Texas imam forced to resign over support of Trump’s Muslim immigration plan

“Why all of a sudden this guy or this girl or that lady open fire and kill 15 people, because American Muslims are not doing their job in the country.” Why is it so rare to hear Muslim leaders in the U.S. say that? “Local Imam says he was forced to resign because he agrees with Trump on Muslim immigration,” by Haley Bull, KBTV-TV FOX 4, December 11, 2015 (thanks to Pamela Geller): A political conflict is playing out within the walls of the Muslim community in Southeast Texas. A man who was the leader of Muslims in the area said Thursday the conflict has resulted in his ousting. “Don’t get me involved in any political games in the name of religion. I am not here a political man,” Dr. Nidal Alsayyed said. But it’s political motivations he said have forced him to resign as Imam. “Sadly, it’s Clinton versus Trump,” he said. Dr. Al Sayyed told KFDM News he was forced to resign as religious director of the Islamic Society of the Triplex after making comments Monday in which he agrees with Donald Trump’s statements that the U.S. should temporarily stop accepting any new Muslim immigrants into the country.

While the religious leader said he expected the call to resign eventually, he said it was sped up by politics. “I think any future candidates, presidents who do not support the fact that we need to be more safe and more cautious about whom to bring into this country, whether a Muslim or not,” Dr. Alsayyed said.

His comments he said had nothing to do with politics, but the former Imam said Trump’s comments are in line with the Islamic religion. “The text of the holy Qur’an says the loss of one life is equivalent to killing the whole mankind,” he said.

Not really. There is less to the Qur’an passage to which the imam is referring (5:32) than Western leaders and Islamic apologists claim. First, note that it is not a general prohibition of killing — there are big exceptions for those who kill “for a soul or for corruption in the land.” Second, this is not a general command, but one only for the Children of Israel. Third, “many of them, after that … were transgressors” — so all it is really saying is that Allah gave a command to the Children of Israel and they transgressed against it.

Meanwhile, some Islamic authorities interpret this passage in a supremacist manner, as applying only to Muslims: Sa’id bin Jubayr explains: “He who allows himself to shed the blood of a Muslim, is like he who allows shedding the blood of all people. He who forbids shedding the blood of one Muslim, is like he who forbids shedding the blood of all people.”

Also, this verse is followed by v. 33, which specifies the punishment for the corruption and transgressions of the Children of Israel: “Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment.”

Thus this passage is explaining what must be done with Jews who reject Muhammad, not dictating lofty moral principles. Ibn Warraq sums it up: “The supposedly noble sentiments are in fact a warning to Jews. ‘Behave, or else’ is the message. Far from abjuring violence, these verses aggressively point out that anyone opposing the Prophet will be killed, crucified, mutilated, and banished!”