TRUTH is Hard to Find due to al-taqiyya and al-tauriya.
Reader comment on item: [Finding Moderate Muslims:] Do you believe in modernity?

Submitted by D. Walls (United States), Nov 26, 2003 at 10:02

Your Questions for Inquiry are great, but there is the issue of al-taqiyaa (lying allowed for the sake of protecting Islam/Allah) and al-tauriya (twisting of words) which would make it impossible to know where the person really stands. I lived in the Middle East and have seen these concepts used. (see enclosed article I found on the web from HRAIC)

Lying for the sake of Allah
Hadith Sahih Bukhari (5:369)
Prophet Muhammad called for volunteers to assassinate a poet who was making fun of him, K'ab bin Ashraf.
K'ab's step-brother Muhammad bin Maslama said he would, but could he lie to get him out of his fortress? The Prophet replied affirmatively.

Taqiyya, Taqqiyya and Dissimulation
(by Robert E. Burns, Grad Dip Islamic Studies)

Al-taqiyya, dissimulation or plain, right-out lying is often stated to be a shiite muslim concept. An example is the Iranian revolution of 1979 where Ayatollah Khomeini presented his struggle as one against the Shah and invited all Iranians to participate. However, his primary agenda was the introduction of a theocratic islamic state based on vicious Sharia, islamic law. Within a year or so his former "allies", democrats, Marxists, communists, Baha'i were being executed.

But taqiyya is not just a Shia tradition. The Sunni Moriscos rode out the Spanish Inquisition by hiding their true views. They would conform by going along to mass and then wash off the "holy water" when they got home. (I certainly do not blame them for this taqqiyya.(Double q when their life is in danger.))

What is important to us today is to be on our guard in re this "diplomacy", dissimulation and not take muslim statements at face value. Al-Qaeda did not seem to realize that they could not overcome the Western superpower (or perhaps they had a compulsion to martyrdom?) but most muslim countries know that the time is not yet ripe for the islamization of the world.; For example, Saudi Arabia sees a need to protect its corrupt regime and oil from the Iraqis and for this Western weapons are needed.

The Qur'an explains this:
"Let not the believers take for friends or helpers unbelievers rather than believers …

except by way of precaution (taqiyya), that ye may guard yourselves from them.

But Allah cautions you to remember Himself; for the final goal is to Allah." (3:28)

"In the cause of Allah" is the qualifying concept. Muslims must not dissemble if this is not the case: for example for personal reasons or where the aims of islam should be made clear.

Religious and progressive groups in the West should beware of "United Fronts" with muslims who will use them for taqiyya. "Stop the bombing of Afghanistan, the killing of civilians" in many cases really meant "stop the bombing of caves where Osama bin Laden might be hiding". Muslim apologists will blithely tell you that jihad means "striving for Allah" e.g. in one's personal life or perhaps war to defend islam knowing full well that it can be offensive war to spread islam. They will tell you that islam is a religion of peace and tolerance when there are dozens of examples of belligerence and intolerance in the Qur'an, for example (9:5), (98:6), (9:29), (9:14), (8:39), (9:123), (48:29),(60:4), (5:72-73), …

Their main reply when these verses are quoted to them is that "they are quoted out of context" or applied to certain conditions pertaining at that time. But this is pure dissimulation: fundamentalists will say that the verses do apply today and have never been abrogated.

As a general rule, do your own research. Many fundamentalist web sites do not hide the truth of their aims and doctrines. They are proud not to dissemble.

Added 6/6/02
Muhammad permitted lying if it was in the interests of islam

Sahih Bukhari 5:369

Allah's Apostle said, "Who is willing to kill Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf [a poet] who has hurt Allah and His Apostle?" Thereupon Muhammad bin Maslama got up saying, "O Allah's Apostle! Would you like that I kill him?" The Prophet said, "Yes," Muhammad bin Maslama said, "Then allow me to say a (false) thing (i.e. to deceive Kab). "The Prophet said, "You may say it." ...

Islam's #1 theologian allowed lying in the interests of islam

Imam Abu Hammid Ghazali said: "Speaking is a means to achieve objectives. If a praiseworthy aim is attainable through both telling the truth and lying, it is unlawful to accomplish through lying because there is no need for it. When it is possible to achieve such an aim by lying but not by telling the truth, it is permissible to lie if attaining the goal is permissible." (Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, "The Reliance of the Traveller")
"On the battlefield" (dealing with non-muslims) outwittings are necessary.

Hadrat Ali said that in the battlefield one could not observe the highest standard of truth as a muslim has been exhorted to do in matters of religion. For example in the battlefield one has to hide facts and outwit the enemy." (Hadith Sahih Muslim, Vol. 2, ft. #1446)

Tauriya or twisting of meanings

" A type of lie which is not a serious sin is tauriya or double-entendre which means using a word, an expression or a phrase, which has an obvious meaning and intending thereby another meaning to which it applies, but which is contrary to the obvious one." (Sahih Muslim Vol. 1, ft. 402, English version)

HRAIC's Experience

Our organization has experienced taqiyya, "outwittings", lying about this website in a submission made to the Victorian Office of Multicultural Affairs - "Response to Proposed Racial & Religious Tolerance Bill " by Amir Butler of the Australian Muslim Public Affairs Committee.

I quote: "The material published by this organization seeks to show that all muslims are fundamentalists and a threat to the west." [On the contrary we say there are "The Two Faces of Islam", one of our articles] "It goes further than most islamophobic material, in that it accuses muslims of believing in pedophilia, bestiality, ethnic cleansing, rape, stealing and an assortment of other offences. Amongst the charges made is that muslims sodomize babies and have sex with "sheep, cows, camels and so on"

If you examine the article "Pedophilia and Prophet Muhammad", you will see the really nasty stuff is a direct quote from a book by the late Ayatollah Khomeini. Muslims are not blamed for ethnic cleansing in this day and age. (In fact we supported the muslim Kosovars when Slobodan Milosevic was trying to get them out of Kosovo. This material is still in our Archives.) Our article on ethnic cleansing refers to the removal of all Jews and Christians from Arabia by Prophet Muhammad and his successors. There are references to the Armenian genocide by Turkey in what was Turkish Armenia in 1915, and in Asia Minor in 1922.

Rape, at that time – an article on "Rape and Islam" is in the pipeline, received two brief mentions in "Women and Islam": One is on how the victim is blamed and the other is how difficult it is to obtain a conviction under islamic law. (There must be 4 adult male muslim witnesses to the act. A woman's word is not accepted.)

Muslims are not singled out as being thieves. The reference is to amputation of hands for theft in Taleban Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Iraq, UAE,... They may not have liked the reference to Prophet Muhammad, who robbed 82 caravans and dispossessed thousands of Jews. Again the emphasis is on human rights - we consider amputation of a hand to be an abuse.

Amir Butler sounds like a convert to islam with a complete grasp of the English language and I consider that their submission was a deliberate misrepresentation of what is on our web site.

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