Muhammad's Impotence

Found here on p.97 of U. Rubin, “Muhammad the Exorcist: Aspects of Islamic-Jewish Polemics”. Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 30 (2005),:

...[it] emerges in extra-Quranic hadith sources...[that] Jews appear as practicioners of magic and withcraft, and at least on one occasion they are said to have succeeded in bewitching the Prophet [Muhummaed], causing him a serious illness, which one may consider as demonic possession. The illness consisted of temporary impotence... (Source - Michael Lecker, "The Bewitching of the Prophet Muhaamad By The Jews", Al-Qantara 13 1992, and David Cook, "The Prophet Muhammad, Labid al-Yahudi and the Commentaries to Sura 13", Journal of Semitic Studies 45 2000)

Know your theological history.

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Found, Buried Away

Found, buried, in this transcript of an interview with Lt.-Gen. (retired) Hamid Gul, former chief of Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI),

"It is good if Pakistan is not involved in the talks [with the Taliban] because the goals that the U.S. wants to achieve are not in Pakistan's interest. The U.S. wants Indian supremacy in Afghanistan; that is why the U.S. has put Afghanistan in South Asia, taking it out from West Asia [i.e. Middle East on world map]. The second condition is that Pakistan and Afghanistan should accept Israel... Then a coalition government could be established and then the constitution prepared by the U.S. could be accepted and permanent bases for the U.S. could be established [in Afghanistan]. These all are impossible."

And this, too:

"An alternative to the democratic system has to emerge, and that can come from Islamic sources. Religion is a very powerful sentiment. Islam is even more powerful because it is in a resurgent state. It is a comprehensive system; that is why it is so dominant. Therefore Pakistan can emerge as a model on three issues; religion, nationalism, and democracy. This is because we are constitutionally committed to all these dominant trends of the 21st century. The combination of Afghanistan and Pakistan, with China at their back, will be too powerful a bloc [against the U.S. and India]. This represents a potential emerging giant in the world, not through territorial expansions, but by acting as a role model."

I think all but buries a lot of theories about Islam, terror and regional peace.

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Anyone Read or Seen These Volumes?

Bayt al-Maqdis: `Abd al-Malik's Jerusalem Part I (Oxford Studies in Islamic Art) (Pt.1) [Hardcover] Julian Raby (Author), Jeremy Johns (Author)

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and

Bayt-al-Maqdis: Part II: Jerusalem and Early Islam (Oxford Studies in Islamic Art) [Hardcover] Jeremy Johns (Editor)

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Well, Why Not Do This In Saudi Arabia?

Richard N. Weltz has reacted to the full-page ad last week which announced that November 21-23 is the "Week of Twinning." Fifty American and Canadian synagogues and 50 mosques will be joining "together to confront Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in their communities."

and he notes that

A photo at the ad's top shows a group of rabbis and imams, and a smaller photo headed "King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia," a little further down the page depicts that monarch chummily posed with Rabbi Arthur Schneier and the Chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America.

He goes on to point out that

Many little Muslim children -- especially Palestinians -- are taught from their earliest years on to hate Jews. The Internet is filled with clips of the most atrocious hatemongering material aimed at youngsters. Saudi Arabia is perhaps the world's largest financial sponsor of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism -- and here are these pie-in-the-sky rabbis thinking that a little bit of social intercourse will reverse all that is being taught worldwide in the Muslim ummah with Saudi funding.

Unfortunately, a sufficiently large portion of the Muslim population, especially in the Arab countries and Iran, have been able -- both by rhetoric and by terrorism -- to maintain an extreme of hostility between Israel and her supporters and the Palestinians, as well as various Islamic states.

This, of course, is occuring on the backdrop of this:-

Israeli President Shimon Peres used his turn at the podium at the UN interfaith summit in New York on Wednesday to heap unrestricted praise on the gathering's organizer, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah.

Peres broke with precedent to address Abdullah directly from the podium, and later insisted that the fact the Saudi king had even remained in the room to listen to an Israeli speak meant peace must be just around the corner.

However, those would be the only words Peres got to share with Abdullah, as the Saudi king and most other Arab leaders very conspicuously avoided contact with the Israeli delegation.

More here.

Criticism here:

Critics are blasting the United Nations for hosting a meeting to talk about religious and cultural tolerance sponsored by Saudi Arabia, a country in which the U.S. government has said religious freedom is non-existent.

Following up on an interfaith meeting they held in Madrid in July, the Saudis asked the United Nations to hold a meeting on the "Culture of Peace," but some think it’s a move to lend support to the defamation of religions resolution that the world body will vote on this fall.

And what say I?

Well, why can't all of this interfaith coziness take place in...Saudi Arabia?

And Who Said This?

'I have a problem with Islamic tradition, culture, ideology. Not with Muslim people.'...'Islam is something we can't afford any more in _________. I want the fascist Koran banned. We need to stop the Islamisation of ___________. That means no more mosques, no more Islamic schools, no more imams... Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists are Muslims.'

Meir Kahane?

Aryeh Eldad?

Effir Eitam?

Me?

Naw.

Geert Wilders.

Who?

Here.