It Doesn’t Stop. Ever.

 
Even when you’re dead and buried, Islam could still be after the grave in which you lie. Northern Virginiastan observes:

	More than once, Osama bin Laden has referred to the Reconquest of Spain as the “Andalucian Atrocity.” The first time I heard him use that phrase, I thought that he was referring to a military defeat. Later I realized that he meant more than that: Muslims are duty bound to take back any land that was once under Muslim rule.
	Now I'm wondering if that same principle could be applied to cemeteries here in the United States.

He uses a story in The Washington Times to illustrate his point. It seems there is a growing dispute over the Taj Mahal:

…the Sunni Waqf Board, which oversees Sunni Muslim graveyards and mosques throughout India, has staked a claim to the white-marble tomb, saying since the monument houses Muslim graves, the Taj belongs to it.

In other words, any geography that once belonged to Islam always belongs to Islam and it is the duty of every Muslim to reclaim its property? One could infer as much.

Note, however, that there is equal determination by some “hard-line” Hindus in India to lay claim to the Taj Mahal, putting forth the case that a Hindu temple was demolished to make room for the Taj. There is a long-locked basement under the monument and Hindus say it contains the "pillars and artifact of a temple."

The story has a potential flash point since the Waqf Board has the legal right to summon witnesses and to decide on matters involving its interests. Thus it has called the Archaeological Survey of India to testify; should this body not agree with the Waqf Board belief that the Taj Mahal belongs to Islam, the dispute will head to court.

	Waqf Board Chairman Hafiz Usman said the body would do everything it could to establish its claim to the Taj and says “we will go all the way to the Supreme Court to get the Taj.”
	The Waqf Board is also laying claim to 7 percent of the around $3 million paid annually by the 2.3 million tourists it draws each year.

Of course, if things don’t get resolved there, it could get ugly. Mr. Usman recalled “another flashpoint” like the one in 1992, when thousands of Hindus demolished the Babri mosque, also in Uttar Pradesh. The Hindus claimed that the mosque had been built atop a previously destroyed Hindu temple. The ensuing conflict led to riots which killed at least two thousand people nationwide. Most of the dead were Muslims.

The Taj Mahal was completed in the 1650’s. They’re still fighting over it. And we complain because the rifts from our Civil War haven’t entirely healed? Things certainly are relative, aren't they?

There’s a lesson in here somewhere. It many not be the same lesson that Northern Virginiastan finds, but theirs is worth consideration, especially if, in order to be prepared for them, you are drawn to worst-case scenarios:

	Arabic, the language of Allah, doesn’t have a past tense, at least not in the sense that we Westerners understand past tense. (See Raphael Patai’s The Arab Mind) Such a linguistic anomaly goes far to explain why Muslims never see anything as over and done with. And if their preferred language doesn’t have a past tense, can they ever, in the eyes of sharia law, ever cede that land to someone else?
	We need to be careful about allowing Muslim ownership of land, particularly if such ownership can be used to justify, however obliquely, statements such as Osama bin Laden’s. And, harsh as it may sound, we need to check our cemeteries too. The principles behind the dispute over the ownership of the Taj Mahal may, one day, extend to land here in the United States.
	Many times, we learn after the fact about the far-reaching effects of Muslim laws and Muslim customs. I hope that United States land dedicated for cemeteries will not be justification for something we didn’t expect. Such conflicts get very ugly.

Ah, they do indeed. And knowing one's adversary is vital to staying inside his OODA loop.