Category: Religion

Sell replica aviation crash axes for kids dressing up as Hamam al-Hammami?

by philg

Hamam al-Hammami, a mostly peaceful Omani, apparently attacked his FlyDubai captain with the standard crash axe that is part of the cockpit gear (flight attendants may have one too, at least on larger planes; unclear how the passengers are prevented from getting hold of that one since it needs to be available quickly in an emergency).

“Airline pilot” is a fairly standard Halloween costume. Via the addition of a crash axe, a child can become a warrior against colonialism and genocide as well. On the other hand, inexpensive as a Gemtor D56 might be, it is probably not wise to send the 8-year-old out into the neighborhood with one. I found this plastic training version online:

How much would it cost to 3D print something like this? ChatGPT gives a range:

Separately, Hamam al-Hammami finally answered the question that I wondered about in 2008 when TSA would hassle me for having a couple of coins left in a pocket and setting off the metal detector. “Any pilot could just reach for the crash axe so what difference does it make if he or she brings a tiny amount of metal on board? Given aggressive intent, you’d never use a Swiss Army knife if a crash axe were available.”

Who else has been in the news lately who might be a good inspiration for a Halloween costume?

Separately, who has good ideas for regional candies to hand out for Halloween? I don’t want to be boring and get the same Costco assortments that everyone else gets. It would be fun to give out a candy that is not available in Florida at all. We expect 500 to 1,000 children because our next-door neighbor is an insanely skilled Detroit automaker senior engineer who creates a Las Vegas-quality pirate environment, complete with animatronics.

Here are some ideas from ChatGPT:

ChatGPT estimates that full-size candy bars, which some neighbors do distribute, are $1.15 each while the Costco “fun-sized” chocolate assortment works out to about 14 cents per bar.

Let’s close by looking at Hamam al-Hammami’s plan:

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25th anniversary of “Islam is Peace” (and photos from the 9/11 Memorial & Museum)

by philg

Twenty-five years ago, a fatwa from the great scholar of Islam, Ayatollah George W. Bush:

The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace.

A video version:

There is no evidence of W. ever having read the Koran in Arabic nor having studied the Hadiths, but he is standing by his fatwa 25 years later (Fox).

Some photos from an August 2025 visit to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum…

The footprints of the destroyed buildings are preserved as memorials, surrounded by the names of those killed, starting with the 1993 parking garage jihad.

The museum is nearly all underground:

The museum has a lot of touch screens:

A cornerstone plaque was preserved, dedicated to the thousands of legacy Americans who constructed the World Trade Center:

Generally speaking, the destruction and deaths that occurred at the site are attributed to motive-free “terrorists” with no relationship to any religion. Example:

A drawing from Alexandra, age 3, whose father was killed in the not-related-to-Islam attacks:

The remains of Ladder Company 3’s truck were preserved:

All 11 members of Ladder Company 3 were in the North Tower when it collapsed and all were killed.

One fight that New Yorkers will apparently never give up on is the struggle against SARS-CoV-2. More than five years after coronapanic began, the “one person per bench” rule still applies:

The gift shop reminds us that most of the heroes of 9/11 were female:

Some were Canine-Americans:

We are reminded that “Love is Stronger than Hate”:

A last look at a tower foundation:

A few steps away, it’s back to the average New York City streetscape:

Related:

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Islamophobiaphobia in the New York Times

by philg

Yesterday, we looked at our nation’s leading journalists in Investigative reporters at the New York Times uncover the real victims of the 9/11 attacks

Today, let’s consider another 9/11 anniversary article from the same paper: “Facing Islamophobia, Mamdani Keeps Focus on 9/11 Victims”.

Because he is afraid of Islamophobia, the NYT tells us, Mayor Mamdani isn’t doing the things that he actually wants to do and instead is occupied with considering the New Yorkers who were killed by his fellow Muslims. The NYT reminds us that it wasn’t only Mamdani’s aunt who was a victim of 9/11:

… for Mr. Mamdani, the dual identities of being a young mayor and a Muslim has brought an added layer of pressure and scrutiny. He was 9 years old when the attacks took place and had been living in the United States for two years after moving with his family from Uganda. He has called the day a horrific tragedy for all Americans and one where a Muslim like him was officially marked as an “other.”

Do we need a word that means “fear of Islamophobia”? How about Islamophobiaphobia? Then we could say, “Because of Islamophobiaphobia, Ayatollah Mamdani did not organize a River to the Sea #FreePalestine event at City Hall as he had hoped to.”

Example hater:

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Investigative reporters at the New York Times uncover the real victims of the 9/11 attacks

by philg

A front-page story in the New York Times today, the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 jihad:

Many American Muslims have faced a quarter-century of suspicion and hostility since the Sept. 11 attacks … the city’s first Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani. But anti-Muslim prejudice still endures, echoing the Islamophobia that arose in the earliest days after Sept. 11.

“I think that day belongs to everyone who lived it and what came after belongs to a smaller group of us,” said Mr. Awawdeh, 39, who is now the president and chief executive of the New York Immigration Coalition and a confidant of Mr. Mamdani. “That part of the story this country still has not told itself honestly.”

… backlash faced by high-profile Muslims in politics or the arts, and attacks on Islamic religious expression, including the construction of mosques and the wearing of religious clothing like hijabs.

“Muslim America now has a greater cultural footprint, more institutional power and a lot more support from allies, comrades and friends all throughout the country,” Mr. Dandia said. “Now when people think of Muslim America, they have names and faces they can point to.”

How many haters are there?

According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted this year, 43 percent of American adults said Muslims are less patriotic than other Americans, and 42 percent said Muslim Americans are having a negative impact on the country. When asked to explain their views, respondents often cited the Sept. 11 attacks.

In March 2002, 25 percent of American adults said Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence, but that number had risen to 51 percent in the survey conducted this year.

Who are the haters?

Those views have become highly polarized, with Republicans expressing far more negative views of Islam than Democrats, a change from after the attacks when supporters of both parties held similar views.

Let’s close with a fatwa from a scholar of the Quran and the Hadiths…

… and also with the end of the United Flight 93 CVR transcript, “Allahu Akbar”:

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Codex works to verify a chart showing Iran having a relatively high level of religious tolerance compared to neighbors

by philg

Here’s a chart from an X post charting answers to the question “The only acceptable religion is my religion” (perfect for Pride Month!):

Iranians living in the Islamic Republic of Iran are, according to this chart, much more likely to tolerate non-Islamic belief than, for example, the noble Palestinians who reside in Jordan (whose territory is about 80% of British “Palestine” and in which over 97% of residents are Muslim (0% are Jewish, which makes puts it on track to be celebrated as an ideal society from a progressive point of view)).

Should we believe this chart? Is it a reasonable size survey, for one thing? I found the cited source and was able to get the raw numbers. 1200 people were surveyed in Bangladesh and only 25 disagreed, consistent with the published bar chart’s percentage.

Codex crunched away for about 15 minutes, asking for permission quite a few times (I haven’t ever used it for something like this so maybe the next one will go smoothly). Codex (ChatGPT/OpenAI) concludes that the X chart is a fair representation of the data (i.e., it accomplished a fact check). The Codex-produced chart in Excel is hard to read, though, with the country names buried inside bars of color (not to say “colored bars”):

Note that some countries the X author left out are near the top here, e.g., Maldives (“100% Muslim” according to Google) and Libya (nearly 100% Muslim, according to Google, with the exception of some expats (oil industry workers?)).

I asked “Can you redo the chart so that the country names are in a separate column? Or at least left-justified?” This took another 10 minutes with many failed attempts and several requests for approval. The result was at least off by one, with the Bangladesh label applied to the percentage legend:

Another 5 minutes and much straining by NVIDIA chips in a data center somewhere…

So the AI assistant does work, but I think that asking a Chatbot to produce a chart, without reference to a desktop computer and Excel, might have been faster/simpler.

Separately, why did we attack a country that is far more tolerant than our NATO ally Turkey (recipient of about $31 billion in aid, cumulatively) and far more tolerant than Jordan, a country to which we have provided $34 billion in aid?

(Loosely related, maybe our surrender to Iran isn’t quite as great a deal for them as portrayed in the media. If it were, wouldn’t the Iranians have already agreed to our surrender? Instead, there are merely negotiations.)

Here’s Codex’s Excel output:

religion_likert_chart_labels_alignedDownload
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Iran war listening from Audible

by philg

Audible last month was promoting “Islamic Heritage” even ahead of “Black Creators”:

What does Audible feature in this category? Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s extensive and popular writings? Gemini’s summary:

  • Marriage and Puberty: Khomeini maintained that the appropriate age for marriage was puberty, which his legal framework defined as nine lunar years for girls.
  • Sexual Contact Rulings: In his work Tahrir al-Wasilah (Volume 3, Page 229), Khomeini outlined that sexual intercourse with a wife is not allowed until she reaches the age of nine. However, the text states there is “no objection” to other forms of sexual enjoyment, such as “touching lasciviously, hugging and rubbing the thighs,” even with a suckling infant.
  • Legal Framework: Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, these teachings became the basis for Iranian civil law, which permitted the marriage of girls as young as nine with the consent of their fathers or a court permit.
  • Reproductive Age: In the same text, Khomeini mentioned that intercourse is permissible once the girl reaches the age of nine, regardless of whether the marriage is permanent or temporary

How about the Hadiths?

Sahih al-Bukhari 5134 (Book 67, Hadith 70): Narrated by Aisha: “The Prophet (ﷺ) married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old”.

Audible does have Sahih al-Bukhari, but it isn’t featured. Neither is the Qur’an. The choices concentrate on support for Hamas, pointing out that Muslim societies are the true repositories of feminism, and that Islamophobia is irrational (there were four domestic jihads in the first two weeks of March 2026, shortly before I captured these screens, including the Austin jihad of Ndiaga Diagne (3 infidels dead; 15 wounded) and the Old Dominion University jihad of Mohamed Bailor Jalloh (1 infidel dead; 2 wounded)):

My personal recommendation for Iran war reading: Pre-Mamdani Election Reading: King of Kings

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Theodicy question: Why didn’t Allah protect the Islamic Republic of Iran from attack by infidels?

by philg

Infidel rogue states (U.S. and Israel) were recently successful in killing many of the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. If Allah is omnipotent and benevolent, how was it possible for infidels to achieve this apparent military victory over a nation that follows the Koran and Hadiths?

Is the answer that those recently killed were martyrs to a larger cause and that their successors will build Iran into a stronger and more dominant nation?

Ayatollah ChatGPT isn’t tremendously helpful. Excerpts:

Iran’s interpretation of Islamic law is shaped by centuries of Shīʿī jurisprudence and legal reasoning (fiqh), not just direct literal verses from the Qurʾān or ḥadīth.

Islamic theology emphasizes that God’s wisdom (Hikmah) transcends human understanding. What may seem unjust or inexplicable from a human standpoint may be understood only in a larger spiritual context — especially one that includes the afterlife and final judgment, which humans do not see.

Related:

Flashback to 1979 New York Times, “Trusting Khomeini”:

Part of the confusion in America about Iran’s social revolution involves Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. More even than any third‐world leader, he has been depicted in a manner calculated to frighten.

The news media have defamed him in many ways, associating him with efforts to turn the clock back 1,300 years, with virulent anti‐Semitism, and with a new political disorder, “theocratic fascism,” about to be set loose on the world.

… there are hopeful signs, including the character and role of Ayatollah Khomeini.

To suppose that Ayatollah Khomeini is dissembling seems almost beyond belief. His political style is to express his real views defiantly and without apology, regardless of consequences. He has little incentive suddenly to become devious for the sake of American public opinion. Thus, the depiction of him as fanatical, reactionary and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false.

In looking to the future, Ayatollah Khomeini has spoken of his hopes to show the world what a genuine Islamic government can do on behalf of its people. … Despite the turbulence, many nonreligious Iranians talk of this period as “Islam’s finest hour.” … Iran may yet provide us with a desperately‐needed model of humane governance for a third‐world country.

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Full spectrum of current American religious faith in the Boise airport terminal

by philg

Happy Bisexual Awareness Week for those who celebrate.

Photos taken just a few minutes apart in the Boise airport, July 5, 2025, show the full spectrum of current American religious faith:

I’m still awed by folks who, rather than drive or Zoom it in, voluntarily enter a 100% jammed commercial airliner while relying on a Fauci-style cloth mask to keep themselves safe from an aerosol virus.

What about converting legacy Christian buildings to one of the new religions? Here’s an example from Cleveland, Ohio in June 2025:

The eagerness of churches to convert supports my theory that Rainbow Flagism is the most attractive religion to Americans because adherents are never asked to donate money or even do anything than posit the existence of anti-2SLGBTQQIA+ haters.

The Boise City Hall flies just one religious flag (July 2, 2025):

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Update on the Islamic Republic of Twin Falls, Idaho

by philg

Nine years ago in the Washington Post, “In Twin Falls, Idaho, co-dependency of whites and immigrants faces a test” (paywall-free-version):

Twin Falls is now a testing ground for whether the bitter cultural divisions intensified by this year’s presidential campaign [Good Hillary vs. Evil Trump] can recede in favor of the co-dependency that marks many communities with large white and immigrant populations. In this southern Idaho city of 45,000, the question surrounds a growing Muslim population.

The rancor in Twin Falls began to surface only over the past year and a half as concerns about domestic terrorism awakened a fierce and sudden debate about whether the local Muslim population represented a point of pride or a potential danger — an anxiety that Trump amplified during his campaign. For decades before, the refu­gee resettlement program run by a local community college had flourished with little opposition, with refugees filling open jobs on dairy farms and in cheese factories.

The headline reminds white readers that they’re “dependent” on the “local Muslim” immigrants and also that Muslims aren’t “white”. But the body of the article reveals that it is local business owners seeking cheap labor who are dependent on the imports. There is, apparently, no need to explain how a working-class native-born resident of Twin Falls is better off as a result of the new arrivals or how he/she/ze/they would suffer if the immigrants on which he/she/ze/they “depends” departed. The “local community college” is getting most of the federal cash, it seems, in exchange for facilitating the importation of humans (which is not “human trafficking”?).

The article goes on to remind readers that non-coastal Americans are stupid because they can’t distinguish among the various species of migrants:

A sexual assault took place in a local apartment complex, and rumors spread that the suspects were Syrian teens. “Syrian Refugees Rape Little Girl at Knifepoint in Idaho,” read a headline on the Drudge Report. The case was sealed because it involved juveniles, including the victim, a 5-year-old girl. Still, Twin Falls police corrected a few facts, saying the suspects were from Sudan and Iraq.

The real issue with the sexual assault of a 5-year-old, according to the Washington Post, is that some natives of Twin Falls can’t tell the difference between a Syrian and an Iraqi.

What’s happening in Twin Falls circa 2025? As tourists wandering/biking around for three days we encountered Islamically covered women at least 4 or 5 times a day. No burqas with full face coverings, but always more than a hijab. The clothing was sharply at odds with the prevailing shorts and T-shirt fashion for the typical female out in the 80-90-degree dry heat. The elites live in a Muslim-free environment. We didn’t see any covered women at an upscale restaurant overlooking the canyon, on the trails leading to waterfalls, or in expensive neighborhoods (“expensive” = $600,000+ for a house). The Twin Falls Mosque is in a neighborhood of shabby $200,000+ houses.

We talked to some local high-school- and college-aged native-born kids. They expressed pride that their high school was “diverse”, but also noted that the Muslim immigrants formed an entirely separate society within the high school and that they themselves had never been friends with a Muslim student.

The local science museum explains that non-natives lead to environmental, ecological, economic, social, and human health impacts.

On our way out of town we were reminded that ecosystems can be destroyed by newcomers who “end up where they shouldn’t be”…

Note that all of Twin Falls is apparently considered a dumping ground by the elites of Boise, some of whom we met in Sun Valley. They all advised us to avoid even a brief stay in Twin Falls. The density of hijabs is lower in Boise, at least in the expensive downtown areas where we spent most of our time. That said, Google Maps shows a variety of mosques:

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The Muslim conquest of Persia, the latest chapter?

by philg

(Non-Arab) Iran has been in the news lately due to the country’s so-far-unsuccessful attempt to win the 1948 Arab League war against Israel (armies from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt invaded while Saudi Arabia sent troops). Although the majority of the Arab belligerents of 1948 are still technically at war with Israel (Jordan and Egypt being the exceptions), they have mostly delegated the hard work of attacking Israel to Iran and its proxies. Could this be seen as a chapter in what Wikipedia calls “The Muslim conquest of Persia”?

As part of the early Muslim conquests, which were initiated by Muhammad in 622, the Rashidun Caliphate conquered the Sasanian Empire between 632 and 654. This event led to the decline of Zoroastrianism, which had been the official religion of Persia (or Iran) since the time of the Achaemenid Empire. The persecution of Zoroastrians by the early Muslims during and after this conflict prompted many of them to flee eastward to India, where they were granted refuge by various kings.

While Arabia was experiencing the rise of Islam in the 7th century, Persia was struggling with unprecedented levels of political, social, economic, and military weakness; the Sasanian army had greatly exhausted itself in the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628. Following the execution of Sasanian shah Khosrow II in 628, Persia’s internal political stability began deteriorating at a rapid pace. Subsequently, ten new royal claimants were enthroned within the next four years. Shortly afterwards, Persia was further devastated by the Sasanian Interregnum, a large-scale civil war that began in 628 and resulted in the government’s decentralization by 632.

Amidst Persia’s turmoil, the first Rashidun invasion of Sasanian territory took place in 633, when the Rashidun army conquered parts of Asoristan, which was the Sasanians’ political and economic centre in Mesopotamia. Later, the regional Rashidun army commander Khalid ibn al-Walid was transferred to oversee the Muslim conquest of the Levant, and as the Rashidun army became increasingly focused on the Byzantine Empire, the newly conquered Mesopotamian territories were retaken by the Sasanian army. The second Rashidun invasion began in 636, under Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas, when a key victory at the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah permanently ended all Sasanian control to the west of modern-day Iran. For the next six years, the Zagros Mountains, a natural barrier, marked the political boundary between the Rashidun Caliphate and the Sasanian Empire. In 642, Umar ibn al-Khattab, eight years into his reign as Islam’s second caliph, ordered a full-scale invasion of the rest of the Sasanian Empire. Directing the war from the city of Medina in Arabia, Umar’s quick conquest of Persia in a series of coordinated and multi-pronged attacks became his greatest triumph, contributing to his reputation as a great military and political strategist. In 644, however, he was assassinated by the Persian craftsman Abu Lu’lu’a Firuz, who had been captured by Rashidun troops and brought to Arabia as a slave.

The Persians had more than 4,000 years of history before the Muslim Conquest. They were peers to the Romans and Chinese. The Persians had their own language and religion (Zoroastrianism). Today they adhere to a religion developed by Arabs, are governed by a system developed by Arabs, need to learn Arabic to read their religious texts, and endure economic isolation as well as, recently, military attacks in order to participate in a fight started by Arabs.

Would it be fair, then, to say that Iran taking over the fight against Israel from Arabs is another chapter in the Muslim Conquest of Persia? Arab nations get all of the benefits of peace while still technically being at war with Israel. Iran suffers many of the hardships of war while still technically being at peace with Israel.

Separately, let’s check in with how Iran is doing. Elon Musk says that humans are going extinct. Let’s see how the modern-day Persians are trending in terms of population:

According to the World Bank, Iranians were rapidly getting wealthier when they decided to overthrow their Shah. They are slightly richer today, in nominal GDP, than they were when the Islamic Republic of Iran was established in 1979, a remarkable achievement considering that population has more than doubled over that time period and a lot of Iran’s wealth is derived from natural resources.

What about the Arab countries that have handed off their fight against the Jews to the Persians?

Loosely related, a sophisticated analysis of the Iran-Israel fight and its interaction with U.S. policy…

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