Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Cho Seung-Hui: What does "ISMAIL AX" mean?

Cho Seung-Hui: What does "ISMAIL AX" mean?

STRANGE

Cho Seung-Hui was the shooter on the campus of Virgina Tech. He killed 33 people. The words "ISMAIL AX" were found written in red ink on the inside of one of Cho's arms. Here is what that phrase might mean:

The reference may be to the Biblical sacrifice of Abraham, in which God commands the patriarch to sacrifice his own son. Abraham begins to comply, but God intervenes at the last moment to save the boy.

In the Jewish and Christian traditions, the son is Isaac, father of the Jewish people; in Islam, it is his older half-brother, Ismail (Ishmael in Hebrew). Abraham uses a knife in most versions of the story, but some accounts have him wielding an ax.

A more obscure reference may be to a passage in the Koran referring to Abraham's destruction of pagan idols; in some accounts, he uses an ax to do so.

Those who believe that Isma'il was the rightful successor to Jafar are known as Ismailis."

The whole sentence is this "ismail ax au milieu" - which translates to "Ismail is the one in the center."

(have a theory? add it here)

http://www.listafterlist.com/tabid/57/listid/6468/News++Weather/Cho+SeungHui+What+does+ISMAIL+AX+mean.aspx

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