meanings

By a curious coincidence, last night marked not only the beginning of Rosh Hashanah but also the end of Ramadan. The Jewish New Year and the Muslim Breaking of the Fast don't normally fall on the same day; they have no reason to do so. The Islamic calendar is purely lunar. Its events advance, with respect to the solar calendar used in the West, by twelve days a year. The Jewish calendar is more complicated, a funky mix of solar and lunar elements, with an entire leap month thrown in every once in a while to keep the high holidays in their seasons. Ramadan travels through the Gregorian calendar in a journey that takes 33 years, but Rosh Hashanah is always in early fall.

By an even curiouser coincidence and for no other reason than the inexorable passing of time, both holy days fall neatly beside the ninth anniversary of the airborne terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Killing nearly 3000, these attacks were perpetrated by a gang of mentally deranged Arabs wielding box cutters (literally – to commandeer the planes) and copies of the Koran (figuratively – to justify their actions). The connection was made by the terrorists, but the link is tenuous: Most people agree that the Koran cannot be used as a manual for mass murder unless you start reading with a pathologically warped mind. But some don't.

In Florida, a nominally Christian pastor is organizing a Koran burning to commemorate September 11, 2001. Of Eid al-Fitr he, in all likelihood, knows nothing, but he can't be ignorant of the reactions his bonfire will cause. A set of cartoons lampooning the Islamic prophet Mohamed that were published in an obscure Danish newspaper five years ago drove (a small but savage minority of) Muslims worldwide to violence – after the existence of the cartoons was publicized by hate-mongering populists months later. Some Muslims do quite obviously enjoy taking offense and showing it.

The Floridian pastor has taken that into account. He probably has a rational justification for his planned action should anyone ask, but what he really intends, deep inside, is to show the irrationality of the Muslim community. His one little fire will be amplified into thousands of rabid protestations, burnings of flags, calls for boycott and torchings of embassies. And the world looks on and sees, and the press reports that it is clear: Muslims cannot be trusted.

He plays an easy game. Whenever Islam is questioned or its symbols ridiculed, enough monkeys climb down from their trees and pick up sticks, stones and flints to wreak havoc in their habitats and impart fear in observers half a world away – the reaction as much in the name of religion as the initial provocation was, and as little in spirit. The essence of religion – as I dimly remember from my upbringing – lies in compassion and brotherly love, not in fires and violence. It would seem to me that Eid al-Fit, Rosh Hashanah and 9/11 provide a fine excuse to think about that.