Salaam Mentoring Program

“My resignation had an impact”: Jewish Army Major resigns over war in Gaza

Major Harrison Mann resigned from his role at the Defense Intelligence Agency in November after a 13-year career in the Army over the United States’ role in Israel’s war in Gaza. Maj. Mann joins Ali Velshi to discuss his resignation. He says that his Jewish identity, including the memory of his grandparents escaping antisemitism in Europe, was part of why he made the choice to quit over what he describes as the “killing and starvation of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.”

“My resignation had an impact”: Jewish Army Major resigns over war in Gaza Major Harrison Mann resigned from his role at the Defense Intelligence Agency in November after a 13 year career in the Army over the United States’ role in Israel’s war in Gaza. Maj. Mann joins Ali Velshi to discuss his resignation. He says that his Jewish identity, including the memory of his ...

Here is what I believe:

- I believe in One God, the Creator of the Heavens and earth and everything within them. I also believe that Muhammadﷺ is the Messenger of God.

- I believe that the Qur'an is the literal word of God, sent through the angel Gabrial to Prophet Muhammadﷺ over 23 years.

- I believe that to understand what God said to us in the Qur'an one has to know proficiently the Arabic language and to spend time and effort thinking about it, using all available tools of knowledge, including our wealthy heritage of Tafseer (exegesis).

- The Qur'an has a fixed text but a dynamic meaning. This is the reason Prophet Muhammadﷺ did not fully explain the Qur'an, otherwise, we would have been limited to a 7th-century understanding of the Qur'an. His exemplary life, however, was the first implementation of Qur'anic values on earth. Therefore, we must understand his life example (Sunnah) and learn his sayings (Hadith). I posted twice before, however, the criteria needed to accept that an event or a saying truly belongs to our beloved Prophetﷺ.

I will list them again for the benefit of everyone:
First: A hadith should not contradict the Qur'an.
Second: It should not contradict logic or reason.
Third: It should have mercy. The Qur'an calls the Prophetﷺ "A mercy to the worlds"
Fourth: It should represent the kindest of ethics (makarim Al Akhlak). The Qur'an teaches that the Prophetﷺ has the kindest or the noblest of ethics and manners.
Fifth: It should represent values accepted by humanity.
I developed these criteria, in order to sort out what is dependable hadith or event from the rest. I can go in more detail to explain each one of these criteria but for now, this should suffice.

If you live in the U.S, and you want to give my Qur'an translation to a friend or a neighbor, please consider ordering this book that has my Qur'an translation and 3500 verses from the Bible with similar meaning to verses from the Qur'an as the late Dr. Hungerford and a team helping us found.
If you order it directly from me, I will sign it for you.