Mark Langfan

On Islam: Obama versus Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi

To learn about a religion, listen to one of its own leaders.

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On September 10, 2014, US President Obama, with absolute certainty in his voice, stated, “Now let’s make two things clear:  ISIL is not Islamic.
No religion condones the killing of innocents.  And the vast majority of ISIL’s victims have been Muslim.  And ISIL is certainly not a state.”

There are many points to be raised about this statement.  However, this essay will focus on only two of them: the president’s certitude that “ISIL is not Islamic” and his inference that Islam doesn’t “condone the killing of innocents.”

Let us make a preliminary observation.  The saying goes, “It takes one, to know one.”  But in this case, “It takes one, to know one isn’t one.”  If Obama is not a Muslim himself, how can he pontificate such a religious juridical proclamation about what Islam is or is not?  Could a non-Jew ever pronounce with finality what Judaism is?  Could a Muslim announce what Christianity truly means? Their statements would not be given credence. Only a Muslim could definitively dictate what his religion means.  So, if Obama believes himself capable of defining Islamic religious juridical edicts, Obama must somehow believe himself to be a Muslim.

Alternatively, if Obama is a Muslim, he lied to the American voter. If so, why believe his explanations about Islam?

Either way, President Obama is deflecting the real truth about Islam. But what if he is well-meaning, but wrong about Islamic jurisprudence, just as he has been wrong about everything else in the Middle East?  What if Islam does condone “the killing of innocents.”  Then, the president is fueling the Islamic danger to America by putting Americans to sleep when they should be alerted.

I’m Jewish, so I am not going to tell people what Islam is about (in this article).  I am going to have a recognized Shi’ite Islamic scholar, Ayatollah Misbah Yazdi, tell you whether it is permissible to murder innocent Israeli civilians according to the Koran.

Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Misbah Yazdi is an Iranian Twelver Shi’ite Cleric. He is also a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the body that chooses Iran’s Supreme Leader.  Ayatollah Yazdi has been called “the most conservative” and the most “powerful” and “influential … clerical oligarch” in Iran’s leading center of religious learning, the city of Qom.

There is no question of the accurac of translations. Ayatollah Yazdi took great pains to translate his Islamic juridical points into English on his own official web-site so there would be no mistaking what his Islamic fatwas actually mean.

Hence, Ayatollah Misbah Yazdi is a recognized Islamic scholar and religious cleric in Iran, and he was asked a simple question:

Q: Now about targeting civilians in the Zionist state, some people say that according to the teaching of Ahlul Bayt (a.s) and the Quran it is haram to target civilians in any case. They also say that Israelis are civilians like any other people while others believe they are settlers and usurpers not civilians.

Are the operations done by Hamas and Al-Jihad against Israelis “civilians” haram? Why or why not? How about the Israeli children killed in such attacks? If it is not haram, what is the answer to those who quote the hadith about not targeting non-combatants.

A:   Muslims should not attack those civilians of the occupied territories who have announced their opposition to their government’s vicious crimes, except for situations in which they are used as human shields and fighting the aggressors depends on attacking those civilians.

Thus, Ayatollah Yazdi’s religious fatwa is: Only those Israelis who have openly denounced the Israeli Government are illegitimate targets, all other Israeli civilians, including children, are legitimate targets.  And, if you are an “illegitimate target,” and you are in the way of a legitimate target being killed, you’re a legitimate target too.

So, who are you going to believe, an American political figure who says he’s “not a Muslim,” who has prevaricated about the Middle East and has set the entire world in flames, or Ayatollah Yadzi, world-recognized Islamic cleric, who is the most “powerful” and “influential … clerical oligarch” in Iran’s leading center of religious learning, the city of Qom, and who helps determine the Iranian “Supreme Leader”?

An important closing point: on careful examination of the statement that, “No religion condones the killing of innocents.” Obama did not say “civilians,” he said “innocents.”  He must know that under Islam, if you don’t believe in Allah, or in the specific sect’s version of Allah, you are “not innocent.”

So, for the next two years left of the president’s term of office, be prepared for more excuses for radical Islam, and for millions of “non-innocent” civilians to be massacred by Islamic militants.