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November 28, 2004
Holy place or arsenal?
I am grateful for the photolog I came across posted by Donovan [hat tip to Winds of Change]. It shows, from Fallujah, the stockpiles of weapons and munitions being recovered from Mosques in that benighted place. It also shows the contemptuous manner in which these so-called "Soldiers of Islam" treat their own holy places! They have turned them into arsenals and places of bloodshed, denying them to both God and men and women of peace. The Sanctuaries have been turned into charnel houses by this evil and vicious gang of murderous fanatics, whose version of Islam is so twisted by hatred, I am prepared to venture that their God and mine - for Christian, Jew, and Muslim all worship the same God - has long since turned His back on them and their equally evil mullahs.
When a Mosque is built, it, like a Christian Church or a Synagogue, is "given to God" in a ceremonial that shares the same sentiment for all three. That place is set aside as a place where the faithful can go to find peace, to pray, to meditate, or simply escape from the hurly-burly of their lives. Christians share with Jews and Muslims the belief that God is all around us, in creation and in our lives, but we still feel the need to set aside a "holy place" where we can encounter God without distraction. That is what the Church, the Mosque, or the Synagogue is there to provide. Therefore, to use such a place for the purpose of waging war or to commit murder is not just a heinous abuse, but it is also a desecration. Unfortunately, in Islam, it has long been the view of the fundamentalists and the extremists that - to quote Machiavelli - the end justifies the means. Thus they have no qualms about using their holy places in this way - and simply remove or silence any who do. The wimp brigade in Britain and Europe should have taken notice when Palestinian fanatics seized and desecrated the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, but they whinged instead about the part the Christian Churches have played in "oppressing" Islam - thus justifying the desecration and excusing it.
I wonder how many of them even stopped to consider what grief, what pain, and what hurt both the desecration and their response caused to every Christian right across the globe?
Now those who whinge about "respecting" Mosques and the "feelings" of Muslims had better wake up to the fact that they have contributed to the scenes in Fallujah in no small way. It is their constant apologising and excusing the extremists that have encouraged the growth of this abberation, no, this abomination. No one wants to desecrate a mosque, no one wants to shed blood in a place set aside for God, but no one has any choice when the people supposedly "defending" their faith use them as weapons stores and fortify them to attack the troops defending the populace from these murderers. If you want to show respect for a place set apart for God, then don't turn it into an arsenal! Keep the weapons and the fighters out of it!
And before anyone accuses me of not pointing out that similar things have been done by Christians, let me point out that I am well aware of Cromwell's "Christian" Army desecrating churches all over England, Scotland, and Ireland. I am equally well aware of the war that was waged against the Cathars and their "Holy" places. Both examples fall within the same category as the fanatics now being driven out of Fallujah and other areas in Iraq. They were and are fanatics for whom no attrocity is abhorrent in pursuit of their ideal. They do not represent the mainstream of Christian, Muslim, or Jewish thought any more than those who see all religion as an extremist exercise represent the mainstream of public thought.
By contrast, the Abbot of Tewkesbury, faced with a major battle on his doorstep, denied access to the Church and buildings to both sides - except as penitents - and definitely no weapons permitted inside. He also secreted all the womenfolk and children from the town in the Abbey roof, a fact borne out by the discovery, in the 1960's during major reroofing, of children's toys, clothes, and household goods dating from the 15th Century in the vault. After the battle, when the Lancastrians sought shelter as they were pursued into the Abbey by the Yorkist troops - the Abbot expelled them, threatening them with eternal damnation. He even denied the King entry - a very dangerous move - until the King was prepared to enter with his knights unarmed. The Abbey was definitely not going to be used as a place of war under his leadership - and neither should any other place of worship be so used. Ironic, is it not, that this present year in the Christian calendar is also the equivalent of the 15th Century of Islam.
We should all weep for the destruction and the desecration of the Fallujah Mosques. We should all work to drive out fanaticism and the causes of it. We should all help to restore these holy places as soon as possible; what we have given to God came from Him, and we have given Him of His own. It is not ours to use any longer except in His service, and it behooves us to restore it to Him as quickly as we can. But, in doing this, we must also make plain to our Muslim brothers and sisters that they cannot be allowed to continue to hold the rest of the world, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddist, Hindu, Zen, or whatever, to ransom in this way. It is time for them to grow up and cast off the shackles of the 7th and 8th Century and move into the modern world.
The Mosques of Fallujah are the victims of Islam's own extremists. It is time Islam dealt with these men of evil and showed that it is, as it claims to be, a religion of peace. It certainly doesn't look like one at the moment!
Posted by The Gray Monk at November 28, 2004 10:10 AM