 The question to be answered today is, does the for-on promote peace? Answering in affirmative, we have Aitulah Safawatchesang and Syedatik Ibadu. Answering in the negative, we have David Wood and Robert Spencer. Good afternoon. I'd like to thank Syedatik for arranging this debate. It's becoming increasingly difficult in our time to have open discussions about very difficult topics because people become very quick to start calling each other names and shouting each other down. So it's refreshing to have a Muslim organization actually challenging two handsome geniuses to come in here and argue that the Quran does not promote peace. Unfortunately the handsome geniuses couldn't make it so stuck with Robert and me. But my point here is that just because we disagree and we are going to disagree doesn't mean that we don't respect each other. And I've always respected debaters even if I disagree with them on every other thing. I respect the fact that they're willing to stand up here and defend their beliefs and respond to objections and criticisms. I've been studying Islam. I guess I started studying a little bit in the 90s but that was more secondary sources. I started going through the Muslim sources I guess 15, 16 years ago, something like that. So I've been studying Islam for a while. And I don't really see much room for confusion about the role of violence in the Muslim sources. So I'm going to sort of just give a quick overview of what I think about Islam as far as what I think that Islam teaches and I will of course be corrected later if I'm wrong. So the word Islam start from the basics here. The word Islam means submission. A Muslim is one who submits and submission here refers to submission to Allah. But Allah doesn't just tell you that you must submit to Allah. It tells you how you must submit to Allah and you submit to Allah by unquestioningly obeying the commands of Allah found in the Quran and the teachings and example of Muhammad found in the Hadith. And you demonstrate your submission by believing certain things and by doing certain things. So this is similar to other religions. So in Islam you would be required to believe certain things about Allah, angels, revealed books, prophets and so on. And you would be required to perform certain deeds such as reciting the Shahada, saying your five daily prayers, things like that. So you have to do certain things and believe certain things. Now if Islam is a collection of beliefs and practices, how would this be different from other religions? Well in the Quran chapter 9 verse 29 for instance Allah commands Muslims to fight those who do not believe in Allah nor that they have judgment and those are two of the pillars of, I mean two of the required articles of faith. So it's a command to fight people based on what they believe about certain things. And in the Hadith, Sahih Muslim number 129 for instance, Muhammad said that he'd been commanded to fight people until they say that there's no God but Allah, until they perform the daily prayers and give the prescribed alms. Notice the practices, he's commanded to fight over the practices. So Allah commands Muslims to fight over the beliefs and Muhammad commands Muslims to fight over the practices, hence jihad. That's where jihad, there are different kinds of jihad but that is an important one of them. People who refuse to submit are to be fought until they submit. Now I understand that there are lots of Muslims who don't agree with those last few sentences I said about being required to fight at least in certain circumstances, not in all circumstances but being required in certain circumstances when the Muslim community is able to fight people based on their beliefs and practices. I understand there are lots of Muslims who don't agree with that. And so the question is how do they respond to what Allah and Muhammad said in the Muslim sources. And I see three basic ways of responding and one of the basic ways of responding is by reinterpreting. Reinterpreting commands in the Quran. So if you open up something in the Quran and you don't happen to like it, you can interpret it in some other way. Especially if it has something to do with violence. So chapter 4 verse 34, if you fear rebellion from your wife, you can admonish her, banish her to a separate bed and beat her. No one asked my Muslim friends, what does that mean? What does it mean by you could as a last resort beat her? They tell me that it means you tap her lightly with the toothbrush on the shoulder to show your displeasure. Now my Muslim friends seem perfectly satisfied with that as a response but I'm sitting back there wondering when I hear this, if Allah meant tap them lightly on the shoulder with the toothbrush, why not say tap them lightly on the shoulder with the toothbrush? I mean there are perfectly good Arabic words for saying that sort of thing. So why say the thing that sounds like it's telling you it's okay to beat your wife? Why say that instead of what you really meant? And that's the problem with this response. Over and over again in the Quran, Allah claims to be perfectly clear in His commandments. So when Allah says something, Allah had all eternity to get that exactly the way He wanted, to say exactly what He was commanding you to do. So when a Muslim comes in and says, yes what Allah said was this but He really meant something else, it sounds like you're claiming to be more clear than Allah in His perfectly clear work. And that sounds somewhat strange to me and it sounds strange to many Muslims. So that's one way of responding and the problem I see with it. The next way of responding is what I call the context defense. Namely that yes you can look at verses of the Quran and they sound violent but if you look at the surrounding verses you'll see that it's not violent at all or it's promoting just fighting and self-defense. And just to be clear, I'm a big fan of context. You can distort any book, the Quran or any other book by ripping words out of context. You can distort my words right now by taking something I just said, completely ripping it out of context and making it sound like I said something else. So it is a correct criticism that context is important. And there are verses where this is perfectly relevant. When people point out chapter 2 verse 191 of the Quran, slay them wherever you find them, it is relevant to point out that a verse earlier, a verse earlier, Allah refers to fighting people who are fighting you. So there's an ongoing fight. It's not talking about just walking out and killing someone in the street outside this church for instance. So context is relevant, passages like that. The problem is there are other places in the Quran where you can read the context all day long. You can look at the literary context, that's the verses that come around it. You can look at the historical context and the verse turns out to mean exactly what it sounds like it means. Fight those who do not believe in Allah or the last day is one of those verses. There's nothing in the context about people attacking you. Nothing historical or literary context, nothing about anyone attacking you. It's about fighting people based on what they believe. So the context doesn't help here. And the third basic response is for Muslims to go to passages of the Quran, which do say something peaceful. So if you're a Muslim and someone disagrees with you, you are to say to you be your religion and to me be my religion. That sounds peaceful. There's no compulsion in religion. That sounds peaceful. Those sound good. Now, what's the problem here? Well, the problem here is those are not sort of the final marching orders of Allah or Muhammad. When we go to the life of Muhammad, we see a pattern emerge. And it's the same pattern we find in the Quran. It's the same pattern we find in the Hadith. Namely that when Muhammad was completely outnumbered in Mecca and any sort of confrontation with the unbelievers, any sort of physical fighting resulted in the Muslim community just being wiped out, Muslims were told to preach a message of peace and tolerance. Don't even fight. Don't fight even in self-defense. Later, Muslims left Mecca, went to Medina, and were able to form some alliances, had some more, a lot more people on their side. And then the message changed to fight those who fight you. That's when you're fighting people, and the other people have to start the fighting. And so here you have what's called defensive jihad. You fight jihad, but it's for defensive purposes. The other groups have to do something to start it. But those are not the final marching orders. There is a later period when Muslims have the dominant position in society. They have the upper hand. They have the most and the strongest community. And that's when the commands change from fight those who fight you to fight those who do not believe. Now you have the subjugation of non-Muslims and non-Muslim groups. So the peaceful verses of the Quran that are used to show that Islam doesn't call for violence against unbelievers, those also fall prey to the context response. You say, what's the context of there's no compulsion in religion? What's the context of these other verses? And you find that once you put all of the various Muslim teachings into a logical order, you get a pattern that emerges. And the final marching orders are for when Muslims are in a position to subjugate others, and then they are called on to do so. Again, I'm not saying Muslims in here agree with that, but that is what Islam teaches as far as I can tell. And to expand upon some of this, we'll have Robert Spencer. Thank you, David. Thank you all for being here. And as David is saying, there is a certain progression in the development of the Quran's teaching on relationship with unbelievers. And he cited chapter 109, Surah 109 of the Quran, which says, Say to the unbelievers, you have your religion. We have ours and essentially we'll leave each other alone. And then you have defensive jihad and offensive jihad, offensive jihad being based solely on fighting unbelievers because they are unbelievers. And thus it is not defensive until there are no more unbelievers left to fight. They have all been converted or subjugated under the rule of Islam or killed. This is not an eccentric understanding of Islam. This was first formulated by Ibn Ishaq, who was Muhammad's first biographer and who wrote his biography of Muhammad in the middle part of the 8th century. And all the biographies of Muhammad since then, both friendly and unfriendly to him, have been based on Ibn Ishaq because he contains material that other people simply don't have. He's the earliest available source. And he was aware, as many of the early Muslims were aware, that there was a certain discrepancy in the Qur'an's teaching on jihad and on the relationship with unbelievers. Sometimes it was saying you get along with them and coexist and speak to them more eloquent words than they are speaking to you and so on. And other times it's saying go to war. And so he explained that there was a progression from tolerance to offensive jihad as the final stage. And this was based on the idea in the Qur'an that the different surahs from Mecca and from Medina, Mecca being the first part of Muhammad's prophetic career when he was based in Mecca and was a preacher of religious ideas without any political or military power. And Medina later being where he settled and became a military and political leader as well as a religious one, that the Medina verses coming chronologically later cancel out or have supersede or have a superior authority to the verses from Mecca. This doesn't of course mean that anything is taken out of the Qur'an or blotted out altogether. It's a matter of, as generally the Islamic scholars have explained, starting with Ibn Ishaq and going up through Ibn Qa'im and Ibn Qathir and the Tafsir al-Jalla line, which is one of the mainstream commentaries on the Qur'an, of course amongst Sunni Muslims. And all the way up to the 20th century you have the idea based on chapter 2 verse 106 of the Qur'an whenever we abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten we will supply one that is just as good or better. That what comes chronologically later takes precedence over what comes chronologically earlier and only when the circumstances of the earlier period are replicated are those passages in force. What I mean is this, that when Muhammad was preaching you have your religion and we have ours as in Surah 109, the Muslims were small and powerless. So when Muslims are small and a powerless group they preach you have your religion, we have ours, Islam is peace. But as they grow in power just as Muhammad grew in power and began to teach first fight those who fight you as in chapter 2 verse 190 and then fight until religion is all for Allah as in chapter 8 verse 39 then the offensive and then offensive jihad they kick in. Now I should also add just to make sure that we understand each other at this point that many people will say, no, no, no jihad is spiritual altogether and that is very clearly something that is adamantly rejected by the Qur'an itself. For example, the Qur'an says in chapter 4 verse 95 not equal are those of the believers who sit at home except those who are disabled and those who strive hard, that is wage jihad, jahadah the verb there and fight in the cause of Allah with their wealth and their lives. Obviously if jihad were solely, certainly jihad does have the sense of being a spiritual struggle within the soul to better oneself and bring one's life into conformity with the will of Allah but if that were all that it was then a verse like this would make no sense because it's saying strive hard those who sit at home are not equal to those who fight with their wealth and their lives. A spiritual struggle does not ordinarily involve one's wealth and one's life actually does ordinarily involve sitting at home and praying and devoting oneself to spiritual exercises and devotions and so on. And so of course there are many other indications that it's much more than a spiritual struggle as in chapter 8 verse 41 know that whatever of the war booty you may gain verily one-fifth is assigned to Allah and to the messenger and to the near relatives of the messenger and the orphans. Obviously there's no spoils of war arising from a spiritual struggle. That's a hot warfare clearly in which prisoners are taken their property is seized and so on. This is underscored by a hadith in which Muhammad says I have been commanded to fight against people until they confess that there is no God but Allah and I am his messenger and when they do their lives and their property are safe from me and my followers. In other words as long as the people confess that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger their lives and property are safe but if they do not confess that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah and there is no God but Allah then their lives and property are not safe they can be seized by the Muslims and of course the hadith are full of accounts of various occasions in which exactly that happened and there were various controversies among the Muslims as to what they should do how these spoils should be distributed what should be done with prisoners of war and so on. So the primary question here is not about the spiritual struggle but about the nature of the warfare and in that case you come to something like chapter 8 verse 39 that I mentioned where it says fight until religion is all for Allah and chapter 9 verse 29 that David mentioned in which the Muslims are commanded to fight against even the people of the book which is of course the Quran's term primarily for Jews and Christians until they pay the jizya the tax with willing submission and feel themselves subdued now this is this verse is predicated by saying fight against those who do not believe in Allah in the last day and do not forbid what he has forbidden so clearly the problem with the people who are being fought is not that they are fighting the Muslims there is no mention made of that now there are many other exegetes who might say oh well that was the circumstances but actually the generally understood view is that this whole passage of chapter 9 was revealed after Muhammad's expedition to Tabuk in northern Arabia when he went up to fight against the Byzantines and found that the Byzantines had left but the Byzantines had not attacked the Muslims he had just went up there to fight them and exhorted the Muslims to fight solely on the basis of the fact that these people did not obey Allah in his messenger and did not forbid what he had forbidden so as long as there remain people who do not obey Allah in his messenger and do not forbid what he has forbidden the command to fight still remains obviously while I'm sure that this view is not held by the gentleman here to my right at the same time unfortunately it is held by all too many Muslims today and I hope that above all that if these gentlemen make the case here to us that Islam should be understood in a peaceful way that they will devote their efforts within the Muslim community to convincing the Muslims who have been responsible for jihad attacks around the world that they are misunderstanding Islam and need to lay down their arms. Thank you. Thank you. We now ask Sayyid Asif to present his panel for 20 minutes. My beloved brothers and sisters ladies and gentlemen respected clergy both on the panel and in the audience and our respected guests who have graciously accepted our invitation to come and have this discussion with us we thank you very much and especially we thank the organizers of Berean Presbyterian Church for allowing us to have this discussion with us. We thank you very much and especially we thank Berean Presbyterian Church for allowing us to have this discussion here today. Our debate question is does the Quran promote peace? Peace doesn't mean that we agree with each other on everything an environment of peace is an environment that does not have oppression persecution or conflict peace means that we live our lives and we let other people live their lives as well as the Quran says in chapter 109 verse number 6 as David Wood said eloquently, for you as your religion and for me as my religion also chapter 7 verse 180 says and Allah's are the best names therefore call on Him thereby and leave alone those who violate the sanctity of His names they shall be recompensed for what they did so naturally our debate question should be answered with reasoning and with evidence as the Quran says in chapter 2 verse 111 now the Quran is a single book it is not a collection of books it's not an anthology, it's not a collection of short stories it is a single book so we should not cherry pick its verses the Quran says in chapter 2 verse 85 do you then believe in a part of the book and disbelieve in the other one part of the Quran explains another part of the Quran we also cannot overlook the meanings of words or phrases translations into languages other than Arabic are sufficient for understanding the basics of Islam and for a person to be a good Muslim but an expert on the Quran must have a minimum understanding of the language of the Quran and what Muslims believe what Muslims say or they do is not evidence whatever contradicts the Quran is not evidence in our debate and we cannot interpret the Quran according to our own biases or our own limitations we must allow the Quran to speak for itself and also we may use Hadith as evidence Hadith are accounts of what people saw or heard from Prophet Muhammad Hadith also includes the words and actions of the 12 successors from his family so we have Prophet Muhammad saying in a widely accepted narration he says I'm leaving among you two weighty and important things the one being the book of Allah and the second are the people of my house so after Prophet Muhammad died the general Muslim community they did not follow his family by others that the Prophet had not endorsed so some of these rulers after Prophet Muhammad they sent the Muslim armies into foreign lands and to gain public support for their military adventures they enlisted influential figures to start fabricating Hadith so we have Prophet Muhammad saying O people many lies have spread around and they are considered to be my Hadith whoever forges lies and calls them my sayings has filled up his seat with fire and finally the first successor said after the holy prophet there were more such lies so some fabricated Hadith made it a sin to rebel against tyrants this worked out very good for a tyrant or some others encouraged spreading Islam through offensive war and this works for a person who wants to spread his empire now Prophet Muhammad has said that if a Hadith agrees with the Quran you should accept it but if it contradicts the Quran then you reject it so the Quran presents Prophet Muhammad as a winner, as a reminder as a guide, as a mercy to the world but never introduces him as one who brings war Prophet Muhammad has said that God has said woe upon those who treacherously use religion for their worldly goals and fight those who command people to yield to justice woe upon those among whom the believers live frightened and hide their belief this saying perfectly demonstrates what ISIS does today or he said first the one who killed someone other than the one who tries to kill him or strikes against someone other than the one who tries to strike him and he said a believer spending days and nights with suffering from the losses of his loved ones is better than his spending days and nights in the state of war we seek protection from Allah against war a man asked the sixth imam as we believe there are 12 imams after Prophet Muhammad asked the sixth imam I mobilized and faced the disbelievers and invited them to Allah and the imam said if they mobilize and fight then you were drawn into it but if there are people who have not mobilized and had not fought you can do nothing but invite them to Allah a man and another narration had acquired a sword and a horse and people asked the eighth imam what that man should do and the imam said he should serve as a guard but he must not fight the people then asked do you say that if the Romans entered the land of the Muslims and the imam answered if their duty is to be on their guard but not fighting however if the center of Islam the center of the muslim nation and muslims are in danger then one must fight after prophet Muhammad one ideology supported self defense which is the message of the 12 imams who the prophet endorsed and commanded the muslims to follow and another group fabricated hadith and narrations to justify their militarism such as we have today with the wahabi ideology which is the ideology of ISIS and al-qaeda and the Taliban so these terrorist groups they all follow this ideology and this doctrine goes all the way back to those tyrants who were fabricating and making up hadith after the prophet imam Hussein was the third imam after prophet Muhammad and he was the grandson of the prophet and in his time he led an uprising against a tyrant named Yazid imam Hussein he said verily he wasn't up because of provocation nor arrogance nor to cause chaos nor as an oppressor and verily I have come out seeking the reformation of the nation of my grandfather Muhammad meaning that after prophet Muhammad the nation had gone away from his teachings and now the one that the prophet had established and endorsed and commanded the muslims to follow he must reform that nation and that religion back to what the prophet had taught so imam Hussein and 72 of his supporters they stood against Yazid's army of 30,000 and on that day they became martyrs even as they called the enemy to abandon tyranny and this epic of Karbala is the true meaning of jihad which means standing against tyranny and depression imam Hussein also said oh people the prophet of Allah said whoever sees a tyrant king acting towards the servant of God with sin and tyranny then if he does not act against that king through practice or speech it is Allah's right to make him enter into the tyrant's place of entry meaning the hellfire so after prophet Muhammad there were certain dynasties that fought each other for power and the 12 imams were a thorn in their side because they spoke against tyranny and against depression this continues today as the followers of the 12 imams they fight against the Wahhabi ideologies of ISIS and al-Qaeda and terrorists like ISIS they hate the Shia they hate the followers of the 12 imams because of their call to follow these 12 imams and the Shias are the primary targets of these terrorists and the Shias and the Sunnis even today they are on the front lines fighting and dying against ISIS every year more than 20 million people Shias, Sunnis, Christians, Hindus people from other religions they gather in Karbala to commemorate the sacrifice of Imam Hussein to show their opposition to terrorist groups like ISIS and this is the message of the 12 imams who taught what is consistent with the Quran and what is consistent with the tradition of prophet Muhammad but we do not accept the hadith just because it is attributed to the 12 imams the Quran is from God therefore it is infallible and perfect but the hadith are transmitted to us through people therefore a hadith cannot be evidence in this debate if it contradicts the Quran so with this standard the answer is a definite and absolute yes that the Quran promotes peace through justice one major aspect of peace is not to be forced into any belief so the Quran says verily you cannot guide whom you love but Allah guides whom he pleases will you then force men until they become believers and it is not for a soul to believe except by Allah's permission where Allah says call to the way of your Lord with wisdom and goodly exhortation and have disputations with them in the best manner verily your Lord best knows those who go astray from his path and he knows best those who follow the right way and he says for you as your religion for me as my religion and also there is no compulsion in religion and also says that he alone is the one who judges people's place in the afterlife chapter 2 verse 62 says verily those who believe and those who are Jews and the Christians and the Saviens whoever believes in Allah and the last day and does good they shall have their reward from their Lord and there is no fear for them nor shall they grieve the Quran says that there is no superiority between one race over another race the Quran says O mankind verily that you may know each other verily the most honorable of you with Allah is your most pious and Allah says that you should make peace between men even if you swear by God's name that you will not he says and because of your swearing by him do not make Allah an obstacle to your righteousness and piety in making peace between men and he says and Allah invites to the abode of peace and guide when he pleases into the right path so the Quran's default position is peace and relations between people are predicated on peace as the Quran says it may be that Allah will bring about friendship between you and those whom you hold to be your enemies among them and Allah is powerful and Allah is forgiving and merciful Allah does not forbid you respecting those who have not made war against you on account of your religion and have not driven you forth from your homes that you show them kindness and deal with them justly verily Allah loves the doers of justice Allah only forbids you upon you on account of your religion and drove you forth from your homes and backed up others in your expulsion that you take them as guardians whoever takes them as guardians these are the unjust so the Quran mentioned fighting when the Muslims had to defend themselves as our guest panel so eloquently said as the Quran says permission to fight is given to those upon whom war is made because they are oppressed and the good and the evil are not alike so repel evil with what is best so then he between whom and you will be as if you were a warm friend so the Quran's formula for fighting is very simple defend yourselves if you are attacked observe the limits of just warfare fight the enemy wherever they may be if the enemy withdraws then there is no more fighting if someone seeks protection from you from the enemy granted if the enemy calls for peace God is forgiving and hostility is against oppressors and aggressors never against non combatants we shall see an example of this where Allah says fight in the way of Allah with those who fight with you and do not exceed the limits verily Allah does not love those who exceed the limits and kill them wherever you find them thankfully some of those who criticize Islam for being violent they no longer quote this passage as one being violent because they have been called out for misquoting and cherry picking this verse that says and kill them wherever you find them thankfully our panel guest panel has quoted this as one of the verses of peace further says and drives them out from where they drove you out and persecution is severe than slaughter and do not fight with them at the sacred mosque until they fight with you in it but if they do fight you then slay them such is the recompense of the disbelievers but if they desist then verily Allah is forgiving merciful and fight with them until there is no persecution and religion should be for Allah meaning that those who attack you are trying to stop you from practicing your religion until your religion is restored but if they desist then there should be no hostility except against the oppressors now if the Quran wants a total domination according to the doctrine of stealth jihad or the three stages of the heart that our guest panel explained if the Quran wanted total domination it would have commanded the Muslims to keep on fighting some may say that the Muslims were not strong enough to overpower their enemy but an enemy that stops fighting an enemy that calls for peace does so because they have been overpowered and in the Quran whenever the enemy stops fighting it calls for peace the Muslims are commanded to accept peace the Quran never commands the Muslims to reject peace or to continue fighting when the enemy stops the Quran says in chapter 9 verses 3-13 and this is what some people ominously call the verse of the sword the passage says so there was a peace treaty between the polytheists of Mecca and the Muslims and the polytheists of Mecca violently broke that treaty by killing some of the Muslims it continues so those who join the Muslims are forgiven and if one of the polytheists seeks protection from you grant him protection until he hears the word of Allah not that he becomes forced to convert until he hears the word then they can maintain his place of safety this is because there are people who do not know how can there be an agreement for the idolaters along with his messenger except those with whom you made an agreement at the sacred mosque so as long as they are true to you then verily Allah loves those who are careful of their duties so it means keep peace with those who keep peace with you it continues but if they repent and keep a prayer and they pay the poor rate they are your brethren in faith that we make the communications clear for a people who know and if they break their oaths after their agreement and openly revile your religion then fight the leaders of disbelief verily their oaths are nothing so that they may desist it emphasizes that fighting is only against those who have violated the treaty and the next verse says so will you not fight the people who broke their oaths and aimed at the expulsion of the messenger and they attacked you first do you fear them but Allah is most deserving that you should fear him if you are believers so this verse chapter 9 verse 5 which is called the verse of the sword is used against the Quran is used against Islam to try to show that it is a violent religion that it says to go kill people just because they are of a different religion but the context obviously shows that this is absolutely not the case now the Quran says in verse 9 29 which is another verse why the anti-islam movement it says fight those who do not believe in Allah nor in the last day nor do they prohibit what Allah and his messenger have made sacred nor follow the religion of truth from those who have been given the book until they pay the tax and acknowledgement of superiority and they are in a state of subjection so we should make the point here in Islam there are two categories of things that are forbidden some things are forbidden like pork and other things are what we call sacred like human life so if I am starving I can eat pork to save my life but if I am starving and someone won't give me his food I cannot kill that person to take his food this is the difference between what is forbidden and what is sacred and this verse is talking about those things that are sacred the terminology this terminology is only used in the Quran to refer to things that God has made sacred by attaching the holy name of Allah to the prohibition God emphasizes Sanctity also mentions this terminology to refer to the sanctity of the sacred months in which killing and fighting are forbidden and there are three other places where this terminology is used and there are the last three verses mentioned here which have almost exactly the same wording and do not kill the soul that Allah has forbidden Allah has forbidden that life to be killed except in the requirements of justice all three have exactly the same wording if this referred to all forbidden things as our guest panel has said that Muslims are fighting these non-believers just because they are non-believers then the prophet himself would have fought all of the Jews and Christians who were near him but this did not happen verse 929 refers to the sanctity of human life it calls for retaliation against those who commonly take human life like terrorists the verse is not referring to all Jews and Christians it's not referring to all Jewish and Christian communities because it clarifies by the word min which means from so you'll see whenever the Quran mentions disbelievers and people of the book meaning Jews and Christians in the same sentence inna alladina kafaru min ahlil kitab verily the disbelievers from the people of the book not all of the people of the book so only those communities who violate the sanctity of human life must be fought and after their defeat they are not released to go out and continue what they're doing without consequence but they fall under the guardianship of the Muslims under the guardianship of the Muslims their rights and their duties will be exactly the same as the Muslims except that they pay a tax called the jizya but they do not pay the zakat and the khums that the Muslims pay and they are not required to perform military service so verse 929 does not abrogate previous verses but falls completely in harmony with them the violent verses in the Quran do not abrogate the peaceful verses because violent verses do not exist in the Quran a violent verse would say you used to fight in self defense but now you must attack first but no such verse exists in the Quran and abrogation does not change what is sacred and does not change what is forbidden absolutely human life is sacred and killing an innocent person a life can only be taken in retaliation for murder or terrorism as the Quran says for this reason did we prescribe to the children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless it be for manslaughter or for mischief in the land it is as though he killed all men whoever keeps it alive it is as though he kept alive all men so it becomes very clear that these two verses which are two of the strongest verses or probably the strongest verses that the anti-islam movement uses to try to show that the Quran is a violent book absolutely has nothing to do with aggressive warfare or offensive violence it is defensive it is protecting the oppressed does the Quran promote peace the only answer supported by reasoning and evidence is yes the Quran promotes peace through justice and this is emphasized by the verse that our guest panelists respected Robert Spencer just read as an example of the Quran being violent he quoted 839 he said fight with them until the religion should only be for Allah but if they stop fighting then surely Allah sees what they do thank you we will now ask our guest panel to give their rebuttal for 10 minutes let me start with that last verse mentioned chapter 5 verse 32 of the Quran just to give you an example of what I'm referring to because of that we ordained for the children of Israel that if anyone killed a soul not in retaliation of murder or to spread mischief in the land it would be as if he killed all mankind notice that this is command for the children of Israel it's actually a quotation from the Talmud but what's not in the Talmud is that qualification except if they spread mischief in the land now what does that include because you're not supposed to kill someone unless they murder someone or spread mischief in the land what's included in that what's included in that spreading mischief well it's used in the Quran in a bunch of ways and according to muslim scholars like Ibn Kaffir it even includes unbelief so that's as far as I can tell the most peaceful verse in the Quran and that's allowing a lot but it's saying that this is for the children of Israel the very next verse is directed towards Muslims and the very next verse right after this says the recompense of those who wage war against Allah and his messenger and do mischief in the land once again you're doing some sort of mischief in the land is only that they shall be killed or crucified or their hands and their feet be cut off from opposite sides or be exiled from the land that is their disgrace in this world and a great torment is theirs in the hereafter so when Allah tells you about the value of a human life he can't go one verse without calling for killing, crucifixion and dismembering people all for the vague crime of spreading mischief in the land what does that mean well seems like it could mean all kinds of things anything you find in some muslim source about what involves mischief well now you have justification for killing or dismembering them and crucifying them so very interesting how when we talk about the context of the Quran and we talk about something like Surah 5 verse 32 it does help to read the actual context now we had a very interesting interpretation of Surah 2 verse 85 do you believe in part of the book and disbelieve in the other why do I say this is an interesting interpretation well chapter 2 verse 85 is directed towards the Jews the whole passage is talking to the Jews and this passage is talking about the Jews violating the Torah even part of the book and not in another so if we're talking about context this is talking to Jews not to muslims on how to interpret the Quran second it doesn't say do you follow every part of the book equally it says do you believe in only part of the book we're not talking about not believing in parts of the Quran as a muslim you would believe in all of the Quran but that doesn't mean that all of them are apply equally at all times if you are saying that that would go against 14 centuries of interpreting the Quran Sunni and Shia now we heard an interesting interpretation of the Hadith which I would agree with if Hadith contradicts the Quran it must be rejected now that would go both ways by the way if we find something peaceful in the Hadith that contradicts something that Allah clearly says in the Quran then we would have to question that Hadith on those grounds we had a quotation from chapter 60 verse 8 of the Quran which you're not prevented from showing kindness if one of your family members who's a pagan happens to come to you that's the historical context you're allowed to show kindness but the idea was that that might help them convert to Islam we have records of Muhammad giving gold to people over and over again until they would love him so much that they would convert in the same context we can't ignore the fact that just four verses earlier we have the story of Abraham and Abraham says to the unbelievers now there is endless hostility between us and we can't end the hostility until you convert to Islam so here we have here we have a peaceful verse of the Quran this shows that the Quran is peace and just a few verses earlier in the same context we're saying there can't be peace between us until you convert to Islam and the exact same verse chapter 60 verse 4, look it up says that Abraham is an example for the Muslims so if over and over again any peaceful passage of the Quran that we turn to we find something that really seems to contradict it it's very easy to say well the peaceful part that I really like here this other violent part it can't mean what it sounds like it means I have to assume that Allah means the peaceful part my view is that Allah meant them all if he's talking about showing peace towards someone in certain circumstances Allah means that if he says fight those who do not believe in Allah he means that as well the only way to reconcile these passages is as an unfolding revelation that was impacted by the situation that Muslims were in because Muslims were in different situations during the time of Muhammad in different rulings are going to apply this does a change of fact that the final marching orders have nothing to do chapter 9 verse 28 through chapter 9 verse 23 that's the passage talking about dealing with Jews and Christians there is not one word in that passage about anyone doing anything other or practicing the wrong religious belief not one word about fighting to expand on this Spencer thank you David our esteemed colleague my friend here was very right in warning about fabricated Hadith and he quoted quite a few Hadith actually I happen to have the source that he was using for the Hadith that he quoted the Hadith collection Al-Khafi and it is generally considered to be reliable among Shiite Muslims and in it it says this is one of the passages he did not quote that Muhammad is quoted as saying mobilize in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah fight those who reject belief in Allah fight those who reject belief in Allah he doesn't say fight those who reject belief in Allah if they fight you or if they attack you simply because they reject belief in Allah this is underscored by the fact that he goes on to say when you meet these people you give them three choices call them to al-Islam so in the first place you are addressing the fact that they are not believers you are not asking them to lay down their arms or dealing with them in any kind of context of war previous to that you're calling them to Islam if they reject that then you ask them to pay the tax which was explained very ably except for the fact that the other part of the passage 9 chapter 9 verse 29 says with willing submission feel themselves subdued and the non-believers who have been under this agreement in Islamic lands have always lived in a state of subservience denied basic rights having to submit to various humiliating and discriminatory regulations that made sure that they felt themselves subdued also when we are dealing with these kinds of issues it is important to evoke authorities that are generally respected among Muslims who delineate the understanding of these passages for Muslims after all no Muslim is believing what Spencer thinks about Islam nor should any Muslim but if you were a Shiite then of course the Ayatollah Khomeini is a highly respected figure who devoted his life to understanding Islam properly somebody who was revered in the Islamic Republic of Iran and worldwide among Shia for his knowledge of Islam and he of course said this those who know nothing of Islam pretends that Islam counsels against war those who say this are witless Islam says kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all does this mean that Muslims should sit in the sword? Islam says kill them put them to the sword and scatter their armies does this mean sitting back until non-Muslims overcome us? Islam says kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you does this mean that we should surrender? Islam says whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword people cannot be made obedient except with the sword the sword is the key to paradise there are hundreds of Quranic Psalms and Hadiths teaching Muslims to value war and to fight does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim thus the Ayatollah Khomeini and finally Muhammad himself also in the Hadith about Qafi the very first passage that he is in this book this section on Jihad he said all good things are with the sword under the shadow of the sword and people cannot be improved without the sword swords are the key to paradise or hellfire that is not peace in our side atif will give a 10 minute rebuttal for his panel in the name of Allah in the name of Allah we thank our guest ok sorry can anyone hear me ok so we thank our panel for quoting a verse for us in support of our argument so we quoted verse 5 verse 32 of chapter 5 which says that if you kill one person it's the same as you killed all people and then they say well the next verse says otherwise and he read the verse and he just glossed over the first few words of the verse that completely explained that the fighting is only allowed because of war that is made upon you it says the punishment of those who wage war against Allah and against his messenger what do you do with someone who wages war against you do you sit back and you ask them to please stop or do you have to defend yourself and act justice upon them until there is no more persecution so we thank our guest for that and it's a strike and a miss for every single verse that the anti-islam movement tries to cite as evidence for the Quran being violent and it has never been proven that any of the verses are violent except by cherry picking or interpreting in a way other than how the prophet has said to interpret the verses and cherry picking hadith does not work either because of the hadith contradicts the Quran that we don't accept it that's plain and simple we never said that the hadith collections are 100% correct we say that they contain correct hadith authentic hadith and fabricated hadith so thank you for reciting for us a hadith that we do not accept and the biology of the anti-islam movement has a number of steps number one is to cherry pick verses to present the Quran as violent like verse 489 if you were to read the entire context of that verse you would see has nothing to do with offensive warfare when the context is shown to be peaceful you just jump to another verse when there are no more verses left to cherry pick they say that violent verses abrogate the peaceful ones when it's shown that violent verses do not exist well let me go and cite a violent hadith the hadith is shown to contradict the Quran then they go and cite a scholar whose opinion agrees with them when the opinion is shown to be inconsistent with the Quran or that it is not really saying what they say it says then they cite Muslim rulers who invaded non-Muslim countries when it's shown that these rulers acted against the Quran then they tried to link the Quran to Muslim terrorists when it's shown that terrorists violate the Quran's teachings they link the Quran to policies of Muslim majority countries when it's shown that those countries do not operate according to the Quran they attribute cultural practices to Islam when it's shown that culture is not a source of Islamic teaching they proclaim disbelief and shock at how so many Muslims could misunderstand the Quran when it's shown that their disbelief is irrelevant because saying oh my god does not count as evidence they claim that Muslims are lying through the doctrine of taqiyah when it is shown that taqiyah does not apply they cherry pick a verse and start to cycle all over again the anti-Islam movement associates the Quran with what they call stealth jihad and one of our guest panelists Robert Spencer has a website called jihadwatch.org I encourage all the brothers and sisters to go and read his material and see his videos and you will see where things are cherry picked and misinterpreted so the first thing says the first step of this stealth jihad is to call for peace when the Muslims are weak the second is to defend yourself when you're capable of defending yourself in the third is to spread Islam by violence when the Muslims are strong so stealth jihad only works if the Quran allows aggression but as we have seen from every verse that we have quoted that they have quoted we have shown that the context completely and utterly shows otherwise either the context shows otherwise or the meaning of the verse that they don't interpret properly because either they haven't read the proper interpretation or they don't understand the Arabic well enough it shows that it is not dealing with attacking people offensively so since the Quran doesn't allow stealth jihad and the very idea of stealth jihad is anti-Quran and they also rely on the concept of abrogation which means to repeal or cancel they say that violent verses came after the peaceful verses so the violent verses abrogated the peaceful ones but for this to work the violent verses must exist in the first place since the Quran only allows self defense there is no abrogation of peaceful verses so stealth jihad or this three step process of jihad has no place whatsoever in the Quran even when the Muslims are called to self defense the Muslims must not cross the boundaries of ethical warfare as we explained earlier in verse 2 chapter 2 verse 190 and fight in the way of Allah with those who fight with you and do not exceed the limits so Ayatullah Sistani who is one of the highest ranking scholars in the world of Shia Islam he expanded on these limits in an address that he made to Iraqi soldiers fighting against ISIS ISIS the murderers and the terrorists and the rapists and the pillagers who kidnap people and take slave girls and do horrible and horrific things when the Muslims went to fight against them these are the instructions from Ayatullah Sistani he says God has called for jihad and has privileged the warriors it is necessary to learn these conditions and etiquettes of jihad thoroughly do not indulge in acts of extremism do not disrespect dead corpses do not resort to deceit do not kill an elder, a child or a woman be attentive to the sanctity of the human souls be attentive to the sanctity of the lives of those who do not fight such as the weak, the children, the women even from families of those who fight with you do not accuse others of blasphemy which could then lead to their death never inflict harm on non-Muslims regardless of their religion and sect the Muslim must protect his non-Muslim neighbors in the same manner and vigor as he would when he protects his own family do not steal the money of others do not disrespect the courts of the dead do not violate the sanctity of their women and houses do not enter their homes do not verbally abuse their women do not insult their honor even if your enemies abuse your women and insult your honor do not deprive any people who do not fight you of their rights know that most of those who fight you are victims who have been led astray by others let your righteous actions serve as an example for them do not resort to oppression it may be the case that when you adhere to good conduct and discipline, you suffer losses nevertheless, this is more spiritually rewarding show compassion towards them like you do with your own remember God at all times and remember that one day you will stand before him strive to act in the same righteous manner as the prophet and his descendants in times of war and peace do not perform an action that will be the cause of your spiritual destruction when you come together and overlook your differences everyone must let go of sentiments which carry hatred and bigotry so they also quote what is called taqiyyah taqiyyah means hiding one's faith to avoid death injury or loss of property they say that Muslims claim to be peaceful but they are hiding their true plan to overpower you taqiyyah is in the Quran and every reason of a person would agree that lying to protect your life against oppression is morally justified the Quran says, he who disbelieves in Allah after his having believed not he who was compelled while his heart is at rest on account of faith but he who opens his heart to disbelief on these is the wrath of Allah so this verse was revealed about one of prophet Muhammad's companions Ahmad ibn Yasir the polytheists of mega captured Ahmad and his parents and told them to reject Islam Ahmad's parents refused to reject Islam so they were executed but Ahmad rejected Islam to save his life while his faith was pure at his heart there is a narration about the period when the Shias were under persecution as they are today in many countries the narration says once I said to Abu Jafar one of the twelve imams two of the people of kufa were arrested and it was said to them denounce and reject Ali who was the first imam one of them rejected and the other one did not reject the one who rejected Imam Ali was released and the one who did not reject him was killed the one who denounced and rejected Ali was an expert of the Allah of his religion and the one who did not denounce was in a hurry to go to paradise meaning that he understood that protect his life is more important than verbally saying something that is against your faith because the faith is pure in his heart another verse about taqiyyah which is quoted by muslim critics or critics of Islam is chapter 3 verse 28 let not the believers take the disbelievers for guardians rather than believers and whoever does this he shall have nothing of the guardianship of Allah except that you are a guard against them guarding carefully so it means that muslims should not take disbelievers as their religious authorities just like the non-believers would not take the muslims as their religious authorities except to protect yourself from harm which makes absolute sense if you have to say something you have to profess something to protect your life, to protect yourself and the word awliya in this verse means masters or guardians in religion as the Quran says in chapter 5 verse 55 verily your wali, your master is Allah, his messenger and those who believe those who keep up prayers and pay the kure while they bow so the anti-islam movement cites taqiyyah to brand muslims as liars but there is absolutely no basis for this or any of the other arguments in the Quran we thank both panels for their presentations we will now have a 20 minute break followed by a question and answer session we recommend that the audience use this time to prepare questions for either panel no cards and pens will be distributed please indicate which panel your question is which panel your question is for and please be concise and questions should be related only to today's topic return your question cards to any of the volunteers circulating around and we will reconvene in 20 minutes so and we ask all audience members to be in their seats so that we can begin promptly thank you okay we're going to get started with the question and answer session now panelists will have 3 minutes to answer each question we will alternate each questions with each panel and once one side is finished answering a question the other side will have a chance to answer the question as well with 3 minutes I will indicate when there are 15 seconds left for an answer and we ask that there be no clause during the question and answer so we can get through as many questions as possible before we have to start closing statements so for the first question is for our guest panelists and it says if the majority of Muslims are nonviolent in one splinter group i.e. ISIS or Al Qaeda can't only the logical conclusion be that the minority is in the wrong with the skewed interpretation of the Quran well as far as Islam is concerned and this will be the same with anything else it wouldn't matter if every Muslim in the world were the most peaceful person in the world that would not change what Allah and Muhammad said 1400 years ago or if every Muslim in the world were a terrorist that would not change what Allah and Muhammad said 14 centuries ago so Islam is defined by Allah and Muhammad in the Quran and the Hadith it's not determined by majority vote today if I said well lots of Christians are mean so Jesus didn't teach love your enemies what Christians do has no impact on what Jesus did they're not building time machines and going back and changing the teachings and so for if we're talking about what Islam teaches then we don't look to what Muslims are doing although it's certainly relevant and might spur our interest to go and look at what Islam teaches but I do object to the claim that it's only one tiny little splinter group did you want to comment on that? yeah actually there's ISIS there's al-Qaeda, there's Boko Haram there's Abu Sayyaf there is Jamaat-e-Islami there is Hezbollah and Hamas there are armed jihad groups all over the world on every inhabited continent and they all point to the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad to justify what they do one question we would have is if this understanding of Islam represented by what we've heard today from the other side is the correct one then why is it that so many Muslims don't get it 30,000 Muslims from around the world believed in ISIS enough to go from their countries from 100 different countries around the world to join ISIS in Iraq and Syria why is it that they were not talked properly why is it that they're in their local mosques and from their parents who were Muslims they didn't learn the true peaceful Islam why is it that Islam has failed so spectacularly to communicate this message of peace to so many tens of thousands of thousands of Muslims worldwide why is it that all these people who misunderstand Islam misunderstand it in the same exact way as to think that it mandates warfare and that you can find Muslims waging war against unbelievers throughout the history of Islam these are questions that actually show that the idea that Islam teaches peace is based on a very weak read that has no foundation in Islamic tradition or otherwise we would see large scale movements not just not joining ISIS but actively fighting against it and yet Muslims against ISIS groups and demonstrations have always gotten like 25 or 50 people as demonstrations against cartoons of Muhammad or things like that get tens of thousands so as we said in our rebuttal disbelief and shock is not evidence so I can't say oh my god I can't believe why so many Muslims misunderstand it this is not evidence my shock and disbelief and why so many Muslims misunderstand the message of the Quran that shock and disbelief is not evidence in itself and as David would very eloquently said even if all of the Muslims of the world were peaceful if the Quran was teaching a message of violence then all of those Muslims being peaceful does not make the Quran peaceful but in the same way if a majority of the Muslims even if all of the Muslims were violent it would not make the Quran violent the religion is separate by itself in one side and the people in what they do is completely something else on the other side it was for any religion what Christians or Muslims or people of any religion have done in the past is not a reflection of the religion itself the religion is completely separate so we do not say that just because the majority or a minority of the people do something that that is what determines what the scripture teaches no truth is not determined by the majority truth stands by itself no matter how many people believe it so as we said there is absolutely no verses of violence whatsoever in the Quran and all of the verses that they have constantly been quoting for example one of the verses that is famously quoted as being a verse of violence is chapter 4 verse 89 which says they desired that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved so that you may all be alike therefore taking out from them guardians until they fly in Allah's way but if they turn back then seize them and kill them wherever you find them so they quote this verse they cherry pick it but they do not read the verses before would say and what reason do you have that you should not fight in the way of Allah and of the weak among the men and the women and the children those who cry out and say our lord causes to go forth from this town whose people are oppressors and give us from yourself a guardian and give us from yourself a helper so the first verse says there's people being oppressed and they're crying to you for help why don't you go and help them then the verse says go and fight them and then the verses afterwards before they qualify and the limiters do not cross the limits if they ask for peace you respect that but if they do not ask for peace then you fight for justice with the due respect of all of you especially David Wood and Robert Janssen my humble request is Quran is in Arabic and each and every word of Arabic might have 70 meanings so this is very important to learn Hebrews Hebrews words do not have 70 meanings the Bible was revealed in Hebrew and now it is in English there are a lot of misconceptions about Quran and we should remove that and we cannot judge from the individuals theology of a religion if all of the people are going to be against law it doesn't mean the constitution of USA is wrong thank you the next question we have is for the Muslim panel can you offer a coherent Quranic understanding of what it means for someone to perform mischief as mentioned in the Quran ayah as I said earlier Fasad doesn't mean only the difference Fasad doesn't mean the difference of opinion that has a word Fasad means to create something wrong which causes the terrorism which causes the terrorism even Quran says this mischief is worse than killing if terror is going to be promoted so every government and every religion follower will be against those terrorists this is not against the difference of opinion so just to quickly clarify the words that he was using Fasad in the verse that is quoted so oftenly by saying there is a phrase which is used in many verses of the Quran which says and those who make mischief in the land they make mischief in the land what he was explaining is that this mischief does not mean the difference of religion but it means fitna which means persecution and the Quran says that persecution is worse than slaughter because if I God forbid were to kill someone that's one person being killed but if I establish persecution that means that murder and massacres become widespread among the entire society this is why persecution is worse than slaughter and that mischief that is being talked about means persecution first on the sort of obvious level if it meant persecution again there are perfectly good words for saying persecution by saying mischief in the land that leaves the door open for anything you want to say happens to be mischief in the land and again don't take this from me Ibn Kathir says that the phrase can even refer to unbelief in the land you're just an unbeliever that's mischief in the land this is supposed to be a Muslim land and Ibn Kathir this is not quoting the al-Qaeda handbook here I'm quoting the most respected Sunni commentator of all time and I know most of the Muslims here aren't Sunnis but still if the word were just clear we wouldn't have this problem if it had been those who oppress you or those who persecute you instead of those who make mischief in the land and the reason this is relevant is because Sayyed Atik earlier quoted Surah 532 then I quoted Surah 533 as a response and he says but it talks about making warfare against Allah and Muhammad but that's the idea how do you make warfare against Allah somewhere else right I mean it's not talking you don't march an army against Allah you would do what well there are some commentators who say it includes opposing sharia standing in the path of Islam all sorts of things and that's my real point if you want to interpret mischief you can interpret mischief as whatever you want but by not making any sort of clear term the door is wide open to say oh we get to kill people who make mischief that Christian over there is making mischief he just preached the gospel that Jew over there is making mischief he ate the wrong thing or something like that so big problem just to support what David is saying the Islamic Republic of Iran which of course follows 12 or Shia Islam as its official religion has charged numerous converts from Islam to Christianity with mischief in the land and imprisoned and tortured them as a result and that's their only crime their crime is unbelief and so it's very clear that the ayatollahs who are learned in Shia Islam who lead the Islamic Republic of Iran understand mischief in the land as involving unbelief and not simply regarding persecution by unbelievers against the Muslims it says directed to both Mr. Wood and Mr. Spencer how long have you studied the Quran and have you ever consulted someone in the community to go over the text there are lots of books out there on Islam I've read almost none of them that is how I actually started I was taking a class on Islam in college I was majoring philosophy with an emphasis on religious studies so we had to study Islam and study modern books but afterwards I started studying the Quran and the hadith and since then I've relied almost completely on Islam's most trusted sources so the Quran the hadith the earliest biography had been a sock and the most respected Islamic scholars of all time so when I if I'm telling you that there's something about Islam that it teaches something and I'm quoting scholars I just want to be clear this is not us trying to make things up and it's not us just ignoring what Muslims say we're saying here's what the Quran says here's what Islam's most trusted sources say about it here's what some of Islam's most respected scholars of all time said about it therefore we're telling you so I mentioned earlier that maybe 15 years of reading the Quran and the Muslim sources so I first read the Quran in 1980 I've read it many times since then I took courses on Islam in graduate school from Gordon Newby the author of the Encyclopedia of Islam and David Halperin another scholar of religions but mostly I like David I read the Quran I read Bukhari and Muslim the Sunni hadith as well as Ibn Maja Turmidi and some of the other major Sunni hadith as well as some of the principal Sunni Taqasir on Ibn Kathir Taqasir on the line and others I've also studied Islamic jurisprudence particularly the Ullum al-Qa'an of Ahmad van Denfer a German convert and the the Sunni Shia the Shafi'i Sfiq from Cairo from Al-Azhar from the books trying to represent the majority understanding the mainstream understanding of what Islam is and to explain when the jihad terrorists cite Quran and hadith as they do and they explain what they're doing on the basis of what the Quran says and what Muhammad says what exactly is in there what is in the tradition and this is what I have in many books been dedicated to just as David said not my opinion but the opinion of mainstream Islamic scholars both contemporary and throughout history before I enter into this answer it's very necessary to clarify that the individual's activity doesn't represent theology of the religion so this is one of the important reasons Muslims are being defamed if there is any terrorism by a Muslim they say this is Islamic terrorism and if a Christian does this kind of activity they say it is Christian doesn't say Christianity's terrorism I regret both Christianity and Islam they do not promote or teach terrorism and terrorism or peace they are different schools of thought most of the Muslims including Sunnis they are not terrorists they are peaceful and Islam is the religion of peace Quran is the book of peace let me get to this answer if you want to become a scholar a clergy in Islam you have to properly go to the seminary if I say I am post doctorate education and I do not have any degree so I cannot be title as doctor until I get a degree from the university if someone wants to become a scholar should study all the Arabic grammar all logic and philosophy all ilme badiya, ilme ma'ani, bayan, extra and then can go into the interpretation of the tafsir only studying of the tafsir or studying of the Quran it doesn't indicate that a person is scholar now please very quickly I would just like to say that when we say why is it that so many Muslims misunderstand the Quran and think it's violent it's very clear to us we read it in the context we don't interpret so why is it that we understand that it's peaceful isn't it possible that we have the correct interpretation and as we said that the anti-Islam movement one of the tactics that they use is to try to take the policies of a country that has a Muslim majority and use that to judge the religion or the bookbite when it is not possible to do that we don't do that with any other country and their religion we should not do it with Islam and the Quran thank you the next question is you mentioned that the hadith that are used to interpret the Quran are not taken by the shia as authentic what is the process used to determine which hadith is authentic and which is not the hadith is against the education of Quran Prophet himself told us to reject it there is another very important issue that prophet said it is in the beginning of Muslim Sharif that there are a lot of people who are spreading fake statements on behalf of me and in the end of the world they have increased so I will humbly request all of you especially those who are seeking and researching Islam to not go behind any hadith you have to check in ilm ur rajal whether the chain of the quotas chain of the traditionals they are honest or they are not honest so one of the most basic criteria for the hadith being correct is what we mentioned earlier which is that if the hadith is consistent and agrees with the Quran is possible that it will be correct but if it contradicts the Quran then it does not become a part of Islamic theology or Islamic law or Islamic ethics so in the same way that we should not cherry pick verses of the Quran we should not just jump to a book of hadith and say this one looks like it supports my argument so I am going to use that one or this one goes against me so I am not going to use that one so we should not completely avoid it we have to see which one actually agrees with the Quran and the other criteria that are very important as well and then determine whether it is true or not well that is how things work in theory in practice in actuality it goes something like this we go to the Quran we decide how we want to interpret the Quran then we go and find hadiths that line up with our interpretation and throw out hadiths that do not line up which is actually tend to work in Islam let me give you an example we have quoted chapter 9 verse 29 of the Quran fight those who do not believe in Allah nor the last day that sounds like it is saying unless you have some reason to interpret it otherwise it sounds like it is saying exactly what it says fight those who do not believe in Allah nor the last day now you can go to the hadith and find Muhammad in so-called authentic narration saying I have been commanded to fight people until they recite the shahada and pray their daily prayers and give the required alms in other words fight them until they become Muslims and do what Muslims are supposed to do so you would say here is what this verse sounds like and I find Muhammad saying the exact same thing so this is how Muhammad is interpreting it obviously Muhammad knows how to interpret the Quran therefore since this passes all the criteria of an authentic hadith this is an authentic hadith that is how things would work in my mind but in actuality especially if you are a Muslim in the west it would go something like Allah says in the Quran fight those who do not believe in Allah he does not mean that because he says other things elsewhere therefore he cannot mean that therefore when Muhammad says in the hadith in a so-called authentic narration I have been commanded to fight people until they recite the shahada and do the Islamic things it can't be an authentic hadith we have to throw that one out that is how things tend to work in practice and that is why we are going to have some disagreements here because it seems everything is coming down to a particular interpretation of the Quran deciding our methodology rather than the methodology deciding what the Quran means in reality the hadith all date from the 9th century and none of them have any historical value at all so the idea that we are finding some that are authentic and others that aren't it's just really an exercise in futility but in Islamic theology if they have and it's not chain the chain of transmitters going back to people who knew Muhammad and that chain is unbroken and all the narrators are reliable then it's considered authentic and there are authentic collections there are six authentic collections that are underneath among the Sunnis and then among the Shia there are other collections that are deemed authentic that are generally accepted I have one volume of al-Khafi here and the general consensus is that if a narration if a story is in one of those volumes then the presumption is that it's authentic it only becomes inauthentic when it becomes inconvenient as a point of debate because it illustrates that Islam is enjoining violence and then it's deemed inauthentic in a debate setting but ordinarily in Islamic tradition these things that they're in the authentic hadith then Muslims consider them normative for Islamic law thank you for the lack of time we're going to have to stop there with the questions and move on to the closing statements portion of the debate we're going to ask now for our guest panel to have 10 minutes to present their closing statements for some questions about why there are people from really around the world groups around the world who are misinterpreting the Quran especially over the past 14 centuries why they're misinterpreting the Quran on the issue of violence and I just want to be clear here when we talk about people misinterpreting what the Quran teaches this includes some of the greatest most respected Islamic scholars of all time because they happen to agree with what I've said about what the Quran teaches that doesn't mean that all scholars have said this many scholars have it but we're pointing out that this sort of misinterpretation can be found in some of the most respected Muslim scholars and hadith collections and histories in the history of Islam so why is there such misunderstanding well let's go ahead and read a passage very quickly and this is the conclusion so we'll conclude with this I'm going to go ahead and read the entire passage in context of Surah 9 verse 29 we'll start at verse 28 where Muhammad had declared that the pagans can no longer take the pilgrimage to Mecca and the Meccans were worried where are we going to get money from now because they got a lot of money from the pagans and polytheists coming to Mecca for the pilgrimage so verse 28 this begins the passage begins with O you who believe truly the pagans are unclean so let them not after this year approach the sacred mosque and if you fear poverty if you're worried about losing money soon Allah will enrich you if he wills out of his bounty for Allah is all knowing all wise so Allah is going to enrich them to make up for the lost money how is he going to enrich them next verse fight those who believe not in Allah nor the last day nor hold that forbidden which has been forbidden by Allah and his messenger nor acknowledge the religion of truth from among the people of the book until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued notice every criticism offered against the Jews and Christians there and justification for fighting us has to do with what we believe or what we do so the question here is but I thought according to surah 2 verse 62 as Sayyed Atik quoted earlier I thought Jews and Christians were fine with Allah we're believers too right next verse the Jews call Ezra son of God and the Christians call Christ the son of God that is a saying from their mouth in this they imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say Allah's curse beyond them how they are deluded away from the truth notice it's condemning us for what we say about Jesus well where is the self defense here why are Muslims commanded to fight if it's all about what we believe and what we say maybe it's in the next verse they take their priests and their rabbis to be their lords and they take as their lord Christ the son of Mary yet they were commanded to worship but one god there is no god but he prays in glory to him far as he from having the partners they associate with him nothing there maybe the next verse feign would they extinguish Allah's light with their mouths notice we're extinguishing Allah's light with our mouths talking about what we say what we preach about Jesus feign would they extinguish Allah's light with their mouths will not allow but that his light should be perfected even though the unbelievers may detest it well Allah's not going to allow us to extinguish his light with our mouths what's he going to do next verse it is he who has sent his messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to prevail it over all religion even though the pagans may detest it that's the end of the section so Allah sent Muhammad to stop us from extinguishing Allah's light so Allah going to stop us from what we say from what we preach from extinguishing Allah's light with our mouths that's the entire passage 929 fight those who do not believe until we pay the jizya feel ourselves subdued we are subjugated until we're not allowed to preach as we're not allowed to preach in countries like Saudi Arabia governed by Sunnis countries like Iran governed by Shias so why are so many people misinterpreting the Quran because Allah claims over and over again in the Quran like a beating drum that he is perfectly clear in his commands we go to a passage like 929 we look for any hint of self defense we can't find it we go to these earlier Meccan chapters you have to interpret it in the light of that and you have to go to the Arabic and become a scholar and all this that's not what Allah says he says it's clear in his commands it's different in earlier revelations you don't say well now this one isn't clear anymore therefore we have to go to some earlier revelation Allah says in the Quran chapter 2 verse 106 his method of interpretation his method of interpretation is one of abrogation and so I see two possibilities here first possibility is that Allah means what he says when he says that his revelations are clear that you that later revelations can abrogate earlier revelations and therefore when he says something peaceful that's exactly what he means in that historical context when he says fight those who do not believe that's exactly what he means in that sort of situation so Allah is clear that's one possibility if that is the correct interpretation then the Quran does not promote peace the other possibility is that Allah is really trying to promote peace but he keeps saying things like fight those who do not believe abrogation as his method and we go to all these other Muslim sources and they talk about fighting people based on their beliefs and so it's if Allah doesn't mean this but he's made the only sort of coherent interpretation one where you have certain stages and once you have the final stage then you violently subjugate people in the name of Allah if that's the only coherent interpretation then even if Allah meant something else he didn't say it very clearly in which case the Quran still does not promote peace because Allah accidentally said a bunch of very violent things just to amplify on what David says the Quran says Muhammad is the messenger of Allah those who follow him are merciful to one another but harsh to the unbelievers that's chapter 48 verse 29 then in chapter 60 verse 4 Abraham says to his father we have rejected you and there has appeared between us and you hostility and hatred forever until you believe in Allah alone and there are many other passages as such chapter 9 verse 123 fight those of the disbelievers who are close to you and let them find harshness in you now if there's enmity and hatred between the believers and the unbelievers and the believers have to be harsh to the unbelievers there is an aspect of warfare to this that illuminates why as David also illuminated so many Muslims seem to get the impression that they have a responsibility before Allah to wage war against unbelievers in chapter 2 verse 85 it says that the unbelievers will get disgrace in this world and on the day of resurrection now how are the unbelievers to whom the Muslims have to be harsh and there's enmity and hatred between them and the unbelievers forever the unbelievers are going to suffer in this world Allah is not likely or at least not so far has parted the heavens and come down and punished the unbelievers in this world but the Quran also directs in chapter 9 verse 14 fight against them so that Allah will punish them through your hands that the unbelievers have to be punished in this world and Allah will punish the unbelievers by the hands of the Muslims and so it's very clear as the book says itself in many places that it's a clear book that the Quran teaches that believers in Islam ought to have hostility toward unbelievers and ought to fight against them so that they can be the instruments of the punishment of Allah against the unbelievers in this world and unfortunately there are all too many Muslims who understand the Quran in exactly that way and are behaving in that way and so I'll end as I began by saying that if you truly believe in what you're saying here that Islam teaches peace I hope you are making very strenuous efforts within your own community to make sure that this very widespread misunderstanding of Islam doesn't spread further and that all Muslims will believe as you do that Islam teaches peace thank you we'll have 10 minutes to present their closing statement one thing we should very quickly notice is that we quoted two of the most heavily cited verses of the Quran used by the anti-Islam movement to show that the Quran is a violent book but we showed that it is actually peaceful and instead of responding to it they are completely hushed about it for example chapter 9 verse 5 the verse of the sword which says kill the polytheists wherever you find them but the verses before and the verses after show that it is in self-defense and it is limited to the ethical limits of warfare completely hushed about it or verse chapter 4 verse 89 in so many of their videos and writings I'm sure many of you have seen their videos and writings you'll see that they quote these two 95 and 489 so many times but the context when you read it is absolutely the opposite so when it suits them now they're going to try to use the context for example chapter 9 verse 29 to try to show oh now we're going to read the context but if the wording of the verse itself clearly shows that it is not talking about just general people but it's talking about those people who are killing and are massacring then whatever the context says does not apply to that verse 9.29 says fight those who do not believe in Allah the last day and they do not hold sacred what Allah has hold sacred and as we explained that terminology is very clearly only used in the Quran to refer to the sanctity of human life so it is referring to the sanctity of human life and nothing else and one who misunderstands and doesn't get the nuances of the Arabic language or the language of the Quran in this way should not be passing judgments on the Quran so if you misunderstand the verse which is very clear to us then you will think it's violent when we know that it's actually in self-defense so the Quran is clear but the Quran has also said that it has been revealed in the Arabic language so if we are going to get a basic understanding of the Quran yes we can read translations if I just want to go to Sunday school if I want to get elementary classes on Islam I can read through the translations but if I want to start passing judgments on the religion and on the scripture if I want to pass judgments that this book is a violent book and there's no other way possible then I have to become a scholar and I have to become an expert in the language of that scripture and this is the same one in reading words like disbelievers disbelievers doesn't always just mean all disbelievers for us it's clear who understand the Quran properly we interpret it properly that sometimes it means those disbelievers that are attacking you and you must perform self-defense against them with different languages knows that sometimes certain words and certain phrases cannot be encapsulated into a single word or a single phrase in another language this is sometimes completely impossible and yes I appreciate that Mr. Robert Spencer encouraged us to fight against these terrorists yes we do and we fight on two fronts we're fighting against the terrorists who misinterpret the Quran on one side and we are intellectually fighting against the anti-Islam movement we misinterpret the Quran on the other side by saying that the Quran is a book of violence so just to give you some examples of what are the results of saying that the Quran is a book of violence and that Islam is a violent religion this has repercussions all across society Ben Carson who was a former presidential candidate and who is now the head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development he said that a Muslim shouldn't be president President Donald Trump has said during the campaign that Islam is a violent religion former presidential candidate Herman Cain said he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet or as a federal judge because quote there is this creeping attempt to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee said can someone explain to me why it is that we tiptoe around a religion that promotes the most murderous mayhem on the planet so the Muslims will go to the mosque and they come out of there like uncorked animals throwing rocks and the churches that rent space to Muslims like burying a Presbyterian church has done today by saying if the purpose of a church is to push force the gospel of Jesus Christ and then you have a Muslim group that says that Jesus Christ and all the people that follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated I guess I have a hard time understanding that so Huckabee a governor a former presidential candidate a media personality thinks that Muslims believe that Jesus is an infidel this is how far the anti-Islam propaganda has gone that we Muslims would believe that Jesus is one of the greatest prophets of God and we are awaiting his return to bring peace to the world to give some further examples former congressman Alan West a very respected congressman he had a meme on his Facebook page that said at that time the incoming general Mattis would quote exterminate Muslims Ted Cruz as suppose a champion of the constitution said that law enforcement should quote patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized recently about a month ago an Afghan team of female engineers was prevented from entering the United States for a robotics tournament and they were only allowed entry after public outcry while at the same time the captain of the team's father was killed by an ISIS suicide attack on a Shia mosque so on one side she's being stopped by anti-Islam propaganda on the other side of her family is being killed by ISIS Jerry Mcchristian verbally abused a group of Muslim women on a Portland train because he thought that they were Muslim three heroic individuals intervened two of them were killed and the third was injured and his Facebook page had a meme that read if we're removing statues because of the civil war we should be removing mosques because of 9-11 and in case anyone is wondering police said that his record did not show any record of mental illness in October 2016 police in liberal Kansas intercepted an anti-Islam terrorist group called the Crusaders they were planning a Timothy McVeigh style bombing on an apartment complex that mostly housed Somalian refugees so some of the comments that are recorded from them after they were arrested and during their arrest they said liberally every blank apartment while referring to how many Somalis lived there that's all it is blank, blank cockroaches I'm sure you understand what the blanks stand for they plan to use explosives and then to go in and shoot the survivors they said no leaving anyone behind even if it's a one year old I'm serious I guarantee if I go on a mission those little blanks are going bye bye and they justified this by saying that all of them or the majority of them were of fighting age and ironically ironically when they went to court the group's defense team argued that fake news had convinced the crusaders that the U.S. was in a state of emergency so their defense team blamed anti-Islam propaganda for radicalizing the crusaders to hate Islam and Muslims so the anti-Islam move and tells people that the Quran commands people to kill non-believers without provocation to force non-believers to convert to force non-believers to become second class citizens to replace all world governments with an Islamic government and that all throughout this they are lying to achieve their goals so if you convince people that this is true then they will view all Muslims with fear, anger and paranoia this is the result of what happens we should be very clear about the consequences of our works those who misinterpret the Quran are morally responsible for the crimes that are a result of their false propaganda these people who do these actions to give you an example the Norwegian terrorist who killed scores by the name of Anders Brevik he wrote a 1500 page manifesto before he committed the terrorist act and he heavily quoted our respected guest panelist Robert Spencer as justification as inspiration as the reason for why he went into this and in his defense of course in his defense yes in his defense in his defense Mr. Robert Spencer did say that whoever gets the idea that you should go ahead and kill people from the things that he writes he said they're crazy in his defense of course he doesn't agree with that we're not saying that he does we're just putting forth the idea of what happens that when you say it caused an entire community and an entire religion to be feared to make people think that they're constantly coming to attack you that there's worldwide conspiracy of 1.8 billion Muslims then what do you think is going to happen to people who believe this and they want to protect their families they want to protect their country do you think that some of them are just going to sit around and let this happen if they think that this is going to happen no when the Quran is misinterpreted Muslims lose to terrorists on one side the anti-islam movement on the other side terrorists like ISIS are wrong about Islam the anti-islam movement is wrong about Islam there are absolutely no verses of violence or aggression in the Quran as we explained the Quran only promotes peace through justice In the name of Allah In the name of Allah Thank you very much I appreciate your participation dear guests and all of you audience the presentation was very nice let me sum up within two minutes first the word jihad is not used only for fighting Alqadu le ayaalihi kal-mujahide fi sabeelillah who goes to earn the money for himself and his family Islam says he is doing jihad Imam Ali says if I see arrogance and ignorance or poverty I am going to kill both of them it does mean the qital and jihad is not only fighting against the human being my humble request from both guests is you find there are a lot of contradictions in the Bibles the Bible which I learned when I was in Kerala when I was in Kerala when I learned when I was in college is different than the Bible which I see in New York today but Quran is the same Quran was never changed I read in the Bible that there will be Imam Mahdi coming and behind him Jesus is going to offer the prayer so Jesus is going to offer the prayer behind any terrorist or promoter of the terrorists I am going to say humble request to all of you please understand Islam and Quran Islam is the religion of peace and silm Islam is not only submission Islam means silm which means peace that is why we say peace upon all of you and I end my humble talk with this peace be upon all of you may Allah bless United States of America may Allah bless reveal religion followers and may Allah give us unity as Quran says Quran is claiming come to our unity all people of book come to our unity and prophet if he delivered this hadith until they say Shahada so how come he did not kill those Jews and Christians who were having capturing the market of Medina and they were never killed by prophet or army and when they stopped them to come into Al-Qaaba because they were showing their worship as a naked you will kick them out if they come in downtown as a naked police will arrest them for the reasons if you go and review the facts you will find Islam is the true religion of the world that concludes the debate portion of our program both sides are given an equal opportunity to present their arguments and the decision remains to each person's reasoning we would like to thank our panelists and our wonderful audience for attending and we have a few announcements to make about future programs and anyone we would like to thank everybody for attending today's program and if you would like further information about the program going on at Imam Ali Masjid or at IMC Philly they will have that information available to you so you could sign up to be a part of the newsletters and be aware of the future programs thank you for attending and that is all have a nice day