What would you call people who thought God was a rock? In some Celtic societies, certain trees were believed to be inhabited with spirits, as well as certain forested areas, burial mounds and other physical landmarks including strange rocks. That was called Spiritism and it’s origins are in the Stone Age.

There is a rock that to this day is worshipped as being somehow inhabited by or connected in a special way to God. The rock is supposedly a black meteorite, although the story has it that the rock was removed and replaced repeatedly since very ancient times and the structure, the pagan Ka’bah, which became the Palladium of Islam, that is supposed to house it has been repeatedly rebuilt. In any case, at one time back in the Stone Age, a rock fell to earth and the superstitious locals began worshipping it as some sort of deity. Perhaps they thought it was a Sacred Turd from the butt of the Sky Spirit.

When Islam came along, Muhammad wanted to incorporate everything he could into his new religion, on the Something-for-everybody theory, which is why millions of men in dresses now swarm to this rock every year, walk around it 7 times and then crush each other to death in stampedes.

Perhaps the greatest irony of this whole ceremony is that its origin is attributed to Abraham, a man who, according to the Qur’an, detested idols made of stone and destroyed them (Surah 37. 91-93). The whole emphasis of the pilgrimage is about stones. The Muslims circumambulate the Ka’aba, an empty shrine made of stones, kiss the Black Stone built into it, and pray at the maqam-i-Ibrahim in front of which stands a small shrine containing another stone (the qadam-i-Ibrahim) on which Abraham allegedly stood while building the Ka’aba (it is supposed to bear his footprint). Arafat is a plain on which the Mount of Mercy stands - covered with stones and a stone monolith commemorating Muhammad’s farewell sermon. At Mina the pilgrims throw small stones at larger stone pillars. It’s all about stones and stonings.

Moving right along, this rock worshipping is called the hajj, it takes place in Saudi Arabia, and Osama bin Laden wants to really get even with Saudi Arabia for being made persona non grata by the Saudi king. One way to do this would be by suicide bombings in the middle of a small crowd of several million rock worshippers, causing a stampede that would probably kill off ten thousand or more. With any luck. Last year there was a stampede that killed 362 men in dresses, for no reason. Think what would happen with a reason. Yeehaw!

Don’t forget that Osama is the proud owner of Al Qaeda, and wants very much to take over Saudi Arabia. “Al qaeda militants, beholden to Saudi-born radical Osama bin Laden and holding dear the memory of the Makkah rebellion, launched a violent campaign to topple the royals in 2003. Having failed, they look forward to doing it again. Saudi Arabia said earlier this month it had detained 136 foreign and Saudi militants, some posing as pilgrims, who were planning a series of suicide bombings and assassinations around the desert country of 24 million people.”

Only 136? Oh, I’m sure there are lots more hajj-bound Al Qaeda than that who are already there, now, and I’d like to be among the first to wish Osama great success. At last his energies are being properly directed. I do hope he manages to topple the Saudi regime, as then the West would be forced, for reasons of National Security, of course, to topple the crap out of him and take over all those unprotected oil fields.

So happy hajjing, all you jolly Stone-Age rock worshippers, and try not to step on each others faces during your annual stampede over the bridge.

On the side, America’s 45,000 airport security officers are getting “cultural sensitivity” training in advance of an estimated 20,000 hajj-ies. That’s a lot of rug kissers and an excuse for another try at blowing up a few planes. I hope they’re being trained to be sensitive to that possibility too.

Much more on Al Qaeda’s latest machinations at Right Truth

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 28th, 2006 at 10:59 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.