ATTACKING MECCA, MEDINA, AND THE DOME MOSQUE 

On Thursday, 4 August 2005, Michael Medved, syndicated talk radio host, interviewed Dr. Robert A. Morey, author of numerous books, including Winning the War Against Islam [ISBN:  1-931230-08-0; Christian Scholars Press, California; 2002].  Dr. Morey advocates destruction of key Islamic religious elements in the three primary hold sites of Islam.  These are the Kaaba in Mecca, Muhammad’s Mosque in Medina, and the Dome Mosque in Jerusalem. 

Dr. Morey spoke rationally, in the measured tones of a scholar, backing up everything he stated, which allowed an information filled interview about ideas so many on the Right seem unable to discuss without losing their cool. 

Dr. Morey is a scholar of Islam and has been writing extensively on the subject since the very early 1980s.  He has earned three Ph. D. degrees, one of which is in comparative religions.  Although Dr. Morey is a Christian minister and works out of a religious setting, he did not “turn the other cheek” with respect to his thoughts about Islam.  

This article will examine Dr. Morey’s book, Winning the War Against Islam, and, in particular, his arguments for destroying the key Islamic holy sites in order to end Muslim terrorism, i.e., jihad.  We will draw from his book, the interview, and use some additional information that applies to this proposal. 

Looking back a few short years, into the aftermath of the events of 11 September 2001, I felt driven, back then, to read everything I could about Islam.  In my searches, I came across Dr. Morey’s book.  It was good at the time, but, on initial reading, I did not appreciate just how good it is.  Looking at it anew, following the interview, I saw it in a new light. 

In 207+ pages, this book provides an excellent introductory course to Islam.  Its presentation is tight, and the writing good.  Large portions are written in bulletized and question-answer formats, making it a useful manual.  The book sticks to essentials but points to further resources (up to 2002).   

Dr. Morey organized the book into two unequal, main sections.  The first, he called “Just the Facts Please,” and the second he called “How to Defeat Radical Islam.”  A conclusion and bibliography end the book.

One exciting chapter in the first main section in chapter six presents “An Islam IQ Test.”  The entire test consists of 46 true-false questions designed to find out how much one knows about Islam.  Could politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, media types, and folks-on-the street “ace” this test?  I doubt it.  I aced it, but I have been very studious since 9-11.  Giving away any of the questions and answers would spoil the fun and usefulness, so I will not. 

The final chapter of the first section, chapter 7, deals with “Top Questions About Islam.”  This chapter presents a pot pourri of issues that intelligent readers have been asking about or will want to know about.  This is the only chapter in which Dr. Morey spends time comparing Islam to Christianity and Judaism in any depth. 

Part Two of Winning the War Against Islam has three chapters: 

• Chapter 8, “It Is Time for Tough Love”
• Chapter 9, “Primary Documents”
• Chapter 10, “Muslim Apologists and Their Logical Fallacies”

Rather than present the contents of Part Two of the book, I will discuss a portion of Dr. Morey’s strategy from chapter 8, and then update it with his interview comments and add some related information.  Specifically, I want to concentrate on his rationale for targeting the major Muslim holy sites. 

As expected, several callers to the Michael Medved Show, as well as Mr. Medved himself, could not totally abandon the remnants of PC thinking that we have all been subjected to; so, they bowed before their own assumptions that attacking the Kaaba, etc., would simply “sic” all 1.3 billions Muslims around the globe onto us, and, presumably, wipe us out.  They would all become “kamikazes.” 

History indicates otherwise.  In Japan, for example, the Shinto religion stood upon the emperor having the status of supreme deity.  All of the tenets of Shintoism flowed from his status.  Once Emperor Hirohito publicly declared himself as “not God,” that was the end of the suicidalists in Japan, the same ones who would have fought to the last soul had we invaded Japan.   

What happened?  The highest value in the Shinto religion vanished with Hirohito’s disclaimer.  The whole raison d’etre of his followers immediately collapsed. 

This is the pattern. 

Hirohito would not budge from being revered as God until two atomic bombs persuaded him that Japan would be totally annihilated unless he relented.  Fortunately, he revered Japan and the Japanese more than his status as their god. 

Looking at Judaism and Christianity, their highest religious values lie in their doctrines, not in their religious real estate, no matter how highly revered they may be.  Destroying the Vatican would not end Roman Catholicism.  Destroying Westminster Abbey would not end the Church of England, and  destroying the Temple Mount would not end Judaism.   

The issue Dr. Morey addresses is the supreme value or values which can be threatened to get undivided attention.  For Muslims, war, torture, bombing, GITMO, financial cutoffs, and, in fact, all of what they would call “material values” are not of supreme importance to jihadists.  Nuclear attacks on Muslim nations are also not of supreme importance to them.  Threatening some or all of these would capture the attention of most peoples of the world, but not the Islamists. 

What, then, is of supreme importance to jihadists?  On what do their entire lives and morality depend?  The answer involves their religious real estate.   

If anyone does not appreciate what the Kaaba is or how it came to be, then he or she should consult Dr. Morey’s book or many other, excellent books.  Suffice it to say, for apocalyptic Muslims like bin Laden, these three sites represent the supreme values of Islam, the concretization of Allah.  There is no equivalent in almost any other religion.  Just look at and listen to the upheaval among some Muslims—but, importantly, not all--when anything suggesting a threat to Mecca, Medina, and the Dome Mosque arises.  Their outcry is unlike all others, and it represents the profound fear they feel about threats to these three religious structures.  Judging from recent responses to a congressman mentioning even the possibility of physical threat to Mecca and Medina, one could almost smell the metaphysical fear among Muslims and the complete failure among Western intellectuals and journalists commenting on the Muslim “outrage” to grasp the significance. 

Dr. Morey points out that threats to these three places does not get the attention of those Muslims who are not of the apocalyptic mind-set, which are most.  If the Kaaba ends, they do not, nor does Islam end for them.  The Kaaba, et al, are not their raison d’etre.  To the apocalyptic, however, the Kaaba, et al, are the very reason for their existence and that of orthodox Islam:  Destroying these, Morey says, would mean that ALLAH HAS BEEN DEFEATED.  Like the suicidalists of Japan, these jihadists would suffer total deflation.  Knock out all three sites, and the world-wide jihad as it is practiced now would end.  Terrorism would become a minor issue to most of the world.  Most Muslims would not take up jihad.

According to Dr. Morey, who has been a consultant to the FBI and numerous, other, unnamed governmental agencies, he has been told that the governments of the United States and France sent a message of supreme importance to bin Laden quite some time ago.  That message is why there have been no more U. S. 9-11s and no equivalents in France, such as carrying out Islamic threats to destroy the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and other French treasures:  Repeat 9-11 and/or attack the Louvre, etc., and up goes Mecca, etc. 

When I first read Dr. Morey’s discussion of the value of taking out Mecca, Medina, and the Dome Mosque, I was too new to the study of Islam to appreciate all of what he meant.  His book does not elaborate as much about this as did his interview, which is a good reason for him to update some of his book.  However, in the last two years, I have run across another source which tends to validate Dr. Morey’s proposal. 

An Israeli terrorism expert, Victor Mordecai, runs an Islamic terrorism monitoring operation in Jerusalem.  Among his valued staff is his wife, a Jewess born in Egypt, and is fluent in Arabic.  Mrs. Mordecai monitors common Middle Eastern radio and television media to sample what Islamists are thinking and saying.  The following is what Mr. Mordecai reported on American talk radio over the past couple of years and re-reported 09 August 2005 for two hours on the Michael Medved Show: 

Begin with the Arabic expression, “Allahu Akbar.”  This expression means “Allah is greater.”  Note the comparative voice, “greater,” not just “great,” as too many persons misuse the meaning.  Well, greater than what, one should ask?  In Islam, “Allahu Akbar” means that Allah is greater than the God of the Christians and the Jews.  This comparative term indicates not only that at some level, Muslims believe that Christians and Jews have one God, and the Muslims have a different God;  and, there is a competition between them.  Apparently, there is unspoken doubt in the minds of Muslims about the omnipotence of Allah, and thus a need for them constantly to reassert Allah’s supremacy and to seek to prove it definitively. 

Over the Middle East broadcast media, Islamists chatter incessantly about the need to destroy Jerusalem with a nuclear device or devices.  To these Muslims, success would prove once and for all that Allah really is superior to the God of the Jews and Christians, because their God could not stop the destruction of the holy place of the Jews and Christians.   

They also say that if this fate should befall Mecca or Medina, it would prove definitively that the God of the Jews and Christians is superior to Allah; in this event, these Muslims say, they would have to abandon Allah and Islam and convert to the God of the Christians and Jews. 

Mr. Mordecai has spoken to the fact that leaks from within the Israeli government indicate that plans exist to take out Mecca and Medina should there be a nuclear attack on any of Israel.  My private guess is that the Israelis have let this be known to the high orthodoxy of Islam. 

Bin Laden and those of like mind could fear nothing more.  To them, this would be the end of Islam.  Losing all three in short order would end all of their religious motivation, which is 100% of why they do what they do. 

Some people protest against using atomic bombs on Mecca, Medina, and even part of Jerusalem because of the human carnage.  As Dr. Morey points out, nuclear bombs are not needed.  “Smart bombs,” which we have all seen effectively used, can take out all three structures, with little to no loss of life.  From his book, page 169, Dr. Morey says, “With American ships stationed all around Arabia…, it would take about seven minutes for cruise missiles to take out Mecca and Medina.”  He means the specific religious structures, not the entire towns.  And, “the Israelis could take out the Dome Mosque at the same time.”  Done in the middle of the night, without warning, any life lost would be little to none. 

Of course, when Dr. Morey calls this the “final solution” to ending terrorism, he does not mean anything like the Holocaust.  He means that taking out these three targets is the final tactical step in a complex, graduated strategy to end Islamic terrorism NOW! 

Congressman Tom Tancredo did not suggest nuking Mecca and Medina.  He said that taking out these religious structures should be part of the strategic thinking about terrorism.  Far too many people on the right and the left of the political spectrum joined the synthetic frenzy of Muslims in denouncing what the congressman said and denouncing the congressman himself.  Almost all denounced a distortion of what he said, not what he really said.  Dr. Morey indicated that a number of persons in our government are aware of the message to bin Laden and the plan.  The time has come for us to THINK strategically to end this war as quickly as we can with the least loss of life.  That is what the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima did.  Here, however, is an opportunity to end a war without fission. 

We highly recommend Dr. Morey’s book.