“We appeal to all Lebanese, from every region and political movement, to take part in a peaceful and civilised demonstration on Friday to rid us of an incapable government that has failed in its mission.”
-Shaykh Hassan Nasrullah
A great book by Dr Shahid Alam has been published. For those of you who do not know him, he is a professor, whom has continued to speak out against global injustices, even after being politically smeared. I have worked with him in the past and he is a great academic. Here is a brief biography of him,
M. Shahid Alam is a professor of economics at Northeastern University, Boston. His writings have appeared in leading economic journals, including Economic Development and Cultural Change, Southern Economic Journal, Journal of Development Economics, American Economic Review, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Studies in Contemporary Islam and Kyklos; in popular newspapers and web sites including Dissident Voice.org, Counterpunch, Al Ahram, Commondreams.org, Dawn, Holiday, Asia Times, Scoop, and Outlook India; in literary journals, including Chicago Review, Marlboro Review and Beloit Poetry Journal. He has published many books including Poverty from the Wealth of Nations (Macmillan, 2000), Governments and Markets in Economic Development Strategies (Praeger: 1989), and Is There An Islamic Problem (Kuala Lumpur: The Other Press, 2004 (source: wikipedia).
The book contains an expanded edition of his political essays, Challenging the New Orientalism. It is being published by a small US publisher. The book can be pre-ordered from Amazon.com, and should become available in December 2006.
This is the link to Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1889999458/ref=pd_rvi_gw_1/102-6195633-9507316
Here is the table of contents:
Section One The New Orientalism
1 Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry?
2 A Clash of Civilizations? Nonsense
3 The War Against Global Terrorism
4 Is There An Islamic Problem?
5 How Different are Islamicate Societies?
6 Islam: An InterviewSection Two Palestine and Israel
7 A Colonizing Project Built on Lies
8 Academic Boycott of Israel
9 Crossing the Line
10 Israel’s Proxy War
11 Illuminating Thomas Friedman
12 Lerner, Said and the Palestinians
13 Elie Wiesel: On Being Good Victims
14 Recognizing Israel: Or Selling Out
15 Another Wall
16 Voiding the Palestinians: An AllegorySection Three War Against Global Terrorism
17 A History of September 11
18 A Day That Changed America?
19 Why 9-11 and Why Now?
20 Dialectics of Terror
21 Race and Visibility
23 Iraq is Free
24 Semantics of Empire
25 America Imagine This
26 The Islamic Resistance
27 Testing Free Speech in America
28 Real Men Go to Tehran
29 The Muslims America Loves
My work and research is going well. My managers, and higher-ups are very friendly. They even have gone out of their way in order to give me a “prayer room.”
The actual work is great. I have been updating their old programs and designing new analytical programs for primer design, for the sequencers, micro-array pattern analysis, and so forth (all of this is necessary to produce accurate results in regards to DNA testing and cloning). San Diego is not so bad either. The weather is great, and it is much more relaxing than most places, especially New York 
.
As you all know, I initially started with a temporary three month contract and I was very nervous, worried and stressed out about it (see: http://thenlightenment.whatheblog.com/2006/07/15/san-diego-is-where-its-at/). Pretty much the deal was if I performed well, I would get permanently hired. Well, I have been informed I will get a permanent extension and work as a permanent employee, alhamdulillah!
Please keep me in your du’as and prayers, they are very much needed and appreciated!
I am in need of some funding, so I have started something on the side. In the past, I designed websites and was into web development. I am now doing web-design free lance work (comparitively very cheap and inexpensive). If you are interested, please contact me at naqvia@gmail.com asap.
This is what secret police do in third world countries, not in “civilized” countries. You do not taser someone that shows no threat, and then ask him to get up, so you can taser him more. Please protest, write something, and make people aware! Youtube video (cell phone video)- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3GstYOIc0I
UCPD officers shot a student several times with a Taser inside the Powell Library CLICC computer lab late Tuesday night before taking him into custody.
No university police officers were available to comment further about the incident as of 3 a.m. Wednesday, and no Community Service Officers who were on duty at the time could be reached.
At around 11:30 p.m., CSOs asked a male student using a computer in the back of the room to leave when he was unable to produce a BruinCard during a random check. The student did not exit the building immediately.
The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.
The student began to yell “get off me,” repeating himself several times.
It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a Taser for the first time, causing him to fall to the floor and cry out in pain. The student also told the officers he had a medical condition.
UCPD officers confirmed that the man involved in the incident was a student, but did not give a name or any additional information about his identity.
Video shot from a student’s camera phone captured the student yelling, “Here’s your Patriot Act, here’s your fucking abuse of power,” while he struggled with the officers.
As the student was screaming, UCPD officers repeatedly told him to stand up and said “stop fighting us.” The student did not stand up as the officers requested and they shot him with the Taser at least once more.
“It was the most disgusting and vile act I had ever seen in my life,” said David Remesnitsky, a 2006 UCLA alumnus who witnessed the incident.
As the student and the officers were struggling, bystanders repeatedly asked the police officers to stop, and at one point officers told the gathered crowd to stand back and threatened to use a Taser on anyone who got too close.
Laila Gordy, a fourth-year economics student who was present in the library during the incident, said police officers threatened to shoot her with a Taser when she asked an officer for his name and his badge number.
Gordy was visibly upset by the incident and said other students were also disturbed.
“It’s a shock that something like this can happen at UCLA,” she said. “It was unnecessary what they did.”
Immediately after the incident, several students began to contact local news outlets, informing them of the incident, and Remesnitsky wrote an e-mail to Interim Chancellor Norman Abrams.
Due to popular demand, here are some really cool pictures of the Salk Institute (my work). All these pictures are original and have not been photoshopped. Enjoy . Click the photos to enlarge.
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A really interesting debate/discussion took place where I work. Some of the best scientists gathered and discussed “whether faith in science can ever substitute for belief in God.” A great deal, if not all of them, had Christian roots, so their perception of God and faith came from there. The majority of them did not believe in God, or were not sure of it, but they were very sympathetic to the idea, and did in fact conclude that science can never substitute the belief of God. As a Muslim, our perspective and perception of God is much different than the Christian concept of God, so I wonder what would have resulted if any of them had that concept in their mind. The full article is below.
Atheists Discuss the Benefits of Faith
A gathering of scientists and atheists explores whether faith in
science can ever substitute for belief in God.
WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Jerry Adler
Newsweek
Updated: 9:51 a.m. AKT Nov 10, 2006Nov. 10, 2006 - The great Danish physicist Niels Bohr, it is said,
had a good-luck horseshoe hanging in his office. “You don’t believe
in that nonsense, do you?” a visitor once asked, to which Bohr
replied, “No, but they say it works whether you believe in it or not.”If one thing emerged from the “Beyond Belief” conference at the Salk
Institute in LaJolla, Calif. it’s that religion doesn’t work the same
way. Some 30 scientists—one of the greatest collections of religious
skeptics ever assembled in one place since Voltaire dined alone—
examined faith from the evolutionary, neurological and philosophical
points of view, and they concluded that some things only work if you
do believe in them. Richard Dawkins, the British evolutionary
biologist and author of the best-selling book “The God Delusion,”
said he couldn’t have a spiritual experience even when he tried.
After another panelist, neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran of the
University of California, San Diego, explained that temporal-lobe
seizures of the brain create profound spiritual and out-of-body
experiences, Dawkins disclosed that he had participated in an
experiment that was supposed to mimic such seizures—and even then he
didn’t feel a thing.Dawkins obviously feels this loss is a small price to pay for freedom
from superstition. But even physicist Steven Weinberg, a Nobel
laureate and an outspoken atheist, acknowledged that science is a
poor substitute for the role religion plays in most peoples’ lives.
It’s hard, he said, to live in a world in which one’s highest
emotions can be understood in biochemical and evolutionary terms,
rather than a gift from God. Instead of the big, comforting
certainties promoted by religion, science can offer only “a lot of
little truths” and the austere pleasures of intellectual honesty.
Much as Weinberg would like to see civilization emerge from the
tyranny of religion, when it happens, “I think we will miss it, like
a crazy old aunt who tells lies and causes us all kinds of trouble,
but was beautiful once and was with us a long time.”To which Dawkins retorted, “I won’t miss her at all.” Only in the
most extreme circumstances would he deign to take account of the
consolations offered by religion. He would not, for instance, try to
talk a Christian on his deathbed out of a belief in Heaven. He didn’t
say what he would do if he were the one near death, but it’s unlikely
he would be calling for a priest. The atheist philosopher Daniel
Dennett had been expected to attend, but two weeks earlier had been
rushed to the hospital with a near-fatal aortic rupture. At the
conference, people handed around copies of Dennett’s essay entitled
“Thank Goodness,” posted on the science Web site Edge.org, in which
he described how annoying it was to hear from friends that they had
been praying for his recovery. “I have resisted the temptation,” he
wrote, “to respond, ‘Thanks, I appreciate it, but did you also
sacrifice a goat?’”It’s hard to be a skeptic, that much was clear from the conference.
Hard for the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the
Hayden Planetarium in New York, who described trying to offer up
thanks “to the scientists who made this abundance of food possible”
at a friend’s Thanksgiving dinner, only to be shouted down by demands
for a proper grace. Hard for atheist author Sam Harris (”Letter to a
Christian Nation”) who likes to point out that people today believe
in God based on no more evidence than the ancients had for believing
in Zeus or Poseidon—with the result that in addition to all the mail
he gets from Christians, he’s now getting angry letters from pagans
who claim he’s insulted their beliefs, as well.The moderate position at the conference was represented by physicist
Lawrence Krauss, who took the view that “science doesn’t make it
impossible to believe in God, it just makes it possible to not
believe in God.” The majority view was best articulated by Tyson, who
said that atheism is not just the only intellectually coherent
position, but a positive boon to humanity. He makes much of the
statistic that only 15 percent of the scientific elite in the United
States, defined as members of the National Academy of Sciences,
express belief in a personal God who takes an active role in the
world. That’s approximately the mirror image of the population as a
whole—but to Tyson, the mystery is that the number of believers among
the scientist group isn’t zero.Tyson is a commanding public speaker, which is why his fellow
astronomer Carolyn Porco, the head of the imaging team for the
Cassini space probe to Saturn, nominated him at the conference to be
the first minister of her proposed (although not very seriously)
“Church of Science.” She thinks science is a perfectly adequate
substitute for religion. “Being a scientist and staring immensity and
eternity in the face every day is as grand and inspiring as it gets,”
she says. “No religion offers anything comparable.” To the promise of
immortality, she counters with the proposition that all the atoms of
our bodies will be blown into space in the disintegration of the
solar system, to live on forever as mass or energy. That’s what we
should be teaching our children, not fairy tales about angels and
seeing grandma in Heaven. “If anyone has something to replace God,”
she says, “I think scientists do.” Of course, it’s not clear that
anyone else is looking for one.source: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15653706/site/newsweek/
Visiting my family and significant other in Texas this Thanksgiving break . It feels like forever since the last time we actually saw each other. InshaAllah, I can not wait. Please keep us in your prayers!
The Ayatollah will be speaking in San Diego this thursday. He is currently in the United States due to health conditions. If anyone has any specific questions for him, let me know and inshaAllah, I will try to ask. A brief biography is below.
Ayatollah Sayid Mortadha Al-Qazwini was born in one of the holiest cities in the Islamic world—Karbala, Iraq—in 1931 to a family well known in the Shia world for its knowledge, wisdom, and piety. His father, the grand Ayatollah Sayid Sadiq Al-Qazwini (shown to the right), was one of Iraq’s most popular and educated Mujtahids. As a distinguished and respected scholar, masses of people congregated to follow him in the daily prayers he led at the shrine of Al-Abbas (as). A void was left in the mosques of Iraq and the hearts of thousands of Muslims when Ayatollah Sayid Sadiq was captured by Saddam’s regime at the age of 80 and detained there indefinitely as one of the oldest political prisoners.
…
Upon the toppling of Saddam’s regime in 2003, Ayatollah Sayid Mortadha Al-Qazwini immediately returned to his hometown of Karbala, Iraq, where he was welcomed by thousands of people anxious to be guided under his strong leadership. Due to the request of the citizens of the holy city of Karbala Ayatollah Al-Qazwini became the Imam of the daily prayers at the shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala. Along with leading the prayers, he conducts daily sermons and devotes his time to educating and guiding the Iraqi population, filling the void of Islamic knowledge that came about during the dictatorship of the corrupt regime of Saddam.
source: http://alqazwini.org/biography.htm
Great quote, for all of us to ponder upon. Let us all eradicate this disease of deceiving, and lying. Its not healthy and you will pay a price for it. God is Just.
Imam Abi-Muhammad-al-’Askari, the eleventh Imam, [a] said: “Wickedness was put inside a house, and the key (of its door) was rendered to be lies.”
Bihar-ul-Anwar, vol. 72, p. 263
Questions have always arose. Seems pretty straight forward, right? Well, I have talked and conversed with many friends and people about this issue. I have been born and raised in New York, so all through-out my schooling this has entered my mind from time to time. Some are hell-bent against it, and some are for it, yet the vast majority are simply confused.
So what is the correct approach? In a pure theological approach it is very difficult to attend such gatherings. In fact, it is virtually impossible to justify it, because of the haraam and un-Islamic atmosphere including alcohol, lewd music, indecent male-female interaction, and so forth. Technically, that should be enough for us to avoid such activities. If we have a desire to want to strive towards Him (swt), then we definitely should stay away.
However, I will try to explain my opinions and views on this issue, because it is so wide-spread in this society. Some may agree, some may disagree, but my views arise from my understanding of the Qur’an and Sunnah and I will attempt to explain the philosophy behind why it is deemed as discouraging in Islam and to human-nature. And no, I am not lecturing, condemning, criticizing, judging (sunday school style!) anyone, because it goes back to the individual and the only thing that can reap real change from within is our hearts and souls.
Some may ask “What if I don’t take part in the “drinking and dancing,” but still attend. My question for those people- what is the benefit? Do you enjoy drunkenness? There are other avenues to enjoy life and socialize with your friends. Why should we compromise our beliefs? We are Muslim first, and then we are everything else. We should never compromise on our principles. We are people of principles. If we trust Imam Husayn (a) and his sacrifice, then this should be obvious to us. This religion has been revealed and protected for us for a reason. Great people were tortured, imprisoned , maimed, massacred, and murdered, so that we may be able to practice this way of life the way it should be practiced. Why even put ourselves in these types of predicaments? We should have enough faith and strength to say, “No.”
Why would you walk in Tijuana, Mexico at 1:00 am in the morning, when you can drive? It is next to suicide.
And for those that argue, “I just want to see how it is?” No, we do not have to see what it is to understand why its not good or what the “big fuss” is about (refer: http://thenlightenment.whatheblog.com/2006/08/21/recognizing-good/). Should we all commit suicide to see how it feels to be dead? Should we all induce STDs into our bodies, so we understand how they function? We need to strive and resist anything that comes our way. It is our examinations, and obstacles and we must overcome the challenges. It will only benefit us at the end. That is God’s promise.
My advice is that we should never sell our souls despite the temptations, because we will become morally bankrupt. Unfortunately, once that occurs it will be too late. Please, do not sell-out.