Is it Methodism? Judaism? Mormonism? Anglicanism? Roman Catholicism? Hinduism? Buddhism? What about Jainism? If you said ‘Islam’ then you’d be spot on.
A violent maniac who set off nail bombs in London at the end of the last century in order to spark a ‘race war’ and who is serving a 50 year prison sentence, has decided to not only become a Muslim but is also insisting that he should be called ‘Saddam’. The bombing maniac, David Copeland aged 44, has converted to Islam in order to find ‘forgiveness’ and get ‘a second chance’. He’s also using the name ‘Saddam’ in order to honour the late and unlamented former Iraqi dictator. The choice of name is interesting and doesn’t suggest that Copeland has embarked on one of the minority paths within Islam that exist. This is especially the case as the name ‘Saddam’ has the meanings in Arabic of ‘he who confronts’ and ‘one who frequently causes collisions’. He could not have taken a more polarising name.
I’d heard rumours of this conversion happening but this article from the Sun solidifies them somewhat. I must admit that I really cannot see what attracted a violent, murdering maniac like Copeland to a religion like Islam? Do I need a ‘sarcasm’ sign here? Probably not.
The Sun said:
NAILBOMB killer David Copeland has converted to Islam in the hope of “getting a second chance”.
The 44-year-old was jailed for a 13-day hate campaign in 1999 that left three people dead and 140 injured.
Engineer Copeland, who had Nazi flags hanging in his home, wanted to “stir up a racial war” with homemade explosives targeting London’s black, Bengali and LGBT communities.
But he now hopes he will be “re-born in a different body after death”.
He has told inmates at high- security HMP Frankland in Durham to call him “Saddam” — in admiration of the Iraqi dictator.
He was befriended inside by Andy Ross, since freed after serving 11½ years for armed robbery.
The Sunderland-born bare-knuckle boxer, 37, said: “Copeland prays every day and sees practising as a Muslim as a way of getting forgiveness and changing. But he still has a twisted mind.”
I must say that he seems a little confused to say the least about his religion as Islam doesn’t have a really strong belief in reincarnation. Maybe if he was interested in reincarnation he should have chosen Hinduism?
Although it’s quite possible that Copeland has become a ‘Muslim of convenience’ in prison either to game the system or to get protection from the Muslim gangs inside, it is also quite possible that Copeland chose Islam precisely because it is associated with violence. If that latter is the case then he will join a large number of other violent nutters who have chosen Islam or been attracted to it because of Islam’s association with violent nutbaggery.
