Yesterday TheStream published my first article: “Mohammed’s Koran: The Book Amazon Won’t Let You Buy” (a review thereof).  This site is conservative, both politically and theologically; and in terms of the latter, aims to run content that evangelical Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox Christians can rally behind.  Look for more offerings over there from yours truly going forward.

Since I open the piece by mentioning Dr. Henry Jones, I’ll take the liberty of posting a pic of me from Halloween 2017 attired as the famous archaeologist’s father:

“Mean Hoda Muthana thought she was a woman/But she was an ISIS bride/All Yazidis around her said she’s got it coming/’Cuz shari`ah love she’ll hide.”

My apologies to the Beatles, but something about the greatest band in rock history compels me to use their songs to introduce two radio interviews I did this week:

one on the aforementioned Muthana, suing to get back into the US after consorting with various and sundry ISIS husbands;

and another discussing Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and her repeated slams of Israel and Jews.

Despite Nancy Pelosi repeatedly telling  Omar you can’t do that, the latter continues to act naturally as a Muslim, articulating ages-old Islamic biases against adherents of Judaism. Perhaps the voters of Minnesota’s 5th district, and the Democrat House leadership, should have known better before they, respectively, elected Omar and placed her on the Foreign Affairs Committee–but they didn’t, and so can be treated to several more years of she said, she said.  Will Pelosi and Schumer be consigned to fixing the hole created in their party by Omar’s constant appeals to revolution?  As long as she tells Jews “baby, you’re a rich man” and accuses them of never giving her their money, it’s doubtful that the party can come together.  But sometimes it’s hard to tell whether Omar wants to go back to the USSR–or to Mecca.

I will mercifully stop now….but only because it’s time to go to the range, and happiness is a warm gun.

The Beatles from one of their little-known gigs in Istanbul: John, Paul, George, Ringo and Clarence-bey. (From Wiki, public domain, “Ottoman Classical Music.”

For the last several months I’ve been a thespian trapped in a man’s body–playing the rogue, Shakespeare-imitating highwayman named Robert Middleton in a local community theater production of  the Bard-era comedy Thee & Thou.   Now that that’s over, and I’m on spring break from university teaching this week, ’tis time to get back into the blogging saddle–with a devil’s brew of Islamic topics from the first quarter of 2019.

Back in January,  the Turkish government began cracking down on a man claiming to be the Mahdi: Iskender Evrenesoğlu. (But he got off easy, compared to the two other major self-styled Turkish messianic leaders: Fethullah Gülen, who long ago had to flee the country, and Adnan Oktar, who has recently been arrested.)

Pictured: Not Evrenesoğlu but Sultan Suleyman I  (from Wiki’s open source entry on Ottoman sultans)–but he does sport a similar turban, almost as large as Uranus, which you can see here.  

As I observed on this site last year, President Recep Erdoğan–who is vying for the leadership of the entire Sunni world–loathes these pretenders to the throne of Islam; and well he should since, as one of Erdoğan’s staunchest defenders said just a few days ago, “Erdoğan has earned the title of Caliph.”

Where does this leave the only overt caliph in the world today–ISIS’ Ibrahim al-Baghdadi? Out in the cold–and not just as far as the Turks are concerned, either: last month reports surfaced of discontented jihadists trying to stage a coup against their self-styled leader.  Maybe President Trump’s tweets–but more likely his unleashing of the US military–had something to do with the decapitating caliph’s demise. So if al-Baghdadi is not dead yet…he soon will be.

Meanwhile, over in the fantasy land part of the Islamic world–the Islamic Republic of Iran–a senior ayatollah recently reminded us infidel Great Satanists that “until we turn the White House into a Hussainiya [Shi`ite Islamic center], we will continue to shout ‘Death to America’,” after which “the one global and just rule of the Mahdi will be established.” (And in case you’d forgotten: the 12th Imam al-Mahdi will arrive in a spaceship,  and institute sex romps in which his followers will be allowed to carouse with numerous infidel slave girls.  Who won’t want to party with the unHidden Imam?!)

This being Ash Wednesday, as a Christian I must state that my answer to Chief Wiggum’s question is: nowhere in Islam–but in the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ of the New Testament.

The true Messiah: Christ from the upper level of Hagia Sophia Church (Haya Sofya Mosque), Constantinople (Istanbul)–from my 2008 trip there.