Some time ago a wise man taught me that winning an argument is not the purpose of cogent discourse; the art is to sustain your opinion with evidence and logic in order to authenticate the truth. Victor Gordon’s {Israel scores top rating in combating human trafficking Cape Points January 2} need for vindication, his emotive and belligerent responses suggests that he is not yet ready for this quality of discourse. Since Victor is unable to answer with regards to the divine role of God in the Zionist project and the corruption of the Holy Land, he degrades the dialogue by exhibiting signs of Islamaphobia. Islamaphobia is defined as a general irrational hatred or fear of Muslims.
Therefore, I suggest Victor reads my letters as cautiously as I write them and appreciate that I do not use the terms Zionists or Jews loosely or interchangeably. Since I understand the variance between a Zionist and a righteous Jew, Victor should note the variance between Arabism and Islam. Since all Arabs are not Muslim and all Muslims are not Arabs, in the Muslim world, Arabs are a minority.
With regards to female genital mutilation {FGM}, both Judaism and Islam require circumcision for boys, but not for girls. The Al-Azhar Supreme Council of Islamic Research, one of the highest Islamic authorities in the world, regularly issues statements that Female Genital Mutilation has no basis in Islamic law. The practice of {FGM} is historically an ancient African practice that originated in the courts of the Pharaohs. It was also practiced in ancient Rome and gynecologists in England and the United States practiced {FGM} during the 19th century to “cure” insanity and nymphomania. Isaac Baker Brown (1812–1873) an English gynecologist who was president of the Medical Society of London in 1865, advocated {FGM} to resolve epilepsy, hysteria, and mania.
Furthermore, Shahrzad Mojab Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Toronto, suggests that some followers of Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Judaism and Christianity have used their religions as a rationale to commit honor killings. She states that honor killings do not have any connection with religion at all and that it had been practiced before any major religion came into existence. Widney Brown, the advocacy director of Human Rights Watch, said that the practice goes across cultures and across religions. Human rights advocates have compared honor killing to crimes of passion in Latin America. Tahira Khan, Professor of Women’s Studies at Aga Khan University, notes that there is nothing in the Qur’an that permits or sanctions honor killings. Khan blames it on attitudes across classes, ethnic and religious groups that view women as property as the motivation for honor killings.
Victor should also consider that his attempts to whitewash Zionist corruption of the Holy Land, insults the historical and invaluable contribution that peace loving members of the Jewish community has made to humanity. In the same way that God fearing Muslim must reject irrational violent extremism that operate under the guise of Islam, so God fearing Jews must reject racist violent Zionism which operates under the guise of Judaism.
Cllr Yagyah Adams
Cape Muslim Congress