Author: Naomi Ragen
Publication: Jerusalem Post
Date: September 14, 2001
(September 6) Just this week as
I was standing by the door waiting to say good-bye to my son who was going
to school after the long summer vacation, I heard the news that yet another
Muslim suicide bomber had detonated himself in the center of Jerusalem,
only a few streets from where my son passes each morning.
The human explosive chose a spot
near Bikur Holim Hospital, with its maternity wards and intensive-care
wards; a spot right near the Lycee Francais, where little girls, the children
of journalists and diplomats, were just entering the front gate. The bomber
was prevented from getting any closer to these spots by the courage of
two border policemen, who risked their lives. One of them is in intensive
care. The other was interviewed from his hospital bed with light injuries.
What he remembered most, he told reporters, was the little smile
on the corner of the bomber's face as he turned and detonated himself.
Time after time, the families of
suicide bombers are being interviewed by weepy reporters from CNN and
BBC to explain the noble motivation of the boys who strap on explosives
and behead little babies, pregnant women, and innocents of all kinds. One
thing that the reporters miss, though, is that it's not nationalistic fervor,
or outrage at their "persecution" that is motivating these young men, as
much as the Muslim religious teachings that promise each of them unlimited
free sex with virgins in paradise as a reward for spilling innocent blood.
Thus, the little smile.
>From my own experience with many
good people abroad, this information is not well known. Recently, Bob Simon
interviewed Muhammad Abu Wardeh on Sixty Minutes. His remarks in Arabic
were translated on the program as: "God would compensate the martyr
for sacrificing his life for his land. If you become a martyr, God
will give you 70 virgins, 70 wives and everlasting happiness."
Now, Arab Americans are claiming
in outrage that this is not only a mistranslation, but absolutely false.
Maher Hathout, a Muslim "scholar" with the Islamic Center of Southern
California, wrote in the Atlanta Constitution: "There is nothing in the
Koran or in Islamic teachings about 70 virgins or sex in paradise. This
is ridiculous, and any true Muslim knows that."
Oh, really?
Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, head
of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community, and a
true Islamic scholar, had this to say: "The only ridiculous thing
is that someone who claims to be an 'Islamic scholar' makes public declarations
which prove beyond any possible doubt that he has never read the Commentary
of Ibn Kathir and 'Sunan' of Imam at-Tirmidhi, which are basic books for
the knowledge of Islam. Unfortunately, this attribution of chairs to ignoramuses
seems to be the rule in American Islamic Centers controlled by the fundamentalist
network of the 'Muslim Brotherhood.' "
According to Islam, Palazzi goes
on to say, there are 72 wives for every believer who is admitted
to Heaven, and not only for a martyr. The proof is a hadith which is collected
by at-Tirmidhi in "Sunan" (volume IV, chapters on "The Features of Heaven
as described by the Messenger of Allah," Chapter 21: "About the Smallest
Reward for the People of Heaven," hadith 2687).
It is also quoted by Ibn Kathir
in his Tafsir (Koranic Commentary) of Surah ar-Rahman (55), ayah (verse)
72: "It was mentioned by Daraj Ibn Abi Hatim, that Abu al-Haytham Abdullah
Ibn Wahb narrated from Abu Sa'id al-Khudhri, who heard the Prophet Muhammad
(Allah's blessings and peace be upon him) saying: 'The smallest reward
for the people of Heaven is an abode where there are 80,000 servants and
72 wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine and
ruby, as wide as the distance from al-Jabiyyah to San'a.' Ibn Kathir explained
in 'al-Bidayah wa an-Nihayah' that al-Jabiyyah is the name of a suburb
of Damascus.
"That those 72 wives are virgin
is proved by the ayah 74 of the same Surah: "No man or jinn has ever
touched them before."
In conclusion, whether or not the
remarks on Sixty Minutes are a mistranslation isn't the point. The point
is this: Horny Arab teenagers are being convinced the way to sex in the
puritanical Arab world (where fathers routinely murder daughters who are
even suspected of losing their virginity), is through hate-filled mass
murders.
Too bad you missed that, CNN, BBC.
Takes away from the "nobility" of the "sacrifice," huh?
