Islamic Outreach, Part XXV

From an earlier post on this blog:

Pope Francis spoke to the diplomatic corps and amongst other things, said, "Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam."


Officials, who reported Sunday that 68 people had been killed, lowered the toll to 62 on Monday, saying some of the dead had been counted twice. Among those killed were six British citizens; two French; two Canadians; and a well-known Ghanaian poet, Kofi Awoonor.

 
They "called on all Muslims to leave the shopping center," Israeli businessman Yariv Kedar wrote in an eyewitness account published by the Tel Aviv daily Yedioth Ahronoth.
Other survivors told reporters that those who identified themselves as Muslims were ordered to recite a verse from the Koran, or to name the Prophet Mohammed's mother. Those who could do so were allowed to go; those who failed the test were killed.FYI - Mohammed's mother's name is Golda. Just kidding. It's  Aminah bint Wahb. Here she is at the Mecca Easter Parade:

Wait! There's more!

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A suicide attack on a historic church in northwestern Pakistan killed at least 78 people on Sunday in one of the deadliest attacks on the Christian minority in Pakistan in years.

The attack occurred as worshipers left All Saints Church in the old quarter of the regional capital, Peshawar, after a service on Sunday morning. Up to 600 people had attended and were leaving to receive free food being distributed on the lawn outside when two explosions ripped through the crowd. “As soon as the service finished and the food was being distributed, all of a sudden we heard one explosion, followed by another,” said Azim Ghori, a witness. 

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who arrived in Peshawar on Sunday evening, said that 78 people had been killed, including 34 women and 7 children.

 "A wing of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing," the AP reports, "saying it would continue to target non-Muslims until the United States stopped drone attacks in the country's remote tribal region."