You can use the Koran to cure AIDS. You can use the Koran to cure cancer. But heaven help you if you try to use the Koran to dance. Or not, as the case may be:

An aide to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has come under fire for attending a ceremony that involved actions deemed insulting to the Koran... In comments published on Sunday, opponents targeted his vice-president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, who is in charge of a culture and tourism body, for hosting a ceremony where women in traditional dress carried in the Koran, Islam's holy book, to music. Media described the ceremony as a "dance."

So much is the Koran unfriendly to all that is dance-related that Somalia's sharia-enforcing al-Shabab militias - sitting just outside Mogadishu, having taken over the rest of the country, and flush with a new infusion of European ransom payments - just got done flogging 32 people for dancing. This is the same brand of lunatics who are holding two Italian Catholic nuns. So it's very important to be clear: no on dancing, yes on kidnapping old women who are trying to help the poor. Don't get them mixed up.

Oh - and obviously don't throw the Koran on the floor. Then the tanks and armored vehicles will be needed to restore calm and limit casualties.

References and previously after the jump...