Open Letter To
Ansar222@hotmail.co.uk
Indeed all praise belongs to Allah, we praise Him, ask for His help, His forgiveness and we seek refuge in Allah from the evilness of ourselves, our evil actions. Whoever Allah guides none can lead astray and whoever is astray nobody can guide.
Allah in the Qur’an rebukes the crime of slander and backbiting when He says:
“Woe to every slanderer, defamer (104:1) Lo! Those who love that slander should be spread concerning those who believe, theirs will be a painful punishment in the world and the Here after. Allah knows. You know not (24.19). And those who malign believing men and believing women undeservedly, they bear the guilt of slander and manifest sin. (33.58)” e.t.c. With this evidence at hand the Prophet (peace be upon him said): “A lie weakens faith.”
No matter who we are, we have to be careful we do not do this to fellow Muslims, non Muslims either. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said “A Muslim is who other people feel safe from his tongue and his hands.” I therefore take this golden opportunity to apologize if I have violated any body, in such ways that have been spoken by Allah and His Messenger. I repent to Allah for any deceit on my part, slander, hypocrisy and things of that nature.
Lately, I have been labelled an apostate from Islam and it has been rumoured that I have converted to Judaism. I would like to offer the following points for consideration:
I am a Muslim by creed and action, with Allah tawfeeq insha’Allah. Allah is my Lord, Muhammad (peace be upon him) is my beloved Messenger and the Qur’aan is the book on which I base my creed. I am of the same creed as outlined in the classical text Aqeedat ut Tahaawiyah by the great scholar and Mujtahid Imam Abu Ja’far at-Tahaawi.
Lets say for arguments sake I did want to convert to Judaism , I would never be accepted as a Jew in the eyes of a Jew. The reason being is that the Jews believe they are a special people bestowed with a greater responsibility than the rest of mankind. Jews say that the non Jews (Gentiles) are not obliged to follow any of the laws contained within the Torah, but rather, the seven Noahidic laws. According to the view of many Jews, non Jews will also attain paradise if only they walk upright in Noah’s footsteps. Therefore I conclude this point by clarifying that Judaism doesn’t accept converts, so how can I become a Jew?
If anybody wants to argue that my grandfather was Jewish, it doesn’t add up because again according to Judaism my mother has to be Jewish in order for me to be a Jew. My grandfather married a Christian and my mother in turn was Christian, therefore in the eyes of the Jew I am considered “a product of a posthumous victory to Hitler” and even a “gentile”, irrelevant if I am a descendant of Jacob or not.
After being defamed in such a way I searched for reasons as to why this has happened. Why would somebody spread such a false rumour about me. I came to the conclusion that whatever I have been speaking about certain issues, like Israel and Palestine, I have struck a nerve. Instead of refuting my arguments this person has resorted to a logical fallacy known as “Adhominem.” I.e “Attack the personality of the person presenting the argument.”
I would like to re-clarify my statements in regards to Judaism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that may have caused this person to label me an apostate and a Jew.
I have clearly stated in a thread entitled “Who and what is Israel” at the Load Islam forum at
www.islamicboard.com that the children of Israel, i.e. Jacobs descendants have a divine right to the land known in the Bible as Canaan, however I have made it perfectly clear that “Israel” as a land or a state should not exist. My premise is that Israel is no other than Prophet Jacob and it was a name given to him by G-d. I also stated that the land promised to Abraham and his seed (Ihsaq and Ishmael) was called Canaan and not Israel, what happens when the land is called Israel is that Ishmael is purposely cut of from having any entitlement to this land. He is indeed the seed so he does have entitlement , however some Muslims may take objection to me stating the fact that the Children of Israel have a divine right to be there, after all Allah confirms that He gave them the Holy land. I am not excluding the Muslims as some ‘Arabs are direct descendants of Abraham and Ishmael therefore they have right, also the Muslims may be counted as the children of Israel for following the footsteps of prophet Jacob in faith! Remember when Prophet Jacob said to his sons “what will you worship after me”?
I have stated that Muslims shouldn’t hate the Jews indiscriminately as the Prophet (peace be upon him) on many occasions showed respect to the Jews. Misguided Muslims and Anti Islamists alike, tend to quote the Qur’aan out of context saying “...“O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who takes them for friends is one of them. Lo! Allaah تعالى does not guide people who do wrong”(Qur’an 5.51). By quoting this verse out of the Qur’aanic context, extremists and Islamaphobians paint Islam as an intolerant religion, I have simply presented the verse.“G-d does not forbid you from being good to those who have not fought you over religion or driven you from your homes, or from being just towards them. G-d loves those who are just. G-d merely forbids you from taking as friends those who have fought you over religion and driven you from your homes and who supported your expulsion... (Qur'aan, 60:8-9). It may be that the brother could not refute me on this point so he has resorted to calling me a Jew!
Thirdly, I have made a strong habit of placing a – in between G and D in place of the O. this is something that Jews practice for they see it in their religion as desecrating G-ds name (chillul hashem) if you use the o. Therefore out of respect I have started to practice this and I will give you an example why: Lets say I write a book and after the name Muhammad (peace be upon him) I failed to say peace be upon him. To a Muslim, that would be very disrespectful towards the Prophet and the Muslim would most likely discard you article, stop reading it. in this situation I deem it permissible when giving the message of Islam to the Jews. If I have publications that desecrate G-ds name in their eyes they will not read them and therefore the message of Islam falls on deaf ears. Now if somebody wants to call me a Jew because of that – go ahead and be petty. The fact of the matter is I am spreading the message of Islam, by any means necessary.
They may be many other points, however I hope this suffices. I would also like to state I have forgiven Ansar222 and I hope he realizes the huge error he has made and in effect repents to Allah sincerely.
Wasalams and Eid Mubarrak
Your brother in ISLAM Brother Andrew.