America’s Mideast Raj is now on fire. Whether it survives or not remains to be seen.
One cannot escape a sense that we may be looking at a Mideast version of the 1989 uprisings across Eastern Europe that brought down its Communist regimes and then the Soviet Union. Americans should be uneasy seeing crowds of Egyptians pleading for freedom and justice watched over by US-supplied tanks.
With the 18-year-long Middle East peace process finally pronounced dead, is the Palestinian Authority finished too?
That is the question being asked by Palestinians in the wake of a week of damaging revelations that Palestinian negotiators secretly made major concessions to Israel in talks on Jerusalem, refugees and borders.
The PA — the Palestinians’ government-in-the-making, led by Mahmoud Abbas — was already in crisis before the disclosure of official Palestinian documents by Al Jazeera television last week.
A deafening outcry for democracy and human rights is echoing across the Arab world after the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, a popular revolt that gave the people of Middle East a ray of hope against corrupt dictatorships in the Muslim world.
I always thought this a specifically Israeli trait: whenever a scandal of national proportions breaks out, we ignore the crucial issues and focus our attention on some secondary detail. This spares us having to face the real problems and making painful decisions.
America has never met an Arab despot it couldn’t coddle. Before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Reagan and Bush had a nice working relationship with Saddam Hussein. In fact, when the Iraqi dictator invaded Iran, they went so far as to supply him with chemical weapons and intelligence. After ‘liberating’ Kuwait, the powers that be in Washington had no qualms about re-installing the Emir as the absolute ruler of his people.
This article is designed for those who wish to become Muslim; as to what would be their benefits after accepting Islam. It should be stated here that we are not trying to entice people to become Muslim, nor are we trying to convert them into the fold of Islam. Any person who wishes to become a Muslim should recognize that he or she will get all these benefits and much more. However, he or she should realize that they have to earn them by practicing the teachings of Islam. Implementing the practice of Islamic teachings is as important as believing.
Benefits
Converts to Islam are important ambassadors for American Muslims; increasing their participation should sit high on the priority list of the larger Muslim community.
Although many improvements have been made in convert outreach, far too many who are new to the faith lack a strong sense of authenticity as Muslims, and consequently end up slowly disengaging from the religion. Unfortunately the messages they receive from other Muslims often reinforce their alienation.
‘National Consultation: Aspirations and Expectations of Muslim Community from Twelfth Five Year Plan’
(Pervez Bari):
His name is Saad Iqbal Madni and he is 33 years old. As an Islamic scholar, he was employed to read the Quran during prayer times and religious holidays for the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation. He was one of the countless Pakistani and/or Afghan people at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was picked up by Indonesian authorities in 2002 acting on behalf of the USA on rumors that he had told someone he knew how to make a bomb.
As anti-US sentiments are on the rise in Afghanistan, shocking new footage shows American soldiers desecrating the holy Quran after killing civilians in an Afghan village.
Reports say at least three civilians were killed and four others were injured after US forces raided an Islamic school in Ghazni Province. The troops fired several shots at the holy Quran and insulted Islamic symbols, a Press TV correspondent reported.
The deliberate injury of the limbs of 23 boys by high velocity weapons has been logged and described by Defence for Children International – Palestine Branch (DCI-P) since March 2010. (1) Some of the facts have been published in national newspapers. These barbarous acts contravene international and national law but there are no judicial responses. The caring professions see the physical and mental pain of those who suffer and they should be in the vanguard in calling for this great cruelty to cease forthwith. Political leaders have failed to act.
Since independence from France and following the overthrow of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali last week:
1956 – Tunisia achieves independence from France.
Habib Bourguiba, architect of modern Tunisia, becomes prime minister.
1957 – Bourguiba becomes president when the traditional ruler, Bey Lamine, is deposed and the monarchy abolished.
1975 – Bourguiba, the ”Supreme Fighter”, becomes president for life.
1987 – Prime Minister Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali declares himself president, stating Bourguiba’s advancing age and state of health makes him incapable of governing.
Continued climate of uncertainty in the State was fuelling real estate growth in other parts of the State such as Visakhapatnam, said Mr Narasimha Raju, Managing Director of Visakhapatnam-based Sai Constructions & Builders, one of the top real estate companies from Visakhapatnam. The real estate in Vizag, especially in residential sector, is multiplying and so are the investments, he said.
Islam has evolved into the second largest religion in China. Its rich heritage can be traced back to Muslim diplomats and merchants from Persia who spread the religion to the territories between 630AD and 751AD during the Tang Dynasty. In 651AD, Tang Emperor Li Shimin received an envoy sent by Caliph Uthman and this was followed by 16 more official visits by delegations from the Umayyad Caliphate in the next century.
The confession of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh pracharak Swami Aseemanand, about his involvement in the blast in Hyderabad’s historic Mecca Masjid, Ajmer’s Khwaja Moinuddin dargah and many other places, has surprised his followers and detractors alike.
The person who reportedly stirred the Swami’s conscience and prompted him to confess to his involvement in terror acts is one Syed Abdul Kaleem.
Confessional statement of Swami Aseemanand, arrested by CBI in connection with Macca Masjid bomb blast case here, has exposed the Andhra Pradesh police who falsely implicated Muslim youth, Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee (CLMC) General Secretary Lateef Mohd Khan said here today.
Innocent Muslims youth were “deliberately” harassed by the state police, particularly Hyderabad police, in the aftermath of blast in Macca Masjid blast in 2007, Khan told reporters here.
All the nine accused in the 2006 Malegaon blasts Monday moved a special court seeking bail following the confession of arrested Hindutva leader Swami Aseemanand indicating involvement of right-wing Hindu groups in the case. They have spent four years in jail.
In their bail application before a Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) special court, the accused have claimed that it is clear that those responsible for the 2006 Malegaon blasts are persons far removed from the (current) accused.
Twenty years after the United States and its allies launched Operation Desert Storm to roll back Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, Iraq still owes its smaller neighbor billions in reparations and more than 1,000 people are still missing.
It was in August 1990 that Iraq invaded, declaring that Kuwait was its 19th province. The United States led a counteroffensive starting January 16, 1991.
While the era of Saddam Hussein is now part of history, the impact of the invasion he ordered is anything but.
Pakistan may have little hope for peace with India but a settlement with New Delhi will help remove the jihad culture ravaging the country, writes veteran journalist M J Akbar in his new book.
In “Tinderbox: The Past and Future of Pakistan”, published by HarperCollins India, Akbar embarks on a historical whodunit to trace the journey of an idea, and the events, people, circumstances and mindset that divided India.
Terrorism and resistance are two different things. Resistance by the people of an occupied country like Palestine, Golan and Iraq today and South Lebanon yesterday, is a sacred and fundamental right and duty in all cultures, old and new, and enjoys sanction even in international law laid down by western countries although this right will be invoked only when a western country will fall under occupation.
What do we mean – if anything – when we ask what does an ‘Islamic’ country look like? This is the question that I puzzled over as I sat in a traditional dhow at sunset, sailing down the creek that lies at the heart of old Dubai.
On one side was the historic area of Bastakiyya, where little houses and minarets populated the water’s edge. As darkness fell, the adhan began to echo from both sides of the creek. I felt at peace; the call to prayer in stereo around me and the beauty of the reddening sun reflected on the water.
Despite the lingering trauma of living under siege, regular Israeli military attacks and the consequences of a bloody war several years ago, Gaza’s children still dream of happiness and of normal lives.
Islam Mqa’t, 9, from Gaza City’s Al Zarqa neighborhood, together with 150 family members, friends, and neighbors, spent weeks cowering in her family’s apartment building as it was rocked and damaged by Israeli jets screaming overhead and bombing the trapped civilians below.
A dangerous prejudice had slipped into the Indian criminal justice system: if there was a blast, a Muslim was behind it. For this, these 32 Muslims had to pay for blasts done by Hindutva extremists.
IN A twist of fate worthy of the literary greats, a chance encounter a month ago between a Muslim boy and a hardline Hindu triggered a change of heart that seems to have unravelled a massive terror conspiracy.
Within Islam it is both legitimate and right to ask the question: “Why Islam?” Every tenet in Islam is subject to analysis and contention. No other religion is willing to subject its basic fundamentals of faith to such questioning. For example, Saint Thomas Aquinas, the most rational of Christian theologians, stopped the use of reason when it came to the basic fundamentals of Christian faith. He then tried to justify faith. So to ask “why Christianity?” is an illegitimate question. However, Allah invites the question as to “why Islam?”.
1. Rational System
London, January 08: Islam is still considered a threat by millions of French and German nationals and most believe that Muslims have failed to integrate properly in the society, a media report said Friday.
The results of a poll in French newspaper Le Monde revealed that 42 percent of French and 40 percent of Germans consider the presence of Islamic communities “a threat” to their national identities, the Daily Express reported.
France and Germany have the biggest Muslim communities in Europe.