Hezbollah facing towards Mecca?
[ by Charles Cameron — it is, when all is said and done, the qibla of their prayers ]
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Hezbollah Forum Head: It is an Islamic Duty to Liberate Mecca and Medina from the Saudis http://t.co/7LWJcUYEr3
— SITE Intel Group (@siteintelgroup) September 4, 2013
Whether this is an individual or group obligation, I don’t know. Since I have no access to SITE, I’ll just leave you with their tweet.
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Aside:
CS Lewis, in his Allegory of Love, writes:
It must always be remembered…that the various senses we take out of an ancient word by analysis existed in it as a unity.
Something very similar applies to concepts cross-culturally. We in the secular west tend to differentiate religion from politics in a sort of conceptual separation of church and state — but such a separation may not always be appropriate in evaluating such things as the Hezbollah statement above.
We have that saying about war as the continuation of politics — perhaps in this case (and many like it) war is the continuation of politics is the continuation of religion? Always remembering that these things are not as easily separated as the layers of a coaxial cable…
I first ran across “doctrine” as a theological term, but the DOD defines it thus:
Fundamental principles by which the military forces or elements thereof guide their actions in support of national objectives.
The echoes and eddies in language get dizzying when religious, political and military considerations are all in play.
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I suppose I’m looking for a word that means distinct though inseparable, or even better, distinct though complexly and untidily interwoven.