Here is one more of those open-mosque events where unwary Infidels learn nothing of consequence about Islam while being led to believe that they’ve learned a lot, are treated to exotic foods, and go away quite satisfied with that most informative afternoon or evening they have been inveigled into thinking they have just had.
They came to sample exotic food and maybe ride a camel, but stayed to learn about Islam and peek inside the imposing dome visible from I-75.
For years, the International Festival hosted by the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo in Perrysburg has been a late-summer staple, offering visitors dishes from at least a dozen countries — and carrots for the camels, alpacas, and goats on display at the petting zoo.”
“Dishes from a dozen countries” for the non-Muslim visitors, and carrots to feed the “camels, alpacas, and goats, oh my!” In other words, an afternoon all about Islam, but let’s hold the Islam, or at least as much of it as we can. Exotic dishes and a petting zoo to boot– what could be more delightful and less threatening?
Visitors were also invited to tour the center, the largest mosque in the region and a spiritual home to 300 Muslim families from 23 countries. Many were learning about the world’s fastest growing religion — practiced by 1 percent of Ohio’s population — for the first time.
If Islam is “the world’s fastest growing religion” as we are constantly informed, then it must be doing something right. No one seems exactly sure what that is, but they’re certainly doing it.
“We initially came for the food. It’s so spicy and fragrant,” said 53-year-old Jackie Petruney of Perrysburg. “I didn’t know much about Islam. I didn’t know they don’t do cremation. And the fasting — that’s a long time to fast. I have some friends who are Arabic but I didn’t feel comfortable asking them, so this was a perfect way to find out.”
Of course you “initially came for the food.” So did many others. And like you, Jackie Petruney of Perrysburg, they “didn’t know much about Islam.” So what did you find out? That “they don’t do cremation.” And the “fasting” — gosharootie, that month of Ramadan is “a long time to fast.” Pretty impressive, no? Well, those are certainly two of the least significant bits of information about Islam one could possibly come up with. Here’s another at the same level of significance: “they don’t do tattooing.” Did you learn anything else about Islam? Or did you mainly just enjoy the food? Yes, why not, you’ve learned enough for one visit. Go ahead — go back for seconds. Take as much as you want. Food makes friends like nothing else.
The tour groups were taken to the prayer space inside the dome. They were invited to take off their shoes and step onto the royal blue carpet where members pray in front of a minbar, the stairs where an imam stands to deliver a sermon. Beside it is a mihrab, a niche that indicates the direction of Mecca.
“It’s a sacred space, which means we put our head on the ground. It’s just clean. That’s why we take our shoes off,” said Dr. Faiza Husain, who led one of the tour groups.
Mary Jane Stradler, a 71-year-old from Perrysburg, kicked off her shoes and joined the afternoon prayer alongside the women, who practice across a divider from the men.
“I didn’t know what they were saying but I participated anyway,” she said. “I said my own prayer and followed what the ladies were doing.”
Mary Jane Stradler “kicked off her shoes”and joined in. She’s a good sport. She said her “own prayer.” Do you think she ever found out what the Muslims were saying in their prayers? She might have been taken aback by the cursing of the kuffars. But why spoil it for her? It was fun. A fun afternoon.
Dr. Husain, a 28-year-old physician from Maumee, described the five pillars of Islam: belief in one God, praying five times a day, fasting during the month of Ramadan, donating a portion of earnings to charity, and pilgrimage to Mecca.
Dr. Husain, you can be sure, will not have explained how, in saying their five daily prayers, Muslims actually curse the kuffars 17 times a day. As Robert Spencer continually points out:
In the course of praying the requisite five prayers a day, an observant Muslim will recite the Fatihah, the first surah of the Qur’an and the most common prayer in Islam, seventeen times. The final two verses of the Fatihah ask Allah: “Show us the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast favoured; not the (path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray.” The traditional Islamic understanding of this is that the “straight path” is Islam — cf. Islamic apologist John Esposito’s book Islam: The Straight Path. The path of those who have earned Allah’s anger are the Jews, and those who have gone astray are the Christians.
This is not my interpretation; it comes from the classic Islamic commentaries on the Qur’an. The renowned Qur’anic commentator Ibn Kathir explains that “the two paths He described here are both misguided,” and that those “two paths are the paths of the Christians and Jews, a fact that the believer should beware of so that he avoids them. The path of the believers is knowledge of the truth and abiding by it. In comparison, the Jews abandoned practicing the religion, while the Christians lost the true knowledge. This is why ‘anger’ descended upon the Jews, while being described as ‘led astray’ is more appropriate of the Christians.”
Ibn Kathir’s understanding of this passage is not a lone “extremist” interpretation. In fact, most Muslim commentators believe that the Jews are those who have earned Allah’s wrath and the Christians are those who have gone astray. This is the view of Tabari, Zamakhshari, the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, the Tanwir al-Miqbas min Tafsir Ibn Abbas, and Ibn Arabi, as well as Ibn Kathir.
Wahhabis drew criticism a few years back for adding “such as the Jews” and “such as the Christians” into parenthetical glosses on this passage in Qur’ans printed in Saudi Arabia. Some Western commentators imagined that the Saudis originated this interpretation, and indeed the whole idea of Qur’anic hostility toward Jews and Christians. They found it inconceivable that Muslims all over the world would learn as a matter of course that the central prayer of their faith anathematizes Jews and Christians.
Nor will Dr. Husain have explained that the obligatory giving to charity by Muslims, Zakat, another of the Five Pillars, is intended not for general distribution to the needy, but only to fellow Muslims. This distinguishes it from Christian charity, which is given to all in need.
“I try to keep it really general, really easy to understand. Nothing political. Many say they learned a lot or their misconceptions were cleared,” she said.
John Heacock, a 39-year-old visiting from Dallas, was surprised to learn “how many parallels there were as far as Christianity, and also that each mosque is its own separate entity.”
What were those “parallels” with Christianity? Let’s see if we can guess. I’m sure they included monotheism (but without mentioning that — Allahu akbar! — our Muslim God is greater than your Christian one, and a good deal more bloodthirsty besides), reverence for Jesus (Muslims love to tell Christians that they “revere” Jesus, but seldom remember to say that for them He is only human, not divine, and if you Christians think He is the Son of God, then you are guilty of the great offense of shirk, or polytheism). When Muslims talk about “parallels,” they are deliberately dissimulating about all the ways that Islam flatly contradicts Christianity in spirit and letter. Christ is nothing like Muhammad; one preaches love, the other hate; one preaches peace, the other war, one preaches the Sermon on the Mount, the other commands Muslims to take part in Jihad and tells Muslims to “strike terror” in the hearts of the Infidels, claims that “war is deceit” and that “I have been made victorious through terror.” Parallels? Muhammad had sexual intercourse with a nine-year-old girl. What is the “parallel” to that in the life of Christ? Muslims learn that they are the “best of peoples” and Infidels “the most vile of creatures”? Where in the New Testament are there any parallels to that cruelly dismissive remark? Had John Heacock not relied on his smiling Muslim hostess, who likes to “keep things general” and makes sure that nothing of significance is said, and instead studied a bit on his own before showing up for the visit to the Islamic Center, he might have been in a position to ask her a few substantive questions.
And what Qur’anic verses would Faiza Husain have mentioned, assuming she mentioned any at all? Of course she would offer 5:32, the verse which Muslim apologists are careful to quote only in truncated form. Here is the full verse:
“On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person – unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land – it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our messengers with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land.”
The main point of the verse is to describe those occasions on which it is permissible to slay a person — if he either murders or “spreads mischief in the land.” And mischief includes violating Sharia (Islamic law); having a different religious faith also appears to qualify. Verse 7:103 of the Quran even indicates that rejecting Muhammad and the Quran counts as “mischief.”
Now here is that verse as quoted by Muslim apologists:
“If anyone slew a person, it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.”
This sounds like an unambiguous denunciation of killing. But 5:32, if quoted fully and correctly (see just above), provides the circumstances when killing may be allowed. What makes this meaning still clearer is that the very next verse, 5:33, gruesomely describes how the killing of those guilty of murder should proceed, with crucifixion and “the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides.”
Along with 5:32, in the abridged version, there is one other verse that is often trotted out on these Open-Mosque or Ask-A-Muslim-Anything events. That is 2:256: “There should be no compulsion in religion.”
Sounds good, doesn’t it? But a moment’s thought suggests there is plenty of compulsion in religion, if that religion is Islam. First, take Muslims themselves. If a Muslim leaves the faith, that is, becomes an apostate, the punishment for such apostasy is death. A hadith in Sahih Al-Bukhari (9.57) has Muhammad declaring that “if a man changes his Islamic religion, kill him.’’ That’s certainly a compelling reason not to apostatize; anyone of sense would call that “compulsion in religion.”
And what of non-Muslims? Muslims will tell you, by way of apologetics, that under Muslim rule non-Muslims, or at least those who are fellow People of the Book, ahl al-kitab, that is, Christians and Jews, under Islamic rule were allowed to practice their faith. And so they were, but only as dhimmis, people who were subject to a host of disabilities, including the requirement that they pay “with willing submission” the jizyah, which was a burdensome tax the payment of which guaranteed their physical safety from the Muslims themselves. In other words, it was institutionalized extortion. As dhimmis, they were not permitted to ride horses or camels, only donkeys; they had to make way for Muslims on footpaths; they had in some places to wear identifying garb — Christians had to wear blue belts or turbans, Jews to wear yellow belts or turbans; they had to place marks on their dwellings to identify the religion of the inhabitants. They could not carry weapons. Many Christians and Jews converted to Islam in order to escape from these onerous conditions, especially payment of the jizyah. Doesn’t that felt need to escape the dhimmi condition constitute compulsion in religion?
The subject of the dhimmi is never brought up by Muslims at these Open-Mosque gatherings. Were it to be raised, the standard answer of Muslims would be something like this: the dhimmis were exempt from payment of the Zakat, but enjoyed all the benefits of living under benign Muslim rule, protected by Muslims. Thus it was reasonable to demand payment of the Jizyah, which helped pay for the Muslim state that ensured their safety. The other requirements imposed on dhimmis would not be mentioned, for there is no plausible explanation to justify them.
The Islamic Center of Greater Toledo is the biggest of 11 mosques in Toledo. It has been on Schneider Road since 1984, and has put on the festival for the past 18 years.
Sue Kaake, 49, volunteered in the kitchen, scooping balls of dough to make Lebanese saj, a flatbread cooked on a convex metal surface in front of visitors at the food tent.
“I love that everybody is working together,” she said. “I just wish everybody in the world would do that.”
Yes, of course. How true. If only we had all come together to make apfelstrudel and sushi, World War II might never have occurred. If only we had learned to make Pozharsky cutlets with our Russian brothers, possibly the Cold War could have been averted. If only Osama bin Laden had been treated in an American country kitchen to a Maine lobster, and hominy grits, and apple pie — well, the possibilities of World Peace Through World Food are endless.
There is almost never one of these Open-Mosque events that does not include food. It’s a very important part of the presentation. Often it is a real spread, laid out for consumption at the end, almost as a reward for sitting through the tour and the docile discussion of Islam. It contributes to a warm communal feeling; visitors sample the exotic dishes, sitting (or standing if it is buffet style) side by side with their Muslim hosts. And the event — in afternoon or evening — ends with the kind of good feeling that such meals guarantee. What better way to learn about Islam than to break bread, from a dozen countries, with kind, nice, eager-to-please Muslims?
And what did the visitors to the Islamic Center of Toledo learn about Islam? They learned that there are Five Pillars, feel that they have learned something by now being able to reel off their names — “Shahada, Salat, Sawm, Zakat, Hajj” — what fun those Arabic words can be! — but did not learn anything about the content of the daily prayers, nor for whom the Zakat, or obligatory charity, is intended. They did not learn, they were not told, about violent Jihad, or about little Aisha, or that Muslims are taught to regard non-Muslims as “the most vile of creatures,” or that Muhammad declared that “I have been made victorious through terror.”
And if Dr. Faiza Husain has her way, her new true-blue non-Muslim friends, having learned so much already from her and other Muslims — how much more do they need to know about peaceful misunderstood Islam? — will never hear a word about those Qur’anic verses and Hadith stories. And why should they? Everyone was so nice! And the food was so good!