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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| "Jews have no right to Temple Mount" |
| 2005-10-23 |
| Following is a WorldNetDaily exclusive interview with Sheik Kamal Hatib. Trimmed somewhat, as My stomach isn't as strong as it used to be. WND: Who should have sovereignty over the Temple Mount – Jews, Christians, or Muslims. Or should it be shared? HATIB: We absolutely believe that Al Aqsa, all its different parts, all its walls, all its courts, and everything down the mosque or up it, all these fully belong to the Muslims. Only to them. No one other than the Muslims has any right over Al Aqsa, or even over any grain of its sand. We, the Muslims, insist and emphasize that the only sovereignty over Al Aqsa must be for the Muslims. We will not accept or recognize any other sovereignty, including shared control. WND: But what about the previous Jewish Temples? Do you believe they existed? Do Jews have any historic claims to the Temple Mount whatsoever? HATIB: We the Muslims believe that Al Aqsa was built since the time of Adam – God bless him. It was built 40 years after the construction of the Al Haram Mosque in Mecca which was built thousands of years ago. Al Aqsa was built by the angels as it is mentioned in a verse of the Quran. The mosque is mentioned in the Quran, which speaks about the raising of the prophet. We believe that the Jewish Temples existed, but we deny they were built near Al Aqsa. When the First Temple was built by Solomon – God bless him – Al Aqsa was already built. We don't believe that a prophet like Solomon would have built the Temple at a place where a mosque existed. WND: There is no serious scholar or archeologist in the world who argues Al Aqsa was built before the Jewish Temples. And if the Temples didn't exist on the Mount, what then do you say is the Western Wall? HATIB: About the Kotel (the Western Wall), we deny any relation between the Temple and the Al Aqsa Mosque. We believe that the Western Wall is part of the mosque and not the Wall of Lamentation, as the Jews say. ... The Western wall is an inseparable part of the mosque. WND: You were talking about Al Aqsa being mentioned in the Quran. But I understand it is never directly mentioned. And the city of Jerusalem is not mentioned once. Commentators later concluded a verse about Muhammad descending to the furthest mosque referred to Al Aqsa. Meanwhile, Jerusalem is mentioned thousands of times throughout the Torah. Half the Torah is about Temple worship. Explain why you feel the Mount is not holy to Jews? HATIB: The fact that Jerusalem is mentioned in the Torah does not in any way mean that the city was populated or built by the Jews. Everyone knows that when the prophet Abraham came from Iraq in 1850 before Christ he was given by the Arab King Melchizedek the land where he and his wife lived in Hebron, and it was 600 years before Moses' message, which also proves that Abraham was not a Jew. And your saying that our faith is based on this interpretation of the verse [about Al Aqsa] is a totally wrong analysis. The Al Aqsa of the Quran is the same Al Aqsa of our days, not any other mosque. That is what our Sharia says. As for what you say that Jerusalem is mentioned thousands of times in the Torah; it is not a matter of numbers and quantity. There is a very clear historical event mentioned in the Quran concerning the mosque that was built by Adam and where all our prophets prayed. WND: Speaking of praying, currently, Jews and Christians can only ascend the Mount at certain hours on certain days, and only with approval from the Wafq (the Mount's Muslim custodians). If they go up, it is to tour. Non-Muslims are not allowed to pray on the Mount. Why is it so offensive to you if Jews or Christians pray on the Temple Mount? HATIB: We don't want even these scheduled visits, which are allowed to take place only because of the Israeli occupation. The visits are not the result of a free choice of the Muslims and the Wafq. If it was not for Israel, these visits could not take place at all. Speaking about the Christians, I say that every person who believes in God must act for peace and for love among human beings and not to help in creating hate and war. Unfortunately, the evangelical Christians believe in the necessity of a war of civilizations. Because of this belief, President Bush, supported by these groups, is leading this war against the Muslim world. |
| Posted by:Jackal |
| #20 Zenster, it's ironic that I'd have agreed with you 100% in the months following 9/11. As it stands I agree with your view in its entirety aside from now being the time to forcefully address this nonsense. No one who reads Rantburg needs to be reminded of the depth of lunacy exhibited by many sheiks, imams, mullahs, and other various and sundry Muslim personages but when, as here, said lunacy is rooted in strongly-held religious beliefs I posit that disabusing the holder of his beliefs will be quite problematic because these folks derive all of their worldly authority from those beliefs. IMHO they're simply too invested in their beliefs to be swayed by any amount of logic, reason, history, bribery, etc. When debating and bribing fail only direct action remains an option and that's a course we cannot pursue without at least political support from much of the non-Muslim world because, like it or not, if we manage to alienate the entire world and unite them under a strong anti-American banner we will be the losers in the long term. The event that led me to believe that we cannot effectively address this issue at the present time is the Iraq war or, more specifically, the world’s reaction to it. The worst reaction we could have expected is something along the lines of, "We'd prefer it not have happened that way but on balance Iraq and the world are better off for Saddam having been deposed." Instead popular opinion now sees the US as the greatest threat to peace & stability and W as Hitler. In that world, one in which a book dropped in the dust sparks riots, protests, and waves of anti-Americanism across the globe what do you suppose the reaction would be if the brainpans of thousands of radical Muslims were ventilated en masse? The world’s animosity towards America is as palpable as it is laughable nevertheless it's the order of the day and imposes severe restrictions on what we can do as it would be very difficult for even our closest allies to drum up enough support at home to follow an American lead on much of anything much less on a covert or open conflict that will necessarily span the entire geography of the Muslim world. The courses that are open to us now (dialogue, debate, bribery, etc.) are losers and even more forceful courses of action will immediately make us losers in the international arena. As much as we’d like to believe that doesn’t matter, it does … at least so long as we’re not prepared to lock down the borders Soviet-style, something I don’t think any of us want to see. I’m a pragmatist first and foremost. Even a low-grade campaign to forcefully stamp out the most radical Islamists would likely do little more than legitimize their beliefs in the minds of their followers and further stoke the anti-American fires. No course of action that we can follow today will yield any good and lasting result so what’s the point of spending our political and economic capital now? Better to wait while a petulant, angry, and shortsighted world suffers at the hands of the monster it is currently defending until it cries out, once again, for help. Then and IMHO only then will we be in a position to have a lasting impact on this problem. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2005-10-23 23:31 |
| #19 Allan and gravity - can they coincide? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-10-23 16:24 |
| #18 In the meantime, the Palestinians have been for years been observed busily removing historical artifacts from around the Temple Mount site, and engaging in activities that actively undermine the supporting structure upon which the mosque sits. I await the inevitable with anticipation... but then I believe in Cause ==> Effect. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-10-23 14:39 |
| #17 We absolutely believe that Al Aqsa, all its different parts, all its walls, all its courts, and everything down the mosque or up it, all these fully belong to the Muslims. Only to them. No one other than the Muslims has any right over Al Aqsa, or even over any grain of its sand. We, the Muslims, insist and emphasize that the only sovereignty over Al Aqsa must be for the Muslims. We will not accept or recognize any other sovereignty, including shared control. This is only a consequence of the more general theory obtained by replacing "Al Aqsa" with "the world" in the above statement. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2005-10-23 13:25 |
| #16 These idiots need to be taught that Islam is nothing more than the Scientology of the 7th century. "If I really wanted to make some money, I would start a religion." L. Ron Hubbard Raze the mosque. |
| Posted by: SR-71 2005-10-23 13:19 |
| #15 Ownership devolves to whomever has the most guns in the local area and the will to use them. |
| Posted by: RWV 2005-10-23 11:52 |
| #14 Time to raze the mosque to the ground - in all its different parts, all of its walls, all of its courts, and everything else. The moose-limbs can visit it in their sick dreams - Just like mohammand did. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-10-23 11:17 |
| #13 Yep. With the Illumasonazi Eye thingy. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-10-23 10:14 |
| #12 All ur pryamids r belong to us. See, they're right here on our dollar bills. |
| Posted by: Sheik Ratl N. Roll 2005-10-23 10:05 |
| #11 What a bunch of whining babbling babboons. Yes, Oztralian, indeed they are whining babbling babboons. But they happen to be whining babbling babboons with access to high explosives and that requires taking them |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-10-23 02:14 |
| #10 What a bunch of whining babbling babboons. |
| Posted by: God Save The World AKA Oztralian 2005-10-23 02:05 |
| #9 AzCat, I used to feel the way you do about this. No longer is this the case. We cannot sit and wait as "nature takes its course". What Sheik Hatib is spewing is on a par with Holocaust denial. I consider this sort of historical revisionism as being a key element in how radical Islam continues to poison and program the minds of its We no longer have the luxury of letting intolerance and irrationality reach its own logical conclusion. 9-11 forever put the lie to such self-delusion. Only an agressive campaign of eradication will avoid the immolation of all Islam. What you advocate is similar to a doctor who, upon finding a lump, advises the patient to wait and see if its gets real big before worrying about it. We have let this moral cancer metastasize long enough. Excision is called for, and should that fail, cauterization. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-10-23 01:33 |
| #8 PS: Place Sheik Kamal Hatib on the wetwork list. I couldn't disagree more. He seems merely to be expressing popular Muslim sentiment, nuts though it may be. Where, as here, there's little if any chance of workable compromise, the most certain way to stamp out insanity is to widely disseminate it and allow it to polarized popular opinion until nature takes its course. Distasteful though it is asshats like this need to be allowed to speak. |
| Posted by: AzCat 2005-10-23 01:20 |
| #7 the genocide they want is not just cultural By Global Cultural Genocide™, I mean the total death and destruction of all non-Muslim cultures. Methinks we are in violent agreement, mhw. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-10-23 00:56 |
| #6 My religion says that Mecca and Medina belong to me, that muslim's within 5 light years of the two holy places of the Sixth Congregation Church of Rodney must be castrated, disemboweled, flayed alive and broken on the wheel. Sounds fair to me. |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2005-10-23 00:52 |
| #5 Give it to the (rolling a die) the militant hindus. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-10-23 00:50 |
| #4 zenster the genocide they want is not just cultural |
| Posted by: mhw 2005-10-23 00:48 |
| #3 The fact that Jerusalem is mentioned in the Torah does not in any way mean that the city was populated or built by the Jews. Everyone knows that *sigh* |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-10-23 00:43 |
| #2 PS: Place Sheik Kamal Hatib on the wetwork list. This sort of intolerant monomania needs to be rewarded with a bullet in the brain. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-10-23 00:19 |
| #1 It is precisely this sort of unmitigated horsesh!t that justifies Israel taking control of Jerusalem. While it is easy to imagine Israel continuing to allow Muslim visits to al Aqsa under such conditions, the converse is simply beyond possibility. It is this sort of implaccable hatred that paints the Arab world as a bunch of backwater thugs with eggshell-egos who cannot tolerate the least questioning of their religious tenets. Until all major Islamic authorities declare peacable coexistence with other religions to be a mandatory feature of Muslim life, the remaining world must continue to view Islam's main agenda as one of global cultural genocide. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-10-23 00:16 |