What One Needs to Know about Islam

The controversial "Ground Zero" mosque will be launched by the so-called Cordoba Initiative. So Cordoba stands for the legendary Al-Andalus, where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together in peace, right?

Not quite. Cordoba stands for many other things as well. It was the name of the Islamic empire's center, from where Islam ruled most of the then known world. It's stands for one of the grandest mosques of that time which was, notabene, built on the ashes of a Christian Visigoth church. It stands, too for a massacre of the Jews of Cordoba in 1011 (yes, Al-Andalus wasn't quite what Muslims and their enablers would like us to believe) and for the rape of the city by the Almohades in 1148. Some websites claim that the year 1011 carries some symbolism as well, but while that is entirely possible, it is too far-fetched to make it a point here.

To understand the full implications one has to know two basically simple things:

First, Christians and Jews build their places of worship to, well, worship. Muslims build mosques to symbolize Islamic supremacy over others, to proselytize, to politicize, as an arsenal.

Second, Muslims act on symbols.

The Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem on top of the Jewish temple symbolizes Islamic supremacy over Judaism, the Ummayyad Mosque in Syria is built on top of St. John the Baptist, Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was converted into a mosque as a symbol of Islamic supremacy over Christianity. The Cordoba Initiative mosque will be built on the ashes of almost thousand Americans who couldn't be recovered after September 11, 2001. An innocent naive fallacy? Maybe, but I doubt it.

Here are some examples from Germany, my country, a country with, as of 2009, 4.3 million Muslims (5.4% of the population). Of these, 1.9 million are German citizens (2.4%). As of 2006, there were about 15,000 ethnic German converts. The large majority are of Turkish origin. Most Muslims live in Berlin and the big cities of former West Germany, mainly in the those of the industrial stronghold along the rivers Rhine and Ruhr.

The Yavuz-Sultan-Selim mosque in Mannheim is one of the biggest in Germany. Its patron, Selim I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. Selim carried the empire to the leadership of the Sunni branch of Islam by his conquest of the Middle East. On the eve of his death in 1520, the Ottoman empire spanned almost 1 billion acres.

More than 50 mosques in Germany are called Fatih. Fatih means conqueror and refers to Mehmet II who was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for a short time from 1444 to September 1446, and later from February 1451 to 1481. At the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople in a bloodbath, bringing an end to the Byzantine Empire. Mehmet continued his conquests in Asia, with the "Anatolian reunification", and in Europe as far as Belgrade.

Other popular names for mosques in Germany are:

Aksa/Aqsa means "farthest", and in this context the "farthest [so far] from Mecca". The Muslim claim to Jerusalem and the Holy Land comes in here as well.

Ayasofya is emblematic for and purposefully reminiscent of Christian humiliation.

Hicret (arabic ‏مسجد هجرة ‎ hidschra) refers to Mohammeds flight from Mekka to Medina in 622.

Imam Ali.

Al-Quds stands for Jerusalem. (It was an Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg from where Mohammed Atta set out to promote his very own brand of conquering.)

Selimiye refers to the megalomaniac Selimiye mosque in Edirne:

Then we have the Merkez mosque in Duisburg (Merkez means stronghold in Turkish), currently the biggest in Germany and probably in Europe as well. I discussed it previously for example here and here.

The controversial projected mosque in Cologne is called "Merkez" as well, which is (politically correct) translated not as "stronghold", but as "center". Everything not to let Muslims appear in a less than angelic light. I have covered the interesting and complex controvery that was triggered by the Cologne mosque, but went far beyond, it here:

• 02/17: What Americans don't twig
• 04/26: Innocents Abroad
• 04/30: The Unembarrassables
• 05/10: Loose Apes with Razors
• 05/10: Shameless Cologne
• 05/13: The "Fission Fungus"
• 05/15: Rent-A-Nazi
• 10/02: German Patriot now Muslim

Another popular name for mosques in Germany is Bilal. No, this has no apparent, blatant connection to Muslim conquest, however, it is interesting in a different sort of way. The Ethiopian Bilal ibn Ribah was the first Muezzin in the history of Islam and called from the rooftop of the first mosque, no minaret in sight. Until today, minarets are not mandatory in Saudi Arabia and many minaret-less and relatively inornate mosques among the older ones, some of them very important, can be seen there. Why? What about "symbolism"? Saudi Arabia was, and is, Muslim heartland and needed no "spearheads" to impress and bully infidels.

Ask for the name of the mosque next to you and do a quick Google search. The result might be interesting.

One more word about the Cordoba Initiative. Granted for argument's sake that the Ground Zero mosque, pardon me, the Cordoba outreach center to make better people of infidels, was planned and is being realized in good faith. Then we still have to deal with the sensitivity aspect, haven't we. Wasn't it abundantly clear in the first stages of the planning process already that only too many Americans wouldn't react kindly to a project like that? It seems that the sensitivity and respect Muslims are always so stridently demanding for themselves is utterly missing when they are addressing non-Muslims. Is it too far fetched to speculate how the idea of a German cultural center together with Protestant church, theater, swimming pool, the lot, as a gesture of reconciliation at the Westerplatte would be received by the Poles? Or why the Japanese did never propose a center for the promotion of their culture at Pearl Harbor?

I will never forget where I have been when 9/11 happened and how long it took for the reality of WHAT had happened to seep in -- and the horror when it finally had. Shortly after 9/11, an anonymous New Yorker released a Macromedia Flash presentation with a collage of news photos from the attacks and the victims. "Only Time" by Enya (which I hadn't heard before) was used as a soundtrack. The Flash presentation spread rapidly over the internet and it is still available. I don't know how many times I've watched it during the days and weeks following 9/11, bawling my eyes out. 30 times? 50 times? How can I ever forget the pictures of those who chose to fall to their death rather than to burn or to suffocate. Some choice. How the thought of the hundreds of firefighters who rushed to the scene to never come back? How the face of the gallant Father Mychal Judge who died, 68 years old, in a hail of steel and concrete as he administered the last rites to a firefighter and an office worker. And you, you who have been there, allow THEM to build one of their disgusting symbols of heathen supremacy over YOUR culture on the ashes of the victims.

What else do you need to know about Islam?