In “Analogy of Zidane and the Muslim Ummah,” Farhad Khadim at Iviews.com (thanks to Fjordman) see the World Cup championship soccer match between Italy and France as an analogy for the global jihad:
It was then that it occurred to me that what I had just witnessed was a microcosm of the Muslim Ummah, played out in a soccer field before the eyes of the whole world. For me Zidane was the Muslim Ummah, with past glory and achievement crowning his forehead, leading his people to victory, achievement and a respectable place among nations. His opponents were bent on striking him down, and one in particular, Materrazi was an embodiment of the monstrous powers who are bent on occupying, provoking and stereotyping the Muslim Ummah.
And like the Ummah today, the provocation was too much for him. He snapped and did something uncharacteristic because he felt victimized. Perhaps he was called a “dirty terrorist” as some report, or his sister or mother were called by some degrading name as others report. Whatever it was, he lost all sense of where he was, his legacy, his future and the difference he could have made to the game, and fell victim to the deliberate provocative assaults on his person.
I see his reaction as analogous to the protests, flag burnings and other emotional outbursts committed by Muslims against others who may have deliberately provoked them.
Yes, everyone knows that calling people terrorists makes them become terrorists.
Like Zidane, we shock the world when we do things uncharacteristic of our faith, and we betray those who see in us a ray of hope for civilization.
Or do you just act true to the example of Muhammad and the teachings of the various Islamic sects and schools of law? Watch for my next book, The Truth About Muhammad, coming October 9 from Regnery Publishing.
Like Zidane, the Muslim Ummah has suffered provocations and deliberate attempts to tarnish its image, despite great civilizational achievements for a millennium. And like Zidane, we snap when we cannot take it any more.
Like Zidane’s suffering of an alleged abuse, we also suffer the abuse of the desecration of our holy symbols, occupation of our lands, colonization, genocide and murder of innocent civilians. And like him, the temptation is to turn our back on history, our legacy of patience and restraint and to lash out without considering whether our actions are ethical or strategic. Kidnappings, bombing of innocent civilians, destruction of property after the cartoon episode are all images that have come to characterize the Ummah.
What, then, explains the centuries of jihad warfare carried out by the great Islamic empires of the past, when they had no conceivable provocation? Why did Muhammad travel to Tabuk to attack the Byzantines, though they had taken no notice of him? Why did the Muslim jihad warriors sweep through the Middle East and North Africa and into Europe in the early centuries of Islam, although the states they conquered had done nothing whatsoever to them?