What's An Infidel to Make of This?

Via Tim Blair (who links to a delightfully funny bit on DVDs), I was turned onto Ask-Imam.com, which bills itself as Islamic Q & A online. To say that it's a culture shock is an understatement. I respect anyone's belief or choice not to believe at all, but really, isn't this a bit much?

How should we pray for the destruction of the enemies of Islam? Can we pray by taking their individual names?

Rather than being chastised, the questioner is given a quite lengthy and very serious answer.

There are those who would doubtless point out similar passages in the Torah, and they'd be right...which leads me to this thought, irrespective of one's view of religion and regardless of one's faith. The appeal of Christianity, and the message of Jesus, is that it recognizes the humanity of unbelievers, elevates the sinner, and advocates the just treatment of the least among us.

It's a given, of course, that Christians and non-Christians alike seldom live up to these ideals, but it's a great message, isn't it? I'm not trying to stereotype the Islamic faith, though, which, like most Westerners, I know little about. I just find the question above, and the gravity accorded it, to be quite anachronistic and harsh. Still, to quote Robert Hunter, 'once in a while you can get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right'. Here's a beauty from the same site:

Lies are only permitted in three instances, for a man to make his wife happy, in war and for reconciliation between people.

Quite right, particularly that first one; now there's an interfaith message I can get behind!