Andrew Bostom Islamic anti-Semitism Lying Muslims

Dr.Andrew Bostom: Imam of Peace spreads intoxicating Takiya: Denies Doctrinal-Historical Iranian Shiite Jew-Hatred…….


 

And I’ll add that (supposed Islamic moderate) Dr.Zuhdi Jasser did the exact same thing in an interview with Pamela Geller years ago, I remember it well for I transcribed the entire interview for Pamela.

 

[VIDEO] “Intoxicating” Takiya: Imam Tawhidi Denies Doctrinal and Historical Iranian Shiite Jew-Hatred, Blames “Safavid Drunkenness”

Former New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind recently (this past May, 2019) gushed that peripatetic Australian Shiite Imam Mohammad Tawhidi,  was “a great friend of the Jewish people.” Adding a testament to Tawhidi’s alleged singular veracity, Hikind further declared the good Imam had “taken it upon himself to tell the truth.”

 

Notwithstanding such praise, Tawhidi’s appearance at an interfaith seminar last Thursday, October 17th in Manhattan, revealed the good Imam’s complete denial of the truth about both the clear doctrinal basis, and accompanying half-millennium ad nauseum historical manifestations of Shiite Islam’s virulent Antisemitism. Tawhidi’s response to a very specific query, prefaced by irrefragable, easy to understand historical details (see embedded video, and transcript, below), was a toxic amalgam of brazen takiya (“sacralized” Islamic dissimulation), and non-sequitur, bizarre gibberish.

 

Event moderator Rabbi Elie Abadie read Tawhidi a 1950 quote by Walter Fischel (d. 1973), historian par excellence of Persian Jewry, describing the chronic, humiliating persecution of Iranian Jewry under Shiite theocratic rule during the Safavid, and subsequent Qajar dynasties (1501-~1724; 1795-1925, respectively), animated by Shiism’s “najis”(“impurity”)-inspired Jew-hatred. Rabbi Abadie then logically challenged Tawhidi’s public assertion that Iranian Shiite Antisemitism was non-existent in Iran until after the 1979 Khomeini putsch, by asking,

 

‘Isn’t it accurate to say that all that the Khomeini Revolution did was to restore those intolerant Shiite doctrines which were fleetingly eliminated during the Pahlavi period (a much more secular, Westernized era) from 1925-1979?’

 

After admitting he had in fact made such a pronouncement (“He [Bostom] quoted me accurately”), Tawhidi re-asserted his essential negationist claim, repeatedly:

 

I said that before 1979 the Iranian community had no problem with the Jewish people. And what I meant was that before the Ayatollahs took over the government, the Shia Muslims in general—and we could even extend this to Iraq—the Shia Muslims in general—don’t have a problem with the Jewish people… Before 1979, the Jews and Muslims in Iran lived in peace… And when I say the Shia were good with the Jews, you can always compare. The Jewish community in Iran has been thriving for a very long time.

 

Not once did Tawhidi address the core issues of Shiism’s najis doctrine, and intimately related canonical Islamic Jew-hatred (which Shiism has in common, identically, with Sunni Islam, adding its own unique hateful motifs). Nor did he acknowledge what this odious Shiite doctrine engendered: the 500-year ongoing continuum of persecution of Iranian Jews, including pogroms that rendered areas of Iran with former Jewish populations, Judenrein.  Tawhidi, instead, belched forth inanities about “Safavid drunken thugs,” and their heirs, today, “the crazy tyrants in Teheran,” also called “Safavids,” by (Sunni) “Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, and the UAE (United Arab Emirates).”

 

What follows (beneath the embedded video), is a brief, evidence-based rebuttal of Tawhidi’s dishonest, Kafkaesque misrepresentations. All of this discussion, with annotations derives from my book, Iran’s Final Solution For Israel—The Legacy of Jihad and Shi-ite Islamic Jew-Hatred in Iran.”

 

 

(See also a transcript of the video exchange, at the bottom of this blog)

 

At the outset of the 16th century, Iran’s Safavid rulers formally established Shiite Islam as the state religion, while permitting a clerical hierarchy nearly unlimited control and influence over all aspects of public life. The profound influence of the Shiite clerical elite, continued for almost four centuries, although interrupted, between 1722-1795 (during a period precipitated by Sunni Afghan invasion, starting in 1719, and the subsequent attempt to re-cast Twelver Shiism as simply another Sunni school of Islamic Law, under Nadir Shah), through the later Qajar period (1795-1925), as characterized by the Persianophile scholar, E.G. Browne:

 

The Mujtahids [an eminent, very learned Muslim jurist/scholar who is qualified to interpret the law] and Mulla [a scholar, not of Mujtahid stature] are a great force in Persia and concern themselves with every department of human activity from the minutest detail of personal purification to the largest issues of politics.

 

These Shiiite clerics emphasized the notion of the ritual uncleanliness (najis) of Jews, in particular, but also Christians, Zoroastrians, and others, as the cornerstone of inter-confessional relationships toward non-Muslims. Restrictive codes for Jews, influenced by the conception of najis, were developed by the powerful Shiite clerical leadership, and regularly applied during both the Safavid and Qajar periods, the latter extending into the modern era (i.e., 1925).  Their application across a span of  four centuries was confirmed, independently by multiple foreign travelers during the 16th to 18th century Safavid dynasty, the subsequent the observations of the mid-19th century traveler Benjamin (in Table 1), and a listing of the 1892 Hamadan edict conditions in (Table 2).

 

Table 1. Listing by Israel Joseph Benjamin (1818-1864) of the “Oppressions” Suffered by Persian Jews, During the Mid-19th Century

 

  1. Throughout Persia the Jews are obliged to live in a part of town separated from the other inhabitants; for they are considered as unclean creatures, who bring contamination with their intercourse and presence.
  2. They have no right to carry on trade in stuff goods.
  3. Even in the streets of their own quarter of the town they are not allowed to keep open any shop. They may only sell there spices and drugs, or carry on the trade of a jeweler, in which they have attained great perfection.
  4. Under the pretext of their being unclean, they are treated with the greatest severity, and should they enter a street, inhabited by Mussulmans, they are pelted by the boys and mob with stones and dirt.
  5. For the same reason they are forbidden to go out when it rains; for it is said the rain would wash dirt off them, which would sully the feet of the Mussulmans.
  6. If a Jew is recognized as such in the streets, he is subjected to the greatest of insults. The passers-by spit in his face, and sometimes beat him so unmercifully and is obliged to be carried home.
  7. If a Persian kills a Jew, and the family of the deceased can bring forward two Mussulmans as witnesses to the fact, the murderer is punished by a fine of 12 tumauns (600 piastres); but if two such witnesses cannot be produced, the crime remains unpunished, even thought it has been publicly committed, and is well known.
  8. The flesh of the animals slaughtered according to Hebrew custom, but as Trefe declared, must not be sold to any Mussulmans. The slaughterers are compelled to bury the meat, for even the Christians do not venture to buy it, fearing the mockery and insult of the Persians.
  9. If a Jew enters a shop to buy anything, he is forbidden to inspect the goods, but must stand at respectful distance and ask the price. Should his hand incautiously touch the goods, he must take them at any price the seller chooses for them.
  10. Sometimes the Persians intrude into the dwellings of the Jews and take possession of whatever pleases them. Should the owner make the least opposition in defense of his property, he incurs the danger of atoning for it with his life.
  11. Upon the least dispute between a Jew and a Persian, the former is immediately dragged before the Achund [Muslim cleric] and, if the complainant can bring forward two witnesses, the Jew is condemned to pay a heavy fine. If he is too poor to pay this penalty in money, he must pay it in his person. He is stripped to the waist, bound to a stake, and receives forty blows with a stick. Should the sufferer utter the least cry of pain during this proceeding, the blows already given are not counted, and the punishment is begun afresh.
  12. In the same manner, the Jewish children, when they get into a quarrel with those of the Mussulmans, are immediately lead before the Achund [Muslim cleric], and punished with blows.
  13. A Jew who travels in Persia is taxed in every inn and every caravanserai he enters. If he hesitates to satisfy any demands that may happen to be made on him, they fall upon him, and maltreat him until he yields to their terms.
  14. If, as already mentioned, a Jew shows himself in the street during the three days of Katel (Ashura; feast of the mourning for the death of the Persian founder of the religion of Ali) he is sure to be murdered.
  15. Daily and hourly new suspicions are raised against the Jews, in order to obtain excuses for fresh extortion; the desire of gain is always the chief incitement to fanaticism.

Table 2. Conditions Imposed Upon the Jews of Hamadan, 1892

  1. The Jews are forbidden to leave their houses when it rains or snows [to prevent the impurity of the Jews being transmitted to the Shiite Muslims]
  2. Jewish women are obliged to expose their faces in public [like prostitutes].
  3. They must cover themselves with a two colored izar (an izar is a big piece of amterial with which eastern women are obliged to cover themselves when leaving their houses].
  4. The men must not wear fine clothes, the only material being permitted them being a blue cotton fabric.
  5. They are forbidden to wear matching shoes.
  6. Every Jew is obliged to wear a piece of red cloth on his chest.
  7. A Jew must never overtake a Muslim on a public street.
  8. He is forbidden to talk loudly to a Muslim.
  9. A Jewish creditor of a Muslim must claim his debt in a quavering and respectful manner.
  10. If a Muslim insults a Jew, the latter must drop his head and remain silent.
  11. A Jew who buys meat must wrap and conceal it carefully from Muslims.
  12. It is forbidden to build fine edifices.
  13. It is forbidden for him to have a house higher than that of his Muslim neighbor.
  14. Neither must he use plaster for whitewashing.
  15. The entrance of his house must be low.
  16. The Jew cannot put on his coat; he must be satisfied to carry it rolled under his arm.
  17. It is forbidden for him to cut his beard, or even to trim it slightly with scissors.
  18. It is forbidden for Jews to leave the town or enjoy the fresh air of the countryside.
  19. It is forbidden for Jewish doctors to ride on horseback [this right was generally forbidden to all non-Muslims, except doctors].
  20. A Jew suspected of drinking spirits must not appear in the street; if he does he should be put to death immediately.
  21. Weddings must be celebrated in the greatest secrecy.
  22. Jews must not consume good fruit.

A letter (dated October, 27, 1892) by S. Somekh of The Alliance Israelite Universelle, regarding the Hamadan edict, provides this context:

 

The latter [i.e., the Jews] have a choice between automatic acceptance, conversion to Islam, or their annihilation. Some who live from hand to mouth have consented to these humiliating and cruel conditions through fear, without offering resistance; thirty of the most prominent members of the community were surprised in the telegraph office, where they had gone to telegraph their grievances to Teheran. They were compelled to embrace the Muslim faith to escape from certain death. But the majority is in hiding and does not dare to venture into the streets…

Mohammad Baqer Majlisi (d. 1699), the highest institutionalized clerical officer under both Shah Sulayman (1666-1694) and Shah Husayn (1694-1722), is recognized as the most influential cleric of the Safavid Shiite theocracy in Persia. Majlisi was also the late 17th century political equivalent of Ayatollah Khomeini.

 

By design, Majlisi wrote many works in Persian to disseminate key aspects of the Shiite ethos among ordinary persons. In his magnum opus Bihar al-anwar (“Oceans of Light”), Majlisi clarified the two aspects of the non-Muslim’s ostensible “impurity.” The first concerns “spiritual impurity” (najasa ma’nawiyya) caused by “their essential nastiness, and the corruption of their beliefs” (khubth batinihim wa-su’i it’tiqadihim). The second aspect flows logically from the first: the concrete, physical impurity, frequently called “juridical impurity” (najasa shar’iyya [Sharia]), that is, an impurity defined by legal prescriptions. Majlisi’s treatise, “Lightning Bolts Against the Jews”, was written in Persian, and despite its title, was actually an overall guideline to anti-dhimmi regulations for all non-Muslims within the Shiite theocracy. Al-Majlisi, in this treatise, describes the standard humiliating requisites for non-Muslims living under the Sharia, first and foremost, the blood ransom jizya poll-tax, based on Koran 9:29. He then enumerates six other restrictions relating to worship, housing, dress, transportation, and weapons (specifically, i.e., to render the dhimmis defenseless), before outlining the unique Shiite impurity or “najis” regulations, as per their “juridical impurity.” It is these latter najis prohibitions which lead Anthropology Professor Laurence Loeb (who studied and lived within the Jewish community of Southern Iran in the early 1970s) to observe, “Fear of pollution by Jews led to great excesses and peculiar behavior by Muslims.”

 

According to al-Majlisi,

 

And, that they should not enter the pool while a Muslim is bathing at the public baths…It is also incumbent upon Muslims that they should not accept from them victuals with which they had come into contact, such as distillates , which cannot be purified. If something can be purified, such as clothes, if they are dry, they can be accepted, they are clean. But if they [the dhimmis] had come into contact with those cloths in moisture they should be rinsed with water after being obtained. As for hide, or that which has been made of hide such as shoes and boots, and meat, whose religious cleanliness and lawfulness are conditional on the animal’s being slaughtered [according to the Sharia], these may not be taken from them. Similarly, liquids that have been preserved in skins, such as oils, grape syrup, [fruit] juices, myrobalan [an astringent fruit extract used in tanning], and the like, if they have been put in skin containers or water skins, these should [also] not be accepted from them…It would also be better if the ruler of the Muslims would establish that all infidels could not move out of their homes on days when it rains or snows because they would make Muslims impure. [emphasis added]

 

Daniel Tsadik’s 2007 study of Iranian Jewry during the 19th, through early 20th centuries, cites important Shiite treatises—Sayyid Muhammad Ali Khurasani Tabai’s 1876 Najasat-i Ayniyah-yi-Kuffar (“The Real Impurity of the Infidels”), and Sheikh Muhammad Shariatmadar-Astrabadi’s Najasat-i Ahl-i-Kitab (“The Impurity of the People of the Book”), published in 1908—as re-affirming that infidel Jews and Christians were najis. These publications validate Tsadik’s observation that, “the nineteenth [and early twentieth] century’s most prominent jurists usually declared non-Muslims, specifically Jews, to be impure.”

 

The enduring, applied nature of the fanatical najis regulation prohibiting dhimmis from being outdoors during rain and/or snow, is well established. For examples, see (Table 1, above) item 5 of Benjamin’s list of “oppressions”, and item 1 of Hamadan’s 1892 (Table 2, above) anti-Jewish regulations, as well as this account provided by the missionary Napier Malcolm who lived in the Yezd area at the close of the 19th century:

 

They [the strict Shi’as] make a distinction between wet and dry; only a few years ago it was dangerous for an Armenian Christian to leave his suburb and go into the bazaars in Isfahan on a wet [rainy] day. “A wet dog is worse than a dry dog.”

 

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