Suicide bomber target’s Medina Mosque
(The overly dramatic feature image above is from a movie and is a meteor hitting Paris, so not the bombing in question!)
According to a report by the Daily Mail (and several others), four people were killed and five injured after a suicide bombing at the Prophet’s Mosque in Saudi Arabia – one of Islam’s holiest sites.
Note, before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, I am neither an Islamophobe, nor racist, nor xenophobe, though I do have a little regard for any and all organised religions. Any negative thoughts I may or may not have towards Islam can equally be levelled at the ‘Holy’ Catholic Church, at any number of weird Western cults, at the bureaucracy of the European Union, and at Capitalism and Feudalism, etc. I get grumpier with every passing decade as I watch the human race destroy itself and taking the planet with it! When will you learn?
If ‘Islamic State’ are willing to do this to Medina (on top of all their other atrocities), where will they target next? Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem? Al-Haram in Mecca? And after them?
True, Daesh are hate-filled terrorists, nothing more, and do not represent most Muslims, but how many Muslims allowed themselves to be brainwashed by radicals and headed over there to join them? How many sponsored them, and are still doing so? You cannot, in fairness, argue Daesh aren’t Muslims and that they don’t represent Islam when they reportedly numbered over 100,000 Sunni Muslims – murdering in the name of Allah. How many times did the media (from all sources) tell how victims were given the choice to “Recite the Koran, or die”?
The ‘Islamic State‘ is a bit of a clue that Daesh are Muslims rather than a breakaway group of the Guildford Knitting Club, hmmm? I hardly think your average granny will walk into the local vicarage wearing a woollen yarn bomb vest and, ripping a knitted cosy from the teapot, scream: Aran is Great. Recite this week’s pattern from Woman’s Weekly or Mavis gets out the crochet hook!
Few in the west cared when, over the years, hundreds, then thousands of Kurds and Yazidi were massacred – whole villages at a time. Whether by Hussain, or Erdogan, or this latest group of nutters, this latest attack is still Muslims murdering other Muslims over… what? An interpretation by this or that Imam or self-styled Caliph over something written over 1,400 years ago? Madness!
Though I’d equally blame the ever greedy oil companies, arms manufacturers and dealers and, others, from the west. I can readily believe an ounce of truth in CIA conspiracy theories for that matter, after all, war is good business!)
To be honest, I doubt many Westerners care about this latest suicide bomber, though it must rattle the Islamic world to its core. Yet how many Muslims in the news – in the picture below – are grinning, taking selfies and photos with their phones? This just days after over 200 mostly young people died in car bombs in Baghdad on Sunday, with many more hurt!
Of course, I could have (and clearly did) picked out several other details instead, like the pile of rubbish and what looks like an empty can of Tuborg Beer (though is probably something innocent). Or, a man praying, or another man walking away, either unknowing or indifferent, who can say. For me, though, all the camera phones and the grinning man, chatting to others, stood out most, jumping out of the photograph even more readily than the explosion and smoke behind him.
Some of the comments on the Mail’s Facebook article of the story offered alternatives, e.g.,
[N.U.] Saudi officials and people from Medina are saying its not a suicide blast. Its was an accident with some car’s fuel tank blown. Still not sure what’s going on actually.
[S.M.] there was no blasts or explosions with foul play. There was no terrorism. The explosion is due to a gas cylinder blast which exploded in a hotel room. As you can see everyone is in peace and the media are making an issue out of it to sell stories
Make of my thoughts what you will, but look inwards for answers closer to home before looking outwards. As I understand it, Muslims have an obligation to forbid evil in all cases or they run the risk of being cursed by Allah for not condemning it. Given the state of the Middle East at the minute, seems to me there’s an awful lot of supporting, condoning and doing evil and precious little stopping it. You can’t just argue, Well, he’s a Shi’ite or she’s a Sunni or they are Christians, so it doesn’t matter.
Little evils beget ever bigger ones.
From the same article in the Mail:
THREE BOMBERS IN ONE DAY
8.30am – Suicide bomber detonates device near U.S. diplomatic site in the western Saudi city of Jeddah. Two reported injuries8.30pm – Bomber targets mosque in the largely Shiite region of Qatif in the east. No reported injuries
8.50pm – Bomber attacks Prophet’s Mosque in Medina. Four killed and five injured
Me? I’m an atheist, I don’t need a Catholic priest or Muslim imam to help me choose between right and wrong. Nonetheless, I am pretty sure walking into a mosque (or a shopping centre or a holiday resort or a school full of innocent children) with murder in your hearts and armed with AK-47s, grenades and bomb vests tick the ‘evil’ box!
More
It’s you liked (or loathed!) that, there’s more like it here:
- A Muslim in Fear
- Worlds Deadliest Terrorist Groups : Putting good and evil into context
- Vive la France and all that! Cause and effect. ISIS leads the end of days!
- Snake (strike) Bombs on a Plane? What if ISIS used a nuke?
- Desperate refugees – or ungrateful, manipulative, economic migrants?
- Pondering the world population: How bad can things get?
