Contributed by: filbert Sunday, June 17 2007 @ 07:35 PM CST
Holy war is of course a concept which has (rightfully) been discarded by modern civilization.
Iran’s president, however, did not get the memo[*1] :
In the past, the Iranian has claimed that his problem is with political ideologies and not religion. Jews and Judaism, when kept in their place were just dandy, he said – his problem was with Zionism and Israel’s existence. At no time, before, or after his presidency, had Ahmadinejad made such a statement, which could be interpreted as hostile against the monotheistic religions which the Koran has declared as holy.
But on Friday, June 15th speaking at an Islamic seminary school, Ahmadinejad charged that “ideologies deviating from God’s teachings are being spread with dollars in the name of Judaism and Christianity around the world. Those who are doing this are saying they want to save humanity, whereas the only way to save humanity is Islam”.
This is the first time that Ahmadinejad has made a statement in which he has accused Jews and Christians of spreading blasphemy, without even bothering to include a hint that it is rogue groups within such religions who are responsible. This is unprecedented.
What is even more worrying is that these comments, which were reported by the Iranian news agency Aftab News, won the support of Moosa Ghorbani, a senior member of the Iranian parliament.
Rather than condemning the president for words which could cause offense and hostility, Ghorbani instead condemned other former presidents for not making similar statements. He went on to say that “Islam completes other religions” and that therefore “other religions are not accepted by God”.