OBAMA'S CAIRO SHOUT-OUT

Raymond Ibrahim has an interesting analysis of the citation from the Holy Qu'ran used by Barack Obama in his Cairo speech to the Ummah (and that's what it was; Obama was self-consciously addressing the Ummah, not the people of Egypt or any other country.)

Consider: When President Barack Hussein Obama addressed the Islamic world from Cairo on June 4, 2009, he said: “As the Holy Koran tells us, ‘Be conscious of God and speak always the truth’ [Sura 9:119]. That is what I will try to do — to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us.” Let us for the moment put aside the fact that Sura 9, from whence Obama quotes, contains the most violent and intolerant exhortations in all the Koran (which is saying something). The problem here is that the original Arabic text of Sura 9:119 says absolutely nothing about “speaking the truth.” The word “speaking” is nowhere in the text, and “truth,” as an abstract, is a wrong translation for sadiqin, which refers to people. The verse most literally translates as “fear Allah and be with the truthful.” In other words, Muslims should stand firm with fellow Muslims (“truthful” serving as a Koranic epithet for “Muslims” the same way “believers” often does). It is, as ever, a call for divisiveness — of Muslims (the “truthful”) versus infidels (the “false”).

Had Obama or his Mideast advisors and speechwriters simply bothered to read this verse in context — verse 9:111, a jihadi all-time favorite, looms just above, promising believers paradise in exchange for their killing and being killed — or if they had bothered consulting mainstream Muslim exegeses, they might have known that this verse is part of a Koranic segment that deals exclusively with fighting infidels: Muhammad and several Muslims were preparing to invade Byzantine territory. Some Muslims wanted to stay behind. It was then that Allah/Muhammad threatened them with this verse to “fear Allah and be with the truthful” (i.e., join ranks with your fellow Muslims on the warpath). Sentences later, this exhortation culminates in one of the most famous calls to violence in all the Koran, regularly evoked by modern-day jihadis: “O you who believe, fight those infidels who dwell around you, and let them find harshness in you!” [9:123]. [Emphases added.]

What makes Mr. Ibrahim think that Obama didn't know that? What if Obama, having been raised as a Muslim child in Jakarta, actually knows what's in the Holy Qu'ran? What if he meant it when, in an interview during the campaign, he referred to his "Muslim faith?" What if his Cairo speech was really a "shout-out" to fellow enthusiasts for a renewed Caliphate? What if he sees himself not as the Christian messiah, but as the Caliph?

Is that so far fetched?