The Holy Basin - the ignored facts.

The Holy Basin contains well marked Christian and Muslim institutions and holy places that have had historical placement for millenniums. Although people of the Jewish faith had major presence in Jerusalem during the centuries of Biblical Jerusalem, which included rule by King Hezekiah and control by the Hasmonean dynasties, their control and presence were interrupted for two millennia. Extensive commentary has enabled the two thousand years of lack of control and presence to seem as if it never happened and that today is only a short interval from the ancient years of Hezekiah. Almost one thousand years of Christian and Crusader rule and more than one thousand years of Muslim rule are politely ignored, while their tremendous constructions and creation are not credited. Almost everything becomes nothing and a minor something becomes everything. Myth replaces reality. Spiritual quality replaces actual presence.

Some remains of Jewish dwellings and ritual baths can be found, but few if any major Jewish monuments, buildings or institutions from the Biblical era exist in the “Old City” of today’s Jerusalem. The often cited Western Wall is the supporting wall for Herod’s platform and is not directly related to the Second Temple. No remains of the Jewish Temple have been located in Jerusalem.

According to Karen Armstrong, in her book Jerusalem, Jews did not pray at the Western Wall until the Mamluks in the 15th century allowed them to move their congregations from a dangerous Mount of Olives and pray daily at the Wall. At that time she estimates that there may have been no more than 70 Jewish families in Jerusalem. After the Ottomans replaced the Mamluks, Suleiman the Magnificent issued a formal edict in the 16th century that permitted Jews to have a place of prayer at the Western Wall.

The only remaining major symbol of Jewish presence in Jerusalem’s Holy City is the Jewish quarter, which Israel cleared of Arabs and rebuilt after 1967. During its clearing operations, Israel demolished the Maghribi Quarter adjacent to the Western Wall, destroyed the al-Buraq Mosque and the Tomb of the Sheikh al-Afdhaliyyah, and displaced about 175 Arab families. Although the Jewish population in previous centuries comprised a large segment of the Old City (estimates have 7000 Jews during the mid-19th century), the Jews gradually left the Old City and migrated to new neighborhoods in West Jerusalem, leaving only about 2000 Jews in the Old City. Jordanian control after the 1948 war reduced the number to nil. By 2009, the population of the Jewish quarter in the Old City had grown to 3000, or nine percent of the Old City population. The Christian, Armenian and Muslim populations are the principal constituents and their quarters contain almost the entire Old City commerce.

In an attempt to attach ancient Israel to present day Jerusalem, Israeli authorities continue the attachment of spurious labels to Holy Basin landmarks, while claiming the falsification is due to the Byzantines, who got it all wrong.

King David’s Tower’s earliest remains were constructed several hundred years after the Bible dates David’s reign. It is a now an obvious Islamic minaret.

King David’s Citadel earliest remains are from the Hasmonean period (200 B.C.). The Citadel was entirely rebuilt by the Ottomans between 1537 and 1541 AD.

King David’s tomb, located in the Dormition Abbey, is a cloth-covered cenotaph (no remains) that honors King David. It has not been verified that the casket relates to David.

The Pools of Solomon, located in a village near Bethlehem, are considered to be part of a Roman construction during the reign of Herod the Great. The pools supplied water to an aqueduct that carried water to Bethlehem and to Jerusalem.

The Stables of Solomon, under the Temple Mount, are more likely a construction of vaults that King Herod built in order to extend the Temple Mount platform.

Absalom’s Tomb is an obvious Greek sculptured edifice and therefore cannot be the tomb of David’s son.

The City of David contains artifacts that date before and during king David’s time. Some archaeologists maintain there is an insufficient number of artifacts to conclude any Israelite presence before David. In any case any Israelite presence must have been in a small and unfortified settlement

The Jerusalem Archaeological Park within the Old City, together with the Davidson Exhibition and Virtual Reconstruction Center also tell the story. Promising to reveal much of a Hebrew civilization, the museums shed little light on its subject. The Davidson Center highlights a coin exhibition, Jerusalem bowls and stone vessels. The Archeological Park in the Old City contains among many artifacts, Herodian structures, ritual baths, a floor of an Umayyad palace, a Roman road, Ottoman gates, and the façade of what is termed Robinson’s arch, an assumed Herodian entryway to the Temple Mount. The exhibitions don’t reveal many, if any, ancient Hebrew structures or institutions of special significance.

Well known archaeologists, after examining excavations that contain pottery shards and buildings, concluded that finds don’t substantiate the biblical history of Jerusalem and its importance during the eras of a united Jewish kingdom under David and Solomon.
Margaret Steiner in an article titled “It’s Not There: Archaeology Proves a Negative” in the Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August, 1998, states:

…from the tenth century B.C.E. there is no archaeological evidence that many people actually lived in Jerusalem, only that it was some kind of public administrative center…We are left with nothing that indicates a city was here during their supposed reigns (of David and Solomon)…It seems unlikely, however, that this Jerusalem was the capital of a large state, the United monarchy, as described in Biblical texts.

Read more Why Jerusalem.

Encouraging for the World, Embarrassing for the U.S.

This week, 58 Catholic and Muslim scholars met at the Vatican for talks aimed at bridging divisions between the world’s two largest religions. The gathering, hosted by Pope Benedict XVI, ended with a joint declaration “renouncing any oppression, aggressive violence and terrorism, especially that committed in the name of religion, and upholding the principle of justice for all.”

The Pope’s guests included Tariq Ramadan, the Swiss-born, Oxford-based scholar who, while eminent enough to merit a place at the papal conference table, continues to be persona non grata in the United States. In 2004, Ramadan was preparing to assume a teaching position at Notre Dame when he was told that his visa had been cancelled. At the time, a State Department spokesman said Ramadan was unwelcome in the U.S. under a Patriot Act provision barring those who use a ‘position of prominence’ to ‘endorse or espouse terrorism.’ It was an untenable explanation — Ramadan has consistently denounced terrorism throughout his career — but the U.S. has continued to exclude him from the U.S. through a series of strategic stalls and shifting explanations.

When PEN joined the ACLU in challenging his exclusion and the Patriot Act provision, the government retracted its claim that Ramadan endorsed terrorism, but said it needed more time to decide his fate. The judge disagreed, ordering the government either to grant him a visa or give a legitimate reason for excluding him. With the court’s deadline looming, the government then asserted Ramadan was inadmissible because he had provided ‘material support to terrorism.’ It cited donations Ramadan had made to a Palestinian charity in Switzerland in 1999 and 2000 totaling around $1,000, a charity which the U.S. added to its terror watch list in 2003 but which still operates legally in Europe. We went back to court to challenge this new pretext. This time the judge said his hands were tied — that the government had given a reason for the exclusion, and that, even though in 2000 the U.S. itself hadn’t yet concluded that the charity was involved in anything other than relief work, Ramadan hadn’t proved he didn’t know his donation was supporting terrorism. How does a person prove he didn’t know something? We’re now appealing that decision.

If it stands, tens of thousands of foreigners could find themselves barred from the United States because they made donations in good faith to organizations the U.S. later alleged have connections to terrorists. Among them there are likely to be many Tariq Ramadans, international writers and scholars who are major participants in some of the most critical conversations of our time, men and women whose exclusion from the United States violates our rights as American citizens to hear these voices face-to-face and engage directly in these conversations. These conversations are happening, whether we’re part of them or not, and this week’s gathering at the Vatican shows how valuable and hopeful they can be. The fact that one of the Pope’s guests cannot visit the U.S., meanwhile, just serves to underscore how out of step and embarrassing this administration’s practice of ideological exclusion has been.

Text taken from here.

I'm A Muslim Girl But I loves Jesus and his Mother

Watch the Video

Is U.S. Military's Middle East Crusade for Christ?

by Robert Weitzel

Last August the watchdog group, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, foiled a Pentagon plan that would have allowed the shipment of "freedom packages" to soldiers and Marines in Iraq. The parcels were put together by the fundamentalist Christian ministry, Straight Up, and contained Bibles, proselytizing tracts in English and Arabic, and the apocalyptic "Left Behind" computer game, in which Christian Tribulation forces convert or kill infidels—nonbelievers, Muslims and Jews.

On May 1 the Senate approved the promotion of Brigadier General Robert L. Caslen Jr. to Major General. Currently the commandant of cadets at West Point, he will become the commander of the 25th Infantry Division. He is also president of the stridently fundamentalist Officer's Christian Fellowship, whose vision is a "spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit"

General Caslen was promoted despise the Defense Department's recommended disciplinary action against him and several other senior military leaders because they had "improperly endorsed and participated with a nonfederal entity while in uniform" by participating in a promotional video for the Campus Crusade For Christ's Christian Embassy, an evangelical organization that ministers to Beltway politicians and sponsors weekly Bible studies at the Pentagon.

According to the DoD Inspector General's report (a pdf file) one of the generals involved "asserted that Christian Embassy was treated as an instrumentality of the Pentagon Chaplain's office for over 25 years, and had effectively become a 'quasi federal entity.'" Arguably, he believed his participation in the video was in the line of duty.

Considering both the Pentagon's evangelical proclivity and a 2006 Pew survey which found that of the major religious groups in America, evangelicals have the most negative views of Islam and Muslims, the U.S. sniper who was recently caught using the Quran for target practice in the Baghdad neighborhood of Radhwaniya might be excused for thinking the book was a legitimate target upon which to perfect his craft . . . excused for thinking hewas acting in the line duty.

And is it any wonder that with evangelicals and fundamentalists at the very top of the military's officer corps —to say nothing of their Commander in Chief—that an enlisted Marine was passing out Christian "witnessing coins" inscribed in Arabic at a checkpoint in Fallujah? One side of the coin asked, "Where will you spend eternity?" An evangelical favorite, John 3:16, was on the flip side.

Sheik Adul-Rahman al-Zubaie, a tribal leader in Fallujah who was outraged by the Marine's proselytizing said, "This event did not happen by chance, but it was planned and done intentionally."

While the Marine's proselytizing is not the official policy of the predominately Christian force occupying the predominately Islamic Iraq, it was done "in the line of duty" with a wink and a nod from his chain of command. Think Abu Ghraib!

From Fort Jackson, the Army's largest basic training facility, where trainees are encouraged to attend Campus Crusade's weekly "God's Basic Training" programs, to the U.S. Air Force Academy where students are pressured to attend the Crusade's weekly "cru" (short for crusade) Bible study, American military personnel are, as Campus Crusade's Scot Blom gloats, "government paid missionaries" when they complete their training.

As the demands of fighting a perpetual war against "radical Islam" begins to strain both the military's resources and the country's resolve, the Pentagon has begun outsourcing larger chunks of the war to private contractors. Predictably, our "government paid missionaries" have become more expensive and much less controllable or accountable.

The Bush administration's favorite contractor, Blackwater, is the most powerful private army in the world. It commands thousands of mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan, has over a billion dollars in government contracts, and enjoys complete immunity from prosecution for its theater of operations' conduct.

Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince, a staunchly conservative Catholic, has also served on the board of directors of Christian Freedom International, a crusading missionary organization operating in the overwhelmingly Islamic countries of Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Prince envisions an evangelical "end time" role for his warriors, "Everybody carries guns, just like Jeremiah rebuilding the temple in Israel—a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other."

No one in the last decade has contributed more to end time, apocalyptic evangelism than John Hagee, a televangelist seen by millions of viewers weekly and pastor of the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church. Hagee preaches that in order to bring about the Second Coming of Christ and the Rapture of true believers, Islam first has to be destroyed.

In a 2006 interview with National Public Radio's Terry Gross, Hagee told her, "Those who live by the Quran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews." He went on to claim that there are 200 million Muslims waiting for the chance to attack Israel and the United States. From his pulpit, Hagee makes it clear (watch the clips) to his congregation and the radio and television audience what they can expect from American Muslims if such an attack ever took place, "While American Muslims live in America, 82 percent are not loyal to America and are not willing to fight and defend America."

In his book, "Jerusalem Countdown - A Warning to the World," Hagee warns that the war between Islam and the West "is a war that Islam cannot and must not win."

John Hagee is not just a mad evangelizing prophet. He is the mad evangelizing prophet who is courted by a war president, a hawkish presidential candidate and members of Congress from both parties. His Islamophobic bilge has trickled down from Capital Hill, through the labyrinthine corridors of the Pentagon, and into the chamber of a sniper's rifle and the hand of a Marine guarding a checkpoint in Fallujah.

Officers in the military are expected to lead by example. Enlisted personnel are expected to follow that example. If the recent incidents at Radhwaniya and Fallujah are not just the acts of renegades, then the chain of command seems to be working the way it was designed.

Reported here.

Robert Weitzel, MWC NEWS editor, is an educator and freelance writer who lives in Madison, Wisconsin. His essays regularly appear in The Capital Times of Madison.

The Misquotable Bush : "I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job."

Read further below.
As Bush's War Strategy Shifts to Iran, Christian Zionists Gear Up for the Apocalypse
Is George W. Bush a Christian?
Bush the Christian
George Bush and the Rise of Christian Fascism
Lobbying for Armageddon

Dont Liberalise the Religion

About 120 guests gathered at St. Paul's Church in New Hampshire for Saturday's ceremony for Bishop Gene Robinson and his partner of more than 19 years, Mark Andrew.

The 77 million-member Anglican Communion, a global federation of national churches, has been in upheaval since 2003 when the Episcopal Church consecrated Robinson as the first bishop known to be in an openly homosexual relationship in more than four centuries of church history.

The Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Disputes over scriptural authority, the blessing of gay unions and other matters have become a worldwide issue and threaten turmoil this summer when Anglicans gather for their once-a-decade Lambeth Conference in Britain. Robinson has been excluded from the Anglican Communion's Lambeth Conference but plans to attend as an outside observer.

Homosexuality is not allowed in Islam. There are various verses in Quran where Allah clearly says about Homosexuality.

We also (sent) Lut: he said to his people: "Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation (ever) committed before you? "For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds." - Holy Quran 7:80-81

"Of all the creatures in the world will ye approach males". "And leave those whom Allah has created for you to be your mates? Nay ye are a people transgressing (all limits)!" - Holy Quran 26:165-166

The end result for not giving up homosexuality was the destruction of entire cities

When Our decree issued We turned (the cities) upside down and rained down on them brimstones hard as baked clay spread layer on layer Marked as from thy Lord: nor are they ever far from those who do wrong! - Holy Quran 11:82-83

The Quran forbids any sexual relationship other than in a marriage between a man and a woman. Many homosexual men and women claim that they are born with their sexual preferences and that they have no choice. Although this point is very much in dispute in the medical world, it has no support in the Quran. Even then, irrespective of the nature of homosexuality, this matter would not affect the laws spelled out clearly in the Quran .

Condemning the Evangelising of Muslims in UK

The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, accused the Church of failing in its duty to "welcome people of other faiths" ahead of a motion at July's General Synod in York urging a strategy for evangelising Muslims. The Pakistan-born Dr Nazir-Ali told the Mail on Sunday that, while Church leaders had rightly shown sensitivity to British Muslims, "I think it may have gone too far."

He added: "Our nation is rooted in the Christian faith and that is the basis of welcoming people of other faiths. You cannot have an honest conversation on the basis of fudge."

However, his comments were condemned by senior figures within the Church. The Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, the former Bishop of Hulme and the newly appointed Bishop of Urban Life and Faith, said: "Both the Bishop of Rochester's reported comments and the synod private members' motion show no sensitivity to the need for good inter-faith relations. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs are learning to respect one another's paths to God and to live in harmony. This demand for the evangelisation of people of other faiths contributes nothing to our communities."

A Church of England spokesman added: "We have a mission-focused Christian presence in every community, including those where there are a large number of Muslims. That engagement is based on the provisions of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides for freedom of thought, conscience and religion."

Reported here.

Why the Pope Offends Muslims, Jews and Protestants

Came across this article, although cited late last year, I think is interesting to reprint in my blog.

Why the Pope Offends Muslims, Jews and Protestants
August 17, 2007 | From theTrumpet.com
BY GERALD FLURRY

In September 2006, the pope offended Muslims by quoting a Byzantine emperor from the 14th century. Here is what the emperor said: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached” (emphasis mine throughout).

The pope apologized for offending Muslims, but didn’t retract what he said. And it was a shocking statement.

But here is something far more shocking. I didn’t notice anyone reminding the pope of his own church’s history! He discussed Mohammed’s “command to spread by the sword the faith he preached,” but the truth of history is that no church has spread its faith by the sword more than the Catholics!

The Vatican and Germany primarily comprise the so-called Holy Roman Empire. Six resurrections of that empire have come and gone. I defy anybody to show me a religious empire that has shed more blood in man’s entire history!

In spite of this bloody history, the pope is doing most of the criticizing and condemning.

The seventh head of the Holy Roman Empire is now on the scene in Europe. And the stronger it gets, the more aggressive the Vatican becomes. That empire has had a history of converting people to Catholicism with the sword for about 1,500 years. Bloodshed has repeatedly followed its strong criticisms.

The greatest hero of the Holy Roman Empire is Charlemagne. He waded through a sea of blood to win converts to Catholicism. Still, the last two popes have continually instructed Roman Catholics to remember and resurrect that “glorious” past! That is the opposite of repenting for past sins! Some European Union leaders even discuss how they are waiting for a new Charlemagne to get the Holy Roman Empire moving again. And nobody seems to be alarmed.

Have people forgotten the history of the Holy Roman Empire?

How about the Catholic crusades?

Most religious (and even secular) people are reluctant to criticize the Vatican. But the pope is hurling some scathing criticisms at others—especially other religions.

Since the Vatican is so critical, surely it can stand a little criticism too.

If we fail to learn from history, the bloodshed is going to get a lot worse. This world desperately needs to know where the Vatican’s aggression is leading. All religions have their faults. However, the Vatican acts like it is innocent.

Protestants Not Even a “Church”

London’s Telegraph newspaper reported, “Christian denominations outside Roman Catholicism are either defective or are not full churches of Jesus Christ, the Vatican has reaffirmed. A 16-page document released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Pope Benedict xvi once headed, described Orthodox churches as true churches, but said they are suffering from a ‘wound’ since they do not recognize the primacy [state of being first!] of the pope.

“The document, approved by Pope Benedict, went on to say the ‘wound is still more profound’ in Protestant denominations. ‘Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress … it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of “church” could possibly be attributed to them,’ it said. …

“While there was nothing doctrinally new in the document, it nevertheless prompted swift criticism from Protestants, Lutherans and other Christian denominations” (July 11). But the criticism was anemic compared to the pope’s scathing condemnation of their religion. The reason Protestants revolted in the first place was the corruption inside the Roman Catholic Church.

The pope can’t see how the Protestants could even have the title of “church” attributed to them! Quite an outrage coming from a church with such a bloody history.

This document criticized Orthodox churches almost as severely.

Other religions have a history of being afraid to criticize a powerful Catholic Church. And that situation is only going to get worse, as the Catholic Church rapidly grows in power and influence.

Jews Are “Blind”

Here is an excerpt from the Observer newspaper, July 8: “Jewish leaders and community groups criticized Pope Benedict xvi strongly yesterday after the head of the Roman Catholic Church formally removed restrictions on celebrating an old form of the Latin mass which includes prayers calling for the Jews to ‘be delivered from their darkness’ and converted to Catholicism. …

“However, the older rite’s prayers calling on God to ‘lift the veil from the eyes’ of the Jews and to end ‘the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ’—used just once a year during the Good Friday service—have sparked outrage.

“Yesterday the Anti-Defamation League, the American-based Jewish advocacy group, called the papal decision a ‘body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations.’” Still, the Vatican continues to allow use of the ceremony, and Jewish criticism is becoming muted. The Vatican is certain it sees Jewish blindness, but what about its own blindness?

We all remember that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews in World War ii. There is an abundance of proof that the Vatican helped more Nazis escape at the end of the war than any other institution by far!

How could that happen if the Vatican hadn’t been allied with Adolf Hitler? Is that history a prophetic insight, showing that history is about to repeat itself? Is this the kind of “light” the Vatican wants to give the Jews? Does the Vatican think it was following Christ in those evil deeds?

“The pope also sparked bewilderment when he made no mention of anti-Semitism, or the fact that the Nazis killed millions of people because they were Jewish, in a speech last year at Auschwitz. He also failed to acknowledge that there might be some degree of collective responsibility of the German people” (ibid.).

Is this the voice of a church that has repented of its sins? These are mind-numbing facts that we can’t ignore! And yet the Vatican goes around castigating all other religions and acting like it is the repository of all righteousness. It is a deadly sign of where the European Union is headed!

The Catholic Church has over a billion members and wields frightening power within the European Union and in this world.

Read further  here.

History of Veil in Religions

The Netherlands may become the first European country to ban Muslim face veils after its government pledged to outlaw the wearing in public spaces of the niqab, or veil, and the burka, or full-length cloak covering the head. Rita Verdonk, the immigration minister, signalled that the government would now push for a total ban, even though the legislation would be likely to contravene Dutch religious freedom laws.

While Britons, a strong opposition to the use of the Muslim veil in schools and face covering in public is revealed today in a new opinion poll for the Evening Standard. Nearly 90 per cent of respondents say that Muslim teachers should not be allowed to wear a veil when teaching. And 84 per cent say that Muslim pupils should not be allowed to wear a veil at school.

Jack Straw has criticized the Islamic custom of wearing a full facial veil and urged Muslim women to remove it when talking to him in his district office in northwestern England. The veil, he wrote this week in his local newspaper, The Lancashire Telegraph, is “such a visible statement of separation and of difference” as to jeopardize British social harmony. His remarks have ignited a furious national debate over political correctness and religious identity.

In another report, female Muslim doctors must be prepared to remove their veil to treat patients effectively, under new guidelines. Religious clothing must not present a barrier to building trust and communicating with patients, the General Medical Council said. Doctors should be prepared to set aside personal and cultural preferences, advised the document, Personal Beliefs and Medical Practice.

The Turkish parliament recently adopted a government bill lifting a decades-old ban on wearing the hijab - a headscarf used by Muslim women to cover their hair. This revolutionary change has already caused fierce disputes between different classes of Turkish society, and may eventually split it altogether.

Today, the hijab -- or "the veil," as it's referred to in the Western media -- has taken on a multitude of meanings, perhaps more than it was ever meant to carry.

While some Muslims consider it an expression of modesty and piety, others say such emphasis on the scarf as a religious symbol is overstated. And while some Westerns recoil from the sight of any form of Muslim dress as a symbol of terrorism and aggression toward non-Muslims, many feminists, mostly American but some Muslim, invest the hijab with another kind of significance -- oppression of Muslim women. That last assumption has been fed by television images of women in Afghanistan, shrouded in the burqa, being beaten for showing an ankle or part of their face.

Because the Quran's injunctions are open to many interpretations, Islamic laws in different countries vary widely in what they define as modest dress -- from the extremes of Afghanistan to the sartorial freedoms of Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and even Iraq. Even in countries where the hijab is not required, today more younger Muslim women are covering their heads.

In its purest form, scholars stress, Islam is the most progressive of all religions when it comes to women's rights. The Quran permits them to own their own businesses, to inherit wealth, choose marriage partners or divorce them, although those freedoms have been severely curtailed in some countries, depending on local customs and traditions.

The burqa is not a religious invention, but rather one with roots in the pre-Islamic cultures of Persia and India. In fact, scholars note that middle-class Muslim women in the seventh century began covering their heads because it was the tradition of the Christian Byzantines, who wanted to distinguish themselves from the masses.

The Quran's direction to women to "draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty" except to the male members of their families was a protective response to the slave trade that existed before Islam, rather than a patriarchal one.

Yet, wearing the Hijab doesn't mean just putting a piece of cloth on your head; it is an attitude, a way of thinking and a behavior. Basically it constitutes an Islamic way of life; it is a statement which indeed should portray a certain attitude.

A Muslim woman should wear a long skirt and a scarf on her head, but if she flirts constantly and is not well mannered, then she can't be really described as wearing the Hijab (Clothes should be long, loose and not see through, after which any style of clothing is applicable). The whole idea involves conducting oneself with dignity at all times. The Hijab depicts a statement, and that is something one should be continually aware of. It identifies the woman as a Muslim (Yet it is not just a symbol). Hijab does not restrict the Muslim woman from doing the kind of things she want to do, it is a blessing because it makes her watch her behavior continuously. Anything (with the blessings of the Almighty, is possible) -studying, working etc. -provided it is within the bounds of Islam (Halal). However, sometimes the decision to wear the Hijab is not very easy for some women, and this could be a result of external pressures, notably family and friends. Unfortunately, some Non-Muslims, or Muslims who don't have good knowledge about Islam, consider wearing the Hijab being too "extreme". But what helps a Muslim woman and actually makes her enjoy wearing the Hijab, is the belief in Allah and the conviction that she's doing this only for the sake of Allah.

Allah said in the Qur'an:

"Oh Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters, and wives and daughters of the believers, to extend their outer garments around themselves, so that they would be distinguished and not molested. And God is All-Forgiving, All-Merciful".
(Qur'an, 33:59)

"For Muslim men and women, for believing men and women, for devout men and women, for true men and women, for men and women who are patient and constant, for men and women who humble themselves, for men and women who give in charity, for men and women who fast (and deny themselves), for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in God's praise -- for them has God prepared forgiveness and great reward. [ Quran 33:35 ]

"Say to the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty......And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what ordinarily appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms...." (Quran 24:30,31).

Is there such thing as the veil in the Judaeo-Christian tradition?

Let us set the record straight. According to Rabbi Dr. Menachem M. Brayer (Professor of Biblical Literature at Yeshiva University) in his book, The Jewish woman in Rabbinic literature, it was the custom of Jewish women to go out in public with a head covering which, sometimes, even covered the whole face leaving one eye free. He quotes some famous ancient Rabbis saying," It is not like the daughters of Israel to walk out with heads uncovered" and "Cursed be the man who lets the hair of his wife be seen....a woman who exposes her hair for self-adornment brings poverty." Rabbinic law forbids the recitation of blessings or prayers in the presence of a bareheaded married woman since uncovering the woman's hair is considered "nudity". Dr. Brayer also mentions that "During the Tannaitic period the Jewish woman's failure to cover her head was considered an affront to her modesty. When her head was uncovered she might be fined four hundred zuzim for this offense." Dr. Brayer also explains that veil of the Jewish woman was not always considered a sign of modesty. Sometimes, the veil symbolized a state of distinction and luxury rather than modesty. The veil personified the dignity and superiority of noble women. It also represented a woman's inaccessibility as a sanctified possession of her husband.

The veil signified a woman's self-respect and social status. Women of lower classes would often wear the veil to give the impression of a higher standing. The fact that the veil was the sign of nobility was the reason why prostitutes were not permitted to cover their hair in the old Jewish society. However, prostitutes often wore a special headscarf in order to look respectable. Jewish women in Europe continued to wear veils until the nineteenth century when their lives became more intermingled with the surrounding secular culture. The external pressures of the European life in the nineteenth century forced many of them to go out bare-headed. Some Jewish women found it more convenient to replace their traditional veil with a wig as another form of hair covering. Today, most pious Jewish women do not cover their hair except in the synagogue. Some of them, such as the Hasidic sects, still use the wig.

What about the Christian tradition? It is well known that Catholic Nuns have been covering their heads for hundreds of years, but that is not all. St. Paul in the New Testament made some very interesting statements about the veil:

"Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonours his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonours her head - it is just as though her head were shaved. If a woman does not cover her head, she should have her hair cut off; and if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or shaved off, she should cover her head. A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. For this reason, and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head" (I Corinthians 11:3-10).

St. Paul's rationale for veiling women is that the veil represents a sign of the authority of the man, who is the image and glory of God, over the woman who was created from and for man. St. Tertullian in his famous treatise 'On The Veiling Of Virgins' wrote, "Young women, you wear your veils out on the streets, so you should wear them in the church, you wear them when you are among strangers, then wear them among your brothers..." Among the Canon laws of the Catholic church today, there is a law that requires women to cover their heads in church. 82 Some Christian denominations, such as the Amish and the Mennonites for example, keep their women veiled to the present day. The reason for the veil, as offered by their Church leaders, is that "The head covering is a symbol of woman's subjection to the man and to God", which is the same logic introduced by St. Paul in the New Testament.

Among the early Protestant reformers, Martin Luther's wife, Katherine, wore a headcovering and John Knox and John Calvin both called for women to wear headcoverings. Commentators such as Matthew Henry, A. R. Fausset and A. T. Robertson also wrote that women should wear headcoverings. Headcovering, at least during worship services, is still promoted or required in a few denominations. Among these are some Anabaptist denominations, including the Amish, some Mennonites, and the Apostolic Christian Church; some Pentecostal churches, including Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith; and the stricter Dutch Reformed churches. Though most other Protestant denominations have no official expectation that women cover, some individuals choose to practice headcovering according to their understanding of 1 Corinthians 11.

The Roman Catholic Church omitted the requirement in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. The requirement had originally been introduced as a universal law for the Latin Rite of the Church in 1917 with canon 1262 of its first Code of Canon Law. This canon mandated that, in church, women should cover their heads.

From all the above evidence, it is obvious that Islam did not invent the head cover. However, Islam did endorse it.

Europe Has Found Her Deadly “Christian Roots” - And the New Charlemagne

A portrait of Charlemagne by Albrecht Dürer that was painted several centuries after Charlemagne's death, the coat of arms above him show the German eagle and the French Fleur-de-lis.

April 14, 2008 | From theTrumpet.com
Pope John Paul II famously encouraged Europeans to “find your roots!” They have accepted the challenge.

by
GERALD FLURRY

The Habsburgs were the sword of the Holy Roman Empire throughout the Middle Ages. They did their killing while supporting artists like Bach, Mozart and Schubert. They were very sophisticated as they slaughtered people.

Adolf Hitler used to love to attend the opera. His mind was saturated with the music of Richard Wagner. He even said that one couldn’t understand the Third Reich without understanding Wagner. That German composer was a sex pervert and an anti-Semite, yet Hitler was intoxicated by him.

In 1983, Pope John Paul ii was in Vienna—300 years after that city was attacked by the “barbarian Turks” and the Polish king rallied the European kings and drove out the barbarians. John Paul said at that time that Europe needed to return to its “Christian roots.” The present pope delivers the same message. But does this world know what those Christian roots really are?

The Vatican leaders understand their history. That is not true of most of the world, which is why many millions of people are so easily deceived about what the pope believes.

You can travel around Europe and see the Habsburg castles even today. Many of them have dungeons below them. Tour guides will tell you that the Habsburgs would have great feasts upstairs, listening to the finest classical music, while people were being tortured to death below. Similarly, Hitler could listen to beautiful opera while his minions were committing unspeakable atrocities.

In 1926, Hitler stated, “Christ was the greatest early fighter in the battle against the world enemy, the Jews …. The work that Christ started but could not finish, I—Adolf Hitler—will conclude.” He did not consider Jesus a Jew, but only a half-Jew because He was begotten by God.

However, the biggest problem that Hitler posed to the world was not his being a fanatical anti-Semite. That is only part of the story. This is where many people are deceived. Hitler was the political head of the Holy Roman Empire.

Much of the world looks upon the Jews as God’s chosen people. In Vienna, Hitler came to believe that God had replaced the Jews with the Germans and the Holy Roman Empire. He learned it in that cultured city—looking at the crown jewels and the opulence of the Habsburgs.

He believed the Germans were God’s chosen people. This is why the crown jewels of that empire meant so much to him.

In 1938, Hitler had brought the insignia of the First Reich, the imperial crown, the orb of empire, the scepter, and the imperial sword from Vienna to Nuremberg. At a rally, he vowed that they would remain there forever.

There is also a spear, called the spear of destiny. Many believe it is the spear that killed Christ—which is pure nonsense. The spear is supposed to have mystical powers. The legend states that if you look at this spear long enough, it will endow you with magical power. Hitler went there often and undoubtedly was mesmerized by it.

Lange’s Commentary says this about the fall of Jerusalem to the Roman armies in a.d. 70: “[T]he stamp of divine retribution was impressed upon the fate of Jerusalem and the temple, even for heathen eyes. We may call to mind the expression even of … Titus: ‘That God was so angry with this people that even he feared His wrath if he should suffer grace to be shown to the Jews’ ….”

Ceasar Titus believed that God had commissioned him to punish the Jews. The “Holy” Roman Empire grew out of that mighty empire.

Lange’s continues: “[H]e refused every mark of honor on account of the victory obtained, with the attestation that he had been only an instrument in God’s hands to punish this stiff-necked nation. Compare the well-known expressions of Josephus, as to the height which the wickedness of his contemporaries had reached.”

Has evil reached this height in America, Britain and the Jewish nation today? Is God concerned about our wickedness?

Josephus said that Titus killed 1.1 million Jews and took 97,000 slaves. There are over a hundred prophecies that tell us biblical Israel is going to be punished by that same empire in the end time. 

The seventh Holy Roman Empire has almost been completely resurrected in Europe today. Pope Benedict xvi is the spiritual head of that empire.

Many leaders in Europe are working feverishly to complete the Holy Roman Empire. Some say that to complete the process they only need a new Charlemagne—a strong leader after the image of the man who was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in a.d. 800. Then they will have found their Christian roots. More about Charlemagne here and here.

What happened with Rome and Jerusalem in the first century is only a type of what is going to happen on a much greater scale in this end time—according to Bible prophecy.

Few people, even in Europe, understand their own Christian roots. But they should understand. If they did, and knew where a return to those roots is leading the Continent, they would never want to find them again! The Holy Roman Empire is about to radically change the course of world history!

The Pope’s Standoff With Islam

Another recent development in the Vatican highlights the escalating tension between Catholicism and Islam. At his Easter vigil service on March 22, Pope Benedict baptized Magdi Allam—a former Muslim. Allam is a deputy editor of one of Italy’s most powerful newspapers, and he’s also a bestselling author.

Stratfor wrote this about the much-publicized baptism: “Allam is an Egyptian-born convert from Islam to Christianity, and is a prominent outspoken critic of radical Islamism” (March 24). The timing of the baptism was especially significant, as Stratfor went on to point out: “Only days before, on March 19, an Internet posting of an audio message purporting to be from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden accused the pope specifically of fomenting a ‘new Crusade’ against Islam.”

In fact, a new crusade will happen. The Crusades were a series of Catholic-sponsored military expeditions to wrest control of Jerusalem and others parts of the Holy Land from Muslim control. The word crusade comes from the Latin word crucesignatus, which means one signed by the cross. During the Crusades, tens of thousands of bloodthirsty Europeans, operating under the Roman Catholic banner, descended into the Holy Land via the Near East, where they set about pillaging, raping, mutilating and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Jews and Muslims.

Stratfor wrote, “The papacy is a unique geopolitical entity. It was once literally a kingmaker, crowning the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire.” And it’s going to crown another one, who will be the last one.

Soon after that, Jesus Christ will return and establish God’s government over all the Earth. God will save mankind from itself, but He will do it His way and according to His timetable. Today, your Bible says the whole world is deceived (Revelation 12:9). But when Christ returns, He will remove that veil of deception and lead the world in the right way to live.

Before that, however, God prophesies of a great end-time clash between the king of the north (the EU dominated by Germany and the Vatican) and the king of the south (radical Islam). Even now, we are seeing this spectacular clash in its preliminary stages. (For more on this, read our booklet The King of the South.) Prophecy is being fulfilled. You can know where all of these events are leading!

Stratfor continued, “In attempting to galvanize and energize 1 billion Catholics, Benedict might also further alienate 1 billion Muslims.” A superpower is rising in Europe. It will soon impact this world and shed blood as no church-state combine ever has.

Stratfor wrote, “[I]t could very well move the Vatican onto center stage in radical Islamism’s conflict with the West. And that can have profound geopolitical implications.” Yes, indeed!

Now to prophecy. Revelation 17:10 says, “And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.” The “one is” emerged during World War ii as the Hitler-led Axis power. God says one more resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire is coming.

It will be led by the new Charlemagne.

Pope Visits to America - Sex Scandal, Gay Bishop and Interfaith Dialogue.

Pope Benedict has played to rock-concert-sized crowds on his first visit to the United States as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

"This has been a joyous week. It's been a joyous time for Catholics — and it wasn't such a bad week for Methodists, either. The excitement was just palpable," Bush, a Methodist, said at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, an event that coincided with the pope's visit. "It's not every day you get to be the warm-up act to the Holy Father," Bush said to an audience that brought raucous applause.

The pontiff's visit came at a challenging time for the American church. Wounds from the clergy sex scandals are still fresh, in Minnesota and across the nation, and are likely to scar the laity's trust for generations. In many areas, priest shortages and shifting resources are forcing the painful closure of beloved parishes. 

After years of near silence on the issue of the abuse and rape of children at the hands of pedophile priests, Pope Benedict XVI made public acknowledgement of the scandal a central theme of his first visit to the United States as head of the church. The first mention of the scandal came while still en route from Rome when he told reporters he was "deeply ashamed" about the scandal that had caused "great suffering."

It was the first time the papacy had directly addressed the victims of abusive clerics, and it signaled that Benedict's first trip to the United States as pontiff would be not just a state visit but an effort at reconciliation with American believers and an exercise in humility for the church's role in a scandal the pope conceded had been "very badly handled."

He said he is "deeply ashamed" of the clergy sex abuse scandal that has devastated the American church. Roman Catholic sex abuse cases can be found here.

“Only in this way will we give unambiguous testimony to the truth of the Gospel and its moral teaching. This is the method which the world is waiting to hear from us.”

The Pope did not mention specific issues troubling the churches. However, many Protestant groups have been arguing for years over how to understand what the Bible says about truth and salvation, and whether it prohibits gay sex.

The U.S. Episcopal Church caused an uproar among its fellow Anglicans in 2003 by consecrating the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

He also has said he would like to reach out to the Muslim community through dialogue, and Muslims were included in the pontiff's meeting with interfaith leaders in Washington on Thursday night. But many Muslims in America remain wary, saying the pope has created the impression that he is insensitive to their faith.

Many still recall the pope's September 2006 lecture at the University of Regensburg in Germany, in which Benedict quoted a Byzantine Christian emperor saying that "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".  The full text is here.

That lecture sparked days of protests in Muslim countries, some of them violent, and an Italian nun in Somalia was killed in retaliation. The Pope repeated several times that he regretted the offense his speech caused, and that he has deep respect for Islam. But the remarks have caused lingering damage, according to Muslims and some Catholic scholars interviewed.

"I don't think he did enough to apologize," said Omar T. Mohammedi, a member of the New York City Commission on Human Rights.

"For a person of his stature to come out and say this about Islam, it amazes me, it's sad," said Wael Mousfar, president of the Arab Muslim American Federation, a community group in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, a largely Muslim neighborhood. "Islam is the target of everyone nowadays; he just jumped on the bandwagon and joined the crowd."

There have been other perceived slights. For example, the pope confounded Muslims when he baptized a prominent Egyptian-born Italian Muslim convert on international television Easter Sunday. Italy's most prominent Muslim, an iconoclastic writer who condemned Islamic extremism and defended Israel, converted to Catholicism Saturday in a baptism by the pope at a Vatican Easter service. The Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Magdi Allam infuriated some Muslims with his books and columns in the newspaper Corriere della Sera newspaper, where he is a deputy editor. He titled one book "Long Live Israel."

"This person chose to be Catholic, it's not a problem," said Imam Shamsi Ali of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York. The problem was the pope's celebration of the conversion on a global stage, he said.

Muhammad's (pbuh) SWORD

I’m sorry, I’m probably late with this article since it was published September last year, however since I have just stumbled across it, I would like visitors to read it, its quite interesting!

by Uri Avnery
September 27, 2006

Since the days when Roman Emperors threw Christians to the lions, the relations between the emperors and the heads of the church have undergone many changes.

Constantine the Great, who became Emperor in the year 306–exactly 1700 years ago–encouraged the practice of Christianity in the empire, which included Palestine . Centuries later, the church split into an Eastern (Orthodox) and a Western (Catholic) part. In the West, the Bishop of Rome, who acquired the title of Pope, demanded that the Emperor accept his superiority.

The struggle between the Emperors and the Popes played a central role in European history and divided the peoples. It knew ups and downs. Some Emperors dismissed or expelled a Pope, some Popes dismissed or excommunicated an Emperor. One of the Emperors, Henry IV, “walked to Canossa ,” standing for three days barefoot in the snow in front of the Pope’s castle, until the Pope deigned to annul his excommunication.

But there were times when Emperors and Popes lived in peace with each other. We are witnessing such a period today. Between the present Pope, Benedict XVI, and the present Emperor, George Bush II, there exists a wonderful harmony. Last week’s speech by the Pope, which aroused a world-wide storm, went well with Bush’s crusade against “Islamofascism,” in the context of the “Clash of Civilizations.”

IN HIS lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God’s actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this “war of civilizations.”

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

To support his case, the Pope quoted–of all people–a Byzantine Emperor, who belonged, of course, to the competing Eastern Church. At the end of the 14th Century, the Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus told of a debate he had–or so he said (its occurrence is in doubt)–with an unnamed Persian Muslim scholar. In the heat of the argument, the Emperor (according to himself) flung the following words at his adversary:

“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

These words give rise to three questions: (a) Why did the Emperor say them? (b) Are they true? (c) Why did the present Pope quote them?

WHEN MANUEL II wrote his treatise, he was the head of a dying empire. He assumed power in 1391, when only a few provinces of the once illustrious empire remained. These, too, were already under Turkish threat.

At that point in time, the Ottoman Turks had reached the banks of the Danube . They had conquered Bulgaria and the north of Greece , and had twice defeated relieving armies sent by Europe to save the Eastern Empire . On May 29, 1453 , only a few years after Manuel’s death, his capital, Constantinople (the present Istanbul ) fell to the Turks, putting an end to the Empire that had lasted for more than a thousand years.

During his reign, Manuel made the rounds of the capitals of Europe in an attempt to drum up support. He promised to reunite the church. There is no doubt that he wrote his religious treatise in order to incite the Christian countries against the Turks and convince them to start a new crusade. The aim was practical, theology was serving politics.

In this sense, the quote serves exactly the requirements of the present Emperor, George Bush II. He, too, wants to unite the Christian world against the mainly Muslim “Axis of Evil.” Moreover, the Turks are again knocking on the doors of Europe , this time peacefully. It is well known that the Pope supports the forces that object to the entry of Turkey into the European Union.

IS THERE any truth in Manuel’s argument?

The pope himself threw in a word of caution. As a serious and renowned theologian, he could not afford to falsify written texts. Therefore, he admitted that the Qur’an specifically forbade the spreading of the faith by force. He quoted the second Sura, verse 256 (strangely fallible, for a pope, he meant verse 257) which says: “There must be no coercion in matters of faith.”

How can one ignore such an unequivocal statement? The Pope simply argues that this commandment was laid down by the prophet when he was at the beginning of his career, still weak and powerless, but that later on he ordered the use of the sword in the service of the faith. Such an order does not exist in the Qur’an. True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes–Christian, Jewish and others–in Arabia , when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith.

Jesus said: “You will recognize them by their fruits.” The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: How did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to “spread the faith by the sword”?

Well, they just did not.

For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece . Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

True, the Albanians did convert to Islam, and so did the Bosniaks. But nobody argues that they did this under duress. They adopted Islam in order to become favorites of the government and enjoy the fruits.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith–and they were the forefathers of most of today’s Palestinians.

THERE IS no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the “spreading of the faith by the sword”?

What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. 

And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi (”Spanish”) Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire ) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

WHY? Because Islam expressly prohibited any persecution of the “peoples of the book.” In Islamic society, a special place was reserved for Jews and Christians. They did not enjoy completely equal rights, but almost. They had to pay a special poll-tax, but were exempted from military service–a trade-off that was quite welcome to many Jews. It has been said that Muslim rulers frowned upon any attempt to convert Jews to Islam even by gentle persuasion–because it entailed the loss of taxes.

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for 50 generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times “by the sword” to get them to abandon their faith.

THE STORY about “spreading the faith by the sword” is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims–the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna . I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Why did he utter these words in public? And why now?

There is no escape from viewing them against the background of the new Crusade of Bush and his evangelist supporters, with his slogans of “Islamofascism” and the “Global War on Terrorism”–when “terrorism” has become a synonym for Muslims. For Bush’s handlers, this is a cynical attempt to justify the domination of the world’s oil resources. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers’ expedition becomes a Crusade. The speech of the Pope blends into this effort. Who can foretell the dire consequences?

Pope baptised a prominent "Muslim"

VATICAN CITY (AP) - Italy's most prominent Muslim commentator, a journalist with iconoclastic views such as support for Israel, converted to Roman Catholicism Saturday when the pope baptized him at an Easter service.

As a choir sang, Pope Benedict XVI poured holy water over Magdi Allam's head and said a brief prayer in Latin.

"We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another," Benedict said in a homily reflecting on the meaning of baptism. "Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world: distances between people are overcome, in the Lord we have become close."

Vatican television zoomed in on Allam, who sat in the front row of the basilica along with six other candidates for baptism.

The Egyptian-born, non-practicing Muslim who is married to a Catholic, Allam often writes on Muslim and Arab affairs and has infuriated some Muslims with his criticism of extremism and support for the Jewish state. He has infuriated Muslims with his books and columns in the leading Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, where he is a deputy editor. The title of one of his books is Long Live Israel.

PROMINENT scholar Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradawi has denounced Pope Benedict’s baptism of a Muslim-born journalist during the last Easter Mass at the Vatican as a “provocative and hostile act against Muslims”.  Sheikh Qaradawi, who is the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) and the European Council for Fatwa and Research, said the public baptism of Majdi Allam has provoked Muslims around the world.

“We do not feel regret over the conversion of that person. He has been a Catholic for more than five years. He was always attacking Islam, the Qur’an and me. It is not strange that Allam, who betrayed his country and supported Israel, left his religion. We know that he is an agent of Israel. He would not contribute to Islam if he were a Muslim.”

Aref Ali Nayed, a muslim scholar involved in high-level dialogue with the Vatican has denounced the Pope's baptism on Saturday of a prominent Italian Muslim convert.

Aref Ali Nayed, the head of Jordan's Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre.

Mr Nayed called the baptism of journalist Magdi Allam a deliberate and provocative act.

Mr Allam's invitation to the ceremony, which took place in St Peter's Basilica, was however kept secret by the Vatican, until just before the Easter vigil mass.

"It is sad that the intimate and personal act of a religious conversion is made into a triumphalist tool for scoring points," he said in a written statement.

Mr Nayed said Pope Benedict XVI's actions came "at a most unfortunate time when sincere Muslims and Catholics are working very hard to mend ruptures between the two communities".

The Jordanian scholar has been at the forefront of an initiative gathering more than 130 Muslim scholars who recently wrote to the Pope and other Christian leaders calling for greater dialogue and good will between Muslims and Christians.

The Vatican has also been keen to repair relations with moderate Muslims, particularly after the crisis caused by a speech the Pope gave in Germany in 2006, in which he appeared to associate Islam with violence.

How about watching the following video... A British Catholic Priest Converted to Islam

Read further here.

Saudi Arabia: No churches unless prophet Mohammed recognised

No churches should be permitted in Saudi Arabia, unless Pope Benedict XVI recognised the prophet Mohammed, according to a Middle East expert.

A secret negotiations are taking place between the Vatican and Saudi Arabia to allow Christian churches in the strictly Muslim country, reports the Italian daily, La Stampa.

The Vatican is negotiating with Saudi Arabia for "authorisation to build Catholic churches," says archbishop Mounged El-Hachem, papal nuncio of Kuwait, Qatar, Yemen, Bahrein and the United Arab Emirates.

According to La Stampa, the secret talks, favoured by Saudi King Abdullah, have been taking place for several weeks and are considered an unprecedented for the Catholic church. The Italian newspaper claimed that up to 900,000 Catholics live in Saudi Arabia, all of them expatriate workers.

However, a member of Saudi Arabia's Consultative Council, Abdelaziz al-Thinani, rejected the prelate's claims saying that there were no Christians among the Saudis who were all Muslims.

"Those few Christians do not reside in the country permanently, they come and go," he said.

He denied there were four million Christians in the kingdom and said the issue of human rights should not be used to call for the construction of a Christian church.

Most of Saudi Arabia's Christians are foreign workers. There are 8.2 million foreign workers in a country of 25.6 million people according to a report by the Saudi Labour Ministry.

Qatar opens first church, Pope Benedict Negotiating with Arab Saudi and the Oxford Issues in Brittain

After decades of worshipping in borrowed spaces, Qatar's growing Christian community is celebrating - albeit quietly - the opening of the country's first church since pre-Islamic times.

"The church will send a positive message to the world," Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, Qatar's minister of energy and industry, told reporters on Friday during the unveiling of the complex.

The Church of Our Lady of the Rosary, will serve Doha's Catholic community, which comprises 90 per cent of the city's 150,000 and growing Christian expatriate population. When completed, the complex will be one of the largest Christian structures in the Gulf, Naim Fouad Wakin, the project contractor, told Al Jazeera.

With the opening of Our Lady of the Rosary, Saudi Arabia remains the only Gulf state to ban churches and open worship by non-Muslims.

Those who oppose churches in the Gulf often quote the Prophet Muhammed as saying "no two religions will come together in the Arabian peninsula".

But Abdul Hamid al-Ansari, former dean of the sharia (Islamic law) school at Qatar University and a vocal advocate of Doha's new church, offered another interpretation.

"This does not mean that churches should be banned in Qatar because religious scholars believe it applies to the Hijaz - specifically Mecca and Medina," Islam's two holiest cities in Saudi Arabia, Ansari said in a local newspaper article.

In Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, churches were seen as one way to attract more foreign workers.

In another news it was reported that a secret negotiations are taking place between the Vatican and Saudi Arabia to allow Christian churches in the strictly Muslim country.

The Vatican is negotiating with Saudi Arabia for “authorisation to build Catholic churches,” says archbishop Mounged El-Hachem, papal nuncio of Kuwait, Qatar, Yemen, Bahrein and the United Arab Emirates.

According to La Stampa, the secret talks, favoured by Saudi King Abdullah, have been taking place for several weeks and are considered an unprecedented for the Catholic church…
The Italian newspaper claimed on Monday that up to 900,000 Catholics live in Saudi Arabia, all of them expatriate workers.

Sad to inform at the same time (the site is here)that In Oxford, undisputed center of British tradition, the construction of the new grand mosque (not to be confused with the Islamic Cultural Center), had not received a warm welcome.

But the Muslims, having won the battle, intend to continue the offensive. They now express their intention to install loud-speakers on the minaret (that rises above the Oxford church steeples) to broadcast the call to prayer.

The pastor of a church near the mosque published an open letter in which he writes:

"We know, even if few say it, that the plans of radical Islam are to 'conquer Europe, England and Oxford.' According to this strategy the call to prayer is like a bridge-head, some are saying."

For the Muslim Council of Great Britain, this argument is as futile as the movement is inevitable: "The call to prayer will figure significantly in the future of Great Britain and of Europe. The adhan is already broadcast three times a day in the great mosque of East London and it has never caused any problem"

In another event, the plans for a Muslim community centre in Solihull have been withdrawn amid calls for greater acceptance towards minority groups.

Solihull Muslim Community Association (SMCA) applied for planning permission to establish the centre, complete with prayer hall, in Dog Kennel Lane, Shirley, with 50 parking spaces. Now the group - which has been searching for a home in the borough for 25 years - has announced that it has withdrawn the plans for "technical reasons".

Fears were rife that racial tension could erupt in Solihull following a leaflet campaign by the BNP against plans for the centre which also included a wudu for washing before prayer.

The leaflet, posted to homes near the proposed site, claimed there was an "Islamification" of Solihull and said the centre would lead to "conflict" and "discontent".

However, Dr Issam Ghannam, of SMCA, dismissed the BNP campaign as being "irrelevant" but called for political groups and church leaders in Solihull to do more to educate "some people".