An update on this story. The nature of the interaction with mosque officials is entirely too typical: When approached about specifics, respond with lofty generalities; repeat as necessary, and people who still won't back down are automatically Islamophobes, naturally. "Sheriff's office to probe Islamic burial," by Mark Bell for DNJ.com, July 30 (thanks to Twostellas):
Rutherford County's Sheriff's Office will investigate questions regarding a burial at the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro's new site on Veals Road.
Maj. Chuck Thomas told The Daily News Journal on Thursday that the office will "look into some concerns that were brought to our attention."
A group of about two dozen people requested an investigation in a letter and petition presented to Sheriff Truman Jones earlier this week.
"Who is it that's buried here?" group spokesperson Laurie Cardoza-Moore said in a press conference Thursday. "Is it a child? Is it an adult? Is it male or female? There are environmental issues. Was there a casket used?"
The group is also concerned about the burial permit that was issued by the Rutherford County Planning Department.
Cardoza-Moore said the permit was approved for one person to be buried on the site, notarized and dated May 18. But, the group claims the body was buried before that permit was even approved.
"It's our understanding the burial took place on the 17th," said Cardoza-Moore.
Murfreesboro Police have said they gave a funeral escort to the site on May 19, the day after the permit was issued.
Thomas said the sheriff's office will look into the matter.
"We will make sure that the death certificate was obtained and ... that all the laws and rules were followed," Thomas said.
The leader of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Imam Ossama Bahloul, didn't talk to a WSMV reporter on camera about the issue, but reacted by saying: "We want to be a good neighbor and want to reside in peace."
Body dumps don't build good neighborly relations.
He went on to say, "We wish everyone in the city the very best."
That's swell, but again, how 'bout that burial issue?
Islamic leaders had applied for a conditional use permit for a full cemetery on site, but later withdrew that request....
So is it just kind of a cemetery? Half a cemetery? A hemi-demi-semi-cemetery?
Just in!!
Major Jewish organization totally shakes things up.
Comes out against 911 Mosque.
Mosque supporters in shock.
http://jewishdailyreport.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/major-jewish-organization-comes-out-against-911-mosque/
I didn't realize all this was going on in Tennessee.
But I guess their lieutenant governor does...
To all the Muslim world: Islamic burial sites in Tennessee (and throughout the West) are permitted. Christian and Jewish burial sites in Saudi Arabia are verbotten. And which is the most tolerant religion of these three?
Again, shame on the Muslim world for its hypocrisy and double standard. Any Muslim who defends the spreading of Islam in the West, and the building of mosques in the West, while denying the right of Christians and Jews to preach their faiths to Muslims in predominantly Muslim lands, and build their respective houses of worship unimpeded, is a monumental hypocrite. "Disgusted" is a word that hardly describes what I and millions of other non-Muslims feel about the treachery and hypocrisy of the Islamic religion.
Shame on all Muslims for this. Every damn last one of you.
"Shame on all Muslims for this. Every damn last one of you. "
Why should I have shame? I live in a Muslim country and there is an enormous Chinese cemetary not 1km from my house. No one has a problem with it, except for some (Chinese) real estate developers who want to build condos on the site.
I really don't feel responsible for what people do in Saudi Arabia, just because they too are Muslim.
I'll not hold you responsible for the actions of backward Christians in other countries also, OK?
> A hemi-demi-semi-cemetery?
A willy-nilly-dhimmi-cemetery.
I like it!
And I must say I owe Hugh for the phrase "hemi-demi-semi" being fresh in my mind.
"I really don't feel responsible for what people do in Saudi Arabia, just because they too are Muslim."
Well Yusef, we ARE going to hold you responsible for what your fellow muslims do. After all, the ummah are all one, big, happy family, eh? Political boundaries don't make a bit of difference.....all that matters is that you are muslims and obligated to stick together against all non-muslims.
That is not the case with Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Shintos, Atheists, Agnostics, or any other non-muslim, religious/anti-religious group. We are free to disagree amongst ourselves, and even go off and start sects, churches, temples or associations of our own.
Yusef, maybe if you quit running your suck here on JW and instead stood up and confronted your religous leaders and demanded that islam reform itself, you'd find we respected your opinions more.
Oh, my bad! I forgot that if you or any other muslim disputes what is in the koran, you will be killed as apostates. I guess it sucks to be you, eh?
Fight the islamists, Murfreesboro, on anything they want to do, any law they want to break. No special privileges, none of their culture-destroying nonsense. Fight for your community, don't give an inch to these invading aliens. Let them know in no uncertain terms that they're not to be trusted and you're watching their every move. Nail them hard if they step even the first fraction out-of-line. Keep the heat on them. Keep the "free" in Murfreesboro!
Tennessee--probably a lot of Protestants and Baptists there, eh?
I was recently involved in a roundtable discussion on ecumenism and the topic turned to non-Christians, specifically Islam. I was the only Catholic there, and saw that the others present were well versed in Islam and the Quran. None of them had visited this site or any like it.
Growing up Catholic I learned about Muslims, Mohammed, Mecca, etc. in religious school under the context of heresies. Those attending the roundtable had learned about Islam IN CHURCH, from THEIR PASTORS, on SUNDAY. I doubt if any Catholic parish today discusses Islam except to identify it as a 'great Abrahamaic faith' (which it isn't).
These fundamentalist Christian Churches have been pancaked by everyone it seems, but they know their faith, and their enemy.
"Who is it that's buried here?" group spokesperson Laurie Cardoza-Moore said in a press conference Thursday. "Is it a child? Is it an adult? Is it male or female? There are environmental issues. Was there a casket used?"
.................
"There are environmental issues".
Considering the violent nature of Islam—and so many of its followers—I imagine the concerns about unidentified burials should go *well* beyond environmental concerns.
Not OK. So-called backward Christians don't blow themselves up in restaurants, saw off heads, take hostages, hijack airplanes, nor have they committed over 15,000 terrorist attacks in the last nine years as Muslim loons have worldwide. Your tu quoque reasoning is showing most egregiously . What you won't face is that Islam is awful and no other major religion is. You don't get it and as long as you remain a cult follower of that 7th-century fraud, Mohammed, you never will. BTW, I take it you at least admit that Saudi Arabia, a family masquerading as a country, is indeed backward.
Oh yeah, here's something else you don't get: Islam is becoming more and more despised across the earth with each passing year. Man, you've got clueless written all over you.
You hold me responsible for all the evil done by Muslims in the whole world.
You see a monolithic group for reasons of your own. I understand that. Islam can be scary to an outsider.
About the apostate thing, you realize that a strict Wahabi Muslim, among others considers ME an apostate? How can I have any influence over his behavior, short of war?
I try to convice you of this not because it matters what you think per se (most of the world has a saner view, even those who hate Islam,) but because I care for all people and don't like to see hate destroy people's ability to reason.
YK,
your a muslim and as such you believe that all non muslims should be annihilated. So yeah you are a monolithic group. One that wants to destroy my culture, my religion and everything I hold dear.
YK,
your a muslim and as such you believe that all non muslims should be annihilated. So yeah you are a monolithic group. One that wants to destroy my culture, my religion and everything I hold dear.
Re. this burial.
I advise people to consult Patrick Sookhdeo's 'Faith, Power and Territory', on the ways in which Muslims seize territory and (from their POV) claim it permanently for Islam and Muslims.
And I second 'gravenimage', above. I think there should be a full investigation into exactly who, or what, is buried in that grave; was the person properly and fully identified? If not: dig 'em up and do a thorough forensic (e.g. dental records, dna reading) and see whether what the forensic doctors (non-Muslim) find out about deceased matches what the death certificate says and what the Muslim 'witnesses' and any available non-Muslim witnesses have to say.
And I think it might be worthwhile sending police, with cadaver dogs, to do a thorough search in the premises and grounds of all mosques that are known to have been attended by convicted criminals and/ or jihad plotters or 'honor' murderers, or run by imams who incited jihad. Checking out the backyards of the associated imams' houses and the grounds and basements of associated Islamic schools and the grounds of rural properties known to be owned by Muslims connected with those suspect mosques, might also be a good idea.
First no crime was commitee yet and you Islamistprobic hater are foaming at the month like rabit dod. First the city police department state they gave than police escort to the grave site than day after the permit was grant no crime done expect by 40 hater who wrote than letter to the sheriff office. Will the well know Islamistprobic hater Robert Spencer say he sorry to the whole muslim world.
'Will the well know Islamistprobic hater Robert Spencer say he sorry to the whole muslim world.'
So will the Islamistprobic hater Mr Spencer apologise? To the whole Muslim world?
All at once or one at a time?
Like a book signing with a nice orderly queue or a Nuremburgh Rally type event with swastikas replaced by crescent and stars? Maybe a huge banner with 'I heart Islam'.
Or one of those yellow smiley faces with a turban on it?
Bono as opener, maybe?
In Mecca of course, that is if they'd allow him in.
Drat! What's that? They won't!
Back to the drawing board.
What? You Muslims have a Crime Committee? And who is Rabit Dod?
Also, I don't think that Mr. Spencer has been probing any Islamists. Unless you wanna volunteer to bend over DoI .... :-P
Wellington,
I think the tone of these threads might have most of your other Muslim readers feeling a bit apprehensive about being frank about Islam's view on what you label a "double standard".
Let ME respond to your, as far as I can tell, sincere concern about this issue of Masaajid here, but no churches there.
Islam teaches us that to worship any thing other than Allah is the most serious crime a person can commit against the Creator. So while we DO want to build Masaajid in this and other countries to spread our Faith, to allow, permit, or to in ANY way assist in the building of buildings in Muslim controlled lands which would be used to call people away from Islam, this would make the Muslims "accessories" if you will to what we believe to be a crime against Allah.
I am an American by birth, as were my progenitors going back 4-5 generations, so I REALLY DO understand how hard it is for the western mind to grasp and reconcile some of the teachings of Islam. And, perhaps I'm wrong about you, and you're just another of the slathering Islam haters we see so frequently on these threads. Still out of a sense of fairness I thought I'd take a moment to address your concern.
May Allah Guide You
Allah Bless America!
Well, DANK, an approriate name for a muslim. Dank meaning dark, cold, and forboding just like your so-called religion of peace. You may be an American by birth, but you are not an American at heart. You use the term "Slathering Islam Haters". Fascinatting Hypocracy! I have seen no crowds of angry Baptists foaming at the mouth in the streets burning Saudi or Iranian flags. No Catholic School Girls have strapped on a bomb and boarded a bus. No Mormon Missionaries have driven a bomb laden bicycle into a public place. And can you tell me the last time a group of Bhuddists stoned a woman to death? But these activities are routine and daily to Islam and you have the nerve,no, the ignorance to say we hate. Sura 5:29, Kill the jews and Christians where ever you find them. May the real GOD bless America, not the ficticious Arabian moon god. I say these things to you in fairness Dank to address your your misguided concern.
Dank,
You are an intelligent idiot.
"Being frank" about Islam's view of a double standard?
Your Allah is so serious about, and threatened by, worship of another--say Jesus Christ--that you Allah requires you to viciously kill--I should repeat it for you--KILL people who choose to believe in a God who is peaceful, as in 'turn the other cheek'...etc. So is it a double standard? You(Islam) demand to instate your religion everywhere you want--but KILL those who wish to make the attempt to show you their God?
Religion is a personal choice. Thank God, here in America we (at present, anyway)have the freedom to make that choice--for any religion, or no religion. This freedom is basic to the founding of America. I believe that any American who wants to take that freedom away is a traitor to this country. But I digress...
You made the choice to worship a god that commands you to kill.
I made a choice to follow a God that teaches love for your brother.
My God died and was reborn.
Your whole religion rests on the words of a guy who sat in a cave and claimed to have an angle(devil?) come to him.
Think about it.
In other words, since Islam institutionalizes a double standard, Muslims are absolved of any charge of hypocrisy. This is not an argument but an excuse masquerading as an argument. "Hey, it's not me, it's the Islam." Wow. That someone like yourself can believe such nonsense is evidence that the built-in crap detector everyone of us was born with has been lost by so many because they have accepted an ideology like Islam. This is characteristic of ALL totalitarian ideologies. Such ideologies, like Islam, Nazism and Marxism, make all actions defensible if they promote the ideology, damn any lingering valid ethical sense in the believer. Stunning to see people like yourself fall for such rot but then if one can bring himself to believe that a psychopathic, schizophrenic, perverted, brutal man like Mohammed is the last and greatest of the prophets, anything is possible. (I don't think enough Muslims understand with what contempt Mohammed is held in by so many of us who have studied his life.)
I will oppose Islam forever. It is inimical to true democracy, real religious freedom, freedom of speech and equality under the law. And just for argument's sake, even if Islam is the true religion (and I would bet my life on it that it isn't), then all decent human beings must play Prometheus and not the slave and defy the Orwellian tyrant, Allah, who created a very creepy universe. I trust I have made myself crystal clear here.
> A hemi-demi-semi-cemetery?
"A willy-nilly-dhimmi-cemetery."
...a mind-ya_or_kinda_find-ya_cemetery
No death certificate or anything else on the person whose burial is under investigation? Wow. Sounds like a fine, upstanding tradition we used to have in parts of Nooooo Joysey (where I was born)--only the bodies in question were buried in building foundations, the Jersey Meadows, or a few miles offshore in concrete golashes. Now, I sometimes question some of the rules that make trouble for those who think a shroud is enough for a corpse (after all, dead deer, squirrels, snakes, etc. get into the ground water, too), but are we dealing with a religion or a criminal syndicate here?
Alright, Yusef, your points about how Sa'udi Wahhabis might view you as apostate and that you live with a Chinese cemetery nearby (Malaysia? Brunei? Indonesia?) are well-taken. And, as a non-Sa'udi, you're probably sincere in disassociating yourself from a lot of what Sa'udi Arabia does.
And, as a Christian fundamentalist, I can somewhat understand your horror at idolatry and apostasy (although, in the post-Great Awakening tradition to which I belong, we leave it to God, who has appointed a day in which to judge the living and the dead, to deal with the idolators and apostates should they not turn from their sins).
But, don't you think that when we Americans saw neighbors, friends, and kinsmen go off to risk their lives for the Sa'ud royal family and state in 1991, shouldn't we be just a little miffed when the Sa'udis biggest worries were that our Kufr troops might pollute their sacred sand should they die in battle and, before battle, might seek the solaces of their own religions by reading passages of their Scriptures or follow their own traditions of prayer?
Worse, how should we feel when these people whom we saved from Saddam Hussein's Ba'athists turn around and carry out the worst terrorist attack on our soil on 09/11/01?
And, we get other insults from these people.
They boasted, bragged about Muslim courage, and danced in their streets after 9/11, until they started hearing our gunfire and bombs. Then they whine about how the JOOOOOOZ gave their people advance notice and did the dirty work (sorry, but there were just too many kaddish prayers recited between Connecticut and North Jersey after 9/11 for ANY sane American to believe that piece of taqiyya).
Further, the Sa'udis try to get Mayor Giuliani to attack his own national government as a condition of getting reconstruction aid! This suggests to me that the Sa'udi government was probably knowing and complicit about the attacks.
Alright, I'll grant it that the Arabian Peninsula has some sacred significance to Islam. But, in this day and age when there are no Byzantine legions in Syria poised to nip Islam in the bud, why do they insist on the Pact of Omar in a day and age when everything they have depends on interaction with a wider, often non-Muslim, world?
Hence, when we see all this Sa'udi money poured into mosque construction across the USA, we get very suspicious. If mosque construction were simply a matter of a bunch of immigrants and local converts pooling their own money to put up a place of worship (we build our own churches this way), we'd probably not give it another thought. But, given Sa'udi Arabia's record in what it tells its people about us Kufr and Ahl-al-Kitab, we worry when Sa'udi money goes into anything.
And, in the incident mentioned in this post, shouldn't the Tennessee authorities be just a little worried that a burial took place before approval was granted? Maybe this is a case in which they wanted to get the body in the ground before too much time had elapsed, and if this is the case, I hope the Tennessee authorities will be understanding (I've lived close to Orthodox Jews myself). But, if it's just another case of flipping the bird at Kufr authority, well, I hope that the full legal penalty gets imposed.
Oops. Maybe the comments on the seriousness of apostasy were from Dank rather than Yusef K. My bad.
"Not OK. So-called backward Christians don't blow themselves up in restaurants..."
They don't blow themselves up in restaurants. They blow up abortion clinics instead. They kill doctors that perform abortions. How is that any better?
You're missing the point, I think. Fanatics are fanatics, regardless of race or creed. Religion is one of society's greatest downfalls. It is only upon losing much of our dutiful following of religion that humanity is better as a whole.
The self-proclaimed devout Christians, devout Muslims, devout 'whatevers', tend to cause problems. They try to shove their line of belief down everyone else's throats, ignoring the fact that most of us have our own set of beliefs already established. I've never met anyone more judgemental than those that label themselves, first and foremost, as "insert_religion_here".
No, I think you're missing the point. Big time. Look, I'm not religious and so I have no religious axe to grind. I deal with the facts and the facts say that the vast majority of those who commit terror in the name of religion are Muslim. There have been over 15,000 documented Islamic terrorist attacks wordwide just since 9/11. How many Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, etc. attacks have there been over the past nine years?
The extremely rare Christian who engages in terror in the name of Christianity (and who is always denounced by every major Christian sect when he does, contra what happens with many Muslim terrorists) is as nothing compared to the plethora of Islamic terrorist attacks that take place virtually everyday around the world (and let's not forget all the Islamic terrorist attacks that have been foiled). If you had ten ideologies numbered one through ten and Ideology 6 was responsible for producing 99% of violent adherents and the other nine ideologies combined produced 1% of violent followers, would you really, as you have here, say that faulting Ideology 6 more than any other ideology shouldn't be done? Get real and shelve the moral equivalency reasoning. It's showing most egregiously.
What ever land they bury their dead on/in becomes indisputable Muslim land. They are doing this in Jerusalem - they have open graves ready to fill with their insured land owner policies (dead Muslims)
Very good, you finally get it.
America had to go to war to fight fascism and dominating ideology and we beat the Nazis into the ground.
What are you doing about the Wahabi political machine?
Shrugging your shoulders, living your comfortable life while other Muslims suffer unimaginable oppression and pain.
How can you prove no crime was committed. Do you know who is buried there and what he or she died of?