The modernizing of Islam is going to be a very, very slow process because universal religion is a rational trap: the most progressive scholars have to keep quoting the Quran to make advances. Since these advances don't break out of the Quran, they can reverse at any time. It's sort of like when women had to make their equality claims by talking around Paul.

Manifest Dignity

Professor Mohammed is a Muslim who believes Israel belongs to the Jews.

The official opinions around Israel say that Zionism must go. They don't exactly say that Israel must go.

What's the opinion of this Mohammed about Zionism exactly?

Professor Mohammed even references the Koran to support this claim.

Well, some Jews read Torah:

May 1998 marked the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Zionist state called "Israel". True Torah Jews held a rally in Manhattan to demonstrate their opposition to Zionism. Several reknowned Rabbis addressed the crowd, in English and in Yiddish.

From http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/index.cfm

-- Happy fishing in ocean of noise!

in Amy Waldman's recent Atlantic article on the trial of Hamid Hayat. The article - a very good one, I think - is at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200610/waldman-islam

"...So critical did the prosecution believe the prayer was to its case that it called an expert, Khaleel Mohammed, a Guyanese-born, Saudi-trained scholar, to interpret it, at $250 an hour. Mohammed is an assistant professor of religious studies at San Diego State University and is best known for asserting that, according to the Koran, Israel belongs to the Jews. Most other Islamic scholars find that position politically unpalatable and scholastically indefensible. As a result, Mohammed is quite possibly more popular with Jewish groups than with Muslim ones. His testimony on the supplication was clear, consistent, and definitive.

“In your opinion, is this supplication peaceful?” another prosecutor, Laura Ferris, asked. “It’s not peaceful,” Mohammed answered. “Why do you say that?” Ferris asked. Mohammed replied:

"...Because every—just about every commentary I checked puts it in a case where someone who is in jihad makes this supplication, someone who is at war with a perceived enemy. The common phrase gives the explanation that it is to be used when in activity against an enemy. ..."

[snip]

I asked other scholars about the prayer. Mohammed had testified that it was not common—“something almost secretive,” were his words—so I was surprised when the first three people I sent it to replied immediately that they recognized it, and called it very common. Bernard Haykel, the NYU professor who had testified in the Detroit case, wrote:

"The bit you sent me is a very canonical and widely used Sunni (originally Prophetic) Islamic invocation or supplication in the event a Muslim is in fear of something or someone. It is in no way exclusive to terrorists or to Jihadis, though the latter no doubt also use it."

His translation was roughly the same as Mohammed’s, but with the caveat that “the Arabic expression ‘to be at their throats or chests’ means ‘to confront them.’”

Ingrid Mattson, a professor of Islamic studies at Hartford Seminary, wrote:

"I recognized the words right away. It is a traditional supplication that you will find in many, many collections of prayers … This particular supplication you have sent me is reported to have been said by the Prophet when he feared harm from a group of people."

All her prayer books gave the same reason for saying it: “to ask God’s protection from people who might do you harm.” It was certainly possible that someone with nefarious intentions would have such a prayer in his pocket, Mattson said, “but the prayer itself is a ‘defensive’ prayer; it does not, in itself, connote a desire to do harm."

I sent the prayer to Salman Masood, a Pakistani who reports for The New York Times from Islamabad. He too recognized it right away: “It is a very common prayer,” he wrote in an e-mail, “which in a very rough translation asks Allah to save one from the evil of enemies.” In a book titled The Prophet’s Prayers, Masood found this translation: “Oh Allah, we pray that you put fear in the hearts of our enemies and ask for your protection against their mischief.” (The Muslim Students Association/University of Southern California hadith database gives still another translation: “O Allah, we make thee our shield against them, and take refuge in Thee from their evils.”) Masood also found the prayer in a small booklet that teaches how to say the five daily prayers of Islam; it had a subsection with this supplication. The booklet said that “this prayer should be said ‘when you have the fear of enemies,’” Masood wrote. “It’s a very common prayer, and yes, I would say that many Pakistanis know about it.”