Saudi Explosions

Apparently the chatter was real and terrorists have struck in Saudi Arabia. I will post more details when I can sift through them and make some sense. This quote from the news story is interesting:

On May 7 police said they were hunting 19 suspected militants, mainly Saudis, believed to be hiding in Riyadh after a shoot-out with security forces the previous day.

The Interior Ministry said police had also found a huge cache of explosives, hand grenades, ammunition and machineguns after storming what they said was the “terrorists’ lair.”

I don’t remember where I saw it (it was somewhere in the blogosphere), but I remember someone asking what the significance of the number 19 was to the terrorists (19 terrorists committed the 9/11 atrocities). Last night, while reading the Age of Sacred Terror, I came across this Sura from the Quran:

Over it are Nineteen.

And We have set none but angels as Guardians of the Fire; and We have fixed their number only as a trial for Unbelievers,- in order that the People of the Book may arrive at certainty, and the Believers may increase in Faith,- and that no doubts may be left for the People of the Book and the Believers, and that those in whose hearts is a disease and the Unbelievers may say, “What symbol doth Allah intend by this ?” Thus doth Allah leave to stray whom He pleaseth, and guide whom He pleaseth: and none can know the forces of thy Lord, except He and this is no other than a warning to mankind.

The translation I have posted is slightly different from the one in The Age of Sacred Terror, so here is another translation:

Above it are nineteen.

We have appointed only angels to be wardens of the Fire, and their number have We made to be a stumbling-block for those who disbelieve; that those to whom the Scripture hath been given may have certainty, and that believers may increase in faith; and that those to whom the Scripture hath been given and believers may not doubt; and that those in whose hearts there is disease, and disbelievers, may say: What meaneth Allah by this similitude ? Thus Allah sendeth astray whom He will, and whom He will He guideth. None knoweth the hosts of thy Lord save Him. This is naught else than a Reminder unto mortals.

You have to read the whole Sura to really get the gist of it- essentially it is a threat to unbelievers. They will be thrown into the ‘burning’ or what is alternately called the ‘Hell-Fire,’ and the nineteen are there to be the “Wardens of the Fire.” At anyrate, that is the only significance of the number nineteen that I have stumbled across.