Does the Bible conform to ‘British Values’?
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Ahmed Hammuda is a regular contributor at Islam21c. His interests lie in Qur'anic Tafsir and the field of Middle East Affairs and how they reflect on Muslims living in the West. He is an Electrical Engineer by trade and has been involved in various Da'wah activities over the course of his education and working life. He has transferred the same analytical approach required in engineering into a careful and measured approach in his views and positions.
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Under the subheading “Marriage: a blessing or damnation?”, the author of this article claims that “Scourging (sic) again through the celebrated Gospel imparts on a delightful set of verses…”, which he follows with the quotation beginning “All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman” – but the quotation he supplies is not from the Gospel, or even the New Testament, but rather from the apocryphal book, Ecclesiasticus, which was written 150-200 years before Christ and therefore is certainly can not in any way considered to be “the Gospel”.
The author’s claim that the Gospel contains the text given is thus incorrect, misleading, and misrepresentative. One wonders, how on earth did the author of the article make such a basic error? This historical detail (about Ecclesiasticus not being the Gospel) can be checked extremely easily and quickly, and furthermore it is very widely known that the four new Testament Gospels in the Christian canon are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It is inconceivable that even the smallest amount of research or cross-checking would fail to bring to light this mistake. So, was this a case of extreme carelessness, part of a zealous but under-informed attempt to portray Christianity as bad and Islam as good? Or was it plain, straightforward dishonesty, of the kind that has, unfortunately, often been observed in Muslim apologists attempting to defend their own religion and defame Christianity? Neither option is flattering for the author, and neither promotes confidence in the reliability of this article.
There is a very simple answer to your questions. I was raised in an orthodox christian family, and mainstream ‘christianity’ in the west is unrecognisable as the christianity I was taught from the Bible as a child. I no longer attend church for this reason. It has become corrupt. Orthodox christianity shares many similarities with islam (and judaism), including those values and laws that many people in the UK find fault with. Modern ‘christianity’ mostly avoids such harassment (at least in comparison to that which muslims receive) as it has watered down or changed these values and laws. You will notice that the few remaining groups of christians that still uphold the original values and laws are also mocked (such as anyone opposing same sex marriage or feminism), even by other ‘christians’.
“the notorious far right; the self-believing bastions of UK Christian and Jewish values ”
Just who are these people? Which of them have prominent positions in any christian or jewish organisations?
“A judicious analysis of the mainstream scriptures, the Old and New testaments and the Qur’ān reveals the following broadly common concepts that only Muslims seem to be criticised over, despite having the most just, refined and rational perspectives on them.”
Precisely how are the koran’s perspectives on some of the more repellent and contemptible religious injunctions more “just, refined and rational” than various christian and jewish versions?
It’s interesting – and revealing- of the ignorance of muslims, even (or especially, perhaps) those who believe they know enough about christianity and judaism to discuss them, that they do not know the important difference between the dominant muslim and christian attitudes to their religious writings and muslim attitudes. Muslims are supposed to believe the koran is the absolute and literal word of god. The result is they find themselves either supporting even the vilest parts of it or embarrassedly explaining that “allah knows best” so it must be all right, really. The most common christian and jewish attitudes to their “sacred writings” is that these are the words of god as passed on and interpreted by fallible humans. As a result, jews and christians can dump the more horrible and absurd aspects with a good conscience and don’t find themselves trying to justify or even practise the nastier injunctions.
Surely it is not beyond the wit of man to resist the urge to blurt out a series of questions based on sloganised extracts, clearly without reading the actual article… All of your attempted points are clearly covered for anyone who actually bears the tedium of reading.
And I am in fact paying you a complement by assuming you have not read it. This is because it is far more condemnatory if I were assume you have indeed read it but you do not see a legal paradigm based on due process requiring evidence and the presumption of innocence as “more just, refined and rational” than killing someone (read: woman) based on what is effectively their husband (read: owner) accusing them of something.
But I’m not holding my breath on you actually reading past the first line of this comment anyway…
My actual point, which you don’t seem to have noticed, is that in the eyes of nearly all christians and jews the “truth” of the bible and the way in which it is god’s word is completely different to the way muslims regard the koran as “true” and the word of god. Like many muslims, Mr Hammuda seems to believe that because the bible says certain things and gives certain orders, christians and jews ought to follow those orders as directly as many muslims imagine they must obey the injunctions of the koran and if they do not they are hypocrites or innovators.
Where, precisely, in the bible does it say that “killing someone (read: woman) based on what is effectively their husband (read: owner) accusing them of something” is acceptable behaviour? As I pointed out, even if the bible does say that somewhere, nearly all christian and jewish interpretations of the bible mean that it is not mandatory. On the other hand, muslims find themselves having to explain that torturing people to death for assorted so-called sins is actually “a legal paradigm based on due process” when looked at in the right way.
You really are showing a great deal of disrespect by carrying on without reading the article. All of your points are dealt with clearly, and your predictable contentions pre-empted by the author. As for the quote in the Bible you asked for, it’s reference number 18 of this very article beneath you are writing, Deuteronomy 22:13-21.
As for your other point, I don’t want to further patronise you by quoting verbatim where exactly the author refutes this, but in summary he mentions:
1) There are in fact Christians AND Jews that call for these notions to be implemented. Just because you don’t see them in centre-right/right wing media corps you seem clearly tuned into, and just because those same corps have drip-fed you into believing Muslims are the existential threat to the universe, that does not mean they do not exist. Google the Israeli group listed, or just ‘christian fundamentalists in USA’
2) You cannot use the skewed picture of the world that the aforementioned corporations have drip-fed you as an excuse, when you have been endowed with enough intelligence and at least a little curiosity to ask yourself, “if merely believing in those verses necessitated implementing them then either ALL Muslims have been “hypocrites or innovators” for the last 1400 years or there must be something a bit odd with my presumption…why have they never implemented what Fox news told me they believe in?” Or you could ask yourself “why do I look at what Christians and Jews ACTUALLY do instead of their scriptures, but I don’t care what Muslims actually say about those sloganised quotes I see on TV?”
In other words, the author is highlighting a simple double standard amongst sheeple: you try and water down outright barbaric and unjust biblical notions under ‘different interpretations’, but that sophistication immediately vanishes when looking at Koranic notions that are rational and are CLEARLY merciful*. If that weren’t bad enough, instead you try and accuse Muslims of wanting to implement biblical-style ‘stoning women’ and so forth, superimposing the barbaric biblical baggage on what is essentially something completely different.
I think the fault of the author here is for writing an article with more than one interweaved thesis which has clearly gone over the head of at least one reader.
(*I predict—if you still haven’t read the article—you will say something like ‘how can stoning anyone to death be merciful?!?!’ Well, that’s why you should really read the article, mate. Leaving aside the forgiveness of a Muslim who were to theoretically undergo this, the point is that it is a mercy since NO ONE has EVER been caught with a high enough burden of proof to mandate stoning to death yet it still acts as a deterrent and a reminder of the seriousness of adultery spreading through a society. But Rupert Murdoch is unlikely to tell you that.)
What am I supposed to show respect for, and why?
Certainly not for Mr Huddud’s biblical scholarship and accuracy. To take your own example (it’s reference 16, not 18, actually): He gives “If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, And give occasions of speech against her, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid….if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father’s house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you.”
In fact, the ellipse shows that he has omitted a significant qualification (and several verses he claims to cite): “15 Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate:
16 And the damsel’s father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her;
17 And, lo, he hath given occasions of speech against her, saying, I found not thy daughter a maid; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city.
18 And the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him;
19 And they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.”
Still disgusting and contemptible, of course, but it is not “the singular witness of her husband” which is considered valid evidence, but what were then considered physical proofs of virginity and loss of virginity.
There are, of course, as I said, “Christians AND Jews that call for these notions [of biblically-mandated punishment] to be implemented.” It’s just that there aren’t many and they aren’t influential. To take the three largest christian denominations, for example – the roman catholic church, the orthodox churches and the episcopalian churches – in none of them is it official doctrine that any part of the bible should be believed to be literally and absolutely true or that biblical penalties should be imposed for biblical “crimes”. In fact, as with the famous Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, small churches that do make just that demand can acquire renown and publicity in the centre-right/right wing media corps you seem clearly obsessed with which are completely unjustified by their size or influence.
“Leaving aside the forgiveness of a Muslim who were to theoretically undergo this, the point is that it is a mercy since NO ONE has EVER been caught with a high enough burden of proof to mandate stoning to death yet it still acts as a deterrent and a reminder of the seriousness of adultery spreading through a society.”
Are you really saying that no-one has ever been stoned to death under sharia law? In fact, stoning and other forms of lethal torture have been and are carried out regularly as penalties for assorted koranically-inspired offences in – to give contemporary examples – Saudi Arabia, Iran and the territory controlled by Daesh. Perhaps, you consider none of these territories to be truly muslim, and their rulers to be “hypocrites or innovators”. After all, they say that about one another. They disagree, though, with equal validity about themselves, and would justify their disagreement and your punishment if they could impose it, on equally valid koranically-based grounds. Indeed, the very fact that they continue to impose these punishments is evidence that they don’t “act as a deterrent”.
I don’t “accuse Muslims of wanting to implement biblical-style ‘stoning women’ and so forth”. I accuse muslims of wanting to implement koranic-style ‘stoning women’ [and men] and so forth. Surveys of the opinions of muslims in various countries show that many – often most – self-proclaimed muslims do want to implement just such penalties. The fact that many of them live in nonmuslim countries where there is no likelihood of their wishes being fulfilled may make it easier for them to say they want that than it would be if the prospect actually existed, and the fact that those that live in muslim-majority countries may be afraid of the consequences if they appear unenthusiastic may also influence their responses, but we have to go by what they actually say rather than what they might actually want if they thought about the prospect.
Oh, and can you name anyone who believes “Muslims are the existential threat to the universe”? Indeed, can you name anyone who actually believes any humans are an existential threat to the universe?
The cure to your confusion AGAIN is within the very article you are commenting under!
“Are you really saying that no-one has ever been stoned to death under sharia law?”
You don’t have to be so surprised mate, nor do you have to even ask me—this article you keep commending underneath clearly states this.
A) You don’t have a clue about how non-police states work. Even in the “superior” west—before it became a mafia of lucrative police states—you had the same; extremely harsh punishments with judges instructed to avoid the penalty due to technicalities.
B) Your naive assumption that any group of people getting together to “implement sharia” as fox/daily mail tells you, is indeed sharia, is extremely sad. You are talking about the system of law and governance that gave the world enlightenment, gave it the rule of law, due process, rights of the accused and generally brought your ancestors down from the trees (to their eventual regret when they turned around and used that knowledge and technology to manufacture their previous barbarity on a global scale, but that’s another story). My point is, if some rag-tag bunch of bandits claimed to implement “English law” and it led to chaos, you wouldn’t blame English law. Just because somebody claims to implement something it doesn’t mean they actually are. That’s not even the end of your delusion; you are actually criticising something by using an example of people who aren’t even implementing it. Sorry to be the one to break it to you but in other words you are praising shari’a!
Six months is rather a long time to be awaiting moderation…
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
‘“Are you really saying that no-one has ever been stoned to death under sharia law?”
You don’t have to be so surprised mate, nor do you have to even ask me—this article you keep commending underneath clearly states this.’
I certainly don’t commend Mr Hammuda’s article. The most kindly view is that he misreads the bible and is ignorant of Christian theology.
He says that in ‘a complete Islamic system’ ‘The only time this stipulation [of stoning adulterers to death] was established was when the perpetrators surrendered themselves to the system, fearing the repercussions in the hereafter.’ which makes it plain that women were stoned to death, though only voluntarily. He completely disregards the – in his opinion – incomplete Islamic systems which have held sway from the invention of islam. Until he demonstrates that his definition of ‘a complete Islamic system’ is the only valid one those incomplete Islamic systems are perfectly reasonable instances of islam in the eyes of others.
‘ Even in the “superior” west—before it became a mafia of lucrative police states—you had the same; extremely harsh punishments with judges instructed to avoid the penalty due to technicalities. ‘
Really? Going by all accounts of Islamic states, they were pretty enthusiastic about imposing savage penalties for all crimes. Where is there actual evidence that this policy was ever carried out?
You also misunderstand early western justice if you believe it was based on ‘extremely harsh punishments with judges instructed to avoid the penalty due to technicalities’. In fact, before there were effective police forces justice was based on extremely harsh punishments with judges instructed to impose them on anyone convicted. The theory was that the harshness of the penalty compensated for the unlikeliness of being caught and convicted and would serve as an effective deterrent. This turned out to be mistaken – and – indeed – dangerous. If you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, you might as well be hung for a magistrate as a sheep.
When and where precisely was sharia properly implemented then? How do we tell ‘a group of people getting together to “implement sharia”’ from a group of people getting together to “implement sharia” properly?
‘You are talking about the system of law and governance that gave the world enlightenment, gave it the rule of law, due process, rights of the accused’
I suggest you take a look at – say – ancient German tribal law, Roman law, or even the Code of Hammurabi.
‘generally brought your ancestors down from the trees ‘
You reveal your ignorance even – or especially – in your prejudices. My ancestors came down from the henges.
‘ if some rag-tag bunch of bandits claimed to implement “English law” and it led to chaos, you wouldn’t blame English law.’
You wouldn’t, perhaps. I would. English law is the law enforced in England at any given time and it has been implemented by bunches of bandits before now. In fact, it was established by a bunch of bandits known as Normans. The important thing is to examine the purpose and working of the law and to adjust it to serve its purpose – to preserve the lives, property and rights of the inhabitants of England.
‘you are actually criticising something by using an example of people who aren’t even implementing it. Sorry to be the one to break it to you but in other words you are praising shari’a!’
Your logic isn’t too good either. If I am ‘using an example of people who aren’t even implementing it’ to criticise sharia, that doesn’t mean I am praising ‘real’ sharia, whatever that is. I could – and given its basis in the supposed words of god – probably would disapprove of the real thing just as much.
However, as I said, you have claimed there are many instances of false sharia, but you have not yet given an instance of the real thing. So, again, when and where was proper sharia actually practised and how do we tell it from the various fakes you claim have damaged its reputation?
An amazing article that will be read many times over.
BarakaAllahu feek
Funny that all of the above are not practised by modern Christians but are being practised as we speak by the Islamic state, especially the stoning and throwing of gays off buildings…why is that?
By ‘that’ do you mean your mind automatically jumping to create a false equivalence between ALL Christians (which by the way is patently inaccurate) and an insignificant bunch of rag tag thugs of unverified origin that have been grossly inflated by the propaganda submissive to a multi-trillion-dollar fear-mongering security establishment? Funny that… I’d say maybe there’s something in the water.
I was being sarcastic. TRUE Christianity is very much like TRUE Islam, there are orthodox Christians in the UK and across the bible belt in USA who implement the teachings of the bible, very much like rhe muslims do, in a non violent way, using their voice to uphold their laws. I find IS totally repugnant and it has no basis in our religion, but, it’s just all so dreadful that the writer has unintentionally described such mortifying acts which, like it or not, real or false, are covered daily in our newspapers describing the “Islamic State”.
well IS must have some basis in your religion because it seems like they are following the Bible to the letter!