Perhaps he doesn't have a TV

I came across this post a couple of days ago which left me a bit baffled. The post is based on a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad "Leave the Ethiopians so long as they leave you, and desist from the Turkic nations, so long as they desist from you."

The author uses this hadith as a basis to criticise the (now fallen) Somali shari'ah courts when they called for foreign fighters to come to defend Somalia.

Its quite clear to anyone who watched the news regarding Somalia these past few months that it was Ethiopia who invaded Somalia and not the other way round. Its equally clear that the hadith places NO RESTRICTIONS WHATSOEVER on what Muslims can/can't do when its the Ethiopians who are starting the trouble.

Not only that, but common sense dictates that when someone is attacking you, you don't sit down and take a beating but you stand up and defend yourself.

What makes this a real hack job is that the author pastes the first paragraph of a newspaper article from the UK's Observer paper to give the impression that the Somalis were the aggressors, when if you continue reading the article it makes it quite clear that its the Ethiopians who were the aggressors. For instance the same article states "Ethiopia, which accuses the Islamists of terrorist links, has sent thousands of troops, tanks and helicopters into Somalia..."

This post leaves me wondering what would drive a person to use a hadith in such a deceitful manner?

Oh look, the post is tagged with "wahhabism", no hidden agenda there then.