Saturday, June 04, 2005

It Doesn’t Stop. Ever.

 
Even when you’re dead and buried, Islam could still be after the grave in which you lie. Northern Virginiastan observes:
     More than once, Osama bin Laden has referred to the Reconquest of Spain as the “Andalucian Atrocity.” The first time I heard him use that phrase, I thought that he was referring to a military defeat. Later I realized that he meant more than that: Muslims are duty bound to take back any land that was once under Muslim rule.
Now I'm wondering if that same principle could be applied to cemeteries here in the United States.
He uses a story in The Washington Times to illustrate his point. It seems there is a growing dispute over the Taj Mahal:
    …the Sunni Waqf Board, which oversees Sunni Muslim graveyards and mosques throughout India, has staked a claim to the white-marble tomb, saying since the monument houses Muslim graves, the Taj belongs to it.
In other words, any geography that once belonged to Islam always belongs to Islam and it is the duty of every Muslim to reclaim its property? One could infer as much.

Note, however, that there is equal determination by some “hard-line” Hindus in India to lay claim to the Taj Mahal, putting forth the case that a Hindu temple was demolished to make room for the Taj. There is a long-locked basement under the monument and Hindus say it contains the "pillars and artifact of a temple."

The story has a potential flash point since the Waqf Board has the legal right to summon witnesses and to decide on matters involving its interests. Thus it has called the Archaeological Survey of India to testify; should this body not agree with the Waqf Board belief that the Taj Mahal belongs to Islam, the dispute will head to court.
     Waqf Board Chairman Hafiz Usman said the body would do everything it could to establish its claim to the Taj and says “we will go all the way to the Supreme Court to get the Taj.”
The Waqf Board is also laying claim to 7 percent of the around $3 million paid annually by the 2.3 million tourists it draws each year.
Of course, if things don’t get resolved there, it could get ugly. Mr. Usman recalled “another flashpoint” like the one in 1992, when thousands of Hindus demolished the Babri mosque, also in Uttar Pradesh. The Hindus claimed that the mosque had been built atop a previously destroyed Hindu temple. The ensuing conflict led to riots which killed at least two thousand people nationwide. Most of the dead were Muslims.

The Taj Mahal was completed in the 1650’s. They’re still fighting over it. And we complain because the rifts from our Civil War haven’t entirely healed? Things certainly are relative, aren't they?

There’s a lesson in here somewhere. It many not be the same lesson that Northern Virginiastan finds, but theirs is worth consideration, especially if, in order to be prepared for them, you are drawn to worst-case scenarios:
     Arabic, the language of Allah, doesn’t have a past tense, at least not in the sense that we Westerners understand past tense. (See Raphael Patai’s The Arab Mind) Such a linguistic anomaly goes far to explain why Muslims never see anything as over and done with. And if their preferred language doesn’t have a past tense, can they ever, in the eyes of sharia law, ever cede that land to someone else?
We need to be careful about allowing Muslim ownership of land, particularly if such ownership can be used to justify, however obliquely, statements such as Osama bin Laden’s. And, harsh as it may sound, we need to check our cemeteries too. The principles behind the dispute over the ownership of the Taj Mahal may, one day, extend to land here in the United States.
Many times, we learn after the fact about the far-reaching effects of Muslim laws and Muslim customs. I hope that United States land dedicated for cemeteries will not be justification for something we didn’t expect. Such conflicts get very ugly.
Ah, they do indeed. And knowing one's adversary is vital to staying inside his OODA loop.

9 comments:

Greg said...

Not really on-topic for this post, but...


Dymphna, Baron, did you know that al Zarqawi was a follower of your blog? Well, at least uses the same history...

[...]
Yes, the hosts of the Ottoman state stopped at the gates of Vienna, and those fortifications almost collapsed before them [to permit] Islam to spread under the auspices of the sword of glory and jihad all across Europe. But these armies were forced to return and withdraw to the rear because the army of the Safavid state had occupied Baghdad, demolished its mosques, killed its people, and captured its women and wealth.[...]

Baron Bodissey said...

Aieee! Greg, if you are right, Dymphna and I will have to commit ritual suicide... :(

StoutFellow said...

The Islamic notion of the Waqf is just one more feature of the religion that is designed to produce conflict without end. It is the reason why there can be no end to the "Arab/Israeli Conflict", regardless of how much of the "occupied territories" Israel returns to the Palestinians (short of the complete elimination of the State of Israel itself). The hypocrisy of Hamas in agreeing to any truce is revealed by Article Eleven of the Hamas Charter

Article Eleven
The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. No Arab country nor the aggregate of all Arab countries, and no Arab King or President nor all of them in the aggregate, have the right, nor has that right any organization or the aggregate of all organizations , be they Palestinian or Arab, because Palestine is an Islamic Waqf throughout all generations and to the Day of Resurrection.


Thus any cease-fire or truce, to the true Muslim, is just an opportunity to reposition for increased advantage in the War that will continue until Judgement Day.

While the Islamists may want to claim land based on the presence of their interred dead, they don't extend any such reverence for the dead of other cultures/religions. Take for example the case of the Italian cemetery in Mogadishu.

Militias from the Islamic courts set up in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, are destroying a colonial Italian cemetery.
They are digging up the graves and dumping human remains near the airport.


There are thousands of graves at the cemetery, of which some 700 have been destroyed


Religion of Peace? I don't think so. Religion of perpetual conflict? Yes until Islam reigns triumphant over all. Or until someone comes up with a solution to the Islam problem.

Baron Bodissey said...

Krishna_kirti -- I think you may have given me an idea for yet another India post...

Jude the Obscure said...

Also, has anyone read Little Green Footballs post - NYT Legitimises CAIR Again? An excerpt:

"America is our land!" Fariq Wadud, a Bangladeshi man, hollered hoarsely into the microphone as the room broke into thunderous applause. "We are not foreigners! Our children, this is their motherland!"

Dymphna said...

Of course what they did to the church while they were in there would have caused Islamic meltdown had someone done that to a mosque...oops, I mean if an infidel had done that to a mosque. They themselves are permitted to blow the places up should it so move them.

Dymphna said...

Mr. Kurtz:

Gates of Vienna is notin Northern Virginia. Gates of Vienna quoted from a blog in Northern Virginia.

As far as the Lee family is concerned, they've been managing well for themselves for a looong time.

Your condescension about "excuses for more sectarian violence" in India is uncalled for. Both sides have been at it far longer than the Lees and Custises have been elbowing for room in Virginia. A least a millenia longer.

Solomon2 said...

Mr. Kurtz, the seizure of the Lee family plantation in Arlington, Virginia to use as a cemetery for the Union troops killed via ex-Union General Lee's commands seemed just then and seems just to me today. The two situations are not similar.

By the way, the first graves were purposely set as close to the mansion as possible, so the house would never again be considered fit for habitation. I have never read that the Lee family - which retained possession of other wealth and property during and after the war - ever expressed an interest in returning there.

Dymphna said...

Thanks, Solomon 2...

I'd forgotten they did that, but now I remember reading it and realizing how strong the sentiment must have been against Lee for not joining the Union side.

My belief was that Mary Custis Lee was responsible for them not returning. It was her family home and she wasn't the most stable of people. They stayed in Richmond until he assumed the presidency of Washington College...

As a career military man of limited means, I don't think he ever owned his own home. Mary was the one with the money. And she was as sickly as he was vigorous...

They were an interesting family.

BTW, I've never understood the reluctance to live near graveyards, no matter who is buried there. They serve as memento mories, no?