Mary, Mary — Why, Bin Laden?

Does anyone now doubt that Osama bin Laden routinely scans U.S. newspapers and magazines, searching for his half-baked appeals to the American people to see him not as a theocratic fascist but as a sort of misunderstood uncle whose punishments hurt him more than they hurt them? Binny's latest proclamation is well worth reading, less so for its allusions to Noam Chomsky or Michael Scheuer, but for its revivalist salesmanship to good, God-fearing Christians. Would it be such a shock to the system for them to "embrace" Islam?

And did you know that the name of the Prophet of Allah Jesus and his mother (peace and blessings of Allah be on them both) are mentioned in the Noble Quran dozens of times, and that in the Quran there is a chapter whose name is "Maryam," i.e. Mary, daughter of Imran and mother of Jesus (peace and blessings of Allah be upon them both)? It tells the story of her becoming pregnant with the Prophet of Allah Jesus (peace and blessings of Allah be uon them both), and in its confirmation of her chastity and purity, in contrast to the fabrications of the Jews against her.

One has to the admire the "inter-faith" cosiness of this passage, and Christians should indeed look up the chapter "Maryam" and the other dozen references to her, mainly to see if they recognize their blessed virgin in the Koranic recounting.

In sura 19.28, 29, Mary is approached by the people of Nazareth and told, "O Mary, now you have done an extraordinary thing! O sister of Aaron! Your father was not a bad man, nor was your mother a whore!" In sura 66,12; 3.31, Mary is referred to as the "daughter of Imran," as Bin Laden refers to her above. Still later the reader is informed that "We gave unto Moses the Book and appointed him his brother Aaron as vizier."

Those with Sunday School, let alone Hebrew School, backgrounds might be scratching their heads at this point. As the great atheist Ibn Warraq puts it in one of his countless examples showing the Koran's manmade and highly fallible origins,

It is pretty obvious that Muhammed has confused Miriam the sister of Moses, with Mary the mother of Jesus.

Surely a sacrilege to pious Christians, since Miriam was struck with a nasty case of leprosy — albeit the virginally-tinged kind that turned her "white as snow" — for speaking Lashon hara against Moses' Cushite bride. And though she was considered a prophetess — incidentally, one much adored by today's Jewish feminists, not the usual demo for Al Qaeda recruitment — it's quite clear that she was not immaculately conceived or assumed into heaven with her body and soul united.

What an exegetical pickle. These confusions and more could be easily remedied if jihadists abandoned the text-literal monotheism altogether and stuck to a more "open source" script, like Borat's Kazakh metaphysic. "We follow the hawk."

Right on, man.