Allah gets mail, all of it apparently pleading with Him to destroy yours truly. These requests for my doom must have been afterthoughts to the Friday prayers we often feature under the repeating (and repeating, and repeating…) title Peaceful Religion Watch.

Interestingly, I also got some email this morning from a gentleman in Pakistan who doesn’t think Allah’s web site is very funny:

I understand that your site has various opinions and comments that can be construed as anti-Arab. It’s your right to have your beliefs and your opinions. But I’d just like to ask why would you start a site (allahakbar.blogspot.com) that is so blatantly insulting and blasphemous to Muslims as a religion rather than a political entity? (Forgive me if you are not the writer of that site; I didn’t notice a contacts link there… which is understandable considering how many emails like this he’d be bound to receive!) In any case if you can not forward this email to him/her, please at least help me understand why this much hate?


Thanks,
Uzer

Dear Uzer,

First, allahakbar.blogspot.com is not my site; I have nothing to do with it, except for being a frequent target of “Allah’s” wrath.

As for your question, “Why this much hate?”—well, “hate” is the wrong word. I can’t speak for the author of the site that offended you, but when I look at the jihad culture that dominates the public discourse of Pakistan and the Arab world, the words “outrage,” “despair,” and “disgust” seem more appropriate to describe my feelings.

I do wonder, however, if Daniel Pearl was asking himself a similar question (“Why this much hate?”) in the last moments of his life, in a dirty room in Pakistan, alone with the murderers who made him say “I am a Jew,” and then videotaped his death?

That is real hate, Uzer. AllahAkbar is humor. I hope someday you’ll be able to tell the difference.

Regards,
LGF