CIA Muezzin School

The Guardian reports that a story has been spreading around Islamic websites about a CIA muezzin school in which the CIA trains agents to pose as muezzins (the men who call Muslims to prayer five days a week times a day from the minaret towers of mosques). Supposedly the CIA feels that muezzins are in a uniquely advantageous position to view everything that's going on in Muslim communities. But in reality, this is another of those satire-mistaken-as-news stories. The story of the CIA Muezzin school originated on the satire-laced website of the The Rockall Times (Rockall is a tiny uninhabited island in the middle of the Atlantic). So this will join the growing list of spoofs taken seriously by Muslim news sources, a list that already includes the Giant Skeleton Unearthed in Saudi Arabia, and the Secret History of the Flying Carpet.

Conspiracy Theories Religion

Posted on Tue Jan 11, 2005


Comments

I think it's kind of fair to continually hoax the Muslim news(papers). After all the violence they insight and the incorrect things they publish they deserve some jokes played on them to further point out their relative stupidity.

Now where's my photoshop...
Posted by Fenrir  on  Tue Jan 11, 2005  at  09:49 AM
I'm reminded of a story a friend told me, when he was working in an intelligence unit at Camp Anaconda, not far from Bagdad. On a slow day, they had their field operatives start interrogating the locals about Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulators. Within days, Al Jazeera had a piece about an insurgent group who had a stockpile.

It would have been an instructive experiment on the gullibility of Iraqi insurgents, except they already knew that.
Posted by Terry Austin  on  Tue Jan 11, 2005  at  11:38 AM
"... who calls Muslims to prayer five days a week ..."
Surely you meant five times a day (every day).
Praying five times a day is one of the Pillars of Islam. There is a legend that the Prophet Mohammed bargained an Angel down from 70 times a day (or maybe it was 700?) to reach this rule.
Posted by Big Gary C  on  Tue Jan 11, 2005  at  01:53 PM
There was a news story on NPR about a month ago saying the French government was sending the Imams of many French mosques to the Sorbonne (the big university in Paris) to learn more about French and Western culture and science.
This is a public program, not any secret plot, but perhaps it's one of the sources of the muezzin school rumor.
Posted by Big Gary C  on  Tue Jan 11, 2005  at  01:56 PM
"I think it's kind of fair to continually hoax the Muslim news(papers)."
Considering some of the stuff that our American (presumably Christian, Jewish, and/or secular) news media disseminate without questioning it, I don't think most of us are in a good position to attack the "Muslim news(papers)."
To cite just one example, there was the little matter of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. Talk about inciting violence!
Posted by Big Gary C  on  Tue Jan 11, 2005  at  02:00 PM
Frequent prayer is a requirement sought by all religous leaders. The more time people spend praying, the less chance there is they will figure out they are being fed a pile of bullshit. No wonder the angel wanted it 70 times a day.
Posted by Captain Al  on  Tue Jan 11, 2005  at  04:41 PM
Yeah. I prayed once. Back in '68 if I recollect correctly.
Posted by BugbearSloth  on  Tue Jan 11, 2005  at  10:27 PM
There nothing special about 5 times. Religious Christians suppose to pray after they waked up(1), before meal(3), and before going to sleep(1). Here is your 5 times. Big deal. The only difference you should not do this kneeling on the floor.
Posted by Loxx  on  Wed Jan 12, 2005  at  02:13 PM
As a matter of fact, the Bible says that we (Christians) should "pray without ceasing."
Posted by Big Gary C  on  Wed Jan 12, 2005  at  06:23 PM
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