When a Knock at the Door is Not Enough Pakistan3 you are another emotional character who does not appear to deserve the regarded accorded here in my response.

The Pakistan you appear to be so charmed about has been contributed more than it's worth by only one family of mine, and I will leave it for Allah SWT to judge.

When it comes to Islam it has no geographical boundaries and before you open your mouth to use the "rubbish" word again stretch your brain a little because it is overly rusty and attempts to set a different standard of deen for each geographical boundaries.
What you claim to be your country did not have the money to pay it's govt. employees the first salaries it was contributed to by the compliments of our people, when the State Bank of Pakistan wished to issue currency there was no Gold reserve in your empty tank our compliments you got it.
When you drown and are thrown around by the wrath of Allah SWT you spread your hands more to USA as compared towards the sustainer Allah SWT and yet you have the audacity to speak like this.
You "Pakistan3" remember that beggars cant be choosers and I am saying this because of what you like to hear since this is the type of organisms that help run the electrons towards your brain if there is one.
It is not your country and I can substantiate that very well, you are one of those who would sell whatever to get to the banks of USA and be the first to wrap yourself in the not so green card & the star spangled banner, you are one of those low lifes who live on bad-mouthing & envying others.
I dont need to correct your misunderstanding because you have more than that a disease that cant be cured. Go back to your cage.

Can the Judiciary Save the Coalition? Civilian demands, ah, those are for some civilized societies not the robbers, theifs and hoodlums who believe in the system of Might is Right.
If you are the first one to slap the other driver after an accident you are the winner this is only a small example.
None other than Musharaf in those living today would have served Pakistan in the manner Musharaf and his govt did and no one did so since the time of Ayub Khan.
But it is our tradition to put holes in the same plate that we eat from, so be it, only Allah SWT can guide the misguided and astray ones, may HE bless the Muslims of Pakistan with better wisdom and resolve, ameen.

When a Knock at the Door is Not Enough Re: # 47
Thank you, Pakistan3 for your kind attention however I do not argue for the sake of arguments as to each is their own, inshaAllah Islam shall rise once again depending only on the characters of it's believers.
I wish you all the best.
Thanks & best regards.

When a Knock at the Door is Not Enough Re: # 44
You need not be dignified with a response

When a Knock at the Door is Not Enough Re: # 45
Pakistan3,
Not intending to argue I am living this experience for 4 decades and bringing up a second generation of off-springing Muslims in North America I am compelled to correct your misunderstanding.
Alhamdulillah Islam progresses as it should in all manners in this part of the world, dont be misled by the sporadic stories of people who may have stumbled and fallen but to tell you the truth a good majority of even those picks up shakes the dust off and rubs their knees and once again begins to walk the towards Sirat-e-mustaqeem.
May Allah SWT bless all of us toward the right path regardless of their geographical existence, ameen.
(Note: the number of those who reverted to deen-e-Islam in the year 2005 is estimated at 135,000, while a majority of that number is females)
I must remind you not to consider what is posted by others to be rubbish specially when it is about your deen you may educate yourself to counter another person's statements or posts in a decent manner subject to your adoption of deen in it's true spirits.

When a Knock at the Door is Not Enough Humanitarian duties

A problem which has become highly relevant in the life of Muslim communities of today. Duties toward God are over emphasized while duties toward fellow human beings are given a low position on the list of priorities, both at the individual and community levels.
Yet, a good balance is the main characteristic of Islam and its code of living. Hence, a Muslim's responsibilities toward other human beings are indeed given a very strong emphasis in Islam. The Prophet states that a Muslim has a "sanctity", which means that he must always be respected, well-treated and immune from assault on his person, property and integrity. Hence, the Prophet defines the relationship of brotherhood between Muslims, and what it entails in practical life. He says that a Muslim is a brother to every Muslim: the one never treats the other unjustly, nor lets him down, nor tries to humiliate him." He also tells us that the "sanctity" of a believer is "in God's view, greater than the sanctity of the Ka'aba." I hasten to state that the word "sanctity" is inadequate to give all the connotations of the Arabic term the Prophet has used. Suffice it to say that the Hadith implies that all rights, minor or major, that belong to a Muslim must be always respected. A person at the receiving end of injustice is sure to have God's help. The Prophet tells that "supplication by a person treated unjustly goes directly to God without any hindrance." This very statement should be sufficient to make anyone who exercises any degree of power to be on his guard lest he should treat anyone unjustly. Moreover, mutual help between members of a Muslim community is highly emphasized. Try to help anyone with something of importance to him or her, and you are certain to receive God's help in accomplishing what you need. The Prophet says: "Whoever helps his brother with a certain need shall have God helping him in accomplishing his own purpose." The Prophet himself was the best example of extending a helping hand to all and sundry. Even the weakest member of the community could draw on an inexhaustible source of help from the Prophet. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) who was also the head of the Muslim state, would let even a slave make any demand on his time and service. We should not forget that the Arabian society in the pre-Islamic days was so unjust to both women and slaves. The Prophet was also the best of neighbors and he emphasized that neighbors have a claim on our kindness. He tells us "The Angel Gabriel has  reminded me so often of the rights of a neighbor until I began to think that a neighbor may have a claim to inheritance." This means that the status of a neighbor should be viewed as comparable to that of a family member. According to Muslim scholars, [being] a neighbor is not [limited to] only the person living next door. The persons living forty houses away in every direction are also your neighbors. On the other hand, when the Prophet heard one of his companions say to Bilal during an argument, "You son of a black woman", he was very angry indeed. He said to that man: "You insult him on account of his mother? You certainly have not purged yourself from the values of an ignorant society." All that gives us just an idea of the sort of emphasis Islam attaches to the rights of individuals, particularly those who are vulnerable in society. We must not forget that the Prophet's conduct serves as an example which we are required to follow. It is important to realize here what sort of example the Prophet sets in respect of family life. As for the treatment of women, the Prophet says: "The best among you are those who treat their wives best. I am indeed the best of you in the way I treat my wives." We must look at this Hadith from the right angle. The first part of the Hadith lays down a principle which we must implement in our lives, because it is part of the Prophet's guidance. The second tells us of his practical example which we must follow. Therefore, there is a double emphasis here on the importance of treating wives well. When we compare this with the notion that prevails among the overwhelming majority of men in the Muslim world, we conclude that what we do is at variance with the Prophet's instructions. The letters that I receive from readers asking what they should do because their wives do not obey their instructions are too numerous for comfort. Little do they remember that the kind treatment of wives which the Prophet has encouraged by word and deed is the best way for them to win their wives' respect and a peaceful family life. The Prophet's wives have told us everything about his behavior in the privacy of his own home. There is not a single report that the Prophet ever rebuked any of his wives for any act of commission or omission. Even with his servants the Prophet was the kindest man. Anas ibn Malik reports: "I served the Prophet for ten years and he never said to me: Why did you do this, or why did you omit that." Visiting delegations to Madinah often thought that Anas and his mother belonged to the Prophet's own family, when they were only in his service. Moreover, we are told in an authentic Hadith that when the Prophet was at home, "he was in the service of his family." We tend to overlook all this and give little importance to the high-priority objective of Islam, namely, the eliminating of all injustice. People treat their wives unjustly, and they are unjust to people in their employment. Yet voices which speak against that remain faint, particularly of Muslim scholars. It is a fact of life that contemporary scholars have not addressed this question adequately. On the other hand, we have so much said and written about matters that cannot be described as being of equal importance. Look at the emphasis given to issues like the permissibility or otherwise of music, singing, photography, wearing a long robe that covers a man's ankles, etc. Look at the volume of spoken and written reminders on these and similar issues such as the length of a man's beard, the covering of a woman's face, the joining of people's feet in congregational prayer, etc. Some of these matters have their importance no doubt, but all of them are controversial in the sense that scholars have always had different views concerning each one of them. Moreover, they are far less serious than being unjust to one's wife, servant, employee, neighbor, or indeed fellow human being. We should always remember that God may forgive us all sins that relate to our duties toward Him, but He will not forgive us anything that is due to a human being until that person is ready to forgive it. Hence, balance between these two must be restored before we can truly claim to lead an Islamic life.
(Arab News)

When a Knock at the Door is Not Enough


Friday, December 29, 2000

U.S. Freedoms Give American Muslims Influence Beyond Their Numbers

By TERESA WATANABE, Times Religion Writer


Omaima Bukhari is a precocious Muslim in Maryland. She's 20, fascinated by Islam, computer science and psychology. She discusses everything with her father, Zahid, who works at Georgetown University and counts as friends imams and sheiks from Al Azhar, the prestigious seat of Islamic learning in Cairo.
Last December, she attended an engagement party for relatives in Pakistan. The bride-to-be was sobbing in the next room. So Bukhari marched before the family elders and demanded to know: Did you ask for her consent to the marriage? No? You have to! This right is from Allah, conveyed by our prophet Muhammad!
The women were silent. The men were arguing. These were men with beards down to their chests. This was a small rural village. This was a place where women have only just begun to receive educations.
But Bukhari was quoting the Koran. She was quoting a hadith (an account of the prophet's life). She was insisting that the villagers' treatment of women was based on cultural practices, not the faith of Islam. No one could argue with her sources.
Finally, the graying patriarch of the Bukhari clan delivered judgment: Omaima is right. Consent must be obtained.
The fiancee eventually granted it. And, as Bukhari prepared to return to America, the old-world patriarch told his new-world descendant, "Granddaughter, you've taught me a lot."
Far from the fatwas--the religious decrees--of hierarchies abroad, American Muslims are slowly but steadily carving their mark on the Islamic world.
Their relatively small numbers, young history and still fledgling organization would seem daunting barriers to wider influence. Of the roughly 1 billion Muslims worldwide, those in the United States are only a tiny fraction, numbering somewhere between 3 million and 10 million.
But a confluence of forces that has made those Americans among the freest, most educated, affluent and diverse Muslims in the world has given them an impact greater than their numbers. Helped by the growing use of English as a language of Islamic discourse and by the ever-spreading world of the Internet, they are self-consciously seeking to influence their religious brethren worldwide.
Moreover, the spirit of the times may be on their side. "The guy with a turban and rifle is out," says Marcia Hermansen, a theology professor at Loyola University Chicago. "The guy drinking a latte with a laptop computer reading Internet fatwas is in."
Provocative Islamic thinkers are flourishing in the climate of America's unparalleled intellectual freedom. They are tackling taboo subjects such as spousal abuse and highlighting the aspects of their nearly 1,400-year tradition that embrace women's rights, human rights and democratic practices.
The sheer diversity of the community here is prompting efforts to promote Islamic models of pluralism. U.S. Muslims include American natives, mainly of African descent, as well as immigrants from more than 50 nations.
American Muslims also are expanding their influence by bringing modern education, business practices and economic development to their homelands through a mushrooming number of nonprofit organizations. More than 300 such groups now raise about $50 million a year for such causes as education and health care, according to Aslam Abdullah, editor of the Los Angeles-based Minaret magazine and president of the American Federation of Muslims From India.
"Muslims all over the world are looking with high expectations toward the ummah [community] in the United States and Canada," says Murad Wilfried Hofmann, a retired German diplomat and Muslim jurist. "Its dynamism, fresh approach, enlightened scholarship and sheer growth is their hope for an Islamic renaissance worldwide."
Working against that hope are the community's weaknesses. American Muslims are divided and sometimes fractious. They struggle with discrimination and comparatively weak political clout at home. They are seen by Muslims elsewhere as generally lacking in the classical Islamic education that would undergird their authority.
Some leaders worry that the powerful forces of assimilation, which homogenize most immigrant groups in the U.S. by the third generation, could weaken the American Muslim identity before it fully consolidates.
Key leaders across the ideological spectrum--from Sheik Hisham Kabbani of the Islamic Supreme Council of America to Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations--voice a common view that Muslims here must get their own house in order before hoping to have a major impact abroad.
But despite the problems, American Muslims present the Islamic world with a seductive new model of modernity, says Sulayman Nyang, a professor of African and Islamic studies at Howard University in Washington.
Until now, the main model in the Islamic world for modernization had been Turkey, which excised Islam from public life in the name of progress. America gives Muslims an alternative--an example of a society in which the faithful are free to be both modern and religious. Here, more women are voluntarily donning the hejab head covering as a mark of religious pride and identity--even rendering it hip with T-shirts touting it as "Good in the 'Hood."
Nyang argues that the potent combination of modernity and piety demonstrated by Muslims in the U.S. could catch on in the Islamic world, offering a compelling alternative to extremism.
The American faces of Islam belong to people like Dany Doueiri and Shamshad Hussain.
Doueiri is a co-founder of one of the world's most popular Web sites on Islam, http://www.islam.org/. Every day, the Los Angeles-based site receives 140,000 hits. More than half the visitors are from outside the United States. They are shown an expanse of Islam that bypasses the divides of cultures, religious sects and schools of Islamic law that often separate Muslims from one another.
For instance, when numerous Bosnian Muslim women were raped by Serbian soldiers during the Balkans conflict, the site was flooded with queries on the Islamic position on abortion. Doueiri says his team presented without judgment two opinions from different schools: one holding that any abortion is forbidden, the other saying that the procedure is allowed for up to 120 days into the pregnancy, after which, adherents believe, the soul enters the body.
The neutral presentation of differing views within the vast Islamic tradition, though rare, is equipping Muslims worldwide to think through their own Islamic practices rather than simply accepting the rulings of the local scholar, Doueiri says.
"This site has brought so much happiness overseas, because people say they find a much more objective point of view than they get from their own scholars," he says.
The rise of the electronic fatwa, sometimes by self-styled experts, dismays some classically trained scholars. But experts say the trend is irreversible.
The Internet, satellite TV and steady gains in literacy are prompting a quiet but dramatic shift in the source of Islamic authority throughout the Muslim world--from political and religious leaders to the common educated people, says Dale F. Eickelman, a Dartmouth College anthropology professor and co-author of the book "New Media in the Muslim World."
Led by Muslims in the West, unprecedented numbers of believers are debating the fundamentals of their faith and practice in a new Islamic reformation, he says.
"Nobody is controlling anymore," Eickelman says. "Even if you're not getting an increase in liberalism or a shift from authoritarianism, you're now getting large numbers of people who know what they're missing."
One pipeline of fresh Islamic views to younger Muslims abroad is the Iqra International Educational Foundation in Chicago. Iqra--the Arabic word for "read" and God's first word to the prophet Muhammad, according to the Koran--is pioneering American-produced, English-language Islamic textbooks. In the last few years, overseas demand has skyrocketed and the foundation now exports tens of thousands of books annually to 16 countries in the Mideast, Asia, the Indian subcontinent and Europe.
The books' distinction, according to managing director Hussain, is that they promote the idea of self-study of the Koran and hadith and present the tradition's essence shorn of regional and sectarian differences.
The quest to crystallize Islam's essence, free of the overlays of cultural tradition, is perhaps most advanced here because America's diversity is forcing Muslims to strive for a common understanding. Doueiri's Internet group, for instance, represents Muslims from both the majority Sunnis and minority Shiites who hail from 30 countries. Doueiri, for example, is an African-born American of Lebanese ancestry.
American Muslims are producing the first modern "hajj model of community," says Agha Saeed, who teaches ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, referring to the annual gathering of Muslims in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
American Muslims say they are striving to restore their faith to its essence of tolerance and pluralism. Two decades ago, the Islamic Center of Southern California was a pioneer in arguing for an American Muslim identity based on "finding ways in Islam to make bridges to 'the other' and live together," as center co-founder Maher Hathout puts it.
At the time, his was an odd voice among Muslim leaders who were focused inward and viewed America as dar ul-kufr, or "place of unbelievers." Today, the concept is mainstream.
In Westwood, Michael Flemming represents the small but growing number of Muslims who are marrying cross-culturally. An African American graduate student in Islamic studies at UCLA, Flemming says his in-laws from India initially resisted his request to marry their daughter. But that resistance began to melt, he says, after he made his pilgrimage to Mecca.
Still, the challenge of pluralism looms unmet for many. "Some African Americans get the feeling that even with our Muslim brothers, it's still 'us and them,' " Flemming says. "I think the youth, because they've grown up together here, will be able to overcome this."
In the academic arena, striking American voices of Islam belong to people like Khaled Abou el Fadl. The UCLA professor of Islamic law is breaking intellectual ground with bold social critiques based on a blend of classical Islamic training and Western academic grounding. He trained in Egypt and Kuwait and at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.
Over the last four years, Abou el Fadl has published searing critiques on sexual abuse, wife-beating and other problems among Muslims, analyzing how Islamic tradition sometimes promotes such behavior. Without America's academic freedom, he says, such scholarship would have been impossible.
Using case studies of mistreated Muslims, Abou el Fadl has admonished the tradition--and present-day imams--for the general silence on incest and sexual abuse. He has challenged divorce laws favoring men and concluded that expectations of blind obedience from women is immoral.
So far, he has not been able to punch a doctrinal hole in the laws of apostasy, although he would like to: He says he is morally offended by the laws, which punish those who leave Islam with penalties of death or imprisonment in many countries.
His unflinching scholarship is controversial, but it is gaining notice abroad. Abou el Fadl has been asked to lecture in the Mideast, North Africa and Europe and has received e-mail from around the world. Some people chastise him, but he says the vast majority back his efforts to reinterpret the Islamic legal tradition.
He has no patience for those who claim that Islam is perfect.
"Instead of being brave and gutsy in confronting the flaws and shortcomings of the tradition, they are being apologists," Abou el Fadl says. "It is our moral obligation as Muslims to speak the truth."
American Muslims have even established an organization that counts gender equality as a core value. Jamal Al-Muslimeen was established in 1977 in Minneapolis and now has chapters in Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ghana, Britain, Germany and Canada, according to Ali Siddiqui, an imam based in Chino who is a member of the group.
Siddiqui tries to walk the talk, delivering sermons at area mosques on spousal abuse as a consequence of misplaced ideas of male superiority. When he marries couples, he tells them that Allah has made women and men equal. Sometimes, he says, he is challenged--especially by elders from remote areas.
Such experiences temper his idealism about the impact American Muslims can have in changing values both here and abroad.
"We have a lot to contribute, but it's a very slow process," Siddiqui says. "Ideas take time to take hold, especially when people have been doing something for so long."

Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times

When a Knock at the Door is Not Enough Women in Islam Versus Women in the Judaeo-Christian Tradition
The Myth and The Reality
By: Sherif Abdel Azim, Ph.D.- Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

PART 9 - WIFE'S PROPERTY

The three religions share an unshakeable belief in the importance of marriage and family life. They also agree on the leadership of the husband over the family. Nevertheless, blatant differences do exist among the three religions with respect to the limits of this leadership. The Judaeo-Christian tradition, unlike Islam, virtually extends the leadership of the husband into ownership of his wife.

The Jewish tradition regarding the husband's role towards his wife stems from the conception that he owns her as he owns his slave. This conception has been the reason behind the double standard in the laws of adultery and behind the husband's ability to annul his wife's vows. This conception has also been responsible for denying the wife any control over her property or her earnings. As soon as a Jewish woman got married, she completely lost any control over her property and earnings to her husband. Jewish Rabbis asserted the husband's right to his wife's property as a corollary of his possession of her: "Since one has come into the possession of the woman does it not follow that he should come into the possession of her property too?", and "Since he has acquired the woman should he not acquire also her property?" Thus, marriage caused the richest woman to become practically penniless. The Talmud describes the financial situation of a wife as follows:

"How can a woman have anything; whatever is hers belongs to her husband? What is his is his and what is hers is also his...... Her earnings and what she may find in the streets are also his. The household articles, even the crumbs of bread on the table, are his. Should she invite a guest to her house and feed him, she would be stealing from her husband..." (San. 71a, Git. 62a)

The fact of the matter is that the property of a Jewish female was meant to attract suitors. A Jewish family would assign their daughter a share of her father's estate to be used as a dowry in case of marriage. It was this dowry that made Jewish daughters an unwelcome burden to their fathers. The father had to raise his daughter for years and then prepare for her marriage by providing a large dowry. Thus, a girl in a Jewish family was a liability and no asset. This liability explains why the birth of a daughter was not celebrated with joy in the old Jewish society (see the "Shameful Daughters?" section). The dowry was the wedding gift presented to the groom under terms of tenancy. The husband would act as the practical owner of the dowry but he could not sell it. The bride would lose any control over the dowry at the moment of marriage. Moreover, she was expected to work after marriage and all her earnings had to go to her husband in return for her maintenance which was his obligation. She could regain her property only in two cases: divorce or her husband's death. Should she die first, he would inherit her property. In the case of the husband's death, the wife could regain her pre-marital property but she was not entitled to inherit any share in her deceased husband's own property. It has to be added that the groom also had to present a marriage gift to his bride, yet again he was the practical owner of this gift as long as they were married.

Christianity, until recently, has followed the same Jewish tradition. Both religious and civil authorities in the Christian Roman Empire (after Constantine) required a property agreement as a condition for recognizing the marriage. Families offered their daughters increasing dowries and, as a result, men tended to marry earlier while families postponed their daughters' marriages until later than had been customary. Under Canon law, a wife was entitled to restitution of her dowry if the marriage was annulled unless she was guilty of adultery. In this case, she forfeited her right to the dowry which remained in her husband's hands. Under Canon and civil law a married woman in Christian Europe and America had lost her property rights until late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For example, women's rights under English law were compiled and published in 1632. These 'rights' included: "That which the husband hath is his own. That which the wife hath is the husband's." The wife not only lost her property upon marriage, she lost her personality as well. No act of her was of legal value. Her husband could repudiate any sale or gift made by her as being of no binding legal value. The person with whom she had any contract was held as a criminal for participating in a fraud. Moreover, she could not sue or be sued in her own name, nor could she sue her own husband. A married woman was practically treated as an infant in the eyes of the law. The wife simply belonged to her husband and therefore she lost her property, her legal personality, and her family name.

Islam, since the seventh century C.E., has granted married women the independent personality which the Judaeo-Christian West had deprived them until very recently. In Islam, the bride and her family are under no obligation whatsoever to present a gift to the groom. The girl in a Muslim family is no liability. A woman is so dignified by Islam that she does not need to present gifts in order to attract potential husbands. It is the groom who must present the bride with a marriage gift. This gift is considered her property and neither the groom nor the bride's family have any share in or control over it. In some Muslim societies today, a marriage gift of a hundred thousand dollars in diamonds is not unusual. The bride retains her marriage gifts even if she is later divorced. The husband is not allowed any share in his wife's property except what she offers him with her free consent. The Quran has stated its position on this issue quite clearly:

"And give the women (on marriage) their dower as a free gift; but if they, Of their own good pleasure, remit any part of it to you, take it and enjoy it with right good cheer" (Quran 4:4)

The wife's property and earnings are under her full control and for her use alone since her, and the children's, maintenance is her husband's responsibility. No matter how rich the wife might be, she is not obliged to act as a co-provider for the family unless she herself voluntarily chooses to do so. Spouses do inherit from one another. Moreover, a married woman in Islam retains her independent legal personality and her family name. An American judge once commented on the rights of Muslim women saying: " A Muslim girl may marry ten times, but her individuality is not absorbed by that of her various husbands. She is a solar planet with a name and legal personality of her own."

The Power of Faith Re: # 152
You will get a timely response for "attempting" to be an impostor, inshaAllah. You may not like it and go crying but it may be too late to make a U-turn for you or your Ayesha Ahmed.
All I can do is pray that you and your accomplices are directed towards the right path by Allah SWT as HE is the only one who can guide misguided ones and save them from becoming astray, subject to their own sincerity towards finding the path to truth and following it.

The Power of Faith Re: # 36
Based on the instant access the electronic media is capacitated with massive publishing of views by anyone and anywhere in the world, although some countries who find it offensive filter out such sites.
Taking this in to account I humbly suggest to ignore such published thoughts by some like Ibn Warraq as paying undue attention to this or similar content is a win win situation for those who are out there to (1) gain exposure on an even major scale (2) to put hurdles in the way of those who are seeking proper advice.
If one does not like such content it is best to bury it in the grave it is sitting in rather than to pick on it and discuss it and lose your valuable time and effort.
The best you can do is to say a prayer for such people that, Allah SWT bless them with appropriate vision, and, block their negative attempts on our deen.
To each is their own and like it has is widely recognized only Allah SWT can provide guidance to those who are misguided and astray.
Being born in a Muslim family does not automatically qualify one to be a Muslim and it is this misconception based upon which numerous people who consider themselves as Muslims due to having born in a Muslim household but remaining illiterate on the basic teachings of Islam therefore they act ignorantly.
Being drawn in to such ignorant wars is only a mere loss of time and effort of those who believe.
La ikraha fi deen: there is no compulsion in religion (and, everyone is responsible and accountable to Allah SWT for their misrepresetnations and actions, if you are able to distinguish between right and wrong and good and bad and able to practice that for yourself that is enough).
With regards to the rhetorical term "fundamentalist or fundamentalism" those who utter these dont even know what they are talking about, Islam is a religion based on certain fundamentals and as such it automatically qualifies it's believers as "fundamentalists", and does not provoke any concern for me at least since I believe that without believing in the fundamentals of Islam and practicing those I am not a Muslim..(period).
Philosophy is known to use logic while a using a combination of the two, some so-called intellects have also attempted to prove their theory of (nauz-o-billah) non-existence of the divine authority, the Almight God., therefore one who has a belief and iman a faith in the existence of Allah SWT does not need to become entangled in such rhetorical thoughts as once again it is no more than a waste of time and effort.
One with faith should remain sincere to their belief and do good and not harm others, this is sufficient for a good Muslim while maintaining a hate for such ignorant acts within one's heart and mind is sufficient.

The Power of Faith Re: # 146
6:19 Say: "What thing is most weighty in evidence?" Say: "(Allah) is witness between me and you; This Qur'an hath been revealed to me by inspiration, that I may warn you and all whom it reaches. Can ye possibly bear witness that besides Allah there is another Allah." Say: "Nay! I cannot bear witness!" Say: "But in truth He is the one Allah, and I truly am innocent of (your blasphemy of) joining others with Him."

The Power of Faith Re: # 146
Because my God has already revealed all that HE wanted us humans to know and learn from has been revealed in form of the most noble scripture, the Quran-e-Hakeem and my God would not like to be sending messages as stupid as yours with an adopted nick as ignorant as yours, as such I find myself unable to glorify you more than you deserve and your appropriate title as such is Kalb ibn-e-kalb, ibn-e-kalb specially because your elders who failed to educate you on this subject have to be from no more than the genetics you are composed of. Now stop barking.

The Power of Faith Re: # 147

28:80 But those who had been granted (true) knowledge said: "Alas for you! The reward of Allah (in the Hereafter) is best for those who believe and work righteousness: but this none shall attain, save those who steadfastly persevere (in good)."

2:153 O ye who believe! seek help with patient perseverance and prayer; for Allah is with those who patiently persevere.

I can only suggest that it is wise to skip any bolders in the way instead of stumbling over such hurdles because all such hurdles do is deviate you from your intended path and destination, I would not even dignify an ignorant individual with a response since they are no more that attention seekers like those known for attention deficit disorders.

The Power of Faith #144
inta kalb ibn ul kalb ibn ul kalb yakhrib baitak

The Power of Faith Re: # 138
Tahir sahib & Nadeem sahib
My only urge, my only wish that two brothers although equipped with different perceptions or even with two different approaches to the one perception should not come apart and untie from the knot/the rope that ties us together as one, only because we perceive the same destination yet with a different perception of the route, or, the hurdles that each of us visualizes differently or may overlook certain ones.

3:103 And hold fast, all together, by the rope which Allah (stretches out for you), and be not divided among yourselves; and remember with gratitude Allah's favor on you; for ye were enemies and He joined your hearts in love, so that by His Grace, ye became brethren; and ye were on the brink of the pit of Fire, and He saved you from it. Thus doth Allah make His Signs clear to you: That ye may be guided. Imagine what a big loser we all come out to be if we magnify or amplify on variations of approach or difference in selecting the routes to the same destination.

Volume 5, Book 58, Number 238:
Narrated 'Umar:
I heard the Prophet saying, "The reward of deeds depends on the intentions, so whoever emigrated for the worldly benefits or to marry a woman, his emigration was for that for which he emigrated, but whoever emigrated for the Sake of Allah and His Apostle, his emigration is for Allah and His Apostle."



Volume 9, Book 93, Number 518:
Narrated Abu Huraira:
The Prophet said, "When Allah had finished His creation, He wrote over his Throne: 'My Mercy preceded My Anger.' "


Al-Baqara (The Cow)
2:175 It is they who take error in exchange for guidance, and suffering in exchange for forgiveness: yet how little do they seem to fear the fire!


To conclude it is my wish that since it may not be practically possible at least virtually as two brothers forgive each other for what may have bothered each of you and say a whole hearted salam on each other only to please Allah SWT since you both appear to be sincere in your approach towards the one & same destination to seek the pleasure of Allah SWT as I pray for all of us, May Allah SWT forgive us for our shortcomings and shortfalls and help us hold HIS rope securely, ameen.
I hope that you will exercise with the appropriate spirits and make up to each other.

The Power of Faith Re: # 135
Dear Tahir sahib/sahiba
My approach is only to recognize the message while the messenger is not the subject of my comments/response or discussion.
In the meantime I feel that it takes a lot of guts to gather and compose such thoughts specially as they represent my mindset as well. I hope you will overlook the oversights and reconsider with regards to this matter.
Thanks & best regards.