Harry Potter and Sharia Law

One hopes that the more astute Harry Potter fans, googling around, will - if they stumble across New English Review, or Mr Spencer's Jihad Watch - hang around and read a little, when they discover people discussing the case of Afshan Azad.  

For although I don't think J K Rowling had Islam in mind when she invented the evil Voldemort and his  purity-obsessed supremacist power-worshipping Death Eaters, there are some interesting parallels.

A poster at jihadwatch cited Rowling as having said: [re the Voldemort and followers] 'you have the intent to impose a hierarchy, you have bigotry, and this notion of purity...People like to think themselves superior and that if they can pride themselves on nothing else they can pride themselves on perceived purity. So yeah that follows a parallel [to Nazism]".  

Given that, it is perfectly legitimate to point out that if Voldemort and his followers resemble Nazis, they *also* resemble Islam, for the same paradigm is present in Islam as was present in Nazism (whose inventor, Hitler, greatly admired Islam, and many of whose followers, after their defeat in WWII, scurried off to the lands of Islam, where quite a few of them converted to Islam - most notably the rabid antisemite Johann Von Leers, one of Goebbels' pets).

Here is a slightly modified version of some advice I gave to a fellow poster at the jihadwatch forum, who had identified as one who also posts at Harry Potter fan sites, re. educating Harry Potter fans.

"Re waking up HP fans who haven't yet realized that the Mohammedans today are the closest thing in real life to the 'Death Eater' Dark Wizards.

"You might point out the parallel between the 'creed of Lord Voldemort' (spoken by Quirrell himself in the first book, but by V. himself in the first film, when he is revealed from under the **turban** on Quirrell's head) - 'there is neither good nor evil, there is only Power, and those too weak to seek it' - and the adoration of Power and Violence, the contempt for the gentler virtues, that pervades sharia and Islam and is clearly evident in the behaviour of many in the Muslim world.  Islam is referred to as 'din -e-ghalib', 'the religion of dominance', and devout Muslim Hassan al Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, stated that "Islam is to dominate, and not be dominated".  Muslims, like Voldemort's followers, view themselves as having the right to **rule** all others - absolutely.

'You could also get people to think of the way the final book opens.  The Muggle Studies teacher from Hogwarts, *Charity* Burbage (note well her first name), who we are told did not teach Voldemort's ideas about the inherent superiority of Magicals over Muggles, is accused by Voldemort of 'corrupting' and 'polluting' the minds of wizard children [compare this with the fact that  Islam regards anything non-Muslim as 'corruption' and 'pollution'; the promotion of non-Muslim ideas = 'spreading corruption in the land'], and is 'punished' for this, by being casually murdered by Voldemort in a display of cold cruelty worthy of any Muslim war-lord.  We're told that Voldemort's followers kill Muggle-borns and Muggles **for fun** - because they believe they are superior and therefore entitled to do so. Historically, Muslims have done - and do - the same to non-Muslims.  A canonical Muslim text states - 'killing Infidels is a small matter to us'.

'Just like Voldemort who murders Charity,  Islam rejects the concept of universal charity, love of neighbour.  Surah 48: 29 of the Quran says - "Muhammad is allah's apostle.  Those who follow him are **ruthless** {my emphasis} to the unbelievers but merciful to one another"; and Ibn Ishaq's canonical Life of Mohammed says (p. 231 of the English translation) - "Muslims are one ummah (community) to the exclusion of all men.  Believers are friends of one another to the exclusion of all outsiders". Muslims are supposed to be loyal or charitable only toward other Muslims, and are encouraged - by the doctrine al-walaa wa al-baraa, loyalty and enmity, to feel and express hatred, contempt and aggression toward the non-Muslims who are deemed inferior and called najis, 'dirty', 'impure'.

The Muslim attitude toward non-Muslims , though unlike the Nazi contempt for non-Aryans it is based primarily on ideology not descent (one can, however, note that within Islam Arab Muslims qua Arabs believe that they are 'the best of peoples' and look down on non-Arab Muslims), pretty much parallels the fictional Dark Wizards' contempt for Muggles and Mudbloods.

'Harry Potter fans should reflect on the fact that the way Afshan Azad's father and brothers have reacted to her association with a Hindu is similar to, though even worse than, the way a purity-obsessed Death Eater/ Dark Wizard family would react if their daughter got involved with a Muggle or a Mudblood.

'Under Sharia, Islamic law, Muslim women, members of the pure and superior Muslim group, aren't allowed to marry dirty, impure, inferior non-Muslims. (Though, unlike Rowling's fictional Dark Wizards, Muslims let a *man* of the superior group marry a woman of the 'inferior' group; this is because Islam sees marriage as a power relationship in which the man dominates the woman as a master a slave; thus a Muslim man who marries a non-Muslim woman enacts the Muslim world-view in which pure, superior Muslims dominate the dirty, inferior non-Muslims - whereas if a Muslim woman is married to or taking as lover a non-Muslim,  Muslims see that as a horrible reversal of the order of things, since it is a pure, superior Muslim being dominated/ enslaved by one who is her allah-ordained *inferior*).

'Another parallel between Islam and Voldemort's movement is that, just as anyone who tries to leave Islam is supposed to be killed, anyone who signed up as a Death Eater was killed if he or she tried to leave."

The analogy between the fictional Death Eaters/ Dark Wizards under Voldemort, on the one hand, and the real-life Nazis, and also real-life Islam, on the other, is not exact, in that the real-life Nazis and the fictional Death Eaters determine membership of the 'in' group by genetic descent, which cannot be altered by choice; whereas in Islam membership of the 'in'/ 'pure'/ 'superior' group can be *acquired* by a change of ideological allegiance.  

But allowing for the different way in which membership of the 'in' group is determined, the behaviour and attitude of the 'in' or 'deemed-superior' group toward those they deem inferior - the 'superiors' claiming the right to look down on and KILL out of hand those they deem inferior and impure - is pretty much identical, whether we're talking about  fictional Death Eaters, real-life Nazis, or...real-life Muslims.