Ever wanted to see the Great Pyramid of Giza? Better get your tickets now. All sorts of changes are afoot in Egypt since President (and recent Muslim Brotherhood candidate) Mohamed Morsi took office:
Revival of concubinage–On Monday of last week, Egyptian TV show Al Haqiqa aired a clip of modern Egypt’s first known sex-slave marriage.
Instead of saying the customary “I marry myself to you,” the woman repeats “I enslave myself to you.” After the ceremony, the groom orders his bride stripped of her hijab. The woman can then be seen (at 1:54 in the video) taking off her hijab to reveal a red dress with spaghetti straps.
The man, interviewed later on the show, gives various justifications for the “marriage,” including the Prophet Mohamed’s practice of “marrying” enslaved captive women. He justifies having the woman remove her hijab by recounting how Caliph Omar used to strip sex-slaves of their garments when he saw them overdressed. (See here for more on the revival of sex-slavery in Islam.)
Jihad against Israel–Last Thursday, Mohamed Badi, Supreme Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, used his weekly sermon to call for jihad against Israel. Egyptian daily newspaper Al Wafd says he:
confirmed the necessity for every Muslim to strive to save al-Quds [Jerusalem] from the hands of the rapists [Israelis] and to cleanse Palestine from the clutches of the occupation, deeming this an individual duty for all Muslims.
And now . . .
Calls for the destruction of the pyramids–Before you say it could never happen, remember the 1,700-year-old Buddhas of Bamiyan, dynamited by the Taliban in 2001. Consider the destruction of the ancient city of Timbuktu by Muslims, which is happening right now.
Since Morsi’s election, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the destruction of the Great Pyramids of Egypt. Most recently, Bahrain’s “Sheikh of Sunni Sheikhs” and President of National Unity, Abd al-Latif al-Mahmoud, called on Egypt’s President Morsi to “destroy the pyramids.”
Why? Because they are, in the words of Saudi Sheikh Ali bin Said al-Rabi’i, “symbols of paganism.”
The seed sown in the Arab Spring is beginning to produce a bitter harvest.
(A tip of the hat to noted Middle East and Islam scholar Raymond Ibrahim for this information.)
Instead of saying the customary “I marry myself to you,” the woman, whom Ibrahim says has a non-Egyptian accent, repeated “I enslave myself to you.” After the ceremony, the groom orders his bride to stripped of her hijab. The woman can then be seen (at 1:54 in the video) taking off her hijab to reveal a red dress with spaghetti straps.
The man, interviewed later on the show, gives various justifications for the “marriage,” including the Prophet Mohamed’s practice of “marrying” enslaved captive women. He justifies having the woman remove her hijab by recounting how Caliph Omar used to strip sex-slaves of their garments when he saw them overdressed. (See here for more on the revival of sex-slavery in Islam.)
Well, I heard it all now.
It must be a slow news day for this blogger. For you to suggest that any comment should claim equal status with that of the governing party now sworn into office is laughable. That you are so dismissive of the hopes of the electorate that saw the wisdom of the choice they made at the ballot box is truly troubling. Why is that Americans think themselves so smart they can start second-guessing other nations who cast ballots?
Lets see what a popular Christian has said that might make one wonder about similar matters.
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Pat Robertson…When a viewer asked if it was OK that her Christian friend had a Buddha statue, Robertson advised her to “break it.”
Perhaps Robertson’s most outlandish statement was the following…..”Maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up”.
There are also shocking statements to be found in the news archives about the violence that anti-choice terrorists feel towards women. Blowing up abortion clinics…etc. Killing doctors.
So taking select comments and making a post to somehow make a point lowers the standards that I hoped you had set for yourself, and this blog.
I’m not dismissive of the hopes of the Egyptian electorate, Gregory. Far from it: I’m right there, hoping with them.
And, yep, Pat Robertson has pretty much made a full-time career out of saying bizarre things! No argument from me there. But you’re failing to distinguish between talking heads and leaders, as well as between words and deeds.
* Robertson is a televangelist with a reputation for saying silly (and plain wrong) things, not a leader of a major branch of the Christian faith. The Supreme Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, on the other hand, is the recognized leader of one of the major players in Egyptian politics. He’s more like the Pope than like Pat Robertson.
* Abd al-Rauf Awn isn’t just talking about “marrying” his “slave,” he’s doing it. The Taliban didn’t just threaten to blow up the Standing Buddhas, they did it. Muslims aren’t just talking about destroying Timbuktu, they’re doing it–an act which the International Criminal Court characterizes as a possible war crime, by the way. Islam has a long tradition of destroying cultural artifacts it considers idolatrous. So when the head of the MB calls for the destruction of the pyramids, we’d best take him seriously now, rather than the day after.