Somali cleric's choice: Prayer or beheading

[Andrewtx]

Somali cleric's choice: Prayer or beheading
Dec. 6, 2006. 03:46 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS


MOGADISHU, Somalia — Residents of a southern Somalia town who do not pray five times a day will be beheaded, an Islamic courts official said today, adding the edict will be implemented in three days.
Public places such as shops and tea houses in Bulo Burto, about 124 miles northeast of the capital, Mogadishu, should be closed during prayer time and no one should be on the streets, said Sheik Hussein Barre Rage, the chairman of the town's Islamic court.

Those who do not follow this edict "will definitely be beheaded according to Islamic law," Rage told The Associated Press by phone. "As Muslims, we should practice Islam fully, not in part, and that is what our religion enjoins us to do.''

He said that the courts are announcing the edict over loudspeakers in the town.

The decision is not binding on courts in other towns.

Somalia's Islamic courts have made varying interpretations of Quranic law, some applying a more strict and radical version of Islamic law than others.

As a result of such disparate variations, residents in the capital of Mogadishu complained, forcing the Council of Islamic Courts officials in October to set up an appeals court with better-educated judges.

The Council of Islamic Courts have swept through most of southern Somalia since taking over Mogadishu in June.

Their sometimes strict and often severe interpretation of Islam has raised the specter of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime, and contrasts with the moderate Islam that has dominated Somali culture for centuries.

Some of the courts have introduced public executions, floggings of convicts, bans on women swimming at Mogadishu's public beaches, and the sale and chewing of khat, a leafy stimulant consumed across the Horn of Africa and in the Middle East.

[BEB]

Merry Christmas! Oh, there I go again being a radical Christian extremest.

Sometimes its hard to believe we're sharing the same planet.

[cwtlady]

Those who do not follow this edict "will definitely be beheaded according to Islamic law," Rage told The Associated Press by phone. "As Muslims, we should practice Islam fully, not in part, and that is what our religion enjoins us to do.''

Does that include killing Christians and Jews wherever you see them? How about beating your wife? Religion of peace, my foot!

Seems like they are practicing a "pick and choose" type of islam. They pick and choose what parts of their book they'll follow as long as it suits them.

[BigDawg]

Kind of like how some Libertarians pick and choose what they want to follow depending on what suits them???

[Piggybank Cop]

Here is a novel idea:

Secure Israel and the oil fields; ship them all back to wherever they came from / want to go; let them kill off each other; shoot the last one standing; then set up immigration for all the illegal aliens from all over the world.


ps: see BigDawgs sig.