Letter 2 America for July 4, 2014

Dear America,

I'm going to be away for the next four days, so I thought I would just drop you a brief line before I go.  In 1483, a Spanish Dominican monk named Tomas de Torquemada was elevated to the rank of Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition.  His ardor was unquenchable, and he perpetrated many atrocities against those whose Catholic faith did not measure up to his draconian standards of belief and comportment.  He and his movement are emblematic of rigid positivism and inhuman intolerance for any variation from the norm for which they stood. He was diabolical.

Today, what started out as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, more aptly named the Islamic Islamic State of Syria and the Levant, is now transmogrified by its leader into just The Islamic State, a world-wide caliphate. As its self-appointed leader, Abu Bakr al-Bahgdadi has required of all Muslims complete and unequivocal allegiance to The Islamic State, which will be governed under Sharia Law, under penalty of all kinds of heinous punishment for failure to heed his edict.

So, here's the question for the day.  How was Torquemada different from al-Bahgdadi?  And if he is the Muslim version of Torquemada, should Muslims fear al-Baghdadi's ascent with Torquemada's acts as a portent of Islam's future?  If so, what should the world's Muslims do about him: join him or scourge him?

See you next week.

Your friend,

Mike