Posted on 12/22/2006 4:33:05 AM PST by SJackson
Reflections on the treatment of non-believers by the three great monotheistic religions on their holy days.
But quite unlike the Jewish and Christian religious celebrations of Hanukkah and Christmas, if you are a non-Muslim, don’t plan on investigating the mysteries of Islam by joining your Muslim friends on their trip to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj – you’re not invited.
Perhaps no better contrast between Judaism, Christianity and Islam exists than the treatment of non-believers on the respective holy days of each religion. I recall fondly the many times that I have participated in the Passover seder at the invitation of Jewish friends and have each time been awed at the profound meaning attached to every element of the seder which is designed to illustrate the fascinating historical narrative of the Jewish people over the millennia that is the foundation of both the Christian and Islamic faiths.
I also remember the occasion several years ago when a Chinese friend of mine who was finishing his PhD at Ohio State joined my family and I for our Christmas Eve celebrations. After joining us for worship, he told us with tears in his eyes how that was the first time that he had ever heard the gospel message that Jesus Christ had come into the world to save sinners – a message that had been branded as counter-revolutionary and been outlawed in his own country. Needless to say, we were delighted when he joined us again the following year for Christmas Eve, where he was anxious to tell anyone at church who would listen how he had embraced the free offer of the gospel and become a Christian the previous year. Having returned home to China, my friend is now a leader in the underground Church there.
But if I wanted to join my Muslim friends next week on the Hajj, I would have to bear in mind that my reception would not be as friendly. I would be forbidden to bring my Bible or any Christian literature with me on my trip to Saudi Arabia, and be required to remove anything identifiably Christian from my person (crosses, etc.). There are no Christian churches allowed in the “Land of the Two Mosques”, so there would be no opportunity for me to join with fellow Christians there in our weekly celebration of the Lord’s Day, and I would constantly be under watch by the Wahhabi Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice police to ensure that I didn’t share my Christian faith with anyone else.
Even having arrived in Saudi Arabia and complying with the absolute ban of any expression of my faith, as I approached the holy city of Mecca, I would be denied entry. Despite all of the supposed Quranic endorsements of the “People of the Book” (i.e. Jews and Christians), as a kafir, my presence is not welcome at the Hajj. We should remember that the cardinal offense that prompted Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda lackeys to declare war on the “Crusaders and Zionists” in 1996 was the presence of American troops in the Arabian Peninsula, though nowhere near the sacred cities of Mecca or Medina.
For Muslims in the West, they have as much freedom as any other to practice their faith openly and freely without any fear of being molested. The number of mosques popping up all over America is a testament to that freedom.
Such is not the case for Jews and Christians in Islamic lands, however, where people of those faiths are subject to countless acts of intimidation and violence on a daily basis. Even in their synagogues and sanctuaries, believers are not immune from attack. In fact, many are prevented from approaching their own holy sites. In the Holy Land, Muslims occupy the Temple Mount – the historic location of the ancient Jewish Temple – and Jewish worshippers are subject to regular assaults by stone-throwing Muslim crowds at the nearby Wailing Wall and other sacred sites. And it was the mere presence of a Jew – Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon – near the Temple Mount in September 2000 that sparked the second intifada that has claimed the lives of hundreds of Jews, Christians and Muslims in recent years. Jews have also been forbidden from visiting the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron – Judaism’s second-most holy site – since it was converted to a mosque in 1266.
And earlier this month Turkish authorities feared that Pope Benedict might take the opportunity while touring the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul – one of the greatest churches in the world that was seized by Muslims after 1,000 years of constant use by Christians – that he might actually try to pray there.
It isn’t just the Hagia Sophia that has suffered the inglorious fate of being converted from its original use as a Christian church to be taken over by invading Islamic forces and made into a mosque. In her book, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam. From Jihad to Dhimmitude, Bat Ye’or chronicles how innumerable Christian and Jewish holy sites, such as the Church of St. John in Damascus that was demolished by the Islamic Caliph Abd al-Malik in 705 and had the Umayyad Mosque built over it, were taken over for the exclusive use for Islamic worship during the constant waves of Islamic conquest. It is worth noting that even the Kabaa, the central location of worship in Mecca, was seized by Mohammad from non-Muslims.
Getting back to my original point – one of the constant complaints of Muslim apologists is that Westerners just don’t understand Islam. Fair enough; but is that entirely the fault of non-Muslims who are shut out of Islam’s most important rituals? And might it be the case that those of us, Christians and Jews alike, who are angered at the treatment of our brethren in Islamic lands do so not because of our alleged “Islamophobia”, but rather on the basis of real grievances?
As former President Jimmy Carter travels the country promoting his book identifying Israel as an apartheid state because they refuse to capitulate to Palestinian terrorism, perhaps he might take some time and try to join his Wahhabi patrons during the Hajj this year and see what religious apartheid is really all about. While believers and non-believers alike will enjoy the Hanukkah and Christmas holidays, the invitation for Jews and Christians to join their Muslim friends and neighbors for the Hajj this year didn’t get lost in the holiday mail. It was never sent.
Having a politically correct Gestapo running around telling us what we cannot say is no different than giving in to the enemy...
If "Allah" is omnipotent, then Mecca would be impervious to attack...
out = our
sorry . . .
Yes. And it has been discussed on this forum many, many times.
I am at work and can't engage much. I'll ping my sweetie who is well able to lay out the moral facts. Of course, lots (most?) folks, including many Freepers are not interested in such. But, imo, "Kill 'em all and let God sort them out" is not a tactic a Christian can ever support.
When exactly did 'islamic' become a race?
L
Islamists are NOT non-combatants. They are commanded by their 'god' to fight us to the point of death, conversion or enslavement.
We can quibble about definitions. Deliberate targeting of non combatants is a war crime. Even if it can be "justified" and rationalized until the cows come home, it is still and always be a war crime.
Now, you can throw out all the rules and conventions (as our enemy has) if you wish to assume moral equivalency with them. I hope that never happens.
I got to agree with you.
The vast majority of Muslims are sheep.
The Koran is a book that is simply full of contradictions.
And Islam is a decentralized religion.
Thus any self-promoting Muslim can get on a soapbox and instantly gain many followers by claiming his way is the way of the Koran. Thus no one can oppose this self-promoting Muslim, otherwise he will claim that you are violating the Koran. And the sheep follow the self-promoters without any questions.
However, the sheep go to Mecca on their own. And the genocide associated with eliminating 0.1% of the Muslim sheep by nuking Mecca will simply bolster the ranks of the militant groups.
Unlike the show of resolve at Hiroshima that saved millions of lives, a Mecca nuke would simply be vindictive.
This just might be the last relatively peaceful Hajj to occur. I expect a year from now, you will have the Shia and the Sunni factions of Islam firmly at each other's throats, and Saudi Arabia is going to feel the full force of that. If we withdraw to just outside of Iraq, we can start this process happening there, just as it's happening in Gaza and Lebanon.
If the result is dead muzzies at each others' hands, how can that be wrong for us in the long run?
What I seriously wonder is what mohamedans would believe if the kaaba and it's surrounding mosque ceased to exist.
When I was growing up, the Episcopal Church we attended used to invite one of the few Jewish families in town to come and have a seder right in the church.
We lived in a small town in a rural area of southern culture and it never occurred to me this was anything unusual or special until many years later. The family in question had 3 daughters about my age and other than that one night they were just regular kids like us (except the one in my class was a pretty good track & field athlete if memory serves). But that one night they were like a wondrous doorway to 3200 years of history.
I wish someone would invite me! I believe in the Passover and would love to attend a seder. Alas...I don't know anyone that's Jewish.
I *did*, however, participate in a Hanukkah celebration once. Many years ago, when I was working as nurse in a head trauma (long term) rehab center, I took care of a Jewish lady. I came in and found a small...I guess you would call it a "kit", with everything you needed to celebrate the lighting of the lights, including a card with what you were supposed to say each evening. So I set it all up and every evening I would light the appropriate candle (she helped with instructions) and read the section on the card for that evening. By the end of those days, all the patients in the place and most of the staff would join us and observe.
I don't know if it was valid...but it's one of my most fondest memories as a nurse. The facility was all windows on the east and west sides and we would light those candles as the sun sank behind the horizon. I'll never forget it.
Hajj:
Gathering point for murders, that's all.
Your response was coined by a Catholic Bishop, IIRC during a crusade against European heretics.
In fact, targeting civilians itself is not genocide but a time honored means of sapping the other guy's will and ability to fight.
It was suppressed in western warfare for some time while set piece battles determined results.
It was stunningly brought home by Sherman, I don't remember any tales from WWI (more set piece/stalemate battles) and returned, perhaps by accident, in WWII.
However, genocide has so much greater meaning that it is almost sinful to allege that they are the same.
Genocide relates to an entire people (European Jewry, Rwandan Tutsi...). 'Targeting civilians' relates to local populations, generally believed to have strategic value to the enemy (Tokyo, Berlin, London..).
.Even 'ethnic cleansing' falls short unless you want to consider it to be a regional genocide (Serbs, Gypsies, Hmong...).
That said, aside from collateral damage such as the apartment block Hezbollah selected for its rocket launchers, civilians should not be targeted on the core western belief that they are not participants themselves. (which explains the Geneva rules we are ignoring today - if you ain't in a uniform and take up arms against me, you're fair game and NO protections apply.)
There's also the simple reality that, if it does not terrify them into abject surrender (dhimmitude), it can really piss-off the civilians and seriously complicate things if you manage to best their army.
Yep! Kinda like that!
I don't know where it came from...maybe her family left it there or someone from a local synagogue? I don't know.
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“We live in a wondrous time in which the strong is weak because of his moral scruples and the weak grows strong because of his audacity.”
Otto von Bismarck
you don't understand Islam. Live in Saudi Arabia for some time, not in the expat enclaves, but outside and you will see.
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