"Daughters of thy uncles and aunts"

The Holy Book

The writer whose letter to the editor provoked me on June 22 has responded to my request that he "possibly tell us a bit more about where he is coming from" when he complained about not making an "al-Qaida-linked" hit list.
    His reply was printed on p. 2 of the July 1 edition of The Chapel Hill Herald, under the title "Letter writer sets record straight":

Reader Morris Dean in a June 24 letter ("Hurley should give rest of the story" [the editor's title, not mine]) wonders whether my June 22 letter mocking Islamic terrorists ("Terrorists' hit list omission lamented") was motivated by some family military history [sic] event.
    No (though we do have various experiences and connections there).
    Instead, I like to think that taunts like mine might aid the national effort to separate the terrorists from the sea of Muslims in which they swim. It shouldn't be too difficult. Mohammed's OK of first-cousin marriages 14 centuries ago has ensured that we're not dealing with real high SAT scores here. I hope Mr. Dean continues to "criticize and occasionally ridicule Islamists" on his blog.

Uh, come again? Mr. Hurley seems to be saying that the Jihadists have descended through so many first cousins that they're less intelligent than Muslims who descended through fewer.
    First, though, it does seem that Muhammad did "OK" marriage to first cousins:

Allah says: “O Prophet! We have made lawful to thee the wives to whom thou hast paid their dowers; and those whom thy right hand possesses out of the captives of war whom Allah has assigned to thee; and daughters of thy paternal uncles and aunts, and daughters of thy maternal uncles and aunts, who migrated with thee; …”
    Allah has made marriage with first cousins lawful. There is no dispute about this in Islamic Law. Anyone who wishes to dispute with this is placing his own religion in serious danger. [http://en.islamtoday.net/node/1265]

    But getting back to what Mr. Hurley might be saying, does his apparent contention that terrorist Muslims will be less intelligent than other Muslims mean, for example, that if a Muslim's ancestors married enough first cousins, he'd be prone to believe things like, "If you blow up some infidels by detonating yourself, you'll go straight to Paradise"?
    And if his ancestors didn't marry quite so many, he might only believe things like, "If your daughter gets raped, you'd better have her stoned to death to preserve your family honor"?

But people marry their first cousins in other cultures, too. Doesn't Mr. Hurley's sort of eugenicist's approach imply that if a Christian's ancestors married enough first cousins, he'd be prone to believe things like, "Simply believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and you'll have eternal life"?
    And if his ancestors didn't marry quite so many, he might only believe things like, "The Bible is the literally revealed word of God"?

But what does that have to do with Mr. Hurley's taunting the terrorists in order to "aid the national effort to separate the terrorists from the sea of Muslims in which they swim"?
    Does he think that they're so much less intelligent than other Muslim swimmers that taunts will cause them to stop swimming and walk out of the sea so they can be arrested?
    Maybe someone will ask him.
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July 6. I decided to ask him myself. My letter was published this morning.