That’s what everyone wanted to know about the notorious 18½-minute gap in Richard Nixon’s Watergate tape, for which Rosemary Woods eventually took the fall.
Now it appears that something similar happened with the Vatican’s tape of the interfaith prayers-for-peace from last Sunday, giving us even more reason to dub this controversy “Imamgate”.
As we reported in last night’s post about the imam’s prayer at the Vatican, there seems to be nothing controversial in the chanted Arabic in the prayer and that spoken in his subsequent remarks. However, a reader and commenter named ritamalik — who is a former Muslim and understands Arabic — tells us that a portion of the video has been edited out, and the omitted section included the verse asking Allah to grant victory over the infidels.
The explanation below is adapted from two separate comments by ritamalik on last night’s post:
You were accurate! Don’t blame yourself! These bastards have cut out the controversial last half-verse from imam’s recitation in the clip. What they have done here is pure and simple censorship, deception and rewriting of history. Pay attention to the clip. They cut his recitation in the middle of the last verse!
I do understand Quranic Arabic very well. I also know Quran itself rather well. I am an ex-Muslim. This link that you have posted was cut! The full recitation from the Quran by this imam that I watched on the Al Arabiya channel two days ago had his recitation up until the final verses, and without a shadow of a doubt he recited the second sura Al Bagharah’s last few verses till the very end where he did say, “and pardon us and forgive us and have mercy on us, you are our guardian, so make us victorious over the tribe of disbelievers [or ‘deniers’, as the word kafir really means]”.
Now the question is: who chopped this video to take out the controversial part out of it? It is cut literally in the middle of the verse where the controversial part starts, and jumps to the imam’s prayer in his own words, which are not controversial. You can recognize the end of recitation and beginning of his own prayer by the fact that he stopped singing and start speaking normally. If you pay attention you will notice the place where it was cut. It is noticeable.
They kept his recitation until the end of the of “forgive us and have mercy on us.” But the last two clauses — “you are our guardian, so grant us victory over unbelievers” was neatly and in very Stalinesque fashion airbrushed out! Cunning bastards!
That is why your Russian translator didn’t hear anything controversial. But he can go check his Quran and see that up till the last two clauses which are missing, everything before it is the final verses of sura 2. Now you want to tell me he just left out the last half verse from his recitation?! Of course not! Who recites Quran while reciting a verse only half way through?!
They are counting on people’s ignorance of Arabic and Quranic content. They want to throw us off track and confuse us. Your original report was 100% correct! You have nothing to correct. Only now you can also report that these bastards have censored the original footage to save themselves from the embarrassment of being mocked and outwitted by an imam. That’s all! Don’t fall for it.
And the fact that they had to censor the original footage shows that despite their original denials they recognized the damage and the legitimacy of those reports which pointed it out!
The big question is: Who edited the tape?
It had to have been done by someone in the Vatican, or by someone employed by the Vatican. So the Imamgate scandal has just become even more scandalous.
To recap:
| 1. | The Pope invited an imam to the Vatican to say prayers at an interfaith event. | |
| 2. | Departing from a pre-released script, the imam prayed in Arabic for Allah to grant victory over the unbelievers. | |
| 3. | The Vatican denied that the imam said anything of that nature. | |
| 4. | The Vatican altered a video of the event to remove any evidence of the damning clause. |
So what comes next? What will #5 be? Stay tuned.
Also: if anyone can find an uncut version of the Arabic part of the video, please send us the URL.
Previous posts about Imamgate — The Arabic prayer at the Vatican, June 8 2014:
| 2014 | Jun | 11 | The Vatican and Islamic Prayer | |||
| 12 | Taqiyya, Vatican-Style | |||||
| 12 | What Did the Imam Really Say at the Vatican? |