"The Hypocrites will be in the lowest depths of the fire: no helper wilt thou find for them." (The Quran 4:145).
After revelations about a cache of pornography discovered in Osama bin Laden 's lair, it is time bin Laden is called a "Holy Hypocrite!" says Michael Flood McNulty on opposingviews.com.
The Navy SEALs who killed bin Laden seized multiple computers, hard drives, CDs and thumb drives from the terrorist's Pakistani compound. Among the seized items was an extensive collection of pornography, according to U.S. officials.
In Islam, pornography is "a definite no no," wrote Abdul Malik Mujahid in a post on an Islamic information web site called Sound Vision.
Though officials are not sure whether bin Laden acquired, consumed or even knew about the pornography, the mere presence of this and other materials confirmed bin Laden's hypocrisy for former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.
Huckabee said on his Fox show the presence of porn, SUVs and Coca-Cola in bin Laden's compound, and evidence that the terrorist leader dyed his beard all fly in the face of the former al-Qaida leader's anti-western rhetoric.
In 2002 bin Laden decried America as guilty of "hypocrisy in manners and principles". He also said America "practices the trade of sex in all its forms" and has "giant corporations and establishments" dedicated to selling sex.
Yet, some countries in the Middle East may be just as entrenched in the sex-trade of pornography says The Daily Beast's Asra Q. Nomani.
"Pornography…is the Muslim world's dirty little secret, rife in even the most conservative realms — including among the extremists," Nomani says. "In fact, the porn found in the bin Laden compound was probably not even much of a surprise … Google ran an analysis of its search queries and concluded Pakistan is the leading nation in sex-related, porn content searches," she continued.
Though porn may be prevalent in Pakistan, there is reason to be skeptical about these reports regarding bin Laden, says blogger and philosophy professor Roderick T. Long. He writes, "I have no problem believing that bin Laden was a hypocrite. But I also have no problem believing that the U.S. government is a liar."
Indeed, these reports regarding the pornography fail "to address a critical question: does the porn repository actually exist?" says The Register's Lester Haines.
EMAIL: hboyd@desnews.com