It’s a mistake trying to go against the flow in a narrow Jerusalem street after Muslims emerge from their midday prayers.
As the imam helpfully pointed out to me: “you should not be here”; I expect this was a rare example of a non seeker-friendly mosque, though:
This cutie made up for it:
In Bangladesh, at least, where fanatical Islamists are demanding the arrest of atheist bloggers.
A belief system that can sustain itself only by forcibly silencing all opposition is necessarily false. Islamists are not the first to try this, of course, nor will they be the last; it’s just as well that, in the long run, it never works.
From here:
Tens of thousands of Islamic activists prayed on the streets of the Bangladeshi capital today during a rally calling for the introduction of blaspemy laws and the restoration of a caretaker government.
Members of the Islami Andolan Bangladesh are demanding the arrest of ‘atheist bloggers who insulted Islam’ and to pass laws punishing those who ‘insulted Islam in the parliament’.
They have announced plans to ‘lay siege’ to the office of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on April 25 if their demands are not met.
Since a Koran wielded by the wrong person kills, perhaps it is time to start background checks on potential purchasers to ensure none fall into the hands of the mentally unstable. Considering the second paragraph in the quote below, even those that are sold should have a page capacity limit of 10.
Incidentally, when I grew up in the capital of Wales, Cardiff, not even the police carried Korans.
From here:
In the summer of 2010, mourners lined the streets of Wales’s capital city to pay tribute to a seven-year-old boy killed in a house fire. In fact, Yaseen Ali Ege was brutally beaten to death, and then set alight with barbecue fuel. By his mother. For failing to learn the Koran. Over the preceding months, Mom had used a stick, a rolling pin, and a hammer on her son, but, despite these incentives, he had memorized only a couple of pages. And so she killed him, and subsequently declared she felt “100 percent better.”
[….]
Of course not all Muslims brutalize their families — although the ten-year-old daughter of Asia Parveen of Stoke Newington was treated for 56 injuries after being beaten for not reading enough verses of the Koran, and Hesha Yones of west London had her throat cut by her father for being too “Westernized,” and a five-month-old baby in Halmstad, Sweden, was beaten to death with a Koran
The idea is that if non-Muslim women wear a hijab for a day, for reasons that are not entirely explained, we will have: “Better awareness, greater understanding and a peaceful world.”
So ladies, don your hijabs and prepare to usher in a halcyon era of calm and tranquillity as male concuspience – the root of all conflict – is quenched by the absence of visible female hair. It is the obvious solution for peace in the Middle East. It should work: looking at this, already I feel waves of libido sapping ataraxia overwhelming me:
From the BBC:
A man has been jailed for three months for dumping a pig’s head outside a mosque in Berkshire.
Rory Rowbottom, from Thatcham, left the animal’s head at the mosque on Pound Street in Newbury on 23 October.
Rowbottom pleaded guilty to one count of racially aggravated harassment and a section 4 public order offence at Reading Magistrates’ Court.it’s every Westerner’s duty to loath his heritage
Ch Insp Lindsey Finch said his actions had left the community “distressed and horrified”.
Meanwhile, those who display Christ in urine and the Virgin Mary in elephant dung are treated with impunity because it’s every Westerner’s duty to loath his heritage; any expression of this loathing is art.
From here:
For the first time in its history, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) is holding its annual convention at a Christian church. But now the council’s host, All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif., is facing vitriolic backlash.
The church has received over 25 hate emails and threats since Friday, Rev. Susan Russell, senior associate for communications at All Saints, told The Huffington Post Wednesday. She blogged about the MPAC event for HuffPost Tuesday, and spoke to the negative reception the church has faced so far.
The delicious irony in this is that Rev. Susan Russell is a former president of Integrity USA, an organisation that lobbies for the normalisation of homosexual behaviour. It does not appear to have occurred to Susan Russell that the religion of the group she wants to accommodate in her church tends, when given free rein, to support the summary hanging of homosexuals.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council is taking the “next step in its mission” by holding its 12th annual convention in an Episcopal church: All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. An obvious choice really: something needs to fill the faith void in TEC.
MPAC’s founders were active in the Muslim Brotherhood – the organisation which has been so instrumental in bringing democracy to Egypt – it sponsors anti-Israel rallies, surreptitiously promotes jihad against the West, and supports Hezbollah and Hamas.
Apparently, MPAC is looking for allies; where better to look than among a bunch of witless Episcopalians:
MPAC explains that the holding of its convention at the All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena is a reflection of its focus on winning allies among other faiths. It boasts of establishing partnerships with the National Association of Evangelicals, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Catholic Archdiocese, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Union of Reform Judaism and other faith groups. MPAC and similar groups like the Islamic Society of North America have created an interfaith bloc willing to defend them against Rep. Michele Bachmann and other opponents.
The federal government is cancelling the contracts of non-Christian chaplains at federal prisons. An imam, Zia Khan, doesn’t like this much; in fact, he dislikes it so much (nothing to do with the money, I’m sure) that he has declared it a fatwa against – he doesn’t actually say, but Islam, presumably.
The only problem is, ‘fatwa’ means ‘a ruling on a point of Islamic law given by a recognized authority.’ So by declaring this a fatwa, the imam is recognising at as a legitimate ruling of sharia law. Why is he complaining, then? He is complaining because he is using ‘fatwa’ in a more westernised colloquial sense of issuing a death sentence against someone.
Clearly, Zia Khan needs to go back to imam school for re-education – before he goes too far towards a wrong end.
From here:
Zia Khan is an imam and the director of the Centre for Islamic Development in Halifax.
He has visited about 70 inmates over the past two years; until the word came last week that their contracts will not be renewed.
“Last time we went, we said, ‘See you in the beginning of October,’ and all of a sudden, this fatwa, if you would call it, came down from the mountain,” he said.
“It’s an egregious violation of the charter, and I think people need to stand up and really say something because I think the country is starting towards a wrong end.”
Bacon dumped on the doorstep of a mosque may be a ‘hate crime’, apparently. I concede that the act may have been motivated by hatred – or it could have been a practical joke – but where is the crime? No-one was injured, nothing was stolen, no Korans were injured, desecrated or despoiled and the Prophet, peace be upon him, was not depicted in effigy in a sexually compromising position or with a bomb in his hat. There was no crime.
To his credit, the Muslim in charge of the mosque doesn’t seem overly perturbed – perhaps he is a closet bacon lover – but the constabulary, whose cholesterol aversion sensibilities must be more finely honed, are “disturbed” by the incident.
We have progressed to the era of the “I am offended” crime.
From here:
Mounties are investigating the possibility of a hate crime after several piles of bacon were found outside a mosque in Port Coquitlam, B.C.
Police say it’s the second such act of vandalism and mischief at the Islamic Society of British Columbia mosque and Islamic centre in the last 18 months.
Muslims consider pork a symbol of impurity.
Society president Saad Bahr says it’s clear the action was intended to offend, but his group would welcome the opportunity to speak to those responsible to have them learn more about Muslim beliefs.
Where the trains are run by “professional management and competent staff ” whose leader, Ghulam Ahmad Balor, is using the money he earns by making the trains run “strictly in accordance to time table“, to offer a $100,000 reward for the murder of an American citizen.
It’s not the first time that someone has been mentally derailed by the strain of keeping the trains running on time.
From here:
ISLAMABAD – A Pakistani Cabinet minister Saturday offered a $100,000 reward for the death of the person behind the anti-Islam video made in the United States that has roiled Muslims around the world, even suggesting that Taliban and al-Qaida militants could carry out the killing.
Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Balor said at a news conference in Peshawar that he would personally finance a bounty aimed at the maker of the crude, low-budget video that denigrates the Prophet Muhammad.
Balor acknowledged that incitement to murder was illegal but said he was “ready to be hanged in the name of the Prophet Muhammad.” And he invited the Taliban and al-Qaida to be “partners in this noble deed,” according to news reports.
