SUMMARY
U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Callista Gingrich, in an official January 16, 2020 written statement on the launching, at her residence, of the so-called “Abrahamic Faiths Initiative,” (AFI) opined, rapturously,
“The Abrahamic Faiths Initiative serves as a powerful demonstration that, through fraternity, cooperation, and mutual respect between the Abrahamic faiths, peace in our world is possible.”
Last February, 2019, to commemorate the signing of the Abu Dhabi Declaration, in conjunction with a visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by Pope Francis and Ahmad al-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University—Sunni Islam’s Papal equivalent of its Vatican—UAE despot Sheikh Al-Nayan ordered the construction of the Abrahamic Family House on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi. When Ambassador Gingrich gave her live remarks to the AFI at Villa Richardson on January 14, 2020, she acknowledged Grand Imam Tayeb’s signing of the Abu Dhabi “Document on Human Fraternity” as critical inspiration for the initiative:
“The Abrahamic Faiths Initiative was inspired in part by the seminal Document on Human Fraternity and Living Together, signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Abu Dhabi last year.”
Affording Grand Imam al-Tayeb a prominent foundational role in the AFI, by itself, should have given the Jewish (especially), and Christian participants, pause.
As Egypt’s Grand Mufti, and since 2010, till now, Grand Imam Papal equivalent of Sunni Islam’s Vatican, Al-Azhar University, Al-Tayeb has sanctioned homicide bombing murder of Israeli Jews, including non-combatants; condemned Jews, eternally, openly equating them with Zionists, while invoking Koran 5:82—a central Antisemitic verse—for causing “Muslim distress…since the inception of Islam 1400 years ago”; accused “Global Zionism” of midwifing ISIS and related jihad terror groups to “destroy the Middle East”; claimed the “Zionist entity,” i.e., Israel, was plotting to “march on the Kaaba [in Mecca] and on the Prophet’s Mosque [in Medina]. This is on their minds and in their hearts”; denied (notwithstanding his own blatant examples!) the very existence of antisemitism, “the issue of antisemitism is a lie that continues to deceive nations to this day”; and rejected basic freedom of conscience and sanctioned the Sharia-based killing of “unrepentant” apostates from Islam.
Al-Tayeb’s intimate involvement with the AFI, and the movement’s clear UAE rootedness, in the heartland of Islamdom, is pathognomonic of the fact that “Abrahamism” is quintessential Islamic supremacism.
The presentation includes a detailed analysis of Islam’s authoritative classical and modern “Abrahamic” theology, rooted in Koran 3:67, and its exegesis. This is perhaps best demonstrated through the prism of al-Tayeb’s immediate predecessor as Al-Azhar Grand Imam, the late Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi (d. 2010), arguably Sunni Islam’s greatest modern Koranic commentator. Tantawi maintained:
This noble verse [Koran 3:67] mentions Abraham and exposes those unbelievers from the People of the Book [Scripture] who claimed the Abraham was a Jew or a Christian as it shows that, unlike Abraham, it was they who were polytheists…There is an insinuation here concerning the Islamic nation (Umma) and an acknowledgment that the followers of Muhammad are more worthy of being affiliated with Abraham than the People of the Book because the believers sought the truth and believed in it. Conversely, the People of the Book sought worldly and material things in place of things heavenly and spiritual. They forsook the truth and went after their lusts and desires.
Tantawi’s gloss on Koran 3:67 ends with an avowal of conspiratorial Islamic Jew-hatred:
After these repeated appeals to the People of the Book, and after all the brilliant arguments and proofs presented to vouch for the validity and truthfulness of this religion [Islam], and after all the reprimands and admonitions hurled at them for turning away from the truth and turning others from it as well, the Koran recounted some of the malicious paths that the Jews embarked upon to deceive and deal with Islam and Muslims with craftiness and cunningness.
Central to the presentation is a discussion of Ismail al-Farqui’s modern application of this Islamic religious doctrine to “Abrahamic dialogue”—an interfaith dialogue entirely submissive to Islam
I conclude that Christian and Jewish religious and diplomatic leaders appear willfully ignorant of the classical and modern Sharia-based Islamic supremacism which animates their Muslim counterparts’ participation in the Abrahamic Faiths Initiative. Such uninformed and recklessly submissive pursuit of “interfaith dialogue” within parameters set by Islam, actualizes the conception of Ismail al-Faruqi, modern godfather of “Abrahamic unity”, as “the only condition for constructive dialogue and inter-relation.” Faruqi declared, moreover, “Nothing is farther from the truth and more inimical to Muslim-non-Muslim relations than the claim that Islam spread by the sword.” Historian par excellence of Muslim relations with Jews and Christians, Bat Ye’or, provided this gimlet-eyed, remarkably compendious deconstruction of Faruqi’s vision, and the consequences of abiding the “Faruqi Rules” governing “Abrahamic” interfaith dialogue:
“Muslims, says al-Faruqi, believe in and will continue to strive for this unification of world religions until there is only one religion prevailing in the world, which is Islam.”
**
“Annihilating all that’s made
To a green (55:76) thought in a green shade (76:21).”
—Andrew Marvell (d. 1678), “The Garden” (apologies to him for adding Koranic citations of green in Islam’s cosmic brothel “paradise”)
“ [The dhimmi] is commanded to put his soul, good fortune and desires to death. Above all he should kill the love of life, leadership and honor. [The dhimmi] is to invert the longings of his soul, he is to load it down more heavily than it can bear until it is completely submissive. Thereafter nothing will be unbearable for him. He will be indifferent to subjugation or might. Poverty and wealth will be the same to him; praise and insult will be the same; preventing and yielding will be the same; lost and found will be the same. Then, when all things are the same, it [the soul] will be submissive and yield willingly what it should give.”
—Ahmad ibn Muhammad Ibn `Ajibah (d. 1809), commentary on Koran 9:29, translated here
U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Callista Gingrich, in an official January 16, 2020 written statement on the launching, at her residence, of the so-called “Abrahamic Faiths Initiative,” opined, rapturously,
“The Abrahamic Faiths Initiative serves as a powerful demonstration that, through fraternity, cooperation, and mutual respect between the Abrahamic faiths, peace in our world is possible.”
Sam Brownback, U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, was interviewed the same day, after a Rome conference of the Abrahamic Faiths Initiative (AFI) group at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Jan. 14-16) which included 25 Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders. Averring that although the world had previously ignored religious discussion, to its detriment, Brownback now shared Ambassador Gingrich’s ebullient assessment, gushing,
“I think the world is crying for this movement. If we’d involved the religious actors 30 years ago in the Middle East peace negotiations and discussions, saying ‘OK, this is what we are thinking about, what do you think? Help us build the peace,’ we might be somewhere today.”
Last February, 2019, to commemorate the signing of the Abu Dhabi Declaration, in conjunction with a visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) by Pope Francis and Ahmad al-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University—Sunni Islam’s Papal equivalent of its Vatican—UAE despot Sheikh Al-Nayan ordered the construction of the Abrahamic Family House on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi. When Ambassador Gingrich gave her live remarks to the AFI at Villa Richardson on January 14, 2020, she acknowledged Grand Imam Tayeb’s signing of the Abu Dhabi “Document on Human Fraternity” as critical inspiration for the initiative:
“The Abrahamic Faiths Initiative was inspired in part by the seminal Document on Human Fraternity and Living Together, signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Abu Dhabi last year.”
Affording Grand Imam al-Tayeb a prominent foundational role in the AFI, by itself, should have given the Jewish (especially), and Christian participants, pause.
Just after the horrific Netanya Passover jihad massacre on March 27, 2002, then newly appointed as Grand Mufti of Egypt, al-Tayeb commented, “the solution to the Israeli terror lies in a proliferation of Fidai [martyrdom] attacks that strike horror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah. The Islamic countries, peoples and rulers alike, must support these martyrdom attacks.” Some 3-months later, Al-Tayeb reiterated his support for these Palestinian jihad “martyrdom operations,” i.e., homicide bombings:
“What the Palestinians are doing is self-defense, defense of their religion and their homeland… Israel is the aggressor and the American government is behind it, and the West stands by observing, it is the Palestinians’ right to blow up whatever they want.”
As Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Al-Tayeb, during an interview which aired on Channel 1, Egyptian TV, October 25, 2013, gave a brief explanation of the ongoing relevance of the Koranic verse 5:82 which has been invoked—“successfully”—to inspire violent Muslim hatred of Jews since the advent of Islam:
A verse in the Koran explains the Muslims’ relations with the Jews…This is an historical perspective, which has not changed to this day. See how we suffer today from global Zionism and Judaism…Since the inception of Islam 1,400 years ago, we have been suffering from Jewish and Zionist interference in Muslim affairs. This is a cause of great distress for the Muslims. The Koran said it and history has proven it: “You shall find the strongest among men in enmity to the believers to be the Jews…”
Less than a year later—consistent with his belief in (and promulgation of) Islam’s “sacralized,” conspiratorial Jew-hating canon (see Koran 5:32–33 and 5:64; Muhammad’s poisoning to death by Jews in the “traditions”)—Grand Imam al-Tayeb insisted that the scourge of jihad terrorism, then ravaging the Middle East, epitomized by IS/IL, was due to the machinations of “Global Zionism,” i.e., Jews. During a televised statement on Channel 1 Egyptian TV, September 8, 2014, al-Tayeb intoned:
“All the [fundamentalist terrorist groups] are the new products of imperialism, in the service of global Zionism in its new version, and its plot to destroy the [Middle] East and tear region apart.”
More recently, on January 26, 2018 the good Grand Imam expanded upon his 2014 allegation with these Jew-hating conspiratorial claims about the “Zionist entity”:
“Recently, I’m sad to say, we had to swallow a dose of poison. It is manifest in our own preoccupation with our own [infighting], while the [Zionist] entity can relax. All we hear about is Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, whatever, the ‘Arab Spring’, or the ‘Arab Hell’…Has anybody heard anything about Israel or the Zionist entity recently? Has it occurred to people that this might be premeditated? If you looked for a logical reason for what is going on among us Arabs, you wouldn’t find any. Nor would you find a reason for what is going on among Muslims – between us and Iran and Turkey. Isn’t Iran a Muslim country? Isn’t Turkey a Muslim country? Why do we fight one another? Ultimately, this serves the interests of the well-known [Zionist] entity. As long as this entity is alive and active, the Arabs will remain neither living nor dead, and the Muslims will remain under attack. Note that if we continue this way, it will not end with the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They will march on the Kaaba and on the Prophet’s Mosque [in Medina]. This is on their minds and in their hearts…”
Six-months afterward, on June 11, 2018, momentarily dispensing with his deliberate 2013 equation of Zionists and Jews, and Zionism and Judaism, al-Tayeb concluded by negating the irrefragable phenomenon of Antisemitism altogether.
“Criticism of the Zionist entity does not mean criticism of Jews and Judaism, and the issue of antisemitism is a lie that continues to deceive nations to this day.”
Equally contradictory to al-Tayeb’s guiding involvement with the AFI, through the Abu Dhabi Declaration and its stated promotion of religiously-based “freedom,” “equal rights,” and “dignity”, is his blatant rejection of freedom of conscience, and support of lethal punishment for those who abandon Islam and are “unrepentant” about their “apostasy”. Interviewed during June, 2016, al-Tayeb’s remarks were placed online at the official Al-Azhar You Tube channel, June 16. Admitting “the problem is that the [Islamic and Western] civilizations are different,” and that in Islam, religious law supersedes personal freedom, notably freedom of conscience, al-Tayeb elucidated—and endorsed–the Islamic rationale for killing “apostates”:
“[A]postasy is a rebellion against society. It is a rebellion both against religion and what is held sacrosanct by society…The four schools of [Islamic] law all concur that apostasy is a crime, and that an apostate should be asked to repent, and that if he does not he should be killed. There are two verses in the Quran that clearly mention apostasy, but they did not define a specific punishment…[T]here are two hadiths [traditions of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad; on apostasy]. According to the more reliable of the two, a Muslim can only be killed in one of three cases, one of which is abandoning his religion and leaving the community. We must examine these two expressions: ‘Abandoning religion’ is described as ‘leaving the community.’ All the early jurisprudents understood that this applies to someone who leaves his religion, regardless of whether he left and opposed his community or not. All the early jurisprudents said that such a person should be killed, regardless of whether it is a man or a woman”
Al-Tayeb’s intimate involvement with the AFI, and the movement’s clear UAE rootedness, in the heartland of Islamdom, is pathognomonic of the fact that “Abrahamism” is quintessential Islamic supremacism.
What follows, is a discussion of Islam’s authoritative classical and modern “Abrahamic” theology, and Ismail al-Farqui’s modern application of this Islamic religious doctrine to “Abrahamic dialogue—an interfaith dialogue entirely submissive to Islam.
The Islamic theological basis for “Abrahamism” in the Koran, and authoritative Koranic commentaries, classical (Tafsir al-Jalalayn) and modern (by Tabatabai, and Tantawi)
Koran 3:64, 3:65, 3:66, 3:67, and 3:68:
[3:64] Say (O Muhammad): “O people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians): Come to a word that is just between us and you, that we worship none but Allah, and that we associate no partners with Him, and that none of us shall take others as lords besides Allah. Then, if they turn away, say: “Bear witness that we are Muslims.”; [3:65] O people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians)! Why do you dispute about Ibrahim (Abraham), while the Taurat (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel) were not revealed till after him? Have you then no sense?; [3:66] Verily, you are those who have disputed about that of which you have knowledge. Why do you then dispute concerning that which you have no knowledge? It is Allah Who knows, and you know not.; [3:67] Ibrahim (Abraham) was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but he was a true Muslim Hanifa (Islamic Monotheism – to worship none but Allah Alone) and he was not of Al-Mushrikun (idolators); [3:68] Verily, among mankind who have the best claim to Ibrahim (Abraham) are those who followed him, and this Prophet (Muhammad) and those who have believed (Muslims). And Allah is the Wali (Protector and Helper) of the believers.
Consider the classical and modern glosses on Koran 3:64 to 3:68 in Tafsir al-Jalalayn, and by arguably, the two most important Koranic commentators of our era, Shiite exegete Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai (1904-1981), and his Sunni counterpart, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi (1928-2010).
The Egyptian polymath al-Suyuti (d. 1505) was recognized as a brilliant jurist, historian, and biographer, among whose many scholarly contributions are about twenty works of Koranic studies, including seminal Koranic commentaries. Suytui’s Tafsir al-Jalalayn (co-written with his mentor al-Mahalli), as the great contemporary Dutch Islamologist Johannes J.G. Jansen (d. 2015) noted in his treatise “The Interpretation of the Koran in Modern Egypt,” remains one of the most popular as well as the most authoritative Koranic commentaries in Egypt.
Allameh is an honorific title for great scholars of Islamic jurisprudence. The mainstream Islamic Studies academy—both Western and Iranian—has designated Allameh Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai the leading modern Shiite religious scholar and philosopher, dubbing him a “theosopher.” Tabatabai’s al-Mizān fi tafsir al-Qurʾān “The measure of balance/justly held scales in the interpretation of the Quran,” a 21-volume Arabic opus, is regarded as the most important contemporary Shiite Koranic commentary. Allameh Tabatabai University, named in honor of this celebrated Shiite authority and “theosopher,” is the largest specialized state social sciences university in Iran and the Middle East, with 17,000 students and 500 full-time faculty members. Affirming his continued lofty stature, and relevance, an Iranian national conference was held on May 3, 2012, in Qom, dedicated to “recognizing the interpretative methods and principles used by Allameh Tabatabaee [Tabatabai] in [his Koranic] exegesis.”
The late Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi (d. 2010), was one of the most revered modern authorities on Koranic exegesis having edited a magnum opus 15-volume modern Koranic commentary (al-Tafsīr al-wasīṭ lil-Qurʼān al-karīm. [“The broad interpretation of the holy Koran”], and helped create the largest online website of such analyses (Al Tafsir.com).
Here are these authoritative Koranic commentaries, classical and modern on Koran 3:64 to 3:68:
[Tafsir al-Jalalayn] Say, ‘O People of the Book (the Jews and Christians)! Come to a proposition which is the same for us and you—it is that we should worship none but Allah and not attribute any partners to Him and not take one another as lords besides Allah’ as they have done with their rabbis and monks. If they turn away from tawhid (the oneness of Allah), say to them. ‘Bear witness that we are Muslims, declaring the oneness of Allah’. When the Jews say that Ibrahim was a Jew and they were following his din (religion) and the Christians said the same thing, this was revealed. O People of the Book! Why do you argue concerning Ibrahim and claim that he followed your religion when the Torah and Gospel were only sent down a long time after him and Judaism and Christianity only developed after their revelation? Why do you not use your intellect and see that what you say is false? You are people arguing about something you have no knowledge of, when you argue about Musa (Moses) and Isa (Jesus) and claim that you are following their din. Why do you argue about something you have no knowledge of regarding Ibrahim? Allah knows about the matter. You do not know. Allah then clears Ibrahim of what they say. Ibrahim was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but a man of pure natural belief, a hanif who inclines from all other religions to the Straight Din: A Muslim and affirmer of the Divine Unity. He was no idolator. The people with the strongest claim to Ibrahim are those who followed him in his time and this Prophet, Muhammad, since he agrees with him in most of his Sharia, and those of his Community (umma=Muslims) who believe. So they are more entitled to say that they are following the din of Ibrahim than others are. Allah is the Protector of the believers, helping and protecting them.”
[Tabatabai] “When Allah praised Ibrahim by saying ‘he was a hanifan=upright’, [Koran 3:67] it was necessary to explain the word…That is why Allah added the words ‘a Muslim, and he was not one of the polytheists’ he followed the religion which Allah is pleased with, and that is Islam…The Jews said: There cannot be more than one true religion and that is Judaism. Thus, Ibrahim would inevitably be a Jew. The same argument was used by the Christians to Christianize Ibrahim. The error they committed in this argument sprang from ignorance …The fact is that the religion of Allah is one — and that is Islam, the submission to Allah. It is one, progressing towards perfection, with passage of time and in keeping with mankind’s progress—as humanity advances to perfection…Judaism and the Christianity are two branches of the perfection of Islam— the root religion. The prophets were the builders of that building, each of them had a hand in it, laying down the foundation and raising such a lofty edifice. No doubt, Ibrahim was the founder of Islam — i.e., submission to Allah — and it was the basic and true religion; then the true religion appeared with the name of Judaism and then Christianity; these were two of the branches of its perfection, two of the stages of its completion. What the Jews and the Christians did not know was that these propositions do not make Ibrahim a Jew or a Christian. He would remain, as before, an upright Muslim; his name would be always linked with that of Islam, the religion which he himself had founded. That Islam is the root of Judaism and Christianity; but it is neither Judaism nor Christianity. The root is not attributed to its branches; it is the branch that should be related to the root.”
[Tantawi] “The verses are concerned with forbidding the People of the Scripture from baseless and futile arguments concerning Abraham…[I]t is unbecoming for the Jews and Christians to argue about the religion of Abraham, with one party claiming that he was a Jew while the other party claiming that he was a Christian since the Torah and Bible were written long after him. So how could he have been a Jew believing in the Torah which is written after him? Or how could he have been a Christian believing in the Bible which is written a thousand years after him? This argument concerning Abraham is glaringly groundless and null and void and conspicuously corrupt and fraudulent…[I]t is meant to rebuke and reproach them [Jews and Christians] as it is an attempt at exposing their ignorance and lack of perception in claiming that Abraham was a Jew or Christian…Then the Almighty [Allah] shows another sign for the People of the Scripture’s unsound position relative to the sound requirements of healthy, prudent, and sound minds, i.e., they argue about an issue of which they have no knowledge…[H]owe could you permit yourselves to argue and discuss matters about which you have no knowledge whatsoever, i.e., your argument concerning the religion and doctrine of Abraham? This is because it is self-evident that Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian for his existence preceded Judaism and Christianity by a long time. It is therefore evident that their arguments reflect some kind of ignorance and stubborn opposition to the dictates of sound and prudent minds and righteous people…It underscores the inconceivable stupidity and this marked diversion from anything that is sound and logical…This noble verse [Koran 3:67] mentions Abraham and exposes those unbelievers from the People of the Book [Scripture] who claimed the Abraham was a Jew or a Christian as it shows that, unlike Abraham, it was they who were polytheists. The Almighty [Allah] issued [in 3:67] His decisive and fair judgment on the issue that was surrounded with much controversy. He said: ‘Indeed, the most worthy of Abraham among the people are those who followed him in [submission to Allah] and this Prophet, and those who believe in [in his message]. And Allah is the ally of the believers’…This is a reference to Muhammad who called for the monotheism that Abraham called for. This noble verse indicated that Muhammad, like Abraham, has received guidance from heaven…There is an insinuation here concerning the Islamic nation (Umma) and an acknowledgment that the followers of Muhammad are more worthy of being affiliated with Abraham than the People of the Book because the believers sought the truth and believed in it. Conversely, the People of the Book sought worldly and material things in place of things heavenly and spiritual. They forsook the truth and went after their lusts and desires…[T]he Almighty said that some among the People of the Book are not content with the delusion they are in, but they try to mislead others…that a group of people from among the People of the Book wished, loved, and sought to mislead you {Muslims[ and lead you into perdition away from the truth. They wanted you to turn away from the religion of Islam to which Allah ahs guided you and go back to the religion of unbelief (kufr) which those infidels of the People of the Book embrace. The wantonness and envy of some of the People of the Book did not stop at that desire. They went as far as to throw doubts and suspicions around the religion of Islam and tried to turn some Muslims away from their religion…[A] reference to the chiefs among the People of the Book and their rabbis and scholars…They are the ones who deluded and misled, and perdition is their lot because of their caving in and succumbing to their lusts. They preferred and loved blindness more than light and enlightenment. Yet they are not aware and they fail to perceive it. Satan has beautified their evil work and now they see it as good…The People of the Book used two methods to turn people away from Islam. Some would deliberately misinterpret the texts of their books which testify to the truth of the Prophet [Muhammad]. They would confuse truths with falsehoods to convince the people that he was not the expected Prophet. Others used to cast seeds of suspicion and doubt unto the truth so that the feeble and faint hearted and those whose faith is not firm would become perplexed and confused. Others would omit or hide the texts that ascertain the truth about the Prophet…Doing something ugly with the awareness and knowledge that it is ugly is much more vile and wicked than doing it with ignorance and lack of knowledge. After these repeated appeals to the People of the Book, and after all the brilliant arguments and proofs presented to vouch for the validity and truthfulness of this religion [Islam], and after all the reprimands and admonitions hurled at them for turning away from the truth and turning others from it as well, the Koran recounted some of the malicious paths that the Jews embarked upon to deceive and deal with Islam and Muslims with craftiness and cunningness. One of their many wicked and cunning ways was to show faith for a period of time and then turn away from Islam. This was done to convince the feeble minded that they turned away from Islam after accepting only to find there was nothing to it after they had embraced Islam.”
Ismail al-Faruqi and “Abrahamic” dialogue: An “inter-faith dialogue” submissive to Islam
The late Professor Ismail al-Faruqi (d. 1986) was the Muslim godfather of the modern “Abrahamic faith” paradigm for interfaith dialogue. Faruqi was Al-Azhar University-trained in Islamic Studies (1954-1958), and a fellow at McGill University, where he studied Judaism and Christianity, before teaching Islamic Studies in Karachi, Pakistan, and the History of Religions at Chicago University, and Syracuse University. From 1968, until his death in 1986, Faruqi was both a Professor of Islamic Studies, and History of Religions, at Temple University. As noted in the Foreword to Faruqi’s, “Islam and Other Faiths”, a compendium of his essays spanning over two decades, written by Georgetown University Professor, and Director of its Center For Muslim-Christian Understanding, John Esposito,
His [Faruqi’s] speeches, participation and leadership role in inter-religious meetings and organizations sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Vatican, and the Inter-Religious Peace Colloquium of which he was Vice-President from 1977 to 1982, made him the most visible Muslim contributor to the dialogue of world religions. In his writings, he set out the principles and bases for Muslim participation in inter-religious dialogue..
Historian Bat Ye’or’s 2004 Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, summarized with frank incisiveness how Faruqi’s “Abrahamic” conception of “interfaith dialogue” was a toxic brew of Islamic supremacism, brooking only apologetic, bowdlerized discussion of Islam, while concurrently sanctioning jihad war to impose Islam’s universal, Sharia-based order—in particular upon Jewish Israel. Bat Ye’or encapsulated what Faruqi means in a sentence for those who remain clear-eyed, and commonsensical:
“Muslims, says al-Faruqi, believe in and will continue to strive for this unification of world religions until there is only one religion prevailing in the world, which is Islam.”
Faruqi’s own words provide irrefragable confirmation of Bat Ye’or’s synopsis, including the classical-cum-modern Islamic theological bases for “Abrahamism,” (section above) and jihadism (next section, below).
[Faruqi on Abrahamic interfaith dialogue] “Islam’s theory of other faiths, backed by the experience of fourteen centuries still commands the loyalty and support of a billion Muslims around the world…If inter-religious dialogue is to move beyond the exchange of information and courtesies, it has to have a religious norm in terms of which it can compose the differences between the religions. This religious norm must be common to the dialoguing parties. Islam finds this norm in din al-fitrah (i.e., Islam, the primal religion common to humanity)…Islam’s suggestion [was] that the religious tradition is a human outgrowth from primal din al-fitrah. It was this [an] Islamic idea…An Abrahamic unity of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam based on the Hanifi religion [see Koran 3:67] of Abraham, the din al-fitrah, is a real possibility. It did in fact exist in the Muslim world, until Western imperialism, colonialism, and Zionism came to subvert it. Their effort has been in vain. The Muslim will continue to believe in and work for this unity, confident that his God [i.e., Allah!] Whom he knows to be one as truth is one, and the moral law is one, cannot but desire one religion…[T]he Islamic stand toward other faiths, having brought all faiths under a single roof or din al-fitrah, satisfies the only condition for constructive dialogue and inter-relation…Compared with the histories of other religions, the history of Islam is categorically white as far as toleration of other religions is concerned…Nothing is farther from the truth and more inimical to Muslim-non-Muslim relations than the claim that Islam spread by the sword.”
[Faruqi on jihad war and Islamic imperialism] “The Islamic State is hoped by all Muslims some day to include the whole world. The Pax Islamica which the Islamic State offers… The doctrine of Jihad or Holy War is valid in Islam…Like the Muslim individual within Dar al-Islam (lands under Muslim rule), the Islamic state regards itself, and does so rightly, as vicegerent of God (Allah) in space and time, a vocation which lays a great responsibility upon the Islamic state. The Islamic state acknowledges with enthusiasm and pride her responsibility to redress injustice wherever men have caused it—even if that has been the other side of the moon..[A]pplying these theories to the case of Arab resistance against Zionism…the Muslim view is that the Zionists are the aggressors in Palestine…The principles of Islam being what they are, the Muslims are obliged under their faith to rise in resistance to that robbery in order to set the balance of justice right again.”
The basis for jihad against Jews and Christians in the Koran, and authoritative Koranic commentaries, classical (Tafsir al-Jalalayn) and modern (by Tabatabai, and Tantawi)
Koran 9:29
[9:29] “Fight against those who (1) believe not in Allah, (2) nor in the Last Day, (3) nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger (4) and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”
Once again, here are authoritative classical (Tafsir al-Jalalayn) and modern (Tabatabai and Tantawi) Koranic commentaries, this time on verse 9:29:
[Tafsir al-Jalalayn] “Fight those of the people who were given the Book who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day—shown by the fact that they did not accept the Prophet [Muhammad] may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and who do not make unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful—such as things like wine—and do not take as their din the din of Truth [Islam], which confirms and abrogates other dins, until the pay the jizya with their own hands—meaning the Jews and the Christians who must pay it in submission or directly with their own hands—in a state of abasement—humble and subject to the judgments of Islam. The jizya is a poll tax that they are required to pay every year.”
[Tabatabai] Regarding their characteristics that necessitate fighting them, as mentioned in the beginning of the verse, followed by them giving the jizya to uphold their protection [i.e., from renewal of the jihad war against them!], it informs [us] that the purpose of humiliating them is their submission to an Islamic lifestyle and to a righteous religious government within an Islamic society. They shall not be equal to Muslims nor stand out against with them as an independent identity, free to express anything their souls feel like, nor to publicize the doctrines and activities invented by their lunacies that corrupt human societies. This all relates to them handing over money from their hands out of a contemptible position. So the meaning of the verse (and Allah knows best) is: Fight the People of the Book who do not [truly] believe in Allah or in the Last Day, with a faith that is acceptable and uncorrupted from being proper, and who do not forbid what is forbidden in Islam namely those [crimes] that, when committed, corrupt human society, and who do not abide by a religion that conforms with the divine creation. Fight them and persist in fighting them until they are humbled among you, and submit to your rule.
[Tantawi] “The reasons for the order to fight them are: they do not believe in Allah and the Last Day, they do not prohibit what Allah and His Messenger [Muhammad] have prohibited, and they do not adopt the religion of truth (Islam)…The meaning is fight those who have these attributes from among the People of the Scripture until they pay the Jizya willingly and submissively (while) they are humbled, humiliated and subservient to your rule over them… Taking the Jizya from them…is also a way of contributing to the advancement and prosperity of the Islamic state….It is an acknowledgement on their behalf to submit to the instructions of this state…Those who do not believe in Allah and the Last Day, those who do not prohibit what Allah and His Apostle [Muhammad] have prohibited, and who do not adopt the religion of truth [i.e., Islam] as their religion deserve this humiliation and ignominy in this world. As for the afterlife, their torture would be excruciatingly painful and everlasting.”
Conclusion
Christian and Jewish religious and diplomatic leaders appear willfully ignorant of the classical and modern Sharia-based Islamic supremacism which animates their Muslim counterparts’ participation in the Abrahamic Faiths Initiative. Such uninformed and recklessly submissive pursuit of “interfaith dialogue” within parameters set by Islam, actualizes the conception of Ismail al-Faruqi, modern godfather of “Abrahamic unity”, as “the only condition for constructive dialogue and inter-relation.” Faruqi declared, moreover, “Nothing is farther from the truth and more inimical to Muslim-non-Muslim relations than the claim that Islam spread by the sword.” Historian par excellence of Muslim relations with Jews and Christians, Bat Ye’or, provided this gimlet-eyed, remarkably compendious deconstruction of Faruqi’s vision, and the consequences of abiding the “Faruqi Rules” governing “Abrahamic” interfaith dialogue:
“Muslims, says al-Faruqi, believe in and will continue to strive for this unification of world religions until there is only one religion prevailing in the world, which is Islam.”
