Thursday, June 28, 2007

Dishonesty shown in manipulating translation and context of a hadith by an Anti-Islam




I saw this video on youtube. An Arabic speaking guy was manipulating the translation of the Arabic words found in a hadith and its right context. Many non-Muslims have been tricked by him in believing that Islam is a violence religion that demands everyone to convert or die.

My responses on this video:

First, the word "Zakah" was translated to "money" while it's not. Zakah is the alms/charity given to poor people in the community. It is one of the pillar of Islam next to "Salah" (prayer), "Siyam" (fasting), and "Hajj" (pilgrimage). Zakah itself comes from a word that means "to purify", not even related to "money".

Second, he translated "al-Naas" in this hadith to"all people, everybody" to confuse the non-Arabic speaking about the context of the hadith. As an Arab, he should know the prefix "al-" in front of a word in Arabic is similar with the definite article "the" in English. If he read many scholars' commentaries of this hadith, it's clear that the word here means "the Arab pagans who fought the Muslims at that time", not all people or everybody.

Third, he translated "sala" in the phrase "salallahu 'alaihi wa salam" to "pray" in order to show that "Allah/God prays to the Prophet". This is dishonesty. Everyone knows the word "sala" does not always mean praying or worshipping. If you open Arabic dictionary (Arabic to Arabic), you can find it has several meaning, one of which is "give blessing". In this case, the phrase "may Allah/God give him/the Prophet blessing". Please be honest in the translation as well as the context.

Fourth, he claimed that the Qur'anic verses of peace and tolerance (e.g. 109:6, 2:256, 60:8) have been abrogated by the verses of war. They should know any claim of abrogation is not acceptable unless it is backed by an authentic hadith. Opinion of anyone (be he is a scholar, mullah, etc) beside the Prophet cannot be accepted in this case as well as other legal cases in Islam. Hence the verses of peace and tolerance are still valid, in effect and not abrogated as they claim.

Fifth, he claimed the verses of peace and tolerance were revealed in the period when the Prophet was weak and didn't have anyone to fight for him. Again, this is false accusation. Verses 2:256, 60:8, were revealed in Madinah when Muslims had the upper hand against the pagan Arabs who fought them.

Sixth, he slandered the Prophet that he killed his Jew neighbors when he was strong in Madinah. This is a total lie and slander. If he talked about the war against Banu Quraiza, he should not hide the fact that the Prophet and Muslims waged war against them because of their breaking of treaty and stabbed the Muslims from the back during the siege by the confederation army of pagan Arabs who surrounded the Madinah at that time. Reliable historical records told us that inspite of the victories and achievements of the Prophet, at the time of his death he was in debt, and his shield was in the hands of a Jewish citizen of Madinah who still resided in the city as a collateral for his debt. This proves that the accusation is baseless.

I don't know exactly the intention of anti-Islam and Islamophobes in making their case against Islam. If they want to show the problems with extremists interpretation of Islam, why not explain these problems in an honest way one by one so everyone can understand them clearly? The way to point that out should be in a civilized manner, with a good argumentation, without lies, insults and slanders. Even a valid argument can't convince anyone if presented in a disrespectful and degrading manner.

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