Turkish authorities vow swift justice after magazine’s cartoon triggers nationwide outrage.

By World Israel News Staff

Four Turkish journalists were arrested after a local magazine reportedly published a cartoon caricature of the Prophet Mohammed, triggering rage-filled protests on Monday outside of the outlet’s offices.

The cartoon in question, published by LeMan, featured two characters, depicted as angels with wings, hovering over a war-torn city.

One character is drawn as saying, “Peace be upon you, I’m Muhammed,” while the other replies, “Peace be upon you, I’m Musa.”

In a statement on social media platform X, LeMan claimed that the cartoon did not depict the prophet but rather a “Muslim killed by Israel.”

The cartoonist behind the drawing “never intended to insult religious values,” the magazine posted. “We do not accept the stain that is cast on us because there is no depiction of our Prophet. You have to be very malicious to interpret the cartoon in this way.”

The publication stressed that “the work does not refer to the Prophet Muhammed in any way.”

The magazine’s denial did not calm public sentiment, as those believing the cartoon negatively depicted the prophet took to the streets to express their rage.

An angry mob of hundreds chanted “tooth for tooth, blood for blood, revenge, revenge” outside the publication’s offices, with police eventually firing tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.

Turkish police arrested LeMan’s editor-in-chief, graphic designer, institutional director, and the cartoonist behind the drawing.

According to a statement from the country’s Justice Ministry, the four men will be charged with the crime of “publicly insulting religious values.”

Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc wrote on X that “necessary legal steps will be taken without delay” against the detained journalists.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya shared videos of the four men being arrested over the “vile drawing,” showing them handcuffed and dragged barefoot out of their homes by police.

The post ‘Blood, revenge!’ Turks incensed by caricature of Prophet Mohammed appeared first on World Israel News.

“There is zero debate that two temples stood in that place in scholarly literature,” said New York University professor Lawrence Schiffman. “Mohammed’s ascent ‘happens’ from there only because it is the Temple site.”

By Menachem Wecker, JNS

An article that appeared in The Washington Post just before Passover seems to equate the historical reality of the Jewish Temples in Jerusalem and that of the Muslim prophet Muhammad’s miraculous “night journey” to heaven.

“In Jewish tradition, the Temple Mount is the site where the First and Second Temples once stood. For Muslims, it [sic] known as the Noble Sanctuary, the place where the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven,” wrote Louisa Loveluck, Niha Masih and Miriam Berger. “The night of violence at the al-Aqsa compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, adds fuel to an already combustible situation.”

An earlier version of the story had noted: “In Jewish tradition, it is the site where the faith’s First and Second Temples once stood. For Muslims, it is the place from which the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.”

Professors with relevant expertise told JNS that there is no debate in the scholarly community about the reality of the two Jewish Temples, whereas the question about whether Muhammad was a prophet who took a miraculous heavenly journey is not seen as a matter of fact, particularly for those who are not believing Muslims.

“There is zero debate that two temples stood in that place in scholarly literature. Mohammed’s ascent ‘happens’ from there only because it is the Temple site,” Lawrence Schiffman, professor of Hebrew and Judaic studies at New York University, told JNS.

“The story about Muhammad going on a miraculous horse all the way from Arabia to Jerusalem and ascending to heaven is a religious belief. It’s like saying that Jacob prayed there,” he said.

The locations of the Herodian Temple, and the Hasmonean Temple before it, “can be proven archaeologically, and is a hard fact,” said Schiffman, adding that numerous Islamic sources prior to the modern period recognized that fact. (In more recent years, some Palestinian leaders have denied long-standing Jewish presence in Israel.)

“They are trying to be neutral, but that confuses the facts,” Schiffman said of the Post.

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A collection of mystic forecasts, Quran commentators and a “prophecy” have many believing that Ramadan 2022 will mark the end of the State of Israel.

By Aryeh Savir, TPS

Many Muslims are convinced that during the month of Ramadan in 2022, which coincides with the Jewish month of Nissan and the Passover holiday this year, Israel will cease to exist.

A collection of mystic forecasts, Quran commentators, and a “prophecy” attributed to Hamas founder Ahmad Yassin, have many believing that the State of Israel has about a month to exist.

Sheikh Bassam Jarrar, a Hamas-affiliated Palestinian scholar, wrote a book in 1997 named “Israel’s Disappearance in 2022 – Quran Prophecy or Numerical Coincidence.”

In his book, Jarrar presents a prediction that Israel will cease to exist in 2022, basing this prediction on a well-known Qur’anic verse that speaks of the end of days and the fate of the Jews in this period. He gives the verse “numerical interpretation” based on an old mathematical calculation system known as Hisāb alJummal, according to which the prophecy will be realized in 2022.

Jarrar draws his conclusions based on an examination of the number 19, a significant number in Islam, and its duplications in verses and words in the Qur’an, he also links these conclusions with a “legend or prophecy” attributed to a Jewish old woman according to which the State of Israel will exist for 76 years (19×4).

The number 19 proclaims the First Commandment in all the scriptures: that there is only one God. The number 19 in Islam is also the number of angels guarding Hell.

‘For many Palestinians, 2022 is a very special year’

Sheikh Ahmad Yassin also believed that Israel’s end is near. According to him, in the first 25 of the 21^st century, the balance of power will shift to the benefit of the Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic nation, and this will lead to the victory and final disappearance of the “Hebrew state.”

Yassin refused to say that his forecast was a kind of prophecy and explained that “his prediction is based on an examination of the history and the present, which makes it possible to determine characteristics of the future.”

According to him, the past teaches, as narrated in the Qur’an, that Allah commanded the children of Israel to wander in the wilderness for 40 years, so that the cowardly generation would die and a warrior generation would rise in its place. This means that a period of 40 years in the life of a people is the time needed for psychological change.

Yassin reinforced his remarks with historical examples and mentioned the Crusader wars, which allowed the Crusaders to take over the Land of Israel for 80 years (40×2) until they were defeated by the Muslim leader Salah ad-Din, or Saladin.

In a more recent example, Yassin mentioned that the Palestinian people were defeated in 1948 and expelled from their homeland, but 40 years later the intifada broke out and forced Israel and the world to recognize the existence of the Palestinian people. In his opinion, the next 40 years will bring the end of Israel.

In 2014, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hamad said that the Palestinians will liberate all of Palestine “within eight years,” in 2022. In 2015, in an interview on Lebanese TV, the Imam of the mosque of Al Quds in Sidon, Maher Hamoud, said that “according to calculations based on the Quran the end of Israel will be in 2022.”

A Google search of the phrase زويل أسريل آم  2022 (zuil ‘asril am 2022), “Israel’s demise in 2022,” yields over 421,000 results and broad discussion on the subject in serious sites.

Dr. Mohammad Makram Balawi, a Palestinian writer and academic based in Istanbul, wrote in February that “for many Palestinians, 2022 is a very special year as it marks the beginning of the ‘downfall’ of the Israeli occupation.”

“How these prophecies might affect the attitudes and behaviours of the people who believe in them could be the right question. Yet, we will find many in the traumatized Arab World who would wait for them to come true,” he wrote.

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IRGC General Alireza Tangsiri said that today’s Saudis are “the same Jews” who opposed the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia.

The post WATCH: Iranian general says Saudis not really Muslims, are actually Jews appeared first on World Israel News.