Violence in Islam: The heart of the matter
A fantastic piece from Turkey's Daily Hurriyet by Burak Bekdil gets to the heart of the matter of
violence in Islam (Hat Tip:
Herb G).
The intellectual warrior of Islamism will tell you Islam is not
terrorism. He is right. But he will refrain from telling you what
Islamism is. He will tell you that only a fraction of the world’s Muslim
population, 10 percent, would sympathize with the terrorist attacks on
Western societies. Then you will have to calculate that that means 120
million or so Muslims sympathizing with terrorism. You will then have to
ponder how many of those 120 million potential terrorists would
actually take up arms and bombs and kill you or your beloved ones.
And
when I say “you” I don’t mean non-Muslims only; the target group is
much wider. It may include anyone any Islamist may deem an “infidel,”
including Muslims. In fact, Islamist violence in modern political
history has killed more Muslims than any adherents of any other faith or
no faith combined. It still kills more Muslims than Christians or Jews
or atheists.
But the horror story about Islamism is not about
killing or other means of violence only. And this is where the shy
Islamist propagandists are making a historic mistake; rather than
wearing a million different masks in the ballrooms of the West to defend
Islam(ism) and shyly telling their secret enemies
“oh-but-this-is-not-Islam,” or
“ah-uh-we-condemn-terror-but-not-all-Muslims-are-terrorists,” they
should fight the physical and intellectual terrorists to defend the
honor of their religion.
Of course, not all Muslims are
terrorists. But the willing chorus of Muslim apologists should devote
their time, energy and resources to fight the heart of the matter rather
than to minimize the PR effects of what the heart of the matter causes.
And the heart of the matter is not necessarily terror.
I would
expect the apologists to intellectually fight, for instance, the Grand
Mufti of Saudi Arabia who insists that girls are fit for marriage by the
age of 10-12, or the Saudi court which declines to nullify a marriage
between a six-year-old girl and a 58-year-old man. They should
intellectually fight the same Mufti for saying that all churches in the
Arabian Peninsula must be destroyed. The courts which sentenced the
Turkish pianist who tweeted and retweeted atheist contents. The Muslims
who burn and destroy anything that comes handy because they feel
offended by someone or something they think had offended their faith.
They
should intellectually fight the Islamist tyranny that jails, tortures
and intimidates, by all means possible, any Muslim who is not “Muslim
enough.” They should challenge the religion minister of the world’s most
populous Muslim country who proposes making mini skirts a “porn crime,”
or that country’s parliament speaker who says rape happens because
women don’t dress decently. They should challenge Hamas’s charter which
calls for the annihilation of all adherents of a faith. They should
stand up, unapologetically, and challenge why Jerusalem should be a holy
Muslim city while there is not a single mention of it in the Quran and
Muslims residing in lands between Mecca and Jerusalem pray facing Mecca
with their backs to Jerusalem.
Read it all. You have to wonder how Bekdil is able to keep writing in Turkey and whether the Turkish government is paying any attention to him (probably not).
Shabbat Shalom everyone.
Labels: Islamic terrorism, Islamist, Islamophobia, Jerusalem, Mecca
Class trip
Where do your kids go for their class trips? In Israel, they usually don't go far away and until 6th grade or thereabouts, they don't stay away overnight. In the US, some of my friends' kids may get a trip to Washington or something similar during the late stages of High School.
But in Islamist Turkey, they're taking
elementary school kids on
class trips to Mecca and Medina (but not Jerusalem, which Islam also claims to consider holy since the Jews reclaimed it).
Turkey's Directorate of Religious affairs has organized an Umrah visit to Mecca for elementary and high school students during semester break.
...
The visit is planned as 10-day trip with five days in Mecca and five days in Medina. The letters says the expedition aims at "improving the knowledge and experience of students.” It was also give the students the chance “to visit places of significance in Islamic history.”
The Directorate requested the immediate announcement of the tour and asked for a list of students, parents and teachers who wish to take part in the trip.
The Çaycuma office of the Educators' Union reacted to the Umrah program, saying it was an extension of the state's policy of incorporating religion into education.
Union representative İsmet Akyol said it was unacceptable the way the Religious Directorate perceived schools as their branch offices. He said the program was against a scientific and secular education.
Indeed it is. What could go wrong?
Labels: children, Mecca
A monument to pilgrims to Mecca... in Eilat?
Israel is going dhimmi. A monument to pilgrims to Mecca is
being built in Eilat.
The monument is planned for Eilat’s Shahamon Square.
Moshe Yosef, a resident of Eilat and a former city employee, claimed that the venture is jointly funded by the Municipality of Eilat and the Housing Ministry.
“This grandiose plan would include construction of lit metal statues of people wearing djellabas,” Yosef told Arutz Sheva’s Hebrew-language news service on Thursday. “The monument will include an observation terrace with a bench, decorative lighting and a circular pergola. The statues will be visible from the terrace. There will also be images and signs to explain to residents and tourists about the Muslim history of the place.”
He added that the plan has left the city’s residents stunned.
“I’ve lived here for 41 years and this is a central square in the city,” Yosef said. “All the military vehicles which come to Eilat from the local military bases travel through this square. Sports events are held here every evening, and residents walk, run, and ride their bicycle in the area. All of it is going to soon be in the shadow of this project.”
The project would in essence be recreating the Darb el Hajj or “Pilgrim’s Road”. The road was used by Arab pilgrims to go to Mecca and it ran from Africa through Egypt to Mecca, passing from the west at Eilat.
“It’s surreal to invest millions of dollars on a project to commemorate the immigrants from Mecca,” added Yosef. “The last time they went to Mecca via Eilat, at least according to what is written in the project, was in 1883.”
He added that just as the Arab city of Umm el-Fahm would not think to perpetuate the Jewish pilgrims to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, it is inconceivable that Eilat would perpetuate the pilgrims to Mecca.
“They should perpetuate the Negev Brigade and the conquest of Eilat,” he said. “People here are really stunned; the city is in turmoil, no one believes what is happening.”
A press release distributed Thursday by the Eilat municipality said that in light of residents’ requests, Mayor Meir Yitzhak Halevi has asked the Housing Ministry’s Southern District Director to name the monument “The Path of Peace” rather than “The Path of Rejoicing” as originally planned.
At least we haven't had a major terror attack there... yet... God forbid.
What could go wrong?
What could go wrong?
Labels: dhimmi, Eilat, Mecca, pilgrims
