ISIS vs. the World
By Sean Osborne
Just when you think you understand what ISIS is up to (based upon their proclaimed jihadist ideology), they make another press release that has the effect of turning everything you thought you knew about their objectives upside down and inside out. This is exactly what has occurred today (July 1, 2014).
ISIS has just announced that their battle plan is to destroy the Kaaba in Mecca. Why? Isn’t the Kaaba central to Islamic practices, the heart of the Islam itself? Apparently not so according to Islamic purists like ISIS and Al Qaeda. That rock, the Hajar al-Aswad or Holy Black Stone is located within a metallic shroud on a corner of the Kaaba in Mecca, and is what they consider to be the centerpiece of idolatrous worship.
The stone is a black meteorite, and an icon they want to destroy as soon as possible—as soon as their new Islamic Caliphate conquers Saudi Arabia. The Kaaba and the black rock pre-date the establishment of Islam, they were both were part of the pagan religion in Arabia prior to the establishment of Islam.
An ISIS spokesman by the name of Abu Turab al-Mugadassi has been quoted as saying: “If Allah wills, we will kill those who worship stones in Mecca and destroy the Kaaba. People go to Mecca to touch the stone, not for Allah.” During the Islamic pilgrimage, the hajj, to Mecca, Muslims nearly stampede each other in an attempt to merely touch or kiss the black stone. That means it's pretty important to them. ISIS has different plans for treating it.
Here’s where this gets real interesting.
Where else do Muslims go to worship a stone? To Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount, in the Dome of the Rock, that’s where they go. Let that thought sink in and the potential repercussions overwhelm you as they just overwhelmed me this morning. Imagine ISIS destroying the Dome of the Rock, the very center of which used to be the Holy of Holies within the first two Jewish temples.
Since June 1967, 37 years ago, the Dome of the Rock has been under the joint protection of the Hashemite Kingdom of Abdullah II, the Waqf and Israeli security forces. And so ISIS would want to destroy the Dome of the Rock because it is idolatrous and something a Muslim should never do.
What then would stand in the way of the Temple Institute beginning the construction of what will be the third temple on the mount? Not much. Everything for the construction of the temple is in readiness, and there's even a very strong candidate red heifer alive at this moment without any blemish.
Keeping an eye on this one!
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