It’s Fatwah Time!

(PS: Benedict is AKA "Bennie the enforcer")

Pope Benedict (hereafter Bennie) quoted Manuel II Paliologous (hereafter Adolph) as attacking Islam.

It kind of reminds me of the furor over Salmun Rushdie (hereafter Sally) and the Satanic Verses, especially since I had heard of neither Sally or Adolph before.

The Byzantine Empire has never been high on my list of interests. It certainly ranks below Bird Flu which is still being hushed up.

Not that I avoid the arcane. I had heard of and read Agricola (Arabic), Melanthon (German), Ramus and Talon (French) and who could forget the more modern Salmasius? However, these all wrote in Latin. I don’t know what language Adolph wrote in (greek)

He attacked Islam, but to me it was another case of sour grapes. See, the Catholics had ruled just 200 years before and now the Turks (Ottomans) were running things, so you can see why Adolph was pissed.He signed a peace treaty with the Ottoman Turks in 1424, paid tribute to Murad II of the Ottomans (and took it all back, I guess), and then died in 1424.

Bennie should have made this clear.

In 1492 Columbus discovered American and things haven’t been the same since.

Czar Donic