Eye on Extremism: Burn a Quran day and the power of ignorance

...[W]hen the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as its official religion, all books that opposed the church were burned. Perhaps the most significant of such events was the burning of all 12,000 copies of the Talmud found in Paris.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: Daily Progress | Virginia
By Ayesha N. Rashid  | September 12, 2010

Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida planned to host an International Burn a Quran Day on Sept. 11, to “honor” the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Although he ultimately called the book-burning off, much damage already had been done.

Corrupt groups have always resorted to burning books to gain legitimacy. Jones’ stunt is no different, and only further confirms that extremism is a virus that transcends religion, country and era.

The first known book burning on religious grounds occurred when Athenian authorities burned all copies of the Treatise of Protagoras in the 5th century BC. The treatise declared, “Concerning the gods I am not able to know either that they do exist or that they do not exist” — a statement Athenians found unbearably offensive.


In 168 BC, Antiochus Epiphanes attempted to expunge Judaism from Palestine and ordered all Jewish Bibles be burned. In 50 CE, a Roman soldier burned a Torah scroll publicly, leading to violent Jewish revolts against the Roman Empire. Christian holy scriptures were burned in 303 CE. However, when the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as its official religion, all books that opposed the church were burned. Perhaps the most significant of such events was the burning of all 12,000 copies of the Talmud found in Paris. This campaign to burn the Talmud, among several other Jewish books, spanned 300 years, from the 13th through the 16th centuries.

If Pastor Jones cannot recognize the absurdity of book burning from ancient examples, perhaps a few fresh instances might be eye-opening.

On May 10, 1933, Adolf Hitler burned more than 20,000 volumes of books that were deemed “un-German.” Like Pastor Jones, Hitler invited the public to join him. A decade later Joseph Stalin burned the Judaica collection at Birobidzhan in an attempt to rid mother Russia of Jewish culture, which he deemed “un-Russian.” Also in the 1940s, churches in Binghamton, N.Y., and several other U.S. cities torched children’s comic books because they were “un-Christian.” In the 1960s, China’s Communist regime burned countless books that recorded family lineage, deeming them “un-Chinese.” In 1984, Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem burnt hundreds of copies of the New Testament, as they were “un-Jewish.” In 1987, the Taliban burnt tens of thousands of books, and, ironically, destroyed a 1,000-year-old copy of the Quran in their violent rampage, deeming the books “un-Islamic.”

Emulating this tradition of intolerance, Pastor Jones and the Dove World Out-reach Center announced plans to burn Qurans, labeling them “un-Christian” and “un-American.” However, contrary to his view that Islam is a violent religion, the worldwide head of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, Mirza Masroor Ahmad, rebuked this hate-filled act with peaceful logic:

“Religious extremism, be it Christian extremism, Muslim extremism or any other kind, is never a true reflection of the religion... . [W]hat we are seeing is hatred being spread.” He instead implored a simple solution and added, “There is nothing wrong with intellectual or theological debate, but this should be conducted within the bounds of decency and tolerance ... [taking] place in a peaceful and respectful environment.”

In fact, Pastor Jones’ choice of book is only somewhat original, because in recent history, it is only the Taliban that have burned a Quran. How ironic that in his effort to honor the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Jones instead honors the extremists themselves.

Ayesha N. Rashid holds a masters’ degree in international economics. She has been published in the New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today. She is also a staff writer for the oldest and longest-running Muslim American periodical.

Read original post here: Burn a Quran day and the power of ignorance