About this blog

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.

22 Apr 2010

100422 Quick view on some News

France to ban full Islamic veil from public spaces

The French government will ban Muslim women from wearing a full-face veil in public, despite a warning from experts that such a law could be unconstitutional, it announced Wednesday.The spokesman for President Nicolas Sarkozy's government said a bill would be presented to ministers in May and would seek to ban the niqab and the burqa from streets, shops and markets and not just from public buildings. "We're legislating for the future. Wearing a full veil is a sign of a community closing in on itself and of a rejection of our values," Luc Chatel told reporters, on leaving a cabinet meeting chaired by Sarkozy.

Last month, the State Council - France's top administrative authority - warned Sarkozy against a full ban on the veil, suggesting instead an order that women uncover their faces for security checks or meetings with officials. "It appears to the State Council that a general and absolute ban on the full veil as such can have no incontestable judicial basis," it said, suggesting a full ban could be declared unconstitutional and overturned in court. Prime Minister Francois Fillon insisted the government would go ahead anyway, taking the risk that the eventual text would be struck down by the constitutional court, because of the importance of the issue. "If we are convinced that it's a question of human dignity we can't let ourselves be over-cautious about respecting laws that are no longer appropriate for today's society," he said.

Russia's Black Sea Fleet to stay in Ukraine until 2042

This week the English newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported that the Kremlin has scored a major diplomatic victory, striking a deal that will allow Russia's Black Sea Fleet to stay in Ukraine for another thirty years, a full quarter of a century after it was supposed to leave. Russia capitalised on its growing soft power and substantial energy reserves to clinch the deal, agreeing to give Ukraine multi-billion dollar discounts to the price it pays for Russian natural gas in return. The deal is controversial in the extreme and means that the Russian fleet will no longer have to abandon its famous base in the city of Sevastopol in Crimea in 2017 as originally planned. Instead, it can remain until 2042 with a possible option to stay on until 2046. Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, savoured the moment, revelling in a diplomatic victory that is certain to bolster Russia's geopolitical influence in the former Soviet Union in the face of what it sees as growing encroachment by Nato and the United States. "This was a step we have awaited for a long time," Mr Medvedev said, before trying to play down the cheap gas for military base link. The fleet and gas deals were "directly connected," he conceded but it was "a technical link."

Obama Official Defends U.S.-Syria Engagement After Scud Reports

A top State Department official defended the Obama administration's policy of engaging with Syria against criticism from Congress following allegations that Syria transferred missiles to Hezbollah terrorists. Jeffrey Feltman, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, faced questions yesterday at a House panel hearing from Democrats and Republicans who questioned the logic of President Barack Obama's efforts to talk with a regime the U.S. accuses of weapons proliferation, links to terrorist groups and ties to Iran.Representative Dan Burton of Indiana, ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee for the Middle East and South Asia, compared sending an ambassador to Damascus to appeasing Adolf Hitler before World War II. President George W. Bush withdrew the last U.S. ambassador in 2005, following Syria's alleged involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.It's "rewarding Syria for kicking the U.S. in the teeth," Burton said, referring to the administration's decision in February to name career diplomat Robert Ford as ambassador to Damascus, after a reported meeting between leaders of Syria, Iran and Hezbollah.Feltman defended the decision, saying the Obama administration believes diplomacy can change Syria's behavior. "An ambassador is not a reward; it's a tool," he said.Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is already listening to the leaders of Iran and Hezbollah, Feltman said, and he "needs to listen to us, too."

German troops in Afghanistan call on Angela Merkel to explain why they're at war

German soldiers are wearing their hearts on their sleeves - in the form of a badge that protests their country's involvement in the war in Afghanistan. Some troops have taken to wearing the cloth accessory that states - ironically - ‘I fight for Merkel' in a bid to persuade the German Chancellor Angela Merkel to explain exactly what they are fighting and dying for. Four more troops were killed, and five badly injured, in Afghanistan last week. Seven soldiers have died there so far this month, bringing the total to 43 in all since they were first deployed eight years ago.Unable to engage the Taliban directly on the ground, frustrated by their government's inability to acknowledge they are even engaged in a war and angered by the lack of popular support for their mission, the badges are a low-key mutiny that has sent shock waves through the top brass of the Bundeswehr.

America reacts to former ISI chief's assertion that America killed Bhutto

The Obama Administration on Thursday termed as "outrageous" and "baseless" the allegation of Pakistan's former Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) head Hamid Gul about the US' involvement in assassination of Benazir Bhutto. "That is outrageous. He is frequent commentator on television, and certainly has an anti-American agenda," P J Crowley, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, told reporters here after the US Embassy in Islamabad dismissed the allegation coming from Gul about Bhutto's murder and the UN report on it. "General Gul made an outrageous suggestion that the US was responsible for assassination of Benazir Bhutto. "Such comments are baseless and irresponsible and should be examined by Pakistani media objectively. The US and Pakistan were fighting and our citizens were dying at the hands of these common enemies," he said.

Brazil and India pile pressure on China to appreciate its currency

Brazil and India have joined the call for China to appreciate its currency, seen by critics in the United States as grossly undervalued. Brazil and India are members of the BRIC group of emerging economies, which also includes Russia and China. The four held a summit this month in Brazil. The call from Brazil and India comes at a time when China is already under intense pressure from the Untied States to let the yuan appreciate, since an undervalued yuan against the U.S. dollar is seen as giving Beijing an unfair export advantage. The call makes Brazil and India unexpected allies of the United States on the currency issue, the Financial Times reported. Speaking prior to Thursday's meeting of finance ministers and central bank heads of the Group of 20 countries in Washington, Brazil's Henrique Meirelles said a stronger Chinese currency is "absolutely critical for the equilibrium of the world economy," the Times reported. India's central bank head Duvvuri Subbarao said, "If some countries manage their exchange rate and keep them artificially low, the burden of adjustment falls on some countries that do not manage their exchange rate so actively."
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

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]