A Road to Peace Between the Children of Abraham: Cracking the Qur'an Code by Lowell Gallin

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Originally published in Blogcritics Magazine, 28 April 2010
Copyright © R. Kossover, 2010

The news out of the Middle East these days is not very heartening or happy. Rumors are flying that there will be a war this summer or next. The mood here is dark and foreboding, with folks waiting for the other missile shoe to drop. There are stories like this one, detailing how Iran is getting hold of enriched uranium, or this story, detailing how the American head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff refuses to say that Americans won't shoot down IDF jets flying on a raid over Iran. With a "friend" like that, who needs enemies? The war rumors are backed up by a think tank predicting war, and previous experience has indicated that Israel is just not prepared for the kind of missile assault it suffered in 2006. In addition, there are the threats and counter-threats from Israel and Syria each warning that the other will be sent back to the Stone Age, or some other prehistoric era.

That's just on the overseas front. Domestically, we face the problem of one of the country's premier English speaking news outlets, Ha'aretz, committing espionage, hiding evidence, and harboring a fugitive from justice who has taken sensitive documents from a young woman in the IDF who stole them while serving as a soldier in the that military establishment. According to news reports, she was the product of left-wing anti-Israel professors. Then there is this story, detailing how "left wing" Israelis are working hard for the destruction of the country they call home, and how Ha'aretz is doing its damndest to defend them. And what of Ha'aretz itself? Well, according to Steven Plaut, that newspaper is partly owned by a German holding company, DuMont Schauberg, which made its money off of goods and property stolen from Jews during WWII. So now, instead of merely the "semi-official newspaper, Ha'aretz" we now have the "semi-official and Nazi-affiliated newspaper, Ha'aretz." Is this good news or bad news?

Finally, we have this nasty little tale on the real relationships between police and Arabs in these tense times, and what results when Arab terrorists are allowed to incite violence unchecked, which is pretty much the case these days in Israel.

In the face of all this, an Israeli could easily say of the Arabs, "as far as I am concerned, they can all die." That indeed was one comment I encountered recently from a friend of mine. There is much bitterness between Arabs and Jews over the conflict they have been herded into over the Land of Israel. But I assert that there is a road to peace between the Children of Abraham - and this road is definitely not the road to suicide and war pushed by the United States and its straw boss in the region, the thugdom of the ibn-Sauds. Only a very stupid or very intimidated Jew would take that path. And there are many very stupid and very many intimidated Jews in the world today, both here in Israel and overseas.

The first stone that was moved to building a road to real peace was an essay by Dr. Asher Eder written over 40 years ago in 1969, while the Israelis were still fighting a War of Attrition over the Suez with Egypt. In this essay, Peace is Possible Between Ishmael and Israel According to the Qur'an and the Tanakh, he described the verses in the Qur'an which grant the Children of Israel perpetual ownership over the Land of Israel. He gave a detailed breakdown so that any believing Muslim could see the truth drawn not from the Torah, our holy book, but the Qur'an, his own holy book.

In much the same fashion that the short story, The Sentinel, was the seminal work for the novel, 2001, this essay by Dr. Asher Eder has been the seminal work that has helped bring forth Lowell Gallin's groundbreaking book, Cracking the Qur'an Code: God’s Land, Torah and People Covenants with Israel in the Qur’an and Islamic Tradition.

The primary market for this book is Muslims: the Qur'an is their holy book, and it is they who need to see the truth drawn out for them, rather than the hate literature of the Wahhabi heretics who have infested Islam and who make a mockery of it with their control of Makka and Medina. And Professor Fazal ur-Rehman Afridi, a Muslim from Pakistan, has written a review of this work at his site, The Balkanization of Pakistan. Let us have a peek at at just one paragraph.

When one finishes the book, he finds himself in present day world with Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, Dr. Asher Eder, Reuven Kossover, and Lowell Gallin, preaching peace and understanding between the Children of Ismail and Jacob. I would like to extend my thanks to Lowell Gallin for providing us with this great opportunity of traveling on a fascinating spiritual and historical journey through the objective prism of Qur’anic teachings.

This is the reason why I cannot write a review of this book. Having contributed to it and helped edit it, it would be incestuous of me to attempt one, to say the least.

But I did manage to get an interview with the author, Lowell Gallin. We sat in the empty waiting room of the closed blood lab of the Maccabi Health Clinic in Jerusalem on a Wednesday afternoon as I put a number of questions to my friend and colleague.

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What inspired this book?

There was no such book and I thought there should be such a book. The book is composed of essays - but the "reactor core" of the book are the Sacred Verses which are divided into five sections:

1. God's Land Covenant with Israel,
2. God's Torah Covenant with Israel,
3. God's People Covenant with Israel,
4. The Eternal Capital of the Israelite Kingdom of David and Solomon, and
5. The Tabernacle - references to the First, Second and Third Temples (Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Qur'an by name - it is not mentioned in the Torah by name, either).

Why should a Muslim be interested in a Jew explaining his book to him? Doesn't that seem arrogant?

The book is written in honor of and based on the teachings of Dr. Asher Eder of Jerusalem, and Sheikh Professor Abdulhadi Palazzi of Rome, Italy. I acted as a scribe or recording secretary to put their teachings in book form. Sheikh Palazzi recommended that we use the English translation of and commentary of the Qur'an by Professor Abdullah Yusuf Ali - his English translation and commentary on the Qur'an is the one most respected by Muslims world wide. Note that the 3rd Edition of Prof. Ali's Commentary was published in Lahore, India, in 1938. It is critical to use a modern version of this work that is absolutely faithful to this 1938 3rd Edition, not one corrupted by "Saudi" or Wahhabi publishing houses. The two "kosher" publishing houses today of this work [Ali, Abdullah Yusuf. The Holy Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary] are Goodword Books, New Delhi, India, (e-mail: info@goodwordbooks.com) and Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, Inc. Elmhurst, New York, (e-mail: read@koranusa.org).

Why and how does one make this claim? What do you mean by "kosher" editions?

A. In the original commentary Prof. Ali used the word "God" whereas the "improved" Wahhabi versions use "Allah" - the "improvers," the Wahhabi, believe that Allah cannot be translated. This is just a way to identify the tampered translation.

B. In the original commentary, Prof. Ali had many positive comments about other religions, Hindus, Zoroastrians, as well as Jews and Christians. The "improved versions" remove all of these.

You say you merely are a scribe or recording secretary. Sheikh Palazzi has a website where his own teachings are made very clear. Why this book, then?

This is the first book to give all qur'anic references to the five subjects I mentioned above. Professor Ali gives the majority opinions, and where applicable, he mentions minority commentators as well. You get from Professor Ali a "sense of the Muslim consensus". The book has a section on the work of Salah Choudhoury, a Bangladeshi journalist who is a Muslim Zionist, and a section on pro-Israel ethnic Turkic (Sunni Muslim majority) nations. It should be noted here that the Muslim world is not all anti-Israel, nor is it necessarily united in its politics, and we non-Muslims do not really comprehend it very well.

Somehow there is a disconnect here. Why is it that so many régimes, particularly Turkey, are so hostile to Jews and Israel if Muslims supposedly are not?

Muslims where? Albanian, Azerbaijani, and the Central Asian Turkic republics have strong diplomatic, economic and military relations with Israel. What about everybody else? The North African nations are not really Arabs. Ethnically, they are not Arabs at all. What about the Pakistani, the millions of Muslims in India? What about the Malaysians, the Indonesians, the rebels in the Philipines? What about the Arab nations and the Muslim "diaspora" in Europe and elsewhere? What function does the Jew-hatred, anti-Israel sentiment, and holocaust denial serve in these countries? It's really very simple.

The autocratic régimes, if you want to even call them that, can deflect the rage of their own people at the inablility of these régimes to provide anything. These societies are nightmares, they are living hell on earth. Their leaders say to themselves, "You cannot blame yourself, you cannot blame your elders, you cannot blame G-d." Some blame the Jews for the poverty. That's how these régimes survive. That's how the so-called "Palestinian" society survives. Their basic attitude is "someone else is always responsible for our mess".

Who funds all this? "Saudi" Arabia, Quwait, and the Gulf States are funding this world-wide. This is the "public" face of "Islam." What you are really seeing is the public face of Wahhabism pretending to be Islam.

What is Wahhabism? Why is it so bad?

Wahhabism is the tribal religious cult of the al-Saud tribe of Nejd in Arabia. Wahhabis believe that all NON-WAHHABIS are not really Muslims. ONLY Wahhabis are true Muslims. Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, in Wahhabi eyes, are NOT Muslims. All non-Muslims are fair game for murder, rape, theft, and torture. They make videos of the "fair game." Like fourteen year old school girls, or Daniel Pearl who was beheaded. Al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and the Taliban are all Wahhabi in theology and are funded from "Saudi" Arabia. Their oil money funds all these terror activities and wars.

The Wahhabi call themselves Salafi. Too many call them "jihadists", or "Islamo-fascists" or "Islamic fundamentalists." These names mean nothing and only mislead and cover up the true evil - the true people who are carrying on and inciting war between the Children of Abraham.

Thank you very much.

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The road to peace between the Children of Abraham will not be through a "two state solution." The goal of the Wahhabi based Hamas and PLO is to murder off all the Jews in Israel. So a "two state solution is nonsense. The resident Arabs in the Land of Israel understand this more and more daily, seeking instead, a one-state solution where they are full citizens of the nation. Why? Because they themselves see that the terror groups set over them as dictators by the Israeli government (no, that was not a mistake in my typing) cannot and will not provide a decent régime of decent life for the resident Arabs of the Land of Israel. What they will provide is the same nightmare society that Muslims have across Arabia and North Africa. Societies that are non-functional.

Cracking the Qur'an Code shows an entirely different route - the route of shared faith by two religions that finally understand that their holy books are in accord on the goal of establishing an Israelite entity in this country. If the members of both faiths can share that same vision - and implement it - that will be peace.

Cracking the Qur'an Code: God's Land, Torah and People Covenants with Israel in the Qur'an and Islamic Tradition (Jerusalem: Root and Branch Association, Ltd., Print and E-Book Editions. Copyright © Lowell Gallin, 2009). On sale now at Lulu.com. Bulk order discounts and worldwide shipping are both available.

Book Review - Cracking the Qur'an Code - by Lowell Gallin

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This book review is of Lowell (Aryeh) Gallin's groundbreaking work, Cracking the Qur’an Code: God’s Land, Torah and People Covenants with Israel in the Qur’an and Islamic Tradition. The review was written by Fazal ur-Rehman Afridi, a Muslim journalist in Paris active in human rights in his native Pakistan. I contributed to this book and helped edit it, so I do not get to do book reviews on it.

Review of Cracking the Qur'an Code by Fazal ur Rehman Afridi

Cracking the Qur’an Code: God’s Land, Torah and People Covenants with Israel in the Qur’an and Islamic Tradition, by Lowell Gallin, is a fascinating spiritual journey through good and evil, with all the real actors, places, and situations depicted in such a manner as if a reader is a part of that journey starting from Noah, through Ibrahim to Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, Jesus and ending with Muhammad.

When one finishes the book, he finds himself in present day world with Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, Dr. Asher Eder, Reuven Kossover and Lowell Gallin, preaching peace and understanding between the Children of Ismail and Jacob. I would like to extend my thanks to Lowell Gallin for providing us with this great opportunity of traveling on a fascinating spiritual and historical journey through the objective prism of Qur’anic teachings.

The story is written in such a very simple, sincere and mind-attracting manner that one cannot stop reading it. A history starts unfolding in front of one’s eyes. When you finish reading it, it has already captured your soul. It is a masterpiece pioneering work, which will go a long way in bringing the two religions and civilizations together or at least helping them to understand each other; to know about our roots, our common destiny, our common ideology, common history, common struggles and common values. It teaches us a very important lesson, focusing on the question, “Why not come closer to each other on shared commonalities rather than fighting over our differences?”

In Cracking the Qur’an Code, Mr. Gallin has done a tremendous job by collecting precious pearls from different seas of knowledge, with great wisdom and a sense of purpose. I believe that without divine guidance this task would not have been accomplished.

This painstaking work of Mr. Gallin really deserves admiration and applause, as it seems as if he has sifted through every page, every phrase and every word of the Holy Qu'ran, Torah and Tanach. He searched thoroughly the contemporary literature to provide us with examples from the recent history of the hate and love relationship between Arabs and Jews. Mr. Gallin has presented truth and it is through truth and objectivity and the spreading of unbiased information that we can bring harmony and peace between different peoples, cultures, civilizations and religions, paving the way to create a better world for our future generations.

Mr. Gallin gave full space to the views and grand works of his teachers, Dr. Asher Eder of Jerusalem, Israel and Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi of Rome, Italy, even at the cost of repetition. He did not forget to mention the sacrifices of his friends such as Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, rendered for the support of the cause of Israel. This shows Mr. Gallin's respect for his teachers and love for his friends.

Ironically, most non-Arab Muslims do not know about true Qur’anic teachings as the Qu'ran is in Arabic and they have never read its translations into their mother tongues. Thus, it is difficult to comprehend its translation in other foreign languages, until it is explained by religious scholars. It is here that some misguided Wahhabi scholars teach hate to Muslims, particularly those nations whose language is not Arabic, such as us Pashtuns, for example.

Pashtuns do not know about original and un-tempered Islamic, Jewish and Christian history. They are taught by these fanatic Wahhabis that Christians and Jews are infidels who deserve to be hated, tortured and murdered. The situation is further complicated when the translations of Qur’an and the teachings of Islam are manipulated by these Wahhabi pseudo-intellectuals and power mongers for political purposes.

We have been taught or have found in whatever Islamic books we read, broadcast or published by the Wahhabi dominated print and electronic media, that Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Benjamin have been Muslim Prophets and that they have nothing to do with Jews. Even the term Bani-Israel is used in an ambiguous manner to hide the truth from not only ordinary ignorant people but from the educated class as well. The Wahhabi mission is to deliberately hide the truth and highlight only differences and spread hatred.

Cracking the Qur’an Code is an excellent corrective to the distortions, ambiguities, and untruths perpetrated by the Wahhabi Islamic media. This book can un-distort, make un-ambiguous and honestly explain both the differences and commonalities of three great religions and civilizations, Jewish, Christian and Muslim.

Note: The book is on sale:

Cracking the Qur'an Code: God's Land, Torah and People Covenants with Israel in the Qur'an and Islamic Tradition
(Jerusalem: Root and Branch Association, Ltd., Print and E-Book Editions. Copyright Lowell Gallin. 2010).
Bulk order discounts. Worldwide shipping. On sale now at http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=3743146