Articles

The last thing a Muslim country like Somalia – which has been in the grip of turmoil and lawlessness for 16 years and is now under occupation by Ethiopian and US forces – needs is intervention in its turbulent affairs by Muslim governments, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, that are allies of the US and back its anti-Islamic programme in the Horn of Africa. Yet that is exactly what took place in mid-September, when three top leaders of the so-called Somali interim government (IG) and 300 clan heads (warlords, most of them) gathered in Jeddah and signed a “national reconciliation pact”, as the minority accord was presented.

On September 25, Iranian president Mahmood Ahmadinejad addressed the General Assembly of the UN. Here we reprint a slightly abridged translation of text of his address.

Blackwater: the rise of the world’s most powerful mercenary army by Jeremy Scahill. Nation Books, New York, 2007.Pp: 464. Hbk: $26.95.

Iraqis have become victims of violence in many different circumstances since the American invasion of the country in 2003. Many have been victims of sectarian violence between the Sunni and Shi‘i communities, in which Shi‘i religious institutions and occasions have been particularly targeted by Sunni militants. Few, however, could have anticipated that the Shabaniyah festival in Karbala on August 28, to mark the anniversary of the birth of the twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, would end with over 50 people killed in fighting between Shi‘i gunmen and Iraqi authorities, sparked by the heavy-handed security arrangements in the city.

When Hizbullah drove the Israeli military out of southern Lebanon in August last year, winning a stunning victory in a war by which the US and Israel had hoped to destroy Lebanon’s main Islamic movement and secure control over the country, it was a defeat not only for Israel but for the US as well.

Later this month, Muslims all over the world will mark the beginning of the blessed month of Ramadan, undoubtedly the most special time of year for all Muslims. The obligation to fast in the month of Ramadan was laid upon Muslim by a Divine commandment conveyed through Allah’s Messenger (saw) in the second year after the hijra, when the new Muslim community in Madinah was still in its early, formative period.

The month of August included the anniversaries of three important events in Islamic history, two reflecting Islam’s glory and the third the Muslims’ current impotence.

Asked about the lesson of fasting, Imam Husain (r.a.) is reported to have replied that “the rich should feel the pangs of hunger and appreciate what the poor have to endure, and therefore share Allah’s bounty with them.”As Muslims begin the month of Ramadan later this month, they should think of the suffering of their brothers and sisters in Palestine, and Ghazzah in particular.

The United States regime, never shy about showing its zionist colors, has come out swinging again; this time, its target is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of the Islamic State in Iran, which it plans to brand as a “terrorist organization”. Of course, the politicians in Washington are free to say whatever they want – thank God it’s a free country, with freedom of speech and all that. The thing to notice, though, is whether such “made in Tel Aviv” statements are serious policy or simply political rhetoric.

How to get 80,000 Muslims to fill up a soccer stadium? Unless there is a soccer match, a soccer stadium is hardly ever filled up. At the Gelora Bung Karno stadium, the largest stadium in Jakarta, on August 12, however, nobody was playing football when people filled up all the seats. Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), no stranger to crowd-mobilisation, managed to gather a huge crowd: some cynics say that getting 80,000 people together in a country like Indonesia is no big deal; the realities of the land in which an event is held are more important aspects to be analysed by observers of Indonesian politics, particularly those in the Islamic movement.