The Martyrs of Cordoba

From the source of all knowledge, Wikipedia:

In 711 AD, a Muslim army from North Africa had conquered Visigoth Christian Iberia. Under their leader Tariq ibn-Ziyad, they landed at Gibraltar and brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic rule in an eight-year campaign. The Iberian Peninsula was called Al-Andalus by its Muslim rulers. When the Umayyad Caliphs were deposed in Damascus in 750, the dynasty relocated to Córdoba, ruling an emirate there; consequently the city gained in luxury and importance, as a center of Iberian Muslim culture.

Once the Muslims conquered Iberia, they governed it in accordance with Islamic shariah law. Christians and Jews were treated as dhimmis or "protected" persons subject to a poll tax allowing them to live in peace and security under the Islamic state. Under shariah, blasphemy against Islam, whether by Muslims or dhimmis, and apostasy from Islam are all grounds for the death penalty.

Though four Christian basilicas and numerous Christian monasteries mentioned in Eulogius’ martyrology remained open, the Christian population was gradually becoming converted to Islam in the process driven by taxation, legal discrimination and other indignities imposed on the Christians, and the marriage laws assuring Muslim offspring from mixed marriages. Notably Reccafred, Bishop of Córdoba, taught the virtues of toleration and compromise with the Muslim authorities, which did nothing to slow the process. To the scandal of Eulogius, whose texts are the only source for these martyrdoms, and who was venerated as a saint from the 9th century, the bishop sided with Muslim authorities against the martyrs, whom he regarded as fanatics. The closures of monasteries begins to be recorded towards the middle of the 9th century. The monk Eulogius encouraged the martyrs as a way to reinforce the faith of the Christian community. He composed tractates and a martyrology to justify the self-immolation of the martyrs, of which a single manuscript, containing his Documentum martyriale, the three books of his Memoriale sanctorum and his Liber apologeticus martyrum, was preserved in Oviedo, in the Christian kingdom of Asturias in the far northwestern coast of Hispania. There the relics of Saint Eulogius were translated in 884.

Cordoba refers to a time of ascension of the Caliphate and conquest, especially conquest of Christians.  Today, writing in The Ottawa Citizen, two Muslims, Raheel Raza and Tarek Fatah, condemn the idea of building an Islamic mosque very near to Ground Zero, to be built by "The Cordoba Initiative".

New York currently boasts at least 30 mosques so it’s not as if there is pressing need to find space for worshippers. The fact we Muslims know the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation to thumb our noses at the infidel. The proposal has been made in bad faith and in Islamic parlance, such an act is referred to as "Fitna," meaning "mischief-making" that is clearly forbidden in the Koran.

The Koran commands Muslims to, "Be considerate when you debate with the People of the Book" — i.e., Jews and Christians. Building an exclusive place of worship for Muslims at the place where Muslims killed thousands of New Yorkers is not being considerate or sensitive, it is undoubtedly an act of "fitna"

So what gives Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the "Cordoba Initiative" and his cohorts the misplaced idea that they will increase tolerance for Muslims by brazenly displaying their own intolerance in this case?

Do they not understand that building a mosque at Ground Zero is equivalent to permitting a Serbian Orthodox church near the killing fields of Srebrenica where 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered?

There are many questions that we would like to ask. Questions about where the funding is coming from? If this mosque is being funded by Saudi sources, then it is an even bigger slap in the face of Americans, as nine of the jihadis in the Twin Tower calamity were Saudis.

Legally, I’m sure they have a right to build it.  But their actions belie their stated intentions. 

Meanwhile, a church actually destroyed in the 9/11 attacks, St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, still has roadblocks before it can be rebuilt.

Filed under: Christianity • Doug • Islam • Religion

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