Mosque for the Praising of Allah

>> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/03/08/the_other_good_book/

IF THE BIBLE mixes together passages teaching both warfare and mercy, so does the Koran. Pay back evil with good, says God, and your deadliest enemy will become your dearest friend (Koran 41.34-35).

In both scriptures, in fact, the angriest words are directed not against national enemies, but against those who skimp on charity. The Koran’s God condemns those who show no kindness to the orphan, nor compete with each other in feeding the poor; those who love riches, and seize the inheritance of the weak. If anyone deserves hellfire, it’s them (Koran 89). Meanwhile, do you want to reach the spiritual heights? Then free a slave from bondage, feed the poor in times of hunger: always have faith, be strong and merciful (Koran 90).

>> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/03/08/dark_passages/?page=1

Does the harsh language in the Koran explain Islamic violence?
Don’t answer till you’ve taken a look inside the Bible
By Philip Jenkins – March 8, 2009

Their Al Qaeda handlers had instructed them to meditate on al-Tawba and Anfal, two lengthy suras from the Koran, the holy scripture of Islam. The passages make for harrowing reading. God promises to “cast terror into the hearts of those who are bent on denying the truth; strike, then, their necks!” (Koran 8.12). God instructs his Muslim followers to kill unbelievers, to capture them, to ambush them (Koran 9.5). Everything contributes to advancing the holy goal: “Strike terror into God’s enemies, and your enemies” (Koran 8.60). Perhaps in their final moments, the hijackers took refuge in these words, in which God lauds acts of terror and massacre.

On a much lesser scale, others have used the words of the Koran to sanction violence. Even in cases of domestic violence and honor killing, perpetrators can find passages that seem to justify brutal acts (Koran 4.34).

Citing examples such as these, some Westerners argue that the Muslim scriptures themselves inspire terrorism, and drive violent jihad. Evangelist Franklin Graham has described his horror on finding so many Koranic passages that command the killing of infidels: the Koran, he thinks, “preaches violence.” Prominent conservatives Paul Weyrich and William Lind argued that “Islam is, quite simply, a religion of war,” and urged that Muslims be encouraged to leave US soil. Today, Dutch politician Geert Wilders faces trial for his film “Fitna,” in which he demands that the Koran be suppressed as the modern-day equivalent to Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”

Even Westerners who have never opened the book – especially such people, perhaps – assume that the Koran is filled with calls for militarism and murder, and that those texts shape Islam.

Unconsciously, perhaps, many Christians consider Islam to be a kind of dark shadow of their own faith, with the ugly words of the Koran standing in absolute contrast to the scriptures they themselves cherish. In the minds of ordinary Christians – and Jews – the Koran teaches savagery and warfare, while the Bible offers a message of love, forgiveness, and charity. For the prophet Micah, God’s commands to his people are summarized in the words “act justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). Christians recall the words of the dying Jesus: “Father, forgive them: they know not what they do.”

But in terms of ordering violence and bloodshed, any simplistic claim about the superiority of the Bible to the Koran would be wildly wrong. In fact, the Bible overflows with “texts of terror,” to borrow a phrase coined by the American theologian Phyllis Trible. The Bible contains far more verses praising or urging bloodshed than does the Koran, and biblical violence is often far more extreme, and marked by more indiscriminate savagery. The Koran often urges believers to fight, yet it also commands that enemies be shown mercy when they surrender. Some frightful portions of the Bible, by contrast, go much further in ordering the total extermination of enemies, of whole families and races – of men, women, and children, and even their livestock, with no quarter granted. One cherished psalm (137) begins with the lovely line, “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept”; it ends by blessing anyone who would seize Babylon’s infants and smash their skulls against the rocks.

To say that terrorists can find religious texts to justify their acts does not mean that their violence actually grows from those scriptural roots. Indeed, such an assumption itself is based on the crude fundamentalist formulation that everything in a given religion must somehow be authorized in scripture. The difference between the Bible and the Koran is not that one book teaches love while the other proclaims warfare and terrorism, rather it is a matter of how the works are read. Yes, the Koran has been ransacked to supply texts authorizing murder, but so has the Bible

If Christians or Jews want to point to violent parts of the Koran and suggest that those elements taint the whole religion, they open themselves to the obvious question: what about their own faiths? If the founding text shapes the whole religion, then Judaism and Christianity deserve the utmost condemnation as religions of savagery. Of course, they are no such thing; nor is Islam.

But the implications run still deeper. All faiths contain within them some elements that are considered disturbing or unacceptable to modern eyes; all must confront the problem of absorbing and reconciling those troubling texts or doctrines. In some cases, religions evolve to the point where the ugly texts so fade into obscurity that ordinary believers scarcely acknowledge their existence, or at least deny them the slightest authority in the modern world. In other cases, the troubling words remain dormant, but can return to life in conditions of extreme stress and conflict. Texts, like people, can live or die. This whole process of forgetting and remembering, of growing beyond the harsh words found in a text, is one of the critical questions that all religions must learn to address.

Faithful Muslims believe that the Koran is the inspired word of God, delivered verbatim through the Prophet Mohammad . Non-Muslims, of course, see the text as the work of human hands, whether of Mohammed himself or of schools of his early followers. But whichever view we take, the Koran as it stands claims to speak in God’s voice. That is one of the great differences between the Bible and the Koran. Even for dedicated fundamentalists, inspired Bible passages come through the pen of a venerated historical individual, whether it’s the Prophet Isaiah or the Apostle Paul, and that leaves open some chance of blaming embarrassing views on that person’s own prejudices. The Koran gives no such option: For believers, every word in the text – however horrendous a passage may sound to modern ears – came directly from God.

We don’t have to range too far to find passages that horrify. The Koran warns, “Those who make war against God and his apostle . . . shall be put to death or crucified” (Koran 5.33). Other passages are equally threatening, though they usually have to be wrenched out of context to achieve this effect. One text from Sura (Chapter) 47 begins “O true believers, when you encounter the unbelievers, strike off their heads.”

But in such matters, the Bible too has plenty of passages that read painfully today. Tales of war and assassination pervade the four books of Samuel and Kings, where it is hard to avoid verses justifying the destruction of God’s enemies. In a standard English translation of the Old Testament, the words “war” and “battle” each occur more than 300 times, not to mention all the bindings, beheadings, and rapes.

The richest harvest of gore comes from the books that tell the story of the Children of Israel after their escape from Egypt, as they take over their new land in Canaan. These events are foreshadowed in the book of Deuteronomy, in which God proclaims “I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh” (Deut. 32:42). We then turn to the full orgy of militarism, enslavement, and race war in the Books of Joshua and Judges. Moses himself reputedly authorized this campaign when he told his followers that, once they reached Canaan, they must annihilate all the peoples they find in the cities specially reserved for them (Deut. 20: 16-18).

Joshua, Moses’s successor, proves an apt pupil. When he conquers the city of Ai, God commands that he take away the livestock and the loot, while altogether exterminating the inhabitants, and he duly does this (Joshua 8). When he defeats and captures five kings, he murders his prisoners of war, either by hanging or crucifixion. (Joshua 10). Nor is there any suggestion that the Canaanites and their kin were targeted for destruction because they were uniquely evil or treacherous: They happened to be on the wrong land at the wrong time. And Joshua himself was by no means alone. In Judges again, other stories tell of the complete extermination of tribes with the deliberate goal of ending their genetic lines.

In modern times, we would call this genocide. If the forces of Joshua and his successor judges committed their acts in the modern world, then observers would not hesitate to speak of war crimes. They would draw comparisons with the notorious guerrilla armies of Uganda and the Congo, groups like the appalling Lord’s Resistance Army. By comparison, the Koranic rules of war were, by the standards of their time, quite civilized. Mohammed wanted to win over his enemies, not slaughter them.

Not only do the Israelites in the Bible commit repeated acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing, but they do so under direct divine command. According to the first book of Samuel, God orders King Saul to strike at the Amalekite people, killing every man, woman, and child, and even wiping out their livestock (1 Samuel 15:2-3). And it is this final detail that proves Saul’s undoing, as he keeps some of the animals, and thereby earns a scolding from the prophet Samuel. Fortunately, Saul repents, and symbolizes his regrets by dismembering the captured enemy king. Morality triumphs.

The Bible also alleges divine approval of racism and segregation. If you had to choose the single biblical story that most conspicuously outrages modern sentiment, it might well be the tale of Phinehas, a story that remains unknown to most Christian readers today (Numbers 25: 1-15). The story begins when the children of Israel are threatened by a plague. Phinehas, however, shrewdly identifies the cause of God’s anger: God is outraged at the fact that a Hebrew man has found a wife among the people of Midian, and through her has imported an alien religion. Phinehas slaughters the offending couple – and, mollified, God ends the plague and blesses Phinehas and his descendants. Modern American racists love this passage. In 1990, Richard Kelly Hoskins used the story as the basis for his manifesto “Vigilantes of Christendom.” Hoskins advocated the creation of a new order of militant white supremacists, the Phineas Priesthood, and since then a number of groups have assumed this title, claiming Phinehas as the justification for terrorist attacks on mixed-race couples and abortion clinics.

Modern Christians who believe the Bible offers only a message of love and forgiveness are usually thinking only of the New Testament. Certainly, the New Testament contains far fewer injunctions to kill or segregate. Yet it has its own troublesome passages, especially when the Gospel of John expresses such hostility to the Ioudaioi, a Greek word that usually translates as “Jews.” Ioudaioi plan to stone Jesus, they plot to kill him; in turn, Jesus calls them liars, children of the Devil.

Various authorities approach the word differently: I might prefer, for instance, to interpret it as “followers of the oppressive Judean religious elite,” Or perhaps “Judeans.” But in practice, any reputable translation has to use the simple and familiar word, “Jew,” so that we read about the disciples hiding out after the Crucifixion, huddled in a room that is locked “for fear of the Jews.” So harsh do these words sound to post-Holocaust ears that some churches exclude them from public reading.

Commands to kill, to commit ethnic cleansing, to institutionalize segregation, to hate and fear other races and religions . . . all are in the Bible, and occur with a far greater frequency than in the Koran. At every stage, we can argue what the passages in question mean, and certainly whether they should have any relevance for later ages. But the fact remains that the words are there, and their inclusion in the scripture means that they are, literally, canonized, no less than in the Muslim scripture.

Whether they are used or not depends on wider social attitudes. When America entered the First World War, for instance, firebrand preachers drew heavily on Jesus’ warning that he came not to bring peace, but a sword. As it stands, that is not much of a text of terror, but if one is searching desperately for a weapon-related verse, it will serve to justify what people are going to do anyway

Interpretation is all, and that changes over time. Religions have their core values, their non-negotiable truths, but they also surround themselves with many stories not essential to the message. Any religion that exists over long eras absorbs many of the ideas and beliefs of the community in which it finds itself, and reflects those in its writings. Over time, thinkers and theologians reject or underplay those doctrines and texts that contradict the underlying principles of the faith as it develops. However strong the textual traditions justifying war and conflict, believers come instead to stress love and justice. Of course Muslim societies throughout history have engaged in jihad, in holy war, and have found textual warrant so to do. But over time, other potent strains in the religion moved away from literal warfare. However strong the calls to jihad, struggle, in Islamic thought, the hugely influential Sufi orders taught that the real struggle was the inner battle to control one’s sinful human instincts, and this mattered vastly more than any pathetic clash of swords and spears. The Greater Jihad is one fought in the soul.

Often, such reforming thinkers are so successful that the troublesome words fade utterly from popular consciousness, even among believers who think of themselves as true fundamentalists. Most Christian and Jewish believers, even those who are moderately literate in scriptural terms, read their own texts extraordinarily selectively. How many Christian preachers would today find spiritual sustenance in Joshua’s massacres? How many American Christians know that the New Testament demands that women cover their hair, at least in church settings, and that Paul’s Epistles include more detailed rules on the subject than anything written in the Koran? This kind of holy amnesia is a basic component of religious development. It does not imply rejecting scriptures, but rather reading them in the total context of the religion as it progresses through history.

Alternatively, one can choose to deny that historical experience, and seize on any available word or verse that authorizes the violence that is already taking place – but once someone has decided to do that, it scarcely matters what the text actually says.

Philip Jenkins teaches at Penn State University. He is the author of “The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia — and How It Died.”

Source

>> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/03/08/dark_passages/?page=1

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf address Community Board 1’s Financial District Committee Wednesday night. Rauf’s group, the Cordoba Initiative, hopes to build a 13-story Islamic prayer and cultural center on Park Place, New York.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf address Community Board 1’s Financial District Committee Wednesday night. Rauf’s group, the Cordoba Initiative, hopes to build a 13-story Islamic prayer and cultural center on Park Place.
A proposal for a mosque and Islamic cultural center, planned to go up on Park Place, less than 600 feet from the World Trade Center site, was met with unanimous and enthusiastic approval from Community Board 1 members May 5.

The Cordoba Initiative, an Islamic group touting its focus on improving relations between Muslim and non-Muslim cultures, plans to raze the 4-story building it purchased last summer at 45 Park Place—formerly a Burlington Coat Factory outlet. The building, just two blocks from the World Trade Center site, has been mostly vacant since it was damaged in the Sept. 11 attacks, when the landing gear of a hijacked airliner tore through its roof.

In place of the current building, where the Initiative has been hosting weekly prayer services since late last year, the group hopes to construct a gleaming 13-story worship, educational and cultural center. Daisy Khan, the Initiative’s executive director, said the center’s programming would be modeled after established religious community centers such as the 92nd Street Y.

“It’s going to be a place not only for Muslim activity, but interfaith activity of the highest order,” Khan said.

While planning for the new center—to be called the Cordoba House—is still in the preliminary stages, Khan said the Initiative hopes to outfit the $100 million facility with a 500-seat performing arts theater, fitness center, swimming pool, and library, as well as public conference rooms, basketball courts and restaurants.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who co-founded the Initiative with Khan following the Sept. 11 attacks, said the center’s construction would be the culmination of years of planning, as well as the physical manifestation of his group’s efforts to better integrate Muslims into the larger American culture.

“We see it as a major step toward in the Americanization of the Muslim community,” Rauf said. “We need to evolve from being immigrant Muslims in America to being American Muslims.”

“From a programmatic point of view, this has never been done before,” he added. “If we do this right, we want to franchise this concept, and build other Cordoba Houses like this in other American cities, and cities around the globe.”

The proposal, which some speculated might be met with criticism from Community Board 1, instead drew a round of applause from the board’s Financial District Committee during a presentation Wednesday night. The 12-member committee voted unanimously in support of the center’s construction.

Cordoba Initiative executive director Daisy Khan fields questions about programming possibilities in her group’s planned $100 million cultural center.
Carl Glassman / Tribeca Trib
Cordoba Initiative executive director Daisy Khan fields questions about programming possibilities in her group’s planned $100 million cultural center.
“Everything I’ve seen here, I like very much,” committee chairman Ro Sheffe said following the group’s presentation. “I think it’s a wonderful asset to the community.”

Actual work on the center isn’t likely to begin for another two to three years, Khan said, and will take approximately two years to finish. Khan said the first steps would be to hold an international design competition to determine the center’s final form, as well as a sweeping fundraising campaign to finance its construction. However long it takes, committee member Pat Moore said new construction at 45 Park Place was long overdue.

“Finally, we get that ugly space taken care of,” she said.

Despite a wealth of endorsements from secular and faith-based organizations in the city—including the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, the Jewish Community Relations Council, Trinity Church and the city’s Catholic Archdiocese—Khan said in an interview with the Trib that she understands if some are hesitant to embrace the idea of an Islamic institution so close to the site of the attacks, which were carried out by Muslim extremists.

“Most of the resistance we’ve encountered has been from people who don’t know the Muslim community,” Khan said. “Its just fear of the unknown, and it’s our job to approach and reach out to those people, and try to show them what our community and what our message is really all about.”

The Financial District Committee’s support could be viewed as a significant victory for the project, especially in that it came just five days after an attempted car-bombing in Times Square, which authorities say appears to have been planned in retaliation for a U.S. attack on Taliban leaders in Pakistan. Khan said that while events like the Time Square incident can be damaging to groups like the Cordoba Initiative, they can also be a call to action for peaceful advocates of the Islamic faith.

“It sets us back, because we end up having to prove ourselves all over again,” Khan said. “On the other hand, it’s a huge motivator for us to push back against these kinds of extremist views and actions.”

Source:

tribecatrib.com/news/2010/may/603_cb1-committee-hails-plans-for-a-mosque-two-blocks-from-wtc.html

Assalaamu ‘Alaikum,

After hearing sister Yvonne telling us that the only real books available in the region is the american library with all the books you want on American History and his stories I was moved to do something to help. Alexander wrote if you want to destroy a people cut them from their roots.

These children, especially the young girls, need to know their deen, their history and their identity. 1stWitness asked for contributions at their recent event and I pledged to raise and contribute a mere £6,700 pounds and I wish to do so by Monday or this week insha’Allah . With Allah azza wa jall’s guidance and support through you I pray we can achieve this small amount.

The aim is over 60K but I would like to do this 10% at least as our part. Read more on the JG page click the link please.

30 years of war now and these kids know only suffering and war since birth.  Please help with anything you can give but the best of you will give an amount that pinches and subdues your nafs.  I pray you will help by donating and passing on the link to your emails, facebooks and texts.

Sincerely

Jalal ibn Sa’eed

Click here to donate – http://www.justgiving.com/library4girls

http://www.justgiving.com/islamichelp

The world’s tallest building has opened with a bang in the emirate of Dubai, measuring a whopping 828m in height.

The world’s tallest building has been opened in a dramatic fireworks ceremony in the Gulf emirate of Dubai. The Burj Khalifa was revealed to be more than 2,700 feet high, far taller than the previous record holder, Taipei 101. Known as the Burj Dubai during construction, the tower has been renamed after the leader of Dubai’s oil-rich neighbor, Abu Dhabi. Construction of the super tower began in 2004.

Questions you have about X-Mas … was afraid to ask !

Read the PDF article by clicking here

Is it not high time that as Muslims we resolve to work towards Allah ’s cause and start the Islamic New Year on a pious tone?

According to Local Moon Sighting Islamic New Year: 1431 AH  – (Friday,  18th December 2009)

AND 10th Muharram 1431 AH (The Day of Ashurah) – Sunday, 27th December 2009

Download or read PDF document online

> What are the virtues of the month of Muharram and fasting

>  Aashooraa Condensed

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Facts & Misconceptions

Article by: Mufti Taqi Usmani

Facts About Muharram

• Muharram is one of the four sacred Months out of twelve. The other being Dhul-Qa’dah, Dhul-Hijjah,and Rajab.
• These four months have been sacred since the creation of universe – as told by Allah Subhana Watala in the Quran.
• After Ramadan, fasting in the month of Muharram is most rewardable.
• Muharram is a sacred month NOT because the grandson of Prophet Muhammad (saw) was martyred in this month. It is sacred because Allah made it sacred along with three other months and told us about it in the Quran.

• Fasting on the 10th Muharram i.e. Ashura was obligatory on the Muslims before the fasts of Ramadan were made obligatory.
• Fasting on the 10th of Muharram expiates the sins of the previous year.
• Musa (as) and the Bani Israel were saved from the Pharaoh by the parting of the sea on 10th Muharram.
• Prophet Musa (as) as a sign of gratitute to Allah used to fast on the day of Ashura and Jews did the same.
• Prophet Muhammad (saw) on hearing the fast of Musa (as) also ordered the Muslims to fast on this day and himself did the same.
• Prophet Muhammad (saw) decided to fast on 9th Muharram as well to differentiate from the Jews but he passed away before he could do so.

• This is the day Prophet Adam (as) was created
• This is the day when Allah accepted the repentance of Adam (as)
• This is the day when Ibrahim (as) was born.
• This is the day the Qayamat (doomsday) will occur. (From hadiths we know Qayamat will occur on a friday, but does not specify which month)
• Whoever baths of Ashura will never get ill.
• Muharram is an evil or unlucky month.( due to the battle of Karbala)
• Marriages should not be held in Muharram.

All of the above are misconceptions based on unauthentic traditions. This misconception can be easily removed by the fact that on the exact same day Husain (ra) was martyred, years ago Prophet Musa as and his followers were saved from Pharaoh, which is why Prophet Muhammad saw observed the fast on Ashura and ordered the Muslims to do the same. The day can not be lucky or unlucky at the same time.

• Companion Umar Farooq (ra) succumbed to his injuries and attained Martyrdom on the 1st of Muharram, 23 AH (After Hijri)
• Grandson of Prophet Muhammad (saw) Hussain ibn Ali (ra) along with most of his family members was martyred in the desert of Kerbala in Iraq on the 10th of Muharram.

Authentic Ibadaat (Worship) of Muharram

• Fasting in Muharram (any day)
• Fasting on 10th Muharram and combining it with the fast of 9th Muharram to distinguish from the Jews.

• Preparing special dishes meals in Muharram.
• Holding lamentation and mourning ceremonies in the memory of martyrdom of Sayyidna Husain (ra)
• Cursing the companions.
• Wearing black clothes and starving and refusing to drink in memory of Husain (ra)

All these are deviant practices which go against the basic teachings of Quran and Prophet Muhammad (saw) He said “”He is not from our group who slaps his checks, tears his clothes and cries in the manner of the people of jahiliyyah.” (Sahih Bukhari)
Sayyidna Husain ra before his demise advised his beloved sister Sayyidah Zainab, ra, not to mourn over his death in this manner. He said, “My dear sister! I swear upon you that in case I die you shall not tear your clothes, nor scratch your face, nor curse anyone for me or pray for your death.” (Al-Kamil, ibn Kathir vol. 4 pg. 24)

It is evident from this advice of Sayyidna Husain, Radi-Allahu anhu, that this type of mourning is condemned even by the blessed person for the memory of whom these mourning ceremonies are held. Every Muslim should avoid this practice and abide by the teachings of the Holy Prophet, Sall-Allahu alayhi wa sallam, and his beloved grand child Sayyidna Husain, Radi-Allahu anhu.

May Allah show us the right path & let us follow His Beloved Rasool (saw) ! And bless you and your family, and protect the ummah!

2 hours and 20 mins

The Big Debate: Can We Liver Better Lives Without Religion? Hamza Andreas Tzortzis vs. Peter Cave. http://www.hamzatzortzis.com

“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it” – Adolf Hitler

So this is how democracy works?

In 2004 France banned headscarves and school principals chased after young “defiant” Muslim girls who continued to cover up in school. Now, following a national referendum, Switzerland has banned minarets, because minarets also somehow symbolise oppression. Thanks to the dedicated action of the far-right Swiss People’s Party (SVP), Alpine skies will be free of that menace that would spread intolerance and taint the splendour of Swiss architecture.

In between these two peculiar events, the targeting of Muslims in Western countries and the subjugation of entire Muslim nations all over the world has never ceased. Not for a day. Not for an hour. Moreover, the collective targeting of small or large Muslim communities in Western countries, and the deliberate abuse and degradation of Muslim individuals and of Islamic symbols (from the Holy Quran to the Prophet) has also never ceased.

Bizarrely, most of these actions have been through “democratic” channels and justified in the name of democracy, on the basis of upholding the principles of secularism and Western values.

Many thoughts come to mind here, all unreservedly angry.

I remember when the word “democracy” used to resonate loudly among Arabs and Muslims around the world. The more they were denied it, the more they yearned for it. University campuses in Cairo, Gaza and Karachi took student union elections very seriously. Innocent blood was spilled in clashes as students desperately tried to express their right to vote, to speak out and to assemble.

Those were the days, when demoqratiya — Arabic for democracy — was the buzzword in the Middle East and beyond. Even Palestinian political prisoners held elections, ever so faithfully, surrounded by highly fortified towers and under the deriding gaze of armed men in the unforgiving heat of the Negev desert. Arab and Muslim masses were keen on democracy to the extent that there was a near consensus that democracy, although a Western concept, could be distinguished from the many ills invited by Western intervention, imperialism and wars that scarred and continued to impair the collective Muslim psyche.

An entire school of Muslim thought was in fact established around the concept that democracy and Islam are very much compatible. Such a notion goes back to Egypt’s Azharite scholar Rifaa Al-Tahtawi, who argued in the first half of the 19th century that the principles of European modernity were compatible with Islam. “Al-Tahtawi’s work influenced the philosopher Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), another Azharite who is often described as the founder of Islamic modernism, which is captured in his statement that in Europe he found Islam without Muslims, while in Egypt he found Muslims without Islam,” wrote German Anthropologist Frank Fanselow.

If one set one’s prejudices aside to ponder this for a moment, one would realise the intellectual valour it takes to consider and even embrace commonalities with the very powers that have instilled so much harm and fear. Even in their darkest, least proud moments, Muslim intellectuals and nations displayed impressive open- mindedness. They are hardly ever credited for that. More recently, in Egypt, people tried hard to vote, in the face of beating, public humiliation and imprisonment. In Palestine in 2006 the price was even higher — that of starvation. Gaza continues to endure under a draconian Israeli siege, ultimately because of an election.

Muslim communities in the West have long been considered the luckiest; after all, they live in the abodes of democracy. They drink from the fountain of rights and freedoms that never runs dry. However, these idealised assumptions miss the fact that Western democracy was conditional. And unconditional democracy can only be a farce.

Much has been said to explain the West’s faltering on its own commitment to democracy. No, the tragedy of 11 September 2001 is hardly the defining moment that created the growing chasm that made the West fearful of Islam. Despite all that has taken place since then — the constant spewing out of rightwing hatred, evangelical fanatic preaching and all the rest — America is still more tolerant than Europe. Nor was growing anti-Muslim sentiments in Europe a response in solidarity to America’s woes.

Honestly, neither the French are fond of Americans, nor are the Germans necessarily that passionate about the Swiss. But this didn’t stop a German Christian Democratic interior minister, Volker Bouffier, from making a “recommendation” to Muslim communities in his own country: “Naturally the Muslims in Germany have a right to build mosques. But they should make sure not to overwhelm the German population with them.”

How do you overwhelm people with minarets? Is this a post-post-post-modernistic logic that we are yet to be informed of?

There are only four minarets in the entire country of Switzerland, one per 100,000 people. How overwhelming can that be? And aren’t religious freedom and the freedom of collective and individual expression basic rights guaranteed by democratic values?

But this is hardly about a 16-feet tall minaret in the northern Swiss town of Langenthal. It’s about the fact that the one who suggested the structure is a Muslim furniture salesman by the name of Mutalip Karaademi. He didn’t know, of course, that his modest idea of adding a minaret to the community’s mosque would generate a nationwide referendum, and an international “controversy”. Karaademi was not trying to “Islamificate” the Swiss. He just wanted his community to have a place for worship (as opposed to the unused paint factory it currently uses for prayer), to be able to express its collective identity without fear. Ironically enough, the Muslim community in Langenthal are mostly Albanians, refugees who fled Kosovo seeking escape and deliverance.

What a strange paradox: Muslims escaping to the West, physically and figuratively, only to find double standards, self-negation and — at times — pure hypocrisy.

For now, however, a new consensus is forming: democracy can be invoked and used against Muslims only, not for Muslims. It can be manipulated to deny them their identity in Europe and their freedom in Palestine, to ensure their subjugation in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and to meddle in their internal affairs everywhere else.

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Source: Dec 2009

http://www.baptiststandard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10478&Itemid=9

Switzerland ban on Islamic minarets only heightens tensions

Have you ever asked yourself these questions?

“What is the purpose of LIFE?”
“My life?” ~ “Your Life?”

People everywhere are asking the questions; “What is the purpose of life?” and “Why are we here?” You might be amazed to learn, that Islam is providing clear and concise answers for these questions.

Most of those who reflect or think about life in any detail will consider and ponder these questions. There are as many different answers to these questions as there are people asking the questions. Some would hold that the purpose of life was to acquire wealth. Yet suppose they were to acquire millions of dollars, what then would they claim is their purpose after doing so?

(continue reading…)