Jihad Watch board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald weighs in on the Idaho Statesman’s request that non-Muslims in Idaho (Idaho!) put crescent moons on their homes in an expression of solidarity with Muslims:
Ramadan is, of course, the least offensive of Muslim observances, and the one that can most easily be likened to the dietary regimes — the observance of Lent among older Catholics, the avoidance of pork among orthodox Jews. It is heavily emphasized, therefore, by Muslim propagandists, apologists at mosque open houses and “interfaith dialogues” — while the real things we worry about, the things that lead to mass murders in Beslan or Madrid or New York or Washington or Luxor, and assassinations in Amsterdam, and how those murders are prompted by canonical texts of Islam, by certain teachings, that are not those of a “handful of extremists” nor must of “Wahhabis” or of those who are “poverty stricken.” Whoever in Utah, simpleminded or sinister, is behind this has to be queried, and stopped, by people better informed — who understand exactly what use Ramadan is used to present, at first, a smiling and plausible image to beguile the unwary Infidels. There is no reason to collaborate in propaganda which may seem, to some, so inoffensive but is not. Not at all.
And if one is to suggest, as the addendum notes, that non-Muslims are asked by some bright soul to put up a crescent moon in some kind of idiotic identification with Muslims, why stop there? Why not ask Muslims and other non-Christians to wear a cross, or put up a crucifix, or ask non-Jews to put mezuzahs on their door-frames? Why not, indeed?
In fact, such gestures are phony, and avoid the heart of the matter. By all means, have a course in comparative religion. But if that course is to have any value at all, the section on Islam must — simply must — describe Muhammad as he is described, with Aisha and the Bani Qurayza and the attack on Khaybar and the agreement with the Quraysh at Al-Hudaibiyya in 628 — that’s right, all of it. And dar al-Islam and dar al-harb. And the treatment of non-Muslims under Muslim rule. Not those little lessons in Ramadan-worship, and look, oh what fun to turn the little prayer rug just so, facing the “qibla” — yes, thank you Ahmed for explaining that to Cindy and Josh. Gosh, kids, why don’t we all try facing Mecca and just pray to God, ’cause He’s sure to be the same for all of us, God wouldn’t change, would He?” Stop this nonsense. Get on with teaching reading and writing, and leave the little lessons in social enginering at the door.
Oh, and as for that crescent moon? As Bette Davis says to Paul Henreid at the end of “Now, Voyager”: “Why ask for the moon — we have the stars.”