Muslim women make their way to "stone the devil" (Jamarat) using a pillar in Mina near the Saudi holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 6, 2011 (Hassan Ammar/AP).Wisdom Quarterly's position is clear: Islam is beautiful no matter how much CIA, MIC, Pentagon, and Church propaganda make Americans think otherwise, and we are sorry that "witches" (healers) are persecuted anywhere. It happened in Salem, it happens when anyone is vilified or demonized and it is almost always persecution coming from Christian fanatics. Would Islam's Arab minority behave like common Christian crusaders?
A Saudi woman was beheaded after being convicted of practicing "witchcraft [pharmakia (Galatians 5:20)] and sorcery," according to the Saudi Interior Ministry, at least the second such execution for sorcery this year.
These words come from the Greek pharmakos, which gives us the English words pharmaceuticals, pharmacy, and pharmacology (the study of poisons). Perhaps this "witch" was dispensing allopathic chemicals.
The Jewish tribal god YHWH famously condemned the practice and even destroyed the party towns of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The woman, Amina bint Abdulhalim Nassar, was executed in the US's main Arab partner's northern province of al-Jawf this past Monday.
A source close to the Saudi Arabia's religious police told Arab newspaper al Hayat that authorities who searched Nassar's home found a book about witchcraft, 35 veils, and glass bottles full of "an unknown liquid used for sorcery" [aspirin, Prozac, love potion, Viagra?] among her possessions.
According to reports, authorities said Nassar claimed to be a healer [aha!] and would sell a veil and three bottles for 1,500 riyals, or about $400.
According to the ministry, Nassar's death sentence was upheld by an appeals court and the Saudi Supreme Judicial Council.
Christian and Jewish biblical law have the same statutes. And plenty of Americans in the Bible Belt are happy to oblige in their prosecution -- whether that means stoning "blasphemers" (skeptics) and "adulterers" (victims of molestation or rape), beating the Devil out of children, or the genocidal conquest of "savages" (indigenous tribes).
Philip Luther, the interim direct of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa program, condemned Nassar's killing, calling it "deeply shocking." More
