Below you find the draft of the Preface of a soon to be published book.
Title: 49:49
Subtitle: The Emperor’s Old Rags
An autobiographical Anecdote
This book has an autobiographical side. This foreword all the more so. Starting with a personal anecdote would therefore be appropriate.
An anecdote that has no direct relationship with the content of this book, but an indirect one: via the subtitle. It paraphrases the title of a fairy tale: ‘ The Emperor’s New Clothes‘ 1).
In that fairy tale a young, nameless boy plays a modest but not unimportant role. On the very last page.
At the end of the seventies I made a wrong choice: I continued my psychology study I had followed until then in the south of the country at the University of Utrecht, in the centre of the country. There I ended up in a department completely dominated by communists – without my realising it. Not really thinking independently was a matter of course for almost all employees and students there. Just as natural as it was for me to do so. The first time they realised how deviant my behaviour was, it led to a nervous breakdown and acute departure of one of my fellow students. Some time later, not wanting to explain a personal matter, I was put on hold and had to leave. I was not even asked to be more obedient in the future. They didn’t dare to withhold my credits from me. So yes, a role, similar to that of that nameless boy from the fairy tale, is completely my thing. Now that I’m retired, even more so than in my days at universities.
Why ‘my’ emperor wears old rags will be clear to you when you finish the book. It does not refer to the modern fashion statement of buying new clothes with scuffs and holes.Part II of this book –at first the most important– is about the Qur’an. It appeared in five parts at the end of 2019 on a Dutch-language website 2).
Not hurting your Mom
As I went through the text in detail again, in preparation for translating it into English, the feeling crept up on me that the text was missing something of vital importance. The readers of that website are for the most part people who are somewhat to very critical of the teachings of Mohammad. A large number of them are even atheists. With this book, however, I expressly want to reach other readers as well.
Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, atheists, and yes even Muslims I want to encourage to look critically at the teachings of Mohammad especially on the basis of the content of the Quran.
In the framework of study for earlier books and articles I wrote about the theory and practice of Islam, I also read some books and online texts in the past twenty years, written by Muslims who were critical to very critical of aspects of Islam, but did not want to distance themselves from the teachings of Mohammad as such. These people, mostly women, were remarkably explicit about the reason: they didn’t want to hurt their parents, especially their mother. However, I distanced myself from my parents’ religion when I was 13 or 14 years old. At an age when, in general, one cares less about one’s own parents’ feelings than adults do.
A Penny dropped
The moment I looked again at the first paragraph of Part I of this book in progress, the first penny dropped.
The moment I looked again at the first paragraph of Part I of this book in progress, the first penny dropped.
In that paragraph I emphasised, that I –though atheist– judged Christianity quite differently despite similarities with the teachings of Mohammad. My own farewell to Christianity, however, did not follow an analysis of the Bible; and certainly not an analysis as thorough and critical as the one I had already carried out on the Quran.My upbringing was not fundamentalist, but it was thoroughly Catholic. On both my father’s side and mother’s side, many generations of my ancestors were Catholic without exception. I went to Catholic schools and was in a Catholic hobby club for boys. My older sisters joined Catholic scouting. One week before Easter 3),
The Catholic Church was important to my father until his death in 1970. I had not been in a church for several years by then, but of course went to the worship service dedicated to the end of his life.
The closing of the service was provided by the male church choir: his friends.
They sang the song Kyria Eleison.
That’s Latin for, “Lord have mercy“. I had heard this text many hundreds of times in my life and sometimes mumbled it with them, but now, performed as a Gregorian chant, it took on a different, truly moving meaning: his friends wished him all the best after his death.
For my mother, the church was somewhat less important, and especially during my father’s prolonged deathbed, she ended contact with the church. She became as atheistic as I was.
So one could label me as a ‘cultural Catholic‘. And now, through this book, I am actually asking ‘cultural Muslims‘ who read it, to critically examine the foundation of their religion. Such a request cannot possibly be well received if I do not also critically discuss the foundation of my parents’ religion.
Critically and above all: just as explicitly.
After this penny dropped, I delved into the contents of the Bible and oriented myself towards Judaism.
A huge Postface
On that basis I did not completely rewrite this book.
I made adjustments in Part II. I modified Part I and Part III a little more, but you will find the biggest change, except here in this preface, in the added, expanded postface, entitled: On Monotheisms, Goddesses and Demigods of sorts.
In that long postface I go deeper into the special concept of ‘god’.
I do so on the basis of an exploration of several religions, particularly, but not exclusively, Judaism and Christianity.
That exploration is based in part on my own recollections, in a larger part on studying their basic texts more seriously, and on knowledge of the history of the practice of Christianity that I gained especially in the 21st century.
In my re-evaluation, I also compare the religion of the gospels (the life story of Jesus Christ) with the religion of the well-known “apostle” Paul.
The strange practice of cutting in the penises of boy babies, boys and adult men, and the deeply embedded Abrahamic hatred of women, are also discussed.
During the additional study I did for that postface, many more pennies dropped. That of those (mythological) goddesses from its title was the most important.
In the end, my ‘re-evaluation’ did not cause me to become less critical of Mohammad’s teachings; rather, my judgement of organised Christianity (and Judaism) became considerably more negative than it had been before.
The postface grew and grew: in size and importance.
I even considered shortening Part II considerably. At the end of the postface itself it becomes clear why I did not do so.
Even after Part II and the even spicier postface, that ending can still be called brisk.
A tip of the veil I lift here. I discovered that the first part of the Muslim profession of faith, the shahada, is very similar to part of verse 12:32 from one of the four ‘gospels’ 5).
(Mark): “[a scribe said] Indeed, master, what you say is true: he alone is God and there is no god but he …“.
In verse 12:29 of the same book of the Bible, Jesus –the master from verse 32– has already provided the prelude to this:
“The main [commandment] is, ‘Listen, Israel! 6) The Lord our God is the only Lord …’ “.
The question whether Mohammad, more or less consciously, with the text “There is no god but Allah” presented nothing more than a variant of this New Testament 7) line , is interesting, but less important than it may seem at first sight 8).
Past, sources & Present
For both the teachings of Jesus Christ and Mohammad, one can ask, and in my opinion should ask, how much the original founding texts matter today. Until recently, I would have added almost automatically that the precise biblical texts matter less than the Koranic texts because Christianity -also organised Christianity- has undergone more changes for the better than Mohammedanism has.
There is, however, a disturbing trend among both Christian fundamentalists and ex-Christians to be inspired by Mohammedan “assertiveness” toward dissenters.
I saw a reflection of that trend a short time ago in a resolution debated at the United Nations General Assembly: A/RES/75/26. Particularly as that resolution referred to a remarkable ‘joint statement‘ by two religious leaders: a Catholic one and a Sunni one 9).
I contrast this resolution with the -painfully misplaced- support from outside the Muslim world for a statement by 126 (also Sunni) top ‘Islam scholars’ on the Islamic State in general and these men’s comments on the Yezidis more specifically.
I do so by first addressing the text of that UN resolution itself.
In that context, I make a side trip to that joint statement by those two religious leaders and address the context of that curiously long-winded resolution.
I then turn to that statement by those 126 men. I focus on what that text says about the fate of the Yezidis to finally arrive at the ultimate test of the handling of the partly Christian, partly ex-Christian West with the most problematic aspect of the teachings of Mohammed.
A test for which very many in the West painfully fail.
Agnostic Extremism & World Peace …
These organisations include UN institutions 10), non-governmental organisations, national governments working in pairs or not, unspecified organisations from civil society, initiated by universities 11) or not, and even the duo Francis and Ahmad al-Tayyib 12), two men who are the respective official leader of the largest Christian denomination and of a well-known Sunni university in Egypt.
These ‘His Holiness‘ and ‘The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar‘ 13) drafted a statement when they were in Dubai in 2019 at the invitation of Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, entitled: ‘A document on human fraternity for world peace 14) and living together‘.
Said Mohammed himself owns about fifteen billion dollars and also heads a (state capitalist) investment company that has more than 800 billion dollars at its disposal.
This man is the de facto dictator of the United Arab Emirates. He himself and his country are symbols of tribalism, capitalism and extreme luxury in the 21st century.
That statement by Pope and Imam notes that prosperity and progress are accompanied by “a general feeling of frustration, isolation and desperation leading many to fall either into a vortex of atheistic, agnostic or religious extremism” 15) and that there are “misinterpretations of religious texts” within religions.
It is particularly striking that Jesus Christ, Mohammed, the gods Yahweh/God nor Allah are mentioned in the statement.
Far more remarkable still is this observation in that joint text: “The West can discover in the East remedies for those spiritual and religious maladies that are caused by a prevailing materialism. And the East can find in the West many elements that can help free it from weakness, division, conflict and scientific, technical and cultural decline.“
There is little doubt: by “The East” are meant not India (with “her” Hinduism and Buddhism), China or Japan, and by “The West” not Russia or Western Africa, but Australia and New Zealand maybe. Possibly also South Korea and Taiwan.
By juxtaposing those aspects this way, Mr. Francis is suggesting, when all is said and done, that when it comes to religious matters, the richer countries would be better served by the teachings of Mohammed than by the teachings of Jesus Christ.
The troubled position of the United Nations – 1
Back to the UN resolution A/RES/75/26 itself. It has about 3500 words. With many passages in this long resolution I find it difficult to choose between the predicate ludicrous or ominous.
Where delegations of the UN member states urge the governments of ‘The Member States’, who have delegated them themselves!, to do or not to do something, the ludicrousness prevails.
The most disturbing thing about this is that those involved –both the delegations in question and the people responsible at the ministries in their countries that are responsible for these delegations– start to believe that they are doing something sensible here.
In resolution A/RES/75/26 we read, among other things, about the proclamation of an:
– ‘International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures’,
– An ‘International Day commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief,
– The International Day of Conscience,
– An ‘International Day of Living Together in Peace’ and about
– A 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Furthermore, terms are thrown around as if they, these terms, were understood the same by everyone in the world, yes, even as if there were clear definitions for them and they could be used in a meaningful way as a matter of course, except from displaying them on banners, on screens, in newspaper articles, etc.
Concepts like: ‘religious symbols’, ‘(religious) intolerance’, ‘hostility’, ‘dialogue’ in general and ‘Intercultural and interreligious dialogue for the Benefit of Peace and Mankind (!)’, ‘inter ethnic dialogue’ and ‘interfaith dialogue’ in particular, ‘culture of peace’, ‘common values shared by all mankind’, ‘religious leaders’, ‘discrimination’, ‘moderation’ 16) , ‘public order’, ‘public health and morals’, ‘world religions’ more ‘precisely’.
Deliberately, I mention the concepts of ‘(mutual) respect’, ‘respect for diversity’ and ‘hate speech’ in a separate sentence (this one).
For the almost 7.9 billion world citizens who are far to very far away from these meeting circuits 17), each concrete statement about current affairs is awe-inspiringly more important than all the intentions and mutual compliments of the professional visitors of this type of meetings combined.
When you filter out those intentions and compliments and, in addition, take into account who the most important promoters were behind the more concrete parts of the resolution, the picture tilts completely.
Then you read in the 43 considerations that COVID-19 already occupies a central position: not in the sense of a threat or challenge with regard to the health of the world population, but as a base for a text about ‘the rise in discrimination, hate speech, stigmatisation, racism and xenophobia’ with which that threat would go hand in hand. Then in those considerations you also read “that such violence should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization or ethnic group.
Only after this filtering two of the twenty numbered “decisions” do stand out: issues 10 and 13.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the text of issue 10 when you ignore the context. It begins with “Welcomes the initiative to open up the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor …“.
The context in which it is placed by one of the two initiators (Pakistan) gives a totally different meaning to the point. See below. Issue 13 however, contains a barely veiled attack on freedom of expression:
“…emphasises that everyone has the right to freedom of expression, and reaffirms that the exercise of this right carries with it special duties and responsibilities and may therefore be subject to certain restrictions…“.
Note that the whole resolution is dominated by “religion and interculture” and this point 13 is an explicit reminder of this. This attack on freedom of expression is explicitly placed in the context of dealing with religions. Religions that -as if that would be self-evident!– are not enumerated, let alone defined. A second reason why I am devoting so much attention to this resolution has to do with the fact that the concept for this resolution originated in the Philippines and was embraced most enthusiastically by Pakistan. The resolution is referred to as ‘co-sponsored by Pakistan and the Philippines’ by different sources 18).
Note that the strongly Catholic country of the Philippines suffers from Muslim-inspired terror in the south of the country and on the other hand scores almost as high as Pakistan on the index ‘number of teenage mothers’.
During the General Assembly session in which this resolution was debated, Pakistan’s representative launched this remarkable attack on neighbouring India:
Today, Islamophobia has assumed a deadly dimension in India. The mothership of governing Bharatiya Janata Party is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a fascist organisation created almost 100 years ago [!] by the founder who advocated “cleansing” of Muslims and other minorities from India’s “Aryan” Hindu population. In several parts of India, the plan for ethnic cleansing is being implemented.
In Pakistan itself, Prime Minister Imran Khan commented on the resolution:
…[he] emphasised that the resolution was important in the wake of ‘growing religious intolerance and racism, especially Islamophobia around the world’.
I remind you of the founding of the country of Pakistan. The founding of the countries of India and Pakistan is also referred to as the ‘partition‘.
That partition was on the basis of a particular religious division: precisely Pakistan was explicitly for the Muslims, India explicitly for all religions. So much for that UN resolution 19).
IS, the Kurds and the Caliphate. Turkey: from sick Occupant to paranoid Neighbour
Some years ago I dealt extensively with the statement of those 126 Sunni leaders in chapter IX 20) of a book on (the foundation of) Turkey, the Kurds and the Islamic State 21).
In that e-book I spent over 4000 words on it. Too much to reproduce here in full. Here I reproduce a little more than 10% of it.
In stark contrast to most Western politicians and their many uncritical supporters in the media, these scholars hesitate to declare IS non-Muslim!
This choice manifests itself implicitly throughout the text, and is explicitly the subject of the section of the letter on “takfir” 22) (paragraph 9): the second largest and, in my opinion, the most interesting of the letter. (…) The letter does not explicitly state that no attempt was made to include Shiite scholars among the signatories. However, the first paragraph of the ‘Open Letter’ simply asserts that “everything said here consists of summaries written in a simple style that reflect the opinion of the overwhelming majority [!] of Sunni scholars throughout Islamic history.“
Nothing more, nothing less.
To eliminate any possible misunderstanding, they confirm some of their claims in the letter itself by quoting Aïsha, Mohammad’s famous child-bride: a near-perfect method of deterring potential support from Shiite scholars. (…)
The first 5 of the letter’s 24 numbered sections deal with the prescribed methodology for “Qu’ranic exegesis, and the understanding of Hadith”; it counts dozens of links to Qur’anic verses and Hadith. (…)
The 126 scholars decided to begin [the longest] section 8 of their letter with these words, “All Muslims see the great virtue in jihad.“
It continues with two verses from the Qur’an about the necessity of jihad and, for clarity, the men add, “.. and many other verses.”
Even more pronounced is the text on the obviousness of holy war: “Muslims may be confronted with circumstances in which combat is not called for.” (…)
The part of the letter to Baghdadi that I detest the most is about the Yazidis: paragraphs 10 and 11. Partly because I have never encountered a Mohammedan scholar with a decidedly different view on this subject.
The frame of reference that manifests itself here is an ideology with a strict division of humanity into classes, for whom -in their perspective: obviously-different rules and laws apply.
Humanity is divided into two main categories: Mohammedans and non-Mohammedans. Both are further subdivided into subcategories; again in the sense of order.
The subcategory of non-Mohammedans called “people of scripture” is the second best of the Mohammadans. Numerous verses in the Qur’an suggest that Jews and Christians belong to this group.
According to the letter, Arab Christians “are not subject to the rules of jihad … [Others] are subject to agreements guaranteed to them by Omar 23) Ibn Al Khattab.”
These agreements deal with an official status as second-class citizens (dhimmis, see their note 84).
Specifically about the Yazidis, the 126 reading IS says, “Even if you doubt that they are People of the Scriptures (…)” and a little further on they add, “The Umayyads [661-750] considered even [!] Hindus and Buddhists to be dhimmis.”
In fact, here they answer the question of whether Yazidis, Buddhists and Hindus should be considered second-class or third-class citizens.
I read several cheering stories about the meekness of these 126 in granting the Yezidis the status of second class citizens instead of the third class that the Islamic State had granted them. The most outspoken and perverted version of it came from the previous mayor of the capital of the Netherlands. (end of quote)
The Motto of an (unfortunately) unique Book
The front page shows the motto of this book.
A large part of this book is formed by a critical discussion of the Qur’an such as to my knowledge (and unfortunately) has never been written in history. The founder of the Islamic religion fulfils a role that is unique compared to that of all other religions. To fathom that role and what this says about the relationship of mohammedanism to other religions and whether mohammedanism can be modernised, a rational, critical examination of verse 49 of the surah called Al Qasas (The Story) is absolutely indispensable. In the traditional order, this is surah 28. In the logical, chronological order of the surahs, it also happens to be surah 49 24).
Verse 49:49 is about the relationship between mohammedanism on the one hand and Christianity and Judaism on the other, but also about the relationship between the person Mohammad and the Qur’an.
Hence the motto of this book:
“ If a religion with political ambitions and growing influence has one founder and one founding book, it is very unwise not to study that founder, that book and the relationship between them. “
Anyone who reads a standard copy of the Qur’an once from cover to cover, unfortunately still knows virtually nothing about Islam. Not even if the reader masters Koranic Arabic, reads attentively and is above average in intelligence.
This is not a negative value judgement on my part: I have really never come across a serious assertion or suggestion that the Qur’an is an easily readable and understandable book. An indirect, but painfully powerful underlining of this fact I encountered while writing my first book. A Dutch woman who had converted to the teachings of Mohammad and had become a de facto professional Mohammadan in an interview by a national newspaper said that she still drew inspiration in texts from … the children’s Quran 25).
The purpose of this book, and of Part II in particular, is therefore not only to formulate criticism, but also to make the contents of the Qur’an somewhat more accessible.
My approach is thus diametrically opposed to that of many who implicitly or even explicitly opt for an attitude that boils down to: “Islam will be fine if we just don’t delve into it or meddle with it “.
Notes:
1) It is a famous fairy tale but for those who are not familiar with it, I briefly state its contents here. A country has a stupid, very vain emperor. Some evildoers cleverly take advantage of this. They pretend to be the very best tailors and are allowed to work to design and make new clothes for the emperor. However, they are only pretending. When lackeys come to them to assess their progress, the culprits bluff that these clothes are not visible to people who are not suited to their work. Fearing disclosure of their unfitness, the lackeys report to the emperor that the clothes will be very nice. When the emperor comes to try them on, he too sees no clothes, but he is told the same story and -for the same reason- he too pretends that there are clothes. When the emperor – naked or in his underpants, there are variations – parades through the city with these ‘new clothes’, a little boy dares to call out that he has no clothes on. After that, everyone dares to do so.
2) The website VerenOfLood.nu
3) The holiday Easter celebrates that Jesus Christ would have risen from the dead on the Sunday after his death on Friday. Easter is celebrated each year on Sunday, so not always on the same day of the year. The Sunday preceding it is called Palm Sunday.
4) Recently, ‘Palm Passion’ has been celebrated more often here and there in a new, semi-secular form.
5) Briefly, the gospels are the -partly overlapping- stories of the life of Jesus Christ.
6) Unmistakably, he is addressing the Jewish people here, not the state of Israel.
7) The Christian Bible has two very different founding documents: the Old Testament and the New Testament. Both contain a large number of ‘books’. The Old Testament is almost identical to the Torah: the holy book of Judaism. The much less extensive New Testament has no Jewish equivalent. Four of the books in it deal with the life of the Jewish person Jesus Christ, who is often referred to as the son of God. Those books are called Gospels. They cover less than half of that volume. Many of the other books in the New Testament are said to be by Paul.
8) The importance of this cannot be overestimated, also with regard to the question of whether or not mohammedanism can be reformed.
That profession of faith, the shahada, is not taken from the Quran, by the way. However, the first part could have been derived from the beginning of the truly hilarious verse 3:18, which begins like this: “Allah bears witness that there is no god but He…”.
9) Sunnis constitute the vast majority, Shiites the largest minority within Islam.
10) UN organizations: UNAOC, UNESCO, various offices of the Secretary-General, and the Office of Intergovernmental Support and Coordination for Sustainable Development.
11) Referring to issue 17 of the resolution. Nowhere in the long text is it so clear that it is about creating lucrative jobs.
12) For the contents of their joint statement, see the Vatican website (www.vatican.va). The document there is called papa-francesco_20190204_documento-fratellanza-umana.
There is also a prominent link to that statement on the official website of Al Azhar.
13) The titles the men use for themselves in signing the statement.
14) I assume that these gentlemen do not, at least not jointly, watch Miss Elections.
15) An exceptionally strange formulation. It is not so difficult to imagine what these men actually mean by “extremist atheism“: they are talking about people who flatly deny the existence of gods and devils.
The two of them use the adjective ‘extremist’ to indicate that they are extremely shocked by this kind of contradiction.
But extremist agnosticism?
The term agnostic is derived from a- “not” + gn ō stos, from *gno- “to know.” How any human being would be able to “not know (for sure)” in an extremist way: it is a mystery to anyone who has ‘respect’ for men like this holy man and this great imam.
The Pope did not ask the Imam and the Imam did not ask the Pope, that much is certain.
16) The term moderation is mentioned immediately preceding point 13 on the subject of freedom of speech. It is special: after all, the term stands for two very different concepts!
17) Via the UN websites it is also possible to find out how often the text of resolutions are downloaded. Around the time of the discussion of this resolution –rather controversial compared to other ones –, there was on average per member state of the UN less than one person who copied the text to his her own computer…
18) Turkey’s Anadolu Agency even writes about the “Pakistan-led interfaith dialogue resolution“.
19) Only 90 of the 193 members of the UN voted in favor of this resolution. Nevertheless, it was adopted. No country voted against it –even India under Narendra Modi and the United States under Trump did not!–, 52 countries abstained and 51 voted blank. Take note: more than two thirds of UN General Assembly resolutions are adopted without a vote.
20) Starting at the section ‘Due respect’.
21) E-book ‘IS, the Kurds and the Caliphate. Turkey: from sick occupant to paranoid neighbor’. Possibly it can still be ordered at Amazon. 240 pages, 530 notes.
22) Takfirism is one of the most interesting and horrific aspects of mohammedanism. It is about ‘accusing’ other mohammedans of apostasy.
23) This Omar (or Umar) was the second of the ‘rashidun caliphs’. In the letter he is mentioned as a –or the only– example of a Mohammedan ruler who practised the jizya in a way that sounds acceptable in modern ears; the same goes for the way he dealt with hudud punishments.
24) See Chapter 1 of Part II about deliberately not using that (chrono)logical order; especially the paragraph The important and veiled chronology of the revelations.
25) In the Postface, I return to the effect that reading the Children’s Bible –then as a child and now as an adult– had on myself.