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Speaking of the Seventy-two Virgins: "What a Dream!"
"Nothing is true, everything is permitted." - Hasan ibn-al-Sabbah
The post 9/11 idea of "Seventy-Two Virgins" is mostly a crock. The Qur'an says nothing
about it, and neither did the Prophet. Whatever hadith there may be is a real stretch. However,
the Qur'anic "Houri" (understood to be a pleasant woman) has an appeal that no red-blooded
man could ignore. And a pleasant man for every woman in Paradise? Who could argue?
During the days when Sheikh al Jebal, the Old Man of the [Elburz] Mountain was doing
political assassinations for a living, as part of his training program, he programmed his
followers to be fearless of death, believing that passing from life was merely a
gateway vehicle to Paradise. So far so good. Sheikh ibn-al-Sabbah differed from your average
death squad patriarch. He drugged his students who awakened in a secret garden
inside the Alamut fortress. They would find themselves immersed in the promises
of Al-Qur'an; i.e., tended by the aforementioned houri. After a day or two, the student
would be drugged again, wake up in his own bed thinking, "What a dream!"
In
Language of Violence: The Blood Politics of Terrorism, Edgar O'Ballance says the Sheikh
told his followers, "Allah had given them a preview of paradise, and surprised them
by telling
them exactly what each had been up to while in the secret garden. So successful was he in
this method of conditioning and indoctrination that it was said he once astounded a visiting
emir whom he wanted to impress with his power by sending for one of his men and ordering him
to kill himself - which he immediately did."
MORE
I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight by Margaret Cho
Patty Hearst: Her Own Story by Patty Hearst
Margaret Cho - Honorary Assassin
By Ayatolljahso
Because someone has to say it...
What Margaret Cho has in common with Muslim comedians is funny.
KOS writes: "If you're lucky enough to have Cho play a gig near you, you really need to catch it. I
love that woman!" Click on pic for assassin dates.
"A newspaper is not just for reporting news, it's to get people mad enough to do something about it." -- Mark Twain
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Michelle Obama: "Barack has Secret Service protection, and that in and of itself provides
a level of security that didn't exist in our everyday lives. So, I think that the question of
security has been a bit overblown. We didn't make the decision to enter this worrying about
safety. When you look at people who came before us, people like Martin Luther King Jr., there
was a real reason to be afraid. We're living in different times. As far as I'm concerned,
whatever we are sacrificing is nothing compared to what others have
sacrificed."
MORE Q&A barackobama.com
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