Proclaim Good and Forbid Evil, always and at all costs !"If you do not march forth, Allah will chastise you grievously and will replace you by another people, while you will in no way be able to harm Him. Allah has power over everything". 9:39.
No people can live successfully, fruitfully and triumphantly without strong memory of their past. 10th of Moharram is one such occasion. Muslims attempt to recall the tragic event around the 60th year after Prophet Muhammad migrated from Makkah to Madinah. This time it was his family led by his noble grandson Imam Hussain (peace & blessings be upon all of them).
Reciting Divine words, reflecting Prophetic advises and studying history enables us crystallize our insights. However, when we attempt to draw the imagery of Karbala, no heart could be so hard as not to be pierced with piteous feeling while replaying the Day of Ashura. Words can simply not do justice to the sacrifices made on that day. They kept their heads high, faces bathed in blood and tears, looking one upon another. Others stood in dolorous pain, looking up to the highest heavens, fixing their eyes upon it, crying out, asking help from the Only Helper; while others made lamentations in the manner of dirge.
Today we try to recall their pain, suffering and sacrifices, as they happened, to inspire ourselves and to understand the concept of sacrifice for a noble cause.Regrettably, sacrifice as is generally understood today, is to give up something that should not have been touched in the first place. Selfless and unasked giving is a rarity and unheard of. Giving one's entire self and off springs for His pleasure is unimaginable.
Muslims must spiritually survive from the unparallel yesterdays of Prophet's progeny.We have been largely overwhelmed by a culture that has emptied our memories, made us apologetic for who we are, and stripped us along the way of the sheerest hope of self-definition. We alone are presumed past less and are left to repair our self-esteem. Imperative it is for us today, to define ourselves by our ongoing tribulations and those who mete them out to us. Otherwise, we cannot be collectively successful if we have no idea or, worse, have the wrong idea of who we were and who we are. Getting replaced, then seems to be only logical and deserving (refer 9:39).
The intent of this writing is to stimulate, not to sate -- to pose the question and to invite reflection -- to cause ourselves to act for an almost forgotten legacy of the sacrifices made by our beloved Prophet (pbuh) and his progeny.O Allah (swt) bestow upon us the courage to enjoin, proclaim and enforce Good and patience and perseverance to forbid and stop Evil for and by all.
Ameen Ya Rabb.------
It is with deep regrets that we like to record yet another attempt to silence Muslim activism in the USA. The ongoing witch hunt started by the US Government around Oct/Nov 2001, continues!
Nov 2001: the funds of 3 major Relief Organizations (Holy Land Foundation, Global Relief Foundation & Benevolence International) were frozen.
Dec 2001: 1 Board member of GRF continues to remain in prison.
March 2002: 14 Muslim organizations & some of the top Muslim leaders living in the Virginia area were raided, under the pretext of aiding and abetting terror.
Friday, March 15, 2002
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
High Tech Bully
High Tech Bully!
At moments of national peril or national exaltation, patriotic emotions rise and people enthusiastically subscribe to any cause put forth to them. But these moments pass, the process of disengagement begins, and it usually does not take long for disengagement to eventuate in alienation. Another lunar cycle of thirty days has completed it's course (US bombing on Afghanistan started on Oct 8) and the might is yet to prove itself. The process of frustration and demands of disengagement has begun.
British ministers privately expressed frustration yesterday with the US prosecution of the war against terrorism, the first sign of serious differences between London and Washington since the attacks on September 11. (Guardian, Nov 9)
The German government came to the brink of collapse yesterday when Joschka Fischer, the Foreign Minister, threatened to resign over his Green party's reluctance to support the country's first combat mission since the Second World War. (Independent, Nov 9)
The United Nations is warning of a "disaster of tremendous proportions" after US planes bombed a hydro-electric power station close to a vast dam in southern Afghanistan. (Independent, Nov 8)
It seems to be our privilege today to prove ourselves right in the thesis that the world is our enemy; for if we reiterate this frequently enough and makes it the background of our conduct we are bound eventually to be right. Each one of us may have a different answer to the questions "who is whose enemy" and "who is waging a war against whom and why"?
We wage a war to save civilization itself. (President Bush - Nov 8 Address to the nation)
'Brutality smeared in peanut butter' America must stop the war now. (Arundhati Roy, Oct 20, MSNBC)
Hidden Agenda Behind War on Terror (John Pilger, Former Mirror chief foreign correspondent)
What creates a community of people who believe in 'reason', as against a mere aggregate of individuals, is the fact that they think objectively. This faculty permits them to interpret the past, make sense of the present and outline a shape for the future. Many believe that the political personality of US, as is known today, is the product of "imperial mentality", because what it does not do is just as significant, and just as consequential, as what it does. New set of rules are being laid out for the world to subscribe to.
"Murder of values and universally accepted fundamental human principles is taking place on such a wide scale that if the world leaders still choose not to remove the blindfold of American influence from their eyes the whole world will turn into a perpetual inferno of violence and chaos." (Mufti Taqi Usmani, Nov 4)
Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warned that the US should avoid giving the perception to the Muslim world that it is a "high tech bully". Senator Biden's assessment needs to be given due consideration, because through just and moral actions can the US create a positive image in the World.
Behind the general fog that the ideology of dissent generates, the outlines of a very material sociological and political problem are emerging. This is not a popular war, indeed. It is among the people of reason that extreme dissatisfaction is rife. It is among them that the isolationist ideal is experiencing its final convulsive agony.
Conscientious people must offer alternate policies relevant to the reality that can sustain a system based on justice and address the harsh and nasty imperatives of imperial powers. Until that happens, mothers will continue their silent cries and children will not stop to sob and the world will remain restless and explode!
At moments of national peril or national exaltation, patriotic emotions rise and people enthusiastically subscribe to any cause put forth to them. But these moments pass, the process of disengagement begins, and it usually does not take long for disengagement to eventuate in alienation. Another lunar cycle of thirty days has completed it's course (US bombing on Afghanistan started on Oct 8) and the might is yet to prove itself. The process of frustration and demands of disengagement has begun.
British ministers privately expressed frustration yesterday with the US prosecution of the war against terrorism, the first sign of serious differences between London and Washington since the attacks on September 11. (Guardian, Nov 9)
The German government came to the brink of collapse yesterday when Joschka Fischer, the Foreign Minister, threatened to resign over his Green party's reluctance to support the country's first combat mission since the Second World War. (Independent, Nov 9)
The United Nations is warning of a "disaster of tremendous proportions" after US planes bombed a hydro-electric power station close to a vast dam in southern Afghanistan. (Independent, Nov 8)
It seems to be our privilege today to prove ourselves right in the thesis that the world is our enemy; for if we reiterate this frequently enough and makes it the background of our conduct we are bound eventually to be right. Each one of us may have a different answer to the questions "who is whose enemy" and "who is waging a war against whom and why"?
We wage a war to save civilization itself. (President Bush - Nov 8 Address to the nation)
'Brutality smeared in peanut butter' America must stop the war now. (Arundhati Roy, Oct 20, MSNBC)
Hidden Agenda Behind War on Terror (John Pilger, Former Mirror chief foreign correspondent)
What creates a community of people who believe in 'reason', as against a mere aggregate of individuals, is the fact that they think objectively. This faculty permits them to interpret the past, make sense of the present and outline a shape for the future. Many believe that the political personality of US, as is known today, is the product of "imperial mentality", because what it does not do is just as significant, and just as consequential, as what it does. New set of rules are being laid out for the world to subscribe to.
"Murder of values and universally accepted fundamental human principles is taking place on such a wide scale that if the world leaders still choose not to remove the blindfold of American influence from their eyes the whole world will turn into a perpetual inferno of violence and chaos." (Mufti Taqi Usmani, Nov 4)
Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warned that the US should avoid giving the perception to the Muslim world that it is a "high tech bully". Senator Biden's assessment needs to be given due consideration, because through just and moral actions can the US create a positive image in the World.
Behind the general fog that the ideology of dissent generates, the outlines of a very material sociological and political problem are emerging. This is not a popular war, indeed. It is among the people of reason that extreme dissatisfaction is rife. It is among them that the isolationist ideal is experiencing its final convulsive agony.
Conscientious people must offer alternate policies relevant to the reality that can sustain a system based on justice and address the harsh and nasty imperatives of imperial powers. Until that happens, mothers will continue their silent cries and children will not stop to sob and the world will remain restless and explode!
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