Is eating falafel a crime punishable by death,

[reepicheep]

The Sunni terrorists are making increasingly bizarre demands in Iraq. As the following article shows, they have now declared that it is a crime punishable by death to eat falafel, or to use ice:


Pack up or die, street vendors told


The "logic" they are using is as follows:


(1) there is no record in the Koran of Mohammad eating falafal. Therefore, it is a crime punishable by death to eat it.


(2) there is no record in the Koran of Mohammad using ice. Therefore, it is a crime punishable by death to use ice.


Kind of hard to argue with that logic, isn't it?


Some excerpts from the above article:

In a bizarre example of Iraq's creeping "Talibanisation", militants visited falafel vendors a fortnight ago, telling them to pack up their stalls by today or be killed. The ultimatum seemed so odd that, at first, most laughed it off - until two of them were shot dead as they plied their trade.
"They came telling us, 'You have 14 days to end this job' and I asked them what was the problem," said Abu Zeinab, 32, who was packing up his stall for good yesterday in the suburb of al Dora, a hardline Sunni neighbourhood.


"I said I was just feeding the people, but they said there were no falafels in Mohammed the prophet's time, so we shouldn't have them either. I felt like telling them there were no Kalashnikovs in Mohammed's time either, but I wanted to keep my life."

Another group of traders to have felt the Islamists' unexpected wrath is Baghdad's ice merchants, who sell large chunks of ice for storing food and chilling drinks. In a city facing constant power cuts and summer temperatures of up to 50C (122F), the service they provide is little short of essential.
Yet in recent weeks, they too have fallen foul of the claim that their product was not a feature of life during Mohammed's time.


Akram al Zidawi, 19, an ice seller from al Dora, thought the threats were too ludicrous to be true - until it was too late. "Two weeks ago he came back home saying that he had been threatened by the terrorists," said his brother Gassan, 32.


"My mother begged him to quit the job, but he laughed, he thought it was impossible they would kill him. But they came back two days later and shot him dead, along with three other ice sellers nearby."