The more you dig into the “Hitler admires Muslim” chain letter, the more you will discover the idiocy behind that sentiment.
by Zuhairy Fauzy
Editor’s note: In crafting his article Muslims admire Hitler more than he did them, Zurairi AR had consulted fellow history buff Zuhairy Fauzy. Today, Zuhairy lends his personal opinion, based on the comparison between the Malay version and the original Arabic chain letter.
Apparently the Malay-language email Unscientific Malaysia was referring to was indeed translated from the Arabic. For the benefit of your reference, an instance of the original article can be found here.
I may have read law in UIA, but I do not claim to be a scholar of Arabic. That having been said, I must say that the ambiguity of the writer’s language, evident especially in the Malay version, factors enormously in the misleading nature of this chain letter.
Okay, so let’s analyse this stuff. In the interests of presenting a fair commentary, I must divulge that I can by-and-large comment only on the Malay-language email due to language barriers in reading the original Arabic:
1. “Hitler telah belajar sejarah kerajaan terdahulu dan umat yang lampau, dan beliau telah menyatakan bahawa ada tiga tamadun yang terkuat, iaitu Parsi, Rome dan Arab.”
While it is no secret that Hitler greatly admired Classical Rome as the prototype of his Aryan utopia, I am yet to come across any speech or writing of his that mentions Arabs or Persians either for better or worse (anybody is welcome to correct me). If indeed there was anything, the word “Persian” appears only once in Chapter 13 of Mein Kampf, and then very fleetingly: Hitler wrote of the blossoming of Greek civilization after the “miseries it had suffered during the Persian Wars”. (Murphy translation.)
Not very flattering of him towards Persia, was it?
2. Beliau [Hitler] juga telah meberi peluang kepada tentera German yang beragama Islam untuk menunaikan solat ketika masuk waktu di mana jua…bahkan tentera German pernah bersolat di dataran Berlin dan Hitler ketika itu mennggu sehingga mereka tamat solat jemaah untuk menyampaikan ucapan beliau…”
“Dataran Berlin”? Therein lies the ambiguity. Given that it is translated here to “Berlin Square”, which square is the writer referring to? Potsdamer Platz? Alexanderplatz? Unter den Linden perhaps?
In the original photo from the German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv), taken by one Falkowski in November 1943, the accompanying caption says “Bosnische SS-Freiwillige beim Gebet” – “Bosnian SS volunteers at prayer”. Nowhere is it mentioned that this prayer session took place in Berlin, or if Hitler was around waiting for them to finish before he began a speech. It simply says this is a picture of Bosnian SS recruits praying. It might very well have been taken on a plain or field in the Balkans, perhaps in Bosnia or Croatia (and this is most likely the case). So I would say that this is not only a case of employing vague language, but also a case of attaching misleading captions to an authentic picture in order to deceive a gullible Muslim public-at-large.
3. “Beliau [Hitler] juga meminta para Sheikh untuk mendampingi tentera beliau bagi mendoakan mereka yang bukan Islam dan memberi semangat kepada yang beragama Islam untuk membunuh Yahudi…”
The phrase “mendoakan mereka yang bukan Islam” grabs my attention. I wonder if the sheikhs to whom Hitler made this request (if indeed he ever made such a request) told him that it is forbidden for Muslims to pray for non-Muslims.
Isn’t that what we were taught in school?
4. “Pengaruh Al-Quran di dalam ucapan Hitler.
Ketika tentera Nazi tiba di Moscow, Hitler berhajat menyampaikan ucapan. Dia memerintahkan penasihat-penasihatnya untuk mencari kata-kata pembukaan yang hebat tak kira dari kitab agama, kata-kata ahli falsafah ataupun dari bait syair. Seorang sasterawan Iraq yang bermastautin di German mencadangkan ayat Al-Quran :
(اقتربت الساعة وانشق القمر) bermaksud : Telah hampir Hari Kiamat dan bulan akan terbelah…
Hitler berasa kagum dengan ayat ini dan menggunakannya sebagai kalam pembukaan dan isi kandungan ucapan beliau. Memang para ahli tafsir menghuraikan bahawa ayat tersebut bermaksud kehebatan, kekuatan dan memberi maksud yang mendalam.
Perkara ini dinyatakan oleh Hitler di dalam buku beliau Mein Kampf yang ditulis di dalam penjara bahawa banyak aspek tindakan beliau berdasarkan ayat Al-Quran, khususnya yang berkaitan tindakan beliau ke atas Yahudi…”
Boy, I have a lot of issues with this one. Where to begin?
First up, as I pointed out to Zurairi AR earlier (and as he has duly mentioned in his article), the Wehrmacht never quite made it to Moscow. They stopped short at the gates, beaten back by counterattacks from a resilient Red Army. Also, there is no historicalrecord of Hitler ever having been to Moscow, let alone of any Jew-trashing oratory in Red Square — and there certainly is no record of his ever having quoted the Koran in any of his speeches. Incidentally, the above verse is from The Moon, 54:1.
Secondly, the purported Iraqi writer who suggested to Hitler that he quote the said Koranic āyat: who was he? What was his name? When did he meet Hitler? What was an Iraqi doing in wartime Germany? Nothing else is divulged about this writer; for all we know he could have been a phantom. or Marlene Dietrich. Whichever you prefer.
Also, notice the word “sasterawan” in the Malay email. Yet another word that reflects the fluid ambiguity of our language. “Writer”? “Poet”? “Playwright”? “Scholar”? “Man of letters”? “All of the preceding”?
(For the record, the original Arabic term used was أديب, which translates to “author”.)
Number three, was Hitler really influenced by the Koran when he wrote that hate-mongering little book of his? I don’t think so. It is not indicated anywhere in Mein Kampf that the Koran figured in its inception. Plus, one should consider this: how did a middle-school dropout who lived a vagrant’s life in the sleazier suburbs of the big city ever find time to study the Holy Book of Islam?
5. “Hitler bersumpah dengan nama Allah yang Maha Besar
Hitler telah memasukkan sumpah dengan nama Allah yang Maha Besar di dalam ikrar ketua tenteranya yang akan tamat belajar di akademi tentera German.
“Aku bersumpah dengan nama Allah (Tuhan) yang Maha Besar dan ini ialah sumpah suci ku,bahawa aku akan mentaati semua perintah ketua tentera German dan pemimpinnya Adolf Hitler, pemimpin bersenjata tertinggi, bahawa aku akan sentiasa bersedia untuk berkorban dengan nyawaku pada bila-bila waktu demi pemimpin ku” “
Okay, let’s look at the original Arabic text of the email:
قـَسّم ادولف هتلر :: اقسم بالله العظيم هذا القسم المقدس
القـَسّم الذي ادخله ادولف هتلر على القوات المسلحة الالمانية بعد ان اصبح القائد الاعلى للقوات المسلحة الالمانية بعد ان دمج منصب رئيس الجمهورية ومنصب المستشارية معا والذي كان يقسم به قادة هتلر عند تخرجهم من الكلية العسكرية او دورات الضباط السريعة.
(( أقـَسّم بالله العظيم هذا القـَسّم المقدس ، ان اكون مطيعا لكل ما يصدره لي زعيم الرايخ الالماني وقائد شعبه ادولف هتلر القائد الاعلى للقوات المسلحة . وان اكون مستعدا كجندي شجاع للتضحية بروحي في اي وقت من اجل زعيمي )).
المصدر :
سلسلة قادة الحرب – كتاب ادولف هتلر- صفحة 38 – ترجمة كمال عبد الله – الصادر عن المكتبة الحديثة للطباعة والنشر في بيروت الطبعة الاولى 1974.
(Note that the author, in a rare instance of affixing a stamp of legitimacy to his writing, has kindly provided us with a source.)
Compare this with the Hitler oath in the original German (from Wikipedia):
Die Vereidigung der Wehrmacht auf Adolf Hitler, 2.8.1934
Ich schwöre bei Gott diesen heiligen Eid, daß ich dem Führer des Deutschen Reiches und Volkes Adolf Hitler, dem Oberbefehlshaber der Wehrmacht, unbedingten Gehorsam leisten und als tapferer Soldat bereit sein will, jederzeit für diesen Eid mein Leben einzusetzen.
The Wehrmacht Oath of Loyalty to Adolf Hitler, 2 August 1934
I swear by God this sacred oath that to the Leader of the German state and people, Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces, I shall render unconditional obedience and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared to give my life for this oath.
It can now be observed that the Arabic text is almost a word-for-word translation of the German oath of loyalty to Hitler.
I would now like to bring the reader’s attention to these words in the Arabic text:
اقسم بالله العظيم literally translates to “I swear by Almighty God”. Now, let us assume the Malay translator chose not to render the Arabic word الله as “Tuhan”, deliberately leaving it as it is. The text would now read as “I swear by Almighty Allah”, or, as we can see in the Malay text, “Aku bersumpah dengan nama Allah (Tuhan) yang Maha Besar”.
Bingo.
Talk about lost in translation. This, coupled with the gross misconception that the word “Allah” can be used only by Muslims (a delusion that, as we already know, is hugely popular with the Malays), only serves to reinforce the fallacious notion that Hitler and his murderous ideologues were, in effect, acting for Islam.
So yes, in a manner of speaking, the Nazis did swear by Allah to serve their Führer — “Allah” simply being the word used by Arabs, regardless of religion, to refer to God. The Malay translator simply didn’t want to translate “Allah” to “Tuhan” so that, in the eyes of malay-speaking readers, the Nazis were swearing an oath by God as He is conceptualised in Islam.
I shall like to stress this again. “Allāh” (الله) is simply the Arab term for “(the) God”. THE one God of Abraham and Moses, THE one God of Jesus, THE one God of Muhammad, THE one true God of the Abrahamic traditions — of Jews and Christians and Muslims alike. THE WORD “ALLAH” IS NOT, AS I HAVE STRESSED SO MANY TIMES TO SO MANY PEOPLE, A TERM EXCLUSIVE TO ISLAM. That word was already in current usage before Muhammad was born. That was why I was so riled up by all the unnecessary ethnoreligious rioting that flared up in this country not too long ago. The morons who torched those churches were in essence kicking up a fuss over a non-issue. Much ado about nothing.
5. “Hitler telah enggan meminum beer (arak) pada ketika beliau gementar semasa keadaan German yang agak goyah dan bermasalah. Ketika itu para doktor mencadangkan beliau minum beer sebagai ubat dan beliau enggan, sambil mangatakan ” Bagaimana anda ingin suruh seseorang itu minum arak untuk tujuan perubatan sedangkan beliau tidak pernah seumur hidupnya menyentuh arak?”
Ya, Hitler tidak pernah menjamah arak sepanjang hayat beliau…minuman kebiasaan beliau ialah teh menggunakan uncang khas…”
It is common knowledge that Hitler was a teetotaler. The email seems to imply that his abstinence from alcohol was motivated by Islam. Nuts. Just because you don’t drink doesn’t necessarily mean you’re following the tenets of Islam. Duh. if that were the case, then we could say that Dubya, who had sworn off booze since ’86, was also influenced by Islam. Heck, perhaps Osama had a hand in his conversion.
Hey, since Hitler was a vegetarian, he must also be a Hindu then.
Oh, he doesn’t smoke too. He must be a closet Mormon. sneaky bastard.
As a footnote, one wonders whether the writer of this email has ever bothered to dig deeper and find out that in the first year of National Socialist rule, the German government was working with Zionist associations, both indigenous and abroad, to expel Jews to Palestine (the Haavara Agreement). I hope they appreciate the irony.
I conclude this critique by deducing that the one and only reason Muslims look up to such an unsavoury character as Adolf Hitler was because he had an enemy in common with them. It’s just disheartening — and pathetic — that desperately holding on only to this sole, tenuous link, we are willing to associate ourselves with the evil that is Nazism.
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