Sunday, September 7, 2008

Islamic texts taken off websites after complaints from Jew

Muslim students are crying foul after the University of Southern California's provost took down historical documents that call for Muslims to kill Jewish people from a student group's site, the Daily Trojan reports. The documents come from a collection of scriptures known as hadiths, the words of Muhammad not included in the Quran. These hadiths, which include thousands of noninflammatory principles, were posted in their entirety on the school's server as part of the defunct Muslim Student Association's website.

The provost said that "the passage cited is truly despicable.... We did some investigations and have ordered the passage to be removed." But the Muslim Student Union, the dominant Muslim student group at USC, accused the university of censorship, calling the take-down "unprecedented and unconscionable."

"We are outraged at the censorship of a complete religious and classic text without consulting us or any religious authority first," the group said in the statement. "The 'compendium' is now incomplete. There are verses in many religious texts (be it the Torah or the New Testament) that when taken out of context can be taken as offensive."

Supporters of the move defend the provost's actions. "It may be part of the religious canon, but that doesn't make them less hateful," said David Horowitz, who has lobbied a number of schools to remove the "hadiths of hate," as he calls them, from their websites. Horowitz says this is the first he's heard of a university taking down documents after community members complained.

The Hadith that were removed:
Book 041, Number 6981:
Ibn 'Umar reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: You will fight against the Jews and you will kill them until even a stone would say: Come here, Muslim, there is a Jew (hiding himself behind me) ; kill him.

Book 041, Number 6982:

Ubaidullah has reported this hadith with this chain of transmitters (and the Words are):" There is a Jew behind me."

Book 041, Number 6983:

Abdullah b. 'Umar reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: You and the Jews would fight against one another until a stone would say: Muslim, here is a Jew behind me; come and kill him.

Book 041, Number 6984:

Abdullah b. 'Umar reported that Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: The Jews will fight against you and you will gain victory over them until the stone would say: Muslim, here is a Jew behind me; kill him.

Book 041, Number 6985:

Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.

Censorship, of course. If they think Islam is so bad, don't they want people to be educated about it? And if they think it's inciteful, don't they think Muslims can get access to it other ways? And what if a Palestinian wanted the part of the Old Testament taken down where it talked about massacring the Canaanites?

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