Category: Other Religions

Ask An Ayatollah

Gasistani

Catholic Answers’ question-and-answer shows on "Catholic Answers Live" are very popular and so it can sometimes be difficult for listeners to get through to ask their question of an apologist on-air. If Catholic Answers’ apologists find that more questions are asked than they have time and resources to answer on-air, one can only imagine how difficult it must be for the Grand Ayatollah Sistani to empty his question queue.

Really. Sayyid Ali Husaini al-Sistani, a Grand Ayatollah of the Shiite Muslims and a political activist in Iraq, has his own website on which he answers questions posed to him on topics ranging from abortion to zakat (obligatory charity).

ASK AN AYATOLLAH.

(Nod to Katie Allison Granju for the link.)

Ordinarily, I would copy-‘n-paste a selection from the site to give you a sample of the ayatollah’s apologetics, but his site specifically warns that such reproduction is strictly forbidden. So, you’ll have to log on to the site yourself to take a peek.

The Burden Of History

What happens at the beginning of a religion is important ot its later history. The path that the founder of a religion places it on is the path it will have a tendency to stick to–or return to–in at least a general way.

This is not to say that religions cannot become detached from their historical foundation. Much of modern Buddhism has very little relationship to the teachings of the historical Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama), and much of liberal Christianity has little relationship to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles.

But religions–or notable parts of them–tend to stay at least in the ballpark of what their founder intended.

This bodes ill for the future of Islam and its relationship to the rest of the world. If you want to explain much about the current state of the Muslim world, including its propensity toward jihadist violence, you need look no further than the fact that Muhammad was an Arabian warlord. The mindset of an Arabian warlord was stamped on Islam at its inception, and it has shaped the subsequent history of Islam in ways too numerous to count (at least in a blog post).

In an ideal future, a way will be found to wean Islam away from its violent impulses, but even if that proves to be possible, it will not be easy. The stamp of the Arabian warlord will be hard to erase, and not just regarding the use of violence, but in related areas, such as the way a warlord uses money.

HERE’S AN INTERESTING ARTICLE CONTRASTING MUHAMMAD AND JESUS ON THE USE OF MONEY, VIOLENCE, AND POWER.
(CHT: Southern Appeal.)

Jewish Ceremonials Today

A reader writes:

There were means provided by God in the Old Testament for forgiveness of sins, I believe. I imagine these were in-effect promissory notes, to be fulfilled when Christ retroactively ratified them. So do those same means — I don’t have the books right here to look them up, but I think I mean Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement — still work? — for Jews who don’t realize they’ve been subsumed by the sacrament of Confession?

This is an interesting and somewhat tricky question, and Catholic theology does not have a definitive answer on it, but there are some parameters to the options that are open in answering it, and I can tell you what answer I personally am inclined toward.

So here goes. . . .

If you read the passages in the Old Testament that discuss the sacrifices that were offered (e.g., Leviticus 1-7) or the Jewish festal calendar (chiefly Leviticus 23) then it is quite clear that some kind of atonement/forgiveness is promised through the celebration of these rites. That’s parameter #1: We have to say that people were somehow doing some kind of reconciliation with God through these things.

We can’t just say that these were symbols of reconciliations that had already been effected. The text isn’t written in a way that allows that. It’s "IF you want to get reconciled with God THEN you do this ceremony," not "IF you’ve been reconciled with God THEN do this ceremony as a symbol."

Parameter #2 is given to us by the book of Hebrews:

It is impossible  that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins (10:4).

So despite the straight-forward IF/THEN algorithms of the sacrificial economy in the Old Testament, there has to be more to it.

Here’s where things get messy.

It’s initially tempting to think of matters in terms of a simple promisory note situation: The blood of bulls and goats don’t intrinsically take away sins, but by virtue of their foreshadowing of Christ, they did–at least before the sacrifice of the Cross was made. The Old Testament ceremonies discharged our debt of sin on the model of a credit card (i.e., funds to be deposited in the future), while New Testament ceremonies discharge the same debt on the model of a debit card (i.e., funds already deposited).

But there’s reason to think that this analysis isn’t all there is to it, either, for Hebrews goes on to describe Jewish priests of the day offering sacrifices that don’t take away sins:

Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God (10:11-12).

This makes it sound like the Jewish offerings never took away sins.

I could see someone saying, "Well, maybe the author of Hebrews is saying that in his day–AFTER the sacrifice of the Cross but BEFORE the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70–their sacrifices were ineffective, but prior to that, prior to the time Christ died on the Cross, they were effective," but this doesn’t seem to fit with the flow of his argument. He seems to envision the Old Testament sacrifices as always inadequate in some sense, which is why Christ had to come and make his fully adequate sacrifice for us. That seems to be the major thrust of his argument.

So we’ve got one parameter telling us that there was some kind of reconciliation effected through the Old Testament sacrifices and we’ve got another parameter telling us that it wasn’t the full, definitive reconciliation that was made through Christ.

The truth therefore is to be found within the space marked off by these two parameters, and here is where theological speculation and opinion comes in.

It seems to me that part of the answer is to be found in the fact that the concept of reconciliation with God is focused very differently in the Old Testament than in the New. One of the things I have a chance to explore in my book The Salvation Controversy

<hypnosis>BUY THE SALVATION CONTROVERSY, BUY THE SALVATION CONTROVERSY</hypnosis>

is that in the Old Testament atonement is much more this-worldly. People are wanting to get reconciled with God so that temporal disasters like sickness and poverty and war and physical death won’t happen to them. In the book, I call this "temporal atonement."

It’s in marked contrast to what the New Testament is focused on, which is getting right with God in this life so that you don’t spend the next one in hell. In the book, I call that "eternal atonement."

It seems to me that part of the answer to the efficacy of the Old Testament ceremonies is that they were focused on making temporal atonement–on getting right with God so that we don’t suffer temporal calamities–and they didn’t really have in focus what happens to us in the next life.

At least early on.

By the later period of the Old Testament–as witnessed by Judah Macabee’s sacrifice for those who had died–there was a desire becoming manifest to secure blessings in the next life through the use of the ceremonies. These blessings may not have been conceived of as eternal ones. Judah Macabee’s sacrifice presumably dealt with the temporal effects of sin that linger into the next life (i.e., purgatory) rather than securing eternal salvation for the fallen warriors, but the desire to use the ceremonies to receive some kind of blessing in the next life was there.

This desire grew to the point that in the first century A.D.–when securing eternal salvation had become a pressing concern in the consciousness of the Jewish people–people were conceiving of the Temple ceremonies as securing eternal salvation.

And that’s when Christ came and offered his sacrifice and the authors of the New Testament (chiefly Paul and the author of Hebrews) made a BIG point that the Temple sacrifices did not do what people were thinking of them as doing. That’s why Christ had to come.

I’m thus inclined to say that the Old Testament ceremonies were focused on providing temporal atonement and that eternal atonement was something that was secondary.

But let’s explore that secondary side for a minute.

Suppose that you’re God and that your people have sinned and you’ve set up a sacrificial economy for them to get right with you when they’ve done so.

At the moment, the things that they’re focused on are avoiding temporal calamities in their own, tiny little lives. As God, you have a clearer awareness than they do of the fact that they also have an eternal destiny, and they have some awareness of this, too. But what’s really importent to them at the moment is that they don’t get sick or invaded or have a famine. They’re like kids–thinking more about today than tomorrow.

And so they bring bulls and goats into your Temple and offer them to you to say that they’re sorry for their sins and please don’t squash us, and so you don’t squash them, because they really are sorry and want to make it up to you in the way that you deem appropriate.

So where does that leave their eternal destiny?

Are you, as God, going to say to them upon death, "I’m sorry, but all those sacrifices you made had nothing to do with your eternal salvation, so although I was merciful to you in life, I’m not going to be merciful to you in death, so to hell with you"?

I don’t think so. That’s not the vision of the God that we’re given in the Bible.

It seems much more likely to me that you’re going to say something like, "You know, those sacrifices that you did to get right with me so I wouldn’t squash you were focused on temporal salvation, and they really didn’t do anything toward your eternal salvation–for the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins, at least in the eternal sense–but by offering those sacrifices and otherwise trying to follow my will, you were showing that you had a heart for me. You were turning your will away from your sins and toward me, and so you were reconciling yourselves with me inwardly and the sacrifices you offered were an outward sign of that inward desire for union with me. They weren’t enough to bring about that union, but they showed that you were doing what you could. You were trying to do your part. Therefore, I’ve done my part, too, by making a sacrifice through my Son that is capable of taking care of the eternal effects of your sins, so well done my good and faithful servant. Come on into heaven. Your union with me is achieved."

So underneath the desire to get right with God in this life to avoid being squashed was a deeper desire for union with him in general, and that desire would apply to the next life as well as this.

And God would honor that.

So what would we say about Jewish ceremonials today?

It seems to me that we’d say the same thing: The ceremonials themselves cannot be said to provide an objective means of securing eternal salvation, just like the blood of bulls and goats in the Temple era didn’t. But for a Jew who is performing them out of a desire to be reconciled with God, if he’s doing what he thinks God wants him to do, then God will honor that inward desire for and will towards reconciliation.

The reconciliation will be provided exclusively through the sacrifice of his Son and not through the ceremonials that are being performed, but the will toward union with God is what God will honor.

So Yom Kippur and other ceremonials today don’t objectively provide a means of eternal salvation for Jewish people–only Christ and the sacraments he has established do that–but the will toward God shown by Jews in pursuing these in good conscience is something that God will receive.

Jewish Gospel Dynamics

Jewish rabbi and New Testament specialist Michael Cook offers an intriguing example of modern Jewish apologetics on the claims of Christianity:

"The New Testament has been the greatest single external determinant of Jewish history, and a deleterious one to say the least. It has caused Jews grievous problems and even innumerable deaths, not to mention generating antisemitism and anti-Jewish stereotyping. Today, it remains the cause of societal pressures during Christian holy day seasons and a source of confusion for Jews targeted by Christian missionaries and millennialists.

"Engaging the New Testament, therefore, can be both therapeutic and empowering for Jews. At the same time, a willingness by Jews to tackle Christian texts may help enlighten Christians about the role the New Testament has played in violating some of their own values. Jews who are able to articulate to Christians the Gospels’ evolution from a Jewish perspective may be in a better position to curb the reckless abandon with which New Testament texts are often so cavalierly cited, bandied about and misconstrued in modern society."

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to Religion & Society for the link.)

I have posted this article not because I intend to interact with it on an apologetics level — that exercise would require far more space than the blogging medium allows
— but because I want to highlight a renaissance in modern Jewish apologetics, which I think can only be positive for Christian/Jewish interreligious dialogue. If such dialogue is to be more than self-affirming chitchat, then both partners in the discussion need to engage in apologetics, which is to say that they need to offer each other with mutual charity and respect the reasons for their hope (1 Pet. 3:15).

For another recent example of Jewish apologetics, see David Klinghoffer’s Why the Jews Rejected Jesus.

GET THE BOOK.

GET THE REVIEW. (Scroll to the second review.)

Hammer Into Nail

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a freaky scary dude. He’s a true religious zealot who’s theology is likely to lead to world war if he gets his way.

I mean, liberals back in the 1980s often tried to portray Ronald Reagan–a mild Presbyterian–as if he were an apocalyptic visionary, but Ahmadinejad is the real deal!

He’s said and done things that suggest that he is a divine messenger who is preparing the way for the return of the Hidden Imam–Shi’ite Islam’s semi-Messianic child figure, who is believed to have been in hiding for the last thousand years but who will return in connection with an apocalyptic conflict.

The former executive editor of Iran’s largest daily newspaper (who now lives in Europe) has an interesting article spelling out Ahmadinejad’s religious vision and how it plays into the current Iranian nuclear situation.

EXCERPTS:

Last Monday [now the Monday before last], just before he announced that Iran had gatecrashed "the nuclear club", President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disappeared for several hours. He was having a khalvat (tête-à-tête) with the Hidden Imam, the 12th and last of the imams of Shiism who went into "grand occultation" in 941.

According to Shia lore, the Imam is a messianic figure who, although in hiding, remains the true Sovereign of the World. In every generation, the Imam chooses 36 men, (and, for obvious reasons, no women) naming them the owtad or "nails", whose presence, hammered into mankind’s existence, prevents the universe from "falling off". Although the "nails" are not known to common mortals, it is, at times, possible to identify one thanks to his deeds. It is on that basis that some of Ahmad-inejad’s more passionate admirers insist that he is a "nail", a claim he has not discouraged. For example, he has claimed that last September, as he addressed the United Nations’ General Assembly in New York, the "Hidden Imam drenched the place in a sweet light".

Last year, it was after another khalvat that Ahmadinejad announced his intention to stand for president. Now, he boasts that the Imam gave him the presidency for a single task: provoking a "clash of civilisations" in which the Muslim world, led by Iran, takes on the "infidel" West, led by the United States, and defeats it in a slow but prolonged contest that, in military jargon, sounds like a low intensity, asymmetrical war.

According to this analysis, spelled out in commentaries by Ahmadinejad’s strategic guru, Hassan Abassi, known as the "Dr Kissinger of Islam", President George W Bush is an aberration, an exception to a rule under which all American presidents since Truman, when faced with serious setbacks abroad, have "run away". Iran’s current strategy, therefore, is to wait Bush out. And that, by "divine coincidence", corresponds to the time Iran needs to develop its nuclear arsenal, thus matching the only advantage that the infidel enjoys.

The author goes on to predict that Iran will feign just enough compliance with the U.N. to stave off a military attack for the next two years, so they can run out Bush’s term in office. Then, with a new, weaker-willed president in office, it’ll be full speed ahead.

We’ll have to see whether they pursue that strategy or whether they really are hell-bent-for-leather crazy on their nuclear program.

What the author doesn’t go into is something that we’ve brought up before here on the blog: Bush knows (or should know) that no matter what happens in Afghanistan and Iraq, if he leaves office without stopping Iran from getting the Bomb then his presidency will be viewed as a dismal failure. It doesn’t matter whether they get the Bomb after he leaves office or not. He will be viewed as someone who (like Clinton) allowed a horrible external threat to fester and grow due to his indecisive action. He’ll even be viewed as someone who hamstrung himself with a foolish venture into Iraq when the real threat was Iran.

It doesn’t matter whether that’s fair or not, that’s how it’ll be perceived.

So the question is: What will Bush do if the Iranian government tries a play-for-time strategy?

Will he drive the hammer into the nail?

Only time will tell. In the meanwhile,

GET THE STORY.

MORE ON THE HIDDEN IMAM.

Mark Twain And The Book Of Mormon

Marktwain

During a trip out West, Mark Twain took along The Book of Mormon to while away the travel hours. He didn’t think much of its literary style, but he did find it useful as a cure for insomnia:

"All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the ‘elect’ have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so ‘slow,’ so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone, in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason.

"The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James’s translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel — half modern glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque by the contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modern — which was about every sentence or two — he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as ‘exceeding sore,’ ‘and it came to pass,’ etc., and made things satisfactory again. ‘And it came to pass’ was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet."

GET THE STORY.

(Note: This link does not constitute an endorsement of the host site. Refer to JA.org’s Rules 6 and 7. Nod to Once Upon a Time… for the link.)

If you’re interested in reading the book in which the excerpted essay is found, CLICK HERE.

For more about Mark Twain, CLICK HERE. I especially liked the following quote attributed by Wikipedia to Twain:

"It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them."

JP2 And The Quran

John_paul_ii_quranA reader writes:

I had never heard you address this on your show or Blog – though I’m certain you are familiar with it and have covered it before.  But what gives about the story of JPII kissing the Koran?!  I’ve seen it mentioned enough times by serious Catholics to accept this must have happened.  However, I don’t know the context of this event or any other details so I can only wonder what our late Holy Father might have been thinking…  Your thoughts?

This question has come up over the years, and I know that I’ve addressed it on the show (though I don’t have the faintest idea in what episodes), but I don’t seem to have done so on the blog, so here goes. . . .

First, I’ve reprinted the famous picture of the event above so that people can see what is being talked about.

Based on the picture alone, I would not be sure what is happening. The book is ornate and could be something other than the Quran. From the looks of it, it could be a book of the gospels.

However, the former Chaldean patriarch–Raphael Bidawid–was present at the meeting where the event occurred, and in an interview with the press service FIDES, he said the following:

On May 14th I was received by the Pope, together with a delegation composed of the Shi’ite imam of Khadum mosque and the Sunni president of the council of administration of the Iraqi Islamic Bank. There was also a representative of the Iraqi ministry of religion. I renewed our invitation to the Pope, because his visit would be for us a grace from heaven. It would confirm the faith of Christians and prove the Pope’s love for the whole of humanity in a country which is mainly Muslim.

At the end of the audience the Pope bowed to the Muslim holy book, the Qu’ran, presented to him by the delegation, and he kissed it as a sign of respect. The photo of that gesture has been shown repeatedly on Iraqi television and it demonstrates that the Pope is not only aware of the suffering of the Iraqi people, he has also great respect for Islam [SOURCE].

What, then, is one to make of the event?

It seems that there are a number of possibilities:

1) The FIDES news agency misquoted the patriarch.

2) Patriarch Bidawid was mistaken about what happened. It was not the Quran but something else.

3) John Paul II kissed the Quran but didn’t know the nature of the book he was kissing.

4) John Paul II kissed the Quran and knew that this is what he was doing.

I would love to think that either option (1), (2), or (3) was the case, but I have no evidence that any of them was the case.

The most likely one of the three, to my mind, would be (3), because so far as I know, John Paul II was not an Arabic speaker and may not have understood the nature of the book that he was being presented with.

People shove all kinds of books into the pope’s hands at audiences, and if the pope was under the impression that the thing to do with a gift in Iraqi culture is to kiss it as a sign of respect to the one who gives the gift then he might have kissed it reflexively, not even understanding the nature of the book.

While this is possible, I think it likely that an interpreter explained the nature of the gift that was being given on this occasion. This still leaves the possibility that the pope kissed it as part of Middle Eastern politeness rather than as a gesture of respect for the book itself.

I have heard claims that in some Middle Eastern cultures that this is a typical gesture of respect for one giving a gift, but I have asked Chaldean friends of mine whether this is the case in Iraqi culture and the answer was a definite "No." "The pope put his foot on the neck of all Chaldeans with this action" was the response I was given. (Just to make things clear, putting your foot on the neck of someone is a bad thing in Iraqi culture.)

Still, the pope may have been under the mistaken impression that this was the appropriate thing to do when receiving a gift in their culture. He can’t be an expert on every culture in the world, and he could get this wrong.

Or maybe he didn’t.

Maybe he knew it was the Quran and kissed it anyway, not as a customary gift giving response, but for some other reason.

What might that reason be?

It certainly wouldn’t be that he believes in Islam or believes that Islam is on a par with Christianity. If he believed either of these two things then he (a) wouldn’t be the earthly head of the Christian faith and (b) wouldn’t have approved the publication of Dominus Iesus, which asserts the salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church.

Any attempt to represent him as thinking one of those things doesn’t even get out of the gate.

So what might he have been thinking?

We’re only speculating here, but two things spring to mind as what JP2 might have been thinking:

1) The Quran does contain some elements of truth (as well as grave elements of falsehood) and he might have wanted to honor the elements of truth it contains.

2) Showing respect in this way could foster world peace and interreligious harmony.

Of these two, I would conjecture that the latter would have been uppermost in John Paul II’s mind, though the former may not have been absent.

John Paul II was a man who was enormously concerned with world peace and interreligious harmony. As a young man he lived through the horrors of World War II, which had a permanent effect on him and his generation and their views about war and peace.

As a mature man he lived through the Cold War that repeatedly brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster, and this also had a permanent effect on him and his generation and their views about war and peace. The constant threat of nuclear warfare hung particularly heavily over Europe–which would have been the chief battleground in a conflict between the Soviet Union and the West–and (particularly on the heels of WWII) it deeply impressed the "find peace at any cost" message on his generation.

As a result of the Cold War, the nations of western Europe were forced into an alliance (NATO) whereby their centuries-long enmities (as between France and Germany) had to be suppressed for the sake of common survival. Negotiation became the key to survival in western Europe, and the same message was driven home to those in Eastern bloc countries, such as John Paul II’s native Poland.

By letting the US shoulder the main burden for the military defense of Europe (during and after the Cold War), many Europeans of John Paul II’s generation absorbed the idea that negotiation was paramount and could solve virtually any problem. It wasn’t until the events of the Global War On Terror that this idea began to be seriously called into question many in European circles.

As a result, as a man of his generation, John Paul II–for the best of motives–may have overestimated both the need for and the utility of gestures such as the one exhibited in the Quran-kissing event.

If the former pontiff did understand that the gift was a Quran and if he wasn’t under the impression that kissing a gift was a standard response in Iraqi culture then I would suppose that he did so out of a desire to foster peace and interreligious harmony, but it would still have been a mistake to my mind.

The Quran, whatever elements of truth it contains, also contains venomous attacks on the divinity of Christ and on Christian doctrine and these make it inappropriate for the Vicar of Christ to kiss it under any circumstances.

John Paul II also may not have been attending to the gravity of the false elements in the Quran. Even if he knew them, he may not have been thinking about them and may have acted on the spur of the moment, without fully thinking through his action.

Fortunately, the infallibility of the pope and the indefectibility of the Church do not extend to such actions. A pope is not attempting to make anything remotely like a dogmatic definition in an act of this nature. And so, however misguided the action may have been and however good the motives for it may have been, it would constitute an error that does not touch upon papal infallibility or ecclesial indefectibility.

It would be one of the mistakes that all fallen humans are heir to, even the vicars of Christ.

JewishEncyclopedia.com

Welcome news for anyone with an interest in Judaica! The Jewish Encyclopedia has gone online and is a free service:

"This online version contains the unedited contents of the original encyclopedia. Since the original work was completed almost 100 years ago, it does not cover a significant portion of modern Jewish History (e.g., the creation of Israel, the Holocaust, etc.). However, it does contain an incredible amount of information that is remarkably relevant today."

SEE THE SITE.

(Nod to Modern Orthodox Woman for the link. MOW also notes that JE.com is soliciting help in updating the encyclopedia, an effort that could lead to "the beginning of a Jewish Wikipedia.)

By the way, for any who may be unaware of it, the original Catholic Encyclopedia is also online. Now we just have to get started on a Catholic Wikipedia….

Mother Theresa: Non- Favorite Daughter

Mother Theresa is most famous for her work in India. If (really, when) she is declared a saint, she will be known as "St. Theresa of Calcutta." But she wasn’t a native of India, she was a native of Albania, which at the time was a Communist country with a majority Muslim population.

Now there’s controversy in Albania over plans to build a statue of Mother Theresa:

SHKODER, Albania (Reuters) – Muslims in Albania’s northern city of Shkoder are opposing plans to erect a statue to Mother Teresa, the ethnic Albanian Catholic nun in line for elevation to sainthood by the Vatican.

The dispute is unusual for Albania, where religion was banned for 27 years under the regime of dictator Enver Hoxha and where religious harmony and mixed marriages are the norm. Seventy percent of the population are liberal Muslims, the rest are Christian Orthodox and Catholic.

But Muslim groups in Shkoder rejected the local council plan for a Teresa statue, saying it “would offend the feelings of Muslims.”

“We do not want this statue to be erected in a public place because we see her as a religious figure,” said Bashkim Bajraktari, Shkoder’s mufti or Muslim religious leader. “If there must be a statue, let it be in a Catholic space.”

CHT to the guys at LGF, who wryly quip:

Maybe it would be easier for everybody if some sheikh somewhere just made a list of things that don’t offend the feelings of Muslims.