A long-time and frequent commenter at the Jihad Watch blog, "gravenimage", is an artist and has quite an oeuvre of work, many of her pieces apparently being woodcut engravings (hence her nickname, one supposes).
Recently, in a Jihad Watch comments thread attached to an article Robert Spencer put up wishing all Jewish Jihad Watchers a happy new year (L'shana tov!), gravenimage took the opportunity to show other readers her piece titled "I Am a Gharkad Tree" -- which graces my article here up top. About this particular work, she writes:
"My gharkad tree painting itself is watercolor and sepia ink, and was inspired by both illuminated Haggadahs and illuminated Ethiopian bibles done on a gold-leaf ground."
"My gharkad tree painting itself is watercolor and sepia ink, and was inspired by both illuminated Haggadahs and illuminated Ethiopian bibles done on a gold-leaf ground."
What is a "gharkad tree", many readers may ask?
The title is an expression of support and solidarity for Jews, in defiance of inveterate hatred Muslims cultivate against Jews -- for, one of myriad ways they express that hatred finds official voice in an infamous hadith from one of the three most authoritative hadith collectors, Sahih Muslim:
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him -- but the tree Gharqad would not say (this), for it is the tree of the Jews.
All one has to do is Google "gharkad" (or its variant "gharqad" -- those Arabs and/or Orientalists constantly vary their transliterations) and one will find plenty of current appeals to this ancient hadith by bloodthirsty antisemitic Jews today. Like this one, to adduce one example of thousands one could pluck from a turban.
Or the Hamas Charter, Article 7.
I say the anti-Islam movement adopt this as a catch phrase -- "I Am a Gharkad Tree!" -- and sport it on t-shirts, bumper stickers, hats galore.
Gravenimage's image is elegantly emblematic of our hope and resolve to stand by our Jewish friends -- the proverbial canaries in a coalmine in their often perilous existence within the very maws of hot jihad in Israel surrounded by the wild hyenas of Islam.
Gravenimage's image is elegantly emblematic of our hope and resolve to stand by our Jewish friends -- the proverbial canaries in a coalmine in their often perilous existence within the very maws of hot jihad in Israel surrounded by the wild hyenas of Islam.
Postscript: The botanical taxonomy of the gharkad tree
It has been bandied about the Internet that the gharkad is the same as the boxthorn -- specifically the Lycium shawii. However, according to this website, the gharkad's Latin taxonomic
name is actually Nitraria retusa, and the plant looks more like a bush, not a tree;
while the supposed gharkad (Lycium shawii) is in Arabic not gharkad but rather ausaj.
The reader will find pictures of both (among many other plants) at the above-linked website. If this website is correct, it wouldn't surprise me if the early Mohammedans couldn't tell the difference between a bush and a tree. On the other hand, perhaps the hadith is being sarcastic: it would be saying, in effect, that all the trees will betray the Jews except for this
one "tree", the gharkad. Only problem: this gharkad is just a scraggly bush, and couldn't hide a
baby lamb. No matter, come the Second Coming or any time before then, Muslims won't find Jews and their supporters unarmed, cowering behind a bush. We'll be ready for them -- as soon as we can stop hitting our damn snooze alarm that keeps blinking 12:00 instead of 911. That great day will come -- it's only a matter of when, not if.
