U.S. imam: Muslims can take the property of Christians and Jews

Yasir Qadhi (aka Abu Ammaar Yasir Kazi) is an American imam and college professor who is described by a 2011 New York Times Magazine essay as “one of the most influential conservative clerics in American Islam.”

Born in Houston, Texas, to Pakistani parents, Qadhi spent his formative years in Saudi Arabia, having graduated from high school in Jeddah, after which he returned to the United States to pursue a B. Sc. in chemical engineering from the University of Houston, followed by a doctoral degree in theology at Yale University. Qadhi is presently a faculty member in the Religious Studies Department of Rhodes College, in Memphis, Tennessee.

Qadhi gives regular sermons and lectures, and also appears on a number of Islamic satellite channels in the U.S., U.K., Egypt, and India.

In his sermon/lecture in the YouTube audio below, Qadhi begins by calling Christians “shirk” for being “polythesists” who believe in the Triune God (three persons in one God), instead of Islam’s “monotheist” god Allah.

Then Qadhi really steps up his verbal abuse. He says, since “there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah wuzza wuzza,” Christians are “by necessity and by definition … the most evil of all evils.” Like all “unbelievers” and “polytheists,” Christians are “filthy.” They are “najusa” (feces, urine) — “a filthy impure dirty substance.”

Qadhi declares that the prophet Mohammad — and by extension all Muslims — “has been commanded to do jihad.”

What is jihad?

Jihad “is a means to establish monotheism on the land.” The prophet had said, “I have been commanded to fight the people until they” convert to Islam. But “if they don’t [convert to Islam,] their life and property are halal [free for the taking] for the Muslims.”

This hate-spewing man is not only an imam (the word means a teacher of Islam) but a college professor in Tennessee! If a Christian preacher or college professor had said this about another religious group — Jews, or Buddhists, or Muslims — it would be the leading news on all the mainstream media.

H/t Clash Daily

UPDATE (Nov. 10):

Here’s what you can do about Yasir Qadhi:

1. Contact the President of Rhodes College, William Troutt, and demand to know why Qadhi, who spews hate-speech and threatens violence against the life and property of Christians and Jews, is on the faculty. Here’s Troutt’s contact info:

• Address: 2000 N. Parkway, Memphis, TN 38112-1690
• Ph: (901) 843-3730
• Email: trouttw@rhodes.edu

2. Contact your Congressman/woman and Senators and demand to know why this kind of violent hate speech is tolerated.

3. Write a letter to your local newspaper and, even better, to big national news media and demand to know why they’re not reporting on Qadhi’s violent hate speech.

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UPDATE (Nov. 11, 2013):

In a July 3, 2013 essay titled “Clarification and Notice,” Yasir Qadhi claims to be a victim of malicious fraud. Referring to the above audio clip, he writes:

“This audio clip is a shoddy cut-and-paste job from a lengthy theological series (around 15 hours of audio) I gave many years ago, discussing the reality of the Islamic concept of shirk (associating partners with Allāh). The series had absolutely nothing to do with politics or jihad. Rather, some theological statements from that lecture have been taped together and made to look political. The audio recording as it stands is a complete distortion. Someone literally took sentences from different parts of that series and constructed a very menacing sounding paragraph in my voice. As such, that paragraph in the audio clip is a complete fabrication.[ …] I am a Muslim theologian and teach (and preach) the theology of Islam, but I have never called for violence against any group or religion.”

If Qadhi is telling the truth in his “Clarification and Notice” essay, then he is a most curious Muslim because the taking of property, including wives and children, from non-submissive unbelievers or infidels is in the Qu’ran and the Hadith. (The latter refers to the teachings of the “prophet” Mohammad.) The following is from an article titled “What Does the Religion of Peace Teach About Stealing“:

Qur’an (48:20) – “Allah promised you many acquisitions which you will take, then He hastened on this one for you and held back the hands of men from you, and that it may be a sign for the believers and that He may guide you on a right path.”  Allah promises Muslims that they will profit materially in their war against unbelievers.  It isn’t stealing when it’s taken from an unbeliever.

Qur’an (33:27) – “And He caused you to inherit their land and their houses and their wealth, and land ye have not trodden. Allah is ever Able to do all things.”  Referring again to the property of unbelievers, which is given to those Muslims who defeat them.

Ibn Ishaq (764) – As for taking from unbelievers, perhaps the most illuminating example among many comes from the aftermath of the battle against the Khaybar as recorded by Muhammad’s earliest biographer.  The Khaybar were a peaceful community of Jewish farmers who did not even know they were at war until Muhammad led his men against their town one morning, taking them by surprise and handily defeating them.

Not only did Muhammad take much of the town’s possessions and land, but he actually had the tribe’s treasurer, a man named Kinana, tortured until he gave up the location of hidden treasure.  Muhammad then beheaded the man and “married” his traumatized widow, Safiyya (who passed through the hands of one of his lieutenant’s first due to the luck of the draw).

Bukhari (44:668) –  “We were in the company of the Prophet at Dhul-Hulaifa. The people felt hungry and captured some camels and sheep (as booty)…”  Muhammad said that Allah would always provide sustenance for those who believe in him.  Stealing from non-Muslims was a legitimate means of fulfilling Allah’s promise.

Ahmad 4869 (also found in the original Hadith of Bukhari and Sahih al Jaami’ As Sagheer 2828) –  It is mentioned from Ibn ‘Umar from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, “I have been raised between the hands of the Hour with the sword, until Allah the Exalted is worshipped alone with no associates. He has provided sustenance from beneath the shadow of spears and has decreed humiliation and belittlement for those who oppose my order.”  Muhammad’s livelihood is found in the property of those who disobey him – to be seized by force if necessary.  ‘Humiliation” refer to the jizya that non-Muslims are supposed to pay Muslims by the mere fact of their unbelief.

Lastly, it should be noted that a Muslim cannot pick-and-choose what to believe or not in the Quran. The Quran promises the most severe of punishments for those who believe in one part of the Quran, but not the other (2:85).  There is no such thing as moderate Islam.  “Cafeteria” Muslims are not only disregarding their own religion, but are subject to punishment from true believers for it, since they are hypocrites by definition (see 66:9).

If Yasir Qadhi denies saying that the life and property of non-Muslims, including Christians, are for the taking by Muslims, then he is at best a “cafeteria” Muslim who’s a hypocrite in the eyes of “true” Muslims and, at worst, he was lying.

But then, Muslims are allowed to lie to infidels. It’s called taqiyya.