Some thoughts on the news, religion and life in general
Archive for April, 2009
False illusions of privacy
Apr 29th
If only the First Lady of France, Mrs Carla Bruni-Sarkozy followed my ‘golden rule’, it would’ve saved her the current agony of ‘intimate’ photos being stolen and falling into the ‘wrong hands’. Although no one deserves such humiliation, it could be argued that she only has herself to blame.
At the risk of sounding prudish or even Wahhabi-esque conservative to non-Muslims, I had recently advised some relatives not to take photos which were ‘overly romantic’ or of people not ‘dressed appropriately’. I told them that I had a golden rule, if you are relaxed with strangers seeing the photos accidentally – without causing you huge embarrassment or worse, then it’s OK More >
Towards a realistic Muslim unity
Apr 25th
In my previous piece on ‘Purifying the Creed from Secularism’, I urged the necessity for UK Muslims to unite against the rebranding of Islam to a weak religion banned from the public domain. One that has no vision or influence on the social, political and economic life of human endeavours. The holy Qur’an is full of verses instructing and commanding Muslims to unite and hold tight on to the rope of Allah More >
Purifying the Creed from Secularism II
Apr 22nd
What is Secularism?
Secularism is an Ideology that denies the existence of God, or prophethood and revelation, or divorces them from playing any part in the public and social existence of human life. It is in complete opposition to the pure Islamic monotheism [Tawhid] which every Muslim must believe in. Thus, as one scholar states, that the difference between Secularism and Islam is ‘the difference between monotheism [Tawhid] and polytheism [Shirk]’. The two are diametrically opposed to each other as water is with fire.
Islam, unlike other ‘religions’ cannot accept the concept of secularism since it implies that God is obeyed, or His commandments are to be implemented at certain times, places and circumstances as opposed to being the complete code of life that is implemented at every breath of a Muslim, “Say: verily my prayer, my sacrifice, my life, and my death are for Allah, the Lord of All the Worlds. He has no partner. This is how I have been commanded and I am the first of those who submit.” [6: 162-163]. It is implemented in mosques, houses, cafes, schools, universities, in the streets, in government – there is no place on earth that Islam is ineffective or not practiced. More >
Dumb and dumber
Apr 21st
Yes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does resemble George Bush’s long lost cousin, and not just on looks. He is as stupid (if not more), and cannot resist the temptation to live up to the bogeyman caricature. What exactly does he achieve by constantly denying or downplaying the Holocaust? The Holocaust is a historical fact.
Many more worse things can be said of Ahmedinejad, but what exactly was his crime at this UN conference on racism which prompted the walkout by Western delegates? More >
Purifying the Creed from Secularism
Apr 19th
Since its infancy, Islam had to endure both ideological and physical onslaught from its dissenters. In the medieval era our scholars like Imam Ghazzali had to defend the faith from the fallacies of the philosophers, and other Imams like Ibn Taymiyyah, who under severe hardships, defended the religion from the erroneous beliefs of some of the sects within Islam. In every age the creed of Islam seems to be under scrutiny [attack], both scholars, and more amusingly, laymen sought to place a question mark on the soundness, validity and applicability of the Islamic creed. But, with the grace of Allah He protected the religion from being tainted by the feeble efforts of so called ‘scholars’, ‘academics’ and other impostors and charlatans. More >
Combating the weak Gazi (combatant)
Apr 15th
A guest post by Abu Ghazi
We all enjoy occasional intellectual nourishment in the media – most of the time the papers provide us with enticing food for thought but, unfortunately, with the current war against Islam and all the media hype and distortions surrounding it, we scarcely find good articles with real substance and accuracy.
Since the war ‘against terrorism’ or Islam, we’ve had to endure people claiming to be overnight experts on Islam and the Muslims, from both Muslims and non-Muslim alike. Now, with the subsequent launch of the infamous contest 2 strategy, I’m anticipating more shoddy ‘experts’ of Islam to be given platform. I wonder, to what level the media and the government will stoop down to!
As I opened my email yesterday morning one of the first emails that caught my eye was a link to an article in the Guardian Comments is Free section by Faisal Gazi on Islam and secularism. Who you may ask? It’s Faisal Gazi, a software engineer by day and a writer and a blogger by night. There’s no end to the ramblings of the pseudo experts on Islamic political thought! More >
