The Attack on Islam in the West Bank

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

It was never to be expected that the self-rule authority born of Oslo and its aftermath would spread Islam or encourage it, or move it in a qualitative shift from clerical, ritualistic practice to practical content that encourages knowledge, work, self-reliance, and striving in the way of God across every field of life, or that it would adopt Islam as a way of life guiding the planning of its economic, social, cultural, intellectual, political, security, and military programs. And indeed, the Palestinian Authority did not disappoint that expectation: it soon began taking harsh, forceful measures against the Muslims it rejected, against institutions run by Islamic groups, and eventually against Islam itself. Now there are measures that touch Islam itself, going beyond the framework of the war against Hamas or Hizb ut-Tahrir to enter the territory of outright hostility toward Islam as such.

Let me note first that the Palestinian Authority is no different from many Arab regimes, or from foreign states such as the European countries, in its willingness to accept religion so long as it remains ritualistic — confined to the mosques and to circling the Kaaba — and it may even encourage it as long as it stays within that frame. There is no objection to people praying, performing the Tarawih prayers, going on Umrah, and fasting, so long as these rites are emptied of their practical substance and remain hollow rituals with no practical reflection on the ground. It is historically well known that religions which are reduced to mere ritual lose their meaning and value, and turn into an opiate mechanism that numbs people and makes them imagine that paradise awaits them regardless. But those rites that lead to true piety before God — where a person rolls up his sleeves, works, toils, and tires himself; takes up his weapon to struggle against enemies; and cuts through rock with his axe to plant trees — those are not wanted, because they give religion a meaning and value that actually affects people’s lives, individually and collectively.

It was never to be expected that the Palestinian Authority would make peace with scientific, practical Islam, at either the individual or the ideological level, for the following reasons:

First: the Oslo Accord is entirely at odds with Islam, because it legitimizes the presence of invaders on sacred Islamic land and grants them rights over it at the expense of Palestinian rights. Islam is not aggressive, and does not adopt war as a method except in cases of self-defense, but it never accepts injustice, nor tolerance toward those who occupy Muslim land, expel Muslims from their homes, or assist in expelling them. Oslo violated a great and fundamental Islamic value, and it cannot coexist with its own opposite.

Second: Israel, together with the Western states that worked to draft the Oslo Accord, does not make peace with true Islam (the Islam that relies on knowledge and work) or with practicing Muslims; rather, it works to pursue that very Islam and those very Muslims. It regards Islam as the opposite of Western military and economic hegemony, and insists that Muslims must abandon their true, practical religious values in favor of a ritualistic religion that glorifies excessive prayer and excessive fasting without any practical return.

For these states, Islam represents a great source of distress — it disturbs their sleep, troubles their rest, and threatens to bring about radical developments that would lead to the independence of the Arab-Islamic region and set it on the path of scientific and technological progress. For this reason, their programs and approaches have been devoid of any support for Islamists, and they have made the pursuit of practicing Muslims and the practical Islamic idea a condition for providing material and financial support.

Third: a number of Palestinian officials belong to groups or schools of thought hostile to Islam. Some belong to Freemasonry, which regards Islam as a backward, obscurantist religion hostile to the Jews and their plans to rebuild the Temple of Solomon; others are Baha’i, who believe that love and peace in the world will never be achieved except through the rebuilding of the Temple of Solomon; and others are Westernized liberals who believe that Arabs can never progress unless they adopt Western social, economic, and moral values, and that no good can come from them so long as Islam nests within their souls. This group is fundamentally hostile to Islam and needs no Israeli or Western incitement; rather, it shares the outlook of the West and Israel toward Islam, and stands ready in advance to coordinate action with them against Islam and Muslims.

…Israelis and Westerners, and they cannot give it up for the sake of any national value.

As for the practices directed against practicing Muslims and practical Islam, they take the following various forms:

Ongoing arrests within the ranks of the Islamic movement, particularly Hamas. Some officials within the Authority justify these arrests as resulting from what happened in Gaza, but in reality, arrests within the ranks of Hamas and Islamic Jihad have continued since 1995, well before Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip. These arrests are built into, and stipulated by, the Oslo and Taba agreements, and they are demanded by Israel and the West at every negotiating session with the Palestinian Authority. Pursuing “terrorism and terrorists,” in their own language, is part of what Israel’s security requires, and the arrest of practical Islam is a standing, continuous demand.

The attack on mosque preachers and imams, and their replacement with figures of a political affiliation that accepts the agreements with Israel. Many mosque preachers who used to address the causes of the people and the nation with real analysis have been pushed aside and replaced with incompetent, semi-illiterate preachers who can manage nothing more than talk of the unseen, the delights of paradise, and the dangers of hellfire. I have noted the many errors they fall into, particularly in interpreting certain verses or the meanings of certain hadiths. One of them summed up this wretched state of affairs when he told me: “People stopped praying once they hired me for this mosque.”

Control over the Friday sermon in a manner that has driven it away from its true purpose — addressing the week’s issues that matter to the Muslim public. Most Friday sermons now have no value and add nothing to the knowledge of the worshippers; they are for the most part dictated by the Ramallah Endowments Ministry. I have previously suggested to the Authority that it simply cancel the sermon altogether, so that it can rest, and so that we can be spared having to listen to ignorant preachers who do a disservice to religion.

Cursing the Divine Self, cursing the Islamic religion, and cursing the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. This cursing recurs during the interrogation of detainees, during arrests and house raids, and during raids on mosques and charitable associations. It is common for soldiers of this or that security agency to enter a location and begin cursing the Divine Self, along with threats and intimidation. This is a real and recurring phenomenon, and I have enough witnesses to make the world hear a description of these acts.

Interference in the matter of the unified call to prayer or the recitation of the Qur’an before prayer. My opinion on this matter is entirely clear: no one has the right to use external loudspeakers for anything other than the call to prayer itself, if people, or some of them, express their objection. There are people who are busy, or ill, or reviewing their studies, and there are those who simply do not wish to listen. No Muslim has the right to force anyone to listen to the Qur’an, hymns, or blessings, and a Muslim is required, according to Islamic ethics, to take the circumstances of others into consideration and respect them, so long as they do not offend against Muslims.

The Palestinian Authority intervened in this matter by decree without much of an uproar being raised about it, and without people coming forward with objections — as though its intervention aimed at touching a traditional practice in certain Palestinian towns. And such an infringement inevitably leads to another, and so on.

Summoning preachers, imams, religious teachers, and ordinary people for questioning about ideas they have raised or discussed in mosques, schools, public squares, or ordinary gatherings. There is clear intimidation being carried out by the Authority’s agencies in order to suppress the spoken word, repress people, and turn them away from their convictions. Jihad in Islam against invaders and aggressors is a sacred religious duty, and whoever abandons it has committed a grave sin, and has directly contributed to the humiliation of the nation and its subjugation to its enemies. This is Islamic doctrine that may not be opposed or forbidden, and any policy that works to abolish it, discourage it, or undermine it is, in fact, a policy against Islam and Muslims.

In sum, the Palestinian Authority spares no effort that will rebound negatively upon itself. It works against the tide of history, threatens the security of the Palestinian people, transgresses against many of their authentic values, and contributes to the liquidation of the Palestinian cause. It works against its own interest by provoking people, their feelings, and their sense of belonging, and if there is anything sustaining it, it is the money that comes from Western states — and the West knows perfectly well why it gives that money.

The series is long and dangerous, but the wise are those who correct course in time. You, the Authority, have tried your luck with the West, and you, more than anyone, know that under your efforts the Palestinian people have reaped nothing but further troubles and sorrows. The time has come to reconsider.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “الهجوم على الإسلام في الضفة الغربية” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.