And "their women and girls may legitimately be regarded wives of Muslims." Will the Islamophobia never end?
"Shiite ayatollah launches fatwa: Iraqi Christians, conversion to Islam or death," by Joseph Mahmoud for Asia News, December 15 (thanks to Tom):
Baghdad (AsiaNews) - An Advent of light and shadow for Iraq's Christians, who are celebrating the reopening of the cathedral of Baghdad but at the same time subjected to new - and heavy - threats from a radical Shiite Muslim leader. From studies of a television broadcaster based in Egypt, an Iraqi Ayatollah launches a fatwa against the religious minority on the eve of Christmas: "Conversion to Islam or death." However, strength of faith overcomes the fear of violence as witnessed by celebrations for the "rebirth" of the Syrian Catholic cathedral in the capital, the scene of a bloody attack at the end of October 2010 (see AsiaNews 31/10/2010 Al Qaeda attack on Baghdad church ends in massacre)In an interview last December 13 on Egyptian television Al Baghdadia, the Shiite ayatollah Ahmad Al Hassani Al Baghdadi issued a fatwa against Christians in Iraq. Labeling them as "polytheists" and "friends of the Zionists", the extremist leader stressed that they must choose "or Islam or death," while "their women and girls may legitimately be regarded wives of Muslims." Al Baghdadi is known for his "jihad" positions and for attacking Americans in the past during their presence in the country, and today he lives in Syria, supporting the armed opposition.
Catholic sources in the capital tell AsiaNews that it is "a very serious fatwa," but "it is unlikely that people will be upset too much." The government pays "attention" to these proclamations by extremists, however it is possible that such words could "create panic in some areas of the capital," where there are now "very few" Christians.
This morning meanwhile Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, presided over the rededication ceremony of the restored Syrian Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. The place which reopened yesterday to worship and to the faithful, was the scene October 31, 2010 of a massacre carried out by a group of al Qaeda, which killed about 50 faithful and two priests....
RSS Feed
This sentence should have been emphasized in bold as well:
...and today he lives in Syria, supporting the armed opposition.
One more datum to add to the many data -- excellently amassed and tied together in one article by Diana West -- indicating that the Syrian opposition represents the "fire" in the proverbial dilemma of out of the frying pan, into the fire.
But of course the other West (not Diana, not Allen, but that greatest civilization in human history currently held in -- or, even worse, holding itself in -- pleasantly asinine and reckless thrall by its fashionable PC MC) sees no dilemma at all, because of its assumption that if Muslims are rebelling against a tyrant, they must be good and worthy of our support.
This same stupidity becomes all the more galling when Jihad Watchers incomprehensibly apply it to "the Iranian People" who are magically endowed with an exemption from their 1300 years of solid enculturation in Islam.
Not to mention hints here and there among some in the CJ (the Counter-Jihad, some day perhaps to become the AIM -- the Anti-Islam Movement) of this same delusion applied to the "Egyptian Opposition" -- a delusion which magically and suddenly forgets all the data proving that the solid majority of Egyptian Muslim people believe in, and support, Islamic fanaticism -- again, excellently skewered by Diana West, who also in another setting had to set three idiotic anti-jihad "conservatives" on a round-table panel on The Blaze TV straight on their addled admiration for those "courageous" Egyptian People (though they didn't seem to comprehend her solid and deft undressing of their moronic optimism; suggesting they too suffer from what could be termed the "Bush Phenomenon" -- which I felt necessary to reiterate not once, but twice).