You make up your own mind on this.

No comment from me!

(Originally Posted here)

Different reasons are given for the Bali terrorist attacks. Australian Prime Minister John Howard describes it as an attack on democratic Indonesia, an attempt to destabilise the country and punish it for adopting a more democratic model.

South Australian magistrate Brian Deegan, who lost his 22-year-old son Josh in the 2002 Bali bombing, says it was an attack on Australian foreign policy.

I have my own theory which does involve a short history lesson. I believe the Bali bombing was an attack on Indonesian Islam.

Some 700 years ago, Yemeni traders brought Islam to this part of the world, the centre of Southeast Asian trade.

The various indigenous merchants had no system of accounting and the Yemenis introduced the systems still in use today including resolving commercial disputes based upon sharia law. In Indonesia, when people think of sharia, they don’t think of chopping hands and stoning adulterers. They think of banking and finance and trade law.

Most Yemeni traders came from a tribe known as the Bani Alawi, direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. In the towns and villages around Penang and Aceh, you will find more direct descendants of the Prophet than in Saudi Arabia.

And the People of the House (as Muslims refer to the Prophet’s descendants) are known for certain qualities. They are scholarly. They are soft-hearted and compassionate. They are calm. They are spiritual. They inspire love, not hatred.

The Yemeni traders were Sufis who brought a kind of Islam that focuses on spiritual purification and social reform. Sufis work with people of all faiths in an effort to bring peace and prosperity to the world.

In New York, a Sufi imam named Feisal Abdul Rauf regularly hosts dinners with Jewish and Christian New Yorkers. In India, the poor and depressed of all faiths and no faith find refuge at the tombs of Sufi saints. Sufism is a grassroots religion in just about every Islamic country, including Afghanistan and Iraq.

The terrorists’ version of Islam has no room for Sufis. The terrorist religion is about war, not peace. It is about hatred, not love. Sufis teach that you bring people closer to you and your faith through love and service to others. Terrorists teach that you convert people by killing them, by bringing tears to the eyes of their families and loved ones, by driving fear into their communities.

The terrorist vision of Islam is winning no friends in the world’s largest Islamic community.

The latest bombing has taken place in the final week of the sacred Islamic month of Sha’ban. Orthodox Sunni Indonesians see this month as a time to prepare for the beginning of the sacred month of Ramadan.

Traditionally, the shedding of blood during Ramadan and its two preceding months is strictly forbidden. The terrorists have flouted this taboo which finds its source in the Koran, the scriptures regarded by millions of Indonesians as the literal word of God.

Terrorists bring out the worst in themselves and others. Orthodox Sufi Islam brought peace to this region of the world. Today, the terrorist ideology masquerading as Islam is bringing war and violence and tears to the region. Those who care about Islam should be at the forefront of fighting terror.

* Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney-based industrial lawyer and occasional lecturer in the Department of Politics at Macquarie University in Sydney.

© Irfan Yusuf 2005

This is probably the kind of comics that the girls from Prussian Blue read. ( Better quality here for Part 1, 2, and 3.)

Enjoy!

Here is the perfect example of why having good relations with Israel is a good thing.

Who knew that deportation would benefit organized crime?

Wanna see how the Saudi males view Rania El Baz? And you wonder why i am calling for Saudi to be nuked?

Mia will break down Daylight Savings Time for all of you who never got the point. She will try to anyway.

In Britian:

The Prince of Wales will try to persuade George W Bush and Americans of the merits of Islam this week because he thinks the United States has been too intolerant of the religion since September 11.

The Prince, who leaves on Tuesday for an eight-day tour of the US, has voiced private concerns over America’s “confrontational” approach to Muslim countries and its failure to appreciate Islam’s strengths.

[...]

Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, was also at the meeting at St James’s Palace. “His criticism of America was a general one of the Americans not having the appreciation we have for Islam and its culture,” he said.

Meanwhile in Australia:

POLICE are being advised to treat Muslim domestic violence cases differently out of respect for Islamic traditions and habits.Officers are also being urged to work with Muslim leaders, who will try to keep the families together.

[...]

The instructions come in a religious diversity handbook given to Victorian police officers that also recommends special treatment for suspects of Aboriginal, Hindu and Buddhist background.
Some police officers have claimed the directives hinder enforcing the law equally.

Police are told: “In incidents such as domestic violence, police need to have an understanding of the traditions, ways of life and habits of Muslims.” They are told it would be appreciated in cases of domestic violence if police consult the local Muslim religious leader who will work against “fragmenting the family unit”.

Islamic Women’s Welfare Council head Joumanah El Matrah called the guidelines appalling and dangerous. “The implication is one needs to be more tolerant of violence against Muslim women but they should be entitled to the same protection,” Ms El Matrah said.

“Police should not be advising other officers to follow those sorts of protocols. “It can only lead to harm.” Ms El Matrah said Muslim leaders should be brought into domestic violence investigations only if requested by the abused woman.

No Comment.

This is disgusting:

Unidentified assailants attacked a group of high school girls on Saturday in Indonesia’s tense province of Central Sulawesi, beheading three and seriously wounding another, police said.

The students from a private Christian high school were ambushed while walking through a cocoa plantation in Poso Kota subdistrict on their way to class, police Maj. Riky Naldo said. The area is close to the provincial capital of Palu, about 1,000 miles northeast of Jakarta.

Naldo said the heads of three victims were found several miles from their bodies. Two were left near a police station and another in front of a newly built Christian church.

Oh God.

They were 16 years old. 16. Beheaded. Just like that. Jihad. Killing the christian infidels. Girls? Even better. Sisters of the Devils. Bonus Points for doing this during Ramadan. Praise Allah.

When will it end? WHEN WILL IT FUCKIN END?

God..

Update: There are pictures of those 3 girls. I wouldn’t recommend looking, but here they are. Try to withhold your rage and disgust, cause I couldn’t!

Come and meet people in Arnie’s neighborhood.

The majority may not be as bad as we are led to believe. Or so says this article.

Mr. Pachachi is a Sunni, but he believes that Sunnis and Shiites, Kurds and Arabs, and Iraq’s minorities, are not by nature disposed to the current politics of religious and ethnic division. He regards the years of repression under Mr. Hussein, a Sunni whose main victims were Shiites and Kurds, as less a matter of Sunnis bludgeoning others to gain minority privilege than the work of a tyrant who betrayed Sunnis’ instincts for a common life. Although seething mosques and insurgents dominate the Sunni heartland now, he says, most Sunnis, at heart, would prefer an inclusive, secular Iraq.

Who am I to argue with the man? Read the whole thing.

..this could happen in Egypt if the MB took over.

Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia’s government has endorsed a university’s ruling that requires non-Muslim women to wear headscarves on its campuses, a report said on Wednesday.

The minister in charge of national unity, Maximus Ongkili, said the decision by the International Islamic University earlier this year was not a religious one, but merely part of university procedures.

“As the rule was approved by the university senate, it is not religious in nature but a matter of uniforms that must be followed. It does not breach basic human rights,” Ongkili was quoted as saying in the Star daily.

National Unity, ehh?

Fantastic.

Ayman Nour is cleared of his bribery charges. The forgery charges, the more serious offense, is still going on though.

He is still running though in the parliamentary elections, and so are 5400 candidates, which means that there are 12 candidates per seat. Talk about competition.

On the other hand, Egyptian rights and civic groups filed a court case against the electoral commission over conditions they claim will impede their ability to monitor the parliamentary elections. Good luck.

Here is an article on Egyptian and arab bloggers (naturally featuring yours truly) written in Basque spanish. If you can read it, tell me if it says good things about me or not.

It may not go as smoothly as you may think!

3 explosions, at least 61 dead, dozens more injured, state of emergency declared.

Who was it?

Asked who was responsible, he would only say “there are several clues.” The Indian government faces opposition from dozens of militant groups — particularly Kashmiri separatists, some of whom also oppose the peace process between Pakistan and India.

A leading anti-terrorism expert said the timing and nature of the blasts indicates they were the work of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, the most feared militant group in Kashmir.

“It looks like Lashkar. They are the most active group here,” said Vikram Sood, the former head of the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency.

“These are not entirely unexpected. It is a wake up call for all those who think of open borders” between India and Pakistan.

Pakistanis, again.

Remember how I mentioned that the world wasn’t amused at Iran’s Prez call to wipe Israel out? Well, to curb down the damage, former Preisdent Rafsanji went and said that Iran respects Jews and Judasim.

In a clear move aimed at calming worldwide tensions and condemnations over anti-Israeli remarks by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Friday that Iran respected both Jews and Judaism.

“We have no problems with Jews and highly respect Judaism as a holy religion,” Rafsanjani said at the Friday prayer ceremony which followed anti-Israeli demonstrations throughout Iran.

And then A.J. went and repeated what he said yet again, in an Anti-Israel rally.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood fast behind his assertion that Israel should be wiped off the map and repeated the call during the nationwide protests Friday, the Muslim day of prayer.

[...]

Marching alongside the protesters, the 47-year-old former mayor of Tehran and one-time Republican Guard commander renewed his criticism of the West.

“They become upset when they hear any voice of truth-seeking. They think they are the absolute rulers of the world,” he said during the al-Quds — or Jerusalem — Day protest, which was among the largest since they were first held in 1979 after Shiite Muslim clerics took power in Iran.

His fellow marchers carried placards reading “Death to Israel, death to America.” It is not uncommon for an Iranian president to join marches in the capital. Ahmadinejad was accompanied by five bodyguards, but otherwise security was not out of the ordinary for such an event.

But….

The Iranian Embassy statement in Moscow said Ahmadinejad “did not have any intention to speak in sharp terms and engage in a conflict.”

So, what was that whole wiping Israel out thing? Europeans want to know exactly what he meant by saying that. Well, ScrappleFace may have the explanation right here:

(2005-10-27) — The United Nations Security Council today took up discussion on what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad might have meant when he called for Israel to be “wiped out from the map”.

Secretary General Kofi Annan said Iran, as a member of the U.N., must be given the benefit of the doubt that the phrase was intended to encourage peaceful diplomacy.

“‘Wiped’ is a word that can denote cleanliness,” said Mr. Annan. “The Iranian president may have simply meant that the map should be cleaned so Israel’s legitmate borders are easier to see.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s remarks came during the month-long ‘World without Zionism’ celebration, and echoed the Ayatollah Khomeini’s previous comments about map hygiene.

Yeah. That must be it.

Did anyone know of this? Doesn’t that mean that the War could’ve been avoided if it wasn’t for Moussa and the League meddeling?

Oh God.

Nadz is handing them out. Oh, yes she is.

Looking for comedy… in the muslim world? You must be Jewish!