| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Jihad Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
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JERUSALEM (AP) — Anger over Israeli construction to repair a damaged ramp near a disputed Jerusalem holy site erupted into violence Friday as police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse thousands of rioting Muslims. Protests spread across the Arab world, with demonstrators accusing Israel of plotting to harm Islamic shrines….Small protests against the renovation began as soon as work started this week. They became violent after Friday prayers, when Muslims at the compound began throwing rocks at police stationed outside, according to Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben Ruby. – from this article
It could be worse. When Friday Prayers are let out in Bangladesh, whipped-up "worshippers" have expressed their frenzied devotion by beating to death passing Hindus. You can see some of the scenes online, if you care to. And no doubt were there not an Israel and an Israeli police force to prevent it, they would do the same thing to Jews after Jumaa Prayers on the Temple Mount.
Of course the whole Muslim outrage is a crock, one more excuse to whip up fanatical frenzy. The repairs to the staircase which are made necessary by damage that a freak snowstorm caused several years ago, damage that can not be left unrepaired much longer, is a full 200 feet from the Temple Mount.
Will this be pointed out in the world's press or on television? No. It won't. We will see scenes of Muslims who claim to be aggrieved. We will see scenes of Israeli police and tear gas on the Temple Mount. You get the picture, the dreary picture.
Will there be any interviews with archaeologists around the world -- and of course in Israel -- about the real damage being done entirely by Muslim Arabs as they throw out hundreds and hundreds of tons of earth, and together with that earth all kinds of artifacts, Jewish and Muslim, and then dump it, because they wish to remove whatever traces they can of the Jewish past to be found on or under Temple Mount? They cannot stop to pluck out, and have no need to pluck out, Muslim artifacts -- because their claim is based on a single line in the Qur'an, about where the fabulous Night Journey ("miraj") of Muhammad took place (up and down from earth to seventh heaven, in a mere twenty-four hours).
That fateful line in the seventeenth sura about the "farthest mosque" (al-masjid al-aqsa") was subsequently, after some debate, fixed as Jerusalem by the Omayyad caliph sitting in Damascus. He chose to stake a claim to the city holy to Jews and Christians, just as Muslims had appropriated and distorted so much of the stories and figures in the prior monotheisms, Judaism and Christianity.
And for a bit more on how the Omayyad Caliph in Damascus went about staking that claim to Jerusalem, consider the "Dome of the Rock," which is nothing more than a Byzantine martyrium, of which there were so many. Within it, high up, there is Arabic but non-Qur'anic writing -- i.e. non-Muslim in its significance. People keep forgetting that Arabic writing does not always and everywhere imply Islam. See the analysis, which Muslims have chosen to ignore entirely, hoping it will not be noticed -- but it will, it is and it will -- by the great philologist of Syriac and classcial Arabic Christoph Luxenberg, "Neudeutung der arabischen Inschrift im Felsendom zu Jerusalem." It can be found in the anthhology "Die dunklen Anfange" published by Schiler in 2005. Silence by the world's Muslim scholars does not constitute a convincing refutation of Luxenberg's thesis that the inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock are not Islamic, but Christian in origin. The refusal by Muslims to question anything about their faith, and to refuse any hint of historical investigation akin to that which both Judaism and Christianity underwent with the Higher Criticism (starting in Germany and in England) may be understandable, given the rigidity and brittleness of Islam and its enforcement mechanism on its adherents.
But what explains the scandalous timidity of non-Muslim scholars, so afraid to investigate early Islam, or the origins of the Qur'an, with the kind of unafraid forthrightness of those who engaged in the Higher Criticism? Instead, so often they are so timid, so afraid of antagonizing their Muslim colleagues, so worried about giving offense, that their own scholarly efforts are fatally vitiated because they merely accept, without more investigation, the standard and received Muslim version of the history of Islam. For one example, look at the work of Fred Donner. But there are so many others.
Meanwhile, Puin and Popp and Claude Gilliot and a hundred others are making the scholarly contributions that others, out of their timidity or their sheer inability, cannot or will not make.
Quite something.
Posted by Hugh at February 10, 2007 8:22 AM
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Hugh Fitzgerald:
"And no doubt were there not an Israel and an Israeli police force to prevent it, they would do the same thing to Jews after Jumaa Prayers on the Temple Mount".
Thank GOD for pointing it out. Has to be highlighted. I was really missing the laser guided like "choochoo" of your writeups that spring from your heart.
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at February 10, 2007 8:31 AM
Stupid, incredibly stupid.
The israelis want to repair a ramp, and the islamic world is set on fire.
God, what stupid barbarians.
I say, let the islamic stuff at the site rot and fall in on it's own weight.
Disgusting.
Posted by: bonncaruso at February 10, 2007 8:54 AM
I finally have it. Now I understand what muzzies do. They sit in a pooh filled diaper like a baby, then blame and complain that someone else did not check them and set them on the potty before they soiled themself.
Are there no men in islam? or only people with penises hiding behind people without??
Posted by: vulcan at February 10, 2007 10:58 AM
Got to give it to them,those high tech. muslims. Sticks and stones. They are a resourceful bunch.
Posted by: mustang65 at February 10, 2007 12:18 PM
Islam is just a thug religion, practiced by thugs, for thugs. So don't expect consistency, logic, humaneness or decency. It is a barbarizing influence and obviously should be rooted out. Sadly, we both can and don't.
Posted by: Seymour Paine at February 10, 2007 2:52 PM
Sorry - but since when did this become LGF?
One of the reasons I stick around here is because the level of debate is normally high - this article brings up several interesting ideas - and how is it recieved? With comments that sneer and make cheapshots against Islam - rather than discussion of the content of the article.
Hugh is right to point this problem out:
Somehow archaeology is never important to Islam culture - unless it is about promoting "Islamic Culture" - and there will be no discussion about the possibility that the "Dome on the Rock" is not a mosque until they do open up the debate.
But they can't - because there can be no debate - because they have the Authentic Word of God (tm) - immutable and unchangeable forever and ever ..
While we are at it - has anyone seriously looked at the Hindu claims that the Taj Mahal is a recylced Hindu temple? I haven't been there yet (didn't have time last time I was in India - and anyhow Agra is meant to be a tourist trap nightmare hell kind of place that I hate in India ...)
Anyone here checked out the Hindu claims that the Taj Mahal is a recycled Shiva temple? Interesting thesis anyhow .... even if I am not quite sure it isn't a BJP plot designed to undermine Islamic supremacy ...
Posted by: drk at February 10, 2007 6:44 PM
"While we are at it - has anyone seriously looked at the Hindu claims that the Taj Mahal is a recylced Hindu temple?"
-- from a posting above
That claim is a wild one, and should be ignored. It should be ignored because, being wild and unsupported by convincing evidence, it will cast doubt on all the thousands of temple complexes, and hundreds of thousands of Hindu (and Buddhist) artifacts destroyed, their stone re-used for the building of mosques and Mughal palaces.
Why, when there is so much evidence of Muslim destruction of non-Islamic and pre-Islamic sites, undo one's own case by focussing on a claim that is almmost certainly false? Stick to all the things that Sita Ram Goel and Koenraad Elst and Francois Gautier and many Hindu scholars have written about, have compiled lists about. That's enough. That's more than enough.
Just getting non-Hindus, and even many with-it Westernized Hindus who think that they must distance themselves in every way from anything smacking of "communalism" (as they call it, meaning only the Hindu grievances, and not the Muslim record and present Muslim behavior), to see what made V. S. Naipaul describe India as a "wounded civilization
Leave the Taj Majal out of it, except insofar as Hindu craftsmen were used (and then killed afterwards) by their Muslim master, once his fabled "tear in marble" (Tagore's phrase, I think) had been completed.
Posted by: Hugh at February 11, 2007 12:05 AM
I will go with Hugh Fitzgerald in Taj Mahal issue because Temples , Churches, gardens , orchards, groves, forests etc etc can be built leisurely. First we need to be ALIVE.
Already " meretricious "( Hugh) Musharaff has played a Hindu Temple card in pukistan winning over many "wounded hindutvavadis" . All that Musharraf needs to do is scream Vande Maatharam and idiotised Hindutvavadis will kick out LORD PARAMESHWARA and build a temple around Musharraf. So pplease....you don't know the idiocy of Indians.
Posted by: Crows&Cows at February 11, 2007 4:07 AM
On Taj mahal, I have a wonderful writeup a logical , scientific say Sherlock Homesian type of analysis by a Prof. Marvin H. Mills. Non fanatical but with dry wit and humour demolishing any muslimaa claim. Absolutely. No moghal built it. So let us stick to Hugh.
Posted by: Crows&Cows at February 11, 2007 4:19 AM
Re: Taj Mahal
Nice analysis Hugh - I knew that if I could find out anything about this anywhere on the web it would be here ...
Crows&Cows: I'm not keen on "the idiocy of Indians" comment - I've met loads of Indians (in India) and they seem OK to me - including the Hindus, Christians, and yes, even some of the Moslems ...
Posted by: drk at February 11, 2007 5:34 AM
drk,
That you took time to read my comments does not flatter me a wee bit. That would answer your 'opinions' without actually my typing out an answer. Do remember I am very much a Hindu. One among those "idiotised Indians" . And can choose to practise taqqiya of those "yes, even some of the Moslems ..." with exponentially mind boggling panache.
Your outstanding ;)*Shiva Bhakthi* (;o)))) (actually I am guffawing dunno the emoticon )behind such keeeeeeeeen interest in Taj Mahal has horripilated me.
SARCASM off /
I had to add that or else you would have felt outstandingly horripilated.
Posted by: Crows&Cows at February 11, 2007 6:52 AM
All those horripilatingly PIOUS non Hindus of the world full of Emily Postian etiquette and niceties can also do some research on 'Vael Ilangu Kanni ' ( no.. no typo..I am not referring to calf meat called veal ) who got "converted" into velaankanni church. How Maariamma of Hindus gets converted into Mother Mary. What the santhome church was built upon.... what was demolished by who out to " reform " the " pagans "....
Hugh:
" Stick to all the things that Sita Ram Goel and Koenraad Elst and Francois Gautier and many Hindu scholars have written about, have compiled lists about. That's enough. That's more than enough".
Certainly not what I concur with.
Sree Kaanchi Paramacharyaa IS OUR HINDU PONTIFF . YES , I belong to that MATHAM. and oh that way we Hindus have no dearth at all of either Gods or Spirituality or Knowledge. PUHLEEZE don't carry such a back breaking "white man's burden" again. Already you are groaning under too many.
at February 11, 2007 7:23 AM
CHINA would never ever surreptitiously "convert " our Temples or ride rough shod over us with peremptorily disdainful wordy RESEARCHES. WHo wants such in an an already overpopulated Bharatvarsh ? Germs and viruses also serve such a vitally useful role in protecting us from potential marauders !
The ties between China and Bharatvarsh run very very deep and profound. No no I am not at all referring to any isms like buddhism. Credit them with far more supreme intelligence. Once while hosting a banquet in China during "useful idiots" like chacha bhathija nehrukhan's sharia over India ( cleverly worded tryst with destiny)
a very Eminent Chinaman said:
" To attain MOKSHA you should be born in Bharathvarsh ".
Posted by: Crows&Cows at February 11, 2007 9:43 AM
Hugh:
What hope in hell do we have of "non Muslim scholars" really investigating the early history of Islam, when we have the media ignoring salient facts underpinning the latest outbreak of global Muslim self-wrongeous indignation:
Excerpt from last Friday's frontpagemag.com article by David Hornick entitled "Israel's New Sunni Friends":
[...]
The ramp in question is supposed to replace a temporary ramp that engineers determined to be unsafe. It enables access—for everyone, emphatically including Muslims—to the Temple Mount and is not on the Mount itself. Israeli law mandates an archeological dig before the construction can start, and the dig is now under way—60 meters from the Mount.
But none of these mundanities seemed to trouble Israel’s Sunni friends. Back in 1996, the then designated moderate Yasser Arafat used Israel’s extension of a tunnel two football fields away from the Mount to spark a bloody mini-war.
[...]
Yes, folks, that's right. The ramp is 60 metres from the Temple Mount or about 65 yards. But let's not let facts interfere with a golden opportunity for the usual suspects to condemn Israel for provocative behaviour.
Posted by: waterdragon52 at February 12, 2007 8:49 AM
Since they il,legality donot allow me to make comment at Jihadwatch you posting there about studying Islam scienist willnot work at all. There is no condistin the Koran, both the early writing and later one donot have to conist each other. First
the circent around both writeing can be different from each other. Than famous rular of Babylon once codeize all the legal ruling in it long history into one code our legal scholar notice in acase of than wife haveing than sexual relation with than man not her hushand in one case she was execute, the second divorsed and have to pay a heavy fine, and the third case she only have to pay a small fine at first they apply the western logic as they thought that ruler wrote all the law and make the rulering. Lather on they found it was the legal opion of many different judges and rulers over than peroid of 2 thousand year or more. The first case above was the oldest the next one the secornd oldest than the last one petty new in term of 2000 years span of history. The legal system underwent some change. Second the second writeing can expanse the meaning of the first writeing in the koran,
Muhammad in that Koran verse was never call than Prophet. It is correct given to me by than moslim scholar as ...Muhammad is Allag slave and Meessager. All people who are believer no matter they statues are in Allah eyes his slaves.
at February 13, 2007 4:35 AM
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