In Defence of Ahmadinejad and Bollinger

It is better to post disclaimer first, so here it is- I am not a fan of Ahmadinejad. As you know, that does not mean I hate him. More about it at the end.

DOWNs

First issue westerners have with him is that- he seeks destruction of Israel. His answer, people have the impression, and they are right, was very ambiguous. It requires a lot of circumstantial information to understand what Ahmadinejad said.

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A Thousand Years of Science

We are approaching a thousand years of Science. Modern science is based on the idea of empiricism.  Every idea, to be accepted, must be verifiable by experiement. This soul of the new Science was first seen in the works of ibn al-Haitham or Alhazen in the first half of the eleventh century.

A blog dedicated to discuss thousand years of Science / ibn al-Haitham / Alhazen has been set up.

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Qur’an Reading

Shahrzad is hosting a group Qur’an reading. May Allah be pleased with our effort, and may He forgive us of our sins, and may he cleanse our souls.I have been allotted verses 2:59-2:74. The verses are below.

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Ahmadinejad in Columbia University

Everybody’s talking Ahmadinejad, only few are talking what Ahmadinejad said, some of the few when it suits them (eg. we don’t have homosexuals in our country”)

Here is Al-Jazeera’s report on it.

And the whole speech

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United We Stand- The Sunni Unity Pledge

Hold fast to the Rope of Allah, all together, and be not divided. (Qur’an, 3:103)

Suhaib Webb has posted a pledge of Mutual respect among Sunni Muslim scholars, with a really long title (A Great Blessing in a Blessed Month: Pledge of Mutual Respect and Cooperation Between Sunni Muslim Scholars, Organizations, and Students of Sacred Knowledge).

Mujahideen Ryder is collecting signatures for it. Here I sign. ( iMuslim led me to the pledge, JazakAllah, iM)

I wonder, would it not be nice if we could have Shi’as too?

(Update: MM has posted the pledge too.)

(Update: gess has her concerns about the pledge, some others have also expressed unhappiness about ‘sunni’ being mentioned in the name and not only ‘muslim’. )

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Should Judges Be Accountable?

So thinks Roy (Scandal In the Palace).

At its epicentre is Y.K. Sabharwal, former Chief Justice of India, who until recently headed the most powerful institution in this country—the Supreme Court. When there’s a scandal about a former chief justice and his tenure in office, it’s a little difficult to surgically excise the man and spare the institution.

But then commenting adversely on the institution can lead you straight to a prison cell as some of us have learned to our cost. It’s like having to take the wolf and the chicken and the sack of grain across the river, one by one. The river’s high and the boat’s leaking. Wish me luck.

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Truth Strikes

We feel happy about something bad going away, and then truth strikes. I hope one day we shall rise above it.

Racism isn’t a thing of the past yet.

(Through Rockin Hijabi)

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Muslim Blogging Tips

I have been blogging for about one and a half years now. I shall try to sum up what I’ve learnt to keep the blog moving, and to help Islamosphere in general. Hope you find them sensible.

Learn linking. Link to those whose views you think matter. If everybody gets into the habit of linking, Muslim bloggers as a whole will get more hits from search engines.

Keep abreast about what others are talking about. Get into a hot discussion (more about it below). Ijtema can be helpful to find out what’s hot.

If you have read a blog, it has made you think and you typed out a long response there. Don’t. Write a post on your blog, link to the original post of the other blog and leave a short comment there stating your position. At the end of the day, you may get some links and you give others some.

Do not link with words like ‘here’. Try to put the link on relevant words to help search engines know what the link is about. For example if you are linking to the Muslim Jesus post of iMuslim, link it from the words “Muslim Jesus”, just as I have done.

Do not link to Islamophobic sites unless you have to. A good working strategy is to link to a friend’s blog that talks about the same site/post. For example, if you want to refer to Taslima Nasrin’s article about burqa in Outlook, you could link to Sharique, just as it is done here.

Keep a long blogroll. Divide the blogroll into categories for yourself and for others. Keep few blogs, the best and your favourite, separately on top of the blogroll.

Link to the popular blogs. Don’t fall into- ‘everybody know them’ because everybody do not know them. Please remember that Jihad Watch has about eight thousand blogs linking to it. No Muslim blog is even close to that. It is popular blogs that have a chance to reach up. So please do link to popular blogs.

Update your blog regularly. At least twice a week. If you are busy, say so on your blog. Your readers will appreciate that.

Get into group blogs if you blog about issues. Group blogs tend to get more readers than lonely bloggers.

Do not prefer ego over issue. If you know a blogger who writes well, keep him/her on your blogroll, even if he/she does not link to you. Be humble. Your reward is from Allah.

Link to people who differ from you. There is barakah in a group that has people who disagree.

If you want, you can update this list. You can simply copy and paste to your blog, you can change the examples and add the points you want to.

Comments will be off on this post.

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Hindu Fanaticism and Hinduism

Okay, I am not a Hindu, nor do I believe in Hinduism, but it is true that Hinduism is inclusive religion in terms of tenets. You can believe almost anything and still be a Hindu. All that matters is paying ode to culture.

The fanatic branches of Hinduism, the VHP, the RSS etc. are an anomaly. They sing the praise of the name Hindu (which was, by the way, coined by Muslims) but they were actually inspired by non-Hindu sources.

History of that I found out very recently. The Hindu Nationalism actually got it’s roots in late nineteenth century Europe when Nationalism was flourishing. Their growth is parallel to, and inspired by the growth of Nazis. Many Hindu Nationalists were all flowers about Hitler.

More on this later.

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Goethe: A Poem From ‘Diwan’

THE FOUR FAVOURS

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THAT Arabs through the realms of space

May wander on, light-hearted,
Great Allah hath, to all their race,

Four favours meet imparted.

The turban first–that ornament

All regal crowns excelling;
A light and ever-shifting tent,

Wherein to make our dwelling;

A sword, which, more than rocks and walls

Doth shield us, brightly glistening;
A song that profits and enthrall,

For which the maids are list’ning!

-Goethe

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It was a pleasant surprise for me to find out that Goethe was a patron of Islam. He once wrote – I doubt not the Qur’an.

The next gift I am going to give will InshaAllah be a Diwan of Goethe, or a Hafiz.

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