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Mother's Day and Muslims

We should all be grateful to our mothers. We know that. Even terror-supporting imams like Imam Mohammed Ali Elahi probably love their mother. At least one would assume from his Mother's Day column that he loves her.

You can't appreciate your mother enough.

Love and dutifulness to parents are next to divine devotion. Even smiling at your parents is considered an act of worship, while maltreatment and cutting ties with parents is one of the most serious seven sins in Islam. There is no place in paradise for those who hurt their parents.

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

There is certainly nothing there to argue with.

Mothers are responsible for raising good children and good citizens. There would be no Ishmael without Hagar, no Jesus without Mary.

But today, what are mothers valued for in the Muslim world? For example: Who is the most notorious Palestinian mother?

Why, that would be Miriam Farhat, aka Umm Nidal, aka Mother of Martyrs. Three of her sons died during terror operations agianst Israel. She admits her pride in her murderous offspring:

In the TV interview, Farhat said she prepared all of her sons "for jihad for the sake of Allah, whether by carrying out an attack, or by any other form of jihad. I prepared myself for this. He who chooses a difficult road must be ready to bear the consequences."

"Some people may consider this a tragedy, but by Allah, it is a blessing," she said.

"Allah be praised," she continued, her son Muhammad's martyrdom was "one of the most successful operations of the first and second intifadas."


[. . . ]

Responding to a question, Farhat said she was sad about losing her son, but considered it a "blessing, not a tragedy."

"I prepared boxes of halva and chocolates, and handed them out to his friends," she said.

The interviewer then asked: "Excuse me, Umm Nidal, but in the West ... they don't understand how a Palestinian mother can rejoice at her son's funeral, and can say 'Allah Akbar' (Allah is greatest) when she hears that he was martyred. ..."

Farhat replied: "They are completely detached from Islam and its concepts. But we, Allah be praised, are devout Muslims. In these matters, there is a big difference between us and them. They do not understand what Islam is. ..."

Interviewer: "But human beings are all the same. Our Lord created one kind of Man."

Farhat: "Of course, and as a human being, I feel these emotions very deeply. Believe me, when it comes to my sons, I am one of the most compassionate mothers. But this is a sacred duty, which no emotion whatsoever can supersede."

The interviewer then stated that in Gaza and the West Bank, people are divided over terrorist attacks carried out in restaurants and commercial centers and view them differently from attacks on the military.

But Farhat replied: "All the Palestinians share the same view. They are not divided. The only ones who disagree and think otherwise are, of course, the foreigners, who have no sympathy for us or for our cause, and who know nothing about us. They are the ones who think that this man has come to kill innocent people. This is what they think. But we, as Muslims, think differently. We are familiar with the Quranic verse: 'One who attacks you, attack him in like manner.'"

Farhat said anyone who "comes from abroad and lives on the land of Palestine is considered an occupier, even if they are women or old people. They are all occupiers."

[. . .]

Interviewer: You have 10 sons.

Farhat: Yes, Allah be praised.

Interviewer: If another is killed ...

Farhat: There are many young men. ...

Interviewer: Will your heart be filled with unbearable sorrow?

Farhat: No, no. Allah be praised, I am preparing myself. I will sacrifice them all. If my duty requires me to sacrifice them all, I will not refuse – even if it costs me a hundred sons.

I don't know about you, but I'm glad she's not my mother. Uh, that wasn't an "islamophobic" statement, was it?

But that's only one mother - who is practically worshipped by Palestinians and was elected as part of the Hamas "government" because she raised a generation of Jew-hating murderers. It can't be like that throughout the Muslim world, can it? After all, we are assured over and over that Islam is a religion of peace and that it has been hijacked by a few extremists. Can this be true?

Well, MEMRI TV has a transcript of a discussion among some Arab "intellectuals".

Palestinian author 'Adnan Kanafani: I think martyrdom is the most noble sacrifice one can make for the cause - a cause pertaining to the essence of being, to life and death. This great people - the Arab people as a whole - has managed to shape a new culture from these ideas - the culture of martyrdom. The opponents try to bring us down from this honor, with claims about suicide bombers, terrorists, and so on. But we don't care about that, because we have rights, and we sacrifice our souls in order to attain these rights. Therefore, the martyrs are the vanguard of this nation. Because of the blood they have sacrificed, the very least we owe them is to always remain optimistic that victory will be ours one day.

[...]

Ibrahim Z'arour, History Professor at the Damascus University: Martyrdom is the value that surpasses all values. The most exalted level in the elevation of mankind is when a person sacrifices his soul for the sake of something more precious - his homeland. Hence, when a person embarks upon martyrdom, he does so because he wants to protect the homeland, its identity, its culture, its continuity, and its future.

When a martyr embarks upon martyrdom he thinks of nothing but his homeland. He leaves his children, his brothers, his wife, his mother, and his father, and embarks upon martyrdom, because the homeland is more precious to him than all of them.

[...]

The mother in our Arab and Islamic history has always sacrificed her children and prepared them for martyrdom. This is rooted in our religion, our culture, in our values, and our upbringing.

[...]

The mother is the school that prepares the children and sends them to martyrdom in defense of the homeland. This culture is within all of us. I always see mothers who utter cries of joy when they learn that their sons were martyred in battles in Palestine, in the Golan Heights, or Iraq.

[...]

'Adnan Kanafani: The mother knows perfectly well that if she does not sacrifice her son, she will never be liberated, or her son's sons, or the homeland, will never be liberated.

When an olive tree is uprooted from its soil, a woman may weep a lot, but she will not weep over the martyrdom of her son, because she believes that he has ascended to a better world, leaving a mark of pride on her forehead.

The Palestinian mother, or the Arab mother in general, is the most compassionate mother on the face of the earth, because she is dedicated to the upbringing of her children, and would rather eat dirt than refrain from breastfeeding. This is a well known fact about the Arab woman, in complete contrast to the other women.

All that is said about the Arab woman is nonsense and fabrication. The Arab woman comprises one half of society, and she is the mother of the other half. She is our sister, our mother, and our daughter. She has sacrificed in the past, and she continues to sacrifice in the present.

The Iraqi women are an example of this. What do they do when their sons are martyred? The same goes for the Palestinian women. They serve as a model. I believe this is the pinnacle of nobility in sacrifice.

[...]

They have economic, military, and technological superiority, and all we have is this body and this blood. All of us, sister, have "martyrdom seeker" written on our chests.

[...]

Ibrahim Z'arour" Our commitment to the martyrs will be manifest in continuing on the same path - the path of martyrdom - and in raising our children on the love of martyrdom, on the love of sacrifice, on altruism, on love of the homeland and of liberty. We have no choice but to continue with these processions of martyrs, and to remain close to one another. As long as there are mothers who give birth, the processions of martyrs will march on.

So, is Imam Elahi giving us another one of his famous snow jobs on the real meaning of Islam? Are mothers in the Islamic world only respected in relation to to how many of their children they can turn into killers? Are these women really only burka-clad martyr factories?

Give your mother an extra kiss for not raising you to hate and for loving you more for your life than for your death.

Happy Mother's Day.

Labels: Imam Elahi, martyrdom, MEMRI, Miriam Farhat, Mother's Day, Palestinians

posted by Harry @ 4:46 PM