"When God asked Adam why did he eats from the forbidden tree, he answered, according to the O.T. "And the man said, the WOMAN whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." Genesis 3:12-13


"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise the head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he (God) said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." Genesis 3 : 15-16


Do you see here, Adam who committed the sin of eating from the forbidden tree blame it on woman (Eve)? And since then, men of all generations have been blaming Women for their sins. You see that God in the Bible is blaming Eve and punishing her and all the women to come for the sin she did.


However, If we women read the same story in the Qur’an, (2:31-36), (7:19-25),(20:115-123) we will find that Allah says in the Qur’an :


1. Never blamed Eve for the sin that Adam committed . Allah spoke about both Adam and Eve being duped by Satan, and never singled Eve out.


2. Adam is held responsible for the sin he committed, he cannot blame it on Eve, since he is as a responsible human being as she.


3. Both Adam and Eve were punished for their sin by being ousted from Paradise.


4. Eve did not receive any harsher admonition than Adam and was not threatened by misery for herself and all her female offsprings as the Bible depicts.

Greetings to all of you. I pray that you will read my words and give them consideration.


My writing may, at times, seems disjointed. Please forgive this as I am merely trying to convey a few ideas, a few implications that might lead you to conclusions. I am not trying to proffer my religious beliefs nor debate your beliefs.


My mind has been in tumoil of late, my soul and my heart have been sick.


I grew up as a Christian, Independant Baptist if that means much to any of you. My core beliefs are, even now, based in Christianity, but I have distanced myself drastically from most, if not all, established Protestant Church doctrines.


I have read the Bible. I have read the Qu'ran. I have read the words of Buddha and Confucious. I have studied Taoism. I am knowlegeable of the ideas of existentialism. I have even read works from the Church Of Satan.


Many of my own religion would condem me for studying these things - excepting only the Bible. Indeed, I have been disputed vehemently on multiple occasions.


Perhaps you too would condem me, as I have read the Qu'ran and I do not refer to myself as Muslim.


Would you condem me?


There is a story in the Bible that refers to a man of God that was confronted by a group of Idolators worshiping what they referred to as a god named Baal (which Christians today recognize as a pseudonym for Satan). The man of God was confronted by the Idolators who demanded that he worship their Baal. The man looked over the crowd and stated, "If Baal is God, the worship him; but if God is God, then worship him."


The man of God then looked toward heaven and whispered a prayer to the Father of our universe.


God heard the prayer of his righteous servant and sent down a column of fire that consumed the sacriligeous alter the Idolators had constructed and everyone assembled fell to their knees in profession of the One God.


There are many interpretations of that story, but to me this man of the One God was saying, "You have a mind. Go out for yourself and decide who God is."


And this seems that it must be true to me, as how can a just God strike down a man that is quietly, openly, and prayerfully searching only for the truth?


Even the Qu'ran states:


[2.23] And if you are in doubt as to that which We have revealed to Our servant, then produce a chapter like it and call on your witnesses besides Allah if you are truthful.


Why do so many Islamic leaders believe that America is conducting a holy war? Why do so many Muslims feel that America is a nation of evil?


Why do so many Muslims openly hate Christians?


Why do so many Christians openly hate Muslims?


Why do so many Christians AND Muslims hate Jews?


Why do we, as a spiritual people believing in One God (the same God, as far as I can tell), hate anyone?


It doesn't take study to know the answers to these questions. They are answers that we know inately, genetically instilled in humanity by the loving hands of Father.


Hate has no place in the heart of a servant of God.


No one has the right to take the life of another human senselessly.


The Taoists say:


We reject hatred, intolerance, and unnecessary violence, and embrace harmony, love and learning, as we are taught by Nature.


President Bush attacked Afghanistan because the malicious Taliban, haters of knowlege and the search for truth, killers of women and innocents, refused to surrender Osama Bin Laden even after they had been given proof that he was the man behind the Sept. 11 attack on America.


President Bush attacked Iraq because he had been given information indicating that Saddam Husein was supporting terrorism, that he was fostering hatred, and that he was an imminent threat to the security of America.


I will not argue our justification for attacking Afghanistan. Many innocent people died and this is a cause for great sadness from all nations, but I believe we were just in what we did there, and today I believe Afghanistan is a much better place because of what we did. If you do not believe me, don't simply shout words of hatred toward me, argue your point calmly and with logic. I will listen to you. But based on the knowlege that I have obtained, that is what I believe.


I believe that Bush was just in attacking Saddam Hussein. And I believe it WAS Saddam Hussein that America attacked, not Iraq. Sadly, Iraq is the place that Saddam was hiding and, again, many innocents have lost their lives.


The information that Bush was operating under MAY have been flawed, as several reports now claim, but even so, Saddam Hussein was a man that has murdered hundreds of thousands of innocents and has openly condemned and professed hatred for America. And proof still stands that Saddam was financing many terrorist organizations. If you do not believe me, don't simply shout words of hatred toward me, argue your point calmly and with logic. I will listen to you. But based on the knowlege that I have obtained, that is what I believe.


The carnage that continues to take place in Iraq is NOT the fault of America, it is the fault of men who thrive on hatred and twisted interpretations of a God of love.


President Bush wanted, simply, the elimination of a tyranical leader and the instillment of a republic government of democratic freedom. As Americans, I think we want the for all people of the world.


Would any of you deny that a man has a right, under God, to live in freedom?


Saddam's government was toppled. And now, the only reason that killing continues is because of these poor men know only hatred for my nation and my religion.


Why would you hate my nation?


Why would you hate my religion?


Are we not brothers in humanity?


Do we not both weep at the site of a suffering soul?


Is your heart more righteous than mine?


Do you really believe that it is?


Is that what your soul is telling you?


Who am I to judge the righteousness of your heart?


How does anybody but GOD have the ultimate right to condemn the heart of a man?


From the Qu'ran:


[5.69] Surely those who believe and those who are Jews and the Sabians and the Christians whoever believes in Allah and the last day and does good-- they shall have no fear nor shall they grieve.


And this:


[5.82] Certainly you will find the most violent of people in enmity for those who believe (to be) the Jews and those who are polytheists, and you will certainly find the nearest in friendship to those who believe (to be) those who say: We are Christians; this is because there are priests and monks among them and because they do not behave proudly.


Even if you curse me, condem me to hell; even if you hate my nation; even if you hate the ideals of freedom and democracy; please take my words and voice your condemnation of terrorism and the murder of innocents.


None of us as mortal man has the right to spread hatred.


We all have an obligation to spread love and compassion.


A just war is not conducted from the shadows, in cowardice, against the innocent.


Please, I implore you all, take these words; examine them; and if you find them truthful, propigate them, spread them, translate them. Let them be heard for, if I have spoken the truth then it is the truth of the Father, my father, Jehovah, your Father, Allah.


Paint these words on all manner of document and send them to every corner of the world. Let all men here that, even if I do not share your beliefs, I am a man with a heart and a soul of compassion for all those who suffer.


My e-mail is included below. I will not respond to messages of hatred. I will try to respond to all others as best I can unless there become too many.

Asalamalaykum


hi, this is my first time that i have joined an islamic forum, from what i can tell so far this web is pretty good.


hey intuition


looking forward to hearing from urs all.


masalama

Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi (1909-79) founded Pakistan’s Islamist party


‘Jama’at-I-Islami’ in 1941. He led this organization from it inception in British India to Pakistan till 1972, when he passed on the mantle of ‘Amir’ to others. During this period, he was constantly persecuted, jailed and finally sentenced to death by the military rule of General Ayub Khan for authoring a pamphlet proving Qadianis as non-Muslims. The sentence was changed to life-imprisonment on public furry.


Sayyid Maududi is authored over 100 books on several aspects of Islam, including Qur’anic Tafseer, Prophet’s (pbuh) Seerah, and political theory of Islam. Here is link to one of his paper.


http://www.glue.umd.edu/~kareem/four_terms/index.html

With clouds of uncertainty hanging over the Middle East, a United Nations official announced on Thursday that the Zionist regime is the main cause of the current crisis in the region and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat arrived in Paris on Friday for medical treatment.


UN human rights expert John Dugard, who monitors the Palestinian territories for the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Commission, declared that Israel has killed the road map peace plan for the Middle East.


The quartet of the United Nations, Russia, the European Union, and the United States, the four international mediators that laid out the road map to Middle East peace, officially announced the death of the road map in early October.


Since then, the other quartet members have accused the United States of encouraging the unprincipled and inhumane Israeli policies in the region.


Over the three years that he has been in power, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has methodically cancelled all the previous peace treaties with the support of Washington, recklessly throwing them into the dustbin of history.


After nullifying the Oslo Accords and causing the failure of the road map, Sharon is currently trying to eliminate the possibility of the establishment of a Palestinian state through his plan for a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.


According to the Oslo Accords and UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were assigned to the Palestinians so they could establish a Palestinian state in those territories by 1999.


However, after the cancellation of the peace accords, the U.S. presented the road map peace plan, which allotted the Palestinians limited territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the establishment of a Palestinian state.


Meanwhile, the Israeli army’s withdrawal from the West Bank is now highly unlikely and the establishment of a Palestinian state even in Gaza has become an improbability after the Zionist parliament approved the plan to withdraw from Gaza.


Now, following the EU’s open objection to the Zionist regime’s actions, UN officials have also objected to the issue and identified Washington as the main supporter of the Zionist crimes and the cause of the failure of the Middle East peace plans.

Genesis: Historically, Jews and Christians alike have held that Moses was the author/compiler of the first five books of the OT. These books, known also as the Pentateuch (meaning "five-volumed book"), were referred to in Jewish tradition as the five fifths of the law (of Moses). The Bible itself suggests Mosaic authorship of since Act 15:1 refers to circumcision as "the custom taught by Moses," an allusion of Genesis 17. However, a certain amount of later editorial updating does appear to be indicated (see, e.g., notes on 14:14; 36:31; 47:11). (Bible Commentary, page 2)" - So in reality, Genesis had been tampered with by man. It had been corrupted.


Deuteronomy: The book itself testifies that, for the most part, Moses wrote it (1:5; 31:9,22,24), and other OT books agree (1Ki 2:3, 8:53; 2ki 14:6; 18:12)--though the preamble (1:1-5) may have been written by someone else, and the report of Moses' death (ch.34) was almost certainly written by someone else. (Bible Commentary, page 240)" – So there is ample evidence that proves beyond the shadow of the doubt that Moses was not the sole author of the book. He couldn't have possibly have written about his own death. Again, another corrupted book by man in the Bible. How can one claim that the book of Deuteronomy was indeed all revealed by God


Gospel of Mark: "Although there is no direct internal evidence of authorship, it was the unanimous testimony of the early church that this Gospel was written by John Mark. (Bible Commentary, page 1488)"- So, in reality, we don't really know whether Mark was the sole author of this Gospel or not. And since The New Testament wasn't even documented on paper until 150-300 years after Jesus, then how are we to know for sure that the current "Gospel of Mark" wasn't written by some pro of Mark?


Gospel of Luke: "Although the author does not name himself, evidence outside the Scriptures and inferences from the book itself lead to the conclusion that the author was Luke. (Bible Commentary, page 1643)" - So based on some conclusion, you're willing to die for defending the idea that the Book of Acts was the True Word of GOD Almighty? If the book was inspired by GOD Almighty, then how come it wasn't mentioned in the book itself to help us filter it out from the many other "Satanic false books"? Are we sure that this book too is not a man-made Satanic book?


Gospel of John: "The author is the apostle John, 'the disciple whom Jesus loved' (13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20,24). He was prominent in the early church but is not mentioned by name in this Gospel--which would be natural if he wrote it, but hard to explain otherwise. (Bible Commentary, page 1588)" - They claimed that it was John who wrote the Gospel, but yet, his name was not signed on his Gospel! So one cannot take it as a 100% True Error-free Word of God.

In the late 1940's, CPUSA leaders realized that the labor movement was becoming increasingly hostile to Communism. They began to focus on women and African Americans. They hoped "male supremacy" would "bring more women into the organization and into the fight against the domestic policies of the Cold War."


Communist women who made up 40% of the party wanted more freedom to attend party meetings. After the publication of "Women Against Myth" in 1948, the CPUSA initiated a process of "re-educating" men that we recognize only too well today.


The founder of modern feminism, Betty Frieden (a Jewess) relied on these texts when she wrote “The Feminine Mystique” in 1963. These women all hid the fact that they were long-time Communist activists. In the 1960, their daughters had everything they needed, including the example of subterfuge, to start the Women's Liberation Movement.


It is hard to escape the conclusion that feminism is Communism by another name. Having failed to peddle class war, Communism promoted gender conflict instead. The "diversity" and "multicultural" movements represent feminism's attempt to forge "allegiances" by empowering gays and "people of color." Thus, the original CPUSA trio of "race, gender and class" is very much intact but class conflict was never a big seller.


In 1980, three women in Leningrad produced 10 typewritten copies of a feminist magazine called Almanac. The KGB shut down the magazine and deported the women to West Germany. In the USSR, feminism has largely been for export. According to Professor Weigand, her "book provides evidence to support the belief that at least some Communists regarded the subversion of the gender system [in America] as an integral part of the larger fight to overturn capitalism."


In conclusion, the feminist pursuit of "equal rights" is a mask for an invidious Communist agenda. The Communist MO has always been deception, infiltration and subversion. The goal is the destruction of western civilization and creation of a new world order run by monopoly capital.


Islam, on the other hand, put a great emphasis on a “God-fearing family-life” – That’s why all such movements (feminists, gays, lesbian, etc.), after subduing Christianity and Judaism, are propagating the “modernization” of Islam. Canadian “Muslim lesbian”, Irshad Manji is the latest “darling” of these groups, most controlled by the Jews.

This is dedicated to our guests searching for the Truth of Allah, SWT.


You have surely read several conversion stories, maybe they touch your heart or maybe they don't, but one thing they all have in common is that behind each and every one of these stories there are people that has more or less struggled hard to get back to find 'their roots'. The natural faith, fitrah, which we all are born into.


I want to share one story with you all, it is about a very new and vunerable new Muslimah that shares her thoughts with us. Maybe you read it before, if you have not I warmly recommend it.


And one thought in my mind forwarded to you all is, that we are all going to return to our Creator and may we all have the best possible 'luggage' with us to please Him.


In the Name of Allah, most Compassionate, most Merciful


Kathy


Twelwe hours old


"What am I doing down here? I wonder, my nose and forehead pressed to the floor as I kneel in prayer. My knee-caps ache, my arm muscles strain as I try to keep the pressure off my forehead. I listen to strange utterings of the person praying next to me. It's Arabic, and they understand what they are saying, even if I don't. So, I make up my own words, hoping God will be kind to me, a Muslim only twelve hours old. OK.


God, I converted to Islam because I believe in you, and because Islam makes sense to me."Did I really just say that?" I catch myself, bursting into tears. "What would my friends say if they saw me like this, kneeling, nose pressed to the floor?...They'd laugh at me. Have you lost your mind? They'd ask. You can't seriously tell me you are religious." Religious...


I was once a happy 'speculative atheist', how did I turn into the past and attempt a whirlwind tour through my journey. But where did it begin? Maybe it started when I first met practising Muslims. This was in 1991, at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. I was an open minded, tolerant, liberal woman. 24 years old. I saw Muslim women walking around the international centre and felt sorry for them. I knew they were oppressed. My sorrow increased when I asked them why they cover their hair, why they wore long sleeves in summer, why they were so ill-treated in Muslim countries, and they told me that they wore the veil, and they dressed so, because God asked them to.Poor things. What about their treatment in Muslim countries? That's culture, they would reply. I knew they were deluded, socialised/brainwashed from an early age, into believing this wicked way of treating women. But I noticed how happy they were, how friendly they were, how solid they were, how solid they seemed.


I saw Muslim men walking around the international centre. There was even a man from Libya - the land of terrorists. I trembled when I saw them, lest they do something to me in the name of God. I remembered on television images of masses of rampaging Arab men burning effigies of President Bush, all in the name of God. What a God they must have, I thought. Poor things that they even believed in God, I added, secure in the truth that God was an anthropomorphic projection of us weak human beings. But I noticed how helpful these men were. I perceived an aura of calmness.


What a belief they must have, I thought. But it puzzled me. I had read the Koran, and hadn't detected anything special about it. That was before, when the Gulf War broke out. What kind of God would persuade men to go War, to kill innocent citizens of another country, to rape women, to demonstrate against the US?


I decided I'd better read the Holy book on whose behalf they claimed they were acting. I read a Penguin classic, surely a trustworthy book, and I couldn't finish it, I disliked it so much. Here was a paradise described with virgin women in it for the righteous (what was a righteous woman to do with a virgin woman in Paradise?) ; here was God destroying whole cities at a stroke. No wonder the women are oppressed, and these fanatics storm around burning the US flag, I thought.


But the Muslims I put this to seemed bewildered. Their Qu'an didn't say things in that way. Perhaps I had a bad translation?


Suddenly the praying person I am following stands up. I too stand up, my feet catching on the long skirt I wear; I almost trip. I sniff, trying to stop the tears. I must focus on praying to God. Dear God, I am here because I believe in you, and because during my research of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism, Islam made the mostsense. Bending over, my hands at my knees, I try hard to reassure myself. God. Please help me to be a good Muslim.


"A Muslim! Kathy, how could you - a white western women who is educated - convert to a religion which makes its women second class citizens!" But Kingston's Muslims became my friends, I protest. They welcomed me into their community warmly, without question. I forgot that they were oppressed and terrorists. This seems like the start of my journey. But I was still an atheist. Or was I? I had looked into the starry night, and contemplated the universe. The diamond stars strewn across the dark sky twinkled mysterious messages to me. I felt hooked up to something bigger than myself. Was it a collective human consciousness? Peace and tranquillity flowed to me from the stars. Could I wrench myself from this feeling and declare there is no higher being? No higher consciousness?


Haven't you ever doubted the existence of God? I would ask my believing Christian and Muslim friends. No, they replied. No? No? This puzzled me. Was God that obvious? How come I couldn't see God. It seemed too much a stretch of my imagination. A being out there, affecting the way I lived. How could God listen to billions of people praying, and deal with each second of that person's life? It's impossible. Maybe a First Cause, but one who intervened? And what about the persistence of injustice in the world? Children dying in war. A just, good God couldn't allow that. God couldn't exist. Besides, we evolved, so that disposed of a First Cause anyway.


We kneel down again, and here I am, sniffing, looking sideways at my fingers on the green prayer mat. I like my prayer mat. It has a velvety touch to it, and some of my favourite colours: a purple mosque on a green background. There is a path leading to a black entrance of the mosque and it beckons me. The entrance to the mosque seems to contain the truth, it is elusive, but it is there. I am happy to be beckoned to this entrance.


When I was much younger I had a complete jigsaw picture of the world. It fell apart sometime during the third or fourth year of my undergraduate study. In Kingston I had reminded myself that I had once been a regular churchgoer, somewhat embarrassed, since I knew that religious people were slushy/mushy, quaint, boring, old fashioned people. Yet God had seemed self-evident to me then. The universe made no sense without a Creator Being who was also omnipotent. Leaving church I had always had a feeling of lightness and happiness. I felt the loss of that feeling. Could it be that I had once had a connection to God which was now gone? Maybe this was the start of my journey? I tried to pray again, but found it extraordinarily difficult. Christians told me that people who didn't believe in Lord Jesus Christ were doomed. What about people who never heard of Jesus? Or people who follow their own religion? And society historically claimed women were inferior because Christianity told us it was Eve's punishment; women were barred from studying, voting, owning land. God was an awful man with a long white beard. I couldn't talk to him. I couldn't follow Christianity, therefore God couldn't exist. But then I discovered feminists who believed in God, Christian women who were feminists, and Muslim women who did not condone a lot of what I thought integral to their religion. I started to pray and call myself a 'post-Christian feminist believer.' I felt that lightness again; maybe God did exist. I carefully examined my life's events and I saw that coincidences and luck were a God's blessings for me, and I'd never noticed, or said thanks. I am amazed God was so kind and persistent while I was disloyal.


My ears and feet tingle pleasantly from the washing I have just given them; a washing which cleanses me and allows me to approach God in prayer. God. An awesome deity. I feel awe, wonder and peace. Please show me the path. "But surely you can see that the world is too complex, too beautiful, too harmonious to be an accident? To be the blind result of evolutionary forces? Don't you know that science is returning to a belief in God? Don't you know that science never contradicted Islam anyway?" I am exasperated with my imaginary jury. Haven't they researched these things?


Maybe this was the most decisive path. I'd heard on the radio an interview with a physicist who was explaining how modern science had abandoned it's nineteenth century materialistic assumptions long ago, and was scientifically of the opinion that too many phenomenon occurred which made no sense without there being intelligence and design behind it all. Indeed, scientific experiments were not just a passive observation of physical phenomena, observation altered the way physical events proceeded, and it seemed therefore that intelligence was the most fundamental stuff of the universe. I read more, and more. I discovered that only the most die-hard anthrologists still believed in evolution theory, though no one was saying this very loudly for fear of losing their job. My jigsaw was starting to fall apart.


"OK, so you decided God existed. You were monotheist. But Christianity is monotheistic. It is your heritage. Why leave it?" Still these questioners are puzzled. But you must understand this is the earliest question of them all to answer. I smile. I learned how the Qu'ran did not contradict science in the same way the Bible did. I wanted to read the Biblical stories literally, and discovered I could not. Scientific fact contradicted Biblical account. But scientific fact did not contradict Qur'anic account, science even sometimes explained a hitherto inexplicable Qur'anic verse. This was stunning. There was a verse about how the water from fresh water rivers which flowed into the sea did not mix with the sea water; verses describing conception accurately; verses referring to the orbits of the planets. Seventh century science knew none of this. How could Muhammed be so uniquely wise? My mind drew me towards the Qu'ran, but I resisted.


I started going to church again, only to find myself in tears in nearly every service. Christianity continued to be difficult for me. So much didn't make sense: the Trinity; the idea that Jesus was God incarnate; the worship of Mary, the Saints, or Jesus, rather than GOD. The priests told me to leave reason behind when contemplating God. The Trinity did not make sense, and nor was it supposed to. I delved deeper. After all, how could I leave my culture, my heritage, my family? No one would understand, and I'd be alone. I tried to be a good Christian. I learned more. I discovered that Easter was instituted a couple of hundreds of years after Jesus' death, that Jesus never called himself God incarnate, and more often said he was the Son of Man; that the doctrine of the Trinity was established some 300 odd years after Christ had died; that the Nicene Creed which I had faithfully recited every week, focusing on each word, was written by MEN and at a political meeting to confirm minority position that Jesus was the Son of God, and the majority viewpoint that Jesus was God's messenger was expunged forever. I was so angry! Why hadn't the Church taught me these things. Well I knew why. People would understand that they could worship God elsewhere, and that there, worship would actually make sense to them. I would only worship one God, not three, not Jesus, not the Saints, not Mary.


Could Muhammed really be a messenger, could the Qu'ran be God's word? I kept reading the Qu'ran. It told me that Eve was not only to blame for the 'fall' ; that Jesus was a Messenger; that unbelievers would laugh at me for being a believer; that people would question the authenticity of Muhammed's claim to revelation, but if they tried to write something as wise, consistent and rational they would fail. This seemed true. Islam asked me to use my intelligence to contemplate God, it encouraged me to seek knowledge, it told me that who believed in one God (Jews/ Christians/ Muslims/ whoever) would get rewards, it seemed a very encompassing religion.


We stand again and still standing, bend down again to a resting position with our hands on our knees. What else can I say to God? I can't think of enough to say, the prayer seems so long. I puff slightly, still sniffling, since with all the standing I am somewhat out of breath.


"So you seriously think that I would willingly enter a religion which turned me into a second class citizen? I demand of my questioners. You know that there is a lot of abuse of women in Islamic countries, just as in the West, but this is not true of Islam. And don't bring the veil thing up. Don't you know that women wear hijab because God asks them to? Because they trust in God's word." Still. How will I have the courage to wear hijab? I probably won't. People will stare at me, I'll be obvious; I'd rather hide away in the crowd when I'm out. What will my friends say when they see me in that?? OH! God! Help. I had stalled at the edge of change for many a long month, my dilemma growing daily. What should I do? Leave my old life and start a new one? But I couldn't possibly go out in public in hijab. People would stare at me. I stood at the forked path which God helped me reach. I had new knowledge which rested comfortably with my intellect. Follow the conviction, or stay in the old way? How could I stay when I had a different outlook on life? How could I change when the step seemed too big for me?


I would rehearse the conversation sentence: There is no God worthy of worship but God and Muhammed is his prophet. Simple words, I believe in them, so convert. I cannot, I resisted. I circled endlessly day after day. God stood on one of the paths of the fork, tapping his foot. Come on Kathy. I've brought you here, but you must cross alone. I stayed stationary, transfixed like a kangaroo trapped in a car lights late at night. Then one night, I suppose, God, gave me a final yank. I was passing a mosque with my husband. I had a feeling in me that was so strong I could hardly bear it. If you don't convert now, you never will, my inner voice told me. I knew it was true. OK, I'll do it. If they let me in the mosque I'll do it. But there was no one there. I said the shahaada under the trees outside the mosque. I waited. I waited for the thunderclap, the immediate feeling of relief, the lifting of my burden. But it didn't come. I felt exactly the same.


Now we are kneeling again, the world looks so different from down here. Even famous football players prostrate like this, I remember, glancing sideways at the tassels of my hijab which fall onto the prayer mat; we are sitting up straight, my prayer leader is muttering something still, waving his right hand's forefinger around in the air. I look down at my mat again. The green, purple and black of my prayer mat look reassuringly the same. The blackness of the Mosque's entrance entreats me: 'I am here, just as relax and you will find me.' My tears have dried on my face and my skin feels tight. "What am I doing here?"


Dear God. I am here because I believe in you, because I believe in the compelling and majestic words of the Qu'ran, and because I believe in the Prophethood of your Messenger Muhammed. I know in my heart my decision is the right one. Please give me the courage to carry on with this new self and new life, that I may serve you well with a strong faith. I smile and stand up, folding my prayer mat into half, and lay it on the sofa ready for my next encounter with its velvety green certainty. Now the burden begins to lift.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


..: Muslim American Society :..


October 28, 2004 PRESS RELEASE


MAS FREEDOM FAITH AND ELECTION 2004 AT NATIONAL PRESS CLUB


The Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation held a press conference today


at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, focusing on religious


community involvement in the upcoming elections.


Participants included Dr. Weldon Gaddy, Executive Director of the Interfaith


Alliance; Rabbi Jack Moline, Vice President of the Board of Directors of the


Interfaith Alliance; Brenda Girton Mitchell, representing the National


Council of Churches; and Mahdi Bray, Executive Director of the Muslim


American Society Freedom Foundation.


"The presence of religion in the 2004 campaign cycle is without precedent.


Religion has been not only a recurring subject on the campaign trail; it has


been a major campaign strategy," stated Dr. Weldon Gaddy.


Brenda Girton Mitchell spoke of the National Council of Churches' commitment


to justice in political discourse, the need for candidates to focus on


economic equity issues and "giving the good news through good work."


"The division of this country into red and blue is no more desirable than


the division of this country into black and white," stated Rabbi Jack


Moline. "And if we have in common any sacred obligation as citizens of this


great nation, it is to vote.


"More important, we have a sacred obligation as citizens of faith to vote


wisely and not reactively. It is not the case that Democrats or Republicans


have a monopoly on truth. The wealthiest nation in the history of humanity


has been governed by various combinations of both, and we still haven't


managed to eliminate poverty any better than nations who never had a


Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan.


"To ignore the nuances in people and their principles is to abandon the


opportunity to enfranchise people across the lines of differing opinions,"


asserted Moline. "It closes off conversation and promotes the notion that


every conflict is an ultimate conflict, that the only two options are


complete victory and utter defeat. And of course, utter defeat is to be


avoided at all costs - even the cost of half the population.


"But a victory won at the expense of half the population is defeat for all."


Mahdi Bray, Executive Director of the Muslim American Society Freedom


Foundation, talked of the role of MAS Freedom: "As a non-profit


organization, we are non-partisan, but not non-principle.


"I'm truly glad to see the Muslim community galvanized by such important


issues as civil rights, due process, voter registration and preparing to


vote in record numbers, especially in the battleground states.


"I sense a truly local grassroots political movement taking place in the


Muslim community whose significance many even in our national leadership


have not fully comprehended. I'm encouraged by the level of political


maturity and sophistication I see emerging at the grassroots level.


"Regardless of who wins this Tuesday, the Muslim community seems to be


preparing to take its rightful place in the American civic process."


======


The Freedom Foundation is the public affairs arm of the Muslim American


Society (MAS), a national grassroots religious, social, and educational


organization. MAS is America's largest grassroots Muslim organization with


over 50 chapters nationwide. Learn more at www.masnet.org.


____________________________________________


MAS Freedom Foundation


1050 17th Street NW #600


Washington, DC 20036


Tel: (202) 496-1288


Fax: (202) 463-0686


URL: http://www.masnet.org/index_publicaffairs.asp


Email: freedom@masnet.org

Would be grateful if anyone can provide me with documented evidence to suggest Osama has severed ties with the US administration?


Osama bin Laden: a Texas-style Republican in Muslim clothing


By Wayne Madsen


Online Journal Contributing Writer


September 12, 2004—When Ronald Reagan passed away a few months ago, eulogies poured into Washington from around the world. One eulogy was inconspicuously absent–that of America's international Public Enemy Number One and arch-terrorist Osama bin Laden.


Speaking at a Cato Institute seminar on the War on Terrorism on September 8 in Washington, Professor Walid Phares, a Middle East expert at Florida Atlantic University, offered for the first time a quote attributed to Bin Laden that his colleague has penned in a forthcoming book. Bin Laden told Phares's colleague in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s: "I like Reagan. He believes in God. He's helping us. He's better than the others." The fact that George W. Bush considers himself the heir to Reagan's legacy and his policies, in addition to the fact that he never misses a chance to speak of his own devotion to God (even more so than Reagan ever did) and has brought almost every one of Reagan's cowboy operators into his administration, must also place him in the eyes of bin Laden as "better than the others."


Washington's heavily corporate-funded Cato Institute, a citadel of conservative and libertarian policy-making, is the least likely place one would expect to hear the Bush foreign policy wrung through the wringer. However, Cato has emerged as a key player in a conservative counter-attack against the neoconservative foreign policies enacted by Bush's inner circle of national security and defense advisers who have corrupted Republican ideology to the point where it would be unrecognizable to Barry Goldwater, Senator Bob Taft, Dwight Eisenhower or Richard Nixon.


Osama bin Laden has always been there for the opportunist Republicans and their neoconservative symbiotes and they have always been there for him. No wonder after Bush's initial post-9/11 bravado that he would catch bin Laden "dead or alive," the man who once ran most of his late father's Saudi construction company and its business dealings with Bush family favorites Adnan Khashoggi and Manuchehr Ghorbanifar, was allowed to escape during the Battle of Tora Bora. Which brings us to Richard Perle and his merry band of neoconservative agents of influence for Israel. Not only did Perle attempt to get Khashoggi to invest in his Trireme Partners (an enterprise he set up with Henry Kissinger) but he and his disciples in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans attempted to use Ghorbanifar to reopen an intelligence back channel to Iran unused since the Iran-contra scandal of the Reagan administration. Ghorbanifar, a friend of neoconservative Svengali, Michael Ledeen, once failed 12 of 14 questions on a CIA-administered polygraph test. He only passed on the two questions about his name and nationality. Ghorbanifar has only surfaced in U.S. government circles after Israel or its agents of influence inside and outside the U.S. government brought pressure to bear.


The fact that bin Laden would identify with a conservative Republican president should come as no shock. After all, it was Reagan and his cabal of neoconservatives and extreme right-wing Cold Warriors who arranged for bin Laden to receive economic and personnel assistance from Saudis and weapons from the Egyptians and Israelis during the Afghan mujaheddin war against the Soviets. It was George H. W. Bush, who in 1980, went to Paris to negotiate a deal with the radical Iranian Islamists to keep the U.S. hostages at the Tehran embassy hostage past the November election to ensure that there would be no "October Surprise" (i.e., a release) that would benefit President Jimmy Carter at the polls. (It is clear that in his heart of hearts President Carter, a living icon of American statesmanship, had this in the back of his mind when he constantly referred to the "extremism" of the current Bush administration in his speech to the Boston Democratic convention).


It was Reagan and his administration that established a virtual anti-Soviet "aircraft carrier" along the Afghan-Pakistani border with the help of Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) Service. It was at one nondescript guest house in Peshawar, in the heart of this American-nurtured remote forward operating base, that Afghan and Arab mujaheddin graduates of Saudi Wahhabist religious schools and indoctrination centers would congregate and discuss strategy against the Soviets under the watchful eye of CIA and ISI handlers. That guest house was known to the mujaheddin as "al Qaeda" ("The Base") and it would later (and rather erroneously) lend its name to a group of Saudi-backed and influenced fanatics who would one day carry out the horrible terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.


But perception management campaigns are a hallmark of the Bush cartel. One could not get a more believable Arab terrorist leader like bin Laden from Hollywood central casting. The stock footage of bin Laden firing an AK-47, coming out of a cave talking on a mobile satellite phone, listening to the Voice of America as his hijackers slammed into the Twin Towers on 9/11, the imagery of the towers resembling an "11" (the former logo of New York's WPIX-TV Channel 11) on "911" (also the emergency telephone number), the quick passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, questioning John Kerry's Vietnam War record, and bogus intelligence on Iraq being fed to the UN Security Council and Congress—it's all perception management—a grand attempt to deceive and mislead. It is all the imagery and political skullduggery required for an impending "Clash of Civilizations," a New Crusade, a Christian evangelist Great Apocalypse, a Resurgent Jihad, a Jewish Rebuilding of the Temple, and more. And the perception management results have been a blessing for the Bush/Saudi/Carlyle cartel that now controls Washington, Houston, Riyadh, Baghdad, Kabul, and most of the world.


As Russia continues to bury and identify its dead children from Beslan, Vladimir Putin says he will strike anytime and anywhere against the terrorist supporters. SPETSNAZ teams "operating" in Saudi Arabia, the gated communities and country clubs of Houston, and the Saudi shill law offices on K Street should not be ruled out by Moscow.


It must be stressed that bin Laden and his associates never used the name al Qaeda to describe themselves—that was something the U.S. government and corporate news media created as a moniker for them. If mujaheddin traveling to Afghanistan via Peshawar stayed at a Holiday Inn instead of the "al Qaeda" guest house, it is doubtful that bin Laden's forces would today be called "Holiday Inn." Ever since 1985, bin Laden's group has been known to themselves and their allies as the Islamic Salvation Foundation, a group that financed its operations through Saudi, Pakistani, and Sudanese-based Islamic charities and the sale of Afghan opium.


In 1998, bin Laden created an international Islamist coalition called the "Islamic Struggle Front" with allies in Bangladesh, Egypt, and Pakistan that issued a fatwa declaring it legitimate to kill Americans everywhere, civilians or military. That year, the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in East Africa were bombed by bin Laden loyalists. All the while, the head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki bin Faisal (who remains the de facto head of Saudi intelligence while moonlighting as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Great Britain), maintained his friendship with bin Laden, whom he had known since the "al Qaeda" leader was a civil engineering student at the King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah.


Even after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the CIA and Saudis pumped one half billion dollars into mujaheddin coffers, a good portion going to bin Laden and his allied groups. This was at a time some within the mujaheddin began setting their sites on new targets, especially the United States after U.S. troops began arriving the next year in Saudi Arabia in the prelude to Desert Storm and the first U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.


According to a Washington Justice Department insider, a few years after Desert Storm and bin Laden's new antipathy toward the United States, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and Feith's Israeli-American partner Marc Zell, were involved in setting up the Bosnia Defense Fund using an account at Riggs Bank in Washington. Millions of dollars in contributions for Bosnia to buy weapons and military training from companies like Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI) flowed into the account from countries like Egypt, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Brunei, Jordan, and Kuwait. From Washington the money was wired to Sarajevo where some of the weapons "bled" from the armories of the Bosnian forces and into the hands of radical Islamists sent to the Balkans by bin Laden to begin a jihad against the West in Bosnia, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania. In return for his help for the Bosnians, bin Laden procured Bosnian passports for himself and his closest associates. Bin Laden's Balkans logistics operations mirrored the type of banking and financial network that propped him up in Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet jihad. Using the facilities of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), Saudi charities from princes, mosques, and wealthy private contributors were funneled into the coffers of bin Laden and his allies.


And compare this to the involvement of Perle, Feith, and other neoconservatives in the Bush administration with the likes of Ahmad Chalabi and his nephew Salem Chalabi (the latter the Baghdad law partner of Marc Zell) and one begins to see a pattern harkening back to the halcyon days of the Reagan Iran-contra scandal and Afghan mujaheddin escapade. That the same individuals continue to be linked to war profiteering and espionage at the top echelons of government is reportedly at the heart of the current FBI investigation of the role of the neoconservatives in the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Office of Special Plans personnel, the leak of highly-classified and compartmented communications intelligence (COMINT) information by Ahmad Chalabi to Iran, the use by the White House of bogus Niger documents regarding procurement of uranium from that country by Iraq, and the illegal outing of Ambassador Joseph Wilson's CIA wife to columnist Robert Novak.


There is also the curious role of Turkey in the current U.S. spy scandals. Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds has spoken of a non-governmental foreign intelligence operation within the FBI office where she worked centered around the Turkish American Council. Both Turkey and Israel were intimately involved with the Afghan mujaheddin, including the forces that later coalesced around bin Laden. Some 60,000 rifles and 100 million rounds of ammunition were withdrawn from Turkish army stocks for delivery to the mujaheddin, although some of the weapons found their way into the hands of the Iranians, according to Middle East expert and veteran former ABC news correspondent John Cooley in his thought provoking and well researched book Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, a book the CIA for years attempted to suppress. According to Ahmad Rashid in his excellent book, Taliban, "Israel saw the Taliban as an anti-Iranian force which could be used to undermine Iranian influence in Afghanistan and Central Asia." Rashid also states that later, "Turkey also played a role in turning around Israel's policy in Afghanistan" because "the Israelis and more significantly some Jewish lobbies in the USA were not initially critical of the Taliban." That Israel and Turkey may have been cooperating in an espionage ring inside the FBI should not be a surprise—their intelligence agencies had been cooperating for a number of years, especially in Afghanistan.


Similarly, according to George Crile's most revealing book about the U.S. support for the mujaheddin, Charlie Wilson's War, Israel and Pakistan, although lacking diplomatic relations, cooperated in secretly upgrading Pakistan's Chinese-made T-55 tanks and providing support to the mujaheddin. It is noteworthy to point out that bin Laden's vitriol against Israel has been a relatively recent development. Long before he denounced Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, bin Laden remained focused on the expulsion of "infidel" U.S. troops from the Arabian Peninsula, especially Saudi Arabia.


Support for the embryonic "al Qaeda" and its Wahhabi/Saudi/Salafist/ISI-affiliated mujaheddin allies was largely the work of big business-owned and operated Texas politicians like the nightclubbing bon vivant former Representative Charlie Wilson. Mirroring the early life styles of Wilson and George W. Bush, Osama bin Laden spent the 1970s in Beirut nightclubs engaging in heavy drinking and fighting over women.


The bin Laden family had a long association with Texas. Osama's older brother Salem was a financier of George W. Bush's oil businesses. The bin Laden family and their Saudi financial colleagues owned Texas airlines, airports, and real estate. Because of the intensive lobbying efforts (all documented in Crile's book) carried out with the help of Texans like Houston socialite and TV personality Joanne Herring, Baron and Baroness di Portanova, and Vice President George H. W. Bush, in concert with Richard Perle, former New Hampshire Senator Gordon Humphrey, the Congressional Jewish Caucus, and the ever-enigmatic shady operator Richard Armitage, radicals like bin Laden and his associates, Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri and Professor Abdul Rasul Sayyaf (the founder of a Saudi-financed and ISI-organized "Terrorist University," which spawned the Philippine terrorist "Abu Sayyaf Group"), were able to cobble together an impressive jihadist army armed with stockpiles of Soviet-made weapons from Egypt, captured Soviet weapons from Israel, and tons of cash from billionaire Saudi benefactors.


George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush's Florida election "fixer" and newly-named Bush debate coach James Baker III have both been honored guests, according to The Wall Street Journal, at the bin Laden family's palatial headquarters in Jeddah. With the active support of Pakistan's military dictator Mohammed Zia Ul-Haq (who was killed along with the U.S. ambassador, Pakistan's ISI chief Akhtar Abdul Rahman, and others in a mysterious 1988 plane crash determined by an unpublished Pakistani court of inquiry report to have been cause by the pilot being knocked out by gas in the cockpit), the Afghan mujaheddin became increasingly radicalized in the Wahhabi traditions. Out of Saudi-nurtured and Pakistani-organized madrasas would come future Taliban leaders like Mullah Mohammed Omar.


Senator Ted Kennedy was in the Senate in the late 1970s and 1980s and he must have experienced déjà vu as some of these same Texas interests championed the war against Iraq and the demarche to the Taliban to deal with the United States on the proposed UNOCAL trans-Afghan CentGas pipeline or face a "carpet of bombs." Kennedy correctly stated that the Iraq war was cooked up in Texas to benefit a Bush in the White House. So was America's support for the mujaheddin and bin Laden in Afghanistan although the main beneficiary was a previous Bush in the White House.


Notwithstanding page 56 of the 9/11 Commission Report, which states " . . . bin Ladin and his comrades had their own sources of support and training, and they received little or no assistance from the United States," the United States and its Saudi allies funneled millions of dollars to bin Laden and his mujaheddin forces through Pakistani interlocutors. Of bin Laden, Cooley writes, "Through his own personal reputation as a pious Muslim who favored the cause of Wahhabi Islamism . . . he seemed to both Saudi intelligence and the CIA an ideal choice for the leading role he began to play [in the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan]." The decision to groom bin Laden as an American agent of influence among the mujaheddin came at the same time William Casey, an elderly and drooling version of Austin Powers' "Dr. Evil," headed the CIA. Cooley adds, "Delighted by his impeccable Saudi credentials, the CIA gave Osama free rein in Afghanistan, as did Pakistan's intelligence generals." Cooley posits that the CIA was more than happy to see a buildup of Wahhabi Sunni power in Afghanistan to serve as a counterweight to Iranian Shi'ism being advocated by the Ayatollah Khomeini. This is the very same reasoning that Ahmad Rashid reasoned was behind Israel's support for the Taliban. And when bin Laden was victorious with his 50 Arab mujaheddin over 200 Soviet troops in the Battle of Ali Khel, he became an instant hero: "bin Laden, the Hero of the Battle of Ali Khel," a folk hero the United States and Israel could use to their advantage. Support for the mujaheddin and bin Laden (whose CIA code name was "Abu Abdullah") was a decision that Langley and Tel Aviv would come to regret. (The Israelis have experienced two such "blowbacks." They also created Hamas as a counterweight to Yasir Arafat's Fatah movement).


Perle, according to Crile's book, actually wanted to use Afghanistan as a playground for all sorts of fantastic schemes, including a campaign by the mujaheddin to entice Soviet soldiers to defect to their side. One CIA clandestine services officer, Gust Avrakotos, called North and Perle "cuckoos of the Far Right" and called them idiots to their faces. Fast forward to today and we see Perle and North both involved as cheerleaders for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. These "cuckoos of the Far Right" convinced the world that American troops would be welcomed by undulating Iraqis throwing flowers and sweets at American jeeps and tanks. Instead, Iraq has now become a welcomed haven for followers of bin Laden, just as parts of Afghanistan remain in the hands of his supporters.


Bin Laden may whisper every day the same thing he said of Reagan, "I like Bush. He believes in God. He's helping us. He's better than the others." Others like Bill Clinton who launched a cruise missile attack against bin Laden in Afghanistan but only after the ISI tipped off the Saudi exile that the missiles were on their way. Others like John Kerry who investigated how bin Laden and his cronies received their funding through BCCI and Saudi interlocutors in networks that reached right into the office of Vice President George H. W. Bush and William Casey's CIA. This, of course, should come as no shock to those who have followed and continue to follow the dastardly deeds of the Bush/Saudi/Pakistani/Bin Laden/Carlyle Group cartel and their international machinations.


And it should come as no shock that the only people who suffered as a result of the 9/11 attack three years ago have been Americans, who have seen their basic civil liberties thrashed and burned and their best and brightest military men and women sacrificed in a senseless war in Iraq; Afghans, who have seen their country ravaged by continuous death and destruction from a resurgent Taliban and al Qaeda and U.S. "collateral damage" and "friendly fire;" and Iraqis, who have been subjected to death, turmoil, and even torture and sexual molestation by a coalition of the coerced and mercenary soldiers of fortune and lawless brigands acting on behalf of the Bush White House political apparatchiks.


Counterterrorism expert and journalist Peter Bergen commented at the Cato conclave, "the Iraq war was a Christmas present for Osama bin Laden." Yes, one can hear bin Laden murmuring over and over again from his own secret undisclosed location, "I like Bush even more than I liked Reagan."


Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based journalist and syndicated columnist. He is author of the forthcoming book "Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops and Brass Plates."