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."

Ok, I'll try to keep this short. I've been contemplating the Iraq war a lot recently and I've come to these conclusions:


The U.S. war against Iraq is, obviously, wrong on so many levels. However, the liberal argument that at least America will spread Democracy to Iraq is just as weak. Iraq is not ready for democracy. If true democratic elections were to be held, Americans would not want to see who the Iraqi people choose to lead them.


Democracy cannot be forced. America was once a land for rich White free men. Women didn't vote, Blacks were slaves, Indians were non-human, and the only people who mattered were rich White guys. Democracy came from internal struggle and reform. The argument that the U.S. has to spread democracy around he world is pointless.


There has to date been no major feminist movement, no secular movement, and no ethnic movements for peace in Iraq or Afghanistan. Without these, Democracy is impossible.


So I think that the next time Americans say that the U.S. is doing the arab world a favor, we should counter that if Iraqis want democracy, they will demand it. Until then, no amount of bombs or invasions will bring it quicker. It didn't work when the British were imperializing the world and it isn't working now.


Democracy, according to Socrates, is the fairest form of government. It is also the most desireable, but it cannot be forced. It has to start from the ground up.

Did anyone get to see the Lunar eclipse? If you did, did you say the prayer?


Also..... it might be off topic for the General board... but.... can someone post the prayer?

I thought I was the only one who asked the question a long time ago..... but I've been noticing in other forums.... that women are married to non-muslim men, and are unable to revert unless they get a divorce.


What I don't find reasonable..... is that there are women.... who really want to take their shahada..... and they can't..... why break up a family and mess up kid's lives?


I'm sure people can go on living their lives and that God knows what's in their hearts... but reading something today reminded me of how I felt. That was actually the reason I decided to forget about reverting..... because it's never going to be possible.


I'm married to a Catholic man, there is now way in heaven or earth he would be a muslim.... he hates religion... and he has deeper negetive feelings for muslims. I have two small children, 5, and 3. Divorce is the only way? Why would a whole family be broken up like that?


There are women all around the world who have this problem. But I have to ask a question.....


If I said that I wanted to make shahada right now..... what would you say? No, I'm sorry you have to go to hell because you won't get a divorce? Would anyone refuse me or any Christian married woman for that matter?

Asked for details of the Prophet’s (pbuh) external appearance, Hazrat Ali (as) said – “He was of medium height, neither very tall nor very short. His complexion was pinkish white, his eyes were black; his hair was thick, glossy, and beautiful. A full beard framed his face. The hairs of his head were long, falling to his shoulders. They were black. His gait was so energetic that you would have said that he tore himself from the rock with each step, and yet at the same time he moved so lightly that with each stride he seemed not to touch the ground. But he did walk proudly, as princes do. There was so much gentleness in his face that once in his presence it was impossible to leave him; if you were hungry, you were satisfied by looking at him and thought no more of food. Any man suffering from an affliction forgot his troubles when in his presence, charmed by the gentleness of his features and his discourse. All who saw him agreed that they never met, neither before nor after, a man whose discourse was so delightful. His nose was straight; there were gaps between his teeth. Sometimes he would let the hair of his head fall naturally, at others he wore it knotted into two or four bunches. At sixty-three years, no more than fifteen hairs on his whole body had yet become white with age….” (‘Universal History’, by Tabari (d. Baghdad 310 AH).


Allah knows the best.

According to Rocky Mountain News, Colorado GOP Senate candidate Pete Coors managed to offend the American Muslim community twice in one day yesterday. He was reported saying – ‘Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus are pretty tolerant of other people's religions,’ and then offered his own interpretation of the Qur’an, saying, ‘It does tell you if you don't go along with their beliefs, you are infidel and can be subject to jihad. Radicals take it to an extreme.’


Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American Islamic Relations responded to the comments by saying ‘unfortunately it’s all too representative of Islam bashing we see in Zionist circles.’ A recent poll by CAIR found that a quarter of Americans believe a number of anti-Muslim stereotypes, and negative images of Muslims, created by Zionist media, are 16 times more prevalent than positive ones.

Written by Sister A Abdullah


There is a lot of debate among Muslims as to whether or not it is required for a Muslim woman to cover her face and hands in addition to the rest of her body when appearing in public or in front of non-Mahrem men. The purpose of this article is not to fall on either side of that debate, but to urge all Muslims to show respect for sisters who have chosen to wear either the khimar (full face covering) or the niqab (face covering which leaves the eyes exposed.) Some Muslims give these sisters a hard time, saying that they are doing above and beyond what has been commanded by Allah SWT, and that the "extreme" appearance of these fully-veiled women projects a bad image to the non-Muslims who already view the Muslim woman as weak and oppressed. They argue that such individuals, upon seeing fully-veiled Muslim women, will be "turned off" by "Islam, and we will have forever lost potential Muslim converts, or even the understanding and sympathy of the non-Muslim community.


Think about it carefully: would we ever think of criticizing a Muslim who fasts extra days outside of "Ramadan? Do we belittle the Muslims whose prayers exceed the prescribed daily five? Are we upset when Muslims give more zakat than required by Islamic Law? Of course not. We admire such people for their apparent dedication to Allah SWT, just as we should admire Muslim women who cover their faces for the same reason. Whether they veil because they take the so-called "most-conservative" viewpoint that covering the face is a requirement of Islamic Law, or because they simply believe that they will earn extra reward from our Lord and Creator for doing something more. Praise be to Allah, veiled women are engaged in halal, and that is the bottom line.


As for the question of non-Muslims being "turned off" by Islam upon seeing fully-veiled Muslim women, Muslims should not waste time and energy worrying about such matters. To the contrary, some non-Muslims are not critical of the face-veil at all and are so intrigued by it that they actually become interested in Islam as a direct result of seeing fully covered Muslim women.


One non-Muslim woman wrote about her impressions of the face-veil in our local newspaper after crossing paths with a veiled woman on a busy city street. The writer was struck by the confidence with which the Muslim woman walked, seeing all that was around her, but not being seen by others, secure in the knowledge that no man could make a lewd comment to her about her shapeless body and invisible face. She confessed a twinge of jealousy as she contemplated her own short skirt and tight blouse, realizing in a split second that, no matter how much she tried to convince herself otherwise, society's men were probably not judging her solely for her intellectual and professional capabilities. She now felt embarassed in front of the Muslim woman who must've, she imagined, felt somewhat sorry for a "liberated" western woman like herself who could not even make it from one end of the street to the other without fear of harassment. (Please note that these were the writer's own sentiments and my intention is not to put her down but to show that there is more to equal rights than rules and regulations: it also has to do with belief, mindset and the reality of how men and women interact with one another as opposed to how we think they should in a perfect world.)


Contrast this powerful piece of writing to an article authored by a Muslim woman in another newspaper. In it, the woman practically begged non-Muslims not to judge Islam by the face-veil, which, she claimed, is a mere cultural tradition having nothing to do with Islam. This article served to divide local Muslims into two camps, understandably upsetting veiled women and their families. Even if one wanted to take the "least-least conservative" point of view and say that the veil is nothing more than a cultural tradition, it should not be forgotten that such a tradition has sprung forth from a culture of Muslims who are seeking the reward and pleasure of Allah, Most High. We should, in fact, respect the sisters who, in spite of the intense scrutiny placed upon them by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, continue to veil, refusing to abandon a halal garment which provides them (and the community as a whole) with extra doses of security, honor and pride.


Islam is a light that Allah SWT puts into one's heart, and He will undoubtedly help those sincere individuals who are seeking the Straight Path to get there one way or another. It really has nothing to do with what people "think about Islam." One of the best things we can do as Muslims is to behave well, dealing with people kindly and fairly, remembering that it is ultimately up to the will of Allah, Most Glorious if a particular individual is to become a Muslim or not. We should never think that we have to change the good things about ourselves in order to attract new converts to Islam. This strategy is not only demoralizing to one's iman, but it also does not work.


In conclusion, I would like to note that I do not wear the face-veil myself (only the basic hijab) but that I do have enormous respect for the women who cover their faces. I was prompted to write this article after hearing from many of my fully-veiled sisters in faith that some of the harshest criticisms they receive are from within the American Muslim community itself and not from non-Muslims as they had anticipated before adopting the veil. I really think that all Muslims should realize how much courage and confidence it takes to veil one's self in modern-day America and that we should be their best supporters in the struggle for the Muslim woman's right to veil.

If a Jewish text mentions that Jesus (as) was supposed to be, or claimed to be God, that information was certainly obtained by Jews via Christians and Christian traditions and dogma, which had had centuries to develop, and not directly through any historical events, nor as we have seen, even from the New Testament, which Jews would certainly not waste their time studying, unless arming themselves for polemical disputes. There is absolutely no reliable independent historical evidence to be found concerning Jesus in Jewish tradition, as it is all late material, set down long after the Christians themselves had already decided to make Jesus (as) into their God.


Many Christian apologists, for example, like to take the reference to Jesus (as) in Tacitus as independent proof of his existence, when in fact, with its late date, it merely supplies proof that Christians existed, along with their beliefs and dogma, which were hardly a secret ... not that I am denying Jesus (as) existence!


For example, the great missionary, Shamoun writes:


Christian Author Michael Green quotes a rabbi named Eliezar, writing about AD 160, who writes:


"God saw that a man, son of a woman, was to come forward in the future, who would attempt to make himself God and lead the whole world astray. And if he says he is God he is a liar. And he will lead men astray, and say that he will depart and will return at the end of days." (Green, Who is this Jesus?)


Rabbi Eliezer ha-Kappar said: God gave strength to his (Balaam's) voice so that it went from one end of the world to the other, because he looked forth and beheld the nations that bow down to the sun and moon and stars, and to wood and stone, and he looked forth and saw that there was a man, born of a woman, who should rise up and seek to make himself God, and to cause the whole world to go astray. Therefore God gave power to the voice of Balaam that all the peoples of the world might hear, and thus he spake: Give heed that ye go not astray after that man, for is written, 'God is not a man that he should lie.' And if he says that he is God, he is a liar; and he will deceive and say that he departed and cometh again at the end. He saith and he shall not perform. See what is written: And he took up his parable and said, 'Alas, when God doeth this.' Balaam said, Alas, who shall live- of what nation which heareth that man who hath made himself God." (Yalkut Shimeon, according to Midrash Y'lamm'denue)


Muslims don’t have to ‘dip so low’ to prove the existence of Jesus (as). Muslims believe in Jesus’ existence, because God’s Final Testament (Holy Qur’an) says so.