Israeli rabbi describes Islam as “ugly”
Dec 15th, 2009 | By Mohamed Abdel Salam | Category: Featured, News, Palestine
CAIRO: Israel’s former top Rabbi, Shas party spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, harshly criticized Islam as a religion and described it as an “ugly” faith during a speech he delivered on Saturday night for the occasion of Hanukah. The comments have left many in the Arab world questioning the role of religious leaders in the Jewish state.
The Rabbi, according to a report by Egypt’s al-Youm al-Saba’a newspaper, who quoted the statements of the Rabbi from Israel’s Ma’arev daily newspaper, reportedly said, “Islam is the worst religion and a religion that disregards the rules of marriage and divorce among Muslims,” adding that according to Islam, “a man cannot get back to his wife if he has divorced her three times, without a Mohalal; the wife has to marry another man before getting back to her ex-husband and if he divorced her for more than three times, according to the Islamic law.”
Ovadia continued to tell of marriage in Islam, saying, “the woman who commits adultery and has intercourse with another man, then gets back to her husband.”
Ma’arev said that the Rabbi, who doubles as the Spiritual Leader of the religious political party, statements will spark anger and cause a storm of attack on him by the Muslim world this year.
The editor of the newspaper Avishai Ben-Haim, said Yosef’s sermon on Saturday night, in which he explained that the conditions of marriage and divorce in Judaism has no similar concept of the one that exists in the Islamic faith in an apparent defense of the Rabbi’s statements.
Yosef was born in Basra, Iraq, in 1924 before moving to Israel early in his life. He currently resides in Jerusalem and is largely seen as one of the most conservative rabbis in the country, with especially rash opinions on Islam.
“He often says these things about Islam and it is disgusting,” said Israeli analyst Avi Cohen from Jerusalem. The analyst hopes that the Muslim world does not take the rabbi’s comments to heart, as “he doesn’t represent the mainstream view of Islam by Israelis and is largely seen as a person not to be listened to. Only the ultra-right conservatives follow what he says.”
But with Islamophobia on the rise in Europe, Muslims across the region are beginning to see these verbal attacks as a pattern that must be ended.
Nidal Mohsen, a Libyan journalist based in Cairo, told Bikya Masr that he hopes people will see what Yosef said and make a concerted effort to fight back.
“I don’t think people should go and be violent and attack Jews wherever they are, instead they need to use the same language to show how he is wrong and Islam is not an ugly religion. All religions have their problems, so when someone from another faith starts to attack another faith over some small issues, it is ridiculous because his own faith has issues that are not so glorious,” Mohsen argued.
The Israeli Embassy in Cairo was unavailable for comment.
BM
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ovadia yossef isn’t the chief rabbi of israel anymore!!!!! come on guys. at least look at wikipedia or somethin!!
But then…that is a pretty disgusting law. I don’t see why people are complaining when a woman has to go sleep with another man to go back to her husband if he divorces her 3 times (which can be done all in the same second).
And yes I know that it’s not valid if she marries the other guy just to sleep with him and with an intention to divorce, but then who are we fooling, that’s what’s going to happen and what did at the end of the day.
When Israel’s top Rabbi, Shas party spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, harshly criticized Islam, Israeli newspapers and news analysts criticized him.
When the hardliner Israeli settlers in the occupied Palestinian West Bank have vandalised a mosque, the President, priminster and the rest of the officials condemned the action and send troops to investigate.
However, when gang of Muslims vandalized Coptic Church in Upper Egypt, President Mubarak and his government did not do a darn thing about it or about the anti-semitic remarks or about…etc.
One of Governments role is to protect minorities, repair and calm down situation and show that these actions do not represent the main stream behavior, but may be Mubark is silence because they do.
The main thing that shows how rash this man is is the fact that he used a holy religious occasion in the Jewish faith to attack another religion (regardless of what it is). When you’re celebrating a religious event or giving a speech about YOUR religion, and you attack another religion, that shows that the Rabbi decided to not only be insulting, but simply irrelevant.
The law in Islam does not say after a divorce, the woman has to “go sleep with another man” in order to re-marry the first man. It is not adultery because in Islam a woman cannot “go sleep with another man” unless she is married to him.
In response to one of the comments above, it is very rare (at least neither I nor anybody I know) has seen insults to the Jewish RELIGION. Do note that people write about politics, journalists write about politics, and they criticize and even insult ISRAEL, AND NOT JUDAISM!!!!!!!!! People really just don’t get it. Anybody with anger in them would want to believe whatever they feel like believing and whatever they feel would better support their “argument”.
No, he hasn’t been Israel’s top rabbi for OVER TWO DECADES. And he is the spiritual leader of a political party that at any given time holds about 5% of seats in the Israeli congress. A minor figure that receives widespread criticism in the Israeli press because of his views.
Once again, Mohamed Abdel Salam ZERO integrity.
It is very rare to see insults to the Jewish religion?
Egyptian Muslim scholar and preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi
“Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers”.
“Never have I seen a single verse, paragraph, or sentence in the Torah which calls for peace. Everything in the Torah constitutes a call for war. They even call God “Lord of Hosts” – they don’t call Him “Lord of the Universe” or “the Compassionate, the Merciful…[The Torah contains] the notion of annihilation. We saw it when the Europeans went to America – they tried to annihilate the Indians. When they went to Australia, they tried to annihilate the aboriginal people. Indeed, they annihilated them. This is a biblical notion – annihilate them totally, do not leave a living soul among them.”
Ibrahim Mahdi:
“All spears should be directed at the Jews, at the enemies of Allah, the nation that was cursed in Allah’s book. Allah has described them as apes and pigs, the calf-worshipers, idol-worshipers… Whoever can fight them with his weapons, should go out [to the battle]; whoever can fight them with a machinegun, should go out; whoever can fight them with a sword or a knife, should go out; whoever can fight them with his hands, should go out; This is our destiny… The Jews have exposed their fangs. Nothing will deter them, except the color of their filthy people’s blood; nothing will deter them except for us voluntarily detonating ourselves in their midst. They have nuclear power, but we have the power of the belief in Allah… We blow them up in Hadera, we blow them up in Tel Aviv and in Netanya.”
“Oh beloved of Allah… One of the Jews’ evil deeds is what has come to be called ‘the Holocaust,’ that is, the slaughter of the Jews by Nazism. However, revisionist [historians] have proven that this crime, carried out against some of the Jews, was planned by the Jews’ leaders, and was part of their policy… These are the Jews against whom we fight, oh beloved of Allah. On the other hand, [what is our belief] about the Jews? Allah has described them as donkeys.”
Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais:
Read history and you will understand that the Jews of yesterday are the evil fathers of the Jews of today, who are evil offspring, infidels, distorters of [others'] words, calf-worshippers, prophet-murderers, prophecy-deniers… the scum of the human race whom Allah cursed and turned into apes and pigs…
Also, Anon, the Middle East was a deeply anti-Semitic place LONG before the Israeli state ever existed. Do you really believe there was religious tolerance and freedom until Israel was settled?
*
Todays winner of “THE INFIDEL ALLIANCE MEDAL OF TRUTH” award goes to……….
……envelope please…….
…..RABBI OVADIA YOSEF!!!!!
Congratulations!
~ The Infidel Alliance
Here’s an example of UGLY if there ever was one…..on his death bed, rather than tell cute l’il Aisha he loved her, or asked Allah for his own forgiveness, or prayed for the forgiveness of others, Muhammed used his last breath to issue an ugly hateful curse:
Bukhari Volume 1, Book 8, Number 427:
Narrated ‘Aisha and ‘Abdullah bin ‘Abbas: “When the last moment of the life of Allah’s Apostle came he started putting his ‘Khamisa’ on his face and when he felt hot and short of breath he took it off his face and said, “MAY ALLAH CURSE THE JEWS AND CHRISTIANS for they built the places of worship at the graves of their Prophets.” “
Echoing earlier sentiments: “Israel’s top rabbi”–the first three words of your article–are not true. At all. You are making me a bit upset at being involved with Bikya Masr, as you clearly do not research before you write. The first sentence contains a blatant lie, yet it wasn’t edited out. This is worrying.
This post should also have been tagged “Israel”, not “Palestine”. Yes, we have both categories. This is not about Palestinians, but about an Israeli rabbi. Thanks for letting your political opinions shine through!
Palestine includes Israel and denotes the historical Holy Land.
Yes, we see that are changing that. But, Yosef is still a “top” Israeli rabbi by nature
What are you talking about Charles Darwin!!
They are bulldozing the West Bank and the soldiers and politicians are all behind it.
Absolutely inhuman!
number 6 Ed
are you mad?
The whole Arab region is semitic. Go look up the dictionary.
Arabs are not anti semitic, they ARE semitic!
God some people really are dumb. : (
To “A” comment # 14.
Please ignore “Ed”. I was reading in another article and he wrote another idiotic comment where he said that it was the Copts who built the Pyramids. The best response to ignorant people is to ignore them
Quit patronizing the Arab world. This Rabbi is right on target. There can never be peace between Israel and the Arab world. Once folks wake up to this fact so much the better. Read Psalm 83.
[...] Israeli rabbi describes Islam as “ugly” – Bikya Masr Once again, Mohamed Abdel Salam ZERO integrity. ed December 15th, 2009 8:17 PM : It is very rare to see insults to the Jewish religion? Egyptian Muslim scholar and preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi Original post: Israeli rabbi describes Islam as “ugly” – Bikya Masr [...]