Jihad Watch writer Hugh Fitzgerald has gotten under Robert Azzi’s skin.
Hugh Fitzgerald, a writer for the online magazine Jihad Watch, has hounded Azzi in print, wondering in one piece why Azzi would equate Islamic fundamentalism with Christian fundamentalism.
“Hounded,” i.e., pointed out Azzi’s inconsistencies and dishonesty.
“Where are the tens of thousands of victims of Christian Fundamentalism all over the world?” Fitzgerald asks in a recent column. “Just as important, where are the Biblical texts that command Christians to wage war on all non-Christians, to ‘kill them wherever you find them,’ to ‘smite at their necks,’ to ‘strike terror in their hearts?’ ”
Azzi scoffs at the mere mention of Fitzgerald. First off, he doesn’t even believe the man is real. He’s checked online and says he can’t find him.
“This is reporting by a person who doesn’t exist, and I would eat my words (if he does),” Azzi told me. “I have Googled and his work has only appeared in two or three places. This is not journalism. Journalists call me and follow up.”
As for Fitzgerald’s claim, Azzi says those words were taken out of context. He says that’s the problem much of the time when he’s attacked verbally.
“The guy was taking a phrase, ‘kill them wherever you find them,’ but this was in the middle of a war,” Azzi responded, “and they were outnumbered and overrun and massacred.”
“Journalists call me and follow up.” There was nothing to follow up, nothing to discuss. Hugh Fitzgerald offered a critique of Azzi’s “Ask a Muslim Anything” presentations. If Azzi, a professional explainer, needs further opportunity to explain his explanations, he must not be very good at his job. In any case, it is also worth noting that the alleged journalist Ray Duckler of the Concord Monitor published Azzi’s claims about Hugh Fitzgerald without making any attempt to contact Fitzgerald for comment or follow-up. So by Azzi’s lights, Duckler is himself no journalist.
“Nowhere in the Quran,” Azzi said, “is there legitimacy for killing, period.”
Further darkening Duckler’s journalistic reputation is the fact that he let this wild claim of Azzi hang there unchallenged and unquestioned. It wouldn’t have taken much work for Duckler to discover that Azzi was lying, and lying brazenly. Let’s look at the Qur’an and see:
“And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from where they drove you out; persecution is worse than slaughter. But fight them not by the Holy Mosque until they should fight you there; then, if they fight you, kill them — such is the recompense of unbelievers, but if they give over, surely Allah is all-forgiving, all-compassionate. Fight them until there is no persecution and the religion is Allah’s; then if they give over, there shall be no enmity save for evildoers.” (Qur’an 2:191-193)
“They wish that you should disbelieve as they disbelieve, and then you would be equal; therefore do not take friends from among them, until they emigrate in the way of Allah; then, if they turn their backs, seize them and kill them wherever you find them; do not take for yourselves any one of them as friend or helper.” (Qur’an 4:89)
“This is the recompense of those who fight against Allah and His Messenger, and hasten about the earth to do corruption there: they shall be killed, or crucified, or their hands and feet shall be struck off on opposite sides; or they shall be exiled from the land. That is a degradation for them in this world; and in the world to come awaits them a mighty chastisement.” (Qur’an 5:33)
“When your Lord was revealing to the angels, ‘I am with you; so confirm the believers. I shall cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers; so strike the necks, and strike every finger of them!” (Qur’an 8:12)
“Fight them, till there is no persecution and religion is all for Allah; then if they give over, surely Allah sees the things they do.” (Qur’an 8:39)
“Make ready for them whatever force and strings of horses you can, to strike terror into the enemy of Allah and your enemy, and others besides them that you know not; Allah knows them. And whatever you spend in the way of Allah shall be repaid you in full; you will not be wronged.” (Qur’an 8:60)
“Then, when the sacred months are over, kill the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them, and confine them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent, and perform the prayer, and pay the alms, then let them go their way; Allah is All-forgiving, All-compassionate.” (Qur’an 9:5)
“Fight those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and do not forbid what Allah and His Messenger have forbidden, and do not practice the religion of truth, even if they are of the People of the Book — until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” (Qur’an 9:29)
“Allah has bought from the believers their selves and their possessions against the gift of Paradise; they fight in the way of Allah; they kill, and are killed; that is a promise binding upon Allah in the Torah, and the Gospel, and the Koran; and who fulfils his covenant truer than Allah? So rejoice in the bargain you have made with Him; that is the mighty triumph.” (Qur’an 9:111)
“O believers, fight the unbelievers who are near to you; and let them find in you a harshness; and know that Allah is with the godfearing.” (Qur’an 9:123)
“When you meet the unbelievers, strike their necks, then, when you have made wide slaughter among them, tie fast the bonds; then set them free, either by grace or ransom, till the war lays down its loads. So it shall be; and if Allah had willed, He would have avenged Himself upon them; but that He may try some of you by means of others. And those who are slain in the way of Allah, He will not send their works astray.” (Qur’an 47:4)
How have Muslims throughout history understood these passages? They took them as meaning “My jihad is trying to make ends meet. My jihad is getting a great education,” right? Unfortunately, the historical record is not quite so full of laughter and sunshine. Find out how Muslims throughout history have actually understood the Qur’an’s exhortations to warfare in my new book, The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS, which you can order here.
“Robert Azzi wants you to understand what it means to be a Muslim,” by Ray Duckler, Concord Monitor, November 3, 2018:
Robert Azzi maneuvered a string of black coral beads through the fingers of his left hand and hit the table in the empty classroom with his right.
The beads provided comfort, rubbing softly against his skin. The contact with the desk was done with controlled power, hard enough to hear later on my recorder, yet soft enough to suggest restraint.
Call it a civilized exclamation point. It’s the way Azzi, a Lebanese-American Muslim, journalist and lecturer, believes he must live his life.
It’s also why he asked me my religion, and when I answered Jewish, it’s why he cited a Jewish mass-murderer named Baruch Goldstein, who killed 29 Palestinian Muslim worshippers as they prayed at a mosque nearly 25 years ago.
“When Baruch Goldstein… killed … Muslim worshippers, did people come to you and say as a Jew you have to condemn that act of terrorism?” Azzi asked. “Of course not, because they know that Judaism doesn’t sanction that. But every time there’s a Muslim killing, people want me to own it.”
Azzi, who is 75 and lives in Exeter, is on a mission. Soon after our meeting, he’d address a classroom full of people at the Wiggin Memorial Library in Stratham, part of his “Ask a Muslim Anything” program. He visits libraries, schools, churches, synagogues, Rotary clubs – any place he can explain to people why pre-judging his religion and those who follow it is, well, prejudicial and harmful to everything this country is supposed to stand for.
His willingness to explain something that makes people uncomfortable, to take questions, hard questions, sometimes insulting questions, without turning defensive is why Azzi will receive the First Amendment Award, presented by the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications, on Nov. 15 at the Palace Theatre in Manchester.
The award is named after the wife of the Manchester Union Leader’s late publisher, William Loeb, an ultra-conservative Republican whose stinging attacks on liberals (and some Republicans) made national news.
This was not lost on Azzi, who grew up in Manchester reading Loeb’s sardonic far-right editorials.
“I’m really touched and honored,” Azzi said. “I always found a publisher who was opposed to everything I believe in, and to come this far from the 1950s and ‘60s and honor a Muslim who writes about progressive issues might have been inconceivable.”
Azzi hopes his openness and candor, his effort to put a face and a voice and a mind to Islam, will help calm irrational fears that people at airports automatically feel when they see someone in a certain style of clothing. Like a headdress….
“Al-Qaida and ISIS will find specific portions of the Quran and distort it and twist it to create political justification for their actions,” Azzi said. “But people are not going to act politically who are not very literate, so this gives them a reason for doing it, by giving it a religious meaning so you are acting on God’s behalf.”…
And his defense of Islam certainly doesn’t go over well with people who associate the religion with the Twin Towers and beheadings on TV.
Hugh Fitzgerald, a writer for the online magazine Jihad Watch, has hounded Azzi in print, wondering in one piece why Azzi would equate Islamic fundamentalism with Christian fundamentalism.
“Where are the tens of thousands of victims of Christian Fundamentalism all over the world?” Fitzgerald asks in a recent column. “Just as important, where are the Biblical texts that command Christians to wage war on all non-Christians, to ‘kill them wherever you find them,’ to ‘smite at their necks,’ to ‘strike terror in their hearts?’ ”
Azzi scoffs at the mere mention of Fitzgerald. First off, he doesn’t even believe the man is real. He’s checked online and says he can’t find him.
“This is reporting by a person who doesn’t exist, and I would eat my words (if he does),” Azzi told me. “I have Googled and his work has only appeared in two or three places. This is not journalism. Journalists call me and follow up.”
As for Fitzgerald’s claim, Azzi says those words were taken out of context. He says that’s the problem much of the time when he’s attacked verbally.
“The guy was taking a phrase, ‘kill them wherever you find them,’ but this was in the middle of a war,” Azzi responded, “and they were outnumbered and overrun and massacred.”
The interview lasted about 90 minutes. Azzi gave long, often tangential responses. The black beads sliding through his fingers and the table hitting never left the classroom. At least not for long.
He talked about murder – committed by different people with different backgrounds at different times – coming in cycles, portrayed like momentum shifts in a ballgame.
“From 9/11 to Orlando, more Americans were killed by white supremacists than were by Muslims,” Azzi said. “Then, after Orlando, the Muslims got a bump. Then, after Las Vegas, the white guys were back on top again.”
He’s never felt threatened but says he’s received some vile messages, adding that he’s given some to the police for documentation purposes. He calls people who don’t face him with their views, who criticize without showing up to one of his workshops, “cowards.”
The Stratham audience was made up of middle-aged people and seniors, about 25 in all. They were inquisitive, articulate and prepared.
They wanted to know what Jihad meant. They were curious about how the schism between Sunni and Shia evolved. And what about the treatment of Muslim women and Iran’s creed to destroy Israel and what they saw as violent messages in the Quran?
A man in the back, who would not give me his name later in the parking lot, said Azzi’s view that we were wrong to invade Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction “lacked perspective. You skipped a lot of time,” he noted.
Azzi stood up front, leaning against a podium, a scarf around the collar of his sports coat, looking comfortable in jeans and loafers, his trademark walrus mustache extra silvery under the room’s bright lights.
He defended Islam all the way, citing that there are sanctions for committing murder, and those who kill are condemned to hell and not turned into martyrs.
The beads were still snaking through his fingers, comforting him. He chose not to hit the podium with his other hand. That was done in private.
“Nowhere in the Quran,” Azzi said, “is there legitimacy for killing, period.”