Iraq at a crossroads - INSIDE IRAQ - Al Jazeera English

Iraq at a crossroads - INSIDE IRAQ - Al Jazeera English

For seven long years experts have repeatedly told us that Iraq stands at a crossroads.
Today, optimists point out the achievements that have been made: A new constitution, free elections, a vibrant media and the end of Saddam Hussein's regime.
But, pessimists point a finger at Iraq's killing fields, sectarian politics, endemic corruption and the rising influence of dishonest clerics.
But one thing is certain - the country is in a gridlock and no one knows how to move forward.

The recent elections were supposed to give the country a fresh start, but the political wrangling has continued.
So what prevents Iraq from moving forward?
Joining the programme are Robert Fisk, the Independent newspaper's Middle East correspondent, Anas Altikriti, an Iraqi political analyst, and Jack Burkman, a Republican strategist.

------------------------------------------------
The link above has a video that is worth watching. I heard it on my car radio today and I just had to share it.... Listen to it and you will know why!
- Silently Observing

Islamic view on The Arrivals series

A must see panel discussion by some eminent scholars: Sheikh Sulaiman Moola, Sheikh Ebrahim Bham, Sheikh Yusuf Abid Regarding a youtube based Documentry titled The Arrivals which has taken the Muslim world by storm. It deals with issues such as Who is controlling the world? Satanic and Dajaal worship. Preparation for his arrival. The coming of the Mahdi.
Click here for the uneditted 10 part discussion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCVlhApoGwo
Some points from the talk:
After watching arrivals i have become more conscious? People are not reading what they ought to read, and accessing what they ought to access for that to be obtained through a Halal and more appropriate ways. The Arrivals is effective because it has come with a different spice and flavor. In this techno generation people pay more attention to sensationalism and movies rather than the Quran. Why do Muslims latch on to to this series? We are looking for answers in the wrong places. In some level, the answers given make sense to us. Nowadays Muslims have abandoned contemplation and reading the relevant sources and have resorted to technology based information. It has good in it does it not? Yes but the evils excel the good, as the Quran mentions about Alcohol. Alcohol has some benefits but the harms out weigh them. Even the lottery claims to help people as well.
Negatives of the series:
-The seerah of the Sahabah are not mentioned AT ALL.
-They offer no solution mentioned from the Quran.
-There is music throughout the series
-They use inappropriate images to make their point.
-Amir Muawiyya [r.a] is not expressed in a positive light.
-The series gives the impression of helplessness, by claiming we are being controlled in everything, and as though we are at the mercy of the illuminati. Yet that contradicts belief that, Allah has power over everything.
- They use weak ahadith.
-The authentic view is that Dajaal is a human, but they claim him to be symbolic.

The bigger picture is our obedience to Allah and the hereafter and therefore we should not get perturbed by sensationalism. Rather than looking at ourselves and contemplating our decedenace and our contribution to it, by our religion disposition, we find the easy way out by blaming the Illuminati. Brought to you by Halal Dawa Records and the Hanafi Fiqh channel.

Below is the first part of the five part concise version of the original 10 part version.

HIJAB BAN: AN ATTACK ON OUR DAUGHTERS

Speaking As A Muslim Mother...
Today I speak here as a Muslim mother. I have a young daughter who is
five years old. On special occasions, like when we go to the Mosque or
when we pray I let her wear hijab. Looking in the mirror she carefully
tucks her hair under her scarf and when she's finished she looks up and
screams in joy “look mummy I'm a Muslim”. I smile back… but behind
that smile I am afraid, afraid of what she will have to go through every
day of her life just to say “I am a Muslim”.
As Muslims we understand that our precious children are an ammanah
 – a trust from Allah - for which we are responsible. Our children are
born to us Muslim, and it's our duty as parents to protect them, by
teaching them of this great gift of Islam so that as they pass in to
adulthood its still there with them continuing to give them strength and
protection, and their lives meaning and purpose.
Our enemies understand only too well that our children represent the future
 of Islam in the West, a future they wish to extinguish. So it's not surprising,
that in this war on Islam our enemies attack our children and their right to
Islam. Wherever they ban hijab in the world, they first start by targeting
our children.
Singapore

In Singapore it started on 1 st Febuary 2002 when four 7-year-old Muslim girls were thrown out of school for wearing hijab, after the Deputy Prime Minister had banned it. He said it was to help children integrate, but whilst he stripped Muslim girls of their hijabs, he allowed Sikhs boys to continue wearing their turbans.

7 years old Nurul Nasihah (centre left) with her friends at school before she was thrown out for wearing her hijab.

Muslim parents are now forced to send their girls to Malaysia – just imagine
your 7-year-old daughter having to travel abroad every day just to attend
school!



To continue reading, click on the link below:
http://www.inminds.co.uk/hijab-ban-an-attack-on-our-daughters.html

Pakistanis create rival Muslim Facebook

Friday, 28 May, 2010

Pakistani IT professionals Omer Zaheer (L) and Arslan Chaudhry browse their newly created networking site in Lahore. –Photo by AFP

ISLAMABAD: Pakistanis outraged with Facebook over “blasphemous” caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed have created a spin-off networking site that they dream can connect the world's 1.6 billion Muslims, reports AFP.
A group of six young IT professionals from Lahore, the cultural and entertainment capital of Pakistan, Launched www.millatfacebook.com on Tuesday for Muslims to interact online and protest against blasphemy. The private venture came after a Pakistani court ordered a block on Facebook until May 31, following deep offence over an “Everyone Draw Mohammed Day” page considered “blasphemous” and “sacrilegious”. “Millatfacebook is Pakistan's very own, first social networking site. A site for Muslims by Muslims where sweet people of other religions are also welcome,” the website tells people interested in signing up.

Dubbed MFB, after Facebook's moniker FB, its founder says professionals are working around the clock to offer features similar to those pioneered by the wildly popular California-based prototype. Each member has a “wall” for friends to comment on. The site offers email, photo, video, chat and discussion board facilities.

The Urdu word “Millat” is used by Muslims to refer to their nation. The website claims to have attracted 4,300 members in the last three days — mostly English-speaking Pakistanis in their 20s. The number of aficionados may be growing, but the community is a drop in the ocean of the 2.5 million Facebook fans in Pakistan and there have been some scathing early reviews of the start-up. Neither has Facebook been immediately reachable for comment.

“We want to tell Facebook people 'if they mess with us they have to face the consequences',” said Usman Zaheer, the 24-year-old chief operating officer of the software house that hosts the new site.

“If someone commits blasphemy against our Prophet Mohammed then we will become his competitor and give him immense business loss,” he told AFP, dreaming of making “the largest Muslim social networking website”. Once signed up, members are a click away from debate on the bulletin board. For example, “Enticing Fury” wrote: “The reason is that this forum must be reserved for ALL MUSLIMS OF THE WORLD and not only Pakistan. So using the word MILLAT is very good!

“Well done guys. You have made a great alternative for the whole Muslim ummah (nation)!” But the nascent quality of the work-in-progress website has preoccupied and dismayed some, as well as drawn at least one damning newspaper review. One member wrote: “they need 2 have more info”. Another posted a mournful: “need games here as well. I miss cafe world” referring to the popular Facebook page where members can run their own virtual cafe.

“It was a good idea... as it can give us a forum to connect, but its reach is too limited,” Mohammad Adeel, a 31-year-old pharmacist told AFP in Karachi, who joined to keep up with friends he missed due to the Facebook ban.
Local newspaper was crushing. “The quality of user experience is so abysmal that it does not merit the humble title, 'Facebook clone',” it wrote online.

“To sum up, MillatFacebook is a bold effort... but it is unlikely to capture a large audience, judging by the online experience it offers currently.” But Zaheer is pleased with his handiwork, saying the site has already attracted members living in Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Russia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.
Pakistani law student Rana Adeel, 21, signed up to MillatFB in Lahore after receiving invites through SMS and email from friends. “In two days, I got more than seven friends. If the Facebook ban is lifted, I'll keep networking on both,” he told AFP. 

Top 10 Thinking Traps Exposed — How to Foolproof Your Mind, Part I

http://litemind.com/thinking-traps/

Pakistani Engineering Students make a car that runs 80km in 1 lt. Can you help them take it to Malaysia?

Click on the image to see the large size...

Load shedding in Sharjah

Pakistan has it, India has it... with citizens getting used to it by now. Used to it, because, we never learn from our mistakes when we have the time and the money and the resources and the people willing to do something about it.
Now, Load-shedding visits Sharjah....
At home, we keep having these discussions, that with the dwindling sources of energy, we need to simplify our lives and make ourselves and our kids used to getting by with lesser water, lesser electricity and lesser gas. Save whatever you have now and dont waste!
Being a child, I remember getting scolded by my grandparents if we happened to leave a room with the light and/or the fan on. Come to think of it, how long does it take to switch on a fan or a light?
And water .... don't get me started here. Living in Karachi, water was already a luxury where we were buying tankers. Then to see it go waste because someone left a tap open.... *sigh*. I wish my kids learn now, without my having to scold them. My daughter has a thing with running water, and my son loves to give the bathroom a bath before he settles down to give himself one.
When I was younger, my father used to tell us a story from his childhood. If he or his siblings dropped a small food crumb on the floor, they were told that they will have to pick it up with their eyelashes. My father used to practice picking up a grain of salt with his eyelashes :) and he said that with practice he could vouch for the fact that it cannot be done. So if you drop something on the floor, do pick it up, clean it and eat it. This reminds me that if you pick up a crumb from the table or دسترخوان and eat it, it has 4 benefits: 1) it improves your eye-sight, 2) it gives barakah to your age, 3) barakah to your sustenance (رزق) and 4) it gives you صالح أولاد (God-fearing children).

Oh, if you want to read about the load-shedding in Sharjah, search for it :) You will find that it also had to go without water and power in 2009. Don't think that just because you are not in a place where there aren't any water, power or gas outages, you can indulge all you want. We all got there by excessive indulgence already.
So, let me end this from one of the verses of the song of Seoul Olympics from the1988 "We can make this world a better place in which to live .... Hand in hand we stand, all across the land ... Hand in hand, we can, start to understand"
Peace!

Whatever you are, be a good one!

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.
Martin Luther King, Jr. 


So, here I am again... my Arabic Exam was today early in the morning and in anticipation, all of us were there much earlier than usual. 
The exam went well and then we just stood around for a while exchanging emails and contact info. Our teacher told us that due to diversity in nationalities and the fact that all of us had not taken the beginner's course in Arabic, none of the other teachers in the Center had wanted to take our class and she had taken it as a challenge and she was very pleased with our progress.
Interestingly, our class is a lovely mixture of Asian, European and American students and we did learn a lot from each other while we were struggling with Arabic. Our teacher called us a bunch of boys with one lady [NOTE: Although we were all married women, we did differ from the rest of the classes as instead of sitting around meekly, we did laugh out loud, had our own private jokes and tricks and loved to learn the Egyptian Arabic anecdotes from our teacher]. It was only when our class took a few sessions with another class there, that our teacher noticed the glaring difference. 
One of us is leaving ... she will be moving to Oman, and she wanted to know if there is some center like this there where she can continue learning Arabic, so if you know of such a place do share. 
كل أمر جيد أن ينتهي بشكل جيد.

Justice = same law for same offense

Click on the Image to see the larger version.

Perplexed...

Back again ... now that I have many empty hours at a stretch, didn't know what to do with it, so just went and re-read my previous posts here. They go back a long way and made me realize that I never reread my posts before posting them and there are tons of typos in them.
My son read them with me and he was enjoying them too. And he says he doesn't wear black socks to school anymore.
Interestingly, while we were reading the bit about my daughter moving a step up and learning that she can turn pages of Reader's Digest also, she was sitting there behind us, quietly flipping through the latest Reader's Digest (which is now in my son's hands and my daughter is singing away in the kitchen).
Kitchen .... reminds me that I have a half-cooked Palak Paneer that I need to tend to before my husband turns up with roti.
maasalama.

A CHALLENGE TO MUSLIMS: The West wants to draw pictures of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)! What can you do?

Islam was blazing a trail of curiosity in Denmark and I think he presumed this would make great sales.

He invited artists from all over Europe to illustrate the Prophets (pbuh) picture and was intrigued that no one would draw Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) pictures. All Muslim artists declined, without explanation.

This is where in my humble opinion the Muslims have failed. Allah Subhanawataala  when He wants a nation to learn about Him, Subhanawataala or about His messengers he puts a seed of curiosity in. the people of that nation.

It is then entirely the responsibility of the local Muslims to take that seed to fruition with ehsaan.  A sincere and concerted effort to deliver the word of Allah and His promise of The everlasting Gardens of Peace (Darus Salaam) to those who are unaware of this  beautiful faith,  in the best method of communication available.

In this instance the intelligentsia of the Muslims were apathetic and then as the Muslim world stirred in rage,  sat back and watched in horror as the cartoons were mangled and mauled and depicted in a very disgusting manner. What happened was that some zionist newspapers assisted by some atheist Islam haters took the cartoons and went to town with them with extreme pornographic license.

While this was happening thanks to the Internet, word reached the poor, uneducated  and simple class of people all over the Muslim world. These people who cannot read a word usually have memorized the Quran in its original Arabic, They live by it as taught by the few who know the meaning of it.

These simple people revere the word of God in the Quran and take to heart when Allah Subhanawataala says “atiullah wa atiyyul Rasool” and another part in the Quran and I paraphrase……”he (pbuh) does not make up things himself he says what I command him to”.

Drawn by the love of God and his messenger Muhammad pbuh to Madinah: Courtesy:http://www.flickr.com/photos/noushadali/3370685296/

Those who love and revere the Prophet (pbuh) also know that they are not allowed to worship him and the fastest way to change love to worship is to make an idol that one can visualize and become attached to its physique.

Thus making pictures idols or statues of Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him are strictly forbidden.

As the Muslim intelligentsia of the west and Muslim countries looked the other way at this infraction of decency against our beloved Prophet Muhammad pbuh, The common people did the only thing that they could do, i.e. they took to the streets and picketed the respective embassies that represented the countries from which the cartoons had originated.

These Muslims in foreign lands  have no access to the western people. Thus they could not protest in words how offended and hurt they were. They had no way to communicate to the western people who without instigation were making and publishing denigrating cartoons of the beloved & most revered personality linked to their faith.

Muslims all over the world took this to be deliberate act of hostility aimed at them personally, their faith and their country.

What is islam: courtesy:http://www.flickr.com/photos/45121730@N05/4387963980/

Meanwhile the educated Muslim class in the United States remains apologeticand wants to ignore this act by the Cartoon publishers who continue to “push the envelope”.

It thus becomes incumbent upon each and every Muslim living in the west to sit down with a friend and explain why the cartoons are unpalatable to the Muslims and any decent human being would refrain from denigrating a part of our Deen and our icons that we hold very dear to our heart.

The Muslim intelligentsia of the west faces a major problem here: They are ill equipped to discuss why people should not draw Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) for the following reasons:

1. They do not have the understanding or the references of the detailed tafseer of the Quranic injunction that commands Muslims to protect their icons and spiritual symbols.
2. They themselves (with some exceptions) do not demonstrate nor radiate the spirit of Islam and look and behave like any other American Johnny, and are thus uninspiring to their western colleagues as symbols of honesty and integrity.
3. They are obviously covering their behinds when they ask their fellow Muslims “to ignore the cartoons and they will go away” attitude, and this is well recognized by the western hounds who love the smell of blood of the weak, journalistically speaking.
4. Meanwhile they vehemently oppose the masses of the rest of the Muslim world, which further alienates them from their faith and their Muslim brethren who are demonstrating their anger, anguish and disgust at the desecration of the symbol of our faith: our beloved Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him who was sent as a Messenger of Allah to all of the worlds as “A mercy to mankind”.

So what is to be done?

This is a major challenge thrown to the Muslims of the western world…… not by the Jewish publishers of the Danish cartoons but Allah Subhanawataala Himself.

It seems to me sometimes, that it is a clear demarcation line that either the Muslims in the west will survive by studying, believing and practicing their faith in a manner that they can suitably explain it to others or they will join the long line of hypocrites awaiting the seventh depth of Naar. There is no other option for the Muslims of the west…………..is there?

The First Amendment to the American Constitution:

The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights.

The amendment prohibits the making of any law “respecting an establishment of religion”, impeding the free exercise of religion, infringing on the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.

Originally, the First Amendment only applied to the Congress. However, in the 20th century, the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies the First Amendment to each state, including any local government.

A quote from a young person in a conference in the USA, where the first amendment was being discussed:

“Your first amendment ends where my first amendment begins”

ADDENDUM TO MY MUSLIM READERS: Please do not look at the disrespectful cartoons, the brain has a way of storing images that is unerasable and it will hurt your efforts in the development of taqwa.

Taken from: http://asqfish.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/the-challenge-to-muslims-people-want-to-draw-pictures-of-prophet-muhammad-pbuh-what-can-you-do/ 

Back to Blogging...

asalamoalaikum,

Yeah, hard to believe that its been three years since I last blogged (here that is).

These three years were hardcore facebooking, mafia war-ing, Yo-ville ing, farmville-ing ... and a gazillion other things ... (read wasting my time).

It is very distressing to realize, when you look back, at your mistakes, and wonder, what took me so long to realize all this. Worse thing is that I made so many others do the same thing. Now that is scary. Setting off a chain reaction (for a not-so-good thing) ...

Well, if you want to carry on, I'd just want to say that now I'd like to let go of facebook. I don't want to regret this decision, I know I did not regret giving up Mafia Wars - but it took me a while to get to that point. I had to remove more than 800 friends on facebook. Yeah, I had about 1000+ people and I had to read all the stuff they were posting... their quiz results, and what not. It ended up with me blocking every other application out there, just to make sure I get to see those people whom I wanted to be in contact with.

Now - for more current things. I want to stay connected to facebook, but honestly speaking, is it worth it? Let me list the good points first - I get to read status info of my family and friends, I get to see their pictures, I get to see the links and information that they share and vice versa, but wait? Is it helping me or them at all?

Another thing, I am now in touch with my primary school friends, my middle school friends and my high school friends and my college, university and office colleagues, but out of all these, how many had actually remained in touch with me before facebook (actually all who wanted to, could and did).

orkut was another story, but then policing people over what they post and dont post got to be another big responsibility but on the plus side, I did make some really good friends :)

I dont want to go into why I want to leave facebook - it is just something I want for myself. Still, it is something I DO want to do.

more later,

be good.