Posted on 03/19/2005 4:02:25 AM PST by Pipeline
Muslims demand papal apology for crusades Highest Sunni authority sends official request to Vatican
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: March 19, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
The world's highest Sunni Muslim authority has demanded an official apology from the pope for the medieval Christian crusades.
Sheikh Fawzi Zafzaf, president of the Interfaith Dialogue Committee of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, said his panel sent the request to the Vatican in February, the Morocco Times reported.
The demand arose from Pope John Paul II's apologies to the Jewish people and his visits to Syria and Egypt a few years ago, Zafzaf said.
Al-Azhar is only asking for a similar treatment, he stated.
The Morocco paper said the Vatican's ambassador to Egypt has declined to comment, saying Al-Azhar's request is being considered by the Holy See.
While many Christians have expressed remorse for the crusades, some scholars insist the common characterization of zealous imperialists attacking peaceful Muslims is wrong.
Thomas F. Madden, author of "A Concise History of the Crusades," contends the Crusades "were in every way a defensive war."
"They were the West's belated response to the Muslim conquest of fully two-thirds of the Christian world," he wrote in a National Review column. "While the Arabs were busy in the seventh through the tenth centuries winning an opulent and sophisticated empire, Europe was defending itself against outside invaders and then digging out from the mess they left behind. Only in the eleventh century were Europeans able to take much notice of the East. "
Madden said the event that led to the crusades was the Turkish conquest of most of Christian Asia Minor, modern Turkey.
"The Christian emperor in Constantinople, faced with the loss of half of his empire, appealed for help to the rude but energetic Europeans. He got it. More than he wanted, in fact," wrote Madden, associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University.
Over the past several years, pronouncements from Al-Azhar have sparked controversy.
In 2003, Al-Azhar's grand sheikh, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, stated suicide bombers are considered "martyrs" under Islamic law.
In December 2002, the Islamic Ruling Committee in Al-Azhar declared the acquisition of nuclear weapons to be a religious obligation for Islamic states.
A member of panel, Sheikh Ala A-Shanawi, said, "The Islamic nation has to recognize the enemy, and to prepare itself accordingly."
Answering a question he received, A-Shanawi wrote, "Allah's messenger [Muhammad] would have prepared himself with all the resources possible in order to deal with the enemy. Therefore, if the Islamic nation is not equipped with the desired weaponry needed, it will be forced to suffer the consequences, and will be blamed for negligence."
The sheikh continued, "All Islamic nations are required to seize nuclear weaponry, giving the nation the utmost respect. We see how far behind our nation is as a result of not being prepared as well as it should be, while the enemy has equipped itself with the best weaponry there is, which it will use to harm and destroy Muslims."
I love that mind-picture!
Who is this guy that WND calls "the world's highest Sunni religious authority?" Since Kemal Ataturk did away with the Caliphate in 1924, there's not supposed to be any such person, no Moslem equivalent to the Pope. Since that time the Saudi kings, King Hussein of Jordan, and Osama bin Laden have claimed the title, but in no way do they have universal recognition.
And as for an apology, several hundred Europeans descended from the Crusaders went to Jerusalem in July 1999, on the 900th anniversary of the First Crusade's end, to make their apology. And didn't Bill Clinton go to the Middle East in 2002 and say about the jihadists that he "feels their pain" over the Crusades? As long as we're in a war where the other side is acting like the Crusades are still going on, that's all the apology they should get.
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!
Flash headline: Christians demand apology from Islamic Hordes who kicked the Roman armies out of Israel.
Flash: Israel demands Rome apologize for kicking Israel out of Israel.
Flash: Greece demands Rome apologize for kicking Greece out of Israel
Flash: Israel demands Greece apologize for invading Israel
Flash: Persians demand apology from Greece for kicking them out of Israel
Flash Israel demands apology for being invaded by Persia
Flash: Egypt demands apology from Syria for kicking them out of Israel
Flash: Isreal demands apology from Syria for invading Israel Here's a real one, I saw this last year:
Flash: Egyptians demand return of all gold taken by Jews on the Exodus from Egypt!
Any means of intrigue to win an advantage is OK by Islam.
ROTFLOL!!
I am totally convinced....
There is NO WAY Islamic Fundamentalists can ever co-exist in the same world as NON Islamic Fundamentalists...
One MUST destroy the other....
I vote THEM off the "island"...
Semper Fi
In one of John Waynes movies he said," Never apologise, its a sign of weakness" John was wrong. An apology for a personal mistake you made is not a sign of weakness its admission you were wrong and taking personal responsibility for it.
That said , how can anyone take responsibility for history.
We may be able to control our future acts but certainly we cannot control what happened in the past nor should we apologise for history, and to do so only opens us up for stupid attacks like this one.
Eff off and die Muzzies. Who never apologized for conquering and decimating the Christan lands of the Middle East within the first hundred years of Muhammad's birth.
Intimidation and Jihad codified into one package. Muhammadanism.
The middle east should apologize for the murder of countless christians, jews, and many others. Plus they should give Medina back to the jews.
Should the northern African countries ask for an apology for the Muslim invasion there?
Should the request for apologies continue from all corners of the world right up to the gates of Mecca and Medina where this cult started?
How about returning Egypt, Ethiopia, and especially, Jerusalem to the Christian? Not to mention Constantinople...
This is a joke. Really. I'm laughing out loud this saturday morn! LOL
4o hectares and a camel?
And in other news...the serpent wants an apology from God Almighty, for casting him out of the Garden and forcing him to slither around on his belly. When contacted by CBS News, the serpent said "I tell ya, this is SO mean spirited! Nobody feels my pain, all I want is for God to say He's sorry and stop capitalizing references to Him!"
uhhhhh, so where's the apology for 9/11????
And restotr yjr Toman Empire"
Ah, but it is the duty of the followers of islam to kill and maime as many infidels as possible. Surely, one doesn't think they have blood on their hands by following what their satan has told them to do.
My favorite folks ping.
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