Bush gives the war on terror yet another name, indirectly, in another story about the new Zawahri threat: "al-Qaida's No. 2 Threatens London, U.S.," from AP, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Al-Qaida's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, threatened more destruction in London, saying in a videotape broadcast Thursday that British Prime Minister Tony Blair would be to blame.
Of course. In his worldview the Muslim perpetrators are never to blame.
Al-Zawahri also threatened the United States with tens of thousands of military dead if it does not withdraw its troops from Iraq immediately.In Crawford, Texas, President Bush dismissed the threat, saying, "We will stay on the offense against these people. They're terrorists and they're killers and they will kill innocent people ... so they can impose their dark vision on the world."
The tape, aired on the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera, was delivered exactly one month after the July 7 bombings in London that killed 56 people, including four suicide attackers. In the excerpts aired by Al-Jazeera, al-Zawahri did not directly claim that al-Qaida carried out the July 7 or July 21 attacks.
But he brought the July 7 attacks under al-Qaida's wing and depicted the terror network as still capable of delivering strikes around the world despite arrests in Europe and blows against its leadership in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
He presented the attacks as a result of Blair's decision to deploy troops in Iraq.
"Blair has brought to you destruction in central London, and he will bring more of that, God willing," al-Zawahri said in the broadcast excerpts....
"Our message is clear: you will not be safe until you withdraw from our land, stop stealing our oil and wealth and stop supporting the corrupt rulers," al-Zawahri said.
And I've got news for you: judging from the history and theology of jihad, you won't be safe after that, either. But I doubt the appeasers will believe me on that until it is far too late.
For this man to put the blame for the despicable acts his kind have wrought in England and here in America, is laughable if it wasn't so tragic. Tony Blair and the English government has bent over backwards and met themselves as they pampered and allowed the fantantical Muslims enough room to stir up enough hatred that, finally, they began carrying out destruction to the English countryside. They thought, falsely, that if they didn't bother the fanatics, the fanatics would not bother them. They were wrong. Dead wrong.
"stealing our oil...."
If Ayman al-Zawahiri, great-nephew of the Azzam Pasha who was the first Secretary-General of the Arab League, and who promised the Jews in the brand-new state of Israel "a massacre the likes of which would not have been seen since the days of the Mongols" (how quickly the world has forgotten what was meant, and what was attempted, by five Arab armies as they attempted to snuff out the life of the nascent state of Israel when they attacked simultaneously in May 11948), thinks that the West is "stealing oil" by paying $62 a barrel for oil that costs $1 a barrel to lift, and in addition has supplied, and continues to suppy, the disguised Jizyah of of tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid to countries that do not like us, and never can like us, because we are Infidels ($60 billion to Iraq alone, $9 billion just pledged to the "Palestinians" because they seem to have misplaced, at Arafat's death, some $5-$6 billion already received entirely from Infidels), and others -- well, if this constitutes "stealing oil" then perhaps one wonders what Code of Criminal Justice he is reading from? Perhaps what he means is any economic transaction between Muslims and Infidels should cease -- if so, I could not agree with him more, and so should all other kinds of transactions, including easy Muslim access to Western education (ah, those classes in chemistry, in biology, in nuclear physics, not to mention the others in crowd psychology and mass persuasion), to Western technology (yes, I'd like some repairs done on the thousands of Stinger missiles we have as hand-me-downs from the Afghani mujahedin, and I'll take a half-dozen AWACS please, and 60 F-16s, and 800 Bradley Fighting Vehicles -- no actually, why don't you just leave everything behind in Iraq, with an itemized list, and we'll just send you a check once you've gone home -- you do trust us, don't you?), to Western medical care (goodbye, Dana-Farber, Children's Hospital, Mass. General, goodbye Harley Street Specialists, goodbye, Docteur Dupont whom one can see sur rendez-vous at his office just off the Avenue Kleber), and to Western visas and greencards and suchlike.
Parting is such sweet sor... oh, for god's sake, parting is wonderful. Parting is delightful. God, why did we ever have anything to do with you. And why didn't we start taxing oil and gasoline in 1973 when we should have? What fools we have been, what complete fools.
What would the middle East do without our money to buy weapons and build madrassas that teach hate towards all non-muslims. Could we totally withdraw to our abodes and hope they will forget about us because we stopped bothering them ?
Could we operate or would we want to like central American, and South American countries do?
Are we finding dramatic new recources of energy to run our country and become less dependent on Oil? What about the billions of barrels of sweet crude that is just off the west coast of Africa being developed?
How about that Chevey suburban that the Governor of Montana is driving around-- yes its fuel source is made up of 85 percent ethanol vs 8 percent 20 years ago. maybe we will only need the production of oil from Anwar or are main oil supplier Canada--yep you thought it was Saudia Arabia.
Our greatest resource is still our fertile land and our ability to use it more and more wisely.
Of course if the Administration were serious about the Jihad -- if it even understood that this is not a war that will be won, as Bush has repeatedly said it will, if only "Iraq" is "free" (whatever that means) -- it would have had an energy policy that, on a war-footing, would be shifting the money squandered in Iraq to nuclear, solar, and wind energy.
But they are not serious. Or they are insufficiently intelligent. They are locked into something, into an entire narrative, and because the President himself insists on that narrative, no one dares say him nay. Someone should -- someone should go to him and try to explain the real situation. Possibly Rumsfeld is the only one capable of doing it. Rumsfeld must, by now, have more than a clue.
Fool that I am, I had provided qualified support for the war on Iraq in the hopes that it would eventually help to push the region toward democracy and stablity. Sure, Iraq's got some democracy now, but that only played into the hands of the Shiite fundamentalists, and we have more instability in the Mideast than ever before. So, thanks to some good planning at the top, we have an even bigger mess on our hands and bad guys like Zawahri are using the war to their advantage. Sure, we can dress down this guy and his beliefs on sites like this, but that won't slow his recruitment drive down one bit.
Bush would have done far better not to take al-Zawahiri's bait, not to insist, woof-woofing with pavlovian predictability, that whatever al-Zawahiri claims to want, the Americans therefore are bound to do the opposite. If he says we should get out of Iraq, Bush then thinks that of course we cannot possibly get out of Iraq.
Could it be, could it just be, that al-Zawahiri does not know what is good for Islam? That he is not thinking clearly of what would happen to Islam itself, if the Sunni and Shi'a were to be left alone with each other, when the Americans withdraw, or in withdrawing, supply some extra support and equipment to the Kurds?
Why must American foreign policy be defined purely in reaction to the tapes of Ayman al-Zawihiri, a primitive in a cave somewhere, whose own view of the world is not exactly sophisticated, and who has probably given no thought at all to what would happen once the Amricans were to leave, for he may well be as dismissive of the abilities of the Shi'a to resist the Sunnis -- or even to crush them, using methods the Americans would not possibly have contemplated -- and may not imagine that the Americans could possibly manage to exploit Iraq's fissures in order to divide, demoralize, throw into disarray a large part of dar al-Islam, turning non-Muslim Arabs against Muslim Arabs, and turning Shi'a everywhere into far more vocal and aggressive enemies of their ancient persecutors, the Sunnis. Al-Zawahiri, after all, is one of those who like al-Zarqawi does not believe that Shi'a are much more than Infidels.
Forget about al-Zawahiri. Don't bother to reply. Take no notice. Coolly, calmly, prepare to leave Iraq, start leaving the minute that absurd Constitution is presented on August 15, do not listen to the shrill cries of MoveOn.org and the editorials in The New Duranty Times that tell us "we can't leave" and "we owe it to Iraq to stay there and make sure the country is secure." Nuts, as McAuliffe said. Double nuts.
And if things happen naturally, without the "unnatural" intervention of Infidels, and the huge misallocation of their own resources by those Infidels, we may create a permanent Sunni-Shi'a fault line far more dangerous to Islam's wellbeing than the line drawn in 1847 by the Treaty of Erzrum.
It would be good if our vacationing leader would now take the tie to read a few books -- just a few -- about Islam ("The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades" would do nicely; so would "The Dhimmi" and "Islam and Dhimmitude" and "The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam" by Bat Ye'or; so would "Why I Am Not a Muslim" by Ibn Warraq).
And here is my Round-Midnight proposal: a bus should be chartered, and a few dozen citizens of this country should, with as much fanfare as possible, take that bus down to Crawford, Texas, with boxes of books for the President's Reading. And let journalists accompany the bus, and the books -- this Bookmobile that will, if he reads those books, result in lives saved, money saved, equipment saved, morale saved.
Yes, the Citizen's Bookmobile, determined to educate Our Leader. It should embarrass not just him, but the American media. It is intended to embarrass. It is intended to ask them a question: what do you know about Islam, and when, for god's sake, do you intend to know it?
Otherwise what will he do? He will respond, react, in the absolutely predictable and silly way, to Al-Zawahiri or Bin Laden or anyone of that ilk. He will jog, ride, play with the reporterss at pseudo-cowboy git-along-little-dogie-git-along, and continue to clench his jaw in order to emphasize his resolve to stay the course, that course which means nothing -- what course? leading to what, exactly? --- except more time wasted more American lives wasted (many of them the lives of people far superior, in every way, to those who make the policy that results in those deaths, and who have proven themselves too lazy, too negligent, too ready to keep mouthing the same empty platitudes about how "everyone wants freedom," to actually learn about Islam, about its tenets and its attitudes and its atmospherics (or learn about it from one or two favored "experts" such as Lewis, who has a long record of insufficient appreciation for the malevolence of Muslims toward non-Muslims, and whose vanity, whose desire to continue to "bestride two worlds like a colossus" and keep the favor of his Turkish friends and Hashemite hosts, have caused him to grossly exaggerate, and in so doing flatly contradict his own earlier opinions, the possibility for democracy in Islam). And then you have to learn about Iraq, and about the Sunni-Shi'a split that did not begin yesterday, and will not end tomorrow -- indeed, is far graver now, after the regime of Saddam Hussein, after 80 years of Sunni rule, than it has evern bee.
This study by our leaders is the least they can do -- they should have done it long ago. Stop the tough-guy talk; start being cunning. If you can't be cunning, then get out of the way for those who can. Enough of this bluster combined with squandering of resources, this ridiculous business of All Hat and No Cattle.
This failure to learn has already resulted in American casualties, dead and wounded, that were unnecessary. The January election was a natural time to begin to pull out. The next "marker" is in mid-August, with the Constitution that will be presented. That is the time to begin drawing down forces, and have them entirely out, by the time of the next election. And that will help turn attention to the things that matter -- the need to shore up, in Europe, those now sufficiently alarmed to do something about the islamization of Europe, the need to go on a war-footing to cut down OPEC revenues, and the need to ensure, after Sharon's dangerous and dangerously-handled withdrawal which has done such damage to Israeli morale, to make sure it does not do more, and above all to make sure that the Arabs, in their permanent Jihad, are not allowed to misinterpret this as a Great Victory for them, for the Jihad. For that will whet Jihadist appetites everywhere.
No need to fret over what will happen once the Americans have gone. What will happen will happen. Let them, those people in Iraq -- not the "Iraqi people" (who are a figment of the Administration) figure out how to create or uncreate a viable nation-state. Three divisions of the American army and marines got rid of a dictator who could not possibly have been removed in any other way, and whose regime was prepared to continue for another few decades. If the Iraqis are mostly happy about this, the happiness does not, and cannot ever, transform itself either into real and permanent gratitude to Infidels, or into an appreciation for parliamentary democracy and limited government on the American model, much less into an understanding of the idea of the citizen, and of the supreme importance of, and the rights guaranteed to, the individual -- this all goes completely against the letter and spirit of Islam. Iraq presents a great opportunity, not one of the Democracy on the March sort, but rather an opportunity of quite a different kind.
To fail to understand that, even now, remains the greatest intelligence failure of the war.
This is maddening. This is infuriating. This is intolerable.
Hugh, when you're right, you're right and I concede (cheerfully, if the losses in money, morale, and life necessary to settle the matter hadn't been so pointless) that you were right all along. Despite my own better judgement I let the Bush doctrine play itself out, hoping for some sort of eucatastrophe that would negate all the wishful thinking and wilfull ignorance of history and culture that passed for strategic thought at the highest echelons of the Bush administration.
What is ironic is that we have repeated the same mistakes as the early Zionists, or maybe not so ironic given the intellectual pedigrees of some of the Bush doctrine's chief architects. The early Zionists came to Palestine thinking that not only was co-existence with the Arabs possible, but that they could mold those same Arabs in the same modern, secular, socialist images as themselves and in the end be loved for this act of "uplift". Now pushy, opinionated new-comers would have a hard time being welcomed in the best of circumstances, but among Muslim Arabs? For whom any kind of reform, self-improvement, or progress means admitting to an inadaquecy, and for whom admitting to an inadaquecy is tantamount to being humiliated, and for whom humiliation is a fate to be avoided at all cost (though the infliction of humiliation on the other- Ah, now that is a dish to be savored!)? What could someone not blinded by their own ideology possibly expect to happen except the summoning of a murderous rage?
Eventually even the most starry-eyed of the Zionist utopians learned better, though. That man is not infinitely malleable; that family relationships ("all men are my brothers") cannot be extended indefinitely. And, most importantly, that in order to maintain one's health and sanity, social borders (whether they're based on ethnicity, localality, or nationality) must be kept.
After a lot of grief and unnecessary suffering the Israelis are finally disengaging from the Arabs and, in the end, so must we.
"After a lot of grief and unnecessary suffering the Israelis are finally disengaging from the Arabs and, in the end, so must we."
-- from a posting above
These are completely different things. By destroying the Jewish settlements in Gaza, settlements which in some cases long predate the State of Israel, and which sit athwart the traditional invasion routes, and arms-smuggling routes, from the south, the Sharon government is doing something which will encourage the Jihad against Israel, damage in permanent ways Israeli morale, and which, in both form and content, has been a disaster. Sharon does not know what he is doing, and the clearest heads in Israel (hint: those heads do not include Shimon Peres, anyone in the Labor Party, anyone in the television and only very few in the press, which is entirely dominated by the pensee unique of those who not only think the Gaza surrender makes sense, but look forward to further surrenders, so as to "preseve the Jewish and democratic character of Israel." Are they nuts? Have they never realized that then the salami-tactics begin again, and what they ought to be doing is work to make Gaza and the West Bank as inhospitable, as uneconomic, as un-viable a place for the local Arabs as possible, so that there will be out-migration. Otherwise the problem begins again, and then again, as the Arabs outbreed the Jews.
It should not be forgotten that contrary to Arab propaganda have roots in "Palestine" going back in most cases not before this century, and certainly almost none have roots predating the mid-19th century (see "The Myth of Dispossession" for more on where these "Arabs" -- not all were Arabs, for some were simply Muslims who came with Mehmet Ali, or Abd el-Kader, or even Ottoman territories in Europe, transplanted by the Ottoman government as their tide in Europe receded).
The Americans can leave Iraq and go home. But the Israelis are home. They have nowhere to go, nowhere else they wish to go. If the Americans leave Iraq, as I suggest, it will be only because that is a better way to achieve their true ends -- to weaken, demoralize, divide Islam, and to make it less attractive both to would-be converts among Infidels, and to more thoughtful Muslims -- than by staying. But in the case of Israel, they will not achieve anything by leaving -- and the situation will be, as many Israeli generals and intelligence chiefs have noted, much worse.
The two situations are completely different. The real difference is psychological: those who support Israel cannot bring themselves to face what a disaster this is, and how stupid and obstinate Sharon has been, and how extraordinarily impervious to reality are many Israelis, the better-off ones, the ones who want to be liked when they travel abroad, the ones who refuse to understand Islam because if they did so, they would have to concede that the war against Israel is without end, and they cannot accept that, for it is too painful, and they lack the wit to figure out how to deal with the situation, though if they only tried, they would find it is quite manageable. As long as you don't lose your head and panic -- and that is exactly what Sharon has done. For possibly the first time in his life, and for political reasons (fear of what the E.U. "would do" though the E.U., he apparently has failed to notice, is on the ropes, and fear of diplomatic pressure from others that was entirely a figment of Sharon's own imagination). He is not the first general who is out of his depth when he is not fighting, but there is so much more at stake now. Israel cannot afford this kind of stubbornness, this obstinacy in error.
Ladies & Gentlemen,
The muslilm Ulema know that they have approximately 25-30 years to take over the West.
I say this because this is when the oil will start to run out.
Yes there maybe other synthetics developed in that time but not for or by muslims. Instead they will want to take over a well developed, intact and functioning infrastructure. It only requires muslim handling.
In 25-30 years (if they are successful) then parlimantry democracy will cease and a new system aspiring to the glory of Allah will take over. Ofcourse Infedels must stay, (after all they need to maintain that infrastructure & pay he necessary taxes to keep the money coming in) but all the "golden era" muslim values will start to return.
If they are successful, then in 50 years a Caliphate will emerge (we Ahmaddias already have one, but he will never be accepted by the rest of the muslim world, and would probably be slaughtered in the process, as would all Ahmaddias).
Probably the most successful muslims would be the Shia from Iran. No one is more dedicated to the cause of Shahada (Mayterdom or suicuide bombers to the West).
I think that is where the Caliphate would come from, the trick for him will be in how to appease the Sunnis.
George Bush is right in keeping his troops in Iraq, that is where the new front line is. If the troops come back, the suicuide bombers will come to America with them.
They have shown how effective how the ultimate smart bomb is, fighting with basic weapons against high tech weapons.
The London bombings have shown how the Met Police's resources were stretched to the limit by 4 muslims nobodies. Allah help us if we are looking at 40, or 400 or (probably) 4000 of the bastards.
I don't know what the answers are...but I do know this. The West has about 25-30 years to win this battle and if we cannot... prepare for muslim clerics to be in charge of "Washi-stan".
PC must stop, a spade must be called a spade.
The comment directly above fascinates because of the author, Naseem, a member of the Ahmadiyyas, who regard themselves as Muslims, but are not regarded as Muslims by mainstream Muslims. Visitors to this site will remember the many occasions on which Naseem presented arguments on behalf of Islam. Recently, the ferocity of the attacks on Ahmadiyyas by Muslims in Pakistan, and possibly as well the cogent and detailed replies to Naseem at this site, have led to some re-thinking.
Simply google "Jihadwatch" and "Posted by Naseem" and see what comes up. One does not blame the author for seeing now,not as through a glass darkly, but completely. Would that others who thought, as Ahmadiyyas, or simply as "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims, that they would escape the wrath of other Muslims and learned, to their great chagrin and fear, that they would not -- would throw off their shackles and speak, as Naseem now does, something that better expresses what is being felt and thought.
Hugh:
While Naseem's English is pretty good, it is possible that she didn't express herself clearly enough or we made incorrect assumptions. Most of her earliest communications seemed to be provacative sneering. Perhaps they were because she was feeling defensive when she made them, or perhaps her intention was to warn us. Lately, she has certainly spoken to her mixed feelings about the faith into which she was born as well as acknowledging her fears of the religious fascism that is afoot in her country, personally and on a grander scale.
Whatever, I do find her more recent posts very interesting, and the greatest hope we have for a more peaceful future is to cultivate a lot more Naseems, who may, indeed be the kind of good Muslim who would happily see the belligerent, intolerant and hateful portions deleted from it.
Hugh-
I can't speak to all the tatical implications of the Gaza withdrawl, however, the disengagement (amounting in effect to a unilateral partition) has been a great success. At the height of the current violence suicide bombers were wreaking havoc every other day, and over 700 Israelis lost their lives before their government finally woke up and realized that a "two-state solution" only requires one state to implement. So up came the walls and since then the frequency of successful attacks has dropped to one every six months, and will surely fall some more once the barriers are completed.
Again, we may quibble about tactical positioning, but strategically Israel has already won. It has kept its territorial integrity, and rejected the insidious lure of the "two peoples, one state" solution (a final solution in all senses of the term) which, had the terrorist attacks continued at their 2002 pace, a demoralized Israeli public might in their desperation eventually have lunged at. But it did not, and so instead Israel has its territorial integrity, it has Jerusalem, and it has cut off the Palestianians' only weapon- the ability to export their psychosis.
Soon Israel will only have to deal with patrolling its own borders and interdicting the occassional katyusha rocket attack, the last of which can be done by perhaps pushing out the barriers or, better yet, sowing the ground on the other side of the wall with ever-widening rings of cluster munitions.
Two comments:
First I heard Bush speak about Al Zawhiri's speech.
I noticed that he attacked the so called radical extremist views of al Qaida, and still seems not to realize that the ideology of al Qaida is really true Islam. He has fallen into the trap of, and perpetuating a false belief in the public, that there are two Islams,the "radical Islamists or Al Qaida" and the rest of Islam.
As regards Gaza, I think Sharon knows what he is doing,with the Jews out of Gaza it will be much easier for Israel to seal off the strip and punish the Muslims when they act up. Israel controls the roads in and out, the water and electricity, it is difficult to take action or sanctions against the Gazan Arabs when there are 10,000 Jews in Gaza.
Also historically, Gaza is the original Palestine, the land of the Phillistines, thus not really any land of Israel. However also historically much of Israel was not under Jewish control until the 2nd and lst Century B.C.. John Hyrcannus invaded and conquered Samaria,at that time populated by Macedonians, and Alexander Jannaeus (Good King Jonathan to the Essenes)invaded and conquered Galilee (the sea of nations, as it was populated by Greeks, Macedonians, Syrians and even Keltoi)
Alexander Jannaeus (Ioannes) had been dealing with insurgency and rebellion from the Pharisee's, on his death his wife Helene Alexander (Salome Alexandra) took the throne and instead of persecuting the Pharisee's, waged war on the Sadducees', massacring them wholesale, with a remnant fleeing to the other parts of the Roman-Greco world, like
Corinthians and Galatia (land of the Gauls, present day Anatolia).
Of course all of this "historical claim to land" stuff is patent nonsense. Land is claimed by the right of conquest, and that is historical and historically recognized throughout the world.
England was claimed as a right of conquest by William in 1066,and America claimed by right of conquest from it's inhabitants, etc.etc.
In fact there wouldn't be any Arabs, except in the Nejd, Hijaz and Arabia Petra, if it weren't for the Arab Conquest called Islam.
I tire of hearing this whining about the pre 1967 borders. Fact is that there wouldn't be any pre 1967 borders were it not for Arab armies, and aggression. Israel wouldn't even occupy the Golan Heights were it not for Arab aggression (gratis Iranian founded and backed Hizbollah).
If the Jews had landed in a D Day type operation and occupied the Palestine territories of the Ottomans that would have been both legal and historically precedented, if not then the English are an illegitmate kingdom, since it too is a product of conquest.
But the Jews didn't they moved in, bought land from Arab Sheikhs (who did not own the land, as it belonged to what was left of the Ottomans, who themselves laid claim to the land by the right of conquest).
And subsquently started feeling the wrath of their Arab neighbors, who launched pogroms in the 1920's out of "humiliation". Humiliated because the Jews were doing something the Arabs couldn't do, turn a wasteland into a productive farmland, bringing civilization and commerce to cities.
In the early 20th century, the Mufti ordered Muslim believers to go to battle to save Haram al-Sharif and "al-Buraq" from being taken over by the Jews. The Arabs would smear the prayer site with excrement, bring their flocks there to litter the place with animal droppings, and use it as a garbage dump. The homes of the Mughrabi neighborhood were built right up to the Western Wall, and some of the toilets actually leaned against it. Such things are not done in places sacred to Islam.
The Muslims destroyed over 60 Synagogues, burned Torah rolls, have destroyed and defiled Christian Churches and used the Bible as toilet paper, but riot and whine when kaffirs are not submissive and respectful of their Qur'an, Mosques and Muhammad.
I tire of these double standards, and hypocrisy and wonder how much longer it will be before our President and leaders (Democrat and Republican) stand up and call evil by it's name and dare mention the elephant in the room.
By the way the Dome of the Rock or al Buraq, refers to the rock over which a Mosque was built, that supposedly has a hoof print of the chimera beast (Buraq) which Muhammad supposedly rode at night, (which flew as fast as an F-16), where he met Jesus, Abraham and Moses and ascended into the 7th level of heaven. There is an indentation on the rock, which a muslim said looks like it was cut by a laser, but is probably nothing more than the footprint of some prehistoric beast, hardened into stone.
Aiyisha said that (supposedly) anyone who says that Muhammad went to Mt Sakhra (named after the mother of a Ugaritic sun god) was a liar, he never left her side that night, and was sound asleep, modern Muslim apologists claim it was a dream or spirit flight, but if so then the Burak (who was part donkey, with the tail of a lion and the head and breast of a woman) could not have left an imprint on the rock. The story gets wilder, for Muhammad gets in a bargaining session with Allah (whom he meets face to face) negotiating, with the help of Moses, for how many Salats (prayers are to be performed daily) he dickers Allah down to 5 from 50.
In his ascent through the seven heavens (seven planets) he meets prophets Jesus and John (Yahya) (relegated to only the 2nd Heaven, in the 3rd Heaven he meets Joseph, in the fourth he meets Enoch (Idris), in the fifth he meets Aaron, in the sixth he meets Moses, (and claims that Moses was Jealous of him). in the seventh he meets Abraham, and then taken to such a Height where he sees Allahs House (Al Bait -al Ma'mur).Imagine a house for a deity without a form.
According to Bukhari, Muhammad said that Moses was a thin person, and Jesus had a red face as if he had just come out of a bathroom.
Muslims claim that Allah is not in the form of a man, he is uncreated, however Muhammad in the Sunnah claims to have met him face to face, and there are references in the Qur'an to the hand and face of Allah. There is a reference to this flight in the Qur'an, Surah 17:1, which is fleshed out in the Sira of Ibn Ishaq and the ahadith of Bukhari and Muslim.
So this "sacred" Al Buraq mosque, sits over a rock, on which a dream animal, supposedly left a physical imprint, and worse yet at the time of this supposed event there was not mosque, not temple at all on Mt Shakhra, nothing, the temple had been destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
When I argued this with a muslim, he claimed that the mention was of a masjid (a place of prostration) not a Temple or Mosque. However
Hadith of Bukhari Clearly states that the Al Aqsa Mosque was BUILT 40 years after the masjid (place of protestation in Mecca). A href="http://80.1911encyclopedia.org/M/MO/MOSQUE.htm">1911 Encyclopedia
Bukhari: Volume 4, Book 55, Number 585:
Narrated Abu Dhar:
I said, "O Allah's Apostle! Which mosque was first built on the surface of the earth?" He said, "Al-Masjid-ul-,Haram (in Mecca)." I said, "Which was built next?" He replied "The mosque of Al-Aqsa ( in Jerusalem) ." I said, "What was the period of construction between the two?" He said, "Forty years." He added, "Wherever (you may be, and) the prayer time becomes due, perform the prayer there, for the best thing is to do so (i.e. to offer the prayers in time)."
If the Al Aqsa Mosque was built in 690 AD that means that the Meccan Mosque was built in 650 AD, After the death of Ubal Qassim, which is more evidence that even the Qur'an didn't exist until it was compiled and approved about 130 years after the death of Muhammad (see Ibn Warraq's The Origins of the Koran, and The Historical Quest for Muhammad).
When we visited the Dome of the Rock we saw the rock in the centre, with a fence around. There was a small opening through which one was allowed to insert the hand to feel the footprint. We were told that it was also Abraham's footprint. My husband said that whose evers it was, he had "a bloody big, bloody strange, foot"
..... noticed that he attacked the so called radical extremist views of al Qaida, and still seems not to realize that the ideology of al Qaida is really true Islam. He has fallen into the trap of, and perpetuating a false belief in the public, that there are two Islams,the "radical Islamists or Al Qaida" and the rest of Islam....
And who has aided our great leader into this suicidal trap? JOHN ESPOSITO