"The sources of the River Jordan at Banias," Syria, from The Blatchford Collection of Photographs at the American University of Beirut's Jafet Library. Banias* is the birthplace of Dr. Wafa Sultan, the woman who just may lead this warring world out of the desert.
Even the New York Times can't keep a good woman down. They may have given pride of place to woman-hater Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi -- the former Taliban spokesman turned Yalie -- in a recent full-court, gushing Sunday Mag cover story. But the outspoken Syrian-American psychiatrist Dr. Wafa Sultan -- launched into the blogosphere over a week ago by savvy bloggers like Neocon [not our own NeoNeocon, despite the similar-sounding name] -- dutifully walking three paces behind at the Times, got an also-ran "Saturday Profile" in their International section yesterday. While the "paper of record" may find Muslim mysogynists more glamorous and newsworthy than former Muslim females speaking truth to tyranny, we notice in a sidebar that her profile is the Number 1 "most e-mailed article" in the past 24 hours (as of midday Sunday). The Times does a great job getting its readership up to speed, a must-read for one and all:
Today, thanks to an unusually blunt and provocative interview on Al Jazeera television on Feb. 21, she is an international sensation, hailed as a fresh voice of reason by some, and by others as a heretic and infidel who deserves to die.
In the interview, which has been viewed on the Internet more than a million times and has reached the e-mail of hundreds of thousands around the world, Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries.
We were particularly taken with philogynist [We didn't know there actually was such a word either, and the fact that we didn't speaks volumes. Even so, Answers continues to deliver.] Saudi blogger The Religious Policeman's take on Dr. Sultan's Aljazeera interview:
I could watch this over and over. It's like porn for moderate Muslims.
*Back to Banias [AKA Banyas], birthplace of Dr. Sultan:
According to Christian tradition, it was in Caesaria Philippi, near the cave (known today as Banyas Cave), where St. Peter confessed the divinity of Jesus to the people. In the 4th century, Christians were still a persecuted minority and their churches were vandalized. In the 4th and 5th century, however, Paneas had an important episcopacy that participated in church councils and the city became an important focus of Christian pilgrimage.
Paneas became "Banyas" upon Moslem conquest in the 7th century, due to Arabic mispronunciation of "p". The Moslem geographer el Ya'akubi writes that Banyas was the capital of the Golan, competing with Damascus in its wealth and quality of life.
In 1941, Australian forces won Banyas from Vichy-controlled Syria. In the 1960s the Syrians planned to divert the waters of Banyas along the slopes of the Golan to the Yarmuk River in order to deprive Israel of one of its essential water sources. This led to retaliation steps from the side of Israel, and nearly caused a new war.
Forget about oil. As we blogged here last year, "It's all about water."
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