Sheikh al-Adwan was born in 1952 and raised in Amman, Jordan and studied Islamic Sharia at the College for Islamic studies in Amman. In Muslim circles he’s considered incredibly controversial as he not only supports Israel, which is rare for a Jordanian, but believes it is a religious duty for all Muslims to support the Jewish State.
Sheikh Ahmad al-Adwan
- He believes Islam commands Muslims and Jews to be friends
- He believes the Quran bequeaths Israel to the Jews
- He believes antisemitism can be defeated through correct interpretation of Islam
- He believes according to the Quran, Palestine should not exist as a country
- He believes Israel is a peaceful nation and the Jews a peaceful people
On Jewish and Muslim friendship
The Jews are our cousins and therefore we must pray for them and visit them, live alongside them, grant them respect and cooperate with them at the highest levels of esteem and appreciation. This, because we are not more God-fearing, smarter, or better than the Prophet Muhammad may he rest in peace, who lived alongside them and behaved honorably, mercifully and amicably with them. Let us state that it was permitted for Muslims to marry them.
On the Jewish State of Israel
Indeed, I recognize their sovereignty over their land. I believe in the Holy Quran, and this fact is stated many times in the book. For instance ‘O my people! Enter the holy land which Allah hath assigned unto you,’ [Quran 5:21], ‘We made the Children of Israel inheritors of such things.’ [Quran 26:59] and additional verses in the Holy Book.
And there are additional reasons: this people (Israel) is peaceful and peace-loving, is not hostile or aggressive; [they are] a people that defends itself only when necessary, while trying to minimally harm its enemies,” he said. “In addition, I recognize the fact that God may He be praised gave preference to these people over humans and demons until the end of days. God does not give preference for nothing but grants all that which they deserve. God may He be praised never turned to any [other] people by name and grant them this honor, aside from the People of Israel, who are named for their ancestor Israel (Jacob), may he rest in peace, as it says in the Quran ‘O Children of Israel.’ In contrast, in approaching others it is said ‘O Believers’ or ‘O people,’ which is a more general greeting.
On antisemitism
In my opinion the way to end anti-Semitism is to concentrate efforts and call for peace, spreading knowledge and forthrightly educate people of the values of justice and truth in accordance with what appears in the books of God – the Torah, Tehillim, the Ingil [the Gospel] and the Quran, which admired the Israelites, clarified their rights, gave preference to them and bequeathed to them the Holy Land and their direction of prayer – to Jerusalem. The books testify that this is a peace-loving and peace-calling nation, and it is the first people for whom the Creator designated a role in order to serve as its messenger on this earth until the Day of Resurrection.
In the Quran, it is written ‘Those who have faith and do righteous deeds, they are the best of creatures.’ [Quran 98:7]. The intent in the word best is ‘the best among people,’ but regarding the Umma of the Quran – that is the Arabs and those who preach Islam – they have no recourse but to return to the straight and true voice as appears in the Quran that many of its scholars interpreted in a mistaken and deviant manner. They distorted the true will of God may He be praised, as it is expressed in the verses, in a false and fallacious manner to say that murder of Jews is part of the commandment of Jihad for Allah and that this land is not the Land of [the People of] Israel.
They continue to hold this villainous interpretation towards others, and there will be no true peace but with the return of the Ummah of the Quran to the book of the Quran, as God bequeathed to his adherents. My religious education allowed me to strengthen what I say, and I have merited much honor in succeeding in interpreting verses which scholars did not properly interpret. These are verses which spell out the obligations and rights of people and that which is required so that peoples not be hostile to one another.
On Palestine
Allah may He be praised wrote in the Torah that this is the land of the sons of Israel, he bequeathed the Holy Land to the sons of Israel and called the land by this name (the Land of Israel) and so it is stated by the Holy Quran: ‘O my people! Enter the holy land which Allah hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin.’ [Quran 5:21]. This holy verse is a ‘Kushan’ (deed) which confirms that this land is granted to the Jews. It is also said ‘We made the Children of Israel inheritors of such things.’ [Quran 26:59], and in the following verse, ‘And We said thereafter to the Children of Israel, ‘Dwell securely in the land (of promise)” [Quran 17:104] and there are many additional holy verses which prove and confirm this.
So in an answer to your question, how can they (the Palestinians) have the right to establish a State on the Jewish Land of Israel, which Allah granted and bequeathed to the Jews? More than that, even if all the inhabitants of the land forgot their right, or went crazy and collaborated with those who call themselves ‘Palestinians’ to establish a state for the latter, they won’t succeed, and Allah will not allow this until the Day of Judgment, this because Allah Himself willed and specifically wrote in His book that this land will be the land of the People of Israel under Israeli sovereignty so that no-one would later dispute it.
Dr. Qanta A. Ahmed
Dr. Qanta A. Ahemd is a British-born Pakistani Muslim who today lives in New York. She is a staunch defender of Israel, who has been accused by her critics of being a “Zionist in a Muslim guise”. She is firmly opposed to the boycott against Israel, saying that the movement attempts to vilify Israel in almost every argument. While opposing the continued occupation of the Palestinian Territories, Ahmed admits that she doesn’t know how Israel can currently relinquish control over a region hosting “a virulent Jihadist ideology” and leaders calling for her own destruction.
- She believes Israel is required as a place of refuge for Jews fleeing antisemitism
- She believes Muslims have an disproportionate interest in the Israel/Palestine conflict above all conflicts
- She believes that Hamas are a fascist regime with no regard for life
- She affords huge respect to Jews and Judaism
- She will side with Israel and Islam, over Hamas and injustice
On Israel being a refuge from antisemitism
Call me an Accidental Zionist, if you must, but Eretz Yisrael is a vital shelter, an only shelter, from lethal, genocidal anti-Semitism.
If we care for wider humanity at all, we must all be ‘accidental’ Zionists and want for the Jews, for the Israelis, what each Muslim already has for themselves: a future, a nation and a faith, secured.
On the hypocrisy of the Muslim interest in condemning Israel
Israel’s eight-day operation “Pillar of Defense” sought to dismantle the Hamas apparatus from within Gaza. The predictably seamless alignment of the Muslim world against Israel was even more breathtaking than usual in the face of Syria’s 22 months of systematic genocide, one which has consistently failed to trigger unanimous Muslim protest. What does this say about us as Muslims?
We are hypocrites.
On Hamas
To Hamas, a Palestinian life is worth more when “martyred,” a dead child more of a blessing than one living. “The children of the kindergarten are the shaheeds [martyrs] of tomorrow,” reads a sign displayed at a Hamas-run kindergarten. The martyrdom mantra is their anthem.
Coloring their [Hamas] fascism with Islam, Hamas claims religious legitimacy to openly seek destruction of the Jewish state and eradication of the Jewish people. By grafting themselves onto Into Islamic ideals – the vertebral column of that which is most sacred to Muslims – they render Islam itself heinous, representing their true ruthlessness: theirs is a willingness to sacrifice anything –including Islam – to portray Israel as evil.
This ethos was captured in a single unprecedented obscenity: Hamas’ morbid motorcade. Cocksure thugs, defiantly cruising on motorcycles trailed exposed cadavers of Palestinians – Muslim men – trousers pooled at dead ankles. To chants of ‘Allah-hu-Akbar’ as dozens of Palestinian onlookers silently watched, Hamas took its ghoulish victory lap explicitly to show Gazans how they execute ‘suspected informers to Israel’. This is the Islam of Hamas.
This is why Hamas does not represent me, or other believing Muslims. This is why Israel’s battle is mine. This is why Israel’s struggle – Israel’s jihad – is mine. These are the ‘Muslims’ that Israelis must confront and these are the “Muslims” who intimidate innocent Palestinians into subjugation to their monstrous political Islamism.
On siding with justice
During Operation Pillar of Defense, Jewish friends said “this must be such a difficult time for you, but I am glad of our friendship” implying that because I am Muslim, my loyalty must surely be to Gaza, my enmity automatically aligned with Israel.
Not so. As a Muslim, I am clear: my loyalty is with Islam, and therefore explicitly with justice, justice for all humanity, a humanity that must include Jews. Hamas is obscenely unjust, so how can my loyalty be with them? To be loyal to Hamas is no less than to abandon Islam. To be loyal to Hamas is the ultimate blasphemy.
On respecting Judaism
Followers of Judaism embody the oldest form of monotheist, Abrahamic faith. Jewish scriptures, commandments, traditions and rituals are inextricably woven into the fabric of faiths which would follow in Judaism’s wake. Muslims, particularly so, are immersed in this fused engraftment. When I bend at the hip during supplication and pause in ruku, I move according to a legacy of Judaic prayer. When Muslim women enforce their Islamic rights to an independent inheritance, they do so just as the Daughters of Zelophelad once claimed of behalf of their brethren. While we would be guaranteed our inheritance through Mohammed, these six Jewish sisters were guaranteed theirs through Moses, millennia earlier.
Abdurrahman Wahid
Abdurrahman Wahid was a devout Muslim and the third president of Indonesia. He was born Abdurrahman Addakhil in 1940. He was the long-time president of the Nahdlatul Ulama and the founder of the National Awakening Party (PKB). He was a famed moderate and peacemaker that was able to see beyond the artificial divides between men of faith.
All religions insist on peace. From this we might think that the religious struggle for peace is simple … but it is not. The deep problem is that people use religion wrongly in pursuit of victory and triumph. This sad fact then leads to conflict with people who have different beliefs
He saw absolutely no reason why Israel and Indonesia could not forge a strong diplomatic relationship and this lead him, the leader of a devout Muslim country, to visit Israel six times.
Israel believes in God. While we have a diplomatic relationship and recognizing diplomatically China and Russia, which are atheist states, then it’s strange that we don’t acknowledge Israel. This is the thing that we have to correct within Islam.
I think there is a wrong perception that Islam is in disagreement with Israel. This is caused by Arab propaganda. We have to distinguish between Arabs and Islam. Some people in Indonesia claimed that I was a stooge for the West, but the fact that I am gaining in popularity all the time dispels this idea, and shows that this is the view of only a small minority of the elite. I always say that China and the Soviet Union have or had atheism as part of their constitution, but we have long-term relationships with both these countries. So then Israel has a reputation as a nation with a high regard for God and religion — there is then no reason we have to be against Israel.
Kasim Hafeez
Kasim, a British born Pakistani-Muslim in his early thirties, could have easily turned into a jihadist terrorist. He grew up in a community and a household awash with anti-Jewish and anti-Israel ideas. His father had anti-Semitic sentiments and revered Hitler as a hero (although he criticised the genocidal dictator for not kill enough Jews). The negativity didn’t end at home, both in the community and on campus, Kasim was exposed to a barrage of anti-Israel and often anti-Semitic propaganda and within a short space of time Kasim was well on his way to radical Islam.
Kasim got more and more involved in the politics of the Middle East, increasing his anti-Israel activism and saving money to attend a jihadi training camp in Pakistani. But instead of booking a flight to Islamabad he booked a flight to Tel Aviv to see for his own eyes just how bad Israel was. This trip changed his life converting him for an extreme doctrine of radical Islam, to supporting the Jewish State, self-identifying as a Zionist and de-radicalising his beliefs and submitting to a traditionally more authentic and moderate Islam.
Today he tours all over the world presenting his talk, “The Day I Stopped Hating Israel – Confessions of an ex-Radical” to diverse audiences. Motivated by his strong conviction which he summarised with the following words:
It’s not about being pro-Israel or pro-truth, I just want the facts to be heard. Israel is a democratic state. Muslims in Israel have more rights than possibly most Muslims in the Arab world and then there is the reality of the actual conflict. In the UK, most of us can’t impact what will happen in Israel, we can’t stop rockets falling from Gaza or forge a peace process, but we can tackle the delegitimisation and demonisation of Israel
Salim Mansur
Salim is a formidable force in the movement to promote moderate Islam, his strong criticism of more radical streams within the Muslim world has resulted in extremists issuing two fatwas calling for his death.
Originally born in Calcutta Salim moved to Canada, where he’s currently an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario. In addition to promoting moderate islam, he has also been a vocal friend of Israel and has publically bestowed praise on the young Jewish nation.
An objective consideration of the huge disparity in size and population between the Arab world and Israel should dispel the drivel the world has been fed that Arabs are the “underdog” in a colonial struggle against Jews as a colonizing people.
The reverse disparity between Israelis and Arabs is the tremendous human achievement of the former as free people, and the contrast when measured against the sullen reality of the Arab world just about at the bottom of the UN human development index despite the resources available.
But here, too, Arabs, Muslims and their apologists in the West will fault Israelis for the collective failure of the Arab world.
It is as if the plight of Palestinian “occupation” by Israelis explains the Sudanese civil wars and genocide in Darfur, or the savage killings inside Algeria, or the long list of atrocities, gender oppression, humiliation of religious minorities, wars, military dictatorships, and with no end in sight of violence and murder in the name of Islam across the Arab world.
It is sheer absurdity to hold Israelis responsible for the utterly dysfunctional nature of the Arab world.
Palestinians are an integral part of this dysfunctional world, and their politics reflect, in a heightened sense, the problems the rest of the world seeks to avoid discussing for fear of being denounced as politically incorrect.
Israel is a very small country packed with immensely talented people.
Mudar Zahran
Mudar Zahran is a Jordanian pro-democracy politician of Palestinian heritage. He is the secretary general of the Jordanian Opposition Coalition and a vocal advocate for peace with Israel. Zahran now lives in the United Kingdom, where he was granted political asylum after being indicted by a Jordanian military court for four separate charges against him. He is well-heard and followed in Jordan, for example when he called for Jordanians not to protest against the Israeli Embassy in Amman, less than 200 people showed up for the government-backed anti-Israel protest.
When talking about Israel he often refers to the Faisal Wiesel Agreement. Which was an agreement between the one time King of Syria and Iraq and the Zionists to create an Arab homeland out of 78 percent of Mandatory Palestine (today known as Jordan) and for the Jews to create their homeland out of what was left (Israel, the West Bank and Gaza). His endorsement of this agreement has lead him to support Israeli settlements and annexing the West Bank.
- He believes the West Bank should be annexed by Israel
- He believes the Palestinians have received more help from Israel than any other country
I came to Ariel to state clearly that the settlements are legitimate. The more Israelis delegitimize the settlements, the more they’ll complicate the situation and harm more Palestinians. You, the Israelis, need to wake up and realize that most of the Palestinians in east Jerusalem, for example, want you to stay. I know polls that show that 70 percent of the residents want that. I felt it was my duty as a Palestinian to speak the truth, to present the Palestinians and to represent them. I hope I’ll succeed in changing the situation.
The only assistance that we [the Palestinians] have ever received from any country was from the ‘Zionist enemy.’ We really have no other options. It’s not that I’m a Zionist. I care about Israel for selfish reasons, but how long are we going to fight against the only nation that helps us?
The current situation is a mistake that must be corrected, and Israel must annex all of Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]. The Palestinian Authority has no good health-care system or policing system in all of Judea and Samaria. The whole idea of establishing a Palestinian state here is not realistic at all. It cannot sustain itself, and many of the Palestinian residents would like to leave the area. Their lives are terrible. There’s a lot of corruption here.
M. Zuhdi Jasser
M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D. is the Founder and President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD). A devout Muslim and former Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy. Dr. Jasser founded AIFD in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States as an effort to provide an American Muslim voice advocating for liberty and freedom, and the separation of mosque and state. Dr. Jasser is a first generation American Muslim whose parents fled the oppressive Baath regime of Syria in the mid-1960’s for American freedom. He is leading the fight to shake the hold that the Muslim Brotherhood and their network of American Islamist organizations and mosques have on organized Islam in America.
Jasser has said that Muslims need to recognize Israel as a state, to stand against radical Islamist groups by name, not by theory, tactic, or condemning terrorism, but by name—Hamas, Al Qaeda and other groups. Jasser calls political Islamism “the root cause of Islamist terrorism” and a matter on which it is “time to take sides.” An outspoken supporter of Israel, Jasser warned against what he sees as the increasing threats of Radical Islam to the West.
- He considers the religious ideology of radical Islam to be the root of the Israel / Palestine conflict
- He considers Israel to be on the frontline of combating radical Islam
Israel has always been a canary in the coal mine, dealing with the threat of radical Islam. Now each country is going to have to deal with it.
I don’t believe Israel is a religious issue for Muslims … Hamas and other radical Islamic groups have propagandized the issues for decades and the latest conflict demonstrates that. It is constant warmongering. Hamas creates, starts these wars, commits acts of terror, and then uses the war as a platform to say all its grievances are Israel’s fault.
About Hamas and their corrupt ideology … You can compare it to drug addiction, which leads to violence… Well, if you say the problem is the violence and you stop the violence, it won’t work. It is the drug addiction that leads to the violence. We believe the gateway drug here is political Islam.
Khaleel Mohammed
Khaleel Mohammed is a Guyanese-born Canadian professor of Religion at San Diego State University. In 2004, he was one of the founders of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, but left it believing it had become a front for anti-Muslim sentiment. He is an outspoken friend of Israel and uses the Quran to justify his support for the Jewish National Home.
- He believes the Quran bequeaths Israel to the Jews
- He believes the medieval Islamic scholars agreed with his interpretation
- He believes Muslims distorted Islam to justify their conquest of Israel
On Israel belonging to the Jews
It’s in the Muslim consciousness that the land first belonged to the Jews. It doesn’t matter if the Jews were exiled 500 years or 2000 years, the Holy Land, as mentioned in Quran belongs to Moses and his people, the Jews.
The Qur’an in Chapter 5: 20-21 states quite clearly: Moses said to his people: O my people! Remember the bounty of God upon you when He bestowed prophets upon you , and made you kings and gave you that which had not been given to anyone before you amongst the nations. O my people! Enter the Holy Land which God has written for you, and do not turn tail, otherwise you will be losers.”
The Quran goes on to say why the Israelites were not allowed to enter the land for forty years…but the thrust of my analysis is where Moses says that the Holy Land is that which God has “written” for the Israelites. In both Jewish and Islamic understandings of the term “written”, there is the meaning of finality, decisiveness and immutability. And so we have the Written Torah (unchangeable) and the Oral Torah (which represents change to suit times). And in the Qur’an we have “Written upon you is the fast”–to show that this is something that is decreed, and which none can change. So the simple fact is then, from a faith-based point of view: If God has “written” Israel for the people of Moses, who can change this?
The Qur’an refers to the exiles, but leaves it open for return…saying to the Jews that if they keep their promise to God, then God will keep the divine promise to them. WE may argue that the present state of Israel was not created in the most peaceful means, and that many were displaced–for me, this is not the issue. The issue is that when the Muslims entered that land in the seventh century, they were well aware of its rightful owners, and when they failed to act according to divine mandate (at least as perceived by followers of all Abrahamic faiths), they aided and abetted in a crime. And the present situation shows the fruits of that action–wherein innocent Palestinians and Israelis are being killed on a daily basis.
On the medieval Islamic understanding of Israel
I also draw your attention to the fact that the medieval exegetes of Qur’an–without any exception known to me–recognized Israel as belonging to the Jews, their birthright given to them. Indeed, two of Islam’s most famous exegetes explained “written” from Quran 5:21 thus:
Ibn Kathir (d. 774/1373) said: “That which God has written for you” i.e. That which God has promised to you by the words of your father Israel that it is the inheritance of those among you who believe” . Muhammad al-Shawkani (d. 1250/1834) interprets Kataba to mean “that which God has allotted and predestined for you in His primordial knowledge, deeming it as a place of residence for you” (1992, 2:41).
The idea that Israel does not belong to the Jews is a modern one, probably based on the Mideast rejection of European colonialism etc, but certainly not having anything to do with the Qur’an. The unfortunate fact is that most Muslims do NOT read the Qur’an and interpret it on the basis of its own words; rather they let imams and preachers do that for them.
On Muslim sovereignty over Israel
When Abdul Malik built the [al-Aqsa] mosque there [on the Temple Mount], and had false traditions ascribed to Muhammad wherein the Prophet is supposed to have said that a man should set out for a journey only for three mosques, the ones in Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. Now how could the prophet have said this when ALL Muslims agree that when the Qur’an states “this day I have completed for you your religion” (Q5:3), that Jerusalem was not within Muslim geography? The completion means just that…with the Arabic Qur’an for the Arab peoples, and the aspect of conquest of foreign territory NOT an injunction of Qur’anic Islam.
When the Muslims conquered Jerusalem, it should have been left open for the rightful owners to return. It is possible that Jewish beliefs of the time only allowed such return under a Messiah–but that should not have influenced Muslim action. And in contrast to the report of Sophronius above, there are also reports showing that Umar in fact opened the city to the Jews. If this be the case, then the later Muslim occupation and building a mosque on the site of the Temple was something that was not sanctioned by The Qur’an. How honest is contemporary Islam with this? Given the situation in the Middle East, politiking etc stands in the way of honesty.
Tawfik Hamid
Dr. Tawfik Hamid, is an Islamic thinker and reformer, who was at one time an Islamic extremist from Egypt. He was a member of the notorious Islamic terror group al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya alongside Dr. Ayman Al-Zawaherri who went on to become leader of Al-Qaeda. Long before the attacks on the Twin Towers, Madrid and London (which Tawfik foresaw) he had recognised the threat of Radical Islam and the need for a reformation based upon modern peaceful interpretations of the Quran.
His reformation didn’t end with Islam, he also called for better relations between Muslims and Israel. He justified his support for the Jewish State on his interpretation of the core Islamic texts, while simultaneously attributing the vociferous and violent opposition to Israel in Muslim world to erroneous interpretations by radical clerics of those same core texts.
- He believes land for peace will not work
- He believes the Quran bequeaths Israel to the Jews
- He believes antisemitism is at the heart of the conflict
- He considers himself a Muslim by faith and a Jew by heart
- He loves the Jewish people and their faith
- He considers Israel the flower of the Middle East
On the root of the Israel/Palestine conflict
Approaching the Arab-Israeli conflict from the perspective that it is about land, so that giving more land to the Palestinians will solve the problem, is a failed endeavor.
Israel has already given Egypt the whole of the Sinai, and got nothing in return except a cold peace and rising anti-Semitism in the country. Similarly the disengagement from Gaza did not magically lead to a decline in the wave of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world.
Pro-Palestinian Muslim demonstrators across the world repeatedly use the chant “Khyber Khyber Ya Yahood… Gaish Muhammad Sawfa Yaood,” which reminds the Jews that the army of Muhammad is coming back for a repeat of what was done to the Jewish Khyber tribe. According to authentic Islamic history books, the Islamic army, led by Muhammad, annihilated the Jewish tribe of Khyber, raping its women and killing all its men.
The Hamas charter also calls for the destruction of Israel. This violent principle has its roots in the traditional Islamic teaching, based on Hadith books, that encourages the killing of all Jews before the end of days.
Until US envoys to the Middle East realize that the problem in the eyes of the Palestinians and their supporters is not the borders of Israel but the very existence of the country, all future missions will similarly fail. Solving the Arab-Israeli conflict must be done initially at the theological rather than the political level, as the former is impeding the latter.
It is unfair to ask Israel to trust those who shamefully advocate the killing of Jews, and claim that Islamic annihilation of the Jews by an Islamic army is a model that must be emulated today.
The problem is not only in the existence of violent teachings in historical Islamic texts, but also in the dangerous desire of many Islamists and violent Islamic scholars to revive such violence in modern times. Violent texts exist in other religions as well, but we do not generally see such destructive desire to use the texts to justify killing others, and we rarely hear about modern scholars of other faiths who advocate using such texts literally.
The problem is that this disastrous anti-Semitic religious dimension is not limited to verses in books, but is also propagated by a powerful media machine that utilizes vicious, Nazi-style propaganda across the Muslim world. Publishing dehumanizing cartoons in the mainstream media, and blaming Jews for nearly every problem in the world has become much too common in the leading Arab media over the past few decades.
How he was taught to think of Jews
I am a typical Arab Egyptian with a Muslim background.
As any Arab, I was brought up on hating Israel and the Jews. When I was four years old, the dehumanisation of the Jews everywhere around me led me to imagine them as green ugly people, full of evil.
The views he came to hold on Jews
I am a Muslim by faith… Christian by the Spirit… a Jew by heart
I loved the meaning [of the word Jews], because the word Jews in Arabic language is “Yahood”. Even though most Arabs hate this word, for me it was the opposite, for the following reason. The word ‘Yahood” in pure literal Arabic language is derived from the word “Hado and Hudna” which means “returned back”. This word, according to the Quran, was given as a gift from God to the Israelites when they “returned back” to him.
I used to ask people around me why do you hate the Jews while this beautiful word represents those who “returned back” to God. Sadly, I had no answer as the hatred for the Jews among Arabs and Muslims made them blind to any logic
The view he came to hold on Israel
I also loved the concept of gathering such a wonderful nation from around the earth into their homeland again. For me, according to the Quran, this represented the power of God who saved the Jews from the evil of pharaoh (28:4 Truly Pharaoh elated himself in the land and broke up its people into sections, depressing a small group among them (children of Israel): their sons he slew, but he kept alive their females to rape them: for he was indeed a maker of mischief 28:5 And We wished to be Gracious to those who were being depressed in the land, to make them guiding lights and leaders (in Faith) and make them heirs) Furthermore, and again according to the Quran itself, God gave the Israelites the land as their promised land (17:104 And We said thereafter to the Children of Israel, “Dwell securely in the land of promise”: The Quran went even further to consider the Promised Land as the permanent inheritance for the Israelites (26:59 Thus it was, but we made the Children of Israel inheritors of such things (the Promised Land)
In addition, the Quran considered that God wrote the Promised Land to the Israelites as a final contract (5:21 “O my people (the Jews)! Enter the holy land, which God hath assigned unto you).
In addition to the above discussion and according to some other unambiguous Quranic verses God will gather the Israelites again into their promised land before the end of the world (Quran [17:104] And we said to the Children of Israel afterwards, “ scatter and live all over the world…and when the end of the world is near we will gather you again into the Promised Land”).
This last verse proves that the Quran is declaring that it is the will of God himself to gather the children of Israel again into their promised land before the end days. Accordingly, No Muslim has the right to interfere with the gathering of the Jews in Israel, as this is the will of God himself.
I will never forget Israel the country, Israel the civilisation, Israel the great meaning that put its sons and daughters at risk to find the terrorists who hide amongst civilians to only target them. Israel the democracy that allows different religions to exist on its land (compare this to Saudi Arabia which prevents other people but Muslims from practicing their own religions, does not allow Non-Muslims to build their temples for use in prayer, or to be able to have their religious books).
For these reasons I will never forget Israel… the “Flower” of the Middle East.
Thanks to the Israel Advocacy movement
