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In the ninth year of “hijra” (migration), Muhammad declared absolute control of the heart of the Arabian Peninsula and considered Islam the only religion of the region to whom it was subjected. The declaration came in the first forty verses of Surah Al-Tawbah (repentance).


The verses of Tawbah did not only reveal military hegemony over large parts of the Arabian Peninsula, but also included a view that Islam was a sacred religion, and that all other religions were impure creeds, and all those who do not convert to Islam are considered impure; and the verses said: (O you who have believed, indeed the polytheists are impure, so let them not approach al-Masjid al-Haram after this, their [final] year.) (1)


The polytheist in the Islamic perspective is anyone who believes in Allah but makes Him a partner. In “Lisaan al-Arab” (the tongue of the Arabs), it was said: He associates others with Allah: He made him a partner in his possession Shirk means: To associate partners with Allah in His Lordship….). This loose definition includes Jews and Christians, as well as those of the Arabian Peninsula who believe in Allah but view idols as intermediaries or as intercessors with Allah. In short, the polytheist considered impure or unclean according to the Islamic vision is anyone who does not follow the concept of God as presented by Muhammad.

The understanding of the sheikhs of Islam differed to the impurity of the “mushrik” (polytheist) with the following words:

1. The description of the polytheists with impurity is a figurative expression intended to debase them.

2. The impurity caused by the fact that they do not wash after “janaabah” (sexual intercourse) is because they do not cleanse, do not wash, and do not avoid impurity (2). However, the interesting thing is that it does not apply to a Muslim; he is pure in all cases. We read that Muhammad saw Hudhayfah; so Muhammad took him by his hand, Hudhayfah said to him: “O, Messenger of Allah.” I have “janaabah”!, and so Muhammad said: “The believer is not impure.(3)” (Does not the reader observe the irony of the Hadith between this companion and his Prophet?

3. The polytheist is impure or unclean in essence and biological composition; there is a statement back to Ibn Abbas, saying: What polytheists are only the filth of a pig or a dog(4). It was also claimed to be narrated by him saying: (Their siblings are impure(5). In addition, some Sunni sheikhs say: The meaning of the verse is that they [i.e., polytheists] are like the unclean objects that must be avoided(6). In this sense, Muslims have forbidden Jews and Christians to enter their mosques, and even some scholars of Islam In this sense, Muslims have forbidden Jews and Christians to enter their mosques. And even some scholars of Islam asked not to shake hands; and those who shake hands, shall make “wudhu” (ablution)(7). A contemporary interpreter tells us: They are wicked sinners because of shirk, injustice and ugliness of their manners(8) This is the view of the Zaydis(9), who are a branch of Shiites closer to the Sunnah, with “mutazilah” (isolationist) additions. Commenting on the rule of “Whoever shakes, shall make wudhu” Al-Tabarsi, a Shiite interpreter, says: “This is in accordance with what our companions have said that the one who shakes hands with the ‘kaafir’ (disbeliever) and his hand is wet; he must wash his hand, and if their hands are dry, they wipe them against the wall.(10)” This view is also expressed by another Shiite interpreter, Muhammad Hussein Al-Tabatabai, in his book (The balance in the interpretation of the Qur’an), on the principle of impurity of the biological composition of non-Muslims, where Shiites and Sunnis agree. A rare agreement between these two main doctrines, and perhaps mentioning that helps to bring the two rival doctrines together!!!

Description objective
The description of polytheists in impurity came in an inflammatory surah to fight anyone who does not embrace Islam and to demand the imposition of Islam on all people. In the case of Christians and Jews, the Surah accepts that they do not convert to Islam, provided they submit to Islam’s political authority and recognize their social inferiority before Muslims. In this inflammatory discourse of Surah, which constituted a major leap in the aggressive tendency, it was necessary to include a phrase that allowed the Muslim to accept the idea of eliminating non-Muslims. When the other becomes unclean according to the divine characterization, and using a single term loaded with negative signs, and not repeated in the Qur’an, it forms in the mind of the Muslim a group of pictures:

1. Impurity in the sense of lack of cleanliness, an idea designed to provoke the sickly aversion of the other. Ibn Hazm, one of the great fathers of Sunni thought, considers that a Muslim who marries a Christian is, when touched by her sweat or saliva, to be purified of them he does for urine(11).

2. Impurity in the sense of corruption of character, and this in turn incites to harm the non-Muslim, as the terrorism practiced by the Muslim against the other is a process of cleansing the world of the “impure corrupt.”

When these two images are similar in the Muslim imagination, he will be more receptive to the idea of annihilating this “unclean” element (the polytheist), and more capable of participating in the killings and destruction. Sayyid Qutb’s statement reveals the provocative aim of the phrase:

(The polytheists are impure): The expression embodies the impurity of their souls and makes them their identity and their being. They are impure in their entirety and their truth, which arouses disgust to the sense, and purified are purified from it! It is the moral impurity, not the sensory in essence; their bodies are not impure by being. But it is the way of Quranic expression of the embodiment(12).


This is an example of how Islam views other religions. However, the preachers of the Muslims, their elders and the con men of the satellite channels do not hesitate to claim the forgiveness of this religion.

Margin on Islamic enlightenment
Contemporary Arab Social Literature considers Muhammad Abdo one of the pioneers of the Arab Renaissance and the Imam of the Islamic Enlightenment (as such!). These literature sought to explain why this school failed, but they all ignored the real reason for the failure of enlightenment, which is, Islamic. The failure — in addition to other factors — is due to the fact that the renaissance that the owners of this school wanted to build is based on Islam!

How does Islam and Renaissance fit?
How can chains release a prisoner?
And how can myth establish knowledge?

Let us see the question of a verse (The polytheists are impure) by the imam of modernity(!)

In his interpretation of Al-Manar, Muhammad Abdo rejected the idea of the bodily impurity of the polytheist(13), and he added: “In other words, the word impure in the Qur’an comes in the linguistic sense known to the Arabs, not in the customary sense of the Muslim scholars. The Arabs described some people as impure and wanted to mean the moral evil and harm.” It seems that what has prompted him to adopt this position is the fact that “in this age, many non-Muslim peoples have become more caring than Muslims for cleanliness.(14)” However, this position, which at first glance was “enlightening”, did not resolve between the one who said it and going back to the traditional view after some lines: “They make Allah a partner that neither benefits nor harms; they worship the filth of idols, they worship the myths and delusions, and do not refrain from impurity or sins; they eat the dead and blood from the sensual dirt; they legalize gambling and adultery from the spiritual dirt and they legalize the sacred months — the Haram — and the qualities of impurity dominated them in terms of sense and morality as if they were its eyes and its truth.”(15)


The Renaissance thinker, the modernist, the enlightened, the Imam of the reformist school, and despite his visit to Paris, Beirut and Tunisia, he said, “In this age, many non-Muslim peoples became more careful than Muslims with cleanliness”, forgot what he said after a few seconds, because the stereotype of non-Muslim uncleanness is inherent in his mind; he saw in them: polytheism and idols, superstitions and filth, gambling and adultery…


The Imam of Enlightenment (!) did not spare even the Shiites from his attacks, although he lived in Egypt and where there is no sectarian tension like the case of the Levant. But what can a reformist theorist offer other than hatred against the other, even if the son of his religion is different from him, as long as he is based on Islam, let alone a Sunni Islam with a Wahhabi spirit!


The Renaissance is not dead because it has never been born! … The basis of Islam’s ideology is a fragile foundation on which to build; If someone dared to build on it, the building would soon collapse on the heads of the deluded. In fact, the “Renaissance” added ruin to ruin because it tried to stir up a racist ideology. 

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(1) Surah Al-Tawbah: 9/28.
(2) Al-Kashaaf’s Interpretation.
(3) Al-Tabari’s Interpretation.
(4) Al-Tabari’s Interpretation.
(5) Footnote of Sheikh Zadeh on the interpretation of Al-Baidhaawi.
(6) Al-Baidhaawi and Al-Baghawi’s Interpretation.
(7) Al-Tabari’s Interpretation; Al-Kashaaf’s Interpretation; Ibn Katheer’s Interpretation.
(8) Wahba Al-Zuhaili, The Brief Interpretation on the Footnotes of the Great Qur’an, Dar Al-Fikr, Damascus, Second edition, 1416 AH / 1996, p. 192.
(9) Al-Razi’s Interpretation.
(10) Agreed statement in the interpretation of Qur’an.
(11) In the Shadow of Surah Al-Tawbah, Abdullah Azzam, Peshawar, Pakistan.
(12) In the Shadows of Qur’an.
(13) Explanation of the Holy Quran (known as Al-Manar), Muhammad Abdo, Second edition, Cairo, 1366 AH / 1947, vol. 10 / p 324.
(14) Al-Manar: 10/325.
(15) Al-Manar: 10/326. 

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