by Raymond Ibrahim • Jul 27, 2012 at 8:33 pm
Cross-posted from Jihad Watch

According to AFP, "Muslims on Friday [today] set fire to Christian homes in a village near the Egyptian capital after a fight between a Muslim man and a Christian laundry worker who singed his shirt while ironing it, police said. At least one person was wounded as Muslims and Coptic Christians also traded fire bombs, police officials said."

AFP gives no more details; however, Al Masrawy does. According to it, the Christian man, Samih Nasim, burned the shirt of the Muslim man, Ahmed Ramadan, this last Wednesday, leading to a brawl between the two Egyptians. The next day, Thursday, "the Muslim, with approximately 20 of his followers, went to the Christian's home to attack him. Expecting this, the Christian was prepared and climbed to the highest point of his roof, hurling Molotov cocktails at the Muslims," injuring one.

As a result, Friday, today, the Muslim man returned "with approximately two-thousand Muslims" burning and plundering Christian homes, and wounding several people, in the latest example of Collective Punishment for Egypt's "dhimmi" Copts.

by Raymond Ibrahim • Jul 24, 2012 at 1:35 pm
Cross-posted from Jihad Watch

The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia—the authority who called for the destruction of all churches in the region—recently condemned a new Saudi Arabian satellite TV series, which was scheduled to air during Ramadan, on the life of Islamic prophet Muhammad's companion and second caliph, Omar ibn al-Khattab.

The series is supposed to tell the story of the early days of the Muslim caliphate, including, most likely, the Islamic conquests, since many non-Muslim nations, such as Egypt, were conquered during Omar's reign.

What is interesting is why the Grand Mufti is condemning this series, calling it a "crime deserving of punishment": It "depicts the lives of the caliphs and companions [of Muhammad] in a movie, exposing them to discussion by every depraved person, making them vulnerable to slander and criticism."

In short, it seems he wants the obscurities of early Islam to remain obscure—perhaps like how Omar allegedly used to strip female sex-slaves in public whenever they were overly-dressed—lest they become a renewed source of criticism of Islam and its early followers, otherwise known as al-salaf al-salah, the "righteous forefathers" whom Wahabbis and Salafis, like the Grand Mufti, pattern their lives after—and, hence, come into constant conflict with the modern world.