The Ramadan Tent inside the virtual reality world Second Life has sponsored the speaking appearance of Muhammad Abu Laylah, identified of the head of the English department of Islamic Studies in Al-Azhar University who was to speak on the topic “The Muslim’s Conscience: How to Nurture it and Keep it” Dr. Laylah’s online biography identifies him as co-editor of the Journal of Qur’an Studies, London University. Although his talk in Second Life, presented via streaming media presumably from Egypt, was in Arabic, Dr. Laylah in the past has made a number of highly anti-Semitic statements in the “Live Fatwa” forum sponsored by Islam Online, the Islamic news portal operated by global Muslim Brotherhood Youssef Qaradawi For example, in a fatwa dated April 14 2003, Dr. Laylah responds to the following question by repeating perhaps the most common of all anti-Semitic canards, blaming the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ:
Question
Although Jews don’t recognize Jesus neither as a Prophet nor as a son of God (for Christians), they managed to mobilize Christians in their interest? How did they do that? Don’t Christians know that Jews don’t believe in Jesus?
Answer
Jesus was sent by Allah to the Jews who were living at that time under Roman occupation. The Jews neglected him with the exception of a little number of them. The Jewish rabbis went very far against Jesus as to instigate the Roman king to kill him by the means of crucifixion. The attempt to kill Jesus on the Cross was already made and the plan was carried out to the end. But Allah saved Jesus from the hands of His enemies. According to the Qur’an, he was neither killed nor crucified but rather saved and taken to Heaven. The way how Allah protected and saved Jesus life and how He raised him to Heaven is not mentioned in the Qur’an. The Jews thought that Jesus was a false Messiah and he was heretic. They attacked him in many different ways and they believed that he was born out- of-wedlock. They even do not accept him as a Prophet or Messiah until now. The coalition we see in modern times between Jewish Zionists , Zionist Christians, and the Christian right wing in America is due to shared political interests rather than a religious stand. Now, the Zionists in America propagate for the coming of the Messiah and the Armageddon war for the benefit of Israel.
Previous posts have reported on the Second Life Ramadan tent, a joint project between the owners of a virtual mosque and Islam Online. The presence of an anti-Semitic speaker in the tent raises new concerns about this Muslim Brotherhood presence in the popular Second Life virtual world.