by Wafa Sultan
At the time I had no idea what she meant by “Jewish by choice,” as I could not imagine that people could choose their religion, but as soon as I heard her say “I’m Jewish” I was dumbfounded and quite unable to respond.
I kept saying to myself: My son’s teacher is Jewish? What bad luck! I began to observe her closely so that if she did the slightest thing that displeased me I could report her to the school board and accuse her of discrimination. But Ms. Sparks, my son’s teacher during his second year in the United States, was unable to demonstrate to me that she was anything other than an angel sent down from heaven to help my hearing-impaired son as a special-needs teacher.
Although I had a large number of similar experiences, I refused to allow any of them to change the attitudes I had acquired in thirty-two years in the land of my birth, which had led me to believe that Jews were criminals who cared only for killing and stealing money. One day my husband came home from work complaining of his bad luck. He had sold his car to a client who had given him a check for five hundred dollars. Only after he had accepted the check had he discovered that this client was Jewish, and now he told me he thought that the check would probably bounce. But this was not the end of the story, as I discovered the next day that I had washed my husband’s shirt with the check in the pocket by mistake, and that nothing remained of the money except a few scraps of paper. My husband called the purchaser the following day and told him what had happened. Within less than half an hour he arrived at my husband’s place of work and gave him five hundred dollars in cash, saying jokingly, “Man! Don’t trust your wife! Next time I won’t be able to replace the money.”
We imbibed with our mothers’ milk hatred for the Jews and for anyone who supported their cause. We justified this hatred by devising a conspiracy theory, and we called anyone who disagreed with us a Zionist agent. This conspiracy theory helped keep Muslims inside the straitjacket in which Islam had imprisoned their minds.
They did not hesitate to accuse anyone who tried to suggest new ideas or ways out of an existing stalemate of being an agent of international Zionism, and fears of this accusation prevented millions of Muslims from reexamining what they had been taught. I exchanged a number of e-mails with a reader of mine, a Muslim judge who lived in Iraq and admired my writing very much. As he had always seemed to me a broadminded and cultured man and had encouraged me a number of times to continue to write on Islamic issues, I was surprised when on one occasion he warned me against touching upon the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, lest I be accused of conspiring with Jews and Zionists. I wrote back thanking him for his advice, though declining to take it, and explained to him that I was utterly convinced that the reasons for the conflict were religious, and stemmed from the Prophet Muhammad’s hostility toward the Jews.
In one of my messages to him I reminded him of the Koranic verse that reads: “The Jews say: ‘Allah’s hand is chained.’ May their own hands be chained! May they be cursed for what they say. By no means. His hands are both outstretched” (5:64).
I asked him, “Is that reasonable? What do you tell your son when you read that verse to him? How can you convince him that our problem with the Jews is their occupation of Palestine rather than Islam’s attitude to them fourteen centuries before that occupation began?” The judge appeared to agree and understand to a great extent, though he still insisted that he was afraid I would be accused of conspiracy with Zionism and American imperialism if I expressed an opinion on the issue.
Islam’s general attitude toward the Jews helped Muslims construct their conspiracy theory and use it as a weapon against anyone who tried to cast doubts upon the credibility and morality of Islamic teachings. With the aid of this weapon, they have been largely successful in attaining their objective.
11.
Every Muslim Must Be
Carefully Taught
PEOPLE WHO LIVED in the environment that gave birth to Islam were paralyzed by their fears, which made every approaching moment seem like the prelude to a crushing war. People slept and woke in a state of expectation, fearing that their tribe was about to raid another. Their imagination could conceive of themselves only as killing or being killed. When Islam came along, it inflamed their fears, as it portrayed everyone whose origins were different from their own as a threat to their safety and stability, and as waiting only for an opportunity to do them harm. Their relationships with others were founded upon suspicion and doubt. Any relationship founded upon mistrust is bound to end in conflict. People living in a state of uncertainty interpret every stimulus in their environment on the basis of their suspicions, and regard everything that happens as proof that these suspicions are justified.
Paganism, Judaism, and Christianity were the religions of the inhabitants of the pre-Muslim Arabian Peninsula. When Muhammad appeared with his message, he threatened all those who did not follow him. He divided people into two groups. The first group was made up of those who believed in Allah and His Prophet and who would live in safety and peace in what was known as the “House of Peace” or paradise. The second group was made up of those who did not believe and who would live in a state of perpetual conflict in the House of War or enemy non-Muslim territory.
He vented his anger upon the followers of paganism, Judaism, and Christianity. His attitude toward these three varied in accordance with the strength of their adherents. From the start he left the pagans no option but death if they persisted in their religious observance. He said that they were weak and could be disregarded. Judaism and Christianity were better supported, stronger, and better organized, and so it was in his interests to adopt a more conciliatory attitude toward them. At first he adopted a moderate attitude toward them and acknowledged their religions as divinely inspired. The severity of his attitude to them varied with shifts in the balance of power between their followers and his own.
If you read the history and teachings of Islam you will get the initial impression that Islam is more accepting of and less hostile to Christians and Jews, as it recognizes the sanctity of their holy books. But anyone who scrutinizes this history carefully with a critical eye will realize that Islam has declared war on both religions, and has entrusted its followers with a sacred mission: to fight them until the End of Days.
Islamic teachings make no mention of Hinduism, Buddhism, or Zoroastrianism, even though these religions existed at the time and people practiced them. Muhammad, however, might never have heard of them. The more likely explanation is that they presented no threat to himself or his followers and, therefore, he displayed no aggression toward them.
As Islam acknowledged Judaism and Christianity, it might be supposed that it was more accepting of them and had more in common with them than it did with those who professed other religions. But the very opposite is the case. From the dawn of Islam until the present day, nothing has changed. Islam, naturally, is still hostile to all non-Muslims, but its enmity toward Jews and Christians is especially great. In order to maintain this state of enmity, Islam has fostered suspicion and mistrust among Muslims with regard to both Jews and Christians, by means of the Koranic verse that says: “You will please neither the Jews nor the Christians unless you follow their faith. Say: ‘The guidance of Allah is the only guidance.’ And if after all the knowledge you have been given you yield to their desires, there shall be none to help or protect you from the wrath of Allah” (2:120).
Jews and Christians, according to Islam, believe in the same God as Muslims do, but this does not work in their favor. Islam defines its relationship with them by their attitude to Muhammad, not by their attitude toward God. No Muslim, on the basis of the verse quoted above, can have a trusting relationship with a Jew or a Christian. The Koranic verse does not include any mention of other religions, and so the conflict remains at its most extreme with Jews and Christians, who in Muhammad’s time refused to accept him as a prophet.
This verse played a decisive role in defining Muslim attitudes toward Jews and Christians and in coloring these attitudes
with suspicion and doubt. It assured Muslims that Jews and Christians would never accept Muhammad, and so allows them no future opportunities to solve any conflict with the adherents of these two religions. When I was a young schoolchild, my religious education teacher urged us never to trust Jews or Christians. Their intentions, he assured us, were evil, as they never had accepted our prophet, and would never do so. Thus, from a young age, we were taught to be suspicious.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to have a healthy relationship with another person if you are suspicious of his or her intentions. No Muslim, no matter how well educated, no matter how outwardly accepting of others he may be, can free himself completely of his suspicions when circumstances bring him into contact with members of these two religions. He is quite convinced that he cannot have a real friendship with anyone who does not accept Muhammad as a divinely inspired prophet.
What was written about the Christians and especially the Jews constitutes the greater part of the Islamic heritage, the part that has held us back in a state of paranoia and hatred. From the dawn of Islam until the present day, mistrust of Jews and Christians has reduced Muslims to a state of paranoia that has reached a peak in the last fifty years, since the State of Israel was founded. With time the Jews have become a peg on which we hang our problems and our political, economic, military, and even moral misfortunes. Arab rulers, backed up by the clergy, have been the beneficiaries of this conspiracy theory, and every one of them has accused anyone who disagrees with him of treachery and conspiracy with the Zionist lobby. Members of the educated class, thinkers and writers—none of them are immune to this conspiracy theory: Whenever a writer comes up with an idea that does not conform to prevailing opinion, the rumor mill accuses him of being a Zionist agent.
The Syrian poet Nizar Kabbani wrote in one of his poems, “Palestine was a broody hen for you, of whose precious eggs you ate …” Muslim men in general benefited from the conspiracy theory, which provided them with a justifiable reason for their failures in all areas of life, and relieved them of responsibility for them. Every Muslim man who gets a government job takes personal advantage such as a bribe, stealing money, abusing his authority or power on the grounds that he is busy preparing for the great battle against the “Zionist enemy.”
At the hospital where I worked, the management decided to allocate a downstairs room as a daycare center for the children of the women who were doctors and nurses. One day all the children came down with infectious diarrhea and vomiting. The infection was caused by the unsanitary methods used to prepare water for the milk and to wash the feeding bottles. That same day we had a meeting with the administration manager. He had originally been a telephone operator at the hospital and had been promoted to a management position overnight. The secret of his promotion lay in the fact that his brother held a high post in the Syrian army. In the course of the meeting I brought up the issue of the contaminated water used to prepare the children’s milk and the unsanitary methods used for washing the bottles, and suggested that we buy an electric sterilizer of a kind found in all the shops, which could hold twenty bottles at once.
I had hardly finished outlining my proposal when the manager leapt up like a wild animal that had been shot and began to rage and scream in my face: “Doctor, you appear to be unaware of the economic situation the country is in as a result of the unjust action taken against it by the international American and Zionist imperialists. Because of the positions held by our rightly guided government, they have imposed an international boycott on us, and we have to resist it by standing firm, supporting one another and trying to reduce government spending. You’re suggesting we should buy an electric sterilizer? Heavens, how spoiled this generation is! Our mothers and grandmothers, may God have mercy on their souls, used to collect rainwater for us to drink. And look, we’re like lions. Infections don’t kill us, nor do illnesses!” As I came out of the meeting I thought to myself: Our mothers and grandmothers rode on donkeys and mules, but you, your lordship, drive around in a Mercedes and a BMW.
Doubt as to the sincerity of the good intentions of Americans in general and Jews in par ticular was one of the greatest obstacles I faced as I tried to adapt to my new surroundings as an immigrant in the United States. I spent my first few years in America in a fog of suspicion, unable to trust the people I was living among. I was utterly convinced that they were waiting for an opportunity to harm me, because I was a Muslim.
Shortly after my arrival, my American next door neighbor came and introduced himself to me, and learned my name and that of the town I came from. When I heard that he was a policeman I almost fainted, as I was convinced that once he realized I was a Muslim—he had not asked my religion—he would start to spy on me and make my life hell. And he really did make my life hell!
I began to watch him and his family, as a precaution against the unexpected. Every time a member of his family went into the front garden I would fear that my family and I were being spied upon, and I would watch through the peephole in the door or from behind the curtains. I was so tortured by suspicion that I decided we should look for another home. Then one morning I was surprised by my neighbor’s knocking at my door.
“Good morning neighbor. I was wondering if you could possibly help me with something.”
“What is it?”
“My gardener’s Mexican and doesn’t speak English, and I can’t speak Spanish. Could you possibly translate what I want to ask him to do?”
“But I can’t speak Spanish!”
He replied in amazement, “Don’t you speak Spanish? Aren’t you from South America?”
“No, I’m from Syria.”
“Syria! Don’t you speak Spanish in Syria?”
“No. We speak Arabic.”
“I’m sorry, I had no idea.”
Ninety percent of Americans do not think much about where Syria is on the map of the world, while 90 percent of Arabs believe that Americans spend most of their time spying on them and plotting to destroy Islam, so as to seize control of their oil and their resources.
In 1984 my husband and a group of his fellow lecturers were sent to England by the Syrian ministry of higher education to spend three months studying teaching methods at one of the universities there. While he was there, the British university lecturer responsible for the delegation invited the Syrians to lunch at his home, and proved himself a gracious host. A few months after my husband’s return, this British lecturer visited Syria and stopped over at the university where my husband taught. To show our appreciation of his earlier hospitality, my husband and I invited him to lunch at a restaurant near our home, at a cost equivalent to my husband’s monthly salary. The lecturer’s visit happened to coincide with our son’s third birthday, and we had to put off buying the cake and the present until the following month.
But the financial pressures were not the only problem this visit caused us: The questions the university chancellor asked my husband about the invitation were even more stressful. The most distressing of them was: Did you consider, before you issued the invitation, that this man might be a British spy in the pay of international Zionism, and be planning to steal the university’s scientific secrets or—who knows—perhaps military secrets, too? My husband and I experienced a period of anxiety that brought us to the verge of mental breakdown. Accusations of being Zionist agents—even if these were no more than rumors—could most certainly have destroyed our reputation and our future, if not our lives.
When I remember my childhood and reflect at length on our teachers’ and clergymen’s accusations against Jews in particular and Christians and other non-Muslims in general, I say to myself: If learned Muslims could replace the enormous quantities of hate contained in our schoolbooks, both religious and secular, with studies that focus on loving other people regardless of their religion, racial origin, or nationality, they would help to save the entire Muslim world from its backwardness, hunger, poverty, and ignorance. That hatred could well destroy us before it destroys our �
��enemies.” For hatred is like acid in that it burns the container that holds it more than it damages the surface it is spilled upon.
When I criticize this style of education, most Muslims accuse me of being in the pay of the Jews and of receiving enormous sums to defend them. Of course, this accusation does not worry me in the least, as it is above all evidence of their inability to confront me with logical arguments. I am not defending the Jews so much as protecting the Muslims themselves. Why must children all over the Arab world drink in this hatred and waste the best years of their lives on thoughts of murder and revenge?
My three children received their primary education in American schools. None of them ever came home and told me their teachers had taught them that Muslims were terrorists and should be fought against. None of them learned that Christianity was the only true religion and that anyone who did not profess it was a heretic and an enemy. None of them learned in school that God hates Muslims.
I always ask myself: Why have my children, the product of American education, grown up to respect others, no matter what their religion, race, or origins? Why was I burned by the fires of hatred until late in life, and why are people in my homeland still being burned by that fire? Why should people in the land of my birth not learn to love, so that they can be productive, efficient, and happy like people in other countries that teach love? Why should people in my homeland not learn to accept people who do not profess the same religion as they do, so that they can live with others in peace and harmony? We have learned to hate others, and this hatred has hurt us more than it has hurt anyone else.