Maimonides' Assessment of Muhammad and the Plight of the Jews*
Prof. Paul Eidelberg Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, known to Jews as the RAMBAM and to the English-speaking world as Maimonides (d. 1204), was Israel's greatest philosopher and Torah scholar. "From Moses to Moses, none has been as great as Moses"-thus have Jews extolled this extraordinary philosopher, theologian, and jurisprudent. His Mishnah Torah, a fourteen-volume codification of Jewish law, is unsurpassed. Even his treatise on medicine is studied to this day. Maimonides is also celebrated for his magnificent Guide of the Perplexed, which contributed to the spread of Aristotelian philosophy in Europe where Aristotle had not been widely known. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas> Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), the great Catholic theologian, was a notable Western reader of Maimonides. Maimonides practiced medicine in Morocco as well as in Egypt where he became a court physician to the Sultan Saladin and the royal family. Given these superlative credentials, what are we to say of Maimonides' "Epistle to Yemen" where he refers to Muhammad as a "Madman and an imbecile"? A Muslim reading those words, had they been written in Arabic, would be outraged-understandably. He would regard the insult as blasphemy and might be driven to murderous revenge against Jews-enough reason for Maimonides not to make his views on Muhammad public, certainly not in Arabic and in Egypt. Thomas Aquinas, who lived in Italy, could be quite candid about Muhammad. In his remarkable book Summa Contra Gentiles, here is what that great theologian said of Islam's Prophet: He seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasures . His teachings also contained precepts that were in conformity with [such] promises . the truths that he taught were mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. he perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them fabrications of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. To judge only from the caution with which Pope Benedict XVI has spoken of Islamic violence, surely Aquinas would not publish today what he said of Muhammad in the Summa Contra Gentiles in the thirteenth century. But would he and Maimonides merely issue "politically correct" drivel about Islam-especially now when Islam threatens Christianity as well as Judaism? Who knows better than learned Christians how their faith would be impoverished without the Bible of Israel? And who knows better than Jews how important Christianity has been in furthering the Torah's revolution against polytheism and paganism? So how would Maimonides and Aquinas react to the threat of Islam and Islamic imperialism? I dare not presume to speak for such intellectual giants. But I would despise anyone who felt the slightest satisfaction contemplating a Muslim who read their devastating remarks about Islam's Prophet, even though Mohammad's disciples and Islamic scriptures refer to Jews and Christians as "pigs" and "dogs." I deplored as vulgar and murderously provocative the Danish cartoons, but I have nothing but contempt for Islam's spineless apologists as well as for the "political correctness" of secularized liberals, both pundits and politicians. We are living in an absurd era in which secularized liberals support religious fanatics and compete with them in mendacity. These liberals encourage the victimhood mentality of Muslims who blame everyone but themselves for their plight and cultural decline. Note how Muslims nurture grievances as indelible parts of their heritage. How their organizations in America stage "anti-Muslim hate crimes" to make believers feel under attack, obviously to inflame their passions. Yes, and this invites our anti-American liberals to rush in and support-or should I say exploit?-this cunning denigrating of American culture. This Islamo-Liberal falsification of reality is impervious to rational debate. Allow me to contrast the authors of America's Declaration of Independence-genuine liberals dedicated to reason and truth-liberals who prefaced their grievances against Britain by affirming principles of natural right followed by spelling out the statement "let facts be submitted to a candid world." Such a world can't exist in an era in which hurting people's feelings by telling the truth about certain evil consequences of their religion is a crime. How ironic, for this era was preceded by the neo-liberal dogma of unfettered freedom of speech. This dogma was spawned by John Stuart Mill's 1859 essay On Liberty. Mill's indiscriminate libertarianism provided the intellectual foundation of American jurisprudence. On that foundation the Supreme Court constructed its permissive and ultra-secular rendering of the First Amendment, trashing the ethical and rational monotheism that gave birth to the American Republic. Returning to Maimonides, he lived in a culture where freedom of expression and rational public debate did not flourish and where it was fatal to write candidly of Islam-at least in Arabic. He studied the great Arab philosopher al-Farabi (d. 950), who was a Muslim in dress only. To avoid the punishment of death as an apostate, al-Farabi wrote his book on Plato and Aristotle in an esoteric form to conceal his agreement with those Greek philosophers. But this means that al-Farabi's exoteric message was "politically correct," though very different from the "politically correct" herd of our time. We have no such esoteric writers in our libertarian era of spineless spin-which may be drawing to a close. Pamela Geller points out in The Post-American Presidency that the fifty-seven-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the largest voting bloc at the United Nations, is trying to compel Western states to restrict freedom of speech when discussing Islam. The OIC has requested the UN and Western states to punish any disparagement of Islam as "blasphemy" or "Islamophobia" or a "hate crime." Critics of Islam may soon have to resort to esotericism. But how would one esoterically translate the 2007 report of the Center for the Study of Political Islam, according to which Muslims slaughtered approximately 270 million "infidels" since Muhammad? How would one make this ugly reflection on Islam "politically palatable"? Would it be convincing to say that this barbarism was perpetuated by Muslims who had "hijacked" Islam? Would it be politically correct or reassuring to say that this wholesale slaughter was a manifestation of "Islamism" or of "radical Islamism" or of "militant" or "political" Islam and not of normative Islam? Ponder this statement in Wikipedia: In an attempt to polish Islam's image, Muslim activists usually quote verses from the Quran that were written . while Mohammed lived in Mecca. Those passages make Islam appear loving and harmless because they call for love, peace and patience. Such is a deception. The activists fail to tell gullible people that such verses, though still in the Quran, were nullified, abrogated, rendered void by later passages that incite killing, decapitations, maiming, terrorism and religious intolerance. The latter verses were penned while Mohammed's headquarters was based in Medina." Are the editors of Wikipedia guilty of a "hate crime"? Returning to Maimonides, his "Epistle to Yemen" refers to the descendants of Ishmael. He writes: "Although we were degraded beyond human endurance [by the Arabs], and had to put up with [their] fabrications, yet we behaved like [the person depicted in Psalm 8:14]: 'But I am a deaf man, I hear not, and I am a dumb man that opens not his mouth.' Similarly, our sages instructed us to bear the prevarications and preposterousness of Ishmael in silence." Maimonides cautioned the Jews of Yemen not to rise up against their Arab rulers who treated them abominably. These stateless Jews were defenseless. They were dhimmis, degraded more than slaves. Today Jews have a state of their own, a formidable army and air force-the most powerful in the Middle East. Yet their leaders behave like dhimmis. They continue to appease the despots of the Palestinian Authority-Arab thugs. They make pilgrimages to Cairo. There they importune Egypt's dictator Hosni Mubarak to induce PA president Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate with Israel, even while Egypt's state-controlled media depict Jews as rodents, serpents, and vermin- yes, and while the media of the PA call for Israel's destruction! Like his predecessors, Prime Minister Netanyahu remains deaf and dumb about Israel's slanderous and murderous enemies. Or perhaps Israeli prime ministers play deaf and dumb for lack of wisdom and courage. Israel is alone, but it does not know how to stand alone in this hate-filled, mendacious world. Its self-absorbed leaders behave like children, as the Prophet Isaiah said of Jews who had abandoned God. Immersed in the childish game of "Let's Pretend," they babble about peace with Arabs who despise them. How foolish and feckless is this ungodly clique that rules Israel! Oh for some fresh air, for men with chests, for words of truth to redeem the once noblest nation on earth. _____________________ *Edited transcript of the Eidelberg Report, Israel National Radio, August 30, 2010. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [email protected]. -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [email protected] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [email protected] Unsubscribe: [email protected] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtmlYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
