National Review Online, 7 Jan 2011,
Who Are the Real Hijackers of Islam?

Salman Taseer, a popular Pakistani governor, was assassinated this week because he was critical of Pakistan’s blasphemy law.

Specifically, Taseer was supportive of a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who has been sentenced to death for “insulting Muhammad.”

... Governor Taseer, who bravely visited her and sympathized with her plight, had 40 bullets pumped into him by one of his own bodyguards.

...

And what of the reaction to the assassination?

Many columnists and commentators denounced the murder, but the public’s reaction was often celebratory. A Facebook fan page for Qadri had to be taken down as it was drawing thousands of followers.

And what of the country’s official guardians of the faith?

A group of more than 500 leading Muslim scholars, representing what the Associated Press describes as a “moderate school of Islam” and the British Guardian calls the “mainstream religious organizations” in Pakistan not only celebrated the murder, but warned that no Muslim should mourn Taseer’s murder or pray for him.

They even went so far as to warn government officials and journalists that the “supporter is as equally guilty as one who committed blasphemy,” and so therefore they should all take “a lesson from the exemplary death” of Salman Taseer.

If that’s what counts for religious moderation in Pakistan, I think it’s a little late to be talking about extremists hijacking the religion. The religion has long since been hijacked, and it’s now moving on to even bigger things.

In the following video Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri was showered with rose petals for a second day as he arrived at an anti-terror court in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, hours after media first gathered in anticipation of the event. He is greeted as a hero.

YouTube, Reception of Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri with flowers in Court

See the photo at the top of this article? Did you read the caption "Huge Rally of Moderate Muslims in Downtown Karachi Protesting the killing of Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer who was shot dead last week by a bodyguard?" Well, if you believe that caption you are a Muslim-appeasing, self-deluding Liberal idiot. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows that no large gathering of Muslims will ever support decency, freedom, or tolerance. Here is the actual caption:

KARACHI: Tens of thousands of demonstrators have marched in Pakistan's largest city in opposition to any change to blasphemy laws and to praise the man charged with murdering the provincial governor who opposed the legislation.

If you don't know what Islamic blasphemy laws are, here it is in a nutshell: say anything critical of Allah, Islam, or the prophet and you must die. This is what all these non-terrorist, moderate Muslims are demonstrating for - to keep this savage, draconian, barbaric, primitive law in place.

Is it really a handful of extremists we have to fear, or millions of these normal, average, everyday moderate Muslims?