Is Koran Flushing Worse Desecration Than Blowing Up Christian Churches?
By Mary Mostert (05/19/05)
The stupidity and senseless violence that caused a number of deaths in reaction to a “Newsweek” article which claimed Americans had “desecrated the Islamic holy book” needs to be examined from a couple of angles. According to Newsweek American military interrogators had placed the Koran on the lavatory inside inmates’ cells at the detention center in Guantanamo Bay and had “in at least one case, flushed a holy book down the toilet.”.
The article supposedly so enraged Muslims that anti-American riots resulted in several countries. The radical Arab newspaper Al Jazeera reported “Protests in Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan and Indonesia followed demonstrations across much of Afghanistan in the past few days in which 14 people were killed and dozens injured after clashes with police. Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria have registered displeasure at the alleged desecration.”
My first reaction to this news was to go get the Koran out of my own library that was printed in both Arabic and English in Saudi Arabia and check out the number of pages.. It has 2082 pages. If printed only in Arabic, it probably would be only about 800 pages. Question: have ANY of the people rioting ever SEEN a Koran? If so, how could you flush an 800 page book down a toilet?
Second, assuming you could overcome that technical difficulty and actually flush a Koran down a toilet, why is that somehow worse than burning down or blowing up Christian Churches, some of them hundreds of years old, as Muslims have done in Kosovo? There were 30 churches and monasteries destroyed, 19 people killed and 250 non-Muslim homes looted and burned in Muslim riots in Kosovo from March 17-19, 2004.
If killing people and rioting is an acceptable way to express one’s concern over one’s religion being desecrated, what is an acceptable way for Christians to react to hundreds of Christian Churches being desecrated or blown up? There seems to have been nothing much done in recent years following the destruction of Serbian Orthodox Churches by anti-Christian Muslim extremists. In fact, the world community is even still talking about allowing those very same Muslims to completely take over Kosovo and ethnically cleanse it of Serbs, where Serbs have lived for and built churches for hundreds of years.
The Christian Churches blown up by Muslims in Kosovo last year included:
1. Orthodox Cathedral of the Most Holy Mother of God of Ljevis, 14th century (Prizren)
2. Church of Holy Salvation, 14th century (Prizren)
3. Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Great Martyr George, 20th century (Prizren)
4. Holy Archangels Monastery, 14th century (Prizren)
5. Church of St. George Runovic, 15th century (Prizren, courtyard of the Episcopate)
6. Church of St. John the Fore-runner and Baptist (Pec) with parish home
7. Church of the Entry of the Most Holy Mother of God into the Temple (Belo Polje near Pec)
8. Church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God (Djakovica) with parish home
9. Church of the Holy King Uros (Urosevac)
10. Church of St. Nicholas (Kosovo Polje)
11. Church of St. Catharine (Bresje near Kosovo Polje)
12. Church of St. Nicholas (Pristina)
13. Church of St. Nicholas (Gnjilane)
14. Church of St. Sava (Kosovska Mitrovica)
15. Church in Vitina (Vitina near Gnjilane)
16. Devic Monastery, 14th century (Srbica)
17. Church in Donja Slapasnica (Kosovska Kamenica)
18. Church in Brnjak near Bela Crkva (Orahovac)
19. Church of St. John the Fore-runner and Baptist (Pecka Banja)
20. Church of St. Elijah, 19th century (Vucitrn)
21. Church of St. Michael (Stimlje)
22. Church in Obilic (Obilic)
23. Church of St. Lazarus in Piskoti (Djakovica), damaged in 1999, now burned
24. Sts. Cyril and Methodius Seminary building (Prizren)
25. Episcopate - seat of the Diocese of Raska and Prizren (Prizren)
It was also reported that the Albanian Muslims are removing the ruins of the Church of the Holy Trinity (Djakovica), one of the more than 100 churches blown up in 1999.
Since 1999 Muslims have destroyed 140 Christian Churches in Kosovo. And, exactly what has been the official Muslim response from Muslims in Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, the Gaza Strip, Afghanistan, etc to that desecration of Christian churches and artifacts? Dead silence.
Now, don’t get me wrong. If, somehow, some American did in fact figure out how to flush a Koran down a toilet, I certainly believe that an apology is in order and the Koran should be immediately replaced with a new one purchased by the American who did that. So far, of course, there is no proof that such a thing happened.
On the other hand, I also believe that justice demands that Muslims who have burned down or blown up 140 Churches in Kosovo owe Christians throughout the world an apology and that Muslims need to rebuild or at least finance the rebuilding of every one of those Christian churches.
This should not be hard to do. It is something the United Nations might be capable of doing. After all, those Churches were destroyed during the time that Kosovo has been controlled by the United Nations. A just and workable solution to this situation would be to require Christians to replace the Koran for every Guantanamo Bay inmate who had his Koran flushed down the toilet in exchange for the Muslims replacing every Christian church Muslims destroyed in Kosovo and other nations.
Even Al Jazeera should be able to endorse this kind of justice pertaining to desecration of religious books and churches. After all, as the Koran says, in Sura 60:8, “Allah loveth those who are just.”
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