Tel Aviv (AsiaNews) The Jewish organization Yad Lahim ("Hand held out to Brothers") has published a 222-page work on the "New Koran". The text is dedicated to spreading the "new message of the Koran" to whoever wants to know the Islamic verses and hadith "in their correct forms".
To this very end a toll free telephone number and two new information centers have been set up in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem. Yad Lahim is also releasing a video regarding the condition of women in Islam, characterizing Muslim females as submissive and poorly treated.
The text of the "New Koran" does not acknowledge that Islamic doctrine (according to which the Muslim sacred book was written) had "descended from heaven" as is traditionally claimed. Rather it asserts the Koran was directly written by Mohammed himself.
For Muslims the greatest miracle in the Koran is when the Prophet Mohammed recites verses of the book revealed to him by the archangel Gabriel and the ability of "God's chosen one" to remember them despite being illiterate.
Yad Lahim says it is attempting to "do a favor to those Muslims" who "misunderstand such verses" and to uproot "poisoned ideas found in Islamic society".
Holy Land Muslims have immediately launched criticism at the Yad Lahim publication, as they believe it to be a defamation and denigration of their own sacred text and released for the purpose of sowing doubt about their ancient faith.
Sheikh Akrama Sabri, the Mufti of Jerusalem, tried to ease tension, stating that "it's not the first time" someone has done this and that "attempts of the sort have always failed". He added that he was confident no one could damage the sacredness of the Koran, since "God himself has taken it into his own hands to protect His book from any such distortion (of truth)."
The Yad Lahim organization was founded amid ultraorthodox Jewish surroundings (for decades the ultraconservative Jewish community made efforts to spread slander against Christianity and force Christians out of Israel). For some years the organization had fallen into relative oblivion. (PB)