This is the second of two articles from today’s Guest Poster, Joshua Winston. In this piece he interviews an Orthodox Jewish man at Speaker’s Corner and talks to him about some of the current challenges facing religion and society.
Jack, Orthodox Jew, too scared to be filmed in case he’ll be killed. This is at Speaker’s Corner, UK.
Jack is an Orthodox Jew and he goes to Speaker’s Corner because he enjoys debate and speaking with people. Jack is not his real name, it should be noted.
JW – What is the upshot of going to Speaker’s Corner for you if you’re afraid to show your face in order to put your views across?
J – Sometimes you get a good debate. Muslims believe in the Torah and the New Testament, they just say that both are corrupted. Muslims believe in Moses and Jesus, and they say that we got lost and that Muhammad saved us.
JW – Without Christianity and Judaism, Islam could not exist. It’s not original.
J – The proof that Muslims want to give is to say that if you read the quran in the original Arabic, you’ll be immediately convinced that only God could have written such a book.
JW – But even that’s problematic in terms of having been written in classical Arabic, multiple compilations, and the problem of the later inclusion of diacritical markings.
J- Professors in many universities around the world who can speak classical Arabic will tell you the same thing, and the same with Muslims who leave Islam. I feel they do it out of spite. Some will accept the shortcomings openly, and others will only acknowledge the Islamic and quranic failings in private. There’s a part of the quran called the bismillah (the name of Allah), and many Muslims deny the validity of the bismillah. So even amongst Arabic speaking Muslims there is still a lot of disagreement about the quran, and the proof that they give is false.
JW – As a Jew in London, do you feel safe? I’m reading that a lot of European Jews are flocking to Israel.
J – Initially, when I came to Speakers’ Corner, I was very hesitant and afraid, but I think a lot of it is really just hype when you read that people are fleeing certain countries.
JW – And yet here you are afraid to show your face.
J – Well, this is true and I do accept that there are enough extremists out there who would target me, and I’d quite like to live a few years longer. I met a guy here last week called Abbas, and he told me there is no justification for the state of Israel. It means we’re in a perpetual state of dispute until one side kills the other.
JW – What I like about Judaism and Christianity is that they have a great history of remarkable thinkers. They question who and what and where God is, whereas Muslims seem to take the quran very literally.
J – I would disagree. I’ve spoken to a lot of Muslims that I can debate with and who can answer questions, whereas most of them are obscurists.
JW – The problem I have with Muslims I encounter is that they tell you that you have to speak Arabic in order to understand the quran. This throws up a number of problems. 1 – only native Arabic-speakers can be Muslims. 2 – No one can ever convert to Islam because, according to Muslims, the quran is untranslatable. 3 – All the imams in the UK are unable to impart the knowledge of the quran onto their English-speaking congregants.
J – I think what they mean is that a person can learn Arabic but they won’t be completely convinced of the quran’s truths because Arabic is not their first language.
JW – Do you have a vision for how we will all live peacefully together religiously?
J – It will come down to dialoguing with Muslims. Some you can talk to, others you can’t. And people tend to ask Muslims the wrong questions in a bid to change their minds. People tend to focus on Muhammad’s child bride or his other misdeeds. This will simply make people more resolute in their belief system if they’re provoked or attacked like this. People will always believe in whatever it is their book says their Creator says, but the real challenge, and better question to ask someone of any faith is, “Why do you believe God said or did this thing in the first place?”
JW – The last thing I would say is that Jews are starting to be attacked for the same reasons as Muslims are – kosher, parallel legal systems, treatment of women, etc. But Jews don’t look for converts, they’re not violent people, they keep to themselves, whereas nowadays it’s becoming impossible to buy a piece of meat or other food stuff that doesn’t have a halal label stamped on to it. It’s also a long, arduous process to become a Jew, whereas I could become a Muslim by uttering one statement.
J – Yes, our legal system isn’t opposed upon other people. It’s kept within our own community and we don’t seek to change any other countries’ laws. As far as kosher goes, we have very strict dietary laws which extend to what utensils can be used to cook particular food. Whereas halal is being imposed on other people, and sharia is impacting upon other people’s lives, from freedom of speech to changes in the UK’s legal system insofar as what constitutes a hate crime. It’s now even a crime if someone feels offended. This is all thanks to Islam.
