Month: February 2015

I’m sort of relieved to see Egypt strike back against ISIS and its recent slaughter of Christians. And I wish we would stop referring to them as “ISIS” or “ISIL.” It’s as if this “Islamic State” doesn’t know one thing about Islam: Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Parthians were all “dhimmi,” or “Protected Peoples,” all the way back to the time of Muhammad (PBUH) (see Qur’an 3:199). (Treatment of polytheists is a topic for another day, but even Hindus and Buddhists were sometimes given this status as well). ISIS has about as much right to call themselves “Islamic” as the KKK has a right to call themselves “Christian.”

Isn’t it funny that we refer to storms by personal names such as “Katrina” or “Octavia,” or “Neptune”? We even assign agency to them, as when we say “Neptune really caused havoc for Boston today.” We are even allowed to name systems that recur, such as “El Nino.” But if we assign a name to the whole of the weather, or to the wind, or to the sky, then we would be thought of as perverse, primitive polytheists. I don’t really see the difference! Although I suppose I haven’t seen any meteorologists making sacrifices to these gods: