|
“Bible altered”,
says Qathafi
Wednesday, 19th March,
2008
Non-Muslims who believe in
God can make a pilgrimage to Islamic
holy sites in Mecca, according to Libyan leader Col. Muammar
Qathafi.
The American president, he
added, can visit Mecca as long as he is not
an atheist, whom he said,
Islam forbids to enter such sites as mosques.
Addressing thousands of
Muslims at Nakivubo Stadium in Kampala yesterday, Qathafi
asked: “Who says non-Muslims cannot go to the Kabbah?”
Quoting the Koran, Qa thafi
added that the Kabbah was the house of God for all people.
“How come Muslims monopolize the Kabbah? It’s the right of
everybody to go round the Kabbah. It’s non-believers who are
disgraced.”
He added that Mohamed, the
founder of Islam, was the “only messenger of God to mankind
and the seal of all prophets”.
Jesus, he said, was born
without a father,
in a miracle of God, and was able to bring the Bible to
life. But after him, he argued, “the heavens have been
silent without any new revelations until doomsday”.
Mohamed, he noted, did not
perform miracles although he acknowledged that Jesus did.
Qathafi then blasted
Muslim preachers who say Mohamed performed miracles just
because Jesus did.
“Mohamed told us that
Jesus can bring back the dead and healed the sick,” Qathafi
explained. “We believe in the Mohamed w ho
did not perform miracles,” he asserted. He described as
“weak in faith” preachers who purport to perform miracles
because “the Koran is enough without miracles”.
Spurred by chanting
Muslims who filled the stadium, Qathafi, in a 90-minute
speech, said the Koran was the only holy Book sent by God,
but Muslims equally believe in the Bible.
But, according to Qathafi,
the current Bible was not the one revealed to Jesus and the
current Old Testament is not the one Allah gave to Moses.
Reference to Prophet
Mohamed in the Bible, Qathafi argued, could have been
deleted and called for the search for “the original Bible”.
Moses, the said, predicted
the coming of Mohamed and that Jesus, too, talked of a
prophet that would come after him.
Jesus is mentioned in the
Koran 25 times, Moses, 138 and Mary, 38 times, Qathafi said.
“Any book that doesn’t mention Mohamed isn’t true and is
forged.” He said the Koran held Jesus and Moses in high
esteem.
“We cannot be Muslims
unless we believe in Jesus and Moses. The Koran is right.
It’s the only book from which nothing has been deleted.”
He contested the use of
the birth and death of Jesus to count the world calendar.
“The world is fanatical and sectarian.” He blasted the
countries which published a cartoon depicting Mohamed as a
war-monger. Such people, he said, were “ignorant, sick and
against humankind, Allah and Jesus who believes in Mohamed”.
Speaking after Qathafi,
Museveni congratulated Muslims upon the birth of Mohamed. He
said he was amused by Qathafi’s assertion that anybody who
believes in one God is a Muslim. “It means that I can also
be a Muslim.”
However, Museveni said he
would consult the Catholic and Protestant leaders to explain
why Mohamed was not mentioned in the Bible. He said Uganda
has religious tolerance.
Present at the prayers
were presidents Pierre Nkurunziza (Burundi), Sem Ismail Omar
Guelleh (Djibouti), Amani Abeid Karume (Zanzibar), Amadou
Toumani Toure (Mali), Abdullahi Yusuf (Somalia) and Prime
Minister of Guinea Conakry, Lansana Kouyate.
(…) Qathafi, wearing a
snow white Africa wear, arrived in Nakivubo at 1:20pm to
chants of “Allah Akbar (God is Great).
He walked down the stage,
removed his shoes and glasses and stood behind a microphone
under the sweltering sun.
The other presidents stood a short distance behind him as he
recited prayers in Arabic in a deep voice that reverberated
across the stadium. |
