Jeffrey Weiss in the Dallas Morning News (thanks to The Frozen Ghost), with reference to dhimmi academic John Esposito, explains that the Qur'an toilet riots are understandable once one realizes what Muslims think of the Qur'an:
"It's not like just knocking down a religious leader or a priest or a rabbi," said John Esposito, a professor at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University.Muslim tradition holds that the Quran is more than a sacred book: It's the physical embodiment of the literal words of God that were dictated to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel about 1,300 years ago. The book is held in even higher regard by many Muslims than most Christians have for the physical form of the Bible.
For traditional Muslims, a Quran used for prayer can't be written in, can't be placed on the floor and can't be put beneath other books. Particularly observant Muslims will keep it on a high shelf. It's never supposed to be brought into a bathroom.
Reverence for the book itself is even higher for religiously conservative, illiterate Muslims, said Nazif Shahrani, an anthropologist at Indiana University who grew up in Afghanistan. The mystery of the unreadable Arabic gives the text an additional sacred aura, he said.
"It's kept in the nicest place in the house and wrapped in the nicest cloth," he said. "The Quran is not a book. It's comparable to the body of Christ for Christians."
Fair enough. Then why weren't there riots among Christians when EBay auctioned off a consecrated host?
Mostly secular American culture has no easy equivalent or outrage, experts say.Think of burning the flag. Or desecration of the Catholic host. Or the 1980s sculpture Piss Christ – a crucifix placed in a jar with urine and lamb's blood.
Again: who has been killed for burning the flag? Who was killed for that obnoxious 1980s sculpture?
Christian history includes a time when treatment of the Bible was a cause of political and religious outrage.John Wycliffe hand-wrote the first English translation of the Bible in the 1380s. His work so upset the Vatican that, after his death, his bones were exhumed and thrown into a river. William Tyndale was responsible for the publication of the first printed English Bibles in the 1500s. He was convicted of heresy and burned at the stake.
This is a particularly scurrilous example of theological equivalence. Wycliffe and Tyndale were not murdered by angry mobs. Nor were innocent, uninvolved people murdered by mobs angry at the deeds of Wycliffe and Tyndale. I am not approving of the killings of Wycliffe and Tyndale. I am pointing out that there is just no comparison to the Qur'an toilet murders.
Intense passion and reverence for religious objects has largely left Western culture, Dr. Espositio said, leaving many Americans mystified at last week's violent demonstrations.But anybody who has been paying attention to Islam in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks should have realized the Newsweek report was likely to stir up trouble, he said. The explanation by Newsweek's editors that they could not have anticipated the response compounds the insult to many Muslims – and may not even be believed, he said.
"We never seem to learn," he said.
Yes, Professor. We never seem to learn. If only we would learn that these are unhinged people who will kill innocents over a perceived slight, we would do anything to avoid offending them.
It is a blot on the careers of both Weiss and Esposito that they, like so many others, dare not point out how outrageously unjust -- and simply mad -- the Qur'an toilet murders are. After all, to do so might offend them.
This is exactly why they need to be kept over in the Middle East and Africa, and kept out of modern society.
"dhimmi academic John Esposito"...accurate description of Esposito.
For those who might not know anything about Esposito, check out this Stanley Kurtz article on NRO:
http://www.nationalreview.com/contributors/kurtz120301.shtml
Exposing Esposito
How the academy infected intelligence.
Mr. Kurtz is also a fellow at the Hudson Institute
December 3, 2001 8:15 a.m.
he refusal of the American academy to squarely face the terrorist threat to the United States — either before or since September 11 — will redound to its everlasting shame. Yet there is reason to believe that the academy's multiculturalist blinders represent more than a sad and silly waste of intellectual energy — more, even, than the spiritual corruption of a generation of America's youth. There is reason to believe that the reigning multiculturalist foolishness of the American academy may be directly connected to the intelligence failure that led to September 11.
A report that the Clinton state department may have actually stopped our government from accepting vital intelligence on Osama bin Laden's activities offered by the government of Sudan raises a disturbing possibility. According to the report, a "politicized" state department passed up the opportunity to receive critical intelligence on bin Laden, simply because that intelligence did not fit the department's "conventional wisdom." But what was conventional wisdom at the state department, and where did it come from? Quite possibly it came from one John Esposito — the most prominent contemporary American scholar of Islam. Esposito has long been an advocate of political power for Islamic fundamentalists, and during the Clinton years Esposito served as a foreign-affairs analyst for the Near East and South Asia branch of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the state department. Esposito's bad advice may have had a great deal to do with the state department's foolish refusal even to look at critical intelligence on Osama bin Laden's activities.
Esposito's story has only recently been brought to public attention by Martin Kramer's extraordinarily important book, Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America. (For my own account of Kramer's book, click here.) Esposito's clever adaptation of Edward Said's "post-colonial" theory holds that the political program of Islamic fundamentalism is in fact democratic, and that it is only our narrow Western definition of democracy that refuses to see this. For Esposito, those who see "democratic" Islamic fundamentalism as a threat to America's security are simply repeating, in a new form, the simple-minded anti-Communist prejudice of the Cold War era. So for fear of playing into America's alleged proclivity for racist prejudice, Esposito and his followers, for years, have simply refused to study Islamic terrorism. Most especially, they have refused to study Osama bin Laden and his influence in the Islamic world, even going so far as to condemn those scholars and government officials who have long taken the threat from bin Laden seriously.
More at NRO:
http://www.nationalreview.com/contributors/kurtz120301.shtml
If I immerse a Koran in a jar of urine for a non-representational work of art, should I use the micturation of a menstruating woman for greatest 'desecration' effect?
I tried flushing one down the toilet. Who do I sent the plumbing bill to? Saudi Arabia?
As dogmatic Muslims must surely realize:
"The only thing we have to fear is humor itself."
Yes Mr. Esposito; the rest of the world must tip toe through the mind fields of Islamic sensitivities to avoid that never ending call for jihad against those of us who are part of the dar al harb. That is because all other religions are clearly held in contempt through the teachings in the suras, and the hadith. Yes the people of the book as you call Christians are part of what you refer to as the (tahrif) -- the Bible that was corrupted by Christians, and Jews and the Quran has made it right. I for one am tired of hearing anyone calling Islam the Religion of Peace. I do hope I never hear President Bush, or Condi Rice use that description ever again for it so false and pretentous to hear it.
I have never been so disappointed to hear the talking heads of TV and radio, (many of which I have had great respect for their comments)bending over backwards the past few days trying to apologize and appease the mad ragings of muslims over the possible desecration of the Quran at Gtmo. And yet the Ideology of Islam preaches hate and contempt for Christians and Jews at every turn. I for one am becoming increasingly sick of the hypocrisy that is Islam . They thumb their noses at us everyday and they say it is okay to practice taquiya and kitman whenever dealing with us infidels and any non-muslims , they embrace death instead of life , they defile and denegrate women , they kill their own without compunction of any kind . Witness the daily murderous assaults in the name of Allah at over 100 to one of their fellow muslims in Iraq compared to coalition troops, witness Hamas that calls even the children of Israel potential military combatants' and considers them acceptable targets of terrorism, witness the ugly attacks on the school children in Beslan. The never ending oppression and terrorism and murderous acts of Muslims from Mindanao to Spain can not be rationalized anymore . ----Eventually There will have to be a line drawn in the sand!
Don't people like Esposito and Koran Armstrong realize that every time they open their mouths they become perfect role models for dhimmitude? (I'll also add Thomas Friedman as a dhimmi with his 'mock' outrage in today's column against the Newsweek riots. Not once has Friedman ever criticize Islam itself as the cause to much of the unrest in the Islamic world. He believes that Lexus autos and the internet will solve the problems)
How many examples of death, rape, riots, etc, do they need before they see the ugly truths about Islam? Is this asking too much?
" The book is held in even higher regard by many Muslims than most Christians have for the physical form of the Bible."
Who said? It is just because they think they are the holders of the "truth". Christians are nothing to muslims.
So much for freedom of speech.
See, I happen to think that Islam is a false religion, founded by an egomaniacal madman, a sex fiend, a murderer and racist all rolled into one.
Therefore I have no truck with Mahomet's "holy book." And what happens to it in a prisoner-of-war camp in Cuba is about as significant to me as what might have happened to a copy of Mein Kampf in Germany during the Battle of the Bulge.
But now we are expected to "think 101 times" before doing anything that might hurt the feelings of a Moslem. So everyone from Condoleeza on down is required to insert the obligatory adjective "holy" in front of the word "Koran" - whether we believe it or not.
What lily-livered, pusillanimous, sickeningly false piety.
Ptui!
Koran is not a book? Really? Curious.
A blot on John Esposito's credibility? I didn't think such a thing was possible -- he's already completely doused in several layers of thick dark India ink. Only Karen Armstrong is more slavish in her devotion to Islamapologetics.
Funny that for Esposito to compare Islam to Christianity, he has to use Islam TODAY with Christianity of 500 YEARS AGO.
A report that the Clinton state department may have actually stopped our government from accepting vital intelligence on Osama bin Laden's activities offered by the government of Sudan raises a disturbing possibility.
Sigh... here we go again.
Do you remember the Presidential Daily Briefing Dub got while on his month-long vacaction (after 7 months of "work")? Condi Rice said it was titled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike In The US."
Do you really believe that the (Arab, Muslim, Jihadi) leaders of Sudan would turn over the Arab, Muslim, Jihadi that gave them so much money?
Do you recall that "we" gave the Taliban 43 MILLION dollars in April 2001?
Do you know that there are at least several dozen weblogs dedicated solely to criticizing liberals?Please keep your petty, little, childish political ramblings out of here, so I don't have to answer you. Or to put it another way, don't tell lies about liberals and I won't tell the truth about conservatives.
********************************************
Carolyn2, you're not quiiite right there. Let me help you:
It is just because they think they are the holders of the "truth". Non-Muslims are nothing to muslims.
Alas Carolyn2, this is a common theme for fools:
They think that they KNOW they are right; wise people know that they THINK they are right.
And when will we ever learn the horrible, irrational, explosive, potential for violence that lurks in those who take the Qur'an and Sunnah seriously.
(A repost)
Try to imagine the unimaginable: Americans en mass torching mosques, killing Muslims, issuing threats against Muslims around the world, because a Pakistani newspaper reported that an American flag had been urinated on while al Quaeda interrogated a captured airman.
And in the aftermath of these riots, try to imagine the debate in Muslim media on journalistic ethics.
And now picture reality: the airman would be tortured and then beheaded in a ritual inspired by the Qur'an; the beheading would be broadcast on the Internet, not to offend Americans, but to aid in recruitment for Jihad; the beheading would be viewed as a truimph worthy of bragging rights and have a tantalizing appeal to millions of Muslims worldwide.
Nothing could be more befitting than the title of "quran toilet murders" for this whole shameful incident. The quran and toilet belong together.
The thing that people like Esposito refuse to comprehend, is that an increasing number of people don't give a rat's *ss about the so-called sensitivites of Muslims.
Rather than bleating on about how offensive we are to Muslims, lets have a discussion about how offensive Muslims are to us.
I am totally offended at the sight of veiled women on the streets of Sydney. Australian women fought hard for the right to enter professions, to be paid equally to men, and to be treated as equals. Yet apparently we do not have the right to be offended by imported women dressed as medieval slaves and subservient to males.
I am totally offended by the backward and ignorant attitude of Muslims to almost every facet of the modern world.
I am totally offended that they seem to think they have the right to come to our countries and dictate to us.
I am totally offended that they have a very obvious agenda to change our laws to suit themselves - and if that doesnt work, to seethe and whine and claim discrimination.
But the thing that offends me most is Esposito-like dhimmitude. That people like this coward think they have the right to chastise others who refuse to tiptoe through life worrying about Muslim sensibilities.
I would guess that many Americans are 'mystified' at the behaviour of religious Fascists who are willing to die because of an unsubstantiated story. He says that this reverence and 'outrage' for 'holy' objects has largely left Western culture - thank God for that.
When it never enters your mind to riot and shed blood on every possible occasion, it means that you are capable of rational thought, therefore you are probably civilised.
I have believed for a long time that many Muslims are clinically insane - but what is the explanation for the blindness and moral cowardice of the Espositos of the world, who are traitors to their own culture.
If I had my way, I would throw them to the fanatics - see how sympathetic to Islam they are then.
They compared Quran to body of Christ !!!! How outrageous !!! Quran tells Christians are offsprings of rats and pigs !! And no Christian will protest against this stupid article !!
The explanation for the Espositos of the world is that they loathe our culture and society so much, they can't help but slavishly worship other cultures and societies. Make excuses for them. Revere them. Promote them over ours. They are just as clinically insane as their pet Muslims.
DianaC-
A huntress!
If only we could get the Islamic fanatics to rid the West of those IN the West trying to undermine the West! (Ward Churchill, your tenure is up!)
But they usually kill hapless flight attendants, or a luckless guy going to Iraq to try to build communication towers, or simple truck drivers delivering supplies, or passing schoolkids.
Malicious fools like Esposito, et al, blather onward toward the apocalypse -that they assist in the delivery of- through their tedious and frankly unbelievable blindness.
Cato the Elder, you may be mistaken in youre comment that Islam isnt a religion.....its is....a religion that worships Satan as far as i can see....they worship a "deity" that seems to love war, murder, rape,pillage, enslavement, lies, beheadings, kidnappings, sex with children....anything i missed??....this kind of stuff seems to be just what the devil loves his followers to do....so they do have a religion....its called Satanism.....get out the cross and call for the Exorsist....theres gonna be lots of pea soup being vomited up over there in the Middle east when we come to our senses and do what needs to be done....waking the Muslims of the world up to the fact that they dont worship God, but the Devil himself.....nuff said
The only way to deal with Esposito and the other clowns like him (cant throw them to the fanatics, more's the pity) is to call them publically on every idiotic thing they say.
I did this on a personal level - until recently I worked in a department filled with feral lefties who had never had an original thought since their university days. I did it without any kind of aggression, simply by questioning every single thing they claimed - eg, during the huge public debate in Australia on illegal immigration (of course they were all for allowing those poor Muslim 'refugees' to enter Australia at will) I asked exacly when they would draw the line. Do we allow all the millions of would-be Muslim immigrants into the country?
It made them think, because obviously the line has to be drawn somewhere, especially in a country like Australia with our limited resources and small population, because they would outnumber us in no time... Question: I want to draw the line now, you want to draw the line in 10 years time when we become like France or Sweden. So that makes me a racist and you a humanitarian?
And they refused to acknowledge that the whole thing was a money-making scam by the Indonesians - how did these 'refugees' get into Indonesia without documentation? Answer : they didnt. They destroyed their papers when Australian Navy ships appeared. Real refugees would be only too happy to prove themselves - ergo, these boat people were not genuine refugees.
It takes patience and its very annoying, but forcing people to question their lock-step thinking often works. Particularly when they can see the damage being done to this county by Muslim immigrants. Whether or not they admit to it, they see it.
The fact of the matter is that the Islamic world has been on the boil for quite a while before 9/11. None of the Islamic countries had an especially successful past two centuries; and even those wealthy with oil seem incapable of producing anything else.
DianaC--I'm not particularly offended by the hijab or burqaa. I remember a lot of Chinese Asia in which the shrill market ladies in trousers would be quite shy and bashful when encountering a strange man anywhere else. Every culture has its times and places for different things. I'm not about to condemn some woman for wearing shorts and a halter while weeding her garden in plain sight of the neighbors; but I'm not going to throw rocks at a woman who looks like an ambulatory tent, either.
Also, when it comes to refugees, not all leave their countries as part of a deal where they are documented and allowed exit after paying outrageously large fees to their persecutors (as happened to the Jews in the Third Reich). Many are simply pushed over borders by violence of various kinds. I certainly agree that there is a large market for fraudulent documents, especially in SE Asia, immigration scams, and everything else; but there are also people who escape with only the clothes on their backs, too. The immigration authorities in any country that wishes to be both just and humanitarian therefore face exceptionally difficult tasks.
Kepha, lately Aussies are feeling more offended by the hijab because of what some grub by the name of Sheikh Faiz was caught saying about women who don't wear them. Basically he said they deserve rape if they wear Western style clothing, makeup and keep fit. That explains the Sydney rapes quite nicely. We asked ourselves why? Now we know. They're taught to think that way.
I never found them offensive in the past, but now I do. It seems that it's not about the wearer being modest or shy, but a sign that the rest of us, who don't wear it, are whores. That's what I find offensive. That in MY country, I have to put up with disgusting and threatening gestures, looks and words, by Muslim men who've been taught that women, who aren't dressed like something out of another century, another country, do not deserve respect.
Kepha - the bukha and the hajib offend me because I dont regard them as religious dress, but as a statement of political belief and disapproval of Western culture. The hijab was invented in Iran in the 1970s, to show opposition to the west and support for an Islamic government. The burkha, to most Australians, is so alien thats its almost comical.
There is a case in Sydney right now, where the Education Dept. backed down to an Iraqi girl who began to wear a mantoo to school. The unform code of that school had been arrived at after consultation with the Muslim community (why? Australian schools are supposedly secular, so why is the state government bending over to appease Muslims? School is about learning, not making political or religious statements).
But this girl wasnt satisfied with normal Australian tolerance - she proceeded to threaten the dept. and they caved in. Now other girls are following her example - but are they really doing this of their own free will, or they being forced to take part in a bizarre 'my-daughter-is-purer-than-yours scenario. Most people seem to think that she should take her mantoo and her 7th century ideas and go back to Baghdad.
This is why many people find Muslims so offensive - the continual pushing to be made exceptions to the rules everyone else manages to follow.
Yes yes yes & again: YES!!
We think we should be tolerant: Big mistake! They are pushing the mohammedan agenda into everyones face and don't forget:
It's not just a silly headscarf, it is the whole business of segregation, no sports for the girls, no mixed classes, time out for prayer, different food etc. NO! We must not ever give in to let this alien and offensive cult prevail.
Out you go: Don't accept your host country, -your host country doesn't want you: Out you go, free transport on the next containership to Bagdad!
And the phoney explanations:'I wear the veil for Allah'-etc. that just stinks to high heaven. They are being beaten and battered into it, threatened with hellfire in eternity and have to fear that their own family members throw acid in their faces! How can we allow that in our society? Neither must we allow the Arabs into the country who infiltrate us by way of arranged marriages. If that's the way they want to play it, they have to live in their country. They have no right to undermine our society in the way they do!
Yes yes yes & again: YES!!
We think we should be tolerant: Big mistake! They are pushing the mohammedan agenda into everyones face and don't forget:
It's not just a silly headscarf, it is the whole business of segregation, no sports for the girls, no mixed classes, time out for prayer, different food etc. NO! We must not ever give in to let this alien and offensive cult prevail.
Out you go: Don't accept your host country, -your host country doesn't want you: Out you go, free transport on the next containership to Bagdad!
And the phoney explanations:'I wear the veil for Allah'-etc. that just stinks to high heaven. They are being beaten and battered into it, threatened with hellfire in eternity and have to fear that their own family members throw acid in their faces! How can we allow that in our society? Neither must we allow the Arabs into the country who infiltrate us by way of arranged marriages. If that's the way they want to play it, they have to live in their country. They have no right to undermine our society in the way they do!
Was any of the 17 people killed in the riot over using the Koran as toilet paper - anyone of importance?
Or was they just the run of the mill people caught up in the riot and trampled?
Was any of their deaths on purpose?
Thanx - Kleo2x in Anderson, Ca.