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May 21, 2012
Where's the Coverage? Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia Urges the Destruction of "All Churches in the Region"
What if the Pope declared that all mosques in Europe must be destroyed? Would the media would cover it? You better believe it.
Last month, however, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, reportedly declared that it is "necessary to destroy all the churches of the region." And the media said… nothing.
According to Middle East and Islam specialist Raymond Ibrahim:
The Grand Mufti made his assertion in response to a question posed by a delegation from Kuwait, where a parliament member recently called for the "removal" of churches (he later "clarified" by saying he merely meant that no churches should be built in Kuwait). The delegation wanted to confirm Sharia's position on churches.Accordingly, the Grand Mufti "stressed that Kuwait was a part of the Arabian Peninsula, and therefore it is necessary to destroy all churches in it."
The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, the nation home to the two holiest sites in Islam, Mecca and Medina, is also the President of the Supreme Council of Ulema (Islamic scholars) and Chairman of the Standing Committee for Scientific Research and Issuing of Fatwas. His words should be considered quite authoritative.
Yet the media said… nothing.
A week later, Clifford May, President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote about this in the National Review Online. May reported that "the inquiring Kuwaitis were from the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS)" and that the U.S. government has designated…
RIHS headquarters in Kuwait as "providing financial and material support to al Qaida and al Qaida affiliates, including Lashkar e-Tayyiba" which was "implicated in the July 2006 attack on multiple Mumbai commuter trains, and in the December 2001 attack against the Indian Parliament." Such activities have caused RIHS offices to be "closed or raided by the governments of Albania, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, and Russia."
May’s piece appeared a month ago. Since then, has The Los Angeles Times written about this? No. The Wall Street Journal? Uh-uh. How about The New York Times?
Your search - "Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia" - did not match any documents.
Perhaps the most senior Muslim authority in the world has decreed that all the churches on the entire Arabian Peninsula must be destroyed and the mainstream media says nothing. Where’s the outrage? Where’s the professional responsibility? Where’s the coverage?
Posted by SC at May 21, 2012 05:40 PM
Comments
I checked out this claim by Raymond Ibrahim and all I could confirm was that a Kuwaiti Member of Parliament (MP) Osama Al-Munawer announced on Twitter he plans to submit a draft law calling for the removal of all churches in the country." (ArabianBusiness.com. I am skeptical of Mr Ibrahim's claims and would appreciate rather better source for his claims.
Posted by: ritchloui at June 7, 2012 06:53 PM
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