Sheikh Palazzi: Mr. Piccardo is a former activist of Italy’s extreme left, an ex-militant of the Marxist group “Autonomia Operaria”, which during the 1970’s was the milieu wherein many terrorists belonging to the “Red Brigades” were recruited. Subsequently, Mr. Piccardo got acquainted with Dr. Baha Eldin Ghrewati, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood for Italy, converted to Islam as conceived by the Muslim Brotherhood, and started working as Dr. Ghrewati’s personal secretary.
In contrast with other leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, Dr. Ghrewati likes to act from behind the scene. He is closely related to Youssef Nada, the owner of the Nada Management Trust, a financial network of the Muslim Brotherhood, which the US Department of Justice considers linked to al-Qa’ida. Although he administers the funds, which permit the maintenance of tens of mosques in Italy, and although hundreds of militants obey his orders, Dr. Ghrewati dislikes being interviewed or appearing in public.
The Union of Islamic Communities in Italy, founded at the beginning of the 1990’s, is the Muslim Brotherhood’s front organization for Italy. Dr. Ghrewati is its real leader and its main fundraiser, but he has no official position in it. The persons who appear in public are its president Dr. Nour Dachan (a close friend of Ghrewati) and its secretary, Mr. Piccardo.
According to the classification of the Italian Ministry of the Interior, the Italian Muslim Assembly (AMdI), the Islamic Religious Community (CoReIs) and the Italian Section of the World Muslim League (LMM-SI) represent moderate Islam in Italy, while UCOII represents militant Islam. The policy of UCOII is based on searching for allies within the extreme-left and the extreme-right, on the basis of shared values like hatred for democracy, for Israel and for America.
IsraPundit: I find the political position of Mr Piccardo puzzling. On the one hand, he is known to have been in the forefront of the opposition to the liberation of Iraq (see, for example, this site); but on the other hand, he also participated in the September, 2004, campaign for the release of the two Italian aid workers who were kidnapped in Baghdad (see: al Aharam .)
Exactly what are Mr Piccardo's politics?
Sheikh Palazzi: Piccardo represents the most extreme tendency within UCOII. He openly praised suicide bombing in media releases and even when speaking on TV programs. Some members of the Muslim Brotherhood would prefer to limit such speeches to private meetings and to Arabic, and to avoid such speeches while speaking to the media in Italian.
Piccardo’s involvement in the Anti-imperialist Camp, the organization which collects funds for the Iraqi terrorists, was also criticizes by those who would like to be considered “moderate Islamists” within UCOII, but to no avail. Dr. Ghrewati always refused to ask Piccardo to resign from UCOII, and that is enough. The Muslim Brotherhood is a totalitarian organization, and when the leader approves actions, there is no room for discussion.
As for the kidnapping of Simona Torretta and Simona Pari, many Italian experts and politicians openly spoke of an “anomalous kidnapping”. The two “aid workers” were known militants of the anti-American extreme left, and their organization “A Bridge For…” was known for having had close links to Saddam’s former regime.
As soon as they were freed, Simona Torretta and Simona Pari came back home telling the media “what polite and kind people their kidnappers were” and “how barbarous the US occupation of Iraq is”. Italians were led to believe that they were risking their lives, but they returned home smiling, proud to show the dresses and the gifts given by their kind kidnappers.
Media sources confirm that the kidnappers had ambiguous relations with the so-called “Council of Sunni Ulema of Iraq”. If one considers that that organization is nothing but the Iraqi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, while UCOII is the branch of the same organization in Italy, one can easily understand Piccardo’s role in an alleged “kidnapping”, which saw the Italian and Iraqi branches of the Muslim Brotherhood cooperating with the Italian extreme left. In my opinion, the real goal of the whole operation was to weaken the Berlusconi government and to increase the anti-American feelings within the Italian left.
IsraPundit: I am somewhat puzzled as to which translation is being discussed in the JPost article. On the one hand, JPost states that “Piccardo's translation was published in 1994, has sold 140,000 copies - a best-seller figure for Italy - and is the most widely read translation of the Koran in Italy.” On the other hand, if the translation is indeed 11 years old, one may well ask why it took 11 years for the issue to surface?
Sheikh Palazzi: There is one point, which I find worthy of mentioning. Everyone who knows Mr. Piccardo also knows that he does not know Arabic at all, and is unable to carry on even an elementary conversation in that language. How could he manage to publish in his name what he calls “an Interpretative Translation of the Glorious Qur’an”?
The whole story is well known to Muslims in Italy: During the 1980’s Piccardo contacted some Muslims who were proficient in both Arabic and Italian and told them that the Bank al-Taqwa of Lugano, Switzerland (the same group which was afterwards renamed Nada Management Trust) decided to fund a translation of the Qur’an into Italian. In order to test the ability of the candidate translators, each of them was invited to translate a section of the Qur’an and to submit it to Piccardo. Afterwards, he claimed that the Bank al-Taqwa withdrew the proposal, and that consequently there were no funds for the translation. Some years later, Mr. Piccardo concatenated the partial translations together, translated the missing chapters from the French translation of Hamidullah, and had the temerity to publish the result in his name.
I think that the number of copies that the fake translation sold is due mainly to the fact that it was published in a cheap edition by an editor who specializes in paperbacks. I am inclined to believe that the claim according to which it is “the most widely read translation of the Koran in Italy” is baseless. There exist older translations, made by non-Muslim scholars, which are surely more reliable and have been repeatedly reprinted. To mention just one, the translation by the late Prof. Alessandro Bausani has been republished by at least three different editors, and serves as a standard for almost all Italian universities, centers of Islamic studies, etc.
The case of Piccardo, however, is not isolated. There exist other non-scholarly, popular translations (like the ones by Peirone, Terenzoni, etc.) that are also printed in paperback editions and sold for a cheap price. Since experts do not consider them reliable, they are obscure, and the same happened for Piccardo’s translation.
A couple of years ago, an Italian Muslim journalist, Mr. Magdi Allam, began to denounce Piccardo’s role in a network that promotes anti-Semitism in Italy, (See http://www.amislam.com/baha.htm); he also discovered the anti-Semitic contents of some footnotes in Piccardo's translation.
Here is how Mr. Piccardo became known to the public: The media began to discuss the case because Mr Piccardo published a new edition recently, bearing a preface by Prof. Franco Cardini, a Middle Ages scholar, who is also known for his connections to the extreme right, for his anti-Americanism and for what he himself defines as his “anti-Judaism and not anti-Semitism”. Some Italian newspapers recently published an open letter from Piccardo to Cardini, wherein he apologizes for some (but not for all) of the anti-Semitic footnotes which are included in his translation, explaining that “he is no longer the same person who wrote those notes ten years ago”. In other words, Piccardo wants his readers to believe that he has replaced his former anti-Semitism with Cardini-like anti-Judaism.
Personally, I am unable to see any relevant difference between the two positions. In my humble opinion, an advocate of so-called anti-Judaism is nothing but an advocate of anti-Semitism who likes playing with words. I regret that in Italian (and international) law there is no article, which equates incitement to suicide-terrorism with a crime. However, in the Italian penal code there is an article that makes funding terrorist organizations a crime. Since both Mr. Piccardo and Prof. Cardini are members of the Anti-imperialist Camp, and since the Anti-imperialist Camp is soliciting and collecting donations to fund terrorists who are targeting the forces of the Coalition (including Italian soldiers), I sincerely hope that both are charged.
IsraPundit: Thank you for your time, Sheikh Palazzi.
Sheikh Palazzi: You are, as always, most welcome.
Sheikh Palazzi on Piccardo's translation of the Koran
Editor’s note: On June 10, JPost published a piece concerning a recent translation of the Koran into Italian. I asked Sheikh Palazzi to comment on the issues raised in the JPost article, and, with Sheikh Palazzi’s permission, I am posting the dialogue below.
To read other commentaries by Sheikh Palazzi’s, use our search engine, which is located just above the calendar in the right-hand column of IsraPundit. Scroll down to the search engine and enter “Palazzi”.
IsraPundit: Sheikh Palazzi, the JPost piece under question stated that
Who are Hamza Roberto Piccardo and the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy (UCOII), of which Mr Piccardo is secretary?
Sheikh Palazzi: Mr. Piccardo is a former activist of Italy’s extreme left, an ex-militant of the Marxist group “Autonomia Operaria”, which during the 1970’s was the milieu wherein many terrorists belonging to the “Red Brigades” were recruited. Subsequently, Mr. Piccardo got acquainted with Dr. Baha Eldin Ghrewati, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood for Italy, converted to Islam as conceived by the Muslim Brotherhood, and started working as Dr. Ghrewati’s personal secretary.
In contrast with other leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, Dr. Ghrewati likes to act from behind the scene. He is closely related to Youssef Nada, the owner of the Nada Management Trust, a financial network of the Muslim Brotherhood, which the US Department of Justice considers linked to al-Qa’ida. Although he administers the funds, which permit the maintenance of tens of mosques in Italy, and although hundreds of militants obey his orders, Dr. Ghrewati dislikes being interviewed or appearing in public.
The Union of Islamic Communities in Italy, founded at the beginning of the 1990’s, is the Muslim Brotherhood’s front organization for Italy. Dr. Ghrewati is its real leader and its main fundraiser, but he has no official position in it. The persons who appear in public are its president Dr. Nour Dachan (a close friend of Ghrewati) and its secretary, Mr. Piccardo.
According to the classification of the Italian Ministry of the Interior, the Italian Muslim Assembly (AMdI), the Islamic Religious Community (CoReIs) and the Italian Section of the World Muslim League (LMM-SI) represent moderate Islam in Italy, while UCOII represents militant Islam. The policy of UCOII is based on searching for allies within the extreme-left and the extreme-right, on the basis of shared values like hatred for democracy, for Israel and for America.
IsraPundit: I find the political position of Mr Piccardo puzzling. On the one hand, he is known to have been in the forefront of the opposition to the liberation of Iraq (see, for example, this site); but on the other hand, he also participated in the September, 2004, campaign for the release of the two Italian aid workers who were kidnapped in Baghdad (see: al Aharam .)
Exactly what are Mr Piccardo's politics?
Sheikh Palazzi: Piccardo represents the most extreme tendency within UCOII. He openly praised suicide bombing in media releases and even when speaking on TV programs. Some members of the Muslim Brotherhood would prefer to limit such speeches to private meetings and to Arabic, and to avoid such speeches while speaking to the media in Italian.
Piccardo’s involvement in the Anti-imperialist Camp, the organization which collects funds for the Iraqi terrorists, was also criticizes by those who would like to be considered “moderate Islamists” within UCOII, but to no avail. Dr. Ghrewati always refused to ask Piccardo to resign from UCOII, and that is enough. The Muslim Brotherhood is a totalitarian organization, and when the leader approves actions, there is no room for discussion.
As for the kidnapping of Simona Torretta and Simona Pari, many Italian experts and politicians openly spoke of an “anomalous kidnapping”. The two “aid workers” were known militants of the anti-American extreme left, and their organization “A Bridge For…” was known for having had close links to Saddam’s former regime.
As soon as they were freed, Simona Torretta and Simona Pari came back home telling the media “what polite and kind people their kidnappers were” and “how barbarous the US occupation of Iraq is”. Italians were led to believe that they were risking their lives, but they returned home smiling, proud to show the dresses and the gifts given by their kind kidnappers.
Media sources confirm that the kidnappers had ambiguous relations with the so-called “Council of Sunni Ulema of Iraq”. If one considers that that organization is nothing but the Iraqi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, while UCOII is the branch of the same organization in Italy, one can easily understand Piccardo’s role in an alleged “kidnapping”, which saw the Italian and Iraqi branches of the Muslim Brotherhood cooperating with the Italian extreme left. In my opinion, the real goal of the whole operation was to weaken the Berlusconi government and to increase the anti-American feelings within the Italian left.
IsraPundit: I am somewhat puzzled as to which translation is being discussed in the JPost article. On the one hand, JPost states that “Piccardo's translation was published in 1994, has sold 140,000 copies - a best-seller figure for Italy - and is the most widely read translation of the Koran in Italy.” On the other hand, if the translation is indeed 11 years old, one may well ask why it took 11 years for the issue to surface?
Sheikh Palazzi: There is one point, which I find worthy of mentioning. Everyone who knows Mr. Piccardo also knows that he does not know Arabic at all, and is unable to carry on even an elementary conversation in that language. How could he manage to publish in his name what he calls “an Interpretative Translation of the Glorious Qur’an”?
The whole story is well known to Muslims in Italy: During the 1980’s Piccardo contacted some Muslims who were proficient in both Arabic and Italian and told them that the Bank al-Taqwa of Lugano, Switzerland (the same group which was afterwards renamed Nada Management Trust) decided to fund a translation of the Qur’an into Italian. In order to test the ability of the candidate translators, each of them was invited to translate a section of the Qur’an and to submit it to Piccardo. Afterwards, he claimed that the Bank al-Taqwa withdrew the proposal, and that consequently there were no funds for the translation. Some years later, Mr. Piccardo concatenated the partial translations together, translated the missing chapters from the French translation of Hamidullah, and had the temerity to publish the result in his name.
I think that the number of copies that the fake translation sold is due mainly to the fact that it was published in a cheap edition by an editor who specializes in paperbacks. I am inclined to believe that the claim according to which it is “the most widely read translation of the Koran in Italy” is baseless. There exist older translations, made by non-Muslim scholars, which are surely more reliable and have been repeatedly reprinted. To mention just one, the translation by the late Prof. Alessandro Bausani has been republished by at least three different editors, and serves as a standard for almost all Italian universities, centers of Islamic studies, etc.
The case of Piccardo, however, is not isolated. There exist other non-scholarly, popular translations (like the ones by Peirone, Terenzoni, etc.) that are also printed in paperback editions and sold for a cheap price. Since experts do not consider them reliable, they are obscure, and the same happened for Piccardo’s translation.
A couple of years ago, an Italian Muslim journalist, Mr. Magdi Allam, began to denounce Piccardo’s role in a network that promotes anti-Semitism in Italy, (See http://www.amislam.com/baha.htm); he also discovered the anti-Semitic contents of some footnotes in Piccardo's translation.
Here is how Mr. Piccardo became known to the public: The media began to discuss the case because Mr Piccardo published a new edition recently, bearing a preface by Prof. Franco Cardini, a Middle Ages scholar, who is also known for his connections to the extreme right, for his anti-Americanism and for what he himself defines as his “anti-Judaism and not anti-Semitism”. Some Italian newspapers recently published an open letter from Piccardo to Cardini, wherein he apologizes for some (but not for all) of the anti-Semitic footnotes which are included in his translation, explaining that “he is no longer the same person who wrote those notes ten years ago”. In other words, Piccardo wants his readers to believe that he has replaced his former anti-Semitism with Cardini-like anti-Judaism.
Personally, I am unable to see any relevant difference between the two positions. In my humble opinion, an advocate of so-called anti-Judaism is nothing but an advocate of anti-Semitism who likes playing with words. I regret that in Italian (and international) law there is no article, which equates incitement to suicide-terrorism with a crime. However, in the Italian penal code there is an article that makes funding terrorist organizations a crime. Since both Mr. Piccardo and Prof. Cardini are members of the Anti-imperialist Camp, and since the Anti-imperialist Camp is soliciting and collecting donations to fund terrorists who are targeting the forces of the Coalition (including Italian soldiers), I sincerely hope that both are charged.
IsraPundit: Thank you for your time, Sheikh Palazzi.
Sheikh Palazzi: You are, as always, most welcome.
Posted by Joseph Alexander Norland at June 15, 2005 08:02 AM