A FITTING GIFT TO SYMBOLIZE "THE RELIGION OF PEACE"

Saudi King Abdullah visited Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican last week. According to Al-Reuters:

At the end of the meeting, the king gave the Pope a gold and silver sword studded with precious jewels, in keeping with a bedouin custom the Saudis also follow when foreign leaders visit their country.

It is usual for King Abdullah to present a jewel-studded sword to the heads of state he visits, for the sword is the symbol of the Saudi state -- and of Islam.

As Youssef Ibrahim wrote in the New York Sun:

As a gift from from a leading Islamic fundamentalist nation, a sword is about as clear a symbol of intolerance as there can be; and indeed, swords are used for public decapitations in Saudi Arabia on Fridays. The U.S. State Department's yearly human rights report cites Saudi Arabia for bigotry toward non-Muslims, including "harassment, abuse, and even killings at the hands of the Muttawa (religious police)."

This is the Saudi flag:

Notice that an unsheathed sword is a prominent part of the design. The text is the Muslim declaration of faith in Allah and the Prophet Muhummad p.b.u.h.

And this, from a Malaysian museum, is a sword reputed to have been owned by the Prophet Muhummad p.b.u.h:

Here's another one of the Prophet's swords:

The sword is indeed as common a symbol for Islam in the Islamic world as the crescent. As Timothy Furnish notes:

Two passages in the Qur’an enjoin decapitating opponents of Islam. Sura 47 [Muhammad]:3 says “When you encounter the unbelievers on the battlefield, strike off their heads until you have crushed them completely; then bind the [surviving] prisoners tightly.” Sura 8 [al-Anfal]:12 states “I will cast dread into the hearts of the unbelievers. Strike off their heads, then, and strike off all of their fingertips.”

As Youssef Ibrahim writes:

In a recent essay, the director of Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Fouad Ajami, noted that the distinction between the Islamism of Al Qaeda and the "secularism" of the leadership in several so-called American-allied regimes — such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt — is a distinction without a difference.

The king of Saudi Arabia, along with his ruling royals and allies such as President Mubarak of Egypt, preside over cultures suffused with anti-modernism, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism, which they deliberately propagate via religious channels to deflect wrath directed as their despotically corrupt regimes.

Abdullah victoriously toured Britain and Germany — places where millions of Saudi oil dollars are pouring in to erect cathedral-size mosques, Saudi schools, and theology institutions designed and funded as bridgeheads of Islamist militancy into the heart of Europe.

In that sense, the Saudi monarch request for resumption of the so-called Islamic-Christian dialogue is a facilitating tool for proselytizing invasions, which in his capacity as custodian of Mecca and Medina and commander in chief of Islamic jihad, he effectively leads.

The hearts of the jihad are in Iran and Saudi Arabia. The West is winning the Battle of Iraq. The Battle of Pakistan is heating up. But the money and the terrorists emanate from other places. They will have to be pacified, one way or another, sooner or later.