Surely if a prize were to be awarded for the week's most controversial article, it would go to Shukan Shincho's piece titled "If you're traveling abroad, here is a phrase from the Quran you should memorize."
The passage, known in Arabic as the Shahada, is the basic statement of the Islamic faith. It translates into English as "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger." Shukan Shincho transliterates the original phonetically using katakana.
The article was written in response to the militant jihadis who murdered 22 people — including seven Japanese — on July 1 but spared the lives of fellow Muslims. Shukan Shincho's article suggests that knowing the Shahada may help Japanese survive a similar situation in the future.
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