Articles

There are some sciences which are oppressed in our society. They are oppressed in the sense that they have no particular owner. The reason they have no owner is because they do not have a set of clearly definable rules and limitations. At any rate, my words on art here are not of this kind. I am not speaking here as a specialist on the subject of art, but rather as one who is interested in knowing about art.

On the day of Ashoura, Horr made a huge decision. Right before the battle started, he left his position and the army he was commanding, and joined Imam Hussein, and was the first to be killed in the way of Allah, by the army he used to be a commander of just a few hours earlier. The name "Horr" means free, freeborn, noble, freeman.

A great many people are acquainted with Islamic views of society, social relations, women's rights, children's rights and family rights, but these same people then actually follow non-Islamic, ancient cultural traditions and do not dare to base their lives upon Islamic values. That is, they do not practice what they preach. Thus we always remain at the level of talking.

Truly, even thinking about the Prophet is extremely difficult and awe inspiring. A great personage like Ali said: "Whenever we found the situation to be grave, we used to take refuge in the Prophet of God and sought the shelter of his presence in order to feel safe and protected in his loving company".

As a person who is "knowledgeable about religion" and whose field of study is "the history of religions", I reached the following conclusions as a result of my study and research of the historical evolution of each faith whereby I compared what the faiths were in the past and what they are now as well as a comparison in the differences between the "truth" and the "reality" of the faiths.

There has been an air of excitement in the Ummah since the presidential elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The older generation of Imam Khomeini’s friends and followers, this writer included, are uplifted by the fact that “one of us” – a Revolutionary – has become the president of an Islamic state that was, during the incumbency of the last two presidents, losing its Islamic character while promoting its nationalist and sectarian inclinations.

Palestine -- Beginner’s Guide by Ismail Adam Patel. Al-Aqsa Publishers, Leicester, 2005. Pp: 234, with more than 100 images and 50 maps. By Rajnaara Akhtar Ismail Adam Patel is a writer, speaker and activist on the question of Palestine, and has contributed to the debate since founding the Friends of Al-Aqsa organisation in 1997. His attachment to Palestine and Jerusalem stems from firsthand witness of the occupation and the resultant destruction of Palestinian society.

About fifteen years ago Muslims in Britain fought a long battle for the defence of Islam after the publication of Salman Rushdie’s blasphemous novel The Satanic Verses. In the two months since the bomb-blasts in London on July 7, it has become increasingly clear that Muslims in Britain face a similar battle now, as secular and liberal fundamentalists in Britain use the bombings as opportunity and justification for a much wider attack on the Muslim community in this country. Although it is entirely understandable that the British authorities should step up security precautions, and intensify investigations of those tiny and marginal groups among Muslims that espouse the sort of appalling violence that was seen on July 7, British politicians and many media and social commentators have turned the debate about the attacks of July 7 into a debate about Islam and Muslims in Britain and, in many cases, another full-scale offensive on Islam in this country.

When Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, long known as the Butcher of Beirut and famous as the champion of Israeli expansionism, first aired the idea of what he called a unilateral disengagement from Ghazzah, many observers were cynical, expecting that it was a ploy that would come to nothing. But there were always good strategic grounds for the decision, and many Palestinians must have drawn grim satisfaction from the sight last month of Israeli troops trying to force Jewish settlers to vacate their luxurious homes in Ghazzah’s zionist settlements. The first and foremost of these grounds was, of course, that the Palestinians of Ghazzah, led by Hamas, had simply made it impossibly difficult and expensive for the Israelis to remain there. But there are others too, which should not be forgotten.

In the 1980s, the Islamic movement was associated with progress and liberation in Muslim countries. Today, it is all too often associated with terrorism and violence. IQBAL SIDDIQUI discusses the reasons for this change and the need for voices of intelligent, moderate Islamic moderate leaders to reclaim the leadership of the Islamic movement...