Burn the Qur�an? Better to Read It Aloud and Educate Us All.
Pastor Terry Jones of the 50 member Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida has been roundly criticized for his Burn a Koran Day to commemorate 9/11 this Saturday. This is not the first provocative such act by Pastor Jones and his flock. During the contentious Orlando, Florida juvenile court custody hearings concerning Christian convert Rifqa Bary they showed up with tee shirts that read "Islam is Evil".
However, burning books is irrational. It is against the values of Western Judeo Christian thought - especially those of the Enlightenment. Values that produced our Constitution with its precious First Amendment supporting freedom of expression, including views that may personally offend us. Hence, Pastor Jones' exercise of that freedom of expression in his 'bonfire of vanities.'
FoxNews reported that the State Department condemned Pastor Jones' action calling it un-American. General David Petreaus has implied that the event would further inflame Afghan and Muslim ummah outrage possibly resulting in US and Coalition force casualties among those engaged against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Outraged Afghans in Kabul were shown burning American Flags and effigies of Pastor Jones. Even the National Evangelical Council and National Council of Churches, a mainstream Protestant group, have condemned Pastor Jones and his congregation for tossing copies of the Qur'an onto a public bonfire.
[Petreaus] believes that, "Images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan - and around the world - to inflame public opinion and incite violence."
Such concerns are, of course, not unfounded, given the past practice of adherents to Shariah (a.k.a. "extremists," according to Gen. Petraeus and the Obama administration) who seize upon any real or perceived slight to Islam in ways calculated to enforce submission to its dictates. Usually, these involve the actual use or threat of violence against innocents.
Pastor Jones had this reaction:
Jones said he and members of his church are taking seriously several death threats directed at them, but if something happened, it would not be their fault.
"We will not be responsible," Jones said. "We are only reacting to the violence that is already there in that religion."
Pastor Jones' Qur'an book burning unfortunately conjures up imagery of the Nazi book burnings of May 10, 1933 and the sacking and burning of hundreds of Jewish synagogues destroying thousands of Torahs during the Kristallnacht Pogrom, November 9-10, 1938. Let us not forget the Palestinian Muslims who occupied the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in April, 2002 desecrating Christian holy books using them as toilet paper. Non-Muslim air passengers on Sharia compliant Saudia - the national airline of the Royal Kingdom - can be ejected for carrying Bibles and prayer books. Even British Air advises air crews not to display religious symbols or Bibles on flights to Saudi Arabia. The Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia denies construction of churches and synagogues, let along private worship on the holy land of Wahhabist Islam.
Rather than burning Qur'ans in a bonfire to attract media attention, Pastor Jones might use that media event to hold a "teachable moment."
Instead of burning the Qur'an Pastor Jones should read passages aloud from the Muslim 'holy book' to show the media, America and the Western world how hateful Islamic Sharia doctrine is towards Jews, Christians and all infidels.
He could cite Suras of the Qur'an that motivated the 19 Saudi, Egyptian and Yemeni Jihadis educated in Western rationalism to kill 3,000 innocent victims on 9/11 in lower Manhattan, at the Pentagon and in southeastern Pennsylvania.
In a review of co-author Sam Solomon's book, Al Yahud: Eternal Islamic Enmity & the Jews, we noted what Pastor Jones could preach to the American public on 9/11:
The authors note that when Muslims pray toward Mecca five times daily, they recite Sura verses laden with hatred towards Jews and Christians:
In each of the five daily ritual prayers, Muslims around the world pray the opening Sura of the Qur'an ending in these two verses, "Guide us to the straight path, the path of those whom You have favored with guidance, not [the path] of those against whom there is wrath, nor of those who are astray." [Sura 1:6-7]... Muslim scholars are in unanimous agreement that "those against whom there is wrath" are the Jews . . . While "those who are astray" are identified as being the Christians.
The demonization of Jews dominates the Qu'ran. Virtually three fifths (60%) of the Aya or verses, nearly half of the Suras (50 out of 114 Chapters) deal with Jews; 500 of the Aya are explicitly negative. According to the Syrian Mufti, Abdul Sattar El Sayed, Jews are demonized by purportedly "lying about G-d, mutiny against Allah, hard heartedness, hypocrisy, exploitation and opportunism, trickery, cowardice, miserliness, and garbling the holy books." The Qu'ran essentially supplants the Torah, Psalms and Gospels of Jesus considering them and other antecedent religious texts as distortions of the revealed truth as propounded by Mohammed. The Sunnah and Hadiths exemplify the character and role of Allah's Messenger, Mohammed, through his deeds and actions to be copied by Muslims in their daily lives. The authors show that both in word and deed Mohammed vilified, exterminated, enslaved and subjugated Jewish tribes making Arabia virtually judenrein.
Pastor Jones, do not light that bonfire on 9/11. Instead of burning copies of the Qur'an both you and your flock should read aloud the hateful Suras of the Qur'an. Perhaps this alternative media event might alert viewers of how hateful Islam is towards all non-Muslims and why Sharia and Islamization in America must be opposed.
.jpg)
%20(2).jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
