Friday, September 28, 2012
How I came to Islam - Dr. Laurence Brown | Interfaith Issues - Episode 3
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Muhammad and modesty before God
Muhammad and modesty before God
Asir Gov. Prince Faisal bin Khaled with officials of the Charitable Society for Qur'an Memorization in Abha recently. (SPA)
ARAB NEWS
THE Prophet (may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him) said: "Every religion has its characteristic, and the characteristic of Islam is modesty." (Al-Muwatta)
Modesty, in the sense of shyly protecting oneself with propriety from the lustful or envious gaze, means one takes care about how to express oneself in word and deed. One does not want others to look at one strangely or as if one is blameworthy. It encourages one to be proper in behavior and thought with other people, and with one's relationship with God. The Prophet once said to his companions: "Be bashful before God according to His right to modesty before Him."
They said: "O Messenger of God, verily we are shy, praise be to God."
He said: "That is not it. Modesty before God according to His right to modesty is that you protect your mind in what it learns; your stomach in what it ingests. And remember death and the tribulations attached to it; and whoever wishes for the Hereafter, leaves the adornments of this life.
"So whoever does all that is truly bashful before God according to His Right to modesty."
Modesty and shame apply to every aspect of one's life, and awareness of God's presence helps one to be bashful and seemly in the way we comport ourselves in every activity we are engaged in. It crowns the moral ethics of behavior and practice, for it inspires him to do all that is beautiful and prevents him from doing all that is wicked. It is a shield of chastity for the body and of purity for the soul, as private shame concerning one's wickedness stems from being aware that God is watching. The Prophet said:
"Modesty is from the faith, and the faith is in Paradise." (Ahmed)
On the occasion of his marriage in Madinah with Zaynab, the daughter of Jahsh, the Prophet invited the people to his wedding feast. This was a late morning invitation, and most people simply rose and left after eating, as was the custom. The bridegroom, however, remained sitting and some people, perhaps thinking that this was a signal that they, too, should remain with him, stayed behind after the other guests had left. Out of propriety, the Messenger of God did not like to tell the people to go away, so he got up and left the room with his ward, ibn Abbas.
He went as far as the room of Ayesha, another of his wives, before returning back to Zaynab's room, expecting the guests to have taken the hint. However, they were still there, sitting in their places, so he turned away once again and went back to Ayesha's room, still accompanied by his ward.
The second time they returned the people had left, so the Messenger of God went in. Ibn Abbas was going to follow him, but Muhammad took the dividing curtain and drew it across the doorway, blocking the egress.
One of the story's lessons is that a person's home is private and one should be shy of abusing an invitation to it. Moreover, because Muhammad(peace be upon him) was too nice to ask people to leave, his actions provide an example of how to teach a lesson without being offensive. He used a non-verbal means to show the people they should leave and, once his private space was vacated, he used another non-verbal gesture to drive home the fact that the invitation was over.
Moses and Zaphorah
After waiting for a long time in the queue, being only two females among all the males, someone finally helped them, and they were able to take their flock of sheep and goats home. Their father was old, and they had no brother to do their outside chores. Being one of the most onerous of tasks, drawing water from the well in order to water one's livestock was one performed by men; a lucky day for them to come home early with the drove freshly watered. The father was surprised about their early return, and when he inquired into the occurrence, his daughters told him that a man who seemed a traveler had helped them. The father asked one of them to seek the man out and invite him home. Upon returning to the well, the lady approached him shyly. When she was in earshot, she gave him her father's invitation so that he might recompense him for his help. He kept his gaze low to the ground as he replied to her, saying that he had done it for the sake of God alone, and required no compensation. However, realizing that this was God-sent help, he accepted the invitation. As she was walking ahead of him, the wind blew her dress, which revealed part of her lower legs, so he asked her to walk behind him and point out the way he should follow when he reached a fork in the foot path.
Once they arrived at the house, the father presented him with a meal and asked where he was from. The man told him that he was a fugitive from Egypt. The daughter who had brought him home whispered to her father: "O Father, hire him, because the best of the workers is one who is strong and trustworthy."
He asked her: "How do you know he is strong?"
She said: "He lifted the stone lid of the well that cannot be removed except by many together." He asked her: "How do you know that he is trustworthy?"
She said: "He asked me to walk behind him so that he couldn't see me as I walked, and when I conversed with him, he kept his gaze low with shyness and respect."
This was Prophet Moses (may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him) who had run away from Egypt after killing someone by mistake, and the father of the girls was a God-fearing man from the tribes of Midian; a man who was sonless, but had had these two daughters. The verse in the Qur'an that tells us this story stresses upon the manner of her approaching Moses: "So one of the two (daughters) came to him walking modestly..." (Qur'an 28:25)
Both the way Zaphorah approached Moses and his care about not seeing more of her than was needful at the time describe acute senses of propriety. Neither had a chaperone, nor could people see what they did, yet both conducted themselves with the utmost decorum. This was done out of fear of the One who sees everything. The outcome was that when her father proposed to Moses that he marry one of his daughters, Moses considered them a suitable marriage prospect. He and his daughters also saw in him all the virtues a man needs as a mate for a woman to consent to his guidance and nurture through life.
- Courtesy of www.islamreligion.com
Asir Gov. Prince Faisal bin Khaled with officials of the Charitable Society for Qur'an Memorization in Abha recently. (SPA)
ARAB NEWS
THE Prophet (may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him) said: "Every religion has its characteristic, and the characteristic of Islam is modesty." (Al-Muwatta)
Modesty, in the sense of shyly protecting oneself with propriety from the lustful or envious gaze, means one takes care about how to express oneself in word and deed. One does not want others to look at one strangely or as if one is blameworthy. It encourages one to be proper in behavior and thought with other people, and with one's relationship with God. The Prophet once said to his companions: "Be bashful before God according to His right to modesty before Him."
They said: "O Messenger of God, verily we are shy, praise be to God."
He said: "That is not it. Modesty before God according to His right to modesty is that you protect your mind in what it learns; your stomach in what it ingests. And remember death and the tribulations attached to it; and whoever wishes for the Hereafter, leaves the adornments of this life.
"So whoever does all that is truly bashful before God according to His Right to modesty."
Modesty and shame apply to every aspect of one's life, and awareness of God's presence helps one to be bashful and seemly in the way we comport ourselves in every activity we are engaged in. It crowns the moral ethics of behavior and practice, for it inspires him to do all that is beautiful and prevents him from doing all that is wicked. It is a shield of chastity for the body and of purity for the soul, as private shame concerning one's wickedness stems from being aware that God is watching. The Prophet said:
"Modesty is from the faith, and the faith is in Paradise." (Ahmed)
On the occasion of his marriage in Madinah with Zaynab, the daughter of Jahsh, the Prophet invited the people to his wedding feast. This was a late morning invitation, and most people simply rose and left after eating, as was the custom. The bridegroom, however, remained sitting and some people, perhaps thinking that this was a signal that they, too, should remain with him, stayed behind after the other guests had left. Out of propriety, the Messenger of God did not like to tell the people to go away, so he got up and left the room with his ward, ibn Abbas.
He went as far as the room of Ayesha, another of his wives, before returning back to Zaynab's room, expecting the guests to have taken the hint. However, they were still there, sitting in their places, so he turned away once again and went back to Ayesha's room, still accompanied by his ward.
The second time they returned the people had left, so the Messenger of God went in. Ibn Abbas was going to follow him, but Muhammad took the dividing curtain and drew it across the doorway, blocking the egress.
One of the story's lessons is that a person's home is private and one should be shy of abusing an invitation to it. Moreover, because Muhammad(peace be upon him) was too nice to ask people to leave, his actions provide an example of how to teach a lesson without being offensive. He used a non-verbal means to show the people they should leave and, once his private space was vacated, he used another non-verbal gesture to drive home the fact that the invitation was over.
Moses and Zaphorah
After waiting for a long time in the queue, being only two females among all the males, someone finally helped them, and they were able to take their flock of sheep and goats home. Their father was old, and they had no brother to do their outside chores. Being one of the most onerous of tasks, drawing water from the well in order to water one's livestock was one performed by men; a lucky day for them to come home early with the drove freshly watered. The father was surprised about their early return, and when he inquired into the occurrence, his daughters told him that a man who seemed a traveler had helped them. The father asked one of them to seek the man out and invite him home. Upon returning to the well, the lady approached him shyly. When she was in earshot, she gave him her father's invitation so that he might recompense him for his help. He kept his gaze low to the ground as he replied to her, saying that he had done it for the sake of God alone, and required no compensation. However, realizing that this was God-sent help, he accepted the invitation. As she was walking ahead of him, the wind blew her dress, which revealed part of her lower legs, so he asked her to walk behind him and point out the way he should follow when he reached a fork in the foot path.
Once they arrived at the house, the father presented him with a meal and asked where he was from. The man told him that he was a fugitive from Egypt. The daughter who had brought him home whispered to her father: "O Father, hire him, because the best of the workers is one who is strong and trustworthy."
He asked her: "How do you know he is strong?"
She said: "He lifted the stone lid of the well that cannot be removed except by many together." He asked her: "How do you know that he is trustworthy?"
She said: "He asked me to walk behind him so that he couldn't see me as I walked, and when I conversed with him, he kept his gaze low with shyness and respect."
This was Prophet Moses (may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him) who had run away from Egypt after killing someone by mistake, and the father of the girls was a God-fearing man from the tribes of Midian; a man who was sonless, but had had these two daughters. The verse in the Qur'an that tells us this story stresses upon the manner of her approaching Moses: "So one of the two (daughters) came to him walking modestly..." (Qur'an 28:25)
Both the way Zaphorah approached Moses and his care about not seeing more of her than was needful at the time describe acute senses of propriety. Neither had a chaperone, nor could people see what they did, yet both conducted themselves with the utmost decorum. This was done out of fear of the One who sees everything. The outcome was that when her father proposed to Moses that he marry one of his daughters, Moses considered them a suitable marriage prospect. He and his daughters also saw in him all the virtues a man needs as a mate for a woman to consent to his guidance and nurture through life.
- Courtesy of www.islamreligion.com
Mursi links freedom with ‘responsibility’ in his debut United Nations speech
Mursi links freedom with 'responsibility' in his debut United Nations speech
AP
Thursday 27 September 2012
UNITED NATIONS: Egypt's new President Muhammed Mursi debuts at the United Nations yesterday with a speech that will be closely watched by world leaders for clues about his democratic intentions and plans for lifting his country out of crippling poverty.
Mursi, an Islamist and key figure in the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood, is the first democratically-elected leader of the ancient land at the heart of the Arab world. He was sworn in June 30.
AP
Thursday 27 September 2012
UNITED NATIONS: Egypt's new President Muhammed Mursi debuts at the United Nations yesterday with a speech that will be closely watched by world leaders for clues about his democratic intentions and plans for lifting his country out of crippling poverty.
Mursi, an Islamist and key figure in the once-banned Muslim Brotherhood, is the first democratically-elected leader of the ancient land at the heart of the Arab world. He was sworn in June 30.
Another Arab leader making his first appearances at the UN General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting after being swept into power by the Arab Spring revolutions was Yemen's President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who took office in February after more than a year of political turmoil and is now trying to steer his country's democratic transition. Hadi called on the UN to grant membership to Palestine and support a transfer of power in Syria.
"The only option for our brothers in Syria is to agree on an initiative ... for peaceful change and transfer of power through ballot boxes," he said.
Mursi previewed his General Assembly remarks in a speech delivered Tuesday at former President Bill Clinton's Global Initiative. Addressing the violence that raged across the Muslim world in response to a video produced in the US that denigrated Islam's Prophet Muhammad, the Egyptian leader said freedom of expression must come with "responsibility." He appeared to have been responding to President Barack Obama's General Assembly speech earlier Tuesday in which the US leader again condemned the video but sternly defended the US Constitution's guarantees of free speech.
At least 51 people were killed in violence that erupted last week in Muslim countries, including the US ambassador to Libya and three other Americans targeted in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.
Mursi said the video and the violent reaction to it demanded "reflection." He said freedom of expression must be linked with responsibility, "especially when it comes with serious implications for international peace and stability."
With no sign of an end to the Security Council's paralysis over intervening to end the raging Syrian civil war, Germany's UN Ambassador Peter Wittig said his country chose to focus the council's ministerial session on something new and positive in the Mideast — "the emergence of the Arab League as a regional actor that has proved to be essential for conflict resolution."
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Syria: Damascus hit by two explosions
Syria: Damascus hit by two explosions
Two loud explosions targeted one of Syria's top military command buildings in the capital Damascus.
Image 1 of 2
The wreckage of the military administration building that partially collapsed following an explosion in the Syrian capital Damascus Photo: AFP
State media and residents said the explosions struck the General Staff Command Building (Hay'at al Arkan) in the Umayad Square in central Damascus, which is one of the top military headquarters in Syria.
The Free Syrian Army, the main rebel force fighting to overthow Assad, claimed responsibility for the attack which it said killed dozens of people.
But an armed forces statement said military leaders were unhurt and only a number of guards were wounded in the blasts.
The Syrian information minister said the attack had caused "only material damage" and that security forces were chasing "armed terrorists" - a term the authorities use to refer to insurgents waging a violent uprising to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Gunfire and other smaller blasts could be heard after the explosions, as well as the sound of ambulance sirens. Many roads in the centre of the capital were blocked, residents said.
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"The explosions were very loud. They shook the whole city and the windows of our house were shuddering," one resident reached by telephone said.
"Black smoke was seen rising from the area near the army staff building," the resident, who declined to be named, said.
A Damascus bomb attack on July 18 killed several top security officials, including Assad's brother-in-law, the defence and interior ministers. That attack paved the way for a rebel advance into the centre of the capital, although they have since been pushed back to the outskirts.
Another resident said: "I was woken up at four minutes to seven by the first loud explosion. Five or six minutes later there was a second."
"We're used to the sound of artillery but these were very big - bigger than usual. I can hear gunfire still," he said, speaking an hour and a half after the blasts.
He said one of the blasts appeared to have been in the area of the General Staff Command.
He said he could see soldiers stationed on the roof of the nearby Air Force Intelligence building.
Syria's conflict, once a peaceful protest movement, has evolved into a civil war that the U.N. special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said was "extremely bad and getting worse." He said the stalemate in the country could soon "find an opening", without elaborating.
Even Damascus has become a battleground between Assad's forces and opposition fighters.
Activists say more than 27,000 people have been killed in the 18-month-old uprising against Assad.
With no foreseeable prospect of foreign intervention and diplomacy stuck, outgunned rebels have relied increasingly on attacks with homemade bombs, striving to level the playing field against a state using fighter jets, artillery and tanks.
At the annual UN General Assembly in New York, French President Francois Hollande sought to shake up international inertia over Syria's crisis by calling for UN protection of rebel-held areas to help end Syria's bloodshed and rights.
"The Syrian regime ... has no future among us," Hollande said in a speech. "Without any delay, I call upon the United Nations to provide immediately to the Syrian people all the support it asks of us and to protect liberated zones."
Protection for "liberated" areas would require no-fly zones enforced by foreign aircraft, which could stop deadly air raids by Assad's forces on populated areas. But there is little chance of securing a Security Council mandate for such action given the continuing opposition of veto-wielding members Russia and China.
The United States, European allies, Turkey and Gulf Arab states have sided with the Syrian opposition while Iran, Russia and China have backed Assad, whose family and minority Alawite sect have dominated the major Arab state for 42 years.
But Western powers have shied away from supplying military aid to the rebels to an extent that could turn the tide of the conflict, in part out of fear of arming Islamist militants who have joined the anti-Assad revolt.
Source: Reuters
Two loud explosions targeted one of Syria's top military command buildings in the capital Damascus.
Image 1 of 2
The wreckage of the military administration building that partially collapsed following an explosion in the Syrian capital Damascus Photo: AFP
State media and residents said the explosions struck the General Staff Command Building (Hay'at al Arkan) in the Umayad Square in central Damascus, which is one of the top military headquarters in Syria.
The Free Syrian Army, the main rebel force fighting to overthow Assad, claimed responsibility for the attack which it said killed dozens of people.
But an armed forces statement said military leaders were unhurt and only a number of guards were wounded in the blasts.
The Syrian information minister said the attack had caused "only material damage" and that security forces were chasing "armed terrorists" - a term the authorities use to refer to insurgents waging a violent uprising to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Gunfire and other smaller blasts could be heard after the explosions, as well as the sound of ambulance sirens. Many roads in the centre of the capital were blocked, residents said.
RELATED ARTICLES
Obama accuses Iran of 'propping up' Syria 25 Sep 2012
The Syrian children traumatised by war 25 Sep 2012
The abuse of Syrian children is a crime which needs to be punished 25 Sep 2012
No end in sight for Syria conflict, envoy warns 25 Sep 2012
Three children from same family killed in Syria 24 Sep 2012
Syria rebel army shifts from Turkey 23 Sep 2012
"The explosions were very loud. They shook the whole city and the windows of our house were shuddering," one resident reached by telephone said.
"Black smoke was seen rising from the area near the army staff building," the resident, who declined to be named, said.
A Damascus bomb attack on July 18 killed several top security officials, including Assad's brother-in-law, the defence and interior ministers. That attack paved the way for a rebel advance into the centre of the capital, although they have since been pushed back to the outskirts.
Another resident said: "I was woken up at four minutes to seven by the first loud explosion. Five or six minutes later there was a second."
"We're used to the sound of artillery but these were very big - bigger than usual. I can hear gunfire still," he said, speaking an hour and a half after the blasts.
He said one of the blasts appeared to have been in the area of the General Staff Command.
He said he could see soldiers stationed on the roof of the nearby Air Force Intelligence building.
Syria's conflict, once a peaceful protest movement, has evolved into a civil war that the U.N. special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said was "extremely bad and getting worse." He said the stalemate in the country could soon "find an opening", without elaborating.
Even Damascus has become a battleground between Assad's forces and opposition fighters.
Activists say more than 27,000 people have been killed in the 18-month-old uprising against Assad.
With no foreseeable prospect of foreign intervention and diplomacy stuck, outgunned rebels have relied increasingly on attacks with homemade bombs, striving to level the playing field against a state using fighter jets, artillery and tanks.
At the annual UN General Assembly in New York, French President Francois Hollande sought to shake up international inertia over Syria's crisis by calling for UN protection of rebel-held areas to help end Syria's bloodshed and rights.
"The Syrian regime ... has no future among us," Hollande said in a speech. "Without any delay, I call upon the United Nations to provide immediately to the Syrian people all the support it asks of us and to protect liberated zones."
Protection for "liberated" areas would require no-fly zones enforced by foreign aircraft, which could stop deadly air raids by Assad's forces on populated areas. But there is little chance of securing a Security Council mandate for such action given the continuing opposition of veto-wielding members Russia and China.
The United States, European allies, Turkey and Gulf Arab states have sided with the Syrian opposition while Iran, Russia and China have backed Assad, whose family and minority Alawite sect have dominated the major Arab state for 42 years.
But Western powers have shied away from supplying military aid to the rebels to an extent that could turn the tide of the conflict, in part out of fear of arming Islamist militants who have joined the anti-Assad revolt.
Source: Reuters
Syrian death toll now tops 30,000: activist group
Syrian death toll now tops 30,000: activist group
Related News
Syrian rebels bomb army command in Damascus
12:25pm EDT
Bombs explode at security site in Damascus: rebels
Tue, Sep 25 2012
Eyes wide shut, world watches Syria bleed
Sun, Sep 23 2012
Free Syrian Army rebel leaders move from Turkey to Syria
Sat, Sep 22 2012
Syrian air strike kills at least 54: activists
Thu, Sep 20 2012
Analysis & Opinion
Murders in the forest
Can the Middle East survive a post-Western era?
BEIRUT | Wed Sep 26, 2012 11:15am EDT
(Reuters) - At least 30,000 people have died in Syria's 18-month-old uprising, a British-based Syrian monitoring group said on Wednesday, and more than half of the victims counted were killed in the past five months.
The uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, which began in March 2011 as peaceful protests, has descended into civil war since rebels took up arms against a security force crackdown.
Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 30,716 people were killed. Most of them - at least 21,534 - were civilians. But his network of activists, who are based around Syria, do not divide their civilian death count between unarmed residents and those who have joined the rebels.
The pro-opposition Observatory said 7,322 soldiers fighting for Assad were killed, while at least 1,860 army defectors died fighting for the opposition.
"By looking through our figures, we noticed that the toll has been rising. Between 50 and 60 percent of those killed died in the past five months," Abdulrahman said.
Syrian authorities have said in the past that more than 2,600 members of the security forces have been killed, but have not given a casualty figure for several months.
Despite the rapidly rising death toll, international powers are stuck in a diplomatic stalemate. Western powers and Gulf Arab states back the opposition, while Russia, China and Iran are backing Assad.
The violence spiked rapidly in recent months as rebel forces spread, taking the fight across the country and into Syria's two major cities, the capital Damascus and business hub Aleppo.
Assad, who says his opponents are "terrorists" backed by foreign powers, has responded with heavy bombardment, including the use of fighter jets and helicopter gunships.
(This story corrects figure in headline)
(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Stephen Powell)
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
Related News
Syrian rebels bomb army command in Damascus
12:25pm EDT
Bombs explode at security site in Damascus: rebels
Tue, Sep 25 2012
Eyes wide shut, world watches Syria bleed
Sun, Sep 23 2012
Free Syrian Army rebel leaders move from Turkey to Syria
Sat, Sep 22 2012
Syrian air strike kills at least 54: activists
Thu, Sep 20 2012
Analysis & Opinion
Murders in the forest
Can the Middle East survive a post-Western era?
BEIRUT | Wed Sep 26, 2012 11:15am EDT
(Reuters) - At least 30,000 people have died in Syria's 18-month-old uprising, a British-based Syrian monitoring group said on Wednesday, and more than half of the victims counted were killed in the past five months.
The uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, which began in March 2011 as peaceful protests, has descended into civil war since rebels took up arms against a security force crackdown.
Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 30,716 people were killed. Most of them - at least 21,534 - were civilians. But his network of activists, who are based around Syria, do not divide their civilian death count between unarmed residents and those who have joined the rebels.
The pro-opposition Observatory said 7,322 soldiers fighting for Assad were killed, while at least 1,860 army defectors died fighting for the opposition.
"By looking through our figures, we noticed that the toll has been rising. Between 50 and 60 percent of those killed died in the past five months," Abdulrahman said.
Syrian authorities have said in the past that more than 2,600 members of the security forces have been killed, but have not given a casualty figure for several months.
Despite the rapidly rising death toll, international powers are stuck in a diplomatic stalemate. Western powers and Gulf Arab states back the opposition, while Russia, China and Iran are backing Assad.
The violence spiked rapidly in recent months as rebel forces spread, taking the fight across the country and into Syria's two major cities, the capital Damascus and business hub Aleppo.
Assad, who says his opponents are "terrorists" backed by foreign powers, has responded with heavy bombardment, including the use of fighter jets and helicopter gunships.
(This story corrects figure in headline)
(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Stephen Powell)
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Libya's Ansar says it quit Benghazi bases to preserve security
Libya's Ansar says it quit Benghazi bases to preserve security
BENGHAZI, Sept 22 (Reuters) - The Libyan Islamist militia Ansar al-Sharia said on Saturday it had evacuated its bases in Benghazi in the interest of security.
"The commander of the battalion gave orders to members to evacuate their premises and hand them over to the people of Benghazi," said spokesman Yousef al-Jehani. "We respect the views of the people of Benghazi, and to preserve security in the city we evacuated the premises."
The group, which has denied suggestions that it was responsible for an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in which the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed, had been the target of a mass protest in the city on Friday night.
BENGHAZI, Sept 22 (Reuters) - The Libyan Islamist militia Ansar al-Sharia said on Saturday it had evacuated its bases in Benghazi in the interest of security.
"The commander of the battalion gave orders to members to evacuate their premises and hand them over to the people of Benghazi," said spokesman Yousef al-Jehani. "We respect the views of the people of Benghazi, and to preserve security in the city we evacuated the premises."
The group, which has denied suggestions that it was responsible for an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in which the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed, had been the target of a mass protest in the city on Friday night.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Latest in Protests Over Anti-Islam Film
Latest in Protests Over Anti-Islam Film
By The Associated Press
September 21, 2012 (AP)
Here's a look at protests and events across the world on Friday connected to an amateurish anti-Muslim film produced in the United States and vulgar caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in a French satirical weekly. At least 47 people, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, have been killed in violence linked to the protests over the film, which has also renewed debate over freedom of expression in the U.S. and in Europe.
———
PAKISTAN
Seventeen people were killed and dozens were injured as tens of thousands protested against the film around the country after the government encouraged peaceful protests and declared a national holiday — "Love for the Prophet Day." Demonstrations turned violent in several Pakistani cities. Among those killed was a driver for a Pakistani television station, who died after police opened fire on rioters torching a cinema in the northwest city of Peshawar during a protest.
Clashes between police and thousands of stone-throwing protesters also occurred in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
———
AFGHANISTAN
About 900 people have gathered for a protest against the film in the capital, Kabul, chanting "death to America" and burning an effigy of President Barack Obama and an American flag. A few hundred demonstrators also protested inside a mosque in the eastern city of Ghazni. The protests were peaceful.
AP
A Pakistani protestor hurls back a tear gas... View Full Caption
———
IRAN
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at the West over the film. Speaking during a military parade in Tehran, he said: "in return for (allowing) the ugliest insults to the divine messenger, they — the West — raise the slogan of respect for freedom of speech." He said this explanation was "clearly a deception."
———
INDONESIA
The United States closed its diplomatic missions across Indonesia due to continuing demonstrations over the anti-Islam film. Small and mostly orderly protests were held outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta and in the cities of Surabaya and Medan, along with a couple other smaller towns. No violence was reported.
In addition to the embassy in Jakarta and consulate offices in Surabaya, Medan and Bali, the American mission to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations also was shut.
———
IRAQ
About 3,000 people, mostly followers of Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim groups, protested against the film and caricatures in the southern city of Basra. Demonstrators carried Iraqi flags and posters of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, chanting "death to America" and "no to America."
They burnt Israeli and American flags. One of the organizers, Qassim al-Moussawi, told AP that people gathered "to express our anger and resentment on the offenses made against our prophet."
———
SRI LANKA
About 2,000 Muslims burned effigies of President Barack Obama and American flags at a protest after Friday prayers in the capital, Colombo, demanding that the United States ban the film.
———
BANGLADESH
Over 2,000 people marched through the streets of the capital, Dhaka, to protest the film. They burned a makeshift coffin draped in an American flag, and an effigy of Obama.
———
LEBANON
Thousands gathered in the Bekaa Valley for the latest in a series of protest rallies organized by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah. Protesters carried the yellow Hezbollah flag.
———
KASHMIR
Police enforced a daylong curfew in parts of Indian-controlled Kashmir's main city, Srinagar, and chased away protesters opposing the anti-Islam film. Authorities in the region also temporarily blocked mobile phone and Internet services to prevent viewing the film clips.
———
GERMANY
Several hundred people gathered in the city of Freiburg in southwest of Germany to protest the film. Some carried banners saying: "The dignity of the Prophet Muhammad is our dignity." Police banned inflammatory slogans.
The Interior Ministry postponed a poster campaign aimed at countering radical Islam among young people due to tensions caused by the online video insulting Islam. Posters for the campaign — in German, Turkish and Arabic — were meant to go on display in German cities with large immigrant populations on Friday, but are being withheld because of the changed security situation. Germany is home to an estimated 4 million Muslims.
———
NORWAY
Crowds gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in the capital Oslo to protest the prophet film shouting "Obama, Obama, we're all Osama."
Some 70 people took part in the hour-long demonstration on Friday afternoon. Police blocked off the street during the peaceful protest.
———
PHILIPPINES
A law professor defied a ban by Philippine university officials and has shown students the film's 14-minute trailer. Constitutional law professor Harry Roque of the University of the Philippines said the film was "trash and nothing but trash" and will not convince people Islam is evil.
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
By The Associated Press
September 21, 2012 (AP)
Here's a look at protests and events across the world on Friday connected to an amateurish anti-Muslim film produced in the United States and vulgar caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in a French satirical weekly. At least 47 people, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, have been killed in violence linked to the protests over the film, which has also renewed debate over freedom of expression in the U.S. and in Europe.
———
PAKISTAN
Seventeen people were killed and dozens were injured as tens of thousands protested against the film around the country after the government encouraged peaceful protests and declared a national holiday — "Love for the Prophet Day." Demonstrations turned violent in several Pakistani cities. Among those killed was a driver for a Pakistani television station, who died after police opened fire on rioters torching a cinema in the northwest city of Peshawar during a protest.
Clashes between police and thousands of stone-throwing protesters also occurred in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
———
AFGHANISTAN
About 900 people have gathered for a protest against the film in the capital, Kabul, chanting "death to America" and burning an effigy of President Barack Obama and an American flag. A few hundred demonstrators also protested inside a mosque in the eastern city of Ghazni. The protests were peaceful.
AP
A Pakistani protestor hurls back a tear gas... View Full Caption
———
IRAN
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at the West over the film. Speaking during a military parade in Tehran, he said: "in return for (allowing) the ugliest insults to the divine messenger, they — the West — raise the slogan of respect for freedom of speech." He said this explanation was "clearly a deception."
———
INDONESIA
The United States closed its diplomatic missions across Indonesia due to continuing demonstrations over the anti-Islam film. Small and mostly orderly protests were held outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta and in the cities of Surabaya and Medan, along with a couple other smaller towns. No violence was reported.
In addition to the embassy in Jakarta and consulate offices in Surabaya, Medan and Bali, the American mission to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations also was shut.
———
IRAQ
About 3,000 people, mostly followers of Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim groups, protested against the film and caricatures in the southern city of Basra. Demonstrators carried Iraqi flags and posters of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, chanting "death to America" and "no to America."
They burnt Israeli and American flags. One of the organizers, Qassim al-Moussawi, told AP that people gathered "to express our anger and resentment on the offenses made against our prophet."
———
SRI LANKA
About 2,000 Muslims burned effigies of President Barack Obama and American flags at a protest after Friday prayers in the capital, Colombo, demanding that the United States ban the film.
———
BANGLADESH
Over 2,000 people marched through the streets of the capital, Dhaka, to protest the film. They burned a makeshift coffin draped in an American flag, and an effigy of Obama.
———
LEBANON
Thousands gathered in the Bekaa Valley for the latest in a series of protest rallies organized by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah. Protesters carried the yellow Hezbollah flag.
———
KASHMIR
Police enforced a daylong curfew in parts of Indian-controlled Kashmir's main city, Srinagar, and chased away protesters opposing the anti-Islam film. Authorities in the region also temporarily blocked mobile phone and Internet services to prevent viewing the film clips.
———
GERMANY
Several hundred people gathered in the city of Freiburg in southwest of Germany to protest the film. Some carried banners saying: "The dignity of the Prophet Muhammad is our dignity." Police banned inflammatory slogans.
The Interior Ministry postponed a poster campaign aimed at countering radical Islam among young people due to tensions caused by the online video insulting Islam. Posters for the campaign — in German, Turkish and Arabic — were meant to go on display in German cities with large immigrant populations on Friday, but are being withheld because of the changed security situation. Germany is home to an estimated 4 million Muslims.
———
NORWAY
Crowds gathered outside the U.S. Embassy in the capital Oslo to protest the prophet film shouting "Obama, Obama, we're all Osama."
Some 70 people took part in the hour-long demonstration on Friday afternoon. Police blocked off the street during the peaceful protest.
———
PHILIPPINES
A law professor defied a ban by Philippine university officials and has shown students the film's 14-minute trailer. Constitutional law professor Harry Roque of the University of the Philippines said the film was "trash and nothing but trash" and will not convince people Islam is evil.
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
19 Reported Dead as Pakistanis Protest Muhammad Video
19 Reported Dead as Pakistanis Protest Muhammad Video
Arshad Arbab/European Pressphoto Agency
Pakistani riot police officers chase a protester in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Friday.
By DECLAN WALSH
Published: September 21, 2012
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Violent crowds furious over an anti-Islamic film made in the United States convulsed several cities acrossPakistan on Friday in a day of state-sanctioned protests, and the nation’s leading television station reported as many as 19 people were killed.
Multimedia
Map
Spread of Protests Sparked by Anti-Muslim Video
Related
Times Topic: The 'Innocence of Muslims' Riots (Nakoula Basseley Nakoula)
U.N. Presses Pakistan Over the Fate of Hundreds of Missing People (September 21, 2012)
Related in Opinion
Roger Cohen: A 21st-Century Islam (Sept. 22, 2012)
Connect With Us on Twitter
Follow@nytimesworldfor international breaking news and headlines.
Twitter List: Reporters and Editors
Enlarge This Image
Aamir Qureshi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Pakistani demonstrators battled with riot police in Islamabad on Friday.
It was the worst single day of deadly violence in one Muslim country over the film, “Innocence of Muslims,” since the protests began nearly two weeks ago in Egypt and later spread to two dozen countries around the world. Protesters have ignored the United States government’s denunciation of the film.
The violence on Friday in Pakistan began with a television station employee dying from gunshot wounds during a protest in the northwestern city of Peshawar, and far bigger protests in the southern port of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, left between 12 and 14 people dead, Pakistani news media reported. Geo, the leading television station, was reporting 19 deaths by late Friday around the country.
The unrest came as governments and Western institutions in many parts of the Muslim world braced for protests after Friday Prayer — an occasion often associated with demonstrations as worshipers leave mosques. InTunisia, the authorities invoked emergency powers to outlaw all demonstrations, fearing an outpouring of anti-Western protest inspired both by the American-made film and by cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a French satirical weekly.
American diplomatic posts in India, Indonesia and elsewhere closed for the day. In Bangladesh, several thousand activists from Islamic organizations took over roads in the center of the capital, Dhaka after prayers. They chanted “death to the United States and death to the French” and set on fire a symbolic coffin for President Obama that was draped with the American flag, as well as an effigy of Mr. Obama. They also burned the American and French flags. The protesters threatened to seize the American Embassy on Saturday, but a police order banned any further demonstrations. Separate protests took place outside of Dhaka as well.
European countries took steps to forestall protests among their own Muslim minorities and against their missions abroad. France had already announced the closure on Friday of embassies and other institutions in 20 countries while, in Paris, some Muslim leaders urged their followers to heed a government ban on weekend demonstrations protesting against denigration of the prophet.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls said officials throughout the country had orders to prevent all protests and crack down if the ban was challenged. “There will be strictly no exceptions. Demonstrations will be banned and broken up,” Mr. Valls said.
The German Interior Ministry said it was postponing a poster campaign aimed at countering radical Islam to avoid fueling protests among the country’s four million Muslims, The Associated Press reported.
Businesses in Pakistan closed and streets emptied across the country as the government declared a national holiday, the “Day of Love for the Prophet Muhammad,” to encourage peaceful protests against the controversial film that has ignited protest across the Muslim world for more than a week.
“An attack on the holy prophet is an attack on the core belief of 1.5 billion Muslims. Therefore, this is something that is unacceptable,” said Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf in an address to a religious conference Friday morning in Islamabad.
Mr. Ashraf called on the United Nations and international community to formulate a law outlawing hate speech across the world. “Blasphemy of the kind witnessed in this case is nothing short of hate speech, equal to the worst kind of anti-Semitism or other kind of bigotry,” he said.
But the scenes of chaos in some parts of the country as the day progressed suggested that the government had failed to control public anger on the issue.
In Peshawar, where the television employee was killed, protesters attacked and burned two movie theaters, breaking through the windows with sticks and setting fire to posters that featured images of female movie stars.
Television footage showed the police firing in the air to disperse the crowd, and a hospital official said that at least 15 people, including three police officers, were injured.
In Islamabad, where thousands of protesters flooded toward the heavily guarded diplomatic enclave, Express News reported that the police ran out of rubber bullets because of heavy firing.
A television reporter said that when protesters in nearby Rawalpindi ran out of material to burn, they broke into several tire shops along a major road to steal fresh supplies.
The government cut off cellphone coverage in major cities, while the authorities in Islamabad sealed all exits to the city after Friday Prayer, state radio reported. Some Pakistanis were relying on e-mail and social media sites, like Twitter, to communicate.
Expressions of weary anger over the violence were common. “We are not a nation. We are a mob,” said Nadeem F. Paracha, a cultural commentator with Dawn newspaper, on Twitter.
Large shipping containers blocked roads through the center of several cities. Western diplomatic missions were closed for the day.
The State Department spent $70,000 on Urdu-language advertisements that were broadcast on several television channels, dissociating the American government from the inflammatory film.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced it had summoned the American chargé d’affaires, Richard Hoagland, asking him to have the anti-Islam film removed from YouTube, which has been entirely blocked in Pakistan for the past several days.
Alan Cowell contributed reporting from Paris and Julfikar Ali Manik from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/world/asia/protests-in-pakistan-over-anti-islam-film.html?_r=0
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
Arshad Arbab/European Pressphoto Agency
Pakistani riot police officers chase a protester in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Friday.
By DECLAN WALSH
Published: September 21, 2012
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Violent crowds furious over an anti-Islamic film made in the United States convulsed several cities acrossPakistan on Friday in a day of state-sanctioned protests, and the nation’s leading television station reported as many as 19 people were killed.
Multimedia
MapSpread of Protests Sparked by Anti-Muslim Video
Related
Times Topic: The 'Innocence of Muslims' Riots (Nakoula Basseley Nakoula)
U.N. Presses Pakistan Over the Fate of Hundreds of Missing People (September 21, 2012)
Related in Opinion
Roger Cohen: A 21st-Century Islam (Sept. 22, 2012)
Connect With Us on Twitter
Follow@nytimesworldfor international breaking news and headlines.
Twitter List: Reporters and Editors
Enlarge This Image
Aamir Qureshi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Pakistani demonstrators battled with riot police in Islamabad on Friday.
It was the worst single day of deadly violence in one Muslim country over the film, “Innocence of Muslims,” since the protests began nearly two weeks ago in Egypt and later spread to two dozen countries around the world. Protesters have ignored the United States government’s denunciation of the film.
The violence on Friday in Pakistan began with a television station employee dying from gunshot wounds during a protest in the northwestern city of Peshawar, and far bigger protests in the southern port of Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, left between 12 and 14 people dead, Pakistani news media reported. Geo, the leading television station, was reporting 19 deaths by late Friday around the country.
The unrest came as governments and Western institutions in many parts of the Muslim world braced for protests after Friday Prayer — an occasion often associated with demonstrations as worshipers leave mosques. InTunisia, the authorities invoked emergency powers to outlaw all demonstrations, fearing an outpouring of anti-Western protest inspired both by the American-made film and by cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a French satirical weekly.
American diplomatic posts in India, Indonesia and elsewhere closed for the day. In Bangladesh, several thousand activists from Islamic organizations took over roads in the center of the capital, Dhaka after prayers. They chanted “death to the United States and death to the French” and set on fire a symbolic coffin for President Obama that was draped with the American flag, as well as an effigy of Mr. Obama. They also burned the American and French flags. The protesters threatened to seize the American Embassy on Saturday, but a police order banned any further demonstrations. Separate protests took place outside of Dhaka as well.
European countries took steps to forestall protests among their own Muslim minorities and against their missions abroad. France had already announced the closure on Friday of embassies and other institutions in 20 countries while, in Paris, some Muslim leaders urged their followers to heed a government ban on weekend demonstrations protesting against denigration of the prophet.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls said officials throughout the country had orders to prevent all protests and crack down if the ban was challenged. “There will be strictly no exceptions. Demonstrations will be banned and broken up,” Mr. Valls said.
The German Interior Ministry said it was postponing a poster campaign aimed at countering radical Islam to avoid fueling protests among the country’s four million Muslims, The Associated Press reported.
Businesses in Pakistan closed and streets emptied across the country as the government declared a national holiday, the “Day of Love for the Prophet Muhammad,” to encourage peaceful protests against the controversial film that has ignited protest across the Muslim world for more than a week.
“An attack on the holy prophet is an attack on the core belief of 1.5 billion Muslims. Therefore, this is something that is unacceptable,” said Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf in an address to a religious conference Friday morning in Islamabad.
Mr. Ashraf called on the United Nations and international community to formulate a law outlawing hate speech across the world. “Blasphemy of the kind witnessed in this case is nothing short of hate speech, equal to the worst kind of anti-Semitism or other kind of bigotry,” he said.
But the scenes of chaos in some parts of the country as the day progressed suggested that the government had failed to control public anger on the issue.
In Peshawar, where the television employee was killed, protesters attacked and burned two movie theaters, breaking through the windows with sticks and setting fire to posters that featured images of female movie stars.
Television footage showed the police firing in the air to disperse the crowd, and a hospital official said that at least 15 people, including three police officers, were injured.
In Islamabad, where thousands of protesters flooded toward the heavily guarded diplomatic enclave, Express News reported that the police ran out of rubber bullets because of heavy firing.
A television reporter said that when protesters in nearby Rawalpindi ran out of material to burn, they broke into several tire shops along a major road to steal fresh supplies.
The government cut off cellphone coverage in major cities, while the authorities in Islamabad sealed all exits to the city after Friday Prayer, state radio reported. Some Pakistanis were relying on e-mail and social media sites, like Twitter, to communicate.
Expressions of weary anger over the violence were common. “We are not a nation. We are a mob,” said Nadeem F. Paracha, a cultural commentator with Dawn newspaper, on Twitter.
Large shipping containers blocked roads through the center of several cities. Western diplomatic missions were closed for the day.
The State Department spent $70,000 on Urdu-language advertisements that were broadcast on several television channels, dissociating the American government from the inflammatory film.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced it had summoned the American chargé d’affaires, Richard Hoagland, asking him to have the anti-Islam film removed from YouTube, which has been entirely blocked in Pakistan for the past several days.
Alan Cowell contributed reporting from Paris and Julfikar Ali Manik from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/world/asia/protests-in-pakistan-over-anti-islam-film.html?_r=0
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
Fresh anti-Islam film protests in Muslim countries
Fresh anti-Islam film protests in Muslim countries
The BBC's Aleem Maqbool says clashes have broken out across parts of Pakistan but central Islamabad remains calm
Anti-Islam film protests
Q&A: Anti-Islam film
Viewpoints
Protests explained
Diplomat danger
Fresh protests are under way in Muslim countries against an anti-Islam film made in the US.
In Pakistan, a government-declared "special day of love" for the Prophet Muhammad has seen violent clashes and at least one death in the northern city of Peshawar, and clashes elsewhere.
The US has paid for adverts on Pakistani TV that show President Barack Obama condemning the film.
There has been widespread unrest over the amateur film, Innocence of Muslims.
The protests have already claimed several lives around the world.
Although the US has borne the brunt of protests, anti-Western sentiment has been stoked further by caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in a satirical French magazine.
In Peshawar, protesters attacked and ransacked two cinema buildings. A driver for a Pakistani TV station was killed when police opened fire to disperse protesters, seven of whom were reported wounded.
Clashes between police and protesters are also being reported from the cities of Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi.
Analysis
M Ilyas KhanBBC News, IslamabadProtesters in north-west Pakistan are continuing to show their violent side - setting everything that appears inflammable on fire.
There is considerable pent-up anger among Pakistanis over failing civic services and a poor economy. Blasphemy and anti-American feelings provide an added trigger.
There is also the question of who is organising these protests. Mainstream religious groups with electoral interests seek to hold peaceful rallies because their main aim is to galvanise voter support in coming elections.
But there are other groups who have no electoral prospects but have considerable street power and they have been using this to expand their influence. They have an interest in destabilising the government or outshining rival groups.
In the capital Islamabad, which saw fierce clashes between protesters and security forces on Thursday, the BBC's Aleem Maqbool says security forces have attempted to seal off large parts of the city to demonstrations - but that protesters on foot and motocycles have breached a blockade after setting a checkpost alight.
Dozens of protests against the film had already been held across Pakistan over the past week - killing at least two people - but Thursday was the first time violence had erupted in the capital.
All major political parties and religious organisations have announced protests for Friday, along with trade and transport groups.
The Pakistani authorities have urged people to demonstrate peacefully, with mobile phone services cut across the country to reduce security risks.
Meanwhile, the US charge d'affaires Richard Hoagland was summoned to the Pakistani Foreign Office and an official protest was lodged with him. He is reported to have responded that the US government had nothing to do with the film.
The US state department has issued a warning against any non-essential travel to Pakistan.
Embassies closed
France has closed its embassies and other official offices in about 20 countries across the Muslim world on Friday after French magazine Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, including two drawings showing him naked.
French Muslim leaders condemned the magazine and said an appeal for calm would be read in mosques across the country on Friday.
Charlie Hebdo sold out on Wednesday but is publishing another 70,000 copies, to coincide with Friday prayers.
Video courtesy of the US embassy in Pakistan
In Tunisia - where France is the former colonial power - the government has banned Friday protests.
Calls to protest against the caricatures have turned up in Tunisian social media. Interior Minister Ali Larayedh said it was believed that some groups were planning violent protests after Friday prayers.
There are also fears of violence in the Libyan city of Benghazi after rival groups said they would take to the streets.
One group intends to denounce extremism and urge militias to disband, following an attack on the US consulate in the city on 11 September that killed the US ambassador and three other American officials.
Throughout the week, Benghazi residents have left wreaths and placards condemning the attack outside the US mission.
Meanwhile, Ansar al-Sharia, the jihadist militia blamed by some local people for the attack, called for protests "in defence of the Prophet Muhammad". Both protests are scheduled for the same time.
In the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, more than 2,000 people protested peacefully in front of the US embassy.
Some protesters were holding signs insisting that insulting religion was not freedom of speech.
In Cairo, where the protests against the film began, Egyptian security forces are patrolling the streets around the US embassy.
Radical Islamists have clashed with security forces there in recent days, although President Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood has stayed away from the unrest, only condemning the film and calling for peaceful demonstrations.
The low-budget film that sparked the controversy was made in the US and is said to insult the Prophet Muhammad.
Its exact origins are unclear and the alleged producer for the trailer of the film, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, is in hiding.
Anti-US sentiment grew after a trailer for the film dubbed into Arabic was released on YouTube earlier this month.
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Vibrant Muslim community in Hawaii
Vibrant Muslim community in Hawaii
Muslims offering prayer in a mosque in Hawaii.
ABU TARIQ HIJAZI
Hawaii is the dreamland for holidaymakers. Annually thousands of tourists spend their winter in the comfortable climate of Hawaii which is like an earthen pot lying in the heart of Pacific Ocean. It is 2,300 miles from the US coast and 3,400 miles from the Asian coast of Japan.
In 1820 the first American missionaries came to preach Christianity and teach the Hawaiians Western ways. They succeeded converting many natives to Christianity. Now, there are thousands of Muslims living in Hawaii.
Muslims in Hawaii are like a rainbow presenting various colors in one arch. Muslims from the Uighurs of China to the Touareq of Mauritania, to the Aloha people of Hawaii, all merged into one community. Islam transcends the superficial boundaries of nationality. This is demonstrated in Haj every year where an Indonesian Muslim prays next to the British, American, Spanish, Iranian, and South African Muslims. Muslim men and women of different backgrounds, races and cultures pray next to each other in peace throughout the year facing the Holy Kaaba in Makkah.
A group of non-Muslim visitors recorded their observation during a Friday visit to the Hawaii mosque, they said: "The mood was light as men and women gathered outside, lining the edges of a rug to hear a Moroccan immigrant and his Oahu-born wife, Janine, repeat vows of Nikah. 'Islamic marriage is to be a comfort for the couple. ... You should be the source of mercy for each other,' the imam told them."
The small crowd that day represented the multinational Muslim community in Hawaii - from Pakistani and Arab professionals to American-born converts and recent immigrants from Palestine and Iraq. The mosque serves as a social center for all of them. About 200 men attend the Friday prayers. There were nearly 700 people at the Eid prayers.
Muslims of Hawaii form a vibrant society. The mosque arranges various program for Muslims and awareness programs for non-Muslims. The following are some of the programs organized by the mosque:
Imam holds classes twice a week between Maghrib and Isha prayers in the mosque. On Saturday nights after Isha prayers, Imam Ismail gives lecture about the lives of different prophets.
Women's classes are held on Monday and Wednesday nights.
A welcome house is being planned at the mosque that will be open to the public and will distribute Islamic books and DVDs free of charge to Muslim and non-Muslims visitors.
There are facilities for the memorization of the Holy Qur'an.
The Muslim Association of Hawaii (MAH) supervises and integrates Muslim activities in Hawaii. The current president of MAH, Hakim Ouansafi is from Morocco. He was 21 when he came to America to attend college in Rhode Island, where he met and married Vermonter (who later converted to Islam) and become an American citizen. Nine years ago he came to Hawaii. Now 42, he is the president and CEO of Diamond Hotels and Resorts.
Less than three weeks from 9/11 Heather Ramaha, a navy petty officer stood among a group of women at the mosque in Manoa Hawaii and recited the Islamic Shahada in Arabic, and entered the fold of Islam. Ouansafi, MAH president, said that prior to Sept. 11, there had been an average of three converts per month. In the two months since then, there have been 23.
Most converts are African-Americans, who make up about a third of US Muslims, some of whom found the guidance while they were in jail or while recovering from drug or alcohol addiction. On the West Coast, the men are mainly military, said Ouansafi, and most of the O'ahu converts are former Christians. One is even a single cosmetics saleswoman. "We believe, as Muslims, that once a person reverts to Islam, all his past sins are forgiven by God," Ouansafi said. "He or she starts just like a baby born."
Now, Ramaha is incorporating her Islamic faith into her life as a navy officer stationed at Pearl Harbor since July. Ramaha said she struggled with the Christian view of the Holy Trinity. In March, she took an online world religions class through a California university. "I'd been a Christian for 18 years." As a follow-up, she took an introductory class on Islam in Hawaii. She started reading the Qur'an, and "something clicked." She converted soon after. "I've always felt drawn to something out there, otherwise, there's an emptiness," she said. "The only way I feel complete is when I have a religion, a God to pray to."
Hawaii's state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill in May 2009 to celebrate "Islam Day on Sept. 24 every year." The bill seeks to recognize "the rich religious, scientific, cultural and artistic contributions" that Islam and the Islamic world have made. The date of Sept. 24 was selected as the Prophet Muhammad's (may peace and mercy on him) arrival at Madinah in the first year of Hijrah.
Sen. Will Espero, a Democrat, said: "It does not call for any spending or organized celebration of Islam Day. We are a state of tolerance. We understand that people have different beliefs. We may not all agree on every single item and issue out there, but to say and highlight the negativity of the Islamic people is an insult to the majority of believers who are good law-abiding citizens of the world."
A center for Islamic art and culture:
Shangri La stands for a beautiful and rich collection of Islamic art from the Muslim world. Its founder Madam Doris Duke was one of the richest ladies of the world. She was born in 1912 to Mr. Duke, a baron of tobacco business. On her honeymoon in 1935 she visited many Muslim countries in the Middle East and later stayed at her seasonal home in Hawaii for long. She was much impressed and captivated by the Islamic art. She collected thousands of artifacts and designed her Hawaii home in a museum form. Architectural design was influenced by the objects collected and the objects to be collected were assessed for their potential place within the built environment. From her first foray into collecting while traveling in the Islamic world until her death in 1993, Duke's pattern of collecting for design remained remarkably consistent, yet it also matured.
For nearly 60 years, Doris Duke commissioned and collected artifacts for Shangri La, ultimately forming a collection of about 3,500 objects, the majority of which were made in the Islamic world. Massive painted ceilings, elaborately carved doorways, intricate mosaic tile panels, colorful textiles and numerous other art forms enliven the interiors and create an environment rich in texture and pattern.
Today, Shangri La serves as a center for Islamic arts and cultures. It is owned and supported by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art (DDFIA), which Doris Duke created in her will to promote the study, understanding, and preservation of Islamic art and culture.
Praying toward the north:
The direction of Qibla in Hawaii lies in the north through North Pole. The writer visited Hawaii twice. Once in Ramadan, he was invited by an Afghan family for iftar. Wherever Muslims live, they have strong bond of brotherhood. There is no inhabited land on the earth, where Allah-o-Akbar is not declared from the minarets of a mosque.
Muslims offering prayer in a mosque in Hawaii.
ABU TARIQ HIJAZI
Hawaii is the dreamland for holidaymakers. Annually thousands of tourists spend their winter in the comfortable climate of Hawaii which is like an earthen pot lying in the heart of Pacific Ocean. It is 2,300 miles from the US coast and 3,400 miles from the Asian coast of Japan.
In 1820 the first American missionaries came to preach Christianity and teach the Hawaiians Western ways. They succeeded converting many natives to Christianity. Now, there are thousands of Muslims living in Hawaii.
Muslims in Hawaii are like a rainbow presenting various colors in one arch. Muslims from the Uighurs of China to the Touareq of Mauritania, to the Aloha people of Hawaii, all merged into one community. Islam transcends the superficial boundaries of nationality. This is demonstrated in Haj every year where an Indonesian Muslim prays next to the British, American, Spanish, Iranian, and South African Muslims. Muslim men and women of different backgrounds, races and cultures pray next to each other in peace throughout the year facing the Holy Kaaba in Makkah.
A group of non-Muslim visitors recorded their observation during a Friday visit to the Hawaii mosque, they said: "The mood was light as men and women gathered outside, lining the edges of a rug to hear a Moroccan immigrant and his Oahu-born wife, Janine, repeat vows of Nikah. 'Islamic marriage is to be a comfort for the couple. ... You should be the source of mercy for each other,' the imam told them."
The small crowd that day represented the multinational Muslim community in Hawaii - from Pakistani and Arab professionals to American-born converts and recent immigrants from Palestine and Iraq. The mosque serves as a social center for all of them. About 200 men attend the Friday prayers. There were nearly 700 people at the Eid prayers.
Muslims of Hawaii form a vibrant society. The mosque arranges various program for Muslims and awareness programs for non-Muslims. The following are some of the programs organized by the mosque:
Imam holds classes twice a week between Maghrib and Isha prayers in the mosque. On Saturday nights after Isha prayers, Imam Ismail gives lecture about the lives of different prophets.
Women's classes are held on Monday and Wednesday nights.
A welcome house is being planned at the mosque that will be open to the public and will distribute Islamic books and DVDs free of charge to Muslim and non-Muslims visitors.
There are facilities for the memorization of the Holy Qur'an.
The Muslim Association of Hawaii (MAH) supervises and integrates Muslim activities in Hawaii. The current president of MAH, Hakim Ouansafi is from Morocco. He was 21 when he came to America to attend college in Rhode Island, where he met and married Vermonter (who later converted to Islam) and become an American citizen. Nine years ago he came to Hawaii. Now 42, he is the president and CEO of Diamond Hotels and Resorts.
Less than three weeks from 9/11 Heather Ramaha, a navy petty officer stood among a group of women at the mosque in Manoa Hawaii and recited the Islamic Shahada in Arabic, and entered the fold of Islam. Ouansafi, MAH president, said that prior to Sept. 11, there had been an average of three converts per month. In the two months since then, there have been 23.
Most converts are African-Americans, who make up about a third of US Muslims, some of whom found the guidance while they were in jail or while recovering from drug or alcohol addiction. On the West Coast, the men are mainly military, said Ouansafi, and most of the O'ahu converts are former Christians. One is even a single cosmetics saleswoman. "We believe, as Muslims, that once a person reverts to Islam, all his past sins are forgiven by God," Ouansafi said. "He or she starts just like a baby born."
Now, Ramaha is incorporating her Islamic faith into her life as a navy officer stationed at Pearl Harbor since July. Ramaha said she struggled with the Christian view of the Holy Trinity. In March, she took an online world religions class through a California university. "I'd been a Christian for 18 years." As a follow-up, she took an introductory class on Islam in Hawaii. She started reading the Qur'an, and "something clicked." She converted soon after. "I've always felt drawn to something out there, otherwise, there's an emptiness," she said. "The only way I feel complete is when I have a religion, a God to pray to."
Hawaii's state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill in May 2009 to celebrate "Islam Day on Sept. 24 every year." The bill seeks to recognize "the rich religious, scientific, cultural and artistic contributions" that Islam and the Islamic world have made. The date of Sept. 24 was selected as the Prophet Muhammad's (may peace and mercy on him) arrival at Madinah in the first year of Hijrah.
Sen. Will Espero, a Democrat, said: "It does not call for any spending or organized celebration of Islam Day. We are a state of tolerance. We understand that people have different beliefs. We may not all agree on every single item and issue out there, but to say and highlight the negativity of the Islamic people is an insult to the majority of believers who are good law-abiding citizens of the world."
A center for Islamic art and culture:
Shangri La stands for a beautiful and rich collection of Islamic art from the Muslim world. Its founder Madam Doris Duke was one of the richest ladies of the world. She was born in 1912 to Mr. Duke, a baron of tobacco business. On her honeymoon in 1935 she visited many Muslim countries in the Middle East and later stayed at her seasonal home in Hawaii for long. She was much impressed and captivated by the Islamic art. She collected thousands of artifacts and designed her Hawaii home in a museum form. Architectural design was influenced by the objects collected and the objects to be collected were assessed for their potential place within the built environment. From her first foray into collecting while traveling in the Islamic world until her death in 1993, Duke's pattern of collecting for design remained remarkably consistent, yet it also matured.
For nearly 60 years, Doris Duke commissioned and collected artifacts for Shangri La, ultimately forming a collection of about 3,500 objects, the majority of which were made in the Islamic world. Massive painted ceilings, elaborately carved doorways, intricate mosaic tile panels, colorful textiles and numerous other art forms enliven the interiors and create an environment rich in texture and pattern.
Today, Shangri La serves as a center for Islamic arts and cultures. It is owned and supported by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art (DDFIA), which Doris Duke created in her will to promote the study, understanding, and preservation of Islamic art and culture.
Praying toward the north:
The direction of Qibla in Hawaii lies in the north through North Pole. The writer visited Hawaii twice. Once in Ramadan, he was invited by an Afghan family for iftar. Wherever Muslims live, they have strong bond of brotherhood. There is no inhabited land on the earth, where Allah-o-Akbar is not declared from the minarets of a mosque.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
UN-ARAB LEAGUE ENVOY VISITS SYRIAN REFUGEES IN TURKEY, JORDAN
UN-ARAB LEAGUE ENVOY VISITS SYRIAN REFUGEES IN TURKEY, JORDAN
New York, Sep 18 2012 4:10PM
The Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the League of Arab States on the Syrian crisis, Lakhdar Brahimi, on Tuesday visited refugee camps in Turkey and Jordan, where he gained first-hand accounts of the struggles facing those who fled the conflict in their homeland.
The envoy went to the Altinoz camp in Turkey's Hatay Province and the Za'atari camp in Jordan. He was briefed in both places by UN agencies and government officials on conditions in the camps.
"Mr. Brahimi met Syrian refugees and listened to first-hand accounts of their ordeals," UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky told reporters in New York. "He was deeply moved by what he saw and heard and promised to convey an accurate picture of their plight to all those whom he will meet at the United Nations in New York, where he will be next week."
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 260,000 Syrian refugees have been registered in neighbouring countries since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011. They are part of an estimated 2.5 million Syrians in urgent need of humanitarian assistance as a result of the escalating crisis.
The visits to the camps in Turkey and Jordan follow a meeting in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Saturday between Mr. Brahimi and Mr. al-Assad on the crisis, which the envoy said was getting worse and has serious consequences on the Syrian people, the region and the entire world.
"This crisis is becoming worse by the day," Mr. Brahimi told reporters after the meeting, adding that it is urgent to address it in a proper manner.
More than 18,000 people, mostly civilians, have died since the uprising in Syria began 18 months ago. Mr. Brahimi assumed the peace-facilitation role earlier this month, with the aim of bringing an end to all violence and human rights violations in Syria, and promoting a peaceful solution to the conflict.
Sep 18 2012 4:10PM
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Tuesday, September 18, 2012
AT ANNUAL PRAYER SERVICE, BAN URGES HOPE AMID GLOBAL HARDSHIPS AND UNCERTAINTY
AT ANNUAL PRAYER SERVICE, BAN URGES HOPE AMID GLOBAL HARDSHIPS AND UNCERTAINTY
New York, Sep 18 2012 11:10AM
The values that unite humanity are coming under increasing strain, the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned, while arguing that a better world was within reach if people are willing to work, dream and pray for it together.
In his remarks last night to the service held at the Church of the Holy Family in New York City to mark the opening of the sixty-seventh General Assembly, Mr. Ban conceded that the tenets of peace, human rights and development are being tested by ongoing worldwide political and social tumult.
"Conflict continues to claim the lives of innocents from Syria to Central Africa to Afghanistan. In all regions, communities are facing economic hardship and political uncertainty," he said, noting that both global unemployment and intolerance are also on the rise.
"Perhaps it is easy for some to despair at these tests," he continued. "But I am a believer. I believe we can rise to the challenge. And I know you believe that, too."
Mr. Ban told those gathered about a recent day trip which took him first to the mass graves of Srebrenica and then on to London for the opening ceremony of the Olympics – a startling juxtaposition which, he said, showed him "the world as it was, and too often still is and the world as we know it can be."
"I resolved that the road from Srebrenica must take us to a world that is more civilized, more accountable, and more humane," Mr. Ban added, stating that despite current events and widespread conflict, a better world was nonetheless attainable.
"I believe it is out there for all the people of this Earth to grasp if we labour and dream and pray for it together."
The Assembly's sixty-seventh session opens today and will be presided over by the incoming President, Vuk Jeremic of Serbia.
Sep 18 2012 11:10AM
_
New York, Sep 18 2012 11:10AM
The values that unite humanity are coming under increasing strain, the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned, while arguing that a better world was within reach if people are willing to work, dream and pray for it together.
In his remarks last night to the service held at the Church of the Holy Family in New York City to mark the opening of the sixty-seventh General Assembly, Mr. Ban conceded that the tenets of peace, human rights and development are being tested by ongoing worldwide political and social tumult.
"Conflict continues to claim the lives of innocents from Syria to Central Africa to Afghanistan. In all regions, communities are facing economic hardship and political uncertainty," he said, noting that both global unemployment and intolerance are also on the rise.
"Perhaps it is easy for some to despair at these tests," he continued. "But I am a believer. I believe we can rise to the challenge. And I know you believe that, too."
Mr. Ban told those gathered about a recent day trip which took him first to the mass graves of Srebrenica and then on to London for the opening ceremony of the Olympics – a startling juxtaposition which, he said, showed him "the world as it was, and too often still is and the world as we know it can be."
"I resolved that the road from Srebrenica must take us to a world that is more civilized, more accountable, and more humane," Mr. Ban added, stating that despite current events and widespread conflict, a better world was nonetheless attainable.
"I believe it is out there for all the people of this Earth to grasp if we labour and dream and pray for it together."
The Assembly's sixty-seventh session opens today and will be presided over by the incoming President, Vuk Jeremic of Serbia.
Sep 18 2012 11:10AM
_
Monday, September 17, 2012
TAWAKKUL OF A PERSON WHO WORKS
TAWAKKUL OF A PERSON WHO WORKS
Imam-i Ghazali says in his book Kimya-i Sa'adat:
The tawakkul of a person who works is not to depend on his capital. And its symptom is that when he loses his capital his heart does not feel worried, or give up hope of his sustenance. For, a person who relies on Allahu ta'ala knows that He will send his sustenance from places he does not expect at all. If He does not send him sustenance, he will think that this is better for him.
It is not easy to acquire such tawakkul [1]. All your property has been stolen, or you have undergone a great catastrophe, and your heart still does not change; this is not something everybody can do. Those who have such tawakkul are very few, but they are not nonexistent. Attaining such tawakkul requires the heart's complete and positive belief in the endlessness of Allah's blessing, compassion and favouring, and in that His power is in the greatest perfection. One must think that He sends sustenance to many people though they do not have any capital, while, on the other hand, many fortunes cause perdition. One must as well know that it is good for oneself if one loses one's own capital.
Rasulullah 'sallallahu alaihi wa sallam' stated, "A person spends the night thinking of the thing he is going to do the next day. But that thing will bring calamity upon him. Allahu ta'ala, pitying this slave of His, does not let him do it. And he, in his turn, becomes sorry because he is not able to do it. Thinking, 'Why hasn't this business of mine been accomplished? Who doesn't let me do it? Who on earth is imposing this enmity upon me?' and he begins to think ill of his friends. However, Allahu ta'ala, having mercy upon him, has protected him against calamity. " For this reason Hadrat [2] 'Umar 'radiyallahu anh' said, "If I become poor, needy tomorrow, I will never feel sorry. I will never think of getting rich, for I do not know which is better for me. "
________________________________
GLOSSARY
[1] tawakkul: trusting in, expecting everything from Allahu ta'ala exclusively; expecting from Allahu ta'ala the effectiveness of the cause after working or holding on to the cause – before which tawakkul is unadvised. See Endless Bliss III, 35.
[2] Hadrat: title of respect used before the names of great people like and Islamic scholars.
He who does not have mercy on people is not treated with mercy by Allahu ta'ala.
Hadith-i sharif
'One should carefully choose whom to love, and share the love accordingly'
'What is important is whom you are with, not who you are.'
'Kalam-i kibar, kibar-i kalamast.'
(The words of the superiors are the superior words.)
www.serenityfountain.org
Imam-i Ghazali says in his book Kimya-i Sa'adat:
The tawakkul of a person who works is not to depend on his capital. And its symptom is that when he loses his capital his heart does not feel worried, or give up hope of his sustenance. For, a person who relies on Allahu ta'ala knows that He will send his sustenance from places he does not expect at all. If He does not send him sustenance, he will think that this is better for him.
It is not easy to acquire such tawakkul [1]. All your property has been stolen, or you have undergone a great catastrophe, and your heart still does not change; this is not something everybody can do. Those who have such tawakkul are very few, but they are not nonexistent. Attaining such tawakkul requires the heart's complete and positive belief in the endlessness of Allah's blessing, compassion and favouring, and in that His power is in the greatest perfection. One must think that He sends sustenance to many people though they do not have any capital, while, on the other hand, many fortunes cause perdition. One must as well know that it is good for oneself if one loses one's own capital.
Rasulullah 'sallallahu alaihi wa sallam' stated, "A person spends the night thinking of the thing he is going to do the next day. But that thing will bring calamity upon him. Allahu ta'ala, pitying this slave of His, does not let him do it. And he, in his turn, becomes sorry because he is not able to do it. Thinking, 'Why hasn't this business of mine been accomplished? Who doesn't let me do it? Who on earth is imposing this enmity upon me?' and he begins to think ill of his friends. However, Allahu ta'ala, having mercy upon him, has protected him against calamity. " For this reason Hadrat [2] 'Umar 'radiyallahu anh' said, "If I become poor, needy tomorrow, I will never feel sorry. I will never think of getting rich, for I do not know which is better for me. "
________________________________
GLOSSARY
[1] tawakkul: trusting in, expecting everything from Allahu ta'ala exclusively; expecting from Allahu ta'ala the effectiveness of the cause after working or holding on to the cause – before which tawakkul is unadvised. See Endless Bliss III, 35.
[2] Hadrat: title of respect used before the names of great people like and Islamic scholars.
He who does not have mercy on people is not treated with mercy by Allahu ta'ala.
Hadith-i sharif
'One should carefully choose whom to love, and share the love accordingly'
'What is important is whom you are with, not who you are.'
'Kalam-i kibar, kibar-i kalamast.'
(The words of the superiors are the superior words.)
www.serenityfountain.org
Sunday, September 16, 2012
JOINT UN-ARAB LEAGUE ENVOY AND SYRIAN PRESIDENT DISCUSS WORSENING CRISIS
JOINT UN-ARAB LEAGUE ENVOY AND SYRIAN PRESIDENT DISCUSS WORSENING CRISIS
The Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the League of Arab States on the Syrian crisis, Lakhdar Brahimi, discussed the ongoing violence and worsening humanitarian situation with President Bashar al-Assad during a meeting in Damascus on Saturday.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Mr. Brahimi said the crisis is getting worse and has serious consequences on the Syrian people, the region and the entire world.
"We discussed this issue. I believe that the President is more aware than me of the scope and seriousness of this crisis," said the envoy, who arrived earlier this week for meetings with representatives of the Government, the opposition and civil society.
"I informed the President that we, in the name of the United Nations and the League of Arab States, will exert every effort, present ideas and mobilize capacities and potentials required for this situ
ation in order to best help the Syrian people out of this crisis."
More than 18,000 people, mostly civilians, have died since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began 18 months ago. Amidst reports of an escalation in violence in recent weeks in many towns and villages, as well as the country's two biggest cities, Damascus and Aleppo, UN agencies now estimate that some 2.5 million Syrians are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
"This crisis is becoming worse by the day," stated Mr. Brahimi, adding that it is urgent to address it in a proper manner.
Following his visit to Syria, Mr. Brahimi will go to New York to meet with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council, "as well as a number of States which have influence, interests, or both, with regard to the Syrian issue," he said.
Mr. Brahimi earlier this month assumed the peace-facilitation role which had been carried out since February by a former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, with the aim of brin
ging an end to all violence and human rights violations in Syria, and promoting a peaceful solution to the conflict.
The Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the League of Arab States on the Syrian crisis, Lakhdar Brahimi, discussed the ongoing violence and worsening humanitarian situation with President Bashar al-Assad during a meeting in Damascus on Saturday.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Mr. Brahimi said the crisis is getting worse and has serious consequences on the Syrian people, the region and the entire world.
"We discussed this issue. I believe that the President is more aware than me of the scope and seriousness of this crisis," said the envoy, who arrived earlier this week for meetings with representatives of the Government, the opposition and civil society.
"I informed the President that we, in the name of the United Nations and the League of Arab States, will exert every effort, present ideas and mobilize capacities and potentials required for this situ
ation in order to best help the Syrian people out of this crisis."
More than 18,000 people, mostly civilians, have died since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began 18 months ago. Amidst reports of an escalation in violence in recent weeks in many towns and villages, as well as the country's two biggest cities, Damascus and Aleppo, UN agencies now estimate that some 2.5 million Syrians are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
"This crisis is becoming worse by the day," stated Mr. Brahimi, adding that it is urgent to address it in a proper manner.
Following his visit to Syria, Mr. Brahimi will go to New York to meet with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council, "as well as a number of States which have influence, interests, or both, with regard to the Syrian issue," he said.
Mr. Brahimi earlier this month assumed the peace-facilitation role which had been carried out since February by a former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, with the aim of brin
ging an end to all violence and human rights violations in Syria, and promoting a peaceful solution to the conflict.
Four Nato troops killed by 'Afghan police'-bbc
Four Nato troops killed by 'Afghan police'-bbc
Taliban Conflict
Marching forwards
Taliban fighters switch sides
What lies ahead?
Nato's exit strategyWatch
Four soldiers with the Nato-led force in Afghanistan have been killed in an attack thought to have been carried out by Afghan police members, Nato says.
The "insider attack" took place in the south of the country and one of the attackers was reportedly killed.
The latest incident comes a day after two UK soldiers were killed at a checkpoint by a man in police uniform.
On Friday, two US marines were killed in a Taliban attack on Nato's Camp Bastion base in southern Afghanistan.
Militants breached the perimeter of the sprawling Camp Bastion base in Helmand province, destroying six aircraft.
The Taliban told the BBC that they carried out Friday's attack in revenge for a film mocking Islam which has triggered protests around the Muslim world.
More than 50 soldiers with the Nato-led force have been killed so far this year in so-called insider - or green-on-blue - attacks.
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
Taliban Conflict
Marching forwards
Taliban fighters switch sides
What lies ahead?
Nato's exit strategyWatch
Four soldiers with the Nato-led force in Afghanistan have been killed in an attack thought to have been carried out by Afghan police members, Nato says.
The "insider attack" took place in the south of the country and one of the attackers was reportedly killed.
The latest incident comes a day after two UK soldiers were killed at a checkpoint by a man in police uniform.
On Friday, two US marines were killed in a Taliban attack on Nato's Camp Bastion base in southern Afghanistan.
Militants breached the perimeter of the sprawling Camp Bastion base in Helmand province, destroying six aircraft.
The Taliban told the BBC that they carried out Friday's attack in revenge for a film mocking Islam which has triggered protests around the Muslim world.
More than 50 soldiers with the Nato-led force have been killed so far this year in so-called insider - or green-on-blue - attacks.
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
Al Qaida calls for more attacks
Al Qaida calls for more attacks
Al Qaida's most active branch in the Middle East has called for more attacks on US embassies to "set the fires blazing", seeking to use the outrage over an anti-Muslim film which sparked a wave of protests that swept 20 countries.
Senior Muslim religious authorities issued their strongest pleas yet against resorting to violence, trying to defuse Muslim anger over the film, a day after new attacks on US and Western embassies that left at least eight protesters dead.
The top cleric in US ally Saudi Arabia, Grand Mufti Sheik Abdel-Aziz al-Sheik, condemned the film but, urging Muslims not to be "dragged by anger" into violence, said it could not really hurt Islam.
Sheik Ahmed al-Tayeb, head of the Sunni Muslim world's pre-eminent religious institution, Egypt's Al-Azhar, backed peaceful protests but said Muslims should counter the film by reviving Islam's moderate ideas.
In the Egyptian capital Cairo, where the first protests against the film that denigrates the Prophet Muhammad erupted, police finally succeeded in clearing away protesters who had clashed with security forces for days near the US embassy. Police arrested 220 people and a concrete wall was erected across the road leading to the embassy.
No significant protests were reported in the Middle East on Saturday; the only report of violence linked to the film came from Australia, where riot police clashed with about 200 protesters at the US consulate in Sydney.
In his weekly radio and internet address, US president Barack Obama paid tribute to the four Americans, including ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, who were killed in an armed attack on the US consulate in Benghazi this week. "I have made it clear that the United States has a profound respect for people of all faiths. We stand for religious freedom. And we reject the denigration of religion - including Islam," Mr Obama said. "Yet there is never any justification for violence. There is no religion that condones the targeting of innocent men and women."
But the Yemen-based al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, considered the most dangerous of the terror network's branches to the US, called the killing of Mr Stevens "the best example" for those attacking embassies to follow. "What has happened is a great event, and these efforts should come together in one goal, which is to expel the embassies of America from the lands of the Muslims," the group said.
It called on protests to continue in Muslim nations "to set the fires blazing at these embassies". It also called on "our Muslim brothers in Western nations to fulfil their duties in supporting God's prophet ... because they are the most capable of reaching them and vexing them".
So far there has been no evidence of a direct role by al Qaida in the protests.
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Taliban say attack on Nato's Camp Bastion is revenge for film
Taliban say attack on Nato's Camp Bastion is revenge for film
Violent protests have continued across the Middle East in response to a film made in the US seen as insulting to Islam
Mid-East protests
Friday: as it happened
Protests in pictures
Libyans speak out
Diplomat danger
The Taliban have told the BBC that they carried out an attack on Nato's Camp Bastion in Afghanistan in revenge for a film mocking Islam.
At least two US marines died when militants attacked the perimeter of the huge base in Helmand.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told the BBC that the target was US and UK soldiers and involved 10 insurgents.
Violent protests against Western embassies have swept the Muslim world amid widespread anger over the film.
Protests against the video - Innocence of Muslims - began on Tuesday in Egypt. On Friday, at least seven people died in escalating unrest in Khartoum, Tunis and Cairo.
Nato officials say insurgents used small arms, rockets and mortars in the attack on Camp Bastion.
Continue reading the main story
Protest timeline - main flashpoints
11 September
1. US embassy in Cairo attacked, flag torn down and replaced with black Islamist banner
2. Mob attacks US consulate in Benghazi, US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans killed
13 September
3. Protesters break into the US embassy compound in Sanaa, Yemen, amid clashes with security forces
14 September
4. Sudanese protesters attack US, German and UK embassies in Khartoum and clash with police. Three killed
5. One person killed in Lebanon in protest at a KFC restaurant
6. Protesters in Tunis attack the US embassy, with a large fire reported and shots heard. Two killed
7. Riot police in Cairo clash with protesters near US embassy. One person killed
In pictures: Anti-Islam film protests
Q&A: What is the anti-Islam film about?
Press gloomy on West's ties with Muslim world
The sprawling camp is home to troops from several countries and Friday's attack targeted the US compound, Camp Leatherneck.
Maj Martin Crighton from Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) told the BBC troops were conducting an assessment to determine the extent of the damage.
The video - produced in the US - depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a womaniser and leader of a group of bloodthirsty men. It has been circulating on YouTube.
Camp Bastion has a high level of security and is one of the world's busiest airports because of the huge number of helicopter and aeroplane flights landing and taking off.
The UK's Prince Harry is currently based there, on his second Afghan tour of duty.
Nato told Reuters that the prince was on the base at the time of the attack but was "never in any danger".
There are fears of a surge in violence in Afghanistan ahead of the withdrawal of foreign forces by 2014.Sending marines
Western countries have appealed for an end to the violent protests targeting their embassies.
On Friday The EU urged leaders in Arab and Muslim countries to "call immediately for peace and restraint".
The US is sending marines to defend its embassy in Khartoum and has called on Sudan to protect foreign diplomats.
US embassies have borne the brunt of the attacks.
Marines were deployed to Libya on Wednesday after the attack that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans and to Yemen on Friday after violence in Sanaa.
On Friday, US Vice-President Joe Biden his Sudanese counterpart, Ali Osman Taha, to express concern over the security of the US and other Western embassies in Khartoum.
"Vice-President Biden reaffirmed the responsibility of the government of Sudan to protect diplomatic facilities and stressed the need for the government... to ensure the protection of diplomats in Khartoum," a White House statement said.
A crowd of several thousand attacked the US embassy in Khartoum on Friday, and state radio said three protesters had been killed in clashes with security forces.
The German and UK embassies in Khartoum were also attacked, although the controversial film has no known links to either country.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged "national authorities in all countries concerned to swiftly ensure the security of diplomatic missions and protect diplomatic staff".
"It is vitally important that leaders across the affected regions should call immediately for peace and restraint, as has already been the case in many countries."
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
Violent protests have continued across the Middle East in response to a film made in the US seen as insulting to Islam
Mid-East protests
Friday: as it happened
Protests in pictures
Libyans speak out
Diplomat danger
The Taliban have told the BBC that they carried out an attack on Nato's Camp Bastion in Afghanistan in revenge for a film mocking Islam.
At least two US marines died when militants attacked the perimeter of the huge base in Helmand.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told the BBC that the target was US and UK soldiers and involved 10 insurgents.
Violent protests against Western embassies have swept the Muslim world amid widespread anger over the film.
Protests against the video - Innocence of Muslims - began on Tuesday in Egypt. On Friday, at least seven people died in escalating unrest in Khartoum, Tunis and Cairo.
Nato officials say insurgents used small arms, rockets and mortars in the attack on Camp Bastion.
Continue reading the main story
Protest timeline - main flashpoints
11 September
1. US embassy in Cairo attacked, flag torn down and replaced with black Islamist banner
2. Mob attacks US consulate in Benghazi, US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans killed
13 September
3. Protesters break into the US embassy compound in Sanaa, Yemen, amid clashes with security forces
14 September
4. Sudanese protesters attack US, German and UK embassies in Khartoum and clash with police. Three killed
5. One person killed in Lebanon in protest at a KFC restaurant
6. Protesters in Tunis attack the US embassy, with a large fire reported and shots heard. Two killed
7. Riot police in Cairo clash with protesters near US embassy. One person killed
In pictures: Anti-Islam film protests
Q&A: What is the anti-Islam film about?
Press gloomy on West's ties with Muslim world
The sprawling camp is home to troops from several countries and Friday's attack targeted the US compound, Camp Leatherneck.
Maj Martin Crighton from Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) told the BBC troops were conducting an assessment to determine the extent of the damage.
The video - produced in the US - depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a womaniser and leader of a group of bloodthirsty men. It has been circulating on YouTube.
Camp Bastion has a high level of security and is one of the world's busiest airports because of the huge number of helicopter and aeroplane flights landing and taking off.
The UK's Prince Harry is currently based there, on his second Afghan tour of duty.
Nato told Reuters that the prince was on the base at the time of the attack but was "never in any danger".
There are fears of a surge in violence in Afghanistan ahead of the withdrawal of foreign forces by 2014.Sending marines
Western countries have appealed for an end to the violent protests targeting their embassies.
On Friday The EU urged leaders in Arab and Muslim countries to "call immediately for peace and restraint".
The US is sending marines to defend its embassy in Khartoum and has called on Sudan to protect foreign diplomats.
US embassies have borne the brunt of the attacks.
Marines were deployed to Libya on Wednesday after the attack that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans and to Yemen on Friday after violence in Sanaa.
On Friday, US Vice-President Joe Biden his Sudanese counterpart, Ali Osman Taha, to express concern over the security of the US and other Western embassies in Khartoum.
"Vice-President Biden reaffirmed the responsibility of the government of Sudan to protect diplomatic facilities and stressed the need for the government... to ensure the protection of diplomats in Khartoum," a White House statement said.
A crowd of several thousand attacked the US embassy in Khartoum on Friday, and state radio said three protesters had been killed in clashes with security forces.
The German and UK embassies in Khartoum were also attacked, although the controversial film has no known links to either country.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged "national authorities in all countries concerned to swiftly ensure the security of diplomatic missions and protect diplomatic staff".
"It is vitally important that leaders across the affected regions should call immediately for peace and restraint, as has already been the case in many countries."
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
Afghanistan:Two Marines Die In Prince Harry Base Attack
Two Marines Die In Prince Harry Base Attack
The base's perimeter is breached as militants armed with rockets damage buildings, an aircraft hangar and several military jets.
Video: Insurgents Launch Attack On Camp BastionEnlarge
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Militants armed with rockets have attacked a major Allied military base in Afghanistan where Prince Harry is stationed, leaving two US Marines dead and a number of others hurt.
The perimeter of Camp Bastion was breached as it was hit by small arms fire and there was major damage to buildings, an aircraft hangar and several military jets.
A US official confirmed two marines had died and several troops were injured.
This facility is often subject to indirect fire, but officials in Afghanistan say the damage that resulted was far more severe than normal. The attack was launched in the US area of the base.
A spokesman at ISAF's Joint Command said the assault was over but details including the number of attackers and whether they managed to penetrate the base were not immediately clear.
Officials in Afghanistan said it was too early to know if the attack was motivated by the anti-Muslim YouTube film which has sparked violent protests in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Prince Harry arrived in Afghanistan last Friday
Prince Harry is currently stationed at Camp Bastion on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan - expected to last four months.
A Nato spokesman said the prince, who is third in line to the throne, was on the base at the time of the attack but was "never in any danger".
The Army captain, known in the military as Captain Wales, has been undergoing training to fly operations in Apache attack helicopters and is expected to start flying missions this week as co-pilot gunner.
The Taliban had described the prince as "a high value target", saying they would "make their best efforts to arrest or kill" him.
Camp Bastion is a huge, heavily fortified base in the middle of the desert shared with British, US, Danish, Estonian and Afghan troops.
It is the logistics hub for operations in Helmand province, with supply convoys and armoured patrols regularly leaving its heavily-defended gates to support military forward operating bases and checkpoints.
The base's perimeter is breached as militants armed with rockets damage buildings, an aircraft hangar and several military jets.
Video: Insurgents Launch Attack On Camp BastionEnlarge
Militants armed with rockets have attacked a major Allied military base in Afghanistan where Prince Harry is stationed, leaving two US Marines dead and a number of others hurt.
The perimeter of Camp Bastion was breached as it was hit by small arms fire and there was major damage to buildings, an aircraft hangar and several military jets.
A US official confirmed two marines had died and several troops were injured.
This facility is often subject to indirect fire, but officials in Afghanistan say the damage that resulted was far more severe than normal. The attack was launched in the US area of the base.
A spokesman at ISAF's Joint Command said the assault was over but details including the number of attackers and whether they managed to penetrate the base were not immediately clear.
Officials in Afghanistan said it was too early to know if the attack was motivated by the anti-Muslim YouTube film which has sparked violent protests in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Prince Harry arrived in Afghanistan last FridayPrince Harry is currently stationed at Camp Bastion on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan - expected to last four months.
A Nato spokesman said the prince, who is third in line to the throne, was on the base at the time of the attack but was "never in any danger".
The Army captain, known in the military as Captain Wales, has been undergoing training to fly operations in Apache attack helicopters and is expected to start flying missions this week as co-pilot gunner.
The Taliban had described the prince as "a high value target", saying they would "make their best efforts to arrest or kill" him.
Camp Bastion is a huge, heavily fortified base in the middle of the desert shared with British, US, Danish, Estonian and Afghan troops.
It is the logistics hub for operations in Helmand province, with supply convoys and armoured patrols regularly leaving its heavily-defended gates to support military forward operating bases and checkpoints.
http://news.sky.com/story/985315/two-marines-die-in-prince-harry-base-attack
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
Friday, September 14, 2012
Syrian Resort to Heavy Weapons a Sign of Assad's Weakness (Riyadh, S. Arabia)
Syrian Resort to Heavy Weapons a Sign of Assad's Weakness (Riyadh, S. Arabia)
GLEN CAREY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bloomberg News.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The use by Bashar Assad's armed forces of ever-deadlier weapons to crush the 18-month Syrian uprising at the expense of greater civilian casualties is a sign of the regime's weakness, military and Middle East analysts say.
Syria's government has become more reliant on heavy weaponry including attack aircraft, helicopter gunships, artillery and tanks even as lightly armed rebels win and hold ground in the biggest cities — Aleppo, the business center, and suburbs of the capital, Damascus.
Assad's forces have been employing heavier weapons because "they don't have enough combat maneuver units to deal with the rebellion," according to Jeffrey White, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a 34-year veteran of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. That shortage of troops indicates a loss of army personnel from defections and desertions, White said in a phone interview.
The Syrian army's full-time notional strength is about 220,000 personnel, plus allied Shabiha militiamen, according to the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies' Military Balance 2012. Yet the fighting has reduced its effectiveness as a military force and its manpower may now be only about 100,000 troops, White estimates, while the remaining units "aren't necessarily fighting very well."
If the Syrian military is unable to break the deadlock even with air power, it may resort to still-tougher tactics.
"There is another level beyond that when they actually start systematically destroying entire suburbs of major towns," said Crispin Hawes, head of the Middle East program at Eurasia Group, a New York-based political risk research company.
In Aleppo, government forces shelled neighborhoods and battled overnight with rebels near the international airport, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on its Facebook page Wednesday. More than 140 people, including 95 unarmed civilians and 26 personnel from the Syrian army, died Tuesday in the clashes, the Britain-based group said.
A car bomb and rebel assault at military position killed at least 18 soldiers today in Idlib province, the Observatory said, after rebels attacked as many as 100 troops manning a checkpoint.
Syrian forces routinely storm small towns and city districts seeking rebels and their supporters. In August, loyalists entered Dariya, a town outside Damascus, leaving bodies piled on the streets and in a mosque, according to opposition groups. A video posted on YouTube showed the corpses of men covered in blankets on the floor of the Abu Sulaiman Darani mosque in Dariya. The authenticity of the video couldn't be verified.
Syria's armed forces possess a large inventory of military hardware. Mainly Russian-supplied, this includes 4,950 main battle tanks and 3,440 artillery pieces, while the air force has 365 combat-capable aircraft including 240 MiG-21s, MiG-23s, Su-22s and Su-24s assigned to ground attack, according to the IISS. In addition, it has 33 Mi-25 attack helicopters.
"Statistically the regime has considerable power, but the part that can be used is very small," said Mustafa Alani, an analyst at the Geneva-based Gulf Research Center, in an interview. "We are witnessing a shift in the balance of power on the battlefield inside Syria." That's why the government is using its weaponry "to regain the balance that was lost."
Alani says the best-equipped unit, the 4th Armored Division led by Assad's brother Maher, is being held back in the capital for "the last stand of the regime."
Syria's economy is showing signs of weakening under sanctions. In June, consumer prices rose 36 percent from a year earlier and climbed by 2.9 percent from May, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics in Damascus. Crude output has fallen by almost 50 percent during the uprising, Oil Minister Said Hunaidi said last month.
Even so, Assad's downfall is not assured, Hawes says. "Syria potentially looks like an open-ended conflict," he says. Unlike the removal of governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, "Assad is going to be a lot harder to tip over."
Both sides have switched tactics as the conflict has evolved since the start of the uprising in March 2011.
"For most of last year, the military response was reasonably measured in that they were attempting to minimize civilian casualties, with the eye on re-establishing order and being able to run the country in the way that they ran it before," said Hawes. "That goal is no longer perceived to be realistic. They are happy to use helicopter gunships and air support to attack suburbs, losing a huge number of civilian casualties."
Pressure from more than a year of combat operations has "taxed" the Syrian military, causing problems with resupply, maintenance and morale, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month.
That's why Iran has started to train a new militia force, called " the Army of the People," drawn from the minority Shiite and Alawite communities "to take some of the pressure off of the Syrian military," he said.
The Syrian military is also being resupplied by Iran, says Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai. While Iran has supported Assad's government in public statements, it hasn't officially acknowledged any military role in Syria.
The rebels too have altered their approach, entering and holding areas of the biggest cities. Even so, the Free Syrian Army lacks a "grand strategy," White says.
The partial seizure of Aleppo, "didn't reflect any profound strategic thinking," he said. "They saw an opportunity, saw that regime forces were weak and not fighting very well, and they seized on the opportunity."
He says the Syrian military response has failed to dislodge them and that the rebels are fighting a long war.
"The FSA doesn't have a field force, they can't come out of the towns and villages meet the Syrian army in some kind of open battle," he said. "They can weaken the army over time, and I think that is what they are doing. They are going to break the army piece by piece."
-(Optional add end)-
Rebels have turned their attacks against airbases as they try to degrade the government's air power. Battles have been fought around the Abu Zhuhoor military base, the Kwers military airport in Aleppo and in the city of Bukmal in Deir Ezzour province near the border with Iraq.
Heavy fighting erupted in areas of Damascus and Aleppo in July as rebels confronted the government in its biggest urban power bases.
The same month, a bomb was smuggled into one of the government's most sensitive institutions, the national security headquarters in Damascus, killing key members of Assad's military establishment, including his brother-in-law, Major General Assef Shawkat, and Defense Minister Dawoud Rajhah. In August, Prime Minister Riad Hijab defected to Jordan and denounced Assad's regime as "the enemy of God."
The Syrian Observatory estimates that more than 26,000 people have died to date, an average of about 50 a day. Throughout most of August and September, opposition groups have reported death tolls of more than 100 daily, with the Local Coordination Committees in Syria identifying Aug. 25 as the bloodiest, with 440 people said to have lost their lives.
The problem for Syria's rebels, according to White, is that they lack the firepower to bring the battle to Assad's forces, while loyalist units lack the stomach for close-quarters combat. "When regime ground units attack, they don't attack very hard," he said.
With the conflict dragging on, "there will be no winners in this rolling slaughter," said Paul Sullivan, an economics professor specializing in Middle East security at Georgetown University in Washington. "Syria is likely finished as a country that functions for some time to come."
bc-syria-analysis
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
GLEN CAREY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bloomberg News.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The use by Bashar Assad's armed forces of ever-deadlier weapons to crush the 18-month Syrian uprising at the expense of greater civilian casualties is a sign of the regime's weakness, military and Middle East analysts say.
Syria's government has become more reliant on heavy weaponry including attack aircraft, helicopter gunships, artillery and tanks even as lightly armed rebels win and hold ground in the biggest cities — Aleppo, the business center, and suburbs of the capital, Damascus.
Assad's forces have been employing heavier weapons because "they don't have enough combat maneuver units to deal with the rebellion," according to Jeffrey White, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a 34-year veteran of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. That shortage of troops indicates a loss of army personnel from defections and desertions, White said in a phone interview.
The Syrian army's full-time notional strength is about 220,000 personnel, plus allied Shabiha militiamen, according to the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies' Military Balance 2012. Yet the fighting has reduced its effectiveness as a military force and its manpower may now be only about 100,000 troops, White estimates, while the remaining units "aren't necessarily fighting very well."
If the Syrian military is unable to break the deadlock even with air power, it may resort to still-tougher tactics.
"There is another level beyond that when they actually start systematically destroying entire suburbs of major towns," said Crispin Hawes, head of the Middle East program at Eurasia Group, a New York-based political risk research company.
In Aleppo, government forces shelled neighborhoods and battled overnight with rebels near the international airport, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on its Facebook page Wednesday. More than 140 people, including 95 unarmed civilians and 26 personnel from the Syrian army, died Tuesday in the clashes, the Britain-based group said.
A car bomb and rebel assault at military position killed at least 18 soldiers today in Idlib province, the Observatory said, after rebels attacked as many as 100 troops manning a checkpoint.
Syrian forces routinely storm small towns and city districts seeking rebels and their supporters. In August, loyalists entered Dariya, a town outside Damascus, leaving bodies piled on the streets and in a mosque, according to opposition groups. A video posted on YouTube showed the corpses of men covered in blankets on the floor of the Abu Sulaiman Darani mosque in Dariya. The authenticity of the video couldn't be verified.
Syria's armed forces possess a large inventory of military hardware. Mainly Russian-supplied, this includes 4,950 main battle tanks and 3,440 artillery pieces, while the air force has 365 combat-capable aircraft including 240 MiG-21s, MiG-23s, Su-22s and Su-24s assigned to ground attack, according to the IISS. In addition, it has 33 Mi-25 attack helicopters.
"Statistically the regime has considerable power, but the part that can be used is very small," said Mustafa Alani, an analyst at the Geneva-based Gulf Research Center, in an interview. "We are witnessing a shift in the balance of power on the battlefield inside Syria." That's why the government is using its weaponry "to regain the balance that was lost."
Alani says the best-equipped unit, the 4th Armored Division led by Assad's brother Maher, is being held back in the capital for "the last stand of the regime."
Syria's economy is showing signs of weakening under sanctions. In June, consumer prices rose 36 percent from a year earlier and climbed by 2.9 percent from May, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics in Damascus. Crude output has fallen by almost 50 percent during the uprising, Oil Minister Said Hunaidi said last month.
Even so, Assad's downfall is not assured, Hawes says. "Syria potentially looks like an open-ended conflict," he says. Unlike the removal of governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, "Assad is going to be a lot harder to tip over."
Both sides have switched tactics as the conflict has evolved since the start of the uprising in March 2011.
"For most of last year, the military response was reasonably measured in that they were attempting to minimize civilian casualties, with the eye on re-establishing order and being able to run the country in the way that they ran it before," said Hawes. "That goal is no longer perceived to be realistic. They are happy to use helicopter gunships and air support to attack suburbs, losing a huge number of civilian casualties."
Pressure from more than a year of combat operations has "taxed" the Syrian military, causing problems with resupply, maintenance and morale, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month.
That's why Iran has started to train a new militia force, called " the Army of the People," drawn from the minority Shiite and Alawite communities "to take some of the pressure off of the Syrian military," he said.
The Syrian military is also being resupplied by Iran, says Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai. While Iran has supported Assad's government in public statements, it hasn't officially acknowledged any military role in Syria.
The rebels too have altered their approach, entering and holding areas of the biggest cities. Even so, the Free Syrian Army lacks a "grand strategy," White says.
The partial seizure of Aleppo, "didn't reflect any profound strategic thinking," he said. "They saw an opportunity, saw that regime forces were weak and not fighting very well, and they seized on the opportunity."
He says the Syrian military response has failed to dislodge them and that the rebels are fighting a long war.
"The FSA doesn't have a field force, they can't come out of the towns and villages meet the Syrian army in some kind of open battle," he said. "They can weaken the army over time, and I think that is what they are doing. They are going to break the army piece by piece."
-(Optional add end)-
Rebels have turned their attacks against airbases as they try to degrade the government's air power. Battles have been fought around the Abu Zhuhoor military base, the Kwers military airport in Aleppo and in the city of Bukmal in Deir Ezzour province near the border with Iraq.
Heavy fighting erupted in areas of Damascus and Aleppo in July as rebels confronted the government in its biggest urban power bases.
The same month, a bomb was smuggled into one of the government's most sensitive institutions, the national security headquarters in Damascus, killing key members of Assad's military establishment, including his brother-in-law, Major General Assef Shawkat, and Defense Minister Dawoud Rajhah. In August, Prime Minister Riad Hijab defected to Jordan and denounced Assad's regime as "the enemy of God."
The Syrian Observatory estimates that more than 26,000 people have died to date, an average of about 50 a day. Throughout most of August and September, opposition groups have reported death tolls of more than 100 daily, with the Local Coordination Committees in Syria identifying Aug. 25 as the bloodiest, with 440 people said to have lost their lives.
The problem for Syria's rebels, according to White, is that they lack the firepower to bring the battle to Assad's forces, while loyalist units lack the stomach for close-quarters combat. "When regime ground units attack, they don't attack very hard," he said.
With the conflict dragging on, "there will be no winners in this rolling slaughter," said Paul Sullivan, an economics professor specializing in Middle East security at Georgetown University in Washington. "Syria is likely finished as a country that functions for some time to come."
bc-syria-analysis
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
Feds ID anti-Islam filmmaker who sparked protests
Feds ID anti-Islam filmmaker who sparked protests
(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON - Federal authorities have identified a southern California man once convicted of financial crimes as the key figure behind the anti-Muslim film that ignited mob violence against U.S. embassies across the Mideast, a U.S. law enforcement official said Thursday.
Attorney General Eric Holder said that Justice Department officials had opened a criminal investigation into the deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other diplomats killed during an attack on the American mission in Benghazi. It was not immediately clear whether authorities were focusing on the California filmmaker as part of that probe.
A federal law enforcement official said Thursday that Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, was the man behind "Innocence of Muslims," a film denigrating Islam and the Prophet Muhammad that sparked protests earlier in the week in Egypt and Libya and now in Yemen. U.S. authorities are investigating whether the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya came during a terrorist attack.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation, said Nakoula was connected to the persona of Sam Bacile, a figure who initially claimed to be the writer and director of the film. But Bacile quickly turned out to a false identity.
A Christian activist involved in the film project, Steve Klein, told CBS News that Bacile was a pseudonym, and he told The Associated Press that Bacile was Christian. Klein had told the AP on Tuesday that the filmmaker was an Israeli Jew who was concerned for family members who live in Egypt.
Klein said he didn't know the real name of the man he called "Sam," who came to him for advice on First Amendment issues.
Klein said the film's financial backers are an anonymous group of Christians, Jews and Muslims with ties to the Middle East, CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports. The film itself is amateurish, shot outside Los Angeles on a very low budget. Several actors told CBS News they only saw their scenes. They were horrified and frightened by the end result.
"I pray now for the family that lost, you know, that lost their loved ones, and I'm praying for the madness to stop," said Cindy, and actor who spoke to CBS News on the condition that only her first name be used.
In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the film is "disgusting and reprehensible." She called it a cynical attempt to offend people for their religious beliefs but said the U.S. would never stop Americans from expressing their views, no matter how distasteful.
Still, she said the film is no justification for violence or attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel.
(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON - Federal authorities have identified a southern California man once convicted of financial crimes as the key figure behind the anti-Muslim film that ignited mob violence against U.S. embassies across the Mideast, a U.S. law enforcement official said Thursday.
Attorney General Eric Holder said that Justice Department officials had opened a criminal investigation into the deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other diplomats killed during an attack on the American mission in Benghazi. It was not immediately clear whether authorities were focusing on the California filmmaker as part of that probe.
A federal law enforcement official said Thursday that Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, was the man behind "Innocence of Muslims," a film denigrating Islam and the Prophet Muhammad that sparked protests earlier in the week in Egypt and Libya and now in Yemen. U.S. authorities are investigating whether the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya came during a terrorist attack.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation, said Nakoula was connected to the persona of Sam Bacile, a figure who initially claimed to be the writer and director of the film. But Bacile quickly turned out to a false identity.
A Christian activist involved in the film project, Steve Klein, told CBS News that Bacile was a pseudonym, and he told The Associated Press that Bacile was Christian. Klein had told the AP on Tuesday that the filmmaker was an Israeli Jew who was concerned for family members who live in Egypt.
Klein said he didn't know the real name of the man he called "Sam," who came to him for advice on First Amendment issues.
Klein said the film's financial backers are an anonymous group of Christians, Jews and Muslims with ties to the Middle East, CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports. The film itself is amateurish, shot outside Los Angeles on a very low budget. Several actors told CBS News they only saw their scenes. They were horrified and frightened by the end result.
"I pray now for the family that lost, you know, that lost their loved ones, and I'm praying for the madness to stop," said Cindy, and actor who spoke to CBS News on the condition that only her first name be used.
In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the film is "disgusting and reprehensible." She called it a cynical attempt to offend people for their religious beliefs but said the U.S. would never stop Americans from expressing their views, no matter how distasteful.
Still, she said the film is no justification for violence or attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel.
Umar bin Abdul Aziz: A great Muslim ruler
Umar bin Abdul Aziz: A great Muslim ruler
The Khamis Mosque in Bahrain, which is believed to have been built during the era of Umar bin Abdul Aziz.
ABU TARIQ HIJAZI
JEDDAH: THERE are a few rulers in the world who have left indelible impressions in history. Caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz tops that list. He is considered one of the finest rulers in Muslim history, second only to the four rightly guided caliphs — Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali (RA). In fact, in some circles, he is affectionately referred to as the fifth and the last caliph of Islam.
The Roman emperor, when heard about his death, said: "A virtuous person has passed away... I am hardly surprised to see an ascetic who renounced the world and give himself to the prayers of Allah. But I am certainly surprised at a person who had all the pleasures of the world at his feet and yet he shut his eyes against them and lived a life of piety and renunciation."
Umar bin Abdul Aziz ruled as a caliph for only 30 months but during this short period he changed the world. His tenure was the brightest period in the 92-year history of the Umayyad Caliphate.
He was the son of Abdul Aziz bin Marwan, the governor of Egypt while his mother, Umm-i-Aasim was the granddaughter of Caliph Umar Ibn Al Khattab.
Umar bin Abdul Aziz was born in 63 A.H. (682 A.D.) in Halwan, Egypt, but he received his education in Madinah from his mother’s uncle, the celebrated scholar Abdullah Ibn Umar. He stayed in Madinah till his father’s death in 704 A.D., when he was called by his uncle Caliph Abdul Malik and was married to his daughter Fatima. He was appointed governor of Madinah in 706 A.D. succeeding Caliph Waleed bin Abdul Malik.
Umar remained governor of Madinah throughout the reigns of Caliph Walid and Caliph Suleiman. But when Suleiman fell seriously ill, he wanted to appoint heir, as his sons were still minors. Reja ibn Haiwah, the adviser, proposed to him to appoint his cousin Umar bin Abdul Aziz as his successor. Suleiman accepted the suggestion.
After being nominated caliph, Umar addressed the people from the pulpit saying: “O people, I have been nominated your caliph despite my unwillingness and without your consent. So here I am, I relieve you of your pledge (baiyat) that you have taken for my allegiance. Elect whomsoever you find suitable as your caliph." People shouted: "O Umar, we have full faith in you and we want you as our caliph." Umar continued, “O people, obey me as long as I obey Allah; and if I disobey Allah, you are not duty-bound to obey me."
Umar was extremely pious and averse to worldly luxuries. He preferred simplicity to extravagance. He deposited all assets and wealth meant for the ruling caliph into the Bait Al Maal. He even abandoned the royal palace and preferred to live in a modest house. He wore rough clothes instead of royal robes and often went unrecognized in public like his great grandfather Caliph Umar ibn Al Khattab.
After his appointment as caliph he discarded all the pompous appendages of princely life-servants, slaves, maids, horses, palaces, golden robes and real estates and returned them to Bait Al Maal. He also asked his wife Fatima to return the jewelry she had received from her father Caliph Abdul Malik. The faithful wife complied with his bidding and deposited all of it in the Bait Al Maal. Later, he got his articles of luxury auctioned for 23,000 dinars and spent the amount for charitable purposes."
He never built a house of his own. Allama Suyuti in his historical work "Taarikh Al Khulafaa" records that Umar spent only two dirhams a day when he was caliph. He received lesser salary than his subordinates. His private properties yielded an income of 50,000 dinars annually before his nomination, but when he returned all his properties to the Bait Al Maal, his private income was reduced to 200 dinars per annum. This was his wealth when he was commanding the vast Caliphate from the borders of France in the West to the borders of China in the East.
Once his wife found him weeping after prayers. She asked what had happened. He replied: "I have been made the ruler over the Muslims and I was thinking of the poor who are starving, and the sick who are destitute, and the naked who are in distress, and the oppressed that are stricken, and the stranger that is in prison, and the venerable elder, and him that hath a large family and small means, and the like of them in countries of the earth and the distant provinces, and I felt that my Lord would ask me about them on the Day of Resurrection, and I feared that no defense would avail me (at that time), and I wept."
He was very considerate to his subjects.
His generous reforms and leniency led the people to deposit their taxes willingly. Ibn Kathir writes that thanks to the reforms undertaken by Umar, the annual revenue from Persia alone increased from 28 million dirham to 124 million dirham.
He undertook extensive public works in Persia, Khorasan and North Africa, including the construction of canals, roads, rest houses for travelers and medical dispensaries.
The result was that during his short reign of two and half years, people had become so prosperous and contented that one could hardly find a person who would accept alms.
Umar is credited with having ordered the first collection of Hadith, in an official manner, fearing that some of it might be lost. Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Hazm and Ibn Shihab Al-Zuhri, were among those who compiled Hadith at Umar’s behest.
Following the example of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him), Umar sent out emissaries to China and Tibet, inviting their rulers to embrace Islam. It was during the time of Umar that Islam took roots and was accepted by a large segment of the population of Persia and Egypt. When the officials complained that because of conversions, the jizya revenues of the state had experienced a steep decline, Umar wrote back saying that “Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was sent as a prophet (to invite the people to Islam) and not as a tax collector." He abolished home tax, marriage tax, stamp tax and many other taxes as well. When many of his agents wrote that his fiscal reforms in favor of new converts would deplete the Treasury, he replied, "Glad would I be, by Allah, to see everybody become Muslim so that you and I would have to till the soil with our own hands to earn a living."
Once a Muslim murdered a non-Muslim of Hira. Caliph Umar, when informed of the event, ordered the governor to do justice in the case. The Muslim was surrendered to the relations of the murdered person who killed him.
The general princely class of that time could not digest these policies of justice, simplicity and equality. A slave of the caliph was bribed to administer the deadly poison to him. The caliph having felt the effect of the poison sent for the slave and asked him why he had poisoned him. The slave replied that he was given 1,000 dinars for the job. The caliph took the amount from him and deposited it in Bait Al Maal. Freeing the slave he asked him to leave the place immediately, lest anyone might kill him. This was his last deposit in the Bait Al-Maal for the welfare of Muslims.
Umar died in Rajab 101 AH at the age of 38 in a rented house at the place called Dair Sim’aan near Homs. He was buried in Dair Sim’aan on a piece of land he had purchased from a Christian. He reportedly left behind only 17 dinars with a will that out of this amount the rent of the house in which he died and the price of the land in which he was buried would be paid. And thus departed the great soul from the world.
May Almighty Allah rest his soul in peace and award him the best place in Paradise.
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
The Khamis Mosque in Bahrain, which is believed to have been built during the era of Umar bin Abdul Aziz.
ABU TARIQ HIJAZI
JEDDAH: THERE are a few rulers in the world who have left indelible impressions in history. Caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz tops that list. He is considered one of the finest rulers in Muslim history, second only to the four rightly guided caliphs — Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali (RA). In fact, in some circles, he is affectionately referred to as the fifth and the last caliph of Islam.
The Roman emperor, when heard about his death, said: "A virtuous person has passed away... I am hardly surprised to see an ascetic who renounced the world and give himself to the prayers of Allah. But I am certainly surprised at a person who had all the pleasures of the world at his feet and yet he shut his eyes against them and lived a life of piety and renunciation."
Umar bin Abdul Aziz ruled as a caliph for only 30 months but during this short period he changed the world. His tenure was the brightest period in the 92-year history of the Umayyad Caliphate.
He was the son of Abdul Aziz bin Marwan, the governor of Egypt while his mother, Umm-i-Aasim was the granddaughter of Caliph Umar Ibn Al Khattab.
Umar bin Abdul Aziz was born in 63 A.H. (682 A.D.) in Halwan, Egypt, but he received his education in Madinah from his mother’s uncle, the celebrated scholar Abdullah Ibn Umar. He stayed in Madinah till his father’s death in 704 A.D., when he was called by his uncle Caliph Abdul Malik and was married to his daughter Fatima. He was appointed governor of Madinah in 706 A.D. succeeding Caliph Waleed bin Abdul Malik.
Umar remained governor of Madinah throughout the reigns of Caliph Walid and Caliph Suleiman. But when Suleiman fell seriously ill, he wanted to appoint heir, as his sons were still minors. Reja ibn Haiwah, the adviser, proposed to him to appoint his cousin Umar bin Abdul Aziz as his successor. Suleiman accepted the suggestion.
After being nominated caliph, Umar addressed the people from the pulpit saying: “O people, I have been nominated your caliph despite my unwillingness and without your consent. So here I am, I relieve you of your pledge (baiyat) that you have taken for my allegiance. Elect whomsoever you find suitable as your caliph." People shouted: "O Umar, we have full faith in you and we want you as our caliph." Umar continued, “O people, obey me as long as I obey Allah; and if I disobey Allah, you are not duty-bound to obey me."
Umar was extremely pious and averse to worldly luxuries. He preferred simplicity to extravagance. He deposited all assets and wealth meant for the ruling caliph into the Bait Al Maal. He even abandoned the royal palace and preferred to live in a modest house. He wore rough clothes instead of royal robes and often went unrecognized in public like his great grandfather Caliph Umar ibn Al Khattab.
After his appointment as caliph he discarded all the pompous appendages of princely life-servants, slaves, maids, horses, palaces, golden robes and real estates and returned them to Bait Al Maal. He also asked his wife Fatima to return the jewelry she had received from her father Caliph Abdul Malik. The faithful wife complied with his bidding and deposited all of it in the Bait Al Maal. Later, he got his articles of luxury auctioned for 23,000 dinars and spent the amount for charitable purposes."
He never built a house of his own. Allama Suyuti in his historical work "Taarikh Al Khulafaa" records that Umar spent only two dirhams a day when he was caliph. He received lesser salary than his subordinates. His private properties yielded an income of 50,000 dinars annually before his nomination, but when he returned all his properties to the Bait Al Maal, his private income was reduced to 200 dinars per annum. This was his wealth when he was commanding the vast Caliphate from the borders of France in the West to the borders of China in the East.
Once his wife found him weeping after prayers. She asked what had happened. He replied: "I have been made the ruler over the Muslims and I was thinking of the poor who are starving, and the sick who are destitute, and the naked who are in distress, and the oppressed that are stricken, and the stranger that is in prison, and the venerable elder, and him that hath a large family and small means, and the like of them in countries of the earth and the distant provinces, and I felt that my Lord would ask me about them on the Day of Resurrection, and I feared that no defense would avail me (at that time), and I wept."
He was very considerate to his subjects.
His generous reforms and leniency led the people to deposit their taxes willingly. Ibn Kathir writes that thanks to the reforms undertaken by Umar, the annual revenue from Persia alone increased from 28 million dirham to 124 million dirham.
He undertook extensive public works in Persia, Khorasan and North Africa, including the construction of canals, roads, rest houses for travelers and medical dispensaries.
The result was that during his short reign of two and half years, people had become so prosperous and contented that one could hardly find a person who would accept alms.
Umar is credited with having ordered the first collection of Hadith, in an official manner, fearing that some of it might be lost. Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn Hazm and Ibn Shihab Al-Zuhri, were among those who compiled Hadith at Umar’s behest.
Following the example of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him), Umar sent out emissaries to China and Tibet, inviting their rulers to embrace Islam. It was during the time of Umar that Islam took roots and was accepted by a large segment of the population of Persia and Egypt. When the officials complained that because of conversions, the jizya revenues of the state had experienced a steep decline, Umar wrote back saying that “Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was sent as a prophet (to invite the people to Islam) and not as a tax collector." He abolished home tax, marriage tax, stamp tax and many other taxes as well. When many of his agents wrote that his fiscal reforms in favor of new converts would deplete the Treasury, he replied, "Glad would I be, by Allah, to see everybody become Muslim so that you and I would have to till the soil with our own hands to earn a living."
Once a Muslim murdered a non-Muslim of Hira. Caliph Umar, when informed of the event, ordered the governor to do justice in the case. The Muslim was surrendered to the relations of the murdered person who killed him.
The general princely class of that time could not digest these policies of justice, simplicity and equality. A slave of the caliph was bribed to administer the deadly poison to him. The caliph having felt the effect of the poison sent for the slave and asked him why he had poisoned him. The slave replied that he was given 1,000 dinars for the job. The caliph took the amount from him and deposited it in Bait Al Maal. Freeing the slave he asked him to leave the place immediately, lest anyone might kill him. This was his last deposit in the Bait Al-Maal for the welfare of Muslims.
Umar died in Rajab 101 AH at the age of 38 in a rented house at the place called Dair Sim’aan near Homs. He was buried in Dair Sim’aan on a piece of land he had purchased from a Christian. He reportedly left behind only 17 dinars with a will that out of this amount the rent of the house in which he died and the price of the land in which he was buried would be paid. And thus departed the great soul from the world.
May Almighty Allah rest his soul in peace and award him the best place in Paradise.
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
Superiority of Islam over other religions
Superiority of Islam over other religions
ARAB NEWS
Margaret Marcus, an ex-Jew discusses about the Qur’an and her views about Jews and Arab relations. She finally accepted Islam.
Although I did find the Hereafter mentioned in the New Testament, compared with that of the Holy Qur’an, it is vague and ambiguous. I found no answer to the question of death in Orthodox Judaism, for the Talmud preaches that even the worst life is better than death. My parents’ philosophy was that one must avoid contemplating the thought of death and just enjoy, as best one can, the pleasures life has to offer at the moment. According to them, the purpose of life is enjoyment and pleasure achieved through self-expression of one’s talents, the love of family, the congenial company of friends combined with the comfortable living and indulgence in the variety of amusements that affluent America makes available in such abundance. They deliberately cultivated this superficial approach to life as if it were the guarantee for their continued happiness and good-fortune.
Through bitter experience I discovered that self-indulgence leads only to misery, and that nothing great or even worthwhile is ever accomplished without struggle through adversity and self-sacrifice. From my earliest childhood, I have always wanted to accomplish important and significant things. Above all else, before my death, I wanted the assurance that I have not wasted life in sinful deeds or worthless pursuits. All my life I have been intensely serious-minded. I have always detested the frivolity, which is the dominant characteristic of contemporary culture.
As the years passed, the realization gradually dawned upon me that it was not the Arabs who made Islam great but rather Islam had made the Arabs great. Were it not for the Holy Prophet Muhammad (may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him) the Arabs would be an obscure people today. And were it not for the Holy Qur’an, the Arabic language would be equally insignificant, if not extinct.
Similarities between Judaism and Islam.
The kinship between Judaism and Islam is even stronger than Islam and Christianity. Both Judaism and Islam share in common the same uncompromising monotheism, the crucial importance of strict obedience to Divine Law as proof of our submission to and love of the Creator, the rejection of the priesthood, celibacy and monasticism and the striking similarity of the Hebrew and Arabic language.
In Judaism, religion is so confused with nationalism, one can scarcely distinguish between the two. The name "Judaism" is derived from Judah - a tribe. A Jew is a member of the tribe of Judah. Even the name of this religion connotes no universal spiritual message. A Jew is not a Jew by virtue of his belief in the unity of God, but merely because he happened to be born of Jewish parentage. Should he become an outspoken atheist, he is no less "Jewish" in the eyes of his fellow Jews.
Such a thorough corruption with nationalism has spiritually impoverished this religion in all its aspects. For them, God is not the God of all mankind, but the God of Israel. The scriptures are not God’s revelation to the entire human race, but primarily a Jewish history book. David and Solomon (may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him) are not full-fledged prophets of God but merely Jewish kings. With the single exception of Yom Kippur (the Jewish Day of Atonement), the holidays and festivals celebrated by Jews, such as Hanukkah, Purim and Pesach, are of far greater national than religious significance.
To be continued
(Courtesy of www.islamreligion.com)
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
ARAB NEWS
Margaret Marcus, an ex-Jew discusses about the Qur’an and her views about Jews and Arab relations. She finally accepted Islam.
Although I did find the Hereafter mentioned in the New Testament, compared with that of the Holy Qur’an, it is vague and ambiguous. I found no answer to the question of death in Orthodox Judaism, for the Talmud preaches that even the worst life is better than death. My parents’ philosophy was that one must avoid contemplating the thought of death and just enjoy, as best one can, the pleasures life has to offer at the moment. According to them, the purpose of life is enjoyment and pleasure achieved through self-expression of one’s talents, the love of family, the congenial company of friends combined with the comfortable living and indulgence in the variety of amusements that affluent America makes available in such abundance. They deliberately cultivated this superficial approach to life as if it were the guarantee for their continued happiness and good-fortune.
Through bitter experience I discovered that self-indulgence leads only to misery, and that nothing great or even worthwhile is ever accomplished without struggle through adversity and self-sacrifice. From my earliest childhood, I have always wanted to accomplish important and significant things. Above all else, before my death, I wanted the assurance that I have not wasted life in sinful deeds or worthless pursuits. All my life I have been intensely serious-minded. I have always detested the frivolity, which is the dominant characteristic of contemporary culture.
My father once disturbed me with his unsettling conviction that there is nothing of permanent value because everything in this modern age accept the present trends inevitable and adjust ourselves to them. I, however, was thirsty to attain something that would endure forever. It was from the Holy Qur’an where I learned that this aspiration was possible. No good deed for the sake of seeking the pleasure of God is ever wasted or lost. Even if the person concerned never achieves any worldly recognition, his reward is certain in the Hereafter. Conversely, the Qur’an tells us that those who are guided by no moral considerations other than expediency or social conformity, and crave the freedom to do as they please, no matter how much worldly success and prosperity they attain or how keenly they are able to relish the short span of their earthly life, they will be doomed as the losers on Judgment Day.
Islam teaches us that in order to devote our exclusive attention to fulfilling our duties to God and to our fellow beings, we must abandon all vain and useless activities, which distract us from this end. These teachings of the Holy Qur’an, made even more explicit by Hadith, were thoroughly compatible with my temperament.
Islam teaches us that in order to devote our exclusive attention to fulfilling our duties to God and to our fellow beings, we must abandon all vain and useless activities, which distract us from this end. These teachings of the Holy Qur’an, made even more explicit by Hadith, were thoroughly compatible with my temperament.
As the years passed, the realization gradually dawned upon me that it was not the Arabs who made Islam great but rather Islam had made the Arabs great. Were it not for the Holy Prophet Muhammad (may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him) the Arabs would be an obscure people today. And were it not for the Holy Qur’an, the Arabic language would be equally insignificant, if not extinct.
Similarities between Judaism and Islam.
The kinship between Judaism and Islam is even stronger than Islam and Christianity. Both Judaism and Islam share in common the same uncompromising monotheism, the crucial importance of strict obedience to Divine Law as proof of our submission to and love of the Creator, the rejection of the priesthood, celibacy and monasticism and the striking similarity of the Hebrew and Arabic language.
In Judaism, religion is so confused with nationalism, one can scarcely distinguish between the two. The name "Judaism" is derived from Judah - a tribe. A Jew is a member of the tribe of Judah. Even the name of this religion connotes no universal spiritual message. A Jew is not a Jew by virtue of his belief in the unity of God, but merely because he happened to be born of Jewish parentage. Should he become an outspoken atheist, he is no less "Jewish" in the eyes of his fellow Jews.
Such a thorough corruption with nationalism has spiritually impoverished this religion in all its aspects. For them, God is not the God of all mankind, but the God of Israel. The scriptures are not God’s revelation to the entire human race, but primarily a Jewish history book. David and Solomon (may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him) are not full-fledged prophets of God but merely Jewish kings. With the single exception of Yom Kippur (the Jewish Day of Atonement), the holidays and festivals celebrated by Jews, such as Hanukkah, Purim and Pesach, are of far greater national than religious significance.
To be continued
(Courtesy of www.islamreligion.com)
http://MuslimWindow.blogspot.com/
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