Good morning, Mr. Spencer, AKA "Robert."

I'm shocked to find death sentences for free speech in the Muslim community. Who knew?

The Ninth Circuit FCA just approved subjecting public school students to such penalties. I believe one of the exercises requires memorization of the phrase which technically makes one into a Muslim.

Posted by: Beagle at May 26, 2006 6:43 AM

I wonder. How will China deal with the spread of militant Islam in its neighborhood? Will it be left untouched?

Posted by: maryrose at May 26, 2006 6:59 AM

"to show to the others at large that islam is not a religion to be mocked at will"

Unfortunalely, Salman Rushdie, Mr. Robert Spencer, most of the visitors of this site, billions of Christians, Jews, Hindus, Persians, know it very well. We know it from the past history of islam. We know it from the billions of dead over a millenia whose deaths are not discussed today for "they are history". And so shall we be and maybe a 100 years down the line so shall we also be treated. Just a figure in a history book. If books remain. The cult of islam has terrorized for 1350 years. Pillaging and destroying all that it could reach.It is too serious to be mocked. It is a problem of gigantic proportions that has plagued the world since its inception. But, we shall mock it, it is one of the weapons that we have, and we intend to use it to its full potential, if only to draw more of them out.

Posted by: arjun.sevak at May 26, 2006 7:06 AM

Maryrose sez:

"...How will China deal with the spread of militant Islam in its neighborhood? Will it be left untouched?"

We will never know, Maryrose. But I assure you that the Chinese will make sure that we will never know

Don't worry about China, Maryrose, they know how to deal with Muhammedans!

We need to take of our own!

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at May 26, 2006 7:49 AM

*****

"I wonder. How will China deal with the spread of militant Islam in its neighborhood? Will it be left untouched? "

*****

maryrose,
That is a good question and I am not sure they will do anything. They are dealing with the Uygurs in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region right now and they certainly are not concerned with Iran.

China seems to have a soft spot in their hearts for dictators around the world (Africa, North Korean, and South America). Maybe they see Islam as another form of dictatorship???

I am sure they recognize the threat at some level. However they probably see the U.S.A and an autonomous Taiwan as more of a threat judging by the development of their military. They may have their heads in the sand as much as the Europeans do regarding Islam.

Posted by: adobe at May 26, 2006 8:35 AM

adobe,
The Chinese don't have their heads in sand. China's Xinjiang province borders afghanistan and is home to the largest muslim population. After 9/11, the Chinese cracked down hard on the muslims of this province who were up to their normal job : asking for an islaminc country called Xinjiang. So, the good mo's were just doing as instructed in the kuran, and the Chinese came down on them like Assyrians descending on a flock of sheep. The Chinese crushed the mos of Xinjiang. They know how to deal with mos. Unfortunately, after mos, they want Taiwan.

Posted by: arjun.sevak at May 26, 2006 8:43 AM

So they kill Apostates "pour encourager les autres". How quaint. It's not just in Islamic countries that Apostates are in danger. In the UK, there was a Pakistani family who converted to Christianity. That went down like an anti-paedophile statement in a mosque. They received volence, death threats, intimidation, vandalism etc...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1470584,00.html

Posted by: Celsius at May 26, 2006 8:50 AM

"...like Assyrians descending on a flock of sheep" I like that! I hear sheep and other livestock get real nervous around Assyrians. After all, even livestock like to protect their virtue.......

Posted by: Bohemond_1069 at May 26, 2006 8:52 AM

arjun.sevak ,
Thanks for the info, definitly good news! You are right about Taiwan, that is going to be a real issue at some point in the future....

They still strongly support Iran, which I would imagine is just another way to oppose the U.S.A. Very shortsighted....

Posted by: adobe at May 26, 2006 9:16 AM

"'...like Assyrians descending on a flock of sheep' I like that!"
-- from a posting above

By gad, you'd better. The original is "The Assyrians came down like a wolf on the fold/And their cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold..." Author: Byron, he of Childe Harold, Don Juan, Ada, Missolonghi, Hobhouse, and assorted Venetian ladies fame.

Posted by: Hugh at May 26, 2006 11:15 AM

Beat me to it. But it's "Assyrian" and "his".

http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/348.html

Posted by: Yojimbo at May 26, 2006 11:34 AM

My understanding is that Islam and Communist China currently are in cahoots (the Communist Chinese government has fronted enough lucre to temporarily placate Islamist leaders and get them to turn their attentions to conquest of the western democracies). Also in cahoots with Islam are Russia, Venezuela, France and other Communist or "socialist" countries.

In the words of Ousamah bin (Looney Tunes) Laden (widely tagged in the Muslim world as "the Great One") "the interests of the Socialists and the Islamists meet in the war against the Crusaders."

Xinjiang did lose a few of its jihadists to the Chinese military but since when did human life ever mean anything to Islam? Islamic leaders just decided to refocus their efforts on what they believed to be the weak link in the global chain the western democracies.

Posted by: pythagoras at May 26, 2006 1:05 PM

Creepy as this article about Malaysian schoolbooks is (and that's plenty!), the Kuran itself institutionalizes first-degree murder (over and over). So, being Islamic, Malaysia was never fertile ground for Mary Poppins. As Malaysia plunges ever further into militant, pure Islam it will become increasingly dehumanized, dehumanizing, and brutal.

Islam turns human beings into killer-Zombies. Malaysia is showing the world how it is done. Weclome everyone to Malaysia, the newest addition to Islam's Kingdom of the Zombies!!

Malaysia takes the utmost pride, I am sure, in turning its once-normal people into robots programmed to slice and dice human flesh into food for that great snicker-snack in the sky it worships.

A note to all non-Muslims in Malaysia: get the hell out of there!!! Malaysia truly is no longer a nation. It is an Islamic time bomb set to go off and turn its once-fair self into a slaughtering ground. non-Muslims who remain there will eventually be massacred, I have no doubts.

Posted by: pythagoras at May 26, 2006 1:23 PM

Some scattered info from the Net I found while tracking down a curious word, comboloio, used by Byron; comments in brackets [] are mine:

Comboloio -- A Mohammedan rosary, consisting of ninety-nine beads. Byron. (from Webster's 1913)

The OED2 has it from 1813 in a citation from Byron. Which makes sense, Greece at the time was ruled by the Turks and had a heavy Muslim influence and Byron had just returned from there (he would later go back to fight and die in the Greek war for independence).

Islam's rosary has 99 beads but is called a "misbaha" or "subha"

From The Life of Lord Byron (1830, by John Galt)

"In the farthest corner of the room, elevated on a crimson velvet cushion, sat the Vizier, wrapped in a superb pelisse: on his head was a vast turban, in his belt a dagger, incrusted with jewels, and on the little finger of his right hand he wore a solitaire as large as the knob on the stopper of a vinegar-cruet, and which was said to have cost two thousand five hundred pounds sterling. In his left hand he held a string of small coral beads, a comboloio which he twisted backwards and forwards during the greater part of the visit. On the sofa beside him lay a pair of richly-ornamented London-made pistols. At some distance, on the same sofa, but not on a cushion, sat Memet, the Pasha of Napoli Romania, whose son was contracted in marriage to the Vizier's daughter. On the floor, at the foot of this pasha, and opposite to the Vizier, a secretary was writing despatches. These were the only persons in the room who had the honour of being seated..."

From BYRON (by Ethel Colburn Mayne (London, 1912)

"After a stay at Prevesa, sailing thence to Patras in a galliot of the Pasha, especially provided for them by his orders, they had another ordeal by tempest. The storm was not violent, but their captain was of a peculiar type. First they ran aground in getting out of the harbour; then, in tacking before a fair wind, the mizzen-sail split from top to bottom, - whereupon the captain put the string of beads (called a comboloio), with which he had hitherto been absorbed, into his pocket and wrung his hands. Of the forty sailors all except four Greeks were Turkish..."

From The Bride of Abydos, by Lord Byron:

The only lamp of this lone hour
Is glimmering in Zuleika's tower.
Yes! there is light in that lone chamber,
And o'er her silken Ottoman
Are thrown the fragrant beads of amber,
O'er which her fairy fingers ran; [25]
Near these, with emerald rays beset,
(How could she thus that gem forget?)
Her mother's sainted amulet, [26]
Whereon engraved the Koorsee text,
Could smooth this life, and win the next;
And by her Comboloio lies [27]
A Koran of illumined dyes;
And many a bright emblazon'd rhyme
By Persian scribes redeem'd from time;
And o'er those scrolls, not oft so mute,
Reclines her now neglected lute;
And round her lamp of fretted gold
Bloom flowers in urns of China's mould;
The richest work of Iran's loom,
And Sheeraz' tribute of perfume;
All that can eye or sense delight
Are gather'd in that gorgeous room:
But yet it hath an air of gloom.

[Notes by Byron?]

(26) The belief in amulets engraved on gems, or enclosed in gold boxes, containing scraps from the Koran, worn round the neck, wrist, or arm, is still universal in the East. The Koorsee (throne) verse in the second chapter of the Koran describes the attributes of the Most High, and is engraved in this manner, and worn by the pious, as the most esteemed and sublime of all sentences.

(27) "Comboloio," a Turkish rosary.

[another note apparently by Byron:]
"Ollahs," Alla il Allah, the "Leilles," [my Spanish dictionary has “Lelili”, a “Moorish war-whoop”] as the Spanish poets call them; the sound is Ollah [whence ¡Ole!]; a cry of which the Turks, for a silent people, are somewhat profuse, particularly during the jerreed, or in the chase, but mostly in battle. Their animation in the field, and gravity in the chamber, with their pipes and comboloios, form an amusing contrast.

[From sites about Greece]

Everybody who comes to Greece walks up this street and buys postcards, worry beads (komboloi), ashtrays, icons, you name it.

[In the “Komboloi Museum” in Nafplio, Greece:]

It was an extensive collection of prayer beads Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Catholic - with an explanation of how they evolved one from the other: Muslim traders brought prayer beads from Asia and adapted them to Islam; in the late l2th century, Crusaders brought them back from Constantinople to Catholic Europe, where they metamorphosed into rosary beads. Buddhist strands have 108 beads; Muslim beads track the 99 identities of Allah, usually with 33 beads for three prayers each, and rosaries most often consist of 5 groups of 10 small beads with larger beads separating them. From these prayer beads, the strictly secular Greek worry beads evolved, having no specified number of beads to a strand, chosen for aesthetic considerations like feel and look, a combination toy and meditation device.

[This next paragraph is written by a "Ted W. Stevens" of Watertown, Massachusetts, footnoted as a "Personal communication"; he introduces his web page with this statement: "The use of subhas is first documented in Hinduism, although of the 313 dispensations (1) prior to Islam, on this planet, we can never know how many others might have used this method of counting prayers." -- his #1 footnote referencing "Moslem Hadith": I suspect Ted is another Tom Haidon...]

In Islam the rosary is called a misbaha or subha, from "Subhan'u'llah", which means "God is the All-Splendorous". So a subha is a God-praising instrument. A Muslim subha consists of 99 beads to praise the 99 know names of Allah. The unknown, or hidden 100th name is Baha'u'llah. The 99 are usually divided into three sections of 33 beads each to count repetitions of "Subhan'u'llah, Alhamd'u'llah", (Praise God) and "Allah'u'Akbar" (God is the Most Great). The subha is also used for repetitions of Koranic passages and personal prayers.

Posted by: Television at May 26, 2006 2:07 PM

Sadly, one of my students from Afghanistan, a very nice young man (religious but most certainly not an Islamist) was telling me recently that his older cousin lived in Malaysia for a few years and described it as the "ideal Muslim country"--in part because it is supposedly non-fanatical, shows respect for non-Muslims, etc. I'll be emailing my student this article to show him that unfortunately, his cousin is incorrect (whether willfully or not). Also, weren't there gangs of Muslim men in Malaysia earlier this year who were raping Christian and Buddhist women and shouting "Allahu akbar!" as they did so? Perhaps I'm remembering that incorrectly. "Ideal Muslim country" indeed.

Posted by: kaffirchick at May 26, 2006 7:16 PM

Television-

"Programming and Meta-Programming the Human Bio-Computer" (as John C. Lilly put it) the old-fashioned way. Bead by bead, hypnotic suggestion by hypnotic suggestion.

Allah [beep] Akbar.

BTW

My favorite Byron line is:

"The best of life is but intoxication."

Posted by: profitsbeard at May 26, 2006 9:25 PM

I wouldn't worry about Malaysia going the jihadi route too much. While the Muslim majority (approx. 60%) control the government (and quite frequently use it to suppress dissent - so much for democracy), they are balanced out by the citizens of Chinese descent, who have disproportianate dominance over the country's economy. The Muslims aren't quite devout enough to throw away decades of economic and technological advancement in the name of Islam, and jihadi activity is mostly limited to propaganda pap, crying about percieved injustices by the US and Israel towards Muslims, and the like (basically, they're no worse than the MSM).

Of course, it's impossible to predict how things will look like 15 or 30 years down the road, but for now Malaysia turning into another Saudi Arabia or even Indonesia is the least of everyone's concerns.

(a local's $0.02)

Posted by: Agent Orange at May 26, 2006 11:42 PM

The death sentence against an apostate who refuses to repent and return to Islam has several virtues

Not the least of which is that Muslims can continue to make the misleading claim that Islam is the "fastest growing religion in the world". After all, the more they can force followers to stay in the fold against their will, the less likely the fold will shrink. Hardly anything to be proud of, when "growth in numbers" depends on threatening members with punishment for leaving. Many street gangs have been known to do the same thing.

"You can check out anytime you like...but you can never leave..."

Posted by: yadayada at May 27, 2006 2:35 AM

Is "Very Concerned Mother" only concerned that the textbooks advocate the *death penalty* for apostasy? In other words, is she okay with softer penalties for apostasy? Saudi Wahhabi or not, the fact that there is ANY penalty (e.g. fine, prison, loss of job, probation, community service, etc.) for simply switching personal beliefs is outrageous. But sadly, that is the Malaysia of today (and of many other so-called "more moderate" Islamic countries)....

Restrictions on Religious Freedom (in Malaysia)

In practice, Muslims were not permitted to convert to another religion. In several recent rulings, secular courts ceded jurisdiction to the Islamic courts in matters involving conversion to or from Islam. In July 2004, the Federal Court upheld a 2002 lower court ruling that only the Islamic court is qualified to determine whether a Muslim has become an apostate; in 2000, the Islamic court sentenced four persons to 3-year prison terms for apostasy.

Posted by: yadayada at May 27, 2006 2:59 AM

Hugh,
Searched and found "The Destruction of Seenacherib". Nice poem. Tx.

Posted by: arjun.sevak at May 27, 2006 6:28 AM

Pythagoras,

We should not abandon Malaysia, but should fight for it. It's not an Arab tyranny, not yet, and can be redeemed.

Posted by: longtime lurker at May 27, 2006 3:38 PM