In the Footsteps of Muhammad

Jerusalem - Monday 28th June, 8 - 8.30pm - Programme 2

Warning: This is a working script, not a transcript, it is for interest only and not reference and it will contain un-corrected material that does not appear in the final programme.

PTC

The Dome of the Rock - that golden dome, which dominates the Jerusalem skyline like an outsized orb designed for some giant royal hand, or an extravagantly exaggerated piece of jewellery, is about as emphatic a statement of the Islamic passion for this city as it's possible to imagine. It sits in Jerusalem's religious heart, the vast area of buildings and gardens surrounding it is where Solomon and Herod built their temples and the Western Wall, where Jews still pray today forms the wall of one side of the complex. It's also the place where Muslims believe Muhammad came when he was brought here miraculously from Mecca to meet the Angel Gabriel and the prophets of the past.

Music

Reading

'I was brought al-Buraq, which was an animal white and long, larger than a donkey but smaller than a mule, whose hoof touched the ground at a distance equal to the range of its vision. I mounted it and came to Jerusalem, then tied it to the ring used by the prophets of old. Then after entering the mosque and praying, I came out, and Gabriel brought me a vessel of wine and a vessel of milk. I chose the milk, and Gabriel said: 'You have chosen the true religion.' We were then taken up to heaven

Wildtrack

PTC

The spot from which Muhammad is said to have risen from the earth for his night journey through the heavens lies directly beneath the dome which is high enough to accommodate a good proportion of the local bird population it seems. There's a footprint the prophet is said to have left in the holy rock as it's called and the area around it has been left uncovered so that this stark expanse of bare rock stands out in contrast to the astonishingly elaborate decoration of the building's interior. Every inch of it's covered in rich colours and intricate motifs. And almost everything here stands for something else, so that the three arches at the foot of some of the pillars for example are said to represent the cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem and putting Jerusalem firmly on a par with the places where the prophet spent his life.

Link
My guide's passion for the place more than made up for the occasional lapses in his English.

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When you enter to the dome you see 3 Mishrab. It's the connection by 3 places of the...Islam in both the place. 1, 2, 3 - Mecca and Medina and Jerusalem - each one corner he is put 3 arches. Double 4 it's er 24 arches we have 24 hours each one day - welcome.
(Pause)
A 3 built on here with the hand for him on the place when he come, Muhammad the Prophet by Mecca and Medina. And when he coming the Calipha of Islam and he's clearing the area and taking the key of the city on the middle of Jerusalem on the centre in holy supplicature to take the key from patriarchs of (Rianos?<<Sophronius>>) and they free the city. And next leader who is to free the city before 800 years it's the (Ayubi?) buri...er burial, it's Salahadin Ayubi, <<i.e. Saladin>> he is come and he signing the name for him, writing him on the middle of the Dome of the Rock before 800 years. Now, come to look the decoration by the place. What we have on the round of the city, fruit and vegetable, he assigned it here between the arches for the 24 arches, come to look him. So it's the fruit, the grapes, the facts. Many vegetables available of the grapes between the arches. Come to look here... Also more of the fruit and vegetables. Here is available of the grapes, next fruit, m...the tree of the olives, because it's the right of the place, we have the Mount of Olives. He is...putted the tree of the olives front of to you here, on the round of the place. And he putted the...cups of flowers by Yasmin and Arunjos. It's over there because the woman of the Islam before, to his merit he putted some smile of flowers. The name for him Narios and Yasmin. It's over there on the coral. Over here...come to look...there he maked the tree of the dates with the nuts.
Q Tree of what?
A Tree of the dates...
Q Yeah, Oh right...
A ...with the nuts. When he do it this, something, it's difficult work, by design of mosaical. But here, when he do it the (??) people, he don't need Picasso or other people to do something like this - he do it culture of the place and of the city. Here, the holy area of the Islam (important?) area, first gibla of Islam and first mosque of Islam. Here the name of Salahadin Ayubi, the next leader who is to free the city in Jerusalem before 800 years. This the Dome of the Rock, this the place, the holy place from all Muslims, from all round of people, here's the peace of the city all the time we are prayer to be in peace and to free the city and free the mosque without occupation of the city. Welcome to you to see the Dome of the Rock, the culture of Islam here.
Q It's very, very beautiful, it really is. Can you tell us what's in that little thing there? The little...
A This we have two hair by Muhammad (speaks Arabic). Everyone he putted the hand for him, he is opening by 27 of Ramadan to make Mubaraka of the place.
(Discussion)
A Of the holy of the place.
Q So there, there's no, er 2 hairs of the Prophet are in there...
A Yes
Q And people can put their hands in and touch them...
A Yes. Come to see him if you like.
Q Let's have a look, yeah.
A And you see more, (smile?) if you like...
Q Can I do that?
A ...to cleaning your face and you will, touching...
A To the right, to the right.
Q Touch them, to the right?
A That place, yes.
Q So I'm touching this rock here...
A Yes
A Yes. Footprint...
Q That's where the footprint is in here?
A Yes, yes.
Q I see. And by touching that, you're blessed?
A Yes
A Yes, yes, definitely.

Link
Quite by chance I was in Israel in September 2000 when this sacred space above Jerusalem became a seminal part of modern Middle East history; Ariel Sharon - now Israel's Prime Minister, but then simply leader of the opposition Likud party - made a high profile visit to what he pointedly called "the holiest place of the Jewish people", and I can vividly remember telephoning a friend in the British embassy in Tel Aviv that day to find him agonising about the possible consequences. He was right to be concerned; according to the Palestinian version of history it was the event which sparked a new intifada and the current cycle of violence.

But there is almost always more than one version of history in Jerusalem, and you can be judged on which you accept by something as simple as whether you call this place "Haram al Sharif", as Muslims do, or give it its Jewish name of the Temple Mount. For several years after Mr Sharon's visit the area was forbidden to non-Muslims. In theory it is open today, but I still had to negotiate my way past a suspicious group of armed Israeli police officers at the gate; and finding what must surely be one of the architectural and religious wonders of the modern world almost entirely deserted by tourists is eerie.

The site is cared for by the Islamic Trust in Jerusalem, and the director is Adnan Husseini.

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when I speak about er this place, I speak about the heart of the er world. If you want to say it world, world - no, no problem. Er...and really it's the heart. Er I can assure you that whenever you look for the, the er, a photo of Jerusalem you feel that it's the heart of the, of, of the, of the world. No doubt about that. And I feel that er everyone who visits Jerusalem, or everyone who work in Jerusalem, if you work for one month, when he leaves, he leaves weeping, and he's, he's upset - he don't want to leave. There is something, er there is a power from God here to love the place, y'know? That is something from God, y'know? I'm not, I am not speaking er, er poets. But this is what we feel. I myself, I am living here s...my family are living since 800 years here, and I am, am er, er more than 55 years old y'know, and I feel that when I go to travel for any time, y'know, any limited time, I feel that I can't stay more, more. I have to come back, because this, this, this, er, er, er breathe, this I mean er this air that we, fresh air that we are breathing now, it is something from paradise. It's not, not from the earth here. So we, we, we, we understand this well, y'know. And we have to insist that er the incident of the Prophet Muhammad with all the former prophets really, er, it means Jesus and Moses and all the prophets as are mentioned in the Holy Book. So we aren't speaking about one prophet - we are speaking about all because Muhammad when he ended this process, he ended it on behalf of all the prophets, because we in Islam er, er understand that every prophet is a Muslim. Abraham is a Muslim, Jesus is a Muslim, Moses a Muslim - why? What does it mean Islam? Islam, it's not a political party. Islam, it means the people who surrender themselves to God. And all those prophets, they surrender themselves to God. So...
Q So just to be clear about what happened here, er...
A What happened here is when er the Prophet Muhammad arrive here, it's God will, God capricity that the Prophet Muhammad led a pr...a prayer - an Islamic prayer, y'know? Y'know, y'know how Muslims pray. Always when a few people gather and they wanted to pray, there should be Imam who led the prayer, who make everything, and they follow him. You see? So it means that he hold the flags of the religious processes, due the periods y'know? Er I, we speak about the people who, who, who believe in God of course. And er he led this pray er, er to er, to promise them that you will continue on the steps of God, you know? And to be the end of this process, and after Muhammad there will be no more prophets that they can go hear on there - finished. This is in Islam, this is what men...mentioned in the Koran. (p9)

Q And that's where the, the Prophet is said to have left a footprint isn't it, when he rose into heaven?
A Yes. This is the place that the Prophet Muhammad er he arrived on the er, er, er...in the corner, er the west, s...south corner with his er, with his means of transport at that time - something similar to the horse called Braque. And er then he led the, the, the prayer here with all the former prophets on this side here after...and what does it mean this? This means that he is er, er, er holding the fl...the, the, the religious flag from all the prophets who believe in one God so as to continue with this mission, and to be the final er messenger of this mission. This is how we understand the Prophet Muhammad, we recognise Judaism and Christianity as the basis of Islam, and we believe that Islam is ending this process. So er, er, the process is volumes ended by Islam. There is a full recognition with the other volumes and fortunately er, er there are some doubts about the other side recognition to Islam.
Q Can you describe the, the footprint that he's said to have left? What do you see when you look at that?
A Well I, I, I don't want to speak about this really. I don't er, and er, er, I feel that he used to be here and he led the prayer - I, I believe in this. But the rest of other things really, there is many stories which I think it's not important to speak about it. The meaning is more than these things. (p3)

Link
Muhammad's night journey from the Dome of the Rock is held to have been one of the central moments of his life as a prophet - when he travelled through the 7 heavens he was given the fundamentals of Muslim practice, including the 5 daily prayers. But there may be an intriguing clue to something else in the Islamic reverence for Jerusalem.

The Arabic name for the city is Al Quds, the holy, and in the very early days of his mission Muhammad told his followers to pray not towards the Kaba, the shrine of his native Mecca, but towards this, (do we know what this is?) the ancient heart of the Jewish faith. Indeed it seems possible that when he and his seventy families of followers fled Meccan persecution in 622, they arrived in their new home of Medina with a close sense of kinship to Judaism.

Gerald Hawting is professor of history at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Clip
Tradition tells us in fact, that the, the Prophet when he went to er Medina em, saw his own religion as not very different from that of the Jews, and he expected to be accepted by the Jews of Medina as a prophet. Em, he was rather surprised when they didn't accept him. And not only er, they didn't accept him, but we're told in the Muslim tradition, which one suspects has a particular way of looking at it, that em, he was ridiculed and em even er fought against with the help of these Jews of Medina. So one of the things that he did, as well as taking physical measures against them, one of the things he did was to abandon practices which em had em contacts with th...with those of the Jews. For instance, we're told that when he went to Medina, er he used to fast on the Yom Kippur, on the Day of Atonement, em and he ordered his followers to do that. Similarly er he faced Jerusalem in prayer. But very soon after going to Medina, as a result of divine revelations, which are contained in the Koran, he ordered his er followers not to face er Jerusalem, but to face Mecca in prayer, and not to fast on the Day of Atonement but to fast during the month of Ramadan, which henceforth was to be the Muslim fasting period. So in a w...in a way, what you, you could see is er the sort of, the tradition is em, telescoping or er shoe-horning into a very small er period of time em, developments that could er have taken place more slowly and over a longer period of time, er, probably later than the Arab conquest of the Middle East. (p11)

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The idea that Islam began as an off-shoot of Judaism is very startling indeed, but there are plenty of academics who will argue the case.

Muhammed certainly seems to have presented himself as a prophet in the tradition of Abraham and Moses, and Islam sees his message as the culmination of what went before - not as a completely new start on the religious equivalent of a blank sheet.

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Well it, it shouldn't be surprising if you think of the way that er, the other (laughs) forms of the monotheistic religion began. Em Christianity and Rabbinical Judaism both began as er, developments out of an older form of Judaism. Em, n...er now all that's being suggested is that Islam began in something like the same way, that er, it developed historically out of earlier forms of monotheism. And if you l...look at Islam, it, it's more reminiscent of Judaism than it is of Christianity, although of course it's different from Judaism in that it recognises Jesus as a prophet, er not, not as the Son of God, as Christians, Orthodox Christians do. But em, as a prophet and it, it honours him in a way that em, Judaism of course doesn't. (p9)

A Well one obvious commonality is the very similar pattern that you get between Rabbinical Judaism and Islam in er, the idea of scripture. In both cases, you have the idea of a scripture revealed to a prophet by God, at a particular time. We're talking about the Koran in Islam and the Torah in Judaism. But alongside that, you also have the idea of a sort of secondary scripture, em sometimes called an oral law - which er grows up em in - in Judaism this is the er, contained in the text of the Talmud and the Mishnah - in er Islam it's contained in the hadith collections. These are em, teachings of the community if you like, which em are ascribed to the Prophet. So that in, in the Jewish case, you find the, although it's accepted that what is found in the Mishnah and the Talmud are the teachings of Rabbis, em the theory is developed, th...those teaching were in fact revealed er, er on Mount Sinaii to Moses at the same time as God gave er Moses the Torah. And in Islam em, similarly the, the hadiths are, are interpreted by er i...the, at least by the Sunni tradition of Islam as em, a form of revelation er which God made available to the, to the Muslim community er alongside the, his own words, as contained in the Koran. The, the hadiths are the revelation through the example of the Prophet Muhammad, through his 'sunna', em, but it is divinely guided - er it's not the, it's not the example behaviour of, of one man, er like you or me - an arbitrary individual, but of a prophet, who is guided by God in all the things that matter. So you, you have this nice, er parallel jewel idea of, of revelation which exists in the Islamic and the Jewish tradition. (p11)

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Blood relationships had an almost sacred value in the society Muhammad knew, and when he and his followers left Mecca they rejected those ties of kinship and replaced them with the bond of a shared belief system. It is difficult at this distance in time and place to appreciate how shockingly radical that revolution must have been in 7th century Arabia, and it was perhaps inevitable that it would create conflict.

The Meccans seem to have been determined to wipe out this threatening new "super-tribe" - Muhammad was equally determined to bring Islam to the city of his birth. The war between them dominated most of the last decade of his life, and in 630, two years before his death, he finally took Mecca. The entire population converted to Islam.

Muhammad's battles were, by modern standards, tiny, little more than skirmishes. But Muhammad the warrior prophet has left us with the concept of Jihad. Jihad is of course only one element of Islam, but terrorism has put it on the front pages. Many non-Moslems have, perhaps inevitably, settled into to the distorted idea that the kind of "Jihad" they hear associated with stories of atrocities is what Islam is all about. So it is worth spending a little time trying to unravel what the concept really means.

John Esposito, is the professor of religion and international affairs at Georgetown University in Washington and editor of the Oxford dictionary of Islam.

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A Well I think that er Jihad has multiple meanings. Er Jihad in the Koran - the notion of er 'Jihad fis abil Allah' means to strive or struggle in God's path or God's way. And er clearly er the primary em, definition was the struggle to...be an observant Muslim. Em b...for indeed Islam means submission to the will of God, realising or following God's will. And the notion that this is a struggle - being er a moral person, doing good in a world that is often um less good, or dominated by evil is itself a struggle. Er the term then takes on er multiple meanings when you talk about er following God's way. Because following God's way is not only to er follow the faith in your personal life, but it takes on the meaning of um, defending your faith, your community um, when it is under siege. And this is where you then get into the, if you will, the militant notions of er Jihad. Er b...armed struggle er to defend the faith. And so for example in the Prophet's life, um and in the Koran, we see er talk of the struggle against the, the Meccans, who were er persecuting um, the early Muslims. Er and when you take a phrase like er 'Slay the unbelievers wherever you see them', that, that er text was in fact in response to er the er Meccan er persecution of the believers, of um, the early Muslims.
Q In the light of texts like that, and in the light of the fact that he, he was after all a warrior, it isn't entirely surprising is it, that some people, particularly the United States in the current political climate, have the perception of Islam in general, and Jihad, the idea of Jihad in particular, that they do?
A I, I think that er, the perception that people have is er clearly informed er first and foremost I think, through the prism of the acts of extremists. Then they go back and they take a look at um, the early um development of Islam. And unless they understand the context in which the revelation occurs, er they can wind up with a skewed, rather than a balanced er approach here. Er Islam does not have trouble with em, responding to violence using violence. Er, and of course, part of the problem you have is that a defending or defensive war can become an, easily becoming an offensive er war. On the other hand, it always strikes me as interesting that people who come out of a Judaeo-Christian background um, will talk about er, the Prophet for example, um as a 'warrior prophet' in some exclusivist kind of way. If you read um the er, the Old Testament, er you have 'warrior prophets'. (p3)

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Abdal Hakim Murad is a lecturer in Islamic studies at the faculty of divinity in Cambridge.

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Again, we have to see the prophet against the backdrop of the er original Hebrew model of the, the prophetic genius that a prophet is not someone who simply cries in the wilderness, but tries to lock horns with the structural injustices of his day. So he's very much in the tradition of Moses and to some extent of Joshua, and some of the other sort of sort of liberation figures of the Old Testament. I think that's the tradition in which he saw himself as following.
Q And how would he have understood the term 'Jihad'?
A The Koran tends to use the term Jihad in terms of struggle. The word doesn't have the resonance of Holy War. Holy War is 'Harmo Kadessar' which comes to be a rather different category in Islamic civilisation. Jihad is an Arabic word that means 'struggle', that eventually er means either the inner struggle against the lower possibilities of the human ego, or means fighting for the liberation of society from the tyrants and, and, and Pharaohs and the, the Caesars and the powers that be.
Q But he was a warrior wasn't he? I mean er, historically, he was.
A Certainly yes, and one of the big areas of difference between the traditional Christian understanding of a religious figure, and the traditional Islamic, and also Judaic understanding, is that the Semitic religions have valorised er a warrior ethos more fully than Christianity has been able to. So er explaining the prophet to say a traditional Japanese person, nurtured on the idea of 'Bush-y-dor' the Samurai ethic. The person who is in a state of meditative stillness, but also takes the sword and the, the bows and arrows and goes out to liberate the, the peasantry. It's actually a lot easier than explaining the prophet - any of the, the, the Semitic prophets - to somebody nurtured on the idea of, of passive suffering - as exampled in the gospel image of Christ
Q Could you explain the theology behind what he did as a warrior?
A The idea is that Arabia, which had been in a state of total internecine warfare forever, since the time of Herodotus and Ancient Greek historians and those that mentioned it, was to be united in what the prophet called Darel Islam - namely 'an abode of peace' over which Islam would provide. So the objective was always to bring about a peaceable existence, but in order to achieve that objective, I suppose as in 'just war' theory and classical Christianity, one sometimes had to get one's hands dirty and engage in acts of conflict. (p10)

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Reading

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Well there is a passage in the Koran where basically um God allegedly er well of course, the, the Koran is supposed to have been revealed by God to Muhammad, tells er the em, the Prophet to kill the idolaters. (p5)

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Malise Ruthven is a writer on comparative religion who has taught Islamic studies in Britain and the United States.

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And em, again the particular context of that was y'know the warfare which was taking place between the Muslims em, the infantile Muslim, the infant Muslim community at that time and, and, and, and er the m...er the pagan Meccans. But taken out of context of course, it can be seen as if you like the, the rubric for er making a distinction between er, the treatment of scriptural peoples - Jews, Christians and, and, and other um high cultural, religious traditions - and er pagans, non-believers, animists. And of course those texts are then used to justify the ill-treatment of, of, of people in Zafor, in, in the Sudan or, or, or um er, people like the Nuba er people in the, in the Sudan. Em, this is the trouble with what scholars call 'proof texting', which is taking individual verses out of, of, of the context of particular scriptures, and sort of turning them into er...into sort of icons, turning them into er, i...i...i...i...into slogans. And of course the, I think the great irony from the point of view of the sort of student of religion to this, is that in a way, what Muhammad was preaching in his lifetime was an attack against idolatry. Em now Islamic texts h...are being used in a kind of idolatrous way, because they're taken out of context.

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This is one of those areas where the Prophet's life story - or at least the way it is understood - is directly relevant to some of the biggest issues of 21st century politics.

Muslims aspire to follow in his footsteps because they believe he was himself a practical lesson in human perfection. So the way he fought his wars can be taken as a text book on what in Christian thinking would be called "Just War" theory.

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A Well there are whole series of, of events in, in the Prophet's biography which, which give kind of markers um and, and of course he's the exemplar of proper moral conduct. And moderate er liberal-minded Muslims would see I think the, the approach that, that he had towards war was that it was a, a kind of necessary evil. He fought against er, the oppressive structures of, of Meccan society. He eventually overcame them, and er in, in the course of his last campaign he makes a great er treaty with the Meccans er, according to the Islamic sources er that treaty was broken by them, er and eventually he overcomes er the, the last resistance of Mecca. You have the submission of the leaders of, of, er of, of, of the sort of Meccan aristocracy, and then he treats them with er great magninimi...magnanimity, and er generosity and so forth. So the model of j...Jihad is in a way rather the model that comes through, for instance the er, the model of Saladin in er, in, in the Crusades. Er if you take Sir Walter Scott's the, the Talisman, you know, you, you, you have er Saladin as this kind of great, magnanimous em er, generous-hearted er...leader, em who is um chivalrous to er to, to his enemies. That is one kind of model. But the problem is that there are other ways of extrapolating from the text. You would find a different approach for instance if you er looking into the issue of say, what constitutes er acceptable er treatment of, of civilians. Generally speaking, the, the Islamic lawyers would've said 'Well er in a Jihad y'know women and children and so forth have to be spared.' So you have that kind of um er...attitude, which, which, which is fairly widespread in pre-modern er warfare, in the rules of war. But you also find that if the modern ideologues are kind of looking for, if you like, excuses to allow for collateral damage, em there is an incident in er the prophet's biography em, where during the er siege of Taife - one of his last battles - em, the Muslims are besieging the city with the infidels inside the city wall. Em, they have manganels, which people used to have in those days - kind of giant catapults with, with burning er missiles attached to them. And one of the Prophet's companions is supposed to have come up to him - of course one doesn't know how true these stories are. A lot of them are made up retrospectively. But one of the Prophet's companions comes up to him and says y'know 'What happens if the manganel hits women or children?' And according to er...some versions of the story the Prophet comes up with a sort of somewhat ambiguous argument 'Their children belong to them.' Which could be then seen as a rationale for allowing collateral damage. And of course the thing one has to take account of is that modern ideas of Jihad are being elaborated and forged in the context of em real events, er where for instance er Americans are using a great deal of fire power em, overwhelming force, in er in Iraq, em where you have American generals going on television talking about collateral damage. So in a way it's just a, a way of saying 'Well we can do collateral damage too, if that's the way you, if that's the road you want to go down.' (p2)

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Dr Azzam Tamimi is director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London, which is dedicated to encouraging new ideas in Islam and making Islam relevant to modern political issues. He's a Palestinian born in Hebron on the West Bank.

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The first 13 years of Islam - the word Jihad mentioned, was mentioned in the Koranic revelation, the early Koranic revelation - to demand of the Muslims to restrain themselves and not respond to violence with violence. So the Jihad for the first 13 years was about restraining yourself and not using violence. Now when the Muslim community was banished from their home town in Mecca, were thrown out or forced out, and they sought er refuge in another town - Al Marina, which used to be called Diathra before Islam. And they formed with the host community a state of their own. That state became so vulnerable and under threat and they needed to defend themselves. And this is when the Koran clearly states that now you are permitted to fight and do the things you were forbidden from before. So first it was forbidden, then it became permitted, and then at a later stage it became compulsory. When you are attacked, it becomes compulsory - incumbent upon you to fight back. And this is what many people do not appreciate of what's going on in the Muslim lands today for instance. The Palestinians who are fighting occupation are simply called terrorists. From an Islamic perspective, they're doing the right thing. They're doing the noble thing, because you shouldn't allow an invader to take your land and rob you of your resources.
Q It also has um, a spiritual meaning doesn't it, Jihad?
A That's another meaning of course, another meaning of Jihad is that er you have to struggle and strive against the temptations of your soul, of yourself. And er, the mystics - the sufis in Islam have always believed that the greatest or the greater of the 2 Jihads is the Jihad you perform against your own tempting self, compared to the Jihad in which you are fighting in the battlefield. Not many people agree with that, but at least this is something which the mystics believe in.
Q You mentioned em, the Palestinians as an illustration of the way the concept is misunderstood often, from the outside. Does it or is there anything to lay down what can or cannot be done in defence of your country if you feel it's being invaded? The obvious point of that question being of course suicide bombers, and whether Jihad and the duties laid on you by Jihad justify that particular form of violence.
A There is an elaborate code of conduct in the battlefield that Muslims are supposed to adhere to. And er, the best er manifestation of this is the sermon given by the first caliph to succeed the prophet in governance - Mobak - when he er bid farewell to the army going northward to Ara...to the north of Arabia and then er to Ashant to fight the Byzantian er troops. He said to them 'Remember that you are proceeding for the sake of God, so always have piety and fear God. Do not fight those who do not fight you. Do not kill women and children. You will be coming across people who have er secluded themselves in monasteries and places of worship. Leave them alone and do not approach them. Do not destroy crops, do not burn trees, do not, do not, do not etc...' Something more elaborate than the Geneva Convention I would say. However, in the historic experience, as well as in contemporary times, there are exceptions to the rule as always. If you're fighting a conventional warfare and there is a defined battlefield, you have to adhere to these values. But if you are invaded by an enemy and that enemy takes your land and takes your home and throws you out and no-one is coming to your help and the enemy is not willing to listen, then whatever tactics the enemy uses in order to persecute you, you are permitted to devise and innovate methods of fighting back until the enemy recognises your rights. And the human bomb in Palestine comes within this context.
Q It does, in, in, in your judgement, that is justified...
A That's the...
Q ...and within the r...
A ...judgement...
Q That's within the rules?
A That's the judgement of the overwhelming majority of Muslim scholars who see that the Palestinians have been left no option whereas the Israelis are provided with F16s, Apache helicopters, armoured er...vehicles and tanks and guns of all sorts, and they can shoot from above in the er...protection of their er cockpits and kill whoever they, they want, and assassinate whoever they want. The Palestinians have had no choice but to invent this method in the hope of...dissuading the Israelis from er going along with this policy, or persuading them to come to the table, and sign a truce. And that's why unlike any other case outside Palestine, in Palestine itself, Hamas and the other factions were very clear. They have a strategy, say 'So long as you are killing our children and women and attacking our towns, we will have to respond. If you agree to stop, we will stop, because we prefer...' (p15)

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Well there's a very simple argument that people can easily understand em...the Palestinians will turn themselves into human bombs. They don't intend or target women and children. But when somebody occupies my home and brings his own women and children into my home and in the process of fighting his er children or women get killed, it is he who should be held responsible for bringing the civilians into the battlefield. Er apart from the children in Israel there are no other, no civilians, because all Israelis, males or females, once they reach the age of er arm...er of, of, service in the army, they all serve in the army, and they all serve continuously in the army, even if for one month a year and that service is done not in a, on another planet, not in another continent, but in West Bank villages and towns, and in the Gaza villages and towns. So if people are shocked about this, they should er, re...realise that the Israelis have been justifying their own tactics by claiming that they're protecting themselves. (p18)

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Abdal Hakim Murad.

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A All of the religious leaders of the Muslim countries have agreed - it's a rare moment of unity amongst them - that the 9/11 attacks and subsequent er acts of terrorism, er are classified not as Jihad, but as 'Heroba'. Heroba means the unlawful killing of non-combatants, which is one of the most severely punished offences in Islamic law. No major Islamic scholar anywhere has disagreed with that verdict.
Q What about suicide bombers hitting Jews and Israelis in Jerusalem then?
A Well Say Tantaway who is probably the er leading exponent of Sumni Islam at the moment, said at the Putra Jaia Summit last year - this is 800 Muslim leaders coming together to try and figure out er, an orthodox response to terrorism - that suicide bombing is not permissible under any circumstances. And the fact that nobody had heard of suicide bombing in the Islamic world until 10 or 15 years ago shows that it's not indigenous to the region or the tradition.
Q That's fascinating, because a lot of people would believe absolutely that it, that it is, looking at the way events happen at the moment. Where, where's that come from, d'you think?
A It's come from desperation, from theological ignorance, from lack of er patience (p12)

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So there is a real division within Islam about what is and what is not justified in the name of Jihad. I tried to establish where Dr Tamimi draws his distinction.

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Q What about something like Madrid - does that come in, within the rules?
A Oh definitely not. I mean the, the bombings in Madrid in Riyadh, in Rabat, the Twin Towers, er most of the scholars of Islam have denounced them, have er declared them not to be er...acceptable Islamically. Even Hamas in Palestine condemned er these operations, including the Twin Tower attack.
Q And what's the line? What distinguishes those attacks from a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem.
A It's the cause. Now in Palestine, it's a very clear er case. The Israelis are occupying Palestinian lands, they're persecuting them, they have the monopoly over power of killing - the Palestinians have no other option. (p18)

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PTC Jerusalem (T5)

When you step out of the Haram al-Sharif, the complex around the Dome of the Rock at the al-Hadit gate you're in the Arab Quarter of Old Jerusalem, a rabbit warren of narrow streets crammed with stalls and shops. This is the most densely populated part of the city and a place very much with a character very much of its own. The clocks here are set an hour slow. A way of setting this place apart from Israel and asserting the independent spirirt of its people.

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Mahadi Abdul Hadi is the head of the Palestinian Academic Society, and his quiet Jerusalem office with its shady garden is well away from the Old City. But in the mornings he walks the streets of the Arab Quarter for a while just to take the political temperature.

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Well you know, Jerusalem has been an occupied city, a polarised city. But if Jerusalem succeeded in maintaining its culture its heritage, its identity as an Arab, Islamic city, er in this city you have more than 250,000 Palestinians and mainly the cream of this society is the merchant sector, the business sector, namely Salahadin (Steet?) and the whole city itself. And if you walk in there in the morning just to pick up your paper, and to have the wonderful (Pieta?) the (kaik?) and the falafel, and to enjoy that you, you are living in this holy, wonderful city, and it's part of your memory and your culture and your identity, every day you'll find a different city. Every morning it's history in the making. For the last 3 or 4 days, because of the Israeli intention to, to contain and to control and to close the city more and more, on different levels then they are closing Nablus and Janina Tukarim and or a military enclosure in Rafa and demolishing houses, the shaken identity and the presence of the people, the major er tools is to go for these merchant er, er areas and to collect taxes. And the collection of taxes is not simple, not easy. They just go to the offices or to the er, the places, what d'you call, in the shops, and they close it inside by military force, force er people armed, and collect any money there available and give them a receipt and ask the owner to follow them next day to the court, and to prove his income and his expenses and to show his paper and documents. Then he's allowed to take his money back, or otherwise his shop would be closed. It's like a military campaign. It's police governing the city. It's politicise...not politicising, it's militarising the city. And the Israeli presence in er Jerusalem is not present without the army. You don't see an Israeli ordinary people any place without a gun, without a guard and without er protection, because he feels himself he doesn't belong. He's an outsider in this environment. And in order to prove their presence, they have to come with their guns and their arms. In the old days, believe it or not with the previous Intefada, we succeeded to pass different message. You come to me in Jerusalem on a Palestinian time, we differ with one hour. It's 5 minutes' walk from East to West Jerusalem, and when they get here it's walking distance. But if you cross to my area, you come on Palestinian time. And if the Israeli soldiers will see a young girls (Sudas?) passing and they will search for their watches. If it is different it's Palestinian time - they used to crush it, because they were afraid of this culture, that we are different. Different culture, different society, different people, and on the same land. You don't want to see that. the same thing applies on our shops. We used to close our shops and they used to force us to open it from 8 o'clock to 12 o'clock. And that's why we called for general strikes. 'We want to open whenever we want, we want to close whenever we want - you cannot govern me your way. You can take my money, but you cannot take my rights. You are in controlling of my shop, but you are not in controlling of my mind.' And this is the challenge in East Jerusalem to maintain the Palestinian life functioning. (p11)

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I visited Jerusalem while making an earlier Radio Four series, In the Footsteps of Moses. We devoted most of a programme to the central place Jerusalem occupies in the history of Judaism, and watching Jews today praying at the great stones of the Western Wall, it is impossible not to be moved by the story of this long romance between a place and a people.

Which of course is why the status of Jerusalem is such a difficult issue to resolve in 21st century politics. Mahadi Abdul Hadi told me that if you are a believer - of whatever confession - the shortest route to heaven starts here. So I asked him how he deals with the competing claims on the city from different faiths.

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Well again here there are 2 schools of thoughts. There is no Muslim on earth can be recognised, accepted as a Muslim if he does not recognise Judaism and Christianity. It's part of his faith. Muhammad did not come to replace or to change or to ignore, or to dismiss - he came to confirm, to acknowledge, to recognise, to complete. And by this, it is their religion - you have to believe in Judaism and Christianity. But on the other side, you are afraid of politicising religion and allowing people to hijack that politicisation of religion to their end. That's why today the struggle, the real serious struggle about the site. We agree in principle it is there, and we agree that they were there first and we are here now, and we afrai...we are afraid of sharing it, because we don't trust them and we have an experience in Hebron where we share the mosque in Hebron and we lost it - it turned to be a synagogue. And when you're politicising and without the trust you want to separate religion, and you want to distance positions and faith, and that's why people do recognise, but do not accept. (p2)

Q How great a part did politics play in weaving that relationship between Islam and Jerusalem?
A Well definitely to simplify it, you have to look on the symbol. Once Jerusalem became the symbol in Islam, so you cannot divide it, you cannot share it, you cannot ignore it, and it becomes deep rooted in your memory and in your culture and your heritage, and it becomes part of your identity. And this is the way Islam succeeded in empowering the city of Jerusalem in the Arab's mind. (p4)

Q Turning to, to slightly more recent times, how has the relationship between Palestinian identity and Islam developed? Because there are of course a lot of Palestinian Christians, and the 2 things were not always the same, were they?
A The Palestinian identity is a Palestinian national identity. It's their memories, it's their heritage, it's their culture, and it's their struggle for freedom and independence. And it goes back to the early, of the last century. They wanted their freedom, independent Palestine. Yet they could not have it - and Muslim, Christian never look on each other religious identity. Nobody questioned who's a Muslim, who's a Christian, er all the way since the early of, of last century. But since the majority of the people are Muslims, and since Jerusalem is in the heart of the Muslim minds and, and beliefs, er it becomes a symbol. And no Christian can ignore it, because it's the capital of the Christian faith as well. And this is the combination between the 2. If y...if it is for you as a Christian believer, your capital - Jesus was there. Er...crucification was here er rising is here, the churches are here, the holy places are here. And the monks and the...whatever you call it - your faith is here - mine too. And this marriage is more than a Catholic marriage - there is no divorce in it. But was beautifully wrapped up with the national aspiration, they were unified in their struggle for freedom and independence. So they empowered their religion, they empowered their holy places, they empowered their symbols in their struggle. And I think this, this unique relationship between Muslim and Christian Palestinians is very unique case. You don't see it in Lebanon, you don't see it in Syria. You never see it in Egypt between Koptas and Muslims. But in Palestine walk in the street - you will not, never, never recognise who's a Muslim, who's a Christian. We are all Palestinians, we are all belonging to one nation, and they are all...accepting, recognising and struggling to see Jerusalem their, their capital and their symbol and their heart.
Q Is that still true today though? Simp...I ask simply because from the...perspective of the outside world they now, I suspect a lot of people see the Palestinian struggle in terms of suicide bombers and the Islamic colouring that there is to that.
A No, the painful thing here is...the tools for resistance. In the Islamic faith, if you die protecting your land, your property, your honour, your faith, your family, you die as a martyr - Shahid. In the Christian faith there is a very ironic message. People could not swallow it until this moment even the Christian in Palestine - 'Love your enemy'. How can I as a Christian, love my enemy when he's uprooting me, when he's raping my land and my house and my identity and my future? I'm full of blood, full of shame, full of, of, of...of anger and hate - how can I love him? And this is the separation in the methods of struggle. How a Christian can contain his anger and accept the destiny and super-behaved in surviving and how a Muslim cannot but revenge and confront and sacrifice his life for the cause. And that's why...there is...a problem among the Christian community in Palestine saying the following - 'We are not different. We want to die for the cause as well, but we cannot do it, because our faiths is not supporting it. But it's ironic for us - we are in prison, we lost houses as well. We lost identity as well, we lost property as well, and we were killed as well. We are not different in any way - but yet our reaction cannot reach that kind of, of sacrifice to give your life. Yet they recognise that Jesus Christ was the first martyr - was the first sacrifiers for His belief, for His faith. But it's only Jesus - not everyone can do it. (p5)

Q What d'you think about the, sorry...(discussion). What d'you think about the theology of suicide bombing as a method of, of fighting? I mean is, is it with the rules of Jihad, d'you think?
A Er I think killing pe...innocent people is...unethical, unjustified, unaccepted, and it's a crime. You have no right. Now, look at Hamas' clear message to contain the collaboration episode in Gaza. We are asking every collaborator to identify himself, to testify and he will be free. In the old days, they used to stop them and to kill them - murder them in the street - and we have over 9 people killed in Neblos in the last 3 months. Today, the message is, is realising you, no man has the right to take other man's life, unless you are in a war, in a battle, as a soldier and you are er, following the orders as, as...in a battle. But in ordinary cases, no-one has the right to do so. But there is a way of understanding the message. To understand the culture. In the western culture, a bird called an owl symbols wisdom, symbols luck. In the Arab culture, this bird the owl symbols disasters, symbols catastrophe. We agree on the bird - the shape, the name and the character. But we differ in interpreting what does it mean? You have here 2 cultures. Now the same thing with the kamikaze - when these generals used to go in their 'plane and sink in the sea, because the honour of the emperor was disgraced with the defeat, and they cannot live without honour.' And people said 'This is suicide. This is stupidity.' But they don't see it this way. Their culture, they cannot live with that disgrace. In Palestine, when people interpret the Israeli occupation and they saw it as rape, and they cannot live in disgrace any more, and they have to revenge it. And the way to revenge it is to sacrifice your life for the cause - they will do the unexpected to do it - to kill themselves, and to kill the others. So when they go to the others, they don't go to a civilian people, to an ordinary human being, men and women and children. They go to the enemy...they are blind, they don't see others. They see only the enemy, so they go to the enemy house and that's why in Islam, they call id Darrel Islam and Darrel Kofur - 'The house of Islam and the house of non- believers.' So they go to this non-believer, they go to the enemy to kill themselves as sacrificing their life for the cause and to revenge. Of course it's wrong, it's not accepted, it's unethical, and it should be stopped but how to reach these faceless, nameless people if you don't have the religious leaders and the national secular personalities to interpret the text. If not the text, the culture and to reach these people, tell them it's absolutely wrong to go on with this.
Q Where d'you think that culture comes from? Does it come from Muhammad himself? That division between 2 sorts of people in the world and, and, and the, the malign aspects of that, that you're talking about? The failure to understand one another, the blindfolding of your own eyes so that you can kill other people?
A Now I think there was different schools of thought in the old days and some people refer to the Shiites methods, er how they sacrificed their life for the Prophet and for the Imam (??). And there was a famous story, someone - Lewis - wrote about it once in one of his books and interpreting Islam and passing the message, he's a Jewish scholar, and nobody's happy with his writing. But he picked up on a very famous story about the hassa er has...er hashashin - the, the, some people call them assassins, and some people call them those who use the, the drug to become crazy like er hashish. Er, there was a sect of this group in Iraq in itself and going to a small area where they were tr...well-treated as if they are in heaven and prepared for that mission - to suicide themselves for killing somebody or to reaching somebody. That kind of, of, of a school of thoughts er...for political reasons. It's there - it has been there all history. I don't think people are copying it today, but it's one of the black spot in Islamic history.
Q And not you think, justified by anything that Muhammad himself did or said?
A No, it's, it's the Prophet talking about defending your rights. You have the right to fight, to defend your faith, your property, your wealth, your family, your honour, your land. And while you are defending it, you die as the martyrs, which means not to give in, not to surrender. (p8)

Q Is it fair to say that Jerusalem has become a symbol of struggle between faiths now?
A No I don't see it this way - I see the place where religions is there, but I see a crisis in Jerusalem because the religious leaders are not there. If you come across a Shia or a priest or a Rabbi, the 3 of them are politicians. They don't speak from the book, they don't interpret the facts and they don't reach their constituency according to that. They politicise their act and the relationship as well as their future and this is the, the tragedy in Jerusalem. You don't have scholars and w...here where we are challenged by the Shiites, not only from Iraq nowadays, awakening sleeping horses in Iraq - but in Iran as well, in Afghanistan, the Shiites are very rich in their analysis, in their - not only conviction - but in their understanding of the text, because their message is to reason things, then copy the text. (Speaks Arabic) - you have to use your brain to understand the text and follow it, and not copying it blindly. And here, where they differ with the Sunnis and they differ with the Christian, and they are superseding everybody on that line. In Jerusalem, unfortunately you don't have these scholars, you don't have these wonderful people who are not only believers b...and committed believer, but you don't have these people knowledgeable of, of, of the faith and, and have the power to reach the constituency and to lead. That's why the masses here, if you go to any mosque now, it will be, you'll find it full of people. You go to a church - full of people. But where is the leader? Where is the message? You have the place but no message and no messenger. And this is a crisis of Jerusalem - that's why it's become weak, divided, polarised and infiltrated by so many people including coming people from Rome, from Athens, from London, from Paris, with different message and different ideas, and using the culture of what you call it, let's dialogue on Jerusalem, while they are ignorant about the history and the reality of the city. (p9)

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PTC (t14)
Jerusalem came under Muslim control in the 7th century, part of that great sweep of conquest which took the new religion to so many places, so quickly. Next week I'll be at what was once the Western edge of the Islamic world, Spain. And I'll be examining an episode that many Muslims believe has been all but written out of the history books by Europe's Christians; the flowering of Islam culture, philosophy and science, which meant that once the intellectual heart of Europe beat not in Paris, Rome or Athens, but in the great Muslim cities of Granada and Cordoba.