"Interfaith for Dummies" - Most imams in France and Belgium forbid exchanging greetings at Christmas and New Year.

"Interfaith for Dummies" - Most imams in France and Belgium forbid exchanging greetings at Christmas and New Year. (AN).

Hocine Drouiche, a French imam in Nîmes and deputy chairman of the French Imam Conference, slams this attitude and all those who claim that Islam is a religion of peace, but deem season’s greetings as "an insult". The presence of “open-minded Muslims, who greet you with a big smile and wish you a Happy New Year” is important.

Most imams in France and Belgium forbid the faithful from celebrating Christmas and the New Year and call on Muslims not to extend holidays greetings. This is what French imam Hocine Drouiche wrote on his Facebook page.

He is one of the most open-minded French Muslim clerics opposed  to extremism. A tireless promoter and supporter of dialogue between different faiths, he condemns those who repeat the "mantra" that Islam  is a religion of peace but then consider expressing season’s greetings "as an insult" because "this is not our religion."

For him, the Islam professed by these imams, who are the majority in France, in Belgium, and in many other countries, "is not a true Islam of peace and shared life".

Qurʾānic schools in the West are places that extol political Islam based on jihad and hatred of the "enemies." Fortunately, there are also “open-minded Muslims, who greet you with a big smile and wish you a Happy New Year.”

The harsh rebuke of the position held by most imams on season’s greetings  (Christmas and New Year) is just the latest in a series of complaints made by the French Muslim cleric. In the aftermath of the attacks in Paris, in November 2015, he called on the faithful not to leave Islam "hostage in the hands” of extremists". At the same time, he urged Muslim communities to live dialogue and friendship with Europeans, without fear and arrogance.

He is not alone in denouncing the climate of hostility and loathing promoted by some European Muslims towards the culture, tradition and faith of Europe’s natives.

Recently, a former Islamic radical who was close to Salafist ideology for years, noted calls by imams and clerics to "hate Christians and Jews", not to imitate the "infidels" and not to participate "in their festivities and celebrations. " Imam Drouiche’s reflection follows. Translation by AsiaNews:
Sorry, I will not wish you Happy New Year because I am a “true Muslim"!

Almost all of the imams in France (and in neighbouring Belgium) forbid French Muslims from celebrating Christmas and New Year and wishing Happy Holidays to both Muslims and non-Muslims.

They keep on saying that Islam is a religion of peace, a mantra that is repeated in endless ways. Yet, today I saw with my own eyes the results of these incomprehensible and illogical formulations, meeting several devout Muslim who view best wishes for the New Year as an insult.

They are embarrassed, they look at you in a strange way, they answer: But this is not our religion! As if the new year belonged to a specific religion. Fortunately, there are also open-minded Muslims, who greet you with a big smile and wish you a Happy New Year.

The Islam of these imams is not a true Islam of peace and shared life. This is a Bedouin and archaic Islam. The French Interior Ministry, which funds the French Council of the Muslim Faith (Conseil français du culte musulman, CFCM), must review its programmes and collaborations.

For me, the Bataclans, Hyper Cachers and Nices stem from these hateful directives. If they refuse to change these inhumane fatwas, they certainly cannot say that Islam is not involved in “isolated" attacks because Islam is a religion of peace!

So, Happy New Year to all my Muslim, Jewish, Christian and atheist friends.

* Vice-President of the Conference of Imams of France-Paris, candidate for rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris

Video - Egyptian TV commentator roasts Wahhabi Imam of Mecca's Grand Mosque

Egyptian TV commentator roasts Wahhabi Imam of Mecca's Grand Mosque 👌🔥 pic.twitter.com/y1ik98yqWI

— Zulfiqar (@Leb12er) September 3, 2016

Video - Palestinian Sheikh - Islamic Strategy Dictates Hostility towards Infidels, Tolerance Is Un-Islamic.

Palestinian Cleric Issam Amira at Al-Aqsa Mosque In a Ramadhan address delivered at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Palestinian cleric Sheikh Issam Amira said that "friendship and tolerance toward infidels are unacceptable" and complained that "the word 'hostility' is all but absent from the Muslims' political vocabulary today." Insisting upon use of the word "infidel" and saying that "the strategy in Islam is hostility toward non-Muslims," Sheikh Amira asked: "What kind of tolerance is possible with these people?" The address was delivered on *June 18* and was posted two days later on a YouTube page dedicated to Al-Aqsa Mosque lectures.

Kamel Abderrahmani, a young Algerian univ student on murder of Priest: "Islamism is the disease of the century".

Kamel Abderrahmani, a young Algerian univ student on murder of Priest: "Islamism is the disease of the century". (AsiaNews).

The terrorist attack on the church of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, close to Rouen; in which the throat of the elderly priest who was celebrating Mass, Fr. Jacques Hamel, was slit; the taking of hostages in a sacred place, has caused great pain within the French Muslim communities. Already yesterday, a few hours by the attack, the French Council of the Muslim Faith condemned the act as "vile and barbaric", pleading for cohesion and unity among all the French.

Of all the messages sent to AsiaNews, we have decided to publish those of two long time friends: that the imam of Nimes, Hocine Drouiche, vice president of Imams of France; and of Kamel Abderrahmani, a young Algerian university student in France.

With courage, they are not afraid to accuse Islamism of being the "disease of the century", which "is taking Islam hostage” or call on all Muslims to "move" and make gestures of unity with other French and other religions.

This co-existence is precisely the element that Islamic radicals want to destroy. An editorial published in Dabiq (the Islamic State magazine), at the beginning of 2015, called for the "extinction of the gray zone", the area where many Muslims live in the West, between light and darkness, between the caliphate and the infidel world.

According to the IS all Muslims must leave the Western world and belong solely to the caliphate, destroying any possibility of dialogue. This is the context in which the actions of 19 year old Kermiche Adel, one of the church attackers killed by police, matured. The churches, with their welcome to all, the grief of Muslims for Christian victims, are part of this "gray area" that IS want eliminated, but are also the basis for the reconstruction of society, an element of resistance to a barbarism preached in the name of God.

Young Algerian university student in France.   Kamel Abderrahmani:

Again the forces of darkness have struck and this time a priest has been killed. With such savagry, he was beheaded in the name of God.

Only a fundamentalist could commit such an act, a fundamentalist, a madman ... I am not be afraid to say so. Islamism is the disease of the century. It is a disease that is not only capable of adapting its murderous techniques, but even "improve" them to kill even more people.

As a young Muslim, I appeal to all Muslims who do not subscribe to this ideology, to fight this ideology with all possible means. It is an ideology that is above all a danger to ourselves. Recently in Afghanistan, the mercenaries of this ideology committed genocide: 70 Muslims were killed . In Iraq, a few days before, more than 200 people were massacred. This ideology has exceeded all limits. It has also affected Islam's holy places: Medina, before it targeted a Christian church. It is time for Muslims to take action.

All my condolences to the Christian families in mourning.

Imam of Nimes, Hocine Drouiche, vice president of Imams of France: Hocine Drouiche:                                                                                                                                                          

I have heard of the odious attack that our Catholic brothers have suffered, as well as the assassination of our brother priest of Rouen. I express my condolences to the bereaved families and to the Catholic community in France and throughout the world.

It is an attack against our fellow Catholics, against France, against national unity and against Islam and against Muslims ... I firmly condemn this horrible attack on a holy place respected by the Muslim religion and all religions. The situation is becoming increasingly tragic and difficult.

I ask all French people to be vigilant, aware and remain united. I ask all imams and Muslim leaders, without exception, to come together, put aside their conflicts, to respond forcefully, clearly and strongly condemning this inhuman act, and remain vigilant so that Islam is no longer held hostage in the hands of extremists and the ignorant.

Following ISIS Attacks, Arab Journalists Call To Acknowledge Existence Of Muslim Extremism.

Following ISIS Attacks, Arab Journalists Call To Acknowledge Existence Of Muslim Extremism.  (Memri).

The large number of terrorist attacks carried out by ISIS in Western countries over the past year – including the July 14 truck attack in Nice, France (84 dead, some 100 wounded), the June 12 shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida (49 dead, over 50 wounded), the March 22, 2016 combined attacks in Brussels, Belgium (32 dead, over 300 wounded), and the combined attacks in Paris, France in November 2015 (129 dead, 350 wounded) – has sparked a wave of harsh criticism in the Arab and Islamic world, both due to the fear of Western responses and the increase of Islamophobia, and due to the torrent of youths who flock to the extremist organization.

Alongside the many articles that stressed that terrorist attackers do not represent Islam and operate out of outside interests, there have been an increasing number of articles in the Arab media calling to acknowledge that Islam, and the obsolete interpretations of it that are still applied today, are indeed related to the wave of global terrorism.

Writers called on Muslims to be honest and admit the existence of Muslim religious extremism instead of blaming others, and to uproot it.

The writers argued that the source of ISIS's extremist ideology is the Muslim social and cultural structure and that Muslims must therefore declare a war on this "cultural affliction" in their midst. According to them, this war requires fundamental reforms in Islamic interpretations alongside reforms in cultural, governmental and education patterns in Arab countries, which, they say, cause many Muslims to harbor covert sympathy for ISIS.

Many writers argued that most of ISIS's religious practices are drawn from the most important Islamic law books, while stressing that these laws do not reflect explicit Koranic dictates, but rather the opinion of jurisprudents that lived in a certain reality that is no longer relevant today. 

Therefore, they explained that in order to rescue the universal values of Islam from the culture of ignorance, backwardness, and violence, the Islamic jurisprudents of today must critically and rationally review the history of Islam and its religious texts, and adapt Islamic interpretations and laws to the spirit of the times, while taking into account the current circumstances and the greater good. In their opinion, some Islamic dictates should even be cancelled altogether to conform with universal progressive values such as liberties and human rights.

The writers harshly criticized the passive response of Muslims to ISIS crimes.

According to them, clerics make do with condemning the crimes of terrorist organizations, and some even take part in spreading extremist ideologies themselves. They argued that "ideology can only be combatted with ideology" and that no one other than clerics can "defeat and eliminate terrorism based on uncompromising ideology." 

Therefore, the clerics must combat extremist religious discourse that captures the hearts of many youths, and systematically refute its ideas and rulings as part of ideological, practical, and informational programs. In this context, some of the writers mentioned the silence of the Muslim Brotherhood, which they said begat these extremist takfiri organizations and now refrains from coming out against them and their ideology.

The writers also pointed to the confusion afflicting the common Muslims today, whether due to the refusal of Islamic religious institution to accuse ISIS and its ilk of apostasy, or whether because matters that were once uncontroversial in Islam – such as offensive jihad and slavery for prisoners of war – are currently forbidden according to modern world norms.

The writers stated that changing the religious discourse was a vital and urgent step, since the ongoing political and cultural situation in the Arab and Muslim world is "a wonderful recipe for extremism and backwardness," and that preserving and sanctifying ancient Islamic heritage would birth groups even more extreme than ISIS and lead Muslims to their doom.


The following are excerpts from these articles:

• Palestinian Writer: We Must Admit That Terrorism Is Tied To Islam And That Muslim Education Inculcates Implicit Support For ISIS

• Moroccan Writer: Arab World Must Change The Religious Discourse, Deal With Islamic Extremism

• Palestinian Writer: Every Muslim Anywhere May Have Some Measure Of Sympathy For ISIS; We Must Make Islam Compatible With Universal Values

• Egyptian Writer: Culture Of Arab Societies Produces Violent Islam Whose Followers Murder Anyone Who Disagrees With Them

• Jordanian Writer: We Must Urgently Reexamine Islamic Religious Texts; Clerics Not Fulfilling This Duty

• Senior Saudi Journalist: Muslim Clerics Should Completely Disprove Takfiri Jihadi Ideological Arguments

• Saudi Journalist In Series Of Articles: Actions Of Al-Qaeda, ISIS Originate In Past Islamic Religious Texts And Interpretations; We Must Issue Fatwas In Line With The Times

Read the full story here.

Video - Canada- Edmonton Friday Sermon: America Is Collapsing Because of Police Racism; the EU and Israel Will Come to an End

Video - Canada- Alberta Friday Sermon: America Is Collapsing Because of Police Racism; the EU and Israel Will Come to an End. (Memri).

In a Friday sermon delivered in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on July 8, 2016, Sheikh Shaban Sherif Mady said that "the U.S. is collapsing now from the inside because of the racism of those policemen," and that "an American state is demanding to secede, after England seceded from the EU." "The US will break up, just like 'Aad, Thamud, and Russia, the former USSR, and just like the EU, which will break up soon," said Mady, adding that "as a result, Israel will come to an end as well."

Sheikh Shaban Sherif Mady: "The U.S. is collapsing now because of these actions, just like the countries where it employed terrorism in the name of democracy. 'Allah came upon them from where they did not expect.' The US is collapsing from within because of the racism of those policemen, who are practicing international terrorism, or terrorism on the basis of racial discrimination."

"An American state is demanding to secede, after England seceded from the E.U. Now you have the incidents with the blacks. The U.S. will disintegrate, just like 'Aad, Thamud, and Russia, the former U.S.S.R., and just like the E.U., which will disintegrate soon. The U.S. will come to an end, and with it, Israel will come to an end as well. As a result of the end of Israel – or even before that happens – many Arab and Islamic regimes, which have ruled for a long time, will come to an end."

Moscow experts call to consider specifics of Islam in preventing recruitment to IS.

Moscow experts call to consider specifics of Islam in preventing recruitment to IS. (CaucasianKnot).

Measures to combat radicalization and recruitment of young people into the ranks of the terrorist organization "Islamic State" (IS), banned in Russia, should be softer and based on the understanding of the specifics of Islam. This was stated by participants of the round table held in Moscow on June 27-28.

The participants of the round table have come to the conclusion that unreasonable preventive registration at the police stations, criminal prosecution, pressure on Salafis, and impunity of law enforcers provoke radicalization of the youth of Northern Caucasus.

Alexei Malashenko, the chairman of the programme "Religion, Society, and Security" at the Carnegie Moscow Centre, has noted that the IS acts as a political concept of the Islamic alternative.

According to Khabib Magomedov, the chief of the scientific-practical laboratory on combating the ideology of extremism and terrorism, the main factor of the IS influence is in the conflict between Shiites and Sunnis.

The IS positions itself as a religious utopia, confirms Ekaterina Sokiryanskaya, the project director for Russia and Northern Caucasus of the International Crisis Group (ICG). According to her, the average age of the IS supporters is 18-25 years old.

Magomed Mutsolgov, the leader of the organization "MASHR" in Ingushetia, believes the main aim of the society, which attempts to prevent radicalization, is to establish a dialogue based on mutual respect.

Japan's top court approves extensive surveillance of Muslims.

Japan's top court approves extensive surveillance of Muslims. (ET).

Japan’s Supreme Court has approved the government’s blanket surveillance of Muslims in the country.

The country’s top court struck down a second appeal by Japanese Muslim plaintiffs against what they perceive an unconstitutional invasion of their privacy and freedom of religion. Mohamed Fujita, whose name has been changed to protect his identity is one of the 17 plaintiffs in a lawsuit that challenged extensive monitoring of Japan’s Muslims, Al Jazeera reported.

Fujita and the other plaintiffs sued the government following a 2010 leak of 114 police files revealed nationwide surveillance of Muslims in the country. The files revealed that Muslim places of worship, halal restaurants and Islam-related organisations across Japan’s capital, Tokyo, were being monitored.

The plaintiffs hoped the courts would deem the police practices illegal. However, after two appeals, the Supreme Court dismissed the case on May 31. The justices agreed with a lower court that the plaintiffs deserved a total of ¥90 million ($880,000) in compensation because the leak violated their privacy. 

The court, however, did not interject on the police profiling or surveillance practices, which a lower court ruling upheld as “necessary and inevitable” against the threat of international terrorism.

“We were told we don’t have a constitutional case,” says Junko Hayashi, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “We’re still trying to figure out, how is it not constitutional?”

During a United Nations human rights committee hearing on the matter in 2014, an official from the National Police Agency said “details of information gathering activities to prevent future terrorism could not be disclosed”, but that “police collected information according to the law”, UN records show.

The leaked files alarmingly included resumé-like pages citing a host of personal information, including the individual’s name, physical description, personal relationships as well as the mosque they attended, along with a section titled “suspicions.”

The files further showed that by 2008 at least 72,000 residents from Organisation of Islamic Conference countries had been profiled, including about 1,600 public school students in and around Tokyo.

Within a few weeks of the leak, the data had been downloaded from a file-sharing website more than 10,000 times in over 20 countries.

According to Hiroshi Miyashita, a law professor at Chuo University who’s an expert on privacy issues, the lawsuit was the first major legal case in Japan to highlight mass surveillance. However, a state secrets law that came into force in 2014 would shield the issue from public and judicial scrutiny. “Even judges cannot access information” about police practices under the new law, he added.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police and the National Police Agency refused to comment on the court decision, and would not confirm whether they continue to profile and monitor Japan’s Muslim community.

Video - Yemeni Cleric Al-Zindani: New Ice Age Started in Europe, U.S., So They Want to Occupy the Arab World

Yemeni cleric Sheikh Abd Al-Majid Al-Zindani said the migration of birds from Europe to the Arab world, from the U.S. to South America, and from Russia to its south was an indication that these countries would become uninhabitable in 15-20 years. Interviewed on the Yemeni Suhail TV channel, Al-Zindani said that in 2013, there had been a consensus among scientists "that the next Ice Age would begin [in those countries] in 2014." "We are ready to come to an understanding about these problems... but this must not be through military occupation," he said. The interview aired on June 6, 2016

Video - London-Based Islamist Cleric on Brexit: Why Shed Tears over the EU?! We Have Prayed Daily for Their Dispersal

Video - London-Based Islamist Cleric on Brexit: Why Shed Tears over the EU?! We Have Prayed Daily for Their Dispersal

Video - London-Based Islamist Cleric on Brexit: Why Shed Tears over the EU?! We Have Prayed Daily for Their Dispersal

Video - Jordanian Mosque-Goers Divided over Antisemitic, Jihadi Tirades of Self-Proclaimed Child Preacher.

Video - Qatari Professor Al-Ansari Analyzes the Roots of Terrorism: Something Is Wrong in Our Cultural Order.

In a June 3 Rotana Khalijiyya TV interview, Prof.Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari, former Dean of Islamic Law at Qatar University, discussed the phenomenon of terrorism and how to deal with it. Terrorism, he said, was based on ideology, not on financial distress or economic circumstances, and "begins with the sowing of hatred, the sowing of extremism" and with "this rhetoric about a nation constantly under attack."

Video - 'Islamic Terrorism Is A Form Of Islam And We Can't Deny It': Salman Rushdie.

It is one thing not to discriminate against people, says Salman Rushdie, i.e. peaceful practitioners of Islam, but to foreclose an open debate over the merits of religion is a mistake.

Rushdie's latest novel is "Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights" (http://goo.gl/wxhVGA).

Video - Belgian Muslim Leader Salah Echallaoui: We Must Not Allow Preachers to Be Brought from Countries that Spread Religious Extremism.

Video - Belgian Muslim Leader Salah Echallaoui: We Must Not Allow Preachers to Be Brought from Countries that Spread Religious Extremism.  HT: Memri.

In a BBC Arabic interview, Salah Echallaoui, head of the Muslim Executive in Belgium, said: "We must not allow preachers and religious instructors to be brought from countries that spread the ideology of religious extremism," adding that "Belgium cannot continue to accept people who call for religious extremism and for the exclusion of others." The interview aired on April 23, 2016.


Following are excerpts

Interviewer: There are 40 Jihadists out of every million people in Belgium, which is the No. 1 European exporter of Jihadists to Syria and Iraq.

Salah Echallaoui: Perhaps this is due to the religious liberties that exist in Belgium, and the lack of determination in dealing with the extremist ideological movements...

Interviewer: Are you calling for increased restrictions on religious liberties in Belgium, or what?

Interviewer: No, but the extremist religious ideology, which rejects pluralism, shared European values, and coexistence, must not exist in our country. For example, we must not allow preachers and religious instructors to be brought from countries that spread the ideology of religious extremism. Belgium cannot continue to accept people who call for religious extremism and for the exclusion of others. This is the responsibility of the political circles.

As Muslims, we must reinforce the moderate religious ideology, and the religious institutions that operate in the framework of coexistence, and of shared values. In addition, sister, the international problems must be dealt with, because they serve as a reason for religious extremism worldwide. There are problems and conflicts in the Middle East, and if they are not resolved - and this is the responsibility of the international community - this region will forever sow and export this ideology, the evil of which will reach Europe and elsewhere.

Interviewer: The people living in the Molenbeek neighborhood have specific complaints. They accuse you, as well as the government, of not caring about them, and not listening to their complaints. But they have one complaint that is directed explicitly at you. They say that you cooperate with the government and inform on them.

Salah Echallaoui: This is not true. It is not our role, as the Muslim Executive in Belgium, to act like the police or a security agency.

It is not our job to inform on the Muslims or on anyone else. These accusations are false, and we reject them. Our organization has a religious role, which it has played for years. The state does not need the Executive organization to inform on [Muslims]. Whoever makes this claim should provide the truth. We refuse to be a tool used for informing on people.

RELATED ! 

Belgian Imams Refuse to Pray for Souls of Non-Muslim Victims of Brussels Attacks. …

Terrorist Najim Laachraoui, worked for five years in the Brussels airport, knew security apparatus well.

Najim Laachraoui, worked for five years in the Brussels airport knew security apparatus well. (VTM) [GoogleTranslated].

Najim Laachraoui, one of the two terrorists who blew himself up at Brussels Airport, would have worked for five years at the same airport. That's wath VTM NEWS has learned. The man was working with a temporary contract for a company that operates at the airport. This means he was well-informed about the security at Zaventem.

The police discovered shortly before the attacks a clandestine secret prayer room  in the airport itself where radicalized personnel came together to meet in secret and praying. Although the airport is equipped with special prayer rooms, among them one for Muslims, but still a small group chose to organize their own secret prayer. At the request of the police is that space was emptied and shut down. That was shortly before the attack on the airport on March 22.

Research shows that there would be a list of names of at least 50 radicalized personnel at the airport. 

That list was drawn up after the attacks, but the secret prayer was discovered before the attacks and shut down. Hmmmm.....Proof of what I've been saying for many years 'Airport staff is the weakest link in airport security. Read the full story here.

Video - Scale of ISIS recruitment in France is being underestimated – jihadist’s mother

Video - Scale of ISIS recruitment in France is being underestimated – jihadist’s mother .

The mother blamed the inaction of the local authorities in the commune of Sevran in the northeastern suburbs of Paris for her son and other youngsters joining the jihadists.

“We had a mosque. In fact, it was a prayer home, which we called Daesh Mosque,” she said, using the pejorative Arabic term for IS. “It wasn’t authorized and it’s closed now.”Read the full story here.

'Kill Ahmadis who don't convert to mainstream Islam' leaflets found in London mosque.

'Kill Ahmadis who don't convert to mainstream Islam' leaflets found in London mosque. (ET).

Leaflets calling for the killing of Ahmadis have been found in a London mosque, according to BBC News.

The flyers, which say Ahmadis should face death if they refuse to convert to Islam, were displayed in Stockwell Green mosque in London. The leaflets are believed to have been authored by Yusuf Ludhianvi, ex-head of Khatme Nabuwat, a group which lists the mosque as its overseas office. A mosque trustee, however, denied having seen it before and suggested they were fakes or left there with malicious intent.

Four trustees of the charity listed in the documents manage the mosque, while two of the current owners of the mosque run centres affiliated to the group elsewhere in the UK. The mosque is also listed as an “overseas office” on the group’s website for Khatme Nabuwwat.

The leaflets state, “Those who refuse to convert to mainstream Islam within three days should face a “capital sentence” — or death penalty.” Written in English, the leaflets were found arranged in piles on a desk next to a shoe-rack, the usual place to display literature in mosques.

In 2011, the Stockwell Green mosque was accused of helping to promote acts of terror and hate in Pakistan, prompting a vehement denial from its then trustee Toaha Qureshi who claimed the mosque’s name had been “falsely used” on a website listed on hate literature advocating the murder of Ahmadis.

“We are very angry and furious about that. We do not have any linkage with this organisation that is promoting hate,” Qureshi said, claiming the mosque was an independent organisation which did not take any dictation by anybody.

Regarding the latest discovery of leaflets and alleged links between the mosque and Khatme Nabuwwat, Qureshi upheld, “There is a link that we only need when we need some guidance or literature on that particular issue, then we seek advice from them.”


“We have not published any pamphlet of that kind. This is nothing to do with our mosque. Someone might have put it there and taken from there with malicious intentions,” he added. Read the full story here.

Video - Egypt Friday Sermon: Moshe Dayan Acknowledged that Stones and Trees Would Urge Muslims to Kill Jews on Judgment Day.

Egypt Friday Sermon: Moshe Dayan Acknowledged that Stones and Trees Would Urge Muslims to Kill Jews on Judgment Day

During a Friday sermon delivered at Al-Huda Mosque in Port Said, Egyptian cleric Sheikh Mansour Riadh recounted an antisemitic hadith, according to which on Judgment Day, the trees and stones would tell the Muslims to come and kill the Jews hiding behind them.

Riadh said that during the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations, Moshe Dayan had confirmed the hadith, saying: "Your Prophet spoke the truth, but this will only happen when you are true Muslims." The sermon was posted on the Internet on January 30, 2016.

Following are excerpts

Mansour Riadh: [According to a hadith],the Prophet Muhammad said: "Judgment Day will not come before the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims will kill them, and the Jews will hide behind the stones and the trees, and the trees and the stones will say to the Muslims: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him." This is what the Prophet Muhammad said. "There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him." The Prophet Muhammad said that the gharqad tree would be the only exception, because it is one of the trees of the Jews.

[In 1973], their minister of defense was a man called Moshe Dayan. In the days of the [Israeli-Egyptian] reconciliation, when Egyptians would go to Palestine and Israelis would come to Egypt for talks, an Egyptian politician said jokingly to Moshe Dayan: "Our Prophet told us that we would fight you, "Our Prophet told us that we would fight you, and that the stones would speak and say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him." Oh servants of Allah, what did the [Israeli] defense minister tell him? By Allah, this was published in the newspapers at the time. He said: "Your prophet spoke the truth, but this will only happen when you are true Muslims."

This is why they plant the gharqad tree. It's in keeping with the prophecy. They plant it all over.