Free Republic

In this episode, I take a hard look at what really happens in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam, and ask whether the reality matches the image presented to the world. I examine disturbing footage and reports from the Hajj pilgrimage — from stampedes and harassment to the sheer chaos and commercialization surrounding the rituals — and compare these scenes with the spiritual ideals the pilgrimage is supposed to represent. I also explore the historical claims surrounding the Kaaba, the lack of open archaeology in Mecca, and the enormous financial machine built around the pilgrimage, asking whether the narrative surrounding...

...November 20, 1979, and Islam's holiest site... had been taken over by more than 200 armed militants. The weeks-long siege of the Grand Mosque, led by Juhayman, an anti-monarchy Islamist, would see gunbattle inside the mosque and in the holy city...Masjid al-Haram's armed seige came to become a watershed moment for the Muslim world. It turned Saudi Arabia into a hardcore Sunni nation, creating a huge rift with post-revolution Iran. The Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, the same year as the seige of Mecca, turned a moderate Iran into a radical Shia country.The creation of two radical power centres...

In this eye-opening investigation, we follow the hard evidence to uncover the true origin of Muhammad in early Islamic history. By examining ancient coins, rock inscriptions, Qur’an manuscripts, and non-Islamic historical sources, this video challenges the traditional narrative and asks difficult but necessary questions. Was “Muhammad” originally a personal name—or a title? Why do early inscriptions and coins feature crosses, Greek text, and anti-Trinitarian theology? And why is there a striking silence about Islam and Mecca in the earliest records? This presentation traces how Islam appears to emerge gradually out of late antique Christian theological conflicts, not overnight. Whether you’re...

Built to rival the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the great mosque in Damascus has always been claimed by rival faiths Sometime in the mid 1990s, I was standing in the marble courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus when two nuns asked me where they could find the head of John the Baptist. I pointed them towards the grand transept facade, gleaming with green and gold mosaics evoking a fertile paradise. Beyond lay the shrine to John or Yahya ibn Zakariyya, as he is known in Arabic, one of the few shared sites of Muslim-Christian pilgrimage. In 2001,...

Multiple leftist media outlets attacked Swedish pastor Håkan Persson, the parish priest of Markaryd, after a recent social media post in which he criticized the new rainbow-colored, LGBT-friendly vestments designed to be the symbol of the progressivism of the Church of Sweden. In his Facebook post, Persson stated that the rainbow-colored chasuble and stole, designed at the initiative of the Västerås diocese, “will not enter Markaryd’s church as long as I am vicar.” While the media paints him as acting from “a hidden minority-intolerant agenda” and accuses him of discriminating against the LGBT community in his parish, the priest insists...

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has announced a plan to acquire the bankrupt genetic testing company 23andMe for $256 million, raising privacy concerns as the pharmaceutical giant will gain access to the genetic data of over 15 million customers. The New York Post reports that Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has seized the opportunity to acquire the once-thriving genetic testing company 23andMe, which recently filed for bankruptcy. The $256 million deal will grant Regeneron access to 23andMe’s extensive collection of genetic samples and data, encompassing the personal information of more than 15 million customers. This acquisition has raised significant concerns among privacy advocates and customers who...

He had no doubts at first, but slowly they emerged. He was struck, he says, by the fact that the first coins bearing Muhammad’s name did not appear until the late 7th century — six decades after the religion did. He traded ideas with some scholars in Saarbrücken who in recent years have been pushing the idea of Muhammad’s nonexistence. They claim that “Muhammad” wasn’t the name of a person but a title, and that Islam began as a Christian heresy. Prof. Kalisch didn’t buy all of this. Contributing last year to a book on Islam, he weighed the odds...

Ellison has spoken at a convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Yet ISNA has actually admitted its ties to Hamas, which styles itself the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Justice Department actually classified ISNA among entities “who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood.” It gets worse. In 2008, Ellison accepted $13,350 from the Muslim American Society (MAS) to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The Muslim American Society is a Muslim Brotherhood organization: “In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTjNbT2-gmE

" PfanderFilms 1 year ago A few of you have asked why we at CIRA and Pfanderfilms haven't been blocked yet. We believe it is because we stick to the historical critique in these episodes, sourcing what we say by using extant historical texts, and by keeping our comments to the Islamic Traditions. As long as we are able to use these sources those in authority at YouTube should not block us, since it is just this kind of research and discussion which YouTube was created for. Nonetheless, thanks for continuing to watch our videos, and for supporting us by...

As an amateur historian -- and probably not a good one -- I go nuts when I see amateurish fictions tendered as core premises. This is no more frequently found than in Hollywood; but do not kid yourself, it is not confined to Hollywood. The following famous movie scene (based on the play) is a case in point, one worse than most: Camelot is unique. And we have, by far and away, the most equitable climate in all England -- Camelot (1967)A) The King Arthur stories hail back to the collapse of Celtic Briton, after the Roman garrison left in...

Title says it all, but Mahyar touches on returning refugees, Christians fleeing, Kurds defending themselves, Erdowan wanting to make Ottoman Empire 2.0, and other related issues. Transcript linked below video.

As the temperature in Mecca reached 125.24° F. (51.8° C.) on Tuesday, word leaked out that nearly 600 pilgrims had died of heat stroke and 2,000 have been hospitalised for treatment. A virtual clinic treated more thousands remotely. Some 324 of the dead were Egyptians, while dozens were from Jordan. The season of the annual Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca, the birthplace of Islam, just ended. Some 1.8 million pilgrims participated. Eyewitnesses said that not all the dead were elderly, that young persons died, as well. Pilgrims carry out a series of rituals during the pilgrimage, beginning with preparing themselves...

“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” — George SantayanaThere are many who have been advocating for and praising the so-called “ceasefire” agreement between Israel and the Islamic terrorist organization Hamas. I know that the families of those held hostage want to have their loved ones released back to them, especially the elderly and little children. How utterly savage and barbaric, but that is to be expected from a terrorist organization whose existence is dedicated to the extermination and eradication of the Jewish people and their homeland . . . a continuation of Adolf Hitler’s final...

During this season of holiness -- the Resurrection for us Christians, Passover for Jews (and the festivals are related) -- my prayer is that God may spare us from the idiotic histories that pervade the media. The chief lie is that Islam has any claim at all to the Temple Mount. MOHAMMED NEVER SET FOOT IN JERUSALEM DURING HIS LIFETIMEThe official version of Islam’s history admits that Islam never approached Jerusalem during Mohammed’s lifetime. Soon after Mohammed’s death, Islam went into the Ridda wars (Wars of Apostasy). Islam had not even stabilized at that point. Jerusalem was under the control...

Unlike other religions, declared the nineteenth-century French scholar Ernest Renan, Islam “was born in the full light of history.” Renan’s point, of course, was that whereas, for example, Jesus was unknown during his lifetime to the great world beyond Galilee and Judea, and the story of his life was set down, in various versions, only decades after his crucifixion, Muhammed was in his own lifetime a public figure of unparalleled eminence - the prophet of a new religion, the commander of an army that conquered much of the Arabian peninsula in the name of that religion, and the founder of...

Feeding Our Future, the Minnesota food charity sponsor whose offices have been raided by the FBI over allegations of massive fraud that some estimates have placed in the hundreds of millions of dollars, claimed that it wants to make "the world a better place for all". 10 members of FOF's staff boast of speaking Somali, others of Arabic and related languages often spoken by Muslim minorities, but only 3 speak Spanish and only 1 knows Chinese. The organization's Manager of Operations, Food Program Coordinators Manager, Food Program Support Manager, and multiple administrators, all appear to be Somali. The contact page...

A handful of coins unearthed from a pick-your-own-fruit orchard in the US state of Rhode Island and other random corners of New England may help solve a centuries-old cold case. The villain in this tale: a murderous English pirate who became the world’s most-wanted criminal after plundering a ship carrying Muslim pilgrims home to India from Mecca, then eluded capture by posing as a slave trader. Jim Bailey, an amateur historian and metal detectorist, found the first intact 17th-century Arabian coin in a meadow in Middletown.

Last week, Saudi Twitter pages began to promote the message that ‘the direction of Jewish prayers do not matter to me”. The campaign, designed to emphasize the importance of Mecca and Medina as the holy places of Islam, and to eliminate the importance of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, has caused considerable controversy online. Among the most prominent messages in the campaign were those who wrote that "the direction of the prayers of the Jews is not important to us, what is important to us is only our homeland," referring to Saudi Arabia. This tweet was written by a well-known...

After deals with UAE and Bahrain, there are signs Saudi Arabia is preparing its people to warm to Israel. When one of Saudi Arabia's leading Muslim leaders called this month for Muslims to avoid "passionate emotions and fiery enthusiasm" towards Jews, it was a marked change in tone for someone who has shed tears preaching about Palestine in the past. The sermon by Abdulrahman al-Sudais, imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, broadcast on Saudi state television on September 5, came three weeks after the United Arab Emirates agreed upon a historic deal to normalise relations with Israel and days...