Swearing on a Quran: National Pride?
A Muslim soldier recently swore in to the IDF on a Quran and posted a photo of the event on Facebook. There’s nothing strange about a Muslim soldier wanting to do that, just as there would be nothing strange about a Hindu soldier wanting to swear in on the Bhagavad Gita.
It is, however, very strange to see a religious Jew celebrate such an event.
“On a Quran! I’ve always wanted to see that.” That was a response to the soldier’s post by someone whose Facebook profile identifies himself as a Bayit Yehudi central committee member. He reposted the photo with a “feeling proud” status and commented, “Swearing in with a Quran!”
Since Judaism believes in the divine revelation of the Torah, the Quran is a false scripture that misrepresents the will of the Ribbono shel Olam. In 1906, Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook referred to “the barren wilderness of Islamic monotheism,” and Rav David Bar-Hayim has recently commented:
“Muslims are, in fact, ovdei avoda zara because their entire belief system…is very much opposed to some of the most basic and fundamental tenets of Torah Judaism. They explicitly, for example, claim that the Torah that we have is a forgery or at least a heavily changed and censored text which does not reflect the original Torah, that their Quran is the true version of the Torah…[T]hey do not accept the truth of Judaism at all, quite the opposite.” (Compare with the Tzitz Eliezer’s view on entering mosques.)
In a related vein, Rav Yehuda Amital observed in “The Faiths of Isaac and Ishmael”:
“…there is an enormous difference between the Jewish concept of sanctification of God’s name, and its Muslim counterpart…In contrast with the pure, spiritual, and elevated paradise in which we believe, Muslims expect that after death they will reach a place where they can realize their wildest and ugliest fantasies. The difference between the original concept of the World to Come and the paradise that the Muslims imagine for themselves is of great significance, and has ramifications for our attitude towards their faith in general.”
Rav Amital continued:
“It is true that Muslims believe in one God, but the goal of their service of Him is in order to reach the hereafter that they believe in. Muslim martyrs who are prepared to die in the fulfillment of their religious command do not sacrifice their lives for the sake of the unity of an abstract God, but to get to Paradise. They have turned the loftiest of commandments — sanctification of God’s name — into a vehicle for the realization of their most vulgar urges.”
Why would any Jew who believes in Matan Torah celebrate the use of such falsehood during a major state ceremony? All the more so by someone whose political party’s constitution describes the Torah as the foundation of national identity.
Furthermore, the Quran is flagrantly hateful toward Jews. With reference to verses such as Sura 3:112 and 5:78, Canadian author Tarek Fatah writes:
“It would be disingenuous of me not to acknowledge that the Quran does contain some pretty harsh language about Jews…[T]here is no question that the Quran does contain verses that curse the Jews.”
Former Harvard professor Daniel Jonah Goldhagen likewise notes:
“The Qur’an both powerfully dehumanizes Jews and powerfully demonizes Jews…Such simultaneous demonization and dehumanization is a rare combination in prejudice’s history…The Qur’an’s and Hadith’s treatment of Jews is horrifying, grounded in the foundational antisemitic paradigm, and provides the foundation for the Arab and Islamic world’s profound antisemitism.”
Compare with the following remarks by a former head of Al-Azhar University:
“They [Jews] are…called to account for their knowingly concealing the truth and for giving the lie to Muhammad, while knowing his truth like they know their own sons, and their being steadfast in their hard-core denial and obstinacy — this is their true nature…Qur’an describes People of the Book in general terms, with negative attributes like their fanaticism in religion, following a false path. It describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics, i.e., killing the prophets of Allah, corrupting his words by putting them in the wrong places, consuming the people’s wealth frivolously, refusal to distance themselves from the evil they do, and other ugly characteristics caused by their deep-rooted lasciviousness…[A]ll Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims; the bad ones do not."
If one ignores the content of Islam and the purpose of Jewish nationhood, it’s quite possible to take pride in swearing on a Quran above a weapon in Eretz Yisrael. Those who reflect upon that content and purpose will likely reach a different conclusion.
