In Egypt, government over-reaction reached new heights when it ordered the killing of all pigs. This was an easy call for the Muslim-run Egyptian government. The pigs in question were largely raised by the Coptic Christian minority community in Egypt, which unlike Muslims, consume pork as part of their diet. To be sure that the edict was based on religious bias, we need look no further than the latest fatwa issued by a prominent Egyptian Muslim cleric:
A new fatwa published in Egypt determines that the source of all the existing pigs in the world is Jews, who were cursed by Allah. The new edict was issued by Sheikh Ali Osman from the Egyptian Waqf ministry.Of course, Jews also forbid the consumption of pork by tradition because it comes from an animal that does not chew its own cud and has a cloven hoof.
Due to their Jewish roots, Sheikh Osman says, it is permissible to slaughter all the pigs. The religious scholar was quoted as saying by a Jordanian newspaper that he personally believes the source of the pigs is Jews and thus the consumption of pork meat is banned in Islam.
I grew up on a hog farm in Illinois. I met a lot of hog farmers during that time, but I don't recall ever meeting a Jewish hog farmer. Does Sheik Osman know something the rest of us don't know? Or is this just the latest example of Islamic extremist intolerance of other religions.
Hat tip to Atlas Shrugs.
9 comments:
Not quite -- pigs don't chew their cud and that's why they're unclean. And pork is not unclean by tradition, it's explicitly banned by the Old Testament.
Sorry, I knew that. I just said it the reverse of what I meant.
Gary, keep in mind that the radical among Islam are little different than the radical among Christianity. Neither are truly representative of their faith and both receive plenty of attention because of their outlandish broadcasts benefit the agenda of folks who control the broadcasts. I can think of several prominant bible yielding examples in the US who have audiences in the millions, yet their dogma has very little in common with Christianity.
But... since we're on the swine virus/pig fear subject, I think I've got you beat:
"Afghanistan's only pig quarantined in flu fear"
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE5444XQ20090505
Shorebreak, What I'm really getting tired of is people in the U.S. comparing fundamentalist Christians to Islamic extremists. Show me organized efforts from within the Christian right to carry out terrorist acts on American soil and elsewhere around the world. Even those on the far right of Christianity advocate hating the sin and not the sinner. This same thing cannot be said of Islamic extremists.
From Jonathan Turley's blog today:
"The Saudi Arabian legal system has given the world yet another medieval moment: Judge Hamad Al-Razine has ruled that husbands are allowed to slap their wives for over-spending or excessive shopping.
Judge Hamad Al-Razine held that “if a person gives SR 1,200 [$320] to his wife and she spends 900 riyals [$240] to purchase an abaya [the black cover that women in Saudi Arabia must wear] from a brand shop and if her husband slaps her on the face as a reaction to her action, she deserves that punishment.”
The judge was explaining why there was an increase in allegations of domestic abuse and why women shared some of the responsibility for these cases, noting that “women’s indecent behavior and use of offensive words against their husbands were some of the reasons for domestic violence in the country.”
He handles abuse cases in Saudi Arabia."
Gary – The reason it's become fashionable in the US to hate Islam is because Islam has been demonized in the media for decades prior to our planned invasion of Afghanistan. Why have they been demonized? Simple. It's easier to kill someone who's been dehumanized.
Christian terrorists? Hate the sin, not the sinner? Are you sure you’re talking about the same Christians I’ve studied? Does The Spanish Inquisition ring a bell? How about the Ku Klux Klan? Ever heard of them? What about Christian Identity? Or Army of God? Hell, if we’re going to get real honest, what says you about the Nazi’s? That party was grown based upon “Christian Nationalism” espoused by Hitler as their foundational tenet. Did we forget about that? Of course we can’t forget everyone’s favorites over in Northern Ireland – the Provos and the IRA. That’s the Protestants and the Catholics killing each other for Jesus.
Hate the sin, not the sinner? Nope. I highly doubt it. In fact, I could probably walk you down to the closest Christian church near your house and find you a handful of members who would agree that Tehran should be nuked – making the Spanish Inquisition look like amateur day.
And FYI – If you’re starting to wonder what kind of prejudice I have against Christianity, I don’t. My prejudice is against bias and clouded reasoning. Anyone who would espouse nuking a city of innocents is NOT a Christian – even if they focus 100% of their non-homicidal thoughts on prayer, salvation, and the Holy Trinity.
If we want to discuss threats by radical Islamists, maybe we should discuss the roots of militant radical Islam. Where did radical Islam originate? We don’t need to look very far to find our answers:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5339-2002Mar22?language=printer
“In the twilight of the Cold War, the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.
The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code.“
“During the Taliban era, censors purged human images from the books. One page from the texts of that period shows a resistance fighter with a bandolier and a Kalashnikov slung from his shoulder. The soldier's head is missing.
Above the soldier is a verse from the Koran. Below is a Pashtu tribute to the mujaheddin, who are described as obedient to Allah. Such men will sacrifice their wealth and life itself to impose Islamic law on the government, the text says.“
“Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtu, the textbooks were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies. The agency spent $51 million on the university's education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994.”
http://www.saag.org/common/uploaded_files/paper1487.html
“The text-books prepared at the instance of the CIA taught the students that it was their religious obligation to wage a jihad against the Soviets and their stooges. The same text-books are now being used after appropriate revisions to tell the students of their religious obligation to kill the Americans and their stooges.” - B.Raman, Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi
Prior to 2001 we had more than two decades of solid radical training of Islamists in Pakistan and Afghanistan, courtesy of dedicated US policy. During the same timeframe, the US media has demonized Islam and portrayed Muslims as evil, violent, and uneducated. It’s covered accurately and extensively here - if you’re willing to experience new truth:
http://www.soundvision.com/shop/pview.asp?item=4499-014
If you’re skeptical, the book is published by Olive Branch Press, whose Mission Statement is:
“We endeavor to glorify and serve God, by educating, edifying and entertaining His people. We will do this by providing quality materials that help to develop a Biblical worldview. We desire to be used by God to draw non-believers into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and believers to a closer walk with Him”.
And what did we get out of the US funded radicalization of Central Asia, and the Hollywood approach of propagandizing us to believe that Islam is evil?
Out of the ashes of 9/11 we were delivered a pre-planned invasion of Afghanistan. When CIA asset Osama bin Laden was blamed for 9/11 at about 9:30 am on Sept. 11, it solidified public support for an invasion that would have otherwise angered the American people. That invasion was recommended four years earlier by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who lamented that it would never get public support without a recognizable external threat. Brzezinski had been instrumental in establishing US financing of activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan 20 years earlier – when the seeds of Jihad were planted.
Here's the truth behind the "Islam crisis": 99.99% of Americans are 100% unqualified to comment on what it is or how it should be engaged. Why? Because 99.99% have no basis to respond outside of what they have been told by a lying media.
Is there a real Jihadist threat? Absolutely. It was seeded and grown for the purpose of justifying the need for US strategic preponderance over Central Asia – the economic hub between Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Is that too hard a pill to swallow? If so I recommend the following short read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
The examples of Christian extremism you offer, Shorebreak, are not from contemporary American history. The American government has made some grave errors in judgment in its dealings with the Islamic world, but the American government's mistakes shouldn't be confused with Christianity as our government has a clear separation of church and state matters, unlike Islamic nations. Quite to the contrary that it is fashionable in America to hate Islams, American liberals continuously demonize Christians in this nation at every turn while ignoring the human rights atrocities committed daily around the world in the Islamic world. Americans don't have to make up propaganda stories about the extremist tendencies of Islam. The followers of the religion put it out there front and center on a daily basis through their actions. And by the way, Hitler was not a church-going, devout Christian by any stretch of the imagination. He often commented to his colleagues that he would have had better success if Christians were more like Muslims in the zealot pursuit of their ideology.
Shorebreak, last time I checked it was the extremist Muslim political movement that produced soap operas depicting Jews making matza ball soup out of the blood of Muslim children. I don't recall Americans strong-arming anybody into strapping a bomb onto a kid with Down's Syndrome and sending that child into a market and blowing them up.
If the KKK or the World Church of the Creator had grown so large that they were shaping foreign policy all over the world than this debate of extremist Christian vs. extremist Muslim would carry some water.
Shorebreak, some of the tactics and philosophies employed by many militant Islam groups today can be traced back to the Abassid Caliphate, which predates the modern English language. Saying that we are somehow responsible for creating this monster is... curious.
It is foolish to lump mainstream Islam in with the murdering brand of thugs and sociopaths that have co-opted a religion because of the influence that it carries in people's lives. It is equally foolish to suggest that there is any other religion in the entire world right now which has more violent splinter sects (the debate over what does and doesn't qualify as "Islam" or "Christian" notwithstanding.)
I can't speak to the Western political influences you've cited, but I can tell you unequivocally that these problems have been around a lot longer than we have.
Jason, I created a long response to your comments but I'm not certain there's enough capital in this discussion to merit posting it. I'll close by saying that for the most part we're in agreement. My primary concern is that most people act as though we haven't been manipulated into war with Islamic nations via lies and deceptions, often using Islam as a tool to hit the core psyche elements that are historical methodologies to drag a benign population into war. When we put the blinders on, whether passively or actively, we are opened to manipulation. That's why we have kids dying and being maimed overseas. We've been manipulated for an unpatriotic agenda.
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