O Why Jerusalem

Mohammedans have been fighting over Jerusalem all my life, since it's “the third holiest site in Islam”. Now I find out that “Islam is the Quran”, and the Quran doesn't even mention Jerusalem. So I gotta ask, why such a hard-on for the place?

Believe it or not, it's entirely because in 17:1 the Koran mentions a “farthest mosque” whose surroundings are blessed. I was like “Whoa, islam hadn't even been invented yet, so there couldn't be any mosques,” but I was wrong wrong wrong. “Mosque” is an old word, and in Mo's day it just meant 'a place of worship”, didn't matter who worshiped what. So the farthest mosque from Mo would've been Temitagi Atoll in French Polynesia. It's environs are pretty blessed (STREAMS AND FRUIT! WOO!) , but it's not likely Allah would bless a lot of naked pagan polytheists, lol.

When Mo had this so-called revelation, he was a two-bit preacher in Mecca with a very small flock, like Billy Bob's 5^th Street Church of the Lard. It was Mighty Mo's Muslim Mecca Mission. And just like Rev. Billy Bob, he dreamed of bigger things, and just like every cult he inflated his membership numbers: “We're not just those you see here today. No sir, we have thousands of other members at our other site, the far-off Mo's Mighty Moslem Megachurch. “ And where would that be? Well, a group of his cult members ran off to Ethiopia during the Satanic Verses fiasco, so my bet would be there, but do muslims follow what's logical? Not on your life! (Oops, bad word choice!) Oh hell, no. They claim it must be Jerusalem.

Say What? The Jews' holy city? WTF? Where'd this come from? Well, there is one little piece of evidence they point to: when Mo moved to Medina he changed the direction of praying—towards Jerusalem instead of Mecca—for a while. The Hadith tell all about it, and even tell why—he wanted to suck up to the Jews, and when they wouldn't listen to him, he said “fuck them Jews” and changed it back. ('Course, he got even later by having them all massacred.)

So from this, the “furthest mosque must be Jerusalem"? Sorry, EPIC FAIL! Are you ready for a huge heaping plateful of irony? Here is what the Koran says about the Jews IN THE VERY SAME CHAPTER. Verse 4-7 say the book tells Jews god'll wreck their temple, twice. If you''re a glutton for punishment you can read in the Bible all about how the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, and then the Romans. That's twice. That's all you get, Muslims, so lay off. Besides, y'know what else is in the Koran? 17:104 We told the children of Israel: "Dwell in the land...5:21, God has Moses tell the Jews “enter the holy land which Allah has prescribed for you. And in 30:1 30:3 [thanks to Mathurine for correcting this] it calls Palestine adna al-ard "the closest land", not the farthest.

So listen up, moslems, this is your own god talking, and he's telling you a big fat “Keep yer kumquat-picking hands off Jerusalem; it goes to the Jews. You get Mecca; suck it up.”

So back to square one. Why do moslems have a hard-on for the jews' sacred city? Turns out its all a con job. Just like George Bush convinced everybody that Saddam and Osama were BFF whose camels were loaded with anthraxy ICBM's aimed at every Burger King in America and the only way to save the world was to OMFG INVADE BAGHDAD RIGHT NOW!!!, Saladin wanted to kick the Crusaders out so he convinced the sheeple that Jerusalem was the holiest-est holy place evah, with filthy infidel feet defiling it, and the only way to save the world was to OMFG GET JERUSALEM BACK RIGHT NOW!!! And that's how it became all holy and shit, it's just politics. You can get all the details here.

ps. It wasn't easy sorting all this stuff out. You may worship me.

Update: OK, so where is this 'farthest mosque'? I forgot to say, but KICS laid it out real clear in this post, comment #3.