Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Breaking the "Ismail Ax" riddle - Nightline may have traced it back to a beat poem from the 60s. (HT: Free Republic)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The tattoo is probably Ismail Yk,recording artist.

Anonymous said...

im not sure if this is a rumor or whatnot. but i wikipedia'd ismail and it is a name or a muslim leader whos father, declared him dead and hid him to protect him from persecution. On Wiki, it said that Cho's parents took him away to save him. Maybe he sees some sick connection, especially with the prejudice of Arabs. Possbly he could find correlatoion between himself and Ismail

Anonymous said...

Most accounts say it was not a tattoo, but written in red ink.

I wish someone could cite a primary source for the information - were the letters recognizably this?

I s m a i l [space] A X

Or, instead, something very similar?
(I've seen it reported as lowercase x, with a hyphen instead of space, etc.)

Secondary or tertiary sources got the facts rather wrong on the return address of the package sent to NBC. To my eye, the leters are very clear:
A . [space] I s h m a e l

If so, then the guy doesn't seem to have been terribly concerned with the spelling difference ("Ishmael" being a transliteration of the Hebrew, "Ismail" of the Arabic), and appears more focused on the name or person.

In the Bible/Q'ran, Ishmael/Ismail was the first-born son of Abraham/Ibrahim, by his bondswoman, Hagar. The second-born was Isaac, born to his wife, Sarah. Arabs are said to be descended from the first-born, and the Q'ran says it was this son who was rescued from being a human sacrifice. Jews are said to be descended from the second-born, and the Torah=Bible states (with some slight ambiguity) that it was *this* son who was rescued from being a human sacrifice.

"AX" might be "alpha chi", a shorthand term for an honor fraternity, Alpha Chi Omega.
(If it were, instead, "Ax", this becomes quite unlikely.)

"AX" might possibly mean "Arcade Version" (of a video game).

If, instead, it were "[triangle][X]", it might stand for the buttons on a videogame joystick, giving rise to a sinister but far-fetched interpretation
[triangle] = "shoot";
[X] = "reload".

Anonymous said...

Keep working, everyone! If we crack the code, it will all make sense!

RJN said...

There is a version of this story that has Ishmael as "the soldier of God" or some such. So then, Ishael's Ax would be "The Soldier of God - Cho - Axing down the enemies of God. Presumably the enemies are the students, or their proxies, who made so much fun, and sport, of Cho in his classes.

RJN said...

There is a version of this story that has Ishmael "the soldier of God" or some such. So then, Ishael's Ax would be "The Soldier of God - Cho - Axing down the enemies of God. Presumably the enemies are the students, or their proxies, who made so much fun, and sport, of Cho in his classes.

Anonymous said...

… “ismail ax = ismailax = is mai lax = is my luck” … written in red for a korean? that’s bad luck? …