(2005-05-17) — As many as 25 people died and dozens more were injured during riots in Afghanistan today which erupted over what one Muslim cleric called “the U.S. media’s desecration-by-mispelling” of the name of Islam’s most holy book.

Indeed, American editors have failed to reach consensus on how to render the holy book’s name. Some spell it with a ‘K’ others with a ‘Q’ and — perhaps most offensive to Muslim sensibilities — some insert a meaningless apostrophe in the middle of the word.

“They’re mocking our religion and our God by using a wide variety of spellings for the holy book,” said the unnamed imam. “Journalists and editors are the stormtroopers of America’s war on Islam. They’re trying to humiliate and intimidate us with alternate and phonetic spellings, sowing seeds of doubt about the book Allah gave to the Prophet. We will fill the streets with the blood of the infidels and anyone else who gets in the way.”

The latest casualities followed the deaths of 17 people in weekend riots over an inaccurate story in Newsweek magazine about a report that U.S. military guards had flushed a Koran down a toilet at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

The cleric, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, denied that the latest uprising on the Arab street was simply part of the ‘regularly-scheduled annual riot season‘.

“Our previously-scheduled generic riots have been preempted by these special, issue-oriented violent mobs,” he said. “Americans have nobody to blame but themselves for inflaming the passions of these peaceful religious people.”

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