Pearsall's Books

Just briefly (I really need to go out), check out this blog post on Wahhabi indoctrination in American prisons. A quote:

First, the al-Haramain Foundation distributed The Noble Qur'an, translated by Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali and Muhammad Muhsin Khan, to an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 prisoners. This translation uniquely advances a radical interpretation of the Muslim holy book through the use of footnotes and bracketed material that does not appear in the Arabic text, but rather serves an entirely "explanatory" function. An early footnote in this translation lays out, at length, the importance of jihad: "Al-Jihad (holy fighting) in Allah's Cause (with full force of numbers and weaponry) is given the utmost importance in Islam and is one of its pillars (on which it stands). By Jihad Islam is established, Allah's Word is made superior, . . . and His Religion (Islam) is propagated. By abandoning Jihad (may Allah protect us from that) Islam is destroyed and the Muslims fall into an inferior position; their honour is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihad is an obligatory duty in Islam on every Muslim, and he who tries to escape from this duty, or does not in his innermost heart wish to fulfil this duty, dies with one of the qualities of a hypocrite." Thus, this translation both rules out non-military interpretations of jihad by specifying that it involves "full force of numbers and weaponry) and also states that it is "an obligatory duty on every Muslim."

Even fairly innocuous verses were transformed into further justifications for jihad by this translation's explanatory brackets. Verse 2:3, in other translations, lauds those who "spend of what We have bestowed upon them." Al-Haramain's translation adds an explanatory bracket directing believers to spend this money on sponsoring jihad: "[i.e. give Zakat, spend on themselves, their parents, their children, their wives, etc., and also give charity to the poor and also in Allah's cause -- Jihad, etc.]"

As if this advocacy of jihad were not enough, many editions of this translation that reached the prisons contained an appendix entitled "The Call to Jihad (Holy Fighting in Allah's Cause) in the Qur'an," by Sheikh Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Humaid, Saudi Arabia's former chief justice. That essay is, quite simply, an exhortation to violence. It outlines bin Humaid's case that jihad is obligatory against all non-Muslims. Bin Humaid explains: "Allah revealed . . . the order to discard (all) the obligations (covenants, etc.) and commanded the Muslims to fight against all the Mushrikun as well as against the people of the Scriptures (Jews and Christians) if they do not embrace Islam, till they pay the Jizyah (a tax levied on the non-Muslims who do not embrace Islam and are under the protection of an Islamic government) with willing submission and feel themselves subdued." His essay includes an appeal for the reader to volunteer for jihad: "Jihad is a great deed indeed and there is no deed whose reward or blessing is as that of it, and for this reason, it is the best thing that one can volunteer for. . . . [I]t (Jihad) shows one's patience, one's devotion to Islam, one's remembrance to Allah and there are other kinds of good deeds which are present in Jihad and are not present in any other act of worship."