Uthman (644-656), a despotic caliph who destroyed all previous sources (but Umar and Abu Bakr had already removed many versions before).

The most widespread version of this Uthmanian corpus is that of Cairo, prepared under the patronage of the King of Egypt, Fuad I, in 1923. It has 114 chapters (Surahs). The title comes either from one of the first words in the chapter (53: The Star, 55: the Beneficent), from a characteristic story (14: Abraham, 19: Mary), or from an episode considered characteristic (16: the Bee, 29: the Spider).

These titles do not belong to the revelation and do not appear in the first known Quranic manuscripts; they were added by the scribes to distinguish the chapters.

The same phenomenon with the gospels: the titles were invented or added for the purpose in hand.

Some, however, trace these titles back to Muhammad, who would have fixed them.

The chapters are ranked very nearly in descending order of their length, with the exception of the first, the fatiha, which looks very Christian apart from the last verse, which is doubtless an over added anti-Christian or anti-Jewish gloss.

The Muslim tradition maintains that during the lifetime of Muhammad, his companions wrote down the revealed passages as they could. During the last month of Ramadan before the death of Mahomet, the archangel Gabriel would have revised with Muhammad the whole of the Quran and indicated the final order of the verses and chapters.

Some argue that this order was established by Muslim agreement in order to facilitate memorization and learning by heart. Nevertheless, it is pointed out in this connection that Ali (died in 661) had a Quran, now lost, in chronological order.

At the head of 29 chapters are letters called fawatih as-suwar or al-huruf al-muqatta'ah: ALM (chapters 2, 3, 29, 30, 31, 32), ALMR (chapter 13), ALMS (chapter 7), ALR (chapters 10, 11,12, 14, 15), HM ( 40,41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46), KHYA’S (chapter 19), N (chapter 68), Q (chapter 50), S (chapter 38), TH (chapter 20), TS (chapter 27), TSM (chapter 26, 28), YS (chapter 36).

It is doubtful whether these letters can date from the life of Muhammad, since nobody has thought of asking him for their meaning. As a result, it is possible to suppose that these are later additions, which probably serve as a reference for the classification of the Quranic passages, alphabet letters having then values of numbers, as in Syriac , Hebrew and Latin .

It is noted that five chapters of the Quran have kept as title such a group of letters: the chapters 20 (TaHa), 36 (YaSin), 38 38 (Sad), 50 (Qaf) and 68 (Nun, also called Al-Qalam ).

In short, the present Quran is a course not that of Muhammad (it is not the complete text of the uncreated Quran presiding in heaven, nor the extracts that the archangel Gabriel reported to Muhammad during his trances, nor the transcription in writing, of all that Muhammad was able to recite during the 23 years (13 in Mecca 10 in Medina) that lasted the revelation, it was compiled after his death according to the will of various persons. Consequently there existed several Qurans whose content and organization of the verses were totally different 1).

Let us retain in order to finish that the text was not written in the dialect Arabic of Mecca, the hometown of Mahomet, nor in the dialectal Arabic of Yathrib / Medina, the city state of which Muhammad became chief before he died, but from the outset in an Arabic koine probably due to the pen of the various secretaries used by Mohammed to record his visions. The Quran contradicts itself somewhat on this subject. It insists much on the fact that he was written in pure Arabic (chapter 16 verse 103) as if the mother tongue of God was Arabic (or Breton or Hebrew, etc.) but adds elsewhere that only God knows what it means and that the atheists or the disbelievers understand nothing of it (chapter 3 verse 7); well practical all that!

And now let us come to the study of the style of this Uthmanian corpus.

1) According to the Shiites, the revealed text was only compiled in its original form by Ali. Members of a very closed circle of the Shiite elite claim to know the contents of this compilation nevertheless. But they have no right to reveal it to the general public (even among the Shiites): Only when they consider their infallible twelfth imam ("the Mahdi," hidden in a cave for twelve centuries) will return among men, that he will again unveil in public the true and authentic compilation of the Quran.

STRUCTURE AND QUALITY OF THE REASONING AS FOR THE SUBSTANCE.

The credibility of Muhammad as well as the authenticity of the Quran, of course, depends on the recognition of this Quranic miracle.

The first process characteristic of the Quran is that of the conflation, a technique which consists in presenting two affirmations together, of which one is true, and in suggesting that the other is also true just because of their bringing together. For example, in 4:4 concerning the right of beating unfaithful women, we read: " As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them. Lo! God is ever High, Exalted, Great ! "

God is high and great, we agree, but what is the relation between the fact that God is great and the jealousy or domestic violence? Who can perceive this link if not the one who is happy to find there something capable to legitimize his doings?

-The second process is that of the repetition, a method which has the magical power to render a thing all the more true as it is more often repeated. This process capable of turning even the absurd one into a reasonable one is highly valued for the brainwashing. As Francis Bacon would have said: " Calumniate, calumniate; there will always be something which sticks!”

-The third process is the shaming of any interrogation, of any study, of any questioning the authority of God. This perversion makes looking intelligent those who give up the use of the reason, and makes looking troublemakers (fitna: thus deserving the fate of the public enemy), those who ask questions: " Those who wrangle concerning the revelations of God without any warrant that hath come unto them, it is greatly hateful in the sight of God and in the sight of those who believe” (40:35). Can one imagine a more serious mental manipulation? In other words, is the Quran another thing than an instrument of power?

There are nevertheless some currents or tendencies in Islam like the Shia Ismailis that interpret the Uthmanian corpus allegorically. This notion of perfection or completeness of the Quran (i'jaz) is therefore perceived differently according to the authors.

The theologian Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1150-1210), as for him, affirmed that the miracle of the Quran was to be situated, not on the level of the stylistic quality of the text, not as for the signifiers, but on the level of the meanings.

Ibrahim ibn Sayyar al-Nazzam (died in 846), a Mu’tazilian rationalist theologian also put forward in his time the sarfa theory.

Muhammad's pagan opponents were not by nature incapable of producing anything linguistically comparable to his visions, but temporarily 'averted' from using their rhetorical and poetical skill.

The Quran is therefore not imitable as an Arabic text, its superiority lies in its content rather than in its style. This theory of the sarfa therefore considers the Quran as a miracle in itself (mu'jiza), a work beyond human capacities. It is to be ranked in the same category as the miracles performed by ancient prophets such as the change of a staff into a snake by Moses or the healing of diseases and the bringing back to life of the dead performed by Jesus. Said otherwise God deliberately intervened to prevent men from producing a text similar to the Quran. Without this divine intervention, Muslim Arabs could easily have met the challenge. This divine intervention was a miracle in the strict sense of the term (mu'jiza). The text has nothing special as a text, its superiority is due to the information it contains, about events of the past or which are to come.

But even the idea that the content of the Quran, what it says, which had remained hitherto unknown or concerning the future, would be the only matter of the "challenge" (tahaddl) raises theological difficulties, even in a Mu’tazilian perspective. To the extent that divine knowledge is absolute, whatever the limits of human knowledge, it is impossible that God, whose justice is absolute, challenges man beyond human capacities. The divine justice (al-adl), the second principle of the tawhid in the rationalist Mu’tazilian theology, only permits a challenge that would fit into the range of human capacities .......

Let us therefore pass over the dogma of the Quran unsurpassable from the point of view of style, for it is well known that there is no accounting for tastes, and let us come now to the quality of its dialectics.

After studying the manuscripts discovered in Sana'a in Yemen in 1972, the German specialist Gerd-Rüdiger Puin concluded the following. The Quran itself proclaims that it is "mubinun," that is to say, clear, but if we look closely at it, we note that one sentence out of five or around simply does not make sense. Many Muslims will tell you the opposite, of course, but it is a fact that a fifth of the Quranic text

is absolutely incomprehensible. This does not prevent that only God really knows what these verses mean because there are transparent verses and others full of imagery (verse 7, chapter 3). Whence the recurrent translation problems. If the Quran is not understandable, if even in Arabic a man cannot understand it, then it is translatable in no language. Since the Quran repeats several times that it is clear although it is not, there is there an obvious and very serious contradiction.

Why was the version of the Quran such as it can be found today in bookstores settled only in 1923 by the Islamic Research Institute Al-Azhar in Cairo? Because about 30% of the text is incomprehensible, the conjectures hitherto proposed have never been unanimous.

The pious Muslims can say that the Quran is written in perfect Arabic, the links indispensable to describe the chain of events as well as to the reasoning are very often missing; what contributes to producing this so characteristic aspect of the text. It is a series of phrases usually without relations and most often contradictory.

The many repetitions of whole verses are unrelated to the contexts in which they are inserted. There are grammatical mistakes, for example in 4: 162, the word used to say "the diligent in prayer" is in the accusative, whereas it should be in the nominative; in 49: 9 the verb "to fight" is in the plural form while it should be in the dual form.

The Quran contains about three hundred grammatical errors, such as the following: "Go to Pharaoh and say, 'We are the messenger (rasul) of the Lord of the worlds” (26: 16), whereas it would be necessary to write: "We are the messengers etc ... .. MESSENGERS IN THE PLURAL : RUSUL ."

The Quran does not know modern punctuation, but tiny signs with an imprecise meaning and discussed location. A single verse can stretch without punctuation on half a page, while others stop abruptly, or end in another verse.

According to the Swiss jurist Sami Aldeeb: "The Quran we have today does not even represent a third of the original according to the classic Muslim authors. The rest vanished. There are truncated verses."

- If "about 20% of the words and expressions in the Quran are not understandable for 99% of Arab Muslim scholars,” how can they claim that the Quran is a "clear or plain” book (34: 3; 43:2; 44: 2)?

-If "the Quran is easy-to-understand " (54: 17; Malik and Yusuf Ali), is it not insulting him that to publish it with many notes and explanations of text?

- If the Quran is a "clear or plain” book ( 34: 3, 43: 2, 44: 2), in which there is "no doubt" (10:37) , “no crookedness” (39: 28) "Because it contains" plain” verses (16: 35)," plainly clear "(24: 54, 36: 12) , "clear even giving light" ( 24: 46, 27:1, 35: 25, 37: 117), why are there in it "allegorical" verses requiring an "explanation" (3:7)?

-If none knows what it says save God (3: 7), are all the useful idiots of Islam who pretend to make known what the Quran means, anything other than some impostors?

Several passages of the Quran besides obviously cannot be attributed to God.

"You (alone) we worship; You (alone) we ask for help. Show us the straight path” (1: 5-6). *

But God cannot worship Himself ... Nor can He implore the grace of a lord.

"Our Lord! Cause not our hearts to stray after You have guided us, and bestow upon us mercy from Your Presence. Lo! You, only You, are the Bestower ! (3:8).

There are thus more than a hundred verses that cannot be said by God! Some then made remark that it was enough to add the injunction "Say! " at the beginning of these verses to imply that God is ordering to say what is following and thus eliminate the troubling evidence that the Quran could not be the immutable Word of God.

The trick had to be considered effective since the verb say in the imperative is repeated no less than 315 times ... If the thesis of the uncreated Quran of Ibn Hanbal (780-855) was not imposed until the beginning of the 10th century, how not see in this verb (say) a witness to the initiative intended to convert the original text of the Quran to the status of God’s word?

Can God bless praise or glorify Himself (1:2, 7: 54, 28: 68, 36: 36, 43: 82). How can we say that the Quran is the word of God, since it is also that of the angels (19: 64; 37: 164-166) and of the jinn (72)?

If the Quran is the Word of God and that God is One, one with His Word that proceeds from Him (as the Son proceeds from the Father in Christianity), is the Quran God? And then we should also worship Jesus, since the Quran affirms that Jesus is the "Word or Spirit of God" (3:45, 4: 171!

The Mu’tazili got out of the difficulty with their thesis of the CREATED Quran.

But would it be because the Abbasid scribes were tired of correcting a text made up of various additions and whose language they did not master that they use the principle of abrogation; for indeed, did God save the son of Noah (21:78; 37: 77) or not (11:42-43)? Lot’s wife, has He saved her (26:170-171) or not (7:83)? Was Pharaoh saved (10: 92) or not (17:103, 28:40, 43:55) ? Will the Christians be saved (2: 62, 5: 69) or not (3:85, 5:72)? And the damned, will they bear their indictment in their back (84:10) or in their left hand (69:25)?

And besides what is meant by the fact that the Quran keeps "mansukh = abrogated" verses (13:39), that is, verses that no longer have relevance for today, verses that no longer mean something? Why are they still in the Quran if they have been abrogated? Through them, does God speak to say nothing?

That being so, what prevents the verses now recognized as "nasikh = abrogators" are in turn abrogated, since that is what has already happened to the verses they have evicted? And if Muslims say that this is not possible, then they must admit that these verses are of an essence different from that of the verses that have been abrogated.

Some claim that revelation can only be gradual or evolve like the treatment of a doctor, and that the "abrogated " verses (mansukh) are those which correspond to the time when the Muslims were not yet numerous, it was better for their future not to respond to the provocations of the disbelievers.

If the Quran is the eternal Word of God, then, in His heaven, God does not cease to speak of his camel, which must be allowed to graze calmly, without doing her any harm, under penalty of a prompt punishment (11: 64). God does not cease, even before the world exists, and even once it has finished to exist, to ask that His camel be left alone.

If God does not say eternally only that, but also something else, then the Quran is not the WHOLE Word of God ... It is false to say that the Quran is the Word of God since it is, at best, only an extract from it?

In 2:21 the marriage with non-Muslim women is prohibited, but in 5: 5 it is allowed; in 2: 219 and 5: 90-91 the use of wine is forbidden, but in 4: 43 only drinking too much of it is condemned and in any case in the paradise of Allah it is freely distributed (47: 15, 56:17,83 :25).

“They are given to drink of a pure wine, sealed, whose seal is musk - for this let (all) those strive who strive for bliss- and mixed with water of Tasnim” (verse 25, chapter 83) **

The contradictory verses, witnesses of this non-systematic composition of the Uthmanian corpus, obviously have not all been abrogated ... But since in 4: 82 God admits that the one who will find contradictions in the Quran will have the proof that this book is not from God, what is it lacking to the Muslims so that they leave Islam and become agnostics or atheists?

* This first surah is in fact a Jewish or Christian prayer, with the exception of the few words of the end which, on the contrary, are aimed at Jews and Christians.

** Explanation of the Witnesses of Allah: this is not the wine that is known on earth, it is a special wine, without alcohol. But why to dilute it with water in this case?

OTHER OBSCURITIES IN THE TEXT.

"When you see those who meddle with Our revelations, withdraw from them until they meddle with another topic. And if the devil causes you to forget, do not sit, after the remembrance, with the congregation of wrongdoers "(verse 68, chapter 6).

And…

"He hath already revealed unto you in the Scripture that, when you hear the revelations of God rejected and derided (you) do not sit with them (who disbelieve and mock) until they engage in some other conversation. Lo! in that case (if you stayed) you would be like unto them. Lo! God will gather hypocrites and disbelievers, all together, into hell."(Verse 140, chapter 4).

Let the pious Muslims, however, forgive in advance what will follow, and which, alas, falls under the ban of God's prohibition against any discussion or dialogue. For in the pages which follow, we will many times discuss the verses of the Quran; their meaning, their relevance, their adequacy, their ethical, philosophical or scientific value. How can we do otherwise?

The Uthmanian Corpus, claiming itself to be perfect and complete, we will allow us to study the text in question carefully and to examine it meticulously.

Despite the Islamic dogma of the inimitable or miraculous character of the Quran (i’jaz) , which is a key element of the Muslim brainwashing and of the superiority complex that it instills (“You are the best community that has been raised up for mankind. You enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency” 3:110), few authors have proceeded to a thorough study of this text, which is one of the largest intellectual disasters in the history of Mankind. The total absence of logical or thematic plan or attempt to plan (the chapters are, with one exception, edited in order of decreasing length - the longest first) and the almost absence of context, have as a result that you never know very well with the who that speaks - God, the adversaries of Muhammad, the angel Gabriel, some angels, some jinns, Muhammad himself? - and of whom it is spoken besides. As a result of this unprecedented intellectual disaster, when it is a question of the Jews, for example, we always wonder whether they are the Hebrews, the Jews of the time of Muhammad, or the essentialized Jews, in other words, including today Jews?

Same thing with Christians (the Nasara): one doesn’t always know whether they are Trinitarian Christians or Christians considering Jesus simply as a man, extraordinary but not son of God Nor God himself (low Christology).

The result of this intellectual catastrophe unprecedented in the history of civilization is therefore that the very text of the Quran is rarely published without being accompanied by voluminous comments generally betraying the personal preferences of the translator.

As we have had the opportunity to say, there are indeed many contradictions in the Quran.

Here are a few examples.

N.B. We will mainly divide these contradictions into two broad categories.

CONTRADICTIONS HAVING DOCTRINAL CONSEQUENCES.

And….

DETAIL CONTRADICTIONS OR PURELY FORMAL CONTRADICTIONS, WHICH ARE NOT VERY IMPORTANT EXCEPT, OF COURSE, THAT THEY JEOPARDIZE THE MUSLIM DOGMA OF THE UNCREATED INIMITABLE AND DIVINELY INSPIRED CHARACTER OF THE QURAN (I’JAZ).

Without being certain that some should not be in the other category or vice versa. What matters indeed in a religion? God only knows.

THE CONTRADICTIONS OF THE QURAN HAVING DOCTRINAL CONSEQUENCES.

-And first of all, is there one creator or several. The Quran uses twice the expression "God is the best of creators" (verse 14, chapter 23 and verse 125, chapter 37). This may suggest that there are other creators, entities other than him having taken part in the creation of the world or also able itself to create. For example, Baal?

"Where is God?"

We place this problematic in the sub-chapter of the important contradictions because it is important to know whether God is immanent to the world (pantheism) or very much above him, as a deus otiosus indifferent to his lot.

Verses for immanence.

Verse 16 of chapter 50: "We are nearer to him than his jugular vein."

Verses going in the direction of the absolute transcendence.

Verse 4 of chapter 57: "He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in six days; then He mounted the Throne." A throne which then was upon the waters (reminiscence of Genesis) according to verse 7 of chapter 11. In any case so remote that 1,000 or 50,000 years are necessary to reach it (verse 5 of chapter 32, verse 4 of chapter 70).

-Origin of evil?

The Devil, if we believe the verse 41 of chapter 38 (Job: the devil does afflict me with distress and torment).

God, if we are to believe the verse 78 of chapter 4 (all is from God).

From ourselves according to verse 79 of chapter 4 (whatever of ill befalles you it is from yourself).

It was also the position of the ancient druids who did not believe in the existence of hell according to the Bernese Scholia commenting on Lucan's Pharsalia.

Hermann Usener. Scholia in Lucani bellum civile/Commenta Bernensia. Liber I (1869).

451 "Druids deny that souls can perish

[Driadae negant interire animas]

OR GO TO HELL “

[Aut contagione inferorum adfici] and

454 "They do not say that the Manes exist"

[Manes esse, not dicunt].

Point 25 of the small list appended to the Council of Leptines in 743, under the Latin title of indiculus superstitionum et paganiarum (of course, it is a matter of condemning or denigrating all this) goes clearly in this direction; it evokes the imagining that every deceased is a saint.

And in 851, John Scotus Eriugena also noted in his "On predestination": God foresees neither punishment nor sins: they are fictions. For Eriugena also, therefore, hell does not exist, or then he calls it remorse.

-May God command or support that we should do evil?

No.

Verse 28, chapter 7. " God, verily, enjoins not lewdness."

Verse 90, chapter 16. "God forbids lewdness and abominations and wickedness."

Editor’s note. Remains, of course, to define what an abomination, lewdness, etc. ..is.

Yes.

Verse 16, chapter 17. " And when We would destroy a township We send commandment to its folk who live at ease, and afterwards they commit abomination therein." That is indeed quite paradoxical.

Verse 229, chapter 2. " And it is not lawful for you that you take from women anything of that which you have given them; except (in the case) when both fear that they may not be able to keep within the limits (imposed by) God." What is to say?

-Does God lead men to the truth or does he mislead whom he wants?

Verse 35, chapter 10. God leads to the Truth.

Verse 4, chapter 14. God sends whom He will astray, and guides whom He will.

WHAT IS ALMOST NO PROGRESS FOR US.

-When is or has been the lot of the men and of the world settled on?

According to verse 22 of chapter 57, it was fixed from time immemorial: " Nothing of disaster befalls in the earth or in yourselves but it is in a Book before we bring it into being.”

According to verse 13 of chapter 17, the future destiny of men in the other world depends on their works here below: " And every man's augury have We fastened to his own neck.”

According to verse 4 of chapter 97, it is settled each year during the famous night of decree (Laylat al Qadr).

Who has handed down the divine revelation to Muhammad?

The Holy Ghost (the holy spirit) according to verse 102 of chapter 16. The affirmation is followed by an umpteenth answer from Muhammad to the objection that was then made to him, namely that all this was only borrowed from non-Arabic writings.

The Holy Spirit also (the true spirit) according to verse 193 of chapter 26.

The angel Gabriel according to verse 97 of chapter 2.

Editor’s note. The proper noun Gabriel appears only tardily and rarely. It also appears, for example, in verse number 4 of chapter 66. Another sura of Medina according to Annemarie Delcambre.

To return to sura 2 it is certainly not part of the initial revelations (it is too long to be Meccan). It was, therefore, above all the later Muslim tradition that insisted on the attribution to the angel Gabriel of all these revelations. The initial appearance is not named. Or designated by expressions like the mighty, the vigorous, the lord of the worlds "etc.

Quran 81, 15-23. I call to witness the planets [....] your comrade is not mad. Surely he beheld Him on the clear horizon. And he is not avid of the Unseen. Nor is this the utterance of a devil worthy to be stoned. Whither then go you ? This is nothing else than a reminder unto creation, unto whomsoever of you will to walk straight. But you will not, unless (it be) that God will, the Lord of the worlds.

Quran 53: 1-18.

“ By The Star when it sets! Your comrade errs not, nor is deceived. Nor does he speak of (his own) desire. It is nothing save an inspiration that is inspired, which one of the mighty powers has taught him, one vigorous and he grew clear to view when he was on the uppermost horizon. Then he drew nigh and came down till he was (distant) two bows' length or even nearer, and He revealed unto His slave that which He revealed. The heart did not lie (in seeing) what it saw. Will you then dispute with him concerning what he sees?

And verily he saw him yet another time by the late tree of the utmost boundary,nigh unto which is the Garden of Abode, when that which shrouds did enshroud the lote tree,the eye did not turn aside nor yet was overbold.

Have you thought upon Al-Lat and Al-'Uzza and Manat, the third, the other “ ?

-May God forgive the shirk, that is to say associating to him another entity in the same worship, which is the most serious of the sins according to Islam.

No !

Verse 48 of chapter 4. "God forgives not that a partner should be ascribed unto Him. He forgives (all) save that to whom He will. Whosoever ascribes partners to God, he has indeed invented a tremendous sin.”

Verse 116 of chapter 4. Same thing.

Attitude diametrically opposite to the very "zen" reaction on this subject from the author of the Bhagavad Gita here below.

“Those who are devotees of other gods and who worship them with faith actually worship only me, O son of Kunti, but they do so in a wrong way because I am the only enjoyer and master of all sacrifices. If one offers me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I accept it. I envy no one, nor am I partial to anyone. I am equal to all. But whoever renders service unto me in devotion is a friend, is in me, and I am also a friend to him” (Bhagavad Gita 9: 23-29, dialogue between the god Krishna/Vishnu and prince Arjuna).

Is Jesus God or not ?

Verse 45 Chapter 3: Jesus is brought near (unto God).

The criterion for distinguishing THE true god from a false god is given by verse 2 in chapter 6 and verse 71 in chapter 38: the creation of men by God from clay.

Now, according to verses 49 and 55 of chapter 3, verses 156 and 157 of chapter 4, verse 110 of chapter 5 and verse 71 of chapter 38, Jesus seems well endowed with this superhuman power.

Verse 49 of chapter 3: “I fashion for you out of clay the likeness of a bird, and I breathe into it and it is a bird… I heal him who was born blind, and the leper, and I raise the dead.”

Note from the editor. The anecdote of the bird made from clay is probably derived from apocryphal gospels which have come to the knowledge of Muhammad or of his scribes.

Verse 55 of chapter 3: " God said: O Jesus! Lo! I am gathering you and causing you to ascend unto Me….”

The verse 98 of chapter 21 nevertheless states that whoever is worshiped outside God the Father will be burned in hell.

Verses 156-157 of Chapter 4: " We cursed them (the Jews) because of their speaking against Mary a tremendous calumny; and because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary”

, God's messenger - they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain.

Editor's Note: what follows appears to be the traditional Docetist Gnostic opinion in this field: the man Jesus was crucified only in appearance.

Verse 110 of chapter 5: " God says: O Jesus, son of Mary! Remember My favor unto you and unto your mother; how I strengthened you with the holy Spirit, so that you spoke unto mankind in the cradle as in maturity…

you did raise the dead.”

-Verse 21 chapter 19: God willing, Mary can beget God without having a companion. That is even easy to her specifies our text.

However, verse 101 of chapter 6 declares that God cannot beget because he has no companion.

The verse 4 of chapter 39, on the other hand, admits that God can adopt a particular human being.

-Will Christians and Jews go to Heaven or Hell?

To Heaven.

Verse 62, chapter 2. “Those who believe , and those who are Jews, and Christians, and Sabians - whoever believes in God and the Last Day and does right - surely their reward is with their Lord, and there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve.”

Verse 69, chapter 5. "Lo! those who believe, and those who are Jews, and Sabians, and Christians - Whosoever believes in God and the Last Day and does right - there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve”.

To hell.

Verse 72 of the same chapter 5. "They surely disbelieve who say: Lo! God is the Messiah, son of Mary.”

Verse 85, chapter 3. "And whosoever seeks as religion other than the Surrender (to God) it will not be accepted from him, and he will be a loser in the Hereafter.”

Editors note. As far as Christians are concerned, it is to be the nagging problem of the Trinity in relation to monolatry. It can be assumed that this categorical contradiction is only apparent, and that in fact it means that Christians believing in the Holy Trinity (i.e., 95% of current Christians, Catholics, Orthodox Reformists, etc.) will go to hell, and that only Christians who see Jesus as a great prophet (low Christology) will go to Paradise.

In any case, repetition being the strongest of the rhetorical figures (ars docendi) let us not hesitate here to submit again to the sagacity our readers below this extract of the religion of hatred (kafir) that is Hinduism.

-As in every monolatry the eternal problem of predestination and free will ...

Verse 56 of chapter 51: "I created the jinn and humankind only that they might worship Me.”

Verse 179 of chapter 7: "Already have We urged unto hell many of the jinn and humankind.”

-Intercession possible or not at the Last Judgment?

YES.

Verse 86, chapter 43: "And those unto whom they cry instead of Him [God] possess no power of intercession, saving him who bears witness unto the Truth knowingly.”

Editor's Note: These verses concern perhaps Jesus.

Verse 26, chapter 53: "How many angels are in the heavens whose intercession avails nothing save after God gives leave to whom He chooses and accepteth”.

Verse 109, chapter 20: "On that day no intercession avails save (that of) him unto whom the Beneficent hath given leave and whose word He accepts.”

Editor’s note. The idea of intercession is written fully but in addition to that of predestination. Still the eternal problem of these ideas of the Divinity.

Verse 23 chapter 34: Same thing. "No intercession avails with God save for him whom He permits.”

NO.

Verse 123 of chapter 2: "Guard (yourselves) against a day when no soul will in anything avail another, nor will compensation be accepted from it, nor will intercession be of use to it.”

Verse 254 of the same chapter 2: "O you who believe! spend of that wherewith We have provided you soon a day come when there will be no trafficking, nor friendship, nor intercession.”

Verse 51 of chapter 6: "Warn hereby those who fear that they will be gathered unto their Lord, for whom there is no protecting ally nor intercessor beside Him, that they may ward off (evil).

Verse 19 of chapter 82: "A day on which no soul hath power at all for any (other) soul.”

-Will the Last Judgment divide men into two distinct groups, those to go to hell and those to go to heaven, or will there be a third category?

Chapter 90 verses 18-19, 99 verses 6-8, etc. are categorical: there will only be chosen ones destined for heaven or cursed ones doomed to hell. It is a binary or Manichean logic.

Chapter 56 verse 7 also, except that it begins by mentioning THREE groups (we say well THREE). Without giving specification about those who will compose this third group of men (intended for a Muslim equivalent of purgatory?)

-Will God reward in one way or another, the good deeds of the unbelievers? Verse 7 of chapter 99 seems to say that. But verse 17 of chapter 9 and verse 69 of chapter 9 are categorically opposed to it. The works of the polytheists will be vain. N.B. We shall not speak here of the Christians who, according as they believe or not in the holy trinity, divide the doctors of the Muslim faith.

-Can angels protect human beings? Said otherwise: Does God act directly or through intermediaries?

No according to verse 107, chapter 2. "You have not, beside God, any guardian or helper.”

Same thing according to verse 22, chapter 29. "Beside God there is for you no friend or helper."

Yes, according to verse 31 of chapter 41. The angels say, "We are your protecting friends in the life of the world and in the Hereafter.”

Yes, according to verse 11 of chapter 13. "Angels guard him by God's command.”

Same thing according to verse 10 of chapter 82. "There are above you guardians."

-An ambiguity that is not without importance in Sunni / Shia relations.

Who can be a master and champion protector or friend of a community (wali)?

God alone: verse 116 chapter 9, verse 111 chapter 17, verse 4 chapter 32, verse 28 chapter 42.

Men chosen or sent by God: verse 75, chapter 4. "Give us from thy presence some protecting friend! Oh, give us from Your presence some defender!» Editors note. See the notion of Paraclete in Christianity.

SECONDARY CONTRADICTIONS WHICH QUESTION ONLY THE DIVINELY INSPIRED CHARACTER OF THOSE REVELATIONS.

-Can we see God?

Yes !

Verses 1 to 18 of chapter 53, besides one of the most beautiful poems of the Quran, obviously inspired (a vision) and dating from the initial Meccan period. Verse 23 of chapter 81. Same remarks as above. Unless, of course, it is the angel Gabriel. With the Quran you never know!

No !

Verse 103 of chapter 6. And also in a way verse 51 of chapter 42 (God never spoke directly to a human being).

- Wine and spirits, blessings or curses?

How can works of the demon here below participate in the charms and delights of Heaven? For in Heaven according to the Quran indeed there are rivers of wine, that is delight for those who drink from it (verse 15, chapter 47). “They are given to drink of a pure wine, sealed, whose seal is musk - for this let (all) those strive who strive for bliss- and mixed with water of Tasnim” (verse 25, chapter 83).

Now, what is to be thought of wine on this earth is said unambiguously in the following verses: Chapter 5 verse 90: "Wine (khamr) and games of chance… only an infamy of Satan's handiwork.” Chapter 2 verse 219: “ About wine and games of chance….the sin of them is greater than their usefulness.”

Editor's note. In fact, what happened is very simple. Muhammad was not completely against the wine at the beginning. But as some of the early Muslims really drank it to excess, he preferred (or should we say God preferred?) to ban it completely . So we went from "drink responsibly" to "not a single drop!

- Food of the damned in hell?

Only thorns (verse 6, chapter 88).

Filth (verse 36, chapter 69).

Fruits of the Zaqqum (verse 66, chapter 37).

More dramatically …..

-Verse 4 Chapter 33: prohibition of full adoption (one wonders why ?)

On the other hand, verse 37 of the same chapter 33: Muslims may have adopted sons (since it is spoken of their wives).

- Should Muslims treat or honor their parents well when they are not strictly monotheistic?

Yes according to verses 8 of chapter 29 (the beginning) and 14 of chapter 31 (which are repeated).

No according to verse 23 of chapter 9 and verse 22 of chapter 58.

CONTRADICTIONS OR DIFFERENCES WITH BIBLICAL DATA.

Preliminary warning. We do not consider as completely uninteresting (it is part of the meta history of religions, of their justification) but simply as non-historical all that in the Bible and the Torah is previous to the reigns of David and Solomon.

Now there are many passages in the Quran that are obviously speaking of the same events and of the same personages in a very similar way, or by differing considerably.

That proves two things in passing.

First, even when the Quran follows the biblical narrative rather closely, it is not a book inspired by God or taken from a heavenly table containing only truths by definition SINCE THERE ARE NON TRUTHS IN THE BIBLE, MANY EVEN!

Secondly, that the Quran simply takes over these ancient Biblical legends, or draws in the same sources, with more or less differences. Intentional or not. If they are not intentional, it can result from the fact that these stories were borrowed from variants circulating then in this region of the world. The more we move away from the initial and spontaneous visions of the young Muhammad (40 years) ** the more we find some of these borrowings in the pages of the human and created in Yathrib/Madinah Quran and the more there are chances that these borrowings are not reminiscences "regurgitated" in a state of trance, but borrowings made in full knowledge of the cause to answer specific problems or to somehow "fill" the gaps of the previous narrative.

In short, if we highlight contradictions between traditional biblical data and the Quran, it is not....

-Because we consider that Jews and Christians have falsified the scriptures entrusted to them before (traditional Muslim dogma, verse 75, chapter 2: "A party of them used to listen to the word of God, then used to change it, after they had understood it, knowingly” ? Some of them knowingly altered the word of God after hearing it").

-Nor because we consider that these biblical accounts are only historical accounts (they are myths of legends and even of political propaganda for the kingdom of Judah). Spread the word !

And now first things first, the basic or intrinsic contradiction by definition the problem of the language.

Verses 195 and 196 of chapter 26: "In plain Arabic speech. And lo! it is in the Scriptures of the men of old." What scriptures of the men of old? The Bible, that is, the Torah and the New Testament? The Torah was written in Hebrew and the four gospels in Greek. How can a book in good Arabic be contained in a work written in Hebrew and a work written in Greek? The contents of which should also be found as such in the aforementioned books (Old and New Testament).

Verse 49 of chapter 28: " Then bring a scripture from the presence of God that gives clearer guidance than these two (that) I may follow it…”.

Verses 10 and following of chapter 46: " A witness of the Children of Israel hath already testified to the like thereof ....before it there was the Scripture of Moses, an example and mercy and this is a confirming Scripture in the Arabic language......”

Verse 103 of chapter 16: the Quran is clear Arabic speech.

It goes without saying that the language of God cannot be more the Arabic that did not exist at the origin of the world than another language and that in any case God if he exists does not need the help of a human language to make Himself be understood.

As we have already pointed out, but repetition is the strongest figure of rhetoric; what is interesting here is that this statement responses to the following objection:

" They say: Only a man teaches him. The speech of him at whom they falsely hint is outlandish3.

The insistence on the fact that it is "clear" Arabic is perhaps simply intended to emphasize the quality of a possible translation from documents written in Aramaic or even more precisely in Syriac. language

Factual contradictions.

-Has Noah's son survived the flood or died drowned?

Verses 42-43 chapter 11: no! He was among those who perished engulfed.

Verse 76 chapter 21: yes!

Verse 76 chapter 37: yes!

-Did Abraham break the idols of his fathers, or did he simply leave his country?

Verses 76-83 of chapter 6. " When the night grew dark upon him he beheld a star. He said: This is my Lord…

I am not of the idolaters. His people argued with him…”.

Verse 48 of chapter 19. " I shall withdraw from you and that unto which you pray beside God…”

Verse 58 of chapter 21. " Then he reduced them to fragments, all save the chief of them….”

- Are the prophets only from the lineage of Abraham, therefore Jews?

Verse 27 of chapter 29 asserts that all prophets descend from Abraham, but verse 36 of chapter 16 states that God has raised up at least one prophet in every nation.

-The story of Lot.

Answer given by the people of Lot.

First version.

Verse 82, chapter 7. " The answer of his people was only that they said (one to another): Turn them out of your township…”.

Verse 56, chapter 27. " The answer of his folk was nothing save that they said: Expel the household of Lot from your township….”

Second version.

Verse 29 of chapter 29. “The answer of his folk was only that they said: Bring God’s doom upon us….”

The two answers have nothing to do the one with the other, they are objectively speaking two different answers.

Verse 83, chapter 7. " We rescued him and his household, save his wife, who was of those who stayed behind. And We rescued him and his household, save his wife, who was of those who stayed behind…”.

Verses 170-171 of chapter 26. " We saved him and his household, every one, save an old woman among those who stayed behind.....”

May we decently consider that this old woman was the wife of Lot? Mere question.

-When did the Pharaoh of the Bible order the killing of the male children of the Hebrew people?

Verse 38 of chapter 20 says that it was when Moses was still a very young child.

Verse 23 of chapter 40 says that it was when Moses became a prophet.

-Did Pharaoh perish or died drowned when crossing the Red Sea?

He survived according to verse 92 of chapter 10.

- The episode of the golden calf.

The Israelites or their ancestors wait for Moses to come down from Mount Sinai before renouncing the cult of the golden calf (or bull). Verse 91 of chapter 20.

The Israelites repent their error BEFORE even Moses comes down from Sinai. Verse 149 Chapter 7.

-Did Aaron also sin in this episode?

No according to verses 85-90 of chapter 20.

Yes according to verses 92, chapters 20 and 151, chapter 7.

-Verse 157 of chapter 7. God speaks with Moses of the 4 Gospels, books that date from the first century of our era. Perhaps the second for the gospel according to John. Therefore at least a thousand years after Moses.

-Has Jonas been thrown on a deserted beach by the whale that swallowed him?

Yes, according to verse 145 of chapter 37.

No, according to verse 49 of chapter 68.

-Annunciation of the birth of Jesus to Mary. How many angels made it?

Chapter 3 verses 42-45: several angels.

Chapter 19 verses 17-21: one angel.

* Traditional explanation of pious Muslims: The divergences between the Biblical and Quranic versions are due to the fact that Jews and Christians have falsified their Scriptures. What is true only UP TO HALF.

** Basically, the shortest suras, those relegated to the end of the Uthmanian corpus. Suras 113 and 114, for example, which are mere magic formulas.

OTHER VARIOUS CONTRADICTIONS.

God seems to have problems of memory or difficulty to calculate: he no longer knows how long he made the world, if it is two days (41:9), six (7:54) , in eight (41: 9-12) or in a while (2:117); if he first created earth then sky (2: 29), or sky and then earth (79: 27-30); if sky and earth were at first the same compact mass that he divided (21: 30) or if they were separated and that He united them (41:11) ...

-Instantaneous or step-by-step creation?

According to verse 117 of chapter 2 God can create everything instantly but He takes 6 days after the majority of suras.

-How many days were necessary for God so that He creates the world?

Six days according to verse 54 of chapter 7, according to verse 3 of chapter 10, according to verse 7 of chapter 11 and verse 59 of chapter 25.

Eight days (2 + 4 + 2) when we carefully examine the process evoked by verses 9-12 in chapter 41.

-Is it Sky or Earth that was created first?

The sky first according to verses 27-30 of chapter 79.

The earth first from verse 29 of chapter 2.

-Have sky and earth been created by division of the same element or were they created separately?

Verse 30 of the chapter clearly states that sky and earth were created from the same pre-existing element.

Verse 11 of chapter 41 seems to refer to a separate creation of sky and earth, first the earth and then the sky from a smoke.

- Was the man created from...

- Nothing according to verse 67 of chapter 19.

- A little clay according to verse 26 of chapter 15.

- Dust in accordance with verses 59 of chapter 3, 20 of chapter 30, 11 of chapter 35.

- Water according to verse 30 of chapter 21, according to verse 45 of chapter 24, and verse 54 of chapter 25.

- A little blood according to verse 1 of chapter 96.

- A drop of sperm according to verses 4 of chapters 16 and 37 of chapter 75.

-Verse 49 chapter 16: "And unto God makes prostration whatsoever is of living creatures.”

-Verse 26 chapter 30: "All are obedient unto Him."

But there are exceptions, first Satan and also many human beings.

The true prophets never sinned even for a single moment (Muslim dogma known as isma).

Now Abraham has at one time committed the most unpardonable of sins (shirk) by taking the moon the sun and the stars as his gods or goddesses.

Verses 76-78 of chapter 6 are unequivocal on this subject even if these sins only lasted a few hours and that Abraham [in any case legendary and non-historical character) repented then in this version of his adventures.

-How many days were necessary so that God destroys the A’ad people?

One day according to verse 19 of chapter 54.

Several days following verse 16 of chapter 41 and following verse 6 of chapter 69 (7 days).

-During the Last Judgment will men have a list of the evil deeds of their lives....

In the back according to verse 10 of chapter 84?

In their left hand according to verse 25 of chapter 69.

Verse 171 of chapter 4: "Say not Three" ... It is therefore impossible if you take this injunction literally to recite this sura without breaking the commandment it contains.

MORE SERIOUSLY. It is a rejection of the notion of Trinity: one God but three persons according to what side of the fence you are : the father the son and the Holy Spirit.

ETC.ETC.ETC.ETC. WHAT IS PREVIOUS WAS ONLY A SAMPLE. COUNTLESS INDEED ARE THE CONTRADICTIONS OF THE QURAN.

-Some are only problems of details due to the limits of all human language (poetry, juridic, etc.). They nevertheless give much ponderousness to the whole when they are visibly deliberate and intended to convince or frighten, of the type: "If you do not do what I say you will go to hell, if you obey me you will be entitled to the delights in heaven.” What is fairly simplistic as reasoning, we must well acknowledge it, in any case neither zen nor philosophical?

-Others, therefore, have serious consequences only in the other world which awaits us after death, and therefore belongs only to doctrine.

- Lastly, Muslim theology assumes responsibility within its thoughts about abrogation (nasikh wa mansukh)

-And especially the verses known as verses of the sword (ayat as sayf) of the fight and of the lesser jihad (8:39, 9:5, 9:29, 47,4).

There is unanimity among the Muslims to say that the Quran is the first source of Muslim law. This results from the fact that it comes from God. And the proof that it is of divine origin is its inimitability (the doctrine of I’jaz). If it is admitted that it comes from God –because of its inimitability - everyone is therefore obliged to follow him.

However, certain Muslim practices are not included in it, or at least without any of the details necessary for their exercise. But orthodox Muslims see no contradiction between proclaiming that the Quran is complete or unsurpassable in short perfect, and the fact that it is necessary for them to resort to other documents or other texts to live daily in accordance with their religion. Such is the traditional Muslim faith which has nothing to do with reason and is only a conditioned reflex in the way of Pavlov.

As we have seen, there are also nevertheless some Islamic currents or sensitivities that interpret the Quran allegorically and are therefore in no way embarrassed by the lack of concrete specifications or details by taking it as a guide (The Ismailis for example).

Examples therefore. The five pillars of Islam, the profession of faith known as “Shaada,” the prayer, the almsgiving, the fasting and the pilgrimage, do not really appear and as such in the Quran.

There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet. This kerygma ** must be pronounced by any Orthodox Muslim in order to confirm his religion or in the case of a conversion to Islam. But this shaada does not exist as such in one block in the Quran, it is only composed of two themes frequently hammered home in the Quran: the theme of the divine uniqueness (which is perhaps of Judeo-Christian or Henotheist origin if we consider the name of Allah) and the assertion that Muhammad is a prophet **.

But the name of Muhammad, which is in reality only a common noun meaning "the Praised one," appears only five times in the sacred text, four times in the form Muhammad (which is relatively little to justify its presence in a kerygma) and once in the form Ahmad. Chapter 3 verse 144, chapter 33 verse 40, chapter 47 verse 2, chapter 48 verse 29, chapter 61 verse 6 (Ahmad)

As we have seen, the problem is that each time this can be a simple adjective meaning something like "the praised" and not a proper noun.

The prayer (salah). The Quran gives no details on how to pray (the practice of the 5 daily prayers perhaps dates back to the Mandaean Sabians ***). This has led to many divergences on this issue. Most Sunnis cross their hands on their stomachs when they stand to pray, but the Sunnis of the Maliki school, the Shiites and the Ibadites, themselves, pray with their arms along the body.

The way of doing partial ritual ablutions (wudhu) also varies.

Orthodox Muslims do not refer to the Quran but to hadiths to determine the number of cycles or rakats (bowing low and prostration) on the occasion of collective prayers or of certain other prayers, such as the prayer for having rain (Salat-al-Istisqa: and in this case you must to have your cloak inside out = sympathetic magic?).

The Quran does not explicitly specify the number of times a day that men should pray. Sunni Muslims believe that prayers must be recited five times a day, while the Shiites say only three times. In the morning (fajr) in the afternoon (dhurh) and in the evening (maghrib).

There are also divergences on the exact hour of the beginning of the evening prayer (after the disappearance of the sun behind the horizon or after the disappearance of the last light) and on its duration. The Quran determines the duration of the prayer according to the position of the sun and its light, but it has not foreseen the case of the polar or circumpolar regions (as in Scandinavia for example) where the length of the day can vary significantly depending on the season.

Compulsory almsgiving or zakat is often recommended in the Quran. Orthodox Muslims think nevertheless that 2.5% per annum (of one’s wealth) is enough. No such specification exists in the Quran.

The practice of fasting is urgently asked for by the Quran, but without as many details or specifications as those which are given by the tradition of the hadiths (sunna). In Orthodox Islam, for example, a woman with her menses cannot fast, whereas no such prohibition exists in the Quran.

The Quran does not detail the great pilgrimage to Mecca. Current practices such as the (symbolic?) stoning of Satan at the west entrance of Mina, the kiss of the corner stone of the Kaaba (al ajar al aswad) , are presumably remains of pagan rites justified by inventions linking them later to Biblical characters. Cf. Abul ala al-Maari ( Syria 937-1057).The Quran says nothing about them. The Ismailis think that this main pilgrimage (hajj) is not compulsory.

In addition to these five pillars of Islam, there are other Islamic practices not mentioned in the (current) Quran.

The use of hadiths.

The stoning of adulterers.

Circumcision or excision.

The ban for women having their menses praying in a mosque or entering a mosque.

The ranking of dogs and cats among unclean animals.

For the Shiites the prerogatives of the imam.

Dress or sumptuary standards (except the highly controversial case of the hijab or Islamic veil).

Debated question: to whom should be returned the unclaimed inheritances since the distribution formula indicated by the Quran applies only to a specific case: that of lineal inheritance: parents-children.

* This verse specifies nevertheless that Jesus is ...

-Christ (Messiah).

-Prophet.

-The embodied Word of God.

- The Spirit of God.

Muslim theology is even more complicated than Christian theology.

** The insistence that Muhammad is a prophet betrays two things: how much it was not self-evident during his lifetime, how much it was contested during his lifetime, and how necessary was this argument in order to make himself obeyed even in intimacy.

*** Qatadah ‘ibn Di’amah (d. circa 736 ) wrote: The Sabians worshipped angels, read the book of psalms (Zabur) , prayed five ritual prayers. In addition he writes that they pray to the sun.

**** Simple faithful leading prayer among Sunnites, a member of a true clergy among Shiites.

SYNTHESIS.

The unsurpassable Book, (i’jaz), best of communities, "You are the best community that has been raised up for mankind. You enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency "(chapter 3 verse 110 of the Holy Quran) all this learned by heart since childhood ...... there is indeed enough to hand down a blasted superiority complex to whole generations, because, as we have already had the opportunity to say about the relations of Christians with pagans, conditioned reflexes it is something which is handed down. The world is hard and it is so comforting for immature and childish personalities 1) who need a divine Father, who need to believe themselves the new chosen people (verus Israel).

It is, of course, burlesque or childish, in short not serious at all, unworthy of a good debate, to take for granted that the Quran is unbeatable or unsurpassable, both in terms of substance and form. Cf. Al Nadr, Uqbah, Musaylimah, Mansur Ibn Sarjun, Al Kindi and his Apology, even Al-Mutanabbi.

As far as form is concerned, it is simply that there is no accounting for taste and that languages evolve over the centuries and millennia. Just as Breton is not the language spoken by God in the Garden of Eden , contrary to what was claimed by certain Celtomaniacs, the Arabic of the Quran is not the original language of Mankind, it was not spoken 20,000 years ago and it will be no longer in 20,000 years; as the Basque language contains many original non-Basque terms, the Quran contains many words borrowed from the various major languages of the region at the time (Syriac Persian Ethiopian Greek Hindi, etc ...) but please, especially not from the Roman or the barbarian which are languages .... having never existed. The Romans of origin spoke the language of the Latium, that is to say Latin, the "Rum" or Byzantine Christians spoke ... Greek, and the barbarians (hello the barbarians!) spoke various languages like Celtic Germanic and so on...

In addition one of the surprising or disconcerting characteristics of the Uthmanian corpus is that it follows no logical plan. The defenders of this system, for a book still intended human beings at a time when writing already existed, emphasize the fact that this favors its learning by heart. In other words, in the land of Islam (Dar al Islam) an application of the principle "better is a head full of information than a head on straight."

With one exception, the opening chapter called fatiha, a Jewish-Christian prayer, the chapters of the Quran are ranked in decreasing order of importance: longest chapters first.

NB. As a general rule, the shorter is the chapter, the more likely it is to date from the Meccan period, the longer a chapter is, the more likely it is to date from the Medinan period. What has as a result that the Quran is read a little bit starting from the end. The oldest chapters, the Meccan ones, are relegated at the end, the most recent, the Medinan ones, are ahead. In short, a beautiful hotchpotch which has a result that, without the background, you generally don’t understand a thing in it FROM THE HISTORICAL VIEW (on the moral or mystical level it is another thing).

Hence, each time and to begin , the imperative necessity of knowing whether we speak of verses recited for the first time during the part of the life of Muhammad taking place in his hometown of Mecca, period of his life where he was in a sense "in opposition"; or if they are verses recited for the first time in the second and last part of Muhammad's life, when he became head of the City-State of Yathrib / Medina, and therefore not in opposition but in power .

Annemarie Delcambre provides in her book Sufi or mufti? What future for Islam? In the chapter "Surahs of the Quran? ", a very valuable list of the chapters from Mecca and Medina.

Out of a total of 114 chapters, 86 are Meccans, 28 are Medinan. Are Medinan the following chapters (in chronological order): 2, 8, 3, 33, 60, 4, 99, 57, 47, 55, 13, 76, 65, 98, 59, 24, 22, 63, 58, 49, 66, 64, 61, 62 , 48, 5, 9, 110.

1) In any case not in the least philosophical.

STYLE OF THE QURAN.

For the Muslim who has learnt it by heart, the Quran is perfect in terms of style. Nobody can surpass him. This perfection is culturally felt by pious Muslims, as for any text with which we have been rocked since childhood. To question this belief is a blasphemy.

But the beauty of the Quranic style was contested by those who, for one reason or another, escaped collective spell. Theodor Nöldeke, a great specialist of Semitic civilizations and a connoisseur of Arabic, wrote a great article about what seemed to him stylistic mistakes in the Qur'an, making it difficult to read.

A) The lack of punctuation.

The Quran is divided into 114 chapters. According to Francis Deroche their text was later split into verses (Codex Parisino-petropolitanus). The length of the verses varies greatly. A verse can consist of one or two words (55: 1, 101: 1 and 103: 1) or several sentences (2: 101, 196 and 282, the latter being the longest verse of the Quran).

The verses attached to the beginning of the mystical activity of Muhammad son of Amina placed today at the end of the Quran are lapidary, short, with clausulae of identical rhythm.

Then, the trend was to stretch out the rhymed unit. The criterion of division into verses is mainly based on assonance and rhyme, but there is no unanimity on this division and on the number of verses.

Thus, the edition of Cairo and that of Tunis have 6236 verses, whereas a tradition that goes back to Ibn-Abbas

(Died about 686) counts 6616 verses.

In the Arabic edition of Gustav Flugel (1834), certain verses of the Cairo edition are cut out or united.

Apart from the division into verses, the Arabic version of the Quran, even modern, does not include punctuation (period, comma, etc.), what complicates the reading of the Quran, especially when the sentence is cut in two or more verses 9: 1-2, 53: 13-16), or conversely when a verse contains several sentences. One of the reasons why punctuation is not added is the uncertainty about the end of the sentence. According to Sami Aldeeb averse can have a different meaning depending on the location of the period.

B) Interpolation.

The lack of punctuation is accentuated by the fact that the Quran contains many interpolations. Thus, within the same chapter, or even the same verse, there are passages out of context. The Quranic text thus looks a disjointed and mended work.

With the exception of the shortest chapters, most of them lack unity because they are compilations of various texts taken over by Muhammad or his successors. The same sura can thus gather verses of different periods and themes.

A good example of interpolation is verse 2:102, which is particularly long in comparison with the previous and following verses.

C) Lack of systematization

The Quran does not present the fields dealt with systematically. This raises a problem for the lawyer. If he tries to know the position of the Quran concerning a given field, he must refer to different dispersed verses, sometimes contradictory, mixed with passages often without a direct link.

This contradiction of the verses has been solved by Muslim jurists through the theory of abrogation (nasikh wa mansukh): a later standard abrogates an earlier standard (what is logical). This, however, requires a dating of these verses, a difficult and controversial task, especially as some verses abrogate others which are found in later chapters of the Quran.

D) Repetition.

A same story or standard is reported in several chapters, either in abridged form or in detailed form. For example, the story of Lot and the destruction of Sodom, inspired by the Bible (Genesis 18: 16-33 and 19: 1-29), appears in about ten chapters of the Quran. This phenomenon can be found in the narrative of the prophet Moses or of the Arab prophet Shu'ayb. What shows that the Quranic text has been the subject of superimposed successive drafts.

Sometimes a verse is literally repeated in two passages, the repetition being unrelated to the context of one of the two passages. Thus, verse 28:62 is repeated in verse 28:74, but the latter is out of context. In chapter 55, which contains 78 verses, the same sentence returns 31 times; and in chapter 77 which has 55 of them, the same sentence returns 11 times.

We therefore generally agree with Al Nadr, Uqbah, Musaylimah, Mansur Ibn Sarjun, Al Kindi and Al-Mutanabbi; the Quran is indeed unique, but in the bad sense of the word! It is an anti-book, an insult or an offense against human intelligence or reason, even worse, a crime against the mind, an absolute intellectual horror, a challenge or insult against the most elementary common sense, an unprecedented brainwashing, a conditioning in the Pavlov’s way! It is a snuffer of every light, of every

critical mind, therefore of all freedoms (the religious freedom the freedom of speech and so many others) , the foundation of the most complete of totalitarian systems: learning it by heart does not develop human intelligence but makes very stupid, like the Jehovah’s witnesses with their two Goliath story! 1)

The Quran is a book that contains many invectives remarks threats commandments ... but who is speaking?

God ? At times that cannot be Him. See Chapter 75 verses 1 and 2, chapter 90 verse 1. God cannot swear otherwise than by Himself or upon Himself.

God speaking of him in the third person?

The Archangel Gabriel?

Some angels ? Chapter 19 verse 64 and chapter 37 verses 164-166, they are the angels or some angels who speak and not God.

Muhammad?

The hypocrites (munafiqun) say ... who are these hypocrites?

The associators (mushrikun) say ... who are the associators (Trinitarian Christians or Polytheists?)

The Jews ... of what Jews is it question, those of Yathrib / Medina contemporaries of Muhammad ?? Those of past centuries or even millennia (the Hebrews)?

In spite of the refutation by the opponents as well as by the partisans of the Mu’tazila of the theory of al-Nazzam 2), this was implicitly taken into account. The qadi (judge) Abu Bakr al-Baqillani (died in 1013), an Asharite theologian like Abd al-Qahir, devoted a book to explaining what distinguishes the Quran from all other texts, including the previous sacred texts. For him, the uniqueness of the Quran lies precisely in the fact that it is neither prose nor poetry; It is a literary genre in itself like the gospels. No human literary criterion can be used to assess it. Al-Baqillani even goes so far as to caricature the famous great pre-Islamic odes (mu’allaqat) that he considers inferior to the Quran.

The fact that Muhammad was analphabetic is used as additional evidence to claim that it is the very nature of the speaker - God - that makes any comparison between the Quran and another text impossible.

According to him indeed, the Quranic miracle (al-i'jaz) can be proved by three elements:

-The first is that it contains information about the invisible (al-ghayb), which goes beyond the power of human beings who have no means of reaching that knowledge.

-The second, al-Baqillani continues, is that it is well known that Muhammad was illiterate (ummi), that he could not write, and could scarcely read, and it is usually admitted that he didn’t know the books of the earlier peoples, their memories, their histories, and the biographies of their heroes. Yet he gave summaries of what happened in the history, spoke of past times, and gave accounts of Adam's creation. He also mentions the story of Noah that of Abraham and of all the other prophets mentioned in the Quran. However Muhammad according to al-Baqillani, had no means of knowing all that by himself except by being instructed about that...His conclusion is therefore that he got this knowledge only through Revelation.

-The third element is that the Quran is wonderfully arranged and composed, and it is so sublime in its literary elegance that it is beyond what any creature can compose....

This book is also supposed to contain the right answers to all the possible and imaginable questions that man can ask himself. Verse 2, chapter 2. " This is the Scripture whereof there is no doubt." Verse 38, chapter 6. " We have neglected nothing in the Book." Verse 111, chapter 12. " Detailed explanation of everything". Verse 89 chapter 16. « An exposition of all things ". Etc..

In short, the Quran has an answer to everything! Why then in these conditions go and see elsewhere.

The Mu’tazilites therefore were quite right in their time to rise up against such idolatry of the created Quran.

The equating of the Uthmanian Corpus in its present phonetic and graphic expression, with the Heavenly Book as it is kept near God (3:7, 13:39, 26:192, 43:4, 69,43 and 51,85: 21 -22) excludes, for the pious Muslim, any question about the historicity of the Quran. The Quran has no history, it is only "word of God." This is why the historical research on the origins and formation of the Quranic text cannot make sense for the staunch Muslim, who regards it as impious.

In order to invalidate any criticism of Islam, Muslims put forward the need to know the Arabic language, because God revealed Islam through the Quran which is written in Arabic (cf. 12: 2, 26: 195, 41 : 44). The reason for this is that, since it is often incomprehensible, the Quran is also often untranslatable ... But this requirement of God who wants to speak only to Arabic speakers means that either he can only speak Arabic, or that what he has to say can only be expressed in Arabic, which would make Arabs some beings different and superior to other men, or, finally, that being able to speak another language, he made this arbitrary (why, Arabic rather than another language like the Breton or the Sumerian?) and discriminating choice (it removes the vast majority of the world

population). In these three cases, does he deserve to be regarded as God? By discrediting a priori the non-Arabic-speaking critics of the Quran, staunch Muslims discredit themselves.

Criticism maintaining the need to learn the Arabic language in order to criticize Islam is inadmissible as a result of the fact that the imposition of the Arabic language has always been part of the means used to Islamize peoples in order to make them progressively foreign to their own culture (for instance Berber in North Africa).

-The big problem of Islam is that any questioning of the compulsory reference book or of its original author, Muhammad, is liable to the death penalty for blasphemy.

-This book also instills a strong sense of superiority (bordering on hubris?) to its followers by telling them in black and white that they constitute the best human communities that ever existed on earth

Chapter 3 verse 110. " You are the best community that hath been raised up for mankind. You enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency.”

Verse 181, chapter 7. " Of those whom We created there is a nation who guide with the Truth and establish justice therewith.”

The Quran says itself that it is the Word of God as it is in heaven (3:7; 13:39; 43:4; 85: 21-22). This means that the language spoken in Heaven is Arabic, that God thinks and speaks in Arabic, that is, in a human language. Pious Muslims, prisoners of a self-referential discourse that assumes a priori that the Arabic of the Quran is of divine origin, therefore discredit themselves scientifically speaking.

Nevertheless, commentators are wrong to laugh at the dogma of i’jaz. The Quran is well indeed a book quite unique in its genre should it be only through some of its main characteristics.

It is not designed in chronological order.

Nor is it designed according to any thematic order.

The Quran is presented today with its chapters classified in order of length, from the longest to the smallest, therefore in total disorder with respect to the chronology of its "revelation," and particularly in jumbling together verses dictated at Mecca, verses dictated in medina, "abrogating" verses (nasikh) and abrogated verses (mansukh), etc. The only important thing for this disastrous presentation of a so important book is to make easy its "recitation," which, in these circumstances, is closer to a repetition over and over than to a thorough reading, at the very least.

N.B. Even the fundamental distinction in Islamic land between Meccan verses or Medinan verses (the latter abrogating the former) is not respected, it is to be deduced from the text following long and learned calculations

Let us pray the gods (all possible gods) so that the laws in this country will continue for a long time to leave us free....

- Not to be convinced by all this.

- Not to agree with this dogma of i’jaz.

- To express this opinion and to make it shared.

The uncreated Quran theory. ... .My God, but how can man believe that ??? The eye has its blind spot called spot of Mariotte. We are obliged to admit that some of our fellow humans have a brain itself also unfortunately endowed with an intellectual equivalent of Mariotte’s blind spot. Arrived at certain places of the road (in curves or in slopes) their brain shifts to neutral, it no longer works. Their faith has no longer something to do with reason. Their religion has no longer something to do with intelligence.

It remains, of course, the hypothesis that the Quran would be a demonic or diabolical word, since some verses explicitly admit that Satan can deceive even the greatest prophets: "Never did We send a Messenger or a Prophet before you, but that whenever he had a desire, Satan interfered with that desire"(chapter 22 verse 52).

-As far as we are concerned, nevertheless, we also reject this hypothesis ( of the interference of the Devil in some verses, which would be satanic like these of the chapter 53 about the three gharaniq goddesses, the verses 20 a and 20 b) because we don’t believe in the existence of the Devil and the Quran is indeed a human word. Even in its claim to be only a divine word, it is precisely human, too human, terribly human. The Evil spirit is not a force outside the Man BUT A (NEGATIVE) FORCE INSIDE THE HUMAN BEING.

-And therefore we respect Islam and Muslims only to the extent that they respect we uns, kuffar or mushrikun (Atheists, Agnostics, Pantheists such as John Toland, or followers of the cult of dulia or hyperdulia Atheists) , it is called reciprocity, it is one of the principles of every social life .

-On the negative level that produces the Talion law theorized by the Hebrews in the Bible, that produces the necessity to punish any evil action in the former Druidism, as St. Patrick himself admits it in the Senchus Mor : there is strengthening of social cohesion (in the case of pagan societies in any case) when an evil action does not remain unpunished (Intud i ngeindtleacht gnim olc mad indechur).

-On a more positive level, that produces that produces well the greatest respect: I do not do to another what I would not want he does to me (golden rule). So, little question now, you who believe in God (in

the conception of God that is designated by the name of Allah), do you respect me who is neither Jew nor Christian nor Muslim nor Mandaean Sabians nor Parsi but whose ideas waver according to the subjects or my mood between pantheism (everything is god) agnosticism (I'm not sure of the way of worship that must be followed by everyone) even atheism or dulias?

-Negatively we find that there is no equivalent in the Quran (in the Quran) of the parables of the adulterous woman, the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, the tax collector, the centurion, the eleventh hour workers nor a call for forgiveness from this low world having the greatness of the cry which is attributed to this Christ-like figure by definition from the top of his cross. St Luke 23:33. When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”[crucifying God Himself].

I will end this chapter with this quotation from Omar Khayyam (1048-1122): Muslim friend, “close your Quran. Think in freedom and look with open mind at heaven and earth. "

1) As in the Bible there is a text mentioning that Goliath was killed by David and another one (2 Samuel 21 : 19), stating that he was slain BY A MAN OF THE GUARD OF KING DAVID, ELHANAN, SON OF JAARE-OREGIM, Jehovah's Witnesses maintain that there were two Goliaths. What is contrary to Occam’s razor principle.

2) Ibrahim ibn Sayyar al-Nazzam (died in 846), a Mu’tazilite rationalist theologian also put forward in his time the theory of the sarfa. It consisted in saying that God had deliberately intervened to prevent the Arabs from producing a text similar to the Quran.

CRITICS OF OLD.

The Quran, as its name suggests it, was not originally identified with the Revelation, but looked a "reminder" of it (11:120, 21: 10 and 50, 29: 51, 36: 69), a meditation of texts already known: "Thus relate We unto you some tidings of that which happened of old, and We have given you from Our presence a reminder " (20:99). How consequently can we continue to identify Quran and Revelation?

The word "Quran" means "recitation," "lectionary" and refers to catechesis in Syriac language recorded on loose sheets for Arab proselytes. Editor’s note. While certain chapters begin with other series of three letters, twenty-nine chapters begin with the series of three letters "Alif, Lam, Mim." As Muslims no longer know the meaning of these three letters today, they consider them as parts of the miracles of the Quran (see 80: 13-16) .These leaves were then gathered and assembled without any logical sequence (in descending order of length) by the Caliph Uthman, who died in 654.

"He it is Who has revealed unto thee (Muhammad) the Scripture wherein are clear revelations - they are the substance of the Book - and others (which are) allegorical. But those in whose hearts is doubt pursue; indeed, that which is allegorical seeking (to cause) dissension by seeking to explain it. None knows their explanation save God. And those who are of sound instruction say: We believe therein; the whole is from our Lord; but only men of understanding really heed” (3: 7).

Therefore, the pious Muslim must not wonder about what is revealed to him in the name of God, but be content to learn by heart the Quran, for: "This is the Scripture whereof there is no doubt " (2:1). And the last straw is that this attitude is even equated with intelligence ! Anyone who would wonder is disqualified from the outset as having a “disease” in his heart (2:10). Is he not guilty to seek "corruption” ?

“And when it is said unto them: do not cause corruption on the earth, they say: we are reformers only. Are not they indeed the corrupters ? But they do not perceive !”

Faith has nothing to do with intelligence, it is well known, and it seems well as it happens that in Islamic land (Dar al Islam) preference is given to heads full of information and not to heads on straight. In Quranic schools, pupils, whether Arab or not, must recite all the verses of the Uthmanian Corpus throughout the day without understanding the meaning of the words, such as tape recorders.

The Mu’tazilites broke this stalemate by replacing the notion of uncreated Quran with that of cre-a-ted Quran. That is to say, by proposing to distinguish the uncreated Quran, the word of God, remained near God, devoid of all uncertainty, and the created Quran, the very one that came out of the mouth of Muhammad and which is to be analyzed or interpreted.

It is usual among Muslims to repeat that as for the style this Quran is inimitable, unsurpassable (i'jaz al Qurani). This statement is anything but objective – .....beauty is always subjective and just as faith has nothing to do with reason, faith and science are way of knowing different. Just as it would be ridiculous in a scientific discussion to attempt to prove his thesis by an oath calling God to witness, so it is ridiculous in the field of faith to prove a dogma by means of a scientific truth – ......is besides mentioned several times in the Quran itself which seems strangely much to insist on it.

"Though mankind and the jinn should assemble to produce the like of this Quran, they could not produce the like thereof though they were helpers one of another " (1: 88).

" Produce a surah of the like thereof [….] if you do it not - and you can never do it - then guard yourselves against the Fire prepared for disbelievers, whose fuel is of men and stones " (2:23-24) .

Whether they are of God, of Muhammad, or of the archangel Gabriel, there is indeed in this human and created Quran, why deny it, many passages with an admirable poetry worthy of being included in books to be carried with oneself for a long stay in a desert island similar to that of Robinson Crusoe.

Here is an example.

Quran 53: 1-20.

" By The Star when it sets, your comrade errs not, nor is deceived; nor doth he speak of (his own) desire. It is nothing save an inspiration that is inspired, which one of mighty powers hath taught him, one vigorous; and he grew clear to view, then he was on the uppermost horizon. Then he drew nigh and came down till he was (distant) two bows' length or even nearer, and

He revealed unto His slave that which He revealed.The heart lied not (in seeing) what it saw. Will you then dispute with him concerning what he sees ?

And verily He saw him yet another time by the lote tree of the utmost boundary, nigh unto which is the Garden of Abode. When that which shrouds did enshroud the lote tree, the eye turned not aside nor yet was overbold.

Verily he saw one of the greater revelations of his Lord.

Have you thought upon Al-Lat and Al-'Uzza and Manat, the third, the other?”

If Muslims indeed repeat the Quranic challenge that it is impossible to imitate it, this does not mean that they allow such an imitation. Anyone who proposes a work competing with the Quran undergoes the worst criticism and risks his life. Indeed, there was no lack of Arab intellectuals in pagan Mecca to challenge this inimitable or unsurpassable character of the Quran, even in the very life of Muhammad, who will know how to avenge himself a few years later.

The best known example is Al Nadr Ibn al-Harith. He was a wealthy merchant who traded with al-Hira (Iraq) and Persia from which he would have brought back books. Al Nadr Ibn al-Harith used to recount the Meccans the stories of Great Rustem, of Isfandiyar, and of the Kings of Persia; while boasting that the verses of the Quran reported by Muhammad were not better than his.

Pages 162-163 of The life of Muhammad a translation of Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah by A. Guillaume.

“Al-Nadr b. al-Harith b. `Alqama b. Kalada b. `Abdu Manaf whenever the apostle sat in an assembly and invited people to God, and recited the Quran, and warned the Quraysh of what had happened to former peoples, followed him when he got up and spoke to them about Rustum the Hero and Isfandiyar or the kings of Persia, saying, "By God, Muhammad cannot tell a better story than I and his talk is only of old fables which he has copied as I have."

Many of the verses of the Holy Quran concern him very especially.

Chapter 83 verse 13: " Who, when you read unto him Our revelations, says: (Mere) fables of the men of old ."

Chapter 8 verse 31: " And when Our revelations are recited unto them they say: We have heard. If we wish we can speak the like of this. Lo! this is nothing but fables of the men of old.”

Chapter 6 verse 25: " Of them are some who listen unto thee, but We have placed upon their hearts veils, lest they should understand, and in their ears a deafness. If they saw every token they would not believe therein; to the point that, when they come unto thee to argue with you, the disbelievers say: This is nothing else than fables of the men of old.”

Chapter 45 verse 9: " When he knows anything of Our revelations he makes it a jest.”

Chapter 17 verse 85: " They are asking you concerning the Spirit. Say: The Spirit is by command of my Lord.”

Another opponent having the same moral fiber, that is to say, not convinced by the verses recited by Muhammad in a state of trance, was a man named Uqbah. Here below indeed the circumstances of the revelation of this verse according to the pious Muslims (this is the literary genre called asbab-al-nuzul in Arabic).

The author of Muhammad's first hagiography, Ibn Ishaq, by that means has provided us with some interesting information about the nature of the struggle of ideas in which these two intellectuals were engaged before they perished in the defense of their caravan in 627 at Badr.

Ibn Ishaq indeed mentioned in his biography how the chapter 18 was revealed to Muhammad.

"The Quraysh (the inhabitants of Makkah) sent An-Nadr bin Al-Harith and `Uqbah bin Abi Mu`it to the rabbis in Yathrib/Al-Madinah, and told them: `Ask them about Muhammad, and describe him to them, and tell them what he is saying. They are the people of the first Book, and they have more knowledge of the Prophets than we do.'

So they set out and when they reached Yathrib/Al-Madinah, they asked the rabbis about Muhammad. They described him to them and told them some of what he had said. They added, `You are the people of the Torah and we have come to you so that you can tell us about this companion of ours.'

The rabbis said: Ask him about three things which we will tell you to ask, and if he answers them then he really is a Prophet who has been sent by God; if he does not, then he is saying things that are not true, in which case how you will deal with him will be up to you.

-Ask him about the young men of the cave, what their story was.

-Ask him about a man who traveled a great deal and reached the east and the west of the earth.

-And ask him about the Ruh (soul or spirit) -- what is it ?

If he tells you about these things, then he is well a Prophet, so follow him, but if he does not tell you, then he is a man who is making things up, so deal with him as you see fit.'

So An-Nadr and `Uqbah left and came back to the Quraysh (at Makkah), and said: `O people of Quraysh, we have come to you with a decisive solution which will put an end to the problem between you and Muhammad. The Jewish rabbis told us to ask him about three matters' …. and they told the Quraysh what they were.

Then they came to Muhammad and said, `O Muhammad, tell us'…… and therefore they asked him about the things they had been told to ask.

Muhammad said, I will tell you tomorrow about what you have asked me. But he forgot to say, `If God wills.'

So they went away, and Muhammad stayed for fifteen days without any revelation from God concerning that. There was no apparition of Gabriel.

The people of Makkah started to doubt Muhammad, and said, `He promised to tell us the next day, and now fifteen days have gone by and he has not told us anything in response to the questions we asked.'

Muhammad was, of course, very grieved by what the people of Makkah were saying about him.

Then Gabriel came to him from God with the chapter about the companions of the cave [surah18], which also contained a rebuke for feeling sad about the idolaters. The chapter 18 also told him about the things they had asked him about, the young men and the great traveler, etc.”

Editor’s note. End of our summary of this passage of the Sirat Rasul Allah or Life of Muhammad by Ibn Ishaq. The story of the cave is a little confused reminiscence of the Christian legend of the seven sleepers of Ephesus, the great traveler in question is Dhu'l-Qarneyn, in other words, a reminiscence of the romance of Alexander (the Great) by pseudo-Callisthenes, as to the other chapter in relation with the intellectuals who were members of the opposition to Muhammad, concerned, it is the chapter 17 verse 85.

With regard to the 15-day delay in getting answers to the three questions asked by these two Meccan intellectuals, there are basically three types of reaction.

-Men with an X-type intelligence ( nasty and evil, stupid, racist, ignoramus) as your servant, master builder of this compilation, think that it was the time necessary for Muhammad or his collaborators to gather the documentation necessary for the answers.

-Men with Y-type intelligence (nice and smart, subtle, anti-racists who know) think this delay is due to the fact that God was upset that the traditional expression Inshallah is omitted.

-The reaction of the believing Muslims.This is, moreover, a first proof of Muhammad's veracity. Indeed, if he were not a messenger of God, he would have provided answers to the questions the next day without waiting. But the fact that he was only able to answer a fortnight later, waiting for the divine permission, proves that it was a revelation coming only from God and that Muhammad was not a false prophet.

Al Nadr and Uqbah having had the bad idea a few months later to be caught in the battle of Badr in March 624 (attack of a Meccan caravan by Muhammad with the support of thousands of invisible angels), they were made prisoners. Then executed by order of Muhammad a few days later on the way back to Medina.

Let us point out that Al Nadr was the one who had mocked him in Mecca by saying that his alleged revelations were only fables and that they were less entertaining and instructive than those of the Persian tales.

Finally, let us point that one of the foremost rivals of Muhammad, the great prophet of Central Arabia Musaylimah ibn Thimama ibn Bani Hanifa of Yamama besides in his own Quran made fun of the incredible chapter known as the elephant (sura 105), according to various authors.

"The elephant. What is the elephant? And who shall tell you what is the elephant?

He has a ropy tail and a long trunk. This is a mere trifle of our Lord's creations."

Another verse of Musaylimah, alluded to in Ibn Kathir, where it is described as a riposte to the Quranic chapter 103 (it has a similar rhyme scheme): O hyrax (Wabr), O hyrax! You are only two ears and a chest, and the rest of you is digging and burrowing.

NB. We may doubt the objectivity of the information given the context.

What we have been able to safeguard from the fragments of the Quran of Musaylimah shows us nevertheless that besides prose, of course, he also used much, and like the Quran of the Meccan period of his rival Muhammad, the verses of the saj’ type of the kahana (soothsayers) or of the shu'ara (poets: singular sha'ir).

More seriously, it can be noted that Musaylimah called his god Ar Rahman what means the merciful. It is difficult to know more, all Muslim sources, of course, having caricatured him (we wonder why under these conditions he had begun by controlling more territory than Muhammad before his exile in Yathrib/Madinah: a large part of Central and Eastern Arabia around his haram in Yamama).

Mansur ibn Sarjun (St John of Damascus (676-749) who perfectly understood Arabic since he was bilingual also spoke of the Quoran in his treatise against heresies.

“There are many other extraordinary and quite ridiculous things in this book which he boasts was sent down to him from God. But when we ask: ‘And who is there to testify that God gave him the book? And which of the prophets foretold that such a prophet would rise up?’—they are at a loss. And we remark that Moses received the Law on Mount Sinai, with God appearing in the sight of all the people in cloud, and fire, and darkness, and storm. And we say that all the Prophets from Moses on down foretold the coming of Christ and how Christ God (and incarnate Son of God) was to come and to be crucified and die and rise again, and how He was to be the judge of the living and dead. Then, when we say: ‘How is it that this prophet of yours did not come in the same way, with others bearing witness to him? And how is it that God did not in your presence present this man with the book to which you refer, even as He gave the Law to Moses, with the people looking on and the mountain smoking, so that you, too, might have certainty?’—they answer that God does as He pleases. ‘This,’ we say, ‘We know, but we are asking how the book came down to your prophet.’ Then they reply that the book came down to him while he was asleep. Then we jokingly say to them that, as long as he received the book in his sleep and did not actually sense the operation, then the popular adage applies to him which runs.......

When we ask again: ‘How is it that when he enjoined us in this book of yours not to do anything or receive anything without witnesses, you did not ask him: “First do you show us by witnesses that you are a prophet and that you have come from God, and show us just what Scriptures there are that testify about you”’—they are ashamed and remain silent. [Then we continue:] ‘Although you may not marry a wife without witnesses, or buy, or acquire property; although you neither receive an ass nor possess a beast of burden unwitnessed; and although you do possess both wives and property and asses and so on through witnesses, yet it is only your faith and your scriptures that you hold unsubstantiated by witnesses. For he who handed this down to you has no warranty from any source, nor is there anyone known who testified about him before he came. On the contrary, he received it while he was asleep.’…..

They furthermore accuse us of being idolaters, because we venerate the cross, which they abominate. And we answer them: ‘How is it, then, that you rub yourselves against a stone in your Ka’ba and kiss and embrace it?’ Then some of them say that Abraham had relations with Agar upon it, but others say that he tied the camel to it, when he was going to sacrifice Isaac. And we answer them: ‘Since Scripture says that the mountain was wooded and had trees from which Abraham cut wood for the holocaust and laid it upon Isaac, and then he left the asses behind with the two young men, why talk nonsense? For in that place neither is it thick with trees nor is there passage for asses.’ And they are embarrassed, but they still assert that the stone is Abraham’s. Then we say: ‘Let it be Abraham’s, as you so foolishly say. Then, just because Abraham had relations with a woman on it or tied a camel to it, you are not ashamed to kiss it, yet you blame us for venerating the cross of Christ by which the power of the demons and the deceit of the Devil was destroyed.’ This stone that they talk about is a head of that Aphrodite whom they used to worship and whom they called Khabar. Even to the present day, traces of the carving are visible on it to careful observers.

As has been related, this Mohammed wrote he says that there was a camel from God and that she drank the whole river and could not pass through two mountains, because there was not room enough. There were people in that place, he says, and they used to drink the water on one day, while many ridiculous books, to each one of which he set a title….Then there is the book of The Camel of God. About this camel the camel would drink it on the next. Moreover, by drinking the water she furnished them with nourishment, because she supplied them with milk instead of water. Then, because these men were evil, they rose up, he says, and killed the camel (Holy Quran 11: 64; 54 : 27-28. The story remains only in the state of disjointed fragments in our text).

Editor’s note. Peter DeLaCrau has discovered nothing spectacular about the origins of Islam. The existence at the time of millions of Arab Christians in Jordan in Syria or Iraq, made it possible from the beginning to understand and appreciate (or not) unequivocally the various verses of the

Quran. See on this subject the Risalat al-Kindi or apology of Al-Kindi, an Arabic religious treatise, handed over in Christian circles,

Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al-Kindi is one of the two authors of this two-letter set, one from a Muslim and the other from a Christian, each praising his religion and inviting the other to meet him. The letters are of unequal length, Al-Hashimi contented himself with presenting Islam, while Al-Kindi refutes in the first place the assertions of his correspondent before making a presentation of Christianity.

This correspondence would have taken place at the time of the caliph Al-Ma'mun (813-834). What is known about the open-mindedness of the Caliph does not contradict this assertion.

This Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al-Kindi is visibly (Nestorian?) Christian given his name. This text was translated into Latin in 1142.

Abd al-Masih ibn Ishaq al-Kindi writes in it therefore that the Quran is by no means a proof of Muhammad’s prophetic mission for several reasons.

First of all, it is not a unique book. There are some more eloquent.

The composition and the writing of the Quran are therefore far from being perfect. It is rhymed prose, broken.

Moreover the Quran lacks precision in the words and in the narratives.

The Quran is therefore not a wonderful miracle, according to him, and it is so only for illiterate people, strangers or barbarians.

It is not inimitable. Others have produced similar works (still according to Al Kindi) but have not had the support that had Muhammad.

And finally, the mastery of the Arabic language was not a privilege of the Quraysh (the tribe of Muhammad ), the Kindi were also powerful men great orators and eloquent poets.

As for the Quran itself, Al Kindi's answer begins in this way.

“We come now to what you regard as your stronghold, to wit, the Book which is in your hands. Your argument is that the narratives therein of the prophets and the Messiah prove that it was revealed by God, because your Master was unlearned, and could have no knowledge of the same excepting by way of inspiration. You say that ‘neither Man nor Genius could produce the like thereof’; and, 'If you be in doubt as to that which We have revealed unto our servant, then bring a Sura the like thereof, and call your witnesses other than the Lord, if you be true men.’ And, yet again, ‘If We had sent down this Coran unto a mountain, you would see it humbling itself, and cleaving asunder, from fear of the Lord etc.’ This in your view is the main evidence of your Master's claim, ranking with the miracle of the Red Sea, the Staying of the Sun in the sky, the Raising of the Dead, and other wonderful works by the Prophets of old or the Messiah. By my life! This argument indeed hath deceived many. But it is a weak and hollow subterfuge. The answer is near at hand, and not far off, as I will show thee. The disclosure may be bitter, but it will be wholesome in the end.”

Al Kindi goes on by adding that " All that I have said (about the Quran) is drawn from your own authorities and no argument have I advanced but what is based on evidence accepted by yourselves. And in proof thereof, we have the Quran itself, which is a confused heap with neither system nor order. The sense, moreover, consists not with itself but throughout one passage is contradicted by another. Now, what could betray greater ignorance than to bring forward such a book as an evidence of Apostleship, and to put it on a par with the miracles of Moses and Jesus! Surely no one with a grain of sense would dream of it; much less should we who are versed in history and philosophy, be moved by such deceptive reasoning… And the result of all this is patent to you who hast read the Scriptures, and see how in thy book histories are all jumbled together and intermingled; an evidence that many different hands have been at work therein, and caused discrepancies, adding to the text, or cutting out there from whatever they liked or disliked…..Then followed the business of Hajjâj ibn Yûsuf, who gathered together every single copy he could lay hold of, and caused to be omitted from the text a great many passages.

....... Six copies of the text thus revised were distributed to Egypt, Syria, Medina, Mecca, Kufa, and Bussora. After that he called in and destroyed all the preceding copies, even as Othman had done before him in his days.”

Closer to us there was the case of al-Mutanabbi. Abū l-Tayyib Ahmad ibn al-Husayn known as al-Mutanabbi (born in 915, died in 965) is considered to be the greatest Arab poet of all time, the one who was able to master at the best the Arabic language and its machinery.

He was born in the present Iraq, in the town of Kufa. His father was a water bearer but later served as a professional panegyrist. He was brought up in a Bedouin environment of Shiite obedience, what gave him a solid religious background. In 924, after a Qarmatian attack in Kufa, he went to live in the desert with them. When he was seventeen years old he declared himself a prophet too, claimed to be able to make a Quran similar to that of Muhamad, and then fomented a Qarmatian rebellion against Latakia in Syria. The attempt failed and he was imprisoned in Homs. It was then that he was given the nickname al-Mutannabi which means "he who calls himself a prophet." He was released only in 935 after having shown an apparently sincere repentance. In 948 he entered the service of the emir Ali Sayf al-Dawla and fell in love with his sister Khawla. Mutannabi left his court after a violent dispute which opposed him to the grammarian Khalawaih, who had not hesitated to slap him before the emir himself. In 957 he joined another princely court, that of the Ikshids, and wrote poems for Abu al-Misk Kafur. He was afterwards appointed governor of Sidon, but because of his satirical poems against the prince forced as soon as 961 to leave the region. He then set out for Shiraz in Iran, where he put himself in the service of the Prince 'Adud al-Dawla. He died accidentally when he was 41 years old, after being attacked by brigands in the Iraqi desert.

1) That Muhammad was analphabetic is a legend! As a businessman (caravan driver), he had to know at least how to sign and do basic calculations. This legend arose out of a misunderstanding of the Arabic word ummi (singular) ummiyun (plural) which does not designate a person or a people who can neither read nor write BUT A PEOPLE WITHOUT SCRIPTURES AS THOSE OF THE JEWS OR CHRISTIANS. A NOT JEWISH NOR CHRISTIAN THEREFORE GENTILE MAN OR A PEOPLE. And in any case if Muhammad was analphabetic, there was not missing in his entourage of men knowing how to read and write and able to overcome this lacuna for him.

TOLERANT VERSES IN QURAN.

By tolerant verse we mean the verses that do not call for the immediate constraint or use of the force as soon as this world because it goes without saying that in the Quran, as in the Gospels, the threat of a painful lot in the other world (hell) is constantly raised as a simplistic alternative to heaven.

In 2007, the rector of the Great mosque in Paris published a very distributed small book (it was an important publishing house) entitled "The Tolerant Quran."

The fact is that there are indeed verses of the Quran which can be called tolerant or positive (out of context!) Some verses that encourage forgiveness, generosity and even a conciliatory attitude towards non-Muslims!

Verse 256 of chapter 2 is one of the most frequently quoted we wonder why. It appears in a Medinan sura but it is perhaps a Meccan verse. In short, it does not matter because it is in any case abrogated by the verses of the sword (9:5) and the like (9:29, neither forgetting 8:39 nor 47:4).

Text: "There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error.”

Let us note that its meaning is discussed because there is no evidence that this applies to other religions. It may simply mean "no constraint in ... Muslim worship."

Verse 63 of chapter 4. Text: "Those are they, the secrets of whose hearts God knows……admonish them, and address them in plain terms about their souls.

Verse concerning the "hypocrites."

Verse 32 of chapter 5. Text: "We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever kills a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind.”

To be sure that this verse truly carries a message of tolerance, it would be necessary to know whether the "war upon God and his messenger" includes the refusal to convert, obey or pay the jizya (tax for people f the book = Christians and Jews).

Verse 54 chapter 6. Text. "Your Lord has prescribed mercy to Himself. And whosoever of you has done evil through ignorance, and then repents ......... He is he that forgives. "

It is important before you consider repenting of what harm it is.

Verse 108, chapter 6. Text: "Revile not those unto whom they pray beside God lest they wrongfully revile God ….Thus unto every nation have We made their deed seem fair.”

Seem fair ... what also explains this worship of dulia or hyperdulia paid to others than God. ... If even God misleads us now, where are we going ...

Verse 151 chapter 6. Text: "Slay not the life which God hath made sacred, save in the course of justice. This He has commanded you.”

To know of which life it is a question in this verse, we must refer to the following hadith.

“Abu Hamza, what makes a person’s life or possessions sacred? If a person gives witness that there is but one god, God, and if he prays like we do and faces Mecca, and if he obeys our dietary commands, then he is a Muslim and has the same entitlements and obligations as the rest of us” (Bukhari).

Everything therefore lies in the restriction (taqiyya) "in the course of justice" because the Shariah provides for the death penalty for any Muslim who apostatizes or commits adultery. The law of Talion also allows the murder in compensation of a murder (2:178). Finally, verses 9, 5 and 9, 29 authorize the murder of those who do not believe in God nor in the "Last Judgment" ...

Verse 164 chapter 6. Text: "Shall I seek another than God for Lord, when He is Lord of all things ? Each soul earns only on its own account, nor does any laden bear another's load.”

There are many instances of collective punishment from God, including in the Old Testament (destruction of peoples and cities).

Verse 60, chapter 9. "The alms are only for the poor and the needy, those who collect them, those whose hearts are to be reconciled, to free the captives and the debtors, for the cause of God, and (for) the wayfarer.”

Some hearts to be reconciled….conversions got by money are better, of course, than conversions got by the use of force, but finally THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN HAS STILL MORE NOBILITY OF SOUL.

Verse 99 chapter 10. Text: "And if your Lord willed, all who are in the earth would have believed together. Would you compel men until they are believers ?”

Answer yes, it is, according to the famous verses of the sword (8:39,9: 5,9:29,47:4) as well as the very life of Muhammad.

Verse 3 chapter 15. Text: "Let them eat and enjoy life, they will come to know!”

This looks like the threat of a punishment in the other world .... or in this one.

Verse 88, chapter 15. Text: "Strain not your eyes towards that which We cause some wedded pairs among them to enjoin temporarily, and do not be grieved on their account, and lower your wing only for the believers.”

Same principle. This "temporarily" is not very Zen.

Verse 82 chapter 16. Text: "Thy duty is but plain conveyance (of the message).

No, it is not, according to the famous verses of the sword already mentioned ( 8:39,9:5,9:29, 47:4) and the very life of Muhammad.

Verse 119 chapter 16. Text: "Your Lord - for those who do evil in ignorance and afterwards repent and amend….is afterwards indeed Forgiving, Merciful.”

Same thing as for verse 54 chapter 6, it is important before you consider repenting about it to know of what evil it is a question.

Verse 126 chapter 16. Text: "If you punish, then punish with the like of that wherewith you were afflicted. But if you endure patiently, verily it is better.”

N.B.What comes to the mind of God first is still the law of retaliation.

Verse 15, chapter 17. Text: "Whosoever goes right, it is only for (the good of) his own soul that he goes right, and whosoever errs, errs only to its hurt. No laden soul can bear another's load, We never punish until we have sent a messenger.”

But you must read the following verse: the absolute horror, the genocide, the ancient testament : "And when We would destroy a township We send commandment to its folk who live at ease, and afterwards they commit abomination therein….and we annihilate it with complete annihilation."

Verse 33, chapter 17. Text: "Slay not the life which God hath forbidden save with right. Whosoever is slain wrongfully, We have given power [to avenge him] unto his heir.”

The same remark as for verse 151 chapter 6. What does wrongfully" mean?

Verse 130, chapter 20. Text: "Bear with what they say.”

Perfect ! Let us speak no longer of blasphemy then!

Verse 63, chapter 25. Text: "The servants of the Beneficent are they who walk modestly, and when the foolish ones address them answer: Peace;

Verse 54, chapter 28. Text: "These will be given their reward twice over, because they are steadfast and repel evil with good, and spend of that wherewith We have provided them.”

Verse 55, chapter 28. Text: "And when they hear vanity they withdraw from it and say: Unto us our works and unto you your works. Peace be unto you! We do not desire the ignorant.”

These verses are undoubtedly tolerant, although not very polite towards the "ignorant" (probably the non-Muslims) and somewhat interested (double reward in the other world). But it's better than taking out his sword.

Verse 46, chapter 29. Text: "Argue not with the People of the Scripture unless it be in (a way) that is better, save with such of them as do wrong; and say: We believe in that which hath been revealed unto us and revealed unto you; our God and your God is One, and unto Him we surrender.”

The first remark: who are those "who do wrong," what means "wrong" in this case?

To know if this verse is tolerant, we must first know what the Quran understands through "wrong." The verses 6:21 and 18: 57 say clearly that they are the unbelievers who do wrong. This verse is therefore abrogated by 9: 30 which calls for the annihilation of the Christians who say that Jesus is the son of God and of the Jews who say that it is Uzayr (Ezra ???) who is the son of God.

Second remark: that Alllah, the supreme god of the Meccan pantheon, is the god of Abraham of Isaac and Jacob, as well as the Trine god of the Christians asks the question to know what is .... a God ?

Verse 18, chapter 35. Text: " No burdened soul can bear another's burden, and if one heavy laden cries for (help with) his load, nothing of it will be lifted even though he (unto whom he cries) be of kin. You warn only those who fear their Lord in secret.”

So no intercession but no collective responsibility either, especially centuries later!

Verse 15, chapter 39. Text: " Then worship what you will beside Him. On the Day of Resurrection the losers will be those, etc.”

The end of the verse contradicts verses 6:164 and 35:18 about errors assumed by others other than the one who committed them and returns to the principle of collective responsibility.

Verse 34, chapter 41. Text: " The good deed and the evil deed are not alike. Repel the evil deed with one which is better, then lo! he, between whom and the there was enmity (will become) as though he was a bosom friend. But none is granted it save those who are steadfast.”

Perfect ! On the other hand, the rest of the sura is simplistic.

Verse 14, chapter 45. Text: " Tell those who believe to forgive those who do not hope for the days of God; in order that He may requite folk what they used to earn!”

Again the contradictory principle of collective punishment. Even a god of love determined to punish by eternal damnation all skepticism about life after death should know that there are in all peoples,

children, mentally handicapped persons, mentally ill and old people suffering from senility, who are not or are no longer able to understand the concept of life after death.

Verse 45, chapter 50. Text: " We are Best Aware of what they say, and thou art in no wise a compeller over them.”

Okay ! But hell still waits for unbelievers!

Verse 8, chapter 60. " God forbids you not those who did not warn against you on account of religion and drove you not out from your homes.”

We are glad to hear it! Let us note that a few lines above it is a question about enmity from those who follow Abraham and that a few lines after the Muslim is advised not to have such people (unbelievers) as masters or patrons.

Verse 10, chapter 73. Text: " And bear with patience what they utter, and part from them with a fair leave-taking.”

It is difficult to know precisely of which non-Muslims it is question, but God alone [if He exists] will judge! Perfect !

Verse 45, chapter 79. Text: " You are but a warner unto him who fears it [the last judgment].

The incontestably Meccan sura 109 (we feel well that Muhammad had not yet come to power and that he was only in opposition).

" I do not worship that which you worship;

Nor worship you that which I worship.

And I shall not worship that which you worship.

Nor will you worship that which I worship.

Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion.”

SATANIC VERSES.

The problem is that this apparently tolerant Sura 109 is undoubtedly linked to the Gharaniq period , that is to say when Muhammad [or God] thought it more judicious to reach a kind of compromise with his Meccan fellow countrymen concerning the worships to be paid to Allat, al-'Uzza and al-Manat (Quran 53: 19-20) as intermediaries (angels or demons). This indicates more exactly the end of the attempt at syncretism in question and the passage to another essay of modus vivendi : the life in separate communities (Muhammad renounces to convert his fellow countrymen to Judeo-Christianity by the force of his word alone) what constituted a veritable turning point in the birth of Islam (615-619, break of commercial and matrimonial relations, emigration to Ethiopia).

Reminder of the facts

The question of "satanic verses" has long been dealt with by the Orientalists who have written on the subject: Montgomery Watt (1958), closer to us Salman Rushdie, and many others.

Obviously, there can be no certainty in such matters. The only clues are the insistence of the Arab authors to relate either the totality of the narrative or some craps (such as the mention of an agreement of the Meccans to Islam followed by a withdrawal) or the testimony to a relation between this episode and the emigration in Abyssinia of some of the early Muslims (but this emigration is sometimes placed after the incident, more often before).

The theological impact of this incident is nevertheless very important, since this interference of the Devil on the sacred text evidently undermines the dogma of the infallibility of Muhammad (isma) and of the Quran (i’jaz).

The Muslim tradition therefore has endeavored to minimize or even to deny the incident: what was also a way of handing it down.

Two passages of the Quran are usually related to this question: the first is the chapter of the Star, where the disputed verses were, but where there remains a trace of the mention in positive words of the three goddesses (gharaniq); the second is the chapter of the Pilgrimage, where mention is made of the intervention of God in order to repair the mistake due to Satan.

Chapter 53.

19 Have you thought upon al-Lat and al-'Uzza

20 and Manat, the third, the other ?

20 a These are the exalted cranes goddesses

20 b Whose intercession is to be hoped for.

21 Do you have the Male and the Female?

... ..

23 They are but names which you have named, you and your fathers, for which God hath revealed no warrant, etc….

Chapter 22: 51-52.

It is always in the commentary to this passage that the episode of the satanic verses is reported, and never in its genuine place (53, 19-20): a passage that is understood as having come to repair the "misstep" of Muhammad.

52. “Never did We send a Messenger or a Prophet but that whenever he had a desire, Satan interfered with that desire. But God abrogates the interference of Satan and strengthens His Signs. God is All-Knowing, All-Wise.”

A more literal translation would say:

"We have never sent before you either an apostle or a prophet without, when he desired something- ida tamanna - the devil had interfered through his desires -umniyati-hi-“.

The interpretation of this term "umniya" was at the heart of the Islamic apologetics aimed at safeguarding the isma of Muhammad (his sinlessness and infallibility) because what proves that there are no other passages in the Quran more inspired by the personal desires of Muhammad than by the divine word? And one cannot help but think of his marriage with Zenobia wife of his adopted son Zayd.

Chapter 33, verse 37: “O Muhammad, when you said unto him on whom God hath conferred favor and you have conferred favor: Keep your wife to you, and fear God. And you did hide in your mind that which God was to bring to light, and you did fear mankind whereas God has a better right that you should fear Him. So when Zayd had performed that necessary formality (of divorce) from her, We gave her unto thee in marriage, so that (henceforth) there may be no sin for believers in respect of wives of their adopted sons, when the latter have performed the necessary formality (of release) from them. The commandment of God must be fulfilled ."

It was besides the opinion of Aisha, Muhammad’s favorite wife, about the desires in question, according to the hadith reported by Bukhari: " O Prophet, I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires” (Saheeh Bukhari, book 60, Hadith 311).

Tabari, who died in 923, reported most of the versions of the event, which were later taken over by the majority of commentators, including in their infantilism and puerility (sadness, interference of the devil, then of the good god who mothers his prophet, etc. what psychologically childish universe that all this!)

History of the Prophets and Kings.The prophet was eager for the welfare of his people, desiring to win them to him by any means he could. It has been reported that he longed (tamanna) for a way to win them, and part of what he did to that end is what Ibn Humayd told me, from Salama, from Muhammad ibn Ishaq….

“When the prophet saw his people turning away from him, and was tormented by their distancing themselves from what he had brought to them from God, he longed in himself (tamanna) for something to come to him from God which would draw him close to them. With his love for his people and his eagerness for them, it would gladden him if some of the hard things he had found in dealing with them could be alleviated. He pondered this in himself, longed for it (tamanna), and desired it. Then God sent down the revelation. 'By the star when it sets! Your fellow man has not erred or gone astray, and does not speak from mere fancy (chapter 53, An Najm). When he reached God's words, "Have you seen al-Lāt and al-'Uzzā and Manāt, the third, the other?' (verses 53:19-20) Satan cast upon his tongue, because of what he had pondered in himself and longed (yatamanna) to bring to his people, 'These are the high-flying cranes (goddesses) and their intercession is to be hoped for.' ("tilka al-gharaniq al-'ula wa inna shafa'ata-hunna turtadha") When Quraysh heard that, they rejoiced. What he had said about their gods pleased and delighted them, and they gave ear to him. The Believers trusted in their prophet with respect to what he brought them from their Lord: they did not suspect any slip, delusion or error. When he came to the prostration and finished the chapter, he prostrated and the Muslims followed their prophet in it, having faith in what he brought them and obeying his command. Those unbelievers (mushrikun) of Quraysh and others who were in the mosque also prostrated on account of what they had heard him say about their gods. In the whole mosque, there was no believer or unbeliever (kafir) who did not prostrate. Only al-Walīd bin al-Mughīra, who was an aged sir and could not make prostration, scooped up in his hand some of the soil from the valley of Mecca [and pressed it to his forehead]. Then everybody dispersed from the mosque.

Quraysh went out and were delighted by what they had heard of the way in which he spoke of their gods. They were saying, 'Muhammad has referred to our gods most favorably. In what he has recited he said that they are "high-flying cranes (goddesses) whose intercession is to be hoped for."'

Those followers of the Prophet who had emigrated to the land of Abyssinia heard about the affair of the prostration, and it was reported to them that Quraysh had accepted Islam. Some men among them decided to return while others remained behind.

Gabriel came to the Prophet and said, 'O Muhammad, what have you done! You have recited to the people something which I have not brought you from God, and you have spoken what He did not say to you.'

At that the Prophet was mightily saddened and greatly feared God. But God, of His mercy, sent him a revelation, comforting him and diminishing the magnitude of what had happened. God told him that there had never been a previous prophet or apostle who had longed (tamanna) just as Muhammad had longed (tamanna), and desired just as Muhammad had desired, but that Satan had cast (alqa fi umniyati-hi) into his longing just as he had cast onto the tongue of Muhammad. But God abrogates what Satan has cast, and puts His verses in proper order. That is, you are just like other prophets and apostles.'

And God revealed the surah: 'We never sent any apostle or prophet before you but that, when he longed, Satan cast into his longing. But God abrogates what Satan casts in, and then God puts His verses in proper order, for God is all-knowing and wise.' (22:52).

So God drove out the sadness from His prophet and gave him security against what he feared. He abrogated what Satan had cast upon his tongue in referring to their gods: 'They are the high-flying cranes whose intercession is accepted.' [Replacing those words] when Allāt, al-'Uzzā and Manāt the third, the other are mentioned,

with the words of God 'Should you have males and He females as offspring! That, indeed, would be an unfair division. They are only names which you and your fathers have given them'… as far as 'As many as are the angels in heaven, their intercession shall be of no avail unless after God has permitted it to whom He pleases and accepts' [Q.53:21-26]. Meaning, how can the intercession of their gods be of any avail with Him?

When there had come from God the words which abrogated what Satan had cast on to the tongue of His prophet, Quraysh said, 'Muhammad has gone back on what he said about the status of our gods relative to God, changed it and brought something else,' for the two phrases which Satan had cast on to the tongue of the Prophet had found a place in the mouth of every polytheist. They, therefore,

increased in their evil and in their oppression of everyone among them who had accepted Islam and followed the Prophet.

Editor’s note. In short they felt like they had been betrayed.

The band of the Prophet's followers who had left the land of Abyssinia on account of the report that the people of Mecca had accepted Islam when they prostrated together with the Prophet drew near. But when they approached Mecca, they heard that the talk about the acceptance of Islam by the people of Mecca was wrong. Therefore, they only entered Mecca in secret or after having obtained a promise of protection.

* We cannot help thinking of the famous three cranes of the Galatian tradition even if this cannot have historical connection. This symbolism of the crane comes from the fact that some varieties in Anatolia or Mongolia can fly very high, even over the Himalayas to spend the winter in India, there be then very close to the god chairing in the heavens. What emerges from the text in any case is that these goddesses are indeed equated with intermediate beings of the type "angels."

THE PROBLEM OF THE CONTRADICTORY

OR ABROGATING VERSES (NASIKH) IN THE QURAN.

And…

"He has already revealed unto you in the Scripture that, when you hear the revelations of God rejected and derided (you) do not sit with them (who disbelieve and mock) until they engage in some other conversation. Lo! in that case (if you stayed) you would be like unto them. Lo! God will gather hypocrites and disbelievers, all together, into hell” (verse 140, chapter 4: the women).

Let the pious Muslim, however, forgive in advance what will follow, and which, alas, falls under the ban of God's prohibition against any discussion or dialogue. For in the pages that come, we shall discuss the verses of the Quran: their meaning, their relevance, their adequacy, their philosophical scientific or ethical value. How can we do otherwise?

No reader who is the slightest bit attentive can fail to notice the many contradictory verses of the Quran. The existence in the Quran of many contradictions is...

-Without great importance from the literary point of view (these are questions of style of poetry ....)

- Having serious importance in the doctrinal point of view but in what concerns the lot of the soul after the death of the body only: hell or heaven?

-Having serious importance in present life when they are dictates that is to say commands such as "do this" or "do not do that"! Especially as regards the lesser jihad.

And dictates in the Quran God knows that there are many, more than parables in the four gospels.

The first Muslims therefore had to decide. And logically, as in the case of simple human laws, they considered that the latter annulled or made null and void or abrogated the previous ones in case of contradiction.

The ulama therefore were at first thrown when it turned to be necessary to determine the verses to be applied.

In order to get themselves out of this embarrassment, and following the humiliating affair of the satanic verses, commentators have developed the doctrine of abrogation, which essentially states that in case of disagreement the verses revealed later take precedence over the earlier verses.

Other sacred writings contain contradictions, of course, but the Quran is the only book whose commentators have built a whole doctrine to explain the very visible differences that appear from one injunction to another. In order to know which verses abrogated what others, there appeared a whole doctrine devoted to the chronology of the Quranic verses (it is called an-Nasikh wa'l Mansukh, the abrogating and the abrogated).

But why are there contradictions, so many contradictions, in the Quran?

The first answer that spontaneously comes to mind is "because that book is by no means divine, dictated by God willed by God inspired by God" or (variant) "because this book was wholly or partially inspired by the devil ." That would be too simplistic reasoning, to reason somewhat in a Jewish Christian way.

The Ulama themselves preferred to develop the theory of the uncreated Quran, heavenly tablets existing from immemorial time beside God and containing (carefully written in Arabic) everything, absolutely everything. The human Quran in our possession since Muhammad is only a poor reflection, very partial, of this heavenly Quran. The entity appeared to the young Mohammad (he was 40 years old) and later, much later, equated with the archangel Gabriel, only read extracts from it to Muhammad son of Amina so that he then recites them to the members of his tribe.

-The second answer that comes to mind is "because this book, apart from the initial spontaneous visions of the young Muhammad, was made of composite elements borrowed over several years from various Judeo-Christian and other sources, but equally scattered (Alexander romance with Dhul Qarnayn , Arabic legends), never having been the subject of a general reflection.

-The third answer that comes to mind is "because this book in its final state reflects the evolution of the life of its author, as well as its very human tactical reversal, Muhammad son of Amina, or those of his entourage.”

See in particular the case of the satanic verses.

-The fourth answer that comes to mind with respect to verses that are relatively tolerant towards the other religions and the famous verses of the sword, of the fight, or of the lesser jihad, which command the believers to fight all non-Muslims until their conversion or, at least, their submission to Islam (8:39, 9:5, 9:29, 47:4); is that in the early years of Islam, Muhammad and his community being far fewer than the non-Muslim while living beside them in Mecca, a message of peace and coexistence was on the agenda. But after the Muslims emigrated to Yathrib/Medina in 622 and got military power, the verses urging them to take the offensive were slowly "revealed" in accordance with the growing capacities of Islam. The growing force of Muslims is therefore the only parameter explaining this gradual change of policy.

According to Father Zakaria Botros, some evidence suggests that Muhammad may have been the first to use the notion of abrogation.

“Abu-Imama told me ....that a group of the prophet's followers told him that one of them wake up in the middle of the night wishing to recite a chapter of Quran he had memorized , he couldn't remember any of its verses except " in the name of God the most gracious, most merciful" so he came to the prophet in the morning asking him about that chapter, others also came to him concerning the same matter, they all asked him, then he remained silent for an hour ,then replied them saying " that was abrogated yesterday"(Ibn Al-Jawzi: Nawasikh al Quran, the abrogates of the Quran, page 589).

The maneuver had already been well understood by the Quraysh in Mecca of that time, remained skeptical about Muhammad or members of his opponents, since they said…

" And when We put a revelation in place of (another) revelation, - and God knows best what He reveals - they say: Lo! you are but inventing”(chapter 16 "The Bee" verse 101).

The difficulty was solved by Muslim exegetes and theologians. The principle of the abrogating verse (nasikh) and of the abrogated verse (mansukh) appears indeed in the Quran itself....

Chapter 2 ("The cow"), verse 106: " Nothing of our revelation (even a single verse) do we abrogate or cause be forgotten, but we bring (in place) one better or the like thereof. Know you not that God is Able to do all things.

Chapter 13 ("The thunder") verse 39: " God effaces what He will, and establishes (what He will), and with Him is the (Mother) source of the Book.”

As we have had the opportunity with the case of the three gharaniq (satanic verses, see chapter 53 verses 19-21) Muslim theology to defend the dogma of the isma of Muhammad , has been gradually brought to develop the notion of verses abrogated by new verses known as abrogating (nasikh).

1) The 114 chapters of the Quran are supposed to have been revealed over a period of 23 years: 13 years in Mecca and 10 years in Yathrib/Medina. Unlike the Medinan suras (where most of the violent and intolerant verses are found), the Meccan suras correspond to a time when Muslims were only a handful and had no military or political power to impose their doctrine . The Muslim calendar begins in 622, that is to say with the hegira (departure of the Muslims to Yathrib/Medina).

2) They are not classified in chronological order, but in approximate reverse order of length (except the first which is a Jewish-Christian prayer), in order to facilitate memorization and recitations ("recitation" is the exact translation of the word "Quran"). Here is the order in which the suras should be read to get a better idea of their chronology: Medinan suras: 2, 8, 3, 33, 60, 4, 99, 57, 47, 13, 55, 76, 65, 98, 59, 24, 22, 63, 58, 49, 66, 64, 61, 62, 48, 5, 9, 110.

3) When two verses contradict each other, the last revealed verse abrogates (removes) the first revealed verse. Hence the importance in Islam of whether a verse can be considered as Meccan, that is revealed to Muhammad during his life in Mecca or Medinan, that is revealed to Muhammad at the end of his life while he was governing Yathrib / Medina. This principle, founded on chronology, belongs to elementary common sense, that common sense which is so lacking in our days in the West.

There are several categories of verses that have been abrogated.

-There are first to begin, of course, the case of the famous satanic verses: verses which do not have or have no longer normative value, and of which it is vigorously disputed that they ever existed.

Here are the facts, set out by Ibn Warraq in his book "Why I am not a Muslim."

Quran 53: 1-20.

" By The Star when it sets, your fellow man does not err, nor is deceived; nor does he speak of (his own) desire. It is nothing save an inspiration that is inspired, which one of mighty powers hath taught him, one vigorous and he grew clear to view when he was on the uppermost horizon. Then he drew nigh and came down till he was (distant) two bows' length or even nearer, and He revealed unto His servant that which He revealed. The heart did not lie (in seeing) what it saw.

53:12 Will you then dispute with him concerning what he sees ? And verily he saw him yet another time by the late tree of the utmost boundary, nigh unto which is the Garden of Abode. When that which shroudeth did enshroud the late tree, the eye did not turn aside nor yet was overbold.

Have you thought upon Al-Lat and Al-'Uzza and Manat, the third, the other ?

It was then that Muhammad would have pronounced the famous "satanic verses":

20 a:These are the high-flying cranes (goddesses).

20 b: Whose intercession is to be hoped for.

This episode has always embarrassed the Muslims, who have the greatest difficulty in believing that Muhammad could have made such a concession. However, it is impossible to ignore it if we accept the authenticity of the Muslim documents evoking this episode. It seems unthinkable that such a story could have been invented by a Muslim as devout as Tabari, or that he could have accepted it from a dubious source.

Now, if this sentence has been well pronounced by Muhammad, as everything seems to show it, the question is why? The enemies of nascent Islam could, of course, consciously participate in the misrepresentation of the revealed word, what the Quran states in the verses (3: 71-72); But it is something quite different from this, since the change in question, according to tradition, would be an act of the Devil having assumed the appearance of the Archangel Gabriel. Obviously, it cannot be a sudden failure of Muhammad. On the contrary, he has maneuvered or implemented his marketing campaign in order to convert the Meccans to Judeo-Christianity.

When Mahomet will go back later on these declarations, let us say "with a little too open or too positive secularity," to apologize for it; He will make God say (chapter 22, chapter of the pilgrimage, verse 52): Never sent We a prophet or an apostle before thee but when He recited (the message) Satan proposed (opposition) in respect of that which he recited thereof. But God abolishes that which Satan * proposes”.

WHAT CAN WE RETAIN FROM THIS WHOLE HISTORY OF CRANE GODDESSES?

The hypothesis coming to mind immediately is that of an initiative of Muhammad intended to calm his fellow men. A compromise in a way, a synthesis of the principles that Christian theology develops about angels and the Blessed Virgin. Weakened and worried by the departure in exile in Ethiopia of some of his faithful (his hard core) or in all sincerity, Muhammad would have found it wise to pause in his iconoclastic temptations; and to reaffirm to the Meccans that he still considered well the three great goddesses in question to be valid hypostases of the higher God, a little like angels or saints. Considering the balance of power of the time, Muhammad had no choice but to tolerate other religions and other gods. The famous sura 109 and its conclusion, " Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion" also goes in this direction.

- Then the verses abrogated as in their precepts that as in their writing or recitation. In other words, these are verses that have disappeared although they have been revealed to Muhammad. They no longer appear in the Quran, but are only mentioned by some hadiths. There are therefore verses for the Muslim theologians which have disappeared from the Quran and therefore are never recited again, but which nevertheless keep nevertheless all their normative value.

Example: the stoning of adulterous men and women.

The Sahih Bukhari, the book most trusted after Quran by most Muslims, has several hadiths regarding stoning. For example.

Narrated Ibn 'Abbas: 'Umar said, "I am afraid that after a long time has passed, people may say, "We do not find the Verses of the Rajam (stoning to death) in the Holy Book," and consequently

they may go astray by leaving an obligation that God has revealed. Lo! I confirm therefore that the penalty of Rajam be inflicted on him who commits illegal sexual intercourse, if he is already married and the crime is proved by witnesses or pregnancy or confession." Sufyan added, "I have memorized this narration in this way." 'Umar added, "Surely God's Apostle carried out the penalty of Rajam, and so did we after him."

Shahih Bukhari. Volume 8, Book 82, Hadith 817.

According to Ibn Abbas, the punishment of the stoning was to be inflicted to any married person (male & female), who commits illegal sexual intercourse, if the required evidence was available or there was a conception or confession. And then we used to recite among the verses in God’s Book: 'O people! Do not claim to be the offspring of other than your fathers, as it is disbelief on your part that you claim to be the offspring of other than your real father.”

Thank God or Devil, this divine verse has been abrogated or even removed from the Holy Book.

- Finally, the last but not least, the verses which are preserved in the text of the Quran, but which have no longer any normative value.

In other words, such verses are considered to be invalid and their teaching worthless, although still listed in the Quran. Case of the few "tolerant" verses of the Meccan ? Medinan period? of Muhammad and particularly of the famous verse which are read so: " There is no compulsion in religion" (verse 256 chapter 2: the cow); abrogated by the not less famous verses of the sword, fight and lesser little jihad. Namely the verses 39 of chapter 8, 5 of chapter 9, 29 of Chapter 9, 4 of chapter 47.

* So that there can be no doubt and no jealous, let us point out that, as far as we are concerned, we consider the whole Old Testament part of the Bible as properly satanic (inspired by the Devil or the demiurge).

THE ABROGATED VERSES TAQIYYA.

In order to fully understand the scientology of the circumstances of the revelation (asbab al nuzul) and abrogated or abrogating, it is important to know the four following sciences: the clear and ambiguous: (muhkem / mutashabih), Medinan and Meccan, general and particular, the correspondence between verses.

This point of Islamic theology known under the names of "naskh" and “mansukh": can be defined as the operation which consist of abrogating a precept through the means of " a religious argument and of replacing it with another one.

In order to better understand the reason for this type of abrogation, it is also important to point out that the Quran was revealed in stages according to the events and circumstances prevailing in the time of Muhammad to make easier to the first Muslims the transition between their pre-Islamic habits and practices and the noble way brought by the Quran (sic).

This gradual revelation was therefore intended to form the character of the new Muslims, in order to prepare them to accept the divine precepts which were revealed successively. Thus, throughout the period of the Revelation, with the evolution of the way of life, mentality and context, certain revealed commandments have been abrogated and replaced by commands more connected with the new situation of Muslims.

In Islamic theology, therefore, the challenge is to determine which verses are abrogated and which ones are not. In theory, the most recent abrogate the oldest dealing with the same subject. However, the order of the verses as transcribed in the Uthmanian corpus is not the chronological order of their revelation. So the debate about the order of the revelation of the verses becomes a major issue in Islamic theology.

It is difficult to draw up a complete list of the abrogated verses, as this varies according to the authors.

Ibn Khuzyamh's treatise An-Nasikh -wal-Mansukh considers that 113 verses or ayah are abrogated by the verse of the sword (9: 5), and 9 verses are abrogated by the verse of the fight (9: 29).

Here are a few other examples.

Verse 3, chapter 2. " Who believe in the Unseen, and establish worship, and spend of that We have bestowed upon them… These are the successful.”

Abrogated by verse 103 chapter 9.

“Take alms of their wealth, wherewith you may purify them and may make them grow.”

Verse 62 chapter 2: “Those who believe and those who are Jews, and Christians, and Sabians - whoever believes in God and the Last Day and does right - surely their reward is with their Lord, and there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve.”

Abrogated by verse 85 chapter 3. " And whosoever seeks as religion other than the Surrender (to God) it will not be accepted from him, and he will be a loser in the Hereafter.”

Verse 83, chapter 2. " We made a covenant with the Children of Israel (saying): Worship none save God (only), and be good to parents and to kindred and to orphans and the needy, and speak kindly to mankind; and establish worship and pay the poor due.”

Abrogated by verse 5 of chapter 9 (the verse of the sword).

Verse 109 chapter 2. " Many of the people of the Scripture long to make you disbelievers after your belief, through envy on their own account, after the truth hath become manifest unto them. Forgive and be indulgent (towards them)”.

Abrogated by verse 29 of chapter 9 (the verse of the fight).

Verse 115 chapter 2. " Unto God belong the East and the West, and whithersoever you turn, there is God's Countenance. Lo! God is All-Embracing, All-Knowing .”

A verse full of common sense abrogated by verse 144 of chapter 2. "We have seen the turning of thy face to heaven. And now verily We shall make the turn (in prayer) towards a qiblah which is dear to you. So turn your face towards the Inviolable Place of Worship, and you, wheresoever you may be, turn your faces towards it.”

Verse 139 chapter 2. "Dispute you with us concerning God when He is our Lord and your Lord ? Ours are our works and yours your works.”

Abrogated by verse 5 of chapter 9 (the verse of the sword).

Verse 215, chapter 2. "They ask thee, what they shall spend. Say: that which you spend for good (must go) to parents and near kindred and orphans and the needy and the wayfarer.”

Abrogated or very enlarged by verse 60 of chapter 9. "The alms are only for the poor and the needy, and those who collect them, and those whose hearts are to be reconciled, and to free the captives and the debtors, for the cause of God , and (for) the wayfarer.”

Editor’s note. It is obvious that this verse 60 of chapter 9 came after verse 215 of chapter 2, in order to legalize or legitimize in some way the financing of the emerging Islamic state. It is a self-interested interpolation or political insertion. Financially self-interested. The original version is to be represented by verse 215 of sura 2.

A textbook case to know absolutely (is used by Muslim propagandists or useful idiots of Islam to make us believe that Islam is tolerant) is the famous verse 256 of chapter 2 which states: " There is no compulsion in religion."

It is supposed to let us believe that you can enter or leave Islam freely. It is, of course, a Medinan verse often used in television shows as evidence that Islam would respect the people of other religions than. But this verse does not say: "There is no compulsion towards members of other religions," but "in religion," in the singular, that is, "in Islam," for there is no other true religion than Islam (3: 85, 9: 29, 24: 2, 110: 2). Muslim lawyers have always understood that this verse means "the right of non-Muslims to embrace Islam without being prevented from doing it" because Islam would open a life of absolute freedom where there is "no compulsion ":" God has not laid upon you in religion any hardship” (22:78). This is very convenient, indeed, and explains why Islam should be preferred. But that once you entered Islam, you would be "without compulsion ," fall within a myth, and everyday life in Muslim countries (dar al islam) testifies to the contrary, even for Muslims ... Moreover, that you live "without compulsion" because you are a Muslim does not mean that you should give up practicing coercion against non-Muslims, or those who are not Muslim enough, as well as many verses, notably in the same sura , testify to, they call for the lesser jihad (2: 193,216) ... Does the "tolerance" of this famous verse have something to do with that the useful idiots like to imagine ?

Finally, what is the use of presenting the allegedly tolerant verses of the Quran, as did the rector of the great mosque in Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, by making publish by the prestigious editions Dalloz, French reference editions in law field, The Tolerant Coran (November 2007)?Since the so-called tolerant verses are all supposed to have been "abrogated" by the let-us say "less tolerant" verses, like the following one.

-The verse of the sword in the Gospels.

Hadith of St Luke 22: 47. While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.

Tafsir.

1) The gospel of John gives us the identity of the follower of Jesus having drawn the sword to defend him, it was St. Peter.

2) The great Nazorene rabbi Jesus therefore accepted the use of violence in self-defense but at a symbolic level and as in certain categories of duel with a stop to the first (drawn) blood.

3) As for the famous phrase " “All they that take the sword will die by the sword,” mentioned by St. Matthew; it is not a curse or a condemnation but a simple statement of common sense. Of the kind "who drives too fast and drunk will die one day in a car accident." Napoleon for example died poisoned or sick. In any case in his bed.

Regarding the violence of the Nazorene high rabbi Jesus our position is as follows.

Various indications suggest that the man participated in a religious movement with social-political consequences or repercussions that could go as far as an armed struggle of the zealot type. We acknowledge that the early Christians have done what the Muslims have not done, namely to eliminate to the maximum all these "examples" of violence.

Various testimonies attest that the first apostles, and particularly the future St. Peter, were at one time armed, perhaps with a quite understandable view of self-defense. We acknowledge that the early Christians have made the hero of their initiatory novel that it was necessary to stop at the first drawn blood (see the episode where the future St. Peter cuts off the ear of the high priest's servant who came to arrest his master).

Some parables finally value a behavior that can legitimately be characterized as violent but they are only parables, not actions of the great Nazorene rabbi.

There is lastly the famous episode of Jesus driving the merchants out of the Kaaba (I beg your pardon, out of the Temple in Jerusalem).

The traditional Christian point of view on this affair which has perhaps sped up the downfall of the Nazorene high rabbi.

The temptation faced with an injustice is to say nothing and do nothing, for fear of being in trouble. But Jesus refused a collaboration of this kind with the merchants, yet legally settled within the bounds of the Temple. Jesus did not want to be an accomplice of what was happening in the Temple of Jerusalem. He passed from indignation to a just anger, thus bravely breaking the heavy silence of his contemporaries.

In order to understand the significance of Jesus's wrath in the Temple, we must have as background Jesus's meeting with a woman in Samaria (John 4: 16-35). The Samaritans worship the One God on their mountain, the Mount Gerizim. Practicing Jews also worship God, but in the Temple of Jerusalem. More than a local quarrel, this dispute means, for the ones as for the others, the terrible impossibility of worshiping the same God! "Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth"(John 4: 21-23). Said otherwise: believe me, woman, with Him who speaks to you, that is gone with the stone buildings that divide Jews and Samaritans. The Temple of Jerusalem, the circumcision, the offerings of animals, and the incense were hitherto only figures; they are now outdated. What was already inaudible for the practicing Jews in the days of Jesus is just as true today for the fundamentalist Jews (Haredim). What matters to the Father of the whole mankind , Jesus says, is what motivates the mind and heart of men.

It is significant that the only person met in the Temple, that Jesus will praise, is a poor widow who gives there two coins, showing that charity does not consist in giving from one’s superfluous but from one’s necessities (Luke 21: 1-4 ).

The careful study of the texts does not prove that there was physical violence against the merchants themselves.

According to John, Jesus took a whip to chase away sheep and oxen. No text, absolutely no one, says he used it to strike the traders. The whip he uses is the instrument used by sellers to guide cattle. Jesus uses it to guide the animals towards the exit! What do traders do? They run after their cattle to retrieve it. The panic becomes general in this corner of the esplanade. Jesus, continuing his way, sees a little further other merchants. Led by the same indignation, he overturns the money changers' tables therefore, and he asks the dove sellers to take away their birds. This causes a real upheaval, but nowhere it is a question of bodily violence against all these traders, in any text of the Gospel, absolutely none!

And, first of all, what is this temple of which it is a question ?? This monument, magnificently rebuilt by Herod the Great, stands in the middle of a large esplanade enclosed by a wall. In the Holy of holies, that a curtain separates from the rest of the building, the high priest enters once a year. There, before the Exile, were laid down the Tables of the Law, handed down by Moses; according to the Jewish tradition (but Moses is not a character having really existed) .

In the Temple, facing the Holy of Holies, there is a gigantic stone altar. It is here that priests immolate bulls, heifers, lambs, doves and turtledove chicken. The sanctuary itself is surrounded by the esplanade. It is part of the Temple. This esplanade, also called "court of the Gentiles," is in fact a large public square surrounded by columns. Hundreds of merchants sat there, especially on the feast days when the pilgrims flocked. This is here where money changers and animal dealers trade.

The whole esplanade of the Temple is changed into a vast bazaar in the time of pilgrimages. It is necessary to feed the travelers. Jerusalem is an expensive city. A text of the time reported that for an as you got twenty figs in the countryside but only four or five in Jerusalem. A pair of birds for the sacrifice cost a piece of silver in the country, but it was bought a piece of gold in Jerusalem, that is to say twenty-five times more. The produce of the neighboring villages, destined to feed the pilgrims, passed directly from the producers to the consumers, but the pretext of the journey and the taxes of the Temple made the prices sometimes multiplied by fifty.

On the esplanade of the Temple, there are street peddlers, small shopkeepers and big traders. The latter belong to the family of the high priest. They sell both small livestock cattle. On the

occasion of the Passover pilgrimage, the demand for lambs is very strong. The historian Josephus, in Roman times, speaks of 255 600 head. In other circumstances, dozens of oxen are immolated on the altar of the Temple. It is spoken of "hecatombs" then! These multiple ritual sacrifices have a purpose, according to the discourse of the religious authorities, to follow the dictates of the Law in order to recover purity and honor God.

The Temple of Jerusalem is therefore at the center of the religious life of the people of Israel. The Roman occupier allowed the Jews to manage this place of prayer, which had also become a place of trade.

But between the official discourse and the will of God, there is a gap that Jesus refuses to cross. What use is it for a man to offer animals as a sacrifice if he does not change his heart and thoughts? Already in the past, the prophets of the Old Testament - the predecessors of Jesus - have criticized the sacrificial system allegedly wanted by God.

-Hosea: "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burned offerings " (Hosea 6:6. See also Mt 9:13).

-Isaiah: "Hear the word of the Lord (….) even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood! Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right” (Isaiah 1: 10-16).

-Jeremiah also does not beat around the bush: "You are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury and then come and stand before me in this house, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? “(7: 8-11).

Lastly , when did the Nazorene high rabbi Jesus drive the merchants out of the Temple? The evangelist John places the incident somewhere at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus (2: 13-22). According to Luke, it is at the end: the Nazarene drives away the sellers just after entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (19: 45-46); it is the same thing with a few details in Mark (11: 15-19) and in Matthew (21: 12-17). It is of little importance to know at what precise moment of his life Jesus drove out the merchants of the Temple. What is most important to retain is that the four evangelists report the event and that it is therefore rich in teachings.

What happened in practice? The only sources we have are the four Gospels. The account of John is the only one to speak of a whip. That of Luke relates only that Jesus "began to drive out those who were selling" (19:45), whereas in the accounts of Matthew and Mark it is said that Jesus "overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves "(Mt 21:12, Mk 11:15).

Let us return to the account of John. He is, unwillingly, at the origin of the interpretation making Jesus a violent man. The text says, however, precisely: "In the temple courts Jesus found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at table exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!" (John 2: 14-16).

While most of the translations of the Gospel say well, as here the Bible of Jerusalem: "He made a whip of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle," another circulates which means: he made a whip out of cords, and drove them all, with their sheep and their oxen. Either "all" refers to sheep and cattle, as the great translations say, either "all" refers to the sellers mentioned in the previous sentence, and in this case the sheep and oxen would have received lashes AFTER the merchants. How can this interpretation, contradicted by the Greek text of the Gospel, be explained, since in the following sentence Jesus addresses the dove sellers? "All" therefore cannot refer to merchants.

By tackling the trade which took place in the Temple, Jesus attacks the sacrificial system, not the place of prayer (Luke 19:46, John 2:16). A precious indication in Mark supports this meaning: " and Jesus would not allow anyone to carry objects through the temple courts” (Mk 11:16). A Jew could not pass from the esplanade to the Temple itself with his pilgrim's stick, his sandals or even his double sack. Thus the word "object" refers to the worship material necessary for sacrifices. Not only did Jesus make the animals, the merchants and all their clutter, make a quick getaway, but he tries even to stop the running of sacrificial worship, which required various objects, mainly containers, in the Temple.

The affair of the Temple shows that Jesus radically questioned the bloody sacrifices, and it is for this purpose that he drives out of it the traders. These were in their places for those who accepted

the ritual carnage of animals. For Jesus, the Temple as a place of prayer remains valid, but he wants to clear it from sacrifices. It is because the merchants cooperate with the sacrificial system that Jesus chases them from the Temple esplanade.

For the Nazorene high rabbi, God cannot be enclosed in any ritual, for he demands the agreement of the heart and of the intelligence. Jesus is alone in acting. He has hundreds of merchants in front of him, all of them traffickers and thieves. Where is the violence? In the combative and risky attitude of Jesus, alone against the world, or rather in the state of fact of the merchants who take advantage from popular piety, in league with priests? No mistake about it, non-violence has never had anything to do with passivity or resignation; on the contrary, it requires a combative force.

Aggressiveness receives bad press today. It can be, of course, rich in more or less morbid deviations, but could we live without aggressiveness, without vital impetus? "Aggressiveness is a normal form of instinct, both healthy in its source, and dangerous in its overflowing. The solution to the problem is not to repress or allow its aggressiveness to unwind, but to direct it, by controlling it, towards useful and positive works.

Difference between good wrath and bad wrath.

There is bad wrath when you know no longer what you say or what you do. Most often you shout hateful words, sometimes accompanied by violent acts. Who becomes thus angry then loses reason. He then does anything. As it is said familiarly: "He has flown off the handle; he runs no longer smoothly.” Violence is not lacking: insults, blows, wounds ...

A good wrath – a righteous wrath- appears quite differently. His author knows what he is doing and why he does it; He remains perfectly in control of his actions, he does not rave in any way. His indignation is so great faced with injustice that he has not only the right but also the duty to intervene. This point is essential to understand the meaning and scope of a just wrath.

-The verse of the sword in the Quran now.

Verse 5 of chapter 9 revealed in Yathrib / Medina in 631 (in Medina, thus abrogating all those of Mecca going in opposite direction) is known as "verse of the sword" (ayat as sayf).

And as one of the characteristics of the Quran is its non-contextualization, it is not known whether the following commandment has a universal and timeless value, that is to say whether it is still valid today, of it is to be considered as having targeted only the pagans of the time in Arabia and more precisely in Mecca.

This verse, the verse of the sword, reads as follows ...

Chapter 9 verse 5: " Slay the idolaters wherever you find them…if they repent and establish worship and pay the zakat (poor due), then leave their way free. Lo! God is Forgiving, Merciful” (establish worship and pay the zakat…... in other words, if they convert).

The meaning of it was clearly explained later by various hadiths like this (Sahih Muslim 33). It has been narrated on the authority of Abdullah b. 'Umar that the Messenger of God said: I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, and they establish prayer, and pay the alms (zakat). This verse (ayah) was called verse of the Sword, about which Ad-Dahhak bin Muzahim said, "It abrogated every agreement of peace between the Prophet and any idolater, every treaty, and every term." Al-Awfi said that Ibn Abbas commented: "No idolater had any more treaty or promise of safety ever since Surah Bara’ah was revealed. ”

-The verse of the fight.

Verse 29 of chapter 9 is called the verse of the fight.

What does this verse 29 of chapter 9 say?

"Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as do not believe in God nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which God has forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute (jizya) readily, being brought low”(an yadin wa-hum saghiruna).

The verse 29 of this chapter 9, revealed in 631, known as verse of the fight , also abrogates all previous provisions allowing a more gentle attitude towards polytheists, Jews, Christians, Sabiaans and Zoroastrians. This verse indeed makes no longer a distinction between idolaters and monolaters known as “People of the Book. "

The verse of the lesser jihad.

The verse 4 of chapter 47 (95th chapter in chronological order) is called “lesser jihad verse": it abrogates all previous verses advocating peace.

What does this "lesser jihad verse" say? "Now when you meet (in battle those) who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when you have routed them, then making fast of bonds; and afterward either grace or ransom till the war lay down its burdens. That is the ordinance. And if God willed He could have punished them without you but thus it is ordained that He may try some of you by means of others. And those who are slain in the way of God He did not render their actions vain.”

It is therefore necessary to have constantly in mind this Muslim rule of abrogation in any discussion about Islam, whether with people who don’t know it and to whom then it is necessary to explain it , or with people who know it but rely on our ignorance to make move and mislead us ...

As long as this rule of abrogation is not abrogated, the attempts of those who advise taking account only of the Meccan chapters have unfortunately no chance of succeeding.

The Sudanese Mahmud Muhammad Taha (1908-1985), for having proposed it (he suggested squarely to keep only the Meccan verses of the Quran) paid it with his life: he was convicted of apostasy and hanged on 20 January 1985. Rest in peace! As for us, thank God, as Islam does not seduce us in any way (the faith having nothing to do with reason ) we will never be an apostate from it!

THE HEAVYWEIGHT OF THE PERSONALITY

OF MUHAMMAD (ISMA).

"God laughs at creatures who deplore the effects of whose causes they cherish."

The personality of Muhammad has, of course, played a considerable role in the rise of Islam and in what it has become today (a real intellectual disaster including of its useful idiots).

For it is an insult to the son of Amina to believe for a single moment that he was only a tape recorder, only a preacher of doom and gloom contenting himself with warning explicitly or pointing out without adding anything an ancient Jewish-Christian message.

The personality of the son of Amina can be pinpointed apart from

-The Quran (the circumstances of certain revelations or asbab-al-nuzul).

- By the millions of hadiths who reported his doings or even his absence of reaction.

- By the account of his life.

For Islam is not only the Quran, it is also the hadiths and the example to follow at all points that constitutes its life for every Salafist (pious) Muslim.

The major problem of today's Islam is the crushing weight of the personality and therefore of the example set by the son of Amina himself, for the best (Sufism) but also for the worst (Islamic State).

The problem, however, is not so much the personality of the son of Amina, which is made of shadow and light, like any human personality, but the fact that for pious or staunch Muslims or hypocrites suited by that, he is only light: WHAT THEY CALL ISMA AND WHICH IS MORE THAN THE PAPAL INFALLIBILITY OF AN ALEXANDER VI BORGIA, which is admitted by Catholics only in matter of dogma stated ex cathedra and which in no way amounts to sanctity. FOR THIS ISMA WHICH BORDERS ON IDOLATRY APPLIES TO ALL THE DOMAINS OF HIS LIFE.

This leads fatally and by definition Muslims to constantly denying minimizing or putting in perspective his moral faults. FOR THERE WERE INCONTESTABLY VERY SERIOUS MORAL FAULTS IN THE LAST PART OF THE LIFE OF MUHAMMAD, IN YATHRIB/MEDINA. Such an isma equating doctrinal infallibility and sanctity of the doings of Muhammad including in his daily life can only justify all the excesses of those who will want to ape him (Yazidi sex slaves, beheading after throat cutting, etc. see the case of the Takfiri that we have supported in Syria and Iraq during the Second decade of the 21st century).

The millions of hadiths telling us about the life of Muhammad a bit like a place where you experience what you put in, you may find anything in them. They have nothing a careful biography and fall rather within the well-known literary genre of the infantilizing and tearful hagiography, including with its most negative aspects, which did not shock at the time.

A first fact, besides the approximate date of his birth, his town and his native tribe (the Quraysh) , seems at least to emerge with a relative certainty from all this clutter: Muhammad would have been an orphan of father and mother, very young, and poor and these two facts would have had incalculable consequences on his psyche. Muhammadwas one of the men or women HAVING A REVANCHE TO GET ON THE LIFE.

The hagiography of Muhammad also suggests early health problems. It is thus hat is generally explained the episode of the angels come in order to open the chest of Muhammad when he was a child.

Sahih Muslim, Book 001, Number 0314: Anas b. Malik reported on the authority of Malik b. Sa sa’, perhaps a person of his tribe, that the Prophet said: I was near the House (i.e., Ka’bah) in a state between sleep and wakefulness when I heard someone say…..Then he came to me and took me with him. Then a golden basin containing the water of Zamzam was brought to me and my chest was opened up….My heart was extracted and it was washed with the water of Zamzam and then it was restored in its original position, after which it was filled with faith and wisdom”(sic). For more details see our three previous books.

We may add to this what seems to be disputed by no one that his first marriage was unequal (he was young and poor, her was rich, very rich, and twice his age), the incalculable consequence of which was that Muhammad had never male heir.

To return to the hypothesis of epilepsy in Mahomet, let us point out that this is not there a new idea, the Byzantine historian Theophanes (750-817) spoke of it a century and a half after the death of Mahomet.

“In this year [632] died Mouamed, the leader and false prophet of the Saracens, after appointing his kinsman Aboubacharos (to his chieftainship). His repute spread abroad) and everyone was frightened. At the beginning of his advent, the misguided Jews thought he was the Messiah who is awaited by them, so that some of their leaders joined him and accepted his religion while forsaking that of Moses.

Those who did so were ten in number, and they remained with him until his murder (by poisoning?). … those wretched men taught him illicit things directed against us, Christians, and remained with him.

I consider it necessary to give an account of this man’s origin. He was…Being destitute and an orphan, the aforesaid Mouamed decided to enter the service of a rich woman who was a relative of his, called Chadiga, as a hired worker, with a view to trading by camel in Egypt and Palestine. Little by little he became bolder and ingratiated himself with that woman, who was a widow, took her as a wife, and gained possession of her camels and her substance. Whenever he came to Palestine, he consorted with Jews and Christians and sought from them certain scriptural matters. He was also afflicted with epilepsy. When his wife became aware of this, she was greatly distressed, inasmuch as she, a noblewoman, had married a man such as he, who was not only poor, but also an epileptic. He tried deceitfully to placate her by saying, ‘I keep seeing a vision of a certain angel called Gabriel, and being unable to bear his sight, I faint and fall down.’

Now, she had a certain monk living there, a friend of hers (who had been exiled for his depraved doctrine) *, and therefore she related everything to him, including the angel’s name. Wishing to satisfy her, the latter said to her, ‘He has spoken the truth, for this is the angel who is sent to all the prophets.’ When she had heard the words of the false monk, she was the first to believe in Mouamed and proclaimed to other women of her tribe that he was a prophet, etc.”

Let us note on this subject (the fits of epilepsy of Muhammad) that the later historians were divided. Humphrey Prideaux regarded Muhammad's epilepsy as total deception, but the 19th-century Orientalist D. S. Margoliouth as for him truly believed that Muhammad was really suffering from epilepsy, but that he simulated occasionally, especially in the last years of his life.

On the supposed epilepsy of Muhammad, William Montgomery Watt could even write: " Such accounts led some Western critics to suggest that he had epilepsy, but there are no real grounds for such a view. Epilepsy leads to physical and mental degeneration, and there are no signs of that in Muhammad; he was clearly in full possession of his faculties to the very end of his life” (Muhammad prophet and statesman).

Editor’s note. The end of Muhammad was the very opposite of what our author wrote. Seriously sick, both locked in his room and abandoned by his entourage who manipulates and deceives him (for example, he is prevented from making his will), and is especially worried with his succession by forgetting him in his corner; Muhammad died, of course, in his bed, but in terrible suffering.

Nearer to us the neuropsychologist Abbas Sadeghian could write in his book entitled Sword and Seizure the result of his research on this subject. According to him, Muhammad suffered well from epilepsy. The symptoms he evokes are all described in the Quran but the interest of Sadeghian's work is to have analyzed various historical sources and not only the text of the Uthmanian corpus.The symptoms that lead to this diagnosis are the following: olfactory hallucinations, gustatory hallucinations, and excessive perspiration, auditory and visual hallucinations. Obsessions, compulsions and the sense of mission.

The great French philosopher Malek Bennabi, on the other hand, also refutes the thesis, according to him imperfect, of epilepsy. "Indeed, every revelation will be accompanied by particular symptoms. He then confided to his companions that at the moment when the phenomenon appeared, he heard a buzzing sound: sometimes similar to that of a swarm of bees rushing out of the hive and sometimes more metallic like a bee Bell ringing. (...) On the other hand, his companions could notice each time, that the ‘revelation’ manifested, the sudden pallor followed by a flushed redness of the face in Mohammed. Moreover, he himself realized this, since he ordered that his head should be covered with a veil whenever the phenomenon took place. (...) Does not this precaution mean that this phenomenon was independent of the will of man since he was temporarily paralyzed, incapable of covering his face and groaning in an extremely painful state as noted by tradition? (...) Seizing these physiological indications, some critics hastened to recognize the symptoms of epilepsy. (...) The physiological symptoms themselves are not peculiar to a diagnosis of epilepsy, which triggers a convulsive paralysis in the subject, deprived momentarily of his intellectual faculties ."

Maxime Rodinson brings this personality closer to that of the visionary Arab poets of the pre-Islamic period, the kuhhan (in the singular kahin) who had visions and felt accompanied by familiar spirits, some kind of genies who inspired them with a jerky text, murmured at full speed to impress the audience. They were able to find the lost camels and explain the dreams.

But as he was endowed with a personality singularly richer and more powerful than that of the ordinary kuhhan, this dissatisfaction also prompted him to think out. After a long comparison of some forty pages of Muhammad with certain mystics such as Teresa of Ávila and supported the idea that Muhammad sincerely believed in the Voice which dictated these things to him, Rodinson concluded: "Muhammad was also obliged to eliminate, to sort out, unconsciously perhaps, and to retain only that

which edified, exhorted, comforted. He was expecting messages from God in a given sense and his expectation was shaping the word .... "

Let us note in passing that this islamologist underestimates two things.

- The influence of the entourage in the reception of this message (there were Jews Christians and perhaps even Manichaeans in the Arabia of Muhamad.

- The evolution over time of the presentation of this "message."

The fact remains that these are interesting insights into the personality of Muhammad and help us to complete the image of him that we form from his governance but in our case the most important is to remember once again that FAITH AND REASON HAVE NOTHING TO DO TOGETHER AND THAT CONVERTING IS NOT A PROOF OF INTELLIGENCE BUT A PROOF OF THE FAITH YOU HAVE IN YOU.

* This testimony is, of course, not impartial and it goes to the opposite extreme, it is an anti-hagiography as saw very well the Lebanese theologian Adel Theodor Khoury. Some people nevertheless thought that the monk in question was perhaps Nestorius but the dates are not in harmony. Or now it was a named Sergius, known as Bahira, a NESTORIAN monk. This testimony is therefore to be treated cautiously like that of the History of Heraclius by the Armenian Sebeos a century and a half earlier. " In that period a certain one of them, a man of the sons of Ishmael named Muhammad, a merchant, became prominent. A sermon about the Way of Truth, supposedly at God's command, was revealed to them, and [Muhammad] taught them to recognize the God of Abraham, especially since he was informed and knowledgeable about Mosaic history. Because the command had come from On High, he ordered them all to assemble and to unite in faith. Abandoning the reverence of vain things, they turned towards the living God, who had appeared to their father, Abraham. Muhammad legislated that they were not to eat carrion, not to drink wine, not to speak falsehoods, and not to commit adultery. He said: "God promised that country to Abraham and to his son after him, for eternity. And what had been promised was fulfilled during that time when [God] loved Israel. Now, however, you are the sons of Abraham, and God shall fulfill the promise made to Abraham and his son on you. Only love the God of Abraham, and go and take the country which God gave to your father, Abraham. No one can successfully resist you in war, since God is with you.

Then all of them assembled, from Havilah to Shur, which is opposite Egypt, etc..”

The rest is in the same vein and provides a very approximate view of the controversial battle of the Yarmouk in 636 on the border of present-day Syria and Jordan.

THE PROBLEM OF ISMA.

May the pious Muslim forgive in advance what will follow and which, alas, falls under the ban of God against any disagreement discussion nor dialogue. Indeed, in the pages that follow, we will continue to discuss the verses of the Quran: their meaning, their relevance, their appropriateness, their ethical, philosophical or scientific value. How can we do otherwise?

"He hath already revealed unto you in the Scripture that, when you hear the revelations of God ejected and derided (you) do not sit with them (who disbelieve and mock) until they engage in some other conversation. Lo! in that case (if you stayed) you would be like unto them. Lo! God will gather hypocrites and disbelievers, all together, into hell"(verse 140, chapter 4: the women).

And......

" When you see those who meddle with Our revelations, withdraw from them until they meddle with another topic. And if the devil causes you to forget, do not sit, after the remembrance, with the congregation of wrongdoers " (verse 68, chapter 6: the cattle).

" Lo! the devils do inspire their minions to dispute with you. But if you obey them, you will be in truth idolaters (verse 121, chapter 6.)

Editor’s note. We shall exclude from the framework of this study the in chronological order first suras, which, though undeniably also consequences of the personality of Muhammad, are evidently more spontaneous, and have brought him no immediate advantage.

The point of view of the French historian Annemarie Delcambre on the subject.

The Muhammad of the original Islam, in the seventh century, had difficulty to be obeyed, to be respected and had never succeeded in getting the esteem of the important people of his tribe. The fellow countrymen of Muhammad took him for a sorcerer (sahir, 51: 52), a soothsayer (kahin, 52: 29, 69:42), a possessed man (majnun, 51: 52, 52: 29-30, 37:36) , or even a poet in the bad sense of the term (sha'ir: 21:5, 37:36, 69:41).

In the Uthmanian corpus, the person of Muhammad is in no way depicted as a model to follow. But in the eighth century, under the Abbasid caliphs, we witnessed the construction of a mythical figure that has no longer something Arab and claims to be a perfect Muslim prophet, an exact portrait of Abraham with some traits of Jesus. The simple Arab spokesman became, in the writings of the Persian converts of the eighth century, the Good Example that every Muslim must imitate, a blessed intermediary between God and his Word.

To translate the Islamic dogma of isma by the notion of infallibility (rather like that of the pope in the field of dogma, and still more) is not judicious, it is better to convey this concept by the notion of impeccability. By definition in Islam, the prophets cannot sin, they are free from sin, their behavior cannot be criticized, on the contrary, it is to be imitated (cf. the notion of a good example: sura 33 verse 21.In the messenger of God you have a good example).

This idea of isma has probably entered Islam through Shia thought, under the influence of beliefs of the archaic East, awarding to men invested by a divine instance, in order to guide their community, many supernatural attributes.

Some authors attribute even to Muhammad the power to perform miracles.

Sahih Bukhari Volume 2, Book 13, Number 55. Narrated Anas bin Malik:” While the Prophet was delivering the sermon on a Friday, a Bedouin stood up and said, "O, God’s Apostle! Our possessions are being destroyed and the children are hungry; Please invoke God (for rain)". So the Prophet raised his hands. At that time there was not a trace of a cloud in the sky…….as soon as he lowered his hands, clouds gathered like mountains, and before he got down from the pulpit, I saw the rain falling on the beard of the Prophet. It rained that day, the next day, the third day…..until next Friday. The same Bedouin or another man stood up and said, "O God’s Apostle! The houses have collapsed, our possessions and livestock have been drowned; Please invoke God (to protect us)". So the Prophet raised both his hands and said, "O God ! Let it rain round about us and not on us." So, in whatever direction he pointed with his hands, the clouds dispersed away, and Medina's (sky) became clear as a hole in between the clouds.”

Ibn Kathir, the Life of the Prophet , Al-sira Al-Nabawiyya, volume 2. Al-Bayhaqi stated, in the Dalail , “Abu Sad al-Malini informed us quoting [isnad] his grandfather Qatada b. al-Numan, that his eye was wounded at Badr and that its pupil came down on his cheekbone. They were about to slice it off, but asked the Messenger of God who said they should not do this. He then said a prayer for him, covering his cheek with his palm. And later you could not tell which of his eyes had been struck!” According to one hadith, this became the better eye.

Concerning the Splitting of the Moon etc.etc.

Is all this credible (see our position on miracles)?

Subsequently, the doctrine was naturally absorbed by the Sunni creed. It appears in the professions of faith in the form of affirmation and in the traditional questions (sam'iyyat) of the treatises of theology (kalam) where it has become inescapable. Particularly in the treatises of Maturidi and As’ari (theology) kalam.

Nevertheless, the various schools differed as to the scope or nature of iṣma. According to the Mu’tazilites and the Shiites, it came under the same rational argument that justifies the sending of prophets, namely, an obligatory benevolence of God (wagib) towards his creatures.

The As’ari invoked the oral tradition and, more precisely, the consensus of scholars (ijma), to speak of this concept.

Initially, the latter seem to have restricted the necessity of iṣma to the conservation of the fullness of the

Revelation, then only aiming at the infallibility of the prophet in the transmission of the divine message. But by insisting on the period following the revelation, the sinlessness of the prophet, understood as absolute inerrancy, was also going to gain ground. In the late As’ari, the doctrine ended up in encompassing the two meanings of total sinlessness and infallibility of all the prophets.

The dogma of "the sinlessness of Muhammad " is evidently to be compared with that of the "inimitability of the Quran" (i’jaz).

The Arabic word iṣma is a declension of the stem s-m. The Quran mentions some derivations of the same root, particularly: " wa'tasimoo bi hablil laahi jamee'anw "( hold fast, all of you together, to the cable of God) Holy Quran 3:103, and "wa Allah Ya'ṣimuka min al-nas "( God will protect thee from mankind) Holy Quran 5:67.

In the religious literature of Islam, the noun isma refers therefore to several meanings that converge towards the idea of "protection" or "preservation" from error or sin. The word isma thus encompasses the idea of infallibility, understood as the capacity to be free from error, whether conscious or not; including estimation error or error in the effort of interpretation (al-ijtihad), slip of the tongue, and inadvertence. The concept also includes the meaning of impeccability, that is, the preservation of willful faults which includes venial sins (al-ṣaga'ir) and mortal sins (al-kaba'ir).

The isma is therefore "the force that prevents man from committing sin and from falling into error."

Muslim jurists base this isma of the prophet on different Quranic verses.

Verses 2-4 of chapter 53. " Your comrade errs not, nor is deceived; Nor does he speak of (his own) desire. It is nothing save an inspiration that is inspired ."

Verses 84-87 of chapter 6. " We bestowed upon him Isaac and Jacob; each of them We guided; and Noah did We guide aforetime; and of his seed (We guided) David and Solomon and Job and Joseph and Moses and Aaron [....] Zachariah and John and Jesus and Elias [....] and Ishmael and Elisha and Jonah and Lot. Each one (of them) did We prefer above (Our) creatures, with some of their forefathers and their offspring and their brethren and We chose them and guided them unto a straight path.”

Verse 32 of chapter 3. "Obey God and the messenger. But if they turn away, lo! God does not love the disbelievers.” Verses 150-152 of chapter 4. "Lo! those who disbelieve in God and His messengers, and seek to make distinction between God and His messengers, and say: We believe in some and disbelieve in others, and seek to choose a way in between; such are disbelievers in truth; and for disbelievers We prepare a shameful doom. But those who believe in God and His messengers and make no distinction between any of them, unto them God will give their wages.”

Editor’s note. These verses are aimed at those who do not believe in the prophetic status of Muhammad son of Amina: they are doomed to hell.

The verse 21 of chapter 33 presents Muhammad as a model of behavior to follow "(33:21).

Verse 36 of chapter 33. " And it does not become a believing man or a believing woman, when God and His messenger have decided an affair (for them), that they should (after that) claim any say in their affair; and whosoever is rebellious to God and His messenger, he verily goes astray in error manifest.”

Verse 4 of chapter 68 as a tremendous character (68: 4).

If the tendency to clear Muhammad by exempting him from all error is evident from the earliest texts of biographical value, it is important to note that the Quran and the hadiths do not explicitly mention this iṣma of the prophets understood as a preservation of error or sin.

There are even verses of the Uthmanian corpus called admonition verses where God blamed Muhammad clearly for misconduct or inappropriate behavior.

Let us pass on the affair of the satanic verses (Muhammad to somehow calm down the relations with the inhabitants of Mecca would have made a major doctrinal concession, accepting to consider as

valid intermediaries that man may pray the goddesses al-Lat, Al-Uzza and Manat, before being disowned by God himself: chapter 53 verses 19-23 and chapter 22 verse 52: we have not sent before you any prophet or apostle without the Demon interfering in his desires but God abrogates what the Devil suggests).

There are other verses in the Quran where Muhammad himself is still visibly disowned by God.

Chapter 80 verses 1 to 10. " He frowned and turned away because the blind man came unto him.... As for him who thinks himself independent, unto him you pay regard. Yet it is not your concern if he does not grow (in grace) etc.”

Chapter 33 verse 37. " When you said unto him on whom God hath conferred a favor and you have conferred favor: Keep your wife to yourself and fear God. And you did hide in your mind that which God was to bring to light, and you did fear mankind whereas God has a better right that you should fear Him. So when Zeyd had performed that necessary formality (of divorce) from her, We gave her unto you in marriage, so that (henceforth) there may be no sin for believers in respect of wives of their adopted sons, when the latter have performed the necessary formality (of release) from them. The commandment of God must be fulfilled.”

Explanation of pious Muslims. God wished to abrogate the taboo concerning this type of marriage, but fearing the gossips of the hypocrites, the prophet recanted, whereas it would have been more judicious to divulge his intention and to bear the hearsay.

Chapter 8 verse 67. "It is not for any prophet to have captives until he has made slaughter in the land.”

Editor’s note.Apparently, Muhammad wanted to keep the defeated of the Battle in Badr alive and exchange them for a ransom, a common practice, including the West during the Middle Ages. But the clement and merciful love God did not seem to agree.

We could too, of course, also quote here the chapter 111 unworthy of a clement and merciful love God and of a great prophet. It is the expression of a very personal rancor towards his uncle and even his aunt .

Pious Muslims put forward to justify these verses the need to consider the context. What is relevant for historians cannot be so for the divine word, because its interpretation cannot be placed in the historical background. Or else that questions, and its univocal character (39: 28), and its equal relevance for all the men in all time ... What God then said, he would not tell the men of today? What is to say?

The Muslim dogma of isma nevertheless imposes to admit that in these circumstances Muhammad behaved as the greatest and most gracious or the noblest of the heroes who walked ever the face of the Earth. A real Christ.

Given the obscurity or the as paradoxical aspect of certain chapters of the Quran, scholars had to understand very early the circumstances in which these revelations (asbab al-nuzul) had occurred in order to understand them, in order to understand to what expectations they corresponded.

It is evident indeed that a certain number of the texts in the Quran, if not all, are explained mainly by the personality of Muhammad or the intervention of his entourage.

Let us point out about this subject that there are two main bibliographic streams.

What follows is not therefore the unanimity of the authors.

Some say that Muhammad son of Amina had his first visions at his home in Khadija’s house, others that it was during a retreat (tahannuth) in a cave near Mecca (on the Mount Hira or Nur) as we have seen it higher.

Then under the influence of his wife Khadija, who was more or less Christian, Muhammad began to call himself a prophet, but by contenting himself in insisting on the main god of the local Meccan pantheon, namely the moon god God (Hobal or Hubal ?) and by respecting the many works of art (more than 300) sheltered by the temple of the Kaaba (henotheism to begin therefore).

What is certain in any case is that the two series of narratives agree to.....

-Place the whole in the usual background of the Arab paganism of the time (the kuhhan, singular kahin, some poets speaking under the inspiration of the jinns).

- To highlight the mistrust of the Meccans towards such a proselytism which threatened their economy, which depended entirely on the pilgrimage to the Kaaba and its 360 statues or icons.

The divergences between the Old Testament and New Testament references of the Quran and the reality of the texts on this subject already fixed at the time are explained…

- Either by divergences in the texts in question (there were variants).

-Or by omissions or confusions, more or less voluntary, on the behalf of Muhammad, in its resumption of these themes.

If you refer to Arab paganism for the rituals; as well as for the form and content or content of the message, to the various religious currents that were spreading at that time in this part of the world (Judaism, Judeo-Christianity, various Christianities, Manichaeism , Gnosticism, Persian religion, Mandeans Sabians ...) the doctrinal contribution of these revelations is rather poor.

It should be emphasized, however, that Muhammad's resumption of the Christian eschatological theme of the judgment of the dead on the end of time was to have caused the misunderstanding of more than one Meccan of old stock like Amr ibn Hishām (known as Abu Jahl).

There is also the insistence that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad was his prophet. Therefore that it is necessary to obey him or to suffer the consequences of it (dictates repeated more than 20 times in the Quran).

But the reader will forgive me here (or not), to express here the point of view of a non-believer only worried with verisimilitude.

Whether in the Quran or in the Hadiths, it is still Muhammad son of Amina who speaks in reality and not God (who does not exist, not in the way of the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob in any case!)

What is remarkable in the Quran is that there are many passages in which Muhammad speaks of him in the third person, in order to justify himself constantly. We feel that we are in a court, the Court of History, in the presence of an accused who constantly defends himself of being an imposter or a madman, an oath in support.

Verse 185 of chapter 26: " They said: you are but one of the bewitched; you are but a mortal like us, and lo! we deem you of the liars.”

This true personality split is well proof that this is the context in which the young Muhammad (40 years) of Mecca had to evolve before coming to power in the city of Yathrib / Medina.

This personality split due to such a confrontational situation explains some of the psychoses (especially against the kufar and the polytheists) and therefore the exclusive henotheism (monolatry) of the Uthmanan corpus.

Muhammad’s idea of monotheism is in fact mainly apophatic (negative), insisting on what is not God or what the true religion should not be, according to him. Muhammad’s monotheism is therefore essentially defined in its relation to polytheism, more precisely against it, and this tension runs through the earliest parts of the Quran. The impression which emerges from all these verses is that of a permanent plot against Muhammad and against his preaching.

Many passages of the Quran are in fact direct answers to the sometimes virulent criticisms which were at the time addressed to the son of Amina. The insistence of the Quran and of the Shahada on the fact that Muhammad is well the last (and greatest) of the prophets of the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, evidently reflects obviously this state of affairs, obvious during the Meccan period of his life; namely when Muhammad was in opposition (in his native city).

With three nuances.

There are evidently in the Quran whole passages knowingly borrowed from various sources.

This is what some of Muhammad's contemporaries already thought.

Verse 103 of chapter 16. " They say: Only a man teaches him. The speech of him at whom they falsely hint is outlandish.”

Verse 4, chapter 25. " Those who disbelieve say: This is nothing but a lie that he has invented, and other folk have helped him with it.”

Whatever the case, what is to be remembered is the omnipresence of Muhammad in the determination of the prescriptions (it is necessary to specify "divine") governing the life of the Muslims including in the smallest details of the life of men and women. See the millions of hadiths about this subject (hygiene food pets, etc.).

The Muslim religion indeed applies exactly the opposite of the ancient Roman maxim: DE MINIMIS NON CURAT PRAETOR. We are, therefore, far from the serenity of Indian philosophy, Zen before the word is invented, which succeeds even in being positive on this subject: " Those who are devotees of other gods and who worship them with faith actually worship only me, O son of Kunti, but they do so in a wrong way because I am the only enjoyer and master of all sacrifices. If one offers me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I accept it. I envy no one, nor am I partial to anyone. I am equal to all. But whoever renders service unto me in devotion is a friend, is in me, and I am also a friend to him” (Bhagavad Gita 9: 23-29, dialogue between the god Krishna/Vishnu and prince Arjuna).

The question now is

-Whether this logic or the conspiracy atmosphere which prevails around the person of Muhammad in the Quran corresponds to a true reality, an objective reality, or is it only the result of the imagination of Muhammad or of a certain intellectual aggressiveness from him as a member of the Meccan fraternity of Hums ?

Difficult to say. A bit of both, perhaps.

What is certain in any case is that once he came to power in the neighboring city-state of Yathrib / Medina, following very skillful political maneuvers (he presented himself as a neutral arbiter who can impartially resolve all the internal quarrels of the native Medinans *) Muhammad did not act as a Buddhist philosopher but as a conquering warrior who was not afraid of preventive wars, even against

personalities (he was if not sponsored, at least condoned, and by no means disapproved political assassinations intended to eliminate Medinan intellectuals by their works clearly taking the side of the opponents, such as the poets Abu Afak (an old Jewish centenarian) or Ka’b Ibn Ashraf, also Jewish through his mother. And Asma Bint Marwan, an occasional poetess at times mother.

See finally the destruction he ordered of all the pre-Muslim works of art stored in the Kaaba during the capture of the city by its troops (360 statues or icons) and which goes beyond and by far the isolated episode of Jesus driving out the merchants from the temple.

* See the charter recorded in the Sira of Ibn Ishak under the denomination kitab or sahifa and that the ignorance the hubris or ethnocentrism of Muhammad Hamidullah has called the first constitution in the world. According to R.B. Serjeant, it is in fact 8 tribal pacts concluded by the leader of the new and small tribe of the "Muslims" (Umma) with the others. R.B. Serjeant specifies that the murder of Ka'b b. Al-Ashraf took place in Rabi I of the year III, and he adds: " On the morning following the assassination Muhammad declared. " Of whomsoever of the Jews you get the better, kill him!”

THE BROAD OUTLINES OF MUHAMMAD’S LIFE.

The Quran is, of course, the work of Muhammad and some of some his relatives, it is therefore subjective and not objective and is used especially to repetitively counter countless opponents or accusations from adversaries. Muhammad has greatly vilified the greed or the hedonistic commercialism of his fellow countrymen first in Mecca, then in Yathrib / Medina. The most sincere or interested religion, however, was to play a great part in the Mecca of Muhammad’s time, and this perhaps that perhaps, as we have already had the opportunity to say.

We have repeatedly mentioned the presence in the Arabia of that period of Judaeo-Christian or Zoroastrian elements. Nevertheless, there were few and the majority of the inhabitants of Mecca shared the traditional world view in this region of Arabia, that is to say, a pagan and Arab world view. The Meccans targeted or affected by the preaching of Muhammad therefore were to be very shocked by some of the Judeo-Christian ideas taken over by the latter, and especially by the idea of Last Judgment.

At the beginning, some thirty faithful attended the first meetings organized by Muhammad in the house of one of them, Al-Argam, to listen to or comment on his visions, or to pray. From the beginning, adoration was a distinctive trait of the Muslim community. See the various orders addressed to Muhammad in the earliest passages of the Quran , especially the second ("Your Lord magnify, your raiment purify!" 74: 3-4) or Mankind (87: 15). The Muslims even watched part of the night for this purpose at the beginning (chapter 73: 1-4).

These more or less secret meetings were based on word-of-mouth, with some exceptions naturally. But after, everything changed. A vision then commanded Muhammad: "Warn thy tribe of near kindred" (Quran 26:14). Muhammad would then have assembled all the members of his clan, and would have invited them to acknowledge him as a messenger of God. But Abd Al Uzza (Abu Lahab), one of his uncles, would have interrupted him by shouting: "Is that why you summoned us for? "And the meeting would have ended this way at once.

Editor's note. The case of the opponents of Muhammad has generally been little studied. It is to be said that those who have not submitted to him often came to a bad end.

Two characters will stand out in this crowd from the start.

- Abu Jahl, "the father of Ignorance" who runs the Makhzum clan (he will be killed at the Battle of Badr in 624). N.B. We may, however, doubt the real existence in flesh and bone of Abu Jahl, whose name is a little too good to be true (Jahiliyya = barbarism, darkness). In the event that he actually existed, his real name seems to have been al-Hakam. In the event that he actually existed, his real name seems to have been Abu al-Hakam.

- Abd al-Uzza, known as Abu Lahab therefore, "father of the flame," became the leader of the Hashim clan on the death of Abu Talib, who has the honor to be cursed by Muhammad even in the Quranic text (chapter 111).

EDITOR’S NOTE ON THE PERSECUTIONS HAVING AFFECTED THE FIRST MUSLIMS.

What is evident indeed in many verses of the Quran, it is to what extent God has mothered or sustained his last prophet (for example, he authorized him to have more than four wives, an exception that some of the first Muslims have had difficulty to accept), while he seems (we write well "seems") to have abandoned his predecessor Jesus. Who, however, like Muhammad, also appeals to him. What is somewhat embarrassing (for Jesus).

" Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners” (Matthew 26: 36).

" From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”……… When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah” (Matthew 27).

On the reality of anti-Christian persecutions see our three essays devoted to Christianity (the persecution part). The only two real anti-Christian persecutions were that of Decius (250), who had all Christian dignitaries appointed by his predecessor executed, and that of Diocletian (303-311), which at first was only the order given to all the inhabitants of the Empire except the Jews to participate in a general supplication (intervening after various measures of destruction, disbarment or imprisonment of bishops) for the salvation of the Empire, but which ended up concerning only Christians. The number of victims is difficult to determine. Probably several thousands in the eastern part of the empire.

First fact: the Christian martyr does almost nothing to defend himself, the flight with this aim in mind is just allowed. And let us not speak of dying armed.

Second fact: there was among some -in minority, very in minority nevertheless- Christians, a kind of madness of martyrdom (especially among Montanists), bordering on suicide.

"Translating by " martyrdom "the situation experienced by the first Muslims for a few years is therefore a mistake that has serious consequences as for us.

There were no martyrs in the Christian sense of the word during the Meccan period, apart from the case of a brawl with stones and camel bones between Muslims and non-Muslims. Muslims who had become more numerous sometimes met in valleys outside Mecca, to engage in the activities of any sect in this case (because when you are only 80 or 100, you are still a sect). A group of Meccans saw them and laughed at them. A fight ensued. Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas struck one of the first Muslims with a camel’s jaw and wounded him.

All the sources therefore agree on one point, the persecutions were real, but relative. As for Muhammad himself, no one dared to put his life in danger, given his rank in society (and, therefore, the price of the blood that should have been paid for his death).

The most often represented martyrdom is that of Bilal, the African. A slave from Ethiopia, perhaps Christian, as we have seen. Ummayiah Ibn Khalaf his master resolved to make an example (for his other slaves) and made him lie down on the burning sand of the desert, with a large stone on his chest. It is undeniable that he could very well have died, but given his value his owner preferred not to spoil the goods any longer and stopped the torture before it was too late to save him. The fact that there were deaths of men during this period seems therefore hardly possible. Some hadiths, however, mention one named Yasir ibn Amir and his wife Sumayya (Ammar's parents). There too, and as Bilal some Christian slaves, but from the Yemen, beaten to death by their owner. We are far from the eleven millions of (claimed, claimed) martyrs according to the commentaries on psalm 78 by the French theologian of the 16th century Gilbert Genebrard . *

The public figures in Mecca then seem to have tried to find a modus vivendi with Muhammad through his uncle Abu Talib. A delegation led by Abu Sufyan went and met him to discuss according to Ibn Ishaq. In vain. Muhammad refused any compromise.

Ibn Kathir, The Life of the Prophet Muhammad. Al-Sira al-Nabawiyya. Volume I, pp. 347-348. “Yunus and Ziyad related, from Ibn Ishaq, and from a certain scholar, namely a sheikh from Egypt named Muhammad ............... “Leaders from Quraysh chiefs met – and he enumerated their names – after sunset at the rear of the ka‘ba.... they sent a message to him, saying, ‘The chiefs of your people have assembled to with you.’

“The Messenger of God came to them quickly, believing that there had been a change in their attitude to him.....He sat down with them.

“They said, ‘O Muhammad, we sent for you TO RECONCILE WITH YOU. By God, we know of no Arab who has ever brought his people AS MUCH TROUBLE AS YOU HAVE. You have reviled the forebears, criticized the religion, ridiculed the values, cursed the gods, and divided our community. EVERY UNPLEASANT THING POSSIBLE YOU HAVE DONE to make a rift between you and us.

“If you had come to tell these things merely to seek wealth, we would have collected money for you from our own until you were the richest among us. If what you wanted was prestige, we would have placed you in leadership over us. If you had wanted sovereignty, we would have made you a king over us. If what you were bringing us was because of a spirit that had possessed you (they used the word ra’i for tabi‘ meaning spirit) and that may be the case, we would expend our resources seeking a potion to free you from him.’

"The Messenger of God replied, 'What you have said does not apply to me. I have not, etc.” (End of the quotation from Ibn Kathir).

On Abu Talib's death, of course, the situation grew worse. Muhammad went so far as to conclude agreements with the eternal rivals of Meccans, the people of Yathrib / Medina. The Meccans wanted to arrest Muhammad in order to judge him for high treason, hence his flight to Yathrib in 622 (the Hegira of the Muslims).

We will therefore continue our study of Sunni fundamentalism with this brief reminder of the main stages of his life (without prejudice, since no contemporary source has come down to us and

everything comes from later, of a generation at least -30 years-whose hagiographic nature is obvious, second-hand materials (Ibn Hisham himself acknowledged in 834 that he had carried out a certain censorship of the Sira written about 767 by his teacher Ibn Ishaq in order to reject the doubtful data according to him ).

Circa 570: Mecca Arabia Hejaz, birth in a small obscure and forgotten clan of the great Meccan tribe of the Quraysh. His mother Amina was a widow.

576: becomes totally orphaned on the death of his mother Amina.

577-594: works as a camel driver in the service of his uncle Abd Manaf known as Abu Talib. A minor public figure within the tribe.

Circa 595: when he is 25 years old marries Khadijah, a rich widow older than him (15 years older), probably more or less Christian (there were already millions of Christian Arabs at the time in Jordan and Iraq) -

Circa 610 : first visions. Muhammad is then around 40 years old.

619. Death of the uncle who protected him: Abd Manaf known as Abu Talib. Died still pagan besides.

622 - Moving into the great rival state of Mecca, then called Yathrib, now called Medina.

623 - Approves and organizes attacks against Meccan caravans.

624 - Battle of Badr (victory).

624 - Ousts from Medina the Jewish or simply Judaizing tribe of the Qainuqa.

624 - Beginning of the political assassinations destined to assure to him the definitive control of the City State of Medina. Muhammad approves the assassination of Abu Afak, Asma bint Marwan, Ka'b al-Ashraf.

625 - Battle of Uhud (defeat).

625 - Expels the Jewish or Judaizing tribe of the Nadir.

627 - Battle of the Trench: the Meccans give up capturing Medina.

627 - Massacre of the Jewish or Judaizing tribe of the Qurayza.

628 - Signing of the treaty of Hudaybiya with the City of Mecca.

628 – Attack massacre and almost enslavement of the Jewish tribe in Khaybar.

629 - Leads a first military expedition in Roman-Byzantine Christian territory to Mu’tah (failure).

630 - Breaks the peace treaty with the Meccans and takes the lead of a coalition that captures Mecca become "open city." End of the tolerance advocated by the sura 109. It will be conversion or exile if not death! Muhammad destroyed the religious works of art exhibited in the Kaaba. Indeed, the Kaaba of Mecca housed different works of art a little bit like the Buddhas of Bamyan or the temples of Palmyra, as well as an idol of rough stone still present, the black stone (al-Ḥajar al-Aswad); but now attached to the figure of Abraham. This idol of black stone will be the only one to escape the destructive fury of Muhammad when he seizes the city.

631 - Leads a second raid in Roman-Byzantine Christian territory to Tabuk (limited and hollow victory: in fact it seems that there was no real battle).

632 - End of reign and death of sickness in his bed. His body is left unburied for three days, the time for his successors to carry out various political dealings.

* Edward Gibbon. History of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Chapter 16. Part 8. Number of martyrs.

“The vague descriptions of exile and imprisonment, of pain and torture, are so easily exaggerated or softened by the pencil of an artful orator that we are naturally induced to inquire into a fact of a more distinct and stubborn kind; the number of persons who suffered death in consequence of the edicts published by Diocletian, his associates, and his successors. The recent legendaries record whole armies and cities, which were at once swept away by the undistinguishing rage of persecution. The more ancient writers content themselves with pouring out a liberal effusion of loose and tragic invectives, without condescending to ascertain the precise number of those persons who were permitted to seal with their blood their belief of the gospel. From the history of Eusebius, it may, however, be collected, that only nine bishops were punished with death; and we are assured, by his particular enumeration of the martyrs of Palestine, that no more than ninety-two Christians were entitled to that honorable appellation. As we are unacquainted with the degree of episcopal zeal and courage which prevailed at that time, it is not in our power to draw any useful inferences from the former of these facts: but the latter may serve to justify a very important and probable conclusion. According to the distribution of Roman provinces, Palestine may be considered as the sixteenth part of the Eastern empire: and since there were some governors, who from a real or affected clemency had preserved their hands unstained with the blood of the faithful, it is reasonable to believe that the country which had given birth to Christianity, produced at least the sixteenth part of the martyrs who suffered death within the dominions of Galerius and Maximin; the whole might consequently amount to about fifteen hundred, a number which, if it is equally divided between the ten years of the

persecution, will allow an annual consumption of one hundred and fifty martyrs. Allotting the same proportion to the provinces of Italy, Africa, and perhaps Spain, where, at the end of two or three years, the rigor of the penal laws was either suspended or abolished, the multitude of Christians in the Roman empire, on whom a capital punishment was inflicted by a judicia, sentence, will be reduced to somewhat less than two thousand persons. Since it cannot be doubted that the Christians were more numerous, and their enemies more exasperated, in the time of Diocletian, than they had ever been in any former persecution, this probable and moderate computation may teach us to estimate the number of primitive saints and martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the important purpose of introducing Christianity into the world.

We shall conclude this chapter by a melancholy truth which obtrudes itself on the reluctant mind; that, even admitting, without hesitation or inquiry, all that history has recorded, or devotion has feigned, on the subject of martyrdoms, it must still be acknowledged that the Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels” (Edward Gibbon).

MUHAMMAD’S SEXUAL LIFE.

Chapter 22: 52. “Never did We send a Messenger or a Prophet but that whenever he had a desire, Satan interfered with that desire. But God abrogates the interference of Satan and strengthens His Signs. God is All-Knowing, All-Wise.” A more literal translation would say:"We have never sent before you either an apostle or a prophet without, when he desired something- ida tamanna - the devil had interfered through his desires -umniyati-hi-“.

The hero of the spiritual initiatory novel or defense speech of a lawyer, baptized "Gospel" seems to have chosen to devote all his energy to preaching.

This is not the case of Muhammad who married twelve or thirteen times - which in passing contradicts his own preaching of a maximum of four legitimate wives. God made an exception for him which has not been without raising many questions in the nascent Muslim community.

Verses 36-38 of chapter 33. "And it does not become a believing man or a believing woman, when God and His messenger have decided an affair (for them), that they should (after that) claim any say in their affair; and whosoever is rebellious to God and His messenger, he verily goes astray in error manifest.

And when thou said unto him on whom God has conferred favor and you have conferred favor: Keep your wife to yourself, and fear God. And you did hide in your mind that which God was to bring to light, and you did fear mankind whereas God has a better right that you should fear Him. So when Zeyd had performed that necessary formality (of divorce) from her, We gave her unto you in marriage, so that (henceforth) there may be no sin for believers in respect of wives of their adopted sons, when the latter have performed the necessary formality (of release) from them. The commandment of God must be fulfilled. There is no reproach for the Prophet in that which God his due….”

EDITOR’S NOTE. If we understand well, Muhammad has devoted himself in order to show that it was possible without sin to marry the divorced wife of his adopted son. Was not there a simpler way ??

Verse 50 of this same chapter 33. " O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto you your wives unto whom you have paid their dowries, and those whom your right hand possesses of those whom God has given you as spoils of war, and the daughters of your uncle on the father's side and the daughters of your aunts on the father's side, and the daughters of your uncle on the mother's side and the daughters of your aunts on the mother's side who emigrated with you, and a believing woman if she gives herself unto the Prophet and the Prophet desire to ask her in marriage – A PRIVILEGE FOR YOU ONLY, NOT FOR THE (REST OF) believers.”

Verses 1 to 5 of chapter 66. " 66:1 O Prophet! Why ban you that which God has made lawful for you, seeking to please your wives ?.....God has made lawful for you (Muslims) absolution from your oaths (of such a kind)…When the Prophet confided a fact unto one of his wives and when she afterwards divulged it and God apprised him thereof, he made known (to her) part thereof and passed over part……If you aid one another against him (Muhammad) then lo! God, even He, is his Protecting Friend, and Gabriel and the righteous among the believer and, furthermore, the angels are his helpers. It may happen that his Lord, if he repudiates you, will give him in your stead wives better than you….”

EDITOR’S NOTE. In fact, at that time, Muhammad preferred to spend his nights with a Christian Coptic slave named Mary. Hence the need for him to threaten them with divorce if they did not calm down.

They were also forbidden by God to remarry in the event of the death of Muhammad.

" It is not for you to cause annoyance to the messenger of God, nor that you should ever marry his wives after him. Lo! that in God's sight would be an enormity (verse 53 of chapter 33).

Really God thinks of everything! De minimis curat praetor.This ban was so well respected that they seem to have been disinherited by the new authorities in charge of the Muslim community after the death of Muhammad (Abu Bakr).

Wanting not to appear as making fun with Muhammad

- Given the current application of the laws on the freedom of opinion or speech,

- Given the equally current application of anti-racist laws;

For this purpose we will leave the floor to a website the opposite of Islamophobic, since it is called "Islamophile"; with only a few minor adjustments for a better understanding of the reader who knows nothing about Islam and its greatness, in short for a good translation. "Peace and blessings of God be upon him" with each utterance of the name of the prophet, replaced by PBUH (PBUH: peace be upon him, it is shorter), harmonization of certain proper nouns, addition of chapter numbers, reminders of some useful details in brackets, style, subtitles, etc. On the other hand, we have left certain things as they are, for otherwise we would have to again translate a text that has yet been already translated into our language. Well, at least, in principle ...

As we have already had the opportunity to say it, one of the problems of Islam is its extraneity; the fact that it results literally from another way of thinking (or of speaking, more accurately), from another planet, from another world, from a certain conception of God.

Its opinions on the subject are therefore made available to our readers, for the purpose of information, knowledge and mutual respect between the different cultures and religions in the world.

At that time, therefore, two problems had to be examined more closely. On the surface, they mostly touched especially the marital life of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), but it became necessary to remedy it in order to guarantee peace to the one who was working to promote Islam. God himself dealt with the two questions.

The first problem was the precarious economic situation of the Holy Prophet. During the first four years, he did not have any resources of his own. In the fourth year of the Hegira, after the banishment of the Banu Nadir, God ordered that part of their land be reserved for him, but this still did not cover the needs of his large family. The mission of the prophet was, on the other hand, so heavy that it demanded all his energy from him. So he could not work to earn a living, and his wives ended up disturbing the peace of his foursome , constantly complaining of economic difficulties.

Note from Peter DeLaCrau. There was, of course, another solution. That this poor Muhammad remain single like Jesus or have only one wife, in order to devote all his energy, including sexual energy, which was considerable, to his apostolate. But God apparently did not think of it!

Before marrying Zenob, the Prophet (PBUH) had already four wives: Sawda, Aisha, Hafsa and Umm Salama. The non-Muslims wondered (and succeeded in making some Muslims doubt) about the fact that the Holy Prophet could have five wives, whereas for the other Muslims it was limited to four. Such were the dramatic questions that preoccupied the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) and the Muslims when the chapter 33 (the clans/ al-Ahzab) was revealed.

The themes and context demonstrate that this chapter was not revealed at one time. Rather, it consists of a succession of injunctions and commandments, revealed in the course of events.

1. Verses 1 to 8 seem to have been revealed before the battle [of the ditch or trench] fought in March 627. By reading them and having in mind the historical context, it is clear that Zeyd [the adopted son of Muhammad] had already divorced Zenob. The clarification on the customs and superstitions concerning adoption became therefore indispensable (sic). The Prophet (PBUH) also knew that the deep and delicate feelings towards the adoptive children could not be eradicated (re-sic) as long as he did not implement to himself the command about the subject. But he hesitated. He was already anticipating the response of the hypocrites, the Jews, and the mushrikun, if he married the wife of Zeyd. Their wickedness and their mischief (???) would seize this opportunity to discredit Islam.

2. Verses 9 to 27 return to the battle of the Trenches, as well as to the attack against the Banu Qurayza. This is why these verses could be revealed only after these events.

3. Verses 28-35 may be divided into two parts. In the first, God addresses the wives of the holy prophet (peace and blessings of God upon him) who were impatient with the situation: O Prophet! Say to your wives: If you desire the life of this world, and its glitter, then come! I will make a provision for you and set you free in a handsome manner (repudiation).But if you desire God and His Messenger, and the home of the Hereafter, then verily, God has prepared for the good doers among you an enormous reward. On the other hand, O wives of the Prophet! Whoever of you commits an open illegal sexual intercourse, the torment for her will be doubled, and that is ever easy for God. And whosoever of you is obedient to God and His Messenger, and does righteous good deeds, We shall give her, her reward twice over” (verses 28 to 31).

The second part lays down certain social rules adapted to the Islamic model. To the extent that these verses address the wives of the prophet, the reformation was first implemented in his home. As opposed to the days of ignorance [of paganism, the famous Jahiliyya], the wives were invited to stay at home and use a restrained language with other men. This was the beginning of the commandments of the Purdah (Editor’s note. Urdu word coming from the Persian language and meaning roughly decency, but also seclusion).

a) Verses 36-48 deal with the marriage of the Holy Prophet and Zenob. They respond to the objections of the opponents of Islam, while at the same time casting aside the doubts which still disturbed the mind of the Muslims. These verses also remind to the believer of the position and status of the Holy Prophet (PBUH).

b) Verse 49 contains a clause concerning the law of divorce [translation mistake? Repudiation would be more accurate. Women do generally AND THEY ARE RIGHT TO DO IT a big difference between divorce and repudiation]. This verse comes alone, for it was certainly revealed in relation to these events.

c) In verses 50-52, God explains that because of his special status, the prophet (peace and blessings of God upon him) may derogate from certain restrictions on married life imposed on other Muslims.

d) Verses 53-55 goes further in social reform: Islamic etiquette about visits and invitations; the visits to holy wives are limited to close relatives [about the holiness of the wives of Muhammad, see our notes on the catechism of the French Muslims in the Reunion Island]; as for the other men, from now on they could only speak to them through a curtain; the prohibition for the spouses of the Prophet (PBUH) to marry other Muslims [and non-Muslims. We prefer to assume indeed that the author of this website has forgotten the billions of non-Muslims inhabiting this planet and we do not believe that he advocates banning marriage of a Muslim with a non-Muslim. What would be racism].

e) Verses 56 and 57 warn those who criticized the prophet's marriage and marital life. They invite Muslims not to copy the enemies of Islam by criticism, but rather to invoke the blessings of God upon the Prophet. Chapter 33 also recommends avoiding any false accusation between them and not slandering the person of the prophet. [Poor Muhammad!]

f) Verse 59 passes to the third measure of the social reform. Muslim women must come out only completely covered and for a specific purpose. [So, at least this is clear, and it is not a Roumi as I who says it].

The following verses reprimand [oh the naughty persons] hypocrites and other scandalmongers for the rumors they have spread against Islam and Muslims.

Editor's note. "Reprimand" is perhaps not the right word. This is precisely what the verse in question, verse 61 of chapter 33, says: "Accursed, they will be seized wherever found and slain with a (fierce) slaughter, etc. "

"Suppressing" might have been a more accurate word. Still that damn extraneity of Islam that harms so much its just understanding by the non-Muslims, seen all these repeated mistakes in translation.

The conclusion of the marriage contract with Zenob triggered a storm against the holy prophet (PBUH). The polytheists, the hypocrites, and the Jews, all burned with jealousy because of the succession of triumphs, the humiliation they suffered during the battle of the trenches, as well as the affair of the Qurayza Jews, continued to affect them in full heart. They had long hoped to subdue the prophet (PBUH) on the battlefields, but given their failures, they made do with this marriage affair. It was an opportunity for them to question the moral superiority (isma) of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). They claimed that the Prophet (PBUH) had fallen in love with his adoptive son's wife, that the latter knew it and had decided to divorce from his wife so that the Prophet (PBUH) could marry her. Zenob also did not agree, but it was the order of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). The wedding was celebrated. If the Holy Prophet (PBUH) had really desired Zenob, he would certainly not have married her to Zeyd at first, and would have married her at once. In spite of this, the detractors of Islam invented all kinds of romances about this subject or spread so many rumors that some Muslims believed it. [Editor's Note: In any case, this Zenob, although having the same name as a famous queen of Palmyra, was very ugly, and it is only for this reason that Muhammad married her, in spirit of sacrifice, and to obey God]. He submitted to this order during the siege of the Banu Qurayza.

The delay that seems to have been waited is certainly due to the fact that the prescribed waiting period was not over, and that the Prophet (PBUH) was completely absorbed in his war preparations [pogrom against the Banu Qurayza could have been a more accurate word. What the Devil ! Still these damned problems in translations!!!] The fact that legends invented by their enemies become subjects of talks among Muslims shows that these problems of sensuality had gone beyond all limits. If the evil had not already been present in the hearts, the minds would certainly not have given as much importance to these absurd and disgusting stories about the person of the prophet (PBUH).

It was on this occasion that the audacious innovations in the reform of the law (it sounds like a politician of the Republican right wing in France) of hijab or purdah, were set up in Islamic society. They supplemented those of the Divine Directive 24, distributed after the gossip about the equivocal attitude of Aisha, the young favorite wife of the prophet, in the desert. Incident evoked in the Quran, the Sira and the annals, under the Arab word al-ifk (i.e., the slanderous lie). See extracts from the Quran, chapter 24, light, verses 1-17.

A brief reminder of the facts already expounded above, in order to allow the reader to understand how wicked the enemies of Islam can be.

Aisha, the daughter of Abu Bakr, the man who funded Islam at the beginning, had married Muhammad when she was six years old. She was now fifteen and had participated in the raid against the Banu al Mustaliq. It was on the return of the expedition, on the road to Yathrib/Medina, that the famous affair which might have cost her, her position as a prophet's wife, took place; if Muhammad had not then received a revelation (verses 4-5, 11-20, chapter 24) explicitly exonerating her from all suspicion.

During a halt, she gets out of her palanquin and moves away behind a dune to answer a call of nature. Then she returns to the camels and realizes she has lost her necklace; she goes back to look for it. But the caravaners having seen her come back a first time think that she is now in the palanquin, and put it back again on the pack of her camel. (Note: what is curious is that they did not realize the

difference in weight.) In short, the dogs bark and the caravan leaves again, forgetting the poor creature ... When she returns to the scene of the halt, the Muslim army has disappeared, and she begins to weep over her fate. She knows that in the desert alone it is an awful death which waits for her. But a young man arrives on his camel, who is also late. He takes Aisha on her camel and they both return to Yathrib / Medina.

Jews and Arabs who are "scandalmongers" then make the rumor go around that the prophet is a cuckold. The accusation is serious, the two young men are at risk of being stoned, as the custom has it that in this time. More important for the history of Islam is that this affair gave rise to a serious conflict among the leaders of the Muhajirun and Ansar, Aws or Khazraj, which continued well after Muhammad's death. The latter, then, is the laughingstock of the whole Yathrib/Medina and makes archangel Gabriel intervene who declares Aisha innocent, but Ali having been one of those who judged her guilty, she will be angry with him during her entire life; and this split between Aisha and Ali was not without subsequent political consequences (the rise of Shiism?)

From the top of his minbar (pulpit), the Prophet (PBUH) solemnly declared: "O brothers, please excuse me for what I will do with the one who dares to attack in this way the honorability of my harem; but I swear by God that my wives act only in all above board, and the man * who is accused out of suspicion. Besides, he entered my house only with me. " Sa’d ibn Mu’adh Al Ansari then said to him: "O Prophet, you are entitled to have excuses. Know that if it is an Aws, we will cut his throat, but if it is a Khazraj, you will decide yourself on the sentence, and we will execute it. " Sa’d ibn Ubadah Al Ansari, the leader of the Khazraj, who was also a pious man, replied to Ibn Mu’adh: "You are a hypocrite! The passions flared in the Khazraj and Aws clans, so much so that they nearly killed each other in front of the prophet who from the top of the minbar never ceased to intervene in order to calm them down; before finally to succeed in bringing back into the minds order and serenity.

This sparring match worth of the Briatharchath Ban Ulad has been reported in the corpus of the hadiths, and in the Sira (the hagiography of Muhammad). This was indeed one of the first negative consequences of the incident known as ifk , and didn’t fail to worsen the relations between the Aws and the Khazraj, then between Aisha and Ali, threatening thus the unity of the Muslims.

God is love (clemency and mercy) but still! How can we think that the being of beings whatever the name is given to him (the Tawhid God or God) can be lowered to the point of dealing directly with the casual sexual encounter or marital problems of Muhammad?

De minimis non curat praetor. God does not deal directly with secondary or subordinate things. Fate secondary causes or divine providence it is used for that.

How can you have of the being of beings or Tawhid, God or Allah, such a low idea ???

NB. How do we know all this? Because God in the Quran constantly intervenes to defend Muhammad. If the Nazarene Jesus had been so well defended he would never have been crucified for attempting a Zealot rebellion against the Roman authorities (it is true that for the Quran here echoing various Gnostic or Judeo-Christian doctrines, he was not really crucified).

And we will come directly to the somewhat less scabrous episodes of the life of Muhammad those where blood was shed, to see whether these are indeed cases of self-defense or really works of justice conforming to the principle that is dear to us "Intud i ngeindtleacht gnim olc mad indechur" and which has been reported to St. Patrick in the Senchus Mor: "There is strengthening of social cohesion (in the case of pagan societies in any case) when a bad action does not remain unpunished ."

* The young man, who was wrongly accused of having had this brief amorous affair with Aisha, was called Safwan ibn al-Mu’attal, and he was an honest servant of the Prophet. The verses of the ifk which affirm the innocence of Aisha also indirectly wash Safwan from the accusation brought against him by the band of munafikun obeying the orders of Abd-Allah ibn Ubayy (Editor’s note).

CONSEQUENCES ON MORALITY IN ISLAMIC LAND (DAR AL ISLAM).

As we had the opportunity to see with Annemarie Delcambre, the Muhammad of the original Islam , in the 7th century, had difficulty to make him obeyed, to make him respected and had never succeeded in getting the esteem of the important people of his tribe. In the Quran, the person of Muhammad is in no way depicted as an example to follow.

The fellow countrymen of Muhammad considered him as a sorcerer (sahir 51:52), a soothsayer (kahin 52: 29, 69:42), a possessed (majnun 51:52, 52:29-30, 37:36) a poet in the sense of visionary (sha'ir 21:5, 37:36, 69:41).

Subsequently this cult paid to the person of the Prophet, which was developed among the Muslims extended to his familiar objects. Tradition enumerates and describes the vessels he used for his ablutions. It is often spoken of his stick, of his usual clothing, made with of a coarse and as felted fabric. Finally, the grave of the Prophet in the mosque of Medina is the goal of a pilgrimage and the object of a true worship.

This infallibility attributed to Muhammad was even extended to his companions.

Ibn-Qayyim Al-Jawziyyah (deceased 1351) asserts that if they were mistaken no one would remain truthful. It is therefore not allowed to attack them or to question their veracity.

Three categories of the Sunna (tradition) of the companions of Muhammad as regards its obligatory nature are distinguished.

- The positions of the companions on which their agreement was indisputable, even if this agreement was only tacit. This is the case of the verse on stoning that Umar (died in 644) invoked as part of the Quran without being integrated into it. To follow the companions of Muhammad in this case is therefore a binding duty (wajib) for every Muslim.

- The positions of the companions about which it is known with certainty that they disagreed. Such positions commit only those who issue them.

- The positions of the companions about whom it is not known whether the agreement had been established or not between them. Here, opinions are divided.

As we have also had the opportunity to see it, but at the very beginning of this modest essay this time and to begin with, the drama of Islam is the closing of the gates of interpretation (Ijtihad) which took place in the 11th century with the defeat or the disappearance of the Mu’tazilism in favor of the Muhaddithoun or traditions (hadith) collectors.

For a Mu'tazilite, in fact, it is not enough to demonstrate the authenticity of a hadith, it is also necessary to study its contents to verify if it is reasonably acceptable. Good and evil are therefore founded on reason. The "Mu'tazili" were the rationalists of early Islam. There is no doubt that, if their doctrines had been able to remain alive within Arab-Muslim societies, the face of the world would have been changed (we might be tempted to say to parody Pascal).

For the muhaddithin or traditionists specialists of the hadith, "good is what God commands and evil what God forbids."

There existed Muslim thinkers totally refuting this notion of isma and others a little like the Catholics with their pope confining it to the field of the faith message or revelation.

The Asharite theologian Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Al Tayyib Al Baqillani (950-1013) is frequently referred to by the later theologians as the archetype of this negation of the sinlessness of the prophets.

“Al-Baquillani held that the isma of the prophets means mainly that they are divinely protected from intentionally lying when proclaiming their message, and from “major abomination and gross, deadly sins” .... To appreciate Baqillani’s position one has to remember that he is well known for having given the Quran the central position in his theological thought. It is the divine word, the pivot of Muslim life, that matters; the one who proclaims it is of lesser importance. Of course, says Baqillani, the Prophet too has given certain rules that must be followed, but these concern only the sayings he uttered, as it were, ex cathedra, about religious problems, not every detail of his life and behavior as related in hadith. Baqillani’s view is rather similar to that of some modernist theologians (like Sayyid Ahmad Khan and his collaborators) who have wanted to restrict the Muslim duty to imitate the Prophet’s example only to religious matters. But in general the doctrine of the sinlessness of the Prophet prevailed” (Anne-Marie Schimmel).

As we may have seen above in the field of sexuality or number of legitimate wives, the example set or not set by Muhammad himself has played a considerable part in the scale of Muslim values. Including indirectly. The prohibition of full adoption and the over-valorization of biological

filiation is, for example, an evident consequence of the secret desires inspired by the Devil, as regards the wife of his adopted son Zeyd, the beautiful Zenob.

But there are other areas where the life of Muhammad, therefore his personality, played a great role. The politico-military field, for example. Muhammad himself broke the pact he had concluded with the Christians of Najran in 631 just one year after signing it (just before his death in fact) according to the hadiths 45.5.17 of the book 45 of the Malik’s Muwatta and the hadith 4366 of the Book 19 of the Sahih Muslim dealing with the expulsion of Jews and Christians from Arabia (with the coexistence of more two “din”in the Arabian Peninsula).

See also the fact that in Islamic land (Dar al Islam) a truce is automatically limited to 10 years maximum and even less in practice, comes from the fact that Muhammad took the initiative to break the famous truce of Hodaybiya concluded for various political reasons in 628, with the Meccans, barely a year after negotiating and signing it, the balance of power having totally changed in his favor, following an intense and skillful diplomatic-military activity on his behalf in the meantime.

The casus belli was a vendetta exercised by the clan of the Banu Bakr allied to the Meccans against that of the Banu Khuza’ah (several dead). The leader of the Banu Khuza’ah appeals to Muhammad who immediately mobilizes his forces to march on Mecca. The Meccans attempted a final conciliation by offering to pay the blood money to the families of the Banu Khuza’ah victims but in vain and in front of the lack of proportion of forces involved the city surrendered practically without fighting the following year (in 630).

Here again in this episode we find again all the weight of Muhammad's personality in the field of the morality because the truce of Hodaybiya was signed against the general opinion of his people. In Islamic land (dar al islam) good and evil have nothing to do with any golden rule such as "do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you."

Is good in lands of Islam what the Quran dictates or authorizes, is good what Muhammad did or said (isma).

Is evil in lands of Islam what the Quran forbids or curses, is evil what Muhammad has condemned or disapproved.

It is, moreover, significant that the most often used terms in this religious ideology are the words halal or haram and not the universal terms of good or evil.

The created (human) Quran being a veritable intellectual disaster (no plan no context mixing of genres of time, poetry and not philosophy, etc.) moreover limited in number of words, it is still possible to keep some freedom spaces back, the most celebrated being that of the famous and primordial distinction between the abrogated verses of the time when Muhammad was in opposition at Mecca his hometown and the verses become abrogating when Muhammad exercised power in the rival city state of Yathrib/Medina.

On the other hand, considering the phenomenal amount of hadiths or anecdotes collected about Mahomet, either directly or indirectly, by the muhaddithun or traditionists, there is no escape.

A decisive element in this blocking of Islam (bab-al Ijtihad) which cannot be described as positive is therefore the constant reference to hadiths which are as many witnesses to primitive thought.

If we read the biography of Muhammad reported by famous Muslim scholars such as Ibn Ishaq and Al Tabari you will find many incidents where Muhammad was far from being a perfect man and without sin. His harshness towards the Jews, the Meccan pagans and his rivals as Musaylima is well documented by Muslim historians. In Yathrib / Medina he massacred three entire Jewish tribes – the Banu Nadir, Banu Qurayza and Banu Qaynuqa, killed the lord of Khaybar and changed his young widow into a sexual slave at once. There are many examples, to read the Muslim biographers in enough.

Some opt for the contextualization of violence, others for metaphorical interpretation or, more radically, for the falsehood of certain hadiths ... Yet, lightening one's ball or chain does not remove the hindrance. Everything, in fact, is based on the isma or idolatry of Muhammad, worship of his physical person as of the least of his doings. Hadiths form still the basis of popular Muslim wisdom where the Prophet remains the "good example." So much submission and idolatry ( ad nauseam) then lock up any questioning of the text.

The useful idiots of Islam justify all this violence by the notion of preventive self-defense, what is certain is that Muhammad was not a little saint! The prophet of Islam was certainly not the kind to turn the other cheek or to restrain his appetite for the things of this world. Holy Quran verse 67, chapter 8. "It is not for any prophet to have captives until he has made slaughter in the land.”

Let us forget all the evasive answers of those who praise Muhammad, by comparing him to a "Jesus number 2," based on a few anecdotes.

On the contrary, there is no equivalent in the Quran or in the Hadiths of the subtle parables of the woman taken in adultery, the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, the Pharisee and the tax collector, the centurion, the eleventh hour workers, or call for forgiveness from this low world, having the greatness of the cry that is attributed to this Christic personage by definition from the top of his cross "Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing: crucify God Himself .

In Islam land (dar al Islam), good and evil have nothing to do with any golden rule of the kind “ do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you." In the face of non-Muslims, Islam justifies many things that it does not accept for itself. Hence a certain schizophrenia. A double standard when it comes to the rights of Muslims and the rights of non-Muslims. This very selfish, non-positive, permanent discrimination, between Muslim / non-Muslim, generating a second-class status, explains, of course, the slow disappearance of the religious minorities in the East (Dhimmi or Yazidi). There was either conversion or emigration. Because, of course, every proselytism is forbidden to non-Muslims and they need permission to build new places of worship.

The problem (of non-Muslims) is that, for the staunch Muslim, the rule of Sharia is seen as a good thing for both non-Muslims and Muslims. The expansionist or offensive jihad is seen by the various madhabs as an altruistic endeavor.

The world, whether under democracy, socialism, communism, or any other system of governance, is inevitably living in bondage—a great sin, since the good of all mankind is found in living in accordance with God's law. In this context, Muslim deception can be viewed as a slightly less than noble means than jihad to a glorious end.

This view has an ancient pedigree: Soon after the death of Muhammad (634), as the jihad fighters burst out of the Arabian peninsula, a soon-to-be conquered Persian commander asked the invading Muslims what they wanted. They memorably replied as follows:

“God has sent us and brought us here so that we may free those who desire from servitude to earthly rulers and make them servants of God, that we may change their poverty into wealth and free them from the tyranny and chaos of [false] religions and bring them to the justice of Islam. He has sent us to bring his religion to all his creatures and call them to Islam. Whoever accepts it from us will be safe, and we shall leave him alone; but whoever refuses, we shall fight until we fulfill the promise of God” (Hugh Kennedy. The great Arab conquests. Page 112).

Fourteen hundred years later— in March 2009—Saudi legal expert Basem Alem publicly echoed this view: “As a member of the true religion, I have a greater right to invade [others] in order to impose a certain way of life [according to Shari'a], which history has proven to be the best and most just of all civilizations. This is the true meaning of offensive jihad. When we wage jihad, it is not in order to convert people to Islam, but in order to liberate them from the dark slavery in which they live. And it should go without saying that taqiyya in the service of altruism is permissible. For example, only recently, after publicly recounting a story where a Muslim tricked a Jew into converting to Islam—warning him that if he tried to abandon Islam, Muslims would kill him as an apostate—Muslim cleric Mahmoud al-Masri called it a "beautiful trick." After all, from an Islamic point of view, it was the Jew who, in the end, benefitted from the deception, which brought him to Islam.

"So long as Islam endures, the reconciliation of its adherents, even with Jews and Christians, and still more with the rest of mankind, must continue to be an insoluble problem." This, then, is the dilemma: Islamic law unambiguously splits the world into two perpetually warring halves—the Islamic world versus the non-Islamic—and holds it to be God's will for the former to subsume the latter. Yet if war with the infidel is a perpetual affair, if war is deceit, and if deeds are justified by intentions—any number of Muslims will naturally conclude that they have a divinely sanctioned right to deceive, so long as they believe their deception serves to aid Islam "until all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to God."Such deception will further be seen as a means to an altruistic end. Muslim overtures for peace, dialogue, or even temporary truces must be seen in this light, evoking the practical observations of philosopher James Lorimer, uttered over a century ago”(Raymond Ibrahim).

The stupidity of the media people is more than unfathomable, it is very dangerous because it is, of course, to create a breeding ground for radical Islam. We can never stress enough the unfathomable and criminal stupidity of the media people who repeat the words of an imam

necessarily self-proclaimed by definition (like the others) and repeating that God does not command to do evil but to do good.

In addition that this supposes that God exists and that he is the creator and conscious master of all things (anthropomorphisms) this is far from obvious to those who think a little; all depends on what is called good or evil and violence on earth.

Changing religion to embrace another faith than the blind faith of Islam is it good?

Telling the truth about the man Muhammad, is it good ??

Do not want to live like pious Muslims, is it good ??

Do not want to live like a Coptic dhimmi, is it good??

To execute a man sentenced to death, to stone an adulterous woman, to cut off the hand of a thief, to die as a martyr, by taking to their death other human beings considered more or less as enemies of God, is this evil?

NORMATIVE FRAMEWORK.

Hadiths are counted by hundreds of thousands (by millions?) and are usually distinguished according to their level of reliability for which the identification of the chain of oral transmitters is decisive.

The Hadiths are words ascribed to Muhammad, or sometimes to contemporary observers, who inform about his doctrine, his public and private life, and concern subjects of a great variety. The distinction between verses of the Quran and hadiths is not always easy, the border between the two was porous in the beginning, and we have hadiths that seem to have almost become official verses of the Quran, especially about the punishment of adultery (lashing or stoning to death).

The hadiths perhaps represent more what the companions of Muhammad thought than Muhammad himself. But how to sort?

The pathetic spectacle offered by the French intellectuals or the various journalists involved in TV debates about politics (intellectual or moral poorness, conformism, cowardice, change of certain parties or personalities into a scapegoat or a whipping boy or a foil...) inconsistency is the second nature of man (the first being the hubris or the selfishness?), for it is the same with regard to religion.

While this was not the case initially as shown by many verses of the Quran as well as the Sira or even some individual biographies (the case of Abu Sufyan for example); The very figure of Muhammad in subsequent generations, and especially with the new Persian converts of the 8th century and the Abbasids, has gradually become the embodiment of the word of God in its normative and practical aspect. This raised the Sunnah to the level of the Quran. Popular belief made Muhammad a kind of Christ. The Muslims - truly "Mohammedan" through their practice - by worshiping him to such an extent therefore make him almost a rival of God and even contradict thereby the strict monotheism (tawhid) that they claim to follow. It is significant in this respect (Islam seen not as a Sufi spirituality but as a DIN that the terms most often used in this religious ideology are the words halal or haram and not the universal terms of good or evil.

That stupid and barbarous remarks have been used as the foundation of a new religion is not to surprise us. The religions of all peoples have often proclaimed similar ones at certain periods of their history. However, the specificity of Islam lies in its persistence today not to consider these ancient texts obsolete and to refuse their confrontation with humanist values or human rights which are universal.

Obscurantism, stupefying, brutality and hypocrisy govern Muslim dictatorships at the moment and in many friend democracies such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc. barbarism decides daily: condemnation, imprisonment, stoning, hanging and decapitation in virtue of principles enacted 1400 years ago between Yathrib / Medina and Mecca. At present, in many countries where Islam does not yet reign supreme, Muslim obscurantism continues to insult human intelligence: rejection of the idea of evolution, biology used to justify the inferiority of women.

Some examples of the overwhelming weight of Muhammad's personal life in Muslim morality now.

-Muhammad and the orphans.

Holy Quran 17: 34. " Come not near the wealth of the orphan, save with that which is better till he comes to strength; and keep the covenant. Lo! of the covenant it will be asked ."

Indeed, the guardian of an orphan should never appropriate his property. Too bad this verse says nothing about the war orphans whose fathers were massacred by Muslim warriors who then monopolized their property (looting) ...

Holy Quran 2: 220. " They question the concerning orphans. Say: To improve their lot is best. And if you mingle your affairs with theirs, then they are your brethren. God knows him who spoils from him who improves.”

Comment. To find this verse complete it is better not to have read before the accounts of the attacks which resulted in the massacre of the men, thus making fatherless orphans all the children who were then enslaved with their mother. These orphans could no longer claim any paternal inheritance, the possessions of their father having undoubtedly been plundered with the rest ...

Holy Quran 2:215. " They ask thee,what they shall spend. Say: that which you spend for good (must go) to parents and near kindred and orphans and the needy and the wayfarer.”

Comment. No problem, this verse is absolutely perfect.

- Muhammad and his marriage with Aysha.

"Narrated Hisham's father: Khadija died three years before the Prophet departed to Medina. He stayed there for two years or so and then he married 'Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consumed that marriage when she was nine years old” (Sahih Bukhari Book 58:236).

“Narrated Aysha: I used to play with the dolls in the presence of the Prophet, and my girl friends also used to play with me. When God's Apostle used to enter (my dwelling place) they used to hide themselves, but the Prophet would call them to join and play with me. The playing with the dolls and

similar images is forbidden, but it was allowed for 'Aisha at that time, as she was a little girl, not yet reached the age of puberty” (Sahih Bukhari, volume 8, book 73. Good manners and Form –Al Adab- number 151).

“Narrated Aysha: The Prophet and I used to take a bath from a single pot while we were Junub (impure). During the menses, he used to order me to put on an izar (dress worn below the waist) and used to fondle me” ( Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 6, Hadith 298).

The legal age of marriage for girls was therefore set at 9 years old by sharia in some Muslim countries such as Iran or Saudi Arabia. Other authors believe that there was a mistake in the dates and about the age of Aysha who would have been 16 years old and not 6 years old. The vast majority of Islamic scholars, however, stick to the traditional data that give 6 years for Aysha and see the confirmation of that in the fact that Muhammad consummated the marriage only three years later, perhaps when she had her first menses. He was then 53 years old.

-Muhammad and his marriage with Zenob.

Holy Quran 33:37. " When you said unto him on whom God has conferred favor and you have conferred favor: Keep your wife to yourself, and fear God. And you did hide in your mind that which God was to bring to light, and you did fear mankind whereas God has a better right that you should fear Him. So when Zeyd had performed that necessary formality (of repudiation) from her, We gave her unto you in marriage, so that (henceforth) there may be no sin for believers in respect of wives of their adopted sons, when the latter have performed the necessary formality (of release) from them. The commandment of God must be fulfilled.”

In the same chapter, in verses 4 and 5, God definitively forbade the adoption that was common in Arabia at the time:

" Proclaim their real parentage. That will be more equitable in the sight of God. And if you know not their fathers, then (they are) your brethren in the faith, and those entrusted to you ”.

Following these divine verses, Muhammad married the wife of his son Zeyd, to whom he abjured his solemn commitment of adoption and whom he renounced as an adopted son. Zeyd was forced to give up his name, Zeyd ibn Muhammad, to use again his original name Zeyd Ibn Haritha.

The prophet instructed Aysha to go and bring the news to Zenob. Now Aysha, jealous that Zenob was designated by God (by a Quranic verse) to be the wife of Muhammad, spoke of this with Salma, the handmaid etc.etc...

The following verse was then revealed shortly after to Muhammad in order to confirm the legal status of his marriage with Zenob: (chapter 33, verse 40): " Muhammad is not the father of any man among you, but he is the messenger of God and the Seal of the Prophets.”

As a result, Islam clearly establishes a distinct inequality between the "natural" son and the adopted son. These verses permit the Prophet to officially prohibit the adoption of an abandoned child in the lands of Islam until 'today.

These verses also upset a centuries-old Bedouin custom, and confirmed from a religious point of view, the differentiation between the natural son and the adopted son within the community of believers, both having until then the same legal status in Arab society.

It was as a result of this marriage indeed that the tradition of welcoming orphaned or abandoned children as adoptive children having the same rights as their biological brothers and sisters was forbidden by Islam.

This prohibition of a tradition of ancestral generosity among the Arabs was the direct consequence of this episode in the life of Mohammad.

The word of God (chapter 33, verses 4, 5 and 37) formalized this prohibition of any form of adoption that would give the adopted child the same rights as the biological children: "God hath not made those whom you claim (to be your sons) your sons ."

As useful idiots of Islam justify certain facts contrary to morality by the historical background of the time of the events, let us emphasize that in this particular case, the background of the time, approved the adoption, which was regarded as an act of generosity towards orphaned, abandoned or poor children.

Various sayings.

“ Buraida reported on the authority of his father that God's Apostle (Peace be upon him) said: He who played chess is like one who dyed his hand with the flesh and blood of swine” (Sahih Muslim, Book 28, Number 5612). Editor’s note. God therefore forbids to play chess ???

“Narrated by Abbas bin Tamim. The Prophet went out with the people to invoke God for rain for them. He stood up and invoked God for rain, then faced the Qibla and turned his cloak inside out and it rained " (Sahih Bukhari , volume 2, Book 17, Number 135).

Editor’s note. Sympathetic magic or confusion between chronological succession and causal relationship (post hoc ergo propter hoc). Or reversal of cause and effect. Non causa pro causa. The

mistake consists in believing that because a phenomenon A occurred before the phenomenon B (or that B took place after A) therefore A is the cause of B (or that B is the consequence of A). This reasoning remains erroneous as long as the causal relationship has not been completely studied, documented and understood.

“The Prophet of God disliked ten things: Yellow perfume, dyeing gray hair, trailing the lower garment, wearing a gold signet ring, a woman decking herself before people who are not within the prohibited degrees, throwing dice, magic protections except with the last two suras of the Quran, wearing amulets, withdrawing the penis before the semen is discharged, and having intercourse with a woman who is suckling a child (but he did not declare them to be prohibited)” (Sunaan Abu Dawud, Book 34, Number 4210).

" Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, "Yawning is from Satan and if any one of you yawns, he should check his yawning as much as possible, for if any one of you (during the act of yawning) should say: 'Ha,' Satan will laugh at him" (Sahih Bukhari Book 4 Volume 54, Number 509).

" Narrated Abbas bin Tamim: my uncle asked God’s Apostle about a person who imagined having passed wind during the prayer. God’s Apostle replied: "He should not leave his prayers unless he hears sound or smells something" (Sahih Bukhari, Book 1, volume 4, Number 139).

“Narrated Salman al-Farsi (the Persian): It was said to Salman, Your Prophet teaches you everything, even about excrement. He replied: Yes. He has forbidden us to face the qiblah at the time of easing or urinating, and cleansing with right hand, and cleansing with fewer than three stones, or cleansing with bone” (Sunaan Abu Dawud Book 1 Number 7).

Apparently, nothing similar indeed in the four gospels except a vague allusion to what comes out of the body of man in the 15th chapter of Matthew.

"Some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God (corban),’they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:“‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’”Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth that is what defiles them.” Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”

He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”

“Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

Editor's note. Let us also concede to our Muslim friends that we cannot raise to the level of the hygiene pieces of advice to continually lavish the following and which is somewhat vague. Matthew 23. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside will also be clean.“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness, etc.”

As for the control of our sphincters, Jesus therefore cannot hold a candle to Muhammad but fortunately, the monks supplemented this deficiency of the Nazarene high rabbi.

Point 42 of the Rule of the Culdees according to St Maelruain of Tallaght: "Privies and urinals are abodes for evil spirits. The sign of the Cross should be made over these places, and a man should cross himself when he enters them, and it is not lawful to pray in them, except to repeat Deus in adiutorium (down to festina)”.

Muhammad must be credited nevertheless that he seems to have been very conscious of his (human) limits. But for Muslims, and this is called the dogma of isma or impeccability of the prophets, Muhammad is the most perfect and the greatest man having ever lived on our planet, and he is even the greatest of all prophets. Every Muslim therefore pays him a true worship, knowingly or

unconsciously, and reacts with an astonishing violence if he is questioned by a draftsman or novelist or anyone else in this field.

The misfortune of the Muslims is that Muhammad lived much longer than the Nazarene high rabbi Jesus and that he ended up head of state (whereas the attempted coup of the supporters of Jesus was crushed by the Romans).

Considering the mentality of the time (equating of any religion not to spirituality but to a law, Din, as in the case of the Law of Moses, social conformism within a society limited in number and in space (oases) Muhammad was therefore asked about everything and anything.

It is probable that many of these unworthy of a philosopher or of a mystic and related to simple hygiene or gastronomy, etc. questions, were asked after the fact, and after the personal death of Mahomet. It was then possible to ask the same kind of stupid questions to the members of his family or to his relatives.

Like everybody else, Muhamad had opinions on everything, and he did not seem to have resisted the temptation to give his opinion to anyone who asked for it.

It would have been preferable that Muhammad acts like the great hero of the initiatory novel called the four gospels and, faced with the many trick questions of the Pharisees, escapes them by evasive replies or expresses himself in parables.

It would have been preferable that Muhammad acts like the great hero of the initiatory novel called the four gospels and breaks with his family.

It would have been preferable that Muhammad acts like the great hero of the initiatory novel called the four gospels and doesn’t try to start a family.

It would have been preferable that Mohammed remains in opposition and doesn’t find himself lastly at the head of a nascent empire.

This was not the case, alas, for two billion of our human fellow creatures. For the first victims of all this are the Muslims themselves, of course. The misfortune is that in Muslim religious ideology good is not the implementation of the golden rule (do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you) but the implementation of the rule: "IF MUHAMMAD DID THEN IT IS GOOD! IF THIS IS THE QURAN WHO SAYS IT (THIS IS TO SAY IN FACT STILL IF IT'S MUHAMMAD WHO SAYS IT, IT'S GOOD!)

RELIGIOUS ISOLATION AND ESSENTIALIZATION.

For the record, a very clear example of what secularism is (more open what is what is called "paganism").

9 December 1905 law on the Separation of the Churches and State.

Title I: Principles. Article 1 « ……….under the provisos enacted hereafter in the interest of public order."

Article 2 "The Republic does not recognize, pay, or subsidize any religious sect. Accordingly… »

According to the pious Muslims by contrast, God sent prophets before Muhammad to hand over his law (din) to Mankind. Muhammad is the last of these prophets and his message is the completion of the previous messages, their seal (idea borrowed from Manichaeism). Therefore, the whole mankind must join up to his message and must follow it.

Muhammad tried during his lifetime to carry out this project. He made various openings towards the Jewish-Christian circles in Arabia, including by taking over more and more elements from their documentation or libraries, but vainly. It is clear, for example, that the Jewish communities in Yathrib / Medina refused to consider him the last of the prophets.

Muhammad accused them of having falsified their books to make disappear the elements which he supported or developed to elaborate his personal syncretism and reproached them for having been unfaithful to their prophets: like the pagans worshiping Jibt and Taghuts (4:51), the Jews would have worshiped Moses, their high priests and Ezra, (9/:0) and the Christians Jesus and Mary.

From that Muhammad concluded nevertheless that it was a will of God.

" HaS God willed He could have made you one community. But that He may try you by that which He has given you (He has made you as you are). So vie one with another in good works. Unto God you will all return, and He will then inform you of that wherein you differ” (5:48, see also 2:145,11:118,16 : 93 and 42: 8).

This theological consideration determines the legal status of non-Muslims, a status mainly governed by four verses:

-Lo! Those who believe and those who are Jews, and Christians, and Sabians - whoever believes in God and the Last Day and death right - surely their reward is with their Lord, and there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve (2:62).

-Lo! those who believe, and those who are Jews, and Sabians, and Christians - Whosoever believes in God and the Last Day and death right - there shall no fear come upon them neither shall they grieve ( 5:69).

-Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as do not believe in God nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which God has forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low (9: 29).

-Lo! those who believe (this revelation), and those who are Jews, and the Sabians and the Christians and the Magians and the idolaters - Lo! God will decide between them on the Day of Resurrection. Lo! God is Witness over all things (22:17).

Traditional doctors in law have deduced from these verses that the People of the Book: Jews, Christians, Sabians and Zoroastrians (Magians), have the right to live in the Muslim State despite the theological differences that separate them from Muslims .

The coexistence between Muslims and People of the Book however, is not on an equal footing, but with a dominant and a dominated, the People of the Book having to pay a tribute (jizia), being humiliated (9: 29) and to submit to certain discriminatory norms, particularly in the field of family law. Muslims may marry the women of the People of the Book, but they will not be allowed to take the women of Muslims (2: 221, 5: 5, 60:10). They will be placed under the protection of the Muslims, but they will have to observe a constant mistrust of them, even if they were related to them.

-O you who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who takes them for friends is (one) of them. Lo! God guides not wrongdoing folk (5:51, see also 3: 28 and 9:8).

-O you who believe! Choose not your fathers nor your brethren for friends if they take pleasure in disbelief rather than faith. Whosoever of you takes them for friends, such are wrongdoers (9:23).

In order to solve the contradictions between tolerant and less tolerant verses, traditional doctors in law resort to the theory of abrogation: a verse on a given subject is repealed by a later verse on the same case. However, traditional doctors in law could not agree on the scope or the dating of verses, some not hesitating to consider all the tolerant verses in the Quran about non-Muslims, as being purely and simply repealed by subsequent verses.

-Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor due, then leave their way free. Lo! God is Forgiving, Merciful (9:5).

Regarding the famous verse 9:29, this is what the Egyptian Muslim brother Sayyid Qutb was able to say. This verse and the following ones concern all people of the Book, both inside Arabia and abroad. They order to fight the people of the Book who deviate from the religion of God until payment of the tribute in a state of humiliation. They will not be forced to become Muslims because the standard in this regard is "no compulsion in religion," but they will be left to their religion only if they pay the tribute as a result of a treaty with Muslims.

Relations between Muslims and members of other religious communities will have highs and lows, and many people converted to Islam over time. Those who remained faithful to their original faith could benefit from a certain legislative and judicial autonomy, especially in the field of family law. The Muslim state at the time was more a tax collector than a manager of society, especially since Jews and Christians were then more advanced than the wandering Arabs who came to occupy their country. That is why they were for a long time charged with their administration by the Muslim authorities.

This multi-faith legal system of the type Gombata Law still persists today in some Arab countries, but the trend is towards unification. In Jordan or Syria, non-Muslim religious communities apply their religious family law laws except for inheritances, and have their own religious courts, while Egypt abolished these courts in 1955.

Conclusion. What is certain is that in the socio-political state left by Muhammad, religion remains the main criterion of division. God or the different concepts of God are the greatest common divisor in mankind.

There are Muslims who form the Umma hubristicly called by the Quran “the best community that hath been raised up for mankind" (3:110). Beside this main group, there are groups that have revealed books: they can stay in the country, keep their belief, have their laws and jurisdictions, but they have to accept restricted rights and pay tribute. This tolerance was not applied to those among them who lived in Arabia. Muhammad, on his deathbed, would have said: "Two dins (religions) must not coexist in the Arabian Peninsula."

“Malik said that Ibn Shihab said: Umar ibn al-Khattab searched for information about that until he was absolutely convinced that the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, had said, 'Two dins shall not coexist in the Arabian Peninsula,' and he therefore expelled the Jews from Khaybar." (Muwatta Malik Book 45, Hadith 18).

It was no longer enough to pay the tribute as their co-religionists in the other regions dominated by Muslims. Recounting the word of Muhammad , Al Mawardi writes that non-Muslims were not admitted to stay in the Hijaz more than three days. Their same cadavers would not be buried there and, “if it took place, they will be exhumed and transferred elsewhere, because burial equaled staying for ever.”

Editor’s note. Traditional Muslim doctors in law have not agreed on the geographical boundaries in which this standard should apply. Today only Saudi Arabia invokes it to deprive all non-Muslims of the right to worship on its territory.

MUHAMMAD’S REPLACEMENT.

When he died in 632, Muhammad was the leader of the Ummah and of a territory that became a large state in just a few years. The question of his replacement was at the origin of the first great schism between Muslims.

For lack of precise indications given by Muhammad himself (the sermon-last will be known as goodbye hadith given at Ghadir Khumm in 632 being disputed) on the manner of organizing his replacement, the Muslims native of Medina (Ansars) in the absence of the immigrants come from Mecca the Muhajirun (what seemed logical to them because they formed the bulk of the Muslim army) meet among the Bani Sa'da (meeting known as saqifa or hall assembly) to appoint a new caliph. The foreseen candidate was Sa'd bin 'Obada.

Some immigrants from Mecca, including Abu Bakr and Umar, having heard of this meeting, three of them rushed to the place where the Ansars had gathered and Abu Bakr succeeded in reversing the situation. The Muslims were aware of the desire that the two men nurtured for power. Umar had prepared to give a speech but Abu Bakr prevented him from doing so and spoke himself to the participants ... .The criteria to which the caliph was to meet were therefore established, being of Muhammad’s family, seniority of conversion and respectability or loyalty towards Islamic law.

-Abou Bakr thus elected caliph thanks to the intervention in extremis of the Aslam tribe but in the absence of the other Muhadjirun had only the time to deal with the most urgent cases (put an end once and for all to the vague hope of independence of the native Medinans, to repress the return to independence of the tribes in the west of Arabia (Ridda’s wars). On his death, Abu Bakr decided to appoint his successor, Umar ibn al-Khattab (probably in virtue of an agreement between the two men).This second caliph - Umar ibn al-Khattab - appointed, in turn, a council of six persons (of which Ali was a member) to choose among them the following caliph, who was Uthman ben Affan.

THE GREAT UPHEAVAL (AL FITNA AL KUBRA) 655-661.

-The Uthmanian policy was much criticized it is the least we can say. This member of the Umayyad clan - rival of that of Muhammad in the Quraysh tribe – rewrites the Quran and favors shockingly his family (nepotism), for example by reserving for it most of the governor's posts. He is accused of establishing an aristocratic power and of perverting the message of Muhammad. A revolt will break out in Egypt in 655, and Uthman is assassinated in June 656 - what unleashes panic.

It is therefore in this troubled background that the son-in-law and cousin of Muhammad, Ali ibn Abi Talib, will therefore be named caliph. Converted very early also, he is like his cousin Muhammad a member of the Hashemite clan of the Quraysh tribe, and had married his daughter Fatima, who died in 632.

Ali was immediately confronted with the strong opposition from the former Muhammad's favorite wife, Aisha, who was still angry with Ali for having sided with her accusers in the famous affair (ifk) of her alleged adultery in 626 with a young camel driver named Safwan (see chapter 24 verses 11 to 26 of the Quran), and two other close relatives of Muhammad, Talha and al-Zubayr. The latter, considering that they have as many rights as him to the caliphate, withdraw their allegiance and leave Medina to raise an army in Basra IN Iraq which was then the largest military camp.

The battle took place on 4 December 656 on the side of al-Khurayba, near Basra and will be called the battle of the camel, in reference to the mount supporting the palanquin which sheltered Aisha.

Tabari writes that in the first moments of the fight, Aisha, in his palanquin shielded by coats of mail and iron panels, urged Ali's men to give up their weapons, calling them her "children." The rather crude process not having the desired effect, she then encouraged her men to fight. Talha, wounded in the knee, leaves the battlefield to better die of his wounds. Zubayr fled and he will be killed in his flight.

The fighting focused then around the armored palanquin of Aisha and the camel. The infantrymen of both sides clashed around the animal for a long time but it became little by little obvious for everybody that Ali would not be defeated. And, still according to the tradition handed over by Tabari, one of the belligerents will succeed in cutting the hollow of the knee of Aisha's camel, which collapses. Ali will grant amnesty to his opponents and will order that the wounded are not killed. He then meets Aisha in Basra where she was escorted by her brother, and then becomes increasingly ignored (seems to have died in 678 in Medina after spending the rest of her life caring for children).

But a new opposition then arose against the unfortunate Ali: that of the Umayyads, led by Mu'awiya who feared losing the governorship of Syria that Uthman had entrusted to him.

Mu'awiya uses the pretext that Ali has not yet avenged the assassination of Uthman, his cousin.

The two armies clash at Siffin in the summer of 657, for several months, without any decisive victory on either side. But the risk of the stalemate of the fight makes the threat of a mutual disappearance linger, which would deprive the Umma of its leaders and thus would endanger the empire of Islam. The general of Mu'awiya then uses a trick: he makes a page of the Quran put at the end of the spears

of his soldiers. The soldiers of Ali’s army stop, not wanting to fight against the holy book. The protagonists therefore decide to rely on arbitration, means of dispute resolution admitted by the Quran.

When the arbitrator representing Ali proposes a compromise solution consisting of finding another caliph, for example a descendant of Caliph Umar, the one who represents Mu'awiya refuses, but takes this proposal as an agreement to resign, from Ali.

At this news, some of the fighters of the Alid camp, refusing arbitration, secede. They will be called Kharijites (Arabic "those who have gone out" "the leavers": al-khawarij, plural of khariji. They will be crushed the following year in Nahrawan by Ali, but after this victory the army of Ali refused to leave again for war against Mu`âwîya. Therefore Ali was forced to go back to Kufa what will complete undermining the authority of the fourth caliph.

Mu'âwiya appears from then on, in the eyes of the Medinan elites, as the only one able to bring a consensus to bring back order and therefore to save the empire: he will be named the caliph in 660, and the assassination of his rival Ali in 661 by the minions of the third camp, that of the Kharijites, will eventually consecrate his victory.

Editors’ note. A few years later the battle of Kerbala in 680 will definitively end the political role of Ali's family since the last direct heir to Muhammad, his grandson Hussein son of Ali, was assassinated there by the henchmen of the Umayyad caliph Yazid Ist son of Mu’awiya, who brought him back his head to Damascus. His son Ali Zayn al-Abidin was spared, however, and Yazid ordered to treat this child with regard.

The rumor of the massacre of the members of the Prophet's family by Yazid's army being spread in the capital, and the latter fearing a revolt, he publicly disavowed these events and ordered that the captives be escorted to Medina, they had left six months earlier with the grandson of Muhammad Hussein. In Medina, Ali Zayn al-Abidin will stay away from political plots by devoting himself to religious things but will die poisoned in 713, leaving behind him two boys, who will be the occasion of a first division in Shiism.

To return to Mu'awiya and the establishment of Umayyad power.

This Great Upheaval (Fitna al kubra) will have very important consequences in purely political matters, since it brings to power Mu'awiya and with him the Umayyad clan. Until then, the political structure was that of the State of Medina, centered on the city of the Prophet and ruled more or less collegially by the leaders of the Umma under the authority of the caliph.

It is Mu'awiya who will bestow on the caliph his function as supreme political leader and real authority. He will begin by displacing the center of power in Syria, in Damascus, where he will remain during all the reign of the Umayyads that is to say until 750. The image of the sovereign caliph is distributed, notably by the means of inscriptions throughout the Empire; moreover, by appointing his son Yazid to replace him, Mu'awiya imposes the principle of hereditary succession. Traditional Muslim writers believe that his coming to power coincides with the return of the mulk, that form of monarchical power that had been banished by Muhammad. There is de facto personalization of power around the caliphal figure, but Mu'awiya acts more as the leader of tribal confederation than as an absolute ruler: he does not seek to centralize the administration nor the tax, spares tribes and does not question the autonomy of provinces. His succession will be nevertheless challenged by a Medinan descendant of al-Zubayr, who will also aspire to the caliphate, showing that the power established by Mu’awiya, although stable during his reign, was not yet firmly established over time. It is Marwan, one of his distant cousins, who will put for real the Umayyad dynasty on the caliphal throne at the end of a new civil war that will last until 684.

THE KHARIJISM.

The Kharijism (Arabic "those who have gone out" "the leavers": al-khawarij, plural of khariji) is therefore an obedience of Islam that arose during the conflict between the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad Ali and the future 5th caliph Mu'awiya. The Kharijites were thus named by Ali in order to emphasize their contentious character, whatever their claims and methods, yet radically opposed.

The Kharijite movement increased following its refusal of the arbitration accepted by Ali between himself and his opponent Mu'awiya after the battle of Siffin who opposed them in 6557.

This battle between Muslims had been deadly and Ali had accepted the idea of arbitration to stop the bloodshed. Initially for Ali, the Kharijites nonetheless disassociated themselves from his camp on the grounds that it was up to God to arbitrate and not to men.

This formula is worth another name to Kharidjism that of Muhakkima, an Arab term which designates the community of those who pronounce the formula "Arbitration Belongs to God alone." According to them, once chosen and admitted by the community of believers, the caliph had the duty to contain the revolts, in order to preserve the unity of the group for which he was responsible.

They relied for this on this verse of the Quran: “If two parties of believers fall to fighting, then make peace between them. And if one party of them does wrong to the other, fight you that which does wrong till it return unto the ordinance of God” (verse 9 chapter 49).

The rebel clan was, from the Kharijite point of view, that of Mu'âwîya who should have submitted to Ali.

While his intention was to head to Syria to fight Mu'âwîya again, Ali had to face the Kharijites at the battle of Nahrawan near the current city of Baghdad in 658. The Kharijites were routed and many were killed.

Determined to avenge their dead, the Kharijites then made Ali assassinated by a certain Abd-al-Rahman ibn Muljam, while he prostrated himself for the prayer of Al-Fajr.

The Kharijites later divided into a multitude of groups (about twenty). Six of them were mainly recorded: Muhakkima, Ibadis, Azariqa, Najdat, Ajardi, and Sufri. All share common founding principles such as the takfir of the Muslims committing great sins, the obligation to revolt against the unjust or debauched ruler, or the excommunication of certain companions of Muhammad.

The Ibadis, pacifist, seceded during Ali's reign by reproaching him for his bellicose behavior, they refused to go to war and remained in Basra. They did not support the escalation of violence that followed their departure.

In some works Ibadis are called "white Kharijites" while Sufri are called "yellow Kharijites" and Azaraqa "blue Kharijites."

History

In 685 a first revolt was initiated by the Azaraqa who, after separating from Ibadis remained in the region of Basra, settled in the Fars (around Shiraz in Iran). They were pursued by the armies of the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik under the orders of Emir al-Hajjaj. Their new leader was killed and the Azaraqa disappeared (in 699).

In 686 an Ibadi community settled in the Sultanate of Oman and in the Yemen.

In 695 there was another Kharijite revolt. The Sunni tradition likes to emphasize, as a new example of the bloodthirsty fury of the kharijites, the savagery with which the Muslims were massacred in the Kufa mosque. All these Kharijite unrests had the effect of weakening the Umayyad Caliphate and preparing the success of his Abbasid adversaries.

Kharidjism was imported among Berbers by the first Arab tribes who fled the Umayyad persecutions to the west in the early Middle Ages and was used by some North Africans as a form of opposition to the Caliphate.

Doctrine.

Kharidjism is a Puritan practice of Islam, with strict morality, condemning all luxury. Faith has value only if it is justified by the works. The caliphs must lead an exemplary life and must be chosen electively among the best Muslims, regardless of race and tribe. They are divided on the problem of faith and of the attitude to have towards other Muslims; the Azaraqa are radicals using political violence and not admitting the concealment of the faith or taqiyya; the Najdat, who are less hard with the persons who take a wait-and-see approach, are in favor of taking power by force of arms; the Sufri condemn the political murder and admit the concealment of the faith by prudence (taqiyya); the Ibadis, pacifist but uncompromising in the political and moral fields, are more flexible with respect to other Muslims.

For Kharijism, all men are equal, and the privileges of the archaic aristocracy, accentuated under the reign of the Umayyad dynasty, are condemned. Some Kharijites make jihad a sixth pillar of Islam.

The most radical orientation, the Azaraqa, considered all other Muslims as unbelievers, "associators; polytheist " (mushriqun) and was developed in Persia around 685 by Nafi ben al-Azraq. The Azaraqa had particular practices.

-The probationary examination (imtiḥan, "examination, test") consisted of requiring from any newly converted Kharijite, as a pledge of his sincerity, to slaughter an enemy prisoner, referring to the fact that the prophet had asked Ali one day to cut the head of Meccan prisoners. Editor’s note. We do not know to what specific event these kharijites refer but it is true that there have been cases when Muhammad had made his prisoners be slaughtered, like the named Uqbah ibn Abi Mu'it after the battle of Badr in 624 ; Abu Izzah al-Jumahi after the battle of Uhud in 625; Abdullah ibn Katal after taking Mecca in 630 ... ..

-The religious murder (isti'raḍ "demonstration"), which allowed the killing of men but also of the wives and children, even prepubescent, of these.

They considered the territory inhabited by other Muslims as a territory of infidelity (Dar al-kufr, "territory of unbelief") where it was lawful to attack people and property, but in which you must not remain as Muhammad went into exile from Mecca to Medina in Order to escape the infidels.

A less brutal orientation, the Sufri living in a background hostile to Kharidjism, was developed by Ziyad ben al-Asfar. This orientation condemns political murder, admits the concealment of faith (taqiyya) out of caution and rejects the slaughter of infidel children. They consider that Sura XII (Joseph) is not really part of the Quran.

The branch founded by Shabib ibn Yazid claimed that it was legitimate to entrust the imamate to a woman if she was able to perform the tasks related to this role. His wife Ghazala commanded troops and during a battle she allegedly put to flight the famous Umayyad general Al-Hajjaj ben Yusef (660-714).

Another orientation, Ibadism still exists in the form of several regional variants. Founded by Abd Allah bin Ibad, it kept a certain character of political intransigence and moral rigorism. However Ibadis are much more flexible in their relationship with other Muslims. For example, they are forbidden to attack them by surprise without having previously invited them to join their faith (jihadi principle known as da’wa). More generally, it is the use of violence that is prohibited except for self-defense.

ORIGINS OF SHIISM.

The interest for us today of not being limited to the four legal Sunni leading schools, and to evoke the different political theories since the arbitration of Siffin in 657 which was to put an end to the conflict of replacement, is that a large part of this "forgotten" legacy is, on the one hand, decisive for the current situation, and, on the other hand, very rich in debates too quickly closed, often by violence, on the relationship of the Muslim religion with policy.

After the death of Jesus, the first Christians were scattered and hid out. In this case it must be taken into account that unlike Christians and Jews who were under Roman occupation, Muslims were face to face with each other and, unlike their "brothers" in the book, were not monopolized by the defense of their faith against an external enemy. If doctrinal conflicts opposed them, the impossibility of settling them by direct armed violence carried weight on the fate of the Judaism and of the Christianity of the time.

Hence the following fundamental questions about Islam.

- Are Muslims obliged to pledge allegiance to any authority after the Prophet?

- What are the criteria of legitimate authority?

- What attitude do Muslims have in relation to illegitimate and / or unjust authority?

- Should they obey it and make allegiance to it?

- Or do they have to disobey and fight it?

- What attitude must they have with regard to those who pledge allegiance to unjust governments?

- Should they fight them or spare them?

- May they trade and marry with them?

- Is war lawful, unlawful, obligatory or prohibited in the territory subject to the authority of such rulers?

- Are they allowed to live there as in a land of Islam, or should they emigrate from it, as the Prophet and his companions did when leaving Mecca?

So we had the opportunity to see above with the Kharijites, the Mouhakkima were in favor of the simple thesis that the caliphate was not an obligation of religion, Muslims can live without having to submit to a temporal authority. If an arbitrator is necessary, he can be chosen but only for his Quranic wisdom (thus being dismissed if he loses it), regardless of any other social or "racial" considerations.

For some authors they embody the democratic tendency of Islam, invoking his refusal to privilege the family of the Prophet.

For others it would be rather an anarchist tendency found among nomads of all civilizations and all eras. These muhakkima or Kharijites express the refusal of the wandering tribes to submit to a city power. They reject the hereditary principle and prefer recourse to the ancient elective mode of the Arab tribes.

As soon as the imamship in Khuzestan disappeared in 680, differences arose among them about the necessity of swearing allegiance to an imam, of fighting unjust and illegitimate governments.

Those differences gave rise to different obediences: Azrariqa (whose theories are known only by their detractors) Sufri (who tolerate more than others doctrinal differences, and who have disappeared too), Najdat, Ajardi (of whom we know little) and Ibadis (only obedience having survived until today, they are the majority in Oman).

They prefer kitman or casuistry to the resort to armed struggle, Pietism and educational action to keep and transmit the teachings of Islam as they view it. Their modes of political action are similar to more or less open civil disobedience and their vision of religion, from its spreading to its strengthening, is opposed to the hijra, this way of sharing territories, in territory of disbelieving or believing, Dar al Kufr, Dar al Islam or dar al harb. War can only be lawful under certain conditions.

As we have seen before, when he died in 632, Muhammad did not appoint officially a successor, the last sermon delivered by Muhammad on March 15, 632, a few days before his death, when he was at Ghadir Khum a water point on the way back to Medina after a final pilgrimage to Mecca, not being decisive (all depends on the meaning given to the Arabic word mawla).

. After the death of Muhammad, two ideas of Islam embodied by two potential caliphs therefore faced each other. The first one, that of a return to tribal traditions, is embodied by Abu Bakr, the Prophet's lifelong companion. The second, more attached to the designation of a friend of Muhammad, sees Ali, his son-in-law and spiritual son, as a suitable candidate. After the brief attempt to seize power by ethnic Medinans (meeting of the Banu Sayda Saqifah), it will be, however, Abu Bakr who will become the first caliph (because of his age) and will thus have the task of replacing Muhammad. He will govern for two years a territory that extends from Arabia to Egypt. After his death in 634, two other caliphs will succeed him: Omar and Othman. The latter will take the opportunity to place his relatives in important positions.

Esteeming himself the most worthy successor to Muhammad, and always wishing to reunite all Muslims in a strict Islam, Ali defends a strict application of the Quran. Between rules of succession (Ali wishes indeed to reduce to the descendants of Muhammad the possibility of becoming caliphs) and other doctrinal differences, the dividing line is now clear between the future Shiites (supporters of Ali), and the others, majority, the future Sunnis. A war that lasted nearly two generations followed, in which hatred between future Sunnis and future Shiites became stuck and became durable (see above what we said about the Kerbala massacre in 680 when Muslims members of the future Sunni side will cut the throat of the son of Ali and grandson of Muhammad : Husayn ) ... ..

The arbitration of 657 in Siffin, very quickly disputed, between Ali and his Umayyad competitor ( Umayyad = family who had opposed to Muhammad before joining him....late), having de facto turned to the advantage of the second being given its ambiguity, causes very quickly the formation of the first dissident in Islam, the Mouhakkima or Kharijites, from which come the Ibadis who still exist. These muhakkima or Kharijites blame Ali for having accepted this arbitration, and it is therefore necessary to disobey him and to choose a legitimate imam (in this case it was a certain Abdallah Ibn Wahb Al-Rasibi, disappeared in a battle against the troops of Ali). The muhakkima or Kharijites managed to assassinate Ali, thus inaugurating a long series of politico-religious assassinations.

Returning to Siffin's arbitration in 657, Ali and his followers withdrew immediately after to Iraq and Iran, and it was his assassination by a kharijite that will give the conflict a dramatic turn.

The son of Abu Sufyan, Muawiya, took the opportunity to change the caliphate into a hereditary monarchy by borrowing its forms and organs from the state organization of the conquered countries. This change will be therefore the cause of the formation of Ali’s partisans into political-religious branches claiming to be totally loyal to the family (Ahl al-Bayt) of Muhammad, in other words, the Shiism.

The Zaydism will arise from a revolt against the Umayyad power. To the recognition of the legitimate imam (descendant of Fatima and Ali) will be added an offensive intended to impose him. In this respect its doctrine is very close to those of the Mu'tazili, and Sunni elements mingled with it over time.

Zaydism is the school of thought of the Ahl al-Bayt par excellence and claims to be in line with the ideas taught by Imam Zayd Ibn Ali Ibn Al Husayn Ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib and therefore the great-great-grandson of Muhammad. It is one of the three major Shia branches with Twelver Shi'ism and Ismailism, and the closest to Sunnism.

The historically attested presence of imamship in Yemen and Tabaristan indicates that Zaydis didn’t always respect the principle of the necessity of fighting unjust rulers.

In addition, some Zaydis consider that the condition of the "double filiation" (to be a descendant from both Fatima and Ali) is ... no longer appropriate, going even as so far as to write that it was never an absolute requirement ... which does not contribute to the clarity of the debates. Referring to the Zaydi school of the Salihiyya, which has always advocated the elective principle of the imam (without any precision on the candidate ...), Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Muhammad Al Wazir from Yemen, adds that Zaydism, which has never closed the gates of ijtihad, can only today consider authority in terms of democratic election without any discrimination whatsoever (Qira’at fi al fikr az zayd, Dar al-Manhal, Beirut, 1993) .

The Ismailis, unlike the followers of Zaydism that keeps (apparently mostly) political allegiance to the descendants of Fatima and Ali, have a doctrine making the imamate proceed directly from a divine order based on three founding principles :God, the prophet, and the Imam.

As God can only be righteous, he cannot help but complete the cycle of prophecy by the cycle of the imamate: God has made the contemporary generation of the Prophet benefit by from his beneficent grace by guiding it, he cannot deprive from this same grace the following generations. We are very close to the notion of Holy Spirit in Christianity. The cycle of the imamate proceeds from this divine grace justly distributed among the generations. Imams and prophets are also the "proof" by which God warns human beings, tells them what they should do and should not do, and then holds them accountable for their behavior.

God only judges because he has warned and indicated, through the prophets and the imams, the way to follow. In this concept, the imamate therefore is not a human matter depending on the choice of believers or on the will of a man who claims it or is allowed to leave it to whoever he wants. It is God who designates the imams as he designates the prophets to guide humans and free men from erring. Each imam hand over to his successor the mission entrusted to him, so that he continues to ensure his presence in the world. We are here very close to the role played by the pope in Catholicism.

For these first Shiites the first imam was therefore the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, Ali, and the only legitimate imams were 7, the sixth being Ja'far Al-Sadiq (died in 765) and the last Ismail. This last imam is the Madhi and they are expecting his event (his return) to save the world from injustice and corruption.

The Twelver Ismaelians consider that these legitimate imams are 12, the last being Muhammad Al-Madhi Al-Muntazhar, whose disappearance in 882 represents the beginning of the "minor occultation," the "major occultation" beginning in 940 , with the disappearance of the fourth representative of the "hidden Imam" without designation of another imam to succeed him.

This idea of the legitimate replacement of Muhamad after his death has the effect of delegitimizing the first three caliphs and all the authorities who have ruled since the assassination of Ali, whose reign (657-661) would be the only moment (after Muhammad) when the Muslim community was able to benefit from the "grace" of God.

The responsibility for this "curse" falls to the society that has turned away from its saving imams to pledge allegiance and submit to usurpers. The expectation of the hidden imam make this Shiism a messianism that it is possible to bring closer to the expectation of the Saoshyant by the Zoroastrians, the Messiah by the Jews and of the Parousia among Christians.

While waiting for the event of this hidden Imam who will ensure by his direction the salvation and liberation of mankind, the Shiites have long advocated the taqiyya (dissimulation), which plays the same role as the kitman among the Ibadis, to avoid risking persecution. This practice did not prevent them from taking part in revolts (such as those that preceded the advent of the Fatimid dynasty in North Africa) in the hope of hastening "the liberation" and anticipating the kingdom of God or simply putting an end to the oppression and persecution of which they were victims.

The institutionalization of Shiism as a state doctrine (Fatimid Dynasty from the 10th to the 12th century, official religion of in Persia since 1507) of course was done to the detriment of its messianic dimension.

However, the differences between the four madhhabs of the Sunni Fiqh and that of the Ahl al-Bayt or Shiites are often minimal. It would appear that the Shiites have found in these apparent differences a great wealth. They saw in them a major reason for not closing the gates of Ijtihad unlike Sunnis.

But let's be clear !

We do not say that all is well in the best of all worlds with Shia Islam. Shia or not, Shia Islam remains an Islam. For various reasons, including the fact that it has long been politically a minority, it has proved to be more tolerant and more modern in some fields. That is why we dedicate to it a special body in this brief essay on, or more exactly against, Islam.

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REMINDER ABOUT SHIISM.

If for the Sunnis the Imamate or Caliphate, as pure political replacement of Muhammad, is only a matter of legal detail, for the Shiites it is the cornerstone of religion. Without an imam, religion would be like a body without a spine, or worse, a body without a soul. An affair of this importance cannot be left to the deliberation of Muslims. The explicit designation of the Imam is much more important than the totality of the ritual. The Shiites consider that Muhammad, after the conquest of Mecca, explicitly designated Ali, near the spring of Khumm, as his successor and executor (Wasi). The great companions, such as Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al-Khattab and Uthman ben Affan (the first three caliphs called well guided by the Sunni) could not be unaware of this last will of Muhammad. So they broke his last wishes.

For the Shiites, the lineage must imperatively go through the children of Fatima and Ali, the only bearers of this divine light (Nur) inherited from Muhammad. A major point in Imamology is the infallibility (Isma) of the Imam but will appear much later only, in Shiite literature. For the Shiites the spiritual guidance of the Imam cannot be carried out without the direct connection with God. The imam holds the esoteric knowledge (batin), the absolute truth. He cannot be wrong and he is infallible just like Muhammad. So the maxims of the Imam are precepts to be followed: they complete and comment on the Quran and the Sunnah of Muhammad, confirming what is lawful and unlawful. Imams teach anything that would be contrary to the spirit of the Quran or Sunnah.

The original Shi'ism was therefore composed of companions who believed that Imam Ali, son-in-law and cousin of Muhammad, had been chosen by him and a divine will to succeed him. From the second half of the first century of Hegira (7th century) , this primacy of Imam Ali has become a fundamental element of Shiism and is at the heart of their believing. For Shiites, this designation is explicit (nass-jali): Imam Ali is the testamentary or legatee heir (Wasi) of Muhammad (Good by sermon of Ghadir Khumm in 632).

Muhammad handed over a religious pedagogy for the whole mankind according to the divine plan but it could not be realized entirely during his human life. This revealed message (Risala) took the form of a book, the Quran, but the link (Imamate) that binds human beings to God continues and will continue until the end of time. In order to do this, mankind needs a Spiritual Guide (imam) to hand over the spiritual exegesis of the Quran and actualize the message according to the conditions of the time. The imam is the continuator of prophetic pedagogy. The imam holds his knowledge (ilm) from a personal divine illumination.

Shiites insist on the bivalent nature of the Quran: its exoteric content (zahir) and its esoteric content (batin). Exoteric knowledge is given to all people without exception, whereas esoteric knowledge is only granted to initiates.

Succession of Shiite Imams.

For Shiites, upholders a clerical tradition of Islam inherited from the Persian Paganism or Christianity, the imam is the spiritual and temporal guide of the Islamic community. Among the Twelvers, they often have the title of mullah or ayatollah and, consequently, that of imam is more used in Sunnism ((to simply designate the person in charge of the prayers to be performed in the mosque). In other Shia communities, the imam is the only guide.

Disappearance of the Imam.

Some Shiite groups, in front of the disappearance of their imam without leaving descendants, like the Twelvers, resorted to the concept of occultation (ghayba).

Only the Nizari have a living Imam (the Aga Khan) who deals with his Ismaili community.

SUNNISM.

Sunni political theories were formed in response to Ibadi, Shia and Mu'tazili theories.

Al-Ashari (873-935) presented the first elements of the theories about the caliphate and the relationship between religion and politics. This just after the end of his membership in Mu'tazilism, abandoned for the Hanbalism since the reign of Caliph Al-Mutawakkil (847-861).

It was about legitimizing, against the Shiites, the caliphate of Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman. This legitimacy concerns both the order in which they have acceded to this function and the means they have used to access and exercise it. His disciples do not follow him entirely and are satisfied with the argument of the "consensus of the companions" both for the necessity of the caliphate in general and for the legitimacy of the first four caliphs, without taking into account facts that demonstrate – violently, cf. the wars of Ridda for example - the non-existence of such a consensus.

In addition to the authority of these caliphs, he sanctified the companions of Muhammad by considering that everything they did was just, necessary and legitimate from the point of view of religion, even if there were differences and conflicts between them.

Al-Ashari draws from that a rule that works as a dogma: The followers of the community and tradition (sunnah) recognize the right of the ancestors that God chose to be the company of his Prophet, take the example of their virtues, refrain from talking about their divergences whatever their rank, and recognize the priority (of the first four caliphs), whom they consider as the well guided (rashidun) caliphs and the best men after the Prophet

This gives Sunnism something that is very similar to the modern "double standard" theories or gives it an ad nauseam tearful character as Reuven Firestone (Jihad: The Origin of Holy War in Islam. New York. Oxford University Press.1999) remarks it: “The justification for killing on the ground that it is less onerous than fitna is clearly an ideological statement.”

The existence of an authority is considered necessary to prevent fitna and preserve law and order. Al-Ashari institutes the obligation to swear allegiance to any imam or caliph whether fair or unjust, good man or deviant.

His disciples Al-Juwayni (1028-1085) and Al-Ghazali (1058-1111) will take over this point to establish that obedience is obligatory, even if the imam or caliPh is unjust: any opposition to authority is a fitna that is to be fought as long as it has not succeeded in defeating the existing power and replacing it: but if it triumphs, it ceases to be a fitna and therefore becomes from then on a jihad and any resistance on the part of the fallen authority in turn becomes a fitna (realpolitik).

The followers of Al-Ashari kept themselves apart from the Mouhakkima as from the Shiites on the conditions to be fulfilled to be a legitimate caliph.

Versus the first, they exclude the non-Quraysh (therefore all non-Arabs, racism?), versus the second, they refused t limiting the legitimacy to the descendants of Muhammad or his cousin Ali.

This makes possible to legitimize a posteriori all the caliphs that the Muslim world has known until then: the caliphs of Medina, the Umayyads and the Abbassids. Considering that the ideal caliphate has definitely disappeared since the end of the reign of the first four caliphs, Sunni theologians believe that the main condition for becoming a legitimate authority is to be able to be obeyed, to prevent order and prevent fitna.

Long before Ibn Khaldun and his theory of asabiyya (social cohesion) necessary to be obeyed and to prevent people from attacking each other, Al-Juwayni and Al-Ghazali have shown that the most important criterion is that of ghabala (ability to overcome) and shawka (force) as a prerequisite for the authorities to be respected. To justify this priority of the force on the religious criteria of the ilm and of the piety, the theologians invoked some hadiths found among the jurists.

The consultation may be a way to choose the caliph, but not necessarily, the caliph in practice being allowed to appoint his successor. This precaution would be even necessary to avoid, once again, the fitna. What matters most is the social weight of the opinion of those who would be, failing that, candidates for the aforementioned replacement.

The recent case of the Islamic State proclaimed in Iraq and Syria in 2014 by Abu Bakr? Al Baghdadi? shows that in this field we must not neglect the mark left by the doctrine on a sensitivity and a popular devotion that may find in it material to their nostalgia for a glorified and mythological past, that Muslim man aspires, in the depths of his soul, to see coming back to life.The lesser jihad, which is a Quranic order as well as one of the doctrinal founding principles of Islam, was always used as a motor for political and social militancy throughout history. In medieval times, several advocates of political change have used this doctrine to legitimize their revolt against leaders guilty of betraying Islam according to them, while others,some rigorists, have invoked it to fight against the heretics who did not obey the law or the Islamic authority and who compromised the purity or the triumph of religion.

The Syrian Hanbali Ibn Taymiyya, a contemporary of the disaster of the Mongol invasion after the fall of the Abbasid caliphate in 1258, is precisely a member of this last category: through various fatwas (legal opinions established on his exegesis of the Quran and of the words of Muhammad ), he advocates the most literal return to the example of the pious ancestors (al-salaf al-salih) and he requires the Islamic power to impose its authority through the lesser jihad as well as through a strict application of Sharia (pages 43-44 Peters, Rudolph. 1996. Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam: A Reader. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers).

Ibn Taymiyya innovates by judging the quality of the faith of the individuals according to their penchant to fight. He calls for the removal from Umma of the Muslims who refuse to subscribe to the lesser armed jihad, by means of takfir, or anathema (pages 63-65. Cook, David. 2005. Understanding Jihad. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press). His lesser jihad targets every unbelieving and "deviance" from Sunni dogma. He mainly targets Shiites, Sufis and Mongols, whom he considers to be more dangerous enemies than the Crusaders.

But these racist principles (exclusion from the Caliphate of the non-Quraysh and therefore of all non-Arabs and refusal to limit the legitimacy to the descendants of Muhammad or of his cousin Ali) had exceptions that made them look like a posteriori justifications.

Ibn Taymiyya after the Mongols had put an end to the Abbasid dynasty (al-Siyasa al-shar'iyya “The book of governance according to the shari'a) for example will resolve to write in order to call the Muslims to pledge allegiance to the new rulers. Beautiful example of realpolitik! Ibn Taymiyya could have outwitted our modern politickers.

These compromises made possible to recognize, later, the legitimacy of the Ottoman caliphs even though they were neither Quraysh nor Arab. With the colonization and the passage of most Muslims under non-Muslim authorities, the same principle of reality, and the same fear of fitna, brought new adaptations. It was no longer required that authority be Muslim. It can be legitimate as long as it preserves law and order, prevents fitna and does not oblige Muslims to renounce their religion.

Ferjani (Politics and religion in Islamic field. Paris: Fayard. 2005, pages 209-2015) emphasizes that the Sunni idea of authority is fundamentally conservative in that it seeks to defend the established order and the legitimacy of the state in the name of the obligation to obey God, the Prophet and his first four "well inspired" (al-rashidun) successors in charge of community affairs, even when they do not respect the law. Any revolt against the ruling power is a revolt (fitna) that is to be fought, even if this power is unfair. However, the sedition can claim to be a jihad when it succeeds in showing the policy practiced by authority as a "fitna factor" and as an alternative.

The Sunni idea of authority is therefore fundamentally conservative: it aims to defend the established order. However, it is not difficult to turn it against the power in place: it is enough for that to disguise the uprising into jihad, to consider the politics of the established power as a factor of fitna, to give the objectives of the revolt the character of a religious imperative, and to present the suppression that follows as a will to prevent Muslims from living and practicing their religion (taqiyya). The same theory is put to use in order to justify the obligation to obey the established authority, whether just or unjust, legitimate or not, and the use of weapons, even the "tyrannicide" to conquer power.

Doctrine defines three kinds of lesser jihad against the inner enemies of Islam, considered to be the most perverse because they can break the unity and harmony of the community: apostates, dissidents and deserters or robbers.

The rebels. Jihad against the rebels aims to fight any social, political or doctrinal uprisings likely to threaten the power and its holders. The persons or groups behind these differences are accused of bid'a (innovation) or kufr (unbelieving), therefore of heresy or impiety, since the power combines essentially the temporal and the spiritual one.

Doctrine states that if rebels (bughat) do not deny the authority of the imam or caliph, they are allowed to live peacefully within the community. The caliph must nevertheless try to persuade them to comply with the law and authority. If the rebels persist in their refusal, they must be the target of a jihad so that the unity of the umma is restored. If the rebels are numerous and powerful, it is recommended to fight them with force. Those among them who are taken as prisoners must not be killed, and their weapons must be given back to them once they submit to the authority of the Imam or Caliph.

Deserters and robbers.Lawyers agree that it is the imam or caliph who decides on the penalty against deserters (muharibun) and robbers (kutta 'at-tarik), but they do not agree on the nature of the punishment to be ordered. Depending on the seriousness of the crime and the character of the criminal, some advocate death and crucifixion, others recommend the amputation of hands and feet, while others advise the expulsion of the individual from his city or from the dar al-Islam.

On the other hand, the imam or caliph may decide to consider them as some rebels and to reserve them the same treatment

The Egyptian Orientalist Alfred Morabia ((The Jihad in Medieval Islam: The Sacred Fight from the origins to the twelfth century. Paris: Albin Michel. Subject to reservation. 1993) explains that many doctors in law have claimed to prefer sinners and infidels to heretics because they are a more pernicious danger, because it is more subtle and diffuse than that of evident impiety. He quotes the father of the Shafi'i school, Shafi'i, for whom "it is necessary to fight apostates / rebels before doing jihad against infidels of the Dar al-harb ." The principle comes at the origin of a word ascribed to Muhammad in which the latter enjoins Ali to wage against the dissidents "a fight similar to that led [against the disbelievers] in consideration of the preaching." The author argues that this precept was appropriate for Muslim leaders, whose political realism often led them to be allied with the disbelievers against their Muslim opponents. On the other hand, the believers who die while fighting the rebels is considered a martyr just like the one who passes away by doing jihad against infidels (Morabia, pp. 305-308).

Alfred Morabia stresses lastly that the distinction between the different meanings of the jihad was today tending to disappear in the Muslim spirit: the true mystic, anxious to fight the passions that are in him, because of the duty of commanding good and forbidding evil, end up always in fighting evil outside himself, in his entourage. This protection of the neighbor, this hisba, in the direction of the Muslims, naturally leads to war, either against rebels, brigands and heretics, or against the unbelievers. The murabit, ascetic, preacher and warrior thus embodies the whole meaning of the word jihad (Morabia, chapter IX).

THE FIVEFOLD RANKING OF HUMAN BEINGS.

May the pious Muslim forgive in advance what will follow and which, alas, falls under God's prohibition of all contestation. Because in the following lines, we will be discussing the verses of the Quran: their meaning, their relevance, their appropriateness, their ethical, philosophical or scientific value. How can we do otherwise?

Particularly in connection with the fivefold ranking of human beings.

Mushrikun and Tawaghit Kuffar and disbelievers.

People of the Book (roughly the Judaeo-Christians and some other minorities like the Mandean Sabians now almost missing or the Zoroastrians therefore the Parsis, still represented.

Men women.

Free men / slaves.

Finally, at the very top of the pyramid, the Muslims, who do not constitute a race in the vulgar sense of the term, of course, but are undoubtedly an elite. An elite having itself its own elite (see chapters 4: 95, 9: 19-20, 57: 10).

THE SUBHUMANS.

The term kafir (plural kuffar) includes all non-Muslims, it has a considerable pejorative and depreciatory overtone comparable to an insult of the type “taghut.”

In ancient Arabic poetry, the word kafir means ungrateful person. Under the influence of the Syriac, this term will then take the meaning of "unfaithful." Etymologically speaking the word kafir designates more precisely someone who conceals or hides something while knowing that it exists. For a person to be kafir, he must therefore do an act of kaffara, that is to say that he knows the truth but hides it from others, whether by fighting it or by any other means.

Verse 176, chapter 7. " He followed his own lust. Therefore his likeness is as the likeness of a dog: if you attack him he pants with his tongue out, and if you leave him he pants with his tongue out. Such is the likeness of the people who deny Our revelations.”

Verse 179, chapter 7. " These are as the cattle - nay, but they are worse! These are the neglectful.”

Verse 55, chapter 8. " Lo! the worst of beasts in God's sight are the ungrateful who will not believe."

Verse 65 chapter 8. " The disbelievers are a folk without intelligence! "

Given the very pejorative meaning in Arabic of the words kuffar (singular kafir) or Jahilyya (literally the times of barbarism), it seemed more powerful to translate this word (kafir / kuffar) by subhuman, especially in contrast with the SUPERIOR SPIRITUAL race that are true Muslims.

Chapter 3 verse 110. " You are the best community that has been raised up for mankind. You enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency.”

The verses we have just quoted are very clear: unbelievers are the worst of creatures (98: 6), animals hated by God, AND MUSLIMS HAVE THE RIGHT TO ORDER WHAT TO DO 'PROHIBIT WHAT'S BLAMEWORTHY.

For Muslim theology indeed every man is naturally born a Muslim.

“I created My servants Hunafa' (monotheists), but the devils came to them and deviated them from their religion, prohibiting what I allowed, etc.” (Hadith of Lyad Ibn Himar recorded by Muslim).

" No baby is born but upon Fitrah (as a Muslim). It is his parents who make him a Jew or a Christian or a Polytheist." (Hadith of Abu Huraira recorded by Al-Bukhari and Muslim, Book 33, Number 6426).

Muslim theology has nevertheless "inherited" or, more accurately, recovered, little by little, a division of the world that is at once hubristic (at least ethnocentric) and ultra-simple, of the type “we and others” (some others often essentialized without nuance given the narrowness of the geographical framework concerned despite the exile in Babylon).

The division of the world according to ancient Judaism was indeed very simple.

There were the people chosen by the only true God master of the Universe ...... and the other nations ..... often referred to as nations, period besides : Latin Gentiles (from gens = clan or tribe).

The situation became somewhat complicated with Christianity. The latter considered itself quite naturally as the newly chosen people (the Verus Israel in Latin language ) and therefore distinguished in addition to itself the Jews who remained Jews, and the other nations, gradually renamed "pagan" (neither Jewish nor Christian).

The advent of Islam further complicated the picture.

The first Muslims distinguished their group, the Jews and Christians, called Ahl Al-Kitab ("people of scripture" or "of the Book") because of the Bible; and the others neither Muslim nor Jewish or Christian, such as the Arab fellow countrymen of the young Muhammad in Mecca, for example.

The Mecca of Muhammad's youth seems indeed to have been a true crossroads of religions (360 statues or icons in the Kaaba).The presence of Jewish, or Judaized or Judaizing tribes, is only mentioned in the neighboring City State of Yathrib future Medina, but there were probably Christians in the fashion of the time since Waraqa Ibn Nawfal the Hanif, cousin of the first wife of Muhammad (Khadija), seems to have been a Nestorian bishop. The first muezzin of Islam, Bilal, a Christian slave from Ethiopia, etc. As to the "king" of Mecca at the time, Abu Sufyan, Ibn Habib (Kitab Al-Muhabbar) assures he was Manichean and Ibn Kalbi in his work entitled Mathalib Al Arab confirms that many of the Quraysh were "Zindiq" (fallen in the zandaqa).Hence the fact that Muhammad often uses the formula "O Muminun, O Believers! "to begin the statement of divine precepts. Seal of the prophets is besides a typically Manichean expression!

But finally men and women without a sacred book (ummiyun, singular ummi, literally "people without scriptures, without holy books) there must have been some of them at this time in Mecca and it is

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therefore with them that we will begin this short study of the religious overview of the City State of Mecca during the Jahiliyya. For more details on this period and the 360 gods or goddesses of the Kaaba see our previous essays and the Kitab al-Asnam or Book of idols of Hisham ibn al-Kalbi.

This distinction remained nevertheless very theoretical, for the majority of the Nasara (or Messihiyun), then, of the Christians, already recognized God at this time, in addition to God the Father, God the Son (Jesus) and another divine person, the Holy Spirit . This, in the eyes of the Muslims, brought them much closer to the polytheists (mushrikun).

Hence the gigantic Muslim catch-all category of infidels miscreants unbelievers, etc. called .... Kuffar (singular kafir).

We will try in the following therefore to distinguish the Ahl Al-Kitab or People of the Book (Jews and Christians) from other non-Muslims. BUT THEY WILL NOT BE EASY, THE MUSLIM THEOLOGIANS BEING THE FIRST IN MAPPING THEM WITH THE DESIGNATION OF DAR AL KUFR.

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THE KUFFAR AND THE KUFR.

There are therefore two types of disbelievers (kuffar, plural of kafir).

The original disbeliever (kafir asli), that is to say who has never embraced Islam. Some believe in God, but none respects the precepts of Islam, nor recognizes his Prophet. There are three types of them.

The pagans (called tawaghit), followers of non-Abrahamic religions, such as the Arab pagans of the time of the Jahilyya (literally from the time of barbarism) or today Hindus, Buddhists, the unfortunate Yazidis in Iraq, etc.

The People of the Book (Ahl Al-Kitab). They are the Jews and Christians who believe in the single God, but do not recognize Muhamad as a prophet.

Atheists, those who refuse to worship a particular god or follow a particular religion.

The second type of kafir is the apostate (kafir murtad), the one who has committed an act or said a word leading to his throwing from Islam.

These acts of kufr are of two types.

Al-juhud: It is the denial of one of the obligations of Islam such as fasting, pilgrimage, prayer, sharia, lesser jihad. The person who deliberately denies or ignores their obligatory and sacred character becomes "jaahid" (the one who denies, who engages in "juhud").

Al-istihlal: it is the act of allowing what God has forbidden, or of forbidding what God has permitted. For example, allowing illicit sexual acts or anything else prohibited. The one who commits istihlâl is called al-Mustahlil.

An-naqid: This is another action that nullifies the Islam of the person in question. These dismissals of Islam (Nawaqid al-Islam) are numerous and if a person commits one of these faults, it also becomes a kafir but not a kafir asli, that is to say of birth, but a kafir murtad, that is to say through a deliberate choice (in other words, apostate).

Note that al naqid not always comparable to a real excommunication. In the absence of a unified clergy, the kafir murtad, whose act does not touch on a principle (such as the pillars of Islam), may always migrate to another Muslim region where the doctors' opinion joins his thought.

Muslim theology distinguishes the major disbelief (Kufr Akbar) from the minor disbelief (Kufr Asghar).

Major disbelief is the opposite of Faith and concretely means ignoring God or His Messenger, rejecting the words and the orders of God and His Messenger after having taken knowledge of them.

An ancient debate, already present in Bukhari, exists among Muslim thinkers to know if a Muslim becomes Kafir following a "mortal sin." Different interpretations have existed in Islam. For the Murji'ites, a Muslim, even in the case of serious sin, remains a Muslim. Conversely, for the Ḵharijites, any unredeemed sin makes the Muslim a kafir.

-The disbelief of ignorance or "Kufr Al Jahl." It is the fact of ignoring the minimum to know to be Muslim because one is incapable of it.

This disbelief certainly prevents from entering the community of the faithful, but God does not punish the one who is guilty of it because he is incapable of learning. We may therefore consider, and this is what various authors do, that it is the type of disbelief that existed in countries where the message of Islam did not come.

But may we say as much today that the world is globalized and at the time of the internet?

He who is unaware of the oneness of God - because he is incapable of learning it - and worships a god other than God, is not a Muslim even though he prays, fasts, and pretends to be Muslim. What characterizes him is the disbelief in ignorance which prevents him from having Faith and from being a Muslim. But God will not punish him until he is able to know the teaching that the prophet has delivered.

-The disbelief in rejection. Refusing to believe in the existence of Heaven or Hell, for example. Or rejecting the obligation to worship no other god but God; the compulsory nature of the five prayers and of the ban on drinking wine, etc.

The rejection disbelief, of course, can only exist after the message of God has been transmitted.Some authors such as Ibn Al Qayyim nevertheless have a very broad idea of the rejection disbelief [Madarij as-Salikin 1 / 337- 338].

-Doubt disbelief is the belief that messengers are mistaken, but this category is rare among the disbelievers because God has supported His messengers and has given them signs and proofs of their sincerity.

-Disbelief through turning away is becoming uninterested in the prophet ....

-Finally, the disbelief of hypocrisy is pretending to believe ...

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With regard to disbelief due to arrogance ; it is like the disbelief of Iblis (Satan) who certainly did not deny the commandment of God and did not refute it; but has rejected it with hubris and it is this disbelief which is predominantly that of the enemies of the prophets as God has made us know in the story of Pharaoh and his people. As far as politicians or law givers are concerned, generally is a disbeliever who makes something illegal (haram) lawful, as well as the one who makes a lawful thing ( halal) which is yet in Islamic legislation (sharia) from the Quran and the Sunnah.... Illicit. According to some theologians, such as Ibn Al-Qayyim or Ash-Shafi’i making laws (tachri ') stemming from something other than the Quran and the Sunnah is considered as a major disbelief (kufr akbar).

The kufr duna kufr (acting as a disbeliever without being a disbeliever) when one is a law giver or a politician belongs to one or the other category according to the authors.

The minor disbelief includes all the mortal sins. Minor disbelief does not invalidate either Islam or Faith; but diminishes its value.

Consequences of disbelief: the takfir or excommunication .

The takfir is an expression no longer recognizing someone as a Muslim. It is noteworthy that committing acts of kufr or living in the kufr in lands of Islam (Dar al islam) does not amount exactly to excluding oneself from the Muslim community for want of a unified clergy in the Sunni world and therefore of supreme authority to interpret the texts, the one who lives in the kufr can always go to live

in a Muslim country (of the Dar al Islam) where this view does not prevail.

Any measure of deprivation of Muslim status must be taken with discernment. Several hadiths insist on the seriousness of the takfir: "Any man who says O kafir (disbeliever) to his brother, one of them deserves the name ." Many ulamas therefore warn against the excess of takfir. To accuse the other of being a Kafir is, however, is common in Muslim religious polemics.

The ten great motives of excommunication (takfir).

-To agree or practice associationism or shirk i.e., tritheism or polytheism (in other words paganism).

-Invoking or praying intermediaries between God and men.

-Not to consider non-Muslims as disbelievers or to doubt their unbelief.

- To think that a way or a judgment may be better than those of God or of Muhammad (cf. Quran 5:44).

- To hate something from the messenger of God even if you implement it.

- Mocking something that is part of religion, punishment or reward from God (cf. 9:65- 66).

- To agree or practice witchcraft. Editor’s note. This supposes, therefore, to believe in the existence of the Devil.

- A military alliance with "Jews and Christians allied to one another" against Muslims ( Quran 5: 51-55).

The Quran announces punishments in the other world for apostates and those who have left Islam. However, Muslim traditions add consequences while the disbeliever is alive. In the case of an apostate, he will have to be invited to return to Islam and then, in case of refusal, to be put to death. Such a sentence was decreed for Taslima Nasreen and Salman Rushdie.

* What therefore makes those who, like the former druids, do not believe in the existence of hell, some kuffar..

Bernese scholia commenting on Lucan's Pharsalia.

Hermann Usener. Scholia in Lucani bellum civile/Commenta Bernensia. Liber I (1869).

451 "Druids deny that souls can perish

[Driadae negant interire animas]

OR GO TO HELL “

[Aut contagione inferorum adfici] and

454 "They do not say that the Manes exist"

[Manes esse, not dicunt].

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According to the founder of Spiritism the druid Allan Kardec, hell is not a place. Hell designates the state of suffering in which imperfect soul/minds are due to personal defects that they have not yet corrected. This state is not eternal and depends on the will of progress of the soul/minds. Spiritists use the term "lower astral plane” (rather than "hell") to refer to this state of suffering through which the little evolved soul/minds go.

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THE KUFFAR OF THE TYPE MUSHRIKUN, OR TAWAGHIT (NON MUSLIMS WHO ARE NOT MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK *).

That is to say who are neither Jewish nor non-Trinitarian Christian nor Mandaean Sabaeans nor Mazdaean Zoroastrians (Magi). Today, for example, the faithful of non-Abrahamic religions, such as Hindus (apart from exceptions), Buddhists, animists, Yazidis, etc. The Kuffar known as Ummiyun are a category of subhumans not always easy to distinguish from the People of the Book or having at least Holy Scriptures, that is to say, roughly the Judaeo-Christians and the Mazdeans or Zoroastrians, for many verses of the Quran confuse them in the same reprobation; especially if they are Christians believing in the Holy Trinity (90%) but still try!

In Arabic shirk means "to associate." To associate to God other superhuman entities. Therefore polytheism.

Editor’s note. Sunni or Shiite Islam is also not above reproach in this field besides since it combines with God a supernatural and supra-cosmic superhuman entity known as "uncreated Quran ," hence the reaction of the Mu’tazili who refused this concept. For them there was only a human Quran, therefore created relative and able to be surpassed or corrected. But after having had its hour of glory, the Mu’tazilism was considered not as true Islam but as a heresy (zandaqa) and ended up in disappearing.

Apart from this case therefore there are several types of shirk.

- To attribute to himself a power or a right that belongs only to God. Such as claiming to have the power to create, to give life and death, to predict the future, to legislate, to be invoked, to be worshiped, to settle conflicts, etc. This is the worst category, the one who falls within this kind of kufr is a Taghut (idolater?)

-To attribute to a creature a role that belongs only to God alone as the power to create from nothing, to give life and death, to prohibit and allow, to make laws, to settle disputes, to know the future and the secrets hidden in the hearts, to hear the prayers ... etc. (“Shirk Ar Rububiyyah”).

-To attribute to a creature a right that God alone deserves like worship, invocations, offering ... etc. ("Shirk Al Uluhya").

Rububiyyah and Uluhya mean respectively Divine lordship and divinity. Verse 48 of chapter 4. " Lo! God does not forgive that a partner should be ascribed unto Him. He forgives (all) save that to whom He will. Whosoever ascribes partners to God, he has indeed invented a tremendous sin." Here we find again therefore the dramatic biblical notion of "jealous God" which is everything but Zen.

Remind of the initial situation: there is at Mecca in the time of Muhammad, that is to say of the Jahiliyya, in addition to the Manicheans (Zindiq) some Judeo-Christians and Christians, some Magians or Zoroastrians, thus members of the people of the Book, since having sacred scriptures..... Arab pagans simply. In other words, polytheists or pagans whose main god is the lunar god Hubal or Hobal (or Allah?) and who manage the temple of the Kaaba. A cubic structure center of various pilgrimages during certain months of the year (the sacred months). Muhammad will begin by seeking a kind of modus vivendi with his fellow countrymen. This is proved by the Surah 109 and the case of the Satanic verses.

Quran 53: 13-20.

" By The Star when it sets, your comrade errs not, nor is deceived; nor does he speak of (his own) desire. It is nothing save an inspiration that is inspired, which one of the mighty powers has taught him, one vigorous; and he grew clear to view, then he was on the uppermost horizon. Then he drew nigh and came down till he was (distant) two bows' length or even nearer, and He revealed unto His slave that which He revealed.The heart did not lie (in seeing) what it saw. Will you then dispute with him concerning what he sees ?

And verily He saw him yet another time by the lote tree of the utmost boundary, nigh unto which is the Garden of Abode. When that which shrouds did enshroud the lote tree, the eye did not turn aside nor yet was overbold.

Verily he saw one of the greater revelations of his Lord.

Have you thought upon Al-Lat and Al-'Uzza and Manat, the third, the other?”

It was then that Muhammad would have pronounced the famous "satanic verses":

20 a:These are the high-flying cranes (goddesses).

20 b: Whose intercession is to be hoped for.

Tabari page 108: " When the Messenger of God saw how his tribe turned their backs on him and was grieved to see them shunning the message he had brought to them from God, he longed in his soul that something would come to him from God which would reconcile him with his tribe. With his love for his tribe and his eagerness for their welfare, it would have delighted him if some of the difficulties

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which they made for him could have been smoothed out, and he debated within himself and fervently desired such an outcome. Then God revealed:

By the Star when it sets, your comrade does not err, nor is he deceived; nor does he speak out of (his own) desire ...

and when he came to the words:

Have you thought upon al-Lat and al-‘Uzza and Manat, the third, the other?

Satan cast on his tongue, because of his inner debates and what he desired to bring to his people, the words:

These are the high-flying cranes; verily their intercession is accepted with approval. (Al-Tabari, p. 108)"

The polytheists were delighted that Muhammad had at last approved of their gods. To return the kindness, they "prostrated themselves because of the reference to their gods which they had heard, so that there was no one in the mosque, believer or unbeliever, who did not prostrate himself" (Tabari p. 109).

Note by Peter DeLaCrau found by his heirs and inserted at this point of his manuscript.

Let us point out once again that our purpose here is not to stigmatize this kind of vision (Henotheim) that doesn’t seem to us inspired by the Devil but by simple realism (relying on the philosophical and reflective paganism of the most mystical of its tribesmen). Our purpose here is to stress that the giving up of this strategy on the behalf of Muhammad ended up making the two parties incompatible.

Because things will change quickly, perhaps under the pressure of some of the first Muslims coming from the Judeo-Christian movement (and especially the Christian slaves from Yemen or Ethiopia). From then on Muhammad will devote a terrible hatred to all These Ummiyun Tawaghits. The virulence and frequency of this uninterrupted flow of condemnations of the pagans and polytheists in Mecca is evidently explained by the personal feelings of Muhammad. The inexpiable hatred that the Quran devotes against the pagans in Mecca is to be commensurate with the feeling of rejection and humiliation that the young Muhammad was to have felt when he began to convey his visions around him ( when he was around 40 years old).

We shall not astonish anyone by pointing out that, although Islam contains certain pagan elements in terms of rituals, in the end it is no longer a pagan religion either polytheistic or henotheistic, and that, since it was born in a world largely Polytheistic and Pagan, it was essentially built on a virulent negation of the existence of other gods than Allah, beyond all henotheism precisely. Along with an increasingly important incorporation of Judeo-Christian elements gleaned here and there by Muhammad on the spot or on the occasion of his travels among the Christian Arabs in Jordan and Syria even in Iraq (or Yemen?) then in Yathrb/Medina with the three powerful Jewish tribes of the city (the Banu Nadir, Qaynuka, Qurayza) .

But Allah was originally one of the gods of the Meccan pantheon. For one reason or another especially worshiped by Muhammad son of Amina. Editor’s note. Some authors think that it was Hobal / Hubal who was the true supreme god of the pantheon of Mecca. But it does not matter!

Evidently, the insistence of the first Muslims on his primacy first , on his oneness then. To proclaim urbi et orbi that Allah was the greatest clearly meant at the time that this moon or lunar god (hence the famous Islamic crescent) was the greatest of the gods existing in Mecca. The well-known affair of the Satanic verses leaves us to believe that at one time at the beginning Muhammad thought it would be good to stick to a compromise of the Henotheistic type.

As we have had many times the opportunity to see it, given their importance, there exist in the Quran and in some later traditions, verses or traces of verses implying that the famous Meccan goddesses Uzza Allat and Manat, according to Muhammad at a certain point, could be validly asked to intercede to God and to weaken His anger or attract His favor. A little like the saints of Christianity, the holy virgin or Jesus Christ besides.

All this is corroborated by the famous verse so often taken over by the modern Islamic sycophants, verse 6 of chapter 109: "Unto you your religion, unto me my religion." A visibly Medinan sura given its brevity.

Muhammad then even explicitly admitted the possibility of concluding a pact with the mushrikun pagans (9, 1-4). But this agreement will soon be revoked (9,5-and following), and the Mushrikun polytheists will be summoned, by virtue of the verses of the sword (9, 5 et seq.) above, either to convert or to suffer war until death .

Because to take then as a slogan or cry of war “There is no god but Allah” was a second stage that went further. It was no longer a Henotheist proclamation of faith this time, but rather a negation of the

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existence of the other deities. There is no god but Allah clearly means: the other gods of the Meccan pantheon are not true gods, they do not exist.

The verse 256 of chapter 2: " There is no compulsion in religion! " is often used by the useful idiots of Islam or Taqiyyists as an evidence that Islam would be respectful of people belonging to other religions. But this verse does not say, "There is no compulsion towards the members of other religions," but "in the religion," in the singular, that is, "in Islam," for there is no true religion other than Islam (3: 85; 9: 29; 24: 2; 110: 2).

Returning to verse 256 of the chapter 2 of the Uthmanian Corpus, the Muslim doctors of the law have always understood that it means "the absolute right of non-Muslims to embrace Islam without being prevented e" because Islam opens the way to a life where there is" no compulsion":"God hath not laid upon you in religion any hardship” (22:78). This is well convenient, and explains why Islam should be preferred. But once man entered Islam, man would be "unconstrained" in it, falls within the fairy tale, the everyday life in Muslim country testifies to the contrary, even for Muslims ... Moreover, that you live "without constraint" because you are a Muslim does not mean that you should give up coercion against non-Muslims, or those who are not Muslim enough, as well as many verses, especially in the same sura, testify, calling for the murder of non-Muslims because non-Muslims (2,190-193,216) ... The "tolerance" of this famous verse therefore has nothing to do with that of the rector of the great mosque in Paris puts forward or that the useful idiots of Islam imagine?

The short surah 109 was perhaps "revealed" after the Meccans had suggested to Muhammad that they and the Muslims worship all Allah and the three gharaniq or high-flying goddesses named Al Uzza Al Allat and Al Manaf, for example Allah alone for a year and then the following year, the other gods of the Meccans, and so on... .. As we know, Muhammad under the pressure from his “base” (70 persons?) ended up in refusing, and it is this refusal that the verses in question express, not any religious tolerance which does not exist even between Muslims (see the case of apostates and Shiites or other zindiq / heretics such as the Sufis or Mut’azili ). When, some years later, Muhammad conquered Mecca after taking advantage of the truce of Hudaybya to gather enough troops (10,000 men), he destroyed the 360 religious statues that were there in the Ka'ba.

Sahih Al-Bukhari Hadith 5.583. Narrated by Abdullah. “When the Prophet entered Mecca on the day of the Conquest, there were 360 idols around the Ka'ba. The Prophet started striking them with a stick he had in his hand and was saying, "Truth has come and Falsehood will neither start nor will it reappear.”

Sahih Al-Bukhari Hadith 6.244. Narrated by Abdullah bin Masud. “God’s Apostle entered Mecca and there were three hundred and sixty idols around the Ka'ba. He then started hitting them with a stick in his hand and say: "Truth has come and falsehood vanished.”

Editor's note. What Muhammad held was not a magic wand but undoubtedly a stick. And behind the statues, as in the case of the miracles of St. Martin of Tours, hardy men completing the work thus begun by throwing down the statues designated by the stick of this strange pilgrim.

It is therefore important to distinguish the Ummiyun or Tawaghit Mushrikun from the Kuffar belonging to the Islamic category known as "People of the Book" because they are treated very differently. They are Taghut (plural Tawaghits) and no place is planned for them in the lands of Islam (Dar al-Islam), even not the status of Dhimmis, with some exceptions.**

Here again, Islam will not do things by half and will include in the same reprobation the Pagan or idolatrous polytheists past or present, at all times and in all places.

The American historian Will Durant thinks that “The Muslim Conquest of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precarious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within” (Our Eastern heritage. 1954, p. 459).

In 1399, the famous Tamerlane killed 100,000 Hindus in one day. What can be deduced from this is that there is in the land of Islam (Dar al Islam) a true denial of his status as a human being to every non-Muslim person not members of the People of the Book that is to say who is neither Jew, nor Non-Trinitarian Christians, neither Mandean Sabians, nor Zoroastrians (magi).

Who are like the Yazidis, for example, a religious minority of 500,000 souls living in northern Iraq and more precisely in Iraqi Kurdistan (they speak Kurmanji). The faithful of this religion believe in one god, who was assisted by seven angels when he created the world of whom the most important is Melek Taus, often represented by a peacock, symbol of diversity, beauty and power.

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There is in the founding texts of Islam (we do not speak of the hadiths or of the later commentaries) no equivalent ontologically situated on the same level as the parable of the good Samaritan or the verses of St. Luke (6:27) devoted to the love of enemies. Far from there !

* For the record, the Irish Fenians were not people of one book, but of twelve.

** The sultans and padishahs of Delhi admitted their Hindu subjects as dhimmis. Probably for tax reasons but it was better than nothing.

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THE OXYMORON OF THE CHRISTIANS (An-Nasara or Al-Messihiyoun ?)

There is no Quranic verse calling Messihiyoun Christians. The word generally translated as "Christians" is Nasara, which is not quite the same thing ( Nazarene?)

All Muslim prayers must begin with the recitation of the first Surah, the Fatiha (Sahih Bukhari, book 12 Hadith 723), which in its final part incites the hatred of Jews and Christians clearly because, as in the case of Mass, who cannot believe what he repeats all day long?

For the Muslim theologian of the eleventh century of common era, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (Faysal al Tafriqa) Christians are divided into 3 categories.

-Those who have never heard the name “Muhammad” as is the case of most Byzantine Christians living far from Muslim lands.

-Those who know of Muhammad and his character yet arrogantly and/or disinterestedly reject his message.

-Those who have heard only falsehood about Muhammad.

Only the first and third categories are eligible to receive divine clemency. The second group (ow !) is culpable because they came to learn of Muhammad’s character, miracles, and message, yet closed their minds to his exhortations.They refuse to accept conversion knowingly, and are therefore considered as "kuffar who reject."

Two Hadiths or two suras of the Quran of Christians now to refresh somewhat the ideas but have the harm of going to the opposite extreme (they are like night and day).

NB. The author of this compilation, though baptized and confirmed, even first in the catechism, no longer considers himself a Christian. He wishes nevertheless to point out that a different attitude than that of Islam is theoretically conceivable towards one’s enemies even if he thinks that this verse of the Quran of the Christians go to an opposite extreme (for the author of this compilation indeed, neutrality or respect are enough).

Anyway, here are the passages in question.

St. Luke 22: 47. While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus answered, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.”

Tafsir.

1) The gospel of John gives us the identity of the companion of Jesus having drawn the sword to defend him, it was St. Peter.

2) The great Nazarene rabbi Jesus therefore accepted the use of violence in self-defense but at a symbolic level and as in certain categories of duel with a stop to the first (drawn) blood.

3) As for the famous phrase "All they that take the sword shall perish by the sword," mentioned by St. Matthew; it is not a curse or a condemnation but a simple statement of common sense. The kind "who drives too fast and drunk will one day die in a car accident".

St Luke 6:27: " But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”

And for good measure a quote from the Bhagavad Gita. " Those who are devotees of other gods and who worship them with faith actually worship only me, O son of Kunti, but they do so in a wrong way because I am the only enjoyer and master of all sacrifices. If one offers me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I accept it. I envy no one, nor am I partial to anyone. I am equal to all. But

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whoever renders service unto me in devotion is a friend, is in me, and I am also a friend to him” (Bhagavad Gita 9: 23-29, dialogue between the god Krishna/Vishnu and prince Arjuna).

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BELOW ON THE CONTRARY SOME OF THE VERSES OF THIS NEVER-ENDING LITANY UNWORTHY OF A GREAT RELIGION OF LOVE.

So surprising as it may seem indeed most of the Quran is devoted to non-Muslims (500 to 600 verses), which are distinguished in the clearest way from true Muslims.

Some, the true Muslims, are acclaimed and extolled. They constitute the spiritual, if not superior, a least favorite of God, race, his true chosen people. The others are in their entirety called names and dragged through the mud, they are the worst of creatures.

Verse 65, chapter 2. " You know of those of you who broke the Sabbath, how We said unto them: be you apes, despised and hated!”

Verse 171chapter 2: "The likeness of those who disbelieve is as the likeness of one who calls unto that which hears nothing except a shout and cry. Deaf, dumb, blind, therefore they have no sense."

Verse 60, chapter 5. " God’s wrath has fallen and of whose sort He has turned some to apes and swine, and who serves idols.”

Verse 176 chapter 7. “He followed his own lust. Therefore his likeness is as the likeness of a dog: if you at…………tack him he pants with his tongue out, and if you leave him he pants with his tongue out. Such is the likeness of the people who deny Our revelations.”

Verse 166 chapter 7. “So when they took hubris in that which they had been forbidden, We said unto them: Be you apes despised and loathed!”

Verse 179, chapter 7. " These are as the cattle - nay, but they are worse! These are the neglectful."

Verse 55, chapter 8. "Lo! the worst of beasts in God’s sight are the ungrateful who will not believe."

Verse 98, chapter 2.” God is an enemy to the disbelievers.”

Verse 38, chapter 22. " God does not love each treacherous ingrate (kafir)."

Verse 45, chapter 30. " God does not love the disbelievers."

Verse 27, chapter 16. " Then on the Day of Resurrection God will disgrace them and will say: Where are My partners, for whose sake you opposed?

Verse 6, chapter 98. " Lo! those who disbelieve, among the People of the Scripture and the idolaters, will abide in fire of hell. They are the worst of created beings."

Verse 85 of chapter 3. " And whosoever seeks as religion other than the Surrender (to God) it will not be accepted from him, and he will be a loser in the Hereafter.”

Verse 18, chapter 14. " A similitude of those who disbelieve in their Lord: Their good works are as ashes which the wind blows hard upon a stormy day. They have no control of anything that they have earned. That is the extreme failure.”

Verses 103-106 of chapter 18. “Shall We inform you who will be the greatest losers by their works ? Those whose effort goes astray in the life of the world, and yet they reckon that they do good work. Those are they who disbelieve in the revelations of their Lord and in the meeting with Him. Therefore their good works are vain, and on the Day of Resurrection We assign no weight to them. That is their reward: hell, because they disbelieved.”

Verse 34, chapter 83. " This day it is those who believe who have the laugh of disbelievers, on high couches, gazing. Are not the disbelievers paid for what they used to do ?

Verse 161, chapter 2. “Lo! Those who disbelieve, and die while they are disbelievers; on them is the curse of God and of angels and of men combined.”

Verse 20, chapter 58. "Lo! those who oppose God and His messenger, they will be among the lowest."

Verse 4, chapter 60. "Abraham……And there has arisen between us and you hostility and hate for ever until you believe in God only.”

Verse 55, chapter 25. "The disbeliever was ever a partisan against his Lord.”

Verse 101, chapter 4. "The disbelievers are an open enemy to you.”

Verse 29, chapter 48. " Muhammad is the messenger of God. And those with him are hard against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves.”

Verse 72, chapter 3. " A party of the People of the Scripture says: Believe in that which has been revealed unto those who believe at the opening of the day, and disbelieve at the end thereof…. believe not save in one who follows your religion.”

Verse 118 chapter 3. " O you who believe! Take not for intimates others than your own folk.”

Verse 51, chapter 5. " O you who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians (Nasara) for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who takes them for friends is (one) of them. Lo! God guides not wrongdoing folk.”

Verse 89, chapter 4. " They long that you should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that you may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of God.”

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Verse 144 chapter 4. " O you who believe! Choose not disbelievers for (your) friends in place of believers. Would you give God clear warrant against you ?”

Editor’s note. Islam therefore advocates well friendship, but between Muslims first and only then and secondly towards the people of the book.

Verse 22, chapter 58. " You will not find folk who believe in God and the Last Day loving those who oppose God and His messenger, even though they be their fathers or their sons or their brothers.”

Verse 56, chapter 3. " As for those who disbelieve I shall chastise them with a heavy chastisement in the world and the Hereafter.”

Etc., etc.

To be honest let us admit that there are also a few verses saying something else or the opposite but these are verses that were mostly abrogated by later Medinan verses such as the famous verses of the sword of fight or lesser jihad.

Results.

1100 verses of the Uthmanian Corpus are violent diatribes accompanied by insults, wishes of misfortune, hatred and curses against the indefinite and innumerable category of the unbelievers (kuffar), in other words, against all those who refuse to submit to God and his prophet.

1500 verses are singularly aimed at pagans and other idolaters (the Bedouins being particularly ill-treated and insulted cf. Quran 9: 97) called deaf, blind, ignorant, stupid, and compared with cattle or contemptible apes.

In total, there are some 3150 verses, a good half of the Quran, repeating the hatred of God towards the non-Muslims and the tortures he prepared for them in the other world, dooming to execration all those who are other than Muslims. All these verses express the gruesome intention of annihilating or subduing them.

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CONCLUSION.

Kufr is more general than shirk or polytheism which follows, for the kafir may be someone who denies the existence of God, or who denies his attributes, or who believes only in matter (atheistic materialism, those like Lavoisier who think that the world is only transforming itself unceasingly that there has been no creation ex nihilo, and that there will be no end of the time, etc.).

Shirk as it happens is the act of associating other superhuman entities to God, whether they are equal or subordinate to Him. Shirk is therefore often translated as "associationism" and mushrikun as "associators."

The simplest case is to associate subordinate deities such as the three female angels Uzza Allat and Manat known as “the daughters of God." What Muslim theology expressly disapproves of course (see the scandal of the satanic verses).

But there is also the case of Christians who believe in the Holy Trinity and who, in the eyes of diehard Muslim theologians, make the mistake of associating to God the Father (God) God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Ghost.

Before we come to the fivefold hierarchy of human beings that characterizes Islam; let us say a few words also about how it geographically divides the world because it will not be without consequence on the subject that concerns us.

Because Muhammad quickly became a head of state (in Yathrib / Medina), and therefore because Islam quickly came to power in some parts of the world, Muslim theology divided the Earth into three distinct geographical areas.

-The land of Islam or Dar al Islam. These are the countries where the Shari'ah or Muslim law is enforced.

-The Dar al Harb. Countries where Islamic law is not enforced. Therefore which remain to subdue or convert by virtue of the famous abrogating (nasikh) verses known as verse of the sword fight or lesser jihad. Namely, therefore, the verses 5 of chapter 9, 29 of chapter 9, 4 of chapter 47. Editor’s note. The Muslims who follow the example of the truce concluded by Muhammad with the inhabitants of his hometown (Mecca) consider that no truce or peace can last more than ten years.

-Let us be honest and let us admit that in the eyes of today Muslim theologians there is a third type of territory, the countries with which a peace treaty was signed (Dar al Ahd) or lands of Truce: Dar al Sulh *. The problem is that there is no very precise definition of these notions or central authority to enforce them since the Ummah or community of believers ignores these institutions, and the caliphate having been abolished in 1924. Are generally considered to be Land of Peace or Truce* (Dar al-Ahd or Dar al-Sulh) the areas that grant Muslims the rights that are denied to non-Muslims in the land of Islam (Dar al Islam). That is, the right to freely practice their religion and proselytize. The free practice of religion, of course, means the application within the Muslim community of Shari'a and some Islamic courts to do so.

*The doctors of Islam consider that these are transitional phases before complete conversion of the non-Muslim population of the concerned country.

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WHAT QURAN OR HADITHS SAY

ABOUT THE JEWS AND CHRISTIANS.

As far as the Quran is concerned, many verses confuse Judeo-Christians and pagans in the same reprobation, and these two categories of kufffar are therefore not always easy to distinguish. Hadiths are clearer.

Verse 75, chapter 2. " A party of them used to listen to the word of God then used to change it, after they had understood it, knowingly.”

Verse 82, chapter 5. "The most vehement of mankind in hostility to those who believe are the Jews and the polytheists (ashraku). ….the nearest of them in affection to those who believe are those who say: We are Christians (Nasara)”.

Verse 68, chapter 29. " Who does greater wrong than he who invents a lie concerning God, or denies the truth when it comes unto him ?

Verses 69-70, chapter 10. " Verily those who invent a lie concerning God will not succeed….. We make them taste a dreadful doom because they used to disbelieve."

Verse 42, chapter 5. " Listeners for the sake of falsehood! Greedy for illicit gain…. They have the Torah, wherein God has delivered judgment for them ? Yet even after that they turn away. Such folk are not believers.”

Verses 160-161, chapter 4. " We forbade the Jews good food….because of their taking usury….and of their devouring people's wealth by false pretenses, We have prepared for those of them who disbelieve a painful doom "[who remain Jewish and are not convinced by Islam, in short that do not convert].

Verses 68-69, chapter 10. " They say: God has taken unto Him a son but….those who invent a lie concerning God will not succeed.”

Verse 37, chapter 7. " Who does greater wrong than he who invents a lie concerning God….They testify against themselves that they were disbelievers (kafirun)."

Verse 30 chapter 9. And the Jews say: Uzayr (Ezra???) is the son of God, and the Christians (Nasara) say: The Messiah is the son of God. That is their saying with their mouths…………God fights against them. How perverse are they!

Editor's note. The case of Christians is very clear, it is the Nazarene high rabbi Jesus. As for the Jews, one loses in conjecture about the identity of this Uzayr. Ezra? We may really wonder where this ridiculous idea comes from! Perhaps from Medinan Jews, having regarded Ezra with critical remarks of the kind, "Ezra is not God, really!" Ezra takes himself for the son of God or what? ". The words have become in the mouth of Muhammad: the Jews say that Uzayr is the son of God.

Verse 13, chapter 5. " And because of their breaking their covenant, We have cursed them… Thou wilt not cease to discover treachery from all ….... [an incomprehensible or contradictory sentence follows]. And with those who say: "Lo! we are Christians," We made a covenant, but they forgot a part of that whereof they were admonished. Therefore We have stirred up enmity and hatred among them….. [contradiction besides with the verse 51 of chapter 5: they are friends one to another]. God will inform them of their handiwork."

Verse 17, chapter 5. " They indeed have disbelieved who say: Lo! God is the Messiah, son of Mary.”

Editor's note. These verses are aimed at Trinitarian Christian or at least at Christians believing in God the Son (i.e., Christian Christians, Christians not believing in the divinity of Jesus today are more exactly referred to as Judeo-Christians, and besides they ended up either in returning to the synagogue or in disappearing into the meanders of history, by being among the first to convert to Islam, for example). For Islam, Christians must cease to be Christians and reject the too pagan notion of Trinity in order to not go and be burned indeed for eternity.

Verse 73, chapter 5. " If they do not desist from so saying, a painful doom will fall on those of them who disbelieve (kafaru)".

Verse 29, chapter 48. " Muhammad * is the messenger of God. And those with him are hard against the disbelievers (kuffar) and merciful among themselves.”

The verse 29 of chapter 9 is called the verse of fight. Now what does this verse 29 of sura 9 say?

"Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as do not believe in God nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which God hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low” (an yadin saghiruna).

Editor’s note. This verse abrogates all previous provisions allowing a gentler attitude towards polytheists, Jews, Christians, Mandean Sabiaans and Zoroastrians (magians). This verse establishes no longer difference between idolaters and monotheists.

* This is one of the few times that the name of Muhammad appears in the Quran. It also appears in 47: 2; 33:40; 3:144.

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LEGAL STATUS OF UMMIYUN OR TAWAGHIT MUSHRIKUN THAT IS TO SAY OF PAGAN POLYTHEISTS WHO ARE NOT MEMBERS OF THE AL-UL-KABIT OR PEOPLE OF THE BOOK IN ISLAM LANDS (DAR AL ISLAM).

....Waiting for documentation.....

LETTER TO THE EDITOR.

"Contrary to what you insinuate in your Islamophobic rags, polytheists can very well live in the ISLAM HOUSE while enjoying a protective legal status.

In 717 Caliph Omar II, for example, transferred the Alexandria Medical School to Harran.

However, in Harran there were people who were neither Jews nor Christians, as Al Masudi pointed out in the 10th century in his encyclopedia Golden Meadows (in Arabic Murūj adh-dhahab wa-ma'ādin al-jawhar).

ON CONSECRATED BUILDINGS AND RELIGIOUS MONUMENTS AMONG THE SABIANS AND OTHER SECTS.

« The Harranian Sabians have temples according to the names of the intellectual substances and the stars. To these temples belong: the temples of the First causation and of the Reason, but I do not know whether it is the first or second Intelligence. Aristotle, in the third discourse of his treatise on the Soul, distinguishes between first intelligence and action from the second intelligence. Themistius also spoke about it in his commentary on Aristotle's Treatise on the Soul. Finally, the analysis of first and second intelligence is the subject of a special treatise, composed by Alexander

Aphrodisius, and translated by Ishak, son of Honayn.

There was also among the Sabians the Temple of the Chain, the Temple of the Matter, and the Temple of the Soul.

The temple of the soul is round; of Saturn, hexagonal; of Jupiter, triangular; of Mars, long (rectangular); the Sun square; that of Venus, a triangle in a quadrangle; that of Mercury, a triangle inside an elongated quadrangle, and that of the moon, octagonal. The Sabians have in them symbols and mysteries which they keep hidden.

A Melkite Christian from Harran, named al-Harit, son of Sonbat, gave information about the Sabians in

Harran, on the victims they offered in sacrifice, the incense they burned in honor of the stars, and other details that we will pass over in silence in order to avoid length.

Of all the religious buildings erected by them, only the temple named Maglitya is remaining. It is located in the town of Harran, near the Rikkah gate; the people of this sect call it the temple of Azer, father of Abraham the friend of God, and they report about Azer and Abraham, his son, long legends that would not be appropriate here. The qadi Ibn Ayshun of Harran, an intelligent and learned man who died after the year 300 composed a long Kacydeh (qasida = ode) on the beliefs of the Harranians known as Sabians. This poet, speaking of this temple and its four underground chambers, where idols made in the image of the celestial bodies and higher deities rose, reveals to us the mysteries of these idols. He relates that the Sabians would bring their young children into these underground passages and lead them to the idols. A sudden pallor, followed by redness, spread over the features of these children, when they heard the strange sounds and unknown words that seemed to come out of these idols, thanks to the secret mechanisms and pipes practiced for this purpose. Priests, hidden behind the wall, spoke different words; the sound of their voices, transmitted through tubes and a device of reeds and pipes leading into the interior of these hollow statues built in human form, seemed to come from the idols themselves. By this stratagem borrowed from antiquity, they captured reason, ensured the obedience of the faithful, and dominated both the king and the people. The sect known as the Harranians and Sabians includes philosophers, but they are eclectics, most of whom are far removed from the doctrine of the sages. In calling them philosophers, we are not referring to the doctrine of which Greece was the cradle, but to the community of origin; because not all Greeks are philosophers, and the name really suits only their sages.

I ..saw in Harran, on the door frame of the temple belonging to the Sabians, an inscription in Syriac characters : it is taken from Plato, and was explained to me by Malik, son of Okbun, and other people of the same sect.

It read : "He who knows God, fears him." It was Plato who also said: "Man is a celestial plant. Indeed, man looks like an upside-down tree, whose root is turned towards the sky, and whose branches plunge into the ground. »

The nature of the reasonable soul, the question of whether it is enclosed in the body, or whether, on the contrary, the body is contained in the soul, like the light in the house, or the house in the light, is what Plato and his School dealt with in depth. This subject leads us to talk about another problem, that of...

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But let us return to the cult of the Sabians of Harran and the authors who expounded their beliefs and scrutinized their mysteries. I saw, among such works, a book by Abu Bakr Mohammed, son of Zakaria er-Razi, the philosopher, author of the Kitab el-Mansuri on medicine and other writings. In the book in question, Razi deals exclusively with the Sabians of Harran, and says nothing about dissident sects, such as the Kimarians. The details he has gone into would take us too far and shock a large number of readers. Moreover, to mention them would be to depart from the main subject of this book, to engage in the study of beliefs and religions. I have consulted with Malik, son of Okbun, and several of his co-religionists, about the things that have been mentioned here, or that have been mentioned elsewhere. Many of them admitted some of the details of the sacrifices but rejected the rest, such as the ceremony of the black bull that was sprinkled with salt after having blindfolded his eyes and slit his throat, in order to examine his limbs and to look, in their contractions and quaking, for the future events of the year. They reject this practice and ..other mysterious ceremonies related to sacrifices."

Would Umar II have carried out such a transfer if he had not approved the survival in his states of such a community?

In reality, we are there in the eyes of true scholars of Islam quite in the same case as Christians: Christians who do not believe in the Trinity are considered part of the people of the Book, but Trinitarian Christians are considered polytheistic.

However, it appears well in the testimony of Al Masudi that among the inhabitants of Harran from the 8th to the 11th centuries there was an intellectual elite like the Malik of whom Masudi speaks and Thabit ibn Qurra, considered to be part of the people of the Book and therefore benefiting from the protection of the dhimmah. But perhaps you don't understand Barbier de Meynard's French?

It is true, on the other hand, I concede you that the inhabitants of the Indus region and beyond were subjected to the payment of the jizya only for low tax reasons.

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THE PEOPLE OF THE BOOK * OR THE DHIMMIS AND THE DHIMMITUDE **.

The Ahl-ul-Kitab or the Dhimmiyun and the al-dhimma.

As we have seen, there is a hierarchy within the non-Muslims (Kuffar), and it is this which determines their status.

- The polytheist pagans (Mushrikun) have the choice between death or conversion (hence the rather bloody character of the Muslim conquest of India).

-The Jews and Christians, followers of the biblical revelation of which Islam admits (overall) authenticity, have a third possibility: the submission. *

"Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as do not believe in God nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which God has forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low” (an yadin saghiruna).

This submission is regulated by a kind of convention whereby these "people of the Book" get from Muslim heads of States the guarantee of their public and private rights. Thus they receive the dhimma of God and his messenger Muhammad. This word means at the same time guarantee, faith, protection, contract or pact. The beneficiaries bear the name dhimmi.

This type of modus vivendi seems to have been directly taken from the Bible according to the (still again!) Cordovan Maimonides ( Mishneh Torah: Hilchot Melachim. The laws of kings and their wars. Chapter VI).

" War, neither an optional war nor a holy ( mitzvah) war, should not be waged against anyone until they are offered the opportunity of peace as Deuteronomy (20:10) states: 'When you approach a city to wage war against it, you should propose a peaceful settlement.'

If the enemy accepts the offer of peace and commits itself to the fulfillment of the seven laws that were commanded to No..ah's descendants 1), none of them should be killed. Rather, they should be subjugated as ibid.:11 states: 'They shall be your subjects and serve you.'

If they agree to tribute, but do not accept subjugation or if they accept subjugation, but do not agree to tribute, their offer should not be heeded. They must accept both.

The subjugation they must accept consists of being on a lower level, scorned and humble. They must never raise their heads against Israel, but must remain subjugated under their rule. They may never be appointed over a Jew in any matter whatsoever.

The tribute they must accept consists of being prepared to support the king's service with their money and with their persons; for example, the building of walls, strengthening the fortresses, building the king's palace, and the like as I Kings 9:15-22) relates: "This is the tribute which Solomon raised to build the House of God, his own palace, the Milo, the wall of Jerusalem,... and all the store cities which Solomon had... All the people that remained from the Amorites... upon them did Solomon lay a tribute of bond service until this day."

In contrast, Solomon did not make bondsmen out of the children of Israel. They were men-of-war, his personal servants, his princes, his captains, the officers of his chariots, and his horsemen.”

In the settlement he offers, the king may propose that he is entitled to take half their financial resources. Or he may propose to take all their landed property and leave them their movable property; or to take all their movable property and leave their land.

It is forbidden to lie when making such a covenant or to be untruthful to them after they have made peace and accepted the seven mitzvoth (laws).

If they do not agree to a peaceful settlement, or if they agree to a peaceful settlement, but refuse to accept the seven laws, war should be waged against them. All males past majority should be killed. Their money and their children should be taken as spoil….

The above applies to an optional war of conquest fought with other nations. However, if either the seven nations or Amalek refuse to accept a peaceful settlement, not one soul of them may be left alive as ibid. 20:15-16 states…..

How do we know that these commands are only referring to those who did not accept a peaceful settlement? Joshua 11: 19-20 states: 'There was no city which accepted a peaceful settlement with the children of Israel except the Chivites who lived in Gibeon. All the rest, they conquered in battle. This was inspired by God, Who strengthened their hearts to engage in battle against Israel so that they would be destroyed.' From these statements, we can infer that a peaceful settlement was offered, but they did not accept it.

………………

When a siege is placed around a city to conquer it, it should not be surrounded on all four sides, only on three. A place should be left for the inhabitants to flee and for all those who desire, to escape with their lives, as it is written Numbers 31:7: 'And they besieged Midian as God commanded Moses.'

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According to tradition, He commanded them to array the siege as described.

We should not cut down fruit trees outside a city nor prevent an irrigation ditch from bringing water to them so that they dry up, as Deuteronomy 20:19 states: 'Do not destroy its trees.' Anyone who cuts down such a tree should be lashed.

This does not apply only in a siege, but in all situations. Anyone who cuts down a fruit tree with a destructive intent should be lashed.

Nevertheless, a fruit tree may be cut down if it causes damage to other trees or to fields belonging to others, or if a high price could be received for its wood. The Torah only prohibited cutting down a tree with a destructive intent.

……………..

It is forbidden to defecate in an army camp or in an open field anywhere. Rather, it is a positive commandment to establish comfort facilities for the soldiers to defecate as Deuteronomy 23:13 commands: 'Designate a place outside the camp to use as a lavatory.'

Similarly, it is a positive commandment for every single soldier to have a spike hanging together with his weapons. When he goes out and uses those comfort facilities, he should dig with it, relieve himself, and cover his excrement as ibid.:14 states, 'You must keep a spike among your weapons.'

Our comment. So much intelligence to justify such an aberration! It is hopeless.

It is true that the question of the forced conversion to Islam of Maimonides is a fact discussed by his biographers: unthinkable according to some, "highly probable" according to others. The controversy symbolizes the situation of many Jewish communities at this period of history. The philosopher's answer follows two different paths. The theologian insists on the monotheism of the Muslim religion, similar to the essence of Judaism (he would have remained Muslim up to the age of 29), the sage advocates, in order to preserve his life, the flight towards more tolerant regions.

In any case, this is probably what happened several times with the Jewish communities of Arabia and especially during the attack for ignored motives (in order to give his troops something to think about?) in 628, of the inhabitants of Khaybar, an urban area located 150 kilometers north of Yathrib / Medina in which the Jews expelled from this city pr..eviously, the Banu Nadir, had taken refuge.

Muhammad met Ibn Abi Al-Huqayq, al-Katibah and al-Watih to discuss the terms of the general surrender. Under the terms of the agreement, the Jews of Khaybar were to evacuate the region and give up their wealth. The Muslims would cease the war and do no harm to any Jew. After the agreement, some Jews negotiated the possibility of remaining in the oasis and continuing to farm their land in exchange for the payment of half their harvest. Muhammad accepted this proposition. He also ordered the restitution of their holy books to the Jews.

According to the version of Ibn Hisham the pact with the inhabitants of Khaybar was concluded under the condition that Muslims could expel them when they would desire. Norman Stillman thinks that this is probably only a later interpolation in order to justify the expulsion of the Jews by Umar in 642. The agreement with the Jews of Khaybar was used as a precedent. Unlike the previous pogroms, the Jewish population this time may continue to stay and practice its religion, though paying a rather heavy tax. And this new practice will become established as an institution.

After having noted that the people of Fadak, a neighboring oasis allied with the Jews of Khaybar sent a named Muhayyisa b. Massud meet Muhammad so that the inhabitants of Fadak are treated with indulgence in exchange for their surrender. An agreement similar to that of Khaybar was therefore concluded with Fadak.

A few years later, after the outlawing of the polytheist and pagan Mushrikun, in 631, Muhammad will conclude another agreement, this time with the (Monophysite ?) Christians of Najran, a town in southern Arabia, on the border of Yemen.

Their delegation will arrive at Medina in the month of March of the year 631. Its arrival caused a sensation besides. It was composed of 70 horsemen, at the head of which was the triumvirate formed by the leader of the craftsmen (aqib), the chief of the caravans, and the bishop of the place. They mix with the inhabitants of Medina and exchange with them friendly words. Muhammad even allowed them to celebrate a Mass inside the mosque, turned towards Jerusalem.

At the hearing he granted them the next day, the discussion rose on the theological level. Muhammad reproaches Christians for believing in the divinity of Christ. The Najranites defend their beliefs with energy. To put an end to the controversy, Muhammad proposes a kind of ordeal called mubahala, in order to know on which side God was.

The Quran, moreover, alludes to this proposition of ordeal in 3:61. Each party had to appear the next day at the appointed time and place, accompanied by the beings who were particularly dear to it, and to invoke the divinity as an arbitrator, so that he could strike the liar personally with his loved ones present during this publicly held ceremony.

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After much reflection on which it is useless to speculate (these Christians have perhaps thought it would be useless), the delegation preferred to come directly to the negotiation of the treaty of alliance (alliance but unequal). This one will also be used as a prototype for the pacts subsequently granted to the "peoples of the Book" if they submit before the battle. It stipulates that the signing Christians will not be humiliated but this last point will disappear from the pacts that will follow (see document called Pact of Umar which is very revealing in this respect).

By virtue of this agreement, the Christians of Najran commit to delivering every six months to the Medinan State a thousand garments worth an ounce of silver. In the event of a war involving the Muslims, they also agreed to provide thirty cuirasses and as many lances, camels and horses. In other words, enough to equip thirty men. And if Muhammad sent representatives to them, then it was incumbent on the signing Christians to host them (for a month). In exchange (the memory of the 895 martyrs of the year 523 being still very present in the minds, since verse 4 of sura 85 alludes to them) Muhammad committed to giving them the benefit of his protection (dhimmat ar-rasul). The nascent Muslim state guaranteed to the signatories the security of persons, the protection of property, the freedom of religion and worship, the respect for bishops, priests and monks, and the immutability of religious foundations. He exempted them from the Muslim religious tithe (zakat), from the military service and from the support of the troops.

As we have had the opportunity to say , and contrary to the stipulations of the Quran (Holy Quran: "repentance" chapter 9 verse 29: "Fight those who do not believe in God or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what God and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture fight until they give the poll tax –jizyah- willingly while they are humbled -an yadin saghiruna), no humiliation should be imposed on them.

The text of this agreement is unfortunately not certain because variants were found in a monastery of the Sinai (Saint Catherine). The details preserved for us by Al Baladhuri in his Kitab Futhu Al-Budan (The Origins of the Islamic State, Volume 1, pp. 100-101) are in any case the following.

“In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful. The following is what the Messenger of God , Muhammad, wrote to Najran, at whose disposal were all their fruits, their gold, silver, and domestic utensils, and their slaves, but which he benevolently left for them, assessing on them two thousand garments, each having the value of one ounce of silver, one thousand to be delivered in Rajab every year. Each garment shall be one ounce of silver….the coats of mail, horses, camels or goods they substitute for the garments shall be taken into consideration.

It is binding on Najran to provide a board and lodging for my messengers for one month or less and never to detain them for more than a month. It is also binding on them to offer as a loan thirty coats of mail, thirty mares and thirty camels, in case of war in al-Yaman due to their rebelling. Whatever perishes of the horses or camels, lent to my messengers, is guaranteed by my messengers and is returned by them. Najran and their followers are entitled to the protection of God and to the security of Muhammad the Prophet, the Messenger of God, which security shall involve their persons, religion, lands and possessions, including those of them who are absent as well as those who are present, their camels, messengers, and images. The state they previously held shall not be changed, nor shall any of their religious services or icons be changed. No attempt shall be made to turn a bishop from his office as a bishop, a monk from his office as a monk, nor the sexton of a church from his office, whether what is under the control of each is great or little. They shall not be held responsible for any wrong deed or bloodshed in pre-Islamic times. They shall neither be called to military service nor compelled to pay the Muslim tithe (zakat). No army shall tread on their land. If someone demands of them some right, then the case is decided with equity without giving the people of Najran the advantage over the other party, or giving the other party the advantage over them. But whosoever of them has up till now received usury, I am clear of the responsibility of his protection. None of them, however, shall be held responsible for the guilt of the other. And as a guarantee to what is recorded in this document, they are entitled to the right of protection from God and to the security of Muhammad the Prophet, until God’s order is issued, and so long as they give the right to counsel (to Muslims) and render whatever dues are bound on them, provided they are not asked to do anything unjust. Witnessed by abu-Sufyan, etc.”

Editor's note. It cannot be said, however, that this text was used as a model afterwards, since Muhammad himself will terminate this pact only 14 months later (just before his death).

“Yahya related to me……….One of the last things that the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, said was, 'May God fight the Jews and the Christians. They took the graves of their Prophets as places of prostration. Two dins (religion) shall not coexist in the land of the Arabs” (Malik’s Muwatta. Book 45, Number 45.5.17).

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“Yahya related to me from Malik from Ibn Shihab that the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, said, "Two dins (religions) shall not coexist in the Arabian Peninsula.”( Malik’s Muwatta. Book 45, Number 45.5.18).

“It has been narrated by Umar b. al-Khattib that he heard the Messenger of God say: I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim.” (Sahih Muslim. Book 19, Hadith 4366).

As everyone knows, Muhammad indeed left this world as a martyr tortured by his enemies (poisoned, it is said), but he nevertheless remained active to the end and therefore still found the strength to take care of the Jews and Christians 5 days before his death. After that day, he no longer directed any prayer at the mosque, the pain being too strong. It was Abu Bakr who did it. On the day of his death, he confided to Aysha that he was dying because of the (poisoned) food he had eaten in Khaybar. He again asked God to curse the Jews and the Christians and r..ecommended to his people not to confine his religion to Arabia alone. After having thus asked God to forgive his sins and show mercy to him, he died in his sixty-fourth year, leaving behind him, terrified, his wife Aysha (18 years old), but forbidding him to remarry . His successors put into practice his last recommendations. Umar, second caliph, expelled the last Jews from Khaybar in 635 and the Christians of Najran in 640.

Two large religious communities have a place elsewhere in Islamic land (Dal al Islam), have a planned place in Muslim society, even if it is only a second-class place; they are on one hand, the Jews and the non-Trinitarian Christians, that is, not believing in the Holy Trinity (concretely not making the sign of the cross); on the other hand, the Magians or Zoroastrians (the Gabr or Parsis of today). Have disappeared the Mandean Sabians, a more mysterious group, about which one wonders well what has earned them such an indulgence on the behalf of the Quran. Perhaps they have a time positively drawn the attention of Muhammad on their case (some authors make them a Judeo-Christian group whose central ritual would be baptisms or ritual ablutions).

They are called People of the Book because what characterizes them according to the Quran is the fact that they refer to a sacred book, the Bible. The thing was to mark the young Muhammad on the occasion of his peregrinations outside his hometown (Mecca).

As for the Trinitarian Christians (who believe in God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, in other words, the Catholics the Orthodox the Reformist, etc.) their case is more controversial.

It is necessary here to return to one of the key notions of Islam, the notion of association or associator. The associator is anyone who, of course, worships the true God but associates other entities to his worship: for example the goddesses Allat Manat and Uzza, even Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

A minority of Muslim writers, while admitting that Trinitarian Christians are de facto polytheistic in the eyes of Islam, take account of their good faith and sincerity: they are not monotheists but believe sincerely they are so.

.The majority believes that these cross-breeding Christians are therefore polytheists and must therefore be equated to Kuffar.

Reminder. Classification of Christians according to Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

For this Muslim theologian of the 11th century Christians are divided into 3 groups.

-Those who are excusable. Christians who have never heard of Muhammad (a category that is almost non-existent today because of information technology, except if we include in it the children).

-Christians who have heard of Muhammad but have not been told about his true character, nor about the true nature of his message.

-Those who are reprehensible. Christians who live in contact with Muslims and have had the opportunity to really learn about Islam. They refuse to accept conversion in full knowledge of the facts, and are therefore "kuffar who reject".

* Book means Torah (Tawrat) and Gospels (Injil).

** This possibility was also opened to communities that invoked, more or less artificially, the protection of the "Book" : Gnostics or pagan Platonist in Mesopotamia (around Harran), Zoroastrians who actually follow the state religion of the pre-Islamic Persian kingdom of the Sassanids .

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UMAR'S PACT.

As we have had already the opportunity to say, there is a category of kuffar particularly distinguished from the Ummiyun or Tawaghits by Islam, they are the people of the Book. That is to say roughly the Judeo-Christians plus some other groups less (Sabians, Zoroastrians).

The doctrine of Islam forbidding theoretically the forced conversion of Christians and Jews, the people of the Book, as we have seen, can therefore preserve their religion and practice their worship; provided they do so in a minor way, and almost hiding.

The Pact of Umar is supposed to have been enacted in 717 by the Umayyad caliph Umar bin Abd al-Aziz (682-720), commonly known as Umar II. It would be, partially, a treaty between this caliph and some "people of the Book," placed under the regime of the dhimma. The earliest versions of this pact which have come down to us, date from the twelfth century, but certainly not from the early days of Islam. It is therefore not possible to attribute the authorship of this pact to the second caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab, some specialists questioning even its authenticity. This document would seem to be in fact a compilation of progressively elaborated provisions, some of which might actually date from the reign of Caliph Umar II, that is, Umar bin Abd al-Aziz. From there it seems that a deliberate confusion was made to attribute it to Umar ibn al-Khattab, in other words, Umar I. These were originally restrictions aiming at the military security of the first conquerors and which turned into legal and social prohibitions thereafter.

The text according to Turtushi (Siraj al-Muluk pp. 229-230), the oldest author (d.1126) who reported this convention.

In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate. This is a letter to the servant of God Umar, Commander of the faithful, from the Christians of such-and-such a city.

When you came against us, we asked you for safe conduct (aman) for ourselves, our descendants, our property, and the people of our community, and we undertook the following obligations towards you.

We shall not build, in our cities or in their neighborhood, new monasteries, Churches, convents, or monks' cells, nor shall we repair such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims.

We shall keep our gates wide open for passersby and travelers. We shall give board and lodging to all Muslims who pass our way for three days.

We shall not give shelter in our churches or in our dwellings to any spy, nor bide him from the Muslims.

We shall not teach the Quran to our children.

We shall not manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it. We shall not prevent any of our kin from entering Islam if they wish it.

We shall show respect towards the Muslims, and we shall rise from our seats when they wish to sit.

We shall not seek to resemble the Muslims by imitating any of their garments, the skullcap, the turban, footwear, or the parting of the hair.

We shall not speak as they do, nor shall we adopt their names.

We shall not mount on saddles, nor shall we gird swords nor bear any kind of arms nor carry them on our- persons.

We shall not engrave Arabic inscriptions on our seals.

We shall not sell fermented drinks.

We shall clip the fronts of our heads.

We shall always dress in the same way wherever we may be, and we shall bind the zunar ( special belt) round our waists.

We shall not display our crosses or our books in the roads or markets of the Muslims. We shall use clappers in our churches only very softly. We shall not raise our voices when following our dead. We shall not show lights on any of the roads of the Muslims or in their markets. We shall not bury our dead near the Muslims.

We shall not take slaves who have been allotted to Muslims.

We shall not build houses overtopping the houses of the Muslims.

(When I brought the letter to Umar, may God be pleased with him, he added, "We shall not strike a Muslim.")

We accept these conditions for ourselves and for the people of our community, and in return we receive safe conduct.

If we in any way violate these undertakings for which we ourselves stand surety, we forfeit our covenant and we become liable to the penalties for contumacy and sedition.

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Umar ibn al-Khittab replied: Sign what they ask, but add two clauses and impose them in addition to those which they have undertaken. They shall not buy anyone made a prisoner by the Muslims," and whoever strikes a Muslim with deliberate intent shall forfeit the protection of this pact."

There were many variants of this pact of Umar since it is a fake that was gradually elaborated. That of Turtushi is only the oldest known to this day. Islamologists like Albrecht Noth think that it was primarily intended to protect the Muslim minority.

The golden legend conveyed by the taqiyya has it that religious minorities did well in the land of Islam. It is to be admitted that this was true at the beginning during some decades for certain Christian minorities not belonging to Christianity which became official in the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium). The most obvious case is that of the Christians of Iraq at the beginning. Nevertheless, the fact remains that these minorities soon ended up being no more than the shadow of their former selves.

In fact, dhimmitude supposes a tax, a tax levied on the Jew, the Christian or the Zoroastrian to allow him to live in a land of Islam. A ransom, therefore, an extortion of money.

Because if non-Muslims are exempted from the payment of the compulsory Muslim alms or zakat, it is to be subjected to a special tax, the jjizya, about which it is specified in the Quran (verse 29 of chapter 9) it is to be paid personally and in humiliating conditions.

An yadin means personally, directly. C. Cahen in Arabica volume 9, fasc. I, Jan. 1966, pp. 76-79, compares with the Latin notion of manus (stranglehold, opposite mortgage release). As for the Arabic word saghiruna it unequivocally means something like disgraced, humiliated, abased. The authors most often admit the humiliation of the people of the Book by interpreting as a dictate the end of verse 9:29 "wa hum saghiruna." It is a nominal sentence (without verb) meaning word for word "and they [being] humiliated." Should we translate "They are (or will be) humiliated (simple observation) or as an order of the kind" they will have to lay down "? However that may be, this humiliation comes first when the Dhimmis pay for the jizya.

There are two kinds of jizya: one that is fixed by a common consent, because people of the Book surrendered without fighting; The other which is fixed by the imam because they fought before surrendering. The jizya is proportional to the wealth: 48 dirhams or 24 or 12 or nothing for the very poor, the women, the children, the blind, the chronically ill, the monks (for they did not participate in the fighting). The land taken after fight is also taxed (kharaj) which remains attached to the land whatever may be subsequently the status of the owner. The conversion therefore made the jizya disappear but not the kharaj. The jizya is in fact generally perceived as a punishment (which can only be lifted by conversion).

This hardening is in fact more characteristic of the Abbasid era than of the reign of Umar II. It is under the Abbasids that the "protected" are reduced to a real second-class citizenship. The imposed restrictions have first a social, more symbolic than practical, significance. They proclaim the authority of Islam and the superiority of the Muslims.

One of the principles of this contract is the respect due to Islam and the Prophet. In case of default, the punishment is death. The attempt to convert a Muslim is not admitted. A "protected" is not allowed to marry a Muslim woman: on the other hand, a Muslim may marry a non-Muslim woman - and the children follow the father's religion. The testimony of the "protected person" is inadmissible in a trial where a Muslim is involved. His oath is not valid as evidence against a Muslim. Needless to say, it was then easy for a Muslim to assert that a dhimmi had violated one or other of these conditions.

In return for the restrictions, there are facilities. "Protected" communities enjoy great freedom in all matters relating to their internal affairs. Jews and Christians have their own courts. This does not prevent them, if they wish, from appealing to the Muslim judge - who rules according to Muslim law. They are thus subjected to the authority of their leaders and judges, and can lead their personal, family and religious lives in accordance with their own laws and customs. The "protected" are undoubtedly free to choose their leaders; but it is necessary that this choice be ratified by the Muslim rulers, what is not always the case.

Non-Muslims have the right to possess objects or goods prohibited by Islam but allowed by their own religion, such as wine and pork for the Christian, wine for the Jew. But, at certain times, restrictions even limit the freedom of worship. The "protected" are allowed to keep their places of worship, but not to build new ones or to freely restore the existing sanctuaries. Discretion is required in the practice of worship, since only Muslim worship has a public character - the use of bells, for example, is forbidden. The graves of non-Muslims must be different from those of Muslims. This statutory discrimination between Muslims and non-Muslims therefore continues until death.

The "protected" cannot exercise an office conferring jurisdiction over Muslims, and may not possess Muslim slaves or the Quran – what makes them unfit for public office. Yet, when they conquer new territories, the Muslims keep, by pure necessity, the local administration with its staff. But the

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"protected" who manage to rise to the ruling spheres without converting to Islam are very rare. In the Middle Ages, their appointment to a high office sometimes causes riots, as in Granada (Spain), or Iraq. They thus become more easily doctors of court, astrologers, tax collectors, and so on.

On the other hand, the "protected" have, like the Muslims, the freedom of trade and industry. They practiced in particular the trades prohibited to the Muslims: trades in money, banking, finances, trade of the precious metals. Trades neglected by Muslim society are thus reserved to non-Muslims, who often excel in them. In Kurdistan, Armenians, Jews and Nestorian Christians often practice the humblest jobs. At certain periods, the painful activities are theirs. The Yemeni Jews were obliged to remove the carrion and clean the public latrines on the day of Sabbath, in virtue of a decree (firman) of the nineteenth century which remained in force until their departure to Israel at the foundation of the Jewish state.

The inferiority of the "protected is therefore defined in social and religious terms. Non-Islamic religions are only considered as unfinished forms of Islam: non-Muslims are tolerated because it is hoped to convert them and because, in the early Muslim State, they take on almost all taxes. Their inferiority is made particularly visible in everyday life. The infidel is at first impure. Among the Shiites, the Muslim who shakes his hand must perform the ritual ablutions to regain his purity; So also when he touched their food, their utensils, and their garments.

The "protected" are obliged to distinguish themselves from the Muslims by their costume, their hairstyles, their mounts, and even by the choice of their names. The turban and military clothing are forbidden to them. Sometimes they have to wear a yellow coat, sometimes wear specific belts and emblems. The Christians put on their clothes pieces of blue or gray cloth: to the Jews, it is the yellow color that is attributed (it is at the origin of the "rouelle," a wheel-shaped mark sewn on the cloth, of which, at the end of the Middle Ages, the use spread to the West). Clothing regulations continued until the 19th century. Thus, the Jews in Tunisia wore a three-cornered hat. The dark colors are mandatory for Christians and Jews in Jerusalem, under Muslim rule. In the public bath, the men wear a bell to the knee and the women a lead collar. The dwellings and buildings of the "protected" are to be lower than those of the Muslims. The "protected" are deprived of weapons and cannot mount noble animals such as horses or camels. This was still the case in Yemen in the twentieth century, although these requirements are far from being systematically applied. If the "protected" are not obliged to dwell in separate neighborhoods - except in a few countries, in North Africa, Yemen and Iran - they nevertheless tend to group.

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CONCLUSION.

Dhimmitude is in the beginning the obligation to pay a specific tax (jizya). This tax is a capitation, because it has as its basis the very person of the dhimmi.

The first centuries of Islam are characterized by a relative tolerance towards non-Muslims, attested by the cultural collaboration between the nationals of the different religions. From the 10th-11th centuries, both in the Muslim West and in the East, we notice a considerable hardening. It is because a new balance of strength is gradually established. The "protected," from a majority that they were in the countries under Muslim dominion, begin to become minority. After the Crusades, the Muslim world is weakening both economically and politically in relation to Christianity, and the status of non-Muslims is deteriorating. Restrictive measures and social segregation are then strengthened.

As we have seen above, the real penalty which in reality always affects the "protected" is the payment of the capitation tax IN HUMILIATING CONDITIONS (wa hum saghiruna. Quran chapter IX, 29).

Certain categories of "protected" are nevertheless exempt from it: women, prepubescent, hermaphrodites, slaves, persons with physical infirmity and monks. The others are obliged to pay them regularly. It is only in exchange for the payment of this tax that they get the guarantee of their life and property. In principle, the conquered land belongs to the Muslim community (Quran, chapter VII, 128 and others). The "protected" have the right to farm their land provided they pay a property tax.

As we have said, given the interpretation generally given to the Arabic expression wa hum saghiruna, certain vexatious measures are related to the payment itself. Thus, when levying the capitation tax, the tax collector will have to pretend to give a slap to the "protected." The rate of these taxes is not always regulated. There are sometimes ransoms that non-Muslims have to pay under certain regimes for their security. Such cases occur both in North Africa and in the Ottoman Empire, even in the nineteenth century.

The dhimmitude is therefore more a protectorate at a high price paid besides (a second-class status) than a true religious tolerance.

The doctrine of Islam, theoretically prohibiting the forced conversion of Christians and Jews, the people of the Book, as we have seen, can therefore preserve their religion and practice their worship; provided they do so in a minor way, and almost by hiding. This “protection” is indeed accompanied by the duty of absolute respect of the Muslims and of the things of Islam (particularly the person of Muhammad of course). It manifests in outward signs of humiliation which expresses an almost obsessive for Muslims, inferiority status.

In exchange for this submission, the "dhimmis" are entitled in principle to the protection of the various Islamic powers (sultan, etc.), what makes them able to survive. This is a contract which can only be broken by a revolt of the dhimmis against their masters; all the more so if dhimmis want to conquer, in any way whatsoever, a land which belongs or which once belonged to Islam! A (Jewish or Christian) non-Muslim may not lead Muslims. He may not marry a Muslim woman, for the woman being subjected to her husband (in the land of Islam) it would be an abomination to see a Muslim woman subjected to a dhimmi! On the other hand, a Muslim may marry a Jew or a Christian woman, and in this case only the children will be Muslim. A (Jewish or Christian) non-Muslim may not testify against a Muslim. In many Muslim countries (Christian or Jewish) non-Muslims are not allowed to own land or business.

This protection (!) once got, the dhimmis see their civic rights reduced to very little. In a tribal society where the horse makes possible to exist, to move, to fight, to show his social rank, the non-Muslim is deprived of him: are only allowed to him donkeys, mules, the humiliating mount, but sidesaddle ridden ( the feminine way of riding) ; he may walk in the street, but he is not allowed to pass a Muslim; and of course, bearing or arms is formally forbidden to him. He is therefore at the mercy of the first robber who comes along.

The killing of a Muslim by another Muslim is punishable by death (Bukhari 83:17), but conversely no Muslim may be executed for killing a non-Muslim according to some authors.

Quran chapter 5 verse 32.

" We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever kills a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind….”

The whole question is to know, in this mitzvah given to the sons of Israel (of Israel and not Ishmael), what the limitations of this sacredness of human life are. Is human life considered sacred in all cases, or are there exceptions? And what "corruption in the earth " means in that case ?

The answer was given by the jurisprudence. According to certain hadiths indeed is totally sacred only the life of a Muslim.

Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1. Book 8. Hadith no 387.

Narrated Anas bin Malik.

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God’s Apostle said, "I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: 'None has the right to be worshipped but God.' And if they say so, pray like our prayers, face our Qibla and slaughter as we slaughter, then their blood and property will be sacred to us and we will not interfere with them except legally and their reckoning will be with God."

……

"O Abu Hamza! What makes the life and property of a person sacred?" He replied, "Whoever says, 'None has the right to be worshipped but God,' faces our Qibla during the prayers, prays like us and eats our slaughtered animal, then he is a Muslim, and has got the same rights and obligations as other Muslims have."

Sahih Bukhari, Volume 9. Book 83. Hadith No. 50.

Narrated Abu Juhaifa: I asked Ali….What is on this paper?" He replied, "The legal regulations of Diya (blood money) the ransom for releasing of the captives, and the judgment that no Muslim should be killed in Qisas (by application of the talion law) for killing a Kafir (disbeliever)."

Editor’s note. Some Muslims indeed have interpreted this tradition (hadith) as if it were a general rule. Editor’s note. Some Muslims indeed have interpreted this tradition (hadith) as if it were a general rule (Abu Hanifa and his followers, Ibn Abi Layla).

Said otherwise the voluntary killing of a Muslim by another Muslim is more severely punished than the voluntary killing of a non-Muslim by a Muslim. Concretely the murder of a Jew or a Christian is obviously not legally permitted, but the financial compensation due for the murder of a Jew or a Christian by a Muslim is limited by some authors to one third of this which is owed for the manslaughter of a Muslim by another Muslim.

In the ninth century - usually referred to as the golden age of Islam to characterize this period - the Abbasid caliph Al-Muttawakkil, who wanted to distinguish Jews and Christians by visible signs, ordered the dhimmis to wear distinctive garments. Blue for the Christians, yellow for the Jews. Sometimes even, in addition to the infamous yellow fabric, they are tattooed a lion on the hand like others a number on the forearm.

See also the fate of the dhimmis under the reign of the Almohad caliph Yusuf Mansur (1184-1198) in Spain.

Other obligations of the dhimmis, such as accommodation and supply of troops, men and horses, are the duty of guiding Muslims correctly on the roads while refraining from any collaboration with their enemies. This clause, because of a millennium of war between Islam and Christendom, poisoned the relations between Christian dhimmis and harbis (Europeans). It imposed on the former ones an outbidding of hostility towards the latter, in order to prevent the bloody retaliation of an ever suspicious Muslim power. The obligation to house soldiers in churches and synagogues and in their homes also subjected the dhimmis to a system of extortion or permanent humiliation, aggravated by frequent rapes and sometimes even the abduction of women.

Within the Ottoman Empire, the Christians even had to pay a tax in men destined to endow the country with zealous officials called Janissaries: the devshirme.

As for their property, non-Muslims are not better off. The enjoyment of these earthly goods is only conceded to them by God who can at any time take them back to give them to Muslims.

Scriptural basis.

Chapter 8 Spoils of war. "They ask you of the spoils of war. Say: The spoils of war belong to God and the messenger…….”

Chapter 2: 284.

" Unto God belongs whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth.”

Chapter 48: 18-20.

" God was well pleased with the believers when they swore allegiance unto thee beneath the tree, and He knew what was in their hearts, and He sent down the Sakinah on them, and hath rewarded them with a near victory; And much booty that they will capture. God is ever Mighty, Wise. God promised you much booty that you will capture, and has given you this in advance, etc.”

Chapter 33, 25-27.

" God repulsed the disbelievers in their wrath; they gained no good. God averted their attack from the believers. God is ever Strong, Mighty. And He brought those of the People of the Scripture who supported them [the besiegers] down from their strongholds, and cast panic into their hearts. Some you slew, and you made captive some. And He caused you to inherit their land and their houses and their wealth, and land you have not trodden. God is ever able to do all things ."

Commentary perhaps an allusion to the massacre of the Jewish tribe of the Banu Qurayza in Yathrib / Medina by the Muslims who won the battle of the ditch in 625 *.

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The men (600 to 800) were beheaded and then buried in a common grave. The properties of the tribe were seized as booty.

Ibn Ishaq writes in his Sira." God’s apostle distributed the property of the Banu Qurayza, as well as their women and children, to the Muslims, reserving one fifth for himself. Every horseman received three shares, one for himself and two for his steed, and every foot soldier one share. There were thirty-six horses present on the day of the Qurayza. God’s apostle

dispatched an emissary to Najd with the prisoners, to barter them as slaves in exchange for horses and camels.

Ibn Ishaq still.” The apostle of God selected one of the Jewish women, Rayhana bint Amir ibn Khunafa, for himself, and she remained with him as his slave until she died. He had suggested marriage to her that she should wear the veil (to separate her from all other persons, as his wives did), but she replied, 'Rather allow me to remain your slave; it will be easier for me, and for youy.' At the time of her capture she was an enemy of Islam, and desired to remain a

Jewess, etc..”

The hadith Number 4390 of the book 38 by Abu Dawud explains how the executioners differentiated a child (to be enslaved) from a man (to kill). Narrated Atiyyah al-Qurazi: “I was among the captives of Banu Qurayzah. They examined us, and those who had begun to grow hair (pubes) were killed, and those who had not were not killed. I was among those who had not grown hair.”

* The Banu Qurayza seem to have tried to negotiate a separate peace with the Meccan besiegers, contrary to the treaty they had signed with the Muslims of Yathrib / Medina, or at least not to have acted zealously. They were therefore accused of treason.

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THE DHIMMI COMPLEX.

Dhimmitude is the type of existence developed by non-Muslim populations and civilizations subjected to Islam.

As the Egyptian historian Bat Ye'or saw it very well in her study heading "Dhimmitude and Marcionism *" about Islam untruths and taboos form a whole psychological net of lies and traps. For the past thirty years, intellectuals bishops journalists and Western politicians in Europe have refused to see the global lesser jihad in action at the four corners of the earth and to recognize the sources of Islamist terrorism. Bin Laden’s declarations emerge from an exclusively religious context and fit in with narratives of wars against the infidels to impose Islamic supremacy. It is not Israel and the West that is humiliating the Arab-Muslim world; what is humiliating is the very existence of these nations, their freedom and sovereignty that contradict the Islamist view of the natural order in which Islam must dominate and not be dominated. It is the frustration of this will to power that feeds the humiliation and violence, and not poverty or economic disparities which exist all over the world without provoking this type of hatred and terrorism. This lesser jihad is nothing but nostalgia for the mental universe of the dhimmitude of infidels, fashioned by insecurity, debasement, and servility as means of survival. The dhimmi is guilty of existing; he has to pay for his existence by tributes, services, and flattery. The expressions of his identity must be secret and humble; he has no history, no culture, no civilization and must be pardoned for his accomplishments by putting them in the service of his oppressor.

The anti-American terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, showed the hiatus between soothing declarations of admiration for Islam from European leaders and hate-filled demonstrations against the West by Muslim masses that support bin Laden’s crimes.

The reactions of European politicians illustrate their dhimmi behavior: they never miss an occasion to laud the superiority of Islamic civilization over their own, to flagellate themselves for the Crusades and debase themselves to spare Arab

susceptibilities. Western taxpayers attacked on their own soil……[bowdlerized]... threatened and terrified by human missile terrorism are reduced to buying a tentative security that they have been unable to defend by more dignified means.

The incrimination of Israel actualizes the same old millenary reflex of Christians attacked in their own lands by the lesser jihad and spewing out impotent hatred against Jewish minorities for want of attacking a more daunting enemy.

Just as Muslim Slavic minorities in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia pushing secessionist demands poisoned relations between Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christians, Arab countries have turned the West’s war against Islamist terrorism into a combat against

Israel, blamed as its cause. Since the 1960s the West has built itself an imaginary Islam, a civilization of love, peace, and tolerance. This immaculate image protected by strict censorship facilitates policies of cynical collusion and shameful concessions.

Today the mask is torn away, revealing the face of bin Laden, the demonstrations of bloodthirsty hatred of Christians and Jews.

Soon after September 11 a controversy over Islam developed in the United States.

According to Professor David Forte, a fervent Catholic who allegedly influenced President Bush, Islam is a religion of love, peace, and tolerance. Islam would have been kidnapped by bin Laden, who supposedly represents an insignificant minority sect

of Islam.

Forte called on the West to fly to the rescue of the true Islam that they must save from bin Laden’s fiends. Though one cannot presume the individual feelings and opinions of millions of Muslims or generalize on the totality of Islamic

civilization, it must be admitted that bin Laden’s concepts are clearly expounded in Islam and Islamism.

Westerners know little or nothing about lesser jihad, the Islamic war of conquest. In some progressive circles lesser jihad is considered an exotic term, sometimes graced with a pleasant connotation. Misled by apparent similarities, intellectuals confuse lesser jihad with the Crusades.

In fact, the first Crusade set out in 1096 (1071 battle of Manzikert) ; when lesser jihad started in 624.

The first phase, 7th-century proto-lesser jihad, was followed by the theological, theoretical, and legal conceptualization starting in the 8th century.

The first phase encompasses Muhammad’s military activities after he emigrated to Medina in 622 and the inscription of these exploits in the form of commentaries and commandments in the Quran.

The second phase begins after Muhammad’s death in 632 when the Arab armies set out to conquer Asia and the Christian Mediterranean Empire.

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It was during this second phase (8th-9th centuries) that Muslim legal scholars elaborated the theological concept of lesser jihad and its institutions based on the example of Muhammad, his biographies (written between the 8th and 9th centuries), and his alleged words and deeds (hadiths) recorded by supposed witnesses.

The distinction between these two periods shows that lesser jihad as it developed cannot be attributed to Muhammad because the institutions were established after his death.

Contrary to what former French Prime Minister Alain Juppe says and claims, there are many differences between the concepts of lesser jihad and Crusade as they emanate from two profoundly different religions and civilizations.

We can only mention a few here.

Starting from the 8th century, Muslim theologians professed that the lesser jihad originates in and is inseparable from Islamic doctrine because it is expressed in the military campaigns led by Muhammad.

Lesser jihad , which is a complex notion, manifests the struggle of Muslims to live according to the precepts of God as revealed to Muhammad. Muhammad embodies the supreme mediator between humanity and the divinity whose binding and normative commandments are proclaimed in the Quran and by his words and deeds. The Arab prophet illustrates the normative model of the Good that must be imposed nolens volens on all humanity, and the lesser jihad elaborates the military, political, and economic tactics to achieve that goal.

From its origins and to this day lesser jihad occupies an important place in the thought and writings of Muslim theologians and jurists. The regulations defined in the 8thcentury are still considered immutable today by the majority of Muslims. But whereas lesser jihad is inherent to the sacred immanence of the Quranic revelation, the Crusade is an episodic historical event subject to criticism.

First we should note that the Crusade has no foundation in the constituent texts of Christianity—the First and Second Testaments of the Bible.

First Testament. The conquest of Canaan by the Israelites concerns a limited territory, not the whole earth in an eternal war to submit all of humanity to one same law. Likewise, practices of warfare are inscribed in the context of a particular time.

Further, the Bible and the Quran do not take the same position on paganism.

The Bible condemns the bloody inhumane practices of pagan cults; it never ordained eternal war against pagans.

Historically speaking the Crusade was a reaction to events all of which were integral to the concept of the lesser jihad. The Muslim armies encircled Christendom in a pincer movement. In the east, after the Byzantine defeat at

Manzikert (1071), the Turkish Seljuq tribes put Armenia to fire and the sword and ravaged the Byzantine territory. In the west the Almoravid Berber tribes penetrated Spain and advanced northward, massacring Christians as they went.

In the Holy Land pilgrimages were interrupted because of forced conversions, kidnappings and murder of Christian pilgrims, and general insecurity for non-Muslims.

The Crusades cannot be separated from the recurrent anti-Christian lesser jihad wars that provoked them.

Ignorance of lesser jihad doctrine is so profound among the journalists bishops intellectuals or politicians in the West that the term Crusade is often abusively used in absurd misconstructions implying that Muslims fight for the cross when in fact the cross was forbidden in their empire (dar al-islam) by Caliph Abd al-Malik from the late 7thcentury.

Most serious is that effacing the history of lesser jihad automatically cancels the history of dhimmitude which is its aim and its finality.

The historical sphere called dhimmitude is a portion of human history stretching over more than a millennium and covering all the countries conquered by Muslim armies on three continents—Africa, Asia, and Europe. And in fact the concept still exists today in the customs and laws of all countries where Sharia is practiced.

Ignorance of journalists keeps people from perceiving dhimmitude just as illiteracy keeps a person from grasping the meaning of a text, but neither ignorance nor illiteracy changes the unperceived reality.

Because lesser jihad is eternal, being considered an expression of the divine will, so is dhimmitude, its direct consequence, enhanced with the same eternal and sacred qualities.

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* Personally, we do not understand why our friend Bat Ye'or refers here to Marcion but no matter.Original title : « Juifs et chrétiens sous l’Islam. Dhimmitude et marcionisme, » published in Commentaire , a quarterly review founded by Raymond Aron (Editorial director: Jean-Claude Casanova) Translated by Nidra Poller.

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THE DHIMMITUDE ACCORDING TO BAT YE’OR.

(Jews and Christians under Islam. Translation David Maisel. Preface by Jacques Ellul).

As the historian Gisele Littman-Orebi (Bat Ye'or) of the Universities of Geneva and London explains; the Islamic law forbade non-Muslims to own property which was transferred to the Muslim public Treasury managed by the Caliph . The latter demarcated military districts which he ceded in fiefs, temporarily or permanently, to members of his family, tribes or military leaders, in exchange for the equipment of a troop and its participation in the fighting. This administrative military hierarchy continued until the nineteenth century in the Ottoman Empire. In Bosnia, only Muslims could have "free" lands (mulk), the Ottoman state reserving all of the conquered lands (miri lands). The dhimmis, however, could keep the possession of the ground, draw from it the usufruct and inherit it. However, the Islamic conquest established in reality a dramatic situation recounted by countless sources and whose long-term consequences led to the disappearance of the indigenous Christian and Jewish peasantry. Indeed, even if Islamic legislation (theoretically) guarantees possession to the dhimmi, this principle was often infringed, particularly through the transfer of the populations obliged to give up their movable and immovable property. In the 19th century, during the emancipation of the dhimmis and the reform of Ottoman law, the ulama forbade the sale of land to the Christian Serbs. When the latter managed to buy it, it was taken from them. A similar situation towards Jews and Christians in Palestine and Syria was mentioned by the English consuls at the same time.

Abuse of private persons or troops, rebel raids, there was scarcely any place or period in which slavery carried away its harvest of dhimmi men, women, and children. This demographic dilution worsened under the Ottomans with the institution of the devshirme inaugurated by the Sultan Orkhan (1326-1359). It consisted in the regular tribute-shaped removal, of a fifth of the Christian children of the conquered countries in Eastern and Central Europe. Intervals between levyings varied according to need. Some places were exempted: Janina, Galata, Rhodes. Converted to Islam, these children between the ages of 14 and 20 entered the corps of Janissaries, military militias consisting almost exclusively of Christians. The periodic levying, which were made by contingents of 1,000, then became annual. Christian children were requisitioned from the aristocracy of the Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Albanians, Armenians, and among the priests' children. On a fixed date, all the fathers had to assemble with their sons, in a square of the city, etc.

In the Muslim world, besides the "protected" dhimmi, there is another category of "protected," dependent on the diplomatic authorities of a European power. It is the infidels who have come from abroad for trade reasons who benefit from the latter status by virtue of the privileges granted by the Muslim leaders, especially the Ottoman sultans, to the Christian States (Capitulations) as early as the 16th century. They can thus trade freely while enjoying tax exemptions, they are judged by the courts of their country, in short, they do not fall under the dhimma.

These privileges are progressively extended, according to the times, to non-Muslim local nationals, who try to obtain certificates of protection to escape the good will of the masters of the place. These certificates are even traded in the Ottoman Empire ending ...

The European penetration into the land of Islam upsets the relationship between Muslims and "protected." In the nineteenth century, European colonialism put an end to dhimma in North Africa and the Middle East. In 1856, the dhimma was officially abolished in the Ottoman Empire. Now Muslims and non-Muslims should be treated on an equal footing. But these reforms mostly went unheeded. In the Ottoman Empire the capitation is abolished, but replaced by a tax which allows the non-Muslim to be exempted from military service.

At the same time, indigenous peoples are opening up to the West - and to new ideologies. The "protected" no longer accept their condition. They are waiting for the salvation from the West. The different nationalisms are gaining ground. The European powers manipulate these aspirations and do not hesitate to play minorities off against each other.

In the Middle East, as in North Africa, modern nation states, arising from decolonization, are unable to integrate their former "protected," to consider them as equal citizens. The recent vicissitudes gradually emptied the lands of Islam from their "protected." Those who remain, Christians and Jews, appear to be modern times "tolerated," including in secular states. The consequences of centuries of inequality could not disappear by the simple promulgation of egalitarian constitutions. Has the desire for integration been missing both for the Muslim states and the concerned minorities?

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Today, a reverse situation has been established. Muslims who have taken up residence in Christian land are subjected to the law of the nation states on which they depend, even temporarily. The same applies to the Muslim Arabs currently under the jurisdiction of the Jewish State of Israel. In both cases, these populations find themselves faced with the former "protected" of the Muslim world, but in a non-dominant position.

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COMPARATIVE COMMUNAUTARIOLOGY.

(Theoretical) CHRISTIAN COMMUNITARIANISM.

Let us remind, first of all, of the fact that the Nazarene high rabbi Jesus never preached the Church but the coming of the Kingdom of God, of which below is (in the maximum sense) definition.

Matthew 5:38.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.’But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Commentary Peter DeLaCrau. Love for enemies. Hum.....Respecting one's enemies would be quite good. As for the Latin term ekklesia (church) or qahal in Hebrew, it seems to have had a rather local meaning from the beginning. In the Book of Apocalypse (which in Greek means "book of revelation"), chapters 1, 2 and 3, its author hears a loud voice dictating to him : What you see, write it in a book, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

MUSLIM COMMUNITY.

The opposite of taqiya (intellectual honesty) requires a clear recognition that the general rule is brotherhood among believers (believing the same thing). The Quran is categorical on this subject.

In Muslim theology the Ummah or community of believers IS ONE. From this notion of Ummah (or Muslim nation) stems the exceptional duty of solidarity of Muslims between themselves, outside of all previous affiliations (essentially tribal or family at the time).

Muhammad laid the foundations for this as soon as he arrived in Yathrib/Medina in 622 by associating to each Meccan immigrant (Muhajir) a native Medinan (Ansar) so that they could fraternize. The attempt will not go very far but will leave traces. Muhammad continued in this way by working out a whole series of modus vivendi between Arab or Jewish tribes of the oasis city. Which will finish on a statement of failure as regards the Jewish tribes. The purpose of these pacts was the organization of a common defense against any attack from outside but also the establishment of a common tax to finance it, as well as the settlement of disputes or problems that might arise between the different signatories of this first ummah.

The notion of ummah is very emotionally charged among Muslims, as proved a contrario by the visceral condemnation of every fitna among the ulamas (ulama = doctor of the Law, fitna = schism, split, intra-Muslim wars).

SCRIPTURAL BASES.

Quran chapter 48 verse 29.

Muhammad is the Messenger of God. And those who are with him are hard against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves.

.Chapter 49 verses 9 to 12:

" And if two parties of believers fall to fighting, then make peace between them. And if one party of them does wrong to the other, fight you that which does wrong until it returns unto the ordinance of God; then, if it returns, make peace between them justly, and act equitably. Lo! God loves the equitable.

The believers are nothing else than brothers. Therefore make peace between your brethren and observe your duty to God that haply you may obtain mercy.

O you who believe! Let not a folk deride a folk who may be better than they (are), not let women (deride) women who may be better than they are; neither defame one another, nor insult one another by nicknames. Bad is the name of lewdness after faith. And whosoever does not turn in repentance, such are evildoers.

O you who believe! Shun much suspicion; for lo! some suspicion is a crime. And spy not, neither backbite one another.

Editor's note. These verses would be more moving if they advocated solidarity with all mankind. (Does non-belief in God bring out mankind?)

HADITHS.

Jami` at-Tirmidhi, Tome. 3, Book of Legal Punishment, Hadith 1426.

Narrated Ibn 'Umar: That the Messenger of God said: "The Muslim is the brother of the Muslim, he doesn't oppress him and doesn't put him into ruin, and whoever is concerned for the needs of his

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brother, God is concerned for his needs, and whoever relieves a Muslim of a burden, God will relieve him of a burden from the burdens of the Day of Judgment and whoever covers (the faults of) a Muslim, God will cover (his faults) on the Day of Judgment."

Sahih al-Bukhari 1240.

Narrated Abu Hurayra: I heard God's Messenger saying, "The rights of a Muslim on the Muslims are five: to respond to the salaam, visiting the sick, to follow the funeral processions, to accept an invitation, and to reply to those who sneeze.

Sahih Muslim 2162 b

The book of salutations.

Abu Huraira reported God's Messenger as saying: Six are the rights of a Muslim over another Muslim. It was said to him: God's Messenger, what are these? Thereupon he said: When you meet him, offer him greetings;when he invites you to a feast accept it. when he seeks your council, give him, and when he sneezes and says: "All praise is due to God," you say Yarhamuk Allah (may God show mercy to you); and when he fails ill, visit him; and when he dies follow his bier.

5 or 6 duties or rights of Muslims among themselves then. To which some authors add two more.

What gives us under the pen of pious Muslims who develop these brief mentions after the usual syrupy speech about brotherhood, love and humanism (humanism where God is the measure of all things, not Man) and with an unfortunate tendency to confuse right and duty (but it is true that to each right corresponds in principle a duty).

Legislated science. The rights of the Muslim regarding the Muslim. The Muslim Ummah recognizes many rights for every Muslim.

FIRST OF THE RIGHTS OR DUTIES OF A MUSLIM (TOWARDS OTHER MUSLIMS).

-The first duty is to say Salam (good morning) to your brother when you meet him.

Salam is a Sunnah (tradition) that the Prophet has ordained for Muslims.

It arouses affection in the hearts of believers.

Remarks.The obligation to give back the good morning to non-Muslims exists but is not on the same level.

Sunan Ibn Majah, Volume 5, Book 33, Hadith 3699.

« It was narrated from Abu 'Abdur-Rahman Al Juhani that the Messenger of God said:

"I am riding to the Jews tomorrow. Do not initiate the greeting with them, and if they greet you, then say: Wa 'alaikum (and also upon you)" (taqiya?)

N.B. The hadiths below concern only the status of dhimmis in Dar al Islam, which to our knowledge no longer exists since 1855, except in the dreams of jihadists.

Sahih Muslim. The Book of Salutations Book 39 hadith 16.

Chapter : The prohibition of initiating the greeting with the people of the Book, and how to respond to them.

Abu Huraira reported God's Messenger as saying: Do not greet the Jews and the Christians before they greet you and when you meet any one of them on the roads force him to go to the narrowest part of it.

SECOND OF THE RIGHTS OR DUTIES OF A MUSLIM (TOWARDS OTHER MUSLIMS).

-The second right is to accept invitations from other Muslims. If a Muslim invites you to his house then you must accept his invitation in order to strengthen friendly and fraternal relations among Muslims.

Responding to invitations can also mean responding to a call for help. The Prophet said:

"And if he invites you (or calls you), accept. "If your Muslim brother calls you to help him in any lawful matter, then you are obligated to answer his call.

THIRD OF THE RIGHTS OR DUTIES OF A MUSLIM (TOWARDS OTHER MUSLIMS).

- The duty to counsel. One of Islam's most dangerous (many slip-ups) duties. And stems directly from the notion of religion being assimilated not to a personal spirituality but to a Law (DIN).

"The third duty is to advise your brother if he needs it. If you are not asked for advice, then you are allowed not to give it. However, you must counsel your brother if what he is going to do is wrong or harmful. Prohibiting harm is..."

Regarding this, Muslims are, of course, the best of human communities. The Quran is clear on this subject, Muslims certainly do not form a race in the phenotypical sense of the term but constitute an elite destined to command.

And here again our author relies on several Quranic verses.

Chapter 3, verse 72: "And a party of the People of the Scripture says: Believe in that which has been revealed unto those who believe at the opening of the day, and disbelieve at the end thereof…believe not save in one who follows your religion ."

Chapter 3 verse 104.

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"And there may spring from you a nation who invite to goodness, and enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency. Such are they who are successful. "

Chapter 3 verse 110.

"You are the best community that hath been raised up for mankind. You enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency and you believe in God. And if the People of the Scripture had believed it had been better for them. Some of them are believers; but most of them are evil livers."

Chapter 3 verse 118.

"O you who believe! Take not for intimates others than your own folk."

Chapter 7 verse 157.

"Those who follow the messenger, the Prophet who can neither read nor write, whom they will find described in the Torah and the Gospel (which are) with them. He will enjoin on them that which is right and forbid them that which is wrong. He will make lawful for them all good things and prohibit for them only the foul and he will relieve them of their burden and the fetters that they used to wear. Then those who believe in him, and honor him, and help him, and follow the light which is sent down with him: they are the successful."

Chapter 7 verse 181.

"And of those whom We created there is a nation (umma) who guide with the Truth and establish justice therewith.

Chapter 9, verse 71: "And the believers, men and women, are protecting friends one of another; they enjoin the right and forbid the wrong, and they establish worship (salat) and they pay the poor due (zakat)".

This verse would be perfect ....

-If it did not contain the seeds of a terrible religious dictatorship "They command the good, forbid the evil," in other words, the Hisba or Muslim Inquisition (Mihna).

-If it was not followed by the dreadful verse 73: " O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites! Be harsh with them. Their ultimate abode is hell, a hapless journey's end."

The problem indeed is all these call for hate because the Quran is not a collection of 50 or 100 poems inspired like the famous hill of the same name, with its strange, bewitching beauty, as if it had come from another world: the Quran it is also these horrible verses repealing known as sword verse ( 5 of chapter 9) fight verse ( 29 of chapter 9) or minor jihad verse (4 of chapter 47).

They are also all these curses intended for non-believers, in the other world or from this one. The problem is all these calls to hatred that are scattered throughout this book. Isn't it better to consider that all humans are brothers? **

African proverb. When I saw him from afar, I thought he was a monster. Then I thought he was an animal. When he got closer, I recognized that he was a man. When we finally were face to face, I realized he was my brother.

Islam holds that all Muslims are responsible for the execution of divine laws and that all Muslims must exercise control over the community and the application of laws. Every Muslim has the duty to do right and to compel others to do right and the duty to fight evil and also to forbid it to others. These duties are a fundamental element of Islam and one of the purposes of the Quran. Ordering good and forbidding evil is a duty for Muslims and is part of the profession of faith of the Twelver Shia. In Sunnism, since 629 the Hisba * designates this duty, which according to interpretations can be an individual duty (farḍ al-'ayn) or a collective duty (farḍ al-kifāya), which is then performed by delegation to competent authorities.

* Not to be confused with the Mihna which, from 833 to 847 (or more?) was a second Inquisition but intended to fight against heresies this time.

Commentary by Peter DeLaCrau. In the best of cases, this amounts to making certain specialized members of the community some spiritual guides, somewhat analogous to the Catholic confessor priests, distant successors of the Irish anamchara druids. But it can also lead to the most frightening totalitarianism, annihilating the very notion of privacy. De minimis non curat praetor. God doesn't have to care how I wash my teeth or hold my fork.

FOURTH OF THE RIGHTS OR DUTIES OF A MUSLIM (TOWARDS OTHER MUSLIMS).

--The fourth duty is to...I'm deleting it from my list because it's ridiculous. It is just a remnant of paganism along with the custom of drinking to someone's health. At best an amusing tradition of social life.

FIFTH OF THE RIGHTS OR DUTIES OF A MUSLIM (TOWARDS OTHER MUSLIMS).

-The fifth duty of the Muslim is to visit his brother if he is ill. At the same time reminding him to beg God’s forgiveness. It is also advisable to encourage the sick person with good words, to strengthen his soul, to invoke God on his behalf, and to recite the Quran.

SIXTH OF THE RIGHTS OR DUTIES OF A MUSLIM (TOWARDS OTHER MUSLIMS).

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-The sixth duty is the logical continuation of the previous one in case of failure. It is to follow the funeral procession. The one who accompanies the funeral procession of a Muslim, driven by his faith and desire for God's reward, and who remains until he is prayed over and his burial is completed, leaves with two masses of rewards, each mass being equal to Mount Uhu'd. He who participates in the prayer and returns before his burial, leaves with one mass of rewards.

THE SEVENTH OF THE RIGHTS OR DUTIES OF A MUSLIM (TOWARDS OTHER MUSLIMS).

-The seventh duty is not to harm Muslims in any way. To harm Muslims is a great sin.

SCRIPTURAL BASIS.

Sahih Muslim 2580: The Book of Virtue, Enjoining Good Manners, and Joining of the ties of Kinship

Chapter : The prohibition of oppression.

Salim reported on the authority of his father that God’s Messenger said:

A Muslim is the brother of a fellow-Muslim. He should neither commit oppression upon him nor ruin him, and he who meets the need of a brother, God would meet big needs, and he who relieved a Muslim from hardship God would relieve him from the hardships to which he would be put on the Day of Resurrection, and he who did not expose (the follies of a Muslim) God would conceal his follies on the Day of Resurrection.

Sahih al-Bukhari 2442. Oppression. Chapter: A Muslim should not oppress another Muslim.

Narrated `Abdullah bin `Umar:

God's Messenger said, "A Muslim is a brother of another Muslim, so he should not oppress him, nor should he hand him over to an oppressor. Whoever fulfilled the needs of his brother, God will fulfill his needs; whoever brought his (Muslim) brother out of a discomfort, God will bring him out of the discomforts of the Day of Resurrection, and whoever screened a Muslim, God will screen him on the Day of Resurrection . "

Abdullah bin 'Umar: God's Messenger said, "Every Muslim is the brother of every other Muslim, so he must not

EIGHTH OF THE RIGHTS OR DUTIES OF A MUSLIM (TOWARDS OTHER MUSLIMS).

From this we can deduce in a more general way and with few exceptions for every Muslim an 8th right, the right to life quite simply.

Chapter 4 verses 92-93; " It is not for a believer to kill a believer unless (it be) by mistake. He who hath killed a believer by mistake must set free a believing slave, and pay the blood- money to the family of the slain, unless they remit it as a charity. If he (the victim) be of a people hostile unto you, and he is a believer, then (the penance is) to set free a believing slave. And if he comes of a folk between whom and you there is a covenant, then the blood money must be paid unto his folk and (also) a believing slave must be set free. And whosoever does not have the wherewithal must fast two consecutive months. A penance from God. God is Knower, Wise. Whosoever slays a believer of set purpose, his reward is hell for ever. God is wroth against him and He has cursed him and prepared for him an awful doom ."

Editor’s note.These verses do not prohibit murder in general but only the murder of a Muslim. Moreover, the expression "blood money" is a direct reference to the Law of Talion, which allows the family of the victim of a murder to demand that a family member of the murderer be killed as compensation. Finally, no remorse is demanded from the murderer since he only has to deprive himself of a slave (considered as a vulgar personal property) or, if he cannot afford to do without his slave, food, to obtain his forgiveness.

On this brotherhood of Muslims among themselves, a hadith reported by Muslim gives an example in order to leave no ambiguity.

Sahih Muslim, book 1, number 0173: narrated under the authority of Miqdad b. Aswad. .... I encountered a person among the infidels (in the battlefield) and he attacked me and struck me and cut off one of my hands with the sword. Then he (in order to protect himself from me) took shelter of a tree and said: I become Muslim for God's sake. Messenger of God, can I kill him after he had uttered this? The Messenger of God said: Do not kill him. I (the narrator) said: Messenger of God, he cut off my hand and uttered this after amputating it; should I then kill him? The Messenger of God said: Don't kill him, for I you kill him, verily he would be in a position where you had been before killing him [that is to say Muslim] and verily you would be in a position where he had been before uttering (kalima i.e., unbeliever).

Repetere = ars docendi. These verses would be more convincing if they advocated the same thing for all mankind. (Does non-belief in God bring out mankind?)

This inter se or rejection of "infidels" is therefore the dominant, even obsessive, theme of the Quran. This "them" and "us" dualism explains the sense of membership or the strong social cohesion that can be observed in Muslim-majority countries and the integration difficulties that Muslims sometimes experience in countries with a non-Muslim majority.

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Another hadith on the same subject.

Sunan Abu Dawud 4352

Abd God (b. Mas`ud) reported the Messenger of God as saying: The blood of a Muslim man who testifies that there is no god but Allah and that I am the Messenger of Allah should not be lawfully shed but only for one of three reasons: a married fornicator, soul for soul, and one who deserts his religion separating himself from the community.

My Parisian correspondents remind me that it is not the same thing for believers of other religions whose rights and duties in the land of Islam are governed by dhimmah contracts (well, when it is a question of people of the book, i.e., Jews, Christians, Sabians and Zoroastrians) and not by those of the Ummah or Muslim Brotherhood. With them it is no longer a question of love or friendship, but of life saved and cultural autonomy in exchange for a tax called jizya paid individually in a "saghirouna" way... .

Here are a few examples.

Chapter 3, verse 28: " Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whosoever does that has no connection with God unless (it be) that you but guard yourselves against them, taking (as it were) security.

Chapter 5 verse 51. O you who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who takes them for friends is (one) of them. Lo! God guides not wrongdoing folk.

We will not mention here the many verses that are very negative towards Jews or Christians and promise them hell except to point out that in Muslim theology TRINITARIAN CHRISTIANS (95%) ARE ALSO CONSIDERED AS MUSHRIKUN OR ASSOCIATORS THEREFORE POLYTHEISTS INCURRING THE SAME PUNISHMENT.

THE NINTH OF THE RIGHTS OR DUTIES OF A MUSLIM (TOWARDS OTHER MUSLIMS).

SCRIPTURAL BASIS.

Quran chapter 9 verse 71.

And the believers, men and women, are protecting friends one of another; they enjoin the right and forbid the wrong, and they establish worship and they pay the poor due (zakat), and they obey God and His messenger. As for these, God will have mercy on them. Lo! God is Mighty, Wise.

The exegetes of the Quran are unanimous in saying that the covenant in question here is a covenant of help, compassion, love, and also of military relief.

Let us not forget that in the land of Islam there is not only the Quran and the hadiths, but also all what some intellectuals have deduced from them and which is called fiqh (sharia).

QUESTION. Is canon law related to Christianity?

ANSWER. To Christianity perhaps, to Catholicism certainly.

Below is the position of the four main Schools of Muslim Law when a Muslim country is attacked.

Or when Muslims are attacked or when they cannot practice their religion freely.

A Acceptance of defensive warfare by mainstream Muslim law schools

Without totally excluding the offensive vocation of lesser jihad, which aims to spread Islam by force, the Sunni legal schools, namely the Malekite school (a), the Hanafite school (b), the Shhafiite school (c) and the Hanbalite school (d) are unanimous in legitimizing minor jihad as a defensive war (djihād al-dafāa).

The founder of the school that would bear his name, Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (circa 780-855) is considered by a large number of scholars and jurists to be "the man of hadiths" (rajul al hadīth), since he collected 40,000 words of Muhammad to which he dedicated a collection called al-musnad . This school is characterized by its attachment to the letter of the Quranic texts . It recognizes both the defensive and offensive vocation of the lesser jihad without recognizing the same level of "obligation."

For Ibn Taymiyyah, figurehead of this school and spiritual father of the Wahhabi school, founded in the 18th century by the Saudi Mohammed Ibn Abdelwahab (1703-1791).

FIRST FATWA.

-If the enemy enters a Muslim land, there is no doubt, it is obligatory for the nearest and then the one after him to repel him, because Muslim lands form one land. It is obligatory to go to the territory in question without even the permission of the parents or the master, and the stories reported by Imam Ahmad on this subject are clear.

SECOND FATWA.

-If the enemy enters a Muslim land, there is no doubt that it is obligatory for those who are contiguous to defend it. If they are lazy or incapable, then the mobilization goes to those around them, then to those around them, until it includes the whole world, East and West, because Muslim lands are one land. Under such conditions, it is obligatory to move towards the territory without even the permission of the parents or the master.

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Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyah (1292-1350), who inferred in his writings the existence of four forms of lesser jihad, follows the same pattern.

This is why it becomes an individual obligation to stand up and fight, even for the slave, whether with or without the master's permission, the child without the parents' permission, the indebted without the creditor's permission.

The legal literature of these different Sunni schools on the lesser jihad has greatly influenced the doctrines developed by the Shia schools.

QUESTION. Is canon law related to Christianity?

ANSWER. To Christianity perhaps, to Catholicism certainly.

For Yūssuf al-Qaradāwi (born in 1926), president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, the defensive minor jihad is mandatory in the following cases.

1) to liberate Muslim territories under occupation, 2) to repel any aggression or, 3) to protect the borders of Muslim states.

The discourse conveyed by this Sunni traditionalist tendency is not different from that advocated by Shiite jurists and theologians.

In Muslim law, this self-defense finds its basis in several Quranic verses as well as in several hadiths. It encompasses both responses to actual armed aggression and responses to threats on the Muslim community.

In Quranic terms, Muslims are obliged to repel any aggression committed against them. "Fight in the path of God those who fight you, and do not transgress. Surely, God does not love transgressors" (Quran, Chapter 2, verse 190). They are also required to guard against any threat, since the Quran commands to Muhammad: "And if you really fear treachery from a people, then terminate (the treaty) fairly. God does not love traitors" (Quran, Sura 8, verse 58); and also, "Will you not fight a people who have broken their covenant? "(Quran, chapter 9, verse 13) .

Muslims are also allowed to wage war to recover their property and possessions and to put an end to injustice, since: "Those who are attacked are allowed to defend themselves because they have been wronged, and God is certainly able to help them. Those who have been expelled from their homes, against all justice, simply because they said, "God is our Lord" (Quran, chapter 22, verses 39, 40); and again, "Those [Muslims] who have emigrated, who have been driven out of their homes, who have been persecuted in My way, who have fought, who have been killed, I will certainly atone for their evil deeds, and I will bring them into the gardens under which rivers flow, as a reward from God" (chapter 3 verse 195).

B Shiite Schools.

As with the majority of (fiqhic) legal issues, Shiite schools have not developed a particular conception of lesser jihad despite the primordial role they give to imam (supreme guide) to authorize and qualify acts falling under the scope of jihad.

Two opinions will nevertheless divide Shiites: on the one hand, the one that does not authorize any form of minor lesser jihad as long as the imam (al-Imam al-montazar) is in occultation and, on the other hand, the one that entrusts the task of declaring the minor jihad to its representative (wali al-Amr * or wali al-Faqih**) who can surround himself with scholars (ulamas) who "follow his teachings and behaviors" in order to fulfill this task. According to the majority opinion, occultation does not put an end to minor jihad and the designated imam may declare it in extreme cases to repel aggression against Muslims.

* Responsible for the community.

** Religious dignitary.

C Minority Sunni schools

For Sufyane A'thawri, known to be "the emir of the hadith." According to him, jihad is not a religious obligation incumbent on all Muslims, and lesser jihad can only be defensive.

For their part, the jurists Ibn Shubrumah al-Kūfī, 'Atāa Ibn Rabāh and 'Amr Ibn Dinār also follow the same pattern when they state that minor jihad is not a religious obligation in the same way as the five pillars of Islam and that Muslims are not obliged to fight the unbelievers if there is no threat on them (Qaradāwi 2009: 9, 79).

The opinions of these jurists were taken over, a few centuries later, by Ibn al-Salāh al-Shahrazūri (1181-1245), who forbade aggression against non-Muslims because of their religion. "It is important to keep non-believers as they are because God does not want to annihilate them and He did not create them to be killed."

Ibn al-Salāh adds that punishment can only be used to repress an act that is detrimental to Muslims.

The 12th-century philosopher and theologian Fakhroddin al-Rāzī, for his part, is in line with this trend, stating that the Quran only allows fighting against those who declare their hostility to Muslims .

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As for minor jihad, Sayyid Khan will propose to revise the classical doctrine by limiting it to cases of oppression where the authorities forbid Muslims to practice their religion. This is becoming more serious and more reasonable as a policy than the Christian utopia of absolute pacifism mentioned above.

Admittedly, these schools are formed by little-known jurists but, remarkably, their opinions seem to attract more and more attention from Muslim and non-Muslim researchers and academics.

On the more general problem of the offensive minor jihad, see our chapter on the ethical framework of force AND THE FOLLOWING.

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THE NEWFOUND MUSLIMS.

Christian Hadith narrated by Luke Sura 15. According to Luke Jesus said.

A woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

In lands of Islam, newfound Muslims have always been considered as second-class Muslims or lower Muslims, keeping some "Christian" habits.

Let us admit, however, that the Quran does not appear to have shown such discrimination, which was therefore only a matter of policy.

In principle, newfound converts (Persian Jew, etc.) were to enjoy the same rights and advantages as the Arabs, since they were members of the community of believers, the Umma; but in practice their status remained much lower than that of Muslims by birth, the "old Muslims," whence sometimes revolts on their behalf against the established power and the public figures. In the East, these second-class Muslims are called muwalladi, in Spain muladi ( Arabic mouwalladoun) from where the reverse: the Mudejars then Moriscos 1) a kind of upside down dhimmitude.

Newfound Muslims were subjected to all kinds of tax, social, political, military, and other restrictions. The conversion of an entire village or of a district resulting in tax-related large losses for the Muslim state; The mawali or muladi will often continue to be subjected to the tax of the dhimmis (the jizya in Arabic), in one form or another. The fight for equal rights between Muslims was therefore one of the main problems of the first centuries of Islam (see Ibn Abd Rabbihi 860-940).An all the more stupid racism, as Islam became a great power only by adopting the Persian administrative principles, Indian medicine, and Hellenistic philosophy, let us not forget it!

In Spain, the revolts of muwalladi (newfound converts) were almost permanent against the immigrant Arabo-Berbers who had carved out large estates farmed by Christians, serfs or slaves. Tax extortions and expropriations lighted continual insurrectionary centers of Muwalladi and Mozarabic Christians throughout the Hispanic Peninsula. The rebel leaders were then executed by crucifixion and the insurgents massacred with swords.

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As we have had the opportunity to see it, there are Muslims rather hypocritical (not in the sense of munafiqun but practicing taqiya) or rather ignorant of the sunna to claim that there is no hierarchy in Islam but the founding texts (Quran hadith Sira) are categorical . Or they did not open them to the right pages.

It is clear that most of the founding texts help to set up a very strict hierarchal order in the society.

In this Weltanschauaung the Supreme Being is, of course, the almighty creating God. It is clear here that Satan, his lifelong enemy, must not be part of this sacred order before which to submit, since such is the original meaning of Islam: submission to the divine will. It is also clear here that the existence of an uncreated Quran beside God or consubstantial with God (a little bit like Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit among the Trinitarian Christians) is not without raising some theological issues, of which the Mu’tazilites were very aware.

The laws of God pass before those of men, even on earth.

Male and free Muslim take precedence over Jews and Christians (to say nothing of atheists or pagans, nothing is foreseen for them).

Men take precedence over women.

Free men over slaves.

There is no reason to say that this is discrimination or selfishness, but what we can say morally and intellectually speaking is that most of the founding texts make such distinctions.

1) Name given to the Muslims in Spain who became subjects of the Christian kingdoms after the eleventh century, during the period of tolerance. The Mudejars spoke Castilian; if they had forgotten their mother language. However they continued to write with Arabic letters ( Aljamiado). The policy of limpieza de sangre “blood purity” that was implemented from the fifteenth century onwards saw the persecutions against this community follow one another. On February 14, 1502, an edict was promulgated which required the Mudejars of Castile to choose between conversion and exile. Under the name of Moriscos, important communities of new converts remained in Spain then disappeared totally following the expulsion edict of 1609.

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BASIC MUSLIMS.

Holy Quran verse 142 chapter 4.” Lo! the hypocrites seek to beguile God, but it is He Who beguiles them. When they stand up to worship, they perform it languidly and to be seen of men, and are mindful of God but little.”

The lowest Orthodox Muslims in the scale of values are therefore the moderates called hypocrites. In theological Arabic munafiqun (singular munafiq). Such a demonization of a simple flaw common in the human species is quite rare and is to cover something else.

Contrary to what some sycophants or fierce opponents of Islam would have us believe, the first Muslims indeed were not all from the outset warmongers. God therefore had to intervene several times in the Quran to point out that the lesser jihad was also necessary.

Quran 8, verse 65. " O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there be of you twenty steadfast they shall overcome two hundred, and if there be of you a hundred (steadfast) they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they are a folk without intelligence.”

Quran 2 verse 216. " Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that you hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that you love a thing which is bad for you. God knows, you do not know.”

Editor’s note. This verse is very clear. He stresses that the struggle is the will of God whereas men and therefore including the basic Muslim generally prefer to make love rather than to make war. This type of inversion of values is therefore typical of a sectarian downward slide.

Particularly targeted in this field were the Bedouins.

These seemingly Islamized Bedouins were not enthusiastic about attacking seasoned men: " Say unto those of the wandering Arabs who were left behind: You will be called against a folk of mighty prowess, to fight them until they surrender; and if you obey, God will give you a fair reward; but if you turn away as you did turn away before, He will punish you with a painful doom” (48: 16).

" It is not for the townsfolk of Madinah and for those around them of the wandering Arabs so stay behind the messenger of God and prefer their lives to his life” (9: 120).

" Those of the wandering Arabs who were left behind will tell you: our possessions and our households occupied us, so ask forgiveness for us! They speak with their tongues that which is not in their hearts” (48, 11).

This last verse refers to a specific case. Bedouin tribes near Medina had signed a pact of mutual assistance with Muhammad. They have committed to accomplish the pilgrimage to Mecca alongside the other Muslims. They then thought more prudent not to undertake this journey, fearing that a conflict would break out between the believers and the pagans.

The word Munafiqun originally meant the inhabitants of Yathrib / Medina who had welcomed and housed Muhammad and the few dozens of Muslims who had followed him in his exile far from their hometown of Mecca: the Muhajirun. Then they were gradually surprised disappointed or upset by the behavior of those first Muslims who behaved like is they may lord it over everyone. Then, who had accepted reticently, only forced and compelled, the accession to the power of Muhammad in this City State. Their emblematic leader was a man named Abdullah bin Ubayy, an important figure who thought even to become one day king of the Medinans.

There were to be among them pagan polytheists but also perhaps Judeo-Christians. Participated in offensive military operations, especially because of the lure of booty. In theological Arabic, the word munafiqun today designates especially those who are only nominally Muslims, who are not true Muslims, who do not comply with all the rules of the Muslim theocracy (verse 8, chapter 63. “Power belongs to God to his prophet and believers ").

In addition to the suras that we have just pointed out, there are also many hadiths on this subject.

Sahih Muslim Book 38 Hadith 6684. “Zaid b. Thabit reported that God’s Apostle set out for Uhud. Some of those persons who were with them came back. The Companions of God’s Apostle were divided in two groups. One group said: We would kill them, and the other one said: No, this should not be done, and it was on this occasion that this verse was revealed, etc.”

Sahih Muslim Book 38 Hadith 6686. “During the lifetime of God’s Messenger the munafiqun behaved in this way that when God’s Apostle set out for a battle, they kept themselves behind, and they became happy that they had managed to sit in the house... when God’s Apostle came back, they put forward excuses and took allegiance oaths and wished that people should laud them for the deeds which they had not done.”

It is not yet forbidden to think, under these conditions, that many of the Medinans who appear in the munafiqun (hypocrites) catch-all category, were not in reality opponents silenced or reduced to extreme caution (after the mysterious assassination of the named Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf), as Abd-Allah

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ibn Ubayy (one of the leaders of the Arab tribe of Banu Khazraj) or Abu Amir al-Rahib * (see chapter 9, verses 107 and 108) but basic Muslims who were hardly willing to do lesser jihad.

There are so many allusions in the Quran pointing at any deviant or suspect attitude in the community that the Islamic tradition was able to easily draw the typical profile of this category of basic Muslims. In Muslim history, many have borne this infamous title: especially some recent converts, unsafe and bad pupils in Arabic and Sharia: for the famous jurist ibn Taymiyya, the Hypocrites are in the first place the Mongols of the 12th century.

Such a demonization of a simple flaw common in the human species, its second nature in a way, rarely observed in history , can be explained in several ways: munafiqun are seen as a danger, because they form a center of attraction for Muslims, a bad example. Finally, and it is an essential point: the struggle against this category of Muslims could not be fought with weapons, as against the Jews: the "munafiqun" are powerful, numerous, skilled, and refuse the fight. Being opposed by inertia and maneuvers, they know how to use tribal solidarity. In the Quran, as we have seen, an entire chapter, the sura 63, is therefore devoted to them; in it they are, of course, doomed to death and hell. It is a sura often recited on Friday, it is among the 5 most popular. It is also particularly violent, since an incitement to their assassination is found in it, unambiguously: "They are the enemy, so beware of them. God confound them! " .

"When the hypocrites come unto you, they say: we bear witness that you are indeed God’s messenger. God knows that you are indeed His messenger....They are the enemy, so beware of them. God confound them!...They say: Surely if we return to Medina the mightier will soon drive out the weaker; when might belongs to God and to His messenger and to the believers but the hypocrites do not know”.

Tafsir al Jalalayn sura 63.They say, ‘Surely if we return, from the raid against the Banū al-Mustaliq, to Medina, the powerful (by which they meant themselves), will soon expel from it the weaker,’ (by which they meant the believers). You [the real] might, victory, belongs to God and to His messenger, and to the believers, but the hypocrites do not know that.

The matter was perhaps also eminently political. This enigmatic verse is perhaps an allusion to ibn Ubayy, former king of Yathrib and to his way of conducting the affairs of the town. Many hadiths seem to indicate that.

Ibn Ishaq. Sirat Rasul God. The life of Muhammad. “The Banu Qaynuqa were the first of the Jews to break their agreements with the apostle and to go to war, between Badr and Uhud, and the Apostle besieged them until they surrendered unconditionally. ’Abdullah b. Ubayy went to him ( they were allies of Khazraj)….The apostle said, ‘You can have them .’

My father Ishaq b. Yasar told me from ’Ubada b. al-Walid b. 'Ubada b. al-Samit who said: when the B. Qaynuqa’ fought the apostle ’Abdullah b. Ubayy espoused their cause and defended them….”

Editor’s note. The munafiqun, even if they do not act openly against Islam, evidently constitute a permanent danger, by the mere fact of their existence, for the power of God and his prophet. Plots are indeed possible, but nothing confirms them. On the other hand, what is known is that they are used as a pretext for the triggering of certain purges, Muslims fear above all the alliances with Jews, and the treason in times of war.

Ṣaḥiḥ al-Bukhaarii 33, Ṣaḥiiḥ Muslim 59. Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of God said, “The signs of a hypocrite are three, even if he fasts and prays and claims to be a Muslim: when he speaks he lies, when he gives a promise he breaks it, and when he is trusted he is treacherous.”

Sahih al-Bukhari Book 30 Hadith 108.When the Prophet went out for the battle of Uhud, some of his companions (hypocrites) returned (home). A party of the believers remarked that they would kill those (hypocrites) who had returned, but another party said that they would not kill them. So, this Divine Inspiration was revealed: "Then what is the matter with you that you are divided into two parties concerning the hypocrites" (chapter 4 verse 88). The Prophet said, "Medina will expel the bad companions from it, as fire expels the impurities of iron."

Sahih Muslim. Book 38. Hadith 6677.Zaid b. Arqam reported: We set out on a journey along with God’s Messenger in which we faced many hardships. 'Abdullah b. Ubayy said to his friends: Do not give what you have in your possession to those who are with God’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) until they desert him….. I came to God’s Apostle and informed him about that. He sent someone to 'Abdullah b. Ubayy and he asked him whether he had said that or not. He took an oath to the fact that he had not done that and told that it was Zaid who had stated a lie.”

The power of ibn Ubayy in any case had to be great in Yathrib / Medina because Muhammad was even so forced to pay homage to him on the occasion of his death.

Sahih Muslim Book 38 Hadith 6694. Jabir reported that God’s Messenger came back from a journey and as he was near Medina, there was such a violent gale that the mountain seemed to be pressed.

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God's Messenger said: “This wind has perhaps been made to blow for the death of a hypocrite,” and as he reached Medina a notorious hypocrite from among the hypocrites had died....

Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, Vol. 2, p. 18.“When his father died, Abdullah went to the presence of the Messenger of God and said, “O Messenger of God! Will you give me your coat? I want to enshroud my father in it.” Then, he said, “O Messenger of God! Will you lead his prayer and ask for his forgiveness?”

The grave of Ibn Ubayy.

Sahih Bukhari Volume 2, Book 23, Number 433. Narrated: Jabir bin Abdullah God's Apostle came to Abdullah bin Ubay after his death and he has been laid in his pit. He ordered (that he be taken out of the grave) and he was taken out. Then he placed him on his knees and threw some of his saliva on him and clothed him in his own coat. God knows better (why he did so).

CONCLUSION.

There are so many allusions to the "hypocrites" or "munafiquun" in the Quran, that we can draw up a real identity kit of this adversary everywhere present. These Muslims called hypocrites or "munafiqun" (singular "munafiq") are excessively vilified in the Quran and the Muslim tradition; which include under this name believers considered too soft and not aggressive enough (especially at the time of the fighting), simple opportunists or supposed ones, followers without energy who do not want to break with the infidels; or sincere people who displease the leader, or even simply can’t stand autocracy. A chapter besides bears their name, the chapter No. 63,the chapter called "the munafiqun." It is a chapter often recited on Friday and is one of the five most popular chapters. The Quran thus clearly equates the moderate elements of the population with hypocrites who must be mistrusted even who must be fought resolutely.

The Quran indeed promises the most severe punishment to those who would agree only to a part of these divine laws and not to the others, what by definition excludes any Islam known as "moderate."

Chapter 2 verse 85. " Believe you in part of the Scripture and disbelieve you in part thereof ?”

Chapter 4 verse 91. " You will find others who desire that they should have security from you, and security from their own folk......If they do not keep aloof from you nor offer you peace nor hold their hands, then take them and KILL THEM wherever you find them. Against such We have given you clear warrant.”

Chapter 4 verse 141. " Those who wait upon occasion in regard to you and, if a victory cometh unto you from God, say: Are we not with you ? and if the disbelievers meet with a success say: Had we not the mastery of you, and did we not protect you from the believers ?”

Chapter 33 verses 60 to 61. “If the hypocrites, and those in whose hearts is a disease, and the alarmists in the city do not cease, We verily shall urge you on against them, then they will be your neighbors in it but a little while. Accursed, they will be seized wherever found and slain with a (fierce) slaughter.

Chapter 66 verse 9. " O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern with them. Hell will be their home, a hapless journey's end.

* It is not known exactly what the religion of Abu Amir al-Rahib was at the time of the events.

Ibn Ishaq reports that he came to Muhammad when the latter arrived in Medina and asked him what his religion was. And Muhammad would have said: “I have brought the hanifiyya, the Din (religion) of Abraham.” Abu Amir would have said: “That is also what I follow !”Muhammad would have said then: “You do not!”Abu Amir would have said:”Yes I do!” and added that Muhammad had introduced in the hanifiyya things which did not belong to it.”

The Muslim tradition imagined him ending his days as a monk at the court of the Byzantine Christian emperor Heraclius.

"In this year [632], Abu 'Amir al-Rahib died at the court of Heraclius [the Byzantine emperor], so Kinanah b. 'Abd Yalil and' Alqamah b. 'Ulathah disputed about his inheritance (Tabari. The Last Years of the Prophet).

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THE GOOD MUSLIMS (OR THE BEST MUSLIMS).

As we have had the opportunity to see with the case of the Kuffar, for Islam, not all human beings have the same value. But Muslims too are not equal according to their place in the social hierarchy. Some are more deserving than others, the Quran specifies it explicitly.

Verses 75-76, chapter 16. " God coins a similitude: (on the one hand) a (mere) chattel slave, who has control of nothing, and (on the other hand) one on whom we have bestowed a fair provision from Us, and he spends thereof secretly and openly. Are they equal ? ….. God coins a similitude: Two men, one of them dumb, having control of nothing, and he is a burden on his owner; whithersoever he directs him to go, he brings no good. Is he equal to one who enjoins justice and follows a straight path (therefore the good Muslim. To ask the question is already to answer it).

Verse 19, chapter 9. " Count you the slaking of a pilgrim's thirst and tendance of the Inviolable Place of Worship as (equal to the worth of) him who believes in God and the Last Day, and strives in the way of God? They are not equal in the sight of God.”

Editor's Note. Our first idea was to parallel these verses with the beatitudes, but it is clear from the four gospels that this happy destiny will only be realized in the future life and that, as far as present life is concerned, no change of status is planned.

On the other hand, it should be noted that this is the antithesis of the Christian religion, which claims to be above all made for sinners.

Hadith or Surah from the Quran of Christians now.

St Matthew 20, 1-16. " “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About nine in the morning, he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. “He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon, he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

What Celsus had already criticized in his time.

“Let us hear what kinds of persons these Christians invite. “Every one, they say, who is a sinner, who is devoid of understanding, who is a child, and, to speak more generally, whoever is unfortunate, him will the kingdom of God receive.” But do you not call him a sinner, then, who is unjust, a thief, a housebreaker, a poisoner, a committer of sacrilege, and a robber of the dead?” What others would a man invite indeed if he were issuing a proclamation for an assembly of robbers?

Christians say that it was to sinners that their God has been sent. Why was he not sent to those who were without sin? What evil is it not to have committed sin?

The great God will receive the unrighteousness man if he humbles himself on account of his wickedness, but he will not receive the righteous man, although he looks up to him, adorned with virtue from the beginning .

Those persons who preside properly over a trial make those individuals who bewail before them their evil deeds to cease from their piteous wailing, lest their decisions should be determined rather emotion than by a regard to truth; whereas the great God does not decide in accordance with truth, but in accordance with flattery ?

All men, then, without distinction, ought to be invited, since all indeed are sinners.

What is this preference of sinners over others?

The Christians utter these exhortations for the conversion of sinners, because they are able to gain over no one who is really good and righteous, and therefore open their doors to the unholiest and most abandoned of men.

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And yet, indeed, it is manifest to every one that no one by chastisement, and much less by merciful treatment, could effect a complete change in those who are sinners both by nature and custom, for to change nature is an exceedingly difficult thing. On the other hand, they who are without sin are partaken of a better life.

Christians assert that the great God will be able to do all things but he will not desire to do anything wicked, even if one were to admit that he has the power, but not the will, to commit evil.

Their great God, like those who are overcome with pity, being himself overcome with pity, alleviates the sufferings of the wicked through pity for their wailing, but casts off the good, who do nothing of that kind, which is the height of injustice.”

* As we have had the opportunity to see with the paper by Bat Ye'or about the Dhimmiyun, non-Muslims are certainly exempted from the payment of compulsory alms or zakat, but it is to be subjected to a special tax, the jizya of which it is specified in the Quran (verse 29 of chapter 9), that it must be paid personally and under humiliating conditions (an yadin wa-hum saghiruna).

Conversely, Sharia law also prohibits the use of the products from zakat (i.e., from obligatory alms) for the benefit of non-Muslims. You cannot give alms to a non-Muslim.

** Except in the case of self-defense proportional to the attack and the death penalty in case of particularly odious murder. WHEN THERE IS NO DOUBT ON GUILTY AND IT IS NOT SOMEONE CRIMINALLY NOT RESPONSIBLE.

The most pleasant Muslims in the eyes of God are, of course, and very logically those who practice lesser jihad personally, they are superior to those who do nothing and stay at home.

Several verses specify this.

Verse 95 chapter 4. “Those of the believers who sit still, other than those who have a (disabling) hurt, are not on an equality with those who strive in the way of God with their wealth and lives. God hath conferred on those who strive with their wealth and lives a rank above the sedentary. Unto each God has promised good, but He has bestowed on those who strive a great reward above the sedentary.”

Verse 20, chapter 9. "Those who believe, and have left their homes and striven with their wealth and their lives in God's way are of much greater worth in God’s sight.”

Verse 10, chapter 57: "Those who spent and fought before the victory are not upon a level (with the rest of you). Such are greater in rank than those who spent and fought afterwards.”

And of course, while hell waits for unbelievers, the delights of Heaven, including wine, await for true believers. Verses 12-40 of chapter 56. It is an umpteenth application of the crude process known as the carrot and the stick! As for the famous Houris, besides the fact that in themselves they constitute an unrivaled bait for the Muslims (there is no such thing apparently foreseen for the she-believers) a controversy was launched by Christoph Luxenberg on the exact meaning of that term.

According to the analysis put forward by this professor at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands, who is based for that on the hymns of Ephrem the Syrian; there would be in the Islamic heaven "clear as the day,""white grapes", rather than doe-eyed virgins always consenting (the houris). For Luxenberg, the context is clear: food and drink are offered, not girls.

In Syriac, the word "hour" is a plural feminine adjective which means white, in which the word "grape" is implicit. The immortal youths or pearl-like girls described by some chapters, such as 56, were born of a misinterpretation of a Syriac expression meaning "fresh grapes" (or "drinks"); that those who have deserved heaven will be pleased to taste, as opposed to the boiling beverages reserved for the infidels and the damned.

The verse that promises 70 virgins to the martyrs arriving in paradise would speak, for example, of "white fruits like crystal" instead of "wide-eyed virgins”! What changes everything indeed! But is such a mistake possible? The traditional meaning attributed to this verse is much more likely (rough psychology of ill-disciplined soldiers, in addition come from Bedouin tribes with exaggerated machismo, taking literally the notion of "well-earned sexual rest").

In short, from a poetic point of view it is admirable (it reminds of Irish legends about the other world of the warriors), from the philosophical point of view it is pathetic. In any case, it is not to us, barbarian druids of the Far West, to settle such quarrels between specialists.

Islam sycophants are right in saying that Islam preaches love and friendship, but they forget to point out that it is first and before everything with regard to those who share the same faith as them. All we have to do is to ask the Yazidi women or girls who had the misfortune to live under the rule of the Islamic State (in Iraq in 2015).

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Islam does not insist as much as Christianity on empathy to experience or concretize towards those who do not share the same faith in God. It's just an option in addition. The parable of the good Samaritan has no equivalent in the land of Islam (Dar al Islam).

For the record, here it is. St Luke 10: 29-37. " Who is my neighbor?” In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

Our conclusion will be as follows: anyone, be it a journalist or a politician (in any case they are the same), who affirms that Islam is only love, freedom, fraternity ....... LIES.... IF IT DOES NOT SPECIFY THAT IT IS FIRST AND BEFORE ALL BETWEEN GOOD MUSLIMS.

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THE MOSQUES OF DISSENT (MASJID AL-DIRAR).

Warning to the reader. In this chapter, whenever it is a question of Shiism or Shiites, it will be the extremist Shiites and not the moderate Shiites we know. And when we speak of Sufis it will not be the warlike Sufis of the ribats (half monastery half fortress).

The suppression of heresies in Islam (zindiq = heretic) is a chapter of Muslim history very little known in the West.

The notion of zindiq ended up in including all kinds of free thinkers, atheists or materialists. Averroes himself was exiled for heresy, and his books burned publicly in Cordoba (already, when they hear the word culture, they reach for their gun!) He was not a bad Muslim. He required the deportation for the Christians suspected of sympathizing with the Reconquista; and severe corporal punishment for newfound Muslims considered as second-class subjects or inferior Muslims: the mawali or muladi (from the Arabic muwalladun), keeping some "Christian" habits.

The first to set the example of the struggle against heresies was evidently Muhammad himself. It is a gloomy story evoked implicitly by the verses 107 to 110 of chapter 9.

It would seem that a Medinan called Abu Amir ar-Rahib wanted to build a place of worship of him outside Medina, with the agreement of Muhammad to begin, then against his will.

It is not known what was precisely the religion of this man. He was perhaps more or less Christianized since the Muslim tradition closely links him closely with the Byzantine emperor Heraclius.

In any case, after approving the construction of this other place of worship, Muhammad changed his mind in 630 on the return of the controversial or unsuccessful expedition (a shot in the dark) of Tabuk and made it burn. Abu Amir and his followers had to take refuge in Mecca in order to continue freely to practice their worship.

Little is known of that! Especially we have no information about points of doctrine there was precisely divergence. It was perhaps a personal quarrel.

In any case here are the verses of the Quran evoking this Masjid al-Dirar or Mosque of Dissent.

"And as for those who chose a place of worship out of opposition and disbelief, and in order to cause dissension among the believers, and as an outpost for those who warred against God and His messenger aforetime, they will surely swear: We purposed nothing save good. God bears witness that they verily are liars. Never stand (to pray) there. A place of worship which was found upon duty to God from the first day is worthier that you should stand (to pray) therein, wherein men who love to purify themselves are. God loves the purifiers. Is he who founded his building upon duty to God and His good pleasure better; or he who founded his building on the brink of a crumbling, overhanging precipice so that it toppled with him into the fire of hell ? God guides not wrongdoing folk. The building which they built will never cease to be a misgiving in their hearts unless their hearts be torn to pieces.”

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THE FIRST INQUISITIONS.

Heresy is said Zandaqa in Arabic, and heretics Zindiq. It is a word of Pahlavi origin. It was used under the Sassanids, among the Mazdeans and in the countries where Aramaic was spoken.

The term zindiq was first applied to those who followed the dualist doctrines inspired by Iranian religions, such as Manichaeism, while professing Islam. The zindiq was therefore a heretic, guilty of zandaqa (heresy). This expression was later used to refer to all those who deviated from orthodoxy, or whose beliefs were likely to threaten public order.

These heretics generally belong to the old Persian families assimilated by Islam who, following the same path as the Shu’ubites (a political-social sect with a nationalistic tendency), find an interest in the revival of Persian religious traditions; and who, from this point of view, react against the purely Arab character of Islam. Secondly, they are free-thinkers, who rise up against the despotism of the Islamic dogma, and who admit only moral law. Among the latter, there is a kind of monastic asceticism foreign to Islam, which is explained by the influence of Buddhism. The term originally designated the Manichaeans and the Mazdakites 1) to whom the Christians added the Marcionites 2) and the Daysanites 3) religious opponents accused of abominable practices.

In Arabic, it was extended, on the one hand, to all faithful of the indigenous population in Iraq whose obscure religion was unknown to the Quran and the Muslim history of religions (heresy in the broader or abusive sense of the word), and, on the other hand, to every individual of Muslim origin whose thought moral behavior or political attitude seemed to imply a doubtful faith, the zindiq being, legally, the individual who claims to be a believer while he his basicallyan infidel (heresy in the strict sense of the term). Therefore a hypocrite

after the death of Hisham b. Abd al-Malik the Umayyad power began to collapse. His fall led to the weakening of the political-religious order it represented, and inaugurated a period of political instability, social disorder and religious anarchy which ended only with the coming of al-Mahdi in power and his return to the Orthodox line followed by the Umayyads.

During this period the religions of the world conquered by the Muslims reappeared, mainly in the Khorasan and in Babylonia.

In the first region there were Christians, Manicheans, Marcionites 2) very probably, Buddhists, and farmers, among whom still subsisted apparently Mazdakite 1) beliefs.

As for the religious geography of the country where Aramaic was spoken, it was of rare complexity. Alongside the Jews, Christians divided into Melkites, Jacobites, Nestorians and Messalians, and Judeo-Christians, the country housed pagan clusters and a multitude of Gnostic sects that, supplied from Edessa by Hellenistic gnosis, swarmed outside Christianity, Judaism and Mazdeism, in this land steeped in myths and occult sciences. Marcionites 2), Daysanites 3) Manichaeans, Elcesaites 4), Mandaean Sabaeans ), and many others were mixed in it, and poured out in it their religious propaganda. The Arameans, not considering themselves either Persians or Byzantines, expressed their independence in their own way: they formed religious groups, often unstable and missionary, each of which having its head, its church, its Scriptures, and almost its Aramaic dialect, a writing system. The defeat of the Byzantines, persecutors of non-Melkite Christians and pagans, and the collapse of the Mazdean church caused by the fall of the Sassanid power, made these religions, which from the bordering regions, besieged Iran, and against which the Mazdean clergy had constantly struggled, able to be revived. Freed by the Arabs, they literally took life again and experienced, at least for some of them, a real renaissance.

The Mazdeism, dispossessed of the Sassanid civilization, which fell to Muslims as a legacy on the other entered a final agony; Buddhism, having already followed the Silk Road in Central Asia, a road also followed by Manichaean and Nestorian missions, did not seek to infiltrate the West; Some Aramaic communities were exclusive and remained in a relative anonymity. On the other hand, the faithful of other communities such as Christians, Manichaeans grouped in Iraq, the Marcionites 1), and to a lesser extent the Daysanites 2), were fervent missionaries. They Arabized their Scriptures and considering themselves superior to the Arabs from the religious and cultural point of view, embarked on the conquest of the new world which was offered to them. This missionary activity was accompanied on one side by a deep penetration of Muslim culture in the Aramaic culture and, on the other, by a critical charge towards Islam. Trained in the polemics and criticisms of the Bible from Marcion to Mani, the Gnostic dualists attacked the Quran, which was also attacked by Christians but from another point of view.

The contacts between the faithful of these multiple religions and the Muslim theologians, who also missionaries refuted them, favored, on the one hand, a mixture of ideas and notions in the common and multi-faith field of the kalam and, on the other, the birth of independent , critical and protest, rather skeptical, minds.

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During this same period, the kalam, with its different branches, experienced, in the Muslim community, its first rise, notably with Jahm b. Ṣafwān in the Khurasan, the "two Waṣil" (= Waṣil b.Aṭa and' Amr b. Ubayd) in Basra, and the young Hisham b. Al-Ḥakam in Kufa. His principle was the free rational examination of the truths of faith. A principle which favored the proliferation of "innovations" (bida), to which traditionalists, those for whom the authority as for the faith belonged not to Reason but to the teaching of the Prophet reported in the Hadith, were violently opposed.

In response to this incipient mu’tazilism, Islamic madhhab who opposed the view of the Orthodox Islam of the time, Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari, initially himself mu’tazilite himself, developed the method known as "Ilm- Al-Kalam ," based on the dialectic of Greek origin and thus founded the Asharite school of thought.

The kalam seeks to answer questions concerning theodicy, eschatology, anthropology, negative theology, free will (qadar), and comparative religion. The first mutakallimin (supporters of the kalam) were recruited by the Christian Hunayn ibn Ishaq for the House of Wisdom under the Abbasid Caliphs of Baghdad. They have collected, translated and synthesized all that the genius of other cultures (Greek, Indian, Iranian) was able to produce, before undertaking the comments of these works and laying the foundations of Muslim philosophy in the ninth and tenth centuries. It will influence several madhhabs.

Although inspired by the rationalist reasoning method of the ancient philosophy (falsafa), the kalam is differentiated from it on several points, especially the nature of God and that of the soul.

Thus, Aristotle seeks to demonstrate the oneness of God, but he considers that he cannot be the creator of the universe. The knowledge of God is then only an extension of the knowledge of the universe and consequently it has no need to be the result of a revelation or prophecy. It can be the result of the reason and knowledge alone. This is contrary to the teachings of the Quran, which insists on the idea of God's revelation to men.

The peripatetic philosophers of ancient Greece thought that the soul was only an aptitude and a natural capacity, which could passively reach perfection. This ability could, by dint of virtue and through knowledge, be qualified for union with the intellect and then only be united to God. To admit this theory it is necessary to deny the immortality of the soul. This point, of course, shocked Mutakallimins.

To oppose falsafa, the mutakallimins had, above all, to establish a philosophical system that demonstrated the creation of matter and for this purpose adopted the theory of atoms as stated by Democritus of Abdera. Atoms have been created by God and are created whenever He wishes. The bodies are born or die by the aggregation or dislocation of these atoms. However, this theory does not solve philosophical objections to the creation of the universe: if we assume that God begins "His Work" on a date defined by "His Will" and for a "precise objective," we must admit then that he was not perfect before its completion or before reaching "His Goal." Criticism applies equally to Christianity unless love is equated to a kind of universal gravity.

By eliminating this difficulty, mutakallimins extended their theories on atoms to time. Since space is made up of void and atom, time consists of a series of indivisible little moments. The creation of the world once defined, it was simple to show the necessity of the Creator, one God, all mighty and omniscient.

The kalam cannot be confused with the Islamic theology or Muslim theology, that is to say, the use of rational discourse about divine things. Inspired by the Greek philosophy (falsafa), from which it wishes nevertheless to be distinguished, this approach is practiced by the mutakallimins and is admitted by some schools like the Mu’tazilism and the Asharism.

The other madhhabs therefore still consider, with great circumspection, everything that comes from the kalam, without completely rejecting it for all that. In his book entitled, Tabyin kadhib al-muftari (The exposure of the calumniator’s lying) Ibn Asakir and in order to defend his old master for example distinguished in the thirteenth century the good kalam from the bad kalam.

Difference between kalam and Sufism

For the Sufis, knowledge is not an end in itself. The kalam is based on reason. The goal of Sufism is to reach holiness (walaya) and the knowledge of God goes through "spiritual experiment" (dhawq), what makes useless the arguments of reason and those coming from the kalam . The Sufis are particularly severe with the theologians of the ilm al-kalam, whom they regard as a waste of time.

But this period was undoubtedly the golden age of Shiism in its extreme tendency widespread in Kufa, in certain districts of Basra, in Mada'in (Ctesiphon), and then in the Khurasan, among the slaves and lower classes.

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It is very difficult to make an inventory of the extremist sects, which then effervesced , so numerous they were and entangled in one another. Their followers led insurrectional actions to seize power on behalf of a Hashimite imam-mahdi. Politically, they were divided into two large groups.

Both considered that the power, usurped by Abu Bakr, Umar, Uṯhman and the Umayyads, some apostates and impious men, should belong only to Ali and his sons born from Faṭimah.

These numerous extremist sects, organized in initiatory orders, were led by prophets, often Babylonian in Iraq, who worked out an esoteric ideology in which Islam was structured in Gnostic systems drawn from the Aramaic background. This ideology was on one side arcane and on the other messianic and revolutionary. It was centered on the personality of the imam in whom went down the Holy Spirit of God or the heavenly Adam of the Gnostics. He is a learned-king-prophet, who knows all the divine sciences and mysteries, and has a supernatural power. His role is to establish on earth the reign of prosperity and justice. It also included the "astrological" doctrine of the cyclical time, that of the immaterial and immortal nature of the soul which, distinct from the body, passes from one "mold" to another according to her merits, and lastly the idea that faith consists in the initiation to the teaching of the Imam and not in the observance of the worship and precepts of the Law which are in reality only allegories and, for the ignorant who observe them, chains and sanctions.

This ideology implied, for theologians and jurists, notably the negation of the bodily resurrection and of the last judgment, as well as the pure and simple abolition of the Law.

Iraq was then invaded by a strong wave of licentiousness risen before in the Ḥejaz of Arabia within a rich and idle aristocracy. Where there was a governor, a she-singer-slave merchant, and a tavern, in Kufa in the vicinity of Ḥira, and around the monasteries in the south of Mesopotamia where the monks cultivated science and vineyards, were formed some societies of libertines: poets, singers and musicians of both sexes, eccentric effeminate men people charged with entertaining the upper classes whose conscience was sorely lacking in religious dimensions. The libertine poets, who played with the Prince the role of a buffoon or secretary or companion of pleasure, or all these functions at once (as later the famous Abul Ala Al-Ma'arri or Omar Khayyam of whom they were the distant precursors), expressed in their life and poetry the philosophy of the milieu. They made the apology of prohibited pleasures, neglected worship, broke religious prohibitions, blasphemed, ignored the Quran and spread an atheist thought: "God? – He is invisible, how can we be sure of His existence? - The last Judgment ? - A legend, the life of man is identical to that of a plant, and once dead, man will not be resurrected.

DEVELOPMENT OF HERESIES.

The Umayyads until the death of Hisham had applied a strictly "Sunni" religious policy. With regard to the non-Muslims known and legally recognized: Jews, Mazdaeans and Christians with whom were mixed up the unknown as such Manicheans, they were tolerant. But on two issues they were absolutely intransigent: criticism of Islam or insulting the Prophet, and proselytism. On the other hand, from Mu'awiya to Hisham (with the exception of Yazid I and Yazid II), they forbade wine and music in Damascus and reproached the Hejazians for their frivolity. They were very severe towards the revolutionary Alids and their supporters, moderate and extremist, but also hostile to the nascent movement of the kalam.....................

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After Hisham it was chaos. The successor of Hisham, Walid b. Yazid (caliph from 743 to 744) was a libertine; He was even considered a zindiq. His successor and murderer, Yazid III, a pro-Qadarite contested by Marwan II, could reign 6 months only, in 744. His brother Ibrahim was caliph for 70 days. Marwan II (caliph from 744 to 749), anti-Qadarite but having had a "Jahmite" preceptor, was contested on all sides and overtaken by events; He was also considered a zindiq. Abd Allah b. Mu'awiya, who shared the reign of Marwan II (anti-caliph from 745 to 747), was the deified imam of an extremist sect, surrounded by suspected drinking buddies...............

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The seizure of power by the Abbasids in 750 changed the foundation of the caliph authority. Apparently, nothing fundamentally changed in the "imperial ideology" of the caliphs, as it had been constructed by the Umayyads. The legislative and ordaining function still came down, and just as legitimately, to the caliph in the name of his intimate knowledge of the true divine purpose. But another source of power was beginning to emerge: the tradition embodied by hundreds of thousands of anecdotes (hadiths) relating the words as well as the doings of Muhammad, even his silences or his non-reaction. And so the specialists in hadiths or traditionists (muhadithin).

It is indeed from the 720’s that are dated the first occurrences of the elements of tradition in use among the believers. From then on, the intrusion of this "new tradition" became massive, and the accounts began to freeze, until they take the form that was then known, and until today.

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As for the propagation of these accounts, it soon took place under the mode of the "spiritual genealogy" (silsila). Such hadith owed its validity to the solidity of the chain of its reporters (isnad) until it was fixed as a unit of the corpus of tradition. But we must take it for established that the links common to the reporting chains were the true inventors of these prescriptive accounts.

This quest for traditions or was combined with an inquiry into the morality of the reporters, the companions of Muhammad being considered as the first-class guardians of this living memory concerning the behavior of the prophet of Islam. The collectors of traditions, often converts, composed collections of hadiths in which they carefully noted the path by which the prophetic words had come to them, the "chain of testimony" or isnad. These traditionists, unfortunately, often sought in the example of the prophet to confirm their own opinions.Thus were formed these collections of hadiths more or less favorable to the Umayyad caliphs, or, on the contrary, to the Abbasid caliphs. Some hadiths were even purely and simply invented. Very early, Muslim society encountered the proliferation of apocryphal narratives and a particular discipline, the criticism of the hadiths, saw the light of day, concerning the conditions of transmission and never the content. Western criticism has always expressed extreme skepticism as to the effective attachment of most hadiths to Muhammad.

The careful scholarship of Ignaz Goldziher and the minute and sometimes captious criticism of Leone Caetani and Henry Lammens have shown that the entire literature, of which the biography of the Prophet forms a part, must be treated with caution and reserve, and each individual Hadith weighed before it can be accepted as authentic. The researches of Joseph Schacht and Robert Brunschvig have shown that many traditions of apparently historical content in fact serve a legal or doctrinal purpose, and are therefore historically suspect.

Faced with the setting up of what would soon constitute a group with a definite social status, that of the ulama, with the shaping of a language that became common to them, and after a Umayyad century marked by the assertion of the caliphate authority, the Abbasids began by displaying the tranquility of those to whom the blood - they were of the same blood as Muhammad - granted legitimacy, in a way, natural. Legitimacy of the blood which seemed to take precedence over the legitimacy of function (of the initiator of the divine order among believers). But this was perhaps only an appearance.

In fact, the Abbasid caliphs, the governors and the emirs, willingly surrounded themselves with jurists and theologians, but the relationship of complicity which they kept with them did not mean, far from that, that there was from their behalf renunciation to the pre-eminence of the caliphate. This is because natural (blood) legitimacy could very well accommodate the legitimacy of the doctors of the Law, and vice versa: their relationship was oblique the nature of some was not necessarily confronted frontally with the function of others. It faced it only if, ostensibly, the discourse about the legitimacy of their nature fueled the demand for the prerogatives of the function.

In order to remedy this situation, Ibn al-Muqaffa , who had just embraced Islam, proposed therefore, before 757, in his letter called fi al-ṣaḥaba , a reform project capable of ensuring the stability of the power and happiness of the community (ṣalaḥ al-umma). After denouncing the immorality (fujur) and religious ignorance of some members of Muhammad’s entourage, emphasized the serious consequences for both morality and the Law to which the extremism (guluww) widespread in the army, led; and observed that the people was disorientated, Ibn al-Muqaffa outlined the main lines of the necessary policy. Hardly believing in the theocratic claiming of the dynasty, the conservative thinker believes that the sovereign can have the right to be obeyed only if he scrupulously conforms to the teaching of the Quran and of the sunnah, what confers on him in addition the right to manage religion. It is therefore necessary that the power regularizes its situation with the religion according to the tendency of moderate Muslims (ahl al-qaṣd): urgently watch over the religious instruction of the ruling class, army and people. It is necessary, he says, to encourage the army to learn the Quran, to study the sunnah and to go away from heretics; It would also be necessary to institute a kind of official clergy, charged with instructing the people, who alone could not reach the right path, and with hunting heretics and seditious.

The author of this project was put to death with the complicity of the caliph. Ironically, he was going to be considered zindiq. Al-Manṣur was in a hurry and threatened. Power first. And he crushed with the necessary cruelty both protesters and opponents, especially the Shiites. He tried, all the same, to adjust the position of the dynasty to that of the moderate Muslims by massacring the Rawandites, his "worshipers," cynically exploited beforehand. But all this was insufficient. During the revolt of the year 762, the Puritans within the community brought their support to the Ḥasanids. But Al-Manṣur was able to leave his son a rich state, a consolidated power and the title of al-Mahdi.

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In order to cut the claims of the Alids off, Al-Manṣur, whose name was Abd Allah, gave therefore his son Muḥammad this title one year after the defeat of the Hasanid Muḥammad b. Abd God who had claimed to be the Mahdi. The title, alongside its revolutionary Shi'ite meaning, had a conservative impact,and had been given to the Umayyad caliphs in a sense in which were combined the obedience to the caliph and the attachment to the "rope of the jama'a" but also in the sense of restorer of the sunnah of the two Umar.

Nicknamed Mahdi in a Shiite sense, al-Manṣur's son had to play the role of a traditionist Mahdi. His religious policy, adopted by his two sons and successors al-Hadi and al-Rashid, consisted, like that of the Umayyads, in aligning himself with the position of the traditionists, in looking after the application of the law, in putting some religious order in the empire, to prohibiting non-Muslim proselytism, to "diminish " non-Muslims a little, to distinguish among non-Muslims between ḏhimmis and non-ḏhimmis. This policy was concretized in the fight against zandaqa.

We do not always know how the Zindiq were identified among Muslims. In some cases, arrest occurred following the publication of a blasphemous poem or a serious breach of the Law, or a denunciation, or the manifestation of the signs of doubt. The investigation ensued. The suspect was subjected to an examination in religious sciences; he was asked to recite the Quran in particular; his books were requisitioned; he was presented with the "Book of Zindiqs" and asked to read it; the caliph or the inquisitor sometimes worked on extracting from him confessions by violence. People who were suspected of Manicheism were required to kill a bird or to spit on Mani's portrait. The suspects were held in the al-Matbaq, the central prison of Baghdad where a special zone had been reserved for them.

The legal status of the zindiq.

The individual of Muslim origin who was found guilty of embracing the beliefs of the Zindiq (Manichaean and equated persons), or of secretly denying Islam, called in this case as in others, zindiq, was considered an apostate but he the possibility to repent. If he persisted with his errors, he was put to death under the hadith according to which: "Whoever changes his religion, then kill him"( Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 9, Book 84, Hadith 57). His property was confiscated, and he was not entitled to a Muslim funeral in a Muslim cemetery. This punishment was intended for men in general; for women, there was a tendency to foresee incarceration.

In the eighth century, the custom was to behead the zindiqs, and to exhibit their bodies on gallows often on the Bridge of the capital. Although there was a tradition that Ali had burned apostates, the general trend was against the use of the stake, applied by Khalid during the war of Apostasy 6) in 633, reproved by Umar and Ibn Abbas. However, two apostates died on the stake in the ninth century.

The Grand Inquisitor or Ṣaḥib al-zanadiqa

During the period of anarchy which was previous, it was zealous individuals who, on their own initiative, as always during times of disorder and civil war, "ordered good and forbade evil" (Quran 3, 100), that is, in their own districts, looked after the application of the Law (Hisba). When the authority of the state was re-established, power could no longer tolerate those individuals who applied the Quranic principle according to their ideological and political convictions and who could be dangerous. The state did it. It is the Caliph Al Mansur (754-775) who was behind the law on apostasy and, in turn, behind the inquisitorial version of the Hisba.

At the beginning of the reign of the caliph Al-Mahdi (775 - 785) appeared the first muhtasib, price controller; charged with the Hisba, whose mission was to hunt apostates and heretics. This caliph invented a new dialectic in this field, and ordered composing books of reply to atheists or heretics. In Baghdad and in the big cities, a special magistrate, attached to the qadi or directly to the caliph, called Ṣaḥib (master) al-zanadiqa, was therefore entrusted with dealing with the zindiqs.

Al-Mahdi led a rigorous enough religious policy, and sued the dualists. The Zoroastrian converts, especially among the Persians, but also the Sufis, could be accused of dualism. Al-Mahdi said that the caliph was not only a sovereign, but that it was his duty to define religious orthodoxy in order to keep the cohesion of the community of believers (umma).

As regards the Zindiq of the non-Muslim religious background, we do not always know the particular identity of the arrested people. In principle, the Manicheans, the Marcionites 1) and the Daysanites 2) were sued; but in fact all those who were neither Mazdeans nor Jews nor Christians were affected; even the Christians were sometimes confused with the Zindiq.

The fight against the Zindiq was directed mainly against suspects of Muslim origin. The sons of five members of the entourage of al-Manṣur, and even a member of the Abbasid family, who were

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sometimes rightly suspected of Manicheism, were arrested. Some libertines, or poets, including the great Bashar ibn Burd, were also prosecuted. Some were punished, others imprisoned, and others still put to death.

A list of forbidden heretical sects was prepared and published in several districts of Baghdad. It mainly consisted of Shiite groups. The Imami theologian Hisham b. Al-Ḥakam nearly had almost his head cut off. The followers of Abu Manṣur al-Ijli, led by his son, were massacred. The list also included, it seems, followers of the kalam. A group of Medinan Qadarites was brought to Baghdad to be threatened; this was also the case of the Mu'tazilite theologian from Basra , Abu l-Huḏayl al-Allaf. Another theologian, probably independent, Nu'man b. Al-Munḏir, was put to death, as the preacher of Basra Ṣaliḥ b. Abd al-Quddus.

Al-Hadi (caliph from 785 to 786) had time to put to death only one person: secretary Azdayadar, a profaner suspected of Manichaeism.

Al-Rashid (caliph from 786 to 809) continued his father's policy with flexibility. He did not like either the theologians or the sons of Ali and their followers. He did not, however, have to repress many Zindiqs. The ascetic poet Abu l-Atahiya was suspected of zandaqa, but this had no serious consequences. On the other hand, for political reasons, it was reported that the Barmakids, struck by the Caliph, were Zindiqs. Regarding this case, an opponent, the theologian Muḥammad b. Al-Layṭ, was accused of zandaqa. A secretary in the administration of Marw, suspected by the military governor of the Khorasan of having dubious relations with rebels, was accused of zandaqa and killed with the permission of the caliph.

The pagan Sabaeans of Ḫarran, considered Zindiqs, were persecuted.

Abu Nuwas, the last libertine, was thrown into the Zindiq prison. Al-Amihim n, as soon as he became a caliph, hastened to release him and make him his drinking buddy, before being obliged to send him back there because of his blasphemies. But the son of Zubayda had no one to persecute; because in this end of the 8th the end of the eighth century was turned.

CONCLUSION ABOUT THIS FIRST STAGE OF THE STRUGGLE AGAINST HERESIES.

The reign of al-Mahda inaugurated a period of stability and prosperity in which Islam, regaining a state of social balance experienced a prodigious religious and cultural renaissance. Respect for orthodoxy and conformity, as well as religious instruction, made great progress. Religion, as practice and as knowledge, penetrated the smallest details of the life of the citizen from birth to death. Under al-Rashid the fever of the kalam, a symptom of the constitution of a new cultural order, reached Baghdad where the theological movement was protected and encouraged by the Barmakids, and paper began to be produced. A class of teachers imposed itself and developed the tawḥid, learned, rationalist, bold, open, self-confident and conquering, and adopted practically by all the elite. This revival of Islam put an end to the zandaqa.

The Zindiq were led either to hide away or to emigrate; they were in any case defeated. But their defeat was not primarily due to the official persecution, but, on the one hand, to a new social situation unfavorable to the Manichean message in particular and to all non-Muslim proselytism in general, and, on the other hand, to the action of theologians. The learned Islam developed by these latter discredited more than it defeated the mythological, Manichean, extremist Shiite and even traditional Muslim thought. The proof of this is that a Manichaean community survived in Iraq until the middle of the tenth century and that the philosophical systems of the Zindiqs were expounded by the theologians with a remarkable objectivity. However, from the end of the eighth century on, no one heard any more about Muslims suspected of Manichaeism, nor about the persecution of the zindiqs either.

The licentiousness also came to an end. Coming to the end of their lives, the great masters disappeared under al-Mahdi. Some repented and devoted themselves to the study of the Quran. Under al-Rashid, who did not allow his buffoon what his grandfather had permitted to his own, there were minor libertines who sought to "set out to shock," and who were not taken seriously.

Generally speaking, the non-religious or irreligious man, no longer socially acceptable, disappeared.

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The extremist Shiism, crushed politically by Al-Manṣur and his son, and culturally deprecated by theologians, disappeared, but to reappear a century later.

At the end of the eighth century, the zandaqa, as a Manichean-Daysanite-Marcionite religion, and/or as a libertine movement, was definitively erased.

1) From Mazdak, religious preacher of the 5th century, half Manichean half Mazdean.

2) From the name of Bishop Marcion of Sinope, the first great Christian intellectual to have theorized the notion of New Testament.

3) From Bardaisan, a Syriac Christian philosopher and poet of Edessa.

4) From Elcesai, pseudonym of a Jewish-Christian preacher of the 2nd century.

5) Mandaean Sabeans are a Baptist and Gnostic religious minority in southern Mesopotamia, dating back to the first centuries of our era (John the Baptist?)

6) Apostasy is a loosely used word. The Arab tribes which were indentured to Muhammad by becoming his vassals had not really understood that it was a matter of religion. And what they wanted above all was to no longer have to pay the tithe called zakat.

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THE FIRST REAL INQUISITION: THE MIHNA (from 833 to 847 or more?).

For more details see al-Zandaqah fi Dar al-Islam fi al-qarn al-thani lil-Hijrah (Zandaqa and Zindiqs in Islam lands in the second century of the Hegira) by Mulhim Shukr (Beyrouth).

The reign of Al-Ma'mun (813-833) was a great cultural achievement. He was particularly interested in the work of scholars, especially those who knew Greek. He had assembled in Baghdad scholars of all faiths, whom he treated magnificently and with the utmost toleration. He has made brought manuscripts from Byzantium, and he lay down as a condition of peace with the Byzantine Empire the handing over of a copy of the Ptolemy’s Almagest.

Passionate about astronomy, he created in 829, in the highest district of Baghdad, near Shamsiya gate, the first permanent observatory in the world, the Observatory of Baghdad, making its astronomers, who had translated the Treaty of Astronomy of the Greek Hipparchus, as well as his catalog of stars, able to methodically monitor the movement of the planets. He conducted two astronomical experiments destined to determine the distance of a degree of Earth latitude. In recognition of this work, a lunar crater bears his name: Almanon.

From his stay in Central Asia, he had brought the three sons of Musa ibn Shakir, a former robber, who had become an astronomer and a companion of the future caliph. On the death of their father, he gave the three brothers of whom he had become the guardian, Muhammad, Ahmad and Hasan, a solid formation in the applied sciences and granted them a considerable fortune to found in 832 and direct in Baghdad the House of Wisdom.

The great mathematician Abu Ja`far Muhammad ben Musa al-Khawarizmi spent most of his life in Baghdad under the patronage of Caliph Al-Ma'mun. He translated the Greek manuscripts of Byzantium with his colleagues gathered in the library founded by the caliph in this House of Wisdom and studied geometry, algebra and astronomy and algebra. His treatise on algebra, Hisab al-jabr w'al-muqabala, was the most famous and important of all of al-Khwarizmi's works. It is the title of this text that gives us the word "algebra."

On the religious level, in 827, the mu’tazilism becomes the official belief in the court of the Abbasid caliphate, after being officially embraced by the Caliph Al-Ma'mun. He will remain the official doctrine under his 2 successors.

A persecution (the Mihna) will even be organized between 833 and 848 against the collectors of hadiths (muhaddithun) who do not agree with mu’tazilism. The Mihna forces the non-supporters to openly renounce the doctrine that the Quran is eternal and to accept that it was created. The zeal of the mu’tazilists would go so far as to refuse to release the Muslim prisoners who had fallen into the hands of the Byzantines, if they professed the uncreated character of the Quran.

A clear resistance of opinion to these persecutions is reported by the chroniclers. In fact, the Mihna is probably partly the cause of the ultimate failure of mu’tazilism. What a pity!

The reason for the religious activism of the Caliph al-Ma'mun was often questioned. The simplest thing is to think that he was himself rather rationalist. The man was learned, versed in questions of Law foundation; His confidant was the Mu'tazilite Ahmad ibn Abi Du'ad, and it is known that Mu'tazilism, in its effort of theological conceptualization, of doctrinal construction of absolute monotheism, had affirmed the created character of the Quran. Was Al-Ma'mun under Mu'tazilite influence? Had he a more personal view of what was the truth in matters of belief? Perhaps the second of his motivations was to increase his hold on the clergy as well as religious affairs (as did the Roman emperor Constantine with Christianity a few centuries earlier).

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What is certain is that in 828 al-Ma'mun added to Hisba’s remits an inquisitorial court in charge of the control of religious orthodoxy: the Mihna. This inquisition was essentially directed against the fuqaha (theologians) and the muhaddithun ( Hadith researchers).

At the beginning of 833, al-Ma'mun, then at Raqqa in Syria, decided to write to Ishak ibn Ibrahim, his representative in Baghdad, and to question the qadis of the city on the question of the created nature or not of the Quran.

Another letter from al-Ma'mun came enjoining to send him seven eminent traditionists. This was done. The traditionists, having accepted to admit the Quran was not uncreated but created, could return home.

Similar letters were sent to Egypt.

In Baghdad, where new traditionalists and jurists were questioned – sometimes roughly, hence the name given to the event, mihna, "trial" - there was some resistance: two men, Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Muhammad ibn Nuh, declared themselves to be in favor of the uncreated nature of the Quran.

Chained, they were sent to Tarsus, where al-Ma'mun was now, on his return from a campaign against Byzantium. But the news of the Caliph's death arrived: they were sent back to Baghdad. Muhammad ibn Nuh died on the way; arrived in Baghdad, Ahmad ibn Hanbal was thrown into prison.

Ahmad ibn Hanbal, born in 780, represented what might be called the brought to completion function of traditionism. A rigorous traditionism, an all-time, unfailing, literalism, exhausting the totality of what its object was, the knowledge of the foundations of the divine order for this world. He will be therefore the founder of the most rigorous school of Islamic case law, opposed to any innovation (the greatest sinner from the Ahl-Sunnah is better than the most pious person from Ahl-Bid’ah).

The Caliph al-Ma'mun was the natural opposite of Ibn Hanbal. Let us return for a moment to the first letter he wrote to Ishak ibn Ibrahim. The way to put forward his ideas on the nature of the Quran is significant. We have seen that he was violently attacking the traditionists, those who, claiming to be the transmitters of the sunnah, proclaimed themselves to be the models of true believers and claimed the power distinguishing between the true and the false, the just and the unjust. But the way in which he introduced his virulent attacks is significant of the authority he gave himself to recognize the truth of the false, the just of the unjust ..... The rest of the letter is introduced by a definitive formula: "The commander of the faithful knows that ...". With arrogance, al-Ma'mun affirmed, ultimately, the role of the caliphate in the salvation of the true faithful

There is no compulsion in religion [Holy Quran chapter 2 verse 256]. The punishments imposed by the Mihna became nevertheless more and more difficult to bear for the ulama who were united to oppose it.

The brother of al-Ma'mun, al-Mu'tasim (794-842), succeeded him in 833.

The new caliph, who was nevertheless ready to put an end to this inquisition, was convinced by the Mu'tazilite qadi, Ahmad ibn Abi Du'ad, who argued that it might be dangerous for the authority of the state, to appear giving up an official position.

Ibn Hanbal was therefore summoned to appear before the Caliph. He received a severe flogging and was allowed to return to his home after two and a half years in prison.

Had he finally given in and declared that the Quran was created, as many historiographers have believed?

Was he, on the contrary, released under the pressure of the crowd in Baghdad who supported him? The real reason does not matter here.

What is certain is that throughout the rest of the reign of Al Mu'tasim, Ibn Hanbal led a distant life, while continuing to dispense courses according to the tradition (Sunna) and that the Hanbalite school played a major role in the unprecedented intellectual disaster for Humanity that was the closure of the gates of the interpretation of the texts (Bab-Al-Ijtihad) in the 11th century.

The Mihna lasted still, but softer and softer. Al-Wathiq (842-847), son of al-Mu'tasim, had other concerns, such as the secession movement of Ahmad ibn al-Aghlab in Ifriqiyya (present-day Tunisia). And al-Mutawakkil, brother of al-Wathiq, put an end to the episode as soon as he came to power in 848.

At the end of the ninth century, however, oppositions made themselves also heard with the madhab founded by Abu-l-Hasan Al-Ash’ari, himself a former mu’tazilite, and later by the Maturidi school. The caliph al-Mutawakkil gave up the mu’tazilism and returned to the traditional doctrine, which was giving birth to Sunnism.

Soon after, the last lettered prisoners were freed, the "martyrs" redeemed. The doctrine of the uncreated Quran definitively imposed itself in the empire. The religious power of the caliphs was diminished by this crisis and this for the benefit of that of the ulama.

Scientists, theologians and historiographers, who were mostly in the opposition, soon denied any religious authority to the caliphs, depriving them even of the legitimacy of the title imam. The tradition

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of the hadiths became the dominant ideology in Islam land and many were invented to serve a particular political camp, a majority of them even according to Ignaz Goldziher (he considers the last links common to several chains of transmission or isnad as being those who have forged the aforementioned hadiths).

Editor's note. It is through this crisis that the great legal schools of Islam (madhahib) have truly asserted themselves, and that Ibn Hanbal distinguished himself during this period for his opposition to Mu’tazilism. Mu'tazilism was from then on identified not with the rationalism it taught, but with the Terror he practiced once in power. And Ibn Hanbal, who personified the resistance to this Terror, became the symbol of orthodoxy.

This Mihna or purely religious Inquisition should not be confused with the simple police of manners or Hisba. Ḥisba is the word by which use designates, on the one hand, the duty of every Muslim to order good and to prohibit evil (Quran 3, 110) and, on the other hand, the function of the person actually charged in the town with the application of this rule to the police of manners and more particularly to that of the market. In the beginning, under the caliph Umar, this Hisba was only an institution designed to supervise the smooth running of economic and commercial affairs, as well as the legality of contracts. Its foundation was based on a verse setting out a list of major bonds (chapter 6 verse 152).

“ Full measure and full weight, in justice. We task not any soul beyond its scope. And if you give your word, do justice thereunto, even though it be (against) a kinsman.”

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SOME EXAMPLES OF HERETICS (ZINDIQ).

The first heretic who was killed was a man named Jad Ibn Dirham. He was executed around 742. There were, alas, many others: Ibn Al Muqaffa (executed 760), Ibn Abi-l-Awja (executed 772), Salih Ben Abd Al-Quddus (executed 783) , Hammad Ajrad..... These are only a few names. Many others were victims of this Islamic totalitarianism, and often paid with their life for their freedom of thinking.

A great Muslim mystic, Al Hallaj is also a Sufi master who contributed to the first successes of this spiritual current and a poet. Abu Abd Allah al-Husayn Mansur al-Hallaj was born in 857 in Persia (today in Iran). He is born into a poor family (his father works wool, hence the name of al-Hallaj, "the wool carder"), but this does not prevent him from following quite advanced studies in religious sciences. These studies leave him unsatisfied: he is attracted by an ascetic life and wants to distance himself from the traditional teaching of the Quran.

When he was 16 years old, Al Hallaj entered a Sufi fraternity and became the disciple of the teacher Sahl al-Tustari. But he is attracted by the intellectual and religious influence of Baghdad, and he will join the Sufi teacher Junayd. He then makes his pilgrimage to Mecca and begins a career as a preacher. He first traveled to Khurasan and settled with his family in Baghdad. He will make two more pilgrimages to Mecca and a long journey to the Indus, perhaps even to the borders of China, although it is difficult to be sure. Around 902, he began to hold very heterodox public speeches, which made him suspect of heresy - especially since his family had connections with extremist Shiite circles. This does not prevent the Shiites, then very influential in Baghdad, from distrust of Al Hallaj, whose influence on the crowds is feared. First denounced by a poet who had been among his friends, he was later accused by the vizier Ibn al-Furat. Several of his disciples were arrested, but al-Hallaj managed to escape and hid in Susa. He was soon arrested and brought back to Baghdad. He is accused of plotting against the State, of having attributed miracles to himself, of organizing secret meetings.

Then begins a long trial particularly political: in 913, Ibn Isa, a vizier susceptible to his views, removed him from the authority of the qadi, brought him to the palace, and even introduced him to the caliph; but in 919, the vizier Hamid makes his trial again opened. In 922, Al Hallaj is therefore sentenced to death, the court accused him of having wanted to suppress the pilgrimage to Mecca (the hajj), one of the pillars of Islam. It is therefore a crime of heresy (the word of Persian origin zandaqa also designates the crime of the one who plots against the State) because Al Hallaj goes against the Quranic text, expression of the word of God. On March 27, 922, he was tortured in public: crucified (a legacy which the Arabs had taken from the Sassanids, who had borrowed it from the Romans themselves), his limbs were cut off and then he is beheaded. His body will be burned and its ashes thrown into the river, along with his works. Even after his death, Al Hallaj will not escape political tribulations, since the mother of the caliph, favorable to his theories, will recover his head and will make it kept in the caliph palace.

Even if his works are burned at his death, his disciples recover his writings and poems, such as distichs (riwayat), poetic prayers (the shatahat), or still a theological treatise on Satan (Kital al Tawasin) . His thought thus survived his execution.

Al Hallaj has developed a whole mystical thought, which will profoundly influence the mystics in general, particularly the Sufis , and especially Rumi. Mixing rhymed prose (saj) and verse, his texts are also poems, often very beautiful.

For Al Hallaj, the ultimate goal is to reach God, to merge in him, to become one with him. This fusion must not go through contemplation (this is what Junayd theorizes) but on the contrary through ecstasy.

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Hence the importance of love: we must be drunk by the love of God, by love for God. "I am He whom I love and He whom I love is I. We are two spirits dwelling in one body! If you see me, you see Him and if you see Him you see us both; "He writes in one of his poems. In the end, this leads to an annihilation of the self, entirely absorbed in the divine Being: it is the fana, the disappearance of the soul in God. Hence the famous "Ana al-Haqq," "I am the reality, I am the Truth," by Al Hallaj, which so shocked his contemporaries, for "the truth" (al-Haqq) is one of the secret names of God in Islam. Al Hallaj thus affirmed not only to have reached the Truth, the ultimate goal of every mystical process, but also to have become like God, what enough was to pass from heterodoxy to heresy. Similarly for miracles: if Islam admits that holy men can perform wonders (karamahs) by divine grace, divine interventions (mujizat) are reserved for the Prophets, such as Moses invoking the pillar of fire to be guided in the desert; but Al Hallaj claimed for his own actions the second word (mujizat) and not the first, thus passing oneself off as a prophet rather than a holy man, what gave a bad impression, of course, insofar as Muhammad in Muslim theology is presented as the "seal of the Prophets," therefore the last *. Al Hallaj besides was indeed regarded by his disciples as a prophet, or even as a divine incarnation. But the core of the Muslim faith is the belief in one God, who has no associate, for he transcends his creatures in every way (this is called tawhid, the dogma of divine oneness). Even if Al Hallaj took officially a position against any form of associationism (shirk), it is nevertheless a fact that this mystical union with God , in which the believer became himself God, in which God was himself embodied in his creature to such an extent that " to see Him is to see me and to see me is to see Him" violently got away from orthodoxy.

Moreover, in this before everything mystical reading of religion, Al Hallaj pushed religious rites and practices into the background, hence his desire to suppress the pilgrimage to Mecca, or rather to replace it with a “spiritual” or “in mind” pilgrimage.

Because Al-Hallaj was not sentenced to death for uttering, “ana’l-haqq.” After his arrest, he was accused of various things, but, according to Professor Ernst, a specialist in Islamic Studies, he was pinned down after the inquisitors discovered a document in the handwriting of Hallaj that recommended that those who were unable to afford Hajj pilgrimage could construct a model of Kaaba at home and perform circumambulation (tawaf) and give alms to poor and feed some orphans and they would have completed the Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). “At that point one of the judges turned to Al-Hallaj and said in Arabic ‘damuka halal,’ that is, “your blood may legally be shed.” In other words, “Now we have you!”

This refusal of worship makes Al Hallaj to see all religions as the facets of the same whole. It is possible that during his stay in the Far East, Al Hallaj was influenced by Buddhism, which would have led him to consider that the external forms of religiosity are less important than the inner journey of the true believer. Even if it is difficult to make an architect of the interfaith dialogue without overstepping his thought, this overall universalist position prompted the French Orientalist Louis Massignon to make a Christian reading of his execution: crucified for having affirmed that he had a special relationship with God, defending a religion made of love and not of worship, forgiving his executioners at the time of his death. For Massignon Al Hallaj is a new Christ, the evidence that Islam is peace and love religion.

Doctrine of al-Hallaj on the Divine Attributes as narrated by al-Qushayri.

No ‘above’ shades Him and nor does any ‘below’ carry Him.

No limit/direction faces Him (wala yuqabiluhu hadd) nor does any ‘at’ beset Him.

He is not confined by any ‘behind’ nor limited by any ‘before.’

No ‘before’ caused Him to appear nor did any ‘after’ cause Him to vanish.

“No ‘all’ gathered Him.

No ‘He is’ brought Him into existence (lam yujidhu kan).

No ‘He is not’ can cause Him to be missed (walam yufqidhu lais).

His description: He has none (wasfuhu la sifata lahu).

His act has no cause (illa).

His being has no duration (amad).

He is transcendent beyond the states of His creatures: there is not for Him the least deliberation (mizaj) in His creation, nor working (ilaj) in His acts.

He is clearly separate from them by His pre-existence (bayanahum biqidamih) just as they are clearly separate from Him by their contingent nature (kama bayanuh bihuduthihim).

..........................

He is the First and the Last and the Manifest and the Hidden, the Near (al-qarIb), the Far (al-ba’id), there is nothing whatsoever like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.

* Mani was already calling himself the last of the prophets or the seal of the prophethood.

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CONCLUSION.

THE FIRST DIFFERENCE OR DISCRIMINATION MADE BY ISLAM IS THE UNEQUAL TREATMENT BETWEEN MUSLIMS AND NON-MUSLIMS.

No other religion on earth has instituted such a difference in treatment between its members and the faithful of other religions. Muslims are superior to non-Muslims.

The verses 110 chapter three. " You are the best community that hath been raised up for mankind. You enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency.”

And 181, chapter 7. " And of those whom We created there is a community who guide with the Truth and establish justice therewith.”

Are very clear on this.

This superiority of the Muslim in relation to the non-Muslim (not belonging to the people of the Book in this case) is also found with regard to the slaves. Verse 221 of Chapter 2 is unequivocal on this subject. A believing slave is better than a free and polytheistic man.

Situated hierarchically below in human value in the eyes of God, come indeed people known as people of a book that is to say the Jews, the Christians (who do not hold the man Jesus as more than a simple prophet or the Messiah of Israel announced by the Jewish Scriptures, the Sabians or in the absolute extreme the Zoroastrians-Mazdeans (magians) for some doctors of the Muslim Law.

Being clearly stated here that no "protectorate" of dhimma or dhimmitude type, in short no second-class status, is intended for the kufars, i.e., those who are not members of the community which is the best on e in the eyes of God or of the community of people of a book (the Yazidis in Irak the Hindus the Buddhists the Shintoists in short the pagans without forgetting the atheists nor the agnostics: all are by definition outlaws in the land of Islam that is to say in the countries where the Muslim law known as Sharia is applied).

Finally, at the very bottom of the ladder, there are those who are not free men or women, who can be bought or sold by definition: the slaves. The latter have no right and must, of course, obey all the will of their master.

In short, there are 5 basic discriminations in Islamic lands.

-Muslims / non-Muslims.

-Men/Women.

-Free men / Slaves.

- People of the Book: Jews, Non-Trinitarian Christians (those who do not cross themselves) Zoroastrian Sabians (magi?)

-Polytheistic Pagans Trinitarian Christians (those who cross themselves) atheists.

What can we conclude from such an analysis, except that such an idea of God and of the divine order has nothing to do with that of the philosophers. Islam is by definition a submission to an idea of God which is not a mere deism of the type "great architect" of the universe. Compared to the god of philosophers Islam was a gigantic backslide. It is clear, for example, that the Quran demonizes those who are not in its camp.

Verse 76 of chapter 4: " Those who believe do battle for the cause of God and those who disbelieve do battle for the cause of Taghut. So fight the minions of the devil. Lo! the devil's strategy is ever weak.”

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* Arabic term difficult to translate, it is almost a hapax. The term is mentioned eight times by the Quran, but the word taghut does not mean anything specific in Arabic and it is perhaps of foreign origin. The meaning of this word is therefore quite uncertain: the taghut, it would be the deities taken globally or as a whole. In the vocabulary of contemporary Islam, the term taghut refers to everything that is evil, dangerous, innovative or tempting.

THE CASE OF THOSE WHO CHOOSE SQUARELY ANOTHER RELIGION.

Pious Muslims are convinced that one day all mankind will become Muslim, and that they will extend the House of Islam (Dar al Islam) to the whole world. Conversion to Islam is encouraged by various means. At the same time, conversion to a religion other than Islam (apostasy) is forbidden de facto.

"There is no known case in which the Prophet Muhammad has ordered the death penalty against someone who has denied Islam." Here, Linda Bogaert shifts the onus towards the reader. But such a case was related by Ibn Ishaq , as part of the conquest of Mecca by Muhammad and is also in the Tabaqat al-Kabir by Ibn Sa’d.

Sirat by Ibn Ishaq page 550. "The apostle had instructed his commanders when they entered Mecca only to fight those who resisted them, except a small number who were to be killed even if they were found beneath the curtains of the Kaba. Among them was Abdullah Sa'd…..The reason he ordered him to be killed was that he had been a Muslim and used to write down the revelation; then he apostatized and returned to Quraysh [Mecca] and fled to Uthman Affan whose foster brother he was. The latter hid him until he brought him to the apostle after the situation in Mecca was tranquil, and asked that he might be granted immunity. They allege that the apostle remained silent for a long time till finally he said yes.

When Uthman had left Muhammad said to his companions who were sitting around him, "I kept silent so that one of you might get up and strike off his head!" One of the Ansar said, "Then why didn't you give me a sign, O apostle of God?" He answered that a prophet does not kill by pointing."

The Tabaqat al-Kabir corroborates Ibn Ishaq on page 174: "A person of the Ansars had taken a vow to kill Ibn Abi Sarh [the already mentioned Abdullah] if he saw him. Uthman whose foster brother he was, came and interceded for him with the prophet. The Ansar was waiting for the signal of the prophet to kill him. Uthman interceded and he let him go. The apostle of God said to the Ansar, "Why did you not fulfill your vow?" He said, "O apostle o fGod ! I had my hand on the hilt of the sword waiting for your signal to kill him. The prophet said signaling would have been a breach of faith. It does not behave the prophet to make signals."

Ali Dashti, A study of the prophetic career of Muhammad, page 98.

"The last man named [in the list of people to be killed] had been one of the scribes employed at Medina to write down the 'revelations.' On a number of occasions, with Muhammad's consent, he changed the closing words of verses. For example, when Muhammad said "And God is mighty and wise," Abdullah Sarh suggested, 'knowing and wise,' and the prophet answered that there was no objection. Having observed a succession of changes of this type, Abdullah renounced Islam on the ground that the revelations, if from God, could not be changed at the prompting of a scribe such as himself. After his apostasy, he went to Mecca and joined the Quraysh."

Sirat, page 550 still. "Another [to be killed] was Abdullah Khatal……….He had become a Muslim and the apostle sent him to collect the poor tax in company with one of the Ansar. He had with him a freed slave who served him. (He was Muslim.) When they halted he ordered the latter to kill a goat for him and prepare some food, and went to sleep. When he woke up the man had done nothing, so he attacked and killed him and apostatized. He had two singing girls, Fartana and her friend who used to sing satirical songs about the apostle, so he ordered that they should be killed with him."

Tabaqat volume 2 p. 172: "The Apostle of God entered Mecca and on his head there was a helmet. Then he removed it. Ma'n and Musa Ibn Dawud said in their version of events: A person came to him

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and said, "O Apostle of God! Ibn Khatal is holding the curtains of al-Kabah fast (right of asylum). Thereupon the apostle of God said: "Kill him."

Khatal was not as fortunate as Abdullah Sa’d. When Othman became a caliph (and a strange caliph suspected of having manipulated the Quranic text) his friend Abdullah Sa'd (still a strange Muslim) became governor of Egypt.

Sirat page 551."Another [ordered to be killed] was Miqyas Hubaba because he had killed an Ansar who had killed his brother accidentally, and returned to Quraysh as a polytheist. Page 492: "Miqyas Subaba came from Mecca as a Muslim, so he professed, saying, "I come to you as a Muslim seeking the blood with for my brother who was killed in error." The apostle ordered that he should have the blood wit for his brother Hisham and he stopped a short while with the apostle. Then he attacked his brother's slayer and killed him and went off to Mecca an apostate."

Editor's note. It is not known whether he was executed for having avenged his brother or to have returned to his original religion after having got what he had come to seek.

Historical specifications now.

The wars known as Riddah wars, which broke out in Arabia just after the death of Mahomet in 632, contrary to their official name in Muslim historiography (Riddah), were not in fact real manifestations of apostasy, but from the vanquished and forcibly subjected peoples some attempts to get back their ancient freedom, because for them at that time to accept the conditions dictated by their conquerors did not mean at all to give up their previous religious ideas (some Arab paganism vaguely tinged with Judeo monotheism but only to pledge allegiance to a new political power, notably by paying it a tribute whatever the name given to this new tax (zakat or jizya). It would be therefore more exact to make it a kind of civil war, and not the first apostasy.

Many tribes wanted to no longer be Muslims for tax reasons (not to pay the tithe called zakat) and had to be kept in the empire by horrible violence. Faced with this general revolt of all the tribes that had been subjected to the new Medinan state, Abu Bakr proved uncompromising: the refusal to pay tax (zakat) was considered unpardonable.

Tabari (History of the Prophets and Kings volume X the Conquest of Arabia) tells us that the Muslim commander Khalid ibn Walid would have received the following command.

Abu Bakr's Letter to the Apostates.In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. From Abu Bakr, caliph of the Apostle of God….I have ordered him to fight those who deny [Him] for that reason. So he will not spare any one of them he can gain mastery over, but may burn them with fire, slaughter them by any means, and take women and children captive…..I have ordered my messenger to read my letter to you in all gathering places. If, when the Muslims make the call to prayer, they do likewise, leave them alone; but, if they do not make the call to prayer [with the Muslims], then grant them no respite.”

Order applied literally by Khalid (execution of Malik ben Nuwayra and abduction of his wife).

But, on the other hand, let's be clear! There is no verse in the Quran that undoubtedly implies the death sentence in this world for Muslims converting to a religion other than Islam (or a specific lack of religion: atheism, agnosticism).

The only three verses that can be interpreted in this sense are in fact not very clear. Here they are.

Chapter 2 verse 217. " They question the with regard to warfare in the sacred month. Say: Warfare therein is a great transgression, but to turn (men) from the way of God , and to disbelieve in Him and in the Inviolable Place of Worship, and to expel His people thence, is a greater with God; for persecution is worse than killing. And they will not cease from fighting against you till they have made you renegades from your religion, if they can. And whosoever becomes a renegade and dies in his disbelief: such are they whose works have fallen both in the world and the Hereafter. Such are rightful owners of the Fire: they will abide therein.”

The passage " such are they whose works have fallen both in the world” suggests an earthly punishment for the apostates but as it often happens, the Quran is not clear on what it implies.

Chapter 4 verse 89. " They long that you should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that you may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of God; if they turn back then take them and kill them wherever you find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them.”

The expression "turn back" would mean "renouncing Islam."

Chapter 9 verse 74. " They swear by God that they said nothing (wrong), yet they did say the word of disbelief, and did disbelieve after their Surrender to God. And they purposed that which they could not attain, and they sought revenge only that God by His messenger should enrich them of His bounty. If they repent it will be better for them; and if they turn away, God will afflict them with a painful doom in the world and the Hereafter.”

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On the other hand, there are many unequivocal hadiths on this subject, which has as result that some schools of Islamic law have even a much broader definition of the notion of apostasy. Any denial of any principle whatsoever of Muslim beliefs is considered a potential apostasy.

In this essay we shall describe apostate the man who, exercising his right to religious freedom, decides to convert to a religion not claiming to be in line with Islam.

The part of the Sharia devoted to the problem of apostates is called "takfir" in theological Arabic

The words irtidad and riddah both refer to apostasy. Riddah seems mainly used to define the apostasy that transforms the Muslim faith into unbelief (kufr in Arabic) while irtidad refers to the passage of Islam to another religion. A person born from Muslim parents, but who later gives up Islam, is called murtadd fitri - the word meaning natural, but also instinctive, congenital, natal, innate. The one who converts to Islam, but who gives it up afterwards is a murtadd milli, from the word milla which designates the religious community. The murtadd fitri may also be regarded as an abnormal, distorted person, who makes a difference, and whose apostasy constitutes a voluntary and obstinate act of treason towards God and the true believers; as well as a perfidious desertion from the community. The murtadd milli is a traitor to the Muslim community, which is guilty of an act of secession as brutal as it is violent.

Quran chapter 2 verse 256: "No compulsion in religion ...". This quotation has now become the most famous of the Quran, since it is widely publicized in the press, on radio, on television [even Pope Benedict XVI quoted this verse in his famous speech of Regensburg on 12 September 2006 ].

How to understand this famous expression about the non-compulsion in religion, since so many Quranic verses call on the contrary?

Apostasy is not the mere fact of not being a Muslim but of leaving the Muslim faith after having embraced it, what none of these verses specifies.

We have contradictory norms in the Quran and the Sunnah regarding this issue.

The Quran says: "No compulsion in religion" (2: 256). You are free to become a Muslim, even encouraged to do so, but the Muslim, whether born of a Muslim family or converted to Islam, has no right to leave his religion. It is therefore one-sided religious freedom. The Quran does not foresee precise punishment against the apostate although it speaks of him several times using either the term kufr (disbelief) or the term riddah (recantation). Only punishments in the other life are provided for there, except the three verses we have quoted: 2:217, 4:89, 9:74.

For example, verse 137, chapter 4. " Lo! those who believe, then disbelieve and then (again) believe, then disbelieve, and then increase in disbelief, God will never pardon them, nor will He guide them unto a way.”

The remarks attributed to Muhammad are, however, more explicit. The Quran does not foresee any precise punishment in this world for the apostates and contents itself, if one may say, to threaten them with hell. It is not the same for the hadiths who speak much of them and more categorically. The death sentence for apostasy is therefore mainly based on these hadiths, but let us remind the readers of the fact that Islamic law is based on the hadiths as much as on the Quran: both sources have the same force of law.

Bukhari. Volume 9. Book 83. Hadith 37. "God's Apostle never killed anyone except in one of the following three situations: (1) A person who killed somebody unjustly (in Qisas), (2) a married person who committed illegal sexual intercourse, (3) a man who fought against God and His Apostle and deserted Islam and became an apostate."

Sahih of Muslim 3175. According to 'Abd-Allah ibn Masoud (may God be pleased with him), the Messenger of God said: "It is not permissible to shed the blood of a Muslim who testifies that there is no other divinity but God and that I am His Messenger, except in these three cases: the adulterous spouse, the guilty of murder and the apostate who abandons the Muslim community ."

Bukhari Volume 9. Book 84. Hadith 64.“I heard God’s Apostle saying, "During the last days there will appear some young foolish people who will say the best words but their faith will not go beyond their throats and will go out from (leave) their religion as an arrow goes out of the game. So, wherever you find them, kill them, for whoever kills them shall have a reward on the Day of Resurrection."

Bukhari. Volume 4. Book 52. Hadith 260. Narrated `Ikrima:`Ali burned some people and this news reached Ibn Abbas, who said, "Had I been in his place I would not have burned them, as the Prophet said, 'Don't punish (anybody) with God’s punishment.' No doubt, I would have killed them, for the Prophet said, 'If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him.' "

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Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 84; Hadith 58. '" The Prophet then sent Mu'adh bin Jabal after him and when Mu'adh reached him, he spread out a cushion for him and requested him to get down (and sit on the cushion). Behold: There was a fettered man beside Abu Musa. Mu'adh asked, "Who is this (man)?" Abu Musa said, "He was a Jew and became a Muslim and then reverted to Judaism." Then Abu Musa requested Mu'adh to sit down but Mu'adh said, "I will not sit down till he has been killed. This is the judgment of God and His Apostle (for such cases) and repeated it thrice. Then Abu Musa ordered that the man be killed. …."

[It should be noted that this incident took place during the life of Muhamad. At that time Abu Musa represented him as governor and Mu’adh as vice-governor.

Al-Tabari, The History of the Prophets and Kings (Tarikh al-rusul wa al-muluk). Volume 17, pages 187-188. Remarks made by the Kharijite rebel General Al-Khirrit ben Rashid of the Banu Najiah tribe, in order to urge the Christians of his tribe to distrust the Caliph Ali, not without success in the beginning, in 658.

“He said to those who had refused to pay the sadaqah. "Keep a firm grip on your sadaqah (religious alms) , bestow them on your relatives, and if you wish, give them up to those among you who are destitute ."

Among them were many Christians who had accepted Islam, but when dissension had developed had said, "By God, our religion (din) from which we have departed is better and more correct than that which these people follow. Their religion does not stop them from shedding blood, terrifying the roads, and seizing properties." And they returned to their former religion. Al-Khirrft met them and said to them, "Woe unto you! Do you know the precept (hukm) of Ali regarding any Christian who accepts Islam and then reverts to Christianity? By God he will not hear anything they say, he will not consider any excuse, he will not accept any repentance. His precept regarding them is immediate cutting off of the head when he gets hold of them ."

Several hadiths therefore prescribe the death penalty for apostates without extenuating circumstances. Now in the land of Islam, as we have often had occasion to see, the hadiths contribute as much as the Quran to make the law.

The opposite of the iman (faith) is the kufr ("impiety" literally "ingratitude"), and the Muslim who does not believe in God or commits a great sin is a kafir, an impious one.

The apostate "which persists in his error is in the last level of the human hierarchy, even below the infidel."Absolutely, this term refers to any person who does not profess Islam. On the other hand, he who renounces Islam or turns to another belief is considered an apostate (murtadd).

Al Mawardi defines the apostates as follows. Are apostates those who, being legally Muslim, either by birth or by conversion, cease to be so, and the two categories are, from the point of view of apostasy, on the same line.

Al-Ghazali held that apostasy occurs when a Muslim denies the essential dogmas: monotheism, Muhammad's prophecy, and the Last Judgment.

And in early Islamic history, after Muhammad's death, the declaration of Prophethood by anyone was automatically deemed to be proof of apostasy.

There are therefore disagreements among Islamic scholars, and Islamic schools of case law, about this subject.

Some in Shafi'i fiqh such as Nawawi and al-Misri state that the apostasy code applies to a Muslim who

A). Has understood and professed that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is the messenger of d’Allah (shahada).

B) Knows the Shariah known by all Muslims,

C) Is of sound mind at the time of apostasy,

D) has reached or passed puberty.

Signs of apostasy according to Umdat as-Salik wa Uddat an-Nasik ( Reliance of the traveler) a 14th-century manual of the Shafi'i school of case law (Fiqh)....pages 595 to 598.....

1) Bowing before the sun, moon, objects of nature, idols, cross or any images symbolically representing God whether sarcastically or with conviction.

2) Intention to commit unbelief, even if one hesitates to do so.

3) Speak words that imply unbelief such as "God is the third of three" [divine persons] or "I am God."

4) Revile, question, doubt, the existence of God or Prophet of Islam, or that the Prophet was sent by God.

5) Revile, deny, or mock any verse of the Quran, or the religion of Islam.

6) To deny the obligatory character of something considered obligatory by Ijma (consensus of Muslims).

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7) Believe that things in themselves or by their nature have cause independent of the will of God.

SHARIA.

It is not permissible to attempt the life of a Muslim except in the following three cases: disbelief after believing, adultery after marriage, and homicide without cause.

The only noticeable difference between the schools is the status of the crime in question. Most of them give it the status of hadd, that is, of a crime against God, which makes its punishment absolutely indisputable (death sentence), while the Shiite and Hanafi schools do not give it this status, they wish to modulate the penalty. These two schools advocate, among other things, that women should not be executed but imprisoned and beaten regularly (at the time of each prayer among the Shiites, every three days among the Hanafites) until they repent and become again Muslims or die. Everything is in the shade.

The doctrine defines three sorts of lesser jihad against the internal enemies of Islam, considered to be the most perverse because they can break the unity and harmony of the community: apostates, dissidents and deserters and brigands .

If the theologians do not agree on the punishment to be inflicted on the ungodly, if it is to be earthly or reserved to the hereafter, there is unanimity as regards that to be prescribed to the apostates: the death sentence.

Collective apostasy gives rise to wars. The lot reserved for the apostates is worse than that reserved for the enemy, no truce being allowed with the apostates.

If persuasion to try to bring the apostate to religion proves useless - the Malikites and the Hanbalites grant a period of three days of reflection - the culprit must be executed and his property and estates confiscated by the State.

As regards the apostate wife, the Malikites and the Shafiites consider that she must suffer the same lot as her husband, while the Hanafites and the Hanbalites advocate her being persuaded to join Islam by force, by being imprisoned or beaten for several days, failing that she becomes a slave and is considered as booty.

As for the children, it is necessary to wait until they become adult before judging them, just like the insane, for whom it is necessary to wait for, that they come to their senses.

Let us be intellectually honest and let us recognize without Taqiyya (without casuistic reserve) that even if Shariah - according to all the great schools in Islam, both Sunni and Shiite- orders the death sentences for the apostates by virtue of the aforementioned hadiths; There are many other methods to make their life impossible.

Attainder. Dissolution of marriage and withdrawal of the custody of children. Disinheritance (loss of rights to inherit).

Refusal to change the religion indicated on the identity card.

This subterfuge is used in many Islamic countries. Since the legislation depends on the religion of the citizen, it is also mentioned on the identity card. This was the case, for example, for the Malaysian Muslim Lina Joy, who had converted to Christianity. Given the impossibility of changing the name of her religion on her identity card, it was also impossible for her to marry his Christian betrothed, since a Muslim woman can only marry a Muslim man.

Imprisonment. In 2000, in Malaysia, four men were sentenced to 20 months' imprisonment for leaving the Muslim religion.

Assassination by never identified or sentenced to minimum sentences" devout Muslims."

Although the Quran does not explicitly advocate the assassination of apostates, it disseminates such a disgrace on them indeed that certain believers feel it a duty to do so.

Handwritten notes by Peter deLaCrau found by his children and inserted by them at this place.

Islam is peace and love (Quran 2:256). The damage is done. Following a series of permanent defensive wars (as the example of Timur the Muslim empire is in history the only example of empire to have been built only by defensive wars) Islam spread all around the globe. And when Islam was adopted by someone, this individual found himself prisoner of his "din" (religion). The slightest sign of easing off - such as raising one’s children out of the Muslim faith - was punished with death. Thus Islam has gradually supplanted other religions in these parts of the world.

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And since we are talking about Timur (1336-145), we will not resist the pleasure of quoting this excerpt from a masterpiece of the literature of his country about the true monotheism.

The notion of apostasy has disappeared from the Western world, where you can perfectly evoke the idea of renouncing Christian beliefs or becoming a non-practicing Christian. And of course, there are no criminal sanctions against people who want to convert Islam in virtue of the principle “There is no compulsion in religion,” mentioned above.

In Islamic countries, on the other hand, the consequence of this claim borders on pure and simple death. The Quran postpones the punishment of the apostates to the other world, but the hadiths are much clearer. Western journalists who have devoted so much energy to fighting Fascism Nazism Francoism, in short * the extreme right wing at the end of the 20th century do not even see it coming.

* Very briefly because the word "right" in politics referred only originally in 1789 to the royalists and the word Nazism the (national) socialism of the (German) Workers' Party.

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WOMEN LEGAL STATUS.

The superiority of man over woman in Islam. God's preference for men is expressed thus by the marginalization of women in the sacred text. With the exception of Mary, the women in question are anonymous.

It is on this fundamental inequality that the difference between men and women in Islamic law is based.

1)Before inheritance: " God charges you concerning the provision for your children: to the male the equivalent of the portion of two females” (4: 11). In a more general way, women are considered by the Muslim law as a lifelong minor, who requires the authorization of a guardian, i.e., the closest man of her kin (her husband, father, brother ...).

2) On the testimony in court: " Call two witnesses from among your men. And if two men do not be at hand, then a man and two women, of such as you approve as witnesses, so that if one errs (through forgetfulness) the other will remember”(2: 282). It emerges that legal professions are often impossible for women in Muslim countries.

3) Within the framework of marriage: Polygamy is allowed. Polyandry, on the other hand, is not. " Marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if you fear that you cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only) or (the captives) that your right hands possess "(4: 3). Relying on another verse of the Quran, which affirms the impossibility of being fair: " You will not be able to deal equally between (your) wives, however, much you wish (to do so)” (4:129), some Muslim states have imposed monogamy . However, because of the divine nature of the Quran, polygamy cannot be totally suppressed.

The Muslim has the right of repudiation, but not the woman. Even if it is "for God the most abominable lawful act," according to Muhammad, it remains a right about which man does not have to justify himself. His only duty is to pay a suitable pension to his wife (2, 241).

Lastly, he has the right to beat her: " As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them "(4:34).

4) In relation to religious obligations: If men and women are bound to the five pillars (profession of faith, prayer, alms, Ramadan fast, pilgrimage to Mecca), women are not obliged or encouraged to go to the mosque; and if they go, they must remain in a reserved space. And access is forbidden to them in moments of legal impurity (after childbirth, during menstruation ...).

There is no verse in the Quran forbidding a woman to be an imam and to direct the prayer and there seems to be no consensus of Islamic scholars on this subject. But for the great majority of Muslims, a woman may not lead a mixed prayer. In Morocco, 50 women were appointed Murshidat Imams (councilors) in April 2006, but these women have no right to direct prayer. There are Imam women in Denmark, Canada and South Africa.

CONCLUSION.

On the whole of Quran, there is a mistrust of women. The result is a desire to avoid mixing - the issue of separate schedules in municipal swimming pools shows it- or to veil women.

The inequalities are not, however, total. Thus, even if the sexual delights of heaven are described for men only, it is also promised to women a good life: " Whosoever does right, whether male or female, and is a believer, him verily we shall quicken with good life” (16: 97). Moreover, there is nothing in the Quran prohibiting a woman from attending school or participating in political affairs. They can also

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work. " Unto men a fortune from that which they have earned, and unto women a fortune from that which they have earned” (4:32). The whole question is to know what the trades concerned are.

This quick picture highlights the inequality in law and fact in Islam between men and women. Far from the spirituality which states from the beginning the equal dignity between man and woman, to which are added numerous and great female models of sanctity, Islam rarely presents femininity for what it can bring to mankind by virtue of its own charisms and genius.

THE LOT OF THE WOMEN OF THE VANQUISHED.

Sahih Muslim. Book 008, Hadith Number 3432.

It is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a captive woman after she is purified of menses or delivery; in case she has a husband; her marriage is abrogated.

Abu Dawud: Book 11, number 2150.

Abu Sa’id Al Khudri said, “The Apostle of God sent a military expedition to Awtas on the occasion of the battle of Hunain. They met their enemy and fought with them. They defeated them and took them captives. Some of the Companions of the Apostle of God were reluctant to have relations with the female captives because of their pagan husbands. So, God sent down the Quranic verse “ All married women (are forbidden) unto you save those (captives) whom your hand possesses.”

Editor’s note. It is the verse 24 of the chapter 4.

Abu Sa'id al-Khudri reported that at the Battle of Hanayn God’s Messenger sent an army to Awtas and encountered the enemy and fought with them. Having overcome them and taken them captives, the Companions of God’s Messenger seemed to refrain from having intercourse with captive women because of their husbands being pagans. Then God sent down regarding that: and women already married, except those whom your right hands possess (4: 24). i.e., they were lawful for them when their idda period came to an end.

The rape of the women of the vanquished has always been part of the dramas and tragedies of every war. The human species is thus made. What is "annoying" with Islam is that these practices have been supported by God (some verses of the Quran) and by sayings (hadiths) or even by the example of Muhammad himself.

The lot f the women of the defeated peoples is to be raped, to become, sexual or not, slaves, with their children. It was undoubtedly, besides the booty and pillage, the main motivation of the first Arab munafiqun who followed Muhammad in his raids. In this case they were Meccans who had recently been converted to Islam.

The battle of Hunayn in 630 was the occasion for God (or Muhammad?) to legitimize the rape of the women of the vanquished, in the presence of their husbands. According to certain hadiths indeed it is on this occasion that verse 24 of chapter 4 would have been revealed. Decidedly the "asbab al-nuzul" or "circumstances of the revelation" have not ceased who amaze us.

For our readers who would like to understand, a few words on this decisive battle. This was indeed the last attempt of the settled Arab tribes (the Thaqif) or nomads (the Hawazins) of the region to escape the grip of Islam. The Hawazins even played their trump cards, that is to say their families (who accompanied them).

The battle of Hunayn opposed Muhammad and his companions to the Bedouins of the tribe of Hawazin sand Thaqif in the year 630 in a valley located on one of the roads from Mecca to Ta'if, just after the capture (or the liberation according to the points of view) of Mecca. The battle ended with a decisive victory for the Muslims, who made many captives. The battle of Hunayn is one of only two battles mentioned specifically in the Quran.

Chapter 9, verses 25-26. “God hath given you victory on many fields and on the day of Hunayn, when you exulted in your multitude but it availed you nothing, and the earth, vast as it is, was straitened for you; then you turned back in flight; then God sent His peace of reassurance [shakina] down upon His

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messenger and upon the believers, and sent down hosts (of angels?) you could not see, and punished those who disbelieved. Such is the reward of disbelievers.”

The Hawazins and their allies the Thaqif began to mobilize their forces when they learned that Muhammad and his army had left Medina to capture (or free) Mecca. The unhappy wretch thought to take the Muslim army from the rear during the siege of the city, but unfortunately for them it was not necessary because Mecca, declared an open city by its leaders, fell without strike, and Muhammad then marched on the Hawazins with 12,000 men.

The Bedouin chief Malik ibn Awf Al-Nasri ambushed the Muslims in the winding gorges of the road to Al-Ta’if. The Muslims, surprised by the assault of the Bedouin cavalry, were at first routed. They thought that this Bedouin cavalry was encamped in Awtas. Modern historians have failed to completely reconstruct the course of the battle from this point because the different Muslim sources give contradictory information.

What emerges from it is that the Muslim camp is not as united as it appears and that many have not yet understood the advantage which can be drawn from the rallying of former enemies like the Meccans. As a result, the mass of the combatants has grown, and this arithmetic worries the "old" Muslims who know that the spoils will go down. The Medinans are beginning to rumble against the new converts and the opposition is growing.

The battle will be long, fierce, painful, and the Muslim troops far from being exemplary. The victory will, however, be there. The Hawazins will be defeated and only will be important ultimately the sharing of their huge booty, as well as the many captives who comfort the victors.

As Malik ibn Awf al-Nasri had brought the families and all the Hawazin crews, the Muslims could make many prisoners: 6,000 women and children, 24,000 camels.

Sirat d’Ibn Ishak page 593. “DIVISION OF THE SPOIL OF HAWAZIN AND GIFTS TO GAIN MEN’S HEART.……..God’s apostle said , “Which are dearest to you? Your sons and your wives or your cattle? They replied, “Do you give us the choice between our cattle and our honor?....

Uyayna b.Hisn took an old woman of Hawazin….When the apostle returned the captives at a price of 6 camels each, he refused to give her back. Zuhayr Abu Suhad told him to let her go, for her mouth was cold and her breast flat; she could not conceive and her husband would not care….. So he let her go for the six camels….”

These booty issues may seem to some a scandalous accounting deal: it is not! It is the engine of expansion of all imperialisms. Those who have been plundered and then converted are, in fact, driven to defend an ideology that legitimizes plunder. In the Muslim society that is being built, the amount of loot shares determines the rand of individuals and clans in the hierarchy of honors. In this case, the new converts from Mecca will be favored to the detriment of the veterans of the cause, hence grunts rather comical if we believe the hadiths. This act of authority, strictly arbitrary and skillful as regards politics, on the part of God, has remained in tradition as the episode of the "Gaining of hearts."

Another of God's clever decisions will be to authorize the rape of the women of the Haouazines in their presence, as evidenced by the shameful but very precise hadiths on the subject.

Hunayn was therefore one of the greatest battles of nascent Islam and was decisive for its rooting. The defeat of the tribal confederation of the Haouazines assured him definitive control of its backside.

Some of the Bedouins were able to flee. Some turned back, which gave rise to the battle of Awtas, but the greater part found refuge at Ta'if, where Muhammad will besiege them victoriously with the help of all the munafiqun of the region who came to take part in the scramble in order to get fresh meat.

Sirat by Ibn Hishaq page 590. “ I did not come to fight Taqif with you but I wanted Muhammad to get possession of Ta’if so that I might get a girl from Thaqif whom I might tread so that she might bear me a son for Thaqif are a people who produce intelligent children.”

It was therefore one of the biggest and the best catch of fresh flesh of the time. Most of the beautiful and sexy captives were distributed to the jihadis. Muhammad gave Rayta, a very beautiful girl to his son-in-law (and cousin brother) Ali and gave Zaynab, another beautiful catch to his other son-in-law, Uthman. Umar also received a share of such fresh flesh. But he preferred to give it to his favorite son, Abdullah to enjoy her (Sirat by Ibn Ishaq pp. 592-593).

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SEX SLAVERY.

Verses 1 to 6 chapter 23. “ Successful indeed are the believers….who are payers of the poor due and who guard their modesty save from their wives or the slave girls that their right hands possess, for then they are not blameworthy”.

Verse 24, chapter 4. " And all married women are forbidden unto you save those (captives) whom your right hands possess. It is a decree of God.”

There are also hadiths on this subject. Here are few of those gems!

Sahih Muslim Book 008, Number 3371: “We went out with God’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) on the expedition to the Banu Mustaliq and took captive some excellent Arab women; and we desired them, for we were suffering from the absence of our wives, but (at the same time) we also desired ransom for them. So we decided to have sexual intercourse with them but by observing azl (withdrawing the male sexual organ before emission of semen to avoid conception). But we said: We are doing an act whereas God's Messenger is among us; why not ask him? So we asked God's Messenger (may peace be upon him), and he said: It does not matter if you do not do it, for every soul that is to be born will be born.”

Sahih Bukhari: Volume 9, Book 93, Number 506, narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri.

During the battle with Banu Al-Mustaliq they (Muslims) captured some females and intended to have sexual relation with them without impregnating them. So they asked the Prophet about coitus interruptus. The Prophet said, "It is better that you should not do it, for God has written whom He is going to create." Qaza'a said, "I heard Abu Sa'id saying that the Prophet said, 'No soul is ordained to be created it is God who decides."

And Tabari shows us Muhammad setting himself an example by choosing among the women of the vanquished those who were to become his sexual slave.

Tabari VIII:117 - "Dihyah had asked the Messenger for Safiyah when the Prophet chose her for himself... the Apostle traded for Safiyah by giving Dihyah her two cousins. The women of Khaybar were distributed among the Muslims."

Tabari IX:137 - "God granted Rayhana of the Qurayza to Muhammad as booty." Tabari IX:137 - "God granted Rayhana of the Qurayza to Muhammad as booty."

Let us be fair and let us recognize that in both cases there was then marriage more or less long after abduction and rape.

Regarding Safiya we may wonder what she really thought of it since her husband had been tortured and beheaded a few hours earlier. Put you a little in her shoes.

Torture and murder of Safiya's husband.

Ibn Ishaq page 515.

Kenana al-Rabi, who had the custody of the treasure of Banu Nadir, was brought to the apostle who asked him about it. He denied that he knew where it was. A Jew came to the apostle (Tabari says, “was brought”) and said that he had seen Kenana going round a certain ruin every morning early. When the apostle said to Kenana, "Do you know that if we find you have it I shall kill you?" He said "Yes." The apostle gave orders that the ruin was to be excavated and some of the treasure was found. When he asked him about the rest he refused to produce it, so the apostle gave orders to al-Zubayr Al-Awam, "Torture him until you extract what he has." So he kindled a fire with flint and steel on his

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chest until he was nearly dead. Then the apostle delivered him to Muhammad b. Maslama and he struck off his head, in revenge for his brother Mahmud

“Mariage” of Safiya.

Bukhari 5.59.522.

Narrated Anas bin Malik: “We arrived at Khaybar, and when God helped His Apostle to open the fort, the beauty of Safiya bint Huyai bin Akhtab whose husband had been killed while she was a bride, was mentioned to God’s Apostle. The Prophet selected her for himself, and set out with her, and when we reached a place called Sidd-as-Sahba, Safiya became clean from her menses then God’s Apostle married her. Hais (i.e., an 'Arabian dish) was prepared on a small leather mat. Then the Prophet said to me, "I invite the people around you." So that was the wedding banquet of the Prophet and Safiya.“

Bukhari 5.59.524. Narrated Anas: The Prophet stayed for three rights between Khaybar and Medina and was married to Safiya. I invited the Muslim to his marriage banquet and there was neither meat nor bread in that banquet but the Prophet ordered Bilal to spread the leather mats on which dates, dried yogurt and butter were put. The Muslims said among themselves, "Will she (i.e., Safiya) be one of the mothers of the believers (i.e., one of the wives of the Prophet) or just (a lady captive) of what his right-hand possesses?" Some of them said, "If the Prophet makes her observe the Islamic veil, then she will be one of the mothers of the believers (i.e., one of the Prophet's wives), and if he does not make her observe the Islamic veil, then she will be his lady slave." So when he departed, he made a place for her behind him (on his and made her observe the veil.

We put the word marriage in quotation marks because the aforementioned marriage was irregular with regard to verse 234 of chapter 2 in the Quran.

“If any of you die and leave widows behind, they shall wait concerning themselves four months and ten days: When they have fulfilled their term, there is no blame on you if they dispose of themselves in a just and reasonable manner.”

This verse means therefore that a widow has to wait a number of menstruation cycles to make sure she is not pregnant. In this case Muhammad only waited until her ongoing menses was over, made her observe an Islamic veil and consummated this (in its simplest expression) marriage.

The thing is more ambiguous in the case of Rayhana. Specialists in taqiyya dare to say that those hapless women, whose relatives were killed, were very happy to marry Muhammad as they fell in love head over heels with him after the slaughter! There are people really without prudishness.

Small question now. Who can be the captives or the war prisoners today?

The Islamic State having raged in Iraq and in Syria from 2014 to 2019 answered the question: The Yezidi women. But certain Muslim theologians consider that women living in the Dar Al Harb that is to say in active or potential war zones theoretically may be considered as potential captives or war prisoners. A Muslim having sexual intercourse with non-Muslim women of these war zones thus commits no sin. The Sharia draws from it, moreover, all the conclusions because it provides for no punishment and no penalty in case of zina that is of adultery or fornication committed in foreign country.

What is all in all quite logical, since the crime or offense having been committed abroad, it is possibly the magistrates of the foreign country to repress it, not the magistrates of the native country of the offender. But if the magistrates of the foreign country in question themselves do not punish this offense, why should the Muslim magistrates do so?

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THE IMPOSED POLYGAMY.

In marriage field Islam has never been an “egalitarian” religion. The Quran allows Muslims to have up to four legitimate wives (Chapter 4, 3: 4:3 marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if you fear that you cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only) or (the captives) that your right hands possess); not on condition of being able to treat them in a perfectly equitable way (only nice and intelligent people read that in the text), but on condition that they have a good conscience in this field. To the presumptuous one who doubts nothing and especially not him, everything is allowed. In any case, reality has, once again, caught up with the fiction of the nice and intelligent people, since polygamy.....

HAS BEEN PRACTICED DE FACTO AND REMAINS STILL PRACTICED, BY MEN, WHOSE ISLAM IS CONTESTED BY NOBODY.

Legal marriage, as it emerges from the Quran, is a subtle mix of legal rules and pre-Islamic customs. It is above all, with cohabitation, a lawful means of having sexual intercourse without committing the sin of "zina."

In the chapter of "impediments," the Quran is not very different from other laws of the time, but introduces a notion of its own. That who suppresses the marriage with the sister of a woman already officially married and still alive. But Islam allows a Muslim to marry a Jewish or Christian woman, while forbidding the Muslim woman, of course, to do the same. The pious Jews adopted once and adopt still the same discriminatory attitude. Moreover, among Jews and Muslims, women do not participate in worship as such. She is only the spectator of it! There is no she imam in Islamic land.

In Islamic law, marriage can take place if both spouses are pubescent. The Quran doesn’t hoard the notion of "legal age" which, in any case, did not exist in the seventh century! It also permits the practice of forced marriage or "jabr." That is to say, the right for a father to marry his minor and even still child daughter without his consent, without even mentioning it to her. And in this case even puberty is no longer a sine qua non condition. The personal example of Muhammad and of his marriage with Aysha has blocked all positive developments in this field, and in Islamic land Sharia still justifies the marriage of little girls.

Moreover, the jabr is not a specifically Islamic custom. It existed long before Islam and was widespread in almost the entire eastern Mediterranean. The Talmud granted the same right to the father. It should also be noted that the consent of the girl is required - in Islamic law - only if she is emancipated, already widowed or divorced. She may nevertheless refuse to be married with a madman, an epileptic or ill-formed man. It should also be pointed out that the Quranic law decreed that defloration was lawful from the age of nine years. Once again it is based on the example of Muhammad, who, wishing to marry Aysha, declared her nubile at this age. Islamic marriage involves "regular living together" and maintenance of the household. It forces man to feed his wives (they can eat whatever they are able to consume!) The Quran allows the husband to "punish by using slight (sic) violence" the wife about whom he would have to complain because Muslim machismo is in no way limited to establishing an only theoretical man/woman superiority, but also advocates domestic violence with the utmost clarity (4:34): " As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them. Lo! God is ever High” [We wonder well once again what God comes to do in all that. "God," if he exists, cannot be the source of such precepts].

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Fertile marriage is a religious obligation (Muhammad having no male heir was called abtar or "short tailed" by the Meccans). Woman is the servant of man, but she must also bear.

The limitation of births is seen with horror by the believing Muslim. The Muslim woman must first be a genitrix of Muslims.

In the Muslim society, celibacy is a kind of anomaly, since man has the right to "own" four wives (except, of course, Muhammad, who assumed the right to have more); as well as an "unlimited" number of de facto wives (Muhammad had at least eleven of them). In this the Quran only confirmed the old tribal customs, those of the peoples for whom the number of descendants was a source of prestige; (still except for Muhammad, who had only one son and one daughter in spite of his eleven wives and de facto wives or sex slaves).

Like the Prophet, the caliphs, sultans, and other Muslim "leaders" too, therefore often assumed many "religious" dispensations in this field. Some of them enclosed hundreds of women in harems (Arabic "haram": taboo, sacred thing, or reserved thing) guarded by emasculated men (eunuchs).

Among these women, it was not unusual to find non-Muslim women captured during raids. The captives were saved only if they agreed to enter the harem of the conqueror.

"Repudiation," which is the subject of a number of verses of the Quran, is a mode of the dissolution of marriage common to all peoples of Semitic origin, very different from divorce. Among the Israelites, Deuteronomy allows the husband to repudiate his wife without (great) formalities. This custom persisted for a very long time among the Jews, to such an extent that in France the Grand Sanhedrin, summoned in 1807 on the orders of Napoleon, was told to put an end to this practice, which permitted repeated marriages; but in many Muslim countries, men may still repudiate four women without having to justify themselves. It is enough for him to pronounce the ritual formula three times. The wife, on her side, as regards her, must submit her application to a court that assesses and rules. It's not the same thing.

In addition among Sunni Muslims, the husband has the right to go back on his decision, what is very practical!

Let us insist once again to the journalists, intellectuals, and all the nice and intelligent people who live in our country, that repudiation is not a divorce, and that there is a fundamental difference between the two. What the word repudiation implies is the dismissal of the wife by the mere will of the husband, and it is a manifestation of his power. For the wife, on the other hand, it is equivalent to being thrown on the street and having no longer any legal even minimal protection.

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TEMPORARY MARRIAGES.

This profound contempt for women appeared especially in the custom of the "temporary" marriage.

Editor’s note. Just as in our essay on Christianity, or more precisely against Christianity, although born from a traditionally Catholic family (I was first at the catechism in the 1950s) we have in no way favored this denomination in relation to Orthodoxy or other Christian denominations from Reformation; in this essay devoted to Islam, we will consider that it is not to us to decide between Shiism or Sunnism. So we will also mention the Shi'ite point of view on temporary marriages.

The temporary marriage or Zawaj al-Mut'a, is a marriage established for a fixed period agreed in advance between the spouses. This marriage can only take place under certain conditions. It is also known as sigheh in Iran.

This type of marriage consists therefore in marrying a Muslim Jewish or Christian woman for a fixed period (which may be three minutes or several years), the beginning and the end of which are fixed. The "husband" pays a symbolic "dowry" (mahr) and the wife becomes again free at the end of the period.

This type of marriage is mentioned in the Quran: " Lawful unto you are all beyond those mentioned, so that you seek them with your wealth in honest wedlock, not debauchery. And those of whom you seek content (by marrying them), give unto them their portions as a duty. And there is no sin for you in what you do by agreement … Lo! God is ever Knower, Wise” (Quran 4:24).

According to al-Tabari, some companions of Muhammad such as Ubayy b. Ka'b considered well that the verses spoke of the temporary marriage. This type of marriage would have been widely practiced by their contemporaries and by Muhammad himself.

Sahih Muslim. Book 008, hadith Number 3248: Ibn Uraij reported: Ati' reported that….. Jabir b. Abdullah came to perform Umrah (lesser pilgrimage in Mecca), and we came to his abode, and the people asked him about different things, and then they made a mention of temporary marriage whereupon he said: Yes, we had been benefitting ourselves by this temporary marriage during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet (may peace be upon him) and during the time of Abu Bakr and 'Umar.

Sahih Muslim. Book 008, Number 3249: Jabir b. 'Abdullah reported…. We contracted temporary marriage giving a handful of dates or flour as a dower during the lifetime of God's Messenger (may peace be upon him) and during the time of Abu Bakr until Umar forbade it in the case of Amr b. Huraith.

Other traditions evoke a prohibition by Muhammad being based on the hadith of al-Bukhari, where Ali reports that Muhammad would have forbidden temporary marriage by leaving Khaybar . But two years later, on the occasion of the conquest of Mecca, Mahomet will allow this type of marriage for three days. Then he will forbid it until the day of the Resurrection, according to a hadith quoted by Muslim (1406). The Shi'ites contest this hadith and attribute the abrogation of this type of marriage to Caliph Umar, what is not the same thing.

Such a marriage need not be formalized: it is enough to have an oral agreement, which can be private, and by which the man and the woman give each other in marriage. The marriage can be immediately consummated. As in permanent marriage, a dowry is usually given by the husband to his wife, but it can be symbolic. Thus, it is possible to marry temporarily without ever presenting his spouse to his family or friends. It is, however, advisable to formalize the marriage (whether by a written marriage contract or in an Islamic court) so that the wife can prove the existence of such a marriage in case of

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pregnancy. Indeed children born out of a temporary marriage have the same rights as children born from a permanent marriage: they are recognized by law, have to be maintained by their father and they inherit from both parents.

The point of view of lawyers.

Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, a 20th century Sunni Islamic scholar writes: Whether temporary marriage (Mut'ah) is a haram or halal is a dispute that creates dissension between Shi'as and Sunnis, and has resulted in heated discussion..... A man comes across such situations when it becomes impossible to make a distinction between fornication (Zina) and temporary marriage (Mut'ah). In such scenarios practicing temporary marriage (Mut'ah) is a better option to fornication (Zina).

This type of marriage ends, without annulment, divorce, or death, at the end of the period agreed between the man and the woman. If they wish to remain together at the end of this period, they simply have to renew the contract for another limited period.

Difference with prostitution nevertheless: the services provided by the woman are not only sexual.

Difference with the marriage in the ordinary meaning of that term: the maximum number of wives (four for a permanent marriage) is unlimited for a temporary marriage. The temporary wife does not inherit her husband if he dies, and vice versa.

Although admitted by Muhammad, the Sunnites regarded the temporary marriage as abolished , on the basis of a hadith in which Ali reports that the Prophet prohibited the temporary marriage on the day of Khaybar, as well as the consumption of domestic donkey meat (reported by Bukhari in his Hadith Nr 4216 and Muslim in his Hadith Nr 1406).

To Mut`a some Sunni theologians prefer the Nikah al-Misyar,

The Nikah al Misyar (Arabic "traveler marriage") is a legal arrangement that allows a Sunni Muslim couple to be united by marriage (based on the traditional Muslim marriage contract, without the husband having to financially commit towards his wife. The latter exempts him by a clause in the marriage contract through which she renounces some of her rights such as the living together of spouses, the equal division of nights between all the wives in case of polygamy, the alimony (nafaqa) etc.

The wife continues to have a life separate from that of her husband, and to support herself by her own means. But her husband has the right to go into her home (or into her parents' home, where she is often supposed to live) at any time of the day or night when he wants to. The couple can then legitimately satisfy "sexual needs" (that the wife may not avoid besides).

Misyar marriage is, according to some, a spontaneous adaptation of the marriage system to the concrete needs of people who can no longer marry in traditional ways in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates because of the high cost of rents and of life in general; high amounts of required marriage portions or other similar economic and financial reasons.

Hence an increase in prostitution in these Muslim countries where sexual deprivation continues to grow from year to year. Again, we are faced with a blatant case of hypocrisy. Some play on words by referring to more than fourteen centuries years old habits and customs. Those who frequent prostitutes hind behind this so-called Quranic authorization, so they are "in compliance with God." Well well !

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REPUDIATION OR DIVORCE.

Repudiation. Talaq comes from an Arabic word designating the dropping something therefore the letting go.

Its rules vary among the different madhahib (legal schools). Shiites and Sunnis indeed do not apply the same rules. However, the procedure is generally the same: it is the husband who is in charge of pronouncing the established formulas.

Islam knows the repudiation of women by men but also, if the required conditions are met, the divorce demanded by the wife

Dissolution of the marriage on the initiative of the husband (talaq).

In order to avoid repudiations caused by a misunderstanding, God has instituted the necessity to repeat, three times in a clearly separated (and not almost simultaneous) way, the repudiation formula which ends the life together and brings the wife into Iddah ( period of continence, or period of viduity). *

For the Shiites, this repudiation must be done publicly. The third pronouncement of the formula of repudiation makes it final. There are therefore two repudiations, called revocable (raj'i), followed by a third, irrevocable (ba'in).

The use was gradually admitted of a single repudiation, using the triple formula (almost simultaneous). This case law has been endorsed in all Muslim countries, although this practice is, literally, contrary to the Quran.

At the third repudiation, man may no longer live with his wife. According to the Quran, he may remarry with her only if the latter has, in the meantime, married another man, then divorced. Repudiation for temporary marriages is final and single.

In the event of the husband's wrongful use of his repudiation right, the woman can always claim alimony.

1st stage.

Initiation of the procedure (Sura 65:1 and Sura 2:228).

Sunnism.

The husband may, in order to repudiate his wife, pronounce the talaq formula one to three times, or a word which is used only to designate the equivalent in the presence of his wife.

Shiism.

The husband publicly announces his desire to annul the marriage.

2nd stage.

Period of settlement (Sura 4:45 and Sura 65:1).

Sunnism

The husband must pronounce the talaq formula three times.

Shiism.

Families seek to find an arrangement for the duration of idda. If the couple has again a sexual intercourse, the procedure is canceled.

3rd stage.

Dissolution of the marriage (Sura 65: 2 and 2:231).

Sunnism.

A qadi (judge) begins and the husband finishes pronouncing the third talaq.

Shiism.

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Two witnesses must, at the outcome of the idda, attest to the end of the procedure.

Divorce on the initiative of the woman

The wife has the right to apply for a divorce but in this case she must appear before an Islamic court and answer questions.

The marriage contract may, however, stipulate that the wife has the right to repudiate herself, and thus to annul the marriage on her own initiative (either by tafwid or by khul or by mubara'at).

The tafwid was established at the time of the marriage contract: the husband then divests himself from his right of repudiation, and concedes to the wife that of repudiating herself.

The khul allows the wife to divorce when the court refuses to grant it, for compensation. If both spouses renounce their rights of mutual debt, then this is called mubara'at.

The wife can also use the talaq formula when the husband does not want to divorce but gives her the option of keeping or ending their married life.

Judicial divorce.

The judge may also order the dissolution of marriage for various reasons:

-Following the ordeal oath of the kind lian (Quran 24:6-11. May God’s wrath be upon me if I don’t tell the truth).

- In the presence of unacceptable defects, by analogy with a termination of contract for a hidden defect (e.g., a disease making the life together dangerous, such as leprosy or insanity, or husband's impotence, etc.)

-For breach of marriage obligations: for example, non-payment of the marriage portion, breach of support obligation (nafaqah) or if the husband contravenes a provision specified in the marriage contract.

- Abuse of marital authority, in the case of violence, for example, serious dissent between the spouses, absence of the spouse.

Editor’s note. Reconciliation Commissions.

In the case of serious and prolonged disagreement, the Quran recommends that recourse be made not directly to the divorce formula, but to an attempt of reconciliation between the spouses.

To do this, the judge designates a commission made up of one person from the wife's family and another from the husband's family (usually the two fathers). The aim of this commission will be to try to reconcile the two spouses: in the event that it appears to them that it is impossible or vain, they can grant the divorce.

In the event of disagreement between the 2 arbitrators-mediator-judges, the case is examined by a legal authority which will definitely decide on the conflict.

Annulment of marriage. The annulment of marriage is recognized by Islam in case of non-consummation. This makes it possible to annul the marriage without the woman losing her dowry.

* A woman wishing to divorce should not even have to wait a single day to leave the house. The fact that she may be pregnant cannot justify her husband holding her back against her will.

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ISLAMIC VEIL AND QURAN.

The Quran does not impose on Muslim women the wearing of the burqa or of the Islamic veil. The wearing of an outfit almost entirely concealing the woman was first imposed on the wives of Muhammad and then, of course, Muhammad being the example to be imitated in every point by virtue of the isma dogma, this practice has obviously become widespread.

Let us first note that such clothing was also originally intended for Christian women according to this quotation from St Paul which has the merit of admitting that it was indeed a mark of subjection with regard to women.

First Epistle to the Corinthians, surah 11, verse 7.

A man ought not to cover his head,since he is the image and glory of God but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman but woman for man. It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels.

What exactly does the Quran say about the Islamic veil? It is necessary to point out here that the veil problem and the verses that are found on this subject come from remarks, not from God, but from Umar, and concern at first only the wives of Muhammad. As Muhammad had several wives, Umar, who was the father of one of them, suggested to him that his wives veil themselves. Before that Muhammad himself carried Aysha on his shoulders, with her exposed beautiful long hair. Later, when the problem of Aysha's relationship with another man arose, the question of the veil evidently became more serious.

The veil was first required in the case of a visit to Muhammad.

Quran chapter 33: 53-59.

"O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks close round them. That will be better, so that they may be recognized and not annoyed. ….When you ask of his wives anything, ask it of them from behind a curtain. That is purer for your hearts and for their hearts.

Chapter 24.

Verse 31.

And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest, and to display of their adornment only that which is apparent, and to draw their veils over their bosoms, and not to reveal their adornment save to their own husbands or fathers or husbands' fathers, or their sons or their husbands' sons, or their brothers or their brothers' sons or sisters' sons, or their women, or their slaves, or male attendants who lack vigor, or children who know nothing of women's nakedness. And let them not stamp their feet so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment.

Verse 60.

As for women past child-bearing, who have no hope of marriage, it is no sin for them if they discard their (outer) clothing in such a way as not to show adornment. But to refrain is better for them. God is Hearer, Knower.

The word translated as "veil" here is the Arabic word "khimar" which means "mantilla." The wearing of the veil distinguished the free woman from the women of inferior status.

As for the word rendered by "adornment, it is the Arabic word "juyub," which other translators render by V-neck, bosom, breast.

To return on chapter 33.

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The verse 53 stipulates exactly.

When you ask of them (the wives of the Prophet) anything, ask it of them from behind a hijab. That is purer for your hearts and for their hearts.

Note. A hijab is a veil in the sense of curtains in general.

And the verse 59.

O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to “yudnin…. their… jalabihina”! That will be better, so that they may be recognized and not annoyed.

The word rendered by "veil" here and in many translations is the Arabic word jalabibihina, which is the feminine plural of jilbab (the North-African djellabah or the Egyptian jellabiya), which means actually "dress," "clothes” (or "shawl"?)

But what the devil! Why God has not been clearer? Whatever it be we leave it to the monolatrous people of the Jewish-Muslim-Christianity in St. Paul’s way to determine what exactly imply the expressions "to draw their khimar over their bosom" and "to yudnin their jalabihina". This debate as far as we are concerned, we uns barbarians druids of far west, do not interest us!

What we can observe it is that the debate and interpretations generally focus on the parts of the body to be hidden, that are part of the interpretation of the Quranic concept of awrah (parts of the body to be concealed from the sight of others after puberty).

For nubile women, it is, for the majority of commentators, the whole body, except, according to the authors, hands and feet.

Abu Hanifa thinks that the feet of the woman are in no way awrah, while Malik ibn Anas or Ahmad ibn Hanbal consider that the woman's feet must be hidden (by being based on opinions later to Muhammad).

Other authors bring the woman's face enter this category.

The Hadith: "The entire body of the woman is nakedness, except her hands and her face," reported by the compiler Abu Dawud, is invoked by some Sunni or Shi'ite theologians to justify the non-veiling of the face but invoked by others to justify the general obligation of veiling the woman (without further precision, it is true).

This hadith is classified in the category of the weak hadiths (it is not included in the canonical collections like those of al-Bukhari and Muslim, its chain of transmission -isnad- is absent or incomplete). Now, in the Muslim case law, a weak hadith may not form the basis of a mandatory provision *. Some Liberals put forward this argument, as well as others, to question the existence of any saying imposing the veil.

A little bit of terminology now. The different types of Islamic veils depending on the countries and traditions.

The hijab is the veil that covers the hair and leaves the face visible. It is found among other countries in North Africa. Why not ? But why to implicate God in these fashion issues?

In Iran, the chador does not conceal the face or the clothes of the woman.

The niqab is a light veil, placed on the nose, which conceals only the lower part of the face. It is worn with a black dress or abaya in Arabia.

In Afghanistan, and in parts of Pakistan or India, the chadri conceal the whole body and show only the lower legs, covered with pants (the woman under her veil is dressed in pants covered by a dress hanging just below the knees), occasionally her arms and hands. They are also called integral veils. The burqa, therefore, let only see the eyes, as it were, behind a kind of grid.

The burqa covers the entire body from head to toe. It also conceals the face, the view is only possible through a kind of grid in front of the eyes. It is also called integral veil.

One of my distant cousins from Canada sends me the following update on the hijab.

After the schools, the courts and the work milieus, the militants of the hijab are now storming the sports clubs. Two new incidents took place on this spring concerning the wearing of this scarf in sporting competitions.

How can a simple piece of cloth on the head constitute a legitimate impediment to participation?

In fact, if these veiled Muslims (who represent between 8 and 10% of Muslim women) are so attached to this veil, it is precisely because it is not just a piece of cloth. To try to see this clearly, let us ask why the hijab is a problem, while equally specific outfits such as Indian or African outfits do not seem to bother anyone. Even the veil of the beautiful Benazir Bhutto, the former president of Pakistan, did not give rise to any hostile reaction. So it is not the difference that disturbs [contrary to what the anti-racists say], but what is then expressed by this specific type of veil.

When a Muslim chooses to wear the hijab – and therefore to conceal her neck, ears, and hair - rather than another type of headscarf, a simple headband or a medal symbolizing Islam, she does not only express her Muslim identity, but the choice of a certain type of Islam, that is the fundamentalist Islam.

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She takes a step that distinguishes her from other Muslim women, and indicates that she now places her religion over any other consideration.

This choice of life regards only the concerned individual, but if the choice is made in complete freedom, they must accept the constraints that go with it. They do not have as it happens to ask that the civil society as a whole - from employers to sporting clubs - or public institutions such as schools and hospitals, change their rules to adjust to this choice.

If I enter a mosque, I must remove my shoes; in the same way, Muslims must accept the rules outside their religious universe.

But there is worse. The hijab has its history, and this history is not always pink; it is even rather red. The current wave of demands linked with the hijab comes from the 1979 Khomeinist revolution in Iran. The fundamentalist movement subsequently reached the countries of North Africa. In the 1980s and early 1990s, thousands of Iranian, Egyptian, Algerian, and Afghan women were raped, disfigured with vitriol, or had their throat cut for having not worn the veil. Muslim fundamentalism then overflowed into Europe and then on this side of the Atlantic.

The first case of hijab at school occurred in 1994 in Quebec, whereas in the early 1990s there was no hijab in Montreal, despite the fact that 45,000 Muslims were already living there. Of course, immigration is no longer the same.

But it is to be known also that a country like Turkey, of which 99% of the population is Muslim, has banned the wearing of the veil in its public institutions. Iran's Shah had done the same and Egyptian women also demanded its ban. Algeria before the Islamic Salvation Front, and the Palestine of the 1970s did not know this type of veil.

We may not be asked to ignore or forget this reality. Seen from this viewpoint, the hijab appears as a shroud; its banalization and its spreading sanction the victory of the fundamentalists. That some Muslims claim it in the name of a "spiritual process" does not change this fact.

Let man explain to us why the spiritual journey suddenly on the formal basis goes through the wearing of this imposed garment. If, on the other hand, it was really a question of expressing a spiritual progression, why would it be only the lot of women, and why is it imposed on non-Muslim women in Islamic states?

The hijab is in fact an instrument of regulation of the relationship between the sexes. This is the end of the thread of religious fundamentalism: pull up this thread and all the rest comes with it. A democratic society must know how to fix its rules and its limits and not give in to those who want to make their religious principles prevail over all the rules of social life, to the detriment of civil secular laws.

Daniel Baril. Quebec lay movement. C.P. 32132. Succ. St. Andre. Montreal H2L 4Y5.

The problem of the veil in Islam highlights the same type of hypocritical behavior, the same propensity to play on words or to refer to local practices which were not specifically religious in origin.

The wearing of the veil among women in the Middle East results in fact from a very old habit. Traces of it are found in the laws established by Tiglath-Pileser I, king of Assyria in the twelfth century before the common era (see our Essay on Judaism). They already stipulated that " Married women, widows and Assyrian women must not have their heads uncovered when they go out into the street….. A concubine on the street with her mistress (the wife) is to be veiled. A hierodule (sacred harlot) who has gotten married must be veiled on the street, but a single hierodule must have her head uncovered; she may not be veiled. A non-sacred harlot is not to be veiled; her head must be uncovered.”

St Paul, in the first of his "Epistles to the Corinthians" (Chapter XI, verses 4-16), also insists on the necessity for a woman to cover her head when she prays or prophesies. And he adds, "Because of the angels." For those who know what I mean!

Muslim psychosis about the seduction power of women has its origin in the chapter 24 verse 31 of the Quran (3 times longer than the verse devoted to the male flirtatiousness hurried in 5 lines) and has since given rise to a going wild generalization.

Except for elderly women, women who are frankly ugly, and those whose behavior is tinged with by masochism (there are some!); few Muslim women are really attached to this type of clothing, which changes them into as many anonymous sacks. They wear these humiliating garments only by obligation, and under the constraint of "traditions" imposed by men. This is particularly true in countries which still retain a semblance of secularism and in which the wearing of "Islamic" outfits is not made mandatory by the law. The wearing of a veil or a scarf being nothing else but a custom, in many

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Muslim countries, the woman beside does not mask her face. Certain Muslim peoples have never considered it necessary to impose the wearing of a veil or any outfit. Among the Tuaregs, it is the man who wears the veil while the woman has never worn it. Muslims who force their wives and daughters to wear the headscarf or veil do so much more to assert their authority (and their sickly jealousy) than by respect for any "divine law." There is nothing "revealed" in all this. Among Muslims, the wearing of a headscarf, a veil, a chador, a chadri, a niqab or a burqa is, in reality, a submission of woman to man, and even supposing He exists, God has nothing to do in all that!

Scarf which is limited to the covering of the hair, which leaves only the eyes as the only call for help, grids inflicted by the Taliban, or full covering of the face.... Officially a shield against male gazes, this veil protects Muslim societies against their own barbarism, by silencing half of their population.

* General problem: only a few dozens of hadiths, of the hundreds of thousands reported by tradition, are perhaps authentic, that is to say, some words, comings and goings (or absence of a word or even reaction) of Muhammad .

The others were invented in the 8th century, a century after the death of Muhammad, to serve various political camps.

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VARIOUS REQUIREMENTS, GOD IN ISLAM

DEALING REALLY WITH EVERYTHING.

FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATIONS AND OTHER MUTILATIONS.

Question now. Should the Americans in Boston return to the sword carrying in the street like in the eighteenth century, the Chinese women to their bound feet, the German women to their chastity belt? ? ? No ! Then, for pity’s sake (for God’s sake of course), may be the female genital mutilations admitted by some hadiths, finally forbidden.

Pious Muslims advocating female genital mutilation have as a shock argument that this is the equivalent of circumcision for boys (what is medically false) and that man must follow the religion of Abraham.

It is therefore important to begin by saying a few words of this novel character whose we will never be able to sufficiently highlight the harmful characteristics.

The existence of extraordinarily abundant archives (clay tablets) led to the conclusion that the name "Abraham" is found in different epochs and places of Mesopotamia without any particular use in Ur may be recorded. Moreover, the migrations in Mesopotamia are now rather well known and none matches the path of the biblical account, from Ur to Palestine. Archaeologists also find that the geography of Palestine at the supposed age of Abraham does not correspond to the biblical account (the town of Beer Sheva did not exist in the 19th century before our era, Abraham could not have camels at that time because they were not domesticated, etc.etc.)

The book of the Bible in which the story of Abraham is narrated was probably written between the seventh and fifth centuries before our era by combining narratives of various origins gathered by several editors. This seems to reflect a belated origin compared to other older patriarchal figures like that of Jacob and the idea of a character who really lived in the second millennium is given up by most researchers. The conclusion of the scientific studies is therefore the non-historicity of Abraham, it is a biblical character and not a historical personage.

Conclusion.

1) Abraham never existed. Let us say more precisely that it is a patriarch more legendary or mythical than historical. First step of embroidering about him.

2) That the Bible embroidered on the traditions concerning this patriarch who at the beginning was only a patriarch among others like Jacob, for example. There was, therefore, a squared embroidering about him in the Bible. At this stage we can therefore speak of fake.

3) That Muhammad artificially claimed to be affiliated with this Jewish myth by adding his own embroidering to the already existing embroidering, in order to overawe the rabbis in Yathrib / Medina. The Abraham of Islam is therefore a still worse fake, some embroidering to the power three.

Let us now come to the argument of the Muslims who defend female genital mutilation.

Hadiths.

Bukhari 5891, Muslim 527. Abu Hurayrah said: I heard the Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) say: "The fitrah is five things - or five things are part of the fithrah - circumcision ,shaving the pubes, trimming the mustache , cutting the nails and plucking the ampit hairs.

Ahmad Ibn Hanbal 5:75, Abu Daoud, Adab 167. Abu al-Malih ibn, Usama's father relates that the Prophet said: "Circumcision is a law for men and a preservation of honor for women ."

There is no hadith showing that Muhammad has demanded that his wives or daughters be "circumcised," but there is one where he advised operating without being heavy -handed. It was reported by Abu Dawud (5271).

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Sunan Abu Dawud 41: 5251. Narrated Umm Atiyyah al-Ansariyyah: A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said to her: Do not cut down severely because it is better for a woman and it is more desirable for a husband.

But the opinions differ with regard to this hadith. Some have classified it as da'if (weak) and others have classified it as sahih. It was considered sahih by Al-Albaani and Abu Dawud.

Historical attestation of the practice.

Reliance of the Traveler. e4.3. Circumcision is obligatory (for every male and female) by cutting the piece of skin on the glans of the penis of the male, but circumcision of the female is by cutting out the clitoris (this is called hufad).

The traditional Islam is therefore an infernal machine not only for non-Muslims, but also, paradoxically, an instrument of oppression striking its own followers.

Editors note. As for the criticism of circumcision for medical reasons, pious Muslims argue that it is enough something has been attested by the Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) so that is good and not evil. If it was evil, God and his messenger (peace and blessings of God be upon him) would never have prescribed it.

But severe or not severe, the female genital mutilation is a mutilation of the woman. And let us not speak of infibulation, and of the deflowering with a dagger! In Mali, as in other African countries, imams agree to perpetuate shameful practices, a real mutilation that runs against the most basic rights of the human person. 80% of Malian women between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine are still circumcised despite laws passed by the government. It is the Limala (Malian League of Imams and scholars for Islamic solidarity) (sic) that is the most directly opposed to the law prohibiting female genital mutilation although, according to its spokesman, female genital mutilation is " optional in the Muslim religion ." In other words, it is a custom, covered by Islam, which is applied " being based on whether you like the look of the customer" without any real need. Another crime against humanity among many others, under the pretext of religion.

A God [like that of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob] who requires from his believers to mutilate themselves to mark them, by their sex, as cattle is branded, is a God of dubious morals. It can be understood that male or female circumcision, like any other medical surgery, can be justified in specific cases and on individual medical indications. But mutilating children, boys or girls, by pretending to do them some good, falls within fanaticism. And in this field there is no reason to justify the distinction between female circumcision and male circumcision. Dr. Gerard Zwang goes even further, he affirms: "Female circumcision will never stop as long as male circumcision is going on. How do you expect to convince an African father to leave his daughter uncircumcised as long as you let him do it to his son?"

Religion has been an instrument to justify male and female circumcision. It would therefore be necessary to unmask its irrational nature, and to denounce the harmful role of certain religious circles which defend it, or who refuse to fight it.

RETURN TO THE RIGHT FOR A HUSBAND TO BEAT HIS WIFE. Quran chapter 4 verse 34: "... As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Lo! God is ever High, Exalted, Great”).

The professional liars already at work about the word jihad (political journalists or taqiyyist intellectuals by profession), evidently claim that the Arabic verb in question does not mean in any way bodily punishment in this case but a simple putting back on the right track by the very fact of the separation. The whole question is: "How did the average Muslim, the Muslim in the street, understood this verse over the centuries?" The Quran is, of course, a perfect work, but it must be noted that on this point it should have been clearer.

For comparison there were four obligations for those who were admitted in the Irish Fenians.

The first obligation was not to accept a marriage portion when they married, but to take a wife only for her education and qualities, the second commandment was never to force a woman the third obligation never to refuse to give a man asking for some valuable object or food, etc.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Quran verse 222 Chapter 2.

"They question the concerning menstruation. Say: It is an illness so let women alone at such times and do not go in unto them till they are cleansed !”(Let us put more rightly: it is a natural biological and physiological phenomenon linked to the renewal of life).

Quran verse 223, chapter 2. "Your women are a tilth for you so go to your tilth as you will.”

Editor's note. It would appear that this saying is the answer to objections regarding the position to be taken during sexual intercourse. The Meccan muhajirun (immigrants) settled in Yathrib / Medina apparently did not have the same ways of doing as the Jews and the Ansars of the town.

Sunan Abu Dawud: Book 11, Number 2157. Narrated AbuHurayrah: The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: He who has intercourse with his wife through her anus is accursed.

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But as it is mentioned higher the problem is that only a few dozens of hadiths, of the hundreds of thousands reported by tradition, are perhaps authentic, that is to say, some words, comings and goings (or absence of a word or even reaction) of Muhammad .The others were invented in the 8th century, a century after the death of Muhammad, to serve various political camps.

INHERITANCE WILL AND TESTIMONY.

INHERITANCE.

This same inequality of treatment to the detriment of women prevails in the inheritances. Quran 4, 11: "to the male the equivalent of the portion of two females." The scorn in which women are held breaks out in this equivalence. How may we treat the woman "with righteousness" and, at the same time, reduce her inheritance to half that of a man! And it's worse when the wife is not Muslim. In such a case, she is not entitled to anything. This is called disinheritance.

The Quran innovates in relation to the time of the (pre-Islamic) Jahiliyyah by standardizing the customs that until then differed from one region to another.

The Quran is very precise about the different beneficiaries of the inheritance of the deceased, it is itself sufficient for establishing the inheritance laws without even using the Sunnah. The verses on this subject are found in the chapter 4 titled "Women."

Verses 11 and 12 of the chapter 4 heading "the women."

" God charges you concerning your children: to the male the equivalent of the portion of two females [a Muslim woman therefore generally has only half the rights of a Muslim man but has many more duties, including sexual as we will see] and if there be women more than two, then theirs is two thirds of the inheritance, and if there be one (only) then the half. And to each of his parents a sixth of the inheritance, if he has a son; and if he has no son and his parents are his heirs, then to his mother appertains the third; and if he has brethren, then to his mother appertains the sixth, after any legacy he may have bequeathed, or debt (hath been paid). Your parents and your children: you do not know which of them is nearer unto you in usefulness. It is an injunction from God. Lo! God is Knower, Wise.

And unto you belong a half of that which your wives leave, if they have no child; but if they have a child then unto you the fourth of that which they leave, after any legacy they may have bequeathed, or debt (they may have contracted, hath been paid). And unto them belongs the fourth of that which you leave if you have no child, but if you have a child then the eighth of that which you leave, after any legacy you may have bequeathed, or debt (you may have contracted, has been paid). And if a man or a woman have a distant heir (having left neither parent nor child), and he (or she) have a brother or a sister then to each of them twain (the brother and the sister) the sixth, and if they be more than two, then they shall be sharers in the third, after any legacy that may have been bequeathed or debt (contracted) not injuring (the heirs by willing away more than a third of the heritage) hath been.”

Verse 176.

“They ask thee for a pronouncement. Say: God hath pronounced for you concerning distant kindred. If a man die childless and he have a sister, hers is half the heritage, and he would have inherited from her had she died childless. And if there be two sisters, then theirs are two thirds of the heritage, and if they be brethren, men and women, unto the male is the equivalent of the share of two females. God expoundeth unto you, so that you err not. God is Knower of all things”.

WILL.

Verse 180 of chapter 2. "It is prescribed for you, when death approaches one of you, if he leave wealth, that he bequeath unto parents and near relatives in kindness.”

Some doctors in Muslim law nevertheless consider that God having prescribed the bequest long before the sharing of the inheritance the verse on the bequest is therefore abrogated.

These Quranic verses will be the main source with regard to the inheritance law. The Sunna, for its part, does not speak much about it except a hadith where Muhammad confirms the elements stated in the Quran by saying: "God has given everyone who is entitled his rights" but by adding, "No will concerning the heir" (Sunan al-Tirmidhi 2046).

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Same hadith in the Sunan Abu-Dawud, Book 11, Number 2864. Narrated Abu Hurairah: “I heard the Apostle of God (peace be upon him) say: God has appointed for everyone who has rights what is due to him, and no bequest must be made to an heir”.

It is a hadith so celebrated among the ulama that it became a maxim.

There will be no question in this chapter of questioning the authenticity of all these hadiths (the vast majority of which appear only a century after the death of Muhammad and obviously to serve such and such a political camp).

According to Professor François-Paul Blanc, Muhammad would have merged the patriarchal traditions of Arabia with the customs of Mecca, where an ancient regime of matriarchy would have survived (see the status of the first wife of Muhammad, Khadija and the worship of the goddesses Manat Alat Al Uzza ). Still according to Professor François-Paul Blanc, his compromise was easily accepted by his companions, who came from Mecca, but much less by the Ansar, native of Medina. Whatever it be this hadith has become a dogma concerning the sharing of successions between men and women.

There are cases when the woman alone inherits (when the man is unrelated or lost his rights).

There are more than 10 cases when the woman receives more than the man (when the relationship of the woman is closer to the deceased than that of the man).

There are more than eight cases when the woman inherits the same share as the man (usually also when her relationship to the deceased is closer than that of a man).

There are 4 cases when the woman inherits half of what man inherits.

There is a case where there is disinheritance: when the woman is not or is no longer of a Muslim denomination.

In all other cases man inherits more than woman according to the spirit of verse 11 of the chapter 4 titled "women."

Editor’s note. The Shi'ite Qarmatians had instituted equality between men and women in the inheritance law, what simplified everything.

IN ISLAM'S LAND, THE INHERITANCE IS THEREFORE A "NON-BODILY" VIOLENCE MADE TO WOMEN.

The exegetes and the jurists, the former ones as well as the new ones, continue to seek solutions enabling them to avoid facing reality.

- Some submit the Divine Text to reflection and reflect on the very structure of the verse 8 of the Surah of the women: " When kinsfolk and orphans and the needy are present at the division (of the heritage), bestow on them therefrom and speak kindly unto them” but they add a comment having serious consequences: " if the wealth is abundant ." Now if God had wished to set his condition, he would have done so.

-Others have realized the dangerous nature of such a misdemeanor : they have considered the legacy as a definite prescription and recognized that the man / woman is free to leave one’s wealth to whomever he wants, man or woman, parent, poor or even someone transiting.

-Finally, others strive to reconcile the extremes and adopt the attitude commonly shared by the different orientations of legal scholars: they admit the legitimacy of the legacy, but make it dependent on a fundamental condition drawn from a saying attributed to Muhammad : "No legacy to the heir" to which they add the following clarification: "There is no legacy except within one third of the succession. "

What's really sacred about all this?

Religious institutions excel in the art of adopting the positions of the ancients and of legitimizing them. They have set themselves up as exclusive representatives of the word of God, to whom they attribute all that corresponds to their own views, and call impious people all those who seek to know the lot reserved to some provisions which are no longer seen in the Quranic text. We shall simply cite, as an example, the inheritance of the grandfather when the child having himself children, died before. The simplest way is that grandchildren divide the share that should have come down to their father or mother equally. But in Muslim law it is not the case. In this case (father or mother who died before his own father or mother), grandchildren are entitled to nothing. The reason is that in Muslim law the closest relatives exclude totally the more distant relatives in the order of succession.

The Quran remedies this situation by another provision: when the uncles and aunts have divided the inheritance from their father or mother, they should have given a portion of it to their nephews, as stipulated in the chapter 4, in the verse about inheritance: " When kinsfolk and orphans and the needy are present at the division (of the heritage), bestow on them therefrom and speak kindly unto them.”

The grandfather could also have given a legacy to these grandchildren. This legacy is considered obligatory and imprescriptible by some lawyers.

The simplest nonetheless would have been as the Shi'ite Qarmatians thought that the grandchildren share the part that should have come down to their father or mother.

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But any researcher who has tackled this subject in order to understand its historical origins has been considered a troublemaker. And all those who have questioned the circumstances in which the prescribed verses have been revealed have been accused of generating dissension among Muslims, although the Elders themselves have questioned this, causing thus an endless and dead end , polemic.

Moreover, the Quran does not mention all the cases concerning inheritance. This is why jurists have, throughout history, needed to imagine all the jurisprudence dealing with inheritances and whose provisions were rather complex in the image of the structural complexity of society.

Then, these provisions were transmitted from generation to generation, without taking into account the situations of the societies and their internal dynamics.

This "science" has therefore become obsolete and anachronistic, because the structure of today's society can no longer bear, in the field of succession, questions or provisions falling within polygamy of the kind the husband who dies "leaving three widows, two grandmothers, eight half-sisters of the same father and four half-sisters of the same mother ."

Or "Seventeen women have inherited seventeen dinars that they had to share at a rate of a dinar per person" (Al Qarafi, Al Dhakhirah, volume 13, page 76).

What is positive in these legal cases that the fuqaha (jurist)s have studied is that these texts have constantly shown that the approach of the ancients was only a cultural product and that these legal answers sought their legitimacy in customs more than in the Quran itself.

When we look at the sources of the fiqh we can indeed observe a troubling fact. During the first ten centuries of the Hegira, the Muslim societies did not feel compelled to apply laws resulting from a minimum of ijtihad. The case of inheritance shows clearly that or legal subterfuges or sub-laws paved ways out avoiding confrontation with an ijtihad aimed at overcoming the laws that regulate everyday life and prevent from reaching a certain social balance.

TESTIMONY.

In the land of Islam after the death of their parents or spouse, the women have no right to something (non-Muslim wife by birth or become such, prohibition of wills in favor of heirs, etc.) or only to half of the share of their brothers, or even only to a third, at least always less, by virtue of very strange reasoning of the type, "Then divide by the number you first thought of.”

Let us note finally that in the Quran and therefore in lands of Islam, in terms of testimony, a woman is worth only half a man.

Chapter 2: 282. “Call two witnesses from among your men. And if two men are not at hand, then a man and two women.”

The testimony of a woman therefore is only half that of a man (except in cases of abortion, considered specifically female). A Muslim woman, moreover, generally has only half the rights of a Muslim man , but has many more duties, including sexual ones.

First hadith.The Messenger of God (peace be upon him) said: "If the man called his wife to his needs, let she will be for him, even if he is at the stove."

Second hadith: "If the husband called his wife to bed, and she refused, the angels will curse her until the morning."

Third hadith. Omar Khayyam (1048-1122): “Close your Quran. Think in freedom and look with open mind at heaven and earth.”

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WORKING WOMEN OR HOUSEWIVES.

The opinion of the great Muslim thinker, Shaykh Ibn Baaz (rahimahullaah).Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia from 1993 until his death in 1999.

Question: What is the Islamic ruling on the woman working and her leaving the home with her clothing which we see in the street, the school, the home, etc. Also (what is the ruling on) the country woman working with her husband in the field?

Answer: There is no doubt that Islam brought nobility to the woman, preservation of her, protection of her from the wolves. It preserved her rights and raised her station. It made her have a share, along with the male, in the inheritance and prohibited the killing of the female infants. It made obligatory seeking her permission in marriage and granted her unrestricted control of her wealth when she is upright. It made obligatory on her husband many rights (he must fulfill) for her. It has made obligatory on her father and her relatives spending upon her for her needs. It has made obligatory upon her covering from foreign men looking at her so that she does not become a cheap commodity that is enjoyed by everyone.

As for a woman working along with her husband in the field, the factory, or the house, then there is no harm in that . Likewise (if she works) along with her mahrams when there is not a foreign (non-Mahram) man with them. And likewise (she can work) along with the women. It is only prohibited for her to work along with men who are not mahram for her. Because that leads to great evil and tremendous trials, like leading to being alone with her and seeing some of her beauty. The Sharee’ah brought obtainment of the benefits along with perfection of them, as well as repelling the harms and minimizing them. And it has blocked the ways leading to what God has forbidden in numerous places (in the Quran and Sunnah). There is no path to happiness, honor, and salvation in this life and the next except by firmly grasping the Sharee’ah (Quran and Sunnah), sticking to its rulings, warning from what opposes it, calling to it, and having patience in that (call).

Question: Is it upon the woman to work since the Messenger – (we ask that) God raise his rank and grant him peace – commanded us to work – I mean working outside of the home?

Answer: When she does not have money, nor anyone to spend upon her, it is for her to work, rather it is obligatory for her to work in order to live and preserve her life. She must work as a seamstress or in a trade that she is good at – weaving, or other than that. Something that she can do without mixing with men, and without being alone with men – in her house or in a protected place – where there is no cause for suspicion. She can work doing what she is able, from weaving, sewing, from the art, or other than that from what she is able to in order to preserve her life and those under her care from her offspring.

As for when she has someone to take care of her – (like) her father, or her husband, then it is not upon her to work. Rather, she is sufficed with this and works taking care of the home and in the obedience of her husband.

The Messenger of God (peace be upon him) categorically prohibited privacy between a man and a non-related woman. He said," Satan is always the third."12)

He also prohibited traveling except in the presence of mahram males in order to close the door to the roads that lead to evil and sins and to protect the two parties from the plotting of Satan. That is why he said, "Be wary and cautious of this world and be wary and cautious of women. The first trial that afflicted the Tribes of Israel was with respect to women."3).

Another hadith states,

"I have not left behind me any temptation more harmful for men than women."2)

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These clear verses and Ahadith indicate that it is obligatory to avoid the mixing of the sexes that leads to evil and lewdness and the destruction of societies. The wise people in those lands and in the lands of the West are calling for the return of the woman to her natural roles that God has prepared her for and for which her body and mind are attuned to.

There are enough jobs for women in their houses, teaching positions and other places related to women that make unnecessary for her to take on jobs in the workplace of men. We ask God to protect our land and the lands of all Muslims from the plots and machinations of their enemies. May God guide those who are in charge and the rest of the media to lead people to what is best for them in both this life and the Hereafter. May God guide them executing the commands of their Lord and Creator who is most knowledgeable of what is in their best interests.

………….

Free intermixing of men and women in the workplace plays a major role in the deterioration and the corruption of nations. It is known that among the reasons behind the fall of the Roman and the Greek civilizations was women’s engagement in the fields of men that led to men’s corruption and abandoning the acts that should lead to the prosperity of their nations. Women’s work will lead to the unemployment of men, deterioration of the nation, family disorders, and decline of morals. It also contradicts what God has mentioned with regard to men’s domestic authority over women. Islam is keen to protect women from all that is against her nature. Islam has prohibited her from ruling a country or hold the position of a judge. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: Never will succeed such a people who place a woman in charge of their affairs. (Related by Al-Bukhari in his Sahih) Allowing women to work in the fields of men is against her happiness and stability. Islam forbids women to work in fields that do not befit her. It is proven, especially in societies where the two sexes intermix freely that men and women are not naturally equivalent. It is clear in the Quran and the Sunnah that both sexes are different in nature and duties. Those who call for equality between the two sexes……are ignorant or intentionally ignore the basic differences between them.

Some Muslim thinkers, more revolutionary, admit that women have the right to work. But in examining all this more closely, what we see is that the trades they think of are, for example, female teachers (for girls), doctors and nurses (for women), and so on. According to these learned thinkers, women may exercise all the trades, except:

1 Those that are incompatible with his belief, such as cleaning sewers, fishing in lakes and rivers (??)

2 Those that are incompatible with her female nature: controller, police officer, she dancer?

3 Those she is bodily unable to perform, such as factory work.

4 Those which require the use of a horse or bicycle.

5 Those which require the use of reason: she cannot be a magistrate or imam. Other thinkers forbid the jobs of an actress, air hostess or saleswoman.

The arguments most frequently put forward to justify these prohibitions are...

1 Her mental faculties are limited.

2 Her psychological weaknesses due to menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth.

3 Her female nature: she is made to stay at home, take care of the children and meet the sexual needs of her husband.

The very example of Muhammad as well as the hadiths are unequivocal on this subject.

The wife must at all times be ready to meet the needs of her husband, except in cases where it is not permitted to Sharia (haida state or nifaas). At other times, she has no right to refuse him. The Messenger of God (peace be upon him) said: "If the man called his wife to his needs, let she will be for him, even if he is at the stove." In another hadith says: "If the husband called his wife to bed, and she refused, the angels will curse her until the morning." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 3065 and Muslim, 1436.) If a wife refuses to respond to her husband’s request for intercourse, therefore she has done something haram and has committed a major sin, unless she has a valid shar’i excuse such as menses, obligatory fasting, sickness, etc.3).

If women play some role in many Islamic societies - where religion is the most formidable barrier to the liberation of the mind, to the rightness of discernment, and the freedom of speech; it was indeed in spite of Islam that they got it. In most of the countries where the Quranic law prevails, men with impunity or almost, may murder their daughters or sisters not submitting to the injunctions of the Quran; and especially those who go out with non-Muslim men, or without being married to them (honor killings).

Let us recognize, nevertheless, that there are some trades which are hardly made for women: underground miner, marine with a knife between the teeth! On the other hand, why not a woman admiral?

Footnote

1. Recorded by Ahmad and al-Tirmidhi. See also Al-Albani, Sahih al-Jami, volume. 1, p. 234.

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2. Recorded by al-Bukhari and Muslim.

3. For more information contact ...

Men: deenulqayyem @ gmail.com.

Women: heritagedesprophetes @ hotmail.com.

The website Din ul Qayyim- On the way to the Salaf-us-Sâlih- does not respond to hateful messages, questions about your personal life to questions of fiqh to requests for marriage to polemics and other debates.

FATE IN THE HEREAFTER.

It was narrated from the Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) that women will form the majority of the people of Hell. It was indeed narrated from Imran ibn Husayn that the Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) said: “I looked into Paradise and I saw that the majority of its people were the poor. And I looked into Hell and I saw that the majority of its people are women”( al-Bukhari, 3241; Muslim, 2737).

The Prophet (peace and blessings of God be upon him) was asked about it and he explained the reason.

It was narrated that Abd-Allah ib Abbas (may God be pleased with him) said: The Messenger of God (peace and blessings of God be upon him) said: “I was shown Hell and I have never seen anything more terrifying than it. I saw that the majority of its people are women.” They said, “Why, O Messenger of God?” He said, “Because of their ingratitude (kufr).” Are they ungrateful to God?” He said, “They are ungrateful to their companions (husbands) and ungrateful for good treatment. If you are kind to one of them for a lifetime then she sees one (undesirable) thing in you, she will say, ‘I have never had anything good from you.’” (al-Bukhari, 1052)

It was narrated according to Abu Sa’eed al-Khudri (may God be pleased with him) “The Messenger of God (peace and blessings of God be upon him) went out to the musalla (prayer place) on the day of Eid al-Adha or Eid al-Fitr. He passed by the women and said, ‘O women! Give charity, for I have seen that you form the majority of the people of Hell.’ They asked, ‘Why is that, O Messenger of God?’ He replied, ‘You curse frequently and are ungrateful to your husbands. I have not seen anyone more deficient in intelligence and religious commitment than you. A cautious sensible man could be led astray by some of you.’ The women asked, ‘O Messenger of God, what is deficient in our intelligence and religious commitment?’ ‘Is not the testimony of two women equal to the testimony of one man?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ And He added, ‘This is the deficiency in her intelligence. Now is it not true that a woman can neither pray nor fast during her menses?’ ‘Yes.’ The Messenger of God then added, ‘This is the deficiency in her religious commitment.’(al-Bukhaari, 304).

On the other hand, the Quran remains very discreet about the Heaven of women: they will simply have the right to find in the Hereafter their earthly husband ... and to attend their debates perhaps.

“Lo! for the duteous is achievement ,gardens enclosed and vineyards, and maidens for companions, and a full cup” (Quran 78: 31 to 33).

" Reclining upon couches lined with silk brocade, the fruit of both the gardens near to hand……. Therein are those of modest gaze, whom neither man nor jinni will have touched before them…..(In beauty) like the jacinth and the coral stone (Quran 55: 54-58).

“The foremost in the race: those are they who will be brought nigh in gardens of delight […..] on lined couches, reclining therein face to face. There wait on them immortal youths with bowls and ewers and a cup from a pure spring wherefrom they get no aching of the head nor any madness, and fruit that they prefer [….] and (there are) fair ones with wide, lovely eyes, like unto hidden pearls, reward for what they used to do” (Quran 56:VI, 10-22).

" Lo! We have created them in a perfect way and made them virgins, to be lovers and friends to those on his right hand” (Quran 56: 35-38).

" There for them are pure companions; there for ever they abide “ (Quran 2: 25).

N.B. It is not said what the low-grade delivery staff in Heaven (virgins, houris, youths and various servants) will become after use. It is not said whether the "pure companions" that virtuous men will find in Heaven will be those they already had on earth, repackaged as virgins, or some others.

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CONCLUSION.

It is with respect to women that Islam reveals its anachronism and its most unequal aspects. Islam has perpetuated up to the present day an archaic, unfair and unequal view of the rights (or rather of the lack of rights) of women. For a Muslim of strictest observance, wife is nothing but a kind of slave who owes the utmost obedience to her "master."

It was only during the period known as "Abbasid" that the Muslim women straightened their heads a little. Arab girls were even seen fighting in the ranks of armies, just as men did.

The Quran reduces the woman to the rank of a spectator and servant of man. She may be exchanged ("exchange one wife for another" is the expression used in verse 20 of chapter 4 of the Quran) or rejected (repudiated) as for any product deemed fit for consumption; she is dependent of the husband in the same way as the cattle. The master may use her as he sees fit and even use force against her (Quran 4: 34). To speak here of misogyny is too weak to express the contempt and submission of which women are victims. Adultery seems to be a woman's exclusivity.

The Muslim world has remained faithful to these prehistoric precepts. By giving the Quran an immutable character, Muslims perpetuate habits and customs that in other communities no longer prevail for centuries. In this they are joined by the "ultra-Orthodox" Jews (Haredim), the same ones who constitute the hard core of the Israeli right wing. The fascist methods of this extreme, warlike and racist right wing are all too well known. Methods that are very similar to those of the most radical Islamist factions. It is these religious fascists who have claimed (and got) Kosher buses (with separate compartments for men and women).

Islam is a carrier of a fundamentally unequal image of the sexes. In many Muslim communities, men have assumed the power of life or death over women and girls (honor killings). It is adult men (or pre-adults) who "reign supreme," and impose their will on women, girls, and children. Islam does not give freedom to women; the Quranic laws leave them no possibility of liberation in society. Husbands have the right to punish their wives (Quran 4: 34), to take their children from them, they can repudiate them in a few minutes, and even without their knowledge, by disinheriting them entirely for the benefit of a younger one.

In addition to this right of punishment , imprisonment, and repudiation, or of custody of children, reserved for the husband; there is also a legal inferiority of women in terms of testimony and inheritance, with even outright disinheritance in the case of a non-Muslim wife.

Our conclusion will be as follows: any person, whether a journalist or a politician (in any case they are the same), affirms that Islam recognizes the same civil or civic rights for women .... IS LYING.

Men predominate over women (2:228; 4:34). Women are inferior to men in law: she inherits a half share (4:11-12, 176) and in a court her testimony is worth half a man's testimony (2:282). The wife must remain at home (33:33). Her husband must strike her not if she disobeys but as soon as she suspects she might think of disobeying (4:4).

A man may have up to four wives (4: 3). The breaking of the marriage can be done by agreement (4:130) or by repudiation solely at the initiative of the husband. If she is repudiated, before being thrown out, the husband may confine her for three menstrual periods to make sure she is not pregnant (65:1). Adultery is punished with death (4:15). Slaves can be married or serve as forced concubines in addition to authorized wives (4:3, 4:25, 33:52, 70, 30).

NB. Muslim theologians do not include forced sexual intercourse in the concept of ill-treatment because the duty of a wife is, of course, to satisfy her husband sexually whatever the circumstances, even if she is working at the stove. There are many hadiths or opinions of theologians on the subject.

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In short, in summary, a Muslim woman usually has only half the rights of a Muslim man but has many more duties, including sexual duties, towards the Muslim man.

“Men are in charge of women, because God hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which God hath guarded. As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them. Lo! God is ever great” (4:34).

THE RAQIQ OR SLAVES.

SCRIPTURAL BASES.

Slavery for economic reasons (debt) is allowed in the Old Testament part of the Bible. 7 years for Jews, or for life in the case of voluntary service (?) For an indefinite period if they are non-Jews (Deuteronomy 15: 12-15).

The part of the Bible situated ontologically at the same level as the Quran, the Four Gospels, is silent on the question.

In the New Testament part of the Bible, two letters by St. Paul admit the existence of slavery (Ephesians 6: 9 and Colossians 4: 1).

The fact is, then, that during the first centuries of our era there were Christians having some slaves, and it is perfectly true that the Nazarene great Rabbi Jesus never asked for the explicit abolition of slavery, has never required his followers that they have no slaves, but unlike Muhammad at least he has never personally owned slaves, for the fact that Muhammad personally had slaves, sexual or not, changes everything for a pious Muslim. Muhammad indeed captured slaves, sold slaves, bought slaves, received slaves as a gift (e.g., the Coptic Mary, offered to Muhammad by the governor of Alexandria, Egypt). We know indeed the name of at least one of the sex slaves of Muhammad. When the delegate from Muhammad visited the Christian head of Egypt (Muaqaqis) with an invitation for him to convert to Islam, he refused to do so, but knowing the taste of Muhammad, he presented him with two beautiful and sexy slave girls who were sisters. Muhammad took Mary, the most beautiful one for himself and gave her sister, Sirin, to his friend, Hassan ibn Thabit . Mary will give birth to Ibrahim, Muhammad’s last child who died in infancy.

The Sira or life of Muhammad by Ibn Ishaq translated by Guillaume is very clear on the subject. Slavery is evident in the Quran. It focuses particularly on the women captured during lesser jihads, changed into sexual slaves, what is, of course, a powerful incentive to recruit fighters as we have had the opportunity to see it with the siege of Ta’if which followed the battle of Hunayn in 630: 2000 Meccans only for the lure of profits and fresh flesh.

Abu Dawud (2150) - "The Apostle of God sent a military expedition to Awtas on the occasion of the battle of Hunayn. They met their enemy and fought with them. They defeated them and took them captives. Some of the Companions of the apostle of God were reluctant to rape the female captives because of their pagan husbands. So God sent down the Quranic verse, "And all married women (are forbidden) unto you save those (captives) whom your right hands possess" (4: 24).

Small semantic precision. The Arabic expression Malak-ul-Yameen, “that your right hand possesses” actually means slaves or women who have become the property of a Muslim as a result of war or purchase.

Following the various interventions of the United (for once) Nations on the subject, since the 19th century, slavery is no longer practiced massively and openly in the land of Islam (Dar al Islam) , but the problem of Islam is that his founder and model, Muhammad, himself had slaves, himself made slaves, and personally endorsed this practice. Including that of sexual slaves. So that certain passages from the sacred book of Muslims or some hadiths justify and legitimize the existence of slavery.

A non-Muslim therefore can very well be the slave of a Muslim, but a Muslim cannot belong as a slave to one of his co-religionists EXCEPT IF THE CONVERSION HAD PLACED AFTER ENSLAVEMENT .THEREFORE THERE COULD EXIST MUSLIMS SLAVES OF OTHER MUSLIMS.

The verses of the Quran legitimating the practice of slavery now.

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Verse 3, chapter 4. " Marry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if you fear that you cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only) or (the captives) that your right hands possess.

Verses 24-25, chapter 4. " And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess…… And who is not able to afford to marry free, believing women, let them marry from the believing maids whom your right hands possess….. If when they are honorably married, they commit lewdness they shall incur the half of the punishment (prescribed) for free women (in that case).

Editor’s note. The bright side of being inferior. The free Muslim woman is superior to the Muslim slave, superior to the non-Muslim slave that Muslims possess (e.g., Mary the Coptic, one of Muhammad's slaves), superior to Christian women, superior to Jewish women, and so on…..

Verse 36 chapter 4. “Serve God. Ascribe nothing as partner unto him. (Show) kindness unto parents, and unto near kindred, and orphans, and the needy, and unto the neighbor who is of kin (unto you) and the neighbor who is not of kin, and the fellow traveler and the wayfarer and (the slaves) whom your right hands possess. Lo! God does not love such as are hubristic and boastful.”

Verse 52, chapter 33. " It is not allowed you to take (other) women henceforth, nor that you should change them for other wives even though their beauty pleased thee, save those whom thy right hand possesses.”

Verses 1 to 6 chapter 23. " Successful indeed are the believers…..and who guard their modesty save from their wives or the (slaves) that their right hands possess, for then they are not blameworthy”.

Verse 29, chapter 70 ." Those who preserve their chastity save with their wives and those whom their right hands possess, for thus they are not blameworthy.”

There are Muslims who are hypocritical enough (taqiyya) or unaware of the Sunna to claim that there is no hierarchy in Islam or legitimization of slave trade but the founding texts (Quran hadiths Sira) are categorical. Or they did not open them to the right pages.

Sira of Ibn Ishaq by Alfred Guillaume page 466: " Then the apostle sent Sa`d b. Zayd al-Ansari brother of b. `Abdu'l-Ashhal with some of the captive women of B. Qurayza to Najd and he sold them for horses and weapons. [page 466]

Hadiths.

Sahih Muslim Book 010, Hadith Number 3901. Jabir (God be pleased with him) reported: There came a slave and pledged allegiance to God's Apostle (may peace be upon him) on migration; he (the Holy Prophet) did not know that he was a slave. Then there came his master and demanded him back, whereupon God’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) said: Sell him to me. And he bought him for two black slaves, and he did not afterwards take allegiance from anyone until he had asked him whether he was a slave (or a free man).

Malik's Muwatta: Book 28, Number 28.14.33.Yahya related to me……that Umar ibn al-Khattab was asked about a woman and her daughter who were in the possession of the right hand, and whether one could have intercourse with one of them after the other Umar said, "I dislike both being allowed together." He then forbade that.

Malik's Muwatta: Book 28, Number 28.14.34. Yahya related to me ….that a man asked Uthman ibn Affan what if one could intercourse with two sisters who one owned. Uthman said, "One verse makes them halal, and one verse makes them ashamed. "

Malik’s Muwatta : Book 2, Number 2.23.90.Yahya related..... that the slave girls of Abdullah ibn Umar used to wash his feet and bring him a mat of palm leaves while they were menstruating.

Malik was asked whether a man who had women and slave girls could have intercourse with all of them before his ablution (ghusl). He said, "There is no harm in a man having intercourse with two of his slave girls before his ablution (ghusl). It is disapproved of, however, to go to a freewoman on another's day. There is no harm in making love first to one slave girl and then to another when one is junub (impure)."

The opposite of taqiyya (intellectual honesty therefore) requires clear acknowledgment that there are verses in the Quran asking for the freeing of slaves.

Chapter 90 verses 12-16. “And what will convey unto you what the ascent is! - (It is) to free a slave, and to feed in the day of hunger an orphan near of kin, or some poor wretch in misery.”

Let us observe, however, that this very short verse was "revealed" to Muhammad at a time when the Muslim community was tiny and many of its potential recruits were in fact slaves or slaves newly freed. Many of these early Muslims, and Muhammad himself, subsequently became owners of male and female slaves as they became powerful enough to do so. The tone of the Quran subsequently changed to justify slavery, what explains why this verse had only a negligible impact on slavery in the Muslim world. Contrary to the dominant ideology in this regard, converting to Islam does not necessarily give a slave his freedom, although the emancipation of a slave is presented as useful to go to heaven.

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Chapter 4 verse 92. " It is not for a believer to kill a believer unless (it be) by mistake. He who hath killed a believer by mistake must set free a believing slave, and pay the blood- money to the family of the slain, unless they remit it as a charity. If he (the victim) be of a people hostile unto you, and he is a believer, then (the penance is) to set free a believing slave.”

Editor’s note. The expression "blood- money" is a direct reference to the law of Talion, which allows the family of the victim of a murder to demand that a member of the murderer's family be killed for compensation. Finally, no remorse is demanded from the murderer, since it is enough for him to deprive himself from a slave (considered as a vulgar movable) or, if he cannot do without his slave, from food, in order to get his forgiveness.

In Islam, freeing a slave and generosity are often presented as means of expiating sins. If alms are part of the pillars of Islam, however, there are no verses that call into question the system of slavery. But a truly good person refuses the very idea of owning a human being.

But of the five references to slave emancipation in the Quran, three are ordered as punishment in the face of various sins committed by the slave owners, and in all three cases one slave is freed. Another case of freeing authorizes a slave to purchase his liberty subject to "good" behavior.

Quran 24:33 “ And such of your slaves as seek a writing (of emancipation), write it for them if you are aware of anything of good in them, and bestow upon them of the wealth of God which He has bestowed upon you. Force not your slave girls to whoredom that you may seek enjoyment of the life of the world, if they would preserve their chastity.”

Slavery is an unclean thing that must be denounced in all civilizations! It is unacceptable for a human being, whether male or female, to be considered a property that can be bought, sold or traded. No slave should need the signature of any document to be free, or have to prove that he deserves to be free. As for slave women, the Quran grants them perhaps the right not to be forced into whoredom, but gives their owner the right to have sex with them (4:3, 4:24, 23:6, 33:50 and 70:30) which is tantamount to allowing rape since only a free woman may validly give her consent.

Hadiths.

Bukhari 3. 47.765. A woman is rebuked by Muhammad for freeing a slave girl. The prophet tells her that she would have gotten a greater heavenly reward by giving her to a relative (as a slave).

Narrated Kurib….Maimuna bint Al-Harith told him that she manumitted a slave girl without taking the permission of the Prophet. On the day when it was her turn * to be with the Prophet, she said, "Do you know, O God’s Apostle, that I have manumitted my slave girl?" He said, "Have you really?" She replied in the affirmative. He said, "You would have got more reward [in the Hereafter] if you had given her to one of your maternal uncles."

Muslim 4112. Imran b. Husain reported that a person who had no other property emancipated six slaves of his at the time of his death. God’s Messenger called for them and divided them into three sections, cast lots among them, and set two free and kept four in slavery and he (the Holy Prophet) spoke severely of him.

Bukhari (41.598). Slaves are movable property. They cannot be freed if an owner has outstanding debt, but rather used to pay off the debt.

Bukhari (80.753). "The prophet said ": the freed slave belongs to the people who have freed him" (narrated Anas bin Malik).

The verses not speaking of freeing now.

Quran 2: 178. " O you who believe! Retaliation is prescribed for you in the matter of the murdered; the freeman for the freeman, and the slave for the slave, and the female for the female.”

Quran 4:24. " And all married women are forbidden unto you save those (captives) whom your right hands possess.”

Quran 8:69. "Now enjoy what you have won, as lawful and good, and keep your duty to God. Lo! God is Forgiving, Merciful.” A reference to the spoils of war, of which the slaves were a part. The Muslim slaves owner could enjoy his "catch" because (according to verse 71) "God gave him power over them."

Quran 16:75. "God coins a similitude: (on the one hand) a (mere) chattel slave, who hath control of nothing, and (on the other hand) one on whom we have bestowed a fair provision from Us, and he spends thereof secretly and openly. Are they equal ? Praise be to God!”

Quran 23: 5-6 "... who guard their modesty, save from their wives or the slaves, for then they are not blameworthy…”

Quran 24:32. " Marry such of you as are solitary and the pious of your slaves and maidservants.” This verse recommends the mating of slaves based according to their merit.

Quran 33:50. "O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom your right hand possesses of those whom God has given you as spoils of war.”

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* As Muhammad had several wives, each had to wait for her turn.

DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVERY IN THE MUSLIM WORLD.

The first victims of this upholding or non-abrogation of slavery by Islam were evidently the Arabs themselves.

The conquests of the Arab armies and the expansion of the Islamic state that followed have always indeed resulted in the capture of war prisoners who were subsequently set free in exchange for a ransom or turned into slaves (raqiq) as was the tradition.

Once taken as slaves, they had to be dealt with in accordance with Islamic law especially during the Umayyad and Abbasid eras. The slaves were allowed to earn their living if they opted for that, otherwise it is the owner's (master) duty to provide for that. They also could not be forced to earn money for their masters unless with an agreement . This concept is called mukharajah in Arabic ( the slave should pay his owner a certain impost at the expiration of every month; but he is being left at liberty to work: in which case the slave is termed abdul makhraj . If slaves agree to that and they would like the money they earn to be also counted for their emancipation, then this has to be written in the form of a contract. This is called mukataba in Islamic case law. It is only a recommendation, and accepting a request for a mukataba is thus not obligatory for masters.

The framework of Islamic civilization was a well-developed network of towns and oasis with the market (suq, bazaar) at its heart. These towns were interconnected by a system of roads crossing semi-arid regions or deserts. They were traveled by convoys, and slaves therefore formed part of these caravans.

In contrast to the Atlantic slave trade, where the male-female ratio was 2:1 or 3:1, the Arab slave trade instead usually had a higher female-to-male ratio. This suggests a general preference for female slaves. Concubinage and reproduction served as incentives for importing female slaves (often Caucasian), though many were also imported mainly for performing household tasks.

Arabs were sometimes made into slaves therefore in the Muslim world. Sometimes castration was done on Arab slaves.

In Mecca, Arab women were sold as slaves according to Ibn Butlan, and certain rulers in West Africa had slave girls of Arab origin. An Arab Damascene girl was a slave to a king in Mali who was encountered by Ibn Battuta. According to al-Maqrizi, slave girls with lighter skin were sold to West Africans on hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). Arabic was spoken by the Damascus slave girl of Arab origin to Ibn Battuta in Mali. Ibn Battuta met her in 1353 near Timbuktu. She was described as "an Arab girl from Damascus who spoke to me in Arabic" by Ibn Battuta. Battuta specified indeed that she was fluent in Arabic, from Damascus, and of Arab origin. The Arab girl's local master's name was Farba Sulayman. Besides his Damascus slave girl and a secretary fluent in Arabic, Arabic was also comprehended by Farba himself.

Sharia law prohibiting slavery involving other preexisting Muslims; as a result, the main target for slavery in Islamic land (Dar al Islam) was the peoples who lived in the frontier areas .These slaves initially came therefore from various border regions, including Central Asia (such as Mamluks) and Europe (such as Saqaliba or Slavs).

White slaves.

There is historical evidence of North African Muslim slave raids all along the Mediterranean coasts across Christian Europe and beyond to even as far north as the British Isles and Iceland (see the book titled White Gold by Giles Milton). The majority of slaves traded across the Mediterranean region were predominantly of European origin from the 7th to 15th centuries. The Barbary pirates continued to capture slaves from Europe and, to an extent, North America, from the 16th to 19th centuries.

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Slaves were also brought into the Arab world via Central Asia, mainly of Turkic or Tartar origin. Many of these slaves later went on to serve in the armies forming an elite rank.

At sea, Barbary pirates joined in this traffic when they could capture people by boarding ships or by incursions into coastal areas.

The North African slave markets therefore overflowed with European slaves. The European slaves were acquired by Barbary pirates in slave raids on ships and by raids on coastal towns from Italy to Spain, Portugal, France, England, the Netherlands, and as far afield as Iceland. Men, women, and children were captured to such a devastating extent that vast numbers of sea-coast towns were abandoned. Ohio State University history Professor Robert Davis describes the white slave trade as minimized by most modern historians in his book Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500-1800 (Palgrave Macmillan).

Davis estimates that 1 million to 1.25 million White Christian Europeans were enslaved in North Africa, from the beginning of the 16th century to the middle of the 18th by traders from Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli alone (these numbers do not include indeed the European people who were enslaved by Morocco and by other raiders and traders of the Mediterranean Sea coast), and roughly 700 Americans were held captive in this region of the world as slaves between 1785 and 1815. 16th- and 17th-century custom statistics suggest that Istanbul's additional slave import from the Black Sea may have totaled around 2.5 million from 1450 to 1700.

Black slaves.

As we have had the opportunity to see slaves initially came therefore from various regions, including Central Asia (such as Mamluks) and Europe (such as Saqaliba or Slavs), but afterwards by the modern period, slaves came mostly from Africa. For in Africa even the prior conversion to Islam was not an effective guarantee against enslavement. Certain historical realities bear witness to it with strength. Ibn Battuta who visited the ancient African kingdom of Mali in the mid-14th century recounts that the local inhabitants vie with each other in the number of slaves and servants they have, and was himself given a slave boy as a "hospitality gift." Many intermediaries, often mulattos, dealt with the supply of human “merchandise” to traders, destined for eastern big slave markets (Baghdad, Damascus, Mecca, Medina, etc.).

Sunni Ali (1464-1492), brilliant Muslim leader of the Songhai Empire (West Africa), does not hesitate to regularly carry out raids against the neighboring Islamic tribes.

Later, Tippu Tip (1837-1905) on Zanzibar, will embody the worst figure: the black slave trader having made a fortune by trading his own colored brothers , without scruple or remorse.

The same phenomenon was observed in the late 18th century slave revolts, when the colonial militias, the most determined to fight against the marroons (militias created in 1748), were those of the free colored or mulatto bourgeoisie (Rigaud, Petion), which itself had slaves. In Santo Domingo/Haiti in 1788, these colored free men were almost as numerous as the white men (27000).

Views of some Arabic-Muslims about African People

-The Mu’tazili theologian Al-Jahiz (776-869), who was partially descended from African ancestors, writes in one of his works, “…You are so ignorant that during the Jahiliyya (before Islam ) you regarded us as your equals when it came to marrying Arab women, but with the advent of the justice of Islam you decided this practice was bad. Yet the desert is full of Zanj married to Arab wives, and they have been princes and kings and have safeguarded your rights and sheltered you against your enemies” (The Pride of the Blacks over the Whites).

-Al-Masudi (896-956), Great geographer who traveled as far as China and Sri Lanka: ” Merriment dominates the black man because of his defective brain, whence also the weakness of his intelligence.”

Al-Muqaddasi (945/946-1000), Arab geographer. “Of the neighbors of the Bujja, Maqdisi had heard that there is no marriage among them; the child does not know his father, and they eat people — but God knows best. As for the Zanj, they are people of black color, flat noses, kinky hair, and little understanding or intelligence.” –

– Avicenna (980-1037), the Father of Modern Medicine: “[Blacks are] people who are by their very nature slaves.”

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- Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-1274), famous for both religious and scientific writings: “[The Zanj (African) differ from animals only in that] their two hands are lifted above the ground,… Many have observed that the ape is more teachable and more intelligent than the Zanj.”

-The historian and sociologist Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406): “The Negro nation is, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because [Negroes] have little [that is essentially] human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated….beyond [known peoples of black West Africa] to the south, there is no civilization in the proper sense. There are only humans who are closer to dumb animals than to rational beings. They live in thickets and caves, and eat herbs and unprepared grain. They frequently eat each other. They cannot be considered human beings.”

But according to the professor, Abdelmajid Hannum at Wesleyan University, the view that Arab scholars and geographers from this time held racist attitudes are the result of mistranslations [of their works] , stating that such attitudes were not prevalent until the 18th and 19th centuries.

In April 1998, the historian Elikia M'bokolo, wrote in Le Monde diplomatique. "The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from the ninth to the nineteenth)….Four million slaves exported via the Red Sea, another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million, depending on the authors, across the Atlantic Ocean."

In the 8th century, Africa was dominated by Arab-Berbers in the north: Islam moved southwards along the Nile and along the desert trails.The Sahara was thinly populated. Nevertheless, since antiquity there had been towns living on a trade in salt, gold, slaves, cloth, and on agriculture enabled by irrigation: Tiaret, Walata, Sijilmasa, Zawila, and others.

In the Middle Ages, the Arabic term bilad as-sudan ("Land of the Blacks") was used for the vast Sudanese region (covering West and Central Africa, or sometimes extending from the coast of West Africa to Western Sudan).This bilad as-sudan provided a pool of manual labor for North and Saharan Africa. This region was dominated by certain states and people: the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire, the Kanem-Bornu Empire, the Fulani and Hausa.

In the Horn of Africa, the coasts of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean were controlled by local Somali and other Muslims, and Yemenis and Omanis had merchant posts along the coasts. The Ethiopian coast, particularly the port of Massawa and Dahlak Archipelago, had long been a hub for the export of slaves from the interior by the Kingdom of Aksum and earlier polities. The port and most coastal areas were largely Muslim, and the port itself was home to a number of Arab and Indian merchants. The Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia often exported Nilotic slaves from their western borderland provinces, or from newly conquered southern provinces. The Somali and Afar Muslim sultanates, such as the Adal Sultanate, also exported Nilotic slaves that they captured from the interior, as well as some vanquished foes.

In the African Great Lakes region, Omani and Yemeni traders set up slave-trading posts along the southeastern coast of the Indian Ocean; most notably in the archipelago of Zanzibar, along the coast of present-day Tanzania. The Zanj region or Swahili Coast flanking the Indian Ocean continued to be an important area for the Oriental slave trade up until the 19th century. Livingstone and Stanley were then the first Europeans to penetrate to the interior of the Congo Basin and to discover the scale of slavery there. The Arab Tippu Tip extended his influence there and captured many people as slaves. After Europeans had settled in the Gulf of Guinea, the trans-Saharan slave trade became less important. In Zanzibar, slavery was abolished late, in 1897, under Sultan Hamoud bin Mohammed.

Geography of the slave trade and supply zones.

Nubia and Ethiopia were "exporting" regions: in the 15th century, Ethiopians sold slaves from western borderland areas (usually just outside the realm of the Emperor of Ethiopia) or Jimma zone , which often ended up in India, where they worked on ships or as soldiers. They eventually rebelled and took power (dynasty of the Habshi Kings).

Sudanese region and Saharan Africa formed another "export" area, but it is impossible to estimate the scale, since there is a lack of sources with figures.

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Finally, the slave traffic affected eastern Africa, but the distance and local hostility slowed down this section of the Oriental trade.

Routes.

According to Professor Ibrahima Baba Kake there were four main routes to the Arab world, from east to west of Africa, from the Maghreb to the Sudan, from Tripolitania to central Sudan and from Egypt to the Middle East. Caravan trails, set up in the 9th century, went past the oasis of the Sahara; travel was difficult and uncomfortable for reasons of climate and distance. Since Roman times, long convoys had transported slaves as well as all sorts of products to be used for barter. To protect against attacks from desert nomads, slaves were used as an escort. Any who slowed down the progress of the caravan was killed.

Historians know less about the sea routes. From the evidence of illustrated documents, and travelers' tales, it seems that slaves traveled on dhows or jalbas, Arab ships which were used as transport in the Red Sea. Crossing the Indian Ocean required better organization and more resources than overland transport. Ships coming from Zanzibar made stops on Socotra or at Aden before heading to the Persian Gulf or to India. Slaves were sold as far away as China: there was a colony of Arab merchants in Canton. Serge Bile cites a 12th-century text which tells us that most well-to-do families in Canton had black slaves whom they regarded as savages and demons because of their appearance. Although Chinese slave traders bought slaves (Seng Chi i.e., the Zanj) from Arab intermediaries and "stocked up" directly in coastal areas of present-day Somalia, the local Somalis—referred to as Baribah and Barbaroi (Berbers) by medieval Arab and ancient Greek geographers, respectively (see Periplus of the Erythraean Sea), and no strangers to capturing, owning and trading slaves themselves—were not among them because Somalia itself did not supply slaves -- as part of the Islamic world Somalis were protected by the religious tenet that free Muslims cannot be enslaved -- but Arab dhows loaded with human cargo continually visited Somali ports.

During the nineteenth century, the East African slave trade grew enormously due to demands by Arabs, Portuguese, and French. Slave traders and raiders moved throughout eastern and central Africa to meet the rising demand for enslaved men, women, and children.

They were often bartered for objects of various kinds: in the Sudan, they were exchanged for cloth, trinkets and so on. In the Maghreb, they were swapped for horses. In the desert cities, lengths of cloth, pottery, Venetian glass slave beads, dyestuffs and jewels were used as payment. The trade in black slaves was part of a very diverse commercial network. Alongside gold coins, cowrie shells from the Indian Ocean or the Atlantic (Canaries, Luanda) were used as money throughout sub-Saharan Africa (merchandise was paid for with sacks of cowries).

Slave markets.

In 1416, al-Maqrizi told how pilgrims coming from Takrur (near the Senegal River) had brought 1,700 slaves with them to Mecca. In North Africa, the main slave markets were in Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli and Cairo. Sales were held in public places or in souks.

Potential buyers made a careful examination of the "merchandise": they checked the state of health of a person who was often standing naked with wrists bound together. In Cairo, transactions involving eunuchs and concubines happened in private houses. Prices varied according to the slave's quality. Thomas Smee, the commander of the British research ship Ternate, visited such a market in Zanzibar in 1811 and gave a detailed description.

'The show commences about four o'clock in the afternoon. The slaves, set off to the best advantage by having their skins cleaned and burnished with cocoanut oil, their faces painted with red and white stripes and the hands, noses, ears and feet ornamented with a profusion of bracelets of gold and silver and jewels, are ranged in a line, commencing with the youngest, and increasing to the rear according to their size and age. At the head of this file, which is composed of all sexes and ages from 6 to 60, walks the person who owns them; behind and at each side, two or three of his domestic slaves, armed with swords and spears, serve as guards. Thus ordered the procession begins, and passes through the market place and the principal streets... when any of them strikes a spectator's fancy the line immediately stops, and a process of examination ensues, which, for minuteness, is unequaled in any cattle market in Europe. The intending purchaser having ascertained there is no

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defect in the faculties of speech, hearing, etc., that there is no disease present, next proceeds to examine the person; the mouth and the teeth are first inspected and afterwards every part of the body in succession, not even excepting the breasts, etc., of the girls, many of whom I have seen handled in the most indecent manner in the market by their purchasers; indeed there is all reasons to believe that the slave dealers almost universally force the young girls to submit to their lust previous to their being disposed of.”

The history of the slave trade has given rise to numerous debates among historians. Specialists are undecided on the number of Africans taken from their homes; this is difficult to resolve because of a lack of reliable statistics: there was no census system in medieval Africa. Archival material for the transatlantic trade in the 16th to 18th centuries may seem useful as a source, yet these record books were often falsified. Historians therefore have to use quite imprecise narrative documents to make estimates which must be treated with caution: Luiz Felipe de Alencastro states that there were 8 million slaves taken from Africa between the 8th and 19th centuries along the oriental and the trans-Saharan routes.

Olivier Petre-Grenouilleau has put forward a figure of 17 million African people enslaved (in the same period and from the same area) on the basis of Ralph Austen's work. Ronald Segal estimates between 11.5 and 14 million were enslaved by the Arab slave trade.

…………………………. ………..

In the 1800s, the slave trade from Africa to the Islamic countries picked up significantly. When the European slave trade ended around the 1850s, the slave trade to the east picked up significantly only to be ended with European colonization of Africa around 1900.

In 1814, Swiss explorer Johann Burckhardt wrote of his travels in Egypt and Nubia, where he saw the practice of slave trading: "I frequently witnessed scenes of the most shameless indecency, which the traders, who were the principal actors, only laughed at. I may venture to state, that very few female slaves who have passed their tenth year, reach Egypt or Arabia in a state of virginity."

David Livingstone wrote of the slave trade in the African Great Lakes region, which he visited in the mid-nineteenth century: "To overdraw its evils is a simple impossibility ... We passed a slave woman shot or stabbed through the body and lying on the path…..an Arab who passed early that morning had done it in anger at losing the price he had given for her, because she was unable to walk any longer. We passed a woman tied by the neck to a tree and dead ... We came upon a man dead from starvation ... The strangest disease I have seen in this country seems to be broken heartedness, and it attacks free men who have been captured and made slaves." Livingstone estimated that 80,000 Africans died each year before ever reaching the slave markets of Zanzibar. Zanzibar was once East Africa's main slave-trading port, and under Omani Arabs in the 19th century as many as 50,000 slaves were passing through the city each year.

Livingstone wrote even in a letter to the editor of the New York Herald: “and if my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should lead to the suppression of the East Coast slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile sources together.”

During the Second Sudanese Civil War people were taken into slavery; estimates of abductions range from 14,000 to 200,000. In 1953, slaves accompanied sheikhs from Qatar attending the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and they did so again on another visit five years later.

Slavery in Mauritania was legally abolished by laws passed in 1905, 1961, and 1981. It was finally criminalized in August 2007. It is estimated that up to 600,000 Mauritanians, or 20% of Mauritania's population, are currently in conditions which some consider to be "slavery": the Haratin.

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UNTO EACH ONE HIS RELIGION OR A SINGLE GOD FOR ALL?

Chapter 2 verse 256: "There is no compulsion in religion. The right direction is henceforth distinct from error.”

Chapter 10 verses 99-100: "Would you compel men until they are believers” ?

Muhammad knew very well that, except to wash his brain from childhood, you cannot force someone to think that there is one God. He understood well that we cannot force someone to "have faith."

But you can at least get from him an outside submission to begin with. This remark makes it possible perhaps to reconcile different seemingly opposite suras.

Nevertheless, Islamic scholars agree that these tolerant verses imposed themselves onto Muhammad during the first phase of his preaching, when he did not have the means to compel anyone to follow his religion.

They are abrogated by subsequent verses, such as verse 9: 29, which unequivocally orders Muslims to fight the disbelievers until they abjure their faith (or non-faith) by accepting either Islam or one status of permanent humiliation, especially when paying their specific tax as a second-class citizen. In other words, the dhimmitude (Bat Ye’or).

It is true that lesser jihad is not consubstantial with Islam, that it is not initial. What is original and initial is THE GREATER JIHAD or JIHAD AKHABAR.

As far as we are aware, no doctrine claiming to be in line with Islam has nevertheless supported the point of view of absolute non-violence as in the case of Indian Jainism or Christian martyrs, but the modernist Muslims adopted the reformist point of view, that of the defensive jihad and they emphasize particularly the broader jihad . In fact, it is now used to describe any national effort. By giving the religious coloring of the jihad to certain operations, the aim is to increase their effectiveness. It was also heard of Jihad about education, culture, and so on. The meaning of the word dissolves.

To discover the true meaning of lesser jihad, we must therefore look into the life of Muhammad, of his companions and later of the leaders or thinkers of Islam.

The immediate successors of Muhammad used the word jihad to refer to the recapture of lost territories (Ridda wars in 632) or to the conquest of new territories, so that no ambiguity can remain in this respect. The lesser jihadists do not make therefore an erroneous interpretation of Islam, they interpret Islam very correctly. Because, theologically speaking, it is the sacred duty of a Muslim to fight until everyone turns to Allah because there can be no other God (shahada).

This was very well emphasized by the great Muslim philosopher Ibn Khaldun, whose informed (but not of Enlightenment Age) opinion we shall give again here (repetere ars docendi).

"The holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force."

Let us note in passing that Ibn Khaldun ignores the call for conversion which is mentioned above. “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you and surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” ( St Matthew 28: 18).

But finally, that a Muslim ignores this verse of the Christian Quran is nothing but very normal!

All the mass religions in the world except Judaism have a strategy of expansion. For all, proselytism is a duty, for you cannot fail to let others know the truth to which you believe. The first charity towards mankind is to pass on to it the truth that leads to salvation, to heaven. It is therefore uncalled for and stupid to reproach Islam with a strategy of proselytism. On the other hand, what we can expect is reciprocity in order to help respect minorities, promote interfaith dialogue and peace among peoples.

As in the case of the Christianity of the past, that of the origins (St Matthew 28:18 – 20) one of the purposes of Islam is to convert the whole world to its idea of God.

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This will no longer manifests itself in Christendom except perhaps in Evangelism. On the other hand, this proselyte or missionary spirit is still very present in Islam.

With this colossal difference that in the case of Islam, it was including by resorting to the use of force and weapons.

Verse 193 chapter 2. "Fight them until fitna is no more, and religion is for One God.”

Verses 39 chapter 8 same thing. " Fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is all for One God.”

Verse 33, chapter 9. " He it is Who has sent His messenger with the guidance and the Religion of Truth, that He may cause it to prevail over all religion.”

Verse 9 chapter 61same thing. " He it is Who has sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, that He may make it conqueror of all religion."

Pious Muslims are therefore gone into a cosmic battle against the forces of darkness. These forces of darkness must not be tolerated, and even if God is ultimately responsible for the destruction of these negative forces, Muslims are bound to fight it. The proselytism of the present Islam is undeniable, a proselytism which it prohibits and criminalizes when it comes from other religions.

In his book Martyrdom and Rome, Glen W. Bowersock points out the expansion of the concept of martyrdom among Muslim populations, with the conquest of Palestine in the seventh century. It was after the Muslim conquest of Palestine in the seventh century that this notion of shahid came to mean explicitly sacred death, referring to the Greek notion of marturos and its double meaning of witness and martyr.

There remains, however, a fundamental difference in the case of the Muslim martyr which should be pointed out at the outset: the justification of martyrdom in Islam is found in the chapter Repentance, whereby the principle is "to slay and be slain in the way of God " (Quran No. 9: 111). In other words, violence does not come only from the adversary but is also accepted by the believer who uses it legitimately. On this point, the meaning is quite different in Christianity, where bodily violence is one-way and comes only from adversaries. Muslim martyrdom is strongly linked to this other seminal notion which is the jihad, or holy war. The major difference between the notion of jihad in Islam and that of crusade in Christianity lies in their theological foundation: present in Islam, it is absent in Christianity.

It is therefore quite logical to refer to the Greek word marturos, which means witnesses when we speak of a martyr in our language since that is its etymology (which does not mean that its meaning has not evolved since its acclimatization in the Latin of Church).

It is neither logical nor appropriate to go back to this Greek notion of witnesses when we talk about the shahid in Islam. The Muslim shahid is a man who died while pronouncing the shahada and generally by fighting armed (on the way of the jihad). While the Christian martyr, by definition, does not fight, even to defend himself. While the Christian martyr never uses weapons: he doesn’t resist, and even turns the other cheek.

ON THE OTHER HAND, FOR ISLAM THE WORLD MUST OBEY TO GOD INCLUDING BY THE SWORD.

One of Islam's most revered modern theologians, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, openly sanctioned the idea of offensive Jihad by writing in one of his books: "Islam has the right to take the initiative…this is God’s religion and it is for the whole world. It has the right to destroy all obstacles in the form of institutions and traditions … it attacks institutions and traditions to release human beings from their poisonous influences, which distort human nature and curtail human freedom. Those who say that Islamic Jihad was merely for the defense of the 'homeland of Islam' diminish the greatness of the Islamic way of life."

As the Saudi doctor in law Basem Alem summarized it very well in March 2009: " As a member of the true religion, I have a greater right to invade [others] in order to impose a certain way of life [according to Shari'a], which history has proven to be the best and most just of all civilizations. This is the true meaning of offensive jihad. When we wage jihad, it is not in order to convert people to Islam, but in order to liberate them from the dark slavery in which they live.”

On the other hand, the American historian Will Durant believes nevertheless that "the Moslem conquest….. of India is probably the bloodiest story in history. It is a discouraging tale, for its evident moral is that civilization is a precious thing, whose delicate complex of order and liberty, culture and peace, may at any time be overthrown by barbarians invading from without or multiplying within" (The Story of Civilization Our Eastern Heritage, 1954, p. 459).

He is not the only historian who has been frightened by the consequences of these invasions.

Dr. K.S, Lal in his 1973 book- Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India, estimates that about 60 to 80 million people died in India between 1000 and 1525 as a result of the Islamic invasion of Indian subcontinent. He concluded that about 2 million people died during Mahmud of Ghazni's invasions of

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India alone. The Bahmani sultans, who ruled Central India, had set a quota of 100,000 Hindus a year and seem to have respected it. In 1399, the famous Tamerlane did better, he killed 100,000 Hindus in a single day, a record.

Hossain Salahuddin, a poet and ex-Muslim essayist. Summary of his interview with Jamie Glazov, editor of Frontpage magazine, March 3, 2008.

What always struck me the most was that Islam is a form of Arab colonialism in disguise. In South-east Asia you will see people constantly cry about the British Colonialism and how they are still a victim of it. However, no one ever talks about the Arab colonialism which is very active in every single non-Arab Muslim country. Islam is in its origin an Arab religion, and it is not a religion of conscience, private belief or spirituality; it is very political and imperial. Its holy places are in Arab lands, its sacred language is Arabic, and its historical figures are all native Arab. So what happens to a non-Arab convert’s mind is very interesting.

A convert starts to dislike his own culture as pre-Islamic and he becomes fascinated by the Arab influence and wants to be a part of the Arab story; ironically, he starts to praise the Great Arab Warrior who conquered his land. And to do that the first thing he does is to turn away from everything that is ethnically his and he lives in a world of fundamentalist fantasy to purify his pre-Islamic culture.

You can see this neurosis and abjuration in the mindset of converts and you can say it is an incurable mental disease which has been affecting them and disturbing the societies for thousands of years. Arab colonialism is both political and cultural and I think it is the longest surviving form of colonialism. You see it is now a fashion to blame European Imperialism and colonialism, west and Israel in general - for every ill in this planet; Muslims are never ashamed to join this blame game. But, when it comes to Arab imperialism or Islamic colonialism, Muslims feel proud and they admire the warriors who once came from the Arab world and conquered their forefathers’ land.

This way, Islamic colonialism and Arab imperialism together have conquered and destroyed many advanced and ancient civilizations and brought catastrophic changes in the cultures of the conquered lands. You can say Arabs were the most successful imperialists of all time, because the faithful converts love to be conquered by the legendary “Holy Warriors” of the “ Holy Land ” – it is some sort of salvation for the converts.

The whole question now is: of ibn Khaldun and Yusuf al-Qaradawi or Basem Alem on one side, Will Durant, Lal or Hossein Salahuddin on the other, WHOM TO BELIEVE? WHO IS RIGHT?

* Fitna is an Arabic word which means disharmony, heresy.

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A SPIRITUALITY...Far away from being peaceful.

The origin of marabouts in their mystical dimension goes back to the foundation of Sufism, in the 8th century. At that time, Hasan of Basra, a Persian living in Medina and then having emigrated to Iraq, devoted himself to the gathering of hadiths (sayings and deeds of Muhammad ) that he had made a point of transmitting to future generations, for purposes of spiritual elevation and religious strictness. He invited his followers to practice an Islam that went beyond its orthodox rules and based on a personal relationship with God, in a position of voluntary and exclusive submission (in Arabic, literally Islam). In his wake, seeking to win their place in the heaven, the first Sufis devoted themselves to teaching, spreading religion and developing ecstatic techniques aimed at communion with the divine one. As soon as they appeared, they endeavored to imitate Muhammad and to separate themselves from the common people by their intensive practice of spiritual exercises and flesh mortifications. They were among the first organizers of ribats and the Almoravid reformers of the eleventh century were equated with them. From the 8th century, Sufis decided to get away from the worldliness of religion, from the conquest and administration of the captured territory in order to devote themselves to the spreading of Islam among suburban or isolated populations. Their orthodox and sophisticated theologies, elaborated in the political centers of the Islamic world, were steeped in religious influences resulting from popular practices (for instance some ancient rites linked to places or persons playing the part of intercessors between the divine and the supernatural world).

But beyond its spirituality, the Sufi movement could also have a political role. This was the case when it joined the revolt and internal resistance movements against the manifestations of a state power considered ungodly, or when it supported anti-colonial struggles, particularly in Africa. Since the sixteenth century, in the southern Mediterranean, the Ottomans in conflict with the Western powers had established themselves as protectors of Islam, but in some parts of the Maghreb, marabout brotherhoods took over from an Ottoman power unable to protect the people by themselves leading the war against the invaders ...................................................

In West Africa, the names of Usman Dan Fodio, disciple of the Qadiriyya Sufi brotherhood (1754-1817), Seku Amadu (1776-1844) and Omar Tall (1795-1864), both members of the Tijaniyya brotherhood, are attached to the jihadist anticolonialist Fulani movement of the nineteenth century. This was also the case in Sudan, where there were two Mahdist movements (Mahdi in Arabic means messiah). That of Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah (1856-1921), born in Dongola in the Nile Valley, who was a member of the Sufi Brotherhood Sammaniya, and started in 1881 an anticolonialist jihad, first against the Ottomans who ruled Egypt and occupied Sudan since 1821, and against the British who came to support them. In 1885, the capture of Khartoum and the death of Gordon led to the establishment of an Islamic government that lasted until Kitchener’s recapture in 1898, the date that marked the beginning of the British colonial control over Sudan. We can also mention Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, a Somali also revered as "Mahdi" and mocked by the English under the nickname "Mad Mullah," member of the Sufi brotherhood salhiya, and who is leading a revolt from 1899 against the Ethiopian Empire of the Solomonic dynasty (that of Menelik and Haile Selassie) and the English occupying Somaliland.

Abdelkader (1808-1883), who is designated as the leader of the Algerian resistance against French colonization, was also a revered mystic. His political exile in Damascus after his incarceration in Toulon from 1847 to 1852 did not prevent him from coming into contact with mystical Christians and having an interfaith dialogue, auguring its current form and the developments he had, for example , with the moving of White Fathers in Algeria and Sahara (Charles de Foucauld is the most famous representative of it, and the monks in Tibhirine were among the last representatives before disappearing under circumstances that are currently unclear in the eyes of historians). At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Tijaniyya brotherhood successfully resumed the fight against

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the French in their abortive attempt to invade Libya, succeeding the conquest of Algeria and Tunisia. Despite this victory, Umar Al-Mukhtar, a religious from Cyrenaica (1862-1931), had to lead a nationalist uprising under another brotherhood, the Sanusiya, against the Italian invasion of Libya from 1912, which ends with his capture and hanging in 1931 by the fascist regime. Evans-Pritchard, an ethnologist known for his work on the Nuer, dedicated to this brotherhood his book The Sanusi of Cyrenaica in 1949. In the Sahara, in 1916-1917, Kaocen , also a Sanusi believer, declared jihad against the French since Aïr mountains in northern Niger that the French troops (Flatters - 1880, Foureau-Lamy, 1898-1900) had invaded some time earlier ..................................

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in Africa, a militant tradition of Islamic reformation feed on the anti-colonial movements with their marabout dimension. Each brotherhood or religious group fought for a specific perspective and for purposes limited to its area of political control. Some of them have led to radicalization, within formations that are grouped under the term of jihadist, particularly in the Sahel. Between the colonial period and our days, there are capital differences and phenomena far away from each other. Indeed, the current Sahelian jihadist movements find the basis of their ideology in distant countries (Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries, Pakistan). Similarly, they are structured according to modes of organization elaborated elsewhere, within the founding experiences of the resumption of the fight against the westernization and secularization led by the Afghan jihad (1979-1989 and 2001 to the present day), the Iranian Islamic revolution (1979 to the present day) or the Algerian civil war (1991-2001) known locally as the "Red Decade." This event pioneer of the Sahelian jihad saw the birth of the first katibas (cells) of the GIA (Armed Islamic Group) and the GSPC (Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat), the main movements associated with the founding of Aqim (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb). Other organizations, more minor and from neighboring countries (Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco) have since joined them. Today, in the new political-religious situation, the jihadists, both in the Sahara and in the Sahel, fight and cooperate in their struggle, exchanging fighters, information, logistical and military or propaganda means. But differences persist, especially in the opposition of the ritual options of the jihadists of the Sufi brotherhoods of the last centuries and of the current Salafi, beyond the simplest and normative religious aspect.....

Facing the creative heterodoxy of historical Sufi movements, we are now witnessing the development of a reformist neo-orthodoxy (i.e., Salafism), contrary to the pragmatic and metaphorical solutions of past brotherhoods.......

This religious controversy focuses on ritual questions regularly aroused again since the beginning of Islam, such as funeral practices and rites performed on the graves or the doctrinal content of the religious science in the eccentric areas of the Muslim community. The effects of these quarrels were put forward in the intense propaganda campaign around the destruction of manuscripts and mausoleums of "saints" in Timbuktu in January 2013, which was very worth in the popular support for the latest French intervention in Mali. Thus the mainstream media have been able to present the Sufis of yesterday as peaceful mystics, denying them their historical role of armed opponents to colonization, and depicted them, without regard to history, as humanist allies of the European powers in the conflict opposing them with radical Islam in Sahelian Africa (Mauritania, Algeria, Mali, Niger) for the control of strategic resources (uranium and gold in Mali or Niger) and f the trans-Saharan economic migration routes ......... ................................................... ..

In addition to the prophetic medicine (al tibb al nabawi) practiced by the marabouts, the singularity of the medical art of the Sufi brotherhoods lies in the treatment of the mental suffering seen as a "jinnopathy" (the patient is called majnun, "in-jin-ned"). The supernatural world is indeed in a completely non-scientific even anti-scientific way, globally recognized by Islam, which confers on the biblical king Solomon a power of control of the jinns, legitimately received from God. It is said that some jinns have been in contact with Muhammad. In the Quran, the jinns are described as creatures of fire and air, invisible, living a life parallel to human beings. Some are Muslims, or Pagans, others have followed various religions. The jinns have a hierarchical order, from kings to slaves. They are known to live with human beings and to dwell in outside of the center places: sanitary facilities but also fire, workshops, the passage of a door, the corner of a room, cemeteries. They also occupy territories that they are alone to populate: caves, remote places in the desert, ruins, well closed down. In the south of Morocco (at the mausoleum of the marabout known as Bouya Omar), for example, since the 16th century, there are judgments of jinns who have become annoying. We'll think we're back in the Middle Ages with its animal trials. Not only are we afforded with angels as in Judeo-Christianity but in addition with Islam we are afforded with jinns! Where is science in all this?

In this therapeutic theater, the saint's descendants must settle a dispute between the parties, jinn and patient, to establish the necessary compensations that will clear the case. This type of therapy relies exclusively on the ability of the primordial marabout to come into contact with his recognized heirs and

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the world of the jinns. Located between the material world and the invisible one, the marabout can neutralize the external acts that disturb the patient and make him resume a peaceful social life, by imposing ritual duties on him. If Sufi marabouts can voluntarily come into contact with the jinns and make a pact with them, unintentional confrontations are always to be feared: there can be evil pagan jinn, and it can be possible to offend a Muslim jinn by condemned esoteric practices. The daily human activity can also be a danger for the jinn: you can scald one of them by throwing too hot kitchen water, you can walk on another when you go through the doorstep ... To avoid harming them and risking retaliation, man uses protection techniques or ways of life together. In houses where the jinn are known to be present, it is traditional to place milk on the doorstep, to carefully cross the threshold, to utter an invocation that will temporarily protect from the jinn or warn him of the danger that could be a threat for him. There are also talismans that can be placed in the house in dangerous places or to protect its most vulnerable inhabitants (nubile women and children). The relations with the jinns are played out on two levels: that of the laymen who seek to protect themselves from troubles without enjoying any authority, and that of the marabouts who alone have the necessary training and competence to regulate the living together between men and jinns. In this situation, the marabout holds an orthodox office with regard to the Quranic text, using his holiness and his devotion to ensure social peace between entities of different natures, between the earthly and the invisible world. In other words, to the stories of angels and demons, Islam adds an additional layer of all-round aberrations. This jinn story pushes Islam more than ever into the irrational one. Unless we consider them, like our Fenian or druidic ancestors, as a personification of the forces of Nature.

Today's marabouts practice two complementary arts: the contact with supernatural entities and pure and simple magic inherited from pre-Islamic Arabia. These are divided into two large specific trades: on the one hand the witches (the "blowners in knots” of Sura 113), capable of putting spells, and on the other hand, the prophetesses and diviners. The Quranic text explicitly prohibited these two professions, and extended the ban to belomancy or divination by use of arrows. From where in Islamic land the disapproval of its playful aspect (shooting with the bow, archery)..................................

The most significant role of the Sufi marabout remains that of magician-healer or mystical doctor. His practices are based on the three doctrines that then were prevailing in the Muslim world.

-The first is directly derived from the materialist Greek scientific and philosophical tradition. The books on the body are produced in a non-religious background that we would call "medical science." It is the medicine of Al-Razi (ninth-tenth century, Persia), Avicenna (eleventh century, Persia) or Averroes (twelfth century, Andalusia) which is developed, among others, from ancient texts by Hippocrates, Galen (second century, Pergamum), with his treatise De Sanitate Tuenda, or the pharmacological works of Dioscorides (first century, Asia Minor), whose De Materia Medica is then a classic spread throughout the Muslim world.

-The second is known as prophetic medicine (al-tibb al-nabawi). It develops a therapy aiming at imitating medical practices attributed to Muhammad: it was, for example, read religious formulas or certain passages of the Quran, or swallowing fragments of it by mixing them with food or drink. These techniques are those of the physicians most steeped in religion, renouncing both the use of foreign sciences and the attendance of supernatural beings that are the jinns.

-Lastly, the third doctrine belongs to Sufi Islam itself. The traditions of care are developed within the network of zawiyas (places of education, life and gathering of the disciples of one or more spiritual masters) founded to support the effort of moralization and conversion of the society from the first centuries of Islam. In this medical doctrine, the use of objects with magical properties is possible. While prophetic medicine is limited to the use of the text and its numerological permutations, the maraboutism exercised by Sufis uses multiple techniques of divination or changes of spoken spells into magic objects. The marabouts willingly deliver to their patient the talismans that prophetic medicine refrains from creating.

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THE FIRST MUSLIM CIVIL AND / OR OF RELIGION WARS.

Muhammad died of a fever in 632 at the age of 63. His method of forcing others to convert under duress had several negative consequences, beginning with the civil wars that were immediately engaged in following his death. Many tribes wanted out of Islam and had to be kept in the empire via horrific violence.

It is important to emphasize that, for the most part, Muslim armies waged extremely aggressive campaigns, and the Muslim religion's most dramatic military conquests were made by the actual companions of Muhammad in the decades following his death. The early principle of warfare in that time was that the civilian population of a town was to be destroyed (i.e., men executed, women and children taken as slaves) if they defended themselves. Although the taqiyya of the modern apologists of Islam often claim the contrary (namely that Muslims use violence only in the case of self-defense), this is flatly contradicted by the accounts of Islamic historians and others that go back to the time of Muhammad.

The last days of Muhammad were therefore dramatic. Literally crucified on his deathbed by atrocious pains likely of poisoning, without a real doctor to cure him; his relatives being either terrorized by thinking about the future that awaited them (his wives) or more concerned about his succession to the head of the city state of Yathib / Medina. Where revolt rumbled among the native Medinans who were only waiting for this opportunity to take their revenge on the immigrants from Mecca. A beginning of curfew was even to be imposed by early faithful.

The problem indeed was that Muhammad died without leaving a male heir despite his many wives. Only daughters born from his first marriage!

Early Meccan converts rivaled therefore with later ones. Hostility indeed developed between those immigrants who had traveled with Muhammad and the Ansar who had helped them settle in, at Medina.

Then there were the wars known as Ridda or “Apostasy" wars.

Finally, there was a violent struggle within the family between his favorite wife and daughter –a bloody schism that has left Shias and Sunnis at each other’s throats to this day.

Muhammad explicitly held up both his favorite daughter and his favorite wife as model Muslim women, yet they were invoked by each side in the violent civil war that followed his death. Which one therefore was the messenger of God so horribly wrong about? 20 % of the Muslims answer Aysha, 80 % answer, Fatima.

Muhammad's incapacity or powerlessness to leave a clear succession resulted in a deep schism that devolved into the Sunni / Shia conflict. His own family fell apart and went to war with each other in the first few years. Thousands of Muslims were killed fighting each other in a battle between Muhammad's favorite wife, Aisha, and his cousin and adopted son, Ali, Fatima’s husband. Battle of the camel in 656 and especially Battle of Siffin in 657.

Muhammad's own daughter, Fatima, and his son-in-law and cousin, Ali, who both survived the pagan “hardship” during the Meccan years safe and sound, did not survive Islam after the death of Muhammad. Fatima died within three months, and Ali was later assassinated by Muslim rivals. Their son (Muhammad's grandson therefore) was killed in battle with the faction that became today's Sunnis and his people became Shias. The relative and personal friends of Muhammad were mixed into both warring groups, which then fractured further into hostile subdivisions as Islam expanded........

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Although Taymiyya was original in many respects in his theological and legal doctrine, he showed an obvious hostility towards religious minorities from his earliest childhood (cf. Vol. I , No. 157). This Hanbali author advocates above all a systematic exclusion of the minorities in order to prevent the birth and the persistence of strong friendships. He takes over all the provisions of the Umar Pact without mitigation and by proposing the most rigid interpretations: exclusion of the civil service, prohibition of building new churches, various humiliations ... Even when the Quran admits the marriage of a Muslim with a Christian, he discourages it. Similarly, commercial contracts, although authorized by law, are also discouraged. The separation must be general and the children will not be allowed to play together ... Ibn Taymiya advises very clearly the banishment of minorities as soon as they are no longer needed.

Ibn Taymiyya had very clear words on this subject.

Majmu 'al-Fatawa, vol. 28, summary pp. 501-508.

Any group that abandons, changes, or refuses to enforce any agreed and undisputed Islamic law, whether these people or others, must be fought until it follows all the Laws of Islam. This is a rule even if he pronounces the two testimonies and follow certain Islamic Laws ... Therefore, whatever group may leave, change, or refuse to implement some of the obligatory prayers, or participate in the Ramadan fasting, or who violates the blood and wealth of Muslims, or authorizes the use of drugs, or adultery, or fornication, or gambling, or the marriage of the "maharam," or does not impose the war on the disbelievers, or does not impose the jiziya on Jews and Christians, or any other obligation or prohibition of the religion for which there is no excuse not to implement them, then war must be declared to that group even if they accept the fact that these obligations or prohibitions are part of the Religion. And I know of no disagreement among the scholars in this regard ... I know of no difference of opinion as to the obligation to declare war to those who give up, change or refuse to implement any unquestioned Law of Islam ... In the same way, they (the Mongols) do not judge according to the Laws of God, but rather judge according to rules that agree with Islam on certain points and disagree on others. And the fact of fighting this type of people is therefore obligatory. Nobody who knows this religion that is Islam and knows the truth about these people will doubt it, because the path they follow and the true religion that is Islam can never be reconciled. And if it is obligatory to fight with these Kurds, Wandering Arabs and other inhabitants of the desert who do not follow Islamic Shari'ah, although their disease is not extended to the towns, then what about the Mongols? ... If those who take up arms against this group do it in full conformity with the Shari'a, in their words, actions and intentions, then this is the best way to seek the satisfaction of God, to establish His Religion and to obey His messenger (sallallaahu 'alayhi wa sallam). And if those who fight against people such as the Mongols show some perversions, or commit transgressions against the enemy in a way not sanctioned by the Shari'a, or have a corrupt intention due to the struggle for power, but not fighting this group of deniers has worse consequences for Islam than fighting alongside the corrupt, then it is obligatory to fight against them in order to prevent the biggest of both evils and this is one of the principles of Islam that is to be kept in memory ... Prophet Muhammad (sallallaahu 'alayhi wa sallam) said: "There will be military expeditions from the time that I was sent by God until the last day my community will fight the Dajjal [antichrist].

Reminder of the consequences of the concept of Dar al Harb or Dar al Islam

(Latin Si vis pacem para bellum).

For comparison a few words about ahimsa to being.

There is in the popular images in India a famous way of representing the ahiṃsa: a lioness and a cow quench their thirst the same water point peacefully, sometimes with in addition the representation of a little lion cub choosing to drink at the udders of the cow and the calves at the teats of the lioness; this imagery is especially used by both Jainism and Hinduism. Paradise scene to which corresponds Isaiah XI 6 in the Bible. It is the Ram Raj, Kingdom of Righteousness on earth!

Ahiṃsa is an important component of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism that apply it strictly.

Absolute non-violence is the first law of Jainism. It postulates that the human being can control himself.

This renunciation to violence may be complete or partial. Complete renunciation happens in nine ways: by oneself, through a means or an approval, and each time by thought, word, and body. For a layman, complete renunciation is impossible. So he is asked to fulfill his duties on this earth by causing a minimum of harm to others.

Defensive violence. Jainism and Hinduism, consider that defensive violence can be justified but also that a soldier, who kills enemies in a fight, fulfills a legitimate duty: the Jain communities agree to use the military power for their defense and that of others, and there are Jain laymen, in the past or today, monarchs, generals or soldiers. Let us point out in this regard the famous words of Mahatma Gandhi

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said: " My non-violence does not admit of running away from danger and leaving dear ones unprotected. Between violence and cowardly flight, I can only prefer violence to cowardice. I can no more preach non-violence to a coward than I can tempt a blind man to enjoy healthy scene. Non-violence is the summit of bravery ."

Jainism considers that someone who has reached the stage of active life should absolutely avoid the four forms of traditionally defined violence, but the layman is not required to refrain entirely from intentional violence because, for what is of the others, it is not totally possible at this stage. Concretely, ahimsa means, for a layman, that he must refrain from any intentional violence.

Jain food practice excludes most of the roots, because you could cause harm to an animal by extracting them, and you destroy de facto a vegetable life (to take a fruit, or a vegetable, does not cause the death of the plant creature that produces it). Jain ascetics do not eat, drink or travel after sunset and do not get up before sunrise , always to avoid injuring a living being for lack of light or because of lamps, candles, etc. that could burn insects attracted by their flames in the night.

Ascetics of certain Jain branches wear a fabric on their mouths and noses to avoid killing, while breathing, small insects, fabric that is also a symbol of respect in the words. Jainism being particularly present in the Gujarat, Mahatma Gandhi, a native of this Indian state, was deeply influenced by the Jain way of life, peaceful and respectful of life, and he made it an integral part of his own philosophy: a Jain ascetic was besides one of his best friends and teacher, Shrimad Rajchandra.

This rule is the first article of the great vows (mahavrata) of raja yoga or hate yoga (the five points of the moral code of kingly yoga of Patanjali are the same as that of the Jains): this implies for the yogi, not only the abstention from violence in acts or words (insult, hurtful words), but more subtly at the level of his thoughts, since the mind must be directed beforehand, so that all that which results (word, act) falls within the self-control, the abolition of the ego (ahamkara) and of the sense of "I am ness" (asmita) feeding karma. Ahimsa bypasses violence against lives that can be produced directly or by consent, eradicates selfishness, encourages benevolence and beneficence towards all beings: it is not a specifically yogic moderation, but a moderation desired by every "noble" man, Sanskrit arya (Laws of Manu, Book 10, verse 63).

Hinduism being a civilization, not a religion in the strict and Western sense of the word, vegetarianism is not obligatory for being "Hindu" and saying oneself as such (although the word Hindu is recognized by no "Hindu" sacred text : it comes from the Islamic invasions to name the non-Muslim population in India).

Contrary to what happens in Hinduism and Jainism, the word ahimsa (or the related Pali word avihiṃsa) does not appear in ancient Buddhist texts.

The Buddhist scriptures that evoke the life and character of Buddha speak of his ideal teaching, which always finds the right metaphor, and which perfectly adapts his message to his audience, whatever it may be. Of his courage and serenity in all circumstances, both in a religious discussion and in front of a parricide prince (Ajatasattu) or a murderer. However, he is nevertheless exasperated when monks distort his teachings.

Siddhartha Gautama was a sporty man, skilled in martial arts such as wrestling and archery, who could walk for miles and camp in the wilderness.

Nowhere, however, he is shown to us participating or encouraging fights, even defensive. Which is not the case of the first Buddhist emperor Ashoka it is true.

After the death of his father in 273 before the common era, Ashoka makes all his brothers and sisters eliminated, seizes power and makes himself crowned four years later.

Like his predecessors, Ashoka has a large, professional, permanently ready, army. It is with it, in the thirteenth year of his reign (261 before the common era) that he sets out to conquer Kalinga, a region on the east coast corresponding to the current Orissa. Ashoka won the victory after a terribly deadly war that would have made, according to him, 150,000 prisoners, 100,000 killed and as many dead of starvation and disease, probably symbolic figures that reflect the scope of the massacres perpetrated.

This bloody triumph, however, provokes in the sovereign a moral and political crisis which leads him to adopt the nonviolent principles of Buddhism. He withdraws for a year in a monastery, became a vegetarian, made pilgrimages and many gifts to Buddhists but also to Jain and Brahmins. He takes the vows of upasaka and realizes through Buddha's teachings that his territorial conquests are sources of suffering, and heads towards an inner conquest in order to improve the good of the society and the non-violence. He protects other religions and erects pillars on which are engraved in several languages texts promoting justice and tolerance.

Rid of war worries, Ashoka devoted himself to the organization of the empire over which he exercises an absolute power through a decentralized administration, supported by the many edicts carved in stone and scattered throughout the territory.

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Moreover, although he hardly uses it after the conquest of the Kalinga, Ashoka can rely on an imposing army entirely in his service because he is the financier of it.

The orders of the Emperor apply uniformly to the whole territory, they emanate from his will and from his personal authority, as testified by one of these inscriptions. In order to spread his ideal of tolerance, Ashoka promulgates edicts that he makes engraved in stone and erected throughout the Empire. We know fourteen of them, engraved either on rocks, located in the outskirts of the kingdom, or on columns, in the valley of the Ganges or more rarely on the walls of caves in remote regions. These edifying texts make the sovereign not only able to educate his subjects by instilling in them the sense of duty (dharma) but also to comfort his government by the pressure they exert on the population, inciting it to submit to justice, to renounce violence and war, to impose on itself a form of self-discipline.

To fully ensure the application of these principles, Ashoka who considers himself the "father" of all his subjects regardless of their religion or caste, creates a body of supervisors of morality, the dhamma-mahamatra, which, helped by many informants, controls the integrity of his officials and the observance by all of his edicts. These constitute a moral code acceptable by practitioners of Buddhism, which is its direct inspiration, as well as by those of Jainism or Hinduism.

Editor’s note. The way in which Buddhism understands non-violence is not as thorough and demanding as it is among the Jains. In the Theravada tradition, vegetarianism is not obligatory (see Buddhist vegetarianism). In addition, the Devadatta schism, reported by the Pali canon, clearly exposes the Buddha's refusal to make vegetarianism obligatory (one of the five rules that the Devadatta wanted precisely to impose). The monks and laymen of the Theravada rite may eat meat and fish, provided (in the case of the monks) that the animal has not been killed especially for them.

But back to our Islam and Muhammad. Who is not Ashoka, nor a fortiori Buddha, nor even the Messiah son of Mary whose kingdom was not from this world.

Gospel according to Saint John chapter 18. “18 When Jesus had spoken these words, He went out with His disciples over the Brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which He and His disciples entered. And Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place; for Jesus often met there with His disciples. Then Judas, having received a detachment of troops, and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons. Jesus therefore, knowing all things that would come upon Him, went forward and said to them, “Whom are you seeking?” They answered Him, “Jesus the Nazarene.”

Jesus said to them, “I am He.” And Judas, who betrayed Him, also stood with them. Now when He said to them, “I am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground.

Then He asked them again, “Whom are you seeking?”

And they said, “Jesus the Nazarene.”

Jesus answered, “I have told you that I am He. Therefore, if you seek Me, let these go their way,” that the saying might be fulfilled which He spoke, “Of those whom you gave Me I have lost none.”

Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.

So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me?”

Then the detachment of troops and the captain and the officers of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound Him.......

And when He had said these things, one of the officers who stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, saying, “Do you answer the high priest like that?”

Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why do you strike Me?”....

Then Pilate entered the Praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?”

Jesus answered him, “Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning Me?”

Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you to me. What have you done?”

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”

Muhammad therefore is neither Buddha nor Jesus, Muhammad is only Muhammad, that is to say, a great Arab Marabout of the 7th century of the Senussi type.

DIN AND DAWLA.

At this point in our presentation let us point out that according to the Muslim law of nations (siyar), the world is divided into two categories: dar al-Islam and dar al-harb (harb = war).The Islamic State

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therefore must be in a permanent state of war with the Dar al-harb in order to change it into dar al-Islam, that is to say, it must always be ready to meet an attack or to launch one when the Caliph or Imam deems it necessary. In principle, according to the jurists, Islamic power must wage war against Dar al-Harb at least once a year.

In 622, at Aqaba, an isolated valley not far from Mina (a few kilometers from Mecca) was concluded an alliance between Muhammad and a certain number of inhabitants of Yathrib/Medina. The latter would have committed themselves, this time therefore including to fight for the cause of God and his prophet who apparently began to be known up to there.

Muhammad's mother was indeed from Yathrib / Medina and her maternal grandfather had lived there. Muhammad seemed to be able to arbitrate their tribal conflicts (Aws against Khazraj) without being accused of being in the pay of the eternal Quraysh competitors given the state of his relations with them (execrable).

This second oath is known as Bay'at al Harb (oath of allegiance in case of war). The biographical tradition asserts that between the first Aqaba oath and the second one, God would have allowed his envoy to fight his adversaries and to respond with violence to violence. According to Alfred Morabia the tendency was then up to this point more to endure, with piety, the Quraysh miffs than to resist them actively.

More than in the constitution of Medina (in fact a series of 8 pacts) , which marks the appearance of the Ummah, it is in this second oath of Aqaba that we must see the birth certificate of Islamic State.

A pact of defense, of course, but with which "The Envoy of God receives the order to make war," according to the very title given to the episode by Ibn Ishaq.

The Muslim state therefore will organize itself in this "view " with the religion as justification but will really take the offensive against Mecca only with the battle of Badr in 624. Then the number of fighters will increase from a few hundred to ten thousand for the capture of Mecca in 630 and finally thirty thousand for the battle of Tabuk in 630. A strange warlike expedition besides which will end only by the short-lived capture of some outposts of the Byzantine empire (currently northwestern Saudi Arabia). The Byzantine sources are silent on the question what all the same quite strange is.

The failure of the siege of Yathrib / Medina or battle of the trench in 627 will also be a turning point in the progress towards the formation of a militarized state. The economic dimension of the struggle is seen in Muhammad's proposal - the third of its product – made to the Ghatafan to try to rally them behind his cause. It is still more present in the possession of the properties of the Banu Qurayza Jews, with the sharing of the sustainable and unsustainable fay’*. The norms of this division, which occupy a paragraph in Ibn Ishaq, will be tasked to rule all the future conquests in Arabia and the quint or fifth, share of the spoils of war coming down to the Prophet, established on this occasion, will greatly enrich the war chest of Muhammad .

With an unusual determination and regularity in tribal wars, it is therefore a "booty state" that will be established. It is not a coincidence if, later, Caliph Umar will allocate pensions taking into account the participation in the Battle of Badr. These are the elements pro-Muhammad among the chiefs in Yathrib/Medina, like Sa'd b. Mu'adh particularly, who helped this shift towards the warrior and booty state, offensive. The Jews will systematically pay for this, not only because they testify or are the living proof of the fact that Muhammad is not the last prophet of the god of Abraham of Isaac and Jacob but also to supply in spoils of war those who follow this great Arab marabout of the Senussi type.

The episode of the genocide of the Banu Qurayza theoretically decided by this unknown Aws Arab clan leader who was named Sa'd b. Mu'adh, whose Muslims theoretically will only execute the sentence , will inaugurate a state violence absolutely new in Arabia and inspired by the practices of the ancient Orient: massacre of all men, enslavement of women and children. What surprises the historian is that Muslims did not want to take direct responsibility for this massacre. Muhammad, still not very sure of his power in the city, probably thought it better to show that he was only playing the ancestral game of the subtle alliances between clans and Arab or Jewish tribes and make his decision to eliminate the Jews supported (taqiyya?) by this obscure character theoretically suzerain of the unhappy Jewish tribe of the Banu Qurayza.

Wandering Arab violence of before Islam did not have this systematic look, this determination, this organization and was never perpetrated on such a large scale. The emergence of this type of State violence, unknown in the Hejaz up to that point, will shock the Arabs in general, and the Quraysh of Mecca in particular. "

The Jews of the Banu Qurayza tribe suffered indeed a lot more tragic than that of the other two tribes: they were massacred until the last (there also, of course, the opinions differ about the extent of this first Shoah, the figures put forward range from 900 to 100 men according to Tabari or the revisionist historian Hichem Djait, all beheaded then thrown into a mass grave). What is certain is that the booty

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in slaves, land, animals and furniture, was immense and its acquisition approved by the Quran (33, 25-67).

Hichem Djait adds: Then appeared the impression of an irresistible ascent, an impression that grew from the treaty of Hudaybiya in 628 to the takeover of Mecca declared an open city in 630. In Yathrib/Medina itself, clan loyalty breaks up in favor of the charismatic and personal power of Muhammad. The Islamic State is endowed with the attribute of financial coercion over the converted tribes by the institution of the sadaqa or mandatory “alms.”

With the treaty of Hudaybiya indeed, Muhammad will grant to himself cleverly two years of respite in addition, the time for him to gather many rallying, including that of Khalid ibn al-Walid - the winner of the Battle of Uhud (where in 625 the Muslims and Muhammad had been defeated).

In 628 still, while the struggle against the partisans of an open secularity or a philosophical and thoughtful paganism who have taken refuge in Mecca seemed still long and therefore required a strengthening of the territory around Yathrib / Medina and the increase of his means, Muhammad sent his troops into the attack the Khaybar Oasis, located fifty kilometers northwest of Yathrib / Medina and inhabited by peaceful Jewish farmers. After a long siege, the fortified bastions fell and the oasis surrendered. Here too, the loot was important. The women, including the beautiful and unfortunate Safia, as well as the children, were taken captive. Safia refused to convert, became the personal sexual slave of the prophet, and the men remained on the spot where they from now on worked their former lands as sharecroppers on behalf of the Muslim community.

Politically, the Khaybar affair will be seen as an indubitable sign of the power of Muhammad, and the prophet as a new king of Hejaz, who shares his booty with his companions of Yathrib / Medina, as well as with the tribal Arabs who take part in the siege, but also grants (revocable) sharecropping contracts to the Jews. This new power then definitely enters a dialectic that opposes Dar al Islam to Dar al harb, invents enemies, dispossesses them, and ensures the fidelity of his supporters from this dispossession. Being a Muslim yields and provides material advantages over non-Muslims.

Thanks to such a taqiyya Muhammad rallies massively wandering Arab elements: the Aslam undermined by starvation, Muzayna, Juhayna, Sulaym, Ghifar, Khuza'a, who then form a second circle of faithful. Other Bedouin elements from tribes Tamin, Qays and Asad, also come to strengthen the army of Mahomet, which will have ten thousand men at the time of the final march on Mecca of 630, perfectly organized with wings and a center.

Faced with such a force deployment, Mecca will fall " without encountering any opposition" and during the pilgrimage of personal triumphal revenge at the Ka'ba the sacrifice of seventy camels ((camels and not sheep) ritually prepared will impress the population (by its implicit recognition of the pre-eminence of the Ka'ba, and of the religious system of Mecca).

Muhammad will then become the definitive master of the Ka'ba, his true purpose of old, and its pagan pilgrimage will be more or less skillfully attached to the Abrahamic legend. Muhammad will finally take revenge for the real or perceived humiliations of his youth, by taking control of the Meccan trade and by becoming the master of the Quraysh power.

The Quraysh will join simultaneously and en masse to Islam, whose charismatic leader is to be of their own tribe.

Owing to the defeat of the Hawazin in Hunayn the same year, a few weeks later, and then of the inhabitants of Ta’if, the last burst of pagan resistance of the Arabs in the Hejaz, a huge spoil will also be divided as in the case of the unfortunate Jews in Kaybar (sharecropping less ) between the winners, and a significant portion of this booty will come to the last comers, the Quraysh, tied by blood ties, what will diminish as much the share of the Medinans, yet come before them to Islam (hence a certain number of recriminations).

It has always been good policy to encourage the rallying to a cause by giving an advantage or favoring the latest comers, but what shocked the first circles at the time was that it was, surprise, the own tribe of the Prophet. Many had difficulty to understand. As we have already mentioned it, but repetition is the strongest figure of rhetoric.

These booty issues may seem to some a scandalous accounting deal: it is not! It is the engine of expansion of each imperialism. Those who have been plundered and then converted are, in fact, driven to defend an ideology that legitimizes plunder. In the Muslim society that is being built, the amount of loot shares determines the rand of individuals and clans in the hierarchy of honors. In this case, the new converts from Mecca will be favored to the detriment of the veterans of the cause, hence grunts rather comical if we believe the hadiths. This act of authority, strictly arbitrary and skillful as regards politics, on the part of God, has remained in tradition as the episode of the "Gaining of hearts."

Whatever it be, it is thus Dar al-Islam definitely became a booty state whose continual expansion to the detriment of Dar al-Harb became vital. Si vis pacem para bellum.

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The paranoiac delirium is a serious psychiatric illness that is part of psychoses, in which the affected person is not aware of his illness.

As in all psychoses, the main sign is the appearance of a delirium, therefore the loss of contact with reality. This delirium is usually organized around a main theme related to the belief of being persecuted. Therefore the patient then interprets all the elements of daily life starting from this conviction, and reorganizes the reality deliriously, often with a great elation and while firmly believing in his interpretations.

This delirium of interpretation touches little by little all the elements of the daily life. The patient is then convinced that he is the victim of organized persecutions, of a plot, and spends his time accumulating evidence of this imaginary plot. All the daily events are then interpreted according to this conviction, and constitute for the patient as many pieces of evidence that strengthen his conviction. The patient feels that he is the center of the attention of all those around him, and he is convinced that everyone is always judging him or talking about him in a negative way.

The whole question is therefore to know whether Muhammad was really unfairly persecuted before his banishment from Mecca and the first months after his arrival at Yathrib / Medina, or whether he wanted to endorse the Judeo-Christian discourse on this subject.

As far as we are concerned, we will take note of the fact that with Islam ALL HAPPENS AS IF THERE WERE COUNTLESS MARTYRS FALLEN UNDER THE BLOWS OF PERSECUTIONS ORGANIZED BY THE PAGANS IN MECCA.

On the reality, or not, of these persecutions that have made millions dead see our previous works about Christianity or Islam. In this case what is believed is more important than what is true.

In principle, Islamic jurisprudence does not consider the concept of ethnicity or citizenship. For it, human beings belong to one of these two categories: believers or disbelievers.

Verse 118 chapter 3 " O you who believe! Take not for intimates others than your own folk.”

This togetherness or rejection of the "infidels" is therefore the dominant and siege mentality theme of the Quran. This dualism "they" and "us" also explains the feeling of belonging to a community or the strong social cohesion that we observe in the majority Muslim countries and the difficulties of integration that the Muslims experience in countries not belonging to Dar Al Islam.

Islam is indeed a religion that advocates social cohesion and the continuity of a theocratic power, and Muslim society is a militarized society striving completely for the conquest and conversion of the Dar al Harb, including in its spirituality as evidenced by the case of the Sufi warrior monks in the ribats (we do not speak here of other Sufis).

* Fay. Property acquired without fighting, therefore not constituting spoils of war in the strict sense of the term.

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THE LESSER JIHAD OR JIHAD OF CONVERSION IN THE QURAN.

As Ibn Khaldun and Yusuf al-Qaradawi explained it well, the outward expansion jihad (the lesser jihad) is a religious duty because of the universal nature of the life-saving mission of Muslims.

The non-Muslim world, whatever its system of government, lives in sin by definition, since the good of Mankind lies only in living according to the law of God. So is good what is in accordance with the standards of Islam, is wrong what is contrary to it or differing from it.

For comparison, since Muhammad considered it necessary to define himself in relation to his predecessors (Jesus is mentioned 27 times in the Quran), let us begin with a Hadith or Sura of the Christians. St Luke 15: 11-32.

“There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.

After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

ISLAM IS LESS COMPLICATED because, as some scholars have well seen, and the reaction of the other son is there to show it, such laxity such guilty mercy is unjust * for the other son, the one who has remained all that time there with his father faithfully executing his orders without being particularly rewarded.

We will not insist on the punishments that await the unbelievers in the other world (in Hell) all the religions in the world except Druidism do the same, and we will insist above all on the lot reserved for them AS SOON AS FROM THIS WORLD: verse 30, chapter 9. " God fights against them. How perverse are they!

Another element that has far-reaching impacts and which is a part of the collective psychology ** of Islam as a structured crowd is indeed the use of the lesser jihad to convert peoples to the true religion, what is nevertheless more logical and more accessible to normal people.

Just as Jewish Tradition teaches that the non-Jewish world is fundamentally impure and one (or essentialized: the non-Jews forming a confused and indistinct whole not deserving that anything is distinguished in it); the Orthodox Islam teaches that the non-Muslim world is fundamentally bad and one, face Islam. "Al kufru millatun wahida": "Unbelief is one nation," the Muslim tradition teaches. Same essentialization therefore that with the notion of goyim in Haredim Judaism.

Islam has four types of lesser conversion jihads: through heart, tongue, hand and sword. Jihad through the heart, also called "Greater Jihad," invites Muslims to fight in order to improve themselves or improve society. Indeed, many Muslim scholars interpret jihad as a struggle in the spiritual meaning of the word. A minority of Sunni scholars even consider it the sixth pillar of Islam, although jihad does

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not have the official status of them. In the Twelver Shiism, it is considered one of the ten religious practices of worship.

To call the offensive armed struggle for the greater glory of God (jihad fi Sabilillah) of minor lesser jihad does not mean for all that its condemnation or its moral disqualification, and Islamic history has known many Sufis devoting themselves to military service in the hermitages fortresses called ribats. The duty of jihad (of lesser jihad or minor jihad) remains as long as the universal dominion of Islam has not been got. Peace with non-Muslim nations in this case can only be a temporary situation: a truce! In short, the prerequisite for peace or final reconciliation is Muslims advantage. It is expressed very clearly in a Sunni text of Islamic law we have already mentioned, the Umdat as-Salik or reliance of the traveler, written in the fourteenth century by an Egyptian doctor in law named Ahmad Ibn an Naqib al-Misri: " There must be some benefit [maslaha] served in making a truce other than the status quo.”

Verses 19 and 20 of chapter 9 of the Quran clearly make lesser jihad the supreme duty of the true good Muslim.

" Count you the slaking of a pilgrim's thirst and tendance of the Inviolable Place of Worship as (equal to the worth of) him who believes in God and the Last Day, and strives in the way of God? They are not equal in the sight of God…….

Those who believe, and have left their homes and striven with their wealth and their lives in God's way are of much greater worth in God’s sight.”

Quran verse 95 chapter 4 Quran verse 91 chapter 9 Quran verse 17 chapter 48 and Quran verse 60 chapter 8 exclude to consider that this lesser jihad can be only spiritual.

-Verse 95 chapter 4: “Those of the believers who sit still, other than those who have a (disabling) hurt, are not on an equality with those who strive in the way of God with their wealth and lives. God has conferred on those who strive with their wealth and lives a rank above the sedentary.”

-Verses 41 and following ones, chapter 9. " Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of God! That is best for you if you but knew. Had it been a near adventure and an easy journey they had followed you, but the distance seemed too far for them. … Those who believe in God and the Last Day ask no leave of the lest they should strive with their wealth and their lives.”

-Verse 91 chapter 9: “Not unto the weak nor unto the sick nor unto those who can find nothing to spend is any fault (to be imputed though they stay at home) if they are true to God and His messenger. Not unto the good is there any road (of blame)….Nor unto those whom, when they came to you (asking) that you should mount them, you did tell: I cannot find whereon to mount you. They turned back with eyes flowing with tears, for sorrow that they could not find the means to spend.”

-Verse 17 chapter 48: “There is no blame for the blind, nor is there blame for the lame, nor is there blame for the sick that they do not go forth to war.

-Verse 60 chapter 8: “Make ready for them all you can of (armed) force and of horses tethered….”

Including…..

-Verse 35, chapter 47. "So do not falter and cry out for peace when you (will be) the uppermost, and God is with you, and He will not grudge (the reward of) your actions.”

In other words, it is the well-known psychological phenomenon called taqiyya: when Muslims are weak and in a minority position, they must behave in accordance with the spirit of the verses of Mecca (peace, tolerance and love); but when they are strong, they must take the offensive and be based on the orders given in the verses of Medina (war and conquest).

And the Muslims who fight in the path of God as well as the inactive Muslims are not equal. Conclusion: In Islamic lands (Dar al Islam), Muslim lesser jihadists override inactive or passive Muslims.

On the other hand, it can be considered indeed that in the verses of the Meccan period, the use of the word jihad and its derivations seems to refer rather to a spiritual war, that is to say, to resist the surrounding impiety.

Supposing that to see God everywhere (druidic pantheism or philosophic and considered paganism) is impiety.

The most well known of the meanings of jihad is therefore the jihad by the sword or "lesser jihad for the greater glory of God" (jihad fi Sabilillah). When the Muslims make war against the unbelievers after they have called them to embrace Islam and pay the dhimmi tax after having been humiliated (what is required by the expression saghiruna that concludes the verse 29 of chapter 9), but that they refused.

The compulsory character of jihad is expressed in the Manichean idea of the world seen by Muslim theology, which opposes the House of Islam to the Land of war. The first, Dar al-Islam, is the "Land of the submission to God," the world where Sharia rules social life; the second, Dar al-Harb (the land of war), is the non-Muslim world.

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Al-Shafi'i expounded first the doctrine that jihad is to be a permanent war with unbelievers and not only when the latter conflict with Islam; by being based on the verse: "slay the idolaters (mushrikun) wherever you find them" (Quran chapter 9 verse 5).

For Islam, the world is therefore divided into two, Muslims and non-Muslims. The first form the Islamic community, the Ummah Islamiya, "the best community *** that hath been raised up for mankind" (chapter 3 verse 110), holding the territories of "Dar al-Islam" (House of Islam) and governed by Islamic law. But not limited in time or space: the Ummah also encompasses any Muslim community established in unbelieving land and keeping its Islamic identity.

Non-Muslims, as or them, are some "harbiyun," inhabitants of the "Dar al-Harb," countries of war, thus called because they must pass, on one day or the other, under Islamic jurisdiction either by war (harb), or by conversion. In the Dar al-Islam, the non-Muslim is tolerated if he is monolatrous or a follower of an Abrahamic religion (Ahl al Kitab "People of the Book," Jews, Christians, Mandeans-Sabaeans) or other monotheists (Zoroastrians, Iranian magians). But these "People of the Book" can only be subordinated to Islamic law, the Sharia. They are obliged to pay in a humiliating manner (saghiruna) a specific tax (jizya) making them worthy to be "protected," that is to say, placed under a protectorate as second-class citizens. Islam categorically forbids non-Muslims to hold political-administrative functions giving them an injunction right upon believers. The Muslim who accepts such a situation commits a sin, even if the unbeliever is a native (Maronites in Lebanon, Copts in Egypt, Hindus in Kashmir, Christians in the Philippines, etc.).

* Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

** “Under certain given circumstances, and only under those circumstances, an agglomeration of men presents new characteristics very different from those of the individuals composing it. The sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the same direction, and their conscious personality vanishes. A collective mind is formed, doubtless transitory, but presenting very clearly defined characteristics. It forms a single being” (Gustave Le Bon, Psychology of crowds). There are therefore collective psychologies, that of the organized, structured ,crowds, but it is important to distinguish. The collective psychology of Nazism as an organized or structured crowd was not that of Nazism, the collective psychology of Judaism is not that of Christianity, and both differ from the collective psychology of the paganism two thousand years ago in this part of the world.

*** For Christianity is the complete contrary, men even members of the Church are first and above all sinners. We go from an extreme to the other.

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THE OFFENSIVE LESSER JIHAD OF CONVERSION, IS THEREFORE A DUTY.

Almost all of the suras refusing the beginning of dialogue which had been painfully sketched in Mecca at the time when Muhammad was in opposition, date from the Medinan period of Muhammad's life.

The first Muslims who followed Muhammad to Yathrib / Medina (the muhajirun) hesitated to wage war against their families who remained in the Meccan camp, what deeply irritated Muhammad. He received very opportunely the following revelations on this subject: "Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that you hate a thing which is good for you" (chapter 2: 216).

Verse 81, chapter 9. "They were averse to striving with their wealth and their lives in God's way. And they said: Go not forth in the heat! Say: The fire of hell is more intense of heat.”

Many other verses show that Muhammad was to constantly insist on this point and that many of the early Muslims were not enthusiastic about the idea of being killed in battle (e.g., verse 65, chapter 8. "O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight !") hence again the overwhelming weight of Muhammad's personality as for this aspect of Islam: the duty to participate in lesser jihad, in one way or another, and not just spiritually.

Fortunately for the nascent Islam, the lure of booty in men (or more precisely in women) and in material goods could also set in motion some hypocrites or rallied at the last minute. See the case of the Meccans after the battle of Hunayn in 630 (on the occasion of the siege of Ta’if).

There too, dear reader, we will not speak of your Islam, which is only love calm and voluptuousness or Sufi spirituality, but of false Islam, which is based on the abrogating verses of the Quran on the hadiths and on the reflections of certain ignoramuses in this field as the Hanbali theologian Ibn Taymiyyah.

THE WORLD MUST OBEY TO GOD.

In Arabic, "jihad" means struggle. In Muslim theology it means holy war for God: jihad fi Sabilillah.

Such is therefore the meaning of the holy war or "lesser jihad." Many verses are devoted to it. About a hundred. 19 % of the Quran deals with the conquest or submission of non-Muslims. These verses of the Quran were used as a basis for the establishment of the theory of the obligation to make (holy) war = jihad fi Sabilillah or minor jihad for the greater glory of God.

Let the pious Muslim forgive in advance what will follow and which, alas, is subject to the prohibition by God of any discussion or dialogue. Indeed, in the pages that follow we will discuss once gain the verses of the Quran: their meaning, their relevance, their adequacy, their ethical philosophical or scientific value. How can we do otherwise?

129 verses enjoin Muslims to the lesser jihad, a new kind of perpetual and universal war against the whole world. Non-exhaustive list of these verses unambiguously calling for a physical confrontation against non-Muslims.

Chapter 2 verses 54,190,191,192,193, 216,217,244.

Chapter 3 verses 13,122,123,125,127,139,140,141,142,152,153,154,157,158,168,169,170,171,200.

Chapter 4 verses 71, 74, 75, 76, 77, 84, 94, 95, 96, 100, 104.

Chapter 5 verses 33,35.

Chapter 8 verse 1, 7, 8,9,10,12,13,15,16,17,18,19,39,43,45,46,47,48,57,59,60,66.65,66 , 67.69.

Chapter 9 verses 5,9,10,12,13,14,15,16,18,19,20,22,25,26,29,36,38,39,41,42,43,44,46,47 , 49,73,81,86,91,92,93,95,96,

111, 121, 123.

Chapter 22 verses 58,78.

Chapter 33 verses 9,10,11,14,15,16,20,22,26,27,60,61.

Chapter 47. verses 4,7,31,35.

Chapter 48 verses 11,16,17,20,21,24,25.

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Chapter 61 verses 4,11,12,13.

Chapter 66 verse 9 ...

etc.

REMINDING OF THE TEXTS OF THIS ASSERTIVE INTERFAITH DIALOGUE (repeating is the art of teaching).

Verse 193, chapter 2. " And fight them until Fitna is no more, and religion is for God . But if they desist, then let there be no hostility except against wrongdoers.”

Verse 216, chapter 2. "Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto you; but it may happen that you hate a thing which is good for you, and it may happen that you love a thing which is bad for you.”

Verse 28, chapter 3. " Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whosoever does that has no connection with God” . Editor’s note . The Arabic word translated as "friends" is awliyaa which means both protector, tutor, helper.

Verse 56, chapter 3. " As for those who disbelieve I shall chastise them with a heavy chastisement in the world and the Hereafter.”

Verses 74-77, chapter 4. "Let those fight in the way of God who sell the life of this world for the other. Whosoever fights in the way of God, be he slain or be he victorious, on him, We shall bestow a vast reward. How should you not fight for the cause of God….Those who believe do battle for the cause of God; and those who disbelieve do battle for the cause of the thaghuts. So fight the minions of the devil… when fighting was prescribed for them behold! a party of them fear mankind even as their fear of God or with greater fear, and say: Our Lord! Why have you ordained fighting for us ? If only you would give us respite yet a while! Say : The comfort of this world is scant; the Hereafter will be better for him who warded off (evil) and you will not be wronged the down upon a date skin.”

Verse 89 chapter 4. " They long that you should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that you may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of God; if they turn back (to enmity) then take them and kill them wherever you find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them.”

Verse 91 chapter 4. “You will find others who desire that they should have security from you, and security from their own folk…..If they do not keep aloof from you nor offer you peace nor hold their hands, then take them and kill them wherever you find them. Against such We have given you clear warrant.”

Verse 95, chapter 4: " Those of the believers who sit still, other than those who have a (disabling) hurt, are not on an equality with those who strive in the way of God with their wealth and lives. God has conferred on those who strive with their wealth and lives a rank above the sedentary.”

Verse 101, chapter 4. "In truth the disbelievers are an open enemy to you.”

Verses 33 and 34 of chapter 5. " The only reward of those who make war upon God and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land.”

This passage of the Quran raises several questions.

What does it mean to wage war against God? Can writing a book doubting the existence of God, or at least the existence of the God of Abraham of Isaac and Jacob, be already considered as making war on God?

Same for the following proposition: " those who strive after corruption in the land .... What does it mean exactly ? To refuse to convert, write books in the genre of these mentioned above, to defend oneself, including armed with weapons ... .Is it not already striving after corruption in the land?

Same question for the notion of Trinity. To defend the Christian Trinity design is it not already to wage war against God?

Verse 51, chapter 5. " O you who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends. They are friends one to another ."

Verse 12 Chapter 8 . “When your Lord inspired the angels (saying): I am with you. So make those who believe stand firm. I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite the necks and smite of them each finger.”

Verse 17, chapter 8. " You slew them not, but God slew them.”

Verse 39 chapter 8. “Fight them until Fitna* is no more, and religion is all for Allah (God)”.

Verse 60, chapter 8. " Make ready for them all you can of (armed) force and of horses tethered.”

Verse 65, chapter 8. " O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there be of you twenty steadfast they shall overcome two hundred, and if there be of you a hundred (steadfast) they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they (the disbelievers) are a folk without intelligence.”

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Verse 67, chapter 8. " It is not for any prophet to have captives until he has made slaughter in the land.” Editor's Note: This verse is to be slightly changed. The practice of ransom was also commonplace.

Verse 74, chapter 8. " Those who believed and left their homes and strove for the cause of God and those who took them in and helped them - these are the believers in truth. For them is pardon, and bountiful provision.

Verse 14, chapter 9. " Fight them! God will chastise them at your hands.”

Verse 20, chapter 9. " Those who have left their homes and striven with their wealth and their lives in God’s way are of much greater worth in God’s sight.”

Verse 30, chapter 9. " The Jews say: Uzayr is the son of God , and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of God. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. God (Himself) fights against them.” (Note: One can really wonder where this ridiculous idea comes from, the Jews claiming that Uzayr / Ezra is the Son of God!)

Verse 38, chapter 9. " O you who believe! What ails you that when it is said unto you: Go forth in the way of God, you are bowed down to the ground with heaviness. Take you pleasure in the life of the world rather than in the Hereafter ? If you do not go forth, He will afflict you with a painful doom.”

Verses 41 and following chapter 9. " Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of God! That is best for you if you but knew. Had it been a near adventure and an easy journey they had followed you, but the distance seemed too far for them….. Those who believe in God and the Last Day ask no leave of you lest they should strive with their wealth and their lives.”

Verse 73 chapter 9. " O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites! Be harsh with them. Their ultimate abode is hell.”

Verse 86, chapter 9. And when a Surah is revealed, "Believe in God and fight with His Messenger," the people who have the means to fight among them ask you to dispense them (from the battle), and say : Leave us with those who remain.

Verse 88 chapter 9. " But the messenger and those who believe with him strive with their wealth and their lives. Such are they for whom are the good things. Such are they who are the successful.”

Verse 90, chapter 9. " And those among the wandering Arabs who had an excuse came in order that permission might be granted them. And those who lied to God and His messenger sat at home. A painful doom will fall on those of them who disbelieve.”

Verse 91, chapter 9. " Not unto the weak nor unto the sick nor unto those who can find nothing to spend is any fault (to be imputed though they stay at home) if they are true to God and His messenger. Nor unto those whom, when they came to you (asking) that you should mount them, you did tell: I cannot find whereon to mount you. They turned back with eyes flowing with tears, for sorrow that they could not find the means to spend.”

Verse 111, chapter 9. "Lo! God has bought from the believers their lives and their wealth because the Garden will be theirs: they shall fight in the way of God and shall slay and be slain.”

Verse 123, chapter 9. " O you who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that God is with those who keep their duty (unto him).

Verse 61, chapter 33. " Accursed, they will be seized wherever found and slain with a (fierce) slaughter.”

Verse 35, chapter 47. " So do not falter and cry out for peace when you (will be) the uppermost, and God is with you, and He will not grudge (the reward of) your actions.”

Verse 16, chapter 48. " Say unto those of the wandering Arabs who were left behind: You will be called against a folk of mighty prowess, to fight them until they surrender; and if you obey, God will give you a fair reward; but if you turn away as you did turn away before, He will punish you with a painful doom. "

Verse 10, chapter 57: "Those who spent and fought before the victory are not upon a level (with the rest of you). Such are greater in rank than those who spent and fought afterwards.”

Verse 4, chapter 61. " Lo! God loves them who battle for His cause in ranks, as if they were a solid structure.”

Verses 10-12 chapter 61. "O you who believe! Shall I show you a commerce that will save you from a painful doom? You should believe in God and His messenger, and should strive for the cause of God with your wealth and your lives….and God will forgive you your sins and bring you into Gardens underneath which rivers flow…..”.

Verse 9, chapter 66. " Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern with them.”

* Fitna. Arabic word that can be translated by discord dissenting heresy disorder.

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HADITHS CALLING FOR LESSER JIHAD.

Few verses of the Quran clearly explain that lesser jihad is war. There are, however, many hadiths that fill this gap and show how the contemporaries of Muhammad themselves understood the meaning of this word (jihad).

The few hadiths that follow clearly explain how the notion of lesser jihad must be understood.

The most reliable of all Hadith collections is that of Bukhari. The lesser jihad is mentioned over 200 times in reference to the words of Muhammad and each one carries a clear connotation to holy war, with only a handful of possible exceptions (dealing with a woman's supporting role during a time of holy war).

Bukhari. Vol. 1, Book 2, Hadith 25. God’s Messenger said: "I have been ordered to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but God and that Muhammad is God’s Messenger and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform that, then they save their lives and property from me except for laws and then their reckoning (accounts) will be done by God."

Bukhari. Vol. 1, Book 2, Hadith 35.The Prophet said, "The person who participates in (Holy battles) in God’s cause and nothing compels him to do so except belief in God and His Apostles, will be recompensed by God either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr)”.

Bukhari. Vol. 1, Book 8, Hadith 387. Muhammad. "I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: 'None has the right to be worshipped but God.' And if they say so, pray like our prayers, face our qibla and sacrifice as we sacrifice, then their blood and property will be sacred to us..." (Reported by Anas bin Malik).

Bukhari. Vol. 4, Book 52, Hadith 73. Narrated Abdullah bin Abi Awfa: God’s Apostle said, "Know that Paradise is under the shades of swords."

Bukhari. Vol. 4, Book 52, Hadith 177. “God’s Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."

Bukhari. Vol. 4, Book 52, Hadith 220. God’s Apostle said... 'and I have been made victorious with terror.'

Bukhari. Vol. 4, Book 52, Hadith 256. The Prophet was asked whether it was permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women and children to danger. The Prophet replied, "They (i.e., women and children) are from them (i.e., pagans)."

Bukhari. Vol. 4. Book 53, Hadith 392.”While we were in the Mosque, the Prophet came out and said, "Let us go to the Jews." We went out till we reached their Bait-ul-Midras (Jewish school). He said to them, "If you embrace Islam, you will be safe. You should know that the earth belongs to God and His Apostle, and I want to expel you from this land. So, if anyone among you, owns some property, he is permitted to sell it, otherwise you should know that the Earth belongs to God and His Apostle."

Bukhari. Vol. 5, Book 59, Hadith 716. Narrated Ibn Abbas: the ailment of God's Apostle became worse on Thursday and he said, fetch me something so that I may write ….. The people (present there) differed in this matter….Some said, "What is wrong with him ? Do you think he is delirious ? Ask him ." So they went to the Prophet and asked him . The Prophet said, "Leave me, for my present state is better than what you call me for." Then he ordered them to do three things. "Turn the pagans out of the 'Arabian Peninsula; respect and give gifts to the foreign delegations as you have seen me dealing with them." (Said bin Jubair, the sub-narrator said that Ibn Abbas kept quiet as rewards the third order, or he said, "I forgot it.")

Muslim 1:30. "The Messenger of God said: I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but God."

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Muslim 1:149. "Abu Dharr reported: I said: Messenger of God, which of the deeds is the best? He (the Holy Prophet) replied: Belief in God and lesser jihad …."

Muslim 2: 4645. "It has been narrated on the authority of Abu Said Khudri that the Messenger of God said to him : Whoever cheerfully accepts God as his Lord, Islam as his religion and Muhammad as his Apostle, is necessarily entitled to enter Paradise. (But) there is another act which elevates the position of a man in Paradise to a grade one hundred (higher). Abu Sayd asked: What is that act? He replied lesser jihad in the way of God! "

Muslim 20:4696. "The Messenger of God said: 'One who died but did not fight in the way of God nor did he express any desire (or determination) for Jihad died the death of a hypocrite.'"

Abu Dawud 14:2527. The Prophet said: Striving in the path of God (jihad) is incumbent on you along with every ruler whether he is pious or impious.

CONCLUSION ABOUT THE LESSER JIHAD IN SIRA AND IN HADITHS.

What do the Sira and the Hadiths say on the subject of lesser jihad? The most important piece of information they contain is that Muhammad, during his ten years’ stay at Yathrib/Medina till his death, had engaged in as many as 82 lesser jihads of which 26 he led in person. These 26 lesser jihads are called ghazwahs. The Hadiths also tell us that most of these ghazwahs were in the nature of raids or swooping down upon the enemy without previous notice. The Sira and the Hadiths also give details regarding the wealth and the number of men, women and children he captured in these ghazwahs. But before we give some idea of this ghanimah (plunder), it is important to learn first how the Quranic Revelations regarding lesser jihad are confirmed or disconfirmed by the Hadiths.

Firstly, that lesser jihad is the greatest duty of a Muslim is described in the Hadiths without any scope for doubt or ambiguity. According to Imam Muslim for example "It has been narrated on the authority of Abu Hurairah that the Messenger of Dieu said: One who died but did not fight in the way of God, nor did express any desire (or determination) for lesser jihad died the death of a hypocrite" (Sahih Muslim, No. 4696).

Editor's note.To get a clear understanding of this hadith it is necessary, first of all, to understand the meaning of the term hypocrite in this context. The Arabic munafiq which is usually used for this term has a very specialized meaning in the Quran. It refers to those people of Yathrib/Medina who, having given shelter to Muhammad gradually grown disenchanted with them but did not dare rise in open rebellion against them. The leader of this disaffected Medinan faction was Abdullah bin Ubayy, a name cursed and reprobated in Islam for all time to come. The Quran itself has cursed these so-called hypocrites with words of the harshest denunciation and scorn. The Hadiths have announced that their reward in the hereafter is the lowest layer of hell - a whole layer below the one allotted to pagans. See the 9th circle of Hell according to Dante.

With this background it is clear that the foregoing hadiths pronounces the waging of lesser jihad as a Muslim’s supreme duty, failing which he is asked to cherish a fervent desire for it so that the terrible fate of a munafiq does not overtake him in the hereafter. In a word, the Hadiths declare even more uncompromisingly than the Quran itself that a pacifist Muslim is not a Muslim at all.

It is clear then that the (jihadist) mujahid's reward in the hereafter should be superior to that of a non-combatant Muslim. We have seen already that the Quran pronounces as much when it allots for a mujahid (jihadist) a greater reward than that for a peace-loving believer (4:95, 9:19, 9:20, 57:10). The extent of its greatness is described in a hadith as follows: "It has been narrated on the authority of Abu Said Khudri that the Messenger of God said to him : Whoever cheerfully accepts God as his Lord, Islam as his religion and Muhammad as his Apostle, is necessarily entitled to enter Paradise... (But) there is another act which elevates the position of a man in Paradise to a grade one hundred (higher). Abu Sayd said: What is that act? He replied: Lesser jihad in the way of God" (Sahih Muslim, No. 4645).

This hadith clearly indicates that the difference between a pacifist Muslim and a mujahid or jihadist Muslim is as great as the difference between heaven and earth and that the pacifist's reward rises to no higher than earthly eminences.

Thirdly. Hadiths that refer to the blood-soaked nature of jihad are not rare. Number 4549 of Mishkat al-Masabih has the following: "According to the venerable Abu Musa,God’s Messenger has said: The portals of heaven lie under the shadow of the sword. On hearing this a man stood up and said: O Abu Musa, did you hear this hadith with your own ears? Yes, said Abu Musa, and then and there the man went up to his companions and said: I bid you peace. So saying he broke the sheath of his sword and proceeded towards the enemies. He killed many with that sword and ultimately attained martyrdom himself."

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Clearly, the sword is the Muslim’s best passport to heaven. Muhammad’s own conviction comes out with singular intensity in the following hadiths. "It has been narrated on the authority of Abu Hurairah : I heard the Messenger of God say: By the Being in whose Hand is my life, I love that I should be killed in the way of God; then I should be brought back to life and be killed again in His way" (Sahih Muslim, No. 4631).

Fourthly. The position of Muhammad as for pacifism appears clearly in the following hadith: "Said the Venerable Umama: On a certain occasion we went out with the Prophet on a campaign. One man among us was passing by a well standing by the side of a field studded with green vegetation. The spot roused in his mind a strange longing (for a life of seclusion) and he thought: How glorious would it be if I could renounce the vanities of the world and reside in this spot (for the rest of my days)? He sought the permission of God’s Messenger. Said His Highness: (Listen to me, O man of little understanding): I was not sent down (by God) to preach the religion of Jews and Christians. To keep oneself busy in the way of God for a single morning or afternoon is better than the whole earth and whatever (wealth) it possesses. And to get imprisoned in the field of battle is better than being engaged in surplus prayers for as many as 60 whole years" (Mishkat, No. 4489).

This hadith indicates that the pacifism of initial Christianity (or Jainism) was not an option for the Prophet of Islam.

Fifthly.Quite a few hadiths bring out the fact that the pre-eminent aim of lesser jihad is the expansion of Islam by war. We have already seen that this is preached in the Quran itself. The following hadith not only reiterates the aim but also explains the sequence of objectives which a mujahid (jihadist) is supposed to strive for:

"Fight in the name of God and the way of God. Fight against those who disbelieve in God... When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action... Invite them to (accept) Islam... If they refuse to accept Islam, accept from them the jizya. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek God’s help and fight them (Sahih Muslim, No. 4294).

It is only necessary to add that, in this hadith at least, the sequence does not seem to include ghanimah (plunder). The triad of actions discussed here seems to exclude plunder of infidel property and enslavement of the infidel population . This gap, however, is adequately filled in other hadiths which will be discussed in the subsequent chapter.

Sixthly. At this point of our six points reasoning, it is important to understand the meaning of two technical expressions related to lesser jihad. The word ghazi ( victorious slayer of infidels) and the expression, shahid (witness), which means the person who died in order to bring evidence (shahadah) to the truth of Islam and by fighting infidels.

There are hadiths describing the best shahadah offered by a mujahid who has become a “martyr.”

(A question arose as to) "what kind of martyrdom in lesser jihad is the best. Said God’s Messenger: When a “martyr” (sic) sends (an infidel's) blood streaming, he should (before falling dead) cut off the feet of the horse carrying the said infidel" (Mishkat, No. 4530).

The translator commenting on this hadith says: "'Sending an infidel s blood streaming and wounding his mount'.

What is clear from all these hadiths is that the lesser jihad has 4 goals.

1) To convert.

2) To reduce or eliminate unbelievers. Verse 67,chapter 8. " It is not for any prophet to have captives until he hath made slaughter in the land”. Editor’s note. This verse is to be qualified. The practice of ransom was also commonplace.

3) Raise the specific tax characteristic of dhimmitude (generally some Judeo-Christians). It should be stressed that this special tax must be paid personally and under humiliating conditions (saghiruna).

4) To get material or human spoils of war. There is, however, a whole chapter in the Quran (the number 8) thus entitled: Al Anfal. Collecting the new tax raised from Judeo-Christians or ransom demands are not the only reasons for the lesser jihad. Another goal is also the spoils of war or ghanimah as admitted in the verse 69 of chapter 8. "Enjoy what you have won, as lawful and good.”

This overabundant literature besides has many other things to say on lesser jihad. In order to sum up the ones already mentioned, one can say therefore that hadiths retain all the injunctions of the Quran but adds….

1) That lesser jihad is the supreme duty of a Muslim (it is preached with greater intensity by Muhammad’s impassioned utterances regarding his 'aim of life.'

2) The concrete objectives of Islamic expansion, jizyah money and infidel slaughter are enumerated in the hadith No 4294 of the Sahih Muslim. The Quran does not mention such sequence.

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3) The last moments of the earthly life of a martyr are more detailed in the hadiths. The Quran is not equally clear, although the killing of infidels and their destroying is always implicit, and sometimes even explicit, in many of its suras.

4) The theoretical pacifism of the Christian hermits is emphatically rejected in the Hadiths. The Quran is silent on the subject.

THE DOCTRINE OF LESSER JIHAD (secondary sources about the lesser jihad).

In an article entitled "How Islam Classifies Countries," al-Muhajirun, The Voice, the Eyes, the Ears of the Muslims, London, January 27, 2001, http://www. onlyam.om/islamicstopics/foreign_policy/land_classification.html dared to write what is following."Once the Islamic State is established, anyone in Dar Al-Harb will have no sanctity, neither for his life or wealth, hence a Muslim in such circumstances can then go into Dar Al-Harb and take the wealth from the people unless there is a treaty with that state. If there is no treaty individual Muslims can even go into Dar Al-Harb and take women to keep as slaves." Our friend Bat Ye'or herself has acknowledged * that "the excessive nature of these remarks seems to be the result of a provocative manipulation, and would make many Muslims jump with indignation [but] we quote them here, because they describe well the theory of jihad and its historical reality.* COMMENTARY, N°97, SPRING 2002,Jews and Christians under Islam. Dhimmitude and Marcionism .

As far as theory is concerned, however, the situation is different (taqiya?).

-Cook, David. 2005. Understanding Jihad. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

-Khadduri, Majid. 1969. War and Peace in the Law of Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.

-Peters, Rudolph. 1996. Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam: A Reader. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers.

- Morabia, Alfred. 1993. The Jihad in Medieval Islam: The Sacred Fight from the origins to the twelfth century. Paris: Albin Michel. Subject to reservation. The French, especially the legal French, of this author, is not easy to understand.

The traditional doctrine of lesser jihad is in itself a post-Mohammedan construction that draws from several sources, practice having more often influenced the theory than the opposite. The meaning of jihad as an offensive holy war (al-talab wa'l-ibtida ) prevailed in the legal tradition, and the classification jihad even ended up extending to the various suppression against heretics, rebels and brigands, even at a late date, however, among Sunnis.

As AI-Ashmawy points out, the meaning of the lesser jihad concept therefore evolved during the Quranic revelation, divided into two periods.

During the Meccan period of the revelation (610-622), jihad had a spiritual and moral meaning. This was the personal effort that the Muslim had to make to live piously while resisting the environment, generally hostile for various reasons, despite the a priori tolerant nature of the philosophical and considered paganism of the Meccan elites of the time, imbued with Greek, Roman, Persian, Jewish, Christian, Syriac, Manichean, and Zoroastrian, culture.

It was during the Medinan period (622-632) that the term goes beyond this simple spiritual meaning to include, in addition, the individual and collective struggle against the enemy.

The lesser jihad indeed appeared in Islam only in 624, after the victorious raid of Nakhla in January 624. A tried and successful coup de main (a dozen Muslims at the end of resources against four Quraysh therefore enemies caravan driers) but having taken place during an annual period of truce for the Arabs of that time, the sacred months.

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Hence a disavowal by Muhammad to begin with. But here again God kept a close watch and spoke in order to specify that this was not the worse sacrilege, that fighting during the sacred months is, of course, a serious sin, but that even more serious was to oppose the will of God , to be ungodly towards him and the sacred mosque (the Kaaba), and to expel from it its faithful. The associationism or polytheism being more serious than murder (chapter 2, 217).

And especially after the Battle of Badr in March 624 (dramatic failure of a Meccan attempt to save one of their caravans threatened with interception). Muhammad participated in it personally at the head of several hundred men and angels. 72 dead on the Meccan side of which the famous Amr ibn Hisham known as Abu Jahl. The word jihad then takes on the meaning we know today as for it.

The Quranic verses will henceforth allow war and Muhammad , who has become both spiritual leader and political-military leader of the City-State of Yathrib / Medina, will be able to build a war machine there in to establish the authority of his idea of God. Cook (2005, page 6) speaks of an average of nine campaigns led annually by Muhammad during the last nine years of his life.

For the Kharijites, the lesser jihad is therefore even one of the pillars of Islam and is an individual obligation. For the Shiites, because the lesser jihad will be victorious only on the return of the hidden imam, it must be postponed to that date (Khadduri, War and Peace, Chapter V). This machine, which will be perfected by the caliphs Abu Bakr and Omar, will make it possible to conquer, in less than a century, and only by means of defensive wars or wars carried out in self-defense state, a territory which will extend from the Maghreb to the banks of the Indus.

The whole question is whether this religious dimension of the "holy war" of the lesser jihad is timeless, immanent and inherent in the Muslim religion or a simple self-defense as certain authors, some apologists and linked to the Islamist movement, such as Taliqani (1986) and Shaltut (1977) or others such as Esposito (2002), Zawati (2001), AI-Ashmawy (1989), Bonney (2004) and Ferjani (2005) bordering on academics and apologetics and taqiyya. But in both cases, they all diminish the offensive and warlike dimension of the jihad in the traditional doctrine on this subject even when they admit its importance in Islamic conquests and seek to release the Quran from any contribution to the formation of its doctrine by emphasizing the pacifist verses as the rector of the great mosque in Paris does.

The analysis that researchers are developing on lesser jihad, as it is the case with other discussions about Islam, depends on the choice of texts they make to determine the official or representative attitude of Islam on this issue.

The four main Sunni Islamic schools of law had, of course, originally, each one different designs of the lesser jihad, but the points of view ended in coming closer to each other rather quickly.

The various legal schools, although each keeping their distinctive coloring due to the conditions of their own development, distribution and, above all, to the degree of sociological evolution of their first bases, are essentially related to the presentation of general principles. There were, of course, during this long period of development of the official doctrine, differences of opinion which were sometimes important, but the time, and above all the spirit of consensus, assumed the task of blurring them.

Opinions about the lesser jihad of the 4 main Sunni Madahib.

-Maliki school (Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani).

The lesser jihad is a divine institution. Its implementation by some people may dispense others with it. We (Malikites) say that it is better not to start hostilities against the enemy before inviting him to embrace the Islamic religion (dawa), except when the enemy attacks the first. He has the choice between converting to Islam and paying the tribute (jizya); otherwise war will be declared against him.

- Hanbali school (Ibn Taymiyyah).

Given that the lawful war is essentially s the lesser jihad, that its aim is to make religion become only that of God , in the opinion of all Muslims, those who hinder it must be fought. As for those who cannot resist, such as women, children, monks, the aged, the blind, the handicapped and others, they will not be killed unless they participate in the struggle by their words and their actions.

-Hanafi school (Burhanuddin Ali).

It is not lawful to wage war against anyone who has never been called upon to embrace the faith without first enjoining them to do so (dawa), for this is the instruction given by the prophet to his commanders, he ordered them to call the unbelievers to embrace the faith and also so that people know well that they are attacked in the name of religion and not to seize their possessions or to make their children slaves, for in seeing that, they may be inclined to spare themselves the torments of war (...). If the unbelievers, on receiving the call for faith, do not agree to embrace it, or to pay the jizya (tax for having their life spared), then it is up to the Muslims to ask for God's help and to wage war against them, for God helps those who serve him and destroys their enemies, the unbelievers, it is vital to implore his help at every opportunity; and all the more so because the prophet commanded us to do so.

-Shafi school (Al-Mawardi).

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The unbelievers of the domain of war (dar al-harb) are of two kinds: first, there are those the call of Islam has reached, but who have rejected it and taken up arms. The chief of the army is free to fight them ... in the way he considers most fruitful for Muslims and most prejudicial for the unbelievers (...) Secondly, there are those the invitation to embrace Islam has not yet reached, although these are rare nowadays since God has clearly manifested the call of his messenger. (...) It is forbidden (... ) to start an attack before explicating the invitation to Islam, informing about the miracles of the prophet and making obvious the evidence that will encourage conversion acceptance. If they still refuse to accept, the war is declared against them and they are treated as those the appeal has reached and who have refused it.

Peters emphasizes that the Sunni and Shiite doctrines of offensive lesser jihad are very similar. The main difference of Shiism is that the offensive lesser jihad theoretically can be proclaimed only under the authority of the imam of the community or of an agent appointed by him. Now the twelfth and last imam, the Mahdi or hidden imam, was concealed in the year 873, and his return is expected only at the end of time.

The legal "norms" governing this lesser jihad were expressed during the first five centuries of Islam. The theological-legal texts of this period form what today is called the tradition or traditional doctrine.

From the tenth century onwards, the discourse about lesser jihad grows gradually weaker and became somewhat muted until its resurgence in the late nineteenth century with Sayyid lamaI AI-Din AI-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida.

This discourse was radicalized during the 20th century, with Abou Ala Mawdudi, Sayid Qotb, Abdel Salam Faraj and, later, with Abdallah Azzam, Ayman AI-Zawahiri and Usama bin Laden, the three "pillars" AI Qaeda. These promoters of a radical Islamism legitimize the violence, not only against non-Muslims but also against the Muslim rulers they consider impious. Taking over Salafi concepts (from Salafiya, which means returning to the path of the pious ancestors, in other words, the companions of Muhammad and their immediate successors), especially those of Ibn Taymiyya, they elevate the lesser jihad to a religious obligation as well as the 5 pillars of Islam.

The very famous Muslim historian and philosopher, Ibn Khaldun (who died in 1406) gives the reason for it clearly:

" In the Muslim community, the lesser jihad is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force…. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission *, and the lesser jihad was not a religious duty to them, save only for purposes of defense.”

This view has an ancient pedigree: Soon after the death of Muhammad in 634, as the jihad fighters burst out of the Arabian peninsula, a soon-to-be conquered Persian commander asked the invading Muslims what they wanted. They replied as follows:

It is into this "lesser jihad," or "fight on the path of God" (jihad fi sabil Allah), that we will look in the following chapter.

* Erroneous assertion of Ibn Khaldun. One of the tasks of Christianity is also to evangelize the whole earth.

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OFFENSIVE JIHAD OR DEFENSIVE JIHAD ?

There are two designs of the lesser jihad, one offensive, and the other defensive one.

The first, the most widespread in traditional Sunnism, considers that Islam, whose vocation is to govern and save mankind, is to be extended by force to non-subjugated nations and societies who, "called to convert” have refused, while the second, that of the modern Reformists in particular, confines itself to assert the legitimate defense of Islam, of its land and of its faithful.

As we have pointed out, it is the offensive lesser jihad, in the sense of armed action against the enemies of the faith and the unbelievers for the expansion of Islam, which is the most controversial.

But both interpretations may be confused nevertheless. The desire to protect the freedom of Islam and to preserve the social order of the community, which therefore falls within self-defense, can also be used as an argument to justify an offensive lesser jihad. This ambiguity is present in the Quran itself, with the alternation of verses advocating sometimes a defensive attitude, sometimes an offensive attitude.

Any monolatry has a strong potential of intolerance and violence but the Quran is more than ambivalent on this subject. Below, for example, some verses in agreement with the lesser jihad.

"You (Muslims) slew them not, but God slew them. And thou threwest not when thou didst throw, but God threw, that He might test the believers by a fair test from him. Lo! God is Hearer, Knower. That (is the case); and (know) that God (it is) Who maketh weak the plan of disbelievers "(Quran 8: 17-18)

"Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as do not believe in God nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which God has forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low "(saghiruna, Quran 9:29).

"O you who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that God is with those who keep their duty (unto him)"(Quran 9: 123).

"Now when you meet in battle those who disbelieve, then it is smiting of the necks until, when you have routed them, then making fast of bonds "(Quran 47: 4).

It is important to emphasize another element that has strengthened the motivation of the combatants and which relates to the divine nature of their mission: the conviction that they could be assisted by God. Indeed, the Quran asserts that God sent " A thousand of the angels, rank on rank" (Quran 8: 9) to fight with the Muslims thus enabling them to defeat the

Meccans, much more numerous, during the Battle of Badr. In the same way, he sent "a great wind and hosts you could not see" (Quran 33: 9) during a Muslim raid against the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza (Cook, 2005: 7-9).

This idea of the lesser jihad therefore is based , among other things, on the conviction that "God made the believers the best community ever created, and his witnesses on earth" (Alfred Morabia page 258).

Indeed, it can be said that the verse " You are the best community that hath been raised up for mankind. You enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency" (Quran 3: 110) as a powerful adjuvant of the various lesser jihads that bloody our planet because it is through the "lesser jihad" that is implemented concretely this superiority.

This "superiority" is expressed against two types of unbelievers, those called the people of the Book and the polytheists or associationists.

The answer to our introductory question is therefore difficult to establish accurately, but we can affirm that the texts of al-Qaeda and those of the classical doctrine of lesser jihad conveys a certain

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interpretative vision of Islam well, inasmuch as they pose, in the absolute, the idea of a global struggle defined by the faith in the revelation. In both cases, the design of the lesser jihad is based on a reading of the Quran and of the life of Muhammad as sources of the political practice, and the legitimization that this design confers on violence make the lesser jihad a major stake of power: in both cases, the practice advocated is based on verses elevated to universal normative principles without being subjected to relativization in relation to pacifist verses, which are also founders of Islam. This question, therefore, refers to an element we have evoked at the beginning of this essay on the closing of the gates of interpretation (bab al ijtihad): the imposition by the ulama of the traditional period of an essentially legal dogmatic thought and of an orthodoxy without any connection with the reality, accepting in this way a heavy responsibility in the absence of evolution of Islam towards secularism.

As far as we are concerned, we will examine the design of the offensive lesser jihad only through the discourse, without analyzing the background and the economic and socio-political factors on which taqiyya or Muslim apologetics is generally based. The subject of this chapter being theological and ideological discussions capable of giving a meaning to this discourse. Because this study has no universalist claim and is not intended to construct any general paradigm but merely to provide a synthesis of the “ideology” of the lesser jihad on the conceptual and discursive level and to initiate a reflection on the theoretical and political levels.

The putting forward of prisms like that of the al-wala wal-bara by radical Islamist movements in a globalized world where the destinies of communities are increasingly interconnected and interdependent, seems to us particularly perilous. The real or imagined, coercion and violence, caused by the association between the self-sacrificial vision of Islam and a Manichaean design of truth and falsehood, contribute to enclosing the Muslim world in representations charged with ill-founded prejudices. On the domestic level, the implementation of such prisms makes possible control over thought and public speech, and causes a certain intellectual passivity within Muslim societies.

Ibn Taymiya admits the lesser jihad and even maneuvers intended to throw terror into the ranks of the enemy (irhab). But the expression is traditional and aims for any strategy of intimidation of an army before the battle. In the eighteenth century, however, Ibn Abdel Wahhab took over the Hanbali dogmatism of Ibn Taymiyya and built the lesser jihad into a system through his alliance in 1745 with the emir Ibn Saud, whose descendants managed to get hold of the Arabian Peninsula. Ibn Abdel Wahhab preaches a rigorous fundamentalism that considers other ideas of Islam ranging from Sufism to Shi'ism as heretics, without skimping on his use of takfir or excommunication for that.

This translation disturbs reformists and modernists who see it as an unjust reduction of the meaning of the word jihad. But there has always been a discrepancy between the meaning of words in the law and their meaning elsewhere. From the point of view of religious sociology this translation is also legitimate, for three basic positions are generally distinguished in the relations between religion and violence: holy war (where traditional jihad and crusades are placed), just war (defensive war) and non-violence (for the discussion of these topics see Johnson and Kelsay).

To the translation of jihad by holy, we might object that all the dictates of the Islamic law are sacred (or legal or canonical) by definition and therefore that we should also say "the holy marriage, the holy contract, the holy sale" , etc. that is to say to put the adjective "holy" everywhere or to suppress it everywhere. Yet the necessity for the adjective appears in the proliferation of substitution translations, including among reformist authors, such as "legal war," or "canonical war," or "holy struggle," and so on. Why ? This is because the lesser jihad is the only non-religious activity that is classified in religious duties, especially in the hadiths. Malikism has always placed the lesser jihad right after worship. The Muslim dead are “martyrs” who died on the way of God. They are certain of ascending to heaven (Quran 9, 111, 169b-170), and of having privileges over the other blessed. A whole literature exists that exalts the merit of the lesser jihad. The religious aim of the lesser jihad is also especially emphasized in the modern legal works. Az-Zuhayli, for example, feels the need to reinforce the word jihad by the adjective muqaddas, holy, as if the word jihad was not strong enough in itself (see also pp. 314-316).

None of this exists to such a degree with respect to other activities in accordance with the law.

The doctrine of the lesser jihad was formed late, based on the example of Muhammad, the first caliphs and the Umayyads, but as soon as the 8th century this offensive doctrine was out of step with the Abbasid practice which was especially defensive, after the first defeats in France, India and before Constantinople. It would be better to speak of a practice of the war of position under the Abbasids, for the initiative has never ceased to pass from one camp to the other. Nevertheless, it was only in the colonial era that it will be possible to say, in general, that the Muslim world confined itself to a defensive practice of the lesser jihad.

Colonization was indeed a major turning point in the life of Islam. The Muslims found themselves in turn in the position of dhimmis, moreover, in relation with their former "protégés."

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All the Muslim powers then underwent considerable pressure and were forced to defensive jihad. In Peters there are analyzes and references to the different calls for jihad al-asghar in these situations: against the English in India, Sudan, Egypt, Palestine; against the French in Algeria; against the Italians in Libya; against these three colonial powers in 1914, because of the involvement in the war of the Ottoman Empire alongside Germany and Austria. This last episode shows clearly that these situations have always remained what they were in the Middle Ages: paradoxical, in view of the theory of jihad, because each side almost always made itself sure to have allies in one or other religions.

The Indian reformist Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) was of the opinion that lesser jihad is mandatory only when Muslims are prevented from practicing their religion.

While affirming that peaceful coexistence is the normal state of relations between Muslims and unbelievers, the Egyptian Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) and Syrian Rashid Rida (1865-1935) developed a new paradigm by claiming that lesser jihad is allowed only when it is defensive, thus legitimizing the war against the colonizers (Peters, 1996, p. 6).

If the modern doctrine of the defensive jihad al-asghar is therefore widespread to the point of forming the official doctrine of most Muslims, for Morabia does not hide the other, still alive in the Islamic consciousness, and which can be taken over at any time (pages 342-343). One example is the taqiyya or apologetics developed on this subject by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood is generally in favor of the traditionally designed jihad al, with various nuances according to the authors. The founder, Hassan al-Banna, had very legalistic positions. But he criticized the reformist point of view: for him the defensive idea undermined the combativeness of Islam. He considered the hadith on the greater and the lesser jihad as inauthentic (al-Banna, Majmu'a rasa'il, 58, quoted by Peters, Islam, 120). He had long opposed the formation of paramilitary groups, but eventually yielded to his lieutenants when it was in order to fight in Palestine.

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MEANS AND CONDITIONS OF THE LESSER JIHAD.

In an article entitled "How Islam Classifies Countries," al-Muhajirun, The Voice, the Eyes, the Ears of the Muslims, London, January 27, 2001...

http://www. onlyam.om/islamicstopics/foreign_policy/land_classification.html. dared to write the following.

"Once the Islamic State is established, anyone in Dar Al-Harb will have no sanctity, neither for his life or wealth, hence a Muslim in such circumstances can then go into Dar Al-Harb and take the wealth from the people unless there is a treaty with that state. If there is no treaty individual Muslims can even go into Dar Al-Harb and take women to keep as slaves."

Our friend Bat Ye'or herself has acknowledged * that "the excessive use of these remarks is reminiscent of provocative manipulation, and would make many Muslims jump with indignation [but] we quote them here, because they describe well the theory of jihad and its historical reality.

* COMMENTARY, No. 97, SPRING 2002, Jews and Christians under Islam. Dhimmitude and Marcionism .

As far as the theory is concerned, however, the situation is different (taqiya?).

Peters (1996, p. 5) identifies three main reasons for the doctrine of lesser jihad.

1) Firstly, as in the case of the Crusades intended to liberate Jerusalem in the Christian world, it is a means of mobilizing and motivating Muslims, which enables them to fulfill a religious duty. Morabia (1993: 164 and 251) points out that many hadiths place lesser jihad "in the forefront of religious obligations," and that a doctrine on martyrdom has been developed as an appendix to that of lesser jihad. This motivation is strengthened by the idea that those who die fighting "on the path of God" are “martyrs.” They testify to their devotion by their blood (Peters, 1996, p. 5). The Quran and the Hadiths heap praise on the “martyr,” in addition to promise him direct access to a paradise rich in compensation, without going through the last judgment square (Quran 3,163). Moreover, the accession to eternal life is more assured for the martyr than for the one who fulfills the five pillars of the faith (Quran 4:95, 9:19, 9:20, 57:0 Khadduri, 1969, pp. 61-62).

2) Secondly, lesser jihad is used to consolidate the legitimacy of the leader of the community and thus secure the political unity of the umma (Peters, 1996, p. 5). Khadduri (1969, p. 62) also refers to the fact that the lesser jihad made it possible the Muslim authority to channel the warlike energy of the Arab tribes and clans, which were constantly in conflict with one another, towards the outside world by unifying them around the new religion.

3) Lastly , lesser jihad makes possible the development of the rules being to govern the relations and direction of hostilities with enemies (Peters, 1996, p. 5). The official doctrine will abolish the war and allow no other form than that of the lesser jihad (Khadduri, 1969, 54). At the same time, it will establish conditions and rules of fight that are to be imperatively respected.

Purpose of the lesser jihad in Maliki law. In the Mudawwana of Sahnoun (776-854) the topic of the necessity of the da'wa (call for conversion / surrender) appears (vol. 3, p. 2). According to Abd al-

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Rahman Bin al-Qasim, Maliki would have said: "As far as I know, the associators or polytheists have never been fought without first having invited them to convert to Islam." To Sahnun's question whether it was the same whether the Muslims attack or whether they are attacked, Al-Qasim replies "I did not ask the question to Malik, but for me the two situations are identical."

The reason for this call or da'wa is to let the enemy know "to what they are invited (Islam), their enmity with Islam and its followers, their long tradition of opposition to the (Muslim) armies and of fight (against them) ... "

It's almost a defensive justification.

The call or da'wa removes doubt and justifies the lesser jihad specifies further the text. A very clear statement can be found at p. 31: "These people are fought only in order they give up disbelief and join Islam." According to Sahnun, the purpose of the lesser jihad is therefore well a priori the conversion of the disbelievers.

Averroes has devoted a special paragraph to the question (Bidaya, chapter on jihad, 1st section, § 7). He noted the unanimity of the doctors on the aim pursued with regard to the people of the Book: the conversion or payment of the jizya (see later in this section). The Quran (9:29) does not allow for divergences on this subject. The divergences exist with regard to the polytheists, but they do not concern the nature of the goal of the lesser jihad, they concern the question of whether they can benefit from the protectorate or status of second-class citizen that is dhimmitude. Avverroes points out that Malik was of the opinion that they could: for him, disbelief, however polytheistic, was not enough to kill them. In the Bidaya, the purpose of the lesser jihad is also evoked about the promises of a reward (nafal). Malik is presented as rejecting this practice in the name of the very purpose of the lesser jihad: Only the face of God Most High and the exaltation of his Word are aimed at in this attack. If the Imam promises a reward before the war, it is to be feared that the blood may be shed for a cause other than that of God. This text confirms the reluctance of Maliki lawyers to profit-oriented maneuvers and gives a definition of the lesser jihad very similar to that which will become that of the school. There are therefore wars against the unbelievers not legal in Maliki law.

The doctrine of lesser jihad occupies a special position because of its theological and legal conceptualization and of the unity of religion and law: "The law prescribed the way to achieve religious (or divine) purposes, and religion provided a sanction for the law “ (Khadduri, 1969, p. 59).

However, this capacity of the lesser jihad to combine both the theological - several Quranic injunctions advocate fighting the unbelievers and enemies of religion - and the, forcibly secular because of its utilitarian and strategic functions for the Ummah, law, made it a "just war." The lesser jihad becomes a national cause, a "reason of state": an instrument reserved to the authority in charge of assuring Islamic sovereignty and establishing universal religion and state (din, dawla, and dunya). It is besides for this reason that lesser jihad is not one of the five pillars of Islam, which belong to the individual will of the believer and whose satisfaction does not concern the political power.

Before examining his duties, let us point out that, like the Muslim Law of Nations, the doctrine of lesser jihad must be provisional, until Islam finally reigns over the world as a whole.

The small lesser jihad must be decided and directed by the imam or caliph, who alone is responsible before God for the legitimacy of the enterprise. The lesser jihad must be done at least once a year (rule deduced from the Quran 9, 126), except in case of weakness of the Muslims. It is not necessary that the enemy should attack the first to be legitimate.

It must be preceded by an invitation (da'wa) to rally Islam. There are divergences on this issue. For the Hanbali, this invitation should not be made. They rely on the life of Muhammadt, who would have attacked surprisingly the Bani Mustaliq and the Bani Kahbali of Palestine. For the Maliki and the Zaidi Shiites, trusting to all the other examples set by Muhammad, this da'wa or invitation to convert is obligatory. The majority thinks it is only recommended. In any case, this practice has gradually disappeared in the face of the fear that this da'wa (invitation to embrace Islam) gives time for the enemy to prepare to resist and because of the idea that the non-believers are in principle deprived of any right.

The challenge or single combat on the front of the troops is subject to the authorization of the Imam. It cannot be to spread out one’s warlike value: the goal must remain that of glorifying God according to the Maliki.

The doctrine contains abundant details about the fight methods and generally permits recourse to any means capable of ensuring victory, basing itself on the principle that the adversary is the enemy of God. Defeat is considered an anomaly and is tolerated only in case of emergency.

The battle begins with the cry of "Allahu akbar" (God is the greatest). The fighters must obey their leaders (Quran, 4, 59), even corrupted, not to desert, not to flee. Firmness in fight is the rule. Muslims must fight as long as the enemy is not twice as numerous (Quran 8, 65-66), and in this case they can avoid the fight. The tactic of false flight is also allowed.

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The destructions required by military strategy are permitted, but there are differences on this issue.

For the majority you may bomb an enemy citadel (with ballistae and mangonels), or set fire to it, even at the risk of killing Muslim prisoners.

The Maliki, Shafi and Shiites add that this can only be done in case of absolute necessity and that if the threatened Muslims are not too numerous. In this case, there should be no compensation to Muslim victims, except for Shafi and Hanbali. A minority does not accept this point of view about the bombing by using verse 48:25, where God spares Mecca because of the presence of believers.

The killing of non-fighters, old men, women, children, sick, monks, is forbidden during actions for the majority. For some authors (Ibn Taymiya), the concept of non-fighter is broad, including farmers in their fields, craftsmen and various workers. But if they participate in war by their pieces of advice or any other means, they can be killed. However, the humanism of certain fuqaha is not exempt from cunning. For the Maliki ad-Dasuqi, since women can give only bad pieces of advice, they must never be killed. But if they are killed, repentance alone is due, not compensation for murder. Following Malik, the rite specifies that, if necessary by taking from the property of the Muslims, enough to live is to be left to the non-fighters. For the majority of Shafi and Imami or Zaidi Shiites, the monks and the elderly can be killed: their unbelief is a sufficient ground for putting to death, a view point which is not accepted by other rites, for whom the only motive for death is to have fought Islam.

Suicide is not permitted except to change his type of death or increase his chances of survival: for example, a fighter can jump from a burning ship and throw himself into the sea (unanimity). But the Islamists have admitted the "suicide operations" seen by them as "martyrdoms."

Mutilations are forbidden during the fight, but some Hanafi say they are allowed before the fight (to frighten the enemy).

Acts of treachery against the enemy are forbidden, but permitted among the Hanbali. The use of poisoned arrows is forbidden according to the Maliki, because they can be sent back to the Muslims.

In principle the alliance with the unbelievers (kuffar) is forbidden, for the difference of religion inclines to treason. This by following the example of Muhammad who, on the day of the battle of Badr, had dismissed a non-Muslim volunteer. But many doctors of the Law allow it, for Muhammad would have resorted to it afterwards. Such an alliance can only be made in case of need.

The Muslim has the right to go into a land of unbelieving, to pass himself off as a non-Muslim, or even to pretend to fight Muslims within the enemy troops in order to deceive them, kill many of them and take possession of their property.

The mujahidins are allowed to surprise the unbelievers at night. They are also allowed to use terror and to besiege burn or flood the territory, to cut the trees down, slaughter herds or destroy houses of the enemy and to poison or dry up its wells to force it to capitulate. This rule is valid even if the targeted place is inhabited by Muslims or if Muslims are used by the enemy as human shields. The death of faithful Muslims in such attacks is not considered a sin in this case, because the interest of the Muslim community overrides that of the individual.

Muslims captured by the enemy must remain faithful to Dar al-Islam, try to flee and destroy the enemy's property and not give up their religion unless to be forced to do so. As for him, the imam or caliph must do everything to free them, in exchange for property or harbi prisoners.

A harbi sentenced for espionage must be killed. If it is a Muslim, opinions differ, even within the legal schools. Some doctors in law advocate capital punishment, others call for bodily punishment and imprisonment until the traitor's repentance, and others recommend that it is left to the imam or caliph the care to decide the punishment.

The faithful are entitled to "ravage the occupied territories, if this can be the interest of the Community, and provided that this is done before victory. [...] The principle is that any depredation done by Muslims not acting in cold blood, and thinking to find their advantage in it, is authorized "(Morabia, 1993, page 230). Once the victory has been got and the property of the enemy seized, it is necessary to avoid ransacking the occupied areas and causing unnecessary damage, which includes the destruction of inhabited buildings, trees and flocks or herds. If they have to leave a conquered territory, Muslims must dry up the streams and destroy anything that can be used by the enemy. On this point, some divergences remain between legal schools. The Hanafi advocate that fighter demolish the infidel's movable property and kill their animals without cutting the back of their knee nevertheless. The Maliki allow this practice as well as that of burning the enemy's food, while the Shafi recommend destroying everything which is inert (Morabia, 1993, pp. 230-231).

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DIVISION OF THE SPOILS (Chapter 8 of the Quran.)

Once the battle is over, the MujahidIins are allowed to kill any infidel, whether he is a fighter or not, if he refuses to convert or pay the dhimmitude tribute. The male Harbi made prisoners may be executed, freed unconditionally, become slaves or even be subject to a ransom or exchange for Muslim prisoners. Harbi women and children are in principle enslaved.

There are several categories of loot. The booty taken by force (ghanima) also includes the spoils (salab) of a dead enemy soldier (his arms, his horse, his saddle).

The spoils taken by force (ghanima) are divided among all the warriors (including spotters, reinforcements, etc.) except the fifth which comes down to the imam (Quran 8: 41, same custom in pre-Islamic Arabia). The cavalrymen receive double share (Hanafit) or triple part (other rites).

The rules for the distribution of the fifth reserved for Muhammad or his relatives (today the Islamic State) according to the categories indicated by the Quranic verse 8, 41 (God, the Prophet and his relatives, the orphans, the poor, the travelers ) have given rise to many differences of opinion. The Maliki say that no rule obliges the Imam or Caliph except the general interest which he appreciates himself (probably the memory of the Battle of Hunayn which took place in 630 and of the siege of Ta’if which followed with the help of 2000 reinforcements from Mecca).

For the Shafi, the spoils of an enemy belong by right to the one who kills him.

For the Hanafi the ownership of a part of booty is acquired by a fighter only after the partition which must take place in the land of Islam. The Imam/Caliph has no right to sell part of the booty or to divide it into enemy territory. If anyone dies in the dar al-ẖarb, his heirs lose all right over his share. If rescue troops arrive after the battle, they are entitled to the booty that has not yet been shared. For the other rites, the property of the fighter is ensured from the taking, and the solutions are opposite: the division may be done in enemy territory, heirs have rights, relief troops have no one.

The goods got without a fight (fay) belong to the state, since Umar's decision made according to the verse 59: 7. This is the case with all real estate. The imam or Caliph may give them back to the conquered populations by paying a special tax (the kharaj different from the jizya of the dhimmis) or sharing it among the soldiers, what the Maliki and Shafi do not allow.

It is a serious offense for a soldier to steal a share of the booty before sharing, except in case of necessity, such as weapons or food. He may neither anticipate sharing nor sell anything.

The Imam or Caliph may, in enemy territory, grant to the fighters who will do this or that prowess, a reward (nafal) taken on the booty, or allow that the spoils of an enemy come down to the one who will kill it. Back in land of Islam, the Imam or Caliph may grant gratification only from the part coming down to the bayt al-mal * (Hanafi).

Slave, woman, child, dhimmi, are not entitled to the booty, even if they have fought with the Muslims. On the other hand, the Imam or Caliph will be allowed to give them bonuses from the booty, before sharing, but the share of each must remain inferior to the share of an adult and free Muslim.

Marauders and corsairs.

The marauder (mutalassis) is the one who acts without the permission of the Imam nor Caliph and who plunders in enemy country in time of war. He does not pay the fifth in question according to the Hanafi. He is regarded as a thief, who steals goods that are not protected by Islamic law, but his acquisition is reproved (considered makruh) and it is better for him to make them alms. There are therefore for the Hanafi war actions against unbelievers that do not belong to the lesser jihad.

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But if the marauder leads a strong troop, he will have to pay the fifth in question: the band is then considered as having received the approval of the Imam or Caliph for its maneuvers.

The privateering (qarsana) is thus allowed for payment of this fifth. The words piracy / pirates then become unfit.

For the Maliki and Shafi, the fifth in question is due in all cases by the Muslim by analogy with the normal operations. But the Maliki do not regard these operations as lesser jihad because of their non-religious purpose. Lastly, a minority opinion is that the booty must be considered as fay, spoils of war, coming down entirely to the bayt al-mal * and this in all cases.

The fate of the prisoners depends on their attitude during the war and on the choice of the imam or caliph after. The populations who submitted before the war, if they are members of the people of the Book (Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Mandean Sabians) enter immediately the status of dhimmis which will be reduced by this preliminary agreement.

After the war, according to the Quran, the Imam or Caliph can make the prisoners executed, enslave them, or exchange them for ransom or Muslim prisoners.

For the Hanafi, the captive enemy may be killed only if it is lawful to kill him during the fight and for serious reasons, thus excluding in principle women, old men, monks, etc. But this execution is designed as a punishment, so that the madman who would have fought will not be punished for lack of criminal responsibility. For the Hanafi still, it is not permissible to release prisoners for free, nor even for ransom, because this act is equated with a sale of arms to the enemy (unanimously prohibited), however, according to Al-Shaybani (749-805) in case of need of money, you can do it. The Hanafi opinions also differ about the exchange of prisoners: forbidden according to Abu Hanifa, it is permitted according to other Hanafi, but the opinion of Abu Hanifa prevailed.

The Shafi, Maliki and Hanbali allow all that the Quran allows, and add the possibility of liberation for free. In the latter case, the man who has chosen to be a liberal must compensate for the loss of booty: the prisoners could have been sold as slaves or make ransoms.

The prisoner, if he converts to Islam, always escapes death, but not necessarily to slavery and does not recover his property. If he has converted before being taken, he preserves his freedom and his property. The treaties are very detailed and cover various issues affecting conversions and their consequences on marriage, property, the status of children ...

According to the Hanafi, Shafi, and Hanbali, the Arabs in Arabia, People of the Book or Polytheists, can only be executed unless they are converted to Islam. Non-Arab polytheists, likewise, have the choice between death or conversion to Islam, but the Hanafi grant them the same status as the people of the Book. In fact, such mass executions never took place in the Shafi areas, and they were always considered to be members of the people of the Book (or then to ask such questions was forgotten as it was the case in Indonesia). Since Malikism admits that polytheists, whether Arab or not, may benefit from the dhimma protectorate, coexistence was therefore in accordance with theory, especially in black Africa.

Truces and temporary pacts. Because of the fundamental design of the relations between the Islamic State and others, the lesser jihad can cease only with the final victory of Islam and the submission of the non-Muslim world. It has been said that war is the normal state of relations between the Islamic State and others (Raymond Ibrahim, taqiyya), and that it is peace that is problematic. But the modern authors, as might be expected, reject this design. Treaties can be signed, as the Quran (9: 7) and the Prophet's example allow it, but they are, strictly speaking, truces (hudna) according to the traditional design. In principle the Imam or the caliph alone decides.

* Bayt al Mal = Treasury.

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INTERNATIONAL LAW ACCORDING TO ISLAM.

«To summarize the implications of the Islamic anthropology for war, peace and statecraft….. Islam is self-consciously a universal missionary religion that seeks to restore humankind to its Edenic original condition…..in which ail of humankind testifies to its submission to God. To achieve this goal of life in the Straight Path and service to God, a political entity governed by the Guidance must be established and enforced…..Muslims must therefore struggle, make effort (lesser jihad) in the Path of God against the forces of deception and unbelief. In this framework the "other" presents a condition of conflict in the world, one that is potentially violent. The end or final return to God (akhira), however, is peace, peace for all humankind » (Richard C. Martin).

The division of the world into Islamic lands and lands of war (Dar al harb) is reflected in the doctrine of the lesser jihad in that the Islamic state is under a legal obligation to spread Islam throughout the world .

The Islamic State therefore must be in a permanent state of war with the Dar al-harb in order to change it into Dar al-Islam, that is to say, it must always be ready to meet an attack or to launch one when the Caliph or Imam deems it necessary. In principle, according to the jurists, Islamic power must wage war against Dar al-Harb at least once a year.

Moreover, the Islamic State must admit no authority other than its own. The law of the nations (siyar) nevertheless imposes on Muslims who live or travel in the territories of the Dar al-harb to respect the law and the power which prevail there, unless they have received a contrary order from the imam or Caliph. As long as he is under aman (beneficiary of a safe conduct), the Muslim who is in an unbelieving land must not harm the disbelievers and respect his commitments to them even after his return to Islamic land. Obviously, of course, on the other hand, the Muslim must not "collaborate" with the disbelievers in their possible struggle against Dar al-Islam. If his presence in the Dar al-Harb is not under aman , the Muslim may then act in Mujahid, requisition property and make prisoners among the unbelievers.

Later, practical demands and reality of interactions with non-Muslims led jurists to add a third category of territory with which the Muslim state may temporarily keep peaceful relations.

Such treaties are valid as long as the Islamic State is in a position of military inferiority, but their duration in principle may not exceed 10 years given the precedent of the treaty of Hudaybia signed by Muhammad himself in 628. If the imam or Caliph comes to conclude a pact that is disadvantageous to the umma, this pact must be revised or invalidated.

If the treaty is violated by the opponent, the battle must be triggered automatically and without warning.

Introduced by the Shafi jurists, this third category has never been accepted by the Hanafi.

There is another category of territory, which has been accepted only by very few jurists: the Dar al-hiyad or house of the neutrality. These are areas that Muslims have consciously avoided attacking because of their benevolent attitude towards Muhammad or because of their inaccessibility.

The law of nations (siyar) is an integral part of the Sharia and, like it, is based on the Quran, the sunna, the customs, the interpretations and instructions given by the first caliphs or jurists about treaties between Muslims and non-Muslims . It is a corpus of rules and practices developed to govern the management of the Islamic State regarding other communities in different fields, including trade, diplomacy and armed conflict.

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Two principles seem to prevail in this field. The first explain the details of the dictates: is legal what coincides with the interest of the Islamic State, what increases its strength and diminishes that of non-Muslim states; is illegal, what goes in the opposite direction, that is to say, which increases the strength of the enemy or diminishes that of the Muslim state.

However, this principle is not automatically applied, especially among the Maliki.

HOW TAQIYYA ALTERS ISLAM’S RULES OF WAR

By RAYMOND IBRAHIM.

Raymond Ibrahim is associate director of the Middle East Forum.

Apologists for Islam emphasize that it is a faith built upon high ethical standards; others stress that it is a religion of the law. Islam's dual notions of truth and falsehood further reveal its paradoxical nature: While the Quran is against believers deceiving other believers—for "surely God guides not him who is prodigal and a liar"—deception directed at non-Muslims, generally known in Arabic as taqiyya, also has Quranic support and falls within the legal category of things that are permissible for Muslims.

Muslim deception can be viewed as a slightly less than noble means to the glorious end of Islamic hegemony under Shari'a, which is seen as good for both Muslims and non-Muslims. In this sense, lying in the service of altruism is permissible. In a recent example, Muslim cleric Mahmoud al-Masri publicly recounted a story where a Muslim lied and misled a Jew into converting to Islam, calling it a "beautiful trick."

Taqiyya offers two basic uses. The better known revolves around dissembling over one's religious identity when in fear of persecution. Such has been the historical usage of taqiyya among Shi'i communities whenever and wherever their Sunni rivals have outnumbered and thus threatened them. Conversely, Sunni Muslims, far from suffering persecution have, whenever capability allowed, waged jihad against the realm of unbelief and it is here that they have deployed taqiyya—not as dissimulation but as active deceit. In fact, deceit, which is doctrinally grounded in Islam, is often depicted as being equal—sometimes superior—to other universal military virtues, such as courage, fortitude, or self-sacrifice.

What exactly is taqiyya? How is it justified by scholars and those who make use of it? How does it fit into a broader conception of Islam's code of ethics, especially in relation to the non-Muslim? More to the point, what ramifications does the doctrine of taqiyya have for all interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims?

The Doctrine of Taqiyya

According to Shari'a—the body of legal rulings that defines how a Muslim should behave in all circumstances—deception is not only permitted in certain situations but may be deemed obligatory in others. Contrary to early Christian tradition, for instance, Muslims who were forced to choose between recanting Islam or suffering persecution were permitted to lie and feign apostasy.

However, one of the few books devoted to the subject, At-Taqiyya fi'l-Islam (Dissimulation in Islam) makes it clear that taqiyya is not limited to Shi'a dissimulation in fear of persecution. Written by Sami Mukaram, a former Islamic studies professor at the American University of Beirut and author of some twenty-five books on Islam, the book clearly demonstrates the ubiquity and broad applicability of taqiyya.

Taqiyya is, therefore, not, as is often supposed, an exclusive Shi'i phenomenon. Of course, as a minority group interspersed among their Sunni enemies, the Shi'a have historically had more

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reason to dissemble. Conversely, Sunni Islam rapidly dominated vast empires from Spain to China. As a result, its followers were beholden to no one, had nothing to apologize for, and had no need to hide from the infidel nonbeliever (rare exceptions include Spain and Portugal during the Reconquista when Sunnis did dissimulate over their religious identity. Ironically, however, Sunnis living in the West today find themselves in the place of the Shi'a: Now they are the minority surrounded by their traditional enemies—Christian infidels—even if the latter, as opposed to their Reconquista predecessors, rarely act on, let alone acknowledge, this historic enmity. In short, Sunnis are currently experiencing the general circumstances that made taqiyya integral to Shi'ism although without the physical threat that had so necessitated it.

The Articulation of Taqiyya

Quranic verse 3:28 is often seen as the primary verse that sanctions deception towards non-Muslims: "Let believers [Muslims] not take infidels [non-Muslims] for friends and allies instead of believers. Whoever does this shall have no relationship left with God—unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions."

Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (d. 923), author of a standard and authoritative Quran commentary, explains verse 3:28 as follows.

If you [Muslims] are under their [non-Muslims'] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them with your tongue while harboring inner animosity for them … [know that] God has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels rather than other believers—except when infidels are above them [in authority]. Should that be the case, let them act friendly towards them while preserving their religion.

Regarding Quran 3:28, Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), another prime authority on the Quran, writes, "Whoever at any time or place fears … evil [from non-Muslims] may protect himself through outward show."

As proof of this, he quotes Muhammad's close companion Abu Darda, who said, "Let us grin in the face of some people while our hearts curse them." Another companion, simply known as Al-Hasan, said, "Doing taqiyya is acceptable till the Day of Last Judgment [i.e., in perpetuity]."

Other prominent scholars, such as Abu 'Abdullah al-Qurtubi (1214-73) and Muhyi 'd-Din ibn al-Arabi (1165-1240), have extended taqiyya to cover deeds. In other words, Muslims can behave like infidels and worse—for example, by bowing down and worshiping idols and crosses, offering false testimony, and even exposing the weaknesses of their fellow Muslims to the infidel enemy—anything short of actually killing a Muslim. "Taqiyya, even if committed without duress, does not lead to a state of infidelity—even if it leads to sin deserving of hellfire."

Deceit in Muhammad's Military Exploits

Muhammad—whose example as the "most perfect human" is to be followed in every detail—took an expedient view on lying. It is well known, for instance, that he permitted lying in three situations: to reconcile two or more quarreling parties, to placate one's wife, and in war. According to one Arabic legal manual devoted to jihad as defined by the four schools of law, "The ulama agree that deception during warfare is legitimate … deception is a form of art in war."

Moreover, according to Mukaram, this deception is classified as taqiyya. "Taqiyya in order to dupe the enemy is permissible."

Several ulama believe deceit is integral to the waging of war: Ibn al-Arabi declares that "in the Hadith [sayings and actions of Muhammad], practicing deceit in war is well demonstrated. Indeed, its need is more stressed than the need for courage."

Ibn al-Munir (d. 1333) writes, "War is deceit, i.e., the most complete and perfect war waged by a holy warrior is a war of deception, not confrontation, due to the latter's inherent danger, and the fact that one can attain victory through treachery without harm [to oneself]."

And Ibn Hajar (d. 1448) counsels Muslims, "to take great caution in war, while [publicly] lamenting and mourning in order to dupe the infidels."

This Muslim notion that war is deceit goes back to the Battle of the Trench (627), which pitted Muhammad and his followers against several non-Muslim tribes known as Al-Ahzab (mainly some Meccans). One of the Ahzab, Na'im ibn Mas'ud, went to the Muslim camp and converted to Islam. When Muhammad discovered that the Ahzab were unaware of their co-tribalist's conversion, he counseled Mas'ud to return and try to get the pagan forces to abandon the siege. It was then that Muhammad memorably declared, "For war is deceit." Mas'ud returned to the Ahzab without their knowing that he had switched sides and intentionally began to give his former kin and allies bad advice. He also went to great lengths to instigate quarrels between the various

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tribes until, thoroughly distrusting each other, they disbanded, lifted the siege from the Muslims, and saved Islam from destruction.

Most recently, 9/11 accomplices, such as Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, rationalized their conspiratorial role in their defendant response by evoking their prophet's assertion that "war is deceit."

A more compelling expression of the legitimacy of deceiving infidels is the following anecdote. A poet, Ka'b ibn Ashraf, offended Muhammad, prompting the latter to exclaim, "Who will kill this man who has hurt God and his prophet?" A young Muslim named Muhammad ibn Maslama volunteered on condition that in order to get close enough to Ka'b to assassinate him, he be allowed to lie to the poet. Muhammad agreed. Ibn Maslama traveled to Ka'b and began to denigrate Islam and Muhammad. He carried on in this way till his disaffection became so convincing that Ka'b took him into his confidence. Soon thereafter, Ibn Maslama appeared with another Muslim and, while Ka'b's guard was down, killed him.

In short, the earliest historical records of Islam clearly attest to the prevalence of taqiyya as a form of Islamic warfare. Furthermore, early Muslims are often depicted as lying their way out of binds—usually by denying or insulting Islam or Muhammad—often to the approval of the latter, his only criterion being that their intentions (niya) be pure. During wars with Christians, whenever the latter were in authority, the practice of taqiyya became even more integral. Mukaram states, "Taqiyya was used as a way to fend off danger from the Muslims, especially in critical times and when their borders were exposed to wars with the Byzantines and, afterwards, to the raids [crusades] of the Franks and others."

However interpreted, the standard view on Quranic abrogation concerning war and peace verses is that when Muslims are weak and in a minority position, they should preach and behave according to the ethos of the Meccan verses (peace and tolerance); when strong, however, they should go on the offensive on the basis of what is commanded in the Medinan verses (war and conquest). The vicissitudes of Islamic history are a testimony to this dichotomy, best captured by the popular Muslim notion, based on a hadith that, if possible, jihad should be performed by the hand (force), if not, then by the tongue (through preaching); and, if that is not possible, then with the heart or one's intentions.

Hostility Disguised As Grievance.

In their statements directed at European or American audiences, Islamists maintain that the terrorism they direct against the West is merely reciprocal treatment for decades of Western and Israeli oppression. Yet in writings directed to their fellow Muslims, this animus is presented, not as a reaction to military or political provocation but as a product of religious obligation.

For instance, when addressing Western audiences, Osama bin Laden lists any number of grievances as motivating his war on the West—from the oppression of the Palestinians to the Western exploitation of women, and even U.S. failure to sign the environmental Kyoto protocol—all things intelligible from a Western perspective. Never once, however, does he justify al-Qaeda's attacks on Western targets simply because non-Muslim countries are infidel entities that must be subjugated. Indeed, he often initiates his messages to the West by saying, "Reciprocal treatment is part of justice" or "Peace to whoever follows guidance"—though he means something entirely different than what his Western listeners understand by words such as "peace," "justice," or "guidance."

It is when bin Laden speaks to fellow Muslims that the truth comes out. When a group of prominent Muslims wrote an open letter to the American people soon after the strikes of 9/11, saying that Islam seeks to peacefully coexist, bin Laden wrote to castigate them: As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels, this is summarized by the Most High's Word: "We [Muslims] renounce you [non-Muslims]. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us—till you believe in God alone" [Quran 60:4]. So there is an enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart. And this fierce hostility—that is, battle—ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam, or if his blood is forbidden from being shed [i.e., a dhimmi, or protected minority], or if Muslims are at that point in time weak and incapable. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the heart, this is great apostasy! ... Such then is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity, and hatred—directed from the Muslim to the infidel—is the foundation of our religion. And we consider this a justice and kindness to them.

Mainstream Islam's four schools of case-law support this hostile Weltanschauung by speaking of the infidel in similar terms. Bin Laden's addresses to the West with his talk of justice and peace

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are clear instances of taqiyya. He is not only waging a physical jihad but a propaganda war, that is, a war of deceit. If he can convince the West that the current conflict is entirely its fault, he garners greater sympathy for his cause. At the same time, he knows that if Americans were to realize that nothing short of their submission can ever bring peace, his propaganda campaign would be quickly compromised. Hence the constant need to dissemble and to cite grievances, for, as bin Laden's prophet asserted, "War is deceit."

Implications

Taqiyya presents a range of ethical dilemmas. Anyone who truly believes that God justifies and, through his prophet's example, even encourages deception will not experience any ethical qualms over lying. Consider the case of Ali Mohammad, bin Laden's first "trainer" and long-time al-Qaeda operative. An Egyptian, he was initially a member of Islamic Jihad and had served in the Egyptian army's military intelligence unit. After 1984.....

Yet most Westerners continue to think that Muslim mores, laws, and ethical constraints are near identical to those of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Naively or arrogantly, today's multiculturalist leaders project their own world view onto Islamists, thinking a handshake and smiles across a cup of coffee, as well as numerous concessions, are enough to dismantle the power of God's word and centuries of unchanging tradition. The fact remains: Right and wrong in Islam have little to do with universal standards but only with what Islam itself teaches—much of which is antithetical to Western norms.

It must, therefore, be accepted that, contrary to long-held academic assumptions, the doctrine of taqiyya goes far beyond Muslims engaging in religious dissimulation in the interest of self-preservation and encompasses deception of the infidel enemy in general.

This, then, is the dilemma: Islamic law unambiguously splits the world into two perpetually warring halves—the Islamic world versus the non-Islamic—and holds it to be God's will for the former to subsume the latter. Yet if war with the infidel is a perpetual affair, if war is deceit, and if deeds are justified by intentions—any number of Muslims will naturally conclude that they have a divinely sanctioned right to deceive, so long as they believe their deception serves to aid Islam "until all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to God." Such deception will further be seen as a means to an altruistic end. Muslim overtures for peace, dialogue, or even temporary truces must be seen in this light, evoking the practical observations of philosopher James Lorimer, uttered over a century ago: "So long as Islam endures, the reconciliation of its adherents, even with Jews and Christians, and still more with the rest of mankind, must continue to be an insoluble problem."

In closing, whereas it may be more appropriate to talk of "war and peace" as natural corollaries in a Western context, when discussing Islam, it is more accurate to talk of "war and deceit." For, from an Islamic point of view, times of peace—that is, whenever Islam is significantly weaker than its infidel rivals—are times of feigned peace and pretense, in a word, taqiyya.

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TRUCES AND TREATIES.

Generally, treaties with the enemy are possible provided they do not harm the Islamic State. The same applies to diplomacy and trade relations. It is not allowed to sign a truce as long as the Islamic state is strongest (Quran 47: 35). It becomes necessary if it is weakest. But whenever the Islamic State is in a position of strength, it must resume the war at the end of the fixed period.

Treaties must be respected, it is an obligation, and the Quran insists on it (5:1, 8:72, 9: 4 and 7, 16:91, 17:34), even though the Muslims have become the strongest. But there are some famous exceptions or casus belli.

Treaties cannot be permanent, except for the pact of dhimmitude *. There are differences of opinion about the allowed length of the truce. According to the Shafi, if the Muslims are strong, it cannot exceed one year, it is equated with the pact of aman. For a longer duration, the enemy must submit and pay the jizya. When the Muslims are weak, the Shafi jurists say that it should not exceed ten years, in the image of the Hudabiya treaty concluded by Muhammad in 628, the treaty being renewable. The Imami Shiites and the Hanbali think alike. The Hanafi, Maliki and Zaydi believe that there is no deadline in cases of weakness of Muslims. But there is unanimity to say that a permanent peace treaty is invalid, for it would mean the end of the obligation of lesser jihad, which would amount to abolishing a part of the Islamic law.

These treaties may be unequal, the main point is that both parties accept them. They may include tributes to be paid by one or the other. No particular form (signature, witnesses ...) is required by Islamic law. However, if he fears a surprise attack, the imam or caliph has the right to revoke a treaty, but he must warn the enemy of it (Quran 8:58).

THE SAFE CONDUCT.

A very common type of limited in time pact is that of the temporary protection (aman, safeguarding). In principle, the blood and property of the inhabitant of a non-Islamic country (harbi) are not protected by the law, you may kill and stripped him (likewise for the apostate), although, as we have seen it in the Maliki and Hanafi, the question is not as obvious. In the case of a treaty, the life and property of the enemy are protected and they can travel in Islamic countries, for example, to trade. In case of war, the special pact known as aman is to intervene.

For the purposes of trade and diplomacy, the harbi can therefore get a safe conduct, a protection (aman) which guarantees his life, his property, his rights during his travels within the dar al-Islam for a year maximum (Quran 9: 6). If he wants to stay longer, this harbi must adopt the status of dhimmi, pay the corresponding tax, and refrain from returning to his native country. For the Hanbali an aman may last ten years.

Any Muslim may grant an aman, but there are differences as regards the woman and the child. A dhimmi cannot grant an aman, nor a recent convert, or a Muslim prisoner. The aman is given without formalities, a simple statement is enough. A general aman, concerning a whole population, can be given only with the agreement of the imam or caliph. But the imam or caliph may revoke any aman that would harm the general interests: the spy is put to death in spite of the aman.

The temporary protected (musta'min) must respect Islam and its penal law (differences of opinion), not to spy on pain of death (unanimity). He may move everywhere except in the Hejaz (differences of opinion), practice his (not polytheistic) religion, trade (but he is not allowed to buy weapons or strategic materials to export), marry (with a dhimmi woman). He is not allowed to marry a Muslim woman or to have sex with her. He can sue if he has been harmed, and claim the use of Muslim law for his benefit.

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If he dies in Islamic land, his property must be given back to his heirs. If he dies in a country of war (Dar al Harb), his property left in Islamic lands comes down to the Muslim state (as fay = booty got without fighting).

In the dar al-ẖarb, the Muslim must follow the Islamic law (prayer, food, etc.) as far as possible. He is not allowed to commit an act that strengthens the enemy: enlist in its army, give children to a harbiya, and so on. He is not allowed to give an aman that would make a harbi able to go into the dar al-Islam according to the Maliki, he can according to the Hanbali and Shafi.

The Maliki, Shafi, Hanbali and Zahiri are hostile to the settlement of the Muslims in the dar al-harb, for they are exposed to the temptations of disbelief. They consider that emigration (hijra), i.e., the return to dar al-Islam, is compulsory if you cannot practice your religion (at least the five pillars). They claim to be in line with the Quran (4: 97-100) and a hadith, in which Muhammad would have said: "I have nothing to do with a Muslim dwelling among polytheists." Muhammad demanded indeed at the time that the Muslims leave Mecca for Yathrib/Medina as he did. The Hanafi refer to another hadith in which Muhammad would have said: "No Hegira after the capture of Mecca" and therefore allow the Muslim to remain in the dar al-harb, even if his religion cannot be practiced there. But the former replied that it is a misunderstanding of this hadith, which means that the obligation of the Hegira ceases when a dar al-ẖarb is become dar al-Islam, as it was the case after the Prophet took Mecca.

The protectorate granted to non-Muslims. This is the status of dhimmi (pl. Dhimmiyun), those who are included in the pact of protection, the ahd adh-dhimma. The word dhimma means protection, responsibility and conscience.

Two ancient pacts are often invoked as the traditional basis of the dhimmiyun law: the pact of Najran, concluded by Muhammad in 631, and the one that actually replaced it, the harder pact of Omar. There are others, but all of them raise difficult problems of authenticity.

For the later Muslim legal doctrine, the people of the Book are those who have received from God a Book that is recognized as globally authentic, though made obsolete by the Quran.

As we have seen before, the people of the Book are the Jews and Christians, therefore some monolaters who believe in God but not in Muhammad. This category also includes the Zoroastrians, and the Sabaeans (a Judeo-Christian Baptist sect), whose sacred texts support the idea of a supreme deity. Islam considers that these people of the Writing are rejected by God because they have betrayed the Scriptures and because they recognize neither the Quran nor Muhammad as the seal of the prophets.

The polytheist Arabs are not entitled to the dhimmitude protectorate, but not for the majority of the Maliki who accept the jizya in all cases (az-Zuhayli, vol. 6, p.443). The polytheistic non-Arabs are entitled to this in the Hanafi. On the other hand, all the jurists exclude from it the apostates (of Islam).

The protected (dhimmi pl. Dhimmiyun) must therefore pay a personal special tax, the jizya. The word originally meant tribute. Only the fighters pay for it according to the Hanafi and Maliki, it is the ransom owed for having his life saved because death is deserved for having fought Islam.

There are two kinds of jizya: one that is fixed by common agreement, because people of the Book surrendered without fighting; the other which is fixed by the imam because they have fought. The jizya is proportional to wealth: 48 dirhams or 24 or 12 or nothing for the very poor, the women, the children, the blind, the chronically ill, the monks (for they have not fought). The land taken after fight also pays a tax (kharaj) which remains attached to the land whatever its owner afterwards (see volume III).

The conversion removes the jizya but not the kharaj. Jizya is generally viewed as a punishment (al-Maydani, Al Lubab, 4, p. 146) that is to be lifted with conversion.

Anyone who refuses to pay the jizya, or kills a Muslim or insults Muhammad , or has sexual intercourse with a Muslim woman, will not have his dhimmi status canceled: but he will be punished, with qisas or ẖadd, provided for that purpose (unless he flees before in the dar al-ẖarb, in which case he will be considered as a member of the enemy to be fought). And he will be taxed by force. This is at least the Hanafi position, because there are differences of opinion in this field.

* But there were also noticeable exceptions (the unfortunate Christians of Najran, for example, the Jews of Arabia except Yemen).

** Like the Trinitarian Christians believing in the Holy Trinity for certain authors who see in it only a form of tritheism.

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GOD IS THE BEST DECEIVER.

The concept of offensive lesser jihad has now disappeared in favor of an apologetic based on the history of ideas because for the small-scale Klausewitz of Islam, taqiyaa is the continuation of minor jihad by other means.

There are even verses in the Quran that show us that God deceives not only his enemies but also the Muslims.

Quran 8: 43-44. " When God showed them unto thee in thy dream as few in number, and if He had shown them to thee as many, you would have faltered and would have quarreled over the affair….. He made you (Muslims), when you met (them), see them with your eyes as few, and lessened you in their eyes.”

Same problem with the passion of the Nazarene high rabbi Jesus. It was God himself who created Christianity by making certain people believe that this man had been crucified and then brought back to life (4: 157-158). 6 centuries later, however, he changed his mind and sent Muhammad to tell the truth.

Other verses in the Quran go in the same direction and stipulate explicitly that God is the best deceiver, beguiler, trickster (Arabic makar). And Harun Yahya includes the adjective Al-Makir in his list of the 99 most beautiful names of God.

It should be noted, however, that the majority of translations of the Quran give generally a equivocate view of the true meaning of the term. The word indeed is used both to describe God and the disbelievers. But in most cases translators resort to a euphemism when it comes to the term used by God to call himself.

Quran 3: 54.

And they (the disbelievers) schemed, and God schemed (against them): God is the best of schemers.

Literally: And they cheated/deceived and God cheated/deceived, and God (is) the best (of) the cheaters/deceivers.

The Arabic word used here for "trickery" or "stratagem" is makara, which means literally deceit.

If God himself uses cunning or plotting against the disbelievers, it confirms that Muslims are allowed to do the same.

Quran 7: 99.

Literally: Did they secure God's scheme/deceit ? So no (one) trusts God's scheme/deceit except the nation the losers.

Quran 8:30.

Literally: And when those who disbelieved deceive/scheme at you to affix/affirm you, or kill you, or bring you out, and they scheme/deceive , and God deceives/schemes and God (is) best (of) the deceivers/schemers.

Quran 10: 21.

Literally: And If We made the people taste/experience mercy from after calamity/distress touched them, then for them (is) cheatery/deceit/schemes against Our verses/evidences . Say: "God (is) quicker/faster (in) cunning/scheming , that Our messengers write what you cheat/ deceive/scheme.

Quran 13:42.

Literally: And those from before them had cheated/deceived/schemed, so to God (is) all the cheatery/deceit/scheme. He knows what every self gains/acquires, and the disbelievers will know to whom (is) the house's/home's end/turn (result).

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The data of this translation problem (again) are the following ones. There exists in the Quranic language a word, makar / makir, translated in two very different ways according to whether it applies to God or to human beings.

Somewhat like the same term X was translated as "good" applied to God (God is good for example) but "just" when applied to a human being (this man is just).

The translations of Yusuf Ali, Sarwar Hilali / Khan and Malik go in the direction of dishonesty when it comes to disbelievers. The rendering used is then double, of the type "plotted and planned," but if the same word is directly related to God, then only one of these two notions remains in the translations due to these authors, the notion of "planned things."

From of a conference held on April 16, 2007, on the site readingislam.com.

Question: The Quran often refers to the MAKAR of God. How is it possible to designate God as MAKIR? Wa yamkuruna wa yamkuru Allah.

Answer: The term we use in our human language does not have the same meaning as that used to refer to God. For example, terms like "hear" and "see" have a totally different meaning when we talk about God, as he has neither eyes nor ears like us. (Quran 42/11.)

Dr. Badawi admits that the word "makir" has a negative connotation, he tries nevertheless to justify its use in the Quran when it refers to God by claiming that it has a completely different meaning when mere mortals designate others by using the term "makir."

Simple anthropomorphism therefore Badawi answers. Yes but in this case why not do the same for the words "merciful and lenient"? Which are, of course, only simple anthropomorphisms, too.

This choice of translation implies that the intentions and plans of God are always just and good, but that those of the unbelievers always hide something evil or negative. This intellectual dishonesty breaks the unity of meaning of the word "makir" simply raises the question of the language of the uncreated Quran. " We know well that they say: Only a man teaches him….This is clear Arabic speech" (16,103).

All Scriptures contain contradictions but the Quran is the only text whose commentators have developed a whole doctrine to justify these visible changes from an injunction to another. God's design conveyed by Quran therefore strengthens the legitimacy of the taqiyya, and then this design of God called God is explicitly characterized as the greatest devil or deceiver (makar). See, for example, 3: 54, 8: 30, 10: 21.

Taqiyya is therefore a principle derived from the Quran and which allows any Muslim to lie in case of persecution or if he fears for his life.

“Whosoever disbelieves in God after his belief - save him who is forced thereto and whose heart is still content with the Faith ….” (16: 106). Editor’s note.One of the few points on which Islam is still more human and more normal than Christianity and its painful quarrels about the lapsi in times of persecution.

However, verse 28 of chapter 3 is generally considered the first verse of the Quran to theorize systematically taqiyya as a normal mode of relationship with non-Muslims: " Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whosoever does that hath no connection with God except if they indeed fear a danger from them.”

“Except if you indeed fear a danger from them."

What does this formula mean? Because it is a strange expression, which can be ambiguous.

Let's go and see the commentators and what the Muslims themselves say about it.

Shaykh Muhammad Sarwar (translation of the Quran in 1982).

“The believers must not establish friendship with the unbelievers in preference to the faithful. Whoever does so has nothing to hope for from God unless he does it out of fear or taqiyyah (pious dissimulation)”.

Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (d. 923), author of an authoritative Quran commentary.

"If you [Muslims] are under their non-Muslims’ authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them with your tongue while harboring inner animosity for them ... [know that] God has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels, except when infidels are above them [in authority]. Should that be the case, let them act friendly towards them while preserving their religion.”

Other prominent scholars, such as Muhyi'd-Din ibn al-Arabi (1165-1240) and Abu 'Abdullah al-Qurtubi (1214-73) have extended taqiyya to cover deeds. In other words, Muslims can behave like infidels and worse—for example, by bowing down and worshiping idols and crosses, offering false testimony, and even exposing the weaknesses of their fellow Muslims to the infidel enemy—anything short of actually killing a Muslim.

Ibn Kathir (d. 1373, his writings are still read today, and published by Saudis.

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"Deception is permitted when Muslims are vulnerable or in a weak position. They can deceive the infidels, pretend to be friends with them. " And he quotes the tradition: "War is deceit " (Sahih Al-Bukhari Vol. 4 Book 52, Hadith 269).

"Whoever at any time or place fears … evil [from non-Muslims] may protect himself through outward show."

As proof of this, Ibn Khatir quotes Muhammad's close companion Abu Darda, who said, "Let us grin in the face of some people while our hearts curse them."

Other verses going in the same direction.

Quran (2:225) - " God will not take you to task for that which is unintentional in your oaths.”

Quran (9: 3) - "... Proclamation from God and His messenger to all men on the day of the Greater Pilgrimage that God is free from obligation to the idolaters, and (so is) His messenger.”

Quran (66: 2) - " God has made lawful for you (Muslims) absolution from your oaths (of such a kind) ?????

Collectively, these different verses express the idea that there are circumstances in which a Muslim is "constrained" to lie if it is done for an honorable purpose.

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TAQIYYA AND KITMAN.

The Arabic word taqiyya therefore means "preventive dissimulation." A Muslim is therefore allowed to lie to save himself from an evil that could happen to him or to Islam. As for the term kitman, it refers to the mental reservation well known among Christians with the name of casuistry, in other words, lying by omission.

As for the believers these two forms of lies, therefore, are permitted under certain conditions. These conditions are typically to serve the cause of Islam.

Umdat al-Salik wa Uddat al-Nasik (Reliance of the traveler p. 746-8: 2) - "Speaking is a means to achieve one's goals. If an honorable goal can be attained both by truth and by falsehood, it is contrary to the will of God to achieve this goal through falsehood and not through truth. When it is possible to achieve such a goal by lying but not by telling the truth, then it is permissible to lie if the goal to be achieved is permitted (i.e., when the purpose of lying is to defeat someone who prevents you from achieving that goal), and it becomes mandatory to lie if the goal is mandatory ... It is prudent , from a religious point of view, in all circumstances to use words that give a deceptive impression ... "

Let us point out for the sake of comparison, with which each will do whatever he pleases, that initial Christianity has never permitted its faithful to lie or abjure in to escape persecution; only the madness of martyrdom was admitted; and in the contrary case the different churches differed only on the penance, several years for the Church in Rome, for life for the Donatists (on the reality of persecutions like those of Perpetua in Carthage Polycarp in Smyrna Saint Blandina in Lyon, see our essays devoted to Christianity.

Generally lying is not permitted in Islam, and the doctors of the Muslim faith teach that Muslims must generally tell the truth (unless the purpose of the lie is to calm down disputes).

Bukhari (49: 857) : "He who makes peace between the people by inventing good information or saying good things is not a liar."

There are therefore hadiths that justify the use of lies.

It was narrated from Umm Kalthum Bint Uqbah that she heard Muhammad say….

“He is not a liar who reconciles between people and narrates something good or says something good” (Bukhari 2546, Muslim 2605).

Variant .

It was narrated that Asma Bint Yazid said: “The Messenger of God said: ‘It is not permissible to tell lies except in three cases: when a man speaks to his wife in a way to please her; lying in war; and lying in order to reconcile between people” (al-Tirmidhi, 1939).

The fact that people have, of course, wanted to make Muhammad a new and stronger Christ and that it had been constantly instilled from his infancy that Islam is the best of religions has resulted in a Muslim being unable to imagine that in his religion there are prescriptions less moral than the parables of the good Samaritan, of the woman taken in adultery of the eleventh hour workers of the return of the prodigal son of the shrewd manager and the famous "Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing,” or that the words of St Luke "love your enemies" (even if it is a little going to the opposite extreme: respecting one's enemies should be enough).

Raymond Ibrahim . Fourteen hundred years later— in March 2009—Saudi legal expert Basem Alem publicly echoed this view. As a member of the true religion, I have a greater right to invade [others] in order to impose a certain way of life [according to Shari'a], which history has proven to be the best and most just of all civilizations. This is the true meaning of offensive jihad. When we wage jihad, it is not in order to convert people to Islam, but in order to liberate them from the dark slavery in which they live.”

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It should go without saying therefore that taqiyya in the service of altruism is permissible. For example, only recently, after publicly recounting a story where a Muslim tricked a Jew into converting to Islam—warning him that if he tried to abandon Islam, Muslims would kill him as an apostate—Muslim cleric Mahmood al-Masri called it a "beautiful trick." After all, from an Islamic point of view, it was the Jew who, in the end, benefitted from the deception, which brought him to Islam.

A fourth type of concealment legitimating the personal jihad was nevertheless also endorsed by Muhammad himself in the case of the political assassination of the Medinan Jewish poet Ka'b Ibn Al-Ashraf, unless it falls within the case of war tricks, of course.

All the details of this political assassination appear in the Sira or life of Muhammad by Ibn Hishaq (Guillaume‘s translation p. 367). The apostle said.... Who will rid me of Ibnu ‘l Ashraf? Muhammad Ibn Maslama said: I will deal with him for you. (....) “O Apostle of God, we shall have to tell lies.” He answered: “Say what you like, for you are free in the matter.”

Sahih Boukhari volume 4, Book 52, Number 271: Narrated by Jabir. The Prophet once said, "Who is willing to kill Ka'b bin Ashraf (i.e., a Jew)." Muhammad bin Maslama asked him, "Would you like me to do it?" The Prophet replied in the affirmative. Muhammad bin Maslama asked, "Do you allow me to say what I want for this?" The Prophet replied, "Yes, I will allow you to do so."

This sad episode tells us the political assassination of an Arab poet of Yathrib / Medina, Ka'b bin al-Ashraf, at the request of Muhammad. The men who volunteered for his assassination used cunning to win the confidence of Ka'b, pretending that they had turned against Muhammad. Thus deceived, the victim came out from his fortress, and was massacred without mercy, although at the end of a long struggle.

Poetry has always been one of the most formidable weapons of the human mind. Ashraf was a man of the tribe of the Taiy, his mother a Banu Nadir. He was therefore half Jewish. He was undoubtedly the most rebellious of all poets in Yathrib/Medina. When he heard of the victory of the Muslims at Badr, he began to doubt it; but when the news was confirmed, he went to Mecca to recite an ode to the memory of the unfortunate men killed by the Muslims. He also disapproved of the execution of a part of the prisoners after the battle, and sent erotic or gallant poems to the wives of some of the followers of Muhammad. For Kaab's true crime was perhaps to have accompanied some of his satires with verses teasing the wives in question (including those of Muhammad ??). The non-Muslims of Yathrib / Medina delighted in his poems spread throughout the city. A quirk that is peculiar to not always very subtle men and that you can describe as almost natural among them insofar as use is a second nature; but about which there was never reason to go crazy, in any case not deserving of death).

Muhammad nevertheless ordered his assassination, but there also indirectly, by exclaiming: ".... Who will rid me of Kaab Ibn Ashraf? The desire expressed by Muhammad was received as an order by several Muslims, including the own foster brother of the poet.

Falls also perhaps within this fourth type of jihadist lie, of which Muhammad himself set the first example, the fate reserved for Usayr ibn Zarim (587-631) , one of the surviving chiefs of the Banu Nadir tribe, who had been driven out from their homes in Yathrib / Medina by the Muslims and who have taken refuge in Khaybar.

Usayr ibn Zarim was attempting to gather an armed force against the Muslims from among a tribe allied with the Quraish (Mecca). Muhammad's "emissaries" went to ibn Zarim and persuaded him to leave his haven on the pretext of meeting with the prophet of Islam in Yathrib/Medina to discuss peace. Once vulnerable, Ibn Zarim and his thirty companions were massacred (although they were unarmed - having been given a guarantee of safe passage (Ibn Ishaq 981, Ibn Kathir vol. 4 p. 300).

According to the example of Muhammad who himself broke the treaty of Hudaybiya of 628 after two years (on the pretext of a breach of the truce by subaltern allies of the Quraysh, to their dismay besides), the only function of the truce is therefore giving the weakened Muslims some time to regroup before resuming the offensive.

But fortunately for morality, like always Muslims would have acted in self-defense at the last minute, the Jews having stupidly thought that they would be able to take advantage of the situation in order to capture Medina….. Pious Muslims always try to justify the political assassinations perpetrated by Muhammad, of poets and other opponents in Yathrib / Medina by arguing that they had betrayed previous agreements. But the Constitution of Medina is undoubtedly a myth to which it is appropriate to substitute the idea of a series of modus vivendi (8?) consciously worked out and accepted (we have the names of the witnesses) but implicitly only, by the different tribes and subtribes in Yathrib / Medina (Arabs, Jews, Muslims, etc.) without more.

The philosophy of the whole being to be summarized in the following three points.

-The Muslims constitute a new autonomous community compared to the others, of which Muhammad is the leader.

- In case of attack, common front of all against the assailant.

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- Conflicts involving only Muslims will be of the only jurisdiction of Muhammad.

- In case of conflict not involving Muslims the arbitration of Muhammad may also be solicited to settle the conflict.

This was there, moreover, the supreme skill of Muhammad.

And unlike other religions such as early Christianity or Jainism (ahimsa), there are certain circumstances in which a Muslim is allowed to lie and when it is considered acceptable, even encouraged. This concept is called "al-Taqqiyah" or “kitman.”*.

Although he did not call Taqiyya, Muhammad indeed clearly used this tactic when he signed in Hudaybia in 628 a 10-year agreement with the inhabitants of his hometown of Mecca which granted him free access to that city although at the same time he was preparing mobilizing and gathering his own forces to take the power in it. The unsuspecting inhabitants were easily defeated and Mecca declared an open city after the prophet broke the treaty two years later by seizing the first pretext (some dubious stories of vendettas among subaltern allies), and some of those who believed in this treaty were executed or must flee away ( about ten people in all).

That Islam legitimizes lies during the war is, of course, not surprising. Other non-Muslim philosophers and strategists - such as Sun Tzu, Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes - have justified lies in such circumstances, it is just common sense. The main difference in Islam is that the war against the infidels is a perpetual war, which, according to the words of the Quran itself, must last until "every fitna comes to an end and all religion belongs to God "(verse 39 chapter 8).

The problem is that the world view of Islam is that of a world divided into dar al Islam and dar al-harb, so that outside of Islamic lands there is a universe against which dar al Islam is potentially at war.

If Muslims think - even without a serious piece of evidence - that their opponents are about to break the treaty, they may initiate action by revoking it first. Furthermore, some Islamic legal schools, such as that of the Hanafi, affirm that Muslim leaders have the right to abrogate treaties for the simple reason that this would be beneficial to Islam. This opinion is based on the following canonical hadith: Sahih Bukhari Volume 9, Book 89, Number 260 : Narrated by 'Abdur-Rahman bin Samura. “If you ever take an oath to do something and later on, you find that something else is better, then you should expiate your oath and do what is better."

Most doctors in law have agreed that ten years is the maximum time that Muslims are allowed to live in peace with infidels. The perpetual nature of the lesser jihad is, moreover, emphasized by the fact that the treaty of Hudaybiya signed between Muhammad and his Meccan enemies in 628 was only for 10 years.

Once a treaty has expired, the situation must be re-examined. By their very nature, treaties must be of temporary duration, because according to Muslim legal theory, normal relations between Muslim and non-Muslim territories are not peaceful, but conflicting (dar al Islam versus dal al harb). As a result, the fuqaha [doctors in law] agree that the unlimited truces are illegitimate if Muslims have the necessary forces to resume the war [against non-Muslims].

* Between the madness of the Christian Montanist martyrdom and the facility of systematic lies, there must be a third way, isn’t it ?

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CLARIFICATION ABOUT THE IKHTILAF STRATEGY.

The opinions of Muslim jurists (Ikhtilaf al-fuqaha) diverge with regard to the minor jihad. However, in this case no one can morally condemn anyone who follows another opinion than his own. This allows the ultras to continue to preach the hatred of kufar, of Trinitarian Christians, of those who switch to another religion, of atheists, etc.

The Quran forbids a believer to deceive other believers - since " Lo! God guides not one who is a prodigal, a liar " (40, 28).

Deceit against non-Muslims, which is also called taqiyya in Arabic, is, on the other hand, advocated by the Quran and falls within the legal category of things permitted to Muslims.

Taqiyya is used essentially in two cases. The best known is the situation where it is a matter of masking one's religious identity when one fears persecution. It is the historical use of taqiyya in Shiite communities everywhere and every time their Sunni rivals were more numerous and therefore threatened them.

In this respect, it should be remembered that during the rare and short persecutions which affected the first Christians, and in spite of the numerous means of escaping them left at their disposal (the Roman power only required them to take an oath of loyalty to the Emperor at the fashion of the time), the instructions given, and followed by a few ones (Saint Perpetua, St. Polycarp....) were to do nothing of the kind, and to prefer martyrdom. Since the vast majority (the lapsi) preferred to obey or sidestep (i.e., to practice a kind of taqiyya before the word is invented), this raised a very serious problem to the nascent Church when these waves of persecution were past, somewhat analogous to the case of the divorced and remarried today in Catholicism: what to do with the Lapsi, could they be again admitted to communion? The solution chosen (forgiveness after a long penance) was even at the origin of the Donatist schism).

Returning to Islam, on the other hand, Sunni Muslims, far from suffering persecution, and whenever they had the opportunity, theorized the lesser jihad against the kingdom of disbelief (Dar al Harb) and it is there they used the taqiyya - not as a concealment maneuver but as an active deception. This deception, founded on the hadiths, is often described as equal to, or even superior, to other universally recognized military virtues such as courage, bravery or a sense of sacrifice.

What is exactly taqiyya? How is it justified by doctors in laws and those who resort to it? How does it fit into a broader view of the ethical code of Islam, especially with regard to the relations with non-Muslims? More concretely, how does the taqiyya doctrine infiltrates the interactions between Muslims and non-Muslims?

According to the Sharia - the set of law rules that define how the Muslim should behave in all circumstances - lies are not only permitted in certain situations but may be considered compulsory in some others. Unlike the Christian tradition of martyrdom, for example, Muslims who were forced to choose between denying Islam or being persecuted had the right to lie and feign apostasy. What a majority of early Christians, the lapsi, has also done beside; as we have had the opportunity to see it. Other Muslim jurists also pointed out that Muslims had a duty to lie in order to protect oneself. This is the classical definition of the Taqiyya doctrine.

Where there is the main point of friction it is the widespread and preventive use made by certain Muslims, for the useful idiots of Islam, and God knows that there is no shortage of them in our country.

BUT BY DOING THIS, IT IS TRUE, THEY ACT ONLY AS IT IS RECOMMENDED BY THEIR CASE LAW IN DAR AL HARB OR WAR LAND, for Muhammad himself declared that the art of war was a deceit (Bukhari volume 4 book 52 number 269 : “War is deceit.”

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He has besides said other things that cast deception in a positive light, such as "God has commanded me to equivocate among the people just as he has commanded me to establish [religious] obligations"; and "I have been sent with obfuscation"; and "whoever lives his life in dissimulation dies a martyr." (Shihab ad-Din Muhammad al-Alusi al-Baghdadi, Ruh al-Ma'ani fi Tafsir al-Quran al-'Azim wa' l-Saba' al-Mithani -Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiya, 2001-, vol. 2, p. 118, Raymond Ibrahim’s translation).

THE QURANIC BASES OF THE TAQIYYA NOW.

Verse 35, chapter 47. " Do not falter and cry out for peace when you (will be) the uppermost, and God is with you, and He will not grudge (the reward of) your actions.”

In short, the prerequisite for peace or final reconciliation is Muslims advantage. It is expressed very clearly in a Sunni text of Islamic law we have already very often mentioned, the Umdat as-Salik or reliance of the traveler, written in the fourteenth century by an Egyptian doctor in law named Ahmad Ibn an Naqib al-Misri: " There must be some benefit [maslaha] served in making a truce other than the status quo.”

The verse 3:28 of the Quran is nevertheless often regarded as the principal of those who advocate dissimulation towards non-Muslims: " Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whosoever does that has no connection with God unless (it be) that you but guard yourselves against them, taking (as it were) security.”

Not forgetting the already mentioned verse 35 chapter 47. “So do not falter and cry out for peace when you (will be) the uppermost, and God is with you, and He will not grudge (the reward of) your actions.”

In short, the earliest historical records of Islam clearly attest to the prevalence of taqiyya as a form of Islamic warfare. Furthermore, early Muslims are often depicted as lying their way out of binds—usually by denying or insulting Islam or Muhammad—often to the approval of the latter, his only criterion being that their intentions (niya) be pure.During wars with Christians, whenever the latter were in authority, the practice of taqiyya became even more integral. Mukaram states, "Taqiyya was used as a way to fend off danger from the Muslims, especially in critical times and when their borders were exposed to wars with the Byzantines and, afterwards, to the raids [crusades] of the Franks and others."

Taqiyya presents therefore a range of ethical dilemmas. Anyone who truly believes that God justifies and, through his prophet's example, even encourages deception will not experience any ethical qualms over lying.

When a group of prominent Muslims wrote an open letter to the American people soon after the strikes of 9/11, saying that Islam seeks to peacefully coexist, bin Laden wrote to castigate them:

“ As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels, this is summarized by the Most High's Word: "We [Muslims] renounce you [non-Muslims]. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us—till you believe in God alone" [Quran 60:4]. So there is an enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart. And this fierce hostility—that is, battle—ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam, or if his blood is forbidden from being shed [i.e., a dhimmi, or protected minority], or if Muslims are at that point in time weak and incapable. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the heart, this is great apostasy! ... Such then is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity, and hatred—directed from the Muslim to the infidel—is the foundation of our religion. And we consider this a justice and kindness to them.”

History testifies to this schizophrenia, which is well expressed by an idea very widespread among Muslims and based on a hadith: if possible, the lesser jihad must be led by the hand (force), and if not, by the tongue (the preaching); and if this is not possible either through heart or intentions.

No attentive reader can fail to notice the many contradictory verses which are in the Quran, and more precisely the way in which peaceful and tolerant verses appear almost beside violent and intolerant verses.

The scholars were at first confused when it came to determine the verses to be codified in the world view of the Shari'ah: the one who affirms that there is no compulsion in religion (2: 256), or those who command the believers to fight all non-Muslims until they get their conversion to slam or at least their submission to Islam (8:39, 9: 5, 9:29).

In order to extricate themselves from this embarrassment, the commentators have developed the abrogation doctrine, which essentially states that in case of disagreement the verses revealed later in the career of Muhammad take precedence over the earlier verses. In order to know which verses abrogated which others, there appeared therefore a religious “science” devoted to the chronology of the Quranic verses (it is called an-Nasikh wa'l Mansukh, abrogating and abrogated).

But why there are contradictions?

Some Muslim theologians besides deny the categorical nature of these contradictions and emphasize that each of these verses keeps all its validity, waiting only for an opportunity to be activated. Everything depending on circumstances. The gradual passage from passive and spiritual verses to

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legal prescriptions and injunctions in order to spread faith through lesser jihad and conquest was intended by God not to discourage the first Muslims by imposing on them too heavy constraints. God wanted to proceed in stages with the first faithful. Said otherwise when Muslims are weak and in a minority position, they must preach and behave according to the spirit of the verses of Mecca (peace and love) which keep their full value in similar circumstances. When they are strong, on the other hand, Muslims must take the offensive by being based on the orders expressed in the verses of Medina (war and conquest).

We cannot endorse such reasoning making God the greatest of the makar, in other words, the best liar or conspirator (Quran 3:54, 8:30, 10:21) for various reasons, the first being that if God exists he cannot do like this with men. It is a disgusting anthropomorphism. The second is that such pragmatism is tantamount to opportunism devoid of all morals. Of the type: "The end justifies the means."

Other theologians think more simply that, in the early years of Islam, Muhammad and his small community were far fewer than their unfaithful adversaries while living beside them in Mecca, a message of peace and coexistence was necessary. But when the Muslims emigrated to Yathrib/Medina in 622 and acquired military force, the verses urging them to take the offensive were slowly "revealed" - in principle sent by God - always in accordance with the growing capacities of Islam.

Whatever the explanation kept, the result is the same: when Muslims are weak and in a minority position, they must preach and behave according to the spirit of the verses of Mecca (tolerance peace and love); when they are strong, on the other hand, they must take the offensive by being based on the orders expressed in the verses of Medina (war and conquest).

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HERE BELOW SOME EXAMPLES OF CURRENT KITMAN OR TAQIYYA.

It is true that our friend Shaykh Muhammad Sarwar is of Shia denomination, but the most subtle example of taqiyya is perhaps the one which consists in making believe that this phenomenon concerns only the Shiite world. But, as Raymond Ibrahim has well demonstrated it, this is not true. It is true that taqiyya has long been analyzed by western scholars as an attitude to be adopted in periods of religious persecution, and it is therefore mainly in this sense that it was used by the minority Shiite groups living within hostile Sunni majorities. The Taqiyya made the Shi'a able to constantly mask the Sunnis their religious belonging, not only by the concealment, by hiding their own beliefs, but also actively by praying and behaving as Sunnis.

One of the few books devoted to the subject, At-Taqiyya fi'l-Islam (Dissimulation in Islam), makes it very clear nevertheless that taqiyya is not limited to Shi’a dissimulation in fear of persecution. Written by Sami Mukaram, a former professor of Islamic studies at the American University of Beirut and author of some twenty-five books on Islam, the book clearly demonstrates the ubiquity and broad applicability of taqiyya.

Taqiyya is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it … We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream … Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.

Taqiyya is, therefore, not, as is often supposed, an exclusive Shi'i phenomenon. Of course, as a minority group interspersed among their Sunni enemies, the Shi'a have historically had more reason to dissemble. Conversely, Sunni Islam rapidly dominated vast empires from Spain to China. As a result, its followers were beholden to no one, had nothing to apologize for, and had no need to hide from the infidel nonbeliever (rare exceptions include Spain and Portugal during the Reconquista when Sunnis did dissimulate over their religious identity. Ironically, however, Sunnis living in the West today find themselves in the place of the Shi'a: Now they are the minority surrounded by their traditional enemies—Christian infidels—even if the latter, as opposed to their Reconquista predecessors, rarely act on, let alone acknowledge, this historic enmity. In short, Sunnis are currently experiencing the general circumstances that made taqiyya integral to Shi'ism although without the physical threat that had so necessitated it.

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THE PROBLEM OF FALSE FRIENDS.

Taqiya is the contnuation of jihad with the admixture of other means.

Also taqiyya is the process of using euphemisms to translate certain words.

It is true that the notion of jihad (jihad Fi Sabilillah) appears only 26 times in the 6300 verses of the Quran, with in additon often the meaning of spiritual or inner warfare BUT the notion of Qital (imperative "qatilu") appears 79 times (example fa-qatilu a'immat al-kufr) and means clearly "to wage war or even to kill".

Using only the notion of "fight" to translate this Quranic term can already be taqiya if it is not a dangerous angelism because it is not a Celtic or Greco-Roman wrestling but a fight "to the death". As Pascal used to say, man is neither angel nor beast and the woe is that he who wants to play the angel plays the beast”.

We have already seen the difficulties and even the impossibility of any dialogue between Islam and the other religions of the world. One of the stumbling blocks of these attempts is the translation problems. Mohammed and his family gradually brought their initial pagan mystics closer to Judeo-Christianity, so they borrowed many notions and concepts from them. But by greatly expanding its meaning.

Traduttore traditore. Every translator is a traitor and automatic translation provides daily sometimes grotesque pieces of evidence!

God Luck Allah Jehovah Elohim Christ Lord Great Manitou the Fate ... .. are they exact translations of each other? Certainly not ! These are ideas of God. And ideas of God different. There is only that, moreover, some designs of God! For God in himself does not exist! Or we should first agree about what is meant by God.

The Supreme Being? The original principle? The creator of the universe? The Spirit ? The Great Spirit? The metamorphic fusion of spirit and matter?

By God we mean therefore "this or that idea of God." And it is of such design of God that we can say that they exist or do not exist. God is not an objective (supreme?) being whose existence is measurable, observable, quantifiable (unless it is equated with the universe, what exists, all that exists, really, even in an invisible and unknown way, for now).

The keeping of the proper noun God (lunar god of the Meccan pantheon) to say God poses a problem, unless it is indicative of the non-Abrahamic, non-Judaeo-Christian environment in which it has appeared and given itself a first content.

Submission or Islam? The word Islam comes from the fourth verb form of the stem slm aslama "to submit" and therefore means "submission" (implied to God). Muslim, Muslim, is the active participle "the one who submits" (implied to God). Nota Bene. Of course, this submission to the divine will has been confused with the submission to the law of Moses (or of Muhammad in this case). In short, Islam is an Arabic word meaning submission; therefore we never know in the Quran whether it is spoken of submission to God generally or of Islam particularly.

The Arabic word Fitna sums up all the ambiguity of certain verses of the Quran.

It is particularly used in verse 193 of chapter 2: " And fight them until fitna is no more, and religion is all for God.”

And in verse 39 of chapter 8 which constitutes a repetition (brain washing).

" Fight them until fitna is no more, and religion is all for God.”

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The word is often translated as persecution, sedition, uprising, discord disorder ...

In fact, it refers to any opposition or resistance against Islam, and the true meaning of these verses ultimately amounts to this: "fight until there is no opposition or resistance to Islam" .

One of the problems of Islam is that it has considerably broadened the meaning of certain words or notions borrowed from the Jewish and Christian religions of the time.

Example the notion of a martyr.

In his book Rome and Martyrdom, Glen W. Bowersock reminds of the extension of the concept of martyr among Muslim populations, with the conquest of Palestine in the seventh century. It is after the Muslim conquest of Palestine in the seventh century that the notion of witness (shahid) comes to explicitly mean sacred death, referring to the Greek notion of marturos and its double meaning as witness and martyr. But in the case of the Muslim martyr, however, there is a fundamental difference which should be emphasized at the outset: the justification of martyrdom in Islam is based on the chapter Repentance, according to which the principle consists in " slaying and being slain” (9,111) as it is said in the gospels, etc.

In other words, violence does not come exclusively from the adversary's side, but is assumed by the Muslim believer who uses it legitimately according to the precepts of his faith. On this point, the meaning is quite opposite in Christianity where physical violence is one-way. Muslim martyrdom is strongly linked to this other seminal notion of lesser jihad, or holy war. But the major difference between the notion of lesser jihad in Islam and that of crusade in Christianity lies in their theological foundation: present in Islam, it is absent from Christianity.

It is quite logical to refer to the Greek word marturos, which means witnesses when we speak of martyrdom in our language since that is its etymology (which does not mean that its meaning has not evolved) since its adoption in the church Latin (the druids got everyone to agree by referring to the Italic-Celtic idea of "ver sacrum").

It is neither logical nor appropriate to go back to this Greek notion of witnesses when we talk about the shahid in Islam. The Muslim shahid is a man who died by pronouncing the shahada and generally BY FIGHTING ARMED, WITH WEAPONS IN HIS HAND (ON THE WAY OF THE LESSER JIHAD). While the Christian martyr by definition does not fight, even to defend himself. While the Christian martyr never uses weapons, he remains passive, even turns the other cheek.

It is therefore a mistranslation of this Arabic word (shahid).

We must consequently cease to speak of a martyr when it comes to the lesser jihadist who died in action with weapons in his hand and, why not, enrich our language by using the term shahid when it is appropriate.

Since the Christian notion of martyr is fundamentally different. For Christians and countries of Christian tradition, indeed, martyrdom refers to a testimony that goes as far as death, not given but received. Fortunately for Christianity, there were above all lapsi or people skilled enough to go through these short and sporadic persecutions, by seizing the various means left to them by the Roman authorities for this. In short by practicing a sort of taqiyya before the word is invented.

The dialogue in a language other than Arabic, with a pious Muslim, is therefore difficult because on both sides the same meaning is not given to words.

The fact that words no longer have the same meaning in the mouth of a staunch Muslim and in the mouth of a non-Muslim may evidently have other causes but all contribute to the same result: taqiyya.

NOTE ABOUT THE ARGUMENT OF THE MISTRANSLATION.

The sycophants or useful idiots of Islam often object in the least defendable cases that it is a translation mistake that the important thing is to refer to the Arabic text. Yes, but when the same men wish to give a good image of it, they quote passages in English (or German or Spanish, Italian or French) and there, strangely, there is no more problem of translation.

THE FALSE PARALLELS. It is necessary to compare what is comparable.

The Quran is the Muslim Bible. ....

Especially not ! For the Christians the New Testament reformed the Old one in order to replace it with a new covenant. The message of the Nazarene high rabbi called Jesus recorded in the New Testament part of the Bible is therefore the only one to be taken into account for the Christians despite all the long-held ambiguities on this subject. On the other hand, as a sum of testimonies, the gospel can be called into question. There are, moreover, contradictions even among the three synoptic gospels, and we are not speaking here of the gospel which keeps a little to itself, that of John. The Quran claims to come straightly from God (more precisely from an uncreated Quran coexisting from eternity with God) and cannot therefore be questioned in spite of a more than doubtful content.

As for the Crusades, it is necessary to emphasize 2 points.

The first point was that they did not have the official purpose of converting local populations but of making possible the access to the city of Jerusalem.

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Second point, another fundamental difference with Islam, the violence exercised during these conquests was IN CONTRADICTION WITH THE AFOREMENTIONED FOUNDING TEXT (the 4 Gospels) AND NOT IN AGREEING WITH IT.

Another form of taqiyya is the lesser jihad disguised in the form of complaints or claims. One of the concealed or reduced forms of the lesser jihad outside Dar Al Islam is, of course, the multiplication of the communitarianist claims skillfully presented (taqiyya).

In Islamic land, good and evil do not have much to do with universal norms and refer only to the teaching of Islam itself. Yet most Westerners continue to believe that the morals, laws and ethical constraints of Muslims are practically identical to Human rights. With naivety or arrogance, today's multiculturalists project their own world views on Islamists, and believe that a handshake and a smile around a tea cup with many concessions will be enough to dismantle power of the word of God and of centuries of immutable tradition.

Let us repeat it once again, in Islam there are no parables of the good Samaritan or the lost son.

Hadith or Surah of the Quran of Christians according to St Luke 10: 29-37. "Who is my neighbor?” In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

Hadith or Surah of the Quran of Christians according to St Luke 15: 11-32.

“There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

But let us return to our sheep, that is, to the sycophants of Islam and their casuistry (taqiyya).

The German television channel ARTE has broadcast in 2015 a series of 8 videos renamed “reportages” and titled "Islam is love" (in English in the text).

Whence it emerges among other nonsense sowing the seeds of radical Islam, that the true Islam would be that of Cordoba in Spain in the 10th century.

In other words, what these European intellectuals advocate is, as in medieval Andalusia, a society in which Islam is a state religion, where there is a place of second-class citizens reserved for Jews and Christians (conversion or a special tax to be paid by being humiliated each time: saghiruna) and nothing for the other (Agnostics Atheists Pagans and other Yezidi or Hindus ....)

We shall therefore return to this dangerous and criminogenic idealization of Hispanic Islam by the useful idiots on duty, and we shall admit from the outset in order not to waste a precious time that true Islam is that of these Franco-German journalists.

As far as we are concerned, we will therefore only speak here of the false Islam, that is to say that which is based on the following four pillars that are the Quran, les hadiths, the Sira, and the Shariah, because we do not want to waste more time with an approach that forces us to focus on a few trees, at the cost of losing sight of the forest.

Another myth of the same nature that of the golden age of Islam (7th 13th century). The same goes for the scientific advances attributed to the Islam of the first centuries. The notion of zero, for example, was actually borrowed from the Indians, the paper from the Chinese. In fact, it was the defeated

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populations that greatly contributed to the progress of science during the golden age of Islam. The most emblematic case is that of the great mathematician Thabit Ibn Qurra Ibn Marwan al-Sabi al-Harrani (836-901).

Who, as the name suggests, was a Sabaean * of Harran (today Turkey) and not a Muslim. He translated a large number of Greek authors dealing with mathematics, astronomy, or medicine, in Syriac or Arabic.

But this contribution of non-Muslims to Science has gradually diminished according to the conversions due to the pressures of the status of dhimmi.

Let us not forget also that some Muslim scholars or philosophers were often considered heretics at the time. The Persian philosopher Al Razi for example. He was denounced in his time as a blasphemer because his personal religious ideas were far away from traditional Islam.

In short, what the sycophants of Islam generally forget to remember is that this golden age of Islam from the scientific and technological point of view has nothing to do with religion but with the fact that in a few decades these discoveries and technologies were able to spread from east to west in the same Empire, from the borders of the Indian or Chinese world (the zero, the paper) to the south of Europe (south of France up to Poitiers). And that the Muslim conquest, on the other hand, cut off Europe from direct access to the Greek manuscripts and therefore to the remains of Greek science still present in the East.

Another myth. Jihad means only inner struggle. Some suras that exempt from jihad sick or disabled men (e.g., blind or lame) show that they are talking about a very bodily lesser jihad and not a greater spiritual jihad.

Here is one of them.

Verses 17, chapter 48. " There is no blame for the blind, nor is there blame for the lame, nor is there blame for the sick that they do not go forth to war.”

The lesser bodily jihad is therefore a duty. The material and bodily lesser jihad is a religious duty because of the universal nature of the mission of Muslims and of the obligation to convert the whole world to Islam through persuasion or force. Islam is under the obligation to take power over other nations.

The great Ibn Khaldun, who obviously forgets a little quickly the call for universal evangelization in Matthew 28:19 (which is normal for a Muslim, of course, but less for bishops), explicitly declared in his prolegomenon.

“Wars and different kinds of fighting have always occurred in the world since God created it. The origin of war is the desire of certain human beings to take revenge on others. …..The reason for such revenge is as a rule either jealousy and envy, or hostility, or zeal in behalf of God and His religion, or zeal in behalf of royal authority and the effort to found a kingdom.

The first [kind of war] usually occurs between neighboring tribes and competing families.

The second [kind of war] - war caused by hostility - is usually found among savage nations living in the desert, such as the Arabs, the Turks, the Turkomans, the Kurds, and similar peoples. They earn their sustenance with their lances by depriving other people of their possessions.

The third [kind of war] is the one the religious law calls "the holy war."

The truth is well therefore that the Quran and the Hadiths, and especially its famous abrogating Medinan Suras, known as of the sword of the fight or of the lesser jihad, not forgetting the Sira, call for either forced conversion or submission to Islam through the subjection to a dhimmhi state (in other words a second-class status).

Another received idea; received or spread by the political journalists or sycophant intellectuals of this religion: Islam is peace! ISLAM HAS EXTENDED HIS EMPIRE ONLY THROUGH WARS OF LEGITIMATE DEFENSE, IT IS THE ONLY CASE IN THE HISTORY OF AN EMPIRE WHICH HAS BUILT ONLY ON THE LEGITIMATE DEFENSE. THESE PERSECUTIONS MADE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF MUSLIM VICTIMS IN MECCA AND HAVE FORCED MUHAMMAD TO FLEE TO YATHRIB / MEDINA IN ORDER TO SAVE HIS LIFE, WHAT HAS NOT PREVENTED HIM FROM DYING IN IT A FEW YEARS LATER IN TERRIBLE SUFFERING, POISONED BY UNKNOWN ENEMIES. Some add by Jews (like Jesus). Or by close relations ? Very close relations ?

Let us be serious. The truth is that his founder, organized at least than 65 military campaigns and personally led 27 of them. All this is contained in his official biography, Ibn Ishaq's Sira (taken over by Ibn Hisham). And the military campaigns that extended the most the domain of Islam were the companions of Muhammad. Their habit, in case of resistance, was, for the defeated populations, that men refusing to convert or to accept the status of dhimmis, be executed and the wives or children sold as slaves according to the "model" of the unfortunate Jews of Khaybar in 628.

The fate of the Banu Jadhimah in 630 shows that in this field it was better to convert twice rather than one.

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When the Muslim "missionaries" of Khalid Ibn Al Walid approached their tribe, one of the members warned them that they would be nevertheless massacred even though they had already "converted" to Islam in order to avoid death.

However, the other members of the tribe were convinced that they could trust the promise of the Muslim leader that no harm would be done to them, on the condition that they offer no resistance.

Muhammad Husayn Haykal in his book "The Life of Muhammad."

His task accomplished, ibn al Walid proceeded to the Banu Jadhimah. There, however, the people took up arms at his approach. Khalid asked them to lay down their arms on the grounds that all people had accepted Islam.

One of the Jadhimah tribesmen said to his people: "Woe to you, Banu Jadhimah! Don't you know that this is Khalid? By God, nothing awaits you once you have laid down your arms except captivity, and once you have become captives you can expect nothing but death." Some of his people answered: "Do you seek to have us all murdered? Don't you know that most men have converted to Islam, that the war is over, and that security is reestablished?" Those who held this opinion continued to talk to their tribesmen until the latter surrendered their arms.

Thereupon, ibn al Walid ordered them to be bound, and he killed some of them (Haykal, The Life of Muhammad, p. 443).

Ibn Walid indeed seems to have had a personal dispute with this tribe.

* A kind of Yezidi.

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SHORTENED QUOTATIONS.

It is well known that with shortened quotations you could have a saint condemned or the Devil absolved.

One of the current methods of taqiya therefore consists in putting forward extracts from certain suras, without specifying what follows or without saying that it was abrogated by Medinan verses.

The journalists, however, who are also tireless critics of certain parties, or the Islamic sycophants, often quote the famous verse 256 of chapter 2 which states: "No compulsion in religion."

Certainly, it is a very tempting verse but it has been abrogated by several other later Medininan verses, the not less

famous verses of the sword of the fight and of the lesser jihad . Namely, the verses 5 of chapter 9, 29 of chapter 9, 4 of chapter 47.

Another verse often cited by the taqiyya followers for Christians or journalists who are rather simpletons not to know the rest of the quotation is the verse 82 of chapter 5. "You will find the nearest of them in affection to those who believe (to be) those who say: Lo! We are Christians.”

What follows shows clearly that these are not Christian Christians but Jewish Christians about to convert " You see their eyes overflow with tears because of their recognition of the Truth.”

In short, for Islam, Christians must cease to be Christians and reject the too pagan notion of Trinity in order not to burn out for eternity in Hell . Verse 73, chapter 5. " They surely disbelieve who say: Lo! God is the third of three; when there is no God save the One God. If they do not desist from so saying a painful doom will fall on those of them who disbelieve.”

The Islamic sycophants like Tarik Ramadan are right to say that Islam teaches love and goodness, but they forget to specify (taqiyya) that it is between Muslims and not towards the kuffar. Empathy towards those who are not Muslims is only a plus.

Chapter 5, verse 32: "Whosoever kills a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind.”

This verse is one of those often quoted by those who want to reassure Westerner journalists, by presenting Islam as less violent than it is actually. After the11 September 2001 attacks, an imam made even this verse inscribed in large letters on the front of his mosque. However, these imams who want to reassure our intellectuals, always carefully omit to specify two things.

First of all, they readily quote the verse 32 above, but never the verse that comes just after, the verse 33 of that same chapter, Number 5. "The only reward of those who make war upon God and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land.”

Then they forget to specify that this is a command given TO ISRAEL’S SONS. This sura of the Quran thus echoes an ancient received idea about the universal prohibition of murder that would have been expressed by the god of the ancient Hebrews. And that matches nothing from the historical point of view. Or rather, there again, that was expressed only with respect to the members of the group and not to the foreigners who are by definition enemies in all ancient traditions. Far from recognizing the universality of human nature and from promoting the respect for every man, this verse restricts them to the dimensions of the group by excluding anyone who has been guilty of "corruption," that is to say will be suspect of ......insubordination ?????.

Adding the specification "for other than manslaughter" is usefulness if you don’t define what it means; nor what means corruption in the earth. Much of the Quran is indeed devoted to describe what is waiting for non-Muslims in the next world (hell). And besides, how we cannot regard as a corrupter the one who rejects such an idea of God (the best deceiver or makr) or who does not admit Muhammad

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son of Amina as the last of the prophets, Manichaean topic by definition. Here again we are in the field of taqiyya.

A TEXTBOOK CASE IN THIS FIELD.

CONCLUSION BY SAMI ALDEEB, SWISS JURIST, IN HIS BOOK ENTITLED: "No compulsion in religion: interpretation of the Quranic verse 2: 256 through the ages."

Another textbook case to be known (it is used by Muslim propagandists to make us believe that Islam is tolerant) is the famous verse 256 in chapter 2 which states: "There is no compulsion in religion."

The principle of non-constraint represents, of course, some progress, compared with the Christianity of the seventh century, but a relapse if we consider the polytheistic Arab society that accepted all religions.

This verse is supposed to let us believe that man may enter or leave Islam freely. Of course it is a Medinan verse but it is abrogated by several other later Medinan verses, and notably the not less famous verse of the dhimmitude, verse 29 of chapter 9.

Muslim scholars like Ibn Salama (d. 1020) also agree to say that verse 9: 5 of the Quran, known as ayat as-sayf, or sword verse , repeals about 124 of the more peaceful Meccan verses, for it includes "all the Quranic verses that preach anything but a total offensive against unbelievers. The four schools of Sunni case law agree that the lesser jihad consists in waging war against the infidels who, after being instructed to embrace Islam, or at least to pay jizya and live submissively, have refused to do so.

Can Islam exist without an enemy? The main of the discriminations made by the Muslim religion being the division of Mankind between Muslims and non-Muslims, what is sure is that a geographical breakdown of the world ensues between the land of Islam (Dar al Islam) and the land to conquer: Dar al Harb. They are two irreducible, incompatible, worlds.

Moreover this verse 2:256, does not say: "There is no compulsion on the members of other religions," but "in religion," in the singular, that is to say, "in Islam," for there is no religion other than Islam (3:85, 9:29, 24:2, 110:.2). Muslim jurists have always understood that this verse meant "the right of non-Muslims to embrace Islam without being prevented “ because Islam opens a life of absolute freedom where there is "no compulsion ":" God has not laid upon you in religion any hardship "(22:78). This is very convenient, indeed, and explains why Islam should be preferred.

But that, once you have entered Islam, you would be "unconstrained” in it, falls within the myth, and the everyday life in Muslim countries testifies to the opposite, even for Muslims ... Moreover, that you live "without constraint" because you are Muslim, does not mean that you should give up the practice of coercion against non-Muslims, or on those who are not Muslims, as well as many verses, notably in the same sura, testify to it, by calling for the murder of non-Muslims because non-Muslims (2:190-193, 216) ..... Does the "tolerance" of this famous verse have anything to do with the one that useful idiots like to imagine?

This text, Aldeeb tells us, is one of the countless examples of incomprehensible and controversial verses.

As one of the characteristics of the Quran and its non-contextualization, you never know whether the previous commandments have a universal and timeless value, that is to say, whether they are still valid today, of if they must be considered as having targeted only the Pagans Jews Christians and hypocrites of the time in Arabia, more specifically in Mecca or Yathrib / Medina.

It also contradicts the Hadith (the deeds and words of Muhammad): "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him!" (Sahih Bukhari 84: 57).

To return to our verse, many exegetes have made their neurons work so that the enlightenment comes. Sami Aldeeb quotes some 80 of them, in Arabic with summary and commentary in our language.

It is a matter of examining in what circumstances the tolerance verse was revealed (by a long chain of transmission : isnad), and then to draw the conclusions. Six Hadiths are taken into account. In one

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there are children breast-fed by Jewish women, another two sons converted to Christianity by two Syrian merchants, in a third the slave of Umar Wassak, and so on.

The main conclusions of our legal scholars can be summarized as follows.

- "No constraint in religion" does not mean, for any exegete, the right to leave Islam or not to practice its obligations (fast, prayer, zakat, etc.) The born Muslim persons are forbidden to leave this religion. Apostasy is forbidden.

- The overwhelming majority of exegetes believe that the general meaning of the verse (i.e., absolute freedom) has been abrogated by the verses which order the fight against other religions. Let us point out that the rule of abrogation was devised to eliminate the contradictions in the Quran.

- The verse 2: 256 remains valid only in the sense of non-imposition of conversion to "people of the book" (Christians and Jews mainly). They have to choose between converting to Islam or keeping their religion by paying special tax - which is well a constraint. If they refuse these two options, they are put to death.

- The polytheists have only the choice between conversion and death. They must be removed from the surface of the earth, as one of the modern exegetes writes, Aldeeb comments.

The great jurists of Islam forget no scenario in their search for the Truth. They specify, for example, that a polytheist who converts to a religion of the book (Judaism or Christianity) will still be treated as a polytheist. This means that he must either convert to Islam or become slain. As for the children of Jewish and Christian prisoners, they are forcibly converted to Islam.

The learning of exegesis is part of the standard training of imams to appear on television. The most famous exegeses are translated into many languages, especially in French, and are selling well, notes the author.

The aforementioned interpretations nevertheless do not prevent, in no way, modern exegetes from equating the principle of "no compulsion in religion" to that of religious freedom guaranteed by human rights. But it is opposite to it!

We would point out that none of the Muslim countries exempts from constraints the followers of other religions or the atheists, either on the civil or criminal level. None of these countries admit the principle of religious freedom as it expressed for example, in the Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. None of these countries allow a Muslim to leave his religion freely. Whoever does so is prohibited from marriage, separated from his wife and children, deprived of an inheritance, and can be killed with impunity by a member of his family in case the State does not put him to death.

In the end, the use of this verse by the imams and other Muslim devotees is only one of the many scams intended to mislead us ... Knowing that no journalist will check.

More generally, what is the use of presenting the allegedly tolerant verses of the Quran, as did the rector of the great mosque in Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, while publishing by the prestigious editions Dalloz, reference editions in legal matters, The Tolerant Quran (November 2007), since the so-called tolerant verses are supposed to have all been "abrogated" by the let us say less obviously tolerant verses? " When the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush” (9:5); " Lo! God has bought from the believers their lives and their wealth because the Garden will be theirs: they shall fight in the way of God and shall slay and be slain "(9:111).

Journalists and pious Muslims put forward in order to justify these verses the need to consider the background. But what is relevant for historians cannot be such for the moral message because its timelessness cannot be placed in the historical context. Or then this questions, and its univocal nature (39: 28), and its equal relevance for all men of all time ... What God then said, he would not tell the men of today? What does it mean ?

Let us note finally that the most subtle of taqiyyas consists in making believe that this is only a Shiite casuistry. Within enemy Sunni communities, Shiites, of course, historically have had more reasons to practice concealment. Conversely, as Sunni Islam quickly dominated large empires, from Spain to China, its members owed nothing to anyone and did not have to pledge allegiance to others or hide from unbelieving infidels (the Spain and the Portugal of the Reconquista are the rare exceptions where Sunnis have concealed their religious identity).

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DOES THE END ALWAYS JUSTIFIES THE MEANS?

Taqiya is the contnuation of jihad with the admixture of other means.

For the exegete Abu Hamid Ghazali (1058-1111): "It is permissible to lie if attaining the goal is commendable" or according to the inspirer of Salafism, Ibn Kathir (qadi and historian, 1301-1373): “to smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them.” This is the opposite of the silence of the sea by Vercors.....

If in the Western background, the natural alternation is between war and peace, according to Raymond IBRAHIM within the lesser jihadist Islam it is rather between war and lies. Because, from the point of view of Jihadi Islam, peace times - those in which Islam is significantly weaker than its unbelieving adversaries - are times of simulated peace and lies, in a word, of taqiyya.

Since 2012 a new Trojan horse extends its influence in Europe from Vienna, on an anti-secular front, masking its true nature.

Saudi Arabia, which initiated the establishment, funding and operation of the International Center for Interfaith Dialogue, gave it the name of its late King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz. Therefore it agrees with the statutes which state that the KAICIID (International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue) supports the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The Center also fights against all forms of discrimination based on culture, religion or belief.

The commitments made by Saudi Arabia within the KAICIID are all the more paradoxical because, in the Wahhabi kingdom, Christian worship has enormous difficulty in practicing that Israelite worship is considered undesirable, that apostasy is punishable by death and that no churches or synagogues may be built there. So Riyadh asks European countries religious openings, that it refuses on its own territory.

Islam, which has no tradition of minority religion outside the Ummah, therefore seeks to preserve in Europe the same status it has in the Islamic countries (Sharia), with the support of other minority religions such as Judaism. This alliance

is all the more risky as the Jews had and still have a specific status in predominantly Muslim countries, that of Dhimmi.

As for the European Council for Fatwa and Research, chaired by the extremist Imam Al-Qaradawi, it tries to position itself as a guidance authority for European Muslims, based on the tradition, a tradition foreign to debate and pluralism , marked with condescension. In it Islam is thought as an ideological alternative and a total lifestyle alone capable of saving the West from its decadent situation (according to Patrick Haenni, senior researcher at the Religioscope Institute in Switzerland).

Al-Qaradawi argues that when the wife shows "signs of insubordination," her husband is allowed to punish her by beating her, but ... "lightly, avoiding the face." In his preaching to Muslims in Europe, he repeats that polygamy is a right that all Muslim men should be able to exercise "on the condition of respecting certain rules."

Other provisions which are subject to European criminal law, the marriages practiced according to the Islamic rite (Nikah), which replace civil marriage. Therefore, in the event of matrimonial conflicts, it is the European Council for fatwa which is only relevant, as it is already the case in Great Britain. It is the Lex Gombata the wrong way round.

Despite its commitment to focus on the questions that concern the daily life of the Muslims in Europe, certain fatwas of the Council are extremely political. They betray the presence of radical members within it. Thus, during a meeting of the Council held in Stockholm in July 2003, Al-Qaradawi distinguished five categories of "terrorism" among which "the terrorism permitted by Islamic law" and" the martyrdom operations."

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Referring to the attacks on Israel Al-Qaradawi declared that "those who oppose martyrdom operations by claiming they are suicides are making a serious mistake."

It is also the opinion of Mawlawi, vice-president of the Council for Fatwa, who in a fatwa prohibiting the Arab countries from cooperating with the United States in their "war against terrorism" argued that what Washington calls terrorism is, for the most part, a "legitimate jihad," such as "resistance operations led in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan." These political statements, under cover of Islam, broadcast on the web, wreak havoc in the minds of certain young Europeans (in alphabetical order Catholics, Reformists, Sunnis, etc.).

While the Salafists and other religious extremists demand the introduction of Sharia in a very aggressive and counterproductive way, the Muslim Brotherhood, more politically clever, uses another strategy to achieve the same goal, especially by insisting on the progressive establishment of Islamic centers, considering that dialogue, signs of openness and moderation are better assets.

In Germany an analysis of the German government devoted to the tactics of the Islamic groups maneuvering on its territory esteems that the dialogue advocated by the Muslim Brotherhood is far from being sincere.....The report argues that the contribution of the organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe, to the education and radicalization of violent extremists, is undeniable. The renunciation, by the Muslim Brotherhood, to the violence in Europe, seems more opportunistic than sincere, since their European members do not hesitate to use the most incendiary remarks when it comes to endorsing terrorist operations in the Middle East, reports Lorenzo Vidino.

In conclusion, extending the Middle Eastern confrontation between Sunnis and Shiites among Muslim populations in Europe, the Wahhabi theocracy endeavors to settle in the European religious landscape, relying particularly on the Christian and Jewish cults, to the detriment of the founding principles of secularism.

How is such a relapse possible? For many Islamologists, it is an initiative to implement the Ikhtilaf strategy , that is to say, "concealment in a conflict," which makes possible, according to the tradition, to move masked, in order to deceive the enemy (to achieve one’s ends). This concealment takes several other names like Tawriya, Kitman or Muruna.

The spokesmen of Islam in the Western world of the kind Tarik Ramadan know how to play the game. They know how to present their cause in a way that is not only viewed as acceptable by the majority of society, but also considered to be sensible and even we could say fair. They will appeal to democratic institutions and human rights, knowing full well that if they had the power they would abolish these institutions and deny those rights to others.

And this is how terrorists around the world justify their actions, and this justification is based on central elements of the Islamic tradition.

As a result, it is very difficult for peaceful moderate Muslims to rise in the Islamic community and say: it is not part of Islam. It is only by deliberate deception that they do this, with the intention of misleading the Westerners, in accordance with the Islamic doctrine of the Taqiyya, the "pious lie." Or then, they do this simply because they are not aware of what Islam actually teaches.

The whole question today is to know whether other religions have consciously accepted to "play the game" of the secularism circumventing, or whether they have been deceived (Gerard FELLOUS.1 5 October 2015).

Let us point out here once again that this part of our essay is not aimed at the basic Muslim, does not aim at the common Muslims, which must be more or less a liar than a Christian, but concerns ideologists or theorists. The Islamic staunched followers of the famous "The end justifies the means," even the journalists politicians or non-Muslim intellectuals playing their game for various reasons (electioneering, white knight complex, resistance fighter complex, hubris, lack of critical mind, class mind, bowl effect, or simply never reading the Quran ...).

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DIN DAWLA AND DUNYA.

State decline is a Marxist concept designed by Friedrich Engels, referring to the idea that, with the application of socialist norms, social institutions applied by the state will end in becoming obsolete and die will out, as the society will be able to govern itself without its coercive enforcement of laws.

Well, we find a little bit the same thing with Islam. Islam has as its project the establishment by the state of an ideal city which, in one form or another, is institutionally subject to God.

Hassan AL-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, whom some present as a continuation of the reformism advocated in the nineteenth century by Aghani and Abduh, has developed a political project against political pluralism, rights and individual or public freedoms, while they are manifesting more and more. If the Muslim Brotherhood evolves somewhat in relation to this program, their ability to justify the social order handed over by generations of religious people and doctors of the Law, blurs the anti-racist message.

And finally, as Bernard Lewis said it well the legacy of Islam remains almost untouchable “even in ostensibly secular and democratic Muslim societies. .Indeed this privileged immunity has been extended, de facto, to Western countries where Muslim beliefs and practices are accorded a level of immunity from criticism that the Christian majorities have lost (...) Islam is not only a matter of faith and practice, it is also an identity and a loyalty for many, an identity and loyalty that transcend all others “.

The ideological multiculturalism (moral, cultural and religious relativism) in fashion today is totally foreign to the Muslim doctrine. Multiculturalism all around (WHICH BY DEFINITION INCITE THE NATIONS TO DEVALUE THEIR OWN CULTURE), contributes to the establishment and expansion of Islam.

Because once implanted in a society, Islam seeks to remove any custom or value that is opposed to its law..... Because it is an ideology very far from the spirit of secularism, modernity and living -together.

The totalitarian spirit of Islam, both religious and societal (Sharia), communitarianizes, isolates and separates, invites to sedition and subversion.

Some examples.

The highly Muslim states of Northern Nigeria, Muslim of an apparently non-Arab Islam , have decreed the application of Islamic law (Sharia) and are calling for the Islamization of the Nigerian constitution, while Black Islam is said to be more flexible than Arabic Islam.

Chinese Muslims (Uighurs) demand secession; those in India called for "Partition" after the departure of the British.

Most Muslims make repeated requests to implement Sharia law, in Canada, in the United Kingdom, in Australia ......... as if it were up to these host countries to change because in the mind of a Muslim, Islam is a universal religion and he hopes well that one day all mankind will embrace his faith (which has nothing to do with Reason).

In Canada, the creation of Islamic courts has been considered, which is done in England.

We also see these heavy trends at work in school canteens in France where they start to separate Muslims from others, because of differences in diet.

Sexism in swimming pools or with staff of the hospitals is part of the same trend towards separation.

AND NOW THE ANDALUSIAN OR SPANISH INN.

Whenever Muslims found themselves minority, religious leaders argued that Sharia was only meant to guarantee the five fundamentals namely the preservation of religion; the preservation of life; the preservation of posterity or honor, the preservation of property and the preservation of reason.

The fine mystic minds having faith (which has nothing to do with reason) unable to understand as Protagoras that the only measure of all things is Man, and that the only Trinity that is worth is that of

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atheism agnosticism or pantheism (no to the family transmission of religions, yes to a personal quest for the grail), are therefore, facing this growing gap between faith and reason, plunged into the utmost disarray.

Theologians like Muhammad Abdh (1848-1905) intend to show that there is no place in Islam for a religious authority and that the institutions that exist in Muslim societies, such as the caliphate, the qadha (the judges) are civil and non-religious institutions.

Kawakibi (1854-1902) even advocates the institution of a caliphate in Hijaz, whose authority would be limited, as for Vatican, to religious questions alone, without meddling in the political affairs falling within state authority established in different Muslim countries.

Ali Abd Al-Raziq (1888-1966) argued in 1925 that Islam did not need the caliphate or any other political power to exist as a religion. Even still minority, these voices are heard more and more since the 1970s, at a rate that Western observers still poorly evaluate (it is the least we can say).

Where is the true Islam in all that if one does not want to be content with atheism agnosticism pantheism and a personal quest for the grail? It is to our readers to make their idea with complete independence of mind.

For the record, a very clear example of what secularism is (more open it is what is called "paganism").

9 December 1905 law on the Separation of the Churches and State.

Title I: Principles. Article 1 " ……….under the provisos enacted hereafter in the interest of public order."

Article 2 "The Republic does not recognize, pay, or subsidize any religious sect. Accordingly… "

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THE PROBLEM OF THE DIVINE RIGHTS IN THE ISLAMIC LAW.

9 December 1905 law on the Separation of the Churches and State.

Title I: Principles. Article 1 « ……….under the provisos enacted hereafter in the interest of public order."

Article 2 "The Republic does not recognize, pay, or subsidize any religious sect. Accordingly… »

Before leaving it up to our readers to answer, is an Islamic state (where Sharia law is in force) a theocracy or a totalitarian collective dictatorship, first of all (for those who prefer a critical but nuanced refection, over the vulgates and imprecations) that it is not a simple personal dictatorship . Note also that all the authoritarian or monarchical regimes are not necessarily totalitarian.

The notion of a theocracy in the West way is hardly relevant in the Islamic world either, because Islam does not allow contemplating a separation of the political from the religious one similar to that based on the distinction between temporal and spiritual in the Christianity. For Islam, the separation of politics and religion does not have the right to exist. It is even shocking, because it looks like an abandonment of the human being to the power of evil, or the relegation of God out of what belongs to him. From the beginning, Islam asserts itself as "religion and regime" (din wa-dawla) and this unity of politics and religion is still defended today in certain Salafi currents.

The problem of the Muslim theocracy is that God (the idea of God they have) deals much, but then very much, with private life, with individuals. With Muhammad in any case, God intervened in a lot of fields (prohibited food, criminal sanction of adultery, etc.). Much more in any case than in the case of countries where has gradually been established a separation of church and state, or even in the case of Christian countries period, the God (the idea we have of God) of Christians, having always historically much less dealt than Allah with controlling the private life of individuals. It is true that the triune god of Christians more easily admits the bida or innovation given the role attributed to the Holy Spirit: the last of the prophets.

The concept of totalitarianism is one of those notions in debate that intellectuals and media use peremptory, but in a changing way, at the risk of bringing the politician to assert contradictory truths during his career. The use of this notion is therefore problematic.

A totalitarian regime is different from the simple dictatorship - or authoritarian regime - because it aims to institutionalize globally its domination, by radically changing the existing political, cultural and economic order according to a homogeneous and unified ideology, around some principles. The claim of such a regime is often to build a "new man," radically different from the past.

More generally, a political system is said to be totalitarian when it exercises control over all citizens' activities and abolishes or attempts to abolish any notion of privacy. Its opposite is a pluralistic system or a rule of law that guarantees a private space for individuals. When the state can do anything and everywhere, it is a totalitarian state.

By the monopoly of the media, the culture, the intellectual class, a totalitarian regime tries to completely dominate - totally - the different aspects of social and private life. At all levels of life - family, neighborhood, workplace or leisure - a totalitarian regime establishes supervising mechanisms based on suspicion, denunciation and informing. Access to positions, acquisition of property or privileges depends on respect for ideology and "enthusiasm" for the principles of the regime.

Shariah is a set of laws that do not all have the same status. We can distinguish the rights of God (huquq Allah) and the rights of human beings (huquq aladamiyyin). The implementation of the rights of God (WHICH ARE MUCH MORE THAN THE RIGHT TO BE WORSHIPPED) is the responsibility of governments, while the application of the right of human beings is at the discretion of everyone. The existence of these "rights of God" and the fact that their application comes down to the government makes it possible to speak of theocracy if Sharia is in force in a country.The notion of "rights of God" has two meanings: a broad meaning (all that God has asked to do or not to do), a narrower meaning. It is this huquq Allah in the broadest sense that is problematic). The right of God over men is that they

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worship him (ibada) and associate him nothing (reported by al-Bukhari, 2701, Muslim, 30). Now, the complete ibada of God , and the fact of associating nothing to Him, are conveyed first and foremost by the fact of worshiping God, and of deifying only Him, and secondly by the fact of obeying his orders, that is to say, to do what he agrees with man, whether this action falls within the spiritual field, the cult , physical or family, field, or the field of relations of man with his fellow men or even with other creatures of God.

It is, moreover, why scholars point out that if one has wronged the established right of a man (on the physical plane - by the fact of having wounded him - or moral - by having slandered him, for example - or material - by having destroyed a property belonging to it -), one must first be forgiven by this man (which may require to compensate him before receiving his pardon), but one must also, then, to ask God's forgiveness for breaking the prohibition that He has made to do this kind of harm to others.

An-Nawawi has formulated the thing as this. Repentance is due from every sin. If the sin between the slave and God does not relate to the right of Adam, it has three conditions: One: to stop sin. And second: to regret doing. And the third: that he intends to never return to it (he firmly intends Catholics would say). The loss of one of the three has not corrected his repentance.

If the sin is related to Adami, then the conditions are three: He should be acquitted of the right of the owner: If money or money is returned to him, even if it is a slander and so on, he can make it from or ask for his forgiveness, even if it is not permissible for him. "(Riyâdh us-sâlihîn, chapter 2). All this is part of the "right of God" in its broad sense. The concept "human right" is then particular, so that the first encompasses the second and includes it (baynahumâ 'umûm wa khussûs mutlaqan).

According to the second, narrower sense of the phrase "right of God," we have...

- A) on the one hand, that which is purely the right of God.

- B) on the other, which is purely a matter of the right of the person.

Implications of this distinction ...

- A) What is purely a matter of God's right…

-Does not become mubah ul-isti'mâl (authorized to use) for a person by the mere fact that its owner / keeper (sâhib ul-yad) human gives him permission to use it. It is necessary, in addition to this permission of the owner / holder, that this particular person is not in one of the cases where God has forbidden the use of this.

-In case of violation of this right of God, the planned terrestrial sanction lapses according to some schools (this is the opinion retained in the Hanbalite school and a notice within the Shafi'ite school) by the fact that the author of the package repents to God before being questioned.

- B) What is purely a matter of the right of the person… is

-Becomes authorized to use (mubâh ul-isti'mâl) (provided, of course, that this thing is not prohibited in itself, harâm ul-'ayn, as is for example the pork) by the simple fact that its owner / human holder gives permission (it is, of course, necessary that its use is done in accordance with other rules of Islamic ethics).

-In case of use without agreement, the planned earthly sanction does not become invalid by the only repentance made vis-à-vis God; on the other hand, it becomes void by the pardon granted by the right holder.

-A very easy to understand example of category A (what pure right of God is) is the status of the use (in the sense of "using") of one’s private parts. That this prohibition status is God's right does not mean that God has something to gain from it - since God does not derive any benefit from what men do or do not do - but that except in the setting where God has authorized it (this is the case of marriage), it is forbidden to a third person to take advantage of it , even if the holder gives one’s permission. If the holder has not even given one’s permission and that someone enjoys them, then there is rape, which is even more serious, because then there was a violation of both the right of God and the right of the holder, but here we are talking only about intimate relationships. As to touching someone's private parts, this is also forbidden for another person, except in the God-authorized framework (marriage), or still in a situation of necessity (like a medical consultation coming from the necessity - dharura -).

Category B, the "right of the person," is different, and here we can give as an example the status of the material goods that are the property of a person. That this is a right of the person means that if the right holder - in other words, the human owner - allows a third party to use one of his or her property, he or she becomes authorized to do so (of course, he or she must do so while respecting Islamic rules); likewise, if this human owner offers it to him, then he becomes the owner. But if this third party takes this good (ghasb) by force and uses it without the authorization of the owner, then he prejudices the right of the latter, and, moreover, fails in one’s duties of Ibada regarding God, who has forbidden such a thing (but it is not in this sense that we use here the formula "right of God." There are now two other cases.

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- C) The legal category where the right of God and the right of the person are present but where it is the right of God which dominates.

- D) The legal category where the right of God and the right of the person are present but where it is the right of the person who dominates.

AN INVASIVE RELIGION (HUQUQ ALLAH).

"Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, believes in the divine origin of government. It follows,therefore, that political science for Islam is not an independent discipline aspiring to the utmost heights of intellectual speculation but a department or branch of theology.The distinction between secular and spiritual for the Muslim has no meaning. The only distinction is between believer and unbeliever." (Ann K.S. Lambton. State and Government in Medieval Islam).

Commentary by Pierre de La Crau. We don't quite agree completely with Ann Lambton on Christianity because of the famous "Render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's (Matthew 22,21).

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MUSLIM LAW.

The Islamic or Shari'a law does not concern liturgy prayer or worship (al-Ibadat) but also governs civil and criminal law (al-Mu'amalat).

Although it is best known for its personal and criminal status, it also encompasses all human activities, including trade or governmental rules.

Muslim law, sometimes called Quranic law, or Sharia, is a system of essentially religious nature in which the science of the law (fiqh) forms part of theology. This law, of revealed origin, which has its source in the Quran's prescriptions, the hadiths or the biography of Muhammad (Sira), should not be equated with the whole of the substantive law (of human and non-divine origin) that may also be in force in the states of Muslim tradition, insofar as the latter, which differs from country to country, often deviates from it.

Muslim law is a system of duties that includes ritual, moral and legal obligations, placed on the same level, all subject to the authority of the same religious imperative. In principle, Muslim law applies only to Muslims. In Muslim law, non-Muslims are subject to the legal regime of the dhimma or protectorate.

Sources of Law.

Muslim law has several sources, including the fundamental sources that are Quran and Sunnah on the one hand, and secondary sources based on human reason, which include consensus of lawyers (ijma), analogical reasoning (qiyas) and interpretation * (ijtihad). Custom (urf) and human pieces of legislation are not officially a source of law, but have made it possible to adapt the law of religious origin to the diversity of countries and cases.

Various case law has developed according to the regions, according to four main legal schools (madhhab) for Sunnism, and two others for Shiism. The elaboration of the fiqh (science of law) by each of these schools has, in theory and essentially, ended in the tenth century, with the closing of the "gates of interpretation * (ijtihad)” what explains the archaic and obsolete nature of many of its institutions. However, this idea of "closure of the gates of interpretation *" is highly controversial, and many doctors in law have subsequently continued to reflect on Muslim law, and to continue the effort of their predecessors.

Colonization has reduced the scope of Muslim law mainly to personal status (marriage law, etc.). Modernization efforts have been made in some countries (Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, etc.) in the 20th century. Muslim criminal law has been given up by the courts of states of Muslim tradition, although the weight of contemporary Islamism has led some states to partially restore it (Libya in 1972-74, Pakistan in April 1979, Iran in 1979, Sudan in the early 1980s, Kuwait in the 1980s, and Egypt after the referendum in May 1980). In the other legal fields (constitutional law, public law, etc.) reforms in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries led to an increasing harmonization of law with international principles as ratified at national level. This does not prevent a certain number of national legal systems from referring to the principles of Muslim law in their Constitutions (Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Yemen, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan and Egypt). Finally, in 1990, the Organization of the Islamic Conference signed the Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, but with many reservations, by significantly distorting the scope of the Convention in many respects.

Muslim law has therefore four main sources (Usul al-Fiqh), which together constitute the Sharia (or divine law).

-The Quran. The Quran contains 114 chapters; the whole of the verses contained in these chapters represents 6236 verses that speak of belief (of faith), which speak of the generations previous to the revelation of the Quran, as well as of codes that can be compared to the "Hammurabi’s code ," and more to the Jewish rabbinic “Halakha.” The books of the exegetes and “fuqaha” use the concept of "Ahkam," which is only a set of rules of conduct that the believer must follow. These rules determine

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personal relationships, including laws on marriages, repudiations, widowhood, inheritance, etc., a set of obligations to which Muslims must submit in their daily lives and in their relations with non-Muslims.

Of these 6236 verses, 442 relate to the lives of Muslims. To speak of 442 verses organizing the life of the Muslims does not mean that there are 442 recommendations, because let us not forget the multiple repetitions contained in the Quran. Locating this hard core of the commandments in the Quran requires a very thorough work.

133 verses deal with Muslims, 94 verses deal with rituals and liturgy, 53 verses deal with marriage, 23 verses deal with food, 9 verses deal with inheritance, 6 verses deal with punishment and penalties , 4 verses deal with economics, 4 verses deal with spoils of war.

The legal scholar is often very embarrassed, for these verses contain irreducible contradictions, especially when it is necessary to proceed to the drafting of the law and to bring out the essential dogmas of Islam.

The legal content of the Quran is therefore insufficient to settle all questions of law. A tafsir (Muslim exegesis) of the Quran is made necessary by several unclear passages. The type and method of tafsir will thus create several schools of law, or rites: the madahib.

-The sunna is recorded in the hadiths of the prophet of Islam and his companions related by chains of intermediaries also called guarantors (isnad). Muhammad is considered an example for all Muslims. These hadiths will be used therefore as raw material in the drawing up of laws: what Muhammad did in this circumstance will become law as a first approximation.

-The ijma (consensus of the scholars). This third source of Muslim law has an exceptional practical importance. It is to their consecration by it that all the rules of the fiqh, whatever their primary origin, owe their applicability.

-Analogical reasoning (qiyas).

Concretely the judge (qadi) relies mainly on the books where the solutions consecrated by the ijma are expounded, and not directly on the Quran or the collections of traditions (hadiths).

The qadi (or judge) who ventures to interpret the passages of the Quran on his own authority or to appreciate himself the probable authenticity of hadith would commit an act that is just as contrary to orthodoxy as the Catholic believer who would understand in the only lights of his individual intelligence the meaning of the texts invoked by the Church in support of her dogmas.

To the four main sources are added several secondary sources.

- The personal opinion or istihsan (approval), in the Hanafi.

- The Istislah or consideration of the general interest among the Maliki.

- The Istis'hab in the Shafi.

-The custom ( urf or ada). Indeed, some pre- or post-Islamic customs have been integrated into Muslim law, the latter being considered compatible with Islam. However, case law based on custom may sometimes have been contrary to the letter of the Sharia, for example as regards repudiation. Whereas the Sunni authorities say that it must be carried out in three stages, the case law has confirmed the repudiation in a single instance in the vast majority of Muslim countries.

Generally, however, custom is not considered a source of law (likewise for case law or amal): it is not a legal source, but a spontaneous and secondary source which makes possible to adapt the law rather than to change it.

-The imitation of the decisions of the elders (taqlid), as opposed to the ijtihad.

- The human law or kanun (kanun siyasi: administrative regulation, also known as firman, hatti, etc., in Turkey, karar or code in Egypt, amr bey or beylical decree in Turkey, dahir or royal decree in the Morocco).

* -Ijtihad, effort of personal reflection based on the general principles of Islam. It was practiced by the jurists (muftis) or the scholars (mujtahids). The mujtahids were superior to the faqih, those who had the intelligence of the law (the fikh) and could interpret it: indeed, not only they interpret the law, but they could still create it when the new backgrounds caused by the expansion of Islam compelled to this invention.

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A HOLISTIC AND THEOCRATIC (COUNTER) SOCIETY.

In Medina the first circle of Muslims was made up of the core of the Emigrants (Muhajirun) who voluntarily followed Muhammad in his exile, and of the Ansars (sympathizers or converted inhabitants of Medina). And especially the veterans of Badr (624).

The second circle was made up of wandering Arabs of around Medina, allied with the Arab Aws or Khazraj tribes of the city, to whom the political genius of Muhammad gradually added the Bedouins of the neighborhood of Mecca, allied with the Quraysh (from whom they will be separated consequently).

The third circle will be that of the new supporters of the last minute, the multitude of followers of open secularism (for commercial reason?) or philosophical and thoughtful paganism, or Manicheism etc. grouped behind the person of Abu Sufyan (cousin of Muhammad and main opponent).

In the seventh century, we are still in a world where social status is unequal and inflexible, in a world where the figure of the leader focuses attention when it comes to action and even thinking. Finally, a world where the knowledge of reality is very fragmented and where the forces of nature still appear to be largely hostile, where the individual does not exist without the group of which he is a member. Authors often marvel at the progress of a new syncretism, like that of Muhammad in a world largely polytheistic and sensitive to the supernatural, without taking into account the (little dealt with we must say) aspect of the forced conversion. Cujus regio, ejus religio. It is enough, however, that the chief be converted so that his tribe, his clan and the whole society behind him, sometimes including slaves, follow the new religious path ... The prevalence of one doctrine over another often owes little to the real conviction of the individual (especially if the use of violence is endemic ...see the case of the Ridda wars), at least in the first generation (with the following ones is already a matter of cultural conditioning ...).

The beginnings of Islam therefore will witness actually and concretely the competition of two systems of values around which the whole history of the nascent Islamic State will be organized.

The first system is that of the Jahiliya or pre-Islamic period, with its tribal organization, nomadic on the one hand (warriors and poets), settled in large cities such as Mecca on the other hand (farmers and traders). It does not know the State principle, it is a political organization based on blood ties.

The second system, new, is that of Islam, with a capital letter, a fundamental feature of the state of Medina.

The system "Islam" will prevail at first, immediately after the death of Muhammad and Abu Baker, a simple and convinced man, some say fanatic (see how he led the wars of the Ridda), then this will be the value system based on blood ties. No one is a prophet in his country *. The first Umayyad caliphs who were of the family of Muhammad and of whom some of them even known him (Muawiya Caliph it is a bit as if Judas had become one of the first popes) were mostly pragmatists, some warriors or politicians, not some mystics like Buddha or Jesus, not theologians. The first concern of the Sufyanid caliphs was therefore not the religion of Muhammad, but the administration of their new empire. It was only gradually that the caliphs took refuge behind the personality of this Arab great marabout of the Senussi type (of the 7th century) and propelled it to the foreground. The establishment of the properly Islamic value system was only completed with the compromise achieved by the dynasty of Abbasids, both of the family of Muhammad but more concerned with his teaching (through the hadiths).

* About the case of the Umayyads and more precisely of the Sufyanids, here below for comparison which is not reason because Muhammad was never a Messiah born of Mary through the workings of a holy spirit sent by God (chapter 19, verses 16-35) and the word of God (chapter 3, verses 42-51).

Gospel according to St. John 7:5: " For even his own brothers did not believe in him.”

Gospel according to St. Mark 3:21: " When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."

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Gospel according to St. Mark 6:1-5 " Leaving that district, he went to his home town, and his disciples accompanied him....

This is the carpenter, surely, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joset and Jude and Simon? His sisters, too, are they not here with us?' And they would not accept him. And Jesus said to them, 'A prophet is despised only in his own country, among his own relations and in his own house'...and he was amazed at their lack of faith.”

Returning to our present-day Islam, we begin by examining in this modest essay, in this booklet, the potential dangers of the Muslim tradition for human rights because t it appears that the succession of Muhammad is still a problem in the Muslim world or elsewhere in the world. In such a heavy way that in the manner of the internal Crusades within the Christian world (against the Cathars and others....) many doctrines have simply disappeared. The fear of fitna seems an obsession that paralyzes all attempts to implement the Quranic provisions yet favorable to more respect of Human rights.

While stressing, since we do not essentialize Muslims, that, as among idbahdites and shiites, more and more voices are rising among the Sunnis today to denounce this perversion that consists in putting religion in the service of a cause and of its opposite.

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THE FIGHT AGAINST FITNA OR DISAGREEMENTS.

Quran verse 59 chapter 4. " O you who believe! Obey God, and obey the messenger and those of you who are in authority.”

Verses 47 to 49, chapter 5. “ Let the People of the Gospel judge by that which God has revealed therein. ....

So judge between them by that which God has revealed, and do not follow their desires away from the truth which hath come unto you..... beware of them lest they seduce you from some part of that which God revealed unto you. And if they turn away, then know that God’s Will is to smite them

.”Verse 8, chapter 63. " Might belongs to God and to His messenger and to the believers.”

These verses seem to have a rather thin relationship with democracy, equality of rights between men and women, secularism, elections, etc.

A truly Muslim state is a state governed by Sharia , that is to say the Islamic law derived from the Quran and the Sunna of hadiths. A corporation of specialized scholars (the ulama) interprets their data and applies it to all the circumstances of cultural and political social life. Individual wills cannot prevail over the Quran and the Sunna of hadiths and in the same way could not oppose God. The famous "Man is the measure of everything" by Protagoras has no meaning in the land of Islam. Or then a clearly blasphemous meaning.

In Islamic thought, the state is designed on the basis of an umma (community of believers), both religious and political, a concrete and distinct collectivity governed by common obligations towards a higher divine authority. Its function is to establish and maintain the divine law, which is immutable and eternal (Lambton, 1981, XV-1).

This state is ruled by the imam, also called commander of the faithful (amir al-mu'minin), or caliph, to whom the members of the community must pledge allegiance. As the representative of God on earth, his presence is essential. The function of the Imamate or Caliphate is to direct the temporal and spiritual affairs instead the Prophet to uphold religion and ensure the fullness of the Ummah.

Islam as a religion is made up of a set of norms that govern all fields of believers' lives. This ideal system proceeds from a divine source which is the law of God, called Sharia. Enjoying from a permanent validity in time and space, this religious law includes both dogmas and social or individual principles concerning good and evil. It follows a system of prescriptions falling under the mandatory (fard or wajib), recommended (mustahab), allowed (mubah), detestable but allowed (makruh) and forbidden (haram) (Lambton, 1981, 1-2).

" You are the best community that hath been raised up for mankind. You enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency.... (Chapter 3 verse 110 of the holy Quran.) To forbid indecency is already much and even perhaps enough, but to enjoin right conduct ... then here this opens the door to all totalitarianisms. To enjoin !!! Brrr !!! The door open to all dictatorships by definition especially when you think you know that, unlike the Bible, the Quran does not constitute a human witness statement (as attested by the scholars and sages of the Synagogue or of the Church ) but is the "original text" of the divine revelation ((Uncreated Quran theory rejected by our Mu’tazili friends).

If, to hold on the monotheistic religions, Christianity, during its centuries of formation remained distinct from State, even stood up against it and Judaism, combined originally with State, went away subsequently, Islam-spirituality itself became politicized after only thirteen years (in Medina).

As we have had the opportunity to see, "heresies" quickly appeared in the land of Islam, the first being that of the mosque of dissent that was burned in 630 on order of Muhammad and his faithful forced to take refuge in Mecca or scattered.

The episode is mentioned in the Quran Chapter 9 verses 107-108.

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The Muslim tradition attributes the construction of this building to a Christian hermit of the Khazraj tribe in Yathrib / Medina called Abu Amer Ar-Raheb.

BUT NOTHING PROVES IT, because the presence of Christians in Medina remains to be demonstrated. There were Jews but some Christians? On the other hand, if it was indeed the case this mosque then would have been then a church... ...

IF WE WANT THE DERADICALIZATION OF THE RELIGIOUS FANATICS IS SUCCESSFUL

THE FIGHT IS TO BE FIRST IDEOLOGICAL EVEN THEOLOGICAL.

GOD IF HE EXISTS CANNOT BE LIKE THAT (mu’tazilism).

Our only religion being that of truth let's start with the beginning: the fatihah and the shahada.

La fatiha. Show us the straight path, the path of those whom you have favored; not the path of those who earn your anger nor of those who go astray.

Muhammad was once asked if this pertained to Jews and Christians. His response was, "Whom else?" (Bukhari 56:662).

As S. Solomon and E. Alamqadisi (two ex-Muslims become Sharia scholars) have clearly seen in "The Mosque Exposed," Advancing Native Missions, 2007, Islam cannot be defined solely as spirituality, in the Western sense of the word either can it be termed as faith only. Islam “is a whole encompassing system. It is foremost a socio-political and socio-religious system, as well as a socio-economic, socio-educational, legislative, judiciary, and military system, cloaked and garbed in religious terminology, with regulations that govern every aspect of the lives of its adherents and their relationships among themselves, and with those that are non-Muslims.”

According to Robert Spencer too, Islam is a thoroughly political religion and this from the very beginning. The empire came first, theology second. It was developed to consolidate and justify political power.

Besides, according to the Muslim story itself, Muhammad was not only a prophet, but also a statesman. In the Muslim hagiography, he is presented both as the founder of a "society-state-community," a military leader and a lawgiver. And the spectacular victories of early Muslims are interpreted as evidence of God's support.

But Bernard Lewis has clearly shown what is problematic: the idea that there may exist something that would escape the authority of religion, what the languages of Christendom refer to as lay, temporal or secular, is totally foreign to Muslim thought.

Spiritual or temporal, religious or secular,

“These pairs of words simply do not exist in classical Islamic terminology, because the dichotomy that these words express is unknown. They are used only in the modern languages. In Arabic, they borrow the terminology used by Christian Arabs.”

In fact, therefore, there is no word in classical Arabic conveying any distinction between these two realities. The separation between "Church" and "State" is non-existent in the lands of Islam.

The great intellectual and ex-Muslim Ibn Warraq devoted an entire chapter on the totalitarian nature of Islam in his book entitled "Why I am not a Muslim."

Quoting Bertrand Russel ( “Among [mass?] religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions”…

If we take into account racist suras of the type chapter 3 verse 110. " You are the best community that has been raised up for mankind. You enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency” comparison with Nazism is also possible (and indeed has already been done, including by a former French prime minister).

To return to Ibn Warraq anyway this author points out that Mohammedanism and Bolshevism have in common a practical, social and material purpose whose sole goal is to extend their domination over the world.

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Clearly, Warraq says, Sharia law aims “to control the religious, social and political life of mankind in all its aspects; the life of its followers ; and the life of those who follow the so-called tolerated religions to a degree that prevents their activities from getting in the way (of Islam) in any way. And I mean Islam, I do not accept some spurious distinction between Islam and ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ (sic).

For Ibn Warraq, this encompassing nature of Islamic law is proven by the fact that it does not distinguish between ritual, law (in the Western sense of the term), ethics and good manners.

Islam is essentially a normative system that produces a political entity in the broad sense of the term (Ummah). The statistical analyzes that Bill Warner (founder of the (CSPI) has led about the nature of the founding principles of Islam (Quran, sira and hadiths) show that doctrinal Islam spends more time talking about kafir (non-Muslim), by vowing to him its hatred and contempt than to teach the Muslim how to live his spirituality. This doctrinal hostility of Islam towards the non-Muslim astonishes and must come from the personality of Muhammad who was considered (it is not to us to say whether they were right or wrong) as a madman or possessed man by his own, a man envious or having a complex regarding Jews and Christians. We are here very far from the spirit of the "living together" fashionable in the West today where there would be room for a total diversity of religious beliefs or philosophical options.

Islamic law, designed by theologians jurists (ulama), decides on a large variety of behaviors presented as duties towards God because they would be based on his mysterious will.

Let us mention, by way of example, that this theology is clearly distinct from living together, one of the founding principles of the today Western civilization. While Christianity began essentially as a spiritual path (refer to the writings of the New Testament and the first three centuries of Christendom until the conversion of Emperor Constantine), Islam, for it, on the other hand, was a political religion from its origins.

Islamic law, conceived by theologians jurists (ulama), pronounces on a large variety of behaviors presented as duties towards God because they would rest on his impenetrable will.

According to Warraq, it was Charles Watson who, in 1937, was the first one to stress the totalitarian nature of Islam: " "By a million roots, penetrating every phase of life, all of them with religious significance, it is able to maintain its hold upon the life of Muslim peoples ."

Bousquet, one of the foremost authorities on Islamic Law, distinguishes two aspects of Islam which he considers totalitarian: the Sharia and the Islamic notion of lesser Jihad which has for its ultimate aim the conquest of the entire world. For in the Muslim perspective, it is not only Muslims who must submit to Sharia but the whole mankind in one way or another.

S. Solomon and E. Alamqadisi use the word "system" rather than "religion" to emphasize that Islam is not just spirituality (in the Western sense of the term). And in fact as we have had the opportunity to say it, the Sharia (Islamic law) governs all the aspects of life: political, economic, as well as all other aspects of human life.

Islam is, of course, spirituality but it is not only that. As it thinks itself on a large scale, and for more than 1000 years, Islam is also indeed ...

-An encompassing way of life.

-A full culture and a civilization.

-A supremacist politico-religious system (Sharia).

Sharia (Islamic law) affects cultural practices as much as private, family, social, economic or political life. There are no aspects of personal or public life that are not included in Sharia law.

Sharia law controls the entire life of the Muslim. It interferes everywhere. As examples:

-Pilgrimage taxes.

-Contracts in agriculture.

-How to treat slaves.

-Invitation to a wedding.

-Use of toothpicks.

-Way of wash oneself.

-Prohibition for men to wear gold or silver rings.

-How to treat animals.

-Etc.

Islam therefore implies submission to a body of doctrine whose complete expression is the Sharia: a law that aims at controlling all aspects of human life. This Islamic law (Sharia) was built from four founding principles:

-Quran.

-Sunna (tradition reporting the alleged words and actions, hadiths, of Muhammad).

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-Ijma (consensus of scholars, guardians of the correct interpretation of texts).

-Qiyas (reasoning by analogy).

THE QURAN.

For the vast majority of Muslims, the Quran is the very word of God. The book was dictated to Muhammad over a period of 23 years, through the angel Gabriel.

Although it contains rules for the first community on matters such as marriage, divorce or inheritance, the Quran does not express any general principle. Many issues are treated superficially, and many vital issues are not even taken up.

THE PERSONALITY OF MAHOMET. Considered (it is not to us to say whether they were wrong or right) as a madman or possessed man by his own and envious or having complex regarding Jews and Christians.

Behind the totalitarian nature of Islam, there is also this last point of the shahada or creed of the Muslim faith, which states "that there is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet (messenger, envoy) ".

The word "Islam" referring to the notion of "submission," the Muslim is therefore called to submit to the uncreated Quran (word of God) and Muhammad, in all things: religious, political, cultural, etc.

And in fact, the Quran repeatedly states that the Muslim must imitate Muhammad.

“Whosoever obeys the messenger has obeyed God“( 4: 80)

“Verily in the messenger of God you have a good example for him who looks unto God and the Last Day, and remembers God much” (33: 21)

This exemplariness of Muhammad (Isma) is not without serious consequences given his personality: the Muslim tradition presenting him as both a religious, political and military leader.

In fact, the sunna (tradition reporting the supposed words and actions of Muhammad or hadith) shows us a particularly authoritarian Muhammad and demanding obedience and submission.

This attitude of Muhammad emerges just as much from the sira (biography hagiography of Muhammad) as from the hadiths (words and gestures attributed to Muhammad): any person (Muslim, Pagan, Jew, Christian ...) must submit to his will and dictates.

It is hoped that Religion-Islam distributes its message only through speech and argumentation, but the founding principles of Islamic law (Quran and Sunnah) allow the use of the lesser jihad against the kuffar (non-Muslim) in order that Islam dominates. This minor jihad against the unbelievers who did not recognize the pre-eminence of Islam by paying the dhimmis jizya or by converting is consubstantial with Islam, at least until the whole world is submitted to its idea of God (God).

“Fight them until there is no longer fitna (?) and the religion of God reigns absolutely, but if they submit, they only fight those who do wrong” (Quran 2,193).

“I have been directed to fight the kuffars until every one of them admit, there is only one God and that is God” (hadith Bukhari 4, 52, 196).

“I have been ordered to wage war against mankind until they accept that there is no god but God and that they believe I am His prophet and accept all revelations spoken through me” (hadith Muslim 1,31)

And in fact the studies of the historian Bat Ye'or on the state of dhimmi (second-class non-Muslim citizen in land of Islam) show that with time, pressure and religious discrimination helping, a society conquered by Muslims is increasingly becoming Muslim : the targeted ideal being to have a 100% Muslim society. And to do this, Sharia justifies all means, including the lesser jihad and therefore violence and trick.

THE SUNNA.

In the lands of Islam, both the Quran and the Sunnah are presented as the expression of the will of God, which should not be contested. Blind obedience is therefore demanded without hesitation, question, or reservation.

The sunna (literally, path, way or way of life) bases the customs and the way of life of the Muslims who find their foundations in the exemplariness (words and gestures) of Muhammad the "perfect" Muslim!

The sunna considers indeed that Muhammad (words and actions) is the perfect model of the Muslim (isma). From a practical point of view, it is as important as the Quran, if not more if one considers its contribution to the formation of the Shariah (Islamic law).

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Muslims believe that the sunna supplements the Quran and that it is essential for its understanding, clarifying its inaccuracies, filling its silences.

Without the Sunnah, Muslims in fact would be lacking landmarks for the conduct of their lives. Islamologist Bill Warner (of the CSPI) noted indeed, that there is not even enough information in the Quran for the Muslim to know how to live the five pillars of Islam.

Because of the unclear and obscure nature of the Sunna and of the Quran, it will be to the fiqh (or "science" of the Shariah) that it will be to provide more details. This was the work of "Muslim jurists" (faqih - plural fuqaha).

THE QIYAS. The analogical reasoning or "qiyas" is considered by the doctors in Muslim law as being subordinated to the three bases of the Islamic law, and therefore, less important This is a very mixed compromise between the genuine freedom of thought and the categorical of criticizing Sharia law.

IJMA OR CONSENSUS OF SCHOLARS which, of course, has nothing to do with democracy!

To say that Islam is a religion without clergy is a commonplace of our intellectual elites (journalists, etc.) as misleading as the claim that Buddhism is a religion without God (and the dharma now?) Besides that it is not true among the Shiites (20%) it is to forget the role of the ulama in the development of Islam. For the drawing up of Islamic law is the work of a class of professionals (doctors of law known as ulamas) deemed competent enough to interpret the texts.

As their authority grew within the Muslim community, these ulama gained more and more power and eventually exercised considerable control over the beliefs and behaviors of all believers.

The doctrine of ijma has consolidated the absolute power of these teachers of the Law. Thus any questioning, questioning the validity of their decisions, became a bida (an innovation that could distract Muslims from the alleged true faith) and thus a heresy (error) liable to a punishment.

This domination of the ulama over Islam explains why there has been so little progress, intellectually, in Muslim societies since the closure of the gates of Ijtihad in the 12th century. The closure of the gates of Ijtihad literally killed the possibility of critical thinking. The quest for truth characteristic of a modern mind is completely contrary to the spirit of Sharia law.

Throughout Muslim history (but more particularly in recent years as a reaction to the spirit of modernity), the ulama have actively obstructed the introduction of the notion of human and women's rights , freedom, free conscience and democracy. The Quran being itself a disaster (contradictions repetitions obscurities ....) because of this closing of the gate of ijtihad (completed in the 13th century) Sunni Islam has become an intellectual disaster for humanity.

For example, the ulama reacted violently against the idea of freedom introduced in the 1906-1907 Iranian constitution, which they considered un-Islamic. They have also worked actively on the Islamization of Iran, Sudan and Pakistan, to name only these countries. In all this countries Islamization has effectively resulted in the restriction or suppression of human rights (Huquq al Ibad).

On the other hand, we owe to these ulama the concept of Rights of God (Huquq Allah). Troubling thing indeed, a true archon would say the American specialist of Gnosticism John Lamb Lash, as if the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob was not powerful enough to avenge himself by lightning as he pleases, Muslims are called for being here the enforcer armed wing of the justice of God!

These jurists founded several "schools" of interpretation of which four (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi, Hanbali) still survive today. In particular, they share out the Muslim population of Sunni Islam.

When the various schools were criticized for introducing unjustified innovations, adapting the religious law to mundane interests, the doctors of the law then developed the infallibility doctrine of consensus (ijma) which is the third founding principle of the Sharia.

The word attributed to Muhammad "My community will never agree upon an error" – hadith narrated by al-Tirmidhi (4:2167), ibn Majah (2:1303), Abu Dawood, and others with slightly different wording- has been interpreted as the guarantee of the infallibility of recognized Muslim doctors.

But the consensus doctrine (ijma) is not democratic: the opinion of the people is expressly excluded from the discussions.

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On the contrary, the ijma favored a progressive hardening of the doctrine by prohibiting any independent reasoning that would question the interpretations established by the recognized Muslim scholars of the past.

This is how Islamic law finally froze (at the beginning of the 10th century).

Scholars in all schools even came even to consider that all the essential questions had been sufficiently debated, so that a consensus had emerged. Henceforth, therefore, no one could have the qualifications necessary to carry out an independent reflection on the law. Any future activity should be limited to the explanation, interpretation and application of the doctrine fixed once and for all.

Sharia became, so to speak, engraved in stone. The rigidity characteristic of the Islamic law ensuring its durability, and this, to this day. With the advent of modernity and human rights, it is clear that this legal system is totally inadequate to cope with the changes and challenges of a modern and democratic society.

For the Orthodox, undermining this system would be tantamount to questioning the very foundations of Islam.

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SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.

In the seventh and eighth centuries, the first centuries of the Hegira for the Muslim world, the Arab conquerors will find themselves in the presence of communities belonging mainly to Eastern Christianity in Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia. These communities had already produced numerous translations of Greco-Roman philosophical and scientific works, from Greek to Syriac.

From 750 to 850, the period of the Abbasid caliphs, Arab-Muslim science appeared. The translators of the caliphs first used the Syriac versions, then the Greek texts, to translate them into Arabic. The rulers sometimes paid their weight in gold for any recently translated book.

This patronage was initiated by the Caliph al-Mansur (754-775) and continued by his successors, including the famous Harun al-Rashid (785-809), the Caliph of the Thousand and One Nights. During al-Mansur's reign, Greek works of medicine and logic were translated into Arabic. He opened the library of his father Harun al-Rashid to scholars, the first Bayt al-Hikma, the "house of wisdom," where Greek and Persian scientific works were studied. One of the most famous translators from this establishment was the Christian Hunayn ibn Ishaq (808-873): he even ended up directing the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. Other "houses of wisdom" opened in the Islamic world, such as in Cairo and Cordoba, and by the ninth century most of the writings of Greece were available in Arabic. The philosopher al-Fārābī (died in 950), "the second master" (in reference to the first master, Aristotle), will hold a prominent place in this dynamic.

Among the translated works are some of the founding texts of Greek science: for example, Ptolemy's Almagest, one of the most important summa of mathematics and astronomy of antiquity, Euclid’s Elements, a treatise on mathematics and geometry, and many other scholars, such as the famous Archimedes. In medicine, Dioscorides' De Materia Medica or Galen's treatises are authoritative and had a lasting influence on the practice of medicine in the Arab world. In philosophy, the works of Aristotle and Plotinus left their mark on Arab-Muslim thought. More generally, Neoplatonism, a philosophical current of late Antiquity derived from the thought of Plato, inspired the great medieval Arab thinkers.

-Avicenna (980-1037). During his early childhood, Avicenna studied arithmetic with a herbalist merchant, expert in Indian calculus. Having a good memory, the young boy eventually surpassed his master in calculation and mathematics. Under the guidance of Master Abu Abdallah Ennatili, he begins to learn the Quran, Arabic authors and philosophy, starting with the Isagogè of Porphyry (a small pedagogical treatise popularizing Aristotle's philosophy). At the age of ten, he mastered Quran, arithmetic, Euclid's geometry, and the basics of philosophy such as logic. He threw himself into difficult studies such as Ptolemy's Almagest.

At the age of 14, his tutor Ennatili leaves him to go to another city. A doctor friend brings him translations of the works of Hippocrates, which he is said to have read in one go, night and day. In his autobiography, he says: "When I became sleepy and felt my strength weakening, I would take a spicy drink to support me, and I would start reading again.

His memory being phenomenal, he also read all the translations of Galen. At the age of 16, he was brilliantly accepted as a doctor at the Gundishapur’s school where doctors of all faiths teach, Jews, Christians, Mazdeans and Muslims. At the age of 17, he gave lessons at the Bukhara Hospital, which were attended by foreign doctors.

Avicenna was called to Prince Nuh ibn Mansur, who suffered from violent colic. He diagnosed lead poisoning in the paintings decorating the prince's crockery and succeeded in curing him. He was then allowed to consult the rich royal library of the Samanids.

In a year and a half, he gets knowledge of all available ancient authors. However, he stumbled on Aristotle's Metaphysics which he did not understand, but he overcame this difficulty by discovering Al Farabi's commentaries. In his autobiography, he states that he had integrated all the knowledge of his time at the age of 18, thanks to his memory, but that his mind was not mature enough.

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-Rhazes (857-926). Mohammed Ibn Zakaria al-Razi, Abu Bakr, known among Latins as Rhazes, was born around 865, in Rayy, south of present-day Tehran in Persia.

Nothing is known about the course of his studies. He practiced music, which was his main interest during the first years of his life (he was a lute player). He studied philosophy and alchemy, mathematics, astrology, he was also interested in goldsmithing, currency, occult sciences.

According to Abu Rayhan Biruni, he suffered from an eye disease caused by the vapors coming from his alchemy experiments, but later Rhazes would have said himself that his eyesight had been affected by prolonged reading.

He was in his thirties when he began the study of medicine in Rayy with Is'haq Ibn Hunayn, a master of Greek, Persian and Indian medicine. He would have been indirectly (through their writings) the pupil of Ali ibn Rabban Tabari (died around 870), as well as of Abdus ibn Zayd (died in 900), completing his education in reading and experimentation. He then continued his medical education in Baghdad, under the Caliph Al Moktafi (901-907), and traveled to Syria, Egypt, and Spain.

- Al Kindi (801-873). Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī (Kufa, 801 - Baghdad, 873), better known by his Latinized name of Alkindus or Al-Kindi, is considered one of the greatest Hellenizing philosophers of the Arabic language (faylasuf), being nicknamed "the philosopher of Arabs."

An encyclopedic mind, he sought to synthesize, organize and evaluate all the knowledge of his time, taking an interest in a wide variety of fields: philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, technology, music...

He comes from the southern Arabian tribe of Kindah and was born in Kufa, the first Abbasid capital. He studied in Basra, where his father was governor, then in Baghdad, the new Abbasid capital since 762. These three cities (Kufa, Basra and Baghdad) were the most prestigious in the Muslim world at the time for their intellectual influence.

He benefits from the patronage of the three Abbasid Mutazilite Caliphs, including Al-Ma'mūn who founded the House of Wisdom (Bayt al-hikma) where a large number of learned translate into Arabic all available Persian, Indian, Syriac and especially Greek books. With his colleagues Al-Khwârizmî and the Banu Musa brothers, he was in charge of the translation of manuscripts of Greek scholars. It would seem that because of his poor knowledge of Greek, he only improved the translations made by others, and added his own commentaries to Greek works.

In this context, Al-Kindi became the precursor of Arab Aristotelianism.

In 847, the new Caliph Jafar al-Mutawakkil renounces Mutazilism. Al-Kindi falls into disgrace in 848. His library is confiscated...

-Al Khwarizmi (780-850). Muhammad Ibn Mūsā al-Khuwārizmi , generally called Al-Khwârismîn (Latinized as Algoritmi or Algorizmi), born in the 780s, probably in Khiva in the Khwarezm region (from which he takes his name), in present-day Uzbekistan, died around 850 in Baghdad.

In some biographies, we find the version of the Persian historian Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (838-923), who adds an "Al-Qutrubulli," which means that his ancestors were from Khwarezm, but that he himself was born in Qutrubull, a small town near Baghdad. The epithet of al Majusi, also attributed to him by Tabari, suggests that his parents or grandparents were Zoroastrians and he can be considered an Arabized mathematician, rather than an Arab mathematician. The events of Al-Khwârizmî's life are little known, however, there are many traces of his scientific work.His writings, written in Arabic and then translated into Latin from the 12th century onwards, led to the introduction of algebra in Europe.

His Latinized name is at the origin of the word algorithm and the title of one of his works (Al-kitāb al-mukhtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-ğabr wa’l-muqābala The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and BalancingThe Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing) is at the origin of the word algebra. The use of Arabic numerals and their diffusion in the Middle East and in Europe are due to another of his books called Treatise On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals which was spread via the Arabic language throughout the Abbasid Empire. Al-Khawarizmi classified the existing algorithms, in particular according to their termination criteria, but does not claim to have invented them: the first known algorithms were, unsurprisingly, in a country that had to manage elaborate tax calculations: in Babylon.

His life took place entirely during the period of the Abbasid dynasty.He died around 850.

Around the middle of the 11th century, this translation movement came to an end, coinciding with what historians call the end of the moutazilites (Muslim free thinkers) and the closing of the doors of Ijtihad according to Mohamed Charfi (Islam and freedom).

Nevertheless, great scholars will continue the movement thus started.

CONCLUSION.

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"Faith and science are different modes of knowledge. Just as it would be ridiculous, in a scientific discussion, to want to prove one's thesis by an oath calling God as a witness, so is it ridiculous in the field of faith to want to prove a dogma with the help of a scientific truth."

Since the closing of the Ijtihad gates, that is to say, basically, the end of Mu’tazilism (12th century), Islam has become structurally archaic. Muslim societies gradually lost their interest in science were gradually emptied with their leadership, their imagination, and calcified. Characters such as the Hanbali Ibn Taymiyya finished nailing the coffin by placing obedience at the top of the hierarchy of values, and by getting over reason. Exeunt philosophy, theology, openness to novelty and critical mind.

The blind faith of some of his interpreters, such as Ibn Taymiyya, contradicts all that the Enlightenment philosophy has got since the eighteenth century and which presupposes the rejection of superstition, magical thought, the universality of the reign of reason, the end of any state religion, the expansion of freedom of thought and speech ...... therefore there is no longer intellectual progress in Muslim societies. How could there be progress when the Quran is considered as the eternal truth and the answer to all questions or solution to all problems? Progress requires change, but divine revelation has been frozen since the death of Muhammad. The notion of the Holy Spirit does not exist in Islam.

As we have had the opportunity to say, the main break between the Muslim world and the Western world is undoubtedly the fact that in the latter the distinction between the religious sphere and the civil sphere is fulfilled. With few exceptions, researchers in any field do not wonder whether the results of their research are in harmony with the divine prescriptions.

This does not mean that the question is finally settled in the West: the danger of a relapse remains important, for the forces which try to impose a return of the religious in the Western world remain powerful. It is significant that in this fight they have the support of Muslim religious, and not necessarily the most radical.

To know passages of the Quran by heart and to repeat them incessantly, as well as the place reserved for it in everyday life, public and private, does not favor much the critical mind in the Islamic land (dar al islam) since it falls within brainwashing and gives the Quran an authority and obviousness that is no longer discussed. The Quran, which is for the Muslims, grammatically and materially, the speech of God, whose each word contains a divine presence, like the sacraments of Christians, is used as an interpretative framework for all reality or as a reservoir of magic formulas for the nonsense of the popular superstition. Whoever uses it acquires authority and prestige. A part of the success of Islam is due to these repetitions of basic formulas intended to cause in the individual true conditioned reflexes able of provoking mirages and obsessions.

One of the feats of Islamic rhetoric (taqiya) is also to have succeeded in working out for the dhimmi or harbi countries the newspeak of which Orwell would have dreamed.

-Din being much more a law than spirituality, to translate this word by religion is deceptive.

-No Compulsion regarding the religion means no compulsion regarding the practice of Islam and not and not and not what besides?

- Divorce is not an amicable or fault separation because it is decided unilaterally and at the request of the man only (talaq); to translate by repudiation would therefore be intellectually more honest.

-The zakat is not an alm because it is obligatory, and translating by tithes or religious taxes would certainly be more honest.

-The shahid dying armed including in suicide attacks it is therefore not relevant to translate it by a martyr.

etc.

THE QURAN KING OF THE ACCEPTED CONTRADICTIONS.

Let the pious Muslim forgive in advance what will follow and which, alas, falls under the ban of God's prohibition against any discussion or dialogue. Indeed, in the pages that follow we discuss the verses of the Quran: their meaning, their relevance, their appropriateness, their philosophical or scientific ethical value. How can we do otherwise?

The Quran is supposed to contain the right answers to all the possible and imaginable questions that can be asked.

Verse 2, chapter 2. "This is the Scripture whereof there is no doubt."

Verse 99, chapter 2. " We have revealed unto thee clear verses, and only miscreants will disbelieve in them.”

Verse 82. Chapter 4. " Will they not then ponder on the Quran ? If it had been from other than God they would have found therein much contradiction.”

Verse 101, chapter 5. " O you who believe! Ask not of things which, if they were made unto you, would trouble you.”

Verse 38, chapter 6. "We have neglected nothing in the Book ."

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Verse 111, chapter 12. "A lesson for men of understanding….. A detailed explanation of everything.”

Verse 89 chapter 16. “An exposition of all things.”

Verse 82. Chapter 4. " Will they not then ponder on the Quran ? If it had been from other than God they would have found therein much contradiction.”

The Quran, besides, admits itself to be full of contradiction in the eyes of an ordinary man, but as it is of divine origin, these are only appearances of contradiction.

Said otherwise is the principle of the leader in all his horror.

Article of faith. The boss (God Gabriel Muhammad) is always right.

If the boss is not right, see Article 1.

The same caricature of reasoning as in the case of abrogation.

Chapter 2 ("The Cow"), verse 106: " Nothing of our revelation (even a single verse) do we abrogate or cause be forgotten, but we bring (in place) one better or the like thereof. Knowest thou not that God is able to do all things?”

Chapter 13 ("Thunder") verse 39: " God effaces what He will, and establishes (what He will), and with him is the source of the Book.”

THE CONTRADICTIONS OF THE QURAN WITH SCIENCE.

What in itself would not matter if the Islamic sycophants did not claim that nothing in the Quran contradicts modern science.

That a sacred text has little to do with science, including cosmogony, is nothing but very normal. Its aim is not there. He must speak of spirituality, of metaphysics; even of morality.

What is dangerous for the rise of science and technology, and even civilization, is that Islam claims that nothing in the Quran contradicts science, and that everything is in the Quran.

Dr. Bucaille gave us a few years ago the sad example of a French intellectual who dared to support the contrary. The case would be laughable if such an attitude did not constitute a real danger to science and civilization.

Verse 17, chapter 27. " And there were gathered together unto Solomon his armies of the jinn and humankind, and of the birds, and they were set in battle order; till, when they reached the Valley of the Ants, an ant exclaimed: O ants! Enter your dwellings lest Solomon and his armies crush you, unperceiving. And Solomon smiled, laughing at her speech, and said… »

Because for Muhammad the jinn exist well; they emanate from God, but are not agreeable to him. Arabic literature and Quran allude much to the jinn: Chapter 72 is entitled "The Jinn"; Chapter 6 verse 100 reproaches the Meccans for making them companions of God; verse 128 of the same chapter states that they were able to deceive human beings, verse 158 of chapter 37 that men have somehow connected them to God. Chapter 55 verse 15 adds that God created them from a smokeless fire. This superstition is therefore inscribed in the Quran, the jinns are officially recognized by Islam and all the consequences of their existence have been studied by pious Muslims. Their legal status [according to Islamic law] has been discussed from all angles; and their possible relations with Mankind, especially with regard to marriage and property, were examined.

These superstitions kept going in Arabia, they spread even in the rest of the world and were often combined with other superstitions, sometimes much more sophisticated. The faith of the early Muslims really had nothing to do with reason.

Avicenna (Ibn Sina) was probably the first Muslim philosopher to categorically reject the very possibility of their existence.

THE CONTRADICTIONS OF THE QURAN WITH BIBLICAL MYTHS.

The Bible and the Torah contain many untruths, sometimes sizeable like the captivity in Egypt or the conquest of the Promised Land, a fortiori all that is previous.

These mistakes or non-truths have nonetheless been accepted for a long time and form part of what might be termed anterior myths. However there are serious divergences between the Quran and this mythical background.

NB. It goes without saying that we cannot accept explanations of the type: it is the Jews and Christians who falsified the original truth.

These contradictions with Biblical myths can only have two possible origins.

Either there were at the time in this region of the world variants of these biblical legends and Muhammad God or the angel Gabriel kept only one of them.

Either God Muhammad or the angel Gabriel has voluntarily or unintentionally changed some points.

THE REWRITING OF HISTORY (he who controls the past controls the present).

Everyone knows the retouched or falsified photos in Stalin's Ussr. Some characters were eliminated from them. It was a question of minimizing the actual role of such and such personality, but also of showing that the leaders had never been in contact with certain politicians who had become no-go (he who controls the past controls the present).

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We have here the strictly opposite phenomenon , but with the same aim, with what is modestly called the Muslim tradition and the invention of the hanifs or precursors of Islam in Arabia even the passage of Abraham in Mecca from a word probably derived from the Syriac (hanpa).

The process of construction of the figure of the Islamic Abraham can be divided into two phases.

At first, it was established in the time of Muhammad. The latter enriches the figure of Abraham as he has arguments with the other monolaters (cf. the many suras in which these polemics are divined implicitly in the Quran).

In a second phase, the final story of Abraham as recognized by Islam will definitely be fixed from the contribution of postquranic Muslim thinkers.

In this respect, the study of the development of the Islamic Abraham emphasizes both the strengths and weaknesses of this intellectual construction. If it informs us of the tremendous work done by postquranic Muslim thinkers in the construction of an Islamic theology, it highlights the contradictions that exist between the Quran of Muhammad and the construction of the postquranic authors.

The First Abraham of the Quran

Abraham, in Arabic Ibrahim, appears as a prophetic figure at the same time as Moses in a manifestly ancient Quranic revelation, the sura 87 verse 19. His figure has already become autonomous in relation to the Biblical stories, but it is not yet linked to the site of Mecca.

This evolution will be done later and in several stages.

The second Abraham of the Quran: the link of Abraham to Mecca.

The theme linking Abraham to the city of Mecca seems to be that of the sheltering of his offspring (who?) which is not otherwise identified, in Mecca (Quran 14 verses 35-37).

The Quranic representation of Abraham as a sacralizer of the Meccan site and founder of ritual appears still later in the Quran, chapter 2, verses 125-130 (in them Muhammad’s Quran considers Mecca as a land of asylum).

In what context is built this evolution?

Certain passages clearly refer to a polemic with the Medinan Jews, to whom the theme of the Abrahamic Hanifism responds.

The theory of hanifism makes the Islam of Muhammad able to escape the heredity of deviance that he denounces among the Jews in Medina (Abraham was far from practicing strict monotheism, and the specialists speak instead of Henotheism). Muhammad can thus directly to connect himself with the emblematic figures widely evoked in the Bible: Noah, Abraham and Moses.

From the Abraham of Muhammad to the Abraham of post-Quranic Muslim thinkers.

We have seen how the Quran of Muhammad presented Mecca as a place of refuge for the family of Abraham.

But this Quranic representation contradicts the narrative of the Muslim tradition that follows completely from the episode of Hadjar (Agar), left alone in the desert, after her flight away from the dwelling of Abraham. This episode presents the Meccan site not as a place of refuge, but as a dangerous place before the miracle of the water spouting in the well of Zem-Zem (the traditional theme of the providential water in a desert environment).

In these postquranic legends, the mother of Ismael, abandoned by all, is represented as running and supplicating between two sacred mounds in the Meccan Valley, located to the east of the Ka'aba (al Safa in the south-east and al-Marwa in the northeast, which are still worshipped). We will return later on these two legends obviously intended to justify ancient pagan rituals which have nothing to do with History scientifically speaking).

The water of Zemzem springs, upon intervention of the angel Gabriel, while Agar is about to die of thirst with his young son Ismael. One of the first traditional medieval references to this postquranic narrative is in the as-Sira an-nabawiyya, compiled by Ibn Isham.

The figure of Abraham in Islam underwent therefore several changes. The Abraham of Muhammad is different or even in contradiction with the Abraham of the narratives of the postquranic authors.

Let us try to rationalize the causes of these contradictions.

To be credible each prophet must show that he is truly the one he claims to be, that is to say, a prophet of the concerned God, but for Muhammad, this is not done without difficulty.

Muhammad’s imprecations intended to some of his listeners show well his difficulties to convert the populations, pagan in Mecca or Jewish in Yathrib/Medina, to his ideas (last judgment, end of times, etc.) because accusations (impostor liar madman possessed man plagiarist, etc.) justly come thick and fast on his person.

Muhammad therefore will mobilize to his advantage the knowledge he has gathered about the different mass religions of his time (but not only because we also find scraps of Arabic history in the Quran) to convince his audience. His policy of seduction of biblical believers can go as far as the

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adoption by him of certain practices (notably to seduce the Medinan Jewish tribes, see the adoption of Shabbat at the beginning, the food prohibitions, the prayer direction or qibla, etc.).

Muhammad gets his knowledge either directly (on the occasion of his travels, especially in Syria, see the charges of plagiarism or lies that the Quraysh make against him, for example in sura 16 verse 105) or indirectly (by Zayd who would have been a pupil in a Jewish school of Medina, or his cousin, even previously Khadija and his entourage made aware of a certain form of Christianity, from where the recourse to the figure of the archangel Gabriel in order to explain/justify the first visions of Muhammad) but also by the polemics that he will have with his various hearers.

The conquest of countries with strong populations who know better the biblical tradition will multiply such controversies and will highlight the doctrinal weaknesses of Muhammad’s Quran. It will be therefore vital for post-Quranic thinkers to enrich the doctrinal corpus of more precise biblical references in order to face the argument established for centuries, of the Jewish and Christian opponents.

It will follow a race to the biblical reference (we may say that almost the whole of the first part of the work of ibn Hisham about Muhammad is composed of biblical or pagan narratives rewritten in an apologetic perspective) in order to demonstrate the validity of the ideas of Muhammad, which sometimes leads to contradictions and even chronological aberrations (cf. Ibn Hisham I, 222-232, in which we see Muhammad being a contemporary of Jesus.

With the term "hanif", we seem to be dealing with a new Quranic innovation, the meaning of which is poorly mastered, even reversed. Could we not see in it the mischief of an informer that would have been taken seriously? Hanpa means heathen in Syriac language.

It is true that a depreciatory calling in the original language, such as the "ummoth" of Hebrew, which designated the peoples "without scriptures" and thus excluded from the divine favor, can take by passing in Arabic a rather neutral meaning, "groups," "tribes," in a first time, before becoming in the Medinan background the "umma," or "group on the right track."

Editor’s note. There is, of course, no need to lend the slightest credence to one to a belief widespread in the Muslim milieu since the traditional of the caliphates, and unfortunately still taken over by some writers, that "pure" (hanif, plur. hunafa) would have preserved, in Arabia itself, a genuine religion, having escaped all deviation, which would derive directly from the initial revelation made to Abraham.

These men thus served as an intermediary link between the "prophetic" period, according to the Quran, that of Abraham and Moses, and the time of Muhammad? But it would be necessary before that Abraham and Moses would have been true historical figures, not the emblematic heroes who illustrate the narratives of a sacred fiction. The fact that they are claimed by three mass religions, appearing successively in time, that innumerable faithful believe in them and take them as references does not change their historical unreality. At least for the older two.

We might think that the most recent of the mass monolatrous religions, which appeared at the beginning of the seventh century, more than half a millennium after the religion of the Nazarene Jesus, would benefit from a solid historicity. The situation is completely different.

The history of first Islam is paradoxically too good to be honest because it is the story of a myth that is told, not a scientifically proven history. The future triumph of the first Muslim empires has been superimposed on the past of Islam and has almost erased it, especially in its social and human dimension. We are therefore confronted with a sacred history, the one that began to tell themselves Islamized societies, which had nothing to do with the world of the first Islam. To this reconstructed story, each generation will bring its stone, without really being aware of it, including as today through the represented fiction of an ideal Muslim community, with which some believe think to be able to comply , for example in their appearance (the salafi).

However, the Islam of the origins suffers from a terrible deficit of historicity, but the method known as historical criticism which was applied over time, both to Judaism and Christianity, has hardly touched Islam until 'now.

This paradoxical situation has of course its reasons, which are historical and political.

One of the earliest traces is found in the Greek apologetic text titled Doctrina Jacobi (" the Teaching of Jacob ") supposedly written in Africa in July 634. His romantic staging and stereotyped scenario do not predispose favorably but the reading reveals a date (July 13, 634) which, although it is somewhat settled, is by no means fictitious. This document contains many events recorded in the heat of the moment, on the scope of which historians wonder.

"When the candidatus [Sergios, commander of the Byzantine army in Palestine] was killed by the Saracens, I was at Caesarea and I set off by boat to Sykamina. People were saying "The candidatus has been killed," and we Jews were overjoyed. And they were saying that a prophet had appeared, coming with the Saracens, and that he was proclaiming the advent of the Messiah, the anointed one who was to come. I, having arrived at Sykamina, stopped by a certain old man well versed in

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scriptures, and I said to him: "What can you tell me about the prophet who has appeared with the Saracens?" He replied, groaning deeply: "He is false, for the prophets do not come armed with a sword. Truly they are works of anarchy being committed today and I fear that the first Christ to come, whom the Christians worship, was the one sent by God.....So I, Abraham, inquired and heard from those who had met him that there was no truth to be found in the so-called prophet, only the shedding of men's blood. He also says that he has the keys of paradise, which is incredible.”

Otherwise we have the testimony of the Patriarch Sophronius of Jerusalem.

-A strong and vigorous scepter to break the hubris of all the barbarians, and especially of the Saracens who, on account of our sins, have now risen up against us unexpectedly and ravage all with impious and godless audacity. More than ever, therefore, we entreat your Holiness to make urgent petitions to Christ so that he, receiving these favorably from you, may quickly quell their mad insolence and deliver these vile creatures, as before, to be the footstool of our God-given emperors (Ep. synodica, PG 87, 3197D-3200A [p. 69]).

-We, however, because of our innumerable sins and serious misdemeanors, are unable to see these things, and are prevented from entering Bethlehem by way of the road. Unwillingly, indeed, contrary to our wishes, we are required to stay at home, not bound closely by bodily bonds, but bound by fear of the Saracens (Christmas Sermon, 506 p. 70).

The time and place of the emergence of Islam are therefore known, the beginning of the seventh century, in Western Arabia, more precisely around two cities, one which is an oasis, Yathrib / Medina, the other not, Mecca. But it turns out that, we went from the primary world of the Arabic tribes, in a few decades, to the construction of an empire out the Arabian peninsula, first in Damascus in the Middle East and then, after a century, to the cosmopolitan background of a new empire - now widely open to conversion, which had not been the case in the previous century - which sought to find for itself a cultural and religious identity. This research went through the representation he gave himself of an entirely Muslim temporality. This phenomenon takes place in the ninth century, under the Abbasids of Baghdad. Now, of this later period, are the majority of the written sources which give us a factual view of the beginnings of Islam, whether it be the historiography known as the sira - the life of Muhammad - or the first exegesis of the Quranic text. Only the Quranic Vulgate can be considered, as a writing, very previous. Although remains no complete and authenticated manuscript of the Quran before the tenth century, fragments found in Sana’a, notably in the form of palimpsest, date back to the second half of the seventh century.

A tendency of Muslim exegesis, still very widespread today, is base d on the principle of the "heavenly descent" of the Quran to refuse entirely the idea it can have the least connection with the Scriptures held by Jews and Christians, regarded as falsified. It seems that the proponents of this opinion the difference between the "influence" of a text on another and the "appropriation" of a text by another, which presents itself as its continuity.

The commentators who took note of it found that all Quranic references to previous passages of the corpus aim at founding an argument and new and original theological and moral lessons, which sometimes rectify the expression of them, but without never invalidating in a global way the texts from which they are derived.

“O People of the Book! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter anything concerning God save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of God, and His Word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from him. So believe in God and His messengers, and do not say 'Three' - Cease! (it is) better for you! - God is only One God. He is too much high to have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth….Muḥammad too is the servant of God and His messenger. Lo! God and His angels shower blessings on the Prophet. O you who believe! Ask blessings on him and salute him with a worthy salutation. The blessing of God be on him and peace be on him etc.etc…”.

The Quranic inscriptions on the outer and inner octagonal arcades of the dome of the Rock in Jerusalem clearly show that the caliphs of Meccan origin, who lived in Damascus (660-750), had the political will, at least according to Professor Jacqueline Chabbi, to show to everyone, and especially to their Byzantine opponents, that they too had a reference Scripture. It is given as belonging to a Muhammad, "the praised" (by God), "servant" (abd), and "messenger" (rasul), of God (Allah). This mention appears five times on the outer octagonal arcade of the monument (once also on an inner panel), while the name of Jesus (Isa), son of Mary (Ibn Maryam), accompanied by the same qualifying adjectives is written in turn , but only on three of the inner octagonal arcade. The mention of a Masih, "The Anointed One" (Messiah) is once joined to these qualifying adjectives. It appears again separately.

There is reason to consider that this posting, which contains several short passages also appearing in the Quranic Vulgate (for example, 19: 34 and 4: 171-172), is probably to be regarded as constituting

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for this political power the claim of a tradition going from Jesus to Muhammad. It asserts itself in this city, which was then very majority Christian, the Jewish authorities, expelled after the destruction of the Temple in Roman times, having not been reinstated in the city under the Byzantines. The writing down of the Quran is likely to be related to this period.

If this is the case, the big difference between the Quranic writing of the Vulgate and the first historiographical writings of at least a later century would be the following one: the Quran, as discourse and text, would have been largely remained under Arab control, even if we can suspect certain interpolations from biblical texts, for example precisely the passages 29-35 in the sura 19 known as "Mary," concerning Jesus speaking in the cradle.

On the contrary, the later texts of the Muslim tradition would be considered all as emanating from milieus that have become very composite and crossed by various cultural influences. The so-called prophetic tradition, the sunnah, in other words, the "way [to follow]", which will give the word Sunnism, is precisely in this case.

To retrace the path of the first Islam therefore is to renounce in large part the Muslim texts of hagiographic type because they constantly overestimate the role of the religion in the original society. But above all, it is to refuse to place the Quran and the corpus of the words ascribed to Muhammad (the hadiths) on the same chronological level, and that even if historical analysis clashed head on with religious dogma.

From the earliest epoch, there remains only the text of the Quran itself, which are to be confronted with what can be known about its original society, both in terms of behavior and imagination or beliefs. This society would first have been that of the Meccan tribe of whom Muhammad was a member. Following his banishment in 622 (presumed date), it would then have been that of the oasis in Yathrib/Medina, more differentiated because of the massive presence of several Jewish tribes, linked by customary alliance relations with two pagan tribes also residing in the oasis: the Aws and the Khazraj.

The events related to these two cities in the Islam of the "prophetic" period during the lifetime of Muhammad are totally unverifiable directly because there is no truly epochal credible evidence. From this obscure past, there is simply a localization and a living environment, therefore what an approach of historical anthropology can attempt to reconstruct as a "landscape" in which lives and acts an organized human group.

Mecca, the hometown of Muhammad, was a pre-Islamic sacred site, due to the presence of a permanent water point in a non-oasis group of dry valleys. The Ka'ba, situated in the lower part of the city, was the object of a local betylic cult. It had obviously nothing to do with the Abrahamic belief that the Quran of the Medinan period – following a polemic with the Jews in the oasis - ascribes to the site (2:127) and going as far as declaring it, "first sanctuary for mankind (3: 96).Polemical way of delegitimizing Judaism by taking possession of this patriarchal figure which, according to the Quran (3: 67), was neither Jewish (Judaean) nor Christian (Nazarene), but the very example of Hanif of primordial monolater, Muslim, in the literal sense.

According to Jacqueline Chabbi, there is a gap between the Quran as a discourse in its first tribal milieu and what Muslim societies of Jewish, Christian or Zoroastrian cultural descent find in it stating from their own religious and cultural memory.

The massive biblical theme to which the text of the Muslim Vulgate appeals can make an illusion, of course, but it is less to the obvious biblical borrowing that we must be attached than to the use of it that is made by the Quranic speech intended for the tribes, for its own benefit.

The Quranic approach to biblical themes is utilitarian from the start. It is the result of a failure, that of a visionary - to whom the Quran gives no name - which fails to make heard by his fellow tribesmen, the ideas (monolatry, last judgment, end of times, hell and heaven) that he allows himself to hand over to them as emanating from a divine source.

Long before the name of Allah (literally "the God," al- (i) lah, as a proper noun) comes on stage and becomes pre-eminent, the divine source of inspiration will be that of the Lord of the House," rabb al-bayt. The first Quranic words indeed take over the old pagan name of rabb to designate the protecting god of the city, who preserves it from attacks and famine. This is what Sura 106 says in four short verses, which does not yet include any biblical theme and has a purely local consonance.

“For the taming of Qureysh. For their taming (We cause), the caravans to set forth in winter and summer. So let them worship the Lord of this House, Who hath fed them against hunger and hath made them safe from fear.”

Nothing to do therefore with monotheism but worship of a local or tribal lunar god having nothing to do with Abraham. The biblical thematic will not come on stage only later, because certain ideas borrowed

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from the Christians by Muhammad during his travels (hell and paradise, last judgment, end of times) will be rejected by the people of his tribe and their author accused of being possessed (by a jinn) , able to harm the entire tribe through his madness.

This eschatology of judgment and punishment was indeed totally foreign to the majority of the pagans in Mecca. In the non-monolatrous tribal circles in the peninsula, the revenge of the crimes committed was not postponed to an after-death hereafter; it remained human and was handed over as an inheritance. What an elder had not been able to accomplish, his descendants were responsible for it...... This theme is to be found in the pseudo-biblical account of Noah (71: 11-12). This is here besides a fine example of the appropriation of a biblical name for the sole purpose of defending a properly Quranic cause. It is in this light besides that we must analyze generally the Quranic Biblicism. It is only present as an alibi to defend the cause of a visionary who faces the growing hostility of his. They do not subscribe to the promises or eschatological threats (hell last judgment end of times) and battle weary will end up in banishing the troublemaker who attacks their ancestral balance. ....

It is at this price that, after many vicissitudes, not the Muslim community that we often imagine, but a tribal confederation traditional according to the political rules of time and place, will rise in Yathrib/Medina.

And the dramatic conflict that will oppose the Medinan Muhammad and his for him unexpected opponents that will be the rabbis of Medina, will be part of the tribal policy in question. The Medinan Jews will be the victims of the lost dream of a covenant with the "Sons of Israel" of the Meccan narratives (whose reassuring representation had served as a support and nourished the hope of the man constantly ridiculed in the eyes of his own that had been the Meccan Muhammad, see Quran 10, 94).

After some fighting, it will never be questioned then to "convert to Islam" the world outside the Arabian peninsula, as some imagine today, but to take advantage of the unprecedented booty offered to his human allies by the god who granted them victory. An internal war between the Meccan great tribal families for the control of the political power will close this period of unusual abundance, before the necessary adaptations to the management of a completely new space, empire sized. It must be said that the native pragmatism of these men from Inner Arabia worked wonders, by putting no ideological nor religious pressure on populations foreign to Arabia. But was Islam already a religion? This is probably the first question to ask. The answer can only be of an anthropological nature. The expatriate Islam of the second half of the seventh century and of the first part of the following remained the religion of the tribes, in other words, a religion of the covenant. No one could enter this covenant without first being admitted into a tribe from the peninsula. One century and a half, or even two centuries, and the brutal overthrow of the caliphs in Damascus, were necessary so that the inevitable evolution which was to make this Arab Islam a religion of the Middle East ......

* In Egypt for example the Arabic language became the language of the administration only from 732 (before it was either Greek or Coptic).

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ISLAM OF CORDOBA (Convivencia in Spanish).

The period between 711 and 756 is called the dependent emirate because Muslim Spain, or Al-Andalus, was then dependent on the Umayyad caliph in Damascus. The dynasty of the Andalusian Umayyads (756–1031) marked the growth and perfection of the Arabic civilization in Spain. Its history may be divided into two major periods—that of the independent emirate (756–929) and that of the caliphate (929–1031)—and may be interpreted as revolving around three persons of the same name, Abd al-Raḥman I (756–788), Abd al-Raḥman II (822–852), Abd al-Raḥman III (912–961)—and the all-powerful ḥajib (chief minister) Muhammad ibn Abi Āmir (976–1002) nicknamed Almanzor .

The aim of this chapter is not to carry out an exhaustive and objective study of this form of Islam located in space and time; But to deconstruct some racist cliches spread by Salafism or by the useful idiots of Salafism and to see if there is really room to make it an ideal situation; especially for its citizens of second zone that were the mawali the Jews and the Christians.

THE MUWALLADUN OR RECENT CONVERTS.

There were political, sometimes bloody, disturbances, due to the muwalladun. Muwalladun meaning converts, these political upheavals that agitated the Islam of Cordoba are considered as a discord between believers (fitna) by the Muslim historiographers. The ambiguity of the word muwallad (plural: muwalladun) is symptomatic of the tensions between the attachment of the converts to their original environment and their new legal status as Muslims.

Over time, a new category of population had emerged indeed: that of non-Arabs converted to Islam. These converts were first to be adopted by an Arab clan, to become, in a sense, the ex-slave (mawala), for the conversion was at first social, and not at all religious. The (Persian, Northern Semite, Christian, Jew, Coptic or Berber) convert, had to solicit his entry into an Arab family.

In principle, they had to enjoy the same rights and benefits as the Arabs, since they were part of the community of believers, the Umma; but t in practice their status remained much lower than that of the Muslims by birth, the "old Muslims," whence sometimes revolts from them against the established power and the public figures. In the East, these Muslims of the second zone are called muwalladi, in Spain muladi from where the reverse: The Moriscos (the Mudejars being the Muslims subjected to a kind of dhimmitude in reverse).

Recent Muslims were subjected to all kinds of tax, social, political, military, and other restrictions. The conversion of an entire village or a district resulting in tax-related significant losses for the Muslim state; The mawali or muladi will often continue to be subjected to the tax debited from the dhimmis (the jizya in Arabic), in one form or another. The fight for equal rights between Muslims (fitna) was therefore one of the main problems of the first centuries of Islam. Racism all the more stupid, as Islam became a great power only by adopting the Persian administrative principles, the Indian medicine, and the Hellenistic philosophy, let us not forget it!

In Spain, the revolts of Muladi were almost permanent against the Arabic-Berbers immigrants who had carved out for themselves large estates farmed by Christians, serfs or slaves. Tax extortions and expropriations were lighting continual insurgent centers of Muladi and Mozarabs (Christians speaking Arabic) throughout Hispanic Peninsula. The rebel leaders were then executed by crucifixion and the insurgents massacred with swords.

Conversion as a change in legal status was governed by Maliki law in a manner that remained relatively simple. The (healthy in body and mind, free in his actions) individual was brought before a legal authority (usually a qadi) and three witnesses. The recitation of the Shahada, the Islamic profession of faith, proved his recognition of Muhammad as the last of the prophets and the separation from Christianity. The act was recorded in writing so that there remains legal evidence; to be valid indeed, the conversion had to be made public. Then the instruction of the convert could be limited to

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the knowledge of the obligatory ritual practices: ablutions, prayer, alms (zakat), fasting of Ramadan and pilgrimage to Mecca. The integration of the new Muslim was shown by his regular attendance of the mosque.

Some sources point to an assessment of the convert by the qadi, who examined the sincerity of his intention (niyya), but this type of interrogation appears in the documents only when they are Christian converted to Islam and then who have recanted - these individuals became apostates. It seems then that the judge used various methods (intimidation, threat, imprisonment) to bring back to Islam the recalcitrant individual. In case of obstinacy, the apostate would incur capital punishment. Lawyer Abd-al-Malik Ibn Habib (Cordoba, ninth century) admitted the use of force, beatings and imprisonment for children still minors born from a Christian father who had converted to Islam late in life: being Muslim by their father, these children had to give up their Christian practices or beliefs. On the other hand, children who were adults of converts could not be forced to accept Islam.

Nevertheless, the sources, whether Arab or Latin, show unfinished or doubtful conversions. Alongside converts considered sincere, others were accused of being Muslims only in appearance. In some cases, since the convert having kept a doubtful situation until death, man could see the members of the family themselves divided between Christians and Muslims, hesitate about the religious affiliation of the deceased and therefore about the devolution of his heritage. A borderline case is that of Umar ben Hafsun (died 918), who in this period of political turmoil led an important rebellion. A few years later, after the Caliph's troops had crushed the rebellion, the future caliph al-Nasir made open the tomb of the rebel and observe that he had been buried according to the Christian rites.

The accusation of apostasy is a political discourse emanating from the Umayyad regime. While converts or descendants of converts close to the Umayyad regime were referred to as mawali-s (a term referring to reciprocal obligations with an Arab patron), those who resisted established power were suspected of being bad Muslims, false converts. While in Arab sources, the muwallad is a converted to Islam in the process of Arabization, in the sources of al-Andalus the term was also applied, pejoratively, to figures of the "rebellion," referring therefore to a political category. Figures of the space between, between the indigenous Christians located at the bottom of the social scale and gradually absorbed in Islam by conversion, and, at the top of the pyramid, Muslims considered "Arab" , The muwalladun, descendants of converts on the way to be melted in "Arab" Islam, formed a moving group, object of suspicion. This fitna also concerns Christians, of course, since the Muwalladun were of Christian origin.

HISTORICAL REVIEW.

In 716 a new province of the Muslim colonial empire was constituted, Al Andalus, Andalusia.

When Spain was attached to the Caliphate of Damascus, it was no doubt perceived by many as a mere change of dynasty, to the benefit of a Umayyad ruler, as remote as the Byzantine Basileus had been a few decades earlier. The new religion was, at the time, little known, and was not perceived as the privileged enemy of Christianity. Muslims, on the contrary, were in a tradition familiar to Jews and Christians, and their religion was often regarded as a new Eastern heresy; a familiar phenomenon in a Spain where Arianism and Roman Catholicism had been competing until King Reccared restored - in 587, just over a century ago - the religious unity of the country. Finally, the Berbers, who supplied the bulk of the first troops of invaders, had long remained Christians in the same Roman imperial space; and did not appear as radically foreign or hostile as the Muslims of Al-Andalus will be towards the Christian kingdoms a few centuries later. Winners of Visigothic Hispania at the beginning of the eighth century, the Muslims controlled most of the Iberian peninsula until the eleventh century. Strongly established in the valley of the Guadalquivir, in the Valencian Levant and in the valley of the Ebro, they consider the northwestern regions north of the central Cordillera as lands of raids; and give little interest to the small Christian kingdoms which have succeeded in keeping on in the Cantabrian region, from which the slow and patient effort to recapture will start (which will not really bear fruits until after the year 1000) . Until then, the balance of forces would remain favorable to the emirate and then to the Caliphate of Cordova; and at the end of the tenth century, the devastating raids carried out by Almanzor to Barcelona, or even to Santiago de Compostela, testify to the military superiority still preserved by the Muslims from Gibraltar to the Pyrenees.

CHARLES-EMMANUEL DUFOURCQ DAILY LIFE, ETC.(Hachette 1978)

"As for the cities that, after opening up to the Arabs, rebelled against them, woe betide them! From the beginning

of Muslim expansion in Europe, Toledo served as an example in this regard. This capital of the Visigothic kingdom had surrendered to the newcomers, without a fight, as early as 1971 or 712, because they arrived as enemies of the sovereign Roderick (or Rodrigo) against whom the supporters of the pretender Akhila, son of the late king Wittiza, were fighting.

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In 713, when the Toledo people understood that Akhila would not be restored to the paternal throne, and that their "Arab allies" had become the masters, they declared that they rejected this authority.

Shortly afterwards, punishment fell upon them: in 713, their city was stormed; its metropolitan,

Sinderedo, has the time to flee (he arrived in Rome), but all the public figures of the city who could not do the same thing are slaughtered and everything is plundered; the Arab general seizes, in particular, the splendid "table of Solomon"; one thus called a kind of bench or seat, assembled in a throne, all out of gold encrusted with stones, which was in the cathedral." (Charles-Emmanuel Dufourcq. Daily life 1978).

This author goes even further since he also takes into account in his panorama of the "Convivencia" THE DAILY LIFE IN THE BORDERING REGIONS.

In the border areas of northern Spain, where the Islamic power is not, or not yet, firmly established, it is not possible to find the "Convivencia."

Once established, panic sets in as in the raid lands: in 730, for example, the Arabs ravage Cerdanya and, to make an example, they burn a bishop alive there.

This is how, in Spain itself, entire areas were emptied. No man's land takes shape, particularly large and lasting in the western half of the Iberian Peninsula: from the middle of the eighth century, the Arabs evacuated the entire northwestern part of Hispania; the country that stretches between the Cantabrian Cordillera to the north and the Duro Valley to the south remains almost deserted for a long time: no one dares to stay there, no one dares to settle there.

For the Christian regions that extend beyond the no-man's land, the critical months are those of the summer. As early as February, in fact, Muslim troops begin to be recruited and prepared to carry out raids in unfaithful country ... When spring arrives. Galicians, Asturians, Castilians and Basques live in expectation of the sa'ifa (the summer campaign) of Muslims" (Charles-Emmanuel Dufourcq. Daily Life 1978).

This strategy will be theorized without complex by an Andalusian author himself, Ibn Hudayl, a good example of convivencia at the end of the 14th century.

"It is lawful to set fire to the enemy's land, its grain, to kill his beasts of burden - if it is not possible for Muslims to appropriate them - as well as to cut down his trees, to ruin his cities, to do, in a word, anything that is likely to cut it down, provided that the imam (i.e., the religious 'guide' of the community of believers) deems these measures to be adequate, likely to hasten the Islamization of this enemy or to weaken it. All of this contributes to triumphing by force or to force him to make concessions " Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Fazārī al-Andalusī, also known as Ibn Hudayl, a late 14th-century writer from Grenada. His kitab Tuḥfat al-anfus wa-s̲h̲iʿār suk̲h̲ān al-Andalus translated by Louis Mercier into "Ornament of souls and motto of the inhabitants of el Andalus." It is a treatise of Islamic holy war, a text with mystical tendencies aimed at convincing Andalusian Muslims of the opportunity to take up the profession of arms again.

"Undoubtedly these campaigns do not obey to a regular rhythm; sometimes they are separated by intervals of several years, sometimes they follow one another every year, but the threat they represent and the fear they inspire are constant: looting is carried out, livestock is taken away, defeated combatants are massacred, men fit to bear arms are killed or enslaved, as well as women and children....the populations of the areas affected by the rides, when they experiment a respite, never know how long it will last [...].

Under the impact of the Arab raids of reconnoissance, were created, within the countries exposed to these rides (algarà), areas whose geographical location moved and changed over the centuries, but where anxiety reigned and the void deepened: the land was abandoned, crops gave way to the wasteland, the populations took refuge in the cities sheltered by walls .... »

Not forgetting the civil wars or their repercussions on the surrounding Christian populations.

« But the political instability, so often characteristic of dar al-Islam, does not always prevent such sudden attacks: in 891, for example, in Seville, during a revolt of the Arab garrison against the governor of the city, the soldier unleashes herself through the Christian neighborhood, looting houses, massacring men, women and children; many of them seeking to escape, throw themselves into the Guadalquivir, where many drown.

Their bodies were then seen floating near the surface for a long time...

Islamic peace had its limits; as the poet sang, in one complaint, evoking that day of Sevillian mourning, he said :

Through the city painted with its white lime,

Among its roses its lilies and its periwinkle,

Raised from the patios.

Set with azulejos,

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Sighing in volutes,

Like flute notes!

The prayer of the weeping Christians went up to heaven in these countries conquered by Islam."

(Charles-Emmanuel Dufourcq. Daily life 1978).

There is the myth, and there are the historical facts. If indeed there was a true multicultural intellectual turmoil in Toledo and Cordoba, the Muslim occupation of Spain was nevertheless perpetually peppered with abuses, discriminations due to the status of dhimmi of the vanquished, lootings and persecutions.

THE MARTYRS OF CORDOBA.

According to the Spanish historian Jose Javier Esparza in 850, the priest Perfectus (perfect) was beheaded publicly for blasphemy.

St Perfectus or Perfecto was born in Cordoba, while the region was still under the control of the Moors and the Umayyad caliphate. A monk ordained priest, he served at the basilica of Saint-Acisclus. In 850 Perfectus was challenged by two Muslim men, to say who was the greatest prophet, Jesus or Muhammad.

At first he preferred not to answer, so as not to provoke them, but they insisted that he give them an answer, promising to protect him from reprisals. He then told them in Arabic that Muhammad appeared to him to be a false prophet and an immoral man for having seduced the wife of his adopted son (Zenob, wife of Zayd, Cf. Quran). The Muslims respected their promise and let him go, but a few days later some of them changed their minds and made him be arrested.

They asked some friends to seize him themselves (in order not to be perjurers) and made him be judged. Perfectus was convicted of blasphemy by the Islamic court and was executed. Legend adds that his last words were to bless Christ and condemn Muhammad and his Quran.

But this punishment did not have the consequences hoped for by the Muslims, quite the contrary: the number of martyrs increases. Not less than forty-eight public figures of Cordoba, all Christians, offer themselves as a sacrifice. From that moment on there is a real wave of death sentences that it is difficult to quantify.

These martyrdoms caused a deep uneasiness both in Cordoba and among Christians under Muslim rule. Let us try to understand. Whereas the martyred missionaries while evangelizing the pagans, Frisians, Normans, Slavs, are generally monks or clergymen, in Cordoba there are many martyrs among lay people and women. In some cases, these were individuals from "mixed" families who chose Christianity and, according to Islamic law, could be accused of "apostasy" as "Muslims" in the eyes of the Law: like Flora, daughter of a Christian woman and of a Muslim, therefore legally Muslim, accused by her brother and martyred in 851, or Maria, daughter of a Christian father and of a converted Muslim, or Aurea, Aurelius, Leocritia, Liliosa, Natalia, Sabigotho, etc.

We can also see some examples of double conversion: Felix, of Christian origin, had professed the Muslim faith before recanting; Witesindus, descended from a Christian family, first converted to Islam, then returns to Christianity like Alvaro of Cordoba.

Anxious about this situation, Abd al-Raḥman II summoned a council in 852. The Mozarab official clergy, who tried to establish cordial relations with the rulers by adopting in particular the Arabic language to guarantee the continuity of the Christian community, did not approve the choice of the "martyrs," which radicalized the struggle between Christians and Muslims by causing a strong reaction of these. Paul Alvaro will often condemn this "tepidity" of most Spanish Christians. This is a situation partially comparable to the tensions that divided Christians in the days of the old persecutions - we can remind of the question of the Lapsi, the Christians who had accepted to offer incense to the gods of Rome in to avoid death.

Abd al-Raḥman II died in 852. His successor Muhammad I hardens the suppression. On 13 March 857, St. Roderick and St. Solomon were beheaded. The first, a priest, was denounced by his own brother, converted to Islam. We also know of other names. For example, Isaac, a former servant at the court of Abd al-Raḥman Abd al-Raḥman, ordained a priest; Sancho, a Christian warrior of the Pyrenees who had become a slave in the Sultan's guard; Peter, priest; Walabonsus, deacon; Sabinian, and Wistremundus, the old Jeremiah and Habentius ... The latter presented themselves before a Muslim judge and offered themselves voluntarily to martyrdom.

Like the two great official persecutions in Carthage during Roman times, Muslim persecutions in Cordoba nevertheless succeed in dividing the Christian community. Some begin to criticize the martyrs, calling them senseless, others defend those who profess their faith at the risk of death. At the forefront of the defenders of the martyrs is Eulogius. His prestige within the Mozarabs is such that he was elected bishop of Toledo in 858. Nevertheless, he will never be able to take up his post. The

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Moors soon realized that they would never be able to overcome the Christian resistance without ending with Eulogius.

St Eulogius is therefore imprisoned in 859. He is accused of having sheltered Leocritia, a young daughter of Muslim parents, who was converted by a nun. Convicted of apostasy, the girl is immediately executed. As for Eulogius, he is brought before the emir. He is ordered to recant. But the judges get from him only a passionate defense of the Christian faith. Exasperated by so much impudence, the Muslims behead St Eulogius on March 11, 859, at three o'clock in the afternoon.

In 900 will be taken a radical measure: the prohibition for the Christians in Cordoba to build new churches.

In 978 Almanzor becomes Prime Minister of the new caliph of Cordoba, Hisham II, and thus takes the reality of power. Unlike his predecessors, he shines through his violence and religious intolerance. Many Jews and Mozarabs took refuge in the states of the Spanish March. Their knowledge will enrich those that are preserved in the Catalan monasteries.

In 985, Almanzor attacks and plunders Barcelona then brought back with him many slaves. Count Borrell II then asked for help from his suzerain Hugh Capet. As the latter did not deign to reply, the count takes de facto his independence. This event marks paradoxically the beginning of a phase of development of Catalonia which will lead the other states of the Spanish March. Borell secures his territory, although initially it must negotiate.

In 1010 begins the massacre of hundreds of Jews around Cordoba, which will last three years.

The year 1066 was marked by the massacre of thousands of Jews in Granada.

In 1102, the Christian population of Valencia had to flee to northern Spain recently recaptured, to escape the persecutions.

In 1125, Alfonso of Aragon's expedition to Grenada, combined with an uprising of the local Mozarabs (i.e., Arabic-speaking Christians), during the retreat of the Battler causes the departure of ten thousand of them to the north; the Christians who remained on the spot are mostly deported to North Africa to be established near Meknes and Salé, where the prohibition of practicing their religion leads to the rapid disappearance of these communities (Philipp Conrad, Spain under Almoravid and Almohad domination).

In 1146, it was another exodus that of the Christians of Seville, fleeing the invasion of Spain by the Almohades, some Islamized but radical Berbers, causing expulsions of Jews or forced conversions.

These Almohads in 1184 impose distinctive signs to the Christians and the Jews, and in 1270 takes place the generalized segregation of the Jews in Andalusia.

But let us repeat once again given the importance of the subject (repetere ars docendi), of this whole set of laws organizing the dhimmitude, the worst is perhaps the ritual imposed by the conclusion of verse 29 of chapter 9 of the Quran 1 ) for the payment of the capitation (jizya), as described in an Arabic manuscript kept in El Escorial Library; for the dhimmi who live not in an autonomous zone or city, but in the Dar al-Islam, as a member of an unfaithful community in an urban neighborhood, in a suburb or in the countryside. This payment takes place on a fixed day, once a month, publicly. The Muslims who attend this session have the right to upset or mistreat the infidel who comes to "submit" by paying his personal tax. It's kind of a show. Everyone who has to pay this tax is obliged to appear personally, and cannot send someone in his place. He must therefore enter the room where the Muslim collector, who normally is sitting in the eastern way, on a mat or carpet; he must stand before him; then give him his money. This ceremony is applied in a fairly cheerful manner, or even not without a certain condescending fellowship. It is none the less humiliating.

Churches and chapels must constantly be open, day and night; Muslim travelers who wish to stay there must be accommodated or fed for three days. Inside a church, bells and small bells should be sounded only very gently, "making as little noise as possible," and it is forbidden to much "raise your voice" while praying, especially if a Muslim is in the building. No cross should be placed outside of a building. When priests go to the home of a dying or sick person, they must not visibly carry crosses or gospels if they pass through streets or paths that Muslims can take. In funeral processions that can never be full of pomp, prayers have not been said aloud, and lighted candles are prohibited in the streets where Muslims live. Under no circumstances and under any pretext, Christian processions may pass through Muslim streets or souks, with statues, palms, tapers or candles. In no case, a "polytheist" should attempt to propagate his religious mistakes to Muslims. Moreover, a Mohammedan who becomes a Christian is immediately sentenced to death, even if it is a former Christian who had only provisionally converted to Islam. Any Christian, man or woman, who denies God's divinity by claiming that Jesus is also God, by saying of Muhammad that he is not a prophet, by denigrating the Quran, or by “blaspheming,” is also liable to the death penalty. A whole series of varied prescriptions governs in this way the relationship between infidels and believers. The most serious is that they sometimes cause hatred and violence against the "protected" (dhimmis). It happens here and there that a Muslim

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crowd, in which the new converts are distinguished by their arrogance, insult and disorder celebrations of Christian worship, especially funerals; at the passage of these funeral processions, sometimes arise impassioned cries powered by hatred: "God! Do not be merciful to these infidels!” The most excited throw stones and filth at the mortuary stretcher and the priests. When they move without being grouped, they are sometimes taken to task by the rabble, especially by the children, who amuse themselves by throwing stones at them, singing some burlesque verses making a mockery of the cross (Charles Emmanuel Dufourcq: Daily life in medieval Europe under Arab rule).

Averroes himself was exiled for heresy, and his books burned publicly at Cordoba. He was not, however, a bad Muslim. He was for the deportation of the Christians suspected of sympathy towards the Reconquista of their brothers; and severe bodily punishment for recent Muslims, considered as second-class citizens or lower Muslims: the mawali or muladi, keeping some "Christian" habits.

These conflicts brought bloodshed to Spain until the 10th century and fueled endemic religious hatreds. A letter from Louis the pious to the Christians of Merida in 828 evokes their situation under Abd al-Raḥman II and the previous reign. Usurpation of their property, unjust increase of the demanded tributes, suppression of liberty (slavery?), oppression by "heavy and iniquitous contributions."

The history of southern France and Sicily is also peppered by executions of Christians accused by Muslim witnesses of having blasphemed against Islam; and public sessions of payment of the tax reserved for the dhimmi, the jjizya, under the shouts and the "legal" punches of the rabble. Legal because the need for such a humiliation is mentioned in the Quran (chapter 9, verse 29) as we have seen and explained in note 1. The non-Muslims of Sicily had to wear the rouelle. At every revolt of non-Muslim subjects, not to mention the raids on French lands, the slave markets in Spain were populated by Christians. Apart from that, yes, you can find periods of relative calm that allowed a peaceful coexistence on condition of submitting to the Pax Islamica ...

DECONSTRUCTION OF SOME OTHER RACIST CLICHES NOW.

Just as the French nation has been a great nation, it is true that there was once a “golden age” of Islam, as there was a "golden age" of pre-Columbian civilizations in North America. What the useful idiots of Islam or the Islamists generally forget to point out is that this golden age of Islam from the scientific and technological point of view had nothing to do with religion but with the fact that in a few decades, important discoveries and technologies had been able to circulate from east to west in the same Empire, from the distant borders of the Indian or Chinese world (zero, paper) to the south of Europe (as far as Poitiers and the south of France).

The Islamists or the useful idiots of Islam delight in evoking this cultural richness of Islam but forget to specify that the Arab-Muslim culture was essentially a culture of assimilation; Which borrowed a lot from non-Arab cultures (such as Persian, Mesopotamian or Greek cultures, for example).

- Poetry (propagation of the paper invented by the Chinese, public libraries, legacy of Greek metrics, Sufi poems).

- Carpets (Persian legacy).

- Painting (the miniatures of Persian inspiration).

- The tales of the thousand and one nights (legacy of Persia).

- Public baths (hammam, Greek and Roman legacy).

- The architecture (Greek, Roman, Byzantine legacy + typically Muslim aspect).

- Philosophy (falasafa: Greek legacy: Plato, Aristotle + Muslim mystical aspect).

- Medicine (very precise diagnosis, taking into account the totality of the patient, hygiene, surgery).

- Astronomy (resumption and improvement of the works of Ptolemy: catalog of the stars, determination of the latitudes).

- Mathematics (generalization of Indian numerals).

Although commonly referred to as "Arabic numerals," the Indians already knew and used a decimal system similar to that which we know today. And the zero was already used by Indian mathematical thought.

The first figures were invented in the third century before our era in India by Brahmagupta, an Indian mathematician. They appear in the Nana Ghat inscriptions in the 3rd century before our era. The position numeration with a zero (a simple point at the origin) was developed during the 5th century. In a treatise on cosmology in Sanskrit in 458, the number 14 236 713 appears in full. There is also the word "sunya" (the vacuum), which represents zero. It is to date the oldest document referring to this numeration. It was only much later, as a result of conquests in Asia, that Muslim mathematicians discovered this system. Their existence is mentioned in Syria, in the middle of the seventh century by Bishop Severus Sebokht. They are borrowed by the Muslim civilization from the ninth century and described in a work of the Persian mathematician Al-Khawarizmi. These figures have gradually

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become established throughout the world because they allow easy notation in the decimal system used in the West and facilitate simple operations on large numbers and complex operations.

Conclusion: We therefore totally reject the idea of a golden age of Islam. The Abbasid period is absolutely not to be envied. It was an era of absolute despotism AND terror, where political murders followed one another, where religious conflicts between Muslim sects threatened to break out at all times, where social problems were accumulating (costly negligence of the caliphate court in Baghdad, to put in parallel with the misery of the peasants and especially of the "dhimmi" crushed with taxes, or of the outraged Zanj slaves.

On the artistic level, Islam completely restrained the creative forces in the Empire (especially in Persia where epicurean poets like Omar Khayyam could not express themselves as they wished); prevented the development of the visual arts (figuration prohibition, so Muslim civilization, unlike Africa, and Asia, does not know pictorial art). In the fields of science and philosophy, Muslims have been brought into contact with the cultural riches of the civilizations of Greece, Persia and India. They have borrowed a lot, they have played a transmitter role, but the "added value," if you will, is very low.

The zero and the "Arabic" figures are in fact of Indian origin (same thing for the stories of the thousand and one nights as we have seen).

They were mostly the Greek thinkers (Plato and Aristotle for philosophy, Euclid, Pythagoras, Thales, Archimedes for mathematics, Ptolemy for astronomy) that Muslim scientists copied or translated, never really succeeding in surpassing their models. When the West fled the nest from the Renaissance, it was to the rediscovery of Greek riches that it owed it (hence the term Re-Naissance). And if there were contributions in the Muslim world, most of them came from non-Muslims, from dhimmi for example, from ancient civilizations, and who somehow pursued their intellectual traditions. Ninety percent of the great "Muslim" doctors were in reality Syrian-speaking Christian Assyrians; the astronomers came from the south of Iraq and were descended from the Babylonians. Or from the Harranian Sabians. The famous Arab mathematician Thabit Ibn Qurra Ibn Marwan al-Sabi al-Harrani (Harran 836 - Baghdad 901) was a Sabian, and one of the most famous Arab astronomers, Al Battani, also (born in Harran about 858).

And what about the contribution of the Jews? The scholars of the famous school of Cordoba were mostly Jewish, and often Christian.

1) An yadin wa hum saghiruna. An yadin means personally, directly. C. Cahen in Arabica volume 9, fasc. I, Jan. 1966, pp. 76-79, compares with the Latin notion of manus (stranglehold, opposite mortgage release). As for the Arabic word saghiruna it unequivocally means something like disgraced, humiliated, abased.

The authors most often admit the humiliation of the people of the Book by interpreting as a dictate the end of verse 9:29 "wa hum saghiruna." It is a nominal sentence (without verb) meaning word for word "and they [being] humiliated." Should we translate "They are (or will be) humiliated (simple observation) or as an order of the kind" they will have to lay down "? However that may be, this humiliation comes first when the Dhimmis pay for the jjizya.

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THE END OF THE “GOLDEN AGE” OF ISLAM OR OF THE ISLAM OF CORDOBA.

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THE DEEP CAUSES.

THE RECONQUISTA.

A) The fragmentation of Spanish society in different communities (Muslims, Jews, Christians), due to the application of Sharia laws by Islam and to the status of dhimmi (which prevented total mixing).

B) The Battle of Covadonga. It is narrated by texts from the end of the ninth century, written by Mozarab refugees in the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula: the Mozarabic chronicles precisely. According to these texts, noble Visigoths elect a captain named Pelagius (Pelayo, born in 681, elected in 718, died in 737), son of Favila; a former dignitary of the court of King Egica (687-700), who sets his capital at Cangas de Onís, and takes the lead of an uprising against the Muslims.

This battle having taken place in a remote period, it is difficult to distinguish the true, the invented or the embellished, in the different versions. Let's say that a Muslim punitive expedition has been led into unfavorable terrain (a mountainous area), and then suffered very heavy losses by pursuing the fugitive Christian rebels without great results.

Date: Summer of 722.

Location: Picos de Europa, Cantabrian Mountains. Present-day Spain.

Result: Asturian victory.

Belligerents: Kingdom of Asturias versus Umayyad Caliphate.

Commanders: Pelagius of Asturias for Christians, Munuza and Al Qama for Muslims.

Forces present: 300 men for the Christians, 800 men for the Muslims.

Losses: 290 dead on the Christian side, unknown on the Muslim side.

From 977, time of his first warlike feat, to his death, Almanzor will lead a good fifty military raids in the name of God (Jihad). Victorious of the king of Leon, Ramiro III, in 978, he restarts the holy war (980). In his kingdom of Andalusia, Al Manzor mistreats and persecutes the descendants of Romans or Visigoths who have not yet converted to Islam (they are called "Mozarabs": those who resemble Arabs but are not really so). This religious intolerance will have fatal consequences for the Caliphate of Cordoba: displaced Mozarabic refugees bring the technical knowledge of the caliphate, and will start the technological adjustment of the Christian West. The ancient states of the Spanish March will be changed into powers capable of rivaling the Caliphate in every respect. Taking advantage of the disorders that prevail in Andalusia at the time, they will lead the Reconquista. The "Christian" states are supported by the population in the territories they have recaptured (the establishment of the compulsory Catholic religion will not take place until the 15th century).

The difference between the European situation and the situation in North Africa is therefore the number of Muslims in the territories involved: tens of thousands in one case, millions in the other. And also the fact that this recapture benefited from the support of the civilian population in general.

The role of Christian religion in the beginnings of this recapture should not be overestimated. The very example of the legendary Cid Campeador is proof of this, even if Spaniards and French (Oh Corneille, Corneille) wrote a lot of nonsense about him. He served first the king of Saragossa, then in 1087, the emir of the taifa (small kingdom) of Dénia, in whose name he took Valencia that Alfonso VI had under his (shaky) control since 1086. But he keeps Valencia for him and levies tribute on the neighboring towns. His widow, Jimena, will hold Valencia against the Almoravids until 1102, with his poor forces, without really being helped by the King of Castile or by his son-in-law, the Count of Barcelona. Renowned undefeated, the Cid quickly became a legendary figure. His tomb, as well as that of his wife Jimena, is still visible in the Cathedral of Santa María de Burgos. On the other hand, his remains, stolen by a soldier of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1809, would now be in France, in Saone-et-Loire.

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THE END OF MU’TAZILISM.

Initially there is in the emerging Islam the debate that opposes the Qadariyyah to the Jabariyyah,some schools supporting respectively the existence of human free will and the complete determination of man by the omnipotence of God. As often in Islam, the struggle is also political: the decadent Umayyads appreciate the Jabariyyah, that exonerates them from any responsibility for their misdeeds. They were overthrown by the Abbasids who relied on the Qadarites, or rather on the successors of the latter, the Mu’tazilites.

Man called Mu'tazilites then the Ulama, whose school of thought in Baghdad got importance as early as the middle of the eighth century of our era and who attributed an essential role to reason in their research, as opposed to the muhaddithin who were constantly referring to hadiths (muhaddithin = collectors of hadiths). For a Mu'tazilite, on the contrary, it is not enough to demonstrate the authenticity of a hadith, but also to study its content to see if it is reasonably acceptable. Good and evil are therefore based on reason. The "Mu'tazilites" were the rationalists of early Islam. There is no doubt that, if their doctrines had been able to remain alive in Arab-Muslim societies, the face of the world would have been changed (could we be tempted to say to parody Pascal).

For the reasons we reviewed above (free circulation of inventions and techniques) the Muslim civilization was then incredibly rich in all fields: mathematics, natural sciences, medicine, arts. It had assimilated the cultural contribution of the ancient Greek world but also that of India. When the Christian jihadists arrived in the Holy Land, they appeared - justly - in the eyes of the Arabs, as coarse and ignorant barbarians.

It is by no means our intention to retrace here the history of mu’tazilism but only to highlight and to put in perspective the most salient features of their doctrines. Let us be content to note that the name of the mu’tazilites in Arabic (mu'tazila, meaning the "separated") comes from the fact that they separated from the other currents of Islam on a point of doctrine finally less insignificant than it appears: the status of the sinner according to Islam. Islam includes nothing that directly or indirectly resembles the notion of total corruption as advocated by Calvinism: the man who was driven out of Islam, Eden by God, according to the Quran, keeps no less his judgment and his capacity for reasoning, which he uses, well or badly, when a moral conflict appears to him. The Muslim does not feel at all concerned by the debate between Catholics and Reformists on the pre-eminence of faith or works.

On the other hand, the radical current of the Kharijites thought very early, that is to say, at the time of the conflict for the control of the caliphate between Ali, son-in-law of Muhammad and founder of Shi'ism, and the Umayyads, that the sinner was an Infidel, a Kafir.

In other words, for Kharijism, moral fault, sin, are equivalent of apostasy and can justify the putting to death of the sinner. To what Mutazilis replied, separating themselves from the Kharijite doctrine and being thus worthy of their name that the sinner was in an intermediate stage (metaphorically named al-manzila baina-l manzilatain, "the abode between the two abodes” [of Good and Evil ) between apostasy and complete submission to the will of God, a submission that Arabic simply calls Islam. This doctrine permitted a more tolerant Islam while maintaining its moral rigor, since the sinner was not considered an infidel, but was also not a Muslim, a "subjected to the will of God," in the full sense of the term. This Mu'tazilian conception corresponded to a moderate, pragmatic and rational response to the case raised by one who professes Islam in words but does not put it into practice.

For the Mu'tazilites, man is not only free, but revelation and divine justice are accessible to reason... This also made the Abbasids able to curb the power of the interpreters of the case laws, the ulama. The Mu’tazilites, rationalistic theologians, believed that the Quran was not created [see further our chapter about the Quran], so that it could be rationally studied, that reason had things to say about the morality and nature of God, namely that the latter was good and righteous by nature. Similarly, for them reality exists objectively, is knowable, organized according to laws themselves knowable; In short, some positions that will later be found in Christian land for example in Thomas Aquinas. For the Mu’tazilites, reason is previous to the revelation because reason is the nature of God. Thus, as in Aristotle, a purely rational ethic becomes conceivable.

The second motive for the separation between Mu’tazilis and other Sunni currents was the uncreated Quran doctrine, also advocated by Hanbalism 1). The Hanbalites believed that the unquestionable and sacred character of the Quran, its infallibility, came from its uncreated status. Like the Christ of the prologue of the Gospel of St. John, the Quran was there from the beginning of the world in the form of a tablet or table written in Arabic, and was consubstantial with God himself, coexisting with him Eternity, therefore was unalterable in its letter. The Mu’tazilites vigorously rejected this doctrine in which they rightly saw a kind of polytheism, at least a questioning of the oneness and transcendence of God and a deviation towards the associationism (shirk) already reproached to Christians. Remember that Muhammad or his advisers had clearly rejected by calling it associationism (shirk) the Christian doctrine of the Trinity because it combined other persons (The Son and the Holy Ghost) with

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the single and transcendent person of God. Let us note that it is this very questioning of the Trinitarian associationism which is at the origin of our modern Christian Unitarianism.

The third cause of the opposition of the Mu’tazilites to the Hanbalite Sunnism was their equal rejection of the Jabrism, that is to say, the doctrine of man's predestination (or jabr in Arabic). The Hanbalites thought, in fact, that God, being almighty, everything that occurred on earth, good as well as evil, had been fixed by him according to eternal decrees. For the Mu’tazilites, this doctrine was incompatible with the recurring affirmation of the mercy of God in the Quran. It was therefore a matter of asserting both the omnipotence of God and his infinite mercy, a task obviously not easy, as we know for 2000 years. It was to this task that the Mu’tazilites employed the greater part of their energy. Their response anticipates by eight centuries the Catholic Church's Molinism1) of which it is very close.

Editorial note on this subject.

First: as we will see, as in a lot of creationisms, God in Mu’tazilism created man in order to be worshiped by him, what the proof by definition is that his plenitude was not enough for him. God in this Weltanschauung therefore needs to be adored, he is not sufficient unto oneself.

Secondly, there is still the logical contradiction between the assertion, on the one hand, of the omnipotence of God and of his perfect goodness, and the fact that evil exists in his creation. Some religious currents, notably Gnostic, have approached the problem differently. They did not make this God of all goodness the creator of our universe and attributed this role to another celestial or superhuman entity: the demiurge. In such religious speculations, therefore, it is not the infinitely good God who created the world but another entity called the demiurge.

To return to the attempt of the Mu’tazilites to provide a satisfactory answer to this paradox, this one is structured in five points:

A) God is infinitely good and therefore cannot do evil in the world. The evil found there is not the responsibility of God, but of man alone.

B) As God is good, he created the man free, for it would be absurd for him to expect from an automaton that he should pay him a sincere worship. The worship of God has meaning only if it is paid by a being free to pay or not to pay it. God cannot be satisfied with being worshiped by an object whose he would have programmed himself the devotion. Devotion makes sense only if it is a voluntary act.

C) As man is free, sometimes he freely makes good, sometimes he freely makes evil. It is for this reason alone that he deserves the rewards or punishments that God promises him.

D) As one might reply that God, of course, created the man free, but that he could still have placed him in a world where, although free, man would always choose good, Mu’tazilites answer, once again anticipating certain Western doctrines, such as that of Leibniz, that God placed man in the least evil realizable possible worlds. This makes it possible to explain at the same time why man lives in a world where evil appears not only in society but also in nature, through natural disasters, for example. For Mu’tazilism, the world is far from perfect, but it could have been much worse, it is the best of all possible worlds and we owe its perfectible character to the goodness of God. After all, God could have refrained from creating the world in order to minimize evil, but thereby he would also have minimized the good.

E) The apparent contradictions in the Quranic text can be resolved by reason, for the Quran is not uncreated, it is created and therefore in no way free of obscurities. Finally, there is no need to have read the Quran to become a good Muslim, a Muslim who submits - Islam - to the benevolent will of God.

The exercise of our reason is enough for that, it is what the Mu’tazilites called the wujub al-nazar, the "duty of speculation," that is, the obligation to use our reason to discover nature and God's will.

The intellectual tragedy of Mu’tazilism is that until Al-Mutawakkil and the first half of the 9th century, it was militarily politically and in a police way supported by the first caliphs, Inquisition (Mihna) in support. Ibn Hanbal and his followers, for example, were arrested or persecuted, what gave them the crown of martyrdom.

In 827, the Mu’tazilites succeeded in imposing their doctrine of a Quran created therefore human through Caliph Al-Mamun, known for his House of Wisdom and the intellectual openness of his reign, the peak of the Muslim Golden Age. However, this formalization did not go smoothly: the judges had to swear that they agreed with the doctrine, and a kind of Inquisition (the Hisba) was created to make sure it was respected. There were death sentences, and a lot of imprisonments, as for Ibn Hanbal, the founder of the Hanbali school of case law (madhab), the most literalist of the four madhabs.

Mu’tazilites indeed organized between 833 and 848 persecutions in due form against the scholars who did not agree with their theses and who refused to admit that the Quran was a human creation. The persecutions organized by the Mu’tazilites were perhaps one of the reasons for the failure of this current. The movement began to decline when a caliph, Al-Mutawakkil (the one who first imposed on

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the dhimmi to wear a distinctive badge), finally decided to no longer support them. Al-Mutawakkil returned to a traditionalist theology, under the aegis particularly of the Hanbalites, and devoted himself to a real Mu’tazilite hunting. Some took refuge in the Shiite zone, others persevered despite the difficulties. As nature abhors a vacuum, they were replaced by ulama, attached to (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali) schools of case law, or maddhab a Sunni orthodoxy which considered that divine revelation did not have to be subjected to criticism of reason.

Nevertheless, like the THEORETICAL original Russian communism, mu’tazilism was an eminently rationalistic and optimistic doctrine, and its ideas gave to Islam a consistency and a tolerance which are sorely lacking in the Muslim religion as it appears today. The Mu’tazilite theses anticipated with several centuries philosophical answers that the West has rediscovered only with the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The confidence in God and in man's ability to be liberated and to progress, affirmed by Mu’tazilism, could and should have made it the ideological foundation of true Muslim Enlightenment. Undoubtedly, if Mu’tazilism had won the game that opposed it to Hanbalism , the rational creativity of Islam that the Mu’tazilites advocated would also have made it able to keep the technological lead it had still at the time on the West, for it is this same religious freedom and this revalorization of rationality that made possible the civilization upswing of the West after the Enlightenment. History is not written in the marble.

The annihilation of the Mu’tazilian school under the Abbasid caliph Al-Mutawakkil around 850 of our era was the harbinger of the closing of the "Gate of Interpretation," Bab-al Ijtihad. Al-Mutawakkil broke with the policy of his predecessors who had promoted Mu’tazilism as the official theological doctrine of the caliphate and supported ulama of much more fundamentalist orientation inspired by Hanbalism. This reversal is perhaps due to the populist anti-intellectualism of Al-Mutawakkil, who tried to win the favor of the common people against learned and scholars.

Their writings have been destroyed to the point where it is necessary to guess their ideas through the works written by their opponents to criticize them. It is only for about a century, with the discovery of ancient manuscripts, that we have direct access to their texts. With the crushing of the Mu'tazilites a first blow was therefore dealt to the ijtihad and it is the spirit of imitation which will gradually overcome the spirit of thinking. These normative leanings are found as early as the beginning: It is the triumph of the normative currents within Islam that led to the "closing of ijtihad" from the eleventh century onwards.

After the failure of Mu’tazilism, theological freedom will have no other choice, in the land of Islam, than to take refuge and hide in Sufi esotericism.

1) From the name of Luis Molina, the Jesuit who expressed formulated it in the sixteenth century, in response to both Calvinian predestination and Jansenism: Molinism was the theological spearhead of the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

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THE CLOSING OF THE GATES OF INTERPRETATION (BAB-AL IJTIHAD).

Commentary of Robert R. Reilly's book "The closing of the Muslim mind."

Below is what we believed to have understood from it. It is not, of course, the spirit of each individual Muslim (we are non-racialist by definition), but the ability of Muslim civilization to integrate new ideas. Indeed, this book deals with one of the great intellectual dramas of human history: how the Islamic civilization has discovered reason, to end in rejecting it. More precisely, how and especially why most of Sunni Islam has given the idea of questioning reality with human reason?

There are two ways of closing his mind to reality: to deny the ability to know something through reason and to deny that reality is knowable. The Islamic world has finally adopted these two ways. This intellectual struggle has nothing abstract: it continues to influence the weltanschauung of the Sunni world, its (lack of) development, and even the Islamist crisis that shakes it and shakes us back.

Islam indeed experienced a flourishing period which saw an important development of critical thinking, fueled notably by the distribution of Greek translations into Arabic. This period was stopped around the 11th-12th centuries, which is referred to as the "closing of the gates of ijtihad."

Muslim writers today interpret in various ways the "closing" of the critical research that triggers a long process of intellectual decline. Some even as far as to deny this closing.

Mahdi Elmandjra is not wrong in saying that "never, at any time, history has reported us that a ulama, a doctor in fiqh, or head of state has issued a fatwa, a law or an order to close the gate of the ijtihad. It is rather Arab thought that has become fixed on its positions instead of following the course of history. The result of this attitude is a state of lethargy, backsliding and underdevelopment. The factors of this situation are multiple and are no longer a mystery to anyone. The ijtihad is experiencing a crisis due to intellectual stagnation, the effects of which have been reflected in all areas. There is therefore a decrease of the creation in matters of ijtihad.

If Mr. Elmandjra's point of view is generally correct, two objections can be put forward.

• At the time, there were men who, claiming to be in line with Islamic orthodoxy, tried and often succeeded in breaking the momentum of the cultural openness of Muslim civilization, especially in Spain. The cessation of all critical reflection (ijtihad) in a society as developed as the Arab-Muslim society of the eleventh century can only be the result of the extremely brutal hold of an orthodox thought. Such a phenomenon does not occur without identifiable causes. It does not arise either by the simple decree of an ulama or a doctor in fiqh: it is the historical manifestation of a global crisis, which we shall try to define.

• It is not certain that the causes of this situation have ceased to be a mystery for many Muslim writers. In fact, the author continues his presentation by claiming that there is an imbalance between the various forms of ijtihad, between reflection in temporal case law and spiritual case law. As much as the latter is rich, the first is poor. We may wonder precisely whether the approach adopted by Mr. Elmandjra is not the very symptom of the closing of ijtihad insofar as he limits the research effort to the fields of case law. A society that focuses most of its intellectual efforts in the field of case law to the detriment of what can be called the creative activity of the civil society is inevitably in decline. The insistence on the prescriptive field leads to the preservation of what is and prevents any

evolution.

Mr. Elmandjra's observation seems to us to be correct, but in seeking to do ijtihad applying to the new political and economic reality so that sharia continues to shine in the Muslim world, he places himself in the very perspective of the closing of the ijtihad, insofar as he circumscribes every perspective of cultural evolution within religion: the very principle of a religion is to refer to founding texts which can be doubted that ten or fifteen centuries later they are adaptable. It becomes tempting to brace on texts by proclaiming that society has deviated and must be readjusted to them rather than to make the observation that the evolution of society has made these texts simply obsolete.

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If, by analogy, we may consider that the "gates of ijtihad" have been opened in the Christian West at the very moment when they were beginning to be closed in the Muslim world, the "opening" of these "gates" appears in Western Europe through the questioning, first feeble then gradual, of the influence of the religious one on the cultural life. This questioning begins when Aristotle's thought enters Western universities (thanks to a Muslim thinker) and when the fundamental distinction between theology and philosophy (falasafa) is made - a distinction which existed only feebly and ephemerally in the Muslim world. We may say, to summarize summarily, that in the conflict which opposed it to philosophy, theology prevailed in the Muslim world but was defeated in the Christian West.

Crystallization of legal thought.

In 1019, Caliph Al-Qadir, in the palace and in the mosques, made read an epistle called Qadir’s epistle (Risalah al-Qadiriyah), which prohibited any new exegesis and thus closed the gates to the personal search effort of Muslims (ijithad).

While refuting that the "closure of ijtihad" has been decreed, Muhammad Iqbal makes a terrible observation of the situation in which the Muslim world is. But it is not necessary that the "closing of the gates of ijtihad" be decreed by anyone, it is simply a fact that it is enough to note and whose causes are to be defined. The typically Islamic bias of considering everything from a prescriptive point of view perhaps precludes addressing the question in this perspective.

To understand why and how the "gates of ijtihad" have been closed in the Muslim world, it is perhaps necessary to understand why and how they have "been opened" in the Western world. For Muhammad Iqbal, ijtihad is the principle of movement in the structure of Islam; so he calls to a reconstruction of the religious thought of Islam so that it is in phase with the contemporary world. But precisely the irresistible movement of Western European culture towards political, economic and cultural domination perhaps justly comes from the fact that "ijtihad" consisted in not envisaging "the reconstruction of the religious thought" of Christendom, but in questioning it and in dissociating radically the sphere of the religious one from the sphere of the temporal one, in eliminating as far as possible the intervention of the religious one in the cultural, political, and scientific fields.

In fact, the evolution of thought, science and arts in Western Europe will consist in asserting itself against the religious one, what was not always without risk, as the endless list of men and women persecuted and burned alive in the name of the religion, which for centuries tried to oppose any intellectual evolution towards a thought freed from religious influence.

And the main mistake of the Muslim world was undoubtedly to fix indefinitely the negative image that it created mentally (and rightly) of the Westerners at the time of the Christian jihads, and not to update it after the latter, assimilating the contribution of Muslim civilization, surpassed their masters in the very areas where the Islamic civilization had been so flourishing.

This closure of the Muslim world is well the result of the hold of the religious orthodoxy over civil society, what Mr. Elmandjra acknowledges.It is only at the end of the 11th century, that some decided to close the gate of this" Ijtihad "on the grounds that everything was clear in the Quran, the Sunnah and the ensuing Sharia. It was a huge mistake, for the simple reason that a reading of the Quran could be performed in a dynamic way that presupposes and accepts change.

But here again, the observation remains in an essentially religious perspective since everything is determined from the reading of a sacred book. According to this view, the stagnation of the Muslim world would be the result of an inappropriate decision made in the religious sphere.

The main break between the Muslim world and the Western world is undoubtedly the fact that in the latter the distinction between the religious sphere and the civil sphere is fulfilled. With few exceptions, researchers in any field do not wonder whether the results of their research are in harmony with the divine dictates.

This does not mean that the question is definitely settled: the danger of a backsliding remains important, for the forces which try to impose a return of the religious one in the Western world remain powerful. It is significant that in this fight they have the support of Muslim religious men, and not necessarily the most radical.

No one today is thinking of explaining the own evolution of Western Europe by a good interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. Today, however, many Muslim authors are calling for the integration of Islamic societies into "modernity" through a reformation of the interpretation of texts.

Muslim writers, including contemporary writers, point out that there have been many reformation movements in Islam.

Since its birth fourteen centuries ago, Islam has experienced cascading reformations. Like other religions, it has split into a myriad of sects and subsects each pretending to incarnate the truly reformed version of the faith. The most important of these divisions led to the cleavage between Sunnis and Shiites. But these writers regret generally that the reforming currents have never been

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able to take the control on the political level, the only thing that would have made them able to be strengthened.

The opposition between Faith and Reason

The opposition between faith and reason, which appears in the medieval West from the eleventh century, is far from being absent from medieval Islam until the eleventh century, and even afterwards. In both cases it is not an opposition in the sense that reason tries to eliminate faith but in the sense of an attempt at dialogue in which faith affirms its pre-eminence and reason tries to show that it is not incompatible with faith. With very few exceptions, atheism is not yet on the agenda.

Muslim authors of the Middle Ages who contest the belief in a divine revelation, who deny the validity of the revealed scriptures and prophecy, are certainly not numerous, but they are not missing. The belief in prophecy is a central point of Muslim dogma since it is not enough to believe in one God, it is also necessary to believe that Muhammad is his prophet, his ultimate and last prophet. Let us name in the 9th century the Neoplatonist theologian and philosopher Ibn al-Rawandi, the poet Abu 'l-'Ala' al-Ma'arri, and a philosopher, al-Razi (known as Rhazes).

Ibn al-Rawandi and Rhazes wrote works that explicitly rejected the notion of prophecy. Their books have not survived, and are best known by the quotations of the authors who refute them, or by the writings of admirers who quote them (it is the case with Rawandi). However, what we know of them is enough to show the radical nature of their criticism. The prophets are described in them as impostors, charlatans who take advantage of the credulity of people through their knowledge of natural phenomena. They think that reason is enough to lead mankind to the truth, that is, to God. They also reject the idea of evil and pain as justification for divine punishment. These authors, however, are not to be regarded as atheists. They criticize religion but do not question the existence of God.

The non-orthodox thinkers of Islam have never succeeded in forming within the Muslim world a movement equivalent to that of the Enlightenment in Western Europe. However, this movement is not to be mythologized. It was never a huge wave of rationalism overwhelming the dominant religious thinking at the time. If it were possible to make statistics concerning the publication of books in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it would be found that the well-meaning books going the way of the dominant ideology were considerably more numerous than those which followed the new spirit. What characterizes this period is that the spirit of the Enlightenment first concerned a small number of people, but at the top of the social ladder, and that it gradually went down to the middle classes to finally pervade an important part of the society.

Liberal Muslim writers.

Today's liberal Muslim writers believe that thinkers who deviated from orthodoxy despite everything were able to affect the rigidity of institutional Islam: they quote at leisure the enlightened morals in Muslim Spain, the relative tolerance from which the non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire benefitted, or "the subversive nature of medieval Arab literature as puckish as salacious." All this is very good, but there is no reason to go crazy about it. The author of the article confirms besides that "the" reformation "in Islam has most often followed the other direction, that of reaffirming the primacy of the founding texts and of the first theologians over the later interpretations or contributions.

Far from focusing on the symptoms - when the wise man points at the moon with his index finger, the French media examine the finger – let us take care as for us of stigmatizing or pointing at the deep causes of these symptoms that are Islamic terrorism and jihadism.

Let us leave it to the politicians and to the military to fight politically or militarily against the mental alienation (religion is the opium of the people) of Islamic fundamentalism, and even Sunni fundamentalism, which have nothing to do with reason, and let us take care of intellectually deconstructing them from the inside by highlighting that these symptoms that are Islamic jihadism or terrorism are the consequence of a faith of the type credo quia absurdum having nothing to do with reason and betraying rather a serious and disturbing regression of reason.

For that we will look at some of the conditioned reflexes that explain the in the heat of the moment always passionate reactions of pious Muslims on certain subjects.

Everything comes from the ousting of the Mu'tazilite current of thought by the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali schools of “thought.”

These schools or maddhabs are four, founded from the eighth century. The periodic purges carried out by these various movements have had the effect of reducing the Sunni canon to a small sample of sources and interpretations. To use an Arabic expression, they have "closed the gates of ijtihad," or speculative reasoning, what allowed traditionalist scholars to advocate a utopian view of Islam as a closed system waiting only to be applied literally by a righteous sovereign. In other words, this type of "reformation" has constantly led Muslim spirituality in a philosophical stalemate. Until the twelfth century, these schools ensured the interpretation (ijtihad) of the Quran; but after that date it was generally accepted that there was nothing left to interpret, that personal judgment should give way to

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the application and imitation of legal precedents, and that, according to the expression, the gates of the ijtihad had been closed.

Hanbali school, the most recent, is also the most virulent against Greek though (falasafa), and the most opposed to the application of reason. Revelation having taken place, reason has no longer a part to play. In spite of the harsh words of Ibn Hanbal and his pupils, the work of intellectual sapping was nevertheless done by a new school of thought, the Ash’arites. Nevertheless, it is not proved that the Ash’arites supported the Hanbalites, the link between the two groups being perhaps limited to the fact of having a common enemy, the Mu’tazilites.

Ash’arism considers that revelation takes precedence over reason, using the tools of reason and philosophy to support the truth of revelation, but not as autonomous tools of knowledge. Its founder, Al-Ashari, was Mu’tazilite until he was 40 years old, but gave up his beliefs, maintaining that man is determined and that God is, before any other consideration, omnipotent.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION WILL BE INCALCULABLE IN MUSLIM PSYCHE AND EVEN AS REGARDS MORALITY OR ETHICS.

Nature is not endowed with stable laws, since its existence and its persistence are the work of a permanent miracle. This philosophical option, known as voluntarism, affirms that God is the direct cause of everything: if wool burns in contact with fire, it is because God has commanded him to burn. Because it is a work of will and not of reason, the universe cannot be known: the will is its own end. Trying to understand the divine will falls within impiety. God's reasons are unknowable.

Al-Ashari was what we may call an extremist atomist: the universe is composed of atoms isolated from each other and the time of moments separated from each other. At each of these moments, God destroys the universe and recreates it the next moment. Moreover, as the only driving force of the universe is the omnipotent and arbitrary will of God, it is the very idea of causality that collapses.

This point of view is called occasionalism, and was advocated in the West by Malebranche especially, but also in weakened forms by Hume and Berkeley. That it appeared later in the West, at a time when the reality of reality was no longer doubted and when many rival ideas were already present, is perhaps the reason for its relative innocuousness in the West.

Al-Ghazali 1) is often considered the most important Muslim figure after Muhammad; he is frequently cited among the Mujaddid, those whose task is to revive Islam every century. It was he who pushed the ash’arism into its most extreme conclusions.

Arbitrary, the world can no longer be known at all, no more than the ethics (except by Revelation): no act is moral or immoral, obligatory or forbidden as long as God has not decided so. It is an avatar of the right of the strongest, and the strongest is God, who is beyond good and evil. Without independent moral guidance, pious Muslims were reduced to conform their behavior to those of Muhammad and his companions, to base their law on case law alone, and their education on learning by heart. It is only through an evasive reply that man keeps responsibility for his actions, even though he is even not free.

Apart from the Hanbalites, opposed in principle to philosophical reasoning, all the other maddhabs, more precisely, all the Malikites, three quarters of the Shafi’ites, a third of the Hanafites (the rest agrees with the Maturidism, a subtle variant of Ash’arism) have come to accept Ash’arism. Indeed, the latter ended up embodying the middle way between Mu’tazilism and Hanbalism, benefitting inter alia from the support of the powerful vizier Nizam al-Mulk and later Saladin.

Ash’arism taught absolute dependence on the divine will; Sufism adds a tendency to think nothing of reality. The result for them is quietism, passivity, fatalism (source of the famous "Inshallah" (textually, "if God is willing," since the whole universe depends on his will) that will have scores of consequences.

Giving up causality led to give up and then to deny reality. "Inshallah" is not just a verbal tic, but reflects a deep thought, which can lead theologians to declare haram (forbidden) the idea of an insurance policy or a vaccine, since any event is an act of God. Similarly, the presence of oil in Saudi Arabia is seen as a sign that Saudi Wahhabism has the favors of heaven.

Muslim societies gradually lost their interest in science, gradually emptied from their initiative, their imagination, and calcified. Characters like the Hanbalite Ibn Taymiyyah finished nailing the coffin by placing obedience at the top of the hierarchy of values, and by finishing getting over reason. Exeunt philosophy, theology, openness to novelty and critical thinking.

We begin to see why democracy was not born in Islamic land (dar al Islam) and why it is so difficult for it to be established there, especially in the Arab world. Let us point out for all practical purposes that

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the possibility of a rational ethic is the ultimate foundation of freedom of conscience. The absence of a moral reference deduced from reason, from an idea of natural law or natural rights, but also the primacy of pure power over reason produces a very particular form of democracy: one God, one vote; God taking care of everything, absolutely everything. Tyrannical God = tyrannical power. And against the violence of the power, the violence of the opponents, who besides have only the religion as the foundation on which to base their disagreement.

This catastrophe of the Islamic civilization is already old. The loss of intellectual vitality, as always, was previous to the loss of political vitality, which was recorded as early as the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. The invasion of the Tatars of 1258, which brought down Baghdad, caused the death of a great number of Ulama and the loss of many manuscripts. Faced with this general weakening of Muslim society, the Ulama then lost all hope in the future. Thinking that nobody would do better than the predecessors, being afraid, moreover, that Islam is lost by interpretations more and more distant from its essence, the Ulama have then decided, by a kind of consensus, "the closing of the gates of ijtihad "(of the reflection effort) as it is said in Arabic.

From then on, the new researchers will only take over the works of the elders, by adding to them sometimes specifications, sometimes a timid comment. But, on the whole, they limit themselves to expounding and commenting almost religiously on the ideas of their predecessors. Moreover, over time, even among the old authors, only the most traditional from now on will be authoritative. The phenomenon will be further aggravated since, after a certain time, one of the commentators of an old work will impose himself to the point that the following generations will not dare to contradict him and will content themselves in turn with adding some justifications or specifications.

It is from this period that the triumph of an Islam symbolized by the Hanbalite school, named after Ibn Hanbal, is the main representative of a literal interpretation of the Quran. The closing of the Interpretation gates had as a concrete consequence a programmed unsuitability of Islam to the challenges that marked its way since any innovation or bid'ah in Arabic was henceforth forbidden for responding the unprecedented problems that would not fail to come up. It is a little the phenomenon of the glossators and post-glossators that the Roman law experimented after its golden age. The resemblance is true, not only as for the content, but also as for the form, insofar as, for certain works of Muslim and Roman law, the initial text (matn) of a great author is mingled with the texts of the glossator and the post-glossator.

Editor’s note. The same thing can be said of the Bible. Some glosses over time ended up being incorporated into the original text. Let's take an example: the episode of the Gospel according to Matthew where teachers of the law and Pharisees are unmasked.

The precision " the more important matters " (Matthew 23:23) is a gloss that ended up being merged into the original text. The corresponding passage of Luke contents itself with mentioning the justice and love of God.

The end of the verse " You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former" is perhaps also a gloss (that Luke also knows besides) incorporated in the original text.

This striking resemblance is not a coincidence. It proves that, in similar circumstances, societies, even apparently the most different, often react in the same way. Perhaps is this a kind of end of a cycle that all ancient civilizations have experimented. After the golden age came the twilight of old age when imagination is reduced, the creative faculties diminished and the thought stiffened.

From that time until today, the same attitude prevailed among the Ulama, that is to say, the magistrates of the sharia courts, the muftis, the professors of theological universities, such as Al Azhar in Egypt or the Zaytuna in Tunisia, those who could be called representatives of official Islam. A few rare exceptions can be reported. For example, the Egyptian Muhammad Abduh has adopted courageous innovative positions. Although his ideas were taken over by some modernist writers, he remained an isolated case among theologians. In their overwhelming majority, the latter do only repeating the theses of the elders.

When, at the beginning of the last century, the Egyptian government, as part of its many efforts to initiate the development of society and open it to the modern world, wanted to introduce into Egypt the teaching of mathematics and of the hard sciences, he felt obliged to consult the Sheikh of Al Azhar to "be covered for" before "committing" this innovation. (bid’ah). The latter believed that he was showing a great sense of modernism in approving the project, but, he added, provided that the interest of it was demonstrated. This is the kind of innovation of which the official Islam is capable.

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All current Muslim fundamentalisms, with the notable exception of Shiite radicalism, claim to be in line with Hanbalism, and it is an unbroken chain that links the fanatic Ibn Hanbal, who advocated putting to death the opponents of his theses, beginning with the Mu'tazilites, to bin Laden through Abd-al Wahhab, the founder of Wahhabism, the official doctrine of Saudi Islam.

1) Let us return to the person of Al-Ghazali. Adopting a hypercritical approach, he questions all that he believes he knows, to end in a deep psychological crisis, which was healed, he says, only by divine grace. And more precisely, by the Sufi mystical experience, which he experimented by living as a hermit. In him, it is the direct intuition which replaces reason, which surpasses reason. For Al-Ghazali, the point of contact between man and his Creator is not reason, but rather the will: I want, therefore I am. Another conclusion (tinged with Sufism) of Al-Ghazali: only God really exists; the reality of the universe is very pale in comparison, almost an illusion. "The incoherence of the philosophers" by Al-Ghazali dealt a fatal blow to the philosophy in the land of Islam (Dar al Islam) , stating that the sole purpose of the reason was to demonstrate its own uselessness. Nearly a century later, Averroes tried to light a backfire, by writing "The incoherence of incoherence" ( Tahafut al-Tahafut) in order to refute the previous work ... but too late: the works of Averroes ended in being burned.

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THE MORE GENERAL PROBLEM: ISLAM AND RELIGIOUS MINORITIES.

As we had the opportunity to see, from the Christians of Najran authorized by Muhammad to pray in his mosque in Medina in 631 to the Christians gathered around the Medinan hermit of the Khazraj tribe called Abu Amer Ar-Raheb; Muhammad's policy towards non-Muslims has varied greatly.

The only thing that has never changed is the place he has always reserved for non-Muslims who are not members of the category of individuals called "People of the Book": NONE!

Muslims therefore consider that every Law (din) must come from God, but that God has enacted different laws over the centuries according to the peoples considered.

Non-Muslims who are allowed to live in Islamic lands can therefore self-administrate (drink wine, eat pork, etc.) but within the general framework of the Sharia law to which they are ultimately subject, and this contrary to the personal laws of the type Gombata law (lex burgundionum) of 502 in Europe.

The worship of the people of the Book is allowed as soon as they have paid the jizya. In some writers we find various restrictions: prohibition to ring bells, to make processions, etc. There is an almost unanimity among the doctors in law to say that it is forbidden to build a new church or synagogue in the dar al-Islam, and that it is only permitted to repair the old ones.

This provision is to be linked to many others, concerning marriage (prohibition for a dhimmi to marry a Muslim woman), custody of children (in the event of divorce the dhimmi wife is withdrawn his child so that she cannot teach him his religion), apostasy (the apostate is sentenced to death by the hadiths, so that non-Islamic religions cannot gain ground), blasphemy (impossible to criticize Islam to emphasize Christianity or Judaism), etc.

Other obligations of the protected. Like the temporary protégé, the dhimmi must above all respect Islam, the Prophet, the Quran. He must not attack him, nor seek to perform conversions (on pain of death). He cannot give aman (asylum) to a Harbi* , he must help the Dar al-harb* in no way (espionage, export of strategic products, etc.). He cannot marry a Muslim nor have sex with her. He is, of course, allowed to drink wine and to eat pork, but not publicly.Trade in these foodstuffs gives rise to differences of opinion.

The authors most often admit the humiliation of the people of the Book when paying their specific tax by interpreting as an order the end of verse 9, 29 "wa hum saghirun." It is a noun phrase (without verb) meaning word for word "and they humiliated." Should we translate "They are (or will be) humiliated" (simple statement) or as an order, "Let they cringe."

This humiliation happens first when they pay the jizya. Then the people of the Book must be distinguished from Muslims by their clothes, their mounts, their saddles, their hairstyles. They will have to mount mules or donkeys, wear distinctive clothes (blue for Christians, yellow for Jews), not to wear arms, not to have houses higher than those of Muslims. They will have to respect the Muslims, give way to them, not to imitate what is "suitable for the people of science and honor."

Trades given up by the Muslim society - originally a military society - are reserved to non-Muslims, who are often excellent in them beside. At certain periods, the painful activities come down to them. For example, Yemeni Jews were required to remove carrion and clean public latrines on the Sabbath Day.

All these pettiness and baseness did not do much honor to Islam! This Islam is indeed the opposite of the washing of the feet by Jesus on the holy Thursday eve of his death (Gospel according to St. John XIII, 1-15).

* Dar al Harb = enemy country. Harbi = national of an enemy country.

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THE CASE OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE.

The first genocide of the twentieth century, precursor of Holocaust, was inflicted by a Muslim country against its Christian population: the 1915 genocide of the Armenian minority in Turkey.

Two theses clash on this subject.

First thesis. Basically, the Turkish thesis. It's a purely political drama. Some Armenians took advantage of the difficulties of the Ottoman Empire to become independent with the complicity of various European powers. It is the thesis known as thesis of the disloyalty.

Second thesis. It was a religious war, a small jihad, Muslims against Christians.

Let's try to decide.

It should first be noted that this genocide of 1915 was preceded by the almost genocidal massacre of one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand souls in 1894-1896, under the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II (1877-1909), and by that of thirty thousand others in 1909 in the region of Adana. The first acts of violence were perpetrated under the traditional authority of the Sultan ...

The religious factor is evident in the first, since the Ottoman state was at least in theory a sacred society directed by the Caliph Sultan; this one, as caliph, was generally recognized as the successor of the Prophet. According to Vahakn N. Dadrian, the fundamental common law principle that governed the relations between the Muslim elite and the "infidel" subjects in the Ottoman Empire was a quasi-legal contract, the Akdi Zimmet (contract with the ruled nations), according to which the sovereign guaranteed the security of persons, civil and religious liberties, and under certain conditions, property, in exchange for the payment of local taxes and taxes, and submission to a series of social and legal prohibitions.

However basically, the substance and spirit of the Akdi Zimmet were the dhimma, the Muslim submission pact that puts an end to the state of war by stipulating the conditions under which Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians are allowed to remain in Muslim countries.

The Islamic tradition never contemplates, strictly speaking, true peace between Muslims and infidels. There may be a truce when the fight does not seem to turn to the advantage of the first. There may also be a form of religious tolerance within a multinational empire such as the Ottoman Empire, provided that it is established on a hierarchical order of the statutes and preserves the distinctions between Muslims and infidels, between masters and vassals. However, there is no inalienable human right in favor of subjugated peoples: their rights remain contractual and conditional, and are strictly linked to the scrupulous respect of the dhimma. Whenever a dhimmi person or a dhimmi community breaches their obligations, the contract of submission and protection becomes ipso facto lapsed and the state of war comes into force.

The reforms initiated in 1839 by Sultan Abdul-Mejid guaranteed the honor, security, and property of all his subjects, regardless of race or religion. In 1856 a second, more detailed edict, affirmed the equality of the subjects of the Empire, Muslims and non-Muslims. Given the traditional subordination of infidels to Muslims, and its religious justification, the decree known as hatt-i humayun was bitterly felt by the overwhelming majority of Muslims, especially because of the foreign pressures which led to the abolition of the status of dhimmi. The traditionalist Muslims took the emancipation of Jews and Christians as a real attack. Before emancipation, the payment of jizya, the tax on all male dhimmi, symbolized their subjection, their inferiority status and the stop of jihad. But for the traditionalists if the discriminations were annulled the dhimma as protection or safe conduct became obsolete: the emancipation of dhimmi restored against them the state of war. The traditionalists believed that in these circumstances the Ummah, the Muslim community, had this time again, at least theoretically, the right to seize their properties, to kill male adults, and to enslave women and children. Moreover, these actions appeared not only justified but ordered and honorable, according to the Egyptian historian Bat Ye'or.

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Another reason for Turkish resentment was that Armenians were economically a dominant minority. Very often when minorities are subject to social and professional discrimination, and are prohibited from serving in the military or the civil service, they rely more on education and training than the indigenous majorities, to ensure their economic survival and their well-being. They are also more willingly concentrated in large urban centers, devoting themselves to trade, money and professions, to all the city's know-how. Their capital comes down to what they have in their brains, which cannot be taken away from them. Often subject to deportation, they constitute networks within their diaspora that are intrinsically advantageous in finance or trade. This was the case of European Jews before the Second World War, Chinese in Southeast Asia, Lebanese in West Africa, and Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

The most terrible massacres took place in the city of Urfa (formerly Edessa) in 1895. The mosques were places of emulation; Christian churches were slaughterhouses. The imams dispatched their murderous crowds. The worst butcheries often occurred after the Friday sermon. Dadrian also notes the role of local religious authorities in triggering the massacres. The Sultan, in order to arouse them from his distant Constantinople, could give orders suggesting them subtly, but the authority of local public figures was required to interpret, plan and execute them. Due to the theocratic nature of the regime, it was the country's religious leaders who made the crowds sure that the massacre was consistent with the Shari'a. By conferring on them this religious legitimacy, the muftis, qadis, ulama and mullahs played a crucial role with very few exceptions. Two thousand five hundred Armenians were burned alive in Urfa Cathedral.

The advocates of Islam at any price argue that it had nothing to do with religion, that there had been treason or contact with the enemy from the Armenians. We do not have the skills to decide between specialists. It is not up to us modern Western druids to decide between the two camps (political disloyalty or break of the dhimma contract), what is certain is that the religious factor played a significant role in the massacre of Urfa in 1895 (Vahak N. Dadrian. The history of the Armenian Genocide).

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THE DAY OF A PIOUS MUSLIM.

The major fake of Christianity was to connect many of its rites or elements of its doctrine with the revelation of the Jewish part of the Bible, when they came, in fact, from Hellenistic paganism in Asia Minor. The major fake of Islam will also be to relate many of its rites or elements of its doctrine to the Abrahamic revelation when they come in direct line from the Arab paganism of the time (tawaf around the Kaaba, etc..).

Wensinck, Noldeke and Goldziher, studied in detail the elements of Muslim rites. In the preparation for the five daily prayers, ritual ablutions for example have no connection with body hygiene in the strict sense of the term. Their goal is rather to free the faithful from the presence or influence of evil spirits. Muhammad, for example, having noticed that someone had done his ritual ablutions badly, ordered him to repeat them, by saying: "When a Muslim or a believer washes his face in ablution, then every sin which he committed with his eyes will be washed away with the last drop of water. When he washes his hands, then every sin which he committed with his hands will be washed away with the last drop of water. When he washes his feet, then every sin which he committed with his feet will be washed away with the last drop…” (Sahih Muslim 244).

This goes in the direction of Goldziher for whom, according to Semitic thought, water chases demons. That said, Muhammad also used to wash his feet simply by stroking the top of his sandals with his hand.

Another example, about demonic pollution. According to one of the Hadiths reported by the tradition, Muhammad would have said: "When any one of you awakes up from sleep and performs ablutions, he must clean his noose three times let him blow himself three times, for the devil spends the night in the interior of his nose" (Sahih Muslim chapter No. 2 hadith No. 462)

Traditionally also a Muslim must cover his head, especially the back of his skull. Wensinck thinks it was to prevent evil spirits from entering the body.

It goes without saying that we are vigorously for a minimum of hygiene, and that we recommend to all, to show it in every moment in all places; if not watch out the hospital-acquired diseases, we speak from personal experience alas (three kidney operations in 17 years!) Hygiene must be part of our daily worries, but the question we are asking ourselves is nevertheless this one: What does God do in all this? Will really the soldier lost in his trench or the unfortunate hostage locked in a hole, who cannot fulfill these basic hygiene rules, go and be burned in hell because of that?

If not, if our fate in the hereafter does not depend on it, if only our fate here on earth depends on it; in short if they are only simple rules of hygiene (to be strongly advised when they are valid, what is not always the case); then why make them almost divine commandments? Is the divine endorsement really indispensable to good manners? ! Hygiene is a human thing. It can evolve over the centuries depending on the progress of knowledge or technologies. The discovery of the existence of microbes by the French Pasteur, for example, a true benefactor of Mankind himself, without being a pious and virtuous saint; has shown the necessity to sterilize the surgical instruments (in an autoclave) and not to be content about them with a simple cleaning with water, even advanced. But this, God apparently did not think of it by dictating his will to his last prophet, through the archangel Gabriel. And this proves that in matters of hygiene men cannot be satisfied with what God has said on this subject. Hygiene is a purely human matter, a matter of science or common sense, and should have nothing to do with theology. Any religion involving God in the smallest details of this chapter of human history commits a dramatic mistake, a mistake with a far-reaching impact, as every time we mix God with all this. Let the believers, if they care about that, inform us that God ALSO counsels for the salvation of our souls and minds, to avoid any risky behavior in this field, is enough. You do not need to get into the details.

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SPECIFICATIONS: In the text that follows, we have systematically translated the Arabic word "miswak" by "toothbrush"; because the traditional translation by "toothpick" did not seem to correspond to the size of a miswak, which is much bigger than a simple match.

OTHER SPECIFICATION to understand this fairly esoteric text. Although a simple "repeater" of a previously revealed religion, the hanifyia of the god of Abraham Isaac and Jacob (apparently quite forgotten despite Judaism); Muhammad's influence was so great on the first Muslims that the slightest of his comings and goings (sleeping, toileting, etc.) was set up as a model to imitate at all costs (isma + Al-tibb al-nabawi). The anecdotes about these comings and goings of Muhammad are called hadiths and have been recorded in four great books, those of the theologians called Bukhari, Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud, Nassai and - the well-named-Muslim. These names and some other names come therefore constantly in the writings of pious Muslims, Islam being a religion of the letter much more than of the spirit; accompanied by some other proper nouns which are those of the commentators of these hadiths or the titles of the books they have written (Tibb-e -Nabawi, Mishkaat for example). DO NOT PANIC, YOU GET USED TO IT VERY QUICKLY!

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AL-TIBB AL-NABAWI (literally: medicine of the prophet).

Secondary or main sources : Mishqat al Masabih, Hisn al Hasin, Mirqat al Mafatih, etc.

Four things increase the intelligence:

- Shunning of nonsensical talks [Editors note. Well here, of course, we absolutely agree!]

- Use of the toothbrush (miswak).

- Sitting in the company of the pious.

-And sitting in the company of the ulama.

TOOTHBRUSH ADVANTAGES AND BENEFITS ACCORDING TO MUSLIM THEOLOGISTS.

Hadhrat Aisha: the constant use of the toothbrush (miswak) is a cure for all illness excepting death. Hadith reported by Dailami in Firdaus. [Editor’s note. Now it is that even the folk remedies are used as a relay to the word of God. It's lamentable!]

1) Toothbrush (miswak) creates a fragrance in the mouth.

2) Toothbrush (miswak) is a cure for headaches [Editor’s note. But this did not prevent Muhammad from dying].

3) Toothbrush (miswak) assists in eliminating toothaches.

4) Toothbrush (miswak) creates luster on the face of the one who continually uses it.

5) Toothbrush (miswak) strengthens the eyesight.

6) Toothbrush (miswak) clears the voice.

7) Abu Hurairah: toothbrush (miswak) increases the eloquence of a person [Al Jaami].

8) Toothbrush (its constant use) makes it easy for the soul to depart from the body when its appointed time arrives (Sharus Sudoor).

9) Toothbrush (miswak) is a factor which will earn higher ranks in Heaven for the one who uses it.

10) The Angels sing the praises of the one who uses the toothbrush (miswak).

11) Use of the toothbrush (miswak) displeases Shaitaan .

12) Use of the toothbrush (miswak) graces one with the companionship of the Angels.

13) The greatest benefit of using toothbrush (miswaak) is gaining the pleasure of God.

14) The reward of Prayers is multiplied 70 times if toothbrush (miswak) was used before it.

ON THE WAY OF CUTTING ONE’S NAILS.

Start with the forefinger of your right hand that with which you witness the oneness of God, and continue to the little finger. Then continue with the little finger of your left hand and continue to the left thumb. Lastly, end by cutting the nail of your right thumb. For the toes, start with the smallest of your right foot, continue to the big toe. Then, continue with the left big toe and finish with the left small toe. [Source: Fatawa Alamgiri and Ibn Abidin al-Shami].

It is in conformity with the religious tradition (sunna) to recite the following formula when you are assailed by vicious temptations or insinuations leading to infidelity: "I seek refuge in God from the Rejected Satan. I place my faith in God and His messenger.

Reciting this prayer when you are tempted to look at forbidden or obscene things is very effective. You immediately feel the fear of the Almighty and Satan runs away.

When you are deciding to have sex with your wife, recite the following prayer, otherwise the sperm of Satan penetrates with that of the husband inside and the children themselves will be affected. "I do this in the name of God. O God, protect us from Satan and keep Satan away from the children You will grant us. " [Editor’s note. This is an explanation of the transmission of original sin and of the necessity of baptism more precise than in Christianity indeed. Note: We find no trace anywhere of the wife's consent and of her desires or of her initiatives. Obviously, this venerable Muslim theologian, if indeed the word theologian can be appropriate for him , did not think of it].

SLEEPING POSTURES.

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It is in conformity with the religious tradition:

a) To lock the door.

b) To turn off the lamp. A hadith tells us that Satan can induce the rats in the house to pull the lighted candle to take it away. It is the means by which they cause fires [Hisn al Hasin].

c) To seal the orifices of the goatskins well (bottles or other receptacles intended to conserve water, oil, etc.)

d) To close the containers with their lids. If nothing is found to cover them, then simply put a piece of wood across (across the whole diameter).

According to a hadith of the famous collection of Muslim, the Messenger of God has informed us that epidemics descend once a year upon earth, and that every open receptacle necessarily receives a part of it [Hisn al Hasin]. Editor’s note, in the interest of Mankind: it is less dangerous to trust doctors and scientists in this field than the ideas of Muhammad or God on this subject: epidemiology.

Among the Shia it is advised to recite the Tasbih of Fatimah just before sleeping: 33 times Alhamdulillah "Praise be to God," 34 times Allahu Akbar "Allah is greatest! [Source: Bukhari, Muslim, Abou Daoud and Tirmidhi].

Imam Shafi states that there are 4 types of sleeps.

1- To lie on the back-this is the sleep of the prophets.

2- To sleep on the right side-this is the sleep of the worshippers.

3- To sleep on the left side-this is the sleep of the ruler.

4- To sleep on the stomach-this is the sleep of the devil [related by Al-Bukhari, Muslim, Al-Tirmidhi and Abu Dawud].

Editor’s note. And for the little ones or the sudden infant death, what says God?

ON WAKING.

1) Rub one’s eyes and face with the palms of the hands to keep away the sleep (Tirmidhi’s Shama’il).

2) When your eyes open in the morning recite three times: “Alhamdulillah "Praise be to God ." Then, after having recited: "There is no other God but God and Muhammad is his prophet," recite the following prayer (doah): let all praise come back to God, the one who has given us life after us to have given death; it is to Him that we shall ascend. " (Reference: Bukhari, Abu Dawud, Nasai).

3) Brush your teeth.

Note: during minor ablutions (wudhu), teeth will be brushed again. For mouth hygiene through toothbrush on waking itself is a use per se of the Muslim religious tradition.

4) Start with the right side while dressing: for the trousers, put on the right leg first, then the left one. For the upper garment, start with the right arm and then with the left one. Proceed similarly, both for the shirt and for the jacket (even without sleeves). For shoes also, right foot first, then the left one.

NATURE NEEDS.

The Muslim religion has particular rules regarding personal hygiene when going to the toilet. These uses are known as Qadaahul Haajah.

The only issue which the Quran mentions is the one of washing one's hands and face before praying (5:6). Issues of laterality, such as whether one uses the left or right hand and the foot used to step into or out of toilet areas, are derived from hadiths.

It is therefore strongly forbidden to make the toilet close to the flowing waters, or to be by flowing water whilst relieving yourself (simple common sense).

It is preferable to step into the bathroom area with the left leg and step outside the bathroom area with the right leg (superstition).

One should remain silent whilst on the toilet. Talking, answering greetings or greeting others is heavily disliked. Unless it is necessary to do so. Do not recite invocations (Dhikr. Source: Mishkat).

One should not face nor turn one's back on Qibla (Mecca) whilst relieving oneself.

When entering the toilet recite the following prayer: " O God! I seek refuge with you from evil and evil ones” (Zad al Ma’ad, the guidance of Muhammad).

Editor's note: o my God.... what a waste of the intellectual energies of mankind ! These childish obsessions resemble very much the ideas of some Christian monks of the same period at the other end of the world.

Point 42 of the Rule of the Culdees according to St Maelruain of Tallaght: "Privies and urinals are abodes for evil spirits. The sign of the cross should be made over these places, and a man should cross himself when he enters them, and it is not lawful to pray in them, except to repeat Deus in adiutorium (down to festina)”.

How far the devil will not squeeze in?)

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“Use of toilet paper is acceptable, but washing with water is still needed for purity and to minimize germs present in feces from touching the skin.”

Editor's note. To use water for one’s ablutions is obviously a ritual prescription as old as the hills but to attribute to its use as reason for being the will to get rid of microbial germs ... is, of course, a modern justification that falls within taqiyya.

Other pious and traditional uses (sunna) to observe for nature’s needs.

1) Before entering the toilets, it is necessary to remove the ring or any other thing on which is engraved, or written, a verse of the Holy Quran, or the name of the Prophet. They must be left outside when the writing is visible, and put them back around your finger after going out. But if it is a Tarwiz (an authorized talisman) that has been previously coated with wax or sewn into a fabric, then it is permissible to wear it in such a place (Nasai).

2) It is preferable (mustahab) to use three handfuls of soil or three pebbles. If the chosen place has already some of them, it is not necessary to take some of them with you, of course. Note: Since the sanitary equipment of today's toilets does not make possible the use of sand or pebbles, the toilet paper, as advised by the Mufti Rashid Ahmad, will be used, in order not to damage the wastewater disposal system.

3) Step with your left foot into the toilet

4) Climb on the Turkish toilet with your right foot and go back down with your left foot (Zad-ul-Maad).

5) In undressing you, as much as you can discover the lower part of the body, it is better (to protect your clothes as much as possible from the droplets of impurities).

6) Do not use the right hand to clean yourself, but instead keep the left hand for this purpose (Bukhari and Muslim).

7) Take all necessary precautions to avoid droplets of urine or splashes of impure water caused by excrement, because the lager part of the tortures of the grave will be caused by negligence or careless in this field (Tirmidhi).

8) Go out of the toilets with your right foot and recite the following prayer: “I beg your pardon. All praise is for God, who has removed evil from me and therefore granted me health.”

Some places being without sanitary facilities, then you have to look for a place that is inaccessible to the eye for your nature’s needs or to place yourself behind an obstacle that prevents you from being seen others (Abu Dawud).

Choose a place where the soil is loose to prevent the drops of urine from sprouting (Tirmidhi, Editor’s note. Very good idea, but is it really necessary to involve God and Religion in such a case?)

Minor ablutions (wudhu) include eighteen pious practices (sunna). It is by respecting them integrally that your wudhu can be perfect.

1) Start by indicating the purpose of this wudhu.

Example: I perform this wudhu to say my prayer (salat).

2) Wash your hands three times up to the elbow.

3) Wash your teeth with a toothbrush, and if you have no toothbrush, rub your teeth with your fingers (thumb and forefinger).

4) Rinse your mouth three times.

5) Inspire water through your nostrils three times.

6) Expire three times this water from your nostrils.

7) Wash each limb as well as face three times.

8) Pass your wet fingers in the middle of your beard while washing your face (Khilal).

10) Pass the wet fingers of one hand between those of the other hand, while superimposing them.

For the care of the feet, pass the little finger wet between each toe during the wash, by starting with the right foot.

11) Passing wet hands over the entire surface of the head once (masah).

12) Clean your ears with your head.

13) Rub the body parts that are washed in the wudhu.

14) Perform the acts which form wudhu in a continuous way, without spacing them out.

15) Respect the order of the wudhu gestures.

16) Wash the right side first.

17) After finishing the wudhu, spray the part of the garment covering the private part with a few drops of water. This in order to eliminate Satan's suggestions that create doubt about the purity of the linen. Then recite the following prayer: "O God! Make me one of those who repent and make me one of those who purify themselves ."

THE GREAT ABLUTIONS (ghusl).

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First, wash your hands up to the elbow three times. If on any part of the body, there is sperm or any other impurity, clean it. Then relieve you (even if there is no need).

Then, cleanse (istinjah) the private parts, afterwards perform wudhu. If you perform the wudhu in a place where the water is stagnating, then do not wash your feet right away; complete washing your feet in another place.

Otherwise, you can wash your feet during the wudhu. Next, pour water (using a container) first on your head, then on the right side, and then on the left side. Pour enough water to thoroughly wet the entire body, from head to toe. While pouring water, rub the body with your hands. Do the same thing a second time, i.e., pour water on your head, then on the right side, and on the left side.

If it is feared that a part of the body has remained dry, then try to get the water in it while rubbing.

Finally, wash a third time, renewing these gestures, from head to feet [Tirmidhi].

Note: After having performed these ablutions, it is found in some hadiths that you should wipe the body with a towel, and in others that you should not do it. Consequently, whether you choose to wipe or not to wipe, have nevertheless the firm intention to respect the sunna.

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HYGIENE * AND PRIVATE LIFE.

Rather than divine law, what is fundamental in the study of Islamic theological-legal thinking which is the fiqh, i.e., the science of law and cases law that governs the personal behavior of Muslims and leads their commitment into the society (Goldziher , 1920 p. 39), or, as Morabia expresses it (1993: p. 179), "the human effort of understanding and meditation about the duties of the believer"

What is astounding in the Quranic text indeed is that there are many prescriptions in all fields: do this or do not do that [while the Nazarene high rabbi Jesus himself spoke especially in parables.

Editor's note. The text of the gospel according to Luke 11:37, which is following, attacks those who are spiritually Pharisees and not by definition the Salafi Muslims since there were none at the time by definition.

“When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not first wash before the meal. Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.

-“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.

-“Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces.

-“Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which people walk over without knowing it.”

One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.”

Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.

“Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your ancestors who killed them. So you testify that you approve of what your ancestors did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. Because of this, God in his wisdom said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.’ Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all.

-“Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”

When Jesus went outside, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, waiting to catch him in something he might say.”

The way of determining the Quranic commands is interesting in itself: when a problem arises, Muhammad had a dream, God appeared to him and revealed to him the solution. Sometimes the aroused problem was directly relating to the Prophet, and the solutions found always went in the direction of his interest (chapter 33 verse 51). This made Aysha say, one day, according to a hadith collected by Bukhari: "I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires" (book 60 hadith 11) ???????????

There are a few other contradictions in this human Quran, but since they do not relate to prescriptions or injunctions, they do not arouse major problems unless they somewhat undermine the credibility of the uncreated celestial Quran from which they are supposed to originate.

What many Western useful idiots do not know (because in fact these are all those useful idiots ...... who do not know ... what should be known, not those they caricature or denounce by calling public

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opinion as witness ), although they are inveterate sermonizers; it is that the corpus constituted by the Quran IS VERY PRESCRIPTIVE.

God speaks ordains asks demands condemns or more exactly his prophet orders asks demands condemns, including in the most pointless fields (halal food or not).

In the Quran (or the hadiths) God (or his messenger) doesn’t speak in subtle parables like the parable of the woman taken in adultery, the shrewd manager, the return of the prodigal son, the workmen of the eleventh hour workers; or the good Samaritan; but in more direct or coarse words, blesses or curses, approves or disapproves, demands orders, in turn.

Moreover, in addition to being inimitable or unsurpassable (i'jaz) the Quran claims to be complete, claims that nothing is lacking in its corpus.

Chapter 6 verse 38: " We have neglected nothing in the Book."

Chapter 16 verse 89: " We reveal the Scripture unto thee as an exposition of all things.”

AND SPIRITUALITY IN ALL THAT ?? ALL THIS IS LAMENTABLE! How far God and Satan are not going to hide?

* It is not a question of neglecting the principles of elementary hygiene, but of stressing that having rough and calloused hands because you have worked as a fisherman or a vintner or a shepherd ... is less important than having a pure heart because you respect your neighbor and practice philanthropy.

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THE SMALL MUSLIM CATECHISM.

(according to a French-speaking association in the Reunion Island.)

Q: What is the name of our prophet? 1)

A: Muhammad Ahmad 2).

Q: What was his father's name?

A: His father's name was Abdullah 3).

Q: What was his mother's name?

A: His dadi was called Aminah 4).

Q: What was her maternal grandfather's name (nana)?

A: His maternal grandfather was called Wahab.

Q: What was her grandmother's name (nani)?

A: His maternal grandmother was called Ban'ah.

Q: When we read or hear the name of our prophet, what should we say?

A: We must say sallal laahou aleihi wassallam 5).

Q: What is the translation of Salla Allah alayhi was sallam?

A: May the peace and blessings of God be upon him!

Q: What were his nicknames?

A: His nicknames were "Amine and Saadic" (the pure and the truthful).

Q: What is the exact date of birth of the prophet?

A: Our prophet was born on Monday the 12th of Rabbiyoul Awwal, April 20, 571 of the Christian era.

Q: At what time of the day was born the prophet born?

A: The Prophet was born at the time of salatul fadjr, 6) at dawn, before sunrise.

Q: By whom was he fed at birth?

A: At the beginning, our prophet drank his mother's milk. Then he was suckled by Soweibia, and finally he drank the milk of Halima Saadiyah.

Q: Where was born the prophet?

A: The prophet was born in Arabia, in the city of Makkah Mokan'ama 7).

Q: Who once came to live in the city of Makkah?

A: First, it was hazrat 8) Aadam 9) who built it to worship God. Then, Hazrat Ibrahim 10) and Hazrat Ismail 11) renovated the Kaabah.

Q: What was the situation of this lower world at the birth of the prophet?

A: The situation of this world was very bad:

-The good words had been forgotten.

- The worship of one God had been given up 12) and people worshipped statues of stone, trees, forests, or even the moon, the stars, the sea ... Etc. 13).

- People drank alcohol 14).

- People played games of chance 14).

- She babes were buried alive15).

- Widows were burned alive.

- Man married with his sisters or his mother 17).

- Blood was shed for insignificant words.

- The wealth of the orphans was squandered.

- Men and women were tawaf of the Kaabah in a state of total nudity (20).

- The Christians said that Isa (Jesus) was the son of God 21) and the Jews said that Hazrat Uzeir 22) was the son of God.

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- The world was in distress.

- Whatever next ! 23)

Q: What is the name of the tribe from which the prophet came?

A: He is born from the tribe of Quraysh.

Q: How long did the Prophet drank the milk of Halima Saadiyah?

A: The prophet drank her milk for two years.

Q: Why is Hazrat Halima Saadiyah nursing the Prophet?

A: Because it was customary for the Arabs to suckle the children by nurses in the village, so that they would be bodily well and that their tongue be thoroughly cleaned 24).

Q: Where did Hazrat Halima take the Prophet?

A: She took him to Ta’if.

Q: What was the age of Muhammad's father?

A: The father of the prophet was twenty-four years old and died two months before the birth of the Rasul of God 25).

Q: Where did he die?

A: He died in Madinan Mounawwarah 26).

Q: When and where did the Prophet's mother die?

A: His mother died at Iwa which is a village located between Makkah and Madinan. (Mecca and Medina).

The Prophet was then six years old.

Q: Who was responsible for taking care of him at the death of his mother?

A: After the death of his mother, hazrat Umm Eyman and his grandfather Abdul Muttalib took care of him 27°.

Q: How old was the prophet when his grandfather died?

A: The Prophet was then eight years old and ten days 28).

Q: Who took care of him after the death of his grandfather?

A: It was his uncle Abu Taalib.

Q: How old was he when his uncle died?

A: The prophet was fifty years old.

Q: What was the character of the prophet before the prophethood?

A: Our prophet was very intelligent, understanding and patient 29).

Q: What was the work of the prophet before the prophethood?

A: He took care of the herds and also trade, which led him to travel twice to Syria.

Q: How old was the prophet and who accompanied him on his first travel to Syria?

A: He was with his uncle Abu Taalib and was at that time twelve years two months and ten days old 28).

Q: How old was the prophet and who accompanied him on his second travel to Syria?

A: This time he was accompanied by Maysara who was the slave of hazrat Khadija. He was then twenty-five years old and was going to Syria to sell goods belonging to Khadija.

Q: Who was Khadija?

A: It was a rich and pious 30) widow of Makkah.

Q: With whom did the Prophet make nikah 31) for the first time?

A: He made nikah first with hazrat Khadija.

Q: How old was the prophet?

A: He was twenty-five.

Q: How old was Khadija?

A: She was forty.

Q: What was the name of the parents of Khadija?

A: His father's name was Khuweilid and his mother Faatemah.

Q: How many children did the prophet and Khadija have together?

A: They had six children: two sons and four daughters.

Q: What was their name?

A: The sons were called Qassim and Tahir and the daughters Zeynob, Umm Kulsum, Ruqaya and Faademah. The elder was Hazrat Ruquaya.

Q: With whom did the daughters of the prophet marry?

A: Zeynob married Abdul Aass Bin Rabeiy. Umm Kulsum was given in nikah to Hazrat Osman, who on the death of his wife married Ruquaya, the other daughter of the prophet; Hazrat Faatemah married Hazrat Ali.

Q: Who carried on the posterity of the Prophet?

A: Only Hazrat Faathemah had children to perpetuate the descendants of the Prophet.

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Q: From what union was born Ibrahim the son of the prophet and when did he die?

A: This child was that of hazrat Maria Quibtya 32) and died in infancy.

Q: What is a nabi or rasul?

A: The Nabi or Rasul is a person to whom God Taala 33) has commanded to pass His laws to men. It is a person who does not commit sin 34).

Q: What is the difference between a nabi and a rasul?

A: The Messenger of God who received a new book and a new religion is called a Rasul. He who preaches the religion of a prophet who came before him is called a nabi 35.

Q: Can anyone become a prophet through his own efforts and his only prayers?

A: No, no one can become a prophet of his own; it is God alone who chooses him.

Q: How many prophets have already come into this world?

A: More than 124,000 prophets have already come into this world 36).

Q: Who was the first and who was the last of the prophets?

A: The first prophet was Hazrat Aadam (Adam) and the last was Hazrat Muhammad (Mohammed).

Q: Who is the best of all the prophets?

A: The best is Hazrat Muhammad and he is superior to all others.

OF COURSE 37).

Q: At what age did the Prophet receive prophethood?

A: Our Prophet received prophethood when he was forty years old and one day according to the lunar calendar.

Q: What was the exact date of this event?

A: It was Monday 9 Rabbiyul awwal; that is to say on 12 February 610.

Q: Where did he receive the prophethood?

A: It happened in the cave of Hira, which is in a mountain near Makkah (Mecca).

Q: Why did the prophet go to this cave?

A: According to a habit of Hazrat Ibrahim 38), the Prophet went to this cave to worship God in solitude.

Q: Who came to announce his mission as a prophet?

A: This is Hazrat Jibrail (Gabriel).

Q: Who is Jibrail?

A: It is the greatest of all the angels of God.

Q: What is a farishta or angel?

A: Angels are God's creatures made of light. They never disobey the command of God. They are neither men nor women 39.

Q: In how many years has the Quran been fully revealed?

A: The Quran was revealed in twenty-three years.

Q: How many parts (paras 40) there are in the Madjid Quran? 41)

A: In the Quran, there are 30 paras.

Q: How many chapters (suras) are there in the Quran?

A: In the Quran, there are 114 suras. 42).

Q: What do the words chapter makki 43) and chapter madani 44) mean ??

A: The makki chapters are those that were revealed before emigration; the Madani chapters are those that were revealed after the emigration.

Q: How many verses are there in the Quran?

A: In the Quran, there are 6 666 verses.

Q: What is the reward of reading the sheriff 45) Quran?

A: For each letter that one reads, one will have the reward of ten sawaabs 46).

Q: What did the prophet do after being sent by God?

A: The prophet began by inviting his compatriots to become Muslims. It happened secretly.

Q: Who were the first people to accept Islam?

A: Among the women, it was Khadija. Among the free men was Abu Bakr Siddiq. Among the children, it was his cousin Ali. Among the male slaves was Zayd Bin Haritha and among the female slaves was Umm Eyman.

Q: For how long did the prophet invite his people to convert secretly?

A: He had to invite people to the religion of God secretly for three years.

Q: How many people converted to Islam during these three years?

A: About thirty people.

Q: What did the prophet do next?

A: After three years, the Prophet gathered all the Quraysh families on the mountain of Sala and invited them to publicly convert to Islam.

Q: Did the Quraysh accept the words of the messenger of God?

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A: No, they persecuted him and inflicted many ordeals on him.

Q: How much emigrations did the prophet undergo?

A: The prophet underwent three emigrations. Twice he sent his companions to Abyssinia and once he had to emigrate with them to Madinah.

Q: What were the conditions under which the first emigration to Abyssinia took place?

A: This happened in the fifth year of the prophethood. Hazrat Osman Rani commanded the group, which consisted of twelve men and four women.

Q: What were the conditions under which the second emigration to Abyssinia took place?

A: This happened in the seventh year of the prophethood. The group consisted of 83 men and 18 women.

Q: What was the name and title of the King of Abyssinia at the time?

A: His name was As'Hama and he was called the Negus. Thereafter he embraced Islam 47).

Q: Why did Muslims emigrate?

A: The infidels of Makkah persecuted Muslims and prevented them from practicing Islam. So they were forced to leave.

Q: How did they want to destroy Muslims?

A: In the seventh year of the prophethood, these infidels boycotted the prophet and his family.

Q: Where did the Muslims go and how did they live?

A: Far from Makkah, there was a famous cave called Che Ebe Abi Talib. The Muslims dwelled there and fed on leaves they chewed.

Q: How long did this boycott last, and how old was the prophet?

A: This boycott lasted three years and the prophet was fifty years old.

Q: What is the year of sadness?

A: At the end of the boycott, Abu Taalib, the Prophet's uncle, who had much helped the Muslims, died when he was eighty-five years old. That same year, his wife Hazrat Khadija died, at the age of sixty-five. These two losses greatly affected the prophet, which is why this year was called "the year of sadness" (49).

Q: Why did the prophet go to Taif to propagate Islam?

A: The People of Makkah having repulsed him, the prophet thought that he would have more success with the inhabitants of Ta’if.

Q: Where is the town of Ta’if?

A: It is 80 km away from Makkah and is renowned for its climate.

Q: For how long did the prophet propagate to Taif and who was with him?

A: Accompanied by Zayd Bin Aarihsa the prophet preached for a month at Ta’if.

Q: What was the result?

A: The People of Ta’if did not accept and did not believe in our prophet. City officials even sent bad boys to cast stones at him and blood shed from his blessed feet.

Q: What was the doah 51) that the prophet did for the people in Ta’if?

A: The prophet did the following doah: "O! God, show the way to my people, for they do not really know me. "

Q: What is the miraj? 52)

A: From Makkah, the prophet went to the Beitul Muqaddas 53) in Jerusalem where he met all the prophets with whom he made two "rakaats" of "salat nafil." He then visited the seven heavens, the heaven and the hell. Finally, he had the vision of God. After that, he returned to Makkah.

Q: Did the miraj happen day or night?

A: The miraj happened during the night.

Q: Where was the Prophet at that time?

A: The prophet was resting at Umm Hani his paternal aunt.

Q: What was the date of this event?

A: The miraj happened on the 27th day of the month of rajab in the eleventh year of the prophethood.

Q: How old was the prophet?

A: He was fifty-one.

Q: Who accompanied him during this travel?

A: The angels hazrat Jibrail (Gabriel) and hazrat Mickael (Michel) as well as others.

Q: How did the prophet make this journey?

A: From Makkah to Beitul Muqaddas, the prophet was riding a winged mount called Buraq 56). From there he went to heaven with a heaven ladder.

Q: Who was the first to believe in the miraj and what nickname was given to him then?

A: It was Hazrat Abu Bakr and therefore God gave him the nickname of truthful.

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THE PIOUS AND VIRTUOUS 58) WIVES OF THE PROPHET.

Q: How many years did the nikah with Khadija last and at what age did she die?

A: Their nikah lasted twenty-five years, and she died when she was sixty-five years old.

Q: What month died Khadija and where is her grave?

A: She died during the month of Ramadan and her grave is at a place called Hajun.

Q: After the death of Khadija, who were the wives of the prophet?

A: He had ten wives whose names are…1 - Hazrat Zeinob Bint Khuzeymah (RA) 5 - Hazrat Umm Salman (RA) 6 - Hazrat Zeinob Bint Jahash (RA) 7 - Hazrat Hafsa (RA) - Hazrat Juweyrya (RA) 8 - Hazrat Umm Habiba (RA) 9 - Hazrat Safia (RA) 10 - Hazrat Meymuna (RA).

MAWLAANAN Y. KAZI. Madrassah Taalimoud Deen. St. Andrew. Reunion Island. FRANCE. Printed by O.K. Printing - Saint-Denis - & 41 12 74.

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TAFSIR BY PETER DELACRAU.

It is an interesting document in many ways, because it is very indicative of the brainwashing, which has nothing to do with the reality, of any catechism, be it Jewish, Christian or Muslim. A cramming all the more scandalous that it is carried out by adults on innocent children, incapable to defend themselves (psychically speaking).

Muslims (French journalists too) wonder how we can be wicked enough to attack the Quran. I will tell them (text copied from what Robert G. Ingersoll said about the Holy Bible in 1894).

This book stayed and stopped the onward movement of the human race. This book poisoned the fountains of learning and misdirected the energies of man. This book is the enemy of freedom, the support of slavery. This book sowed the seeds of hatred in families and nations, fed the flames of war, and impoverished the world. This book is the breastwork of kings and tyrants—the enslaver of women and children. This book has made colleges and universities the teachers of error and the haters of science. This book has filled the world with hateful, cruel, ignorant and warring sects. This book taught men to kill their fellows for soul’s sake. This book invented the Inquisition (Hisbah/Mihna ), built the dungeons in which the good or most unhappy languished, forged the chains that rusted in their flesh, erected the scaffolds whereon they died.

For examples the zandaqua ibn al-Muqaffa (died in 760), Bashar Ibn Burd (died in 785), Abu Nuwas (died 810), Al Mutanabbi (died in 965), Abul-ala al-Ma’arri (died in 1057), Al Suhrawardi (1154-1191).

This book drove reason from the minds of millions and filled the asylums with the insane. This book filled the African trails or the sails of the slave trader in the Indian Ocean and made merchandise of human flesh. This book lighted the fires that burned heretics like Mansur Al-Hallaj in 922. This book filled the bodies of men and women with devils or jinns. This book polluted the souls of men with the infamous dogma of Hell and eternal pain.

Holy Quran chapter VI verse 68. " When you see those who meddle with Our revelations, withdraw from them until they meddle with another topic. And if the devil causes you to forget, do not sit, after the remembrance, with the congregation of wrongdoers.”

This book made credulity the greatest of virtues, and investigation the greatest of crimes. This book placed the ignorant and unclean jihadist above the philosopher and philanthropist. We attack therefore this book because it is the enemy of human liberty—the greatest obstruction across the highway of human progress.

Let us ask to the journalists and intellectuals of our country one question: How can you be wicked enough to defend this book?

How could the French nation, who has been once a great nation (the Land of Enlightenment and of Voltaire) tolerate such a festival of nonsense or untruths, only the historians could tell it to us one day? (Maybe she no longer exists!) If the minds can be cultivated fields then there are also "bounded" fields, and these fields of the French Muslim madrassa in Saint-Andrew of the Reunion are apparently as uncultivated as those of the Catholic Creole neighborhoods surrounding them (Champ Borné. We speak through personal experience). And if this is what the little children in Reunion Island schools are taught, what the devil, what is to be in Mayotte, another French island in the Indian Ocean in the same case?

Yet, as the Quran says, "Who is guilty of more wrong than he who forges a lie against God, or says: I am inspired, when he is not inspired in anything"(The Holy Quran, chapter 6 verse 93).

NOTES.

1) The author does well to specify it because the name of Muhammad appears only four times in the Quran (against 12 times for Jesus who is called messiah or spirit of God). 5 times if we add the form Ahmad. The name is non-existent before. It is the passive participle of the verb "praise." This word is not a given name and could not be given as such. It is probably a nickname - possibly posthumous, like the nickname "Beloved" given to Jesus in the Epistle to the Ephesians or the Ascension of Isaiah.

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Let us note that to call Muhammad a prophet is also already a manipulation of the minds, at least a total lack of objectivity! If the historicity of the character seems certain , several billions of non-Muslims nevertheless do not consider him an envoy of God.

2) Originally Mahomet in our language. Why not translate?

3) Servant of God. Same comment.

4) Amina. Many of the proper nouns, or common nouns, which follow, are certainly in conformity with the Urdu language from Pakistan, but in no way to ours; and we admit humbly to ignore, for example, why the author of this Muslim catechism thought it advisable to keep (in brackets) the words, dadi, nani, nana (if the translation by mother, grandmother, grandfather, was sufficient). Some familiar language for dadi ?? (Daddy ???). It is besides one of the characteristics often found in Islam today, its nature always strange or foreign; due in particular to its notion of chosen language: God and the archangel Gabriel spoke in Arabic with the exception of any other language.

5) In abbreviated form "SAAW" or at least "RAA" or "PBUH." As this eulogy has not yet entered our legislation, for greater clarity in the debate, I have systematically eliminated these expressions.

6) Morning prayer. As there are many prayers in the day of a pious Muslim, just as in the day of a Christian monk, for example; whatever the birth, even mine (on January 13th) this can only match an hour of prayer. But what significance apart for the intellectual swindle that is astrology?

7) Mecca of course! Why, what the devil, this the need to express oneself in a foreign language?

8) Word meaning something like "holy," or "honorable." Hon. Abraham, etc.

9) Aadam ... Adam, of course. Why always this refusal to translate or adapt?

10) Abraham. Still the same refusal of acculturation.

11) Ishmael of course! In any case, there is nothing true in that. Adam and Eve never existed, they are Sumerian myths, so they were never able to build the Kaaba in Mecca. Same or almost for Abraham more legendary than historical character and who, in any case, has never set foot in Mecca ... If he existed! As for Ishmael, the alleged ancestor of the Arab peoples (which is still false of course) see the Bible.

12) If what this response, inserted by force into the brain of our children, implies ... is that the religion of Abraham of Isaac and Jacob was the first religion of mankind. THEN IT IS, OF COURSE, FALSE AND COMPLETELY FALSE ! What was the religion of mankind 100,000 years ago? We are reduced to hypotheses!

13) Respecting nature was not such a stupid idea. This is called ecology.

14) Drinking a little alcohol or playing games of chance is by no means reprehensible in itself IF IT IS DONE WITHOUT ABUSE, WITHOUT EXAGGERATING. In any case, it's better than stoning women who have had sex outside marriage, or marrying 6-year-old girls to 58-year-old men.

15) The very existence of Muhammad's first wife, Khadija, proves that the status of the ancient Arab women was better than that of the fully veiled Muslim women of today. The Arab woman of that time was often lettered (poetess, like the unfortunate Medinan mother named Asma bint Marwan, whom Muhammad had murdered) priestess (Kahina); and could have own property not automatically passing under the control of her husband: case of Khadija precisely. The property of a wife among the Meccans did not become the property of her husband, the absolute property of it remained to the wife. It is true, on the other hand, that the Arab society at the time lived very badly the birth of girls, a little like in India or China today. The stupid custom of dowry ruined families, from where, of course, the temptation of the infanticide of the girls. Since our religion is only a religion of truth, there cannot be a question here to deny that there were perhaps in Mecca and surroundings little girls buried alive ; and that each time they were hateful crimes, but more by Malthusianism than anything else.

Or were they human sacrifices? The verse 59 of chapter 16 in the Quran that speaks of it is rather enigmatic. It reminds us much of the Roman practice connected with the worship of goddess Levana.

It is not enough to be born in a Roman family indeed, to be brought up there: the newborn child must be raised (tollere) from the ground where the midwife has laid it down, then taken in his arms by his father. This gesture means that the father acknowledges his son, commits feeding him and at the same time establishes his rights over him. If the child is a girl, the father orders only to feed her. Otherwise, the newborn child is abandoned on the street, suffocated or simply deprived of food. A second rite marks the child's entry into social life: nine days after his birth if he is a boy, and eight days later if it is a girl (dies lustricus), the child receives a name.

Let us not forget, moreover, that the "benefactor" of Mankind that was Muhammad did worse, in many fields (wars, summary executions or after sham judgment, stoning, anti-Jewish pogroms). Let's say it quite simply, we're starting to get tired of all these benefactors of Mankind, who further complicate only in reality the situation between us, poor human beings.

16) We do not know to what people refer this small Muslim catechism of Saint-Andrew of Reunion Island. The atrocious custom of forcing widows to commit suicide on the funeral pyre of their husbands

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(sati) did exist (among certain peoples, from the Indies to Gaul, see Caesar), but not among the Arabs, at least not to our knowledge. A new lie instilled in the children ??

17) Once again we do not know to what people refer this small French catechism of Saint Andrew of Reunion Island. The Egyptians and their pharaohs? The Arab peoples, on the other hand, seem to have had strict laws on the subject, such as the equating of adopted children with biological children. In Arab society at the time, for example, there was no right to marry the wife of his son, including his adopted son and this prohibition was so severe that God had to send the archangel Gabriel himself to get things straight on this subject. By explaining, for example, that Muhammad had the right to marry whom he liked, even the wife of his (adopted justly: Zayd) son, after having forced him to separate from her. See chapter 33, the chapter of the clans and the corresponding ad hoc hadiths. Another lie, one more ??

Chapter 33, verse 4. "God has not….nor has He made those whom you claim (to be your sons) your sons.

Chapter 33, verse 50. "O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto you your wives unto whom you have paid their dowries (marriage portion), and those whom your right hand possesses of those whom God has given you as spoils of war, and the daughters of your uncle on the father's side and the daughters of your aunts on the father's side, and the daughters of your uncle on the mother's side and the daughters of your aunts on the mother's side who emigrated with you, and a believing woman if she gives herself unto the Prophet and the Prophet desire to ask her in marriage - a privilege for you only, not for the (rest of) believers.” But, adds verse 52: "It is not allowed you to take (other) women henceforth, nor that you should change them for other wives even though their beauty pleased thee, save those whom your right hand possesses as slaves.”

18) Unchanged situation nowadays! See the blasphemies in the land of Islam, the fatwas , Jerusalem, the Holy Trinity, the secularism, the nature of Christ, etc. Welcome exception? King Henry IV, for whom Paris was well worth a Mass.

19) Unchanged situation. But would it not rather be an allusion of God to the personal case of the unfortunate Muhammad?

20) Finally, something true! Indeed the pagans of Mecca went round the Kaaba, for it is not the nakedness that is an evil or a sin, but the look that we may take at a man or a woman ... naked....

Man does not have a body, he is a body, or more exactly the inseparable union of a spirit and a body. Nature (and therefore God necessarily) has endowed us with sexuality, this is as natural as breathing or drinking a glass of water. Only its abuse is reprehensible (pedophilia when the partner has less than ten years for example, rapes, etc.).

21) Unchanged situation. Pagans and Christians believe that a deity may have children. Isa (Jesus) in the case of Christians.

22) Veiled criticism of the racist Ezra ??

23) Commentary by Peter DeLaCrau of course! You doubt it ??

24) What does it mean exactly: that their tongue is thoroughly cleaned? It's not very clear ! Canker sores on tongue or linguistic nationalism and refusal of any crossbreeding in this field? We, all what we know, it is that the custom of the people in Mecca at the time was to put the children in wandering people living outside the city; in order to teach them the good Arabic, in order to teach them how to speak good Arabic. Why not ? Our position on this has always been very clear. Unlike anti-racists, we, we are for cultural diversity and linguistic pluralism, a factor that enriches humanity. Any language that dies and disappears, would it be the Rhaeto-Romansh in the Swiss Grisons or such a dialect of an Amazonian tribe, impoverishes mankind. To take a language A and a language B, to make with them a third one, a language C, while letting preciously the first two subsisting? Yes ! But take a language A and a language B, to make a language C making disappear the other two, then no to such an anti-racism! No to such linguistic mixing! Let us use in this case a neutral artificial language like Interlingua or Esperanto in order to communicate!

25) Although non-Arabic-speaking people, the pious Muslims of the French department of La Reunion, writers of this catechism, did not consider it necessary to translate. We are not linguists, but it is to be meaning something like "sent by God."

26) Here again, same remark about this contemptuous refusal of any acculturation. It is to be probably Medina.

27) He who told Muhammad when he was a child the story of the magic birds (see chapter 105, the elephant chapter).

28) My goodness! What precision for a man whose date of birth is unknown!

29) What do think of that those he made assassinated (from the Jews in Yathrib / Medina to his opponents in Mecca)?

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30) Pious yes, but not in the Muslim religion. She was a pagan or a Henotheistic woman, even a believer close to Judeo-Christianity, but not a Muslim woman. At least in the beginning.

31) Again, this contemptuous refusal of any attempt at acculturation or translation. Nikah must mean something like marriage or union.

32) Mary the Coptic. Why not translate? She was one of Muhammad's sexual slaves.

33) It probably means something like "The Most High."

34) Allusion to what is called the doctrine of the impeccability (isma) of the prophets. Abraham never sinned during his life and was a little saint. Let us dare to affirm it with confidence: our conviction to us is that Muhammad nevertheless ought to commit some sins during his life. It is sufficient to ask the six or nine hundred Medinan Jews thrown into a mass grave on his orders (after the chief of the Banu Aws named Sa’d ibn Mu’adh gave a death sentence ). How can such things be repeated to children? That Muhammad was not a Hitler is certain, but it was not an angel either!

35) Every messenger (Rasul) is a prophet, but each prophet is not a messenger ... A messenger (Rasul) is a prophet to whom a book has been revealed, that is to say, a law that makes null and void the one that existed before. Unlike the nabis (or minor prophets), the Rasuls or messengers are therefore major prophets. The Jews initially regarded Jesus only as a simple prophet (nabi), though he nevertheless abolished the two major laws of Judaism that were the Sabbath and the "divorce"; what proves well that he was a major prophet (messenger-rasul) and not a simple nabi (minor prophet). He himself confirmed it by refusing the title of prophet. The word nabi is a term used in the Quran to refer generally to the minor prophets of Judaism such as Daniel or Isaac ...

They were therefore prophets intervening within the law of Moses, they did not abolish the laws of Moses, did not reveal new laws, but were often guides or advisers of the rulers of the kingdom of Israel. Divine advisers in some way, to prevent the latter from going out of the right track. Some kings were also themselves prophets as David or Solomon.

Moreover, the way in which they received their revelation differed from that of the messengers, most often it was in dreams as in the case of the prophet Daniel.

The only hiccup is that I justly believed that Muhammad had not come to preach a new religion, but to remind of an earlier one, the Hanifiyah, the religion of the God of Abraham of Isaac and Jacob. He was therefore only a nabi and not a rasul? I understand nothing.

36) Prophets are pouring thick and fast! Do not throw anymore in! By the way, why 124,000 and not 144,000 as in the Jehovah's Witnesses?

37) Comment by Peter DeLaCrau. Did you doubt it?

38) This is obviously false and completely false. Why are so many people persuaded that in the spirituality field lies are necessary to show the truth? Let us repeat it once again, Abraham could not come to Mecca for two reasons. The first is that his historicity is very doubtful and seems more a legend than something else, the second is that, if he really existed, he has never been here.

39) Nevertheless, there were some of them able to make children to the daughters of men, in the simplest way of the world, and not as in the case of Mary later, according to the Bible (Torah, Genesis 6, 1 to 4).

40) You said paras ???

41) Word probably meaning something like "glorious" "radiant" (Quran).

42) From the Arabic Surah: Chapter. Why not translate?

43) Meccan. Why not say it quite simply?

44) Medinan. Same comment !

45) Word probably meaning something like "noble" "illustrious" (Quran).

46) So I confess to asking myself some questions. Let us adventure a translation: something like "power or grace" ???

47) Umpteenth lie or untruth. Ethiopia's Negus converting to Islam ?? We would have been aware of it!

48) The situation does not seem to have been so dramatic.

49) Countless were then in Mecca , ACCORDING TO THE MUSLIM TRADITION, the martyrs, such as Sumaya or Bilal, to whom we may apply this short description of the ten lectures on the martyrs by Paul Allard. On the one hand, historians and critics are divided on the subject, and, on the other, accurate statistics are wanting. Our author has found the means of avoiding any exaggeration. If he has been careful not to follow those who imagine that the martyrs amounted to ten or twelve millions, yet neither has he subscribed to the opinion of those critics who would bring it down to a very minimum. With great prudence he discusses the value of the testimonies which still survive, and, though appealing only to documents of indisputable authority, he infers that " the opinion which maintains the existence of a large number of martyrs is the exact translation of historic truth," but with regard to the actual number it cannot even be guessed, and " God alone knows it" ….The death of his

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uncle, the chief of the clan, Abu Talib, was indeed a hard blow for Muhammad, because it left his hands free to those who considered him a dangerous insane; and particularly another uncle of Muhammad called Abu Lahab. As for Khadija, let us simply note that he remarried a few weeks after her death with a much younger “woman,” to say the least (a six-year-old girl: Aysha).

50) Strange expression. Preached would perhaps be the right word if one means to propagate faith. It is a pity that Islam is still a religion of foreigners in every sense of the word (non-citizens or citizens, but not sharing the same values).

51) As it is well known, the doah is a kind of short, improvised prayer, an invocation.

52) Arabic word meaning ascension and not to be confused with the night journey that took place on this occasion. It is as true as the resurrection of the Nazarene Jesus. What is to say everything!

53) The author of this text has perhaps in view, in writing this reply, the great mosque of Jerusalem or Dome of the Rock. Let us point out, however, that the latter did not yet exist at the time. It was only the public dump of Aelia / Iliya.

54) Another flood of non-translated words. We will not be much mistaken by assuming that all that is to mean something like "prayers, prayers and even many prayers" accompanied by a certain number of ritual gestures (prostration, bowing, etc.). Rakat is the basic unit of Islamic prayer. Each ritual prayer is composed of 2 to 4 of these rakats. A rakat is the succession, from standing up,

-of bowing (until the torso is horizontal, hands firmly resting on the knees) followed by a standing up straight of the torso, then

- of prostration (man puts his forehead and nose on the ground, his hands laid flat on each side of his face, his knees and feet also placed on the ground) followed by a new standing up straight of (while kneeling) then

-of a new prostration similar to the previous one and of a standing up.

Each of these rakats is accompanied by ritual formulas.

55) In the strict sense of the term, Muslim mythology speaks not of seeing, but of hearing. Muhammad would not have seen, but heard God (writing on the book of Destiny).

56) A sort of magical or divine horse like the Pegasus of Greek mythology.

57) God cannot lie, either because he does not exist, or because, if he exists, he cannot say anything, isn’t it John (Toland)? The nickname of "truthful" was certainly not given to Abu Bakr by God ... but by men, Muhammad.

58) THE HAREM OF MUHAMMAD.

Pious and virtuous wives ... Are they well the appropriate adjectives? Polygamy can only incite the wives to jealous or denounce each other. There is also a verse in the Quran warning against the disloyalty, fornication, or prostitution of the women of Muhammad: " O you wives of the Prophet! Whosoever of you commits manifest lewdness, the punishment for her will be doubled” (chapter 33 verse 30).

Where is virtue in all this? God (or Omar?) was besides forced to stigmatize the lack of dignity or even of restraint of the wives of the prophet, by ordering them to speak to men only behind a curtain. "O you wives of the Prophet! You are not like any other women….be not soft of speech, lest he in whose heart is a disease aspire (to you), but utter customary speech. And stay in your houses. Bedizen not yourselves with the bedizenment of the Time of Paganism "(chapter 33 verses 32-33).

The entry of men in Muhammad’s house was afterwards forbidden a priori: "O you who believe! Enter not the dwellings of the Prophet for a meal without waiting for the proper time unless permission be granted you. But if you are invited, enter, and, when your meal is ended, then disperse "(chapter 33 verse 53). God cares really about everything! “When you ask of them (the wives of the Prophet) anything, ask it of them from behind a curtain.” (Chapter 33 verse 53.) And since apparently the wives of Muhammad were much desired, marrying them after repudiation or widowhood, was categorically forbidden by God (And it is not for you to…nor that you should ever marry his wives after him. Lo! that in God’s sight would be an enormity. Chapter 33 verse 53).

Where is virtue in all this? See chapter 66 verses 3 to 5 (Muhammad threatens his wives with repudiation because of their conspiracies), and also chapter 24, verses 4 to 17 (adultery of Aysha,

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married to Muhammad when she was nine years old. She was perhaps physically advanced for her age so there was no pedophilia from the prophet, but anyway, did Aisha really know what she was doing? Anyway, only the result is important in connection with this accusation of adultery, for as a famous "Roman” saying states, Caesar's wife is above all suspicion, that is to say, can be in no way suspected. Apparently, God was of the same opinion about the wife of Muhammad).

Where is virtue in all this?

On the side of the wife of the adopted son of Muhammad? The poor man was compelled to repudiate her (as we have seen above, note number 17) to allow Muhammad to marry her. The thing caused a lot of gossip at the time in the community. Muhammad silenced the criticisms with a new "divine revelation." Quran 33: 37-38: " And when you said unto him on whom God has conferred favor and you have conferred favor [Zayd] : Keep your wife to yourself, and fear God. And you did hide in your mind that which God was to bring to light, and you did fear mankind whereas God has a better right that you should fear Him [poor Muhammad]. We gave her unto you in marriage, so that (henceforth) there may be no sin for believers in respect of wives of their adopted sons, when the latter have performed the necessary formality (of release) from them. The commandment of God must be fulfilled. There is no reproach for the Prophet in that which God makes his due. That was God's way with those who passed away of old, and the commandment of God is certain destiny. "

And there you have it, keep moving, there's nothing to see! But where is virtue in all this?

On the side of Sawda? Sawda was an excellent housewife, but it was enough her husband As-Sakran ibn Amr.to convert to Christianity during her exile in Ethiopia, so that she thought she was allowed to get married to another man. For Muhammad was only a man and not a God like Jesus, no? (Or it is that we have understood nothing either from Christianity or from Islam.) Without denying what we have already had the opportunity to write about the healthy, normal, and natural nature of sexuality; let's say quite frankly to our Muslim friends that for us virtue does not seem at all, even if she was a good cook, on her side, but rather on the side of women like Camma or Khiomara.

KHIOMARA.

Khiomara was the wife of a public figure of the region of Ankara (Turkey) named Ortiagon. Polybius, who knew her personally and admired her heroism, told us her story. She had been captured at the time when the Romans crushed the Galatians. This woman of rare beauty, with a crowd of prisoners like her, was in the guard of an avid and debauched centurion (a real roughneck soldier). Seeing that his infamous proposals made her back down with horror, he did violence to the poor captive whom the fortune of war placed at his mercy.

Then, in order to overcome this indignity, he flattered his victim of the hope of being given back to his family, but he did not give her this hope freely, as a lover had done. He fixed a price, and, in order not to let any of his own in the secret, he allowed the captive to choose one of his companions in misfortune to go and talk about his redemption with her parents. A date was given near the river; two friends of the captive, only two, were to go there with the gold, during the following night, to do the exchange. By a chance fatal to the centurion, there was precisely in the same prison, a slave of that woman. So it was he whom she took for this mission, and at nightfall the centurion led him out of the Roman camp. On the next night, the two parents meet the centurion with his captive. Gold is shown to him; while he is making sure that the agreed sum is there, the woman orders, in his language, to draw the sword and kill the centurion leant on his balance [according to Plutarch "who was embracing and stroking her "]. He is slaughtered, his head cut off, and, enveloping it in her dress, the captive goes to rejoin her husband. The latter, rescued from the battle of Mount Olympus, had returned to his house. Before kissing him, she made the head of the centurion roll at his feet, and as he was astonished and retorted, "It is good to keep his word"; she replied: "It is even better that there be on earth only one man alive who has had a relationship with me." Rape, revenge, she confessed everything to her husband; and, all the time that she lived since (it is added), her conduct bore until the last moment the glory of this action.

Plutarch. On the bravery of women. XX Camma. XXII Chiomara. Livy. Roman History XXXVIII 24.

Allow me to make a new fundamental remark here. Nature and therefore God have endowed us with sexuality, and to use it must be as natural as breathing or having a rest. But can the coexistence of several wives around one man (as Islam advocates it) really push them to virtue and serenity? We strongly doubt it, it is enough to look at history; how can you affirm such things?

Considering as pious and virtuous in a compulsory way a certain number of highly critical characters (Abraham and his wife or half-sister Sarah, whom he sold to Pharaoh, for example); is a racist compulsion of the monolaters, whether Jewish or Christian, and therefore also apparently Muslim

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(isma). Was the inventor of vaccination necessarily pious and virtuous? And yet, he has been more useful to mankind than the Quran. The only wife of the prophet to be pious and virtuous was Khadija, but she was not Muslim. She was a Christian (or at least belonged to a family of henotheistic hanifs more or less close to Judeo-Christianity!)

CONCLUSION: THE ISLAM EXPLAINED TO CHILDREN WITHOUT IJTIHAD* , IT IS LAMENTABLE!

There are more mistakes, lies, or approximations than objective truth! What is the utility for mankind to hand over to young minds full of future so many mistakes of translation, or untruths, per kilometer? Is it morally well defendable ?? Complete freedom of adults in matters of worship will object anti-racists!

If a religion admits human sacrifices or slavery, then we must respect these practices, the anti-racism, it is that?

Of course, yes, but what about the future freedom of children? Have you only thought about it? Children are not things. They do not belong to us as we may have furniture or cattle, and we have only duties towards them; the first of all being to make them better and happier adults than we, free and blooming, whatever they may be, regardless of sex, color, or lineage; and with a faith in Man enlightened by reason.

We are therefore resolutely for the non-handing over to the younger generations of such false and alienating ideas! Between consenting adults yes! To children no! Because when it is passed on to children, this is what it produces when they become adults.

* Ijtihad = critical mind in the mu’tazili way.

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AFTERWORD IN THE WAY OF JOHN TOLAND.

Pseudo-druids with fabulous initiatory derivation (the famous and indescribable or hilarious perennial tradition) having multiplied since some time; it appeared us necessary to put at the disposal of each and everyone, these few notes, hastily written, one evening of November, in order to give our readers the desire to know more about true druidism.

This work claims to be honest but in no way neutral. It was given itself for an aim to defend or clear the cluto (fame) of this admirable ancient religion.

Nothing replaces personal meditation, including about obscure or incomprehensible lays strewing these books, and which have been inserted intentionally, in order to force you to reflect, to find your own way. These books are not dogmas to be followed blindly and literally. As you know, we must beware as it was the plague, of the letter. The letter kills, only spirit vivifies.

Nothing replaces either personal experience, and it’s by following the way that we find the way. Therefore rely only on your own strength in this Search for the Grail. What matters is the attitude to be adopted in life and not the details of the dogma. Druidism is less important than druidiaction (John-P. MARTIN).

These few leaves scribbled in a hurry are nevertheless in no way THE BOOKS TO READ ON THIS MATTER, they are only a faint gleam of them.

The only druidic library worthy of the name is not in fact composed of only 12 (or 27) books, but of several hundred books.

The few booklets forming this mini-library are not themselves an increase of knowledge on the subject, and are only some handbooks intended for the schoolchildren of druidism.

These simplified summaries intended for the elementary courses of druidism will be replaced by courses of a somewhat higher level, for those who really want to study it in a more relevant way.

This small library is consequently a first attempt to adapt (intended for young adults) the various reflections about the druidic knowledge and truth, to which the last results of the new secularism, positive and open-minded, worldwide, being established, have led.

Unlike Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which swarm, concerning the higher Being, with childish anthropomorphism taken literally (fundamentalism known as integrism in the Catholic world); our druidism too, on the other hand, will use only very little of them, and will stick in this field, to the absolute minimum.

But in order to talk about God or the Devil we shall be quite also obliged to use a basic language, and therefore a more or less important amount of this anthropomorphism. Or then it would be necessary to completely give up discussing it.

This first shelf of our future library consecrated to the subject, aims to show precisely the harmonious authenticity of the neo-druidic will and knowledge. To show at which point its current major theses have deep roots because the reflection about Mythologies, it’s our Bible to us. The adaptations of this brief talk required by the differences of culture, age, spiritual maturity, social status, etc. will be to do with the concerned druids (veledae and others?)

Note, however. Important! What these few notes, hastily thrown on paper during a too short life, are not (higgledy-piggledy).

A divine revelation. A (still also divine) law. A (non-religious or secular) law. A (scientific) law. A dogma. An order.

What I search most to share is a state of mind, nothing more. As our old master had very well said one day : "OUR CIVILIZATION HAS NO CHOICE: IT WILL BE CELTISM OR IT WILL BE DEATH” (Peter Lance).

What these few notes, hastily thrown on paper during a too short life, are.

Some dream. An adventure. A journey. An escape. A revolt cry against the moral and physical ugliness of this society. An attempt to reach the universal by starting from the individual. A challenge. An obstacle fecund to overcome . An incentive to think. A guide for action. A map. A plan. A compass. A pole star or morning star up there in the mountain. A fire overnight in a glade?

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What the man who had collected the core of this library, Peter DeLaCrau, is not.

- A god.

- A half god.

- A quarter of God.

- A saint.

- A philosopher (recognized, official, and authorized or licensed, as those who talk a lot in television. Except, of course, by taking the word in its original meaning, which is that of amateur searching wisdom and knowledge.

What he is: a man, and nothing of what is human therefore is unknown to him. Peter DeLaCrau has no superhuman or exceptional power. Nothing of what he said wrote or did could have timeless value. At the best he hopes that his extreme clearness about our society and its dominant ideology (see its official philosophers, its journalists, its mass media and the politically correct of its right-thinking people, at least about what is considered to be the main thing); as well his non-conformism, and his outspokenness, combined with a solid contrariness (which also earned to him for that matter a lot of troubles or affronts); can be useful.

The present small library for beginners “contains the dose of humanity required by the current state of civilization” (Henry Lizeray). However it’s only a gathering of materials waiting for the ad hoc architect or mason.

A whole series of booklets increasing our knowledge of these basic elements will be published soon. This different presentation of the druidic knowledge will preserve nevertheless the unity as well as the harmony which can exist between these various statements of the same philosophical and well-considered paganism : spirituality worthy of our day, spirituality for our days.

Case of translations into foreign languages (Spanish, German, Italian, Polish, etc.)

The misspellings, the grammatical mistakes, the inadequacies of style, as well as in the writing of the proper nouns perhaps and, of course, the Gallicisms due to forty years of life in France, may be corrected. Any other improvement of the text may also be brought if necessary (by adding, deleting, or changing, details); Peter DeLaCrau having always regretted not being able to reach perfection in this field.

But on condition that neither alteration nor betrayal, in a way or another, is brought to the thought of the author of this reasoned compilation. Every illustration without a caption can be changed. New illustrations can be brought.

But illustrations having a caption must be only improved (by the substitution of a good photograph to a bad sketch, for example?)

It goes without saying that the coordinator of this rapid and summary reasoned compilation , Peter DeLaCrau, does not maintain to have invented (or discovered) himself, all what is previous; that he does not claim in any way that it is the result of his personal researches (on the ground or in libraries).

What s previous is indeed essentially resulting from the excellent works or websites referenced in bibliography and whose direct consultation is strongly recommended.

We will never insist enough on our will not be the men of one book (the Book), but from at least twelve, like Ireland’s Fenians, for obvious reasons of open-mindedness, truth being our only religion.

Once again, let us repeat; the coordinator of the writing down of these few notes hastily thrown on paper, by no means claims to have spent his life in the dust of libraries; or in the field, in the mud of the rescue archaeology excavations; in order to unearth unpublished pieces of evidence about the past of Ireland (or of Wales or of East Indies or of China).

THEREFORE PETER DELACRAU DOES NOT WANT TO BE CONSIDERED, IN ANY WAY, AS THE AUTHOR OF THE FOREGOING TEXTS.

HE TRIES BY NO MEANS TO ASCRIBE HIMSELF THE CREDIT OF THEM. He is only the editor or the compiler of them. They are, for the most part, documents broadcast on the web, with a few exceptions.

ON THE OTHER HAND, HE DEMANDS ALL THEIR FAULTS AND ALL THEIR INSUFFICIENCIES.

Peter DeLaCrau claims only one thing, the mistakes, errors, or various imperfections, of this book. He alone is to be blamed in this case. But he trusts his contemporaries (human nature being what it is) for vigorously pointing out to him.

Note found by the heirs to Peter DeLaCrau and inserted by them into this place.

By respect for Mankind , in order to save time, and not to make it waste time, I will make easier the work of those who make absolutely a point of being on the right side of the fence while fighting (heroically of course) in order to save the world of my claws (my ideas or my inclinations, my tendencies).

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To these courageous and implacable detractors, of whom the profundity of reflection worthy of that of a marquis of Vauvenargues equals only the extent of the general knowledge, worthy of Pico della Mirandola I say…

Now take a sheet of paper, a word processing if you prefer, put by order of importance 20 characteristics which seem to you most serious, most odious, most hateful, in the history of Mankind, since the prehistoric men and Nebuchadnezzar, according to you….AND CONSIDER THAT I AM THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF YOU BECAUSE I HAVE THEM ALL!

Scapegoats are always needed! A heretic in the Middle Ages, a witch in Salem in the 17th century, a racist in the 20th century, an alien lizard in the 21st century, I am the man you will like to hate in order to feel a better person (a smart and nice person).

I am, as you will and in the order of importance you want: an atheist, a satanist, a stupid person, with Down’s syndrome, brutish, homosexual, deviant, homophobic, communist, Nazi, sexist, a philatelist, a pathological liar, robber, smug, psychopath, a falsely modest monster of hubris, and what do I still know, it is up to you to see according to the current fashion.

Here, I cannot better do (in helping you to save the world).

[Unlike my despisers who are all good persons, the salt of the earth, i.e., young or modern and dynamic, courageous, positive, kind, intelligent, educated, or at least who know; showing much hindsight in their thoroughgoing meditation on the trends of History; and on the moral or ethical level: generous, altruistic, but poor of course (it is their only vice) because giving all to others; moreover deeply respectful of the will of God and of the Constitution …

As for me I am a stiff old reactionary, sheepish, disconnected from his time, paranoid, schizophrenic, incoherent, capricious, never satisfied, a villain, stupid, having never studied or at least being unaware of everything about the subject in question; accustomed to rash judgments based on prejudices without any reflection; selfish and wealthy; a fiend of the Devil, inherently Nazi-Bolshevist or Stalinist-Hitlerian. Hitlerian Trotskyist they said when I was young. In short a psychopathic murderer as soon as the breakfast… what enables me therefore to think what I want, my critics also besides, and to try to make everybody know it even no-one in particular].

Signed: the coordinator of the works, Peter DeLaCrau known as Hesunertus, a researcher in druidism.

A man to whom nothing human was foreign. An unemployed worker, post office worker, divorcee, homeless person, vagrant, taxpayer, citizen, and a cuckolded elector... In short one of the 9 billion human beings having been in transit aboard this spaceship therefore. Born on planet Earth, January 13, 1952.

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CONTENT.

Warning to the reader Page 004.

The problem of sources Page 007

The Arabia of Abu Talib Page 009

The Doctrine of the I'jaz (of the Quran) Page 013

The history of the Quran publishing Page 015

Structure and quality of the reasoning Page 020.

Other obscurities in the text Page 023

Contradictions with serious consequences Page 024.

Secondary contradictions Page 028.

Contradictions or differences with Biblical Data Page 029

Other contradictions Page 031

Synthesis Page 034.

Style of the Quran Page 035

Critics of old Page 034

The tolerant verses Page 045

The satanic verses Page 048

The abrogating verses Page 051

The abrogated verses taqiya Page 055

----------- ------------ ------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------

The heavyweight of the personality of Muhammad Page 061.

The problem of Isma Page 064

The broad outlines of Muhammad’s life Page 069

Muhammad’s sexual life Page 073

Consequences on Muslim morality Page 077

Normative framework Page 081

Religious isolation Page 085

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- ------------------------------------------------------------

Muhammad’s replacement Page 087

Kharijism Page 089 .

Origins of Shiism Page 091

Reminder about Shiism Page 094.

Sunnism Page 095

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The fivefold ranking of human beings Page 098

The subhumans Page 099

The kuffar and the kufr Page 101

The kuffar of the type mushrikun Page 104

The Christian oxymoron Page 108

Various verses about unbelievers Page 110.

Conclusion Page 112

What Quran and Hadiths say about Jews or Christians Page 113

Legal status of polytheists Page 114

The people of the book and the dhimmitude Page 116

Omar’s pact Page 120

Conclusion Page 123

The dhimmi complex Page 126

The dhimmitude according to Bat Ye'or Page 129

Comparative Communautariology Page 131.

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The newfound Muslims Page 138

Basic Muslims Page 140

The Good Muslims Page 143

The Mosques of Dissent Page 146

The first inquisitions Page 147

The first true Inquisition (the Mihna) Page 154.

The heretics Page 157

Conclusion Page 159

Those who choose another religion squarely Page 160

Women legal status Page 166

The lot of the women of vanquished Page 167

Sex slavery Page 169

Imposed polygamy Page 171.

Temporary marriages Page 173.

Repudiation or divorce Page 175

Islamic veil Page 177.

Various requirements Page 181

Inheritance Will and Testimony Page 183

Working women or housewives Page 186

Fate in the Hereafter Page 188

Conclusion Page 189

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The slaves Page 190

The slavery Page 193.

---------------------- --------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------- ---------------

Unto each one his religion or ... Page 198

A spirituality far from being peaceful Page 201

The first Muslim religious wars Page 204

The lesser jihad in the Quran Page 211

The minor jihad is therefore a duty Page 214

Hadiths calling for lesser jihad Page 217

Conclusion Page 218

The doctrine of the lesser jihad Page 220

Offensive or defensive jihad? Page 223

Means and conditions of the lesser jihad Page 226

Division of the spoils Page 229

International Law according to Islam Page 231

The taqiya and the rules of war Page 232

Truce and Treaties Page 236

God is the best deceiver Page 238

Taqiya and kitman Page 241

The strategy of the Ikhtilaf Page 244

Some examples Page 247

The problem of false friends Page 248

Shortened quotations Page 253.

A textbook case Page 254.

Does the end always justify the means? Page 256

--------------------- ------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Din Dawla and Dunya Page 258

The Problem of Divine Rights in Islamic Law Page 260

An invasive religion Page 262

Muslim Law Page 263

A holistic and theocratic counter-society Page 265

The fight against dissent Page 267

The ideological struggle Page 268

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Science and Philosophy Page 273

Islam of Cordoba Page 282.

The end of the Golden Age or of the Islam in Cordoba Page 289

The deep causes Page 290

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The closing of the gates of interpretation (Ijtihad) Page 294

Islam and religious minorities Page 300

The Armenian genocide Page 301

APPENDICES

The day of a pious Muslim Page 304

The medicine of the Prophet Page 306

Hygiene and private life Page 310

The lesser Muslim catechism Page 312.

Tafsir by Peter DeLaCrau Page 317

Afterword in the way of John Toland Page 324

BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

1 Quotations from the ancient authors speaking about Celts or druids.

2. Various preliminary general information about Celts.

3. History of the pact with gods volume 1.

4. Druidism Bible: history of the pact with gods volume 2.

5. History of the peace with gods volume 3.

6. History of the peace with gods volume 4.

7. History of the peace with gods volume 5.

8. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 1.

9. Irish apocryphal texts.

10. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 2.

11. From Fenians to Culdees or “The Great Science which enlightens” volume 3.

12. The hundred paths of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 1 (druidic mythology).

13. The hundred paths of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 2 (druidic mythology).

14. The hundred ways of paganism. Science and philosophy volume 3 (druidic mythology).

15. The Greater Camminus: elements of druidic theology: volume 1.

16. The Greater Camminus: elements of druidic theology: volume 2.

17. The druidic pleroma: angels jinns or demons volume 1.

18. The druidic pleroma angels jinns or demons volume 2

19. Mystagogy or sacred theater of ancients Celts.

20. Celtic poems.

21. The genius of the Celtic paganism volume 1.

22. The Roland’s complex .

23. At the base of the lantern of the dead.

24. The secrets of the old druid of the Menapian forest.

25. The genius of Celtic paganism volume 2 (liberty reciprocity simplicity).

26. Rhetoric : the treason of intellectuals.

27. Small dictionary of druidic theology volume 1.

28. From the ancient philosophers to the Irish druid.

29. Judaism Christianity and Islam: first part.

30. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 1.

31. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 2.

32. Judaism Christianity and Islam : second part volume 3.

33. Third part volume 1: what is Islam? Short historical review of the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

34. Third part volume 2: What is Islam? First approaches to the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

35. Third part volume 3: What is Islam? Sounding the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

36. Third part volume 4: What is Islam? The true 5 pillars of the set QUR.HAD.SIR. and SHAR.FIQ.MAD.

37. Couiro anmenion or small dictionary of druidic theology volume 2.

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Peter DeLaCrau. Born on January 13rd, 1952, in St. Louis (Missouri) from a family of woodsmen or Canadian trappers who had left Prairie du Rocher (or Fort de Chartres in Illinois) in 1765. Peter DeLaCrau is thus born the same year as the Howard Hawks film entitled “the Big Sky”. Consequently father of French origin, mother of Irish origin: half Irish half French. Married to Mary-Helen ROBERTS on March 12th, 1988, in Paris-Aubervilliers (French department of Seine-Saint-Denis). Hence 3 children. John Wolf born May 11th, 1989. Alex born April 10th, 1990. Millicent born August 31st, 1993. Deceased on September 28th, 2012, in La Rochelle (France).

Peter DELACRAU is not a philosopher by profession, except taking this term in its original meaning of amateur searching wisdom and knowledge. And he is neither a god neither a demigod nor the messenger of any god or demigod (and of course not a messiah).

But he has become in a few years one of the most lucid and of the most critical observers of the French neo-druidic or neo-pagan world.

He was also some time assistant-treasurer of a rather traditionalist French druidic group of which he could get archives and texts or publications.

But his constant criticism both domestic and foreign French policy, and his political positions (on the end of his life he had become an admirer of Howard Zinn Paul Krugman Bernie Sanders and Michael Moore); had earned him moreover some vexations on behalf of the French authorities which did everything, including in his professional or private life, in the last years of his life, to silence him.

Peter DeLaCrau has apparently completely missed the return to the home country of his distant ancestors.

It is true unfortunately that France today is no longer the France of Louis XIV or of Lafayette or even of Napoleon (which has really been a great nation in those days).

Peter DeLaCrau having spent most of his life (the last one) in France, of which he became one of the best specialists,

even one of the rare thoroughgoing observers of the contemporary French society quite simply; his three children, John-Wolf, Alex and Millicent (of Cuers: French Riviera) pray his readers to excuse the countless misspellings or grammatical errors that pepper his writings. At the end of his life, Peter DeLaCrau mixed a little both languages (English but also French).

Those were therefore the notes found on the hard disk of the computer of our father, or in his papers.

Our father has of course left us a considerable work, nobody will say otherwise, but some of the words frequently coming from his pen, now and then are not always very clear. After many consultations between us, at any rate, above what we have been able to understand of them.

Signed: the three children of Peter DeLaCrau: John-Wolf, Alex and Millicent. Of Cuers.