Posted on 08/12/2006 7:16:42 AM PDT by WmShirerAdmirer
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has frustrated Western officials by refusing to reply to their offer of various incentives in exchange for Iran’s discarding its nuclear program until August 22. The Western governments had asked Ahmadinejad to reply by June 29; why would Tehran need two extra months?
Farid Ghadry, the president of the Reform Party of Syria, has offered a provocative explanation for this delay. He asserts that the Supreme National Security Council of Iran chose the August 22 date “for a very precise reason. August 21, 2006 (Rajab 27, 1427) is known in the Islamic calendar as the Night of the Sira’a and Miira’aj, the night Prophet Mohammed (saas) ascended to heaven from the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on a Bourak (Half animal, half man), while a great light lit-up the night sky, and visited Heaven and Hell also Beit al-Saada and Beit al-Shaqaa (House of Happiness and House of Misery) and then descended back to Mecca.…”
The Night Journey, or Miraj, is central to Islam’s claim to Jerusalem as an Islamic holy city. According to Islamic tradition, Muhammad was carried on a Buraq, a miraculous horse with a human head, from Mecca to Jerusalem, where he ascended into heaven and met the other prophets. The only thing the Qur’an has to say about it is this: “Glory to (Allah) Who did take His servant for a Journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the farthest Mosque, whose precincts We did bless, in order that We might show him some of Our Signs: for He is the One Who heareth and seeth (all things)” (17:1). There is no identification of the “farthest Mosque” with any mosque in Jerusalem in this, but the Hadith is very clear on the identification of its location with Jerusalem.
The traditions say that Muhammad and the Buraq, along with the angel Gabriel, went to the Temple Mount, and from there to heaven itself, where Muhammad encountered various prophets. In the sixth heaven was Moses, occasioning a dig at the Jews. “When I left him,” Muhammad says, “he wept. Someone asked him, ‘What makes you weep?’ Moses said, ‘I weep because after me there has been sent (Muhammad as a Prophet) a young man, whose followers will enter Paradise in greater numbers than my followers.’”
Evidently, however, Muhammad’s stories of his journey were not altogether convincing: even some of the Muslims abandoned their faith and challenged Muhammad’s most faithful follower, Abu Bakr, to do the same. Abu Bakr was contemptuous: “If he says so then it is true. And what is so surprising in that? He tells me that communications from God from heaven to earth come to him in an hour of a day or night and I believe him, and that is more extraordinary than that at which you boggle!” The world has continued to witness such unshakeable devotion from Muslims to this day.
Did Muhammad really go anywhere? According to his favorite wife, Aisha, he did not: “The apostle’s body remained where it was but God removed his spirit by night.” Nevertheless, the Night Journey has become firmly embedded in the Islamic consciousness, such that Muslims today celebrate it as one of the central events of Muhammad’s life. And now, according to Ghadry, Ahmadinejad is planning an illumination of the night sky over Jerusalem to rival the one that greeted the Prophet of Islam on his journey. What the Iranian President, he says, is “promising the world by August 22 is the light in the sky over the Aqsa Mosque that took place the night before. That is his answer to the package of incentives the international community offered Iran on June 6.”
Certainly a nuclear attack on Jerusalem or even an all-out conventional assault against Israel by Iran would be consistent with Ahmadinejad’s oft-repeated denials of Israel’s right to exist and recent predictions that its demise was at hand. He hinted at the use of nuclear weapons in his phrasing when he said that Israel “pushed the button of its own destruction” by finally retaliating against Hizballah’s relentless rocket barrage from south Lebanon.
“Arrogant powers,” Ahmadinejad said, “have set up a base for themselves to threaten and plunder nations in the region. But today, the occupier regime” – that is, Israel – “whose philosophy is based on threats, massacre and invasion, has reached its finishing line.”
Will he attempt to make good on these threats this year on the anniversary of the Miraj, illuminating the night sky over Jerusalem? Will Western powers heed Farid Ghadry’s words and move to stop Iran before it is too late?
Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of five books, seven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Faith and the New York Times Bestseller The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). His latest book, The Truth About Muhammad, is coming October 9 from Regnery Publishing.
Fox News had a (face blacked out) interview with an ex-terrorist and he brought up this August 22nd date.
I'm guess Western Officials (as described in this article) have been a bit busy and haven't spent one second being frustrated. Maybe the 'Must Have an Answer Right Now' media is frustrated, but, who cares?
Achmed stalling is not news. This 8/22 drumbeat is starting to sound a lot like the Y2K stuff. Should be interesting.
Well you never know... the Brits might have just rained on that parade.
Imagine him 'responding' to our demands to stop producing nukes a few days after all these planes were blown up.
Dream on...
Let's hope it's nothing...
Pronounced like "mirage".
The planes were evidently supposed to be brought down on August 16th (at least that's what I read in a British paper as to the dates the tickets were for.)
I remembered the date because my son and husband are flying on the 16th to Calgary, and I told my hubby if the plot had succeeded that would have been the end of their vacation. Planes would have been grounded, as after 9/11, and they would be stuck in "who knows where."
Iran is ready to do this. They have been throwing hints out for the last 2 years...solid, vocal, blunt threats. They will eventually be at war with whoever goes to take the country's nuclear sites...and the only country that has balls to do that in the world is Israel.
They have done it before in Iraq and could care less what the UN or the world had to say...and they are doing it against Hezzbolah. Israel will not sit back...the Mossad is more informed than our CIA, FBI, and NSA combined on their best day.
Iran WILL try something and soon...will it be on 8-22? Who knows...prolly doubtful....but you can bet that Iran's President want's to go down in history as the man who killed the biggest amount of jews since Hitler.
My guess it it was a distraction from the main event. The airliners had nothing to do with Jerusalem.
i regret to say that I, probably like many others, didn't see the need to learn about this hateful, deadly group until just recently...
with the luxury of time, many hours of research, I am literally sickened by what I know that I didn't 2 weeks ago...
The point is to liberate not eliminate Jerusalem.
The attack will be on Tel Aviv and Haifa.
August 22 : Does Iran Have Something in Store Wall Street Journal ^ | Tuesday, August 8, 2006 4:30 p.m. EDT | BERNARD LEWIS Posted on 08/08/2006 6:52:16 PM EDT by Excellence
there are a lot of pro-hez rallies being held today, lets hope the FReepers out there in counter demonstrations will get as many pics as possible and share them here...
I haven't found any pics of the pro-hez rallies held in Dearborn
the face of evil
Ah, see there is an attitude that a lot of people have that needs to be changed. All these "unrelated" events have one common thread; world wide jihad, with the goal of a global caliphate and the destruction of Israel. Now, I am not saying that Iran was pulling the strings. What I am saying is that they are all tied together with the strings of islamic fascism flowing out of Wahhabism and Iran. Until we deal with the underlying cause, this kind of thing will continue to happen on a regular basis.
I had a mischevious idea this morning. It might be fun to find out that the mahdi is supposed to look like and then get some Elvis impersonator types to start showing up to the excitement of the faithful. Or we could create the illusion of such with Reuters photographers and publish sightings of the mahdi. I don't know how to get around the expectation that he comes out of a certain well, however.
Interesting that August 22nd in the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar is the Feast of the Queenship of Mary. Catholics believe that she is the woman in the book of Revelation whose foot rests on the head of the serpent and is the new Eve.
This is an interesting juxtaposition of two beliefs for me, at least. Let us see the outcome!
Francis
"these "unrelated" events have one common thread; world wide jihad, with the goal of a global caliphate and the destruction of Israel."
then, they're going after the "great satan"...:|
Of course, they're all connected to Islamism, I'm not stupid.
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