Here is a politically incorrect thought sure to be reviled
by Left Wing Multiculturalists and maybe even some Religious Liberty-minded Conservatives: Islam is soooo anti-Christian and
Antisemitic in its revered writings, the death-cult should be illegalized as a
legitimate religion in ANY Western Nation but especially in the U.S. of A.
Unless you are a Muslim supporter of this cult you might
ask, “Why?”
I suspect Raymond Ibrahim would not publicly agree with me
for politically correct reasons, his recent post – “The Jihad on the Christian Cross”
– is a good enough reason to me to illegalize Islam.
JRH 6/7/19
Your generosity is always appreciated:
***********************
The Jihad on the
Christian Cross
06/07/2019
Cover
story photo of the 15th issue of Islamic State magazine, Dabiq,
titled “Break the Cross.”
A 37-year-old Muslim migrant in Rome was recently arrested
for homicide after he stabbed a Christian man in
the throat for wearing a crucifix around his neck. “Religious hate” is cited as an
“aggravating factor” in the crime.
This is hardly the first “religious hate” crime to occur in
the context of the cross in Italy. Among others,
·
A Muslim boy of African origin picked on,
insulted, and eventually beat a 12-year-old girl during school because she too was wearing a crucifix.
·
A Muslim migrant invaded an old church in Venice and attacked its
large, 300-year-old cross, breaking off one of its arms, while shouting, “All
that is in a church is false!”
·
After a crucifix was destroyed in
close proximity to a populated mosque, the area’s mayor said concerning the identity of the culprit(s):
“Before we put a show of unity with Muslims, let’s have them begin by
respecting our civilization and our culture.”
The fact is, Islamic hostility to the cross is an unwavering
phenomenon—one that crosses continents and centuries; one that is very much
indicative of Islam’s innate hostility to Christianity.
For starters, not only is the cross the quintessential
symbol of Christianity—for all denominations, including most forms of otherwise
iconoclastic Protestantism—but it symbolizes the fundamental disagreement
between Christians and Muslims. As Professor Sidney Griffith
explains, “The cross and the icons publicly declared those very points of
Christian faith which the Koran, in the Muslim view, explicitly denied: that
Christ was the Son of God and that he died on the cross.” Accordingly,
“the Christian practice of venerating the cross … often aroused the disdain of
Muslims,” so that from the start of the Muslim conquests of Christian lands there
was an ongoing “campaign to erase the public symbols of Christianity,
especially the previously ubiquitous sign of the cross.”
This “campaign” traces back to the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
He reportedly “had such a repugnance to the form of the cross that he
broke everything brought into his house with its figure upon it,” wrote one
historian (Sword and Scimitar, p.
10). Muhammad also claimed that at the end times Jesus (the Muslim ‘Isa)
himself would make it a point to “break the cross.”
Modern day Muslim clerics confirm this. When asked
about Islam’s ruling on whether any person—in this case, Christians—is
permitted to wear or pray before the cross, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Tarifi, a
Saudi expert on Islamic law, said, “Under no circumstances is a human permitted to wear
the cross” nor “is anyone permitted to pray to the cross.” Why?
“Because the prophet—peace and blessings on him—commanded the breaking of
it [the cross].”
Islamic history is a reflection of these sentiments.
For instance, the aforementioned Sheikh al-Tarifi also explained that if it is too difficult to break the
cross—for instance, a large concrete statue—Muslims should at least try to disfigure
one of its four arms “so that it no longer resembles a cross.” Historic
and numismatic evidence confirms that, after the Umayyad caliphate seized the
Byzantine treasury in the late seventh century, it ordered that one or two arms
of the cross on the coins be effaced so that the image no longer resembled a
crucifix (Sword and Scimitar, p.
54).
Testimonies from the very earliest invasions into Christian
Syria and Egypt of Muslims systematically breaking every crucifix they
encountered abound. According to Anastasius of Sinai, who lived during
the seventh century Arab conquests, “the demons name the Saracens
[Arabs/Muslims] as their companions. And it is with reason. The
latter are perhaps even worse than the demons,” for whereas “the demons
are frequently much afraid of the mysteries of Christ,” among which he mentions
the cross, “these demons of flesh trample all that under their feet, mock it,
set fire to it, destroy it” (Sword and Scimitar, p.
27).
Reminiscent of the recent drawing of a cross in fecal matter on
a French church, in 1147 in Portugal, Muslims displayed “with much derision the
symbol of the cross. They spat upon it and wiped the feces from their
posteriors with it.” Decades earlier in Jerusalem, Muslims “spat on them
[crucifixes] and did not even refrain from urinating on them in the sight of
all.” Even that supposedly “magnanimous” sultan, Saladin, commanded “whoever
saw that the outside of a church was white, to cover it with black dirt,” and
ordered “the removal of every cross from atop the dome of every church in the
provinces of Egypt” (Sword and Scimitar,
pp. 171, 145, 162).
Lest Muslim hostility to the cross still seem
aberrant—limited to some obscure saying of Muhammad or “ancient history”—below
is a very partial list of examples of how the crucifix continues to throw even
“everyday” Muslims into paroxysms:
Egypt: A young Coptic Christian woman named Mary
was mauled to death when her
cross identified her as a Christian to Muslim Brotherhood rioters.
Similarly, 17-year-old Ayman, a Coptic student, was strangled and beaten to death by his Muslim teacher
and fellow students for refusing to obey the teacher’s orders to cover his
cross.
Pakistan: When a Muslim man saw Julie Aftab, a Christian woman,
wearing a cross around her neck, he attacked her, forced battery acid down her
throat, and splashed it on her face—permanently damaging her esophagus,
blinding her in one eye, and causing her to lose both eyelids and most of her
teeth.
Turkey: A 12-year-old boy in Turkey wearing a
silver cross necklace in class was spit on and beaten regularly by Muslim
classmates and teachers.
Malaysia: A Christian cemetery was attacked and
desecrated in the middle of the night by unknown persons in
the Muslim-majority nation. Several crosses were destroyed,
including by the use of “a heavy tool to do the damage.”
Separately, a Muslim mob rioted against a small Protestant
church due to the visible cross atop the building of worship. It was
quickly removed.
Maldives: Authorities had to rescue a female Christian teacher
after Muslim “parents threatened to tie and drag her off of the island” for
“preaching Christianity.” Her crime was to draw a compass—which was
mistakenly taken for a cross—as part of a geography lesson in class.
As Islam’s presence continues to grow in Europe, it should
come as no surprise that attacks on crosses are also on the rise. Aside
from the aforementioned attacks in Italy, the following occurred either in
France and Germany, where attacks on churches and crosses have become endemic:
·
A Muslim man committed major acts of vandalism
at two churches, including by twisting a massive bronze cross. (Click for images.)
·
Christian crosses and gravestones in a cemetery
were damaged and desecrated by
a Muslim (see his handiwork).
·
A Muslim man who checked himself into a hospital
for treatment went into a sudden frenzy because there were “too many crosses on the wall.”
He called the nurse a “bitch” and “fascist” and became physically
aggressive.
·
After Muslims were granted their own section at
a cemetery, and after being allowed to conduct distinctly Islamic
ceremonies, these same Muslims began demanding that Christian symbols and
crosses in the cemetery be removed
or covered up during Islamic funerals.
·
A German language report from notes that in
the Alps and in Bavaria alone, some 200 churches have been attacked and many
crosses broken: “The perpetrators are often youthful rioters with a migration
background.”
In light of the above, it should come as no surprise that
groups such as the Islamic State also make hostile references to the cross in
their communiqués to the West: “We
will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the
permission of Allah[.] … [We will cast] fear into the hearts of the
cross-worshipers[.]” The Islamic State even once disseminated a video
showing its members smashing crosses in and atop several
churches in territories under its sway (since taken down by
YouTube); it beheaded and stabbed a man with his own crucifix;
and it published pictures of
its members destroying Christian crosses and tombstones in cemeteries under its
jurisdiction.
Similarly, in post “Arab Spring” Libya, a video of a Muslim mob attacking a commonwealth
cemetery near Benghazi appeared on the internet. As the Muslims kicked
down and destroyed headstones with crosses on them, the man videotaping them
urged them to “break the cross of the dogs!” while he and others cried “Allahu
akbar!” Toward the end of the video, the mob congregated around the huge
Cross of Sacrifice, the cemetery’s cenotaph monument, and started to hammer at
it, to more cries of “Allahu akbar.” Other Christian cemeteries in
Libya have suffered similarly.
In Iraq, pictures emerged from a Christian cemetery that was
vandalized by the Islamic State. Broken and scattered crosses
appear. In one picture, the jihadis broke
into a coffin, snapped off the head of the withered corpse, and threw the
crucifixes surrounding it on the ground.
Such is the history and continuity of Islamic hate for the
cross—that symbol which represents the heart of the Christian faith, namely the
death and resurrection of Christ, two events Islam vehemently denies.
The jihad on the cross began with Muhammad, was carried out
by early caliphs, and continues to this day by the jihadis of the world, not to
mention the occasional “everyday” Muslim.
Note: For more on the long history of jihad on the
Christian cross, see author’s recent book, Sword
and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West.
_________________________
RAYMOND
IBRAHIM is a widely
published author, public speaker, and Middle East and Islam specialist.
His books include Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries
of War between Islam and the West (Da
Capo, 2018), Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War
on Christians (Regnery, 2013),
and The Al Qaeda Reader (Doubleday, 2007).
Ibrahim’s writings,
translations, and observations have appeared in a variety of publications,
including the New York Times Syndicate, CNN, LA Times, Fox News, Financial
Times, Jerusalem Post, United Press International, USA Today, Washington
Post, Washington Times, and Weekly Standard; scholarly journals,
including the Almanac of Islamism, Chronicle of Higher Education,
Hoover Institution’s Strategika, Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, Middle
East Quarterly, and Middle East Review of International Affairs; and
popular websites, including American Thinker, Bloomberg, Breitbart,
Christian Post, Daily Caller, NewsMax, National Review Online, PJ Media, and
World Magazine. He has contributed chapters to several anthologies and has
been translated into dozens of languages.
Among other media, he has
appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, and NPR; he has
done hundreds of radio interviews and some of his YouTube videos (here and here for example) have received over a million views each.
Ibrahim guest lectures at
universities, including the National Defense Intelligence College, has briefed
governmental agencies, such as U.S. Strategic Command and the Defense
Intelligence Agency, provides expert testimony for Islam-related lawsuits, and
has testified before Congress regarding the conceptual failures that dominate American discourse concerning Islam and
the worsening plight of Egypt’s Christian Copts.
Ibrahim’s dual-background—born
and raised in the U.S. by Egyptian parents born and raised in the Middle
East—has provided him with unique advantages, from equal fluency in English and
Arabic, to an equal understanding of the …
READ THE REST
No comments:
Post a Comment