** FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 762 1/3/18 ATTACK ON THE KAABA

EXTREMISTS TARGETING THE KAABA IN MECCA? IT HAS HAPPENED BEFORE. IT COULD HAPPEN AGAIN.
------------------------------------------------------------

ISIS planned to destroy the Kaaba. Islam’s holiest place. Wot!? Nonsense, surely. As plausible as a Catholic traditionalist plotting to blow up St Peter’s in Rome, eh? Yet Dr Christiane Gruber mentioned it in an erudite lecture at SOAS. Amazed, I googled it. Found it boils down to a single tweet by a putative jihadist four years ago. Identity never verified, says the Huffington Post. Fake news, what else?

Not so swift. Last year the Saudis claimed to have smashed a Ramadan terror plot targeting the Great Mosque, where the Kaaba is situated. Of course, the tottering house of Saud has a vested interest in projecting itself as the shrine’s defender. Not unlike Western governments, that royal clique knows how to conjure up the jihadi menace (for long bankrolled by the very Saudis…that’s by the by) to bolster their waning power. Still, there might be a grain of truth in these scares.

The Black Stone. The dark rock set in the Eastern side of the Kaaba. Originally from Paradise. Touched and kissed by countless pilgrims ambling round the house of Allah. Is that the aim of ISIS’ iconoclastic fury? They have broken up Buddha statues, Assyrian winged bulls, Christian churches, Sufi sites – are the Kaaba and the Stone further links in that sorry chain? Not that it’d win them many friends amongst fellow believers. Rage, more likely. Anywhere in the world, they all turn towards the Kaaba to pray. Nothing more iconic in Islam.

‘We don’t worship the Black Stone…it’s only piety’, any Muslim will tell you. Indeed, Catholic theology distinguishes between latria, a Greek word meaning worship, and doulia, veneration. The latter is permissible, the former is not. A distinction maybe too subtle for the Caliphate zealots. Interesting how Maximus of Tyre, a Greek philosopher, reports the pagan Arabs before Muhammad representing their god as a quadrangular stone. You can see why, Dr Gruber expatiated, Caliph Omar was nervous about Muslims’ attachment to the Black Stone. It fell to the heretical Carmathian sect to carry it off to Bahrain – after storming the great mosque and slaying many worshippers. On payment of a ransom, the Stone was later returned. Inspired by faith in a Mahdi, the Muslim redeemer, the Carmathians looked forward to a new age when sharia’ law would be superfluous but, like many utopians, they lost.

In 1979, the beginning of Islam’s fifteenth century, another Mahdi pretender arose in Mecca. Hundreds of armed believers calling themselves Ikhwan – the Brothers – seized the Great Mosque. Led by Juhaiman, a charismatic and learned preacher and poet. Juhaiman proclaimed his brother in law Muhammad as the Mahdi, the awaited saviour who comes at the end of the world to fight impiety and restore justice and true religion. Looked promising – the Mahdi, Muslims believe, will necessarily be victorious. Alas, this brave claimant fell short. King Khalid, not trusting his own troops (says a lot…), called on the infidel French for aid. Kuffar special anti-terrorist forces flushed out the besieged Ikhwan from inside the shrine. The would-be Mahdi was killed and Juhaiman, along with many others, captured and later beheaded in a public square. Apocalypse postponed, you might say.

The Saudi monarchy conveniently labelled its enemies kharijis, fanatical, violent dissenters from early Islam. (It was a khariji who assassinated Imam Ali.) For his part Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Iranian revolution, fingered Israelis and Americans for seeking to occupy and defile the holiest shrine of the religion. Whatever the truth, the story is unended. Ten years ago the Kavkaz News Agency, a Chechen radical outfit, accused some US Christian fundamentalists of planning an attack on the Kaaba. As nutty an idea as that of the ISIS tweet but then…who knows?

For hypothesis’ sake, imagine there really was a nuke strike on Mecca. Where could that come from? President Trump? Forget it. He is King Salman’s staunchest ally. Dr Gruber showed a poster in Saudi showing the two old boys clutching arms together! From one of his generals? Top brass like ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, McMasters and Kelly. Or perhaps a rogue one? Remember Stanley Kubrick’s movie, ‘Dr Strangelove’? Air Force Brigadier Jack. D. Ripper rebels and orders bombers armed with nuclear missile to drop a few on the Soviet Commies. It is just conceivable a real, crazy General Ripper might follow suit and target the Kaaba. Why? Teach the uppity Mozlems, jihadis and the rest, a lesson. Crush the head of the Beast kind of thing. What would follow? Picture the maddened faithful masses worldwide. Taking it out on innocent Christians, Jews, Hindus, anybody. The slaughter, the mayhem, the ruins…the gates of hell would be thrown wide open.

Now figure an ISIS missile hitting St Peter’s. Appalling carnage and sacrilege. The howls, the execration, lamentations would be...words fail me. But can you imagine hordes of sword-waving Christians turning their pain, their righteous anger on innocent Muslims? Giving the Crusades another go? Would Trump exact awesome retaliation? Maybe I lack imagination but somehow I can’t see it.

Get this: I am not suggesting Christians are unfailingly beautiful, loving souls, incapable of hurting a fly, while Muslims are the opposite, bloodthirsty, etcetera. Far from it. Were we not Crusaders? And Conquistadores? Well, have we spiritually improved? Or become miserable wimps? Where, where is the ancient zeal? Has Christianity become effete?  Lost the plot? Or is it all the fault of Western secularism? Or the sin of irenicism? Of the deadly virus of unbelief? Or…what?

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
** follow on Twitter (https://www.twitter.com/eugenevonsavoy/)
| ** friend on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/app_scoped_user_id/10155945715447192/)
| ** forward to a friend (http://us7.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=3ae40cde0c299583529f1448a&id=449860b361&e=5707b9e8db)

Copyright © Fr Frank Gelli
Email Marketing Powered by MailChimp
http://www.mailchimp.com/monkey-rewards/?utm_source=freemium_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=monkey_rewards&aid=3ae40cde0c299583529f1448a&afl=1
** unsubscribe from this list (https://simplesite.us7.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=3ae40cde0c299583529f1448a&id=f9573901af&e=5707b9e8db&c=449860b361)
| ** update subscription preferences (https://simplesite.us7.list-manage.com/profile?u=3ae40cde0c299583529f1448a&id=f9573901af&e=5707b9e8db)