Muslims Seek Israeli Converts.



In an unprecedented endeavor, a few Muslim believers are crossing the Holy Land's volatile boundaries of culture, faith and politics to bring Islam to Israel's Jews - hoping, improbably, that some will be willing to renounce their religion for a new one.

The bearded men approach Jews in and around the Old City of Jerusalem and try, in polite and fluent Hebrew, to convert them.

"I must tell you about the true faith," said one missionary in a cobblestone plaza outside Jerusalem's Old City. He carried a knapsack full of pamphlets about Islam in several languages, including Hebrew. "You can do with it what you want. But telling you is our duty."

Most people, he said, brush him off and keep walking.

A computer programmer educated at an Israeli college, he sported a scraggly beard, loose pants and a long shirt typical of the purist Muslims known as Salafis. He gave his name only as Abu Hassan.

There are no signs the endeavor has met with any success. Only about a dozen Muslims are involved. Most of the handful of Jews who convert do so to marry Muslim men, rather than from proselytizing. Still, the act of spreading Islam in Hebrew is profound, reflecting a striking confidence on the part of some Muslims, members of Israel's Arab minority.

It also reflects the influence of conservative Islamic trends that emphasize spreading the religion, transmitted through web forums and satellite channels from Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Abu Hassan said that in years of conflict with Israel, Muslims, embattled and angry, neglected their responsibility to preach their faith to nonbelievers, including Jews.

"Muslims did not want to talk, and Jews did not want to listen. But Jews also need to hear the truth," he said.

Yitzhak Reiter, a professor at the Jerusalem Center for Israel Studies, said he had not seen anything similar in 30 years of studying local Islam. "This is the first time that someone has tried to convert Jews to Islam in the state of Israel," he said.

The efforts seem to have attracted no public notice so far. But the missionaries are treading on a potentially explosive taboo. Centuries of persecution and aggressive conversion attempts by Christian and Muslim majorities have made Jews, numbering 13 million people worldwide, deeply hostile to proselytizing. Israeli law places some restrictions on missionary activity, forbidding targeting minors or offering financial incentives, but does not outlaw it altogether.

The Holy Land's Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities all hold strong religious, tribal and ethnic bonds and deeply resist conversion. The result is a sort of loose understanding not to push the boundaries.

Azzam Khatib, a top Muslim official in Jerusalem, said the efforts to proselytize in Hebrew were not mainstream, but acceptable: "Whoever wants to join, they are welcome - but without any pressure."

Four years ago, Abu Hassan said, an Israeli Jew approached him with questions about Islam. At the time, he was distributing Islamic material to foreign tourists around the Old City.

Abu Hassan realized there was almost no missionary Muslim literature in Hebrew, so he and a few associates put together a Hebrew booklet. Since then, he said, they have distributed several thousand copies, he says Titled "The Path to Happiness," the booklet invites the reader to "think, and take advantage of this invaluable opportunity in which we are trying to take your hand and lead you to the eternal light."

The missionaries are wary of revealing personal details, fearing harassment. Somebody has already hacked Abu Hassan's cell phone, changing his voice mail message to a string of Hebrew curses against him and Muhammad, the Muslim prophet.

Most of those Abu Hassan engages ignore him, he said. Many are derisive, some verbally abusive. At one point Israeli intelligence agents questioned him about his funding, he said. He told them it came from donations in mosques.

"People curse me. But I do my job, and this is my job as a Muslim. I must explain gently, and in a nice way, about Allah," he said.

He dodged questions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying only that historically the "best times" for Jews came under Islamic rule and suggesting peace would come if Jews accepted Islam.

Abu Hassan and his companions are informally linked to a small, three-year-old organization known as the Mercy Committee for New Muslims, founded by Emad Younis, a charismatic, blue-eyed preacher from the north Israel town of Ara.

Younis said the committee is not primarily aimed at winning converts. It helps those who do convert adapt to life as Muslims and seeks to explain a moderate version of Islam to non-Muslims, particularly Israeli Jews, by distributing promotional material.

The number of converts remains tiny.

Israel's Justice Ministry, which registers converts, could not say how many Jews become Muslims. It said 400 and 500 of Israel's nearly 8 million people change their faith every year - many of them Christians joining different Christian sects. Reiter, the professor, said his research suggested about 20 converts a year to Islam, almost all women marrying Muslim men.

Younis of the Mercy Committee said most new converts were indeed women married to Muslims, and the majority were originally from the former Soviet Union, part of the 1990s wave of Eastern European immigration to Israel. The newcomers are less susceptible to taboos against intermarriage and conversion.

At a recent gathering for new Muslims, 55 converts came with their families - five of them native-born Israeli Jews, all of them women, Younis said.

One woman, a 20-year-old, converted in June to marry her Muslim husband.

"The Muslims greeted me with love I never got from my parents, and the women here say, 'You're one of us now,'" she said, giving only her new Arabic first name, Yasmin.

Yasmin lives in the Arab town of Taibeh in central Israel, a short drive from the traditional Jewish home in which she grew up. But she can't go back since her family, too, has disowned her.

"I have nothing now but my husband and Islam," she said.

http://www.iviews.com/Articles/articles.asp?ref=SP1109-4882

'Alaykum Salam.

Ibn al Musayyib.



Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib said, "There is not anyone left with more knowledge of every decision which the Messenger of Allah made, every decision of Abu Bakr and every decision of 'Umar than me." My father said, "I think that he also said, "And every decision that 'Uthman made."
 
When someone asked Zuhri about the ones from whom Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib took his knowledge, he said, "Zayd ibn Thabit. He also sat with Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, Ibn 'Abbas and Ibn 'Umar, and visited the wives of the Prophet, 'A'isha and Umm Salama. He listened to 'Uthman ibn 'Affan, 'Ali, Suhayb and Muhammad ibn Maslama, and many of his transmitters go back to Abu Hurayra whose daughter he married. He listened to the companions of 'Umar and 'Uthman. He said, 'No one has better knowledge of the decisions of 'Umar and 'Uthman than me.'"
 
Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn Hayyan said, "Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib was the the most eminent of those in Madina in his time, superior to them in fatwa. He was called 'the faqih of the fuqaha'.
 
Malik ibn Anas said, "'Umar ibn 'Abdu'l-'Aziz did not give a decision until he had asked Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib. He sent a man to him to ask him something but instead he summoned him. He came and entered. 'Umar said, 'The messenger made a mistake. We sent him to ask you in your assembly.'"
 
Muslim al-Khayyat reported that Ibn al-Musayyib said, "The fetter in a dream represents firmness in the deen." A man said to him, 'O Abu Muhammad, I dreamt that I was sitting in the shadow and I went into the sunlight.' Ibn al-Musayyib said, 'By Allah, if your dream is true, you will leave Islam.' He said, 'Abu Muhammad, I dreamt that I was brought out until I was in the sunlight and then I was cast aside.' He said, 'You will be forced into disbelief.' He went out in the time of 'Abdu'l-Malik ibn Marwan and was captured and forced to disbelieve and then he came to Madina and reported that.
 
'Imran ibn 'Abdullah reported that Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib said, "I have not missed the group prayer for forty years nor seen the backs of their necks."
 
Muhammad, Sa'id's son, said, "In the days of al-Harra, Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib was in the mosque and did not give allegiance and did not leave. He used to pray jumu'a with them and go out to the 'ids. The people were fighting and looting while he was in the mosque and only came out at night.
 
Burd, the client of Ibn al-Musayyab said to Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, "I have not seen anyone do better than what they did." Sa'id asked, "What did they do?" He replied, "One of them prayed Dhuhr and remained praying until 'Asr." Sa'id said, "Woe to you, Burd! By Allah, that is not worship. Do you know what worship is? Worship is to reflect on the command of Allah and to refrain from the things which Allah has forbidden."
 
Ibn Harmala said, "I went out to ad-Dabh and found a drunkard there. I looked after him and brought him into my house. I met Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib and I said, 'If a man is found drunk, should I take him to the ruler so that the hadd can be carried out on him?' He said to me, 'If you are able to shield him with your garment, do so.' I returned to my house and the man had come around. When he saw me, I recognised shame in him and I asked, 'Are you ashamed? If you had been taken yesterday, you would have received the hadd and you would have been like a corpse among people whose testimony is not allowed!' He said, 'By Allah, I will never do it again!'" Ibn Harmala said, "I saw that his state was good after that."
 
Al-Mughira ibn 'Abdu'r-Rahman said that he visited Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib with his father and he fainted and so he turned his face towards qibla. When he came around he asked, "Who did this to me? Am I not a Muslim who turns my face to Allah wherever I am?"
 
'Abdu'l-Hakam ibn 'Abdullah said, "Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib died in Madina in 94 AH at the age of 75 when al-Walid ibn 'Abdu'l-Malik was khalifa. The year in which Sa'id died is called the Year of the Fuqaha' because of the great number of fuqaha' who died during it."

'Alaykum Salam.

Company Of the Pious.



Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

Shaikh Mufti Mohammad Hasan (Allah have mercy on him) said,

‘Shaikh (Mirza) Mazhar Janejanan (Allah have mercy on him) said that if I come to know of the night of power (laylatul qadr) I would supplicate and ask Allah for the company of the pious.’

Al-qawl al-Aziz, page 28.

Taken from http://www.ashrafiya.com/2011/09/27/pious-company/ with thanks.

Faster Than Light.

Physicists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) have made a mind-bending — and rule-bending — discovery: They've measured strange subatomic particles called neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. "Superluminal travel" may be a common trope in science fiction, but Einstein's theory of special relativity strictly forbids it in the real world, as beating photons in a footrace would seem to require infinite energy.

So either the new data is wrong, or Einstein topples — along with almost every tenet of modern physics.

Imagine the latter scenario. What would a lawless universe, in which particles have free reign to zip around heedless of the light-speed limit, be like? How would your surroundings look and feel if you were that particle?

According to Michael Ibison, a senior research physicist at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Austin, Texas, such a world would be "spooky."
First off, it's unclear how you would see light if you were zooming past it. "Thinking about what the world would look like automatically makes you wonder what happens to your ability to see light, period," Ibison, who has studied the possibility of superluminal particles, told Life's Little Mysteries. "You'd be running into [light] that is usually running away from you. I suspect that in order to absorb light, you would have to emit it yourself."

The concepts of cause and effect — of time flowing in one direction — also shatter in a superluminal world. Imagine riding on a spacecraft made of faster-than-light neutrinos rocketing away from Earth. TV broadcasts playing the day's news are also emanating into space, and those are traveling at light speed. "If you got on a neutrino spacecraft and travelled out to space at neutrino speed, you'd catch up with the TV broadcasts and overtake them, and you would start to see the video of the news running backwards," Ibison said. As the stream of transmissions receded behind you, they would run backward at whatever your excess speed is over and above their speed — the speed of light.

What if you were standing still in a speed-limitless universe? What would you see then?

According to Ibison, the situation is analogous to standing on the ground as a supersonic jet passes overhead. Because these jets travel faster than the speed of sound, you see them before you hear them. When the sound does finally hit you, it's in the form of a sonic boom — a shock wave that builds up as sound from the aircraft gets bunched together behind it.

Similarly, he said, "If something were traveling faster than the speed of light, such as an airplane made of neutrinos, you wouldn't see it until after it had gone past you. Any light it emitted would be trailing behind in its wake. You would not see the neutrino plane until after it has gone past — and then only if it contained something that reflected or emitted light. And just as a plane passing through the sound barrier emits a sonic boom, a superluminal craft passing through light speed would emit a flash of light."

Again, no one is saying for certain that these scenarios are real. According to Hugh Gallagher, a particle physicist at Tufts University who works on the MINOS neutrino experiment, the CERN result will have to be replicated many times over before he and his colleagues abandon the tenets of special relativity. "But if the results are true, then a lot of the things we don't think of as possible suddenly become open to discussion again," Gallagher said.

http://www.livescience.com/16211-travel-faster-speed-light.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Livesciencecom+%28LiveScience.com+Science+Headline+Feed%29

'Alaykum Salam.

How Strong Are Our Sisters.

Muslim Woman: Hospital Mocked Her Faith

Updated: Friday, 23 Sep 2011, 6:44 PM EDT
Published : Friday, 23 Sep 2011, 4:18 PM EDT

A Muslim woman says she was forced to leave Abington Memorial Hospital without the care she needed, after a hospital staffer insulted her religion.
Janice Brown, 25, is a convert to the Islamic faith. And she suffers from periodic hemmoroidal bleeding, dating back to the birth of her daughter.
Late Thursday night, that bleeding led brown to the emergency room at Abington Memorial.
Brown says she'd called ahead, verifying that she'd be examined by a female doctor.
As a Muslim, it would be a sin for Janice to allow a non-related man to see her uncovered genital region.
But once inside the examination room, she was greeted by a man.
"The charge nurse came in- his name was James, though he went by Jim- and he told me that Abington Hospital does not discriminate and I'm not allowed to choose a preference whether i see a male doctor or a female doctor," says Brown.
The hospital's own web site includes a list of patients' rights that includes the right to medical and nursing services without discrimination based upon religion.
Janice's sister had joined her and confronted told the charge nurse.
"'You're asking her to go against her beliefs and commit sins because you don't want to find her a female doctor," she said.
And he said, 'I'm sure god will forgive her.'"
"I don't know if it was more of a mocking thing coming from the charge nurse- for him to tell me, 'oh, God's gonna forgive you.' You're not the one to make that decision in my life," says Janice Brown.
Brown says she stormed out and ultimately drove 45 minutes to another hospital, where she was treated without incident by a female physician.
She got home at 4 a.m.
"I think it's just a form of ignorance, basically. People not knowing or not taking the time to know or educate themselves about other religions so they can be sympathetic," said Brown.
Abington Memorial would not talk to us on camera.
In a written statement, the hospital promised a thorough investigation of Janice's claims.
They note that care providers may be assigned by gender if the request is based on religious beliefs but that the patient may have to wait for that gender-specific doctor.
Brown says she just wants an apology.
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/muslim-woman%3A-hospital-mocked-her-faith

May Allah give more strength to Sister Janice for standing up for Islam and all reverts across the world.
Wa salamu 'alaykum.

Shoot Dat Sand-Nigger, Solja.

Idaho soldier pleads guilty in Afghan plot
By GENE JOHNSON - Associated Press | AP – 5 hrs ago
JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Washington (AP) — A soldier among five charged in the thrill-killings of Afghan civilians last year pleaded guilty to a murder charge Thursday, confessing in court that he fired a heavy machine gun at a startled, unarmed man from 15 feet away after a co-defendant tossed a grenade at him.

"I knew I should have taken cover, but instead I pulled the trigger," Pvt. 1st Class Andrew Holmes, of Boise, Idaho, told the judge.

The soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle were arrested in Afghanistan last year, after prosecutors said they killed three civilians for sport during patrols in January, February and May.

Holmes, 21, was accused of directly participating in the first killing, and he was initially charged with conspiracy, premeditated murder and other charges. In a deal with prosecutors, he pleaded guilty to murder by an inherently dangerous act, possessing a finger bone from his victim, and smoking hashish.

Holmes told the judge, Lt. Col. Kwasi Hawks, that one of the ringleaders of the plot, then-Cpl. Jeremy Morlock, had frequently talked about killing civilians and suggested ways they could do it. As they left on patrol on Jan. 15, 2010, Morlock told Holmes to grab an illicitly obtained grenade out of his tent because "something might happen" — and Holmes complied: "I didn't know what was going to happen, but I had a terrible feeling that Cpl. Morlock was up to no good."

Later, as they patrolled a village in Kandahar Province, Morlock stood by a low wall along a field and called for Holmes. It was a cold day, Holmes said, and he was sweating and out of breath when he took a knee beside Morlock. He said he saw Morlock fiddling with something out of the corner of his eye — "I suspected it was the grenade, but I was hoping it was his radio."

The grenade it was. Morlock tossed it at a young man standing near the other side of the wall — even though the man was obviously unarmed and posed no threat, Holmes said. Then, he ordered Holmes to shoot.

"I looked at the young man. He was standing there like a deer in the headlights," Holmes told the judge in a clear, steady voice. "I fired six to eight rounds at the man, and I've regretted it ever since."

Holmes and Morlock then posed for a photographs holding up the head of the victim. Holmes' lawyer, Dan Conway, has insisted he was ordered to pose.

Holmes was expected to be sentenced Friday. No sentencing recommendations by prosecutors or the defense under the terms of the plea deal were immediately disclosed. Under military law, a person can be convicted of murder even if the act is not premeditated — if, for example, the actions of the defendant were taken in disregard of human life.

The charges against the five soldiers from what was formerly known as the 5th Stryker Brigade — since renamed the 2nd Stryker Brigade — are among the most serious war crimes charges to emerge from the Afghan war.

Prosecutors say that in addition to killing three men some of the defendants kept body parts severed from the corpses as well as photographs kept as war trophies. Drug use was rampant in the unit, and one soldier who blew the whistle on hash-smoking by his comrades was beaten up and threatened in retaliation.

Morlock has admitted taking part in the three killings and agreed to testify against his co-defendants in exchange for a 24-year sentence. Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs of Billings, Mont., is the highest ranking soldier charged in the killings, and Morlock and others said he was the mastermind. Gibbs denies wrongdoing.

Spc. Adam Winfield of Cape Coral, Fla., told his parents about the plot in Facebook messages after the first killing, and his father immediately reported it to Lewis-McChord. But the alert was not reported up the chain of command, and the plot did not come to light until months later, when two more victims had been killed.

Winfield admitted participating in the last killing, saying he thought Gibbs might kill him if he didn't, and he pleaded guilty this summer to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to three years.

Holmes also pleaded guilty to drug use and keeping a finger bone severed from a corpse. He told the judge Gibbs gave him the finger, and he took it only because Gibbs insisted.

Conway said it was a "tough pill to swallow" for Holmes to plead guilty to murder, but prosecutors would not agree to the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.

He blamed Holmes' troubles on the unluckiness of being assigned to a unit with Morlock.

"Andy Holmes joined the Army as a healthy, good-natured, 18-year-old kid who liked to play golf and go fishing," Conway said after court Thursday. "He may be leaving the Army as a felon."

Pathan Beats American Soldier.



Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

A young Pathan shows an American soldier who is the real man.

GI Joe ends up weeping on the ground.

He should have brought a Tomahawk missile alongwith him to equalise matters.

You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwPlVPGP6kM

Wa salam.

Reply To Modi's Letter.

An open reply to Modi's open letter

Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat wrote an open letter to citizens of India on 13 September 2011, in it he resolved to fast for three days from, Saturday, the 17th September 2011, starting a movement of "Sadbhavana Mission." Here is a reply to it from a well-wisher of Gujarat.

 

By Firdaus Ahmed, The Milli Gazette

Dear Mr. Modi,

You open your letter thus – “The unhealthy environment created by the unfounded and false allegations made against me and Government of Gujarat, after 2002 riots, has come to an end. For the past ten years, it has become fashionable to defame me and the state of Gujarat. These elements who could not tolerate any positive development of Gujarat have not left any stone unturned to defame Gujarat.”

Your attempt to conflate the government and the state of Gujarat with yourself is apparent. The opprobrium due to the government and its chief minister in respective measure in their deplorable reaction to the carnage in Gujarat cannot be escaped. The “state” of Gujarat, that presumably refers to fellow Indians belonging there, also have to answer to their collective and individual conscience in so far they have chosen you as their chief minister despite knowledge of your record in the carnage. Therefore, there is no escaping accountability of the three – the state, its government and you – in the Gujarat carnage, misrepresented in the media as “riots”.

The government of Gujarat is to be arraigned for its supine obedience to illegal directions that it restricted its damage control responses after the Godhra incident, the antecedents of which have been willfully misrepresented. The administration and the police required to react with professional zeal. This would have been possible had they had the moral fiber to disregard the directions allowing certain sections to vent their spleen. The second reason for the government’s culpability is in complicity of sections of it in suppressing evidence, propagating false accounts and pursuing justice selectively. These cannot be obscured by pointing to a development record.

The state of Gujarat, that is interpreted here as its citizens, bears the onus of not disciplining you at the elections. The one manner of expressing its displeasure at the events in their home state would have been to exercise their franchise bearing in mind the inadmissibility of the manner of your stewardship of the state during the crisis. Even if the details of your culpability were not as well known then as is now known, the fact that carnage was allowed to be perpetrated and its perpetrators continue in their midst is something that the society needed to have dwelt on while exercising their democratic prerogative. That they did not do so is apparent in their giving you a reprieve and allowing you to chalk up a development record to help paper over your earlier demonstration of incapacity and ill will.

Democracy requires an alert citizenry, one that is sensitive to manipulation attempts. The voters in Gujarat have to answer as to why they have allowed themselves to be misled. This is not to deny their democratic right to cast their vote to who they wish, but to remind them that it is a responsibility they owe themselves and their fellow citizens to cast the vote with due discrimination. 

This brings one to your record. That you were in charge of the state when these events were allowed to occur rightly should have led to your tendering your resignation taking moral responsibility. That you did not do so indicates your continuing need to be in a position to address the aftermath, to manipulate evidence. As is well known, you were saved from dismissal since the Centre was being run then by your own party and you had a well wisher as the Union home minister.

As for the development record, questioning its under-gridding drivers is in order. Firstly, Gujarat has been uniquely poised to benefit from the liberalization that has been ongoing for two decades now by its location, its entrepreneurial citizenry and its pre-existing economic base. This would have happened despite your presence or leadership. In fact, the development record stands blemished by the blot on Gujarat that you were principally instrumental in placing on its fair name. Secondly, any cohesion and administrative capacity it reflects owes in part to apprehension in the state apparatus and society.

Watching the carnage and the blatant manner you have got away with accountability for it, would no doubt inform the common man’s attitudes and output. After all, did not someone as important as Tata once remark that in the Emergency trains ran on time. Evaluating means is important to assessing ends. Lastly, the record on development is to be judged independently of your record during the carnage. The “forgive and forget” formula that your letter purveys is trifle self-serving on this score.

The timing of your letter also bears reflection. It bespeaks of a strategic move to move centerstage. The BJP central leadership in disarray and the Congress on the defensive makes it an opportune juncture to make the move. With the next Gujarat elections behind you, you would be in a position to stake a claim for a national profile. While there is no gainsaying that Gujaratis will have to take their own decisions, your attempt at acquiring a national role means that it would require to be purposefully combated.

You are democratically empowered to take a try. But this nation cannot afford to allow people to take charge of its destiny who have not paid a price for their past actions of omission or commission. That it has done so earlier such as in case of Mr. Advani, is no reason for it to err a second time. In his case, it was a mosque that was demolished for which he owed primary responsibility. To say that crowds he mobilised went out of control is only self-exculpatory. Likewise, the mobs that went wild in Gujarat were yours to control. The allegation you need to face up to is that you not merely failed to control them, but set them about their task by restraining the only force that could have prevented this, the police. They exacted a price of Gujaratis in lives. This is clearly greater a case for accountability than that of Mr. Advani.

Your references to the “nation” testify that the battle set to culminate in 2014 has been kicked off by you. Be mindful that India’s voters have proven far more sensible than their politicians give them credit for. They will surely teach you a lesson that your supporters in Gujarat have so far prevented you from receiving. That is, in case the courts do not do so earlier. After all, the case in the sessions court has only just begun; despite your obfuscation in giving the impression of closure at beginning your letter.

As the popular line goes: ‘picture abhi baki hai mere dost’. You will no doubt find, quite as you tweeted, that indeed, “God is Great!”

Regards,

A friend of Gujarat.

AIDS Puzzle Solved By Gamers.



Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.


The exploit is published on Sunday in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, where -- exceptionally in scientific publishing -- both gamers and researchers are honoured as co-authors.

Their target was a monomeric protease enzyme, a cutting agent in the complex molecular tailoring of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV.
Figuring out the structure of proteins is vital for understanding the causes of many diseases and developing drugs to block them.

But a microscope gives only a flat image of what to the outsider looks like a plate of one-dimensional scrunched-up spaghetti. Pharmacologists, though, need a 3-D picture that "unfolds" the molecule and rotates it in order to reveal potential targets for drugs.
This is where Foldit comes in.
Developed in 2008 by the University of Washington, it is a fun-for-purpose video game in which gamers, divided into competing groups, compete to unfold chains of amino acids -- the building blocks of proteins -- using a set of online tools.
To the astonishment of the scientists, the gamers produced an accurate model of the enzyme in just three weeks.
Cracking the enzyme "provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs," says the study, referring to the lifeline medication against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
It is believed to be the first time that gamers have resolved a long-standing scientific problem.
"We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed," Firas Khatib of the university's biochemistry lab said in a press release. "The ingenuity of game players is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems."
One of Foldit's creators, Seth Cooper, explained why gamers had succeeded where computers had failed.
"People have spatial reasoning skills, something computers are not yet good at," he said.
"Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans. The results in this week's paper show that gaming, science and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before."
Wa salamu alaikum.

Modi's Drama.

New Delhi: He may have prime ministerial ambitions but Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's 2002 riots ghost will not leave him soon, say political analysts and critics.

On Sunday, the second day of his three-day hunger strike aimed at cementing communal relations in the state, criticism of Modi's past record continued, both in and outside the state.

B.R.P. Bhaskar, a Kerala-based political analyst, thinks Modi's fast has come too late and creates suspicion.

"He will have to prove the genuineness of his new proclamations as he has already destroyed the social fabric of the state," Bhaskar told IANS over telephone.

Modi, blamed for the biased handling of the 2002 Gujarat communal riots, launched his 'sadbhavana' (goodwill) fast from a university hall Saturday -- as he turned 61.

Mridula Mukherjee, a professor with Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, calls the fast a "farce".

"The exercise is manipulative and the prayer for togetherness mentioned in his 'sadbhavana' statement betrays his political ambitions."

Mukherjee said scenes of Muslims wearing skull caps and in burqa greeting Modi at the fast venue did not mean much.

"Nothing has changed on the ground in Gujarat - be it the rightwing textbooks or the atmosphere of discrimination," she added.

Congress spokesman Rashid Alvi spoke on similar lines.

He said "a mere fast cannot wash away (Modi's) tainted past, packed with serious commissions and omissions".

"It will carry no conviction with any secular person in the country," Alvi told IANS.

The BJP thinks differently.

"The past week vindicated Modi and the BJP on many fronts," BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman told IANS, referring to the Supreme Court ordering a trial court to hear a case alleging the chief minister's complicity in the Gulberg housing society killings in 2002 - a move that was interpreted in completely different ways by the party and its rivals.

But Sitharaman thinks "it's premature" to discuss the prime ministerial candidature of Modi or to even link it with the fast.

She quoted a US Congressional Research Service report as praising Modi's governance and achievements.

Bhaskar feels it is a hype that Modi will emerge at the national level one day. "Even the US report admits he is popular only in Gujarat."


http://www.ummid.com/news/2011/September/18.09.2011/expert_on_modis_fast.htm

France Becoming Desperate.



Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

PARIS: A ban on praying in French streets came into effect on Friday, with thousands of the nation's Muslim faithful being moved to temporary alternative spaces for their day of prayer.

From Paris to Marseille, Friday's midday prayers will be led from disused barracks or other temporary buildings, after the question of Islam's visibility became a political issue under right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy.
France, home to Europe's largest Muslim population, this year banned the burqa and earlier this week interior minister Claude Gueant warned that "from September 16 there will be no more prayers in the street".

"If anyone happens to be recalcitrant we will put an end to it," Gueant said, suggesting police could be brought in. "Prayers in the street are unacceptable, a direct attack on the principle of secularism," Gueant said, citing the government's defence of the republic's secular values as reason for the new policies.

In Paris, a former barracks just north of the city limits has been designated the new prayer area for those living in the multi-ethnic Goutte d'Or neighbourhood.

The praying faithful at the Goutte d'Or's two mosques have overflowed into the streets since a nearby mosque where 4,000 people could pray closed years ago, sparking the ire of French right-wing and anti-immigration parties. The neighbourhood's mosques are to be closed for at least the coming three Fridays in order to encourage those wanting to pray to go to the renovated barracks, one of the mosques' preachers, Sheikh Mohammed Hamza, said.

"Most of the organisations running mosques managed to find solutions allowing them to avoid this kind of practice (praying in the street)," Marseille police said.

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/After-burqa-France-bans-street-prayers/articleshow/10014411.cms

 

'Alaykum Salam.

France Falling To Islam.



Al Salamu 'Alaykum.
Here is an islamophobic article on the growth of Islam in France and the possibility of Catholicism being overtaken soon. Enjoy:

Islam Overtaking Catholicism in France

by Soeren Kern
August 18, 2011 at 5:00 am

http://www.hudson-ny.org/2355/france-islam-overtaking-catholicism

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Islamic mosques are being built more often in France than Roman Catholic churches, and there now are more practising Muslims in the country than practising Catholics.

Nearly 150 new mosques currently are under construction in France, home to the biggest Muslim community in Europe. The mosque-building projects are at various stages of completion, according to Mohammed Moussaoui, the president of the Muslim Council of France (CFCM), who provided the data in an August 2 interview with the French radio station RTL.
The total number of mosques in France has already doubled to more than 2,000 during just the past ten years, according to a research report "Constructing Mosques: The Governance of Islam in France and the Netherlands." France's most prominent Muslim leader, Dalil Boubakeur, who is rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, recently called for the number of mosques in the country to be doubled again – to 4,000 – to meet growing demand.
By contrast, the Roman Catholic Church in France has built only 20 new churches during the past decade, and has formally closed more than 60 churches, many of which are destined to become mosques, according to research conducted by La Croix, a Roman Catholic daily newspaper based in Paris.
Although 64% of the French population (or 41.6 million of France's 65 million inhabitants) identifies itself as Roman Catholic, only 4.5% (or 1.9 million) of those actually are practising Catholics, according to the French Institute of Public Opinion (or Ifop, as it is usually called).
By way of comparison, 75% (or 4.5 million) of the estimated 6 million mostly ethnic North African and sub-Saharan Muslims in France identify themselves as "believers" and 41% (or 2.5 million) say they are "practising" Muslims, according to an in-depth research report on Islam in France published by Ifop on August 1. The report also says that more than 70% of the Muslims in France say they will be observing the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in 2011.
Taken together, the research data provides empirical evidence that Islam is well on its way to overtaking Roman Catholicism as the dominant religion in France.
As their numbers grow, Muslims in France are becoming far more assertive than ever before. A case in point: Muslim groups in France are now asking the Roman Catholic Church for permission to use its empty churches as a way to solve the traffic problems caused by thousands of Muslims who pray in the streets.
In a March 11 communiqué addressed to the Church of France, the National Federation of the Great Mosque of Paris, the Council of Democratic Muslims of France and a Muslim activist group called Collectif Banlieues Respect called on the Catholic Church – in a spirit of inter-religious solidarity, of course – to make its empty churches available to Muslims for Friday prayers, so that Muslims do not have to "pray in the streets" and be "held hostage to politics."
Every Friday, thousands of Muslims in Paris and other French cities close off streets and sidewalks (and by extension, close down local businesses and trap non-Muslim residents in their homes and offices) to accommodate overflowing crowds for midday prayers. Some mosques have also begun broadcasting sermons and chants of "Allah Akbar" via loudspeakers in the streets.
The weekly spectacles, which have been documented by dozens of videos posted on Youtube.com (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here), have provoked anger and disbelief. But despite many public complaints, local authorities have declined to intervene because they are afraid of sparking riots.
The issue of illegal street prayers was catapulted to the top of the national political agenda in France in December 2010, when Marine Le Pen, the charismatic new leader of the far-right National Front party, denounced them as an "occupation without tanks or soldiers."
During a gathering in the east central French city of Lyon on December 10, Le Pen compared Muslims praying in the streets to Nazi occupation. She said: "For those who want to talk a lot about World War II, if it is about occupation, then we could also talk about it [Muslim prayers in the streets], because that is occupation of territory. It is an occupation of sections of the territory, of districts in which religious laws apply. It is an occupation. There are of course no tanks, there are no soldiers but it is nevertheless an occupation and it weighs heavily on local residents."
Many French voters agree. In fact, the issue of Muslim street prayers – and the broader question of the role of Islam in French society – has become a major issue ahead of the 2012 presidential elections. According to a survey by Ifop for the France-Soir newspaper, nearly 40% of French voters agree with Len Pen's views that Muslim prayer in the streets resembles an occupation. Another opinion poll published by Le Parisien newspaper shows that voters view Le Pen, who has criss-crossed the country arguing that France has been invaded by Muslims and betrayed by its elite, as the candidate best suited to deal with the growing problem of runaway Muslim immigration.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose popularity was at 25% in July – worse than any predecessor less than a year ahead of a re-election bid, according to the TNS-Sofres polling group – has been spooked by Le Pen's advance in the opinion polls. He now seems determined not to allow Le Pen to monopolize the issue of Islam in France.
Sarkozy recently called Muslim prayers in the street "unacceptable" and said that the street cannot be allowed to become "an extension of the mosque." He also warned that the overflow of Muslim faithful on to the streets at prayer time when mosques are packed to capacity risks undermining the French secular tradition separating state and religion.
Interior Minister Claude Guéant on August 8 told Muslims who have been praying on the streets of Paris that they should utilize a disused barracks instead. "Praying in the street is something that is not acceptable," Guéant said. "It has to stop."
Meanwhile, France ushered in Ramadan by inaugurating a new mega-mosque for 2,000 worshipers in Strasbourg, where the Muslim population has reached 15%. Construction also continues apace of a new mega-mosque in Marseille, France's second-largest city where the Muslim population has reached 25% (or 250,000). The Grand Mosque – which at more than 8,300 square meters (92,000 square feet) will accommodate up to 7,000 worshippers in a vast prayer hall – is designed to be the biggest and most potent symbol of Islam's place in modern France.
Boubakeur, of the Grande Mosque of Paris, says the construction of even more mosques – paid for by French taxpayers – would ease the "pressure, frustration and the sense of injustice" felt by many French Muslims. "Open a mosque and you close a prison," says Boubakeur.
But Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has implied that the construction of mosques and minarets actually is part of a strategy for the Islamization of Europe. Publicly repeating the words of a 1912 poem written by the Turkish nationalist poet Ziya Gökalp, Erdogan said: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers."
Reflecting on the retreat of Catholicism and the rise of Islam in France, Archbishop Giuseppe Bernardini, an Italian Franciscan who heads the Izmir archdiocese in Turkey, and who has lived in the Islamic world for more than 40 years, has recounted a conversation he once had with a Muslim leader, who told him: "Thanks to your democratic laws, we will invade you. Thanks to our religious laws, we will dominate you."

Wa Salamu 'Alaykum.

World's Fastest Growing Faith.

Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

According to Guinness Book of World Records, Islam is the world’s fastest-growing religion by number of conversions each year: Although the religion began in Arabia, by 2002 80% of all believers in Islam lived outside the Arab world. In the period 1990-2000, approximately 12.5 million more people converted to Islam than to Christianity”. In 1990, 935 million people were Muslims and this figure had risen to around 1.2 billion by the year 2000, meaning that around this time one in five people were followers of Islam. According to the BBC, a comprehensive American study concluded in 2009 the number stood at 1 in 4 with 60% of Muslims spread all over the Asian continent: A report from an American think-tank has estimated 1.57 billion Muslims populate the world - with 60% in Asia. The report was done by the Pew Forum Research Centre. The forum also projected that in 2010 out of the total number of Muslims in the world 62.1% will live in Asia.
However the report also included a statement saying While the global Muslim population is expected to grow at a faster rate than the non-Muslim population, the Muslim population nevertheless is expected to grow at a slower pace in the next two decades than it did in the previous two decades. From 1990 to 2010, the global Muslim population increased at an average annual rate of 2.2%, compared with the projected rate of 1.5% for the period from 2010 to 2030. The report also made reference to the fact that Muslims are estimated to make up 23.4% of the total global population in 2010 (out of a total of 6.9 billion people) and that by 2030 Muslims will represent about 26.4% of the global population (out of a total of 8.9 billion people)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claims_to_be_the_fastest-growing_religion
Wa'laykum Salam.

Ireland's Fastest Growing Religion.



In a newseries, Carol Ryan looks at the world's fastest-growing religion.
Islam has arrived in Ireland. The 2006 census recorded 33,000 Muslims living here but the current figure is probably closer to 50,000, making Islam the fastest growing religion in Ireland. It is also the fastest growing religion in the world - 1.5 billion people call themselves Muslims. Islam is flourishing but it has also been the subject of furious debate in a post-9/11 world.
The Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland parishes in Dalkey Co. Dublin are jointly running a five-week course Learning Together About Islam. It is one of the first parish-based public forums on Islam of its kind. Since first floating the idea during Unity Week, organiser Canon Ginnie Kennerley received ''fantastic enthusiasm''. Extra chairs had to be brought in to accommodate the crowd arriving for the first lecture, suggesting there is huge demand for information about Islam.
Siraj Zaidi, an Indian Shia Muslim who has lived in Ireland for 15 years gave the first lecture. He is heavily involved in interfaith dialogue and was a founding member of the Three Faiths Forum of Ireland which works to improve relations between the three Abrahamic faiths.
He opened by saying that unfortunately many people now have a negative view of Muslims and initiatives like this are key to opening up dialogue and explaining true Islam.
His lecture was about Prophet Muhammad's life and the birth of Islam in the Middle East 1,400 years ago. Muslims call Muhammad ''Rasullah'' or ''Messenger of God''. To them he is a model personality - trustworthy, noble, generous and unmaterialistic - and they strive to follow his example in their everyday lives.
Born in 570 AD in what is now Saudi Arabia, he lived a very normal life working as a trader until the age of 40 when he began receiving divine revelations from the Angel Gabriel. These revelations make up the core of the Koran, the Muslim holy book which provides guidance on every aspect of human life including politics, economics, law, social interaction, hygiene and ethics. Muhammad was driven out of Mecca because of his preaching and migrated to Medina where he established a community of Muslims. By the time of his death 23 years later he had amassed 100,000 followers. Islam then underwent an extraordinary expansion and 100 years after Muhammad's death, the Islamic empire stretched from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to Central Asia in the east.
Siraj's talk was followed by a lively Q&A session during which he was asked to explain Islam's view of Jesus Christ (he is recognised as a prophet) and Muslim's interpretation of the Koran (they consider it the literal word of God).
Hijab
The topic which most ignited the audience was women's status in Islam. He said Islam was the first religion to give rights to women. Many questioned how Islam can claim to give higher status to women when the widespread perception is that Muslim women do not have equal rights. There was interest in the topic of hijab (the Muslim headscarf). Siraj explained that the Koran requires Muslim women to cover their heads and dress modestly. Girls begin wearing hijab at 12 or 13 years of age but he stressed that women are free to choose it. The niqab (the full face veil) is contentious even within the Muslim community and many do not believe it is called for in the Koran.
After the course, the feedback was largely positive. When asked why they came, many people said they are concerned about stories in the media and want some concrete information about Islam. Several people saw similarities between the core message of Islam and Christianity.
Fear
There is an element of fear in Irish people's perception of Islam, especially with the growth of the Muslim population here. There is suspicion that Muslims are here to expand, to take over and that Irish people must be fearful of them. There are many misconceptions and I blame the sensational and inflammatory nature of the media a lot for that. It boils down to the responsibility of journalists to show a balanced view.
There has been a lot of focus on Islamic issues in the news in recent years -whether it was the Salman Rushdie affair back in 1989, the first Gulf War or more recently the commotion in the Arab world. The 9/11 attacks really opened up people's consciousness but it was certainly not an Islamic act as is wrongly perceived by many. It is your first duty to create peace and harmony in the society you live in and explain that Islam is a religion of peace. The core of Islam is extremely liberal even though some people perceive it as being very rigid and narrow. The problem is the dictators in Middle Eastern countries who control their people and use Islam like a stick.
There is a certain extremist element of Islam which is blatantly at war with the West. They have this view that ''we are right, you are wrong'' which is very dangerous. The rest of the Muslim Community is in conflict with this element and that is leading to a huge split in Islamic ideology. We are the first to criticise these people.
Right to defend
Islam is all for defence, you have full right to defend yourself, but not offense. However, the West has been very corrupt in its dealings with Muslim dictators and rulers of certain kingdoms and that is fueling the problem. The Western understanding of women in Islam is quite clinical, that they are oppressed, uneducated and controlled. Muslim women get insulted by that. Islam gave women rights long before the West did. In the West women's bodies are used to sell products. You would not see a half-naked woman leaning over a brand new car or the Playboy industry in the Muslim world. Islam rejects that kind of liberalism.
Taken from http://www.irishcatholic.ie/site/content/irelands-fastest-growing-religion-carol-ryan

Pauvre America.



The US poverty rate hit its highest level since 1993 last year, with a record 46 million people living below the American poverty line, according to census data.
A government report released on Tuesday said the poverty rate rose for a third consecutive year to hit 15.1
per cent in 2010, up from 14.3 per cent a year earlier.
The US definition of poverty in 2010 was an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four, and $11,139 for a single person.
The survey showed struggles for the rest of Americans, with median annual household income falling 2.3 percent to $49,445.
However, the census report said there was no "statistically significant" change in inequality between 2009 and 2010 based on its index.
The poverty rate for blacks and Hispanics was much higher than for the overall population at 27.4 per cent and 26.6 per cent, respectively. Among regions, the South had the highest poverty rate at 16.9 per cent and the highest percentage without health insurance, 19.1 per cent.
The Census Bureau said the number of people country-wide without health insurance coverage rose to 49.9 million in 2010 from 49.0 million in 2009.
The report, showing the first full year since the recession officially ended in June 2009, supports the notion that Americans have been losing ground economically. It showed real median incomes fell 6.4 per cent from pre-recession levels in 2007 and were 7.1 per cent below the peak in 1999.
Underlying the census data was a rate of economic growth too weak to compensate for the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs from 2009 to 2010, as the recession officially ended but the jobless rate shot up from 9.3 per cent to 9.6 per cent.
Highest rate among rich nations
Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the report showed "the news on economic well-being in the US is not good," and that the trend is likely to continue.
"Given the widely accepted projections that both unemployment and in particular long-term unemployment will continue at high rates for the next several years, we can expect this pattern of continuing low income and high poverty rates for many years," Haskins said.
"Safety net programmes run by the federal and state governments are helping millions of families avoid poverty, but these programs could be subject to cuts at the federal and state level because of continuing deficit and debt problems".
The poverty rate increased for children under 18 to 22 per cent from 20.7 per cent in 2009.
The Children's Leadership Council, an advocacy group, called the news "unacceptable in America."
"We are paying the price for child poverty today, and we will pay the price for decades to come," the organisation said, calling for legislators to avoid further cuts to child welfare.
"The rising numbers of children living in poverty is a direct result of the choices made by political leaders who put billionaires before kids," the group said.
The US has the highest poverty rate among developed countries, according to the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/09/2011913215553440501.html
'Alaykum Salam.

Salaam Sidra.



Al Salamu 'Alaykum.

This uplifting piece of news came on twocircles.net. Enjoy it:

By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net
Patna: She is a silver lining in the dark cloud and thus could be a role model. Sidrah Jamal of Patna’s Sultanganj area – a thickly Muslim-dominated pocket of the state capital – has earned honor and fame for not just her already well-off and well-educated family but for the community also – the community whose females are described as the most illiterate among the rest of the communities in the country.
Sidrah has got Gold Medal for topping in the Postgraduate Diploma in Computer Applications (PGDCA) at IGNOU – the New Delhi based world’s largest open university with study centres across the country and in different parts of the globe.
The youngest daughter of Mr. Shaukat Jamal and Mrs. Subuhi Jamal, Sidrah is pursuing Master in Computer Application (MCA) at IGNOU – the first year of the course is also considered as Post Graduate Diploma In Computer Applications (PGDCA). She has topped in the first year of MCA. She was awarded the medal at the 24th convocation ceremony of IGNOU held on 5th September. Sidrah did BCA in 2010 from Patna Women's College, Patna University.
Sidrah’s father holds a high post in Railways while her two elder sisters are lecturer at the prestigious Patna Women’s College.
Giving details about her family and herself, Sidrah told TwoCircles.net: “I am the youngest daughter of Mr. Shaukat Jamal and Mrs. Subuhi Jamal. My father is the Chief Inspector of Tickets in East Central Railways and my mother is homemaker. We are three sisters. My eldest sister Mrs. Soofia Fatima is the Head of Commerce Dept., Patna Women's College and my elder sister Mrs. Sadaf Fatima is an Economics Faculty, Commerce Dept., Patna Women's College.”
This year, around 27,103 students were eligible to receive degrees and diplomas in different streams from the Patna regional centre of IGNOU. Only four of them received gold medals for extraordinary performance in their respective disciplines.
Besides Sidrah, other three gold medallists at Patna were Abhijit Kumar, for masters in history, Vijeta Priyadarshani, for masters in public administration, and Gagan, for postgraduate diploma in disaster management programme.
'Alaykum Salam.

Jawami al Kalim.



Al Salamu 'Alaykum.
Narrated Sa`eed bin Al-Musayyib (rah): Abu Huraira (ra) said that Allah’s Apostle (Sall-Allahu alayhi wa sallam) said, “I have been sent with ‘Jawami-al-Kalim ‘ (the shortest expression with the widest meaning) and have been made victorious with awe (cast in my enemy’s hearts), and while I was sleeping, I saw that the keys of the treasures of the world were placed in my hand.”
 
Abu Huraira (ra) added: “Allah’s Apostle (saws) has gone, and you people are utilizing those treasures, or digging those treasures out.” or said a similar sentence.

Holding Fast to the Qur’an and Sunnah – Sahih Bukhari Volume 9, Book 92, Number 378

Beauty Of Islam.

American poet, critic and author Colonel Donald S. Rockwell writes: "The simplicity of Islam, the powerful appeal and the compelling atmosphere of its mosques, the earnestness of its faithful followers, the confidence inspiring realization of millions throughout the world who answer the five daily calls to prayer, these factors attracted me from the first.

But after I had determined to become a follower of Islam, I found many deeper reasons for confirming my decision. The mellow concept of life -- fruit of the combined course of action and contemplation, the wise counsel, the admonitions to charity and mercy of the Prophet, , .

The broad humanitarianism, the pioneer declaration of women's rights, these and other factors of the teachings of the man of Makkah, were to me among the first obvious evidence of a practical religion so tersely and so aptly epitomized in the cryptic words of Prophet Muhammad, : 'Trust in God and tie your camel.' He gave us a religious system of normal action, not blind faith in the protection of an unseen force in spite of our own neglect, but confidence that if we do all things rightly and to the best of our ability, we may trust in what comes as the Will of God...

When I stood in the inspiring mosques of Istanbul, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, Algiers, Tangier, Fez and other cities, I was conscious of a powerful reaction -- the potent uplift of Islam's simple appeal to the sense of higher things, unaided by elaborate trappings, ornamentation, figures, pictures, music and ceremonial ritual. The mosque is a place of quiet contemplation and self-effacement in the greater reality of the true God.

The democracy of Islam has always appealed to me. Potentate and pauper have the same rights on the floor of the mosque, on their knees in humble worship. There are no rented pews or special reserved seats.

The Muslim accepts no man as mediator between himself and his God. He goes direct to the invisible source of creation and life -- God -- without reliance on a saving formula of repentance of sins and belief in the power of a teacher to afford him salvation. The universal brotherhood of Islam, regardless of race, politics, color or country, has been brought home to me most keenly many times in my life, and this is another feature which drew me towards the Faith."

The baseless claim that Islam converted the peoples it had 'conquered by force' has also been refuted by prominent non-Muslims.

From: A Glimpse at the Beauty of Islam.

Wa'laykum Salam.

Ingrid Mattson - Face Of Islam In America.



By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

HARTFORD, Conn. — Ingrid Mattson knows the media drill well.

She has done the "We condemn … (fill in the terrorism incident)" speeches — as if, she says, that's all anyone needs to hear from the president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

She has done the profiles of her as first woman/first convert/first North American-born head of the continent's largest Muslim group.

She has done the talk shows retelling how 20 years ago, she left the Catholicism of her Canadian childhood and her college focus on philosophy and fine arts to find her spiritual home in Islam.

"It's time now to move the focus back off me and back on the issues," says Mattson, a professor at Hartford Seminary, where she directs the first U.S.-accredited Muslim chaplaincy program at the Macdonald Center.

Mattson begins the second half of her two-year term at the society's Labor Day weekend national conference outside Chicago. The annual event draws 40,000 Muslims of every sect, culture, age, race and ethnicity for scores of sessions on faith, family and society and a massive multicultural bazaar.

But two weeks before the conference, sitting with two women in her tiny, book-stuffed office, Mattson has a moment to kick off her shoes. She sheds the long brown jacket stifling her tailored blue blouse, leans back and talks about her vision of American Muslim life and her visiting friend, Heba.

Heba Abbasi, 31, a faithful young Muslim in her snug black headscarf, is a Chicago inner-city public school teacher, a fitness trainer, a Palestinian-American wife with an equally observant mosque-going Indian-American husband. Both are also triathletes training for an event.

"This is who I mean. They are who ISNA has to serve. They are why I'm concentrating on building a strong religious and civic institutional life for Muslims in America. I want to be sure I'm not the first and last young woman leader. Why be a flash in the pan?" says Mattson, who turns 44 on Friday.

A uniquely American Islam

She talks of nurturing a genuine American Islam, rooted in the classical faith, which dates back before the theological, political and legal schisms fractured the Ummah, the Muslim world, centuries ago.

This is the faith she chose at age 23, drawn in, she says, by Islam's beauty, its ethos of service and its synthesis of life and faith in which every act relates to God.

The key is not to confuse the eternal religion — submission to God, respect for the Prophet, prayer, charity and the goal of pilgrimage to Mecca — with Islam's myriad cultural expressions that shift with times and society, Mattson says. Her essays and speeches are threaded with references to the Quran, the Hadith (the sayings of the Prophet) and the Sunna (the record of his practices).

American Muslim men and women alike should be empowered to speak to public policy in all areas — medicine, ethics, law, education, justice, marriage and family life — by drawing from the common wellspring of Islam, she says.

Ask others about Mattson and she sounds like Goldilocks in a headscarf: too liberal for some, too conservative for others, and just right to many young activists.

"I'm proud to have her elected as my president," says Eboo Patel, 31, founder of Chicago's Interfaith Youth Core, which creates social-service opportunities for Muslims, Christians and Jews. He sees Mattson's message come to life in ISNA.

"The bulk of the American Muslim community is very young and overwhelmingly under 40. Increasingly our leadership needs to be people we can relate to," Patel says. "She conducts herself within the ethos of service that unites American and Islam. That's what religious communities can offer at their best, the inspiration to reach out to the world from the basis of your own heritage."

But Pamela Taylor, a co-founder of Muslims for Progressive Values, wants Mattson to push for women to lead congregational prayers.

"I'm worried that she buys into the same logic that can be, and is, used to restrict women from everything: education, political office, even driving," Taylor says.

Roles for women

Mattson shakes off that critique. Yes, she does conclude, based on the Prophet's words, that an imam who leads men and women together in prayer must be male.

However, other religious roles — reciting the Quran, preaching, teaching, scholarship, counseling and issuing legal rulings — are open to all. She's excited about an upcoming book from a noted scholar who has traced female Islamic scholars back 27 generations to the wife of the Prophet. She lists the "man-made obstacles to women's spirituality" that worry her more: misogynistic sermons, misguided and demeaning counseling, limited access to education and scholarship, and prayer spaces for women that are too small, uncomfortable or inaccessible.

As for whether men are in the front of the mosque and women in the rear? "When you are bowed in prayer," says Mattson, "you are not in front or behind any person. You are in front of God. That's the whole point of prayer."

Jamillah Karim, an assistant professor of religion at Spelman College in Atlanta, says Mattson is wise not to focus on women as imams.

"Most women are not overly concerned with this. This is an American religious community still in formation. Women are more interested in issues of family life, traditional concerns such as marriage and divorce," says Karim.

University of Delaware political scientist M.A. Muqtedar Khan gives Mattson mixed reviews. He calls her "an angel" and "the queen of American Muslims." But he adds, "She'll never rock the boat.

"She's not radical on anything. She's allowed ISNA to take strong positions against terrorism, but she'll never be at odds with the government. You won't see any criticism of U.S. policies. You'll see her continue the talk about the diversity within Islam. She'll make her mark as an activist with things like her chaplaincy program but not as a scholar with influential ideas or someone who modernizes thinking within Islam," says Khan.

Won't rock the boat?

Mattson rolls her brown eyes. Headline-making, provocative individual action holds no attraction for her.

"That's the 'great man' theory of history. Look where that's gotten us. I want to build something. I'm interested in long-term institutional strength," she says.

Mercy and caring

Topics at this year's conference include sessions on faith and social justice and community service, and one called "U.S. Sponsored Torture: A Concern for Muslims and All People of Faith."

"If religion is not about expanding the borders of your empathy, you might as well write it off," she says. "Religion is all about extending mercy and caring. If not, it's just tribalism: Muhammad himself said religion should be the opposite."

Mattson says she takes on the controversies, too, confronting in her own way the atheists, ideologues and "Islama-phobes" who say religion is outmoded or Islam is anti-Zionist or, simply, irrationally, fear any Muslims among them.

"These days, if you say anything nice to or about Muslims, it's seen as being soft on terrorism, as if all Muslims were terrorists.

"Anti-Muslim sentiments are used as a way to score points" in politics, she says.

"People see us, they see Heba and her husband, who wears a beard and a kufi (cap), and they have no idea the life they lead."

Or the life that Mattson leads.

If people saw her, covered from her colorful scarf to her long skirt, walking 3 miles home on a steamy summer evening, they would not know:

•She's a mother of two teens.

•She relaxes by mowing the lawn; juvenile rheumatoid arthritis forced her to give up running.

•She kept her name when she married her husband, a Baghdad-born Egyptian engineer whom she met while working with Afghan refugees in Pakistan in the '80s.

Photos of Afghan friends join family snapshots tacked to Mattson's office wall, along with a newspaper photo of an old man swarmed by pigeons he is feeding. It inspires her, she says, because "this is a man who has found exactly what he wants to do."

"What do you want to do?" may be Mattson's favorite question.

When someone asks her guidance, she'll reply: "Be the kind of Muslim you want to be. Do not let other people define your faith for you."

Mattson's Islam? "To glorify God through service to God's creation."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-08-20-mattson-islam_N.htm

Wa Salamu 'Alaykum.