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.

20 Jun 2010

World Cup Fever


World cup season is upon us again bigger and louder than ever before. Most of the world has been wrapped up in football fever each fan transforming into the hopeful optimist, devoutly believing their team could go all the way regardless of the obstacles. As hosts of the world cup, South Africa has been galvanised in the football atmosphere, in which locals are part and parcel of the party atmosphere. Images of the jubilant colourful South Africans are normally shown as part of sport news, however there appears to be a worrying side to life in South Africa.

As part of the football footage news teams have delved into the reality of life for the majority of poor South Africans. As well as extreme poverty leaving 50% under the poverty line, where a quarter are unemployed, other major problems such as crime, drugs, corruption and HIV are a daily norm for the local people. For those who can afford to, gated residences with private security forces are musts for those who seek to protect their families, but for those who live in shanties or run down suburbs they are left vulnerable. Drugs such as ‘tik' or crystal methamphetamine have had a devastating effect where rape, murder, armed robbery and car-jacking have grown with the soaring addiction rate. Ellen Pakkies, mother of a tik-addict son who turned psychotic and attacked her with scissors, a breadknife and an axe - before she took a rope and strangled him, the problem of inescapable depravation faced by families like the Pakks, leads to a vicious cycle drawing others into this loop of hopelessness and drug addiction.

Most believe the world cup will do little for their situation even though the world cup is hailed as an investment, creating jobs and aiding economic growth in the long term. The world cup is thought to have cost $3.9 billion, spent on stadiums, transport and other necessary aspects of football infrastructure. However for many living in shanties the natural question is why there seems to be billions available for sport but none for providing simple basic needs for the struggling poor.

The world cup appears to be not the only possibility for progression in South Africa. Currently South Africa has well-developed financial, legal, communications, energy and transport sectors and a stock exchange which ranks in the top twenty in the world. In terms of resources South Africa has a large agricultural sector and is a net exporter of farming products. Additionally South African land is rich in coal, diamonds, gold, iron, platinum, copper, uranium, silver and titanium. Therefore not only does South Africa already house an infrastructure capable of larger growth but it also has the resources to drive the progression, which begs the question as to why are so many impoverished?

The reasons for this sad state of affairs have been put down to many issues the two biggest factors being racism and corrupt and incompetent governing - all legacies of colonialism. Like many other developing countries South Africa suffers from a government which is riddled corruption and bungled attempts at sorting its countries problems out. Despite the government's attempts, the distribution of wealth is failing to go where it's needed. Even though some blacks have risen into the wealthier middle class, the majority of blacks are still amongst the poorest alongside an increasing poor white.

Racism in South Africa has a long history stemming from its first interactions with Europeans back in 1487, where Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias, looking for new lands and new countries to plunder first reached Africa's southern tip. It wasn't until the 19th- century that diamonds and gold were discovered sparking the conflict known as the Anglo-Boer war, where the British fought the Boers for mineral wealth. During the Dutch and British colonial years the idea of racial segregation was introduced, as time passed increasing laws or acts were created to subjugate the black South Africans, including restricting ownership of land to 7% of the country. Segregation reached its most grave when the infamous ‘apartheid' was formally introduced into the entire system separating races into white, coloured and black. This segregation also represented a division in wealth where the whites enjoyed the highest standard of living which has continued to recent years. Where there is a clear divide still existent between the wealthier white and poorer black even though there may have been some changes.

Today's problems are part of the legacy left by its European imperialists, a society divided along racial lines post apartheid and a government that cares more about power than struggling to rid itself of corruption. What South Africa needs is a vision provided by a solid basis or reference point. A clear reference point would provide a system which would eradicate corruption, providing laws and a societal ethic which would banish and produce hate for such actions. Also the system would obliterate racism as not only being a backward shallow idea but also binding people on the values of the system not race, cast or nationality.

Islam has given the world such a clear vision, where the people are bound by the values of Islam. This produced a system which saw the Muslim citizen as equal to the Non-muslim citizen in providing for both of their daily needs, not aiming to take from the people only as the imperialist nations have done and still do. This gave rise to a socially and economically strong society. This vision has been cemented in Islamic history.

Uthman (ra) wrote to his governors:

"Allah has commanded rulers to be shepherds; He did not command them to be money collectors. The attitude of the earliest leaders of this ummah was that of shepherds, not money-collectors. Soon you will find your leaders becoming money-collectors, not shepherds. Once that happens, there will be no more modesty, trustworthiness or honesty. The best way of running the people's affairs is to examine the Muslim situation, find out what their dues are and give them to them, and take from them what is due from them. Then go to ahl al-dhimmah (non muslim citizens) and give them what is due to them and take what from them what is due from them. Then confront the enemy and seek to defeat them by means of sincerity."

Uthman (ra) wrote to the people in the regions:

"Enjoin what is good and forbid what is evil. No believer should subject himself to humiliation, for I will be with the weak against the strong so long as he has been wronged, inshaAllah."

Article Written By Zaynab Ismail

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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]