Today’s Jesus ‘n’ Mo clearly reveals that Mo is a Sunni Muslim. Remember that one of the main distinctions between Sunnis and Shiites is that the former accepted Muhammad’s father-in-law as the rightful head of the faith after the Prophet’s death, while the latter took Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law as the Caliph. On such differences rests the bloodshed and enmity that continues to plague the Middle East. ISIS, you may recall, is Sunni.
You can read about the vandalized mosque here: someone spray-painted “Shia Kafir” (“Shia unbeliever”) on the wall. It’s inexcusable, and no suspects have been apprehended, though the words suggest a Sunni might have been involved.
A special lack of awareness allows someone to make a comment like this. It could be an ironic punch-line for a J&M cartoon.
Sheesh, that statement is funny. It’s both “funny” funny and funny ha-ha.
It’s also similar to the actual punchline of the strip. When the goal is the proper understanding of God and when a proper understanding of God is the One Most Important Thing in the world then of course there will be divisions and sects and all the attendant hatred and scorn heaped on the ones who don’t believe in God the right way. Even the ecumenicists who preach mutual tolerance and respect do so from the stance that THEY know and understand God and the others don’t. There’s no test in reality for that. It’s supernatural revelation and pretty much anything goes.
Today my local paper ran a big editorial written by a Muslim woman swearing on a stack of the Qurans that there was nothing in the Quran which supported rape, slavery, or the denigration of women. ISIL is not Islamic. On the contrary, Mohammead clearly revealed an Allah who desires human rights, feminism, and tolerance for all beliefs.
I suppose that’s a prudent move.
It would be nice if, for once, those who wish to impugn the theological scholarship of Coyne, Harris, Dawkins et al, could muster a comment disparaging the the theological scholarship Dr Shafi, whom appears to have no knowledge of the history of the Abrahamic faiths.
Yeah he really missed the boat. In a free society, there is room for all sorts of sectarianism. What there is no room for is criminal violence and other law-breaking.
That’s very sinister comment. I think the perpetrator of this crime would agree with dr. Shafi…
//
It was the Sunni/Shi’a divide that enabled DAESH to gain a foothold in Iraq. I roll my eyes a bit at those who go on about colonialism in that situation.
Primary reason why there never was going to be a united Iraq as the American government wants to dream about. Besides the Sunni/Shia you have the Kurds and that spells three countries. Remember Yugoslavia and count to three.
You mean that’s not an underground marketing campaign for a new brand of fermented milk?
b&
Kaffir means something different again in South Africa, where it’s a derogatory term for a black person. I have some vague recollection of it being the equivalent of the “n” word there – perhaps someone from there could enlighten/correct me.
It comes from the same root, the Arabic “kafir” being used by Arabs to refer to black Africans who were at the time not Muslim and so were kafirs. The Europeans picked the word up and started using it as well. Of course from the perspective of the Arabs it applied just as much to the white as the black unbelievers.
This reminds me of the time I lived in the Middle East. Quite often I engaged in long discussions around culture and religion with locals. In one of those discussions, one Qatari Muslim explained to me that a Muslim would never attack or kill another Muslim . So I challenged him on the mosque bombing events taking place in Iraq at the time. The answer from this well educated Engineer was that no Muslim would ever bomb/vandalize a mosque – regardless of the Sunni or Shia sect. Those bombings were done by the Americans … facepalm!
Therefore, the spray-painting in this mosque was not done by a Sunni Muslim … obviously, lol!
I recall reading a post from someone who had worked in the middle east and said that well educated locals refused to believe that the Arctic Circle existed. Allah would never have created a place where it was impossible to observe Ramadan without starving to death.
Might this have something to do with the fact that “the total number of books translated into Arabic during the 1,000 years since the age of Caliph Al-Ma’moun [a ninth-century Arab ruler who was a patron of cultural interaction between Arab, Persian, and Greek scholars—WPR] to this day is less than those translated in Spain in one year”?
(http://worldpress.org/Mideast/663.cfm)
The old ‘No True Muslim’ fallacy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
I’m reminded of the 1985 Air India bombing, terrorism committed by at least one Canadian Sikh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India_Flight_182
This was the most deadly plane related terrorism event until 9/11.
The person caught and convicted only got 15 years in prison for killing 329 human beings.
He was also convicted of perjury for which he was sentenced to 9 years.
He and his conspirators left their own country and moved to Canada and continued their religious terrorism against a break off Sikh sect, often passing it on their children.
Vancouver Canada has the largest Sikh population outside of India. Several fights have broken up inside and outside of their temples by the Sikh community, and they have used the knife their religion requires them to carry, in those fights. There are supposedly known supporters of terrorism and extremism in the community. (According to the RCMP)
Many people believe Eastern religions to be peaceful religions. But they suffer many if not all the same problems as the Abrahamic ones.
So Mo is a Sunni. I wonder what sort of Christian Jesus is.
Not a very good one, I’m sure….
b&
Wasn’t he Jewish?
No he’s Christian. He has blue eyes.
Mormon ofcourse!
This calls something to mind. In 1969, during my last few months in Vietnam, I was talking to a South Vietnamese interpreter. He said to me that after the war in Vietnam ended, no matter who won, the Vietnamese were going to attack and conquer Cambodia. Of course he was right. Cambodians were not considered worthy of/advanced enough to own their own nation. It was a given.
Also, in the comments at J&M, there was an embedded video of comedy performance from long ago by Emo that is worth a look.
I think it’s inexcusable, but we had a lot of defence of similar vandalism just this week on this site. After all, the writing has not obscured the building has it?
I think the difference is, that the billboard was explicitly broadcasting a message (the message was BS, but that’s beside the point).
(IMO, all advertising is visual graffiti, so spraypainting over somebody’s billboard is in no way defacing the visual scene any further. To me, adverts are legitimate targets in a way that buildings, subway trains and rocks are not. Unless you’re as witty and talented as Banksy, which is a high bar to meet).
The mosque building, OTOH, is not attempting to broadcast a message, indeed it looks to be quite a respectable building. So spray-painting it is offensive and is vandalistic.
cr