There were no mosques in Jerusalem in 632CE when the Prophet Mohammed died... Jerusalem was [then] a Christian city. The Moslem "claim" to Jerusalem is based on what is written in the Koran, which although Jerusalem is not mentioned even once, nevertheless talks (in Sura 17:1) of the "Furthest Mosque": "Glory be unto Allah who did take his servant for a journey at night from the Sacred Mosque to the Furthest Mosque." But is there any foundation to the Moslem argument that this "Furthest Mosque" (Al-Masujidi al-Aqtza) refers to what is today called the Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem? The answer is, none whatsoever. Cupolas on Temple Mount. Note overall disrepair and lack of use In the days of Mohammed, who died in 632 of the Common Era, Jerusalem was a Christian city within the Byzantine Empire. Jerusalem was captured by Khalif Omar only in 638, six years after Mohammed's death. Throughout all this time there were only churches in Jerusalem, and a ...

Geneva — Tuesday was Day 2 of the United Nations hatefest known as the “first substantive session of the Durban Review Preparatory Committee,” now taking place in Geneva. Delegates rolled up their sleeves, and the Jewish and Western-bashing exercise entered a new phase. The Egyptian representative gave a good summary of most everything wrong with Durban II. He claimed the conference and its preparatory process should focus on criminalizing “racial profiling,” “racism in the media,” “the challenges posed by Islamophobia since the events on 9/11,” and “instrumentalization of democratic processes for racist applications.” In short, racism is an evil Western plot to victimize Muslims, who can only be protected by the undermining of democracy, freedom, and law enforcement. The Ambassador of Sri Lanka was more philosophical. In his words, “the relationship between racial discrimination and freedom of expression is a complex and dialectical one; more freedom of expression is not an antidote t...

The Pope implores that a new relationship be forged between the Church and Israel out of the tragic ashes of the Holocaust, based upon overcoming “every kind of anti-Judaism,” and engaging in sincere, meaningful dialogue. As Pope Benedict, this commitment and its constructive impact were re-affirmed in a Passover greeting to the Jewish community , issued officially during his visit to Washington, D.C. last Thursday. In contrast to the pope, consider Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the current Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. For more than a thousand years, since its founding in 792 A.D., Al-Azhar, has served as the academic shrine — much as Mecca is the religious shrine — of the global Sunni Muslim community (Sunnis are about 90 percent of Muslims). Tantawi’s Ph.D. thesis, Banu Israil fi al-Quran wa-al-Sunnah (Jews in the Koran and the Traditions), was published in 1968-69. In 1980 he became the head of the Tafsir (Koranic Commentary) Department of the University of Medina, ...

ROMA, January 5, 2006 – A book published recently in the United States lifts the veil on a crucial aspect of Islam, one which too many understand poorly and know too little about: jihad, the holy war. It is an aspect that meets with widespread silence, as if it were a taboo. Even among Christians, there are wide gaps on this topic in the general awareness of Church history. An example? Many recall what happened in Rome, at St. Peter’s Basilica, the night of Christmas Day of the year 800. After the Mass, pope Leo III solemnly placed upon the head of Charlemagne the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. That night, the basilica of St. Peter gleamed with breathtaking brilliance. A few years earlier, Leo III’s predecessor, pope Hadrian I, had covered the entire floor of the sanctuary with plates of silver; he had covered the walls with gold plates and enclosed it all with a balustrade of gold weighing 1,328 pounds. He had remade the sanctuary gates with silver, and had placed on the iconostasis ...

How America's founding religion is becoming illegal.Attacks on Christmas dominate today's headlines – judges banning nativity scenes, retailers renaming Christmas trees "Holiday trees," schools forbidding children from singing Christmas carols and even banning the colors red and green! It almost sounds funny, but only if you're not aware of the powerful, malevolent currents beneath the "grinch-who-stole-Christmas" stories. As WND's acclaimed monthly Whistleblower reveals in its spine-straightening December issue, a lot more than Christmas is at stake – Christianity itself is being undermined and attacked with increasing frequency and venom. In full...

IF there is an outfit less relevant than the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to today?s issues and problems, I have not heard of it. True, the South Asian club (Saarc) must count as a close second, but at least it has the potential to develop into something meaningful once the poisonous Indo-Pak rivalry subsides. The OIC, on the other hand, is like a person all dressed up for a party, with nowhere to go. As I write this, our newspapers are full of the earnest entreaties for tolerance and harmony emanating from the OIC?s ?extraordinary session? in Makkah. Speaker after speaker has denounced violence and urged unity. Kings and dictators have followed each other to the rostrum to denounce terrorism in the name of Islam. In full.....