"Al Quds" means "the holy place," which sounds just fine until you realize it's Ayatollah Khomeini's name for a day to whip up genocidal rage against Israel. The "holy place" they refer to is Jerusalem, which has a history going back about a thousand years BCE. Mohammed lived in 7th century Arabia, about 1,500 years after the city of Jerusalem arose. But he met (and waged war) against Jewish tribal peoples in the Arabian desert, borrowed ideas from Christianity and Judaism, and then had to discover a divine right to three holy places: Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem. 

The first two problems were solved by conquest, including, yes, another genocide against the tribe of Qureisha. Oh, well. 

The Muslim "right" to Jerusalem was solved by mythology. Mohammed flew on his horse to heaven, when he died in a tent in Arabia. But he flew from the Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem, so Muslims own Jerusalem, too. 

Today Al Quds Day, as defined by Khomeini thirty years ago, is celebrated in Iran and other places. 

Like Toronto. Which also belongs to Islam, because the whole world belongs to Allah and his faithful.

Got that? 

Okay. 

Michael Coren writes today in the Toronto Sun about Al Quds Day, the Canadian version. 

But the most important thing is the photo, which could have been taken somewhere in the Middle East in the century after Mohammed. It shows people in desert garb burning two flags, but it's not the Persian and Byzantine banners. It's the flags of Israel and America. 

Here we are in 2012 --- or, as Joe Biden said last week, "the Twentieth Century" --- and our technology is higher than ever before. 

People are acting as if it's the year 812. 

But now they have nukes and missiles. 

That's the real meaning of Al Quds Day today.