An update on this story. Prosecutors sought a life sentence, and how much Bashir actually serves of a 15-year prison term in Indonesia will be anyone's guess.
In the meantime, he will apparently be free to continue preaching from jail. His operations have not been put out of business, but essentially only relocated. "Indonesia jails cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir for 15 years," from BBC News, June 16:
Indonesia has jailed radical cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir for 15 years, after he was convicted of supporting an Islamic militant training camp in Aceh.
And what a paradise of tolerance and moderation Aceh has become since Sharia was imposed.
The sentence was handed down amid tight security at court in Jakarta, where more than 3,000 police were on duty.
Ba'asyir, 72, was convicted of helping to organise a jihadi training camp that was planning to attack government targets and impose an Islamic state.
The aim of jihad in all its forms is to impose Islamic law.
He has been involved in radical Islamic groups in Indonesia for four decades.
Over the years, he has been repeatedly arrested, jailed and then released.
Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence for Ba'asyir, but the sentence is the longest he has yet received.
The BBC's Karishma Vaswani in Jakarta says it is debatable whether the verdict will have much impact on the fight against terrorism in Indonesia.
Ba'asyir can continue to preach his message even from his prison cell, our correspondent says.
He was arrested by anti-terror police last August, months after the training camp in Aceh was raided by police.
The discovery of the camp has so far led to the arrests of more than 120 terrorism suspects over several months.
The Aceh camp drew together militants from several different jihadi groups.
Experts believe they were planning to form a militia to kill government officials, moderate Muslims and influential non-Muslims.
Ba'asyir has repeatedly said the allegations against him were "engineered by America".
In previous cases, he has been convicted of conspiracy over the 2002 Bali bomb attacks, in which more than 200 people died....
The funniest part of this whole ordeal to me is the Osama bin Laden posters that the protesters outside were bandying about. Nothing says "We object to the injustice of this terrorism-related conviction" like holding photos of a notorious terrorist!
Lest we forget, Aceh is the region of Indonesia that was worst hit by the great Tsunami. How many tens of millions of dollars as well as equipment, food, doctors the West poured into the region! The people will never forget our generosity and concern as they preach our annihilation.
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Marisol, if on a slow day (!) you could see if Robert could confirm this alleged quote of Mohammed, it would be most appreciated:
"eat the pomegranate, for it purges the system of envy and hatred."
http://www.fooduniversity.com/foodu/produce_c/producereference/Resources/Tropical%20Fruit/Pomegranates/PomegranateN.htm
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Could all this really be as simple as a pomegranate deficiency?
"Experts believe they were planning to form a militia to kill government officials, moderate Muslims and influential non-Muslims."
It goes to show if you are Muslim...you should be worrying if you are Muslim enough...
Not sure about pomegranate, but in present times I think jihadists ought to eat a grenade to purge themselves of envy and hatred. That I'm sure should work quite well.
Muhammad also said:
"Ajwah dates come from Paradise and they are a remedy for poison"
Sunan al-Tirmidhi, v. 4, p. 401, # 2068
And he used to eat a lot of Ajwah dates.
Now, guess how did he die!?!?
http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2011/03/muhammads-death.html
To answer to your rhetoric question: US alone had given more than a billion dollars aid to Aceh victims of tsunami in addition to aid given by other infidel nations. In comparison, the from Saudi Arabia and other middle east Muslim countries was piddly sum. Right after that the Aceh citizens went on their merry way preaching jihad to kill non-Muslims.
Are these guys ever grateful to non-Muslims for all the aid they suck off? No chance!!
@nighthawk --
What a fruit fight!
"our English [word] pomegranate became pume grenate in Old French. This pume grenate eventually became pomme grenade in Modern French. Pomme grenade, of course, looks exactly like grenade or hand grenade, and this is no coincidence."
http://www.altalang.com/beyond-words/2009/07/13/pomegranates-and-hand-grenades/
@salah --
He must have had a "special date." Maybe this is like a "special biscuit." This is a true thing here in the South. Women make them and pass them over the fence to dogs that bark too much and such (they are poison).
15 years in jail? He ought to have got a bullet through the head years ago for what he did in Bali. And he would have got his brains blown out if we in the West had any balls.
same australia.. a cool billion.
15 years in "jail" whilst all sorts of human rights abuses continue unquestioned by governments in the region, malaysia, brunei, west papua and this outhouse. and abuses by moslam minorities in burma and thailand, east timor and west papua. at least!
so 15 years is a joke in comparison to death, caning/whipping plus a sentence etc for all sorts of insane reasons.
amnesty is pressuring westpac/east asia govs to press discussion of the appalling human rights abuses in the region. the majority under iss lamm. we don't have the guts to discuss anything sensitive with indonesia for some reason. we never really have. the farce over murdered journalists in 1975. (east timor).
this is characteristically disgusting and hypocritical.
Hi Dot. It was an interesting question so I thought I would give it a shot.
I've run a text search on my computer for all references to the word pomegranate in the Qur'an, as well as the hadiths by Bukhari, Muslim, Muwatta and Dawud to no avail.
I have done the same on ibn Ishak's Life of Muhammad.
Zilch!
Actually I'm not sure if my version of 'The Life …" is an abridged version of not. If it is an abridged version I suppose there is a slight possibility that the quote originates here.
I did find some pomegranate quotes but nothing was even close to what you were after.
I also did a pretty deep search on the Internet and found plenty of hits on this pomegranate quote.
All of them were from non-Muslim sites except 2 which were from what appeared to be Muslim 'education' sites. Even here there was no reference to an original source.
All this suggests, though doesn't prove, that the actual source may be western in origin possibly of the "Confucius say . . ." ilk.
Actually it more likely falls more into the same category as the poetic opening scene from the original King Kong Movie (1933).
"And the Prophet said - - And, lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty.
And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead."
--Old Arabian Proverb
An interesting thought, but not from the sayings of Muhammad. It's from the imaginative mind of someone in Hollywood.
The same may be true of this pomegranate quote. Not from Hollywood of course but someone who may not even be a Muslim.