| Islamic World News | |
| 01 Dec 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com | |
| Changing The Face of Makkah : The Satan is back, Destroying Islam | |
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Moving the Prophet's grave would be the first step towards destroying Islam Iran sentences three mosque bombers to death: 14 had died in Shiraz mosque in April US Church Hosts Muslim Worshippers Obama's Inheritance: an Iraq that can tilt the Arab-Muslim world in a different direction by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Muslim women versus 'women in Islam' by Khaled Ahmed UK Epidemic – Muslim Taxi Drivers Raping British Women At Least 200 Die in Nigeria Clashes Compiled by Syed Asadullah -----------------------
Changing The Face of Makkah Cairo- Saudi Arabia is crafting plans to expand Al-Masjid Al-Haram, Islam's holiest shrine, and redesigning the holy city of Makkah in a major project that aims to change the face of the holy city. "The main objective of the design studies is to enrich our discourse on how we should address the future architecture of the Haram and its growth," a source close to the project told the British weekly Architects' Journal. Saudi Arabia has assigned 18 of the world's best architects with making designs to "establish a new architectural vision" for the 356,800m2 Al-Masjid Al-Haram complex. "These design exercises in addition to other investigations will be subject to an exhibition to his Majesty King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz by the end of the month," the source said. The top-secret plans focus on expanding Al-Masjid Al-Haram and its surrounding area. Under the plans, the capacity of the holy mosque will be increased in the first phase to cater for 1.5 million worshippers from only 900,000 at present. The mosque's capacity will later go up to three million worshippers with the completion of several phases over the following five to 10 years. Al-Masjid al-Haram is Islam's holiest shrine and home to the Ka`bah, the direction Muslims take during prayers. The plans also envisage 'revisiting the whole area of the central district' of Makkah. The Saudi British Bank, one of the kingdom's biggest lenders, has said that £15 billion will be invested by foreign and Saudi companies in construction and infrastructure in Makkah by 2012. It said about 130 skyscrapers will be established, including the Abraj Al Bait Towers, which is to be one of the world's biggest buildings. Millions of Muslims from around the world pour into Makkah every year to perform hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam. Every able-bodied adult Muslim — who can financially afford the trip — must perform hajj at least once in a lifetime. ---- The Satan is back: Destroying Islam comment by Shah on Nov 30, 2008
If they try to move the Prophet Mohammed's (pbuh) grave, that would be the first step towards destroying Islam.
Satan works slowly and taking people away from Islam. The Saudi's have been destroying the true Heritage of Makkah for years, and are know letting the Kaffah come in and destroy it even more. Hajj is a sacrifice not a 5 star hotel holiday, even you want that go to the kaffah places there are lots of them. Next there will be no tents and Mina just 5 star hotels if you have the money, so Hajj will just are for the rich and the poor will get neglected, this is what Islam came to stop. Hajj knows seems to be more about money then about Islam. If they try to move the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) grave, that would be the first step of destroying Islam. Money is not the answer, as our beloved Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was given what ever he desired by the Quresh if he gave up the message of Islam, but he refused and suffered for the sake of Islam. ------ Iran sentences three mosque bombers to death: 14 had died in Shiraz mosque in April Tehran (AFP) — Iran has sentenced to death three men convicted of a mosque bombing which left 14 people dead in the southern city of Shiraz in April, Kayhan newspaper reported on Saturday. Prosecutor Ali Akbar Heidari-Far said Mohsen Eslamian, 21, and Ali Asghar Pashtar, 20 -- both university students -- and Rouzbeh Yahyazadeh, 32, would be hanged in Shiraz once the sentence was confirmed by the supreme court. "A revolutionary court in Tehran has found the three main accused of the case to be 'mohareb' (enemies of God) and 'corrupt on the earth'," he said, without disclosing when the verdict was issued. The three men were tried over the bombing of a packed mosque during evening prayers in Shiraz and also faced charges of "belonging to a terrorist group," cooperating with hostile armed groups, seeking to overthrow the Islamic system and planning to launch other attacks. "This verdict has been sent to the supreme court for validation and as soon the confirmation of the sentence returns they are going to be hanged in Shiraz," Heidari-Far added. According to Iranian penal law, all death sentences have to be approved by the Supreme Court. "The rest of the accused in this case will be tried later," the prosecutor said. The Fars news agency said meanwhile that the convicts will be "hanged in public" because of the serious nature of their action, adding that the trial started on November 22. "Due to the graveness of this terrorist atrocity which has martyred and wounded many Shirazi people, it is necessary to carry out the execution in public and in front of the mosque," Fars said quoting the verdict. In January, Iran's judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahrudi decreed that public executions would only be carried out with his approval and "based on social necessities." The authorities had initially announced the arrest of 15 suspects and the judiciary said in October that the prosecution wanted the death penalty for seven people for causing the blast that also wounded more than 200 people. The strike in Shiraz was the first in decades in Iran's Persian heartland. The normally placid city is not in a border zone, nor is it home to any significant ethnic or religious minority population. Heidari-Far last week said the accused had ties with a monarchist opposition group outside Iran and took orders from a US-based Iranian identified only as Jamshid aiming to assassinate a high-ranking official in Iran. According to Fars, the verdict identified "Jamshid as CIA agent abroad," but it did not give further information.
Heidari-Far said the men in Iran were led by a domestic operative identified as Majid Rastgoo, who had committed suicide after being injured while making a bomb in a Tehran hotel in August. He also said the case remains open against the monarchist group's chief Foroud Fooladvand, who frequently attacks leaders of the Islamic republic in foreign-based satellite broadcasts. Fooladvand heads an opposition expatriate group named the Kingdom Assembly of Iran, which claimed responsibility on its website for the Shiraz blast and vowed that more "hostile acts" were to be expected. Iranians have a sizeable Diaspora community in Iran's arch-foe, the United States, some of whom support the son of Iran's deposed shah, Reza Pahlavi. Source:http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5giOxO_7Q2dicyrwaK83Lf6y4Qr1g ----- US Church Hosts Muslim Worshippers Cairo: - A church in the north-central US state of Wisconsin is hosting Muslim worshippers to perform prayers twice a day, reported the Journal Sentinel on Saturday, November 29. "We're very grateful to the church," said local Muslim leader Ajaz Qhavi. The Faith Presbyterian Church in Franklin city in southern Wisconsin has allowed Muslims to perform prayers five days a week. Since last week, Muslims have gathered at the Church's Sunday school space to perform the Fajr (Dawn) and `Isha` (night) prayers. The Islamic Center of Milwaukee pays a nominal rental fee to cover church expenses. The move was taken as there are no close mosques for Muslims to perform their prayers. The prayers can be performed anywhere, at home, outside, at the airport, said Isa Sadlon, the Executive Director of the Islamic Center of Milwaukee. But many Muslims prefer to pray with others, and five daily trips to the mosque can be burdensome, he said. The prayer sites, Sadlon said, allow them to meet their obligations closer to home or work. There are 150 Muslim families in Franklin city. Muslims pray five times a day at the appointed times: Fajr (dawn), Zhuhr (noon), `Asr (mid-afternoon), Maghrib (sunset) and `Isha' (night). Prayer is one of the most important obligations of Islam, being one of the five pillars of Islam. Friends Allowing Muslims to pray at the church drew a mixed reaction from church members. "I think we're doing this, not because of what they believe, but because of what we believe," said Pastor Rev. Deb Bergeson-Graham. She said the church decision drew an overwhelming support from parishioners, adding that the move is in line with the Christian teachings. "It's what Christ would have us do." But the decision was objected by some church members. "I told him, 'I'm sorry you feel this way, and I hope you continue to worship with us,' " said one older member. Sadlon, the Islamic Centre Executive Director, was not surprised. "We don't take it personally," said Sadlon, who was raised Catholic but reverted to Islam about 20 years ago. "Sometimes your worst enemy becomes your best friend. But it takes time." ---- Muslim women versus 'women in Islam' Khaled Ahmed, November 30, 2008 Book review: Women in Islam and the Middle East Edited by Ruth Roded IB Tauris 2008 Pp293; Price £15.99 Available in bookstores in Pakistan The problem is that you can't begin to discuss the plight of Muslim women without someone throwing in the cliché 'but Islam gives more rights to women than other religions'. Muslim women are worse off than the women of other religions. Should we not discuss them without getting religion thrown in? The painful truth is that Muslim women too start attacking you for bringing up their cause. Is there no solution to the problem of maltreatment of Muslim women? Sindhis kill their women when they feel they don't like them any more or want to lighten the household and make place for another woman. They call it the tribal tradition of karo-kari, which is a crude and shameless practice if accusing your wife or sister of having had sexual intercourse with another man, even your father or your brother, after which you kill the luckless creature and bury her in a pariah graveyard. Needless to say, the co-accused father or brother goes free. The prouder the tribesman the more shameless is the practice of killing women. The Baloch bury their women alive if they dare express the wish to marry of their own accord. The proud Pashtun take the lowest rung of honour: they give away their women to satisfy the passion for revenge of a wronged party and call it swara. And when you try to legislate against these practices, brave sardars get up and claim all these shameless practices as rituals of tribal tradition. You can encounter a situation where a women who has been deprived of her right to property and is beaten up for nashuz (disobedience) is ready to claw your eyes for insulting Islam after you have spoken of the issues facing other women like her. The book under review therefore handles the theme carefully, talking of all sorts of women in Islam, from Khadija, Ayesha, Fatima, Zainab to, yes, Hind, the wife of Abu Sufiyan and mother of Muawiya, who fought like a wildcat against the Prophet PBUH in the battle of Uhud. The book finds the subject neglected although most Muslim scholars dealing with the normative rather than the real think otherwise. The norm is established by the Quran and the Prophet PBUH but the problem is that this norm is 'interpreted' in different places in different ways. Muslims get red around the collar discussing this subject and are not placated even by a reference to different sharias in different places. Talk of allowing female circumcision in Pakistan and you will get slapped in the face, but in Egypt it is the other way around. If you criticise female circumcision among the Shafeiites of Cairo you will get beaten up. We all agree on the Islamic norm of rights of women but disagree on the details or how this norm is to be interpreted. How much is a nashiza wife to be beaten? The less civilised Muslim in Syria and Ghana can beat his wife to death without the neighbours challenging him. If the wife is your cabbage patch to be tilled (agreed), how roughly is the deed to be done or with or without the consent of the cabbage patch (disagreed)? So the book arrives at the conclusion that the equality bestowed by the Quran on Muslim men and women is spiritual and not social. Hadith is more problematic: what do you make of the saying that a people whose affairs are managed by a woman will not prosper?
The Salafiya movement under the Egyptian grand mufti Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) did something commendable by returning to the Quran and the Prophet PBUH to cut out the different cultural rites that had become accreted on the Islamic practice. His interpretation, based on praxis in early Islam, revealed the woman was treated better than in the 20th century. So the reform took us back to the period of the Prophet and his Companions. His Quranic extrapolations favoured monogamy but unfortunately later on the Salafists that branched off from his school derived polygamy from the same source. Hind is praised for her feats at the 7th century Battle of Yarmuk which resulted in Syria and Palestine falling under Muslim rule, but then the story reverts to her pre-conversion role against the Muslims at the Battle of Uhud that nearly killed the Prophet PBUH. The details are gory but the family of Abu Sufyan was forgiven by the Prophet PBUH for battling him, and she lived to be a brave and assertive Muslim woman. (Forgiveness was divine and perhaps came because her father, brother, uncle and oldest son were earlier killed by Muslims at the Battle of Badr.) Then Ayesha emerges as a woman of great authority revered by Muslims as a source of hadith and a model for women to follow. The Shia respect for women is derived from their reverence for the family of the Prophet. Fatima emerges as the ideal of womanhood because she was the daughter of Muhammad PBUH; and Khadija emerged as the ideal woman who proposed to the Prophet PBUH and set the example for Muslim women who wish to choose their husbands. When scholars like Moroccan Fatima Mernissi write to remind the Muslims of these things her views don't always meet with the approval of our contemporary fire-and-brimstone clergy. The harder you make it the better it looks. And you make it harder still for Muslim women! There is also the woman of our times. Halide Edib Khanum, the Turkish women who welcomed the Kemalist revolution in Turkey and supported the Pakistan Movement. Born in 1884, she came from a highly placed Ottoman family, her father Edib Bey being secretary to Sultan Abdul Hamid the Second. Coming from this conservative background she entered the American College for Girls in Istanbul and was ready to accept the Young Turk Revolution when it came under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha in 1908. Our own Hamida Akhtar, in her beautifully written memoir, tells us how she got to meet Halide when she was in exile in Paris after having disagreed with Kemal over doing the Turkish ullema to death by sinking their ship in high seas. She was in pain because Kemal had retained her children as 'surety' against her conduct in Paris. It was in Paris that Chaudhry Rehmat Ali met her and set her up as an ideal woman for the Muslims of India. Source:http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\11\30\story_30-11-2008_pg3_5 --- Obama's Inheritance: an Iraq that has the potential to eventually tilt the Arab-Muslim world in a different direction
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, November 29, 2008
Here's a story you don't see very often. Iraq's highest court told the Iraqi Parliament last Monday that it had no right to strip one of its members of immunity so he could be prosecuted for an alleged crime: visiting Israel for a seminar on counterterrorism. The Iraqi justices said the Sunni lawmaker, Mithal al-Alusi, had committed no crime and told the Parliament to back off. That's not all. The Iraqi newspaper Al-Umma al-Iraqiyya carried an open letter signed by 400 Iraqi intellectuals, both Kurdish and Arab, defending Alusi. That takes a lot of courage and a lot of press freedom. I can't imagine any other Arab country today where independent judges would tell the government it could not prosecute a parliamentarian for visiting Israel — and intellectuals would openly defend him in the press. In the case of Iraq, though, the federal high court, in a unanimous decision, vacated the Parliament's rescinding of Alusi's immunity, with the decision delivered personally by Chief Justice Medhat al-Mahmoud. The decision explained that although a 1950s-era law made traveling to Israel a crime punishable by death, Iraq's new Constitution establishes freedom to travel. Therefore the Parliament's move was "illegal and unconstitutional because the current Constitution does not prevent citizens from traveling to any country in the world," Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar, spokesman for the court, told The Associated Press. The judgment even made the Parliament speaker responsible for the expenses of the court and the defence counsel! I don't think it's reasonable to expect Iraq to have relations with Israel anytime soon, but the fact that it may be developing an independent judiciary is good news. It's a reminder of the most important reason for the Iraq war: to try to collaborate with Iraqis to build progressive politics and rule of law in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, a region that stands out for its lack of consensual politics and independent judiciaries. And it's a reminder that a decent outcome may still be possible in Iraq, especially now that the Parliament has endorsed the U.S.-Iraqi plan for a 2011 withdrawal of American troops. Al Qaeda has not been fully defeated in Iraq; suicide bombings are still an almost daily reality. But it has been dealt a severe blow, which I believe is one reason the Muslim jihadists — those brave warriors who specialize in killing women and children and defenceless tourists — have turned their attention to softer targets like India. Just as they tried to stoke a Shiite-Sunni civil war in Iraq, and failed, they are now trying to stoke a Hindu-Muslim civil war in India. If Iraq can keep improving — still uncertain — and become a place where Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites can write their own social contract and live together with a modicum of stability, it could one day become a strategic asset for the United States in the post-9/11 effort to promote different politics in the Arab-Muslim world. How so? Iraq is a geopolitical space that for the last three decades of the 20th century was dominated by a Baathist dictatorship, which, though it provided a bulwark against Iranian expansion, did so at the cost of a regime that murdered tens of thousands of its own people and attacked three of its neighbours. In 2003, the United States, under President Bush, invaded Iraq to change the regime. Terrible post-war execution and unrelenting attempts by Al Qaeda to provoke a Sunni-Shiite civil war turned the Iraqi geopolitical space into a different problem — a maelstrom of violence for four years, with U.S. troops caught in the middle. A huge price was paid by Iraqis and Americans. This was the Iraq that Barack Obama ran against. In the last year, though, the U.S. troop surge and the backlash from moderate Iraqi Sunnis against Al Qaeda and Iraqi Shiites against pro-Iranian extremists have brought a new measure of stability to Iraq. There is now, for the first time, a chance — still only a chance — that a reasonably stable democratizing government, though no doubt corrupt in places, can take root in the Iraqi political space. That is the Iraq that Obama is inheriting. It is an Iraq where we have to begin drawing down our troops — because the occupation has gone on too long and because we have now committed to do so by treaty — but it is also an Iraq that has the potential to eventually tilt the Arab-Muslim world in a different direction. I'm sure that Obama, whatever he said during the campaign, will play this smart. He has to avoid giving Iraqi leaders the feeling that Bush did — that he'll wait forever for them to sort out their politics — while also not suggesting that he is leaving tomorrow, so they all start stockpiling weapons. If he can pull this off, and help that decent Iraq take root, Obama and the Democrats could not only end the Iraq war but salvage something positive from it. Nothing would do more to enhance the Democratic Party's national security credentials than that. Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30friedman.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y ----- UK Epidemic – Muslim Taxi Drivers Raping British Girls & Women Recently a BBC announcer was sacked/fired for requesting a "non Asian taxi driver" to transport her young unaccompanied 14 year old daughter. (Out of concern for her daughter's fears/mental well being & safety)
Of course, the "racist" club was trotted out by the mainstream media and others to verbally bludgeon Sam Mason for having the audacity to demand an "English driver". But was Sam Mason really exposing her racism or was she reacting, as any mother would, to the facts that there is a ongoing epidemic of Muslim taxi driver rapes in the UK? (Note: the media prefers the more vague term "Asian") Not surprising - the mainstream media, is aiding and abetting these rapes, by refusing to "connect the dots" and report on the clear evidence: The growing numbers of predatory Muslim taxi drivers (some posing as taxi drivers) raping British girls and women. Here are some - but far from all - examples of Muslim taxi driver rapists:
Abul Mlik. 29. Raped 19 yr. old female student - he was angry she didn't have all the fare money - Oct 2008 Salam Rahman, 27, and his friend, 26-year-old Mohammed Elahi - along with two other men - gang raped two women - a newlywed and a city worker - Aug 2002 (Police said after the case that they feared these were not isolated cases and appealed for any woman who may have suffered a similar attack to come forward.)
Assadullah Razaq, 31, raped 28 yr. old secretary - Mar 2003
Mohanid Al obaydi, raped 22 yr old woman (was found guilty), Apr 2005
Ghulam Haider, 49, brutally raped 16 yr old girl Aug 2006
Murtaza Mateen, aged 47, lured 42 year old woman into his taxi & raped her, Jan 2007
Shahjahan Islam, 27, linked by DNA to attempted rape of lone young woman, Nov 2008
Rami Kayyali, 26, found guilty of raping young woman, Nov 2008
Asian - bogus taxi driver, in his mid-20s, wanted for attempted rape of 18 yr. old girl, Mar 2008 Asian male, aged in his late 20s or early 30s, wanted for brutal rape of 24 yr old woman, Aug 2008 Asian "taxi driver", in his 40s, sought in rape of teenager, Nov 2008
Also disgustingly prevalent are examples of dhimmi members of the British police denying and intentionally obfuscating the epidemic of Muslim taxi drivers raping British women: "Speaking after Kayyali's conviction, Detective Sergeant Andy Willmott said: "Thankfully these types of crimes are very rare, but that makes it no less distressing for the young woman subjected to an attack by this man." "Detective Inspector Terry Sweeney, from Stockport CID, said: "This was a horrifying experience that no woman should ever have to go through. While we like to reassure women that incidents like this are relatively few and far between, nonetheless a woman has been raped and the man responsible is still at large. So women should be very careful when getting into taxis and make sure they are legitimate." Denial is bad but some other members of the law enforcement were crass & negligent enough to place a semi naked woman - who police believed had just been raped by a taxi driver - back into a taxi ALONE rather than providing her with safe transportation home. So can we really blame Sam Mason for being worried about her 14 year old daughter traveling alone with an "Asian" driven mini cab/taxi? Was she being "racist" - or is she a realist? Source:http://theopinionator.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/11/uk-crisis-muslim-taxi-driver-rapists-.html ----- At Least 200 Die in Nigeria Clashes: November 29, 2008 JOS, Nigeria (Reuters) — More than 200 bodies have been brought to the main mosque in Jos in central Nigeria after ethnic and religious clashes, and the final death toll is likely to be higher, the Red Cross said Saturday. A senior Nigerian Red Cross official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that 218 bodies were lying in the main mosque here awaiting burial. "There are many other bodies in the streets," the official said. That death toll did not include hospital figures, victims already buried, or those taken to other places of worship, meaning the final count could be much higher, officials said. About 7,000 people fled their homes and were being sheltered in government buildings and religious centres, the Red Cross said. The authorities extended a curfew and ordered the army to shoot on sight on Saturday to stop more clashes. The governor of Plateau State, of which Jos is the capital, imposed a 24-hour curfew on neighbourhoods of the city that have been racked by violence in which rival gangs burned churches and mosques, forcing thousands to flee their homes. Gunfire and explosions heard early in the morning died down, and many streets in the city, which lies at the crossroads between Nigeria's mostly Muslim north and mostly Christian south, were deserted as the military patrolled. The clashes between gangs of Muslims and Christians were set off by a disputed local government chairmanship election.
Residents said people of the Hausa ethnic group began protesting Friday after rumours spread that their candidate, from the All Nigerian Peoples Party, had lost to the federal governing People's Democratic Party. Hundreds were killed in ethnic and religious Street fighting in Jos in 2001. The tensions in Plateau have their roots in decades of resentment by indigenous minority groups, mostly Christian or animist, toward migrants and settlers, many of the Muslims, from the Hausa-speaking north. Unrest in the state has in the past led to reprisal attacks and tit-for-tat killings among groups in other areas of the country. More Articles in World » A version of this article appeared in print on November 30, 2008, on page A10 of the New York edition. Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/world/africa/30nigeria.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y -- http://newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1031 |
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