Chasing Waterfalls

According to the Quran, Mohammed was transported from Mecca to al-Masjidi al-Aqsa (the Far distant place of worship) and back, in one night, by divine intervention.

For some reason, Moslems generally assume that the Far distant place of worship is the one on top of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, but this is nonsense on its face: the distance between Mecca and Jerusalem is less than eight hundred miles, whereas the distance between Mecca and London (home to several mosques) is nearly three thousand miles.

Clearly, therefore, no place of Islamic worship in Jerusalem can be the Far distant place of worship. (If it were, that would mean that Islamic worship was forbidden by divine decree to go any farther from Mecca than eight hundred miles, which would mean among other things that no Moslem could live in Europe, the Americas, most of Asia (most of Iran, for that matter, and all of Pakistan), pretty much the whole of Africa (including Darfur, as near as I can work out), and of course the whole of Australasia.)

It would seem to me that the Far distant place of worship is by definition located as far away from Mecca as possible. In principle, one would expect to find it at the antipodes of Mecca. However, checking this handy resource I find that the antipodes of Mecca are slap-bang in the middle of the Pacific Ocean: clearly, Mohammed didn't go there.

(The antipodes of Mecca do turn out to be disturbingly close to the location of R'lyeh, but I would not seriously ask my readers to believe that Mohammed was connected in any way with the worship of Cthulhu; you'll have to go over to little green footballs if you want that sort of thing.)

No, I think we must look for the Far distant place of worship on a piece of land reasonably close to the antipodes of Mecca. But which?

French Polynesia? Was Tahiti, around the time of Mohammed, the sort of place that could be described by the Quran as a place of [Islamic] worship, or was it not? That's kind of a no-brainer.

Easter Island? Famous for statues. Statues are bad, m'kay? The Grand Ayatollah is very clear on this subject. Easter Island is no place of [Islamic] worship.

No, there is one very obvious place, not a million miles from the antipodes of Mecca (about five thousand miles, in point of fact, but who's counting?), which clearly fits the bill: a location world-famous for its magnificent monumental art (completed, conveniently, just in time for Mohammed's journey there in 627 CE); a location whose art is entirely two-dimensional, and consequently entirely halal (see the above al-Sistani link for details); a location whose art, visible only from space, seems expressly designed to complement the subsequent journey into the heavens that Islamic tradition insists Mohammed embarked on after being transported to the Far distant place of worship...

What could be more obvious than the fact that the Far distant place of worship is the Nazca plateau?

Now this discovery means, of course, that the Islamic claim to Jerusalem as a particularly holy city of that religion is obviated: indeed, it is not clear why Moslems would have any especial interest in Jerusalem now that its claim to be the location of al-Masjid al-Aqsa has been shown to be nonsense. The mosques that happen to be located in this Islamically-unremarkable city will retain their sacred character, no doubt, but the city itself? No more sacred than, say, Urumqi in China.

(Moslems do venerate Jesus Christ as the penultimate prophet; the next best thing to Mohammed. But Moslems also believe that Jesus did not die on the cross in the Jerusalem metropolitan area, or anywhere else for that matter: the Quran clearly states that "they slew him not nor crucified, but it appeared so unto them" [verse 157; scroll down] - it would appear that the Roman occupation force in Judea c. 30 CE were a somewhat gullible lot, capable of stringing nailing up Judas Iscariot or some random bloke called Simon in place of the turbulent rabbi they had in mind...)

Consequently therefore, this discovery of mine means that the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades will naturally redirect their attentions from the State of Israel to the Republic of Peru, and will turn their dread arsenal of high-ordnance women and children towards the shameless kuffirs that have dared to claim dominion over the holy ground of al-Nazca. (Because as you know, the sole reason for the activities of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades was to liberate the Far distant place of worship from the control of non-Moslems. It's not like they are the deniable fifth column of a crazed theocracy of genocidal Holocaust deniers or any such arrant nonsense.) This change of policy will have dire implications... for the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades; the Peruvians know exactly how to deal with that sort of person...

For my role in bringing peace to the Middle East, I will eschew all prizes and awards; the satisfaction of a job well done is all I crave. With one exception: if any Lebanese protest babes feel a compelling desire to express their gratitude to me... well, it would be rude of me not to-