Moderate Muslims

Ralph to Aria:

```` difficult month for Muslims or nonMuslims? Think about it. ````

if Aria thinks about it she will find -- a great month for Killer Muslims -- and she will know why everybody is after poor Arias`s Mulsims.

#216 Yusafkhan:

there is an economics term in lating i keep forgetting which translates to `HOLDING EVERYTHING ELSE CONSTANT`. it is often used when studying BASICS of economics - mostly for high school kids. we try to focus on just one event and not bother with any other critical varibales that cannot be avoided so that kids can be taught the social scienc and behavior of people in simple terms though it may have little relevance or significance to real life.

similarly, you seem to desire this PRE-REQUISITE in order for the `Muslim-reformation` to take place. the absence of the PRE-REQUISITE justifies or is the excuse for the lack of reformation. `hold everything else constant`. in your last paragrph you say:

``So read and think all ofyou that say Islam has not had a reformation....it has got nothing to do with Islam. You see a poeple need generations of peace and prosperity to develop their civilization; the average Muslim of these countries is mainly thinking of feeding his family. That is why if the west just lets us be, allows us to live in peace, we will by the Grace of God, see our zenith. ``

having a thought process follow that of `if only they let us be`, is an escapist attitude and will lead to self-destruction. dominant civilzations have always felt insecure of losing their grip and never let others be. we should not expect history to make an exception now. once i was criticizing the west`s brutal actions to a pakistani air force engineer and he said `that is nothing. if we (pakistanis) have the power, we`d screw others up even more. look at what we did in afghanistan.`

those in power always abuse power and subjegate others. and no one lives in an insulated world that they can escape from the subjegation. except the muslim mind it seems. which seems to functions like this:

``HOLDING EVERYTHING ELSE CONSTANT, WITH THE GRACE OF ALLAH, WE`LL RISE TO OUR ZENITH``

actually now that i think of it, this IS the tablighi jamaat attitude. `brother, if we can take care of a person`s spirit, everything else will be ok` is the explanation they will give if you ask them why they won`t use their massive organized human resource available to them to initiate economic or social uplifting programs.

InYourFace
I agree with you about a wall. A wall will mean we will no longer need to make these futile attempts to reconcile opposite ideologies and world views. A wall will mean no Pakistani sicko will ask me to accept TNT and condemn Modi at the same time. A wall will nullify all Hindutva demagogues` excuses for not performing well in office. A wall will end the US`s role as doubledealing moraliser-cum-meddler. Faida hi faida!

Anyway what does India gain by not having a wall? Nothing. We cannot have trade and cultural exchanges anyway because India is a bad bad country. For divided families and pilgrims, special arrangements can be made. What else we want from each other? Nothing. Three cheers for a wall!

If Pakistani military was represented, could ISI be far behind?

hrrehman
ISI deserves the Nobel peace prize just for the services it has rendered to Pakistan. Just improve its ``Image`` :)

Aaria

You are a moderate Muslim. That is why the following paragraph is so heart wrenching.

>This month has been quite a difficult month for Muslims around the >world. First with the capture of Imam Sumudra the mastermind in the >Bali attacks last month, followed by the attacks on Prophet Muhammed i>n Nigeria, coupled with the Saudi royal couple being accused of l>aundering money to the 9-11 hijackers, it comes to show that Muslims >are under attack once again.

In any other society, these views would be considered extremist fancies. Still, among many Muslims these are the norm.

Think about it from the point of view of other people. In the month that you mentioned

-Muslims attacked and killed hundreds of innocent nonMuslims in Bali
-Muslims massacred hundreds of non Muslims in Nigeria
-The royal family of the one of the richest Muslim countries in the world was accused of funnelling money to promote terrorism against nonMuslims world wide.

So you would think that a moderate Muslim will feel a little guilty. What does a nonMuslim hear a `moderate` Muslim say: ``Muslims are under attack again``.

Not one word of remorse for what Muslims have done. Not one word of apology to non Muslims killed by terrorists. Not one word of sympathy or concern. The thought just doesnt occur. When a non Muslims looks at a moderate Muslim to hear a response, he gets that it has been ``a difficult month for Muslims``.

A difficult month for Muslims or nonMuslims? Think about it. I think as a moderate you may be able to accept things that others can not.

#62 iamcheese

Well-made points. Problem with smiling well meaning people who want to tell others the right way is that smiles last only so long as one surrenders to them. They very quickly turn into completely different creatures if they see a significant challenge. Underneath individual geniality and smiles lie force and determination to compel. The system is modeled after a slaughterhouse. Nice, gleaming and happy on the outside. Oceans of newly slaughtered animals floating in their blood inside.

Excelent article Romair by Eric Margolis. One aspect in common among all the countries that Margolis mentioned...they are Muslim. So there you go Ralph, another sad example of the West trying to continue their defacto colonization of the Muslim countries in this day and age. No wonder the Muslim mindset has remained still for the last few centuries as they have been fighting for their very survival. And then all the fascists say oh Islam has not had a reformation; well it has not been given a chance. The continued meddling in our affairs and governments, the support to our dictators (Egypt, Pakistan, Algeria) and the undermining of our democracies (Iran, Algeria, Palestine) has suppressed Muslim thought. Forced to conform to the theory of Nation states (after the fall of the Ottoman Empire) but never considered a nation. The West posseses some of the world`s deadliest weapons with history of use but in the hands of Iraq they turn into weapons of mass distruction. Oil has turned into a curse rather than a blessing. The warmongers in the West have laid siege to Iraq, a nation state they themselves created, the results are already known before the conflict has begun. The Iraqi dead will be termed collateral damage while the ``precision`` bombs go astray. Has anyone estimated the expected number of Iraqi dead? we are still waiting for UN figures from 1991, not including the millions of childern dead of preventable disease.
So read and think all ofyou that say Islam has not had a reformation....it has got nothing to do with Islam. You see a poeple need generations of peace and prosperity to develop their civilization; the average Muslim of these countries is mainly thinking of feeding his family. That is why if the west just lets us be, allows us to live in peace, we will by the Grace of God, see our zenith.

Mir Amal Kasi died more than a week ago in a Virginia execution
chamber, rather than surviving to gloat over his murder of CIA officers
outside the Agency`s headquarters compound. Ramzi Yusuf, the mastermind
of the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, lives in the
Metropolitan Corrections Center in New York City, rather than being free
to plot more mayhem. Senior al Qaeda leaders Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi bin
Al-Shibh and hundreds of their subordinates are in U.S. custody, rather
than planning for more terror. The government in Afghanistan is friendly
to the United States and does not harbor terrorist organizations
dedicated to our destruction. More strategically important, the Soviet
Union no longer exists as a threat to our very existence.
These are all unquestionably welcome developments that share a
common characteristic. None of them would now be true were it not for
the efforts of a little-known and less appreciated foreign intelligence
organization, Pakistan`s Interservices Intelligence Directorate, ``ISI.``
We can`t fight the war on terrorism by ourselves. Countering
terrorism requires forces in practically every nation in the world.
These forces must have intimate knowledge of local society and the kind
of deep penetration of population that only local police and
intelligence organizations can develop. So, it is no surprise that all
the successes in the first year of our worldwide struggle against
terrorism have involved the effective and often courageous operations of
the intelligence and security services of other nations.
It is also no surprise that our cooperation with these services has
aroused controversy.
We Americans have a deep suspicion of ``secret services`` anywhere.
International cooperation, inevitably, involves engagement with states
that are the rivals or enemies of other nations that are also friendly
to us. Greek-Americans or Armenian-Americans are disturbed when we work
closely with Turkey. Supporters of Israel are uneasy about close ties
between U.S. intelligence and the intelligence services of any Arab
states. American friends of India are made uncomfortable by our
cooperation with Pakistan.
There is no relationship in the war on terror that is more
representative of these uncomfortable realities than that between the
ISI and U.S. intelligence and military services. ISI is an intelligence
service that is not subject to the kind of open oversight that the we
have come to expect over the CIA in the United States. ISI has supported
violence against India, as have the Indian intelligence services
supported violence in Pakistan.
Pakistan and India have been at war (sometimes declared, sometimes
undeclared, but always war) since the two nations were formed more than
50 years ago. Some directors of ISI have had distinctly negative
attitudes about the U.S. It is certainly the case that ISI has never
succeeded in winning friends in the international journalist community.
Yet, it is hard to identify an organization anywhere in the world that
has more positively contributed to U.S. aims in both the Cold War
against Soviet communism and, now, the war on terrorism.
ISI did the heavy lifting in our program to support the Afghans in
their long war to expel the Red Army from their country. That greatly
accelerated the collapse of the Soviet Union and of its evil empire.
ISI played crucial roles in the apprehension of Mir Amal Kasi and
Ramzi Yusuf. ISI provided critical support in the effort against Osama
bin Laden and, after September 11, in the destruction of the Taliban
regime. ISI is now vitally important to the ongoing fight against al
Qaeda and Pakistani extremists who support or shelter them.
Nevertheless, ISI is widely described as having favored extremists
among the Afghan fighters during the war against the Soviets, as being
``rogue state within a state`` that supports extreme elements in Pakistan,
as having been the ``creator of the Taliban.``
None of these negative charges is, in fact, true. ISI, working with
and closely monitored by the U.S. during the war against the Soviets,
distributed arms and other support to Afghan groups on a roughly per
capita basis. Afghan groups received support in proportion to their
size, not their ideology. ISI, rather than being a ``state within a
state``, is and always was led by officers who came from and returned to
the regular Pakistani military, whose orders ISI always followed. The
Taliban, to the extent that they were set up by any foreign element,
were not the creatures of ISI, but rather of Harvard alumna Benazir
Bhutto, her civilian police chief and financial backers in the Pakistani
trucking industry, who used the Taliban to secure shipping across
Afghanistan.
One reason for ISI`s negative image is, perhaps, their own
reluctance to engage the world press and present their ``side of the
story.`` As a result, journalists and even U.S. and other diplomats get
their ``information`` on ISI from sources who are frequently hostile to
ISI and always lack direct knowledge about the organization and its
activities.
Whatever the cause, it is important for continued success in the
war on terrorism and for the development of democracy in Pakistan that a
more accurate picture of ISI emerge.
ISI is one of the most competent and least corrupt institutions in
South Asia. We have to work effectively with it. That will be difficult
if ISI`s current image isn`t corrected and improved.

Eric Margolis is an American journalist for a Canadian newspaper. I have always followed his work quite closely. He is very objective in his views, and isn`t afraid to take on the powerbrokers.

The Canadian and European press has a far more balanced view of world politics than the US press - as do most Canadians and Europeans. I hope the following isn`t true, because if it is, then I am afraid the US will no one, but itself, to blame for any future violence:

``US strategy to redraw the Mideast map

By Eric S. Margolis

Arms inspections are a ``hoax,`` said Tariq Aziz, Iraq`s deputy prime minister, in a forthright and chilling interview with ABC News recently, ``war is inevitable.`` Aziz is the smartest, most credible member of President Saddam Hussein`s regime - my view after covering Iraq since 1976.

What the US wants is not ``regime change`` in Iraq but rather ``region change,`` charged Aziz. He tersely summed up the Bush administration`s reasons for war against Iraq: ``oil and Israel.``

Aziz`s undiplomatic language underlines growing fears across the Mideast that the Bush administration intends to use a manufactured war against Iraq to redraw the political map of the region, put it under permanent US military control, and seize its vast oil resources.

These are not idle alarms. Senior administration officials openly speak of invading Iran, Syria, Libya, and Lebanon. Influential, pro-Israel neo-conservative think tanks in Washington have deployed small army of `experts` on TV urging the US to remove governments deemed unfriendly to the US and Israel. Washington`s most powerful lobbies - the oil and Israel lobbies - are urging the US seize Mideast oil and crush any regional states that might one day challenge Israel`s nuclear monopoly or regional superpower dominance.

The radical transformation of the Mideast being considered by the Bush administration is potentially the biggest political change since the notorious 1916 Sykes-Picot Treaty in which victorious Britain and France carved up the Ottoman-ruled region. Under review at the highest level:

(1) Iraq is to be placed under US military rule. Iraq`s current leadership, notably Saddam Hussein and Tarik Aziz, will face US drumhead courts martial and firing squads. Iraq will be broken up into three, semi-autonomous regions: Kurdish north; Sunni centre; Shia south. Iraq`s oil will be exploited by US and British firms. Iraq will become a major customer for US arms. Turkey may get a slice of northern Iraq around the Kirkuk and Mosul oil fields. US forces will repress any attempts by Kurds to set up an independent state. A military dictatorship or kingdom will eventually be created.

The swift, ruthless crushing of Iraq is expected to terrify Arab states, Palestinians, and Iran into obeying US political dictates.

(2) Independent-minded Syria will be ordered to cease support for Lebanon`s Hizbullah, and allow Israel to dominate Jordan and Lebanon, or face invasion and `regime change.` The US will anyway undermine the ruling Ba`ath regime and young leader, Bashir Asad, replacing him by a French-based exile regime. France will get renewed influence in Syria as a consolation prize for losing out in Iraq to the Americans and Brits. Historical note: in 1949, the US staged its first coup in Syria, using General Husni Zai`im to overthrow a civilian government.

(3) Iran will be severely pressured to dismantle its nuclear and missile programmes or face attack by US forces. Israel`s rightist Likud Party, which guides much of the Bush administration`s Mideast thinking, sees Iran, not demolished Iraq, as its principal foe and threat, and is pressing Washington to attack Iran once Iraq is finished off. At minimum, the US will encourage an uprising against Iran`s Islamic regime, replacing it with either a royalist government or one drawn from US-based Iranian exiles.

(4) Saudi Arabia - Keep the royal family in power, but compel it to become more responsive to US demands, and to clamp down on its increasingly anti-American population. If this fails, CIA is reportedly cultivating senior Saudi air force officers who could overthrow the royal family and bring in a compliant military regime like that of Gen. Musharraf in Pakistan. Or, partition Saudi Arabia, making the oil-rich eastern portion an American protectorate.

(5) The most important Arab nation, Egypt - with 40 per cent of all Arabs - will remain a bastion of US influence. The US controls 50 per cent of Egypt`s food supply, 85 per cent of its arms and spare parts, and keeps the military regime of Gen. Hosni Mubarak in power. Once leader of the Arabs, Egypt is keeping a very low profile in the current Iraq crisis, meekly cooperating with US war plans.

(6) Jordan - A US-Israeli protectorate. Its royal family, the Hashemites, are being considered as possible figurehead rulers of US-occupied ``liberated`` Iraq; more remotely, for Saudi Arabia and/or Syria.

(7) Lebanon - To become an Israeli protectorate and commercial centre dominated by Maronite Christian rightists.

(8)The Gulf Emirates and Oman: former British protectorates, now American protectorates, in effect, tiny colonies.

(9) Libya - Col. Gaddafi remains on Washington`s black list and is marked for extinction once the bigger game is bagged. The US wants Libya`s high-quality oil. Britain may reassert its former influence here.

(10) Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia - Short of revolution, will remain loyal western satraps under highly repressive, French-backed royalist and military regimes.

(11)Yemen - Former British imperial base at Aden, and former French base at Djibouti, will become important permanent US bases.

(12) Palestine - The White House hopes Palestinians will be cowed by Iraq`s destruction, and forced to accept US-Israeli plans to become a self-governing but isolated native reservation surrounded by Israeli forces.

The lines drawn in the Middle East by old European imperial powers are now to be re-drawn by the world`s newest imperial power, the United States. But, as veteran soldiers know, even the best strategic plans become worthless once real fighting begins. - Copyright Eric S. Margolis, 2002 `` (www.dawn.com)

studebaker #197

``my bharat mata`` ?

Take from bharat mata, give to Pakistan mata ?

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WORTH REPEATING------WORTH REPEATING-------WORTH REPEATING----

What do Hindu Scholars
say about Islam?

Recently, we have seen false accusations made against Islam and Muslims in India and Kashmir. I would like to suggest everyone ignore these hate mongrels who will go to any length to cause dissention and animosity between Muslims and Non-Muslims. Let`s look at what some well respected Indians had to say about Islam, Muslim, and their prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him):
Mr. Mahatma Gandhi:

``Someone has said that Europeans in South Africa dread the advent Islam -- Islam that civilized Spain, Islam that took the torch light to Morocco and preached to the world the Gospel of brotherhood. The Europeans of South Africa dread the Advent of Islam. They may claim equality with the white races. They may well dread it, if brotherhood is a sin. If it is equality of colored races then their dread is well founded.``

And in ``Young India``, he wrote:

``I wanted to know the best of one who holds today`s undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind....I became more than convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard for his pledges, his intense devotion to this friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle. When I closed the 2nd volume (of the Prophet`s biography), I was sorry there was not more for me to read of the great life.``

Miss. Sarojini Naidu, Poetess, in Ideals of Islam:

``It was the first religion that preached and practiced democracy; for in the mosque, when the minaret is sounded and the worshipers are gathered together, the democracy of Islam is embodied five times a day when the peasant and the king kneel side by side and proclaim, God alone is great.`` The great poetess of India continues, ``I have been struck over and over again by this indivisible unity of Islam that makes a man instinctively a brother. When you meet an Egyptian, an Algerian and Indian and a Turk in London, it matters not that Egypt is the motherland of one and India is the motherland of another.``

Prof. Ramakrishna Rao, in ``Muhammad the Prophet of Islam``:

``The personality of Muhammad, it is most difficult to get into the whole truth of it. Only a glimpse of it I can catch. What a dramatic succession of picturesque scenes! There is Muhammad, the Prophet. There is Muhammad, the Warrior; Muhammad, the Businessman; Muhammad, the Statesman; Muhammad, the Orator; Muhammad, the Reformer; Muhammad, the Refuge of Orphans; Muhammad, the Protector of Slaves; Muhammad, the Emancipator of Women; Muhammad, the Judge; Muhammad, the Saint. All in all these magnificent roles, in all these departments of human activities, he is alike a hero.`` ... Muhammad is the ``Perfect model for human life.``

Macaulay’s ghost might finally quit India and the shared spaces of our past may find light again.

Aameen, summ-e aameen.


Well said learned woman, well said!---------For the last 200 years it is also the barbaric US presence which is a threat to civilisation around the globe. The nations of traders and tradesmen must never ever be allowed to abandon their station in life.
____________________________________________________________Persian Ellora, Tamil Medina
Renuka Narayanan


With the ongoing demonisation of Islam, it’s entirely likely that most Indians are unaware of what the Prophet (SAW) says in Surah-e-Kafirun, ‘Lakum deenukum walyadeen’. To you your religion, to me, mine.

Nor do we know that the Muslim world has always had a separate name for Hindus: Ahl-e-Hunood—the people of the religion of Hind, denoting Sanatana Dharma.



In the 18th century, a fatwa was demanded from Hadrat Shah Waliullah Mohaddis Dehlavi, a spiritual authority respected all over the Islamic world. The issue was: what should Islam think of India?

The conclusive view of India that emerged in the Islamic world is worth knowing. By Muslim reckoning, it is neither Dar-us-Salam (an Islamic state) nor Dar-ul-Harab (where Islam is not free).

Since Islam is not the uniform rule of law here, India should technically be Dar-ul-Harab. But in all other respects that characterise an Islamic country, it is very much Dar-us-salam. The azaan is proclaimed aloud, there are no restrictions on namaaz or the Friday prayer, the hijab, beard and cap are freely worn.

So the fatwa was proclaimed that India could not be categorised by anybody, it was a unique entity. And so it remains in the Islamic world. As Maulana Syed Athar Hussain Dehlavi of the Anjuman-e-Minhaj-e-Rasool says: ‘India is India. It has its own identity’.

Everyone knows that young Mohammad bin Qasim’s attack on Sindh in 712 CE was the first Muslim military attack on India. What we may not know about however is the attack which was disallowed. In the time of Hadrat Umar the second Khalifa of Islam (634-644 CE), the Muslim ambassador was apparently killed by the Iranis.

The Sindh Raja sided with the Iranis. When the Muslims wanted to launch a punitive attack on Sindh, Hadrat Umar refused to allow it, saying there was no need.

As for the famous Abbasid ‘Caliph’ Haroun al-Rashid, how many of us would remotely suspect that when he fell seriously ill, he was cured by a Hindu vaid, Pandit Manik? When he recovered, the Khalifa appointed him the Head of the Department of Sanskrit Translation.

In fact, Arabic was the first language to take the Panchatantra from the original Sanskrit (Abdullah ibn-e-Makhfa’s work). Al-Rashid’s son, Al-Mamun, invited a pandit on permanent appointment to Baghdad university to expound Hindu mathematics.

Hence, around 825 CE, the great geographer-mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi wrote his world-changing book On Calculation With Hindu Numerals which went west in Latin translation.

In a recently published book Beyond Turk and Hindu, modern western scholars tell us that as far back as 1612, Rafi al’din Shirazi waxed eloquent over Ellora in his Tazkirat-al Muluk, a history of Indian and Persian dynasties composed in Bijapur.

Though a believing Muslim, he lamented the destruction of certain Hindu temples as an ‘offence against beauty’ and ‘God’ and assessed Ellora as a political, not religious monument.

An outstanding literary example meanwhile, is Umaru Pulavar, the 17th century Tamil poet, whose Sirah Puranam is modelled on the 9th century Tamil Ramayana by Kamban, the Iramavataram.

Just as Kamban, who had never been to Kosala, described the Tamil country instead, so did Umaru imagine Arabia in terms of Tamil Nadu, through voluptuous images. His ecstatic description of the wedding of Fatima and Ali in Medina, as scholar Vasudha Narayanan points out, was closely paralleled on Kamban’s description of Sita Kalyanam. Tamil Muslims called ‘Marakkayar’ trace their community to the time of the Prophet himself, to the influence of seafaring Arabs of old, and see themselves proudly as Tamils (they were vigorous participants in the Tamil resistance to Hindi).

Similarly the Tamil Sufi, Mastan Saipu, believed to be a 17th century itr seller, wrote spiritual paeans to Allah that are profoundly Muslim (All-pervasive is the Light of our Perfect Lord), yet harmonise with the Shaiva outpourings of Manikkavachagar (O Light without beginning or end).

If we disseminate the research of present-day scholars from India as well as those based in the US, Macaulay’s ghost might finally quit India and the shared spaces of our past may find light again.

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OOps looks like i missed editing a couple of line at the end of my last post

Ref hrrehman #196

[One must admire today the great vision of the founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and his fellow leaders about the two-nations theory. Quaid-e-Azam understood the Hindu mentality quite long ago. In 1934, in an address, he said: ``The Hindu sentiment, the Hindu mind, the Hindu attitude led me to the conclusion that there was no hope of unity.” “We (Muslims) are a Nation`` he asserted, ``with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of value and proportion, legal laws and moral code, custom and calendar, history and tradition, aptitude and ambitions; in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all canons of international law we are a Nation.``
Then on the resolution day, 23rd of March, while addressing to the annual Muslim League convention in Lahore, he said, ``Hindus and the Muslims belong to two different religions, philosophies, social customs and literature. They neither inter-marry nor inter-dine and, indeed they belong to two different civilizations, which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions. Their concepts on life and of life are different. They have different epics, different heroes and different episodes. Very often the hero of one is a foe of the other, and likewise, their victories and defeats overlap. To yoke together two such nations under a single state, one as a numerical minority and the other as a majority, must lead to growing discontent and final destruction of any fabric that may be so built up for the government of such a state]

Indeed one must admire the Quaid. After all, Jinnah`s family were Muslims only for 3 generations. Jinnah made the discovery that he would be unable to get along with his Hindu great-grandfather all because of Al-Kitab. Poor guy, must have had schizophrenic attacks all his life.