Proving the Pope right

Submitted by Amil Imani (United States), Sep 19, 2006 at 15:02

Pope Benedict XVI in his speech of September 12 at the University of Regensburg, Germany, perhaps unintentionally provided the Muslims with a golden opportunity: the opportunity to prove to all enemies of Islam that Muhammad indeed gave the world magnificent new teachings.

The Pope, in the course of his speech alluded to a 1391 comment of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus in a debate with an educated Persian: "Show me just what Mohammad brought that was new, and there you find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

No sooner the Muslims learned of this comment than, once again, rage engulfed them. They became indignant, hysterical and ready to war. Not long ago, there was the report, published by a rag seeking to boost its sacking circulation, that American military personnel have flushed the Quran down the toilet: A physical impossibility that turned out to be baseless, upon investigation. Yet, Muslim Street bellowed with anger, attacks on non-Muslims and their properties were unleashed and lives were lost in the violence.

Before long, we had the imbroglio of the Danish cartoons insulting Muhammad, as the Muslim saw it. Embassies were torched, boycotts were enacted and all kinds of threats were hurled at the tiny nation for one of its newspapers printing cartoons that Muslims felt were offensive.

Before the dust could settle, the President of the United States of America, George W. Bush, dared to call "Islamic fascists," Islamic fascists. Truth is not always welcomed in all quarters. Islamic centers and their well-paid highly vocal lobbying hires launched a furious attack on the President for the use of the term "fascist" in connection with the rarified name of Islam. Opportunists such as to the left of the left Democratic Senator from Wisconsin, Russ Feingold found the President's usage so unacceptable that he took it upon himself to write a letter to the President and lecturing him.

And now the Head of the Catholic Church has greatly offended the sensibilities of Muslims by quoting a long ago statement of an emperor in a debate.

Muslims wear their religion on their sleeves and the slightest contrary wind disturbs its cozy sanctified perch. Yet, these very people of great religious fervor have no problem in inflicting all kinds of verbal and physical abuse on non-Muslims. Why the double standards? Read the Quran.

The Islamic world is once again in uproar. Why should the Muslims be outraged? Why should they react by torching churches, shooting a nun in the back, and retaliating by calling Pope and Christians all kinds of names? What happened to reason and dialogue? Their "Dialogue-man," the smiling fake Mullah Khatami, is presently touring the West to promote dialogues. Apparently the snake-oil salesman Mullah means a different thing by "dialogue." His side can say and do whatever they want, and the other sides should simply acquiesce—a great Islamic offer.

The Muslims missed a golden opportunity. Their greatly-pampered legions of high clerics should have put their medieval heads together and made the case for Islam, if they could. If successful, not only they would have humiliated the Pontiff but impressed the rank-and-file Christians of the marvelous good teachings that Muhammad brought for mankind, for the first time. An added benefit could have been the conversion of the disbelievers to Islam.

Yet, the way the Islamic leaders are responding to the Pontiff's speech is indeed a great embarrassment to Islam at a time the world is repeatedly shocked by the many barbarities Muslims commit. The Supreme Spiritual Guide of Iran's Muslims, Mullah Khamenei, for instance, has urged the close-minded faithful to hold huge protest demonstrations. It appears that the call of the Mullah for demonstrations is an attempt at intimidation, the best he can do since he does not have a rational defensible response and he is not able to send his assassins all the way to Rome to carry out the Islamic favorite way of supplying answers. Also, who knows, perhaps some of his rabid followers, the three Fs: fools, fanatics and frauds will find a nun to shoot in the back during the hoped-for hysterical gatherings. If not, there are a few churches in the country that can be looted first and then burned to the ground.

Question: How in the world a huge demonstration is the appropriate answer to the perceived affront allegedly committed by the Pontiff's speech? With great spiritual guides like Khamenei, Islam does not need non-Muslims to go to the trouble of defaming it. Islam's teachings and Muslims' actions are more than convincing proof to any impartial person to second the Pontiff's speech.

Islamic web sites and newspapers have supplied their own form of rebuttal to the Pontiff's statement. They proudly, some contend shamelessly, wave the sword and promise the end of all infidels, people of the cross and the Zionists.

Only three days after the Pope's speech, Iraq's Mujahidin Shura Council issued its own very Islamic response, inadvertently substantiating the Pontiff's comment. Here is a part of what the Council posted:

"After the stupid and obeyed bearer of the cross flag, Bush, declared a few years back the start of a new crusade on Islam and its people and launched his crusade with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the servant of the cross, the Vatican Pope, appears before us, orbiting around Bush, to continue in Bush's footsteps with his flagrant assault on Islam and its prophet, Muhammad, may God's peace and blessings be upon him, especially with his remarks on 'the duty of jihad in the name of God' -- a duty that flowed through the body of the nation and terrified crusaders the world over."

The self-appointed custodian of the religion of "peace" continues with its superb logical reasoning by warning the "worshippers of the cross": "You and the Romans are on a date with the defeat you see every day in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and elsewhere." The Council promises to "Break the cross, spill the wine, and enforce the al-jizyah (tax levied on non-Muslims in return for protection), leaving people with a choice between Islam and the sword." The statement vows, "For we will press forth with our jihad and will not stop until Allah enables us to cut your throats, and until the banner of monotheism is raised and Allah's law prevails over all lands and all people."

You be the judge. Did these defenders of the one and only true religion of Allah say anything that in any way falsifies the quotation the Pontiff used?

"There is not a truth existing which I fear [...] or would wish unknown to the whole world," said Thomas Jefferson.

This is truth. The barbarians are at the gate. This time around, the people of the sword have their collaborator Useful Idiots inside busily doing all they can to dismantle our secular democratic system and replace it with the tyrannical Islamofascism.

Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American citizen and pro-democracy activist residing in the United States of America. Imani is a columnist, literary translator, novelist and an essayist who has been writing and speaking out for the struggling people of his native land, Iran. He maintains a website at http://amilimani.com

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