The Empire That Must Be Obeyed

Here's a link to a great rant by Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration:

The Empire That Must Be Obeyed
What Gives the US the Right to Claim
a Moral Monopoly Over the World?
By Paul Craig Roberts
CounterPunch - January 23, 2008

Here are some noteworthy excerpts:

"The West must nuke other countries in order to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction! In Westernspeak, the West nuking other countries does not qualify as the use of weapons of mass destruction."

"Who, what is threatening the West's values and way of life? Political fanaticism, religious fundamentalism, and the imminent spread of nuclear weapons, answer the five asylum escapees."

"The 'increasingly brutal world,' of which the leaders warn, is 'over there.' Only Muslims are fanatics. All us white guys are rational and sane."

"Unable to impose its will on countries it has invaded with conventional arms, the West's military leaders are now prepared to force compliance with the moral world's will by threatening to nuke those who resist. "

"Meanwhile, the United States, the great moral light unto the world, has just prevented the United Nations from censuring Israel, the world's other great moral light, for cutting off food supplies, medical supplies, and electric power to Gaza. You see, Gaza is in the outside world and is a home of the bad guys. Moreover, the wicked Palestinians there tricked the US when the US allowed them to hold a free election. Instead of electing the US candidate, the wicked voters elected a government that would represent them. The US and Israel overturned the Palestinian election in the West Bank, but those in Gaza clung to the government that they had elected. Now they are going to suffer and die until they elect the government that the US and Israel wants. I mean, how can we expect people in the brutal world to know what's best for them?"

As the saying goes, if you're not outraged, then you really don't know what's going on....

Deen on...

Race Relations Update

Although it came as no surprise, I found this article about NASCAR and racism quite interesting:

NASCAR's Race Problem

In case you don't know, word on the street has it that NASCAR really stands for Non Athletic Sport Centered Around Rednecks.

In the same vein, a few weeks ago I saw this article on CNN, which is equally disturbing:

Study: Whites more likely to get narcotics in ER

Well it seems that America just might not be ready for Barack Hussein Obama to be President after all...

Goodbye Giulliani...And Good Riddance

Tonight, CNN reported that Rudy 9iu11iani, now speaking of his campaign for the presidency in the past tense (thank God!), said: "I'm proud I ran a positive campaign...I ran a campaign that was uplifting." Gee, I must have blinked and missed that part of his campaign propaganda, but I did see one of his official campaign ads, which he endorsed, that called Muslims "A people perverted". The transcript of this advertisement can be found here, straight from the horse's mouth at the (now defunct) JoinRudy2008.com website. A discussion of this misguided ad, entitled Who You Callin' a Pervert?, is also well worth a read.

This, however, wasn't the only part of Rudy's campaign that wasn't "positive" and "uplifting". A couple of weeks ago, John Deady, the co-chair of New Hampshire Veterans for Rudy Giulliani, stated that in regards to "the Muslims", we need to "keep pressing these people until we defeat or chase them back to their caves or in other words get rid of them." As discussed here, when asked whether he stands by this statement, Deady replied: "I am talking about the Muslims in general. I don't subscribe to the principle that there are good Muslims and bad Muslims. They're all Muslims."

I'm sorry, but any presidential candidate who tries to get into office by riding a wave of this type of narrow-minded bigotry doesn't deserve a single vote. America can definitely do better than this...

Media Matters and "Gunny" Bob

Here's a link where you can get the latest updates on the bigotry and hate-mongering being spewed by radio talk show host "Gunny" Bob Newman. This is the guy who last year said, while hosting his The Gunny Bob Show, that he wants "every Muslim immigrant to America...to be required by law to wear a GPS tracking bracelet." Well here's the full quote:

"I want every Muslim immigrant to America who holds a green card, a visa, or who is a naturalized citizen to be required by law to wear a GPS tracking bracelet at all times. And the FBI and the NSA should monitor their phones and their emails, all communications — electronic — at all times, as well as bug their places of work and their residences. If they don't like the idea, or if they refuse, throw their asses out of this country. All mosques and community centers as well as Muslim organizations must be monitored."

It's sad seeing a person who seems to take pride in the fact that he is spreading hate and misinformation, but the good news in all of this is that his comments generated "intense public criticism".

Deen on...

Charles Dickens On Loving Before It's Too Late

Ten year old orphan, Oliver Twist, thinking about his sick benefactresses who had nursed him to health when he was in peril of death:

"Oliver turned homeward, thinking on the many kindnesses he had received from the young lady, and wishing that the time could come again, that he might never cease showing her how grateful and attached he was. He had no cause for self-reproach on the score of neglect, or want of thought, for he had been devoted to her service; and yet a hundred little occasions rose up before him, on which he fancied he might have been more zealous, and more earnest, and wished he had been. We need be careful how we deal with those about us, when every death carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted, and so little done—of so many things forgotten, and so many more which might have been repaired! There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, in time."

A kufi-tip to Abid for this...

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama, and the Fate of America

Here's a link to a heartfelt and thought-provoking article by Imam Zaid Shakir that was just posted yesterday:

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama, and the Fate of America
By Imam Zaid on 23 January 2008

"While it is certainly heartening to see such a strong candidacy from an African American, Obama’s run for the presidency sheds light on the nuances of race relations in this land in ways that many who admire or support him might not wish to discuss."

"As long as we politely skirt the fundamental problems plaguing our country, starting with the superficiality of our race relations, Obama’s candidacy and possible election do not represent any real change, they represent a re-entrenched status quo, and illustrate the sort of duplicity that would hound Dr. King as a traitor and communist at the end of his life yet enshrine him as a martyr after his death."

Foundations of the Spiritual Path

An excellent translation of words of wisdom on an all-important topic:

Foundations of the Spiritual Path
By Sidi Ahmad Zarruq
Translated by Hamza Yusuf

This article originally appeared in Seasons, the journal of the Zaytuna Institute.

Enjoy and Deen on...

An Unvowelled Qur'an...With Vowels!

Well sometimes you just have to laugh at the incompetence of these Islamophobic clowns—especially the ones who author books while remaining not only painfully ignorant of their subject matter, but horribly bigoted. Well lucky for me (and my readers), I've found an example of this that's easy enough to demonstrate. The other day, I was in a local bookstore flipping through a copy of Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief, by Rodney Stark, when this claim on page 361 caught my eye:

"A page from the Qur'an. For all that it is beautiful, this traditional Arabic script lacks short vowels, which often causes confusion as to which of several possible words actually is intended."

Unfortunately for this obviously ignorant author, the Qur'anic text pictured in the book is clearly vowelled! Yes, indeed, the image shows a portion of Surah As-Saffat (Qur'an 37) which includes most of ayah 35, all of ayah 36, and most of ayah 37, and there are many a fatha, damma and kisra (i.e. Arabic "short vowels") clearly visible in the text—as well as many occurrences of other diacritical marks (i.e. sukun and shadda) as well.

Admittedly, the Qur'anic manuscript in question is written in Maghribi script, which is mostly used in North and West Africa, thus the vowels are written as horizontal slashes rather than the more common slanted ones...but any Arabic reader can see that they are very plainly there. The fact that other idiosyncrasies of the Maghribi script can also be seen in this image (i.e. no dot over a terminal nun, one dot instead of two over a qaf, and no dots over a terminal qaf), does not take away from the fact that it is very much a vowelled text.

And let me make it clear: I am not disputing Stark's claim (page 362) that "there are no short vowels and no diacritics in the earliest surviving texts" but only demonstrating that the author was so inept that he chose for his example a text which has both short vowels and diacritics. For a brief discussion of the vowelling of the earliest Qur'anic manuscripts, please see The Qur'anic Manuscripts page at Islamic-Awareness.org—which clearly demonstrates that Qur'anic manuscripts from the first century of Islam exist in much more abundance (and are much more accurate!) than New Testament manuscripts from the first century of Christianity. Needless to say, Mr. Stark's attempts to defend the integrity and reliability of the New Testament text in the book in question are both vacuous and laughable. Reading such material makes it ominously clear that Rodney Stark is not a disinterested scholar, but rather a religions propagandist. One wonders where the commandment "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour" fits into all of this...

A glaring mistake as described above is much easier to understand once one actually reads what the author writes about Islam in the main text of the book. Suffice it to say, in spite of the fact that the Wikipedia entry on Rodney Stark says that one of his "hallmarks is writing with respect about the religions he studies", it becomes quickly apparent that he is more than willing to twist historical material to fit his pre-conceived and bigoted notions. I will let two examples suffice: 1) On the same page of Discovering God that shows the Qur'anic image we've just discussed, he writes: "When Muhammad died unexpectedly in 632, apparently there was no written Qur'an"; and 2) he has a book entitled The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success—which seems to indicate that Mr. Stark could very well be reading history with one eye closed and a crack pipe in hand.

If you want to see the copyrighted Qur'anic image from the book in question, just do the following: 1) Login to Amazon.com; 2) go to the main page for Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief, by Rodney Stark; 3) click on Search inside this book; 4) enter "vowels" in the blank search field; 5) click on the Go button; and 6) once the results appear, click "on Page 361".

Maybe I can be faulted for picking on an easy target—and Islamophobic troglodytes like Stark seem to be a dime a dozen these days, but such activist authors just bring it upon themselves. When I get time, I might post more examples of the egregious errors and blatant distortions in the writings of Rodney Stark. For now, however, this will have to suffice as an exposé of his sheer buffoonery...

Hotel Room Glasses...Disgusting!

Here's a link to a "must watch" video that's both disturbing and disgusting...but for some reason, not too surprising:

Don't Drink from Hotel Room Glasses
A hidden camera shows how the drinking glasses in your hotel room are cleaned...or not.
http://www.snotr.com/video/662

Enjoy...

Saudi Blogger Arrested

I don't know what's going on behind the scenes on this one, or what type of Islamic ideology these bloggers were trying to push, but I found it rather interesting:

Campaign for Release of Saudi Blogger
Saudi officials revealed on Tuesday that they had detained leading blogger Fouad al-Farhan. BBC Middle East analyst Roger Hardy looks at the influence and aims of the country's more than 500 bloggers.
BBC News - 2 Jan 2008

The article mentioned: "At the top of his Arabic blog is the slogan: 'Searching for freedom, dignity, justice, equality, public participation and the other lost Islamic values.'...As those words suggest, Farhan is no secularist. For him, there is no contradiction between freedom and Islam."

I'm confident this won't be the last time something like this occurs in the Kingdom...

Blog on...