Keith Ellison, the first ever Muslim elected to the US congress on a Democratic Party ticket from the State of Minnesota in the November 7 mid-term elections announced his intention of taking the oath of office placing his hand on Islam’s supreme holy book, the Koran, when the new 110th Congress convenes in January next year. Instead of ‘So Help me God’, Ellison, an African American Catholic converted to the Islamic faith, will pledge to uphold the Constitution of the United States ending with the phrase ‘Allahu Akbar’ meaning ‘God is Great’ in Arabic.

The Muslim congressman’s stand on taking oath by the Koran created a furor after conservative radio talk-show host Dennis Prager, in an article, titled “America, not Keith Ellison, decides what book a congressman takes his oath on”, expressed concern that this "will embolden Islamic extremist" and do "more damage to the unity of America and to the values system that has formed this country.." Mr. Prager however conceded that bringing the Koran alongside the traditional Bible for the swearing ceremony would be sensible. He also argued that Mr. Ellison may take the oath without swearing by anything or even can do away with it altogether to work in his elected position.

Since then, the media have been flooded with a deluge of commentaries and opinions both condemning and supporting Keith Ellison’s choice and Mr. Prager’s concerns. In the latest development, conservative Republican congressman, Virgil Goode, from Virginia in an open letter, expressed his concerns for America being swamped by the Koran-wielding representatives in the future. He wrote, "...if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran."

"I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.", he continued.

Being a non-theist, I care little about what book or stuff one uses for the oath, be it the Bible, phone directory, a piece of stone or nothing at all. What concerns me is the fact ‘as to why the Muslim congressman must swear by the Koran only and not by another book such as the Bible’ and what it means to the American constitution, especially in the long-term.

Understanding the basic precepts of the Islamic faith is a precondition to grasp the devout Muslim congressman’s stand on taking oath by the Koran. Islam only cares for the truth. Allah, the creator of the universe, undertook the final mission of prophetic succession to deliver the divine message in the perfect form through the last Prophet Muhammad (seal of Prophethood) as the Koran says:

"Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but he is the Messenger of God and the Seal of the prophets…" [Quran 33:40]

In the Islamic belief, the Koran which contains Allah’s final messages in unaltered form, is thus, the divine book of complete truth and knowledge of the universe and Islam is the perfect religious guidance chosen by Allah for all mankind:

This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion. [Quran 5:3]

When the creator of the universe has chosen Islam as the only perfect religion for the mankind, all other religions, existing before or to appear later, are either false or incomplete and God disapproves them all. Islam has the perfect prescription for every dealing in human life, such as how humans will sit while eating, take bath, do sex, dress up, deal in trades and collect taxes; what they will eat or drink as well as what he must not do. The state will enforce the dos and don’ts of the absolute commander of the universe to run the society in conformity to His wishes.

Koran is not only the book of guidance, it is also the book of complete knowledge of the universe. So, the reformist Muslims and their non-Islamic agents have discovered all the formula of modern science, democracy, secularism, human rights and technology in the Koran in recent years. However, the human innovations of the non-Islamic world are naturally fault-prone and are not perfect. Islam only can have these innovations in the perfect form as they come down directly from the knower of all truth. Thus, we have Islamic science, Islamic economy, Islamic banking, Islamic democracy, Islamic human rights, Islamic sex and Islamic technology (Islamic cell phone, TV and fighter jets etc.) in the Islamic world.

Hence Prophet Muhammad, the earthly editor of the Koran, is increasing being seen as the greatest ever scientist and intellectual in the Islamic world, apart from his being the greatest-ever prophet and man. This upsurge in ‘everything Islamic’ has much to do with assertions of the Koran like in verses 33:40 and 5:3 cited above. It also goes back to the very inception of Islam. Since Islam is the complete treasure-trove of truth and knowledge, early Muslim conquerors undertook the principle of destroying non-Islamic books or documents they came across. Ali, Islam’s fourth caliph and Prophet Muhammad’s dearest companion, cousin and son-in-law, had said that extra-Islamic documents or books that contain information absent in the Koran are false and misleading, while others that contained knowledge already in the Koran are unnecessary and hence, they must be destroyed. On this ground, the 3^rd Caliph Othman order the destruction of the massive library of Alexandria (built by Alexander, ~332 BC) after the Muslims’ conquest of Egypt in 641.

However, this trend was stopped by the fifth Caliph, Muwabiya, the son of Prophet Muhammad’s bitter opponent, Abu Sufyan, who captured power in 661AD. Abu Sufyan, also a father-in-law of Muhammad, was forced to accept Islam on the pain of death when his city of Mecca was captured by the Prophet in 630 AD, just two years before the latter’s death. Also known as the Umayyad caliphs, they bitterly hated Prophet Muhammad and anything and anyone associated with him because of the bitter and lasting rivalry between Abu Sufyan and the Prophet. They set on to take revenge against the Prophet’s cruelty against Abu Sufyan and his people. They killed Ali and captured power and treated anyone and anything associated with the Prophet with disdain and cruelty. They killed the Prophet’s grandson Imam Husayn (Ali’s son in 680 AD) in battle of Karbala applying the same tactics, namely blocking the passage to the water, which the Prophet had applied against Abu Sufyan’s army in the battle of Badr (624 AD).

Although ruthless in expanding their kingdom, the Umayyad had little regards even for the Islamic revelations. In their demonstration of ungodly disregard to Islam, Muwabiyya’s troops had stuck the pages of the Koran on their lances in the battle of Siffin (657) against Ali. Troops of Ali, because of their extreme veneration of the Koran, refused to fight and lost the battle. The Umayyad were Arabs first and little Islamic and revered and promoted learning, respected Christianity and built churches and venerated Jerusalem, the birth place of Jesus. They transferred the capital to the more Christianic Damascus, taking the attention away from Islam’s centre of attention, the Mecca and Medina. They had enjoyed massive support from the Christians. [Walker, p234-240; Ibn Warraq, p243]

Islam also recognizes the period before Islam as the age of Jahiliya (age of ignorance) and a principle of destroying the knowledge, wisdom and customs of period, because of their false or ignoramus nature, were followed during the rule of the first four pious caliphs (till 661), who were the Prophet’s companions and trusted friends. After the initial assaults, however, much of pre-Islamic knowledge and intellectual properties survived during the 90-year rule of the fiercely anti-Muhammad, anti-Koran godless Umayyads and later the Abbasids. Interestingly, the Abbasids were more Persian than Arab and yet somewhat pious, who preferred the nominally Islamic Mutazili theology over the orthodox Koranic or Muhammedan Islam. They were in great pursuit of learning and were astonished by vast treasures of knowledge and philosophy that existed before the coming of Muhammad. To conform to a core Islamic principle of discarding anything from the Jahiliya age, they collected many of original Greek manuscripts from around the kingdom and overseas, translated them into Arabic and destroyed the original transcripts to create an impression that those materials came from the days of Islam. Hence, many of the original Greek manuscripts do not exists and survived only in the Arabic from which Europeans later translated. The translations were mostly done by the Christian, Zoroastrian (Persian) and Jewish sages employed by the Muslim rulers.

Here lies the mysteries of how the Islamic world flourished during the Islamic golden age (8-13^th century) despite Islam being such an anti-intellectual, obscurantist and iconoclastic religion. In the 12^th century, however, the Koran-based orthodox Islam, revived by great Islamic theologians like Imam Ghazzali (d. 1111 AD), pushed the exercise of philosophy, science and freethought into the back-burner, resulting in the decline of scientific and intellectual progress in the Islamic kingdoms. For example, the proverbial Islamic ruler Saladin of the crusade, a zealous orthodox Sunni, disposed of the famous library of Cairo, consisting of nearly one million books, scrolls and manuscripts after he defeated the Fatimids in 1171 AD. Some were sold, others burned or the rest were left for rotting. [Walker, 284-288].

Keith Ellison, being a devout Muslim behind his liberal and democratic façade, must be aware of these fundamentals of Islam. The Bible, belong to the Jahiliya age, is full of falsehood and errors. A Muslim should in principle try to destroy such materials and never can he swear by such book of ignorance and falsehood.

Also in Islam, “The worst beasts in Allah's sight are the disbelievers (8:55)”, who consist of all non-Islamic peoples. Here are more verdicts of the Koran specifically on the Jews and Christians who form the bulk of the American people:

“Christians and Jews are perverse. Allah fights against them” (9:30)

Jews and Christians are evil-livers. (5:59)

Christians and Jews must believe what Allah has revealed to Muhammad or Allah will turn them into apes, as he did the Sabbath-breakers. (4:47)

Jews and Christians believe in idols and false deities.. (4:51)

"Those (Christians and Jews) are they whom Allah hath cursed." (4:52)

Allah has stirred up enmity and hatred among Christians. (5:14}

[Quran 9:29] Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture (Christian & Jews) as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.

Here are a people whom Allah has sorted out as the evil-doers, worthy of apes, the worst beasts and followers of false gods and has cursed and stirred hatred and enmity against. They also do not practice justice (they ‘forbid not what Allah has forbidden’) and do ‘not follow the religion of truth’ [Q 9:29]. How could Mr. Prager and his likes in America expect the respectable and devout Muslim politician to swear by the holy book (Bible) of such a people, which also comes from the Jahiliya age? This goes totally against his religious principles. When we recognize Islam as true religion of peace, we must accede to the fact that for instituting the justice and truth of Allah, Muslims must keep fighting the Jews and Christians until they accept subjugation to Islam and pay Jizyah (poll-tax) in humiliation as required by Allah [Q 9:29].

The Americans must now understand what is expected of this flamboyant Muslim politician from his religious perspective, whom they have sent to the American congress. He has, however, made it clear himself in a Muslim conference in Michigan (23-24 Dec, 2006):

“Ellison said in Dearborn that Muslims can help teach America about justice and equal protection, suggesting that Muslim activists may be part of God's plan.”

In his firm plan to institute Allah’s justice and truth in the American soil, he exhorted the Muslim crowd:

"How do you know that you were not brought right here to this place to learn how to make this world better? How do you know that Allah, sallalahu aleyhi wasallam," (meaning peace be upon him) "did not bring you here so that you could understand how to teach people what tolerance was, what justice was?... How do you know that you're not here to teach this country?"

America severely lacks in justice and Mr. Ellison would strive hard with faith in Allah to institute the perfect justice:

"You can't back down, you can't chicken out, you can't be afraid, you got to have faith in Allah, and you got to stand up and be a real Muslim," Detroit native Keith Ellison said to loud applause.

And he has the unstinted support of his co-religionists:

"Allahu akbar" - God is great - was the reply of many in the crowd.

There is a striking similarity between Ellison’s position in America and Prophet Muhammad’s in Medina after his relocation there as a refugee in 622 AD. A small band of his followers, including some local converts (helpers/ansars), placed their unstinted support in his leadership. With his unfaltering faith in Allah and in his pursuance of establishing the sole truth and justice of Allah, he had overrun the entire Arabian Peninsula and subjugated and forcefully converted the majority of the people by the time of his death in 632 AD. The influential, educated and wealthy Jews of Medina, who had unsuspectingly welcomed him, tasted the bitter and cruel return of their generosity not long after. In 624, Muhammad attacked the Banu Qainuqa clan and wanted to slaughter them en mass. But influential Abdullah Ibn Ubayyi from the Muslims camp, forcefully intervened on the ground of his previous alliance with the Jewish tribe. Much to the bitterness and displeasure of the Prophet, they were allowed to leave in three days, instead being slaughtered. In 626, Banu Nadir faced the same fate and in 628, the last Jewish tribe of and Banu Quraiza was seized, their males (600-900) were all slaughtered; their women and children were taken captives and sold to Nedj for weapons and horses for future battles. In each case, the homes and properties of the Jewish tribes were confiscated as the spoils of war and distributed amongst the participating Muslim fighters according a stipulation revealed by Allah [Quran 8.41].

This is how the perfect Islamic justice and truth took firm root in Arabia in the early 7^th century. Unfortunately, it hasn’t yet graced the land of America, which Allah has made so resourceful with his bounty. It is still dominated and dictated by the vile Jews, Christians and worst of all, the atheists. Keith Ellison clearly has a firm mission for establishing the divine plan of Allah in the American soil. His oath by the Koran is probably the first step and a bold statement of his mission. ‘Ye worst beast Americans; thou must accept his oath by the Koran’ [Q 8:55].

References

1. Benjamin Walker, Foundations of Islam, Rupa & Co, New Delhi, 2004

2. Ibn Warrq, Why I am not a Muslim, Prometheus Book, New York, 1995.

http://www.islam-watch.org/AlamgirHussain/EllisonKoranOath.htm
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