Jews settled in Europe,
does reject the cultural
wherethey remained
values of the West," says
until the Holocaust.
Professor Jacob Lassner,
he central text of director of Judaic studies
Islam is the Koran, a
and chairman of the
300-page document.
Near Eastern languages
Muslims believe the
and literature depart-
Koran is a holy work dic-
ment at Wayne State
tated to Muhammad by
University.
the angel Gabriel.
A significant percent-
Imam Muhammad Ali
age of the Muslim
Elahi, a Shiite Muslim
Brotherhood and Hamas
cleric representing the
are physicians, lawyers
Islamic Center of and engineers. What
America, located in
they embrace in Western
southwest Detroit, says
technology is the end
that the Koran continu-
product, "not
ally invites both
the spirit of
Christians and Jews to
scientific
"come and agree on one
inquiry." They
thing: we all worship one
respect
God." The Koran encour-
"unambiguous
ages unity, he says, and
answers to
disapproves of "condemn-
problems,"
ing each other."
the kind of
At the same time, the
absolute right
Koran says that "the
and wrong
Jews have the deepest
proclaimed by
hostility and enmity
Islam.' They
toward the Muslims."
consider
Muslims, he says, have
Western soul-
hostility toward no one.
searching and
Frequent mention is
democratic
made in the Koran of values that
Moses — Imam Elahi
give voice to a
cites 135 references —
myriad of con-
often detailing his trou-
flicting opin-
bles with the Jews he led
ions a failure,
out of slavery from
according to
Egypt. Moses is consid-
Professor
ered by Muslims to be a
Lassner.
prophet of God.
Sponsored
Imam Elahi stresses
by Iran,
that Islath recognizes
Hamas was
Judaism as a religion,
created
in
"but now there's the
1984
by
question of political
Ahmad
things" — namely,
Hussein
Zionism.
Yasin. Its rai-
"We are anti anti-
son d'etre is to
Semitism," he says. "But
wage jihad
being anti-Zionist doesn't
against
mean you are anti-
Israel.
Jewish. From the point
Muslims
of view of the Muslims,
generally
(what's happening in
translate
Israel) is a sort of jihad as a
apartheid against the
struggle to
Muslims there."
excel and per-
slamic fundamental-
form good
ists are anything but
deeds. Jewish
predictable.
scholars have
One of the most curi-
a different
ous features about the
understand-
Islamic revival gripping
ing of the
the Middle East is that it
word. Used by
"does not mean rejection
Saddam
of certain aspects of Hussein dur-
modernity, though it
ing the Gulf
T
I
War, by Hamas, by the
Palestine Liberation
Organization and others,
jihad translates to the
obliteration of Israel and
the West and a world
dominated by Islam,
Jewish groups say.
The rise of religious
fundamentalist Islamic
groups has been charted
in recent months in
Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
Jordan, Algeria and
Tunisia. They often
claim to be "in the ser-
vice of God." Professor
Lassner believes they
may see justification for
their fight against the
Jews not only because of
contemporary politics,
but both in text and in
history.
Many Muslims will
never forget the Jews'
rejection of Muhammad
and their support for his
enemies in Medina.
"They look at history_as
constantly repeating
itself. Every moment is a
mirror image of another.
The Jews can never shed
the image of their earlier
activities."
Admittedly, the Koran
calls for physical protec-
tion of the Jews and for
their free expression of
religion. But as dhimmi,
Jews under Arab rule do
not enjoy the kind of citi-
zenship rights as in the
United States.
The Koran "doesn't
Afford Welch, Imam Karoub; below,
Jacob Lassner.