Islamic terrorists shoot Nun in the back. She was murdered in cold blood.

Muslim violence

By Jeff Jacoby | September 20, 2006

AS SHE LAY dying in a Mogadishu hospital, Sister Leonella forgave her
killers. She had lived in Africa for almost four decades and could
speak fluent Somali, but her last words were murmured in Italian, her
mother tongue. ``Perdono, perdono," she whispered. I forgive, I
forgive.

She was 65 and had devoted her life to the care of sick mothers and
children. She was on her way to meet three other nuns for lunch on
Sunday when two gunmen shot her several times in the back. "Her
slaying was not a random attack," the Associated Press reported. It
"raised concerns" that she was the latest victim of "growing Islamic
radicalism in the country."

Raised concerns? Sister Leonella was gunned down less than two days
after a prominent Somali cleric had called on Muslims to kill Pope
Benedict XVI for his remarks about Islam in a scholarly lecture last
week.

``We urge you, Muslims, wherever you are to hunt down the pope for his
barbaric statements," Sheik Abubukar Hassan Malin had exhorted
worshippers during evening prayers at a Mogadishu mosque. "Whoever
offends our prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the
nearest Muslim." Sister Leonella was not the pope, but she was
presumably close enough for purposes of the local jihadists.

If it weren't so sickening, it would be farcical: A line in the pope's
speech suggests that Islam has a dark history of violence, and
offended Muslims vent their displeasure by howling for his death,
firebombing churches, and attacking innocent Christians. One of the
points Benedict made in his speech at the University of Regensburg was
that religious faith untethered by reason can lead to savagery. The
mobs denouncing him could hardly have done a better job of proving him
right.

In his lecture, Benedict quoted the late Byzantine emperor Manuel II,
who had condemned Islam's militancy with these words: "Show me just
what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things
only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the
faith he preached."

In the ensuing uproar, British Muslims demonstrated outside
Westminster Cathedral with signs reading "Pope go to Hell" and "Islam
will conquer Rome," while the head of the Society of Muslim Lawyers
declared that the pope must be "subject to capital punishment." In
Iraq, the radical Mujahideen's Army vowed to "smash the crosses in the
house of the dog from Rome" and the Mujahideen Shura Council swore to
``continue our jihad and never stop until God avails us to chop your
necks." Arsonists in the West Bank set churches on fire, and a group
calling itself ``The Sword of Islam" issued a warning: ``If the pope
does not appear on TV and apologize for his comments, we will blow up
all of Gaza's churches."

In fact, the pope did apologize, more than once. Whether the studied
frenzy will now subside remains to be seen. But it's only a matter of
time until the next one erupts.

This time it was a 14th-century quote from a Byzantine ruler that set
off -- or rather, was exploited by Islamist firebrands to ignite --
the international demonstrations, death threats, and violence. Earlier
this year it was cartoons about Mohammed in a Danish newspaper. Last
year it was a Newsweek report, later debunked, that a Koran had been
desecrated by a US interrogator in Guantanamo. Before that it was
Jerry Falwell's comment on "60 Minutes" that Mohammed was a
"terrorist." Back in 1989 it was the publication of Salman Rushdie's
satirical novel, "The Satanic Verses."

In every case, the pretext for the Muslim rage was the claim that
Islam had been insulted. Freedom of speech was irrelevant: While the
rioters and those inciting them routinely insult Christianity,
Judaism, and other religions, they demand that no one be allowed to
denigrate Islam or its prophet. It is a staggering double standard,
and too many in the West seem willing to go along with it. Witness the
editorials in US newspapers this week scolding the pope for his
speech. Recall the State Department's condemnation of the Danish
cartoons last winter.

Of course nobody's faith should be gratuitously affronted. But the
real insult to Islam is not a line from a papal speech or a cartoon
about Mohammed. It is the violence, terror, and bloodshed that
Islamist fanatics unleash in the name of their religion -- and the
unwillingness of most of the world's Muslims to say or do anything to
stop them.

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