spanish fatwa

read about this on sepoy's blog - the spanish fatwa against osama bin laden...

... And though fatwas will perhaps forever be associated with the virtual death warrant passed on Salman Rushdie and the implacable ayatollahs of Iran, a refreshingly different fatwa got passed recently. On 11^th March, 2005, exactly a year after the horrific train blasts that rocked Spain, Spanish cleric, Mansur Escudero, issued a fatwa that declares Osama bin Laden outside of Islam, based on his killing of innocent civilians on 11 March, 2004. The fatwa maybe ineffectual, but it is not insignificant. For Spain, in the year since the bombings, has proven to be quite a remarkable place. There has been virtually no violence directed against Spain’s largely immigrant Muslim community. Instead there has been a renewal of interest in the country’s own Islamic past and the Spanish government has promoted the teaching of Arabic and Islam. The Spanish King, Juan Carlos, has addressed the Moroccan Parliament – most of Spain’s Muslims are immigrants from Morocco, across the straits of Gibraltar. This is particularly poignant, for the expulsion of the Muslims from Spain in 1492, and the horrors of the Inqusition that followed, are among the darkest chapters of Eurpoean history. Many of those expelled from Spain after 1492 found refuge in Morroco…

All of which seems particularly poignant to me after reading up he history of the Spansih diaspora for the Don Quixote paper. Like being in a historical hall of mirrors, reflecting infinitely...

Seamus Heaney always seems so appropriate for times/events like these -

So hope for a great sea change
On the far side of revenge
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells...