At a time of prolonged bad news – the indisposition of Diane Abbott for example – it is cheering to have a refreshing report from Iran.
This week there occurred an agreeable carnage in the form of successful suicide-bombings of the Iranian parliament and the tomb of Ayatollah Khomenei. Saudi proxy forces (Islamic State) attacked Iranian heartlands (the Republican Guard) and killed more than a few.
This is only the most recent episode in a much longer conflict. And it’s really comforting to know that Muslim barbarians wage war not only upon Jewish and Christian infidels, but upon their own co-religionists.
For Iran versus Saudi Arabia, read Shia versus Sunni. These two sects of the same barbarism have been at each other’s throats for 1400 years.
With luck – or, as I would put it, by the grace of God – these two forms of all that is despicable might soon come to destroy one another.
Here is a brief theological analysis of the situation: we are not to think that the war between good and evil is between God and his angels and Satan with his equally disciplined army of devils. For, while the angel band is united, the demons are all at odds with one another.
As Milton said: “Pandemonium and confusion worse confounded.”
As Our Lord put it, very nicely if I might say so, “A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.”
Roll on, I say. Roll on
The Shia are an interesting bunch. Their primarily Persian lineage means they are smart. In Iran books are everywhere and people are proud to be well read. The Sunni on the other hand, with their Arab heritage do not see learning, outside of memorizing the Quran, as all that important. Very few books are translated into Arabic. So although the Sunni out number the Shia, it is really an equal contest. BTW that is why the Israelis are so focused on Iran. They understand the danger.
‘Agreeable carnage’ is agreeable to whom? The Lord?
Recall the episode where two of the disciples call for heavenly fire to consume a village that has rejected Jesus. In response, the Lord declared that the Son of Man had come to save life, not to destroy it.
Iran has been described as a secular country with a religious government. Floridian Roger is mistaken to think that wanting the deaths of non-believers is typical of the religious. It seems that most people can read the Koran or Revelation without becoming homicidal.
The Church of England, before she became a moth-eaten entity who accepted her dethronement to the position of least among equals, would only make the prayer for the conversion of all ‘Jews, hereticks and infidels’. Of course that’s now shockingly ‘insensitive’.
If were realise that we are one of the ‘thunderous ones’, shall we stop and listen to the Master?
A fine example of the religious mind at work: The worshipers of the various gods; rain, moon, sun, Yahweh, Jehova, Allah, etc. All wish death and destruction on the non-believers. The narrow mindedness, callousness and bigotry expressed in such an article are typical of the “god fearing”.
I do not see any reason to rejoice. Apart from sympathy for people killed or crippled by the attack, I am sad because the more unstable Muslim countries become, the more refugees from them will come to Europe.
The best news from the Middle East would be that all the Muslim religious regimes have been toppled and replaced by harsh and reasonable secular rulers – like Qaddafi or Bashar Assad. And that all Western powers have welcomed them and pledged to support them in their fight against ISIS, Al-Qaida, Muslim Brotherhood and the rest of them.
Unfortunately, this is the sort of news we are most unlikely to hear.