It has been widely reported how the murdering thugs of Al Shabab started asking people in Nairobi the name of Mohammed's mother, and if they didn't know, were blown away in short order. The answer, by the way, is Aminah, and not Amanah, as stated by Matthew Parris on this morning's Andrew Marr Show. Do you think they'd have popped a cap in yo ass for getting the spelling wrong by one letter? I don't know, but I think Matthew should get his facts right and not endanger the lives of those hapless viewers who could in theory get caught up in such a tricky situation.
As it happens I had forgotten her name, but I could have told them that I have visited the site of her grave: a beautiful little mosque with a single minaret which nestles among an oasis of palm trees on the edge of a great salt pan in central Cyprus. It marks the spot where she fell off her donkey and died a couple of days later. Would that little piece of knowledge have saved me? Hard to say.
But what if, having realised their life-or-death question had become known to a wider world, they moved the goalposts and started asking a different question next time?
In case they do, there now follows Pelagius's quick guide to avoiding death at the hands of Al Shabab:
Mohammed, born Mecca 570 CE, died Medina 632 CE.
Favourite out of 11 or 13 wives: Aisha, in whose house he died. A mausoleum now marks the spot; interestingly, it only narrowly avoided destruction by a band of Wahabi extremists in 1925- which shows that nutjob Islamist militants are not a new phenomenon.
First line of first Sura of the Koran:
In the name of God the eternally merciful, the especially merciful
(NB- suras are 7 lines long and you might wish to memorise all 7- see Wiki for this and other trivia that may save your life one day).
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