The trial may be interesting

Submitted by John C. Lamoreaux (United States), Jul 10, 2011 at 03:12

So much has happened since Khalifa's murder that it almost now seems a trivial matter. It certainly wasn't thought such at the time. I well remember sitting in a seminar, in my first year in graduate school, and watching two Muslim students nearly come to blows over the number 19.

While Khalifa wasn't always sure whether he was a-washin' or a-hangin', he was just sane enough that his notions infuriated and enthused Muslims the world over---still do, in fact. His life and murder also intersected with figures and institutions that would one day become all too familiar:

• Bin Laden's nascent al-Qaeda and its US fundraising arm;
• the thug and sometimes sheikh Umar 'Abd al-Rahman;
• a nasty mosque in Brooklyn implicated in the 1993 WTC bombing;
• a man who may have been one of al-Qaeda first agents in the US;
• al-Qaeda's vicious bombing of the African civilians (and by way of collateral damage, our embassies);
• Gilani's merry band of militants in al-Fuqra;
• even the grand mufti of Saudi, Bin Baz, saw fit to vomit forth a fatwa on the subject.

The trial should prove interesting. If nothing else, it'll bring back memories of the good old days, when a higher percentage of Muslims thought it impossible to be simultaneously mass murders and good Muslims.

Thanks for the update.

JCL

To those tasked with protecting Khalifa's memory, so angry over the suggestion that the good doctor claimed to be a prophet....

As every madrasah-boy knows, Sunni _consensus_ holds that every messenger is also a prophet (though every prophet is not also a messenger). Make yourselves one of those pretty little venn diagrams. I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Alternatively, you may wish to consider advancing to one of the more traditional arcane disciplines: oneiromancy, say, or phrenology. They're as intellectually rigorous as Khalifa's Find-the-Fake-Ayat. The latter is also quite practical, if you're ever asked to play Find-the-Fake-Goy.

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