Desert "Prayers!"

Here was the perfect post to renew my blogging efforts! It's from the official Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting website. The report highlighted the "Disavowal of Pagans ritual" that took place among Iranian Hajj pilgrims on December 18, 2007 in the "Arafat sacred desert" about 12 miles from Mecca where the faithful gathered "for a day of prayer and meditation."

Imagine, if you will, numerous Iranian Muslims praying and meditating out in the desert. What a wonderful and spiritual image. It must have been beautiful. And, according to the IRIB report, what "prayers" issued from the lips of these believers?

The pilgrims chanted anti-America and anti-Zionist slogans during the ceremony also attended by the Islamic Revolution Leader's representative for Hajj affairs, Hojatoleslam Mohammad Mohammadi Reyshahri. "Allah is beyound [sic] description," "There is no god but Allah," "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" were among the slogans chanted by the masses in unison as they gathered in the Desert of Arafat.

When I was young at the end of the Roman Catholic mass every Sunday we prayed for a political goal--for the conversion of Russia from Soviet atheism back to Christianity. But our "prayers" did not take the form "Death to the USSR!"