Dubai: One Year After Dubai World's Default

“Between the Islamists and the Liberals” - Mujahid Shaikh Ibrahim bin Sulaiman al-Rubaish

In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful Praise be to Allah, Lord of Creation, prayers and peace be upon the noblest of the prophets and messengers, our Prophet Muhammad, and his family and companions until the Day of Judgment. Thereafter:

I send this message to every sympathizer of the Ummah in the Land of the Haramain (the Two Sanctuaries: Makkah and Medinah). I send it to the scholars and the preachers, to the sermonizers on the pulpits and the imams of the mosques, to the teachers and instructors in the universities, to the caretakers in the homes and to the jealous fathers and guardians, to every Muslim man and woman who prefers the commandments of Allah over all other else, and are not among those who, if provided a salary,, pay no mind to what is occurring to the religion. To all those, I send this message asking them to take it into great consideration. I remind you of Allah who entrusted you with your Religion and granted you guardianship over what is under your hands. As the Honest and Trustworthy, prayers and peace be upon him, said

“If the shepherd to whom Allah granted guardianship dies having neglectedhis flock, Allah will ban him from Paradise.”

I remind the people of knowledge of the covenant by which Allah bound them:

{ وَإِذْ أَخَذَ اللَّه ُمِيثَاقَ الَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ لَتُبَيِّنُنَّه ُلِلنَّاسِ وَلَا تَكْتُمُونَه ُفَنَبَذُوهُ وَرَاءَ ظُهُورِهِمْ وَاشْتَرَوْا بِه ِثَمَنًا قَلِيلًاۖ فَبِئْسَمَا يَشْتَرُونَ }

“And remember Allah took a covenant from the people of the Book, to make it known and clear to mankind, and not to hide it; but they threw it away behind their backs, and purchased with it some miserable gain! And vile was the bargain they made!” (Aali Imran: 187)

If Allah had not made it a duty for us to give advice to Muslims, I would not have taken it upon myself to send this message.

To begin, I ask this question: Are you satisfied with the situation of society and its state of deterioration from which is apparent that it is heading towards an abyss? Each year brings more evil than the last.

Some will answer me by casting a hadith of the Messenger of Allah, prayers and peace be upon him and his household, in which he said:  “If a man says that people are damned, he is more damned than they.”

I will be characterized as a fear-mongerand conspiracy theorist but all this does not matter. He, who wishes to ascertain the truth, let him examine the situation without prejudice.

What will be apparent to those who study the situation is that the problems of sinfulness and corruption have increased and diversified to the point that the senses are inured to them. Inappropriate veiling of women has increased and no market is without it. Even the Masjid-ul-Haraam has not been spared from it. Cases of impermissible seclusion and its consequences have increased manyfold, and those who sit with the Committee for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue know of these calamities!

The calamity is that our society has delivered itself to its executioner through carelessness or feigning indifference. You see society toying with it without arousing the least resentment, resulting in the appearance of all kinds of legalized sinfulness and corruption, aimed at transforming and westernizing society and effacing all that bespeaks an Islamic identity in societal customs.

As a result, we see foreign exchange programs whereby women are sent out more than men, and they are provided more jobs than men. An identification card for women has been instituted and a serious effort made to gradually enforce this upon them. We hear of a female dean of a certain college who refused to allow female students to take a test without an ID card and the judge who suspended a case until a female client was issued an ID card. It is as if they can do what they want: they will stop marriage contracts, the distribution of inheritances, the purchase or sale of property until the women clients are issued ID cards.

Another form of sinfulness and corruption, of which there is inundation of reports, is the employment of women as actresses and their work as announcers and correspondents on official networks.

Part of the legalized sinfulness and corruption that we see is the mixing of sexes in the hospitals, even though the ability to segregate the sexes is easily available to any who wish to do so. And if they claim that there is a need for men to treat women in some cases, why are the male sections filled with female doctors and nurses?

Another kind of intermingling has come, contrived by the king’s genius. He has realized his dream for which he has been waiting 25 years through the universities where men and women, male and female students mix.

Their plan is to spread corruption and transform society, but gradually so that society will not reject it. As it is said, “Slowly but surely”. Although in fact recent years have witnessed an acceleration in their measures, this will perhaps expose them quicker. Perhaps their haste is due to the fact that they feel secure. Those who think they are safe from punishment will misbehave! They do not fear Allah, and all past experiences have proven that there is no reaction from the people to be feared.

One of their cunning plots to introduce sinfulness and corruption is through claiming journalistic freedom. The beginning was when the Minister of Justice issued a circular to the Shari’ah judges requiring adherence to article 37 of the press and publication laws, stipulating that issues of publication in the newspapers are the purview of the Ministry of Information and not the Shari’ah courts. When the wolf is entrusted with the flock, the field has been opened for people to write what they want with no accountability or supervision, but of course this privilege is not given to all. It is only for certain kinds of writers. They write what they want, in violation of the Shariah, and rejected by our societal customs. Then many voices which are raised in response are disregarded, and with the passage of time, society becomes numbed to this issue

The closest example of this is the women’s ID card. The newspapers wrote much about this issue, and much has been said about it. When the people were prepared to receive the blow, it was instituted. When its institution was accepted, the time came to gradually enforce it. The turn is coming for women’s athletic clubs and women driving cars.

Their increased audacity is derived from the weakness of those in the forefront of the Islamist movement. You see that a vast majority of the newspapers will not publish an article by them. As for those who do write in the newspapers, they do not even think of discussing these topics, because they know they will not be published. Nothing remains for them but the internet, and one or two satellite channels. As for the other networks, they seldom host them unless they feel that their words will serve their (the network’s) own benefit. When they do appear, their weakness becomes apparent. They expose themselves to shame and melt away with these changes to a shocking degree. Their words they use and the concepts they hold are almost identical to those newspaper writers from other ideologies. They now speak of nationalism, dedication to it, and identification with it, rather than jealousy for Islam. They have begun to utter that such and such is “against the regime and the law”, when previously governance was for Allah alone. You will but seldom hear from their tongues (any talk) of enforcing Allah’s law.

This calamity is not limited to the fact that they will not reject forbidden acts unless the regime also forbids them. Indeed the situation has become worse with many of them, in that they have come to advise people not to condemn forbidden acts unless the regime itself has stipulated that they be banned. And whoever openly rejects forbidden acts, they proceed to admonish him more than the ones who actually committed the forbidden acts. As for he who rejects the forbidden act by deed, this to some of them is a kind of open sin that requires public rejection of the sinner.

Sometimes you see them having discussions with the liberalists in meetings or on TV. Then you will see the weakness of their rhetoric and their lack of audacity. You will see each of the two parties claiming to be the chosen one. Each claims that the rulers back them and what they say, that the regime favors them, and they want to serve the homeland and the interest of the people. Frequently their argument in responding to an opponent is “I do not know more than those in authority” or “the people in authority know where the benefit lies”!

Before, during and after this, they try to strikes the right note to please their rulers. This is done by condemning Jihad under the name of terror. With some of them, it is like salt on food, or purification for prayer. They are afraid that if they are silent their mouths will be muzzled or their Dawah efforts impeded. The situation has reached the point where some of them slander lies against the Mujahideen. And if they talk about the liberalists, they say “My brother liberals”. You see their rulers smile upon them, but give them nothing but more restrictions and spread of sinfulness and corruption.

You see them rejoice because Nayef Ibn Abdul Aziz criticized this newspaper or that channel. They rejoice at that and repeat it, and perhaps they read it and cite it like they cite the words of the scholars. They know, and Nayef knows better than they, that a decision from him is sufficient to change the program of those writers, or remove those they wish to remove, or even to imprison or dismiss them from duty. So how can it be believed that the Interior Minister - who gave himself a status that none can question what he does, who intervenes to dismiss orators and preachers, who has the right to fire employees from their jobs even it they are outside his ministry, and who orders the detention of whomever he pleases and the Office of the Ombudsman has no right to look into cases raised against his investigations bureau - cannot deter a newspaper from doing what he dislikes if he takes offense at it?!

The matter that must be patently clear is that this corrupt clique of writers is at the beck and call of Nayef and his brothers. They utter only what pleases them. If individual transgressions are found, how swiftly they are dealt with.

The rulers of the House of Saud want to take what suits their fancy from both Islam and liberalism and leave the rest. They have therefore put in place red lines for the Islamists and liberals under their control which they are not able to cross. All o them move within these lines. And woe, woe, to him who thinks about crossing them. For example, the Islamists cannot speak of Jihad against the Americans as being legal as the Jihad against the Russians was legal. They are not able to reject the conventional courts belonging to the Ministry of Commerce or Ministry of Information. And who is able to criticize the vicious campaign of detentions?

When they speak of the co-mingling (of sexes) in King Abdullah University, many of them speak of it from the perspective that the country’s regime has not instituted it, and that their ruler does not know about it!

We are approaching what is called National Day. Is a preacher, a scholar or even the Mufti himself able to reject celebration of the National Day? Or even to cite the fatwa of the permanent committee prohibiting its celebration? And it must be taken into consideration that when the fatwa by the permanent commitment condemning it was issued, the day was commemorative only, marked by small celebrations. Now it is a holiday when all the schools are closed and celebrations are imposed everywhere. Changing the name does not change the reality of things. They are not able to criticize it. The vast majority of them were silent over the Rafidites’ violation of the sanctuary of Tawheed in the city of Allah’s Messenger, prayers and blessings be upon him and his household. How can any transgression be denounced when there is silence on the greatest idolatry which takes a person out of the fold of Islam?

The same can be said of the liberals. They do not take liberalism in its original sense. Rather they take from it liberation from some legal and social restrictions. But they are not able to announce their liberation from political tyranny of the idiotic Bedouin and his brothers! Which of them can dare to ask in one of their articles: why are the minister of information and minister of defense not changed like other ministers are changed? And who can say that the appointment of a second deputy prime minister abrogates the position of the Bay’ah committee? Who can say that what the Interior Ministry has been doing in detaining people for many without trial is a matter that violates the official law of the country? Which newspaper can publish even one issue that does not contain news of the official receptions and departures done by the idiotand his brothers?

The media establishments in our country without exception are subject to the House of Saud. They are not able to violate their desires and fancies, and they are not able to cross the red lines laid down by the House ofSaud. For example, when the journalist Khaled Sulaiman was asked: why did you prioritize the disaster of the floods of Jeddah over the floods of Riyadh? He answered that he found freedom to write about Jeddah, but did not find freedom to write about Riyadh. When he was asked, “Who gave you freedom for this but not for that?” He answered, “Ask the censor!” This is what the restricted journalist is able to declare. I don’t think there is any distinction between the two cases except that most of the officials in Riyadh are from the House ofSaud. They are above both the Shari’ah as well as secular law, as is well-known!

Rather, there are some journalists who you will find in their writings searching for subjects that will please their rulers. That is crystal clear in the writings of Abdullah al-Arayfij, who is nothing more than a scribe for the Ministry of Information in most of his writings. Indeed, he has even mentioned things that he could not know except through the tran****** of the interrogations conducted in the prisons of the secret police.

Faris bin Hizam is not much different, when he criticizes this preacher or that for not giving a speech condemning the assassination attempt on Muhammad bin Nayef. Regardless of the Shari’ah ruling, the journalist who respects his profession should not be compelled to say anything other than his own opinion, unless he is hired or belongs to one party.

As for Jamal Khashuqji, he is a man enamored with women working and driving cars. He wants the economy to recover, raise the level of income and cure unemployment by having women work and drive cars! I will not be surprised if, when asked about medicine for a fever, he answers that it lies hidden in women working! No surprise, because those people admire the West with all its faults.

Is it not time for the prominent Islamists to present their issues with complete honesty, to inquire about the disease and determine its source rather than talk about its symptoms only? And instead of speaking about Al-Watan newspaper, they should talk about the Ministry of Interior or about the regime which blocked the Shari’ah courts from ruling on media issues. Rather than censuring this writer or that, they should censure Abdullah and his brothers, for they are the ones who encouraged the writers and made this possible for them. The more assiduous in wrong-doing are the writers, the more they are favored. This is the case with Turki al-Hamad who curses Allah Almighty, only to become closer to the king and have his pen gifted to him!

Even judging them favorably, we would have to say that they approved of them and were silent about them. They were certainly able to stop this writer or that writer just as they were able to block any number of preachers and imams, even flocking many others into prisons. Why did they imprison Sheikh Khalid al-Rashid? If they say that he led a demonstration, why have they imprisoned others who have done nothing but issue fatwas supported by legal evidence such as Sheikh Saeed Aali Za’eer, and Sulaiman al-‘Alwan and many others.

The give free rein to the newspaper writers and owners of the media networks who have different ideologies. This matter of preachers censuring the scribes but leaving alone their sponsors is like the case of a man beaten with a stick. He curses and rebukes the stick, and makes a complaint to the person carrying it! If that person replaces the stick with another, then he gives him thanks and gratitude!

For how long will shut your eyes, feign ignorance and disregard the chiefs of fitna and the pillars of sinfulness and corruption in our country?!

This will serve no purpose other than to throw more veils over the eyes of the people as to causes of affliction and distract their attention away to that which will not be of much benefit to them. They raise complaints to the king against a certain minister and this changes nothing. In the best cases, he just replaces the minister with another who is no better, and the situation remains exactly as it was or becomes even worse; because the head of the snake remains in place.

[Poetry]

Do not cut off the tail of the snake and leave it alive = If you are clever the head should follow the tail

It is true that the method of honesty shall bring down affliction on many, and will cause many preachers to thrown into prison. This is better than conferring legality on the chiefs of sinfulness and corruption, their matter becoming ambiguous to general populace causing them to accept them in their sinfulness and corruption.

Let us know that affliction is the way of the messengers. Allah has preserved our Tawheed from harm through the stance of an Imam of Ahl-us-Sunnah coming out openly with the truth in the face of the Caliph. The Imam suffered great affliction, but Allah preserved the sound ‘Aqeedah to this age.

One strong stance makes up for many weak and wobbly positions.

One sermon from Sheikh Khaled al-Rashid, may Allah release him, came out with the truth and caused his imprisonment. But it had a good effect and beneficial impact among the people. The people have been repeating this for years, whenever the occasion comes. We seek our refuge in Allah!

Our Ummah is in urgent need of knowledge. It is in more urgent need of truthful positions from people of knowledge. Books can suffice us from knowledge without declaration of truth. If every scholar is silent out of fear of affliction for himself, then the Deen is lost and truth mixes with falsehood among the general populace. Thus the fitnah grows, and no one is saved except who seeks salvage in Allah.

In conclusion, I send a message to every Muslim sister:

Sister of Islam, know that Allah ordains goodness and guidance for you. But your enemies do not want that for you. If you desire any blessing or honor, you will only find it in the shade of Allah’s law. There will you find the means of satisfying Him, His guidance and protection, and victory in this world and the next.

As for others, they wish you to be a commodity bought and sold in the marketplaces. The great swath of those who discuss women’s issues and have covered the newspapers and filled TV channels with talk about the situation of women in other countries fall into two categories.

There are those who are enamored with the West, and dazzled with its material culture, and want to bring to us everything from there, be it good or evil, and this is their best of the two types.

The (other type) are enemies of the Ummah, they wear the clothes of its friends, and maintain the pre**** of advising it. They speak well. If they talk, their words are listened to, but they are known by theway they speak. They claim to be giving advice, but it is as if they find no problems in the Ummah other than the situation of women! I do not know what issues they are talking about.

They keep repeating the demand for women’s right to work, yet women already teach and have climbed up the professional ladder reaching the post of deputy minister. They are also prison wardens and there are markets for women. Two years ago, a trusted source told me that he gone into a restaurant in a city where a woman was working in the management. Yet they still demand the right for women to work. Where do you think their demands will stop? It seems that they will not accept that a woman is working until they see her wearing a police uniform, sitting next to their colleagues patrolling the streets in patrol car!

O Sister of Faith, they wish for women to work exactly like they work in the West. We have lived among the Christians and we see how they treat women and how they work with them. We have seen women work in the army, carrying weapons and standing next to men. We have seen them go out in the morning, marching with the soldiers and echoing their shouts, and speak all you will about sexual harassment and abuse. We have seen women perform hard labor, carrying goods and unloading them, work as a blacksmith, fix and clean the sewers, and do even harder work than that. None of the men there even think about sufficing them from work, or at least helping them. Does this happen in Muslim countries?

Their women express great amazement when they learn that Islam compels a man to financially support his wife, even if she is richer than he. Some of those who have lived in their countries told me that one of their women asked him to find a Muslim husband for her when she learned that financial support was upon the husband, and it was upon the woman to raise the children.

By Allah, Sister of Islam, who is in a better situation, Muslim women or Christian women? In America, the Qiblah of those of our country who wish to go abroad, an American whose mother was an alcoholic described his situation. He said that his mother drank so much she was fired from her job, and so she has to stay at home unemployed. Her husband kicked her out of the house because he was not prepared to support her. She left confused and went looking for a job until she found one – in a brothel! This is the sort of thing that happens in their countries. O sister of Islam, would it please you to be like them?

There is nothing that prohibits a woman from working if it is regulated according to Shari’ah, the woman is covered and does not mix with men, and she is protected from temptation. Nonetheless, there is no more honorable and dignified work for a woman than her work in the house, rearing the coming generations and producing chivalrous men, leaving the pursuit of financial sustenance to her caretaker, who suffices her this burden and fulfills his duty.

Sister of Islam, in your home, you are like a king on his throne. You raise your children, and they become an asset to you. When you grow old they raise you up on their heads. Would it please you if we were like the West, where a woman goes out every morning to the factory or the store, and throws her child into the hands of babysitters to raise him? So he grows up and feels no connection to his mother. Rather he disobeys her and cuts her off. When she grows old, he casts her into a home for the elderly. There is a vast difference between us and them!

The home of a woman is her guarded kingdom. It is better for her than anywhere, even better than mosques. As is said in the Hadith:  “Do not prevent the bond-maids of Allah from going to the mosques of Allah, but their homes are better for them.”

Stay to your homes, Sister of Islam, and treat well those within it, you will find the best things from them, after Allah. Take care not to think well of your enemies. He who thinks well of his enemy has fallen into a perilous state.

O Allah, cover our imperfections and assuage our fears. O Allah, protect us from what is between our hands, behind us, to our right and to our left and from above. We seek refuge in Your Greatness that we not be slain from behind.

Our last prayer is praise be to Allah, the Lord of all Creation.

Translated by:

The Global Media Islamic Front

Observing Mujahideen News and Inspiring the Believers

Muslim Spain and European Culture

By Dean Derhak

When you think of European culture, one of the first things that may come to your mind is the renaissance. Many of the roots of European culture can be traced back to that glorious time of art, science, commerce and architecture. But did you know that long before the renaissance there was a place of humanistic beauty in Muslim Spain? Not only was it artistic, scientific and commercial, but it also exhibited incredible tolerance, imagination and poetry. Muslims, as the Spaniards call the Muslims, populated Spain for nearly 700 years. As you'll see, it was their civilization that enlightened Europe and brought it out of the dark ages to usher in the renaissance. Many of their cultural and intellectual influences still live with us today.

Way back during the eighth century, Europe was still knee-deep in the Medieval period. That's not the only thing they were knee-deep in. In his book, "The Day The Universe Changed," the historian James Burke describes how the typical European townspeople lived:

"The inhabitants threw all their refuse into the drains in the center of the narrow streets. The stench must have been overwhelming, though it appears to have gone virtually unnoticed. Mixed with excrement and urine would be the soiled reeds and straw used to cover the dirt floors. (p. 32)

This squalid society was organized under a feudal system and had little that would resemble a commercial economy. Along with other restrictions, the Catholic Church forbade the lending of money - which didn't help get things booming much. "Anti-Semitism, previously rare, began to increase. Money lending, which was forbidden by the Church, was permitted under Jewish law." (Burke, 1985, p. 32) Jews worked to develop a currency although they were heavily persecuted for it. Medieval Europe was a miserable lot, which ran high in illiteracy, superstition, barbarism and filth.

During this same time, Muslims entered Europe from the South. ABD AL-RAHMAN I, a survivor of a family of caliphs of the Muslim empire, reached Spain in the mid-700's. He became the first Caliph of Al-Andalus, the Muslim part of Spain, which occupied most of the Iberian Peninsula. He also set up the UMAYYAD Dynasty that ruled Al-Andalus for over three-hundred years. (Grolier, History of Spain). Al Andalus means, "the land of the vandals," from which comes the modern name Andalusia.

At first, the land resembled the rest of Europe in all its squalor. But within two-hundred years the Muslims had turned Al-Andalus into a bastion of culture, commerce and beauty.

"Irrigation systems imported from Syria and Muslimia turned the dry plains... into an agricultural cornucopia. Olives and wheat had always grown there. The Muslims added pomegranates, oranges, lemons, aubergines, artichokes, cumin, coriander, bananas, almonds, pams, henna, woad, madder, saffron, sugar-cane, cotton, rice, figs, grapes, peaches, apricots and rice." (Burke, 1985, p. 37)

By the beginning of the ninth century, Muslim Spain was the gem of Europe with its capital city, Cordova. With the establishment of Abdurrahman III - "the great caliphate of Cordova" - came the golden age of Al-Andalus. Cordova, in southern Spain, was the intellectual center of Europe.

At a time when London was a tiny mud-hut village that "could not boast of a single streetlamp" (Digest, 1973, p. 622), in Cordova "there were half a million inhabitants, living in 113,000 houses. There were 700 mosques and 300 public baths spread throughout the city and its twenty-one suburbs. The streets were paved and lit." (Burke, 1985, p. 38)

The houses had marble balconies for summer and hot-air ducts under the mosaic floors for the winter. They were adorned with gardens with artificial fountains and orchards". (Digest, 1973, p. 622) "Paper, a material still unknown to the west, was everywhere. There were bookshops and more than seventy libraries." (Burke, 1985, p. 38).

In his book titled, "Spain In The Modern World," James Cleuge explains the significance of Cordova in Medieval Europe: "For there was nothing like it, at that epoch, in the rest of Europe. The best minds in that continent looked to Spain for everything which most clearly differentiates a human being from a tiger." (Cleugh, 1953, p. 70)

During the end of the first millennium, Cordova was the intellectual well from which European humanity came to drink. Students from France and England travelled there to sit at the feet of Muslim, Christian and Jewish scholars, to learn philosophy, science and medicine (Digest, 1973, p. 622). In the great library of Cordova alone, there were some 600,000 manuscripts (Burke, 1978, p. 122).

This rich and sophisticated society took a tolerant view towards other faiths. Tolerance was unheard of in the rest of Europe. But in Muslim Spain, "thousands of Jews and Christians lived in peace and harmony with their Muslim overlords." (Burke, 1985, p. 38) The society had a literary rather than religious base. Economically their prosperity was unparalleled for centuries. The aristocracy promoted private land ownership and encouraged Jews in banking. There was little or no Muslim prostelyting. Instead, non-believers simply paid an extra tax!

"Their society had become too sophisticated to be fanatical. Christians and Moslems, with Jews as their intermediaries and interpreters, lived side by side and fought, not each other, but other mixed communities." (Cleugh, 1953, p. 71)

Unfortunately, this period of intellectual and economic prosperity began to decline. Shifting away from the rule of law, there began to be internal rifts in the Muslim power structure. The Muslim harmony began to break up into warring factions. Finally, the caliphs were eliminated and Cordova fell to other Muslim forces. "In 1013 the great library in Cordova was destroyed. True to their Islamic traditions however, the new rulers permitted the books to be dispersed, together with the Cordovan scholars to the capital towns of small emirates." (Burke, 1985, p. 40) The intellectual properties of the once great Al-Andalus were divided among small towns.

As the Muslims built mini-alliances and fought amongst themselves, the Christians to the North were doing just the opposite. In Northern Spain the various Christian kingdoms united to expel the Muslims from the European continent. (Grolier, History of Spain) This set the stage for the final act of the Medieval period.

In another of James Burke's works titled "Connections," he describes how the Muslims thawed out Europe from the Dark Ages. "But the event that must have done more for the intellectual and scientific revival of Europe was the fall of Toledo in Spain to the Christians, in 1105." In Toledo the Muslims had huge libraries containing the lost (to Christian Europe) works of the Greeks and Romans along with Muslim philosophy and mathematics. "The Spanish libraries were opened, revealing a store of classics and Muslim works that staggered Christian Europeans." (Burke, 1978, p. 123)

The intellectual plunder of Toledo brought the scholars of northern Europe like moths to a candle. The Christians set up a giant translating program in Toledo. Using the Jews as interpreters, they translated the Muslim books into Latin. These books included "most of the major works of Greek science and philosophy... along with many original Muslim works of scholarship." (Digest, p. 622)

"The intellectual community which the northern scholars found in Spain was so far superior to what they had at home that it left a lasting jealousy of Muslim culture, which was to colour Western opinions for centuries" (Burke, 1985, p. 41)

"The subjects covered by the texts included medicine, astrology, astronomy pharmacology, psychology, physiology, zoology, biology, botany, mineralogy, optics, chemistry, physics, mathematics, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, music, meteorology, geography, mechanics, hydrostatics, navigation and history." (Burke, 1985, p. 42)

These works alone however, didn't kindle the fire that would lead to the renaissance. They added to Europe's knowledge, but much of it was unappreciated without a change in the way Europeans viewed the world.

Remember, Medieval Europe was superstitious and irrational.

"What caused the intellectual bombshell to explode, however, was the philosophy that came with (the books). This included Aristotle's system of nature and the logic of argument." (Burke, 1985, p. 42)

Found among the works were even Muslim philosophers' commentaries of Aristotle's views. This "shocked the West by giving religion and philosophy equal status as systems for explaining the cosmos." (Burke, 1985, p. 42) This questioning and the use of logic revolutionized the definition of truth and sparked the renaissance.

Christians continued to re-conquer Spain, leaving a wake of death and destruction in their path. The books were spared, but Moor culture was destroyed and their civilization disintegrated. Ironically, it wasn't just the strength of the Christians that defeated the Muslims but the disharmony among the Muslims' own ranks. Like Greece and Rome that proceeded them, the Muslims of Al-Andalus fell into moral decay and wandered from the intellect that had made them great.

The translations continued as each Muslim haven fell to the Christians. In 1492, the same year Columbus discovered the New World, Granada, the last Muslim enclave, was taken. Captors of the knowledge were not keepers of its wisdom. Sadly, all Jews and Muslims that would not abandon their beliefs were either killed or exiled (Grolier, History of Spain). Thus ended an epoch of tolerance and all that would remain of the Muslims would be their books.

It's fascinating to realize just how much Europe learned from the Muslim texts and even greater to see how much that knowledge has endured. Because of the flood of knowledge, the first Universities started to appear. College and University degrees were developed (Burke, 1985, p. 48). Directly from the Muslims came the numerals we use today. Even the concept of Zero (an Muslim word) came from the translations (Castillo & Bond, 1987, p. 27) . Along with texts, Muslim music spread throughout Europe, giving us the keyboard, the flute and the concept of harmony. It's also fair to say that renaissance architectural concepts came from the Muslim libraries. Mathematics and architecture explained in the Muslim texts along with Muslim works on optics led to the perspective paintings of the renaissance period (Burke, 1985 p. 72). The first lawyers began their craft using the new translated knowledge as their guide. Even the food utensils we use today come from the Cordova kitchen! (Burke, 1985 p. 44) All of these examples show just some of the ways Europe transformed from the Muslims.

Turkish PM wants to create Middle Eastern Schengen area

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the Arab states to create a zone resembling Europe's Schengen area.
Speaking at the award giving ceremony held by Union of Arab Banks in Phoenicia Intercontinental Hotel in Lebanon, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the award was very important and exciting for him.

Turkish Premier said, "although we are talking different languages in this vast geography, we should not forget that we have one history, one culture and similar values. We have given a shape the history together. Be sure that we will give a shape to the future altogether. We are the members of a civilization that gives high importance to neighborhood."

Erdogan said Turkey mutually removed visa requirements with Syria, Lebanon, Libya and Jordan. "We have not lost anything or met any problem. On the contrary, when we removed the visa requirements, we clearly saw that they were meaningless. We have not removed the visa requirements; we have removed a century old yearning among our people. Our people embrace each other now," he noted.

He also added that people visited each other. Cooperation opportunities were improved. Not only one country, but the whole region and people of the whole region won and made use of this new era. "EU says 'Schengen'. Why could not we make a similar Schengen among us? It was not possible to understand this meaninglessness, this fear and this reservation."

Turkish Prime Minister said, "peace in the region is the unique target of us. We want tranquility, prosperity and stability in the region. Turkey wants "zero" problem with its neighbors and undertakes sincere efforts to this end. Turkey carries out full membership talks with the European Union. Turkey believes in the synthesis of a Muslim identity with European values. However, this does not require us turn our back to the East, South, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Of course we will establish High Level Strategic Cooperation Council mechanism with Syria and Iraq. Of course Turkey established Four-Way Cooperation Council with Syria, Lebanon, Jordan. This is very natural," cihanmedya.com reported.

Kavkaz Center

City of London connected to shadow firm "Foundation X"... Set to restore British Empire?

More here as well,  this  Private "Foundation" which has more money than all the governments of the world put together" is offering to heal Britain's debt, a non-EU member, in a time of vast deficits across the developed world.  Very shadowy, very crazy but definitely worth paying attention to.... such a bizarre world. 

Trasncript: (House of Lords, at 10:42pm on November 1st, 2010.)    

 Lord James of Blackheath: At this point, I am going to have to make a very big apology to my noble friend Lord Sassoon [Treasury Minister], because I am about to raise a subject that I should not raise and which is going to be one which I think is now time to put on a higher awareness, and to explain to the House as a whole, as I do not think your Lordships have any knowledge of it. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Strathclyde [Leader of the House] is not with us at the moment, because this deeply concerns him also  or the past 20 weeks I have been engaged in a very strange dialogue with the two noble Lords, in the course of which I have been trying to bring to their attention the willing availability of a strange organisation which wishes to make a great deal of money available to assist the recovery of the economy in this country. For want of a better name, I shall call it foundation X. That is not its real name, but it will do for the moment. Foundation X was introduced to me 20 weeks ago last week by an eminent City firm, which is FSA controlled. Its chairman came to me and said, "We have this extraordinary request to assist in a major financial reconstruction. It is megabucks, but we need your help to assist us in understanding whether this business is legitimate". I had the biggest put-down of my life from my noble friend Lord Strathclyde when I told him this story. He said, "Why you? You're not important enough to have the answer to a question like that". He is quite right, I am not important enough, but the answer to the next question was, "You haven't got the experience for it". Yes I do. I have had one of the biggest experiences in the laundering of terrorist money and funny money that anyone has had in the City. I have handled billions of pounds of terrorist money.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham [Labour]: Where did it go to?

Lord James of Blackheath: Not into my pocket. My biggest terrorist client was the IRA and I am pleased to say that I managed to write off more than £1 billion of its money. I have also had extensive connections with north African terrorists, but that was of a far nastier nature, and I do not want to talk about that because it is still a security issue. I hasten to add that it is no good getting the police in, because I shall immediately call the Bank of England as my defence witness, given that it put me in to deal with these problems.

The point is that when I was in the course of doing this strange activity, I had an interesting set of phone numbers and references that I could go to for help when I needed it. So people in the City have known that if they want to check out anything that looks at all odd, they can come to me and I can press a few phone numbers to obtain a reference. The City firm came to me and asked whether I could get a reference and a clearance on foundation X. For 20 weeks, I have been endeavouring to do that. I have come to the absolute conclusion that foundation X is completely genuine and sincere and that it directly wishes to make the United Kingdom one of the principal points that it will use to disseminate its extraordinarily great wealth into the world at this present moment, as part of an attempt to seek the recovery of the global economy.

I made the phone call to my noble friend Lord Strathclyde on a Sunday afternoon—I think he was sitting on his lawn, poor man—and he did the quickest ball pass that I have ever witnessed. If England can do anything like it at Twickenham on Saturday, we will have a chance against the All Blacks. The next think I knew, I had my noble friend Lord Sassoon on the phone. From the outset, he took the proper defensive attitude of total scepticism, and said, "This cannot possibly be right". During the following weeks, my noble friend said, "Go and talk to the Bank of England". So I phoned the governor and asked whether he could check this out for me. After about three days, he came back and said, "You can get lost. I'm not touching this with a bargepole; it is far too difficult. Take it back to the Treasury". So I did. Within another day, my noble friend Lord Sassoon had come back and said, "This is rubbish. It can't possibly be right". I said, "I am going to work more on it". Then I brought one of the senior executives from foundation X to meet my noble friend Lord Strathclyde. I have to say that, as first dates go, it was not a great success. Neither of them ended up by inviting the other out for a coffee or drink at the end of the evening, and they did not exchange telephone numbers in order to follow up the meeting.

I found myself between a rock and a hard place that were totally paranoid about each other, because the foundation X people have an amazing obsession with their own security. They expect to be contacted only by someone equal to head of state status or someone with an international security rating equal to the top six people in the world. This is a strange situation. My noble friends Lord Sassoon and Lord Strathclyde both came up with what should have been an absolute killer argument as to why this could not be true and that we should forget it. My noble friend Lord Sassoon's argument was that these people claimed to have evidence that last year they had lodged £5 billion with British banks. They gave transfer dates and the details of these transfers. As my noble friend Lord Sassoon, said, if that were true it would stick out like a sore thumb. You could not have £5 billion popping out of a bank account without it disrupting the balance sheet completely. But I remember that at about the same time as those transfers were being made the noble Lord, Lord Myners [former Labour Treasury Minister], was indulging in his game of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic of the British banking community. If he had three banks at that time, which had had, say, a deficiency of £1.5 million each, then you would pretty well have absorbed the entire £5 billion, and you would not have had the sore thumb stick out at that time; you would have taken £1.5 billion into each of three banks and you would have absorbed the lot. That would be a logical explanation—I do not know.

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde came up with a very different argument. He said that this cannot be right because these people said at the meeting with him that they were still effectively on the gold standard from back in the 1920s and that their entire currency holdings throughout the world, which were very large, were backed by bullion. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde came back and said to me that he had an analyst working on it and that this had to be stuff and nonsense. He said that they had come up with a figure for the amount of bullion that would be needed to cover their currency reserves, as claimed, which would be more than the entire value of bullion that had ever been mined in the history of the world. I am sorry but my noble friend Lord Strathclyde is wrong; his analysts are wrong. He had tapped into the sources that are available and there is only one definitive source for the amount of bullion that has ever been taken from the earth's crust. That was a National Geographic magazine article 12 years ago. Whatever figure it was that was quoted was then quoted again on six other sites on the internet—on Google. Everyone is quoting one original source; there is no other confirming authority. But if you tap into the Vatican accounts—of the Vatican bank--— come up with a claim of total bullion—

Lord De Mauley [Government Whip]: The noble Lord is into his fifteenth minute. I wonder whether he can draw his remarks to a conclusion.

Lord James of Blackheath: The total value of the Vatican bank reserves would claim to be more than the entire value of gold ever mined in the history of the world. My point on all of this is that we have not proven any of this. Foundation X is saying at this moment that it is prepared to put up the entire £5 billion for the funding of the three Is recreation; the British Government can have the entire independent management and control of it—foundation X does not want anything to do with it; there will be no interest charged; and, by the way, if the British Government would like it as well, if it will help, the foundation will be prepared to put up money for funding hospitals, schools, the building of Crossrail immediately with £17 billion transfer by Christmas, if requested, and all these other things. These things can be done, if wished, but a senior member of the Government has to accept the invitation to a phone call to the chairman of foundation X—and then we can get into business. This is too big an issue. I am just an ageing, obsessive old Peer and I am easily dispensable, but getting to the truth is not. We need to know what really is happening here. We must find out the truth of this situation.

The Imposter??? Jeremy Scahill on "Taliban Negotiations"

If they can't even identify who is a Taliban leader, then how can they identify who is and who is not a civilian on the ground?

Thousands rally in Karachi over scientist jailed in US

Tens of thousands of Pakistanis marched in Karachi, demanding the release of imprisoned scientist Dr Aafia Siddiqui.
Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years in prison by a New York court on September 23.

She had been convicted of trying to kill US federal agents in Afghanistan.
Siddiqui vehemently denied all the charges against her during the trial, calling them “ridiculous” and insisting that she was framed, jailed, and tortured by US agents in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
According to her supporters, Siddiqui has been a prisoner of the US since her disappearance from Karachi in 2003.
There have been a series of protests in Pakistan over her case but the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)’s rally held five days after her sentence was the largest so far.
It was also the first time that a mainstream political party has called for the cognitive neuroscientists’ release.
The imprisoned scientist’s sister, Dr Fowzia Siddiqui, called on Pakistanis to continue their protest for her sister’s release.
She said she was positive that her sister would soon be back in Pakistan if the public pressure continued.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani described Siddiqui as a “daughter of the nation,” and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif promised to push for her release.

On February 18, President Asif Ali Zardari requested US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke that the US should consider repatriating Siddiqu under the Pakistan-US Prisoner Exchange Agreement.
On February 22, the Pakistani Senate passed a resolution expressing its grave concern over Siddiqui’s sentence, and demanding that the Government take effective steps including diplomatic measures to secure her immediate release.