Top Muslim Cleric Urges Western Muslims to ‘Liberalize’
A recent episode of the popular Arabic show al-Sharia wa al-Haya (Law and Life), which airs weekly on Al Jazeera and features renowned Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, addressed the important yet little known Muslim concept of taysir (pronounced “tey-seer”).
Qaradawi, who is touted by the likes of John Esposito and CAIR as a “moderate” — even as he legitimizes suicide attacks against Israel (including by women) and death for apostates — explained that, according to fiqh al-taysir (the “jurisprudence of ease”), Islam (like Catholicism) offers Muslims dispensations, whenever needed: “For Allah desires ease for you, not hardship” (Koran 2:185; see also 5:6, 4:26-28, 2:286). For instance, Muslims traveling during the month of Ramadan or engaged in jihad need not observe the obligatory fast.
Qaradawi stressed that no one advocated taking the “easy way” as much as Muhammad himself. He offered several examples, including how Muhammad was angry with prayer leaders who tired the people with long prayers. (Another less flattering though applicable anecdote concerning Muhammad’s “leniency” comes to mind. When his followers thought they had to practice coitus interruptus while raping their captive women so as not to impregnate them, Muhammad told them: “There is no harm if you do not practice it, for it [the birth of the child] is something ordained [by Allah]”).
Lest it be abused, Qaradawi warned that taysir should only be used as needed, based on the vicissitudes of time and chance. In other words, Muslims should not actively seek the easy way, but rather, when uncontrollable circumstances create hardships, Muslims are free to opt for the easy way — as long as they recognize that the “hard way” (i.e., total implementation of Sharia) is the ideal way.
Qaradawi proudly contrasted taysir with the practices of Jews and Christians who “took things to the extreme, and thus were treated extremely.” After quoting the verse, “Ask not about matters which, if made known to you, may make things difficult for you” (Koran 5:105), Qaradawi said Allah made things difficult for the “anal” Jews because they always insisted on receiving specific details for his otherwise simple commandments. As for Christians, Qaradawi, in dismay, pointed to monks and anchorites, who, by shunning all female contact, and living in absolute solitude and austerity, also went to the extreme.
The most significant point of the program came when Qaradawi said that taysir is especially needed in “this era” and “especially for those Muslim minorities living in Europe and America.”
Talk about ‘doublespeak’. How long can someone do two things – conforming outwardly to Western standards while inwardly maintaining loyalty to Sharia – before they snap? I know a lot of people who lived under communism had double lives – outwardly loyal to the ‘Party’ yet inwardly cursing it.
Do not be fooled by him.
At the same time he is speaking, the Islamists are preparing to attack Israel.
Besides the Hamas terrorists in Gaza who have been raining rockets onto Israel from the South, Southern Lebanon is occupied by Iranian terrorists, Hizbollah, who attacked Israel in July, 2006.
The Hizbollah terrorists are at it again and Israeli intelligence has determined that they are planning another war in the near future.
This time, things will be very different since Israel has been working overtime to destroy them.
http://jewishdailyreport.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/israel-prepares-for-war-with-lebanonhizbollah-terrorists/
a creepy bunch, aren’t they?
Terrific! A “mole” religion! That Mohammad guy thought of everything.
In other words, far from “liberalizing” Muslim life, taysir allows only for insincere conformity.
Deception at the base, like taqiyya.
Seems like fooling the infidel is to be a way of life, at least until the jihad and its numbers are well-seated.
Qaradawi is one of those radicals who relies on craftiness, and can, undoubtedly, be counted on to say different things to different audiences.
In a piece in the American Thinker in June, the author describes Yusuf al-Qaradawi…
He’s got a face full of warts, yellow, snaggly teeth, and the raspy voice of a retching cat
Meet the Sheik Who’s Rockin’ Your World
What ever else can be said about the Brits, they kept the lid on Pakistan, the Northwest Frontier (Afghanistan), the Gulf coast and much of the middle east for 200 years of empire. They had a phrase for the practitioners of the thought processes described in this article: WOGS – Wily Oriental Gentlemen (the last word being an oxymoron, since none of them by definition could be then or are today, gentlemen).
Yes, and now, as thanks for colonizing them, the Wogs (no racism there!) are colonizing you. What goes around…..
It wasn’t just the 18th and 19th century Brits who viewed the Ottoman Empire and the Arabs as problematic. Napoleon Bonaparte tried an Egyptian campaign in 1799. And the US Marines first expedition was against the Barbary Pirates (read Libyans) who had a nasty habit of capturing ships in the Med and enslaving (the blond women) or ransoming the Europeans therein. The Brits were never really successful in colonization per se of this area. That’s why the Arabs don’t play cricket.
Any of this strike a contemporary note with you, mate?
“And the US Marines first expedition was against the Barbary Pirates (read Libyans) who had a nasty habit of capturing ships in the Med and enslaving (the blond women….”
And a righteous expedition it was. I mean, capturing ships was one thing, but enslaving blond women??? No red-blooded American would have tolerated such slavery in the early 1800s!
PS – Brit, anyone who unapologetically uses the term Wog (equivalent to the N-word, really) is a racist asshole, pure and simple. You belong on a no-fly list.
Joseph,
Firstly I agree with you completely about our “expedition” to the Barbary coast (from whence the words “barbarism” and “barbarian” comes from).
But putting that aside, I think you’re coming down a little too hard on our British neighbor. He did not use the acronym in the present tense — he merely referred to it in a historical manner. But notwithstanding that, I hardly think that Americans need to become righteous and indignant over a word being referred to, in a second-hand way, regarding a large swath of people who practice what, even in the 1800′s would have been seen as horrendous behavior.
If you’d like to gently tap our British friend on the knuckles and remind him of our fairly successful practice of not using derogatory words in public, that’s fine. But my G-d, I will use the word “Islamism”, Islamo-fascism”, and on and on if need be to describe the utter horrors of stoning a woman to death who was raped(!?) Or handing boys from cranes, or… you get the picture. Let’s save our righteous indignation for those in our country who still do employee the “N” word, and when the Islamic religion gets around to reforming itself in a few hundred years, then we can do the same for them.
And for the record, I am not an Anglophile, although I love many aspects of their culture.
http://www.his.com/~z/gentleman.html
Definition of a gentleman by Cardinal Newman, 19th century English prelate. “a gentleman is one who never inflicts pain.”
Surely even you, Joseph, can agree that this definition does not apply to our jihad loving fellow humans?
Thanks so much for bringing attention to the man I believe is one of the most nauseating influences of our time, and who served as Trustee of the Boston mega-mosque I wrote about in the current Pajamas article, “Rabbis Gone Wild – Boston Edition.”
I recently wrote a portrait of Qaradawi at American Thinker called “Meet the Sheik Who’s Rockin’ Your World.”
“He’s got a face full of warts, yellow, snaggly teeth, and the raspy voice of a retching cat. Nevertheless, Yusuf al-Qaradawi is an international sensation, the Sheik of All Media. TV star, best-selling author, internet proprietor, high profile movie consultant — wow, is there nothing this busy little Hitler-lover can’t do?”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/06/meet_the_sheik_whos_rockin_you.html
Killer article! Your writing rocks!
I don’t see the benefit to the U.S. of allowing Muslims to immigrate here. They do not assimilate nor share our culture or our values. Once enough are here we will see requests and demands for separate jurisprudence (sharia law)and we will see the number of home-grown terrorists sky-rocket. Many mosques foment radicalism. Islam has been very successful over its history in using host country’s (western) classic liberlism to get a foothold then demand its own rules. In northern Virginia where I used to live two mosques/schools within five miles of me and my family were implicated in supporting terrorism. This is called slitting our own throats. Move them out, move them back, and stop allowing immigration of muslims now otherwise there will be hell to pay.
Besides being a religion of submission that forbids the freedom of conscience under the pain of death in stark contrast to faith-based religions, Islam is also a very radical form of totalitarianism that seeks world domination, and incorporates such enlightened laws as subjugation of non-Muslim infidels, absolute authority over women, jihad, draconian punishments, etc. As a matter of fact, Islam’s religious aspects mainly serve as window dressing for Islam’s radical totalitarianism.
During the Cold War we didn’t let millions of communists immigrate and infiltrate our countries because that would have been suicidal. Hence, we shouldn’t let millions of Muslims immigrate and infiltrate our countries today because that is likewise suicidal. Islam and the practice thereof must be outlawed and banned ASAP.
It’s the complete opposite of the teachings of Jesus.
Be insincere in your beliefs.
Be dishonest when it suits you.
Hate those unlike yourself.
Do not forgive, get vengeance.
What kind of God would teach his followers to behave in such a way?
Satan.
None of this is new. All of this is known. The ‘elites’ turn the other cheek, open their wallets and move on. Let’s not forget that Bush’s pronouncements about the ‘religion of peace’ were not much different than Obama’s. He chose not to know. The idea that this is basically a Democrat disease is way, way overblown.
That’s a good point! Even Sarah Palin is afraid to come out and speak on Islam. The only one I see who’s got the knowledge and the guts to tell it like it really is, is Colonel Allen West. I wonder if the left has even noticed the Colonel? I do believe he has noticed them… How does this sound, anyway…”President Allen West”. Not bad. He’s got this, sort of, “American-ness” about him. Like, you would know he was a yank from across the street. Wouldn’t it be utterly strange to have a President who actually understood the Jihad situation? West does.
I am very impressed with that guy. He’s smart, cuts to the chase, ties emotion to issues in a good way, and has proven his courage. I think Gingrich would be a ‘soft’ President on these topics. Palin a complete unknown, probably with handlers hovering all around her. Allan West is the right type for a leader of any Western country, unless he has some secret that we don’t wish to know about.
For a fine exposé of Qaradawi’s alleged moderation, see Paul Berman’s new book, The Flight of the Intellectuals, pp. 186-192. In a wider focus, this book is a liberal’s take down of the cult surrounding Tariq Ramadan, an admirer of Qaradawi, among elite opinion makers on the left who should know better.
Multiculturalism at its finest. Even GWB was so tied up with political correctness that he had to refer to Islam as the religion of peace. The only religions open to attack, contempt and cartoons are ones in which Jesus is featured. No matter how insane, and dangerous and utterly unlike a real religion Islam is at its very core, we cannot criticize it, in and of itself, only certain players who obviously haven’t seem to have gotten the RoP message. Hell, are they really going to allow muslims to build a monument to the great Islamic victory of 9/11 nearly atop the site? It would be unbelievable in a sane world or a country not already run by Dhimmis.
Thanks for providing a picture of the enemy. I downloaded the image, and will use it this weekend to make sure my weapon is still BZO’ed at 300 yards.
Thanks again,
The Greatest of all Barbaric Christian Infidels
Central to Islam is that there can be no separation of church and state. That being the case, Islamic institutions in the US should not be given tax-free status – espeially Mosques.
Nice! Can they blow thousands in Fort Lauderdale strip clubs before blowing up thousands in their jihad too?
Because taking a slice out of the First Amendment for the WOT would do more to unite them than to protect us from them, much less to protect us from those of us who’d use it as president for slicing out what they want removed for their agendas.
“A principle is not a principle until it cost you something” Dr. Laura
The 1st Amendment has nothing to do with admitting immigrants. Nothing.
If an American citizen wants to be a Nazi, he has that right, but that doesn’t mean that we have to admit foreign Nazis as immigrants. We have, in fact, barred members of hostile totalitarian parties from (legal) immigration for decades.
In a sane world, we would bar Salafist (“fundamentalist”) Muslims. But we don’t live in a sane world anymore.
Athena: “The 1st Amendment has nothing to do with admitting immigrants. Nothing…. In a sane world, we would bar Salafist (“fundamentalist”) Muslims. But we don’t live in a sane world anymore… July 23, 2010 – 10:49 pm”
I agree that baring “islamists” from immigrating has no barring on the First Amendment. That’s because they support or promote a criminal action. But baring Muslims as a whole indirectly does clash with the First Amendment because it promotes and therefore legitimizes “impeding the free exercise of religion” domestically. Laws here against Islam would use it as precedent, and that would be used as precedent for laws against any other religion that become unfashionable.
Islamists are Muslims promoting, supporting or engaging in criminal behavior. We have a right to battle that. Non-Islamists Muslims are people who at worst lie to themselves and perhaps to others about the implications of their beliefs. It’s difficult to separate the two (something I recognize most here refuse to do), but the difficulty of it does not justify institutionalizing thought crimes. The principle behind the First Amendment is that we won’t criminalize thoughts, or the communication of thoughts, only behaviors.
“But baring Muslims as a whole indirectly does clash with the First Amendment because it promotes and therefore legitimizes “impeding the free exercise of religion” domestically.”
I totally disagree. I believe when the founders wrote the first amendment they had in mind faith-based religions. However, Islam in stark contrast to faith-based religions is a religion of submission that forbids the freedom of conscience under the pain of death, and that is antithetical to everything that is American. I most certainly don’t believe that the founders ever intended to provide protection for a religion of submission that forbids the freedom of conscience under the pain of death.
With faith-based religions, adherents can freely pick and choose what it is they will believe and what it is they will reject. They can also choose to leave the religion freely if they so desire. However, because Islam is a religion of submission as opposed to a faith-based religion, a Muslim must strictly adhere to what the Koran obligates without question, as to do otherwise is shirk, and shirk in Islam is punishable under the pain of death. Likewise, once a Muslim always a Muslim, as unlike adherents of faith-based religions, a Muslim can’t freely leave Islam, as that is also an offense punishable by death.
Therefore, because Islam is a religion of submission that forbids the freedom of conscience under the pain of death in stark contrast to faith-based religions, I don’t believe it is accorded protection under the first amendment of the constitution. Moreover, you will never convince me that the founders intended to give the same protection of faith-based religions to a religion of submission that forbids the freedom of conscience under the pain of death.
Furthermore, besides being a religion of submission, Islam is also a very radical form of totalitarianism that seeks world domination, and to confirm this all you have to do is look inside every Islamic country in the world today to see that non-Muslims and Muslim women are always systematically persecuted and often violently oppressed. Hence, where in the first amendment is a totalitarian ideology that seeks world domination accorded constitutional protection? Nowhere! Thus, Islam and the practice thereof should be outlawed in this country, as the constitution isn’t a suicide pact.
In addition, if you believe the first amendment gives carte blanche protection to all religions, then I suggest you study the history of Utah and the practice of polygamy. Joseph Smith had previously stated that polygamy was the most important doctrine that had been revealed to him by God. However, Utah was initially deprived statehood until the Mormons renounced polygamy, and polygamists were arrested when Utah was a territory and have been arrested since it became a state.
The founders were remarkably well studied men, and as I recall, Franklin said some harsh things about Islam. But if they wanted to exclude Islam a religion, they had the opportunity to do it.
If we do so now, without a constitutional amendment, the Constitution would be worse than worthless. It would be weapon for dictators to use against anyone which they could amass enough power against. What would be the difference from living under that and living under Islam?
Michael J Trotten is a very Dependable Source, now a Pajamas Media columnist. He wrote this a couple of year ago about Liberal Islam in Kosovo: http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/07/the-bin-ladens.php
In many ways, I think Islam is where Christianity was 700 years ago. Fundamentally and massively corrupt, universally despotic, frequently fascist and horrifically brutal. But it too rose out of its dark ages to ignore the dark messages in its scriptures promoting death for non-believers, infidels, blasphemy etc… Islam’s enlightenment isn’t guaranteed, but it’s a smaller word today than the one in which Christianity freed itself from itself.
Still, even though we accept Islam as a religion, we have the right to require Muslim immigrants to publicly denounce anything that’s incompatible with our Constitution, similar to what you noted that Mormons were required to do. And we have the right to deport them if they are later proven to promote the opposite. I at least agree with you that there needs to be much stricter standards on what gets a Muslim immigrant deported. People here have a right to free speech, including foreigners, but if they’re promoting something antithetical to our laws, they don’t have a right to immigrate.
elfman,
“If we do so now, without a constitutional amendment, the Constitution would be worse than worthless. It would be weapon for dictators to use against anyone which they could amass enough power against. What would be the difference from living under that and living under Islam?”
Don’t be absurd, the first amendment doesn’t provide protection for radical forms of totalitarianism that seek world domination anymore than it does to a religion of submission that forbids the freedom of conscience under the pain of death. In addition, you can’t dissect Islam and then ignore by far the biggest part of it to claim that Islam is protected by the first amendment. Islam must be taken in totality. Furthermore, our constitution is not a suicide pact. Thank you very much.
ObamaYoMoma
“In addition, you can’t dissect Islam and then ignore by far the biggest part of it to claim that Islam is protected by the first amendment.”
Apparently, you can since from the time of our founding fathers, Islam has been recognized in the US as a religion. From what I know of it, it (and other major religions) is filled with enough contradictions that one can make almost anything out of it.
Anyone, left or right, who goes against our Constitutionally protected principles that our Founding Fathers designed and tries to outlaw thought crimes has me and a super majority of America to contend with. Good luck with that…
“Apparently, you can since from the time of our founding fathers, Islam has been recognized in the US as a religion.”
I could care less what naïve and gullible people who are ill informed considered Islam to be. All I’m concerned with is what Islam really is, which is a theological and totalitarian political ideology that seeks world domination, where the religious aspect serves as window dressing for the far bigger aspect of Islam, which is the radical form of totalitarianism that seeks world domination. Hence, because Islam is a theological and totalitarian political ideology that seeks world domination, it isn’t protected under the first amendment or any other amendment of the constitution for that matter.
“Because taking a slice out of the First Amendment for the WOT would do more to unite them than to protect us from them, much less to protect us from those of us who’d use it as president for slicing out what they want removed for their agendas.”
Completely utterly absurd, while Islam may be a religion of submission that forbids the freedom of conscience under the pain of death, that religious aspect of Islam is only window dressing for the much larger part of Islam that is also a very radical form of totalitarianism that seeks world domination.
During the Cold War we didn’t let millions of communists immigrate and infiltrate our countries because that would have been suicidal. Hence, today we shouldn’t let millions of Muslims immigrate and infiltrate our countries because that is likewise suicidal. Therefore, Islam and the practice thereof must be outlawed and banned ASAP.
Shutdown the mosques and madrassas, and millions of Muslims will soon self-deport themselves.
Maybe, just maybe, we are all over-reacting a little to the threat of Islam.
This recent article by Theodore Dalrymple, who is far from a leftist dupe, suggests that Western Muslims may not be quite as severe a threat as we think….
http://newhumanist.org.uk/2337/funloving-muslims
Any Muslim not following Mohammad is Apostate. What did Mohammad do? There lies the problem.
I think Dalrymple is describing a significantly large sector of the Western Muslim community, which is why I think it’s untrue to say that “Muslims” are the problem. Some are, but many are not.
What worries me is the way that the Saudis are continually exporting their brand of extremist Islam all around the world, including to the USA. The anti-Western extremists may still be a minority, but they are increasingly dominating and defining Islam. The threat is very real.
Muslims are and are not the problem. Like most people, most muslims just want to get on with their lives. The problem is Islam and its central tenet of jihad. We must remember that there has never been the equivalent of what, in the west, we call a reformation or the enlightenment. There is no new testament. The Koran is virtually the same as its always been. Because what the Islamists say and do is true to the Koran and always backed up by Islamic scholars, they control the dialogue and eventually everyone submits or shuts tfu. We were used to a waning, defensive Islam for a couple of hundred years or so. An ascendant Islam is a much different creature.
Deceive the Godless infidels, then get ‘em full force when they’re not attentive! (Sounds like a plan!)
It is a Trojan Horse of a different more insidious kind
I’m not much into the …izzit these Muslims, izzit those Muslims ? argument.
Of course the number of active fanatics intent on the slaughter of infidels and the establishment of the worldwide Caliphate is small and of course “most” Muslims would decry the sick violence and mayhem perpetrated daily by a small percentage of individuals who justify their carnage in the name of Islam.
Of course Islam has co-existed in European countries with the native cultures for a very long time.
But how large is the number of “peaceful” Muslims who silently cheer everytime these guys successfully strike a western target ? (These days, most of the targets are eastern, in places like Pakistan and Iraq, even recently in Iran & are Muslims themselves.) Just how rabid and widespread was the dancing in the streets following 911 ?
The official Muslim response to condemning their radical fringe has been too mild for my taste. And there are so many organizations operating in North America (not to mention around the world) as so called charities which are simply fronts for the cadre of fanatics and slaughterers.
(Do you really need to read much past the Hamas Charter to know the plan for Israel ? Do you really need to read or listen past “interpretation” of the Koran in sundry fatwas or the Muslim Brotherhood agenda for North America to know the plan for the world at large ?)
Attempting to delicately separate what this person believes versus what that person believes does not interest me.
Izz-lam stands convicted.
While we, in the west, continue to be patsies and morons
Believing that there are moderate moslems is like believing there are conservative democrats; it is simply not true, not true. The Moslem by the very nature of his religion is inclined to violence and chaos; pretending that he is not is the forte of the Western intellectuals who once fantasized that Stalin was really running health camps in Siberia for the underprivileged youth of Moscow.
This is why Yusuf Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and the world’s most influential Islamic cleric, boldly promises that Islam will “conquer America” and “conquer Europe” through dawa…In considering Imam Rauf and his Ground Zero project, Qaradawi and the Muslim Brotherhood are extremely important. Like most Muslims, Rauf regards Qaradawi as a guide, and referred to him in 2001 as “the most well-known legal authority in the whole Muslim world today.”
Doin’ dawa in lower Manhattan
A muslim extremist threatens to kill you. A moderate muslim tries to explain why you deserve it.
That about sums Islam.
See, this is exactly why Qaradawi’s sophistries need to be monitored. this tayseer, which seems to be a minor thing shared with catholics, ultimately has troubling implications.
As long as the Sons of Allah continue to hold the Virgin Mary in high regard, they will have to contend with the paradox posed by the Apostle Paul’s epistle to the Phillipians, Chapter 2, verses 5 – 11 inclusive.
Plus, they can make all the accusations they want, but what has been handed down through the ages, especially that part of scripture, is the only version.
For there is very good cause as to why great degrees of vigilance were employed when copies of the scripture were made: each copy matches to reflect the timelessness of what is regarded as Holy Scripture.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/white_slaves_01.shtml
Quick history of Barbary Pirates and enslavement of large numbers of Europeans by no less a source than the BBC.
“Qaradawi’s Muslim Brotherhood colleague, Tariq Ramadan, provides an ideal example: he recommends that a “moratorium” — a temporary ban — be placed on the Muslim practice of stoning adulterers to death; yet he refuses to say that stoning is intrinsically un-Islamic. This, of course, is taysir in practice: because stoning people in the West is liable to get the stoner incarcerated or worse, upholding the Sharia mandate to stone adulterers is “hard” on Muslims living in the West, so best to put it on hold — that is, till circumstances are more opportune.”
Funny how no matter what the issue is in Islam, there is always an ulterior motive.
According to the the original evil narcissist himself it’s ok to lie as long as it benefits him. This is the main theme of Islam, follow a the self appointed prophet cave stooge (Hell fire be upon him HBUH), follow him of die? Such a loving piece of garbage as this world has ever seen.
Our current administration capitulates to Islam since our current third world Islamic usurper in chief is at least pro-Islamic at heart.
I do not wanted our posterity to live in a world where all the rule of law and norms of life are strictly based on the Quran and various Islamic teachings.
I wanted our posterity to enjoy the life of freedom unrestricted by any religious dogma or Islam itself and to acknowledge and abide by the rule of law as agreed and honored by the people, for the people, and of the people, not by, for, and of Islam.