veiled4allah

in memory, September 11

That whoever kills a single soul for other than a soul killed or for corruption in the earth, it is as though he had killed all of humanity together, and whoever saves the life of a single soul, it is as though he had saved the life of all of humanity together - Quran Surah al-Ma'ida ayah 32 May Allah embrace in His infinite mercy and loving forgiveness the innocents who died and may He bring swift and final justice upon those who committed such an atrocity. May we bring some good out of a terrible evil by being inspired once again to work together for justice and peace, and may we reach out with love to others instead of withdrawing in fear or lashing out in anger. Let the memory of our loss open our hearts to mourn as well the loss of innocent lives elsewhere in the world, wherever it may be happening. Let us not see only our own pain. May Allah forgive us our shortcomings and sins and help and guide us towards a better future. Ameen.

hell no

There's a heck of a lot that's been going on in the world that I haven't been posting about (sometimes, all I do is work and sleep, mostly work ;) ) but I've been posting links to my del.icio.us and visitors to the site will find new links every day up top. I did want to take the time to point everybody to Hesham Hassaballa's Hell No...Not Here, Not Ever, Not In My Name:

I categorically condemn, with every cell in my body, the attack on the Jewish Federation Building in Seattle allegedly by a Muslim-American was is "angry at Israel." According to the Seattle Times, 30-year-old Naveed Afzal Haq barged into the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle and opened fire with a handgun, killing one woman and wounding five others before he surrendered to police. According to the article, Haq has a history of mental illness, and he was recently charged with misdemeanor lewd conduct for allegedly exposing himself in public. Yet, this is neither here nor there. It is no excuse. It is simply beyond wrong for someone to attack innocent Jewish fellow Americans because he is "angry at Israel." It is hate at its ugliest, and I condemn it as forcefully as I can. It is as heinous as someone attacking a mosque in "revenge" for the acts of terror committed by so-called Muslims across the world. The conflict over there must never be transplanted over here. No matter what happens over there, you do not maim and murder representatives over here. It is as simple as that.

Preach on, brother. Added Photo caption from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Temple B'nai Torah congregational member Lynda Matthias, left, returns to the temple with Farida Hakim from a nearby mosque who came with a friend to leave flowers for shooting victim Pamela Waechter. Matthias, who did not know the Muslim women, said it's "important to pray for peace and love."

on the bombings in Jordan

Via Al-Jazeera:

Syria also condemned the attacks and reminded Jordan of its solidarity. "We have painfully learned the news that attacks aimed at hotels lead to the deaths of innocent people," a Syrian foreign affairs official was quoted as saying by the official SANA news agency. "Syria vigorously condemns these attacks and expresses its total solidarity with Jordan." No group immediately came forward to claim responsibility for the bombings. Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood strongly condemned the terrorist attacks that it said went against Islam. "These are criminal and terrorist acts which no Muslim can accept and which go against our religion," the head of the Brotherhood, Abdel Majid Zuneibat said after the attacks. "The enemies of the nation will only profit from this crime," Zuneibat said in a statement carried on state-run Petra news agency. Palestinian flags were lowered to half mast on official buildings on Thursday as leader Mahmud Abbas denounced the blasts as a "crime against humanity and Arab security".

More like this Later: Again via Al-Jazeera:

Hundreds of Jordanians have taken part in street protests denouncing terrorism in the wake of Wednesday's triple hotel bombings in the capital Amman. Chants such as "Burn in hell, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi" were heard from the demonstrators, referring to claims the leader of the al-Qaida in [ed. note: appears to be referring to al-Qaida in Iraq] group to have carried out the attacks... ..."Death to al-Zarqawi, the villain and the traitor," shouted the angry crowd comprising Jordanians of all backgrounds, including women and children. Drivers of vehicles decorated with the colourful Jordanian flags and posters of Jordan's King Abdullah II honked their horns... ...Other rallies were held across the kingdom, including one in the Red Sea port of Aqaba, where attackers using Katyusha rockets narrowly missed a US ship and killed a Jordanian soldier in August. Others were in al-Zarqawi's hometown of Zarqa and the southern city of Maan which is known to be a hub of Muslim fundamentalists. The Amman protest was organised by Jordan's 14 professional and trade unions, made up of both hardline Islamic groups and leftist political organisations, traditionally a vocal critic of King Abdullah's moderate and pro-western policies. "We're here to demonstrate our support of our government and express our love to our country and condemn in the strongest terms the heinous crime committed against Jordan by a group of terrorists," said Abdul-Fatah Kilani, president of the veterinary union. Businessman Mohammed Daoud Mheirat said: "This rotten group and those killers have nothing to do with our religion."

Added: See also here. More: The Herald Sun reports:

AT least 200,000 people marched though the centre of the Jordanian capital Amman overnight in a mass show of anger at the triple suicide bombings this month that left 59 dead, police and organisers said. Many protestors shouted slogans against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant whose group claimed the blast, chanting, "Zarqawi, from Amman, we say to you: you are a coward." Brandishing banners with the names of their tribes and which pledged their loyalty to King Abdullah II, the demonstrators appeared to have come from every corner of the country. It was by far the largest show of public fury against extremism since the November 9 blasts in Amman shattered the relative calm of the kingdom.

we are NOT silent, get it?

Just over a year ago, I started keeping a record of news stories about American Muslims engaged in outreach activities to speak up for the truth about Islam and teach non-Muslims more about it. This is not a complete collection. I used only one source: the daily emails I get from CAIR, which highlight these news stories. I only included stories that I could pull up at the time I checked them without getting a registration intercept. Many of the links may now be broken or the stories now hidden behind a registration wall. But here it is. Now, PLEASE stop claiming that Muslims are silent. That is a pernicious lie. Nearly every single day for an entire year, recorded in this log, a Muslim individual, group, or community somewhere in the United States is not only reaching out to the people where they live - but managing to get it into a newspaper. Do you and your group spend that much time on outreach? I didn't think so.

in memory, September 11

That whoever kills a single soul for other than a soul killed or for corruption in the earth, it is as though he had killed all of humanity together, and whoever saves the life of a single soul, it is as though he had saved the life of all of humanity together - Quran Surah al-Ma'ida ayah 32 May Allah embrace in His infinite mercy and loving forgiveness the innocents who died and may He bring swift and final justice upon those who committed such an atrocity. May we bring some good out of a terrible evil by being inspired once again to work together for justice and peace, and may we reach out with love to others instead of withdrawing in fear or lashing out in anger. Let the memory of our loss open our hearts to mourn as well the loss of innocent lives elsewhere in the world, wherever it may be happening. Let us not see only our own pain. May Allah forgive us our shortcomings and sins and help and guide us towards a better future. Ameen.

Wahhabi scholar condemns terrorism

Asharq al-Awsat reports on salafi (Wahhabi) scholar Abd-al-Munim Mustafa Abu-Halimah, also known as Abu-Basir al-Tartusi:

A prominent Islamic scholar who specializes in the Salafi doctrine's perspective on Jihad has turned on the Al-Qaeda organization by publishing a fatwa (religious decree) in which he prohibited suicide operations. Syrian ideologue Abd-al-Munim Mustafa Abu-Halimah, also known as Abu-Basir al-Tartusi, said on his website under the headline "A Word of Warning About Suicide Operations: "I have received 1,000 questions about these operations, which are for me closer to suicide than martyrdom. They are haram (Forbidden) and impermissible, for several reasons." Al-Tartusi, who lives in London, cited in the fatwa that he issued the day before yesterday some of the (Prophet Muhammad's) sayings, among them: "Anyone who harms a believer has no jihad." He said this is for someone who merely harms a believer, so imagine if he kills him, and kills him deliberately." He also cited the saying of the Honorable Messenger: "One who kills a non-Muslim does not find the winds of paradise; its wind is to be found from a 70 years walk." ... ...Al-Tartusi said in his fatwa dated 24 August and published on his website: "Suicide operations necessarily mean a person killing himself with his own hand. This contravenes dozens of the shariah texts that are well documented and proven and which prohibit a person from killing himself with his own hand, whatever the reason for doing so. God Almighty says (And spend of your substance in the cause of Allah and make not your own hands contribute to (your death) and his Honorable Messenger said: "One who kills himself for something on earth will pay the penalty on the Day of Judgment." ... ...He stressed: "This is wrong according to all considerations and criteria. It is wrong according to sharia because it is coercing the one going to fight to kill himself in his suicide bombing operation when he is not convinced of its legitimacy or has some doubts or suspicion about its legitimacy and permissibility or it is to him rather more of suicide than anything else." ... ...He added in his fatwa: "Suicide operations kill innocent persons that are protected under the sharia unfairly, whether these protected persons are Muslims or others. This is forbidden and should not be belittled but one must be much careful about. One's religion remains well as long as he does not shed blood wrongly." According to Islamists in London, the fundamentalist theorist cited many of the Hadiths, including the prophet's sayings: "A Muslim and his blood, possession, and honor are haram to another Muslim", "the Muslim is the one who Muslims are safe from his tongue and hand", and "The Believer is the one that people trust with their possessions and lives."

terrorism is a return to the pre-Islamic ignorance

Hina Azam has written an article called Terrorism: A Return To Jahiliyya (Jahiliyya is an Arabic word meaning "pre-Islamic period of ignorance"). This is something I've often thought myself and said in other contexts: these people are acting like Islam had never come to them. Some highlights:

The truth of the matter, however, is that they are engaged in the very behavior that the Qur'an and Prophet came to combat: tribalism. Despite protestations to the contrary, Al-Qaeda and similarly-minded groups are engaged in no more than the old-fashioned tribal warfare, the hallmark of jahiliyya... ...But it is not the political nature of their motivation in itself that is illegitimate from an Islamic perspective. The illegitimacy lies in their methods. In the discourse of the terrorists, religious texts are being twisted in order to support the pre-Islamic practice of vendetta (tha'r) - the very approach to socio-political conflict that the Qur'an and the Prophet outlawed. Pre-Islamic Arabia was a society in which there was no central authoritative body to oversee justice or to mete out punishment for injustice. It was a society in which the only commonly-recognized law was the law of tribal vengeance: If someone from tribe A attacked or harmed someone from tribe B, the attack was taken as license by anyone in tribe B to retaliate against anyone and everyone from tribe A. The tragic result was bloodshed that would touch a far wider circle than the original assailant. The Qur'an sought to put an end to this murder and mayhem through a series of moral and legal principles dictating how human beings should live with one another, both inter-tribally and intra-tribally. No longer was it legitimate for anyone from tribe B to kill anyone from tribe A, no matter how great the desire for vengeance. In the civilian realm, this is the principle behind the law of qisas: the only one who could be prosecuted was the one who has committed the crime, whether it be murder or injury. At the level of the state, the Qur'an laid down principles governing warfare, principles that the Prophet and the scholars interpreted as delineating fundamental laws -- such as the distinction between combatants and non-combatants, and the illegitimacy of attacking the latter.

terrorist attacks in Egypt

Multiple car bomb attacks kill dozens at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. Juan Cole and Billmon discuss who may be responsible and what their motivations may be. The most likely suspects are Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was founded by Ayman al-Zawahiri, now famous as Bin Laden's "number two". For background see Egyptian Jihad? and some additional notes in Wahhabis condemning terrorism Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un (a Muslim prayer for those who have died). Note: For my views on terrorism, see here most recently and much more like that is here

refuting suicide bombings

Thabet points to a site called Ihsanic Intelligence, which has published a document called The Hijacked Caravan: Refuting Suicide Bombings as Martyrdom Operations in Contemporary Jihad Strategy (PDF). The document examines and refutes the specific claims made by those who say that suicide bombings are Islamically legitimate, and presents clear evidence that both suicide and murder (much less the two combined together) are forbidden in Islam. Their conclusion:

The technique of suicide bombing is anathema, antithetical and abhorrent to Sunni Islam. It is considered legally forbidden, constituting a reprehensible innovation in the Islamic tradition, morally an enormity of sin combining suicide and murder and theologically an act which has consequences of eternal damnation.

They plan to present this document to the United Nations Social and Economic Council and to ask Muslim scholars worldwide to sign it.

not silent

Sometimes people say, why don't Muslims march in the streets to protest against terrorism? Well they will be:

Muslims are to take to the streets of some of Britain's major cities to protest against the terror attacks on London, it emerged yesterday. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) is hopeful that hundreds of thousands will take part in a series of marches to make clear their opposition to the terrorists. Sheik Ibrahim Mogra of the MCB said it was important that ordinary Britons realised that the terrorists were not representative of Muslims as a whole. He said: "The idea is to show we are united in condemning this murderous act. "It would send a very strong message to the terrorists and to the British public that we are against violence and want to live in peace. The terrorists will not drive a wedge between us." It is understood that members of Britain's 1.5 million-strong Muslim community would march in cities including London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester, Bradford and Leeds, while the demonstration may also include prayer meetings and vigils.

Update: I'm not sure if this is still in the works, but in the meantime, in Egypt:

More than 1,000 Egyptian hotel workers, Bedouin sheikhs and foreign dive-school instructors marched through Sharm el-Sheikh yesterday to condemn the bombings. "There is no God but God, and terrorism is the enemy of God," chanted the Egyptian protesters, who included hotel chefs, technicians and road sweepers, as they marched along the main road of Sharm el-Sheikh, hit on Saturday by three bombs.