
A “hideous insult” — like the jihad against Europe
This pulpit is part of European history and heritage. The figure in the photo above is not even certainly Muhammad, but in any case if Muslims want to regard this as a “hideous insult,” they should likewise regard the Ottoman invasions of Europe, and the broken siege of Vienna in 1683 that this pulpit may be commemorating, as insults as hideous or more hideous — or doesn’t regard for other faiths go both ways?
Of course it doesn’t, for the Islamic supremacists.
Thomas Landen reports at Brussels Journal, May 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):
Belgian police is protecting a 17th century pulpit in the Flemish town of Dendermonde. The pulpit in the Catholic church of Our Lady dates from 1685, two years after the battle of Vienna when the Christian armies of the Polish King John III Sobieski defeated the Turks poised to overrun Europe. The sculpted wooden pulpit, made by Mattheus van Beveren, depicts a man subdued by angels and represents the triumph of Christianity over Islam. The man is generally thought to be Mohammed. He is holding a book which is generally assumed to be the Koran.
Two years ago, on April 16, 2006, during the height of the Danish cartoon affair, this website published a photo of the pulpit to show that there is a long tradition of depicting Mohammed in European iconography. Last Friday the Turkish newspaper Yeniçag reprinted our picture on its front page with the caption “Stop this hideous insult.” Yeniçag demands that Belgium remove the pulpit. The paper writes that “We have had the crusades and now they are still trying to humiliate us. This is as bad as the Danish cartoons and Geert Wilders”s Fitna movie in the Netherlands. Even Pope Benedict does nothing to stop these humiliations.”
Since Friday, we have received threats while the authorities in Belgium, which has a large population of Turkish immigrants, fear that the pulpit and the church may be attacked. The Belgian press reported today that the police is guarding Dendermonde’s Our Lady church to prevent vandalism to church and pulpit.
Brian C. Ledbetter at Snapped Shot has some trenchant observations on this.