Quran Desecration Tantamount to `Spiritual Torture’ to Muslims

c. 2005 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ If a Quran is accidentally dropped on the floor, the person who dropped it makes a contribution to charity in atonement. Copies are never placed at the bottom of a pile of books, and because the toilet is considered an impure place, the Quran is never taken into […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ If a Quran is accidentally dropped on the floor, the person who dropped it makes a contribution to charity in atonement. Copies are never placed at the bottom of a pile of books, and because the toilet is considered an impure place, the Quran is never taken into the bathroom.

This reverence for the Islamic holy text helps explain the explosive international reaction to a Newsweek report _ since retracted because it was erroneous _ that copies of the Quran had been flushed down the toilet in the course of interrogating detainees at an American prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.


“This is the ultimate spiritual torture,” said Muqtedar Khan, a non-resident fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution who studies Islam and world politics. “If this was done, it is the ultimate blow.”

It now appears it was not, in fact, done. But damage has certainly occurred, reinforcing negative Islamic perceptions about Americans in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, in which women were photographed sexually degrading Muslim men.

On May 9, Newsweek reported that an internal military investigation of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, which houses many Muslims suspected of terrorism, revealed that copies of the Quran had been placed in bathrooms, and that some had been flushed down the toilet.

Anti-American riots erupted in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia, leading to at least 15 deaths and many more injuries.

On Monday (May 16), under pressure from the U.S. military, the State Department and the White House, Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker issued a retraction. The single, anonymous source the report was largely based on was no longer certain of the story’s validity.

“I suppose you could say we should have foreseen the consequences of the report, but we didn’t,” said Whitaker.

To the world’s more than 1 billion Muslims, the Quran is the most holy ritual object there is, the literal word of God that is closer to the Christian conception of Christ than the Christian view of the Bible.


“It’s like Jesus, considered by Christians to be God in person. It’s divine,” said Imam Muzammil Siddiqui, who leads the Islamic Society of Orange County, Calif., and is chairman of the Council of Islamic Centers in Southern California.

“Muslims don’t worship the Quran,” Siddiqui said, “but it is very sacred.”

In his daily briefing Monday (May 16), White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that Guantanamo Bay detainees are provided with copies of the Quran and are “able to worship freely.”

The Washington Post reported that more than two years ago the Pentagon issued detailed rules for handling the Quran at Guantanamo Bay. The rules said the holy book must not be placed “in offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet, or dirty/wet areas.”

The sacredness of the Quran is such that Muslims do not even handle the book _ either at a mosque, at home or any other place _ without first undergoing a ritual hand-washing, called “ghusl,” which places them in a state of ritual purity.

Khan explained that the Jewish view of the Torah, which is regarded as so sacred that if it falls to the ground, the entire congregation fasts for a day and gives to charity, is similar to how Muslims view the Quran, which is considered sacred only if it is in its original Arabic.

The riots that erupted in Afghanistan and Pakistan following the original Newsweek report were the result of the horror that Muslims felt hearing of such insult to their sacred book, said Khan.


But there were also political forces at work, he added.

“This thing is so dear and important for Muslims, it is easy to mobilize Muslims on this issue,” Khan said. “Muslims have the fear that people in the West have no respect for Muslim religiosity.”

Because of this, he said, Newsweek would have been irresponsible in printing the story even if it were true.

“They shouldn’t have reported it, knowing that people would die,” he said.

Some U.S. Muslim groups see the Newsweek controversy as a moment to educate the American public about Islam. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) launched its “Exploring the Quran” program Tuesday (May 17).

The nonprofit group is distributing free copies of the Quran, with English and Arabic translations, featuring the commentary of the late Indian scholar Abdullah Yusuf Ali, a renowned translator of the Quran who died in 1953.

“We are initiating this campaign as an attempt to turn a negative incident into something more positive,” said Nihad Awad, CAIR’s executive director, in a statement.

But at a news conference, Awad added that there is no undoing the damage of the Newsweek story, because it is perceived as just the latest in a string of anti-Muslim actions and policies by Americans and their government.


Awad said that after Sept. 11, international support for the United States had been high, but many Muslims now see it “as a nation of hypocrisy.” He said a country that prides itself on being a champion of human rights is becoming the “most hated nation in the world.”

MO/PH END RNS

Editors: Search the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for file photos to accompany this story. Search for “Koran” and “Quran” because the style has recently changed, in favor of the latter.

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