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.

23 Dec 2010

101223 Quick view on some News

UK: 40 percent of Muslim students want Sharia law

The whistleblower website ‘Wikileaks' has revealed the outcome of a 2009 poll in the secret US diplomatic cables, saying that 32 percent of Muslim students in 30 universities across the UK believe killing in the name of religion is justified, while 40 percent want Muslims in the country to be under the Sharia law.

The Daily Mail quoted a cable from January 2009 as saying that the survey, which was conducted on 600 Muslim and 800 non-Muslim students, also found that found 54 percent wanted a Muslim party to represent their worldview in the Parliament. The cable suggests increasing radicalisation among Britain's young Muslims. According to another U.S. cable, dated February 5 2009, reaching out to Britain's Muslim community was a ‘top priority' for U.S. embassy staff. "Although people of Muslim faith make up only 3 to 4 percent of the UK's population, outreach to this key audience is vital to U.S. foreign policy interests in the UK and beyond. ... This is a top Mission priority," the paper quoted the cable, as saying. The February cable outlined a plan ‘engagement and community capacity-building' to counter the possible growth of ‘violent extremism' in the UK.

Summit lets Turkey flex its diplomatic muscles

Turkey, a stable and fast- growing economy, hosts leaders from Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asian states at an economic summit on Thursday which illustrates Ankara's growing regional influence. Plagued by conflict but blessed with vast oil and gas reserves, the Eurasia region has seen its geopolitical significance increase. The summit of the 10-member Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is expected to produce few concrete results, but its significance lies in the attendance of some of the region's high-profile political leaders. The meeting, which will be attended by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, demonstrates Turkey's ability to network in a region where world powers struggle for trust. Ahmadinejad, who held one-to-one talks with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan late on Wednesday, is in Turkey a month before planned nuclear talks with six major powers in Istanbul. Turkey, a rising Muslim democracy that has applied to join the European Union, has cultivated its eastern neighbors to consolidate its position as a link between Europe on the one hand and the Middle East and Central Asia. Turkey will use it to showcase its growing diplomatic assertiveness and project a foreign policy it defines as having "zero problems with neighbors."

US Congress approves crusader bill

The US Congress has approved a bill authorising the Pentagon to spend $160bn in Iraq and Afghanistan during this budget year. A previous version was rejected because it included several controversial measures, including one to allow gays to serve openly in the military. This year's bill, which received largely bipartisan support in Congress, agreed to $725bn in defence proposals, including $158.7bn for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The legislation would also raise the pay of troops by 1.4% and allow the children of members of the military to stay covered under the military's health care until they are 26-years-old. Other provisions in the legislation include:

$75m to train and supply weapons to Yemeni counter-terrorism forces

$205m for a programme with Israel to develop a mobile defence system

$11.6bn toward the development of security in Afghanistan

$1.5bn to Iraqi security forces

U.S. official: Al Qaeda in Yemen bigger threat than in Pakistan

The administration's top counterterrorism adviser said Friday that the al Qaeda group based in Yemen poses a greater threat to Americans than Osama bin Laden's group based in Pakistan.John Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, said the Yemen-based group, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is "increasingly active" in reaching out to find terrorist recruits, even in the United States. "Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is now the most operationally active node of the al Qaeda network," Brennan said during a forum at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Brennan's remarks came a day after the release of the annual Afghanistan/Pakistan review and President Barack Obama's outline of his view of the threat posed by al Qaeda from its Pakistan base. "It will take time to ultimately defeat al Qaeda, and it remains a ruthless and resilient enemy bent on attacking our country," Obama said Thursday.

Pak-Army assured to launch offensive in NWA: Munter

US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter said that Pak-Army has assured to launch offensive in North Waziristan. Talking to media here US Ambassador Cameron Munter said that Pak Army has assured to conduct operation in North Waziristan while the Army would itself decide operation timing despite US demand of immediate offensive in the area. He said that Pak Army is making serious efforts for elimination of terrorism. He said that America wants complete elimination of extremists groups from Pakistan and Afghanistan and military and security cooperation with Pakistan would be further increased in this connection. He said that America wants to strengthen democratic institutions in Pakistan. He said that the government of Pakistan would have to take such steps that would increase trust of Pakistani masses over America.

WikiLeaks: U.K. trained Bangladeshi ‘death squad'

The British government has trained a paramilitary force accused of hundreds of killings in Bangladesh, according to leaked U.S. embassy cables. The Guardian newspaper said the cables described training for members of the Rapid Action Battalion as being in "investigative interviewing techniques" and "rules of engagement." One cable notes that U.S. training for the battalion in counterterrorism would be illegal under U.S. law because of human rights violations. The newspaper said the battalion has been accused by human rights activists of being a "death squad" responsible for more than 1,000 extra-judicial killings since it was established in 2004. In March, the battalion's leader said it had killed 622 people in "crossfire."
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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]