[BaBaStooey]

The thing I don’t understand is that if the Crucifix and the image of Our Lady meant nothing to the Muslims, then they could have just ignored them.

Yet they covered them and turned them away — so even Muslims believe they mean something...which actually places them a notch above atheists in my book.

[Mrs. Don-o]

There's something in the Koran (I can't seem to find the reference now--- maybe it's in the Hadith?) about how Allah wishes them to cut down all the crosses. The cross is offensive to them, a direct blasphemy because they believe that Jesus was a prophet and that Allah would never have let him be crucified. They believe that either somebody else was crucified on the cross in Jesus' place, or that the whole event was an illusion.

Therefore the cross is not, for them, neutral or irrelevant. It is directly provocative and sacrilegious.

Fr. Mark Gruber, an American Catholic priest, told me about an incident5 maybe 15 years ago, when he was visiting Egypt. He was by the shore of the Mediterranean and saw some children playing, making a kind of sand castle. He joined them and they had a nice time, laughing building this structure, decorating with with twigs and pebbles, etc.

After awhile, he made a little cross from two twigs and stuck it on the "steeple" he had made. The children looked at him in fear and horror. One of them started screaming and screaming, and the child's father (or some adult) came over. The man looked at the cross, and came at Fr. Gruber menacingly, and Fr. Gruber got out of there in a hurry, truly fearing for his life.