Islamic Round-up

1. In a disgraceful act of dhimmitude, New York is going to be lighting the Empire State Building green in celebration of the Muslim festival of Eid, the end of Ramadan.

What a lovely way to encourage those who committed the worst act of terrorism in history right there in the same city.

2. More than 130 Muslim scholars have written to the Pope and other Christian leaders urging better understanding between the two faiths.

The letter identifies similarities in both religions, such as the requirements to accept only one god and live in peace with one's neighbours.

The cheek here is that Muhammad actually labelled Christians as polytheists, because he saw the association of Jesus as part of the Holy Trinity to be encouraging the worship of more than one god. Islam prides itself on being a pure monotheism, which the other religions aren't.

It also insists that Christians and Muslims worship the same god. The letter, the text of which will be released in Washington on Thursday, says Mohammed was told the same truths that had already been revealed to other prophets, Christian and Jewish, including Jesus.

They also cite the Koran as placing a duty on Muslims to treat Christians and Jews as followers of those prophets with particular friendship.

The implication of this already is that Jesus was in fact a MUSLIM Prophet, and it seems these scholars carefully leave out the fact that Muhammad went on to say that Christianity and Judaism are false religions and that their followers have cynically twisted the teachings of Allah for their own wicked ends. And they will of course have quoted abrogated early suras to show that Muhammad wanted "friendship" with other religions. In fact, he was just trying to gain their respect so they would convert to Islam. When they didn't, he turned on them and commanded that Muslims wage war on them until they submit.

Kitman in action.

It comes on the anniversary of an open letter issued to the Pope last year from 38 top Muslim clerics, after he made a controversial speech on Islam. Pope Benedict sparked an uproar in September last year by quoting a mediaeval text which linked Islam to violence.

In fact, the Pope's speech was a carefully reasoned invitation to engage in a dialogue between the two religions. The response was death threats, outrage and mass riots from the Muslim world.

I think that "understanding" between the two religions is a long way off yet.