Bismillah


as salam alykom


Finally one of our mods/members graduated from university Alhamdulelah


may Allah makes this knowledge a useful one


I am not clever enough like Umm and others. Im sure they will celebrate and attach nice cards.


Dan we want virtual ice cream and big cake yay u finally without papers to write, exams to sit for and dealines to meet. Alhamdulelah

Asalaamu alikum wa rhamatuhallahi wa barakatuh Brothers,


Insha'Allah I would like to see the Al-Saqeefah room for us come alive again. If you do not see this section of the forum when you log in please ask Sister Muslimah to give you access to it. Insha'Allah we all need this place to grow and become closer Brothers. Our Ummah needs theis very much. Insha'Allah I have started a topic for us, and any other subjects would be more than welcome. So I ask my dear Brothers to find some time to contribute to this part of the forum for us. Jazak Allah Kaharin. May Allah(SWT) guide us and give us strength , Ameen.


Wa salaam,


Ahmed

http://www.atimes.com


Middle East


THE ROVING EYE


Evildoers, here we come


Comment by Pepe Escobar


"Far more than the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the defeat of the mullahcracy and the triumph of freedom in Tehran would be a truly historic event."


- Michael Ledeen, neo-conservative and member of the American Enterprise Institute, June 2003


Iran is very much in the US spotlight at present over concerns that it is developing nuclear weapons, with much talk of "regime change". Over the next four years of the second George W Bush term, any of a number of countries could come into the crosshairs - Syria, Saudi Arabia and "axis of evil" original North Korea.


Ralph Peters, a former lieutenant-colonel responsible for "future warfare" at the Office of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and deputy chief of staff for intelligence before he retired, commented, <b>"It's really difficult to exactly delineate who our enemies are, but they number in millions. They're Arab and Muslim ... </b>Our enemy is the majority of the people who live in what we think of as the large Arab nations, plus certain other groups. Our enemy is concentrated in Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria, plus the Palestinians are part of it."


Bush has admitted on the record that the "minds" of his administration are "borrowed" from the right-wing think-tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which rents office space in Washington to the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) - the people who conceived the Iraq war (see This war is brought to you by ... of March 20, 2003).


Vice President Dick Cheney's concentration of power under Bush II will be even more complete. Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld - despite Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, the quagmire in Iraq - remains in place. The CIA under Porter Goss has been through a Soviet-style purge and is being turned into an ersatz Office of Special Plans (OSP), which everyone remembers was a Rumsfeld-sponsored operation that specialized in fabricating false pretexts for the invasion of Iraq. The OSP was directed by neo-conservative Douglas Feith (who now wants the US to attack Iran). The new CIA is Feith's OSP on steroids. Goss' job is to make sure the CIA agrees with everything Bush and the neo-conservatives say. Expect more wars.


The road to Damascus


The road to Damascus is the key node in the Bush/neo-con roadmap for a new Middle East. Some may think the road starts in Baghdad. Wrong. It starts, simultaneously, in Washington, Jerusalem and Beirut. And neo-con think-tanks, the Christian Right and ultra right-wing Zionists are busy mapping it. A key player to watch is neo-con David Wurmser, who has been a member of Cheney's staff since September 2003 and who has for years called for a strike against Syria.


Bush and the neo-cons must implicate Syria by all means available. This week Bush warned both Syria and Iran against "meddling in the internal affairs of Iraq" - as if Baghdad was the capital of Ohio. On a more serious note, Pentagon military intelligence officials suddenly discovered a few days ago that the Iraqi resistance "is being directed to a greater degree than previously recognized from Syria" and funded by "private sources in Saudi Arabia and Europe".


The "evidence" was a global positioning system receiver found in a suspicious "bomb factory" in Fallujah with directions "originating in western Syria". This, Pentagon neo-cons say, proves that Syria hosts Iraqi "terrorists" - who are basically those same Ba'athist "remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime".


Jordan is not on the neo-con hit list. Of course not: Jordan is a neo-con ideal. The Hashemite monarchy is endlessly pliable; never emphasizes its Islamic credentials; has an acceptable degree of truculence (martial law has been in place for decades); has a very effective Mukhabarat (secret police); and never criticizes Israel's excesses in Palestine. King Abdullah is always a dependable propaganda asset: he has been insisting lately that "foreign fighters are coming across the Syrian border [towards Iraq], they have been trained in Syria". The king also blamed Syria not long ago for being behind a huge al-Qaeda chemical weapons plot to bomb the US Embassy in Amman that, if successful, would have killed about 20,000 people. The US State Department was quick to add that the bombers were Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's people. So not only does Syria host Iraqi "terrorists", but it is also behind al-Qaeda.


King Abdullah also went on the record saying he does not welcome the inevitable Shi'ite government that will emerge from the Iraqi elections after January's elections, implying that a majority of Iraqis are Iranian agents. His father, King Hussein, would never be that sectarian. Of course it's a coincidence Abdullah said these words shortly after a meeting with Bush. The influential Hawza - the clerics at the Shi'ite "Vatican" in Najaf - responded in kind, basically accusing Abdullah and his family of always supporting Saddam and being submissive towards the Americans, adding sharply that the era of free oil from Iraq to Jordan (when Saddam was in power) is over.


Lebanon is often a neo-con target because of Hezbollah and because it's considered a Syrian satellite hostile to Israel. But now the Lebanese are taking matters in their own hands. All opposition forces are now united. Former president Amin Gemayel said this week the atmosphere was just like in 1943, "when all Lebanese fought side by side to get independence" from the French mandate. The leader of the socialist bloc, Walid Jumblatt, said he was "ready to go to Syria" to convey the message: the Lebanese want a "sovereign and independent state", which means a recognized political role for Hezbollah and no interference from Syria.


The neo-cons refuse to acknowledge the fact of a Sunni Iraqi war of national liberation. It's much easier to blame it all on elusive Syrians, evil Ba'athists still devoted to Saddam and Zarqawi - a renegade Jordanian. Ba'athists are only one component of the resistance, as they were the military establishment under Saddam. Moreover, the antagonism between Assad's and Saddam's Ba'athist regimes has always been visceral. Syria as a regime does not support the Iraqi resistance: a few individual Syrian jihadis do.


The road to Tehran


"Iran has replaced Saddam Hussein as the world's number one exporter of terror, hate and instability," Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told the United Nations General Assembly last September. This is Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the neo-con Likud agenda at work. One month later, Sharon said that "Iran is making every effort to arm itself with nuclear weapons, with ballistic means of delivery, and it is preparing an enormous terrorist network with Syria and Lebanon." This was, of course, the same Sharon who in February 2002 told the Rupert Murdoch-controlled London Times that "Iran is the center of 'world terror', and as soon as an Iraq conflict is concluded, I will push for Iran to be at the top of the 'to do list'."


In August, incoming secretary of state Condoleezza Rice was already bombarding the European Union's dialogue with Iran, saying "the Iranians have been trouble for a very long time. And it's one reason that this regime has to be isolated in its bad behavior, not quote-unquote, 'engaged'." The same Rice on September 2002 alarmed the world about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction, with her "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud".


It's the same old script, or excuse for war: first Iraq, now Iran. Last month, outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell even alarmed the world by saying Iran was working on nuclear missiles. He was relying on a single walk-in source with unverified documents. European intelligence officials in Brussels are certain the source was an Iranian exile briefed by neo-cons Richard Perle and John Bolton.


It doesn't matter that Iran has agreed - at least temporarily - to stop enriching uranium, in exchange for security arrangements, trade, investment and support for World Trade Organization admission offered by the European "Big 3" of Germany, France and Britain. In the neo-con master plan, Iran is doomed to be "shocked and awed" by 2006. The chatter at the AEI, the PNAC and other think-tanks has been thunderous for quite some time: Iran could be bombed from American bases in Iraq, in Pakistan, or from warships in the Persian Gulf. There are no illusions about it at the European Union headquarters. According to a EU diplomat in Brussels, "This bitter controversy over the Iranian nuclear program works as a smokescreen. The neo-conservatives are obsessed with Iran as a fundamentalist Islamic regime bound on exterminating Israel." Another diplomat adds that the question is not Iran's virtual nukes, per se, but how to cripple Iran as a military power: "It's the same agenda for Israel, the Pentagon and the White House National Security Council."


Neo-cons privilege a pre-emptive strike with missiles fired from warships in the Gulf against the Natanz and Arak plants south of Tehran. European intelligence has also identified another huge underground complex "with 1,000 gas centrifuges and components for the manufacture of 50,000 further centrifuges". Russian engineers are helping to build a heavy water plant at Arak. Other plants are at Arkadan, east of Natanz, and near the beautiful, historic city of Isfahan. The leaders in Tehran swear the whole program is developed for civilian use.


In another striking parallel to Iraq, the CIA does not know much about the current status of Iran's nuclear program, certainly not as much as the Europeans. But it seems to have successfully penetrated the roughly 800,000-strong Iranian diaspora in southern California, to the extent that a coterie of wealthy Iranians are eagerly plotting their return home as "liberating" heroes.


One strident player to watch is neo-con Frank Gaffney, who wrote on the National Review online that "regime change - one way or another - in Iran and North Korea, [is] the only hope for preventing these remaining 'axis of evil' states from fully realizing their terrorist and nuclear ambitions".


Long and winding roads


The road to Tehran starts both in Kabul and Baghdad. This requires examination of the Afghan "model" and the Iraqi "model".


Afghanistan's new democracy rests on the shoulder of the world's most expensive mayor (US$1.6 billion a month and counting), Hamid Karzai, who barely controls downtown Kabul protected by 200 American bodyguards, 17,000 American troops and a North Atlantic Treaty Organization contingent. Without all this heavy metal, Karzai would never last. The country is essentially ruled by the Tajiks and Uzbeks of the former Northern Alliance - who now control most of the world's supply of heroin - powerful regional warlords and the Taliban (in the south and southeast). So much for Afghan "democracy".


As for the Iraqi "model", the crucial point is that the Americans managed to turn Iraq into a replica of Palestine - the same ghastly litany of occupation, suicide bombings, streams of refugees and death and destruction. Not only was the Iraq war entirely based on neo-con lies: these lies led, among other disasters, to Iraq's infrastructure being completely destroyed and the US alienating the Muslim world. Fallujah and Baghdad are replicas of Gaza and the West Bank. A measure of the daily ordeal is offered by these lines written by Iraqi girl blogger Riverbend:


People are wondering how America and gang [ie Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, etc] are going to implement democracy in all of this chaos when they can't seem to get the gasoline flowing in a country that virtually swims in oil. There's a rumor that this gasoline crisis has been concocted on purpose in order to keep a minimum of cars on the streets. Others claim that this whole situation is a form of collective punishment because things are really out of control in so many areas in Baghdad - especially the suburbs. The third theory is that this is being done purposely so that the Iraq government can amazingly bring the electricity, gasoline, kerosene and cooking gas back in January before the elections and make themselves look like heroes.


As for the elections, it's fair to say Riverbend echoes the overall sentiment in secular Baghdad, according to our sources: "We're watching the election lists closely. Most people I've talked to aren't going to go to elections. It's simply too dangerous and there's a sense that nothing is going to be achieved anyway. The lists are more or less composed of people affiliated with the very same political parties whose leaders rode in on American tanks. Then you have a handful of tribal sheikhs. Yes - tribal sheikhs. Our country is going to be led by members of religious parties and tribal sheikhs - can anyone say Afghanistan? What's even more irritating is that election lists have to be checked and confirmed by none other than [Grand Ayatollah Ali al-]Sistani. Sistani - the Iranian religious cleric. So basically, this war helped us make a transition from a secular country being run by a dictator to a chaotic country being run by a group of religious clerics. Now, can anyone say 'theocracy in sheep's clothing'?"


The crucial Iraq-Iran-Afghanistan trio lies at the heart of the Pentagon-denominated "arc of instability" which runs from the Maghreb in Africa to the Kazakh-Chinese border. Of course it's just a coincidence that the arc holds the majority of the world's reserves of oil and gas.


Our way or the highway


European diplomats confirm that when they got together with their American counterparts in Washington last October to discuss Iran, there was simply nothing to discuss. Under Secretary of State John Bolton - a man who, on the record, wants the US to invade Iran - simply read aloud a text where the US refused to back any European Big 3 negotiations, and wanted Iran immediately dragged to the UN Security Council. European diplomats remain wary: "The Americans may be paralyzed at the moment - by the lack of international support and because they are trapped in Iraq. But we cannot underestimate the neo-conservatives, and especially Dick Cheney. He might end up convincing Bush of the need of a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear sites." Another diplomat adds that "the Americans complain all the time about our dialogue with the Iranians, but they are incapable of formulating an American strategy".


A "strategy" has been formulated by neo-con Danielle Pletka of the AEI. She says that in exchange for Iran handing over all its (non-existent) WMDs and halting support for "terrorist" groups, Washington should renew diplomatic relations and remove unilateral sanctions. It's an "our way or the highway" proposition, no negotiations involved.


Both Iran and the EU have a tremendous stake in the success of the new round of negotiations, which started this week and will, according to European diplomats, last for many months. For Iran, a deal with the EU is a major twofold strategic victory: it amplifies the political abyss between Washington and Brussels, and from the point of view of Iranian consumers, it's good for business. For the EU, it's above all good for big business in the oil and gas industry. A who's who of European majors - Royal Dutch-Shell, Total-Fina-Elf, Agip, British Gas, Enterprise, Lasmo, Monument - already has and looks forward to expanding Iranian contracts. Not to mention the Chinese, who last month assured the Iranians in Beijing, after signing a major oil-and-gas deal, that they would block any move by the International Atomic Energy Agency to take the nuclear impasse to the UN Security Council.


Ideologues like Reuel Marc Gerecht of the AEI are unfazed, and keep pushing heavily for a pre-emptive strike. Gerecht boasts that "you have to be crystal clear with them that whatever they dream up, we can dream up something much, much worse". These ideologues are obviously unaware of the fact that a strike will inevitably alienate the fiercely nationalistic Iranian population, will lead them to rally en masse in support of the government, and will be disastrous for business from a oil major/corporate American point of view. And even with a pre-emptive strike, experts agree Iran could rebuild its nuclear program before 2008 - as Iran learned very well from the Israeli pre-emptive strike that destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981.


Both the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency have extensively war-gamed the possible consequences of a pre-emptive strike. The results were disastrous. The neo-cons dismiss it as perceptions of the so-called "reality-based community".


Neo-cons obviously don't read political scientist Chalmers Johnson, the author of Blowback, who explained how the CIA in the 1950s coined the term "blowback" to refer to "the unintended and unexpected negative consequences of covert special operations that have been kept secret from the American people and, in most cases, from their elected representatives". Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rising to power in Iran in 1979 was blowback for the CIA toppling the elected government of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 and the American cozying up to the Shah regime. The rise of al-Qaeda was in part blowback for the CIA arming the mujahideen in the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s.


Sharon is an expert in provoking an "excuse" for starting a regional war - a favorite neo-con tactic. That's what he did in 1982 as Israeli defense minister, when he invaded Lebanon in "regime change" mode. Blowback was inevitable: the invasion of Lebanon led to Hezbollah, the first intifada, Hamas, suicide bombers, etc.


European diplomats stress that "Pakistan proliferated nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran, while Iraq was invaded because it was not fast enough to acquire its own WMDs. The regime in Tehran certainly took notice." It's a given in the corridors of the EU that the regime in Tehran may cultivate a nuclear program - but exclusively for defensive purposes. It's also a given that having lied so consistently and for so long - aluminum tubes, yellow cake uranium in Niger, al-Qaeda in secret meetings in Prague, Osama bin Laden and Saddam sleeping in the same bed, etc - neo-cons have little chance of convincing the EU that Iranian nuclear missiles will soon wreak havoc on London, Paris and Berlin.


The road to Pyongyang


The neo-cons believe the Pentagon should also bomb Kim Jong-il's North Korea. Bill Kristol, neo-con and chair of the PNAC, escalated the stakes when he recently faxed a statement, "Toward Regime Change in North Korea", to a select group of "opinion leaders" in Washington, alerting on the emergence of "serious dissident activity" in the country and urging Bush to promptly deal with it.


Compare it with the sober assessment of Han Ho Suk, director of the Center for Korean Affairs, "North Korea is one of the few nations that can engage in a total war with the United States. North Korea's war plan in case of an US attack is total war, not the 'low-intensity limited warfare' or 'regional conflict' talked about among the Western analysts ... If the US mounts a pre-emptive strike on North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear plants, North Korea will retaliate with weapons of mass destruction: North Korea will mount strategic nuclear attacks on US targets. The US war planners know this ... North Korea has succeeded in weaponizing nuclear devices for missile delivery. North Korea has operational fleets of ICBMs [inter-continental ballistic missiles] and intermediate-range missiles equipped with nuclear warheads. And North Korea's Dong 2 missile may be capable of hitting the West Coast of the United States, as well as Alaska and Hawaii."


The player to watch in this particular "axis of evil" segment is Victor Cha, recently appointed as Asia director in the National Security Council. He will be the man responsible for American policy towards North Korea.


It's interesting to compare the neo-con approach with Selig Harrison, director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy. He visited North Korea in the spring of 2004. His assessment is that although the leadership is "very eager for a settlement" with the US, they are "not prepared to do it in the way the Bush administration is asking them to do it. The North Koreans say that Washington wants them to, in effect, simply roll over and disarm unilaterally." Harrison criticizes the Bush administration's "very rigid position, not prepared to trade anything". And this only increases the "risk of war. The point is, the administration's objective is really regime change in Pyongyang."


The man in charge of this "very rigid position" is none other than Cha. Cha has argued that "engagement is the best practical way to build a coalition for punishment tomorrow. A necessary precondition for the US coercing North Korea is the formation of a regional consensus that efforts to resolve the problem in a non-confrontational manner have been exhausted. Without this consensus, implementing any form of coercion that actually puts pressure on the regime is unworkable." Cha qualifies this policy as "hawk engagement". It essentially means that any multilateral talks are destined to fail, because that's the premise of "hawk engagement" - building support for an attack. So the whole multilateral ballet in the next few months will consist of how China, South Korea, Russia and Japan will be able to control the neo-con ideologues before they snap it and decide on a "Shock and Awe" against Kim.


The road to Riyadh


Many were abuzz in Washington before the American presidential election when someone leaked what Bush had said at a donors' luncheon: "Osama bin Laden would like to overthrow the Saudis ... then we're in trouble. Because they have a weapon. They have the oil." In the neo-con roadmap, Syria and Iran may be short-term targets, but only on the way to a big prize, Saudi Arabia. Osama and al-Qaeda are more than on track to eventually stage a coup in Saudi Arabia. Simultaneously, European intelligence confirms there are now even more detailed war plans than in the 1970s for an American invasion of Saudi oilfields , most of them situated in Shi'ite-populated areas.


European diplomats in Brussels hope that this day will not come. The joint negotiation with Iran has been one more indication of what these diplomats see as the EU's gradual emergence as a global political player - a historical inevitability. The EU will eventually have a collective military force - and then NATO's existence will be pointless. The EU has already questioned the neo-con equivalence of "pre-emptive war" with "just war". The EU - unlike Bush and the neo-cons - heavily supports the UN, as well as the World Court and the International Criminal Court. The EU is multilateral - a concept that is anathema for the neo-cons. Nonetheless, this all leads a diplomat to be overtly pessimistic: "Iran must prepare for an air attack from Israel and the US. This time, no one - the United Nations, the European Union, not even Britain - will be consulted."


Nuke them all


The Balkanization of the Arab and Muslim Middle East is a follow-up to the "divide and rule" of British colonialism. It's in the heart of the neo-con agenda. Arab nationalism has to be smashed. And Persian nationalism as well.


The neo-con dream is a stable Iraq by the end of 2005 so the US can concentrate on attacking Iran. With the US still bogged down in a dreadful Iraqi quagmire, the well-oiled neo-con propaganda machine is already full speed ahead manufacturing its trademark brand of fear: Iranian nukes are coming to get us unless we pre-emptively attack (echoes of Ronald Reagan's "Nicaraguan Sandinistas about to invade Texas" come to mind). In the weeks and months ahead fear in the US will be multiplied by myriad echo chambers - right-wing talk radio, corporate media, Christian rapture congregations, hardcore militarists still bent on avenging the debacle in Vietnam by winning what is a de facto war against Islam.


An American "Shock and Awe" could turn into a nightmare as Iran is fine-tuning a dizzying array of asymmetrical warfare options (See How Iran will fight back Dec 16). Iran has installed sophisticated anti-ship missiles on the island of Abu Musa, thus controlling the critical Strait of Hormuz. In a pre-emptive strike, Iran could easily shut down the Strait of Hormuz - where all Persian Gulf oil tankers must pass. The immediate result: $100 or more for a barrel of oil - with all the consequences this would entail. Neo-cons don't bother with reality though: they only see that whoever controls Persian Gulf oil controls the world economy.


Israel may decide to stage a "Shock and Awe" of its own - using its precious collection of high-tech fighter-bombers. Last September, Israel bought 52 F-16Is from Lockheed Martin. Israel also bought "nearly 5,000 bombs in one of the largest weapons deals between the allies in years", including "500 bunker busters that could be effective against Iran's [as of yet unproven] underground nuclear facilities", as Israeli security sources told Reuters.


Muslims ask how could Israel get away with it. As far as the Arab world is concerned, Arabs could not be more impotent - or more co-opted at this historical juncture. Incompetence and corruption prevails in Cairo, Riyadh, Damascus and Amman. Arabs hold no significant political, economic or military power on the world stage. As for the Iranians, descendants of the Persians, a hugely sophisticated and influential civilization, they are still feared. In 2002, Israel was saying that Iran could complete its first nuclear weapon by the end of 2004. Nobody called Israel's bluff then, nobody is calling it now.


With the American military in its current state, Bush and the neo-cons cannot possibly reshape the Middle East to suit the neo-con/Likud agenda. Washington is faced with two options. It could restore the draft - provoking a minor social earthquake in the US. Or it could develop - and deploy - tactical nuclear weapons, mini-nukes. Fallujah - flattened by "conventional" means - was just a test. On the road to Damascus, the road to Tehran, the road to Riyadh, the neo-cons would be much more tempted to go nuclear.


(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)

Dear All


Majority of today's muslims recite Quran in there routine life. So the


significance of this Holy Book "Quran" is unquestionabe. I therefore


have choosen the subject "why we need Quran" as to post some thing


which i felt we are missing in order to understand Quranic message.


Now the question is " why we need Quran "


Need of the Quran Today:


-----------------------------


I would like to draw the attention of the guys of the Holy Qur'an to a


few social problems creeping clandestinely in our society. It is due


to miscommunication of life style, of values of life to live with on


this planet. This miscommunication prevails throughout our society: in


the family, in the community, between management and employees,


between financial world and the Ministry of Finances, between


government and people. This malfunctioning of communication has


brought some inherent social issues.


The cause of this malfunctioning in the social fabric is quite simple.


For many years, the people in the developed countries worked hard to


(a) restore their countries from the ruins of World War II,


(b)develop the economy and


© build a modern technological state. Whenthey attained this great goal,


they lost much of the motivating force that had knit their nations so tightly together.


Now the present parents being enough affluent had provided their generation homes


,meals, and extras that came to be thought of as basics - audio and


video equipments, software, mobile phones, computers and plenty of


newer technological devices to pursue.


At present this generation of those affluents do not know what kind of


life style to take up. With these basics, they started enjoying their


life sitting in closed rooms. This brought confusion and uncertainty


that has pulled the people further apart and caused a whole raft of


social problems. This consequently made them socially withdrawn


people.


Now these socially withdrawn (32,863: Japanese suicides in 1998, three


times the number of road deaths: Time Vol. 155, No. 19, May 15, 2000)


people find it extremely painful to communicate with the outside


world, and thus they have further turned to the tools: watching


television, playing video games, owning computers, mobile phones, most


of them having no friends - that all bring virtual reality into their


closed rooms and hence brought affliction. This phenomenon is drowning


them in a tsunami of technology, letting them sink even deeper into a


labyrinth of confusion. That is why we feel dire need to bring the


teachings of the Qur'an to the new generation for opening new vistas


of intellectual horizon.


My Question to all my guys is: "On what lines can we come forward for


the remedy of this affliction? And who will come forward for this


purpose? What will be the pragmatic mechanism?" I am immensely


interested to put the best of my potential. I hope our entire


accomplice will reciprocate and suggest ways and means to bring the


Holy Quran to the vision of this new generation's intellect.


Regards


Nawaz


My Webpage

The Israel government thinks that building the eight-meter high wall will protect the Zionist terrorists from the Palestinian suicide-bombers. However, the fact is that rather than build a “fence” that will only augment the suffering and deepen the dilemma, why not meet the challenge of the offer of “truce” that is based on withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967.


There is no point in continuing to blame the PNA for failing to provide Israel with the security it needs, for such a mission is simply not possible so long as occupation continues. Furthermore, it is with the Palestinian groups that have the means to cause Israel pain that the talking should be take place – Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. These groups, which Israel and its American supporters brand as terrorists, are the ones that alone have the authority to offer Israel a chance for peace and security as part of a “truce” agreement.


No one in the world can help the Israelis if they do not help themselves, and the Israelis are not helping themselves by hiding behind an eight-meter high wall.

Assalam alaikum ALL


A Brief Account of the Crusades


(Excerpted by Dr. A. Zahoor from 'For Christ's Sake' by A. Thomson and M. 'Ata'ur-Rahim)


At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church was in an almost impossible situation. On one hand, the institution was threatened with severe corruption from within its own structure. On the other hand it was faced with redundancy on account of the popularity of the teaching of the Paulicians. Furthermore, its attention was divided and diverted by its involvement in the folly of the Crusades. Much of its activity at this time was directed towards attempting to halt the rapid advance of Islam and to recapture Jerusalem:


The leaders of the Vatican must have seen the marked similarity between Islam and Unitarianism as preached by Arius. Both believed in One God. Both accepted Jesus as a prophet who nevertheless was still a man. Both believed in the Virgin Mary and in the immaculate conception of Jesus, and both accepted the Holy Spirit but rejected the divinity which had been attributed to him. So the hatred for the Arians was transferred to the Muslims. Looking at the Crusades with this perspective they cease to be an isolated phenomenon of Church history, but become an extension of the massacre of the Arians by the Pauline church." [Mary and Jesus in the Qur'an].


There is no scope in the present work to cover the phenomenon of the Crusades either in depth or detail. They began and ended in confusion, and many people died in the process. The first Crusade which began in 1096 was formed, writes Gibbon, mostly of thieves and criminals. This was the consequence of the Council of Clermont in 1095 in which the Pope proclaimed that anyone who joined the Crusade would be given full dispensation of all his sins and would be relieved of any criminal penance he might owe.


The practice of granting dispensations had been instituted in the fifth century by the Catholic Church. In return for a sum of money the Pope would grant a license either to excuse or to permit an action which was otherwise canonically illegal....


As a result of the decree of the Council of Clermont, anyone who had committed some wrong action, from theft to murder, flocked under the banner of the cross. The rabble of 60,000 men and women pillaged their way across Europe. On reaching Hungary they came face to face with Paulicians whose forefathers had originally been driven north from Thrace by the persecution of the Empress Theodora and her successors. There was a major battle, and two-thirds of the Crusaders were killed. The survivors took refuge in the mountains of Thrace. The Emperor of Constantinople came to their rescue and safely conducted them to the city. When they reached Constantinople, its treasures proved a great temptation for them. They would have plundered the city, had the Emperor not swiftly conducted them over the Bosphorus.


Reinforcements of better-trained soldiers were sent to join the remnants of the first Crusaders. When, led by Godfrey, they arrived at Constantinople, they proceeded to fight the Emperor and laid siege to the city. The Emperor, however, managed to bribe and persuade them to hold to their original plan which was to fight the Muslims and to take Jerusalem, and they too were conducted across the Bosphorus. Godfrey eventually reached and conquered Jerusalem in 1099.


The Second Crusade was undertaken forty-eight years after the fall of Jerusalem in 1147 in order to support the survivors of the First Crusade. The gates of the cities both in Europe and Asia were closely barred against the Crusaders, and food was only let down to them from the walls in baskets. This food was of the poorest quality, stale, and often unfit for human consumption. The Crusaders were plagued by famine and pestilence. Many of them died before they reached Palestine. The survivors were killed in battle. Jerusalem was reconquered by the Muslims in 1187.


The Third Crusade, led by, among others, King Richard of England, failed to recapture Jerusalem. Richard returned to England in 1192 with the remnants of an army which had been decimated by shipwreck and battle.


The Fourth Crusade chose an easier object of conquest and, despite the fact that Constantinople was in the hands of the Official Christians, succeeded where the first two crusades had failed. In 1203, they burst into the ancient capital of the East, pillaging and plundering. The churches were ransacked, and the booty from them not only subsequently popularized the practice of image-worship in the west, but also greatly increased the wealth of the Roman Catholic Church:


The most enlightened of the strangers, above the gross and sensual pursuits of their countrymen, more piously exercised the right of conquest in the search and seizure of the relics of the saints. Immense was the supply of heads and bones, crosses and images, that were scattered by this revolution over the churches of Europe; and such was the increase of pilgrimage and oblation, that no branch, perhaps, of more lucrative plunder was imported from the east. Of the writings of antiquity, many that still existed in the twelfth century are now lost...without computing the extent of our loss, we may drop a tear over the libraries that have perished in the triple fire of Constantinople. [Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, VII, p. 385].


Despite the wealth which accrued from the sack of Constantinople, the Crusades were a costly business, not only financially but in terms of lives. With the growth of the Paulician movement in France, the Catholic Church was forced to direct its attention towards securing its position in Europe itself. This change in emphasis was probably one of the major reasons for the failure of the Fifth Crusade, which started in 1218. The Church had committed itself to attacking the Muslims of Sicily and North Africa, the Muslims of Turkey and Palestine, the Muslims of Spain, and now the Paulician Catharii of France. It was impossible to maintain a successful degree of aggression on all fronts at all four points of the compass for very long. Inevitably the Church was forced to reduce its ambitious activities, and to direct its attention towards its enemies who were nearest Rome.


*The 'Poor Men of Lyons', who wore robes and sandals, emulating Jesus, soon met with opposition from the Official Church, for they refused to worship Jesus as God....In about 1190, they joined with the Paulician Catharii. Their numbers were now so large that the Catholic Church was in danger of being superseded and replaced by them. They rejected the whole structure of the priesthood of the Official Church as an innovation; for they knew that every human being has direct access to God. They had their own gospels, written in Romance. These were accessible to all who wished to read them, which was very popular with the people who, under the rule of the Catholic Church, had very little access even to the official gospels.


Thus for instance Fra. Fulgentio was reprimanded by the Pope in a letter saying, 'Preaching of the Scriptures is a suspicious thing. He who keeps close to the Scripture will ruin the Catholic faith.' In his next letter he was more explicit, warning against too much insistence on the scriptures 'which is a book if anyone keeps close to, he will quite destroy the Catholic Church.'


The only way the Official Church could maintain its status quo was by suppression, repression and oppression.


http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/crusades1.htm


http://www.islamselect.com/english

Muslims and the Oil Industries


Seventh to Nineteenth Century


Compiled and Edited by Dr. A. Zahoor


The famous tenth-century Muslim historian al-Mas'udi wrote about the oil fields in Muslim lands. He used the word atam to describe a burning well. Al-Mas'udi observed oil wells in Sicily, Oman, the Hadramawt in today's Yemen, Iraq, Persia, Turkmenistan, Tashkent, India and on the island of Sumatra. Astonished by the amount of oil produced, Al-Mas'udi called the Baku region bilad al-naffata, "the land of the naphtha fountain."


The Muslim oil age began with a tale of treason. To break the Arab siege of Constantinople in 680 CE, the Emperor Constantine IV ordered his high command to work with the defector from Damascus in strictest secrecy. In the end, Constantine succeeded in breaking the seven-year siege by using the Umayyad oil-weapon technology against them.


In many areas of the Muslim world especially the lands that now comprise Kuwait, Iraq, Iran and the newly independent republic of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, oil upwellings and gas vents had been known since the beginning of time. The Mesopotamian peoples who built some of the first civilizations were also the first to describe crude oil oozing from natural wells. Akkadian clay tablets from about 2200 BC referred to crude oil as naptu - from which derives the root of the Arabic naft. The first productive oil well in Iraq was sunk in 1927 at Baba Gurgur, about 140 miles north of Baghdad, almost within view of natural oil spring called "Eternal Fires" that had been burning continuously since at least 600 BC.


When the Muslim armies first arrived in Iraq and Persia around 640, they found hundreds of open oil pits. Arab records from the 10th century show that the province of Faris, in Persia, paid an annual tribute of 90 metric tons of oil to light the palace of the caliph. And an early Muslim historian, Ibn Adam, wrote that the Arab governors of northern Iraq refrained from taxing the oil - and mercury - producing industries in their districts as an incentive to boost production. Clearly the demand for oil was high.


Several large oil pits were operating in Iraq and nearby areas in the eighth century. So vast and strategically important was the pit at Dir al-Qayyara (near Mosul) that at one time it had to be guarded day and night. It provided not only crude oil but most of the bitumen used by the state to pave roads. In the early 13th century, the geographer Yaqut described in detail how "asphalt" was made in those days from the pit and used to build roads. In Europe, roads paved with anything but flagstones or cobbles were unknown until 1838, when asphalt was first laid on a street in Paris.


Azerbaijan was conquered in 643 and it remained under loose Arab rule until the end of the ninth century, with allegiance first to the central government of the Umayyad Dynasty in Damascus and then to the Abbasids in Baghdad. Caliph al-Mansur (754-775 CE) imposed a special "naphtha tax" on Baku in the middle of the eighth century and it marked the first appearance of a state tax on petroleum - a levy with which we are all still familiar today.


By the early ninth century, the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad had appointed an "oil czar" (wali al-naft) in every major producing district. The famous physician Muhammad al-Razi (Rhazes, 864-930) has mentioned in Kitab al- Asrar (Book of secrets) that kerosene lamps were in common use for heating and lighting. He gives two methods for making kerosene, one using clay as an absorbent and another using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride). The distillation is to be repeated until the distillate is perfectly clear and "safe to light," meaning that the volatile hydrocarbon fractions had been substantially removed. The kerosene lamps were in use in the Muslim world more than a thousand years before they became known in the West.


By 850, the distillation process used for producing the refined lamp oil or kerosene was perfected. This was what the Muslims called white naphtha, or naft abyad. It was made then much as it is today, except that instead of high-volume, continuous-process distillation towers, the Arabs used an apparatus called al-inbiq, batch-process still whose name we have taken into English as alembic. Essentially, the alembic consisted of three parts: a gourd-shaped lower flask called the cucurbit in which the crude oil was heated; a cooled, spouted condenser that sat atop the cucurbit and received the vapors that rose from the oil; and a receiver at the end of the condenser's spout in which the clear distillate was collected.


In Abbasid times, every school of chemists had its own variation of the alembic. Some were made of blown glass like today's labware; others were made of ceramic, copper or brass. Some were built for laboratory use, while others were much larger and might properly be called industrial stills. The Syrian naturalist al-Dimashqi wrote that in the early 13th century there was a quarter of Damascus known as Suq al-Qattarine, the distillers market.


Tashkent became the largest and most important city on Islam's eastern flank in 751, a distinction that it retains even today as the capital of the Uzbek Republic. In the eastern mountains of Tajikistan, the Muslims found the source of an extraordinary soft rock that could be torn apart into fibers, much like certain kinds of cheese. It was put to a great military use in the days of Caliph Harun al-Rashid (786-809 CE), at the height of Abbasid power. They fashioned this material (asbestos) into fireproof uniforms and padding for the naphtha troops and their horses. In addition, they called the substance hajar al-fatila or "wick-stone" because, as one writer from Damascus put it, "it is made into indestructible wicks for lanterns, for although the oil burns off the wicks themselves remain intact."...


http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/islmoil1.html


http://www.islamselect.com/english

Prophet Muhammad's Treaty with Jews (622 C.E.)


Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) decided to leave Mecca because the Meccan chiefs had taken action to kill him at his home. It was the year 622 CE. As far the choice of migrating to Medina (known as Yathrib at that time), the decision was made easier by the second ‘Pledge of Aqaba’ made a year before on the occasion of the annual rites of pilgrimage. The pledge was made by seventy three men and two women of Khazraj and Aws communities of Medina. They had accepted Islam and wanted to invite the Prophet to migrate to Medina. Their motivation for this move, apart from recognizing him as the Prophet, the trustworthy, and the best in conduct in Mecca, was to bring peace and security between the Khazraj and Aws. They were often at war with each other and the Battle of Bu'ath had shattered their strength completely. They desperately needed a leader who could be trusted by both communities and bring peace in Medina. As part of the pledge, they were to protect the Prophet as they would protect their women and children if he were attacked by the Meccans.


Among the people in Medina, there was a small community (three tribes) of Jews with Arab communities constituting the majority of the population. Because of wars going on for several generations, the resources of the Arabs were depleted and their influence in Medina was dwindling. The Jews were traders and many of them used to lend money at exorbitant interest. The continuing wars boosted their economy and personal wealth.


The immediate result of the Prophet’s migration to Medina was peace and unity between the communities of Aws and Khazraj. The Prophet, motivated by the general welfare of citizens of Medina, decided to offer his services to the remaining communities including the Jews. He had already laid down the basis for relationship between the Emigrants from Mecca (known as Muhajirin) and Medinites (known as the Ansar, the helpers).


The Treaty between Muslims, non-Muslim Arabs and Jews of Medina was put in writing and ratified by all parties. It has been preserved by the historians. The document referred Muhammad (peace be upon him) as the Prophet and Messenger of God but it was understood that the Jews did not have to recognize him as such for their own religious reasons. The major parts of the document were:


“In the name of Allah (The One True God) the Compassionate, the Merciful. This is a document from Muhammad, the Prophet, governing the relation between the Believers from among the Qurayshites (i.e., Emigrants from Mecca) and Yathribites (i.e., the residents of Medina) and those who followed them and joined them and strived with them. They form one and the same community as against the rest of men.


“No Believer shall oppose the client of another Believer. Whosoever is rebellious, or seeks to spread injustice, enmity or sedition among the Believers, the hand of every man shall be against him, even if he be a son of one of them. A Believer shall not kill a Believer in retaliation of an unbeliever, nor shall he help an unbeliever against a Believer.


“Whosoever among the Jews follows us shall have help and equality; they shall not be injured nor shall any enemy be aided against them.... No separate peace will be made when the Believers are fighting in the way of Allah.... The Believers shall avenge the blood of one another shed in the way of Allah ....Whosoever kills a Believer wrongfully shall be liable to retaliation; all the Believers shall be against him as one man and they are bound to take action against him.


“The Jews shall contribute (to the cost of war) with the Believers so long as they are at war with a common enemy. The Jews of Banu Najjar, Banu al-Harith, Banu Sa'idah, Banu Jusham, Banu al-Aws, Banu Tha'labah, Jafnah, and Banu al-Shutaybah enjoy the same rights and priviledges as the Jews of Banu Aws.


“The Jews shall maintain their own religion and the Muslims theirs. Loyalty is a protection against treachery. The close friends of Jews are as themselves. None of them shall go out on a military expedition except with the permission of Muhammad, but he shall not be prevented from taking revenge for a wound.


“The Jews shall be responsible for their expenses and the Believers for theirs. Each, if attacked, shall come to the assistance of the other.


“The valley of Yathrib (Medina) shall be sacred and inviolable for all that join this Treaty. Strangers, under protection, shall be treated on the same ground as their protectors; but no stranger shall be taken under protection except with consent of his tribe....No woman shall be taken under protection without the consent of her family.


Whatever difference or dispute between the parties to this covenant remains unsolved shall be referred to Allah and to Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah. Allah is the Guarantor of the piety and goodness that is embodied in this covenant. Neither the Quraysh nor their allies shall be given any protection.


“The contracting parties are bound to help one another against any attack on Yathrib. If they are called to cease hostilities and to enter into peace, they shall be bound to do so in the interest of peace; and if they make a similar demand on Muslims it must be carried out except when the war is against their religion.


“Allah approves the truth and goodwill of this covenant. This treaty shall not protect the unjust or the criminal. Whoever goes out to fight as well as whoever stays at home shall be safe and secure in this city unless he has perpetrated an injustice or committed a crime.... Allah is the protector of the good and God-fearing people.”


The first written constitution of a State ever promulgated by a sovereign in human history emanated from the Prophet of Islam. It was enacted from the first year of Hijrah (622 CE). The treaty stipulated a city state in Medina, allowing wide autonomy to communities. Private Justice was to be banished. The head of the State had the prerogative to decide who should participate in an expedition, the war and peace being indivisible. Social insurance was to be instituted.


The name Yathrib was changed to al-Medinat-un-Nabawiah, meaning the 'City of the Prophet' soon after he migrated there. The use of only the first word in that name (i.e., Medinah) became popular later.


____________


History does not record much as to when first Jewish migration from north to Yathrib (Medina) began as their numbers remained small throughout their stay there. Among the major reasons for their settlements in Arabia were: the relative peace and security in north Arabia with orchards and gardens; the Arab trade route linking Yemen, Arabia, Syria and Iraq; and continuing tensions resulting from wars between the Romans and Persians in the area around the Holy Land. Some of the learned men among the Christians and Jews had also moved to this area based on their conviction that the advent of the final Prophet of God was near, who was to settle in this area. Bahira, the monk, and Salman, the Persian, were some of the people who moved to the caravan route to or near this area. Salman was told by his last Christian sage:


“He will be sent with the religion of Abraham and will come forth in Arabia where he will emigrate from his home to a place between two lava tracts, a country of palms. His Signs are manifest: he will eat of a gift but not if it is given as alms, and between his shoulders is the seal of prophesy.”


Yathrib was the only city fitting this description.


Salman (may Allah be pleased with him) was born into a Zoroastrian family of Isfahan, Persia. He became a Christian as a young boy and traveled to Syria in search of truth about God and associated himself with the Bishop of Mosul and after the Bishop's death to several other Christian sages. On one of his travels to Gulf of 'Aqaba, north of Red Sea, he was sold to a Jew as a slave by his caravan leader. Salman (may Allah be pleased with him) was then sold again to a Jew of Banu Quraizah in Yathrib just before Prophet Muhammad’s migration.


After confirming these signs, Salamn (may Allah be pleased with him) accepted Islam and, due to his sincerity and dedication to Islam, he was accepted by the Prophet as ‘one of the Prophet’s household.’ It was on his advice a trench was dug around Medina. The trench (in the 'Battle of Ahzab,' also known as the 'Battle of Trench') took the Meccan army by surprise and they and their confederates (Arabs and Jews) could not accomplish the plan of wiping out Islam and Muslims of Medina.


http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/treaty22.html


http://www.islamselectmcom/english

Assalam alaikum All


Pig's Skin


Question: What are some of your opinions on the usage of wearing a leather jacket made out of pork skin. I bought this jacket by mistake and fund out it was prok afterwards..I have gotten diferent answers .......is this haram to wear it?


The Answer:


By Sheikh Dr. Khalid M. al-Mâjid, Professor of Islamic Law


You may not use pig’s skin, whether in dry leather items like wallets or in soft leather items like water skin for the following reasons:


1. Pig is impure for Allah’s saying : “Say(O Muhammad) : I find not in that which has been revealed to me anything forbidden to be eaten by one who wishes to eat, unless it be carrion or blood poured forth ( by slaughtering or the like ) or the flesh of swine( Pork) ; for that surely is impure” and the pronoun in the phrase “for that surely” refers to pork, as stated by Imam al-Shâfi`î.


2. It is filth in and of itself. Allah says: “And He forbids them from abominations.”


3. Tanning, which is a condition to make lawful the use of the skins of unslaughtered animals by the consensus of the jurists. As for the skins of animals which are not allowed to be eaten, there is a difference of opinion among the scholars. The strongest opinion is that tanning does not purify other than the skin of the animals which are permissible to eat, had they been properly slaughtered, such as cows and sheep. This is the opinion that has been related from `Alî and Ibn Mas`ûd. This can also be extracted from what was related by Imam Ahmad that Ibn Abbâs said : “A domestic animal (actually a sheep that had been kept as a house pet) belonging to Maymûnah died. The Prophet ( peace be upon him) said : “Why you did not use its skin? Why don’t you tan it, because tanning its skin is like slaughtering it properly.”


[it is an authentic hadîth but it has been related by some with a different wording. It has been related by Abû Dâwûd, al-Nisâ’î , al-Bayhaqî, and Ibn Hibbân from al-Jawn b. Qatâdâ from Salamah b. al-Mahbaq as “The tanning of skin is like slaughtering it.” Ibn Hajar declared it authentic.]


Al-Shawkânî said: His (the Prophet, peace be upon him) explains that the phrase: “like slaughtering it” means that tanning purifies it and makes it permissible in the same way that slaughtering does. This is an indication that the dead animal’s skin does not become lawful by tanning except that of animals which are allowed to be eaten by legal slaughtering.


4. The hadith related by Abû Dawûd and al-Nasâ`î that al-Miqdâm bin M`adi Karib told Mu`âwiyah “I ask you by Allah, do you know that the Prophet (peace be upon him) forbade the wearing of the skins of predatory animals and using them for saddles? He answered: “Yes”. There are many other narrations that support the meaning of this hadîth.


Since the skin of predatory animals is forbidden, then the skin of the pig is even more severely prohibited, since it is filth in and of itself.


www.islamtoday.com


www.islamselect.com/english


Assalam alaikum[/i]

Assalam alaikum All


Pig's Skin


Question: What are some of your opinions on the usage of wearing a leather jacket made out of pork skin. I bought this jacket by mistake and fund out it was prok afterwards..I have gotten diferent answers .......is this haram to wear it?


The Answer:


By Sheikh Dr. Khalid M. al-Mâjid, Professor of Islamic Law


You may not use pig’s skin, whether in dry leather items like wallets or in soft leather items like water skin for the following reasons:


1. Pig is impure for Allah’s saying : “Say(O Muhammad) : I find not in that which has been revealed to me anything forbidden to be eaten by one who wishes to eat, unless it be carrion or blood poured forth ( by slaughtering or the like ) or the flesh of swine( Pork) ; for that surely is impure” and the pronoun in the phrase “for that surely” refers to pork, as stated by Imam al-Shâfi`î.


2. It is filth in and of itself. Allah says: “And He forbids them from abominations.”


3. Tanning, which is a condition to make lawful the use of the skins of unslaughtered animals by the consensus of the jurists. As for the skins of animals which are not allowed to be eaten, there is a difference of opinion among the scholars. The strongest opinion is that tanning does not purify other than the skin of the animals which are permissible to eat, had they been properly slaughtered, such as cows and sheep. This is the opinion that has been related from `Alî and Ibn Mas`ûd. This can also be extracted from what was related by Imam Ahmad that Ibn Abbâs said : “A domestic animal (actually a sheep that had been kept as a house pet) belonging to Maymûnah died. The Prophet ( peace be upon him) said : “Why you did not use its skin? Why don’t you tan it, because tanning its skin is like slaughtering it properly.”


[it is an authentic hadîth but it has been related by some with a different wording. It has been related by Abû Dâwûd, al-Nisâ’î , al-Bayhaqî, and Ibn Hibbân from al-Jawn b. Qatâdâ from Salamah b. al-Mahbaq as “The tanning of skin is like slaughtering it.” Ibn Hajar declared it authentic.]


Al-Shawkânî said: His (the Prophet, peace be upon him) explains that the phrase: “like slaughtering it” means that tanning purifies it and makes it permissible in the same way that slaughtering does. This is an indication that the dead animal’s skin does not become lawful by tanning except that of animals which are allowed to be eaten by legal slaughtering.


4. The hadith related by Abû Dawûd and al-Nasâ`î that al-Miqdâm bin M`adi Karib told Mu`âwiyah “I ask you by Allah, do you know that the Prophet (peace be upon him) forbade the wearing of the skins of predatory animals and using them for saddles? He answered: “Yes”. There are many other narrations that support the meaning of this hadîth.


Since the skin of predatory animals is forbidden, then the skin of the pig is even more severely prohibited, since it is filth in and of itself.


www.islamtoday.com


www.islamselect.com/english


Assalam alaikum[/i]