www.stand4islam.blogspot.com: VALENTINE'S DAY: A celebration of promiscuity

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In recent times a plethora of misconceptions, misrepresentation and myths have been forged about Islam
and Muslims. Many western influentials from politicians, policymakers to judges have taken it upon
themselves to undermine the Islamic beliefs, values and rules so to make it palatable to their
egotistic minds and the secular liberal thoughts.

This blog is dedicated:-

1. To argue the point for Islam in its belief and systems and to refute the misconceptions.
2. To expose the weakness and contradictions of all forms of secularism.

10 Feb 2009

VALENTINE'S DAY: A celebration of promiscuity

During the fifth century the Catholic Church wanted to end a pagan fertility rite that the Romans had practised every year since the 4th century BC. During the month of February a lottery would be held to celebrate a young man's rite of passage to the "god" Lupericus. Young teenage girls participated in this lottery, with their names being placed in a box and drawn at random by young men. Through the lottery these young girls would be assigned to the man who picked them out, in order to enjoy 'mutual pleasure' for the duration of a year until the next year's lottery.

The Church was unhappy with the promiscuous nature of this ritual and tried to end it by selecting a "Lover's Saint", who would be honoured as a replacement of the ritual of Lupericus. They chose a bishop by the name of Valentine who had been executed in the 3rd century AD. His punishment was as a result of his defying the Emperor Claudius who had banned marriages saying that married men made poor soldiers, as they did not want to leave their families during battles. Valentine invited lovers to come to him to be married in secret, a crime for which he was executed. However, before he died he is said to have sent a farewell message to the jailer's daughter with whom he had fallen in love while in prison. It read "From your Valentine."

The modern day ritual of Valentine's Day has developed into something quite different from the intentions of Valentine. Indeed, it is ironic to think that what the Church tried to achieve so long ago was the preservation of the institution of marriage, in the guise of St Valentine's Day. The reality of Valentine's Day and what is associated with it is quite different; the return of promiscuity to society, relationships built upon and that result in fornication, unwanted pregnancies, back street abortions and all things that lead to the degradation and loss of honour in society.

Sadly, the corruption that ensues from this celebration of immorality affects all levels of society. Far from being a harmless activity, Valentine's Day is big business in Western society. Television and newspapers will publicise Valentine's Day through their promotion of special programmes, articles and events. Department stores, gift shops, the Post Office and clothes shops will be fully decorated with red roses and heart shaped balloons, enticing customers to purchase all that they will need to make their Valentine's Day dreams a reality.

Throughout the country in the month of February countless numbers of schools, universities and clubs are in preparation for balls and parties, inviting the unsuspecting populace. Regrettably, some Muslims will inevitably be amongst them lured into the havens of free mixing, alcohol, drugs, and illicit sexual encounters.

At university students will use 14 February to indulge in all manner of obscene activity. Young men and women will spend the day preparing a repertoire of 'chat up lines', which they will use as a tool for enticing complete strangers in to having 'one night stands' with them. Many may even be competing with each other in the number of people they can seduce in one night so that they can 'kiss and tell' the next day.

In The West - On Valentine's Day Student Unions will be issuing free condoms, college bars will be subsidising exotic cocktails, and drug-pushers will be stocking up on the latest line of 'date rape' pills. This is all part of the package that goes along with the illicit relationships, fornication and adultery that is celebrated around Valentine's Day.

The consequences of the activities that many will take up on 14 February and beyond are clear to see. Year after year there is an increase in the number of date rapes that occur in this country. So much so Delhi and Mumbai and Calcutta were named as one of the most dangerous cities for women in India. Recently we saw the open sexual assault on women on the new years day in Mumbai.

The promiscuous activity within society has led to astronomical rises in the diagnoses of acute sexually transmitted diseases (STD).

In 2006 UNAIDS estimated that there were 5.6 million people living with HIV in India, which indicated that there were more people with HIV in India than in any other country in the world. The number of AIDS deaths in India (which was estimated at 2.7 million for the period 1980-2000) is judged to rise to 12.6 million in the period 2000-2015.

The Sahabi Abdullah ibn Umar (ra) said, 'The Prophet (saws) came to us and said, 'Oh Muhajireen, you may be afflicted by five things; God forbid that you should live to see them. If fornication should become widespread, you should realise that this has never happened without new diseases befalling the people which their forbears never suffered. If people should begin to cheat in weighing out goods, you should realise that this has never happened without drought and famine befalling the people, and their rulers oppressing them. If people should withhold zakat, you should realise that this has never happened without the rain being stopped from falling; and were it not for the animals' sake, it would never rain again. If people should break their covenant with Allah and His messenger, you should realise that it has never happened without Allah sending an enemy against them to take some of their possessions by force. If the leaders do not govern according to the Book of Allah, you should realise that this has never happened without Allah making them into groups and making them fight one another' [Ibn Majah].

How can the West claim to offer the alternative when its criteria of individual freedom and benefit which by establishing sensual gratification as the paramount concern has led to the misery of millions of people? If we take a quick look at the West’s record we find that in their societies the top five problems in the social and marital life are:

- Mistrust and Adultery - 70% of American wives commit adultery within 5 years of marriage.

- Divorce - one in three end up in divorce.

- Rape - 167 women are raped every day in the UK.

- Wife battery - a battery incident occurs every 18 seconds in the America.

- Child molestation and paedophilia - in Britain a quarter of a million people are known paedophiles!

[Extracted from the Article ‘Roses are red, violets are blue, and Valentines day is not for you!’, Islamic Revival Website]

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What they said...

“Islam represented the greatest military power on earth…It was the foremost economic power in the world…It had achieved the highest level so far in human history, in the arts and sciences of civilization...Islam in contrast created a world civilization, poly-ethnic, multiracial, international, one might even say intercontinental.”

[Bernard Lewis, Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Orientalist and Historian, 2001]

"There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world. It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts…the civilization I'm talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600… Although we are often unaware of our indebtedness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage"

[Carly Fiorina, ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard, 2001]

"For the first three centuries of its existence (circ. A.D 650-1000) the realm of Islam was the most civilized and progressive portion of the world. Studded with splendid cities, gracious mosques and quiet universities where the wisdom of the ancient world was preserved and appreciated, the Moslem world offered a striking contrast to the Christian West, then sunk in the night of the Dark Ages."

[Lothrop Stoddard, Ph.D (Harvard), American political theorist and historian, 1932]

"Medieval Islam was technologically advanced and open to innovation. It achieved far higher literacy rates than in contemporary Europe;it assimilated the legacy of classical Greek civilization to such a degree that many classical books are now known to us only through Arabic copies. It invented windmills ,trigonometry, lateen sails and made major advances in metallurgy, mechanical and chemical engineering and irrigation methods. In the middle-ages the flow of technology was overwhelmingly from Islam to Europe rather from Europe to Islam. Only after the 1500's did the net direction of flow begin to reverse."

[Jared Diamond, UCLA sociologist and Author, 1997]

"No other society has such a record of success in uniting in an equality of status, of opportunity and endeavour so many and so varied races of mankind. The great Muslim communities of Africa, India and Indonesia, perhaps also the small community in Japan, show that Islam has still the power to reconcile apparently irreconcilable elements of race and tradition. If ever the opposition of the great societies of the East and west is to be replaced by cooperation, the mediation of Islam is an indispensable condition."

[Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb, Professor at Harvard University, 1932]

“The Muhammadan Law which is binding on all -- from the crowned head to the meanest subject is a law interwoven with a system of the wisest, the most learned and the most enlightened jurisprudence that ever existed in the world.”

[Edmund Burke, British Statesman and Philosopher, 1789]

"The Exile here is not like in our homeland. The Turks hold respectable Jews in esteem. Here and in Alexandria, Egypt, Jews are the chief officers and administrators of the customs, and the king’s revenues. No injuries are perpetuated against them in all the empire. Only this year, in consequence of the extraordinary expenditure caused by the war against Shah Tahmsap al-Sufi, were the Jews required to make advances of loans to the princes."

[David dei Rossi, Jewish Traveller 17CE, quoted by Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands]

"The notable religious tolerance towards Christians and Jew under Muslim rule had given way to the uncompromising zealotry of Spanish Inquisition. Jews and Muslims thus fled Spain with large numbers of Jews immigrating to the Ottoman Empire which was known for its tolerance to the Jews."

[Graham Fuller, Author and former CIA, 1995]

“If there is much misunderstanding in the West about the nature of Islam, there is also much ignorance about the debt our own culture and civilization owe to the Islamic world. It is a failure, which stems, I think, from the straightjacket of history, which we have inherited. The medieval Islamic world, from central Asia to the shores of the Atlantic, was a world where scholars and men of learning flourished. But because we have tended to see Islam as the enemy of the West, as an alien culture, society, and systems of beliefs, we have tended to ignore or erase its great relevance to our own history”

[Charles Philip Arthur George, HRH The Prince of Wales, 1993]

"...Not being subject to the Sharia, Jews and Christians were free to go to their own religious authorities for adjudication of disputes; but in many cases they went instead to the [Muslim] Qadi"

[Richard W. Bulliet, Professor of History and Author, 2004]

"Here in the land of the Turks we have nothing to complain of. We possess great fortunes; much gold and silver are in our hands. We are not oppressed by heavy taxes and our commerce is free and unhindered. Rich are the fruits of the earth. Everything is cheap and each one of us lives in freedom. Here a Jew is not compelled to wear a yellow star as a badge of shame as is the case in Germany where even wealth and great fortune is a curse for a Jew because he therewith arouses jealousy among the Christians and they devise all kinds of slander against him to rob him of his gold. Arise my brethren, gird up your loins, collect up your forces and come to us."

[In his book 'Constantinople', Philip Mansel quotes a rabbi in Turkey writing to his brethren in Europe where they were facing increasing persecution after 1453]

"Praise be to the beneficent God for his mercy towards me! Kings of the earth, to whom his [the Caliph’s] magnificence and power are known, bring gifts to him, conciliating his favour by costly presents, such as the king of the Germans, the king of the Gebalim, the king of Constantinople, and others. All their gifts pass through my hands, and I am charged with making gifts in return. (Let my lips express praise to the God in heaven who so far extends his loving kindness towards me without any merit of my own, but in the fullness of his mercies.) I always ask the ambassadors of these monarchs about our brethren the Jews, the remnant of the captivity, whether they have heard anything concerning the deliverance of those who have pined in bondage and had found no rest."

[Hasdai Ibn Shaprut (915-990 CE) Jewish physician, chief minister of Islamic Caliphate in Cordova, 'The Jewish Caravan']

"In Baghdad there are about forty thousand Jews, and they dwell in security, prosperity, and honour under the great Caliph [al-Mustanjid, 1160-70 CE], and amongst them are great sages, the Heads of the Academies engaged in the study of the Law…’"

[Benjamin of Tudela, Rabbi in Baghdad in the year 1168 CE, 'The Jew in the Medieval World']

"Those Eastern thinkers of the ninth century laid down, on the basis of their theology, the principle of the Rights of Man, in those very terms, comprehending the rights of individual liberty, and of inviolability of person and property; described the supreme power in Islam, or Califate, as based on a contract, implying conditions of capacity and performance, and subject to cancellation if the conditions under the contract were not fulfilled; elaborated a Law of War of which the humane, chivalrous prescriptions would have put to the blush certain belligerents in the Great War; expounded a doctrine of toleration of non-Moslem creeds so liberal that our West had to wait a thousand years before seeing equivalent principles adopted.

[Leon Ostorog, French Jurist]

"The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling discoveries or revolutionary theories; science owes a great deal more to Arab culture, it owes its existence"

[Robert Briffault, Novelist and Historian, 1928]

"The only effective link between the old and the new science is afforded by the Arabs. The dark ages come as an utter gap in the scientific history of Europe, and for more than a thousand years there was not a scientific man of note except in Arabia"

[Oliver Joseph Lodge, Writer and Professor of Physics, 1893]

“Thus, when Muslims crossed the straits of Gibraltar from North Africa in 711 and invaded the Iberian Peninsula, Jews welcomed them as liberators from Christian Persecution.”

[Zion Zohar, Jewish scholar at Florida International University, 2005]

“Throughout much of the period in question, Arabic served as the global language of scholarship, and learned men of all stripes could travel widely and hold serious and nuanced discussions in this lingua franca. Medieval Western scholars who wanted access to the latest findings also needed to master the Arabic Tongue or work from translations by those who had done so.”

[Jonathan Lyons, Author, Writer and Lecturer, 2009]