One hundred thirty Muslim scholars have sent a letter to Pope Benedict and other Christian religious leaders calling for competition between Islam and Christianity ” ‘only in righteousness and good works.’ “

“If Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace. With the terrible weaponry of the modern world; with Muslims and Christians intertwined everywhere as never before, no side can unilaterally win a conflict between more than half of the world’s inhabitants,” the scholars wrote. …

Using quotations from the Bible and the Koran to support their message, the scholars told people who relished conflict and destruction that “our very eternal souls are” at stake “if we fail to sincerely make every effort to make peace and come together in harmony.”

So let our differences not cause hatred and strife between us. Let us vie with each other only in righteousness and good works.”

The letter was signed by Muslim scholars from around the world, including the Algerian religious affairs minister, Bouabdellah Ghlamallah, and the grand mufti of Egypt, Ali Gomaa.

These are very fine sentiments and the letter should be warmly received by the Pope and the other Christian leaders. Let me propose, however, that sentiments (by either faith) will not do the job. Both sides much adopt and teach true “think and let think” habits among their faithful. This will be much more difficult for Muslims than Christians. Freedom of personal conscience and personal religion will have to be adopted by Muslim societies before the sentiments expressed by the scholars can become reality.

Example: while the scholars were writing their letter, the secretary-general of the Assembly of Muslim Jurists in America (AMJA), Dr. Sheikh Salah Al-Sawy, issued a fatwa declaring “that marriage between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim man is forbidden and invalid, and that children born of such a union are illegitimate.” The fatwa says, among other things,

“A person must have some buffer between him and [deeds] that will bring him to perdition. A person about to commit suicide may expect society to intervene in order to safeguard his right to live. This is why shari’a prohibits marriage between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim man - because it is the first step towards religious suicide, whether [it is the woman’s] suicide or that of the children she will bear. This [form of] suicide is much worse than actual suicide, which also [involves] the murder of [unborn children]. The woman can expect Muslim society to stand between her and this fate, thereby safeguarding her faith and her salvation in the world to come.”

Not that at least some Christians don’t need to look in the mirror when it comes to intolerance:

Slash-and-burn columnist Ann Coulter shocked a cable TV talk-show audience Monday when she declared that Jews need to be “perfected” by becoming Christians, and that America would be better off if everyone were Christian.

Coulter made the remarkable statements during an often heated appearance to promote her new book on advertising guru Donny Deutsch’s CNBC show “The Big Idea.”

In response to a question from Deutsch asking Coulter if “it would be better if we were all Christian,” the controversial columnist responded: “Yes.”

“We should all be Christian?” Deutsch repeated.

“Yes,” Coulter responded, asking Deutsch, who is Jewish, if he would like to “come to church with me.”

Deutsch, pressing Coulter further, asked, “We should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians?” She responded: “Yeah.”

Coulter deflected Deutsch’s assertion that her comments were anti-Semitic, matter-of-factly telling the show’s obviously upset host, “That is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews.”

A transcript of their conversation about Jews appears at the link. It must be read to believed. Ann Coulter is probably the most religiously uninformed public figure I have ever heard of. I do not consider myself a “perfected Jew” as a Christian, nor can I help but gagging at the idea Ann expressed (see transcript) that Christianity is the “Federal Express” way to heaven compared to Judaism. Before Ann or any other Christian starts talking about “perfecting Jews” they need to pay attention to perfecting Christians, for which there is very way long to go.

Foxnews.com has more about the scholars’ letter.

Yesterday the Boston Globe editorialized about the al Qaeda or al Qaeda-like cells springing up in Lebanon and “Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, and Algeria.” It concluded,

There is a revelatory lesson in all this urban warfare and jihadist violence: From Baghdad to Beirut and from Gaza to Kabul, these recruits to the ultimate in reactionary cults threaten the existing states in the Muslim world far more than America or its Western allies. They are one side in a conflict centered within the Muslim world. Contrary to President Bush’s notion, this is not America’s long war against terrorism but the Islamic world’s conflict with itself.

In November 2003 I wrote,

Al Qaeda’s war is not only against the West; in fact, I say that they are not even principally fighting against the West. Their primary war is against other Muslims. What is at stake are lives, human freedom and the very definition of Islam itself.

Nice to see the BoGlo finally figure this out, too.

To combat female jihadists. Reports Crossroads Arabia,

They are playing a part in the overall efforts of the Saudi government to discourage youths from adopting extremist ideologies, nipping the problem in the bud rather than having to fight them in the streets. The article points to the way Al-Qaeda has paid attention to women in its own outreach programs and how female extremists are more difficult to pull away from their ideologies.

See what you think.

A Pakistani human-rights organzation says that at least 565 women were murdered in the country “in so-called honour killings.”

However, it said many more cases may have gone unreported and has estimated in the past that the annual total may be about 1,000.

Many men in deeply conservative rural areas of Pakistan consider it an insult to family honour if female relatives have an affair outside of wedlock or even if they marry without their consent.

Some view attacking or killing the women or their partners as a way to restore family honour.

In the report released today, the commission said at least 475 of last year’s honour killings followed accusations of “illicit relations”.

Sixty of the dead were minors.

Arrests were made in only 128 cases, it said.

I wrote about the dynamics of an honor-shame culture and how it severely oppresses women last October.

Sorry, but this custom is just nuts. Seems self evident. Hundreds injured in Muslim animal sacrifice.

“Hark, the angels aren’t singing in Bethlehem,” at American Thinker details the exodus of Christians from Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. Sixty years ago, Bethlehem was 85 percent Christian. Today only 12 percent of its residents are. Here’s a cite from a British newspaper article:

… the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, are to lead a joint delegation to Bethlehem this week to express their solidarity with the beleaguered Christian populace.

The town, according to the Cardinal, is being “steadily strangled”.

The sense of a creeping Islamic fundamentalism is all around in Bethlehem.

As late as last year, “the British archbishop of Canterbury and the resident Greek Orthodox cleric, blamed the Israelis-naturally-” for the slow elimination of Bethlehem Christians; one wonders what they will have to say this year. Thinker’s writer Ethel C. Fenig predicts,

Oh sure, as usual, the religious dignitaries will again blame the Israelis. And in the meantime, the manager of the Christian radio station prepares to leave because, “As Christians, we have no future here,” he says. “We are melting away.”

I have to wonder how long it will be before Jerusalem follows.

From the mind and computer of the incomprable Scott Ott, here is is al Qaeda’s number 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Christmas message to America.

Oct. 7, 2001 was World Communion Sunday. It was also the day that the air campaign against Taliban-ruled Afghanistan began. On that day, not knowing that the bombing raids would begin exactly during the time of our worship service, I concluded my sermon thus:

Today is the first Communion Sunday since al Qaeda killed six thousand of us. This Communion Sunday is a special one when Christians around the world recognize that we are one body in Christ. We reach out in the Lord’s spirit to share the bread and the cup, and we are praying for one another and the whole world.

Let us dare to pray that the day can come when we may welcome even Osama bin Laden and his cohorts into Christian communion as our brother in Christ. Let us pray and work for a day when the world’s hatred and rage and murderousness are overcome by the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Let us pray for a day to come when we can kneel even with our present enemies at the altar of the Son of God and partake together of the goodness of Christ. Let us hope and work for the day when we break bread together with them on our knees.

Let people of Christian faith remember to pray for our enemies. Our Lord and Savior, whom our enemies know of, but do not actually know, commands it. And so we do it, even if sometimes it is through clenched teeth.

I guess we can expect to see Iran’s soon-to-be-former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad standing on the corner holding a sign saying, “Will hate Jews and threaten the USA for food.” Why? He was videotaped leering at dancing, unveiled women.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, who flaunts his ideological fervour, has been accused of undermining Iran’s Islamic revolution after television footage appeared to show him watching a female song and dance show.
The famously austere Mr Ahmadinejad has been criticised by his own allies after attending the lavish opening ceremony of the Asian games in Qatar, a sporting competition involving 13,000 athletes from 39 countries. The ceremony featured Indian and Egyptian dancers and female vocalists. Many were not wearing veils.

Women are forbidden to sing and dance before a male audience under Iran’s Islamic legal code. Officials are expected to excuse themselves from such engagements when abroad but TV pictures showed Mr Ahmadinejad sitting with President Bashar Assad of Syria and Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister, during last Friday’s ceremony in Doha.

Religious fundamentalists, usually Mr Ahmadinejad’s keenest supporters, are asking why he attended a ceremony that violated his own government’s strict interpretation of Shia Islam.

So, Mahmoud is hoist on his own petard (whatever the heck that means). Stick a fork in him, ‘cause he’ done. He’s gonna make like a tree and leave. Yep, just like horse poop, he’s gonna hit the trail. Didn’t Hollywood already make a movie about him? Oh, yeah, there were two: “Gone in 60 Seconds” and “Gone With the Wind.” Yes, indeedy, he’s ghost. So long, Mahmoud, sayonara, goodbye, wiedersehen, tschuss, au revoir! Been nice knowing ya! Oh, wait, no it hasn’t.