: Do Muslims Love Their Children Too?

The fire has barely cooled from a “deliberate misunderstanding” raised by the National Review’s Rich Lowry. His recent comments seemed to advocate “nuking Mecca,” prompting fierce responses from a CAIR Action Alert. As Editor-in-Chief, Lowry ceremoniously “slapped himself on the wrist” in reponse to the demand for disciplinary action, but his colleague Jonah Goldberg had more to say about the issue. Asking if Islam places little value on childrens’ lives, he cited the recent case of the Saudi mutaween (which is indefensible of course) and the self-bloodlust inherent in the young suicide bombers of Hamas (hmm, that’s hard to defend too). Of course, if every Muslim child was sent to certain doom, there wouldn’t be 1.2 billion of us. But that isn’t nearly as sexy as the Osama bin Laden wannabees that Goldberg makes them out to be.

Zahed Amanullah is associate editor of altmuslim.com.  He is based in London, England.