Amazing. According to Ha’aretz,
A French satirical weekly magazine announced Tuesday it would publish caricatures depicting the Prophet Mohammed, a move that could spark further protests by Muslims already enraged at an internet video insulting Islam. Stephane Charbonnier, editor of the weekly Charlie Hebdo, told broadcaster iTele that the caricatures to appear Wednesday “would shock those who wanted to be shocked.” He said the decision was aimed at defending freedom of the press
Worthy of the Darwin Awards, if you ask me.
Excellent, the “gene pool” of the French “caviar-Left” badly needs some cleaning :-)
The Saker
Hello Saker,
sorry for off topic comment, but since you talk so much about Orthodox Christianity, its gotten me curious… could you recommend any book(s) that might give a good overview of beliefs, history etc.? Since I’m Muslim, would especially be interested in any work on historical relationships with Muslims/Islam?
thanks
@Anonymous: a pretty decent general intro to the history of the Orthodox Church is the book called, well, “The Orthodox Church” by Timothy Ware who later became known as Bishop Kallistos Ware. This book has seen many editions, and I would say that the OLDER the edition, the better. This is the Amazon link to the most recent edition of the book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Orthodox-Church-New-Edition/dp/0140146563/
One of the best books on Orthodox theology is “The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church” by Vladimir Lossky. Here is a link to it on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Mystical-Theology-Eastern-Church/dp/0913836311/
Books on Orthodox and Islam are much harder to come by since in the English speaking world many, if not most, books are not about Orthodoxy and Islam as much as Orthodoxy versus Islam and, even more so, Orthodoxy versus the Ottoman Empire’s Islam. I know that there have been many studies written about that in Greek and in Russian, but the amount of good books in English I am afraid really very small and most of them are heavily biased. I also remember reading some Iranian books in English on that topic, but I have to look into my books. If I do find it I will post it here, ok?
==>>Maybe others here can recommend some good books in English?<<==
Kind regards,
The Saker
thank you – appreciate the references
Dear Saker,
This is not good…
Islam’s Civil War Comes To Russia: Shiites And Sunnis Battle In The Caucasus — Emil Pain, World Crunch.
Best,
Joe
@Joe: This is not good… Islam’s Civil War Comes To Russia: Shiites And Sunnis Battle In The Caucasus
That headline is misleading. It should have been “Wahabis on a murder spree against fellow Muslims”.
As I mentioned many times here, traditional Russian Islam and Saudi Wahabism are locked in a fight for influence in which the Wahabis do kill a lot of people, not only Shia, but also non-Wahabi Sunnis. The State is fully backing the traditionalists and the Russian security services are on a constant manhunt against the Wahabis. None of that is good,of course, but if you think of it is is a SIGN OF WEAKNESS of the Wahabis who cannot take on the Russian state and who find a more vulnerable victim in non-Wahabi Muslims. As for the state, it is hard for it to protect traditional Muslim leaders 24/7 and many of them actually refuse to hide or accept protection.
This is of course tragic, but I see no signs of a Sunni vs Shia war in Russia, that is not what is happening here.
What is a real problem is that there is a small but *constant* cycle of terrorist attack in Dagestan where the situation is actually far worse than in Chechnia. While the Kremlin does have the resources and willpower to prevent the terrorism in Dagestan to turn into a full-scale insurgency, it clearly has not found a way to substantially reduce the number of terror attacks against weak “soft” targets.
The other problem area is Tatarstan where, alas, a lot of Wahabi activists have found a safe heaven.
There is no doubt in my mind at all that the CIA/MI6 & Co. will attempts to re-ignite Islamic terrorism in Russia in retaliation for the Kremlin’s refusal to obey the orders of Washington.
I therefore expect an increase in terrorist attacks in Russia, but I do not see them turn into something bigger.
HTH, cheers,
The Saker