www.stand4islam.blogspot.com: Change has come to Libya

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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.

22 Feb 2011

Change has come to Libya

«إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَيُمْلِي لِلظَّالِمِ حَتَّى إِذَا أَخَذَهُ لَمْ يُفْلِتْهُ»
"Verily Allah affords the oppressor some time, until when He takes hold of him, He does not let him go." (Bukhari and Muslim)

Libya usually conjures up images of oil, the Lockerbie disaster in 1988 and Muammar Gaddafi - more aptly known to the world as the ‘mad man.' With a population of 6.5 million, Libya is not usually the country that comes to mind when the Muslim world is discussed, Libya is also one of very few countries that was colonized by Fascist Italy.

Libya was created from Cyrenaica , Tripolitania and Fezzan in 1952 and was ruled under a monarchy through King Idris, until he was overthrown by the ‘mad man' in 1969. Ever since the ‘mad man has ruled with brutal oppression.

When the revolutions were taking shape in Egypt and Tunisia, many were determined that Libya would be next, I was not so sure. I was from the generation that knew no other ruler than Gaddafi. I often have discussions with Muslims from the Arab world that would compare their dictator with mine, who was worse? The stories that I heard always seemed worse, maybe because I knew many people who had their lives literally destroyed.

Change seemed like a distant cry.

I awoke on 17th February 2011 and was in shock as I witnessed the images on TV, images I actually believed would never come. As my brothers and sisters took to the streets in Benghazi I immediately feared for their lives, I knew what this ‘mad man' was capable of. Bin Ali was a killer, and Mubarak was also a murderer, but Gaddafi is something else.

Muammar Gaddafi was the sinister man that killed in order to pass time, for fun - there is no way else to explain it. He is the man who set upon killing the ulema, the people of knowledge and even simple imams of mosques. He did not stop there. He killed thinkers, academics and intellectuals, ensuring there was no intellectual challenge to his rule.

Gaddafi is known as the mad man because of the lengths he would go to remain in power. He once sent his police to my older sister's secondary private school, where he set about intimidating children for aspiring to be the thinkers of the future. That fateful day is still etched in the mind of my older sister thirty years on. She was fortunate; she managed to escape whilst they began to round up all the children. She and a friend had decided to climb a high wall. My sister was only 12. My sister described to me the screams and crying that took place as she managed to escape. My sister and her friend remained silent throughout the ordeal. My sister and her friend managed to escape - but they were the lucky ones.

My sister was found stranded on the road side. Her torn clothing was just too much for my father to bear. It was at that point that he decided, as he describes it to people today: "to put my family in my car and keep driving".

My family's phone has not stopped ringing since people took to the streets in Libya. "He's killing people, he's killing us" is how all conversations start. Our fears were being realized. People from Benghazi have reported the cold killing of children as young as 12. They aim at the head, stomach or chest, that is where all the wounds have been found. They place themselves strategically on top of buildings and just shoot. After watching events unravel in Tunisia and Egypt, Gaddafi spotted his potential weakness and set about ensuring the danger was removed: he disarmed his army. He shipped in gangs of youths from Mali and Chad, states that he has historically funded, in order to shoot, maim and kill the popular uprising against him.

The demonstrators are unarmed, tells me a sister from Tripoli. "We have tried taking to the streets here, but they fire and he has thrown missiles into the crowds in Benghazi," she screams. "We have more shuhadah here than Egypt and Tunisia put together, and we are a nation that only numbers five million. He will not stop, he will not cease until we are all dead. We have started putting our corpses in schools; the hospitals are full of the bodies and blood of the shuhadah."

I have sat glued to the TV as this mad man attempts to wipe out his own very people. His desperate attempts are failing him, the army are beginning to defect, Libyan ambassadors from across the world are resigning and it appears even infighting has started within the Gaddafi family.

The Ummah in Libya like their brothers and sisters in Tunisia and Egypt have realized that their ruler has to be removed. In the face of this massacre our brothers and sisters from all walks of life have been brave and await Allah سبحانه وتعالى victory.

Upon hearing of the fate of people in Tripoli, people from Zawiay and Sabratha and the other surrounding towns have now headed to Tripoli to help their brothers. One of the largest tribes, Warafla, has joined the demonstrations. This in itself has forced the Libyan Representative to the Arab League and the Libyan Diplomat in China to resign. A Sheikh from Yargan has called upon all heads of tribes and the army to take to the streets to remove the tyrant ruler. The people have taken hold of bulldozers from construction sites and driven to army barracks where they know weapons are stored. They have ceased them and returned them to the army to remove the tyrant ruler.

In a telephone conversation to my father in which he said he is now elderly and in turn feels guilt at not being on the streets helping the Ummah. Perhaps we are all feeling like that, wanting for them the security that we have. Their sacrifice, resolve and iman should inspire us to continue in our struggle to call for that which they chant as they risk everything in the streets of Libya.
Muammar Gaddafi has ruled Libya for over 40 years; many tyrant rulers have come and gone as he ruled with an iron fist. He thought he was above revolt. He even denied the Ahadiths and murdered the sincere brothers from the Ummah who went to account him. Like all rulers before him and after him they should take heed from the ahadith of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم:

«إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَيُمْلِي لِلظَّالِمِ حَتَّى إِذَا أَخَذَهُ لَمْ يُفْلِتْهُ»
"Verily Allah affords the oppressor some time, until when He takes hold of him, He does not let him go." (Bukhari and Muslim)

[Written by Ibtihal Bsis, February 2011]

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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]