The Daily Chesterton, Sept. 2

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"There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions." - ILN, 1/13/06

This mosque controversy sure has shed a great deal of light on the anti-Christian sediment that sits at the bottom of the goblet of tolerance for all other faiths that people like Christopher Hitchens and all the other vociferous supporters of the Victory at Ground Zero Bridge to Islamofascist Peace Mosque espouse. My theory is that this has nothing to do with the Bill of Rights, tolerance, turning of the other cheek, or any of the superlative tissues used to wipe away opposition to this abomination... support for this mosque is largely borne by hatred for Christianity. Ask the Greeks... or the Spaniards of old from the city for which this mosquerade is named...

The Cordoba House and the Myth of Cordoban ‘Ecumenism’

The "Golden Age" of pluralistic Muslim rule, alluded to by Rauf's proposed mosque title, has been thoroughly debunked by historians.

Reinhart Dozy (1820-1883), the great Orientalist scholar and Islamophile, wrote a four volume magnum opus (published in 1861 and translated into English by Francis Griffin Stokes in 1913) titled Histoire des Musselmans d’Espagne (A History of the Muslims in Spain). Here is Dozy’s historical account of the mid-8th century “conversion” of a Cordoban cathedral to a mosque:

All the churches in that city [Cordoba] had been destroyed except the cathedral, dedicated to Saint Vincent, but the possession of this fane [church or temple] had been guaranteed by treaty. For several years the treaty was observed; but when the population of Cordova was increased by the arrival of Syrian Arabs [i.e., Muslims], the mosques did not provide sufficient accommodation for the newcomers, and the Syrians considered it would be well for them to adopt the plan which had been carried out at Damascus, Emesa [Homs], and other towns in their own country, of appropriating half of the cathedral and using it as a mosque. The [Muslim] Government having approved of the scheme, the Christians were compelled to hand over half of the edifice. This was clearly an act of spoliation, as well as an infraction of the treaty. Some years later, Abd-er Rahman I requested the Christians to sell him the other half. This they firmly refused to do, pointing out that if they did so they would not possess a single place of worship. Abd-er Rahman, however, insisted, and a bargain was struck by which the Christians ceded their cathedral.

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Each day, or as the fleeting of time allows, I will attempt to find an item in the news that offers an opportunity to share one of the unpolished karats of wisdom from that unpolishable professor of paradox, G.K. Chesterton. I would encourage the thirsty mind to imbibe liberally more of the greatest writer of the 20^th century by visiting The American Chesterton Society.