Do not mock, backbit or lie about others

Explanation of Sura Humaza (Quran: Chapter 104)

The Surah's Name

The 104th chapter of the Qur'an is called Humaza as well as in most of the books of tafsir. Imam al-Bukhari in his Sahih, as well as some other scholars of tafsir, referred to this chapter with the title, "Woe to every slanderer and backbiter" - the first ayat. The great scholar of the Arabic Language, al-Fayruzabadi, wrote in his book that its name is Al-Hutama [the Constant Crusher].

Period of Revelation, Number of Verses and Chronology

Scholars agree that Surat al-Humaza was revealed in Mecca. They also agree that it consists of 9 verses. It was the 32nd chapter sent to the Prophet Muhammad (Allah's peace and blessings be upon him), after the revelation of Surat al-Qiyamah and before Surat al-Mursalat.

Why Was It Sent?

It is narrated that Surat al-Humaza was sent due to a group of the Meccan polytheists who insulted the fledging community of the Prophet by spreading lies about them. This vile group consisted of Walid bin al-Mughirah al-Makhzumi, Umyah the son of Khalaf, al-'As the son of Wail, who we discussed in great detail earlier [see the explanation of Surah Al-Kawthar], and Jamil the son of M'amar from the tribe of Jum'a. Jamil would later be guided to Islam, accepting it on the day Mecca was conquered. These men were considered the leaders of the Qur'aish and the greatest enemies of Islam.

Objectives

This chapter is a strong warning from Allah to the polytheists of Mecca who slandered Muslims, seeking to weaken their resolve, and shaking their commitment to Islam.
While the chapter was directed to this group of people, it presents itself in a way that acts as a warning to anyone who engages in mocking, backbiting and lying about others.
The truth will always have its enemies; that is the nature of the higher struggle. Allah uses these stern words as a reminder to the enemies, while this use of harsh words is something that the people of truth should expect and prepare for.

Verse 1

"Woe to every scorner and mocker." (Qur'an, 104:1)

The word "woe" in Arabic implies destruction or evil for its object, carrying with it the feeling of a supplication being made against a person or group of people. However, Sibaway, the great Arabist, noted that this is not always the case. For example, "Woe to those who alter measures," in Surah Mutaffifin is not a supplication but an account of the actual words people said about those who cheat. Imam Ibn 'Ashur states that in this surah the word "woe" carries the meaning of a supplication directed at someone.

"Every"

This implies that there was more than one person involved in insulting the Prophet's community, making the threat of this chapter relevant to anyone who acquires these evil habits.

"Scorner and mocker"

Both "humaza" and "lumaza" are in the fu`al (فعل) form. This implies that the verb's subject engaged in the act so much, it became a habit (sigh al-mubalagh). For example, if a person laughs a lot, the Arabs would say duhak, and for a hard-hearted person who abuses his riding animal hutam, signifying his lack of mercy and constant abuse.

Appreciating the Early Muslims

As noted above, the form fu`ala is used to show excessiveness. However, if one wanted to show even greater excess in describing a person, he could add the letter "ha" ة to the end of the noun. Thus, "Humaz" becomes "Humaza!" This is important in learning to appreciate the struggles and sacrifices of the early Muslims. When we are in school or at work and people say things about us as Muslims, let us reflect on this chapter and the struggles of the early Muslims, using their example as a source of strength.

"Scorner"

This word "humaza" comes from a word which means to insult another by using non-verbal communication. Here, and with the next word "lumaza", it is an adjective whose noun is omitted, "Woe to every person who scorns others." One may ask: why was the noun left out? In Arabic language, and this is something amazing, if the noun is omitted and its adjective is left, it is a sign that the adjective takes the place of the noun - meaning it can stand on its own as a descriptive because the person has mastered it (scorning) so well, that it is by this description that they are known. This technique is used to praise or dress down a person depending on the context. Ponder on that!

"Mocker"

"Lumaza" means to insult others in a way that causes them grief, and its form carries the same meaning as "humaza" above.

An Important Principle

There is an important principle related to the Qur'an: "Any bad quality that is associated with the polytheists of Mecca, believers should avoid and eradicate within themselves if it exists." Meaning, if a person engages in these types of actions, he declares himself eligible for the same threat directed to the polytheists of Mecca!

Verse 2


"Who collects wealth and [continuously] counts it." (Qur'an, 104:2)

Collecting wealth is mentioned here to insult those mentioned in the previous verse. Allah is saying here that not only do they scorn and insult others, but they are also miserly and love wealth. This also strengthens the argument that these verses were sent regarding the Quraysh leader mentioned above, because they were rich and miserly. For that reason, "Who" is an adjective to "scorner" and "mocker."

"Continuously counts it"

The last word in verse two is "`addadah." Its form is f'aal with a shadda. This implies that person does not count it once or twice, but constantly, beyond the norm. The same form is applied to the word "jama`a" (جمع) "collects" in other authentic readings of the Qur'an: Ibn 'Amir, Hamza, al-Kisai and Abu J'afar. Thus, "collects" becomes "constantly collects." It is also possible that the meaning is, and Allah knows best, that this person has many different kinds of wealth.

Verse 3


"He thinks that his wealth will make him immortal." (Qur'an, 104:3)

It is possible that this is a phrase that represents his state while continuously counting his wealth. With that in mind, this sentence represents one of the most difficult means of expression in the Arabic language. This is an example of Arabic speech that showed the Qur'an's miraculous nature and caused the Arabs to surrender to its greatness. While the sentence is a conditional one that reflects the "scorner's" state of mind, it also reflects a greater meaning which is not as apparent, by using an example.

It is also possible that this is an independent sentence that is the predicate of "أ" which, as we discussed before, carries the meaning of "Can you believe?" Meaning, "[Can you believe] he thinks that his wealth will make him immortal!?" Here, this proposition is hidden because it is actually obvious, and also to keep the flow of the chapter.

"Make him immortal"

Perhaps a better translation is, "Made him immortal" since the form is in the past tense. Scholars noted that past tense is used here to show that the idea is so certain in this person's mind, that it is though in his mind it has already occurred!

Summary

This person's harboring of wealth is such that he is like a person who counts his money, thinking that each penny will save him from death, making him immortal. This is because this person does not believe in the Hereafter, so his ultimate pleasure is to live forever in this life.

Verse 4

"No! He will surely be thrown into the Crusher." (Qur'an, 104:4)

The opening word "kalla," translated as "no" above, carries with it the meaning of negation but with an added twist: negation with an insult. This expanded means, "No - there is no way his wealth will immortalize him!" Perhaps to really taste it is to phrase it in modern language, "He's trippin'! His money is not going to do that!"

"Surely be thrown into the Crusher"

The third letter "la" ل is used for "surely" and it carries with it the meaning of "I swear." That is, "I swear - he will be thrown into the Crusher."

"Thrown"

The word "nabadh" means to throw someone with force into something they hate. That is why it is used in another verse, "Thus, we seized him, his army and caste them into the sea" (Qur'an, 28:40) when talking about Pharaoh and his soldiers.

Verse 5

"And what can make you know what is the Crusher?" (Qur'an, 104:5)

"Crusher"

The word "Hutam" means to crush over and over again. It is one of the names for Hell given by the Qur'an, and it was not used this way before by the Arabs. A question arises again - why was the ة added to its ending? How does this change the meaning? See verse one above and recall fu`al and fu`alah!

This ayat asks, "What, or who, could express to you the reality of the Crusher "Hutamah"?" The name Crusher is used again instead of the pronoun "it." This is called "Idhar fi Maqaam al-Idmaar" (إظهار في مقام الإضمار) and is used for emphasizing. The same usage is found in the beginnings of Surah al-Qari`ah and Surah al-Haqqah. It means that the noun is used in place of its pronoun for emphasis so it draws the listeners' attention. Thus, instead of "And what can make you know what it is," we have, "And what can make you know what is the Crusher?"

Verse 6

"It is the fire of Allah, [eternally] fueled." (Qur'an, 104:6)

This is the answer to the question above, "And what is the Hutama?" The answer: "The fire of Allah!"

"Fire of Allah"

This expression signifies that this fire was created by the One Who is the All Powerful, the Mighty.

"Eternally fueled"

The active participle is used, carrying the meaning of an imperfect tense, meaning it will not stop. This is important because it is a response to the one who thought his property would immortalize him. In fact, the only thing that he will spend eternity in is the fire of God!

Verse 7

"Which mounts directed at the hearts." (Qur'an, 104:7)

This is the second description of God's fire after "eternally fueled."

There are two meanings here that need to be addressed. First, "mounts" means it will burn so fast that it will "reach" the hearts and the body simultaneously. Based on that, I prefer the meaning "reaches." The other meaning of "tala`a" is to uncover or witness. This would imply that each person's heart will be burned according to the level of kufr in his heart! Reflect on such consequences!


Verse 8

"Indeed, Hellfire will be closed down upon them." (Qur'an, 104:8)

This is the third description of God's fire. It is also possible that it is an independent sentence used for emphasis.

"Closed Down"

"M'usada," also read "musada," is the passive tense for the word "usad" (أوصد) which means to shut completely. This implies their state in Hell is like a person put in a deep, dark prison, who hears the heavy rust of a massive door shut forever! However, the meaning here is even stronger. Not only is it shut, but also it is shut from high above. Therefore there is no hope of reaching the door, and there is no hope of getting out!

Verse 9

"In extended columns." (Qur'an, 104:9)

This could be a conditional phrase, reflecting the state of the people in Hell; drawn and chained to pillars by their necks and their ankles. It could also be a conditional phrase to signify the state of "Hellfire" as described in verse eight. Meaning, the fire was in high pillars. Both images are not comforting - they are terrifying - implying that height of the fire and the degree of punishment is set for these people scorn and mock.

We ask Allah for His protection.

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The day I met Abdul Sattar Edhi, a living saint

Alhamdulilah this man is a living saint and a true example of one that serves and pleases only Allah.






In the course of my duties as a reporter, I have met presidents, prime ministers and reigning monarchs.
Until meeting the Pakistani social worker Abdul Sattar Edhi, I had never met a saint. Within a few moments of shaking hands, I knew I was in the presence of moral and spiritual greatness.

Mr Edhi's life story is awesome, as I learnt when I spent two weeks working at one of his ambulance centres in Karachi.
The 82-year-old lives in the austerity that has been his hallmark all his life. He wears blue overalls and sports a Jinnah cap, so named because it was the head gear of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.

No Pakistani since Jinnah has commanded the same reverence, and our conversations were constantly interrupted as people came to pay their respects.
Mr Edhi told me that, 60 years ago, he stood on a street corner in Karachi and begged for money for an ambulance, raising enough to buy a battered old van. In it, he set out on countless life-saving missions.

Gradually, Mr Edhi set up centres all over Pakistan. He diversified into orphanages, homes for the mentally ill, drug rehabilitation centres and hostels for abandoned women. He fed the poor and buried the dead. His compassion was boundless.
He was born in 1928, when the British Empire was at its height, in Gujarat in what is now western India. But he and his family were forced to flee for their lives in 1947 when the division of India and creation of Pakistan inspired terrible communal tensions: millions were killed in mob violence and ethnic cleansing.
This was the moment Mr Edhi, finding himself penniless on the streets of Karachi, set out on his life's mission.

Just 20 years old, he volunteered to join a charity run by the Memons, the Islamic religious community to which his family belonged.
At first, Mr Edhi welcomed his duties; then he was appalled to discover that the charity's compassion was confined to Memons.

He confronted his employers, telling them that "humanitarian work loses its significance when you discriminate between the needy".
So he set up a small medical centre of his own, sleeping on the cement bench outside his shop so that even those who came late at night could be served.
But he also had to face the enmity of the Memons, and became convinced they were capable of having him killed. For safety, and in search of knowledge, he set out on an overland journey to Europe, begging all the way.
One morning, he awoke on a bench at Rome railway station to discover his shoes had been stolen. He was not bothered, considering them inessential.

Nevertheless, the next day an elderly lady gave him a pair of gumboots, two sizes too large, and Mr Edhi wobbled about in them for the remainder of his journey.
In London, he was a great admirer of the British welfare state, though he presciently noted its potential to encourage a culture of dependency. He was offered a job but refused, telling his benefactor: "I have to do something for the people in Pakistan."

On return from Europe, his destiny was set. There was no welfare state in Fifties Pakistan: he would fill the gap. This was a difficult period in his life. Shabby, bearded and with no obvious prospects, seven women in rapid succession turned down his offers of marriage. He resigned himself to chastity and threw all of his energy into work.

He would hurtle round the province of Sindh in his poor man's ambulance, collecting dead bodies, taking them to the police station, waiting for the death certificate and, if the bodies were not claimed, burying them himself.
Mr Edhi's autobiography, published in 1996, records that he recovered these stinking cadavers "from rivers, from inside wells, from road sides, accident sites and hospitals… When families forsook them, and authorities threw them away, I picked them up… Then I bathed and cared for each and every victim of circumstance."
There is a photograph of Mr Edhi from this formative time. It could be the face of a young revolutionary or poet: dark beard, piercing, passionate eyes. And it is indeed the case that parts of his profound and moving autobiography carry the same weight and integrity as great poetry or even scripture.

Mr Edhi discovered that many Pakistani women were killing their babies at birth, often because they were born outside marriage.
One newborn child was stoned to death outside a mosque on the orders of religious leaders. A furious Mr Edhi responded: "Who can declare an infant guilty when there is no concept of punishing the innocent?"
So Mr Edhi placed a little cradle outside every Edhi centre, beneath a placard imploring: "Do not commit another sin: leave your baby in our care." Mr Edhi has so far saved 35,000 babies and, in approximately half of these cases, found families to cherish them.

Once again, this practice brought him into conflict with religious leaders. They claimed that adopted children could not inherit their parents' wealth. Mr Edhi told them their objections contradicted the supreme idea of religion, declaring: "Beware of those who attribute petty instructions to God."
Over time, Mr Edhi came to exercise such a vast moral authority that Pakistan's corrupt politicians had to pay court. In 1982, General Zia announced the establishment of a shura (advisory council) to determine matters of state according to Islamic principles.

Mr Edhi was suspicious: "I represented the millions of downtrodden, and was aware that my presence gave the required credibility to an illegal rule."
Travelling to Rawalpindi to speak at the national assembly, he delivered a passionate denunciation of political corruption, telling an audience of MPs, including Zia himself: "The people have been neglected long enough.
"One day they shall rise like mad men and pull down these walls that keep their future captive. Mark my words and heed them before you find yourselves the prey instead of the predator."

Mr Edhi did not distinguish between politicians and criminals, asking: "Why should I condemn a declared dacoit [bandit] and not condemn the respectable villain who enjoys his spoils as if he achieved them by some noble means?"
This impartiality had its advantages. It meant that a truce would be declared when Mr Edhi and his ambulance arrived at the scene of gun battles between police and gangsters.

"They would cease fire," notes Mr Edhi in his autobiography, "until bodies were carried to the ambulance, the engine would start and shooting would resume."
Mr Edhi eventually found a wife, Bilquis, but his personal austerity was all but incompatible with married life. When the family went on Hajj, a vast overland journey in the ambulance, he forbade Bilquis to bring extra clothes, because he was determined to fill the vehicle with medical supplies.
Reaching Quetta in northern Baluchistan, with the temperature plunging, he relented enough to allow her to buy a Russian soldier's overcoat. Later on, when their children grew up, Mr Edhi would not find time to attend his daughter's marriage.
But Mr Edhi's epic achievement would not have been possible but for this inhuman single-mindedness. Today, the influence of the Edhi Foundation stretches far outside Pakistan and Mr Edhi has led relief missions across the Muslim world, providing aid at every international emergency from the Lebanon civil war in 1983 to the Bangladesh cyclone in 2007.

There are no horrors that Mr Edhi and his incredibly brave army of ambulance men have not witnessed, and the numerous lives they have saved.
The story of Mr Edhi coincides with the history of the Pakistan state. More than any other living figure, he articulates Jinnah's vision of a country which, while based on Islam, nevertheless offers a welcome for people of all faiths and sects. Indeed, the life of Mr Edhi provides a sad commentary on the betrayal of Jinnah's Pakistan by a self-interested political class.

One evening, as the sun set over Karachi, I asked Mr Edhi what future he foresaw. "Unless things change," he said, "I predict a revolution."

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My Mum is Amazing - Allah Knows by Zain Bhikha

Alhamdulilah : Mothers are amazing, appreciate your mother today and everyday!

For some Latinos Islam is simple

Milena recently began attending Qur’an classes on Wednesday nights at the North Hudson Islamic Center in Union City, New Jersey.

Milena is one of thousands of Latino Americans who has converted to Islam. She embraced the fast-growing religion four weeks ago. Milena has been married to her husband, who is originally a Pakistani-Muslim, for seven years. Despite their long marriage, she had always refused to convert just for her spouse’s sake.

Like many Puerto Ricans, she was a regular Catholic churchgoer with a strong faith. After her first son’s birth, she started to consider Islam.
“I became interested in learning about Islam without converting, because our son is going to be raised as a Muslim. That is how my interest in Islam started.” she said.

So far Milena has been satisfied with the learning process.
“I am seeking knowledge, I am hungry for knowledge. I am really excited about what I feel,” she said.
The new convert has adapted herself rapidly into her new life, so much so that the Imam and other students do not recognize her immediately.

For the first time, Milena wore a veil covering up her hair.
“Last Sunday, I went to a hijab party," she said. "I didn’t know how to wear one. It was a really nice experience. And this is the first time, I am wearing it today.”

But she confesses “I was a bit reluctant because I didn’t know how anyone would react to me. But that was fine. I feel good. I feel proud.”
That night, four other Latino Muslims attended the Islamic class. Among them was Nylka Vargas, who has been a Muslim for 15 years.

Coming from a Peruvian-Ecuadorian family, she was born and raised in New Jersey. Nylka chose Islam because she said she "had a yearning to know God and I didn’t believe in things that I learned as a Christian. I believed in a higher power. I was looking for the truth, the connection between the believer and the Creator."

“Islam taught me a lot of discipline. And Islam is perfectly aligned: the prayers and its time. Why things are done. It is flexibility but discipline.”

According to a study led by Samantha Sanchez, one of the founders of Latino American Dawah Organization (LADO), the most attractive part of Islam to spirituality seeking Latinos is its strict monotheistic orientation and structured belief system.

Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, currently the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, of American University in Washington DC, agrees.

“Because Latinos are coming from Catholic background, which is a fairly ordered world, to America where is completely free, sometimes they find an alternative in Islam, where they see an order," he said. "At the same time, because they are coming from a Catholic background, they also see some echoes in Islam of their own faith. For example, Catholics have a very high reverence for Mary, the mother of Jesus, so that is something they very much appreciate.”

Imam Shamsi Ali of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York says he has a similar point of view.

"The most important reason why many Latinos embrace Islam is because they are naturally religious people as Catholic or Christian, so they are more inclined to religion," he said. "That’s why they can turn to Islam.”

Without any census based on the religious beliefs in United States, it is difficult to give a precise figure of Latinos who have converted to Islam within the country.

Yet, it was estimated at about 200,000 in 2006, by the American Muslim Council. Young and educated women make up a large part of this group.

”More than 60 percent of converts are women these last few years”, Ali said, who has also noted an increase of conversions to Islam after 9/11 attacks. “The majority of those who became Muslims after 9/11 are from the Latino community. Maybe more that 60 percent of those who converted to Islam in America are Latinos”.

The tragic event seems to have aroused people’s interest in Islam, who want to understand what the religion is all about.

Such is the case for Mustafa, born to Catholic parents from Puerto Rican. Mustafa started to search for answers in the Qur’an after the attacks.

“Once I started to read the Qur’an the first time, I said this is true," he said. "I have to testify to it.”

But he explains that it was a long process that stretched from 2001 through 2007, before his conversion.

“I was still young, into partying," he said. "So it took me a transition from that time when I first read the Qur’an until I took my Shahaada (testimony of faith in the Oneness of God and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad).”

Many Muslim organizations have stated that the Latino Muslim community has tripled or quadrupled since 9/11.

Ahmed explains that there has been “so much literature on Islam. If you are an American, and day and night people are saying Islam is bad, Islam is terrorism, so you may pick up a book on Islam and what do you see? No, Islam is saying something else. In that sense, the interest in Islam has gone up since 9/11.”

Conversion to Islam by Latinos may also be seen as a look back to their Spanish roots, which is embedded in Islamic history for 800 years in Granada, Cordova, Seville and Andalusia.

“There is a kind of reawakening," Nylka Vargas. "We want to discover our roots, our ancestries. How our culture fitted into Islam. It’s amazing, I have seen how our community has transformed.
There is more availability of Islamic information in Spanish. Islam is not so much seen as something foreign. That misconception is going away. Now it is our religion too. Islam is not for others only, it is for all. ”

The largest communities of Latino Muslims exist in areas, unsurprisingly, that have the highest concentrations of Latinos, such as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and other urban centers. According to an ongoing survey led by LADO, California is the state with the most Latino Muslims.

In his essay, Latino Conversion to Islam, Khalil Salgado, currently the secretary of the League of Latin American Muslim Organizations, puts forward five factors that have lead Latinos to accept Islam.

From the 1960s until the mid-1990’s, Latino conversions seem to be the results of the interactions between Puerto Ricans and African-Americans, who were the first Muslims. From the mid-1990’s, the explosion of Internet has facilitated connections between people thus many Latinos have gotten connected to other people around the world including with Muslim people.

Another factor is that Latinos have been living among Muslim immigrants.

“In the post-9/11 period, most Latinos have come to learn about Islam primarily from their interactions with immigrant Muslims,” Salgado said.

The two remaining factors, which “are not restricted to any particular time period” are “the conversion in prison” and the “conversion through marriage.”

From Puerto Rican family, Salgado, a 33 year-old, is himself a converted Muslim. Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, he became Muslim in 1995.

He then went to Mecca and Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia where he attended Arabic and Islamic studies. He is now a teacher at the Islamic school in Nashville Tenn.

Like Salgado, Anthony Umar Navarro, an American-Puerto Rican with a Catholic background, also chose to go abroad to learn Arabic and Islamic studies.

He currently resides in Egypt with his wife. He says, he is trying “to learn how to live like the Prophet without all of the distractions that the "modern" era has brought with it.”

Umar confesses that before he became Muslim he "got into tons of troubles on the streets -fighting every day, being arrested by police. I really didn't care much about anything until I witnessed my best friend get murdered. Now that my best friend was gone I needed to know where he was.”

A short time later, he came across a Muslim Dominican who was also dealing with the streets and was befriended by the troubled youth, which led Umar to discover Islam.

“I took my Shahaadah two months before my 21st birthday and left the streets life alone“.
In embracing Islam, Latino Muslims change part of their life spiritually and physically.

“Before there was nothing to scare me, now I am scared of only thing and it is about Allah," he said." It changed my life. It makes me a fearful man. It makes me also patient. I had never had any kind of patience.”

Born in a Catholic Puerto Rican family, he explains that “the hardest part is watching what you eat. You have to be more aware of everything you do, aware what time is it for your prayers. But it is just a transition.”

For over two months, Ziyad has taken Qur’an and Arabic classes at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York to develop a better understanding of the religious texts. Gina* has also started attending the same class, after having embraced Islam over two months ago. She was born and raised in New York, with an ancestry from Panama and Dominican Republic. She has not told her parents about her conversion, but recently opened up to her sister, who she says “made a couple of comments and repeated what the media says. But when I started to explain to her certain things she understands it more now.”

Gina finds it regrettable that “there are a lot of misunderstandings that people have about Islam and they feel that it’s the truth because what they hear on television.”

The rise of Latinos who have converted to Islam in the United States might also have an impact beyond the American borders.

Ali tells this story: “In Nicaragua there was no mosque in the past, but recently a business woman from New York, who became Muslim, went back to Managua and she bought a house that she turned into a house of worship, a mosque. So there is some influence.”

Today, Latino Muslims seem to face a double challenge in America: ethnic and religious.

*Gina, is a substitute name to perserve her anonymity.

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A killing in Gaza that also carries a warning to Israel

Comment: IslamAwareness strongly condemns the cowardly murder of this brave and wonderful human being by evil terrrorists who are utterly misguided. May Allah give punish them and give brother Vittorio justice, InshaAllah.


The kidnapping and killing of Vittorio Arrigoni in Gaza is exactly what the Italian foreign ministry statement said it was: "An act of vile and senseless violence."

Arrigoni was no novice; he had lived in Gaza for several years, working for the International Solidarity Movement, a group committed to non-violent resistance against Israel's occupation of Palestinian land. There was no reason for Palestinians to treat him as anything other than the sincerest of friends.

This is not the only inexplicable element in his fate. His captors appear to have been members of the Salafist movement, a group that regards Hamas as unduly moderate. Their declared purpose was to secure the release of their leader, who was detained by the Hamas authorities last month. But Arrigoni died several hours before the expiry of the deadline they had imposed, suggesting either that something went wrong from the start or that they quickly abandoned hope of attaining their objective.

The killing prompted grief in Gaza, but also despair. Not only was Arrigoni well known and well liked there, but it escaped no one that this kidnapping was the first since that of the BBC journalist Alan Johnson in 2007. The intervening four years – crudely interrupted by Operation Cast Lead, Israel's 2008 reinvasion of the territory – had seen Hamas gradually more able to impose order. Missile attacks on Israel had declined and kidnappings of foreigners had ceased. It must be feared that the death of Arrigoni signals a change. With missile attacks on Israel from Gaza also increasing in recent weeks, the relative calm is at risk of breaking down. Lawlessness, never far from the surface in Gaza, could be on its way back, with implications for the territory, for the Palestinian cause, for Israel, and for the, currently moribund, prospects of peace in the Middle East.

Two factors can be identified as fostering current tensions – one that can be addressed; the other harder to tame. The first is the continuing Israeli blockade, which has helped to create and now exacerbates tensions in Gaza. Loosening the blockade is the only way that the pressure inside the densely populated territory can be relieved. Allowing in more goods, including especially medical supplies and building materials, would bring a rapid improvement of conditions inside Gaza, with hospitals better able to function, more productive work, and an acceleration of reconstruction. It is unfortunate that Israel's automatic response to renewed violence in Gaza is to tighten the blockade, without apparently understanding that this invariably serves only to reinforce the malign trends.

The other factor is the spread of unrest across the wider region. With Egypt still in ferment, protests in Syria showing no sign of abating and a new Jordanian government only just holding the line, Gaza inhabits a deeply troubled neighbourhood. What is more, it shares many of those countries' most problematical features: a very young population, an acute lack of employment, and serious obstacles to political engagement. With so much turmoil gathering around, the very last thing Israel needs is chaos in Gaza. But it needs to recognise that it holds the keys to making that less likely in its own hands. Self-interest, as well as the benefit to Gaza, dictates that it should relax the blockade.

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Maher Zain - Always be There!

Remedy for ignorance

Alhamdulilah wonderful excerpt from the book by Malauna Wahiduddin, one of the greatest Islamic scholars produced by India in my humble opinion.

According to a tradition, the Prophet of Islam once remarked: "The remedy for ignorance is asking questions." If the ignorant man does not inquire; his ignorance will stay with him. But if he has a questioning mind, some knowledgeable person will answer him, and he will no longer remain ignorant.

There is a saying in Arabic to the same effect: To know that you do not know is half the knowledge itself. If an ignorant person is not aware of his ignorance, he will continue to remain in the same state. But when he becomes aware of his ignorance, he sets about seeking for knowledge.

He will try to turn his ignorance into knowledge. In this way his awareness of his ignorance will become the stepping stone leading towards full and comprehensive knowledge.

This is called, in present-day speech, "the spirit of inquiry", and is given extensive importance. It is this spirit of inquiry which has played the greatest role in bringing about the age of science. It is the zeal to discover which has led humankind to knowledge. In ancient times the phenomena of nature were considered to be manifestations of God. The sight of the manifestations of nature, therefore, aroused in man the spirit of worship. It was only when these natural phenomena were divested of their divinity that the spirit of inquiry could be aroused in man. As a result, many of the mysteries of; nature now lie unraveled.

An inquisitive mind is an absolutely essential element for the acquisition of knowledge. Only those who are possessed of this quality will achieve great success in intellectual and academic fields. Those devoid of this spirit will remain static, and will fall short in reaching their fullest potential.

It is this spirit which is the foundation of all progress.



Excerpted from the book Simple Wisdom by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

Love her, Hate him!

God has forbidden the believers from backbiting

O you who believe! Avoid much suspicion, in deeds some suspicions are sins. And spy not neither backbite one another. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? You would hate it (so hate backbiting). And fear God, verily, God is the one who accepts repentance, Most Merciful. (49: 12)

Origins of poisoning of the Western mind against Islam

Muhammad Asad, Leopold Weiss, was born in Livow, Austria (later Poland) in 1900, and at the age of 22 made his first visit to the Middle East. After his conversion to Islam he traveled and worked throughout the Muslim world, from North Africa to as far East as Afghanistan. After years of devoted study he became one of the leading Muslim scholars of our age.

Following is an excerpt form the introduction to his book "The Road to Mecca" in which he outlines a discussion about the root causes of bias against Islam and the Muslim world in the West with a non-Muslim friend. He describes his friend as "an American friend of mine - a man of considerable intellectual attainments and a scholarly bent of mind." Although he wrote this in 1954, you can decide if it is still valid today.

When it comes to Islam - Western equanimity is almost invariably disturbed by an emotional bias. Is it perhaps, I sometimes wonder, because the values of Islam are close enough to those of the West to constitute a potential challenge to many Western concepts of spiritual and social life?'

And I went on to tell him [non-Muslim friend of Muhammad Asad] of a theory which I had conceived some years ago - a theory that might perhaps help one to understand better the deep-seated prejudice against Islam so often to be found in Western literature and contemporary thought. 'To find a truly convincing explanation of this prejudice I said, 'one has to look far backward into history and try to comprehend the psychological background of the earliest relations between the Western and the Muslim worlds. What Occidentals think and feel about Islam today is rooted in impressions that were born during the Crusades.'

'The Crusades!' exclaimed my friend. 'You don't mean to say that what happened nearly a thousand years ago could still have an effect on people of the twentieth century?'

'But it does! I know it sounds incredible; but don't you remember the incredulity which greeted the early discoveries of the psychoanalysts when they tried to show that much of the emotional life of a mature person and most of those seemingly unaccountable leanings, tastes and prejudices comprised in the term "idiosyncrasies"- can be traced back to the experiences of his most formative age, his early childhood? Well, are nations and civilizations anything but collective individuals? Their development also is bound up with the experiences of their early childhood. As with children, those experiences may have been pleasant or unpleasant; they may have been perfectly rational or, alternatively, due to the child's naive misinterpretation of an event: the moulding effect of every such experience depends primarily on its original intensity. The century immediately preceding the Crusades, that is, the end of the first millennium of the Christian era, might well be described as the early childhood of Western civilization . . .'

I proceeded to remind my friend - himself an historian - that this had been the age when, for the first time since the dark centuries that followed the breakup of Imperial Rome, Europe was beginning to see its own cultural way. Independently of the almost forgotten Roman heritage, new literatures were just then coming into existence in the European vernaculars; inspired by the religious experience of Western Christianity, fine arts were slowly awakening from the lethargy caused by the warlike migrations of the Goths, Huns and Avars; out of the crude conditions of the early Middle Ages, a new cultural world was emerging. It was at that critical, extremely sensitive stage of its development that Europe received its most formidable shock - in modern parlance, a 'trauma' - in the shape of the Crusades.

The Crusades were the strongest collective impression on a civilization that had just begun to be conscious of itself. Historically speaking, they represented Europe's earliest - and entirely successful - attempt to view itself under the aspect of cultural unity. Nothing that Europe has experienced before or after could compare with the enthusiasm which the First Crusade brought into being. A wave of intoxication swept over the Continent, an elation which for the first time overstepped the barriers between states and tribes and classes. Before then, there had been Franks and Saxons and Germans, Burgundians and Sicilians, Normans and Lombards - a medley of tribes and races with scarcely anything in common but the fact that most of their feudal kingdoms and principalities were remnants of the Roman Empire and that all of them professed the Christian faith: but in the Crusades, and through them, the religious bond was elevated to a new plane, a cause common to all Europeans alike - the politico-religious concept of 'Christendom', which in its turn gave birth to the cultural concept of 'Europe'. When, in his famous speech at Clermont, in November, 1095, Pope Urban II exhorted the Christians to make war upon the 'wicked race' that held the Holy Land, he enunciated - probably without knowing it himself - the charter of Western civilization.

The traumatic experience of the Crusades gave Europe its cultural awareness and its unity; but this same experience was destined henceforth also to provide the false colour in which Islam was to appear to Western eyes. Not simply because the Crusades meant war and bloodshed. So many wars have been waged between nations and subsequently forgotten, and so many animosities which in their time seemed ineradicable have later turned into friendships. The damage caused by the Crusades was not restricted to a clash of weapons: it was, first and foremost, an intellectual damage - the poisoning of the Western mind against the Muslim world through a deliberate misrepresentation of the teachings and ideals of Islam. For, if the call for a crusade was to maintain its validity, the Prophet of the Muslims had, of necessity, to be stamped as the Anti-Christ and his religion depicted in the most lurid terms as a fount of immorality and Perversion. It was at the time of the Crusades that the ludicrous notion that slam was a religion of crude sensualism and brutal violence, of an observance of ritual instead of a purification of the heart entered the Western mind and remained there; and it was then that the name of the Prophet Muhammad - the same Muhammad who had insisted that his own followers respect the prophets of other religions-was contemptuously transformed by Europeans into 'Mahound'. The age when the spirit of independent inquiry could raise its head was as yet far distant in Europe; it was easy for the powers-that-were to sow the dark seeds of hatred for a religion and civilization that was so different from the religion and civilization of the West. Thus it was no accident that the fiery Chanson da Roland, which describes the legendary victory of Christendom over the Muslim 'heathen' in southern France, was composed not at the time of those battles but three centuries later-to wit, shortly before the First Crusade - immediately to become a kind of 'national anthem' of Europe, and it is no accident, either, that this warlike epic marks the beginning of a European literature, as distinct from the earlier, localized literatures: for hostility toward Islam stood over the cradle of European civilization.

It would seem an irony of history that the age-old Western resentment against Islam, which was religious in origin, should still persist subconsciously at a time when religion has lost most of its hold on the imagination of Western man. This, however is not really surprising. We know that a person may completely lose the religious beliefs imparted to him in his childhood while, nevertheless, some particular emotion connected with those beliefs remains, irrationally, in force throughout his later life '-and this,' I concluded, 'is precisely what happened to that collective personality, Western civilization. The shadow of the Crusades hovers over the West to this day; and all its reaction toward Islam and the Muslim world bear distinct traces of that die-hard ghost ...'

My friend remained silent for a long time. I can still see his tall, lanky figure pacing up and down the room, his hands in his coat pockets, shaking his head as if puzzled, and finally saying: 'There may be something in what you say . .. indeed, there may be, although I am not in a position to judge your "theory" offhand ... But in any case, in the light of what you yourself have just told me, don't you realize that your life, which to you seems so very simple and uncomplicated, must appear very strange and unusual to Westerners? Could you not perhaps share some of your own experiences with them? Why don't you write your autobiography? I am sure it would make fascinating reading!'

Laughingly I replied: 'Well, I might perhaps let myself be persuaded to leave the Foreign Service and write such a book. After all, writing is my original profession

In the following weeks and months my joking response imperceptibly lost the aspect of a joke. I began to think seriously about setting down the story of my life and thus helping, in however small a measure, to lift the heavy veil which separates Islam and its culture from the Occidental mind. My way to Islam had been in many respects unique: I had not become a Muslim because I had lived for a long time among Muslims - on the contrary, I decided to live among them because I had embraced Islam.

Might I not, by communicating my very personal experiences to Western readers, contribute more to a mutual understanding between the Islamic and Western worlds than I could by continuing in a diplomatic position which might be filled equally well by other countrymen of mine? After all, any intelligent man could be Pakistan's Minister to the United Nations - but how many men were able to talk to Westerners about Islam as I could? I was a Muslim - but I was also of Western origin: and thus I could speak the intellectual languages of both Islam and the West. . .

And so, toward the end of 1952,1 resigned from the Pakistan Foreign Service and started to write this book. Whether it is as 'fascinating reading' as my American friend anticipated, I cannot say. I could do no more than try to retrace from memory - with the help of only a few old notes, disjointed diary entries and some of the newspaper articles I had written at the time-the tangled lines of a development that stretched over many years and over vast expanses of geographical space.

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