We remind our viewers that the statements, opinions and points of view expressed in this article/s/Nasheeds/Downloads are those of the authors and shall not be deemed to mean that they are necessarily those of ourislam.co.uk, the publisher, editor, writers, contributors or staff.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hajj occurs during the month of Zul-Hijjah'. The land of Makkah (Mecca) is tranquil and peaceful. Instead of fear, hatred, and war, the desert is characterized by security and peace. An atmosphere for worship where people are free to face Almighty God.
Do you not hear Allah's command:
And call upon the people for Hajj. They will come to you on their bare feet or riding any weak camel and they come to you from every far desert. (Quran 22:27)
You! who has been created from Mud, search for the spirit of Allah! Accept his invitation; leave your home in order to "see" Him. He is waiting for You!
Human existence is frivolous unless one's aim is to approach the spirit of Allah. Separate yourself from all those needs and greeds which distract you from Allah. Join the eternal human migration of Hajj. "See" Almighty Allah!
Before departing to perform Hajj, all of your debts should be paid. Your hates and angers toward relatives or friends must disappear. A will must be drawn. All of these gestures are an exercise in the preparation for death (which will overtake everyone some day). These acts guarantee your personal and financial clearance. The last moments of farewell and the future of man are symbolized.
Now you are free to join eternity. On the day of resurrection, you will be able to do nothing in Allah's court. Your eyes, ears, and heart will be a witness of what you have done.
You and every organ of your body are responsible for your deeds. While you are in this "house of correction" get ready for the "house of justice". Exercise death before you die-go to Hajj!
.. for every act of hearing, or of seeing or of (feeling in) the heart will be enquired into on the Day of Reckoning. (Quran 17:36)
Click to Enlarge
Hajj represents your return to Allah, the absolute, who has no limitations
and none is like Him. To return to Him signifies a definite movement toward
perfection, goodness, beauty, power knowledge, value, and facts. On your way
toward the eternal, you will never approach Allah by yourself but if you sincerely
desire His pleasure, He will guide you in the right direction!
It is not enough to live "in the name of Allah", and die "for the sake of Allah", you must strive to approach Almighty God.
To Allah we belong and to Him is our return. All affairs tend toward Allah. Our goal is not to "perish", but to "bloom". This is done not "for Allah" but rather to bring us "toward Him". Allah is not so far away from you; therefore, try to reach Him! Allah is closer to you than yourself!
.. "To Allah We belong, and to Him is our return". (Quran 2:156) The Way of Allah, to Whom belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on earth. Behold (how) all affairs tend towards Allah. (Quran 42:53) .. We are nearer to him than his jugular vein. (Quran 5:16)
On the other hand, everyone beside Allah is too far to be reached! Oh man, all the angels prostrated to you; yet, through the passage of time and societal influence you have changed greatly. You have not abided by your promise to worship none but Almighty Allah. Instead, you have become a slave to idols, some of which are man-made.
Remember that only the sincere and righteous will be in the assembly of truthful and in the presence of the sovereign omnipotent.
As to the Righteous, they will be in the midst of Gardens and Rivers . (Quran 54:54)
Your nature is characterized by loyalty to other individuals, self devotion, cruelty, ignorance, a lack of direction, fearfulness, and greediness! This life has caused you to acquire animalistic traits. You have reduced yourself to the likeness of an animal like a "wolf", "fox", "rat", or a "sheep".
Oh man! return to your origin. Go to Hajj and visit your best friend who
created you as the best of creation. He is waiting to see you! Leave the palaces
of power, the treasures of wealth and the misleading temples. Detach yourself
from the flock of those animals whose shepherd is the wolf. Join the flock
of those who are going to see the house of Allah built for His guests.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The opinions expressed herein, through this article or comments, contain positions and viewpoints that are not necessarily those of IslamiCity. These are offered as a means for IslamiCity to stimulate dialogue and discussion in our continuing mission of being an educational organization.
The IslamiCity site may occasionally contain copyrighted material the use
of which may not always have been specifically authorized by the copyright
owner. IslamiCity is making such material available in its effort to advance
understanding of humanitarian, education, democracy, and social justice issues,
etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and such (and all) material on this site is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. For more information
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use
any copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond
'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
The Decimal and Islamic Mathematics
The Decimal System
Muslim mathematicians were the first people to write numbers the way we do, and, although we are the heirs of the Greeks in geometry, part of our legacy from the Muslim world is our arithmetic. This is true even if it was Hindu mathematicians in India, probably a few centuries before the rise of Islamic civilization, who began using a numeration system with these two characteristics:
The numbers from one to nine are represented by nine digits, all easily made
by one or two strokes.
The right-most digit of a numeral counts the number of units, and a unit in
any place is ten of that to its right. Thus the digit in the second place
counts the number of tens, that in the third place the number of hundreds
(which is ten tens), and so on. A special mark, the zero, is used to indicate
that a given place is empty.
This article is excerpted from the book "Episodes in the Mathematics
of Medieval Islam" by J. L. Berggren.
Click on the image above to buy this book.
These two properties describe our present system of writing whole numbers,
and we may summarize the above by saying the Hindus were the first people
to use a cipherized, decimal, positional system, "Cipherized" means
that the first nine numbers are represented by nine ciphers, or digits, instead
of accumulating strokes as the Egyptians and Babylonians did, and "decimal"
means that it is base 10. However, the Hindus did not extend this system to
represent parts of the unit by decimal fractions, and since it was the Muslims
who first did so, they were the first people to represent numbers as we do.
Quite properly, therefore, we call the system "Hindu-Arabic".
As to when the Hindus first began writing whole numbers according to this system, the available evidence shows that the system was not used by the great Indian astronomer Aryabhata (born in A.D. 476), but it was in use by the time of his pupil, Bhaskara I, around the year A.D. 520. (See Van der Waerden and Folkerts for more details.)
News of the discovery spread, for, about 150 years later, Severus Sebokht, a bishop of the Nestorian Church ( one of the several Christian faiths existing in the East at the time), wrote from his residence in Keneshra on the upper Euphrates river as follows:
I will not say anything now of the science of the Hindus, who are not even Syrians, of their subtle discoveries in this science of astronomy, which are even more ingenious then those of the Greeks and Babylonians, and of the fluent method of their calculation, which surpasses words. I want to say only that it is done with nine signs. If those who believe that they have arrived at the limit of science because they speak Greek ad known these things they would perhaps be convinced, even if a bit late, that there are others who know something, not only Greeks but also men of a different language.
The problem of parallel lines, posed by Euclid's parallels postulate, received
much attention from Islamic mathematicians throughout the history of medieval
Arabic science. Nasir ad-Din at-Tusi's was probably the most mature treatment
of the problem in Arabic, making sure use of Euclid's definition of parallel
lines as non-secant lines and drawing on the results of his predecessors.
TheModernReligion.com
It seems, then, that Christian scholars in the Middle East, writing only a
few years after the great series of Arab conquests had begun, knew of Hindu
numerals through their study of Hindu astronomy. The interest of Christian
scholars in astronomy and calculation was, in the main, due to their need
to be able to calculate the date of Easter, a problem that stimulated much
of the Christian interest in the exact sciences during the early Middle Ages.
It is not a trivial problem, because it requires the calculation of the date
of the first new moon following the spring equinox. Even the great nineteenth-century
mathematician and astronomer C.F. Gauss was not able to solve the problem
completely, so it is no wonder that Severus Sebokht was delighted to find
in Hindu sources a method of arithmetic that would make calculation easier.
We can perhaps explain the reference to the "nine signs" rather then the ten as follows: the zero (represented by a small circle) was not regarded as one of the digits of the system but simply a mark put in a place when it is empty, i.e. when no digit goes there. The idea that zero represents a number, just as any other digit does, is a modern notion, foreign to medieval though.
With this evidence that the Hindu system of numeration had spread so far by the year A.D. 662, it may be surprising to learn that the earliest Arabic work we know of explaining the Hindu system is one written early in the ninth century whose title may be translated as The Book of Addition and Subtraction According to the Hindu Calculation. The author was Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi who, since the was born around the year A.D. 780, probably wrote his book after A.D. 800.
We mentioned in Chapter 1 that al-Khwarizmi, who was one of the earliest important Islamic scientists, came from Central Asia and was not an Arab. This was not unusual, for, by and large, in Islamic civilization it was not a man's place (or people) of origin, his native language, or (within limits) his religion that mattered, but his learning and his achievements in his chosen profession.
The question arises, however, where al-Khwarizmi learned of the Hindu arithmetic, given that his home was in a region far from where Bishop Sebokht learned of Hindu numerals 150 years earlier. In the absence of printed books and modern methods of communication, the penetration of a discovery into a given region by no means implied its spread to adjacent regions. Thus al-Khwarizmi may have learned of Hindu numeration not in his native Kharizm but in Baghdad, where, around 780, the visit of a delegation of scholars from Sind to the court of the Caliph al-Mansur led to the translation of Sanskrit astronomical works. Extant writings of al-Khwarizmi on astronomy show he was much influenced by Hindu methods, and it may be that it was from his study of Hindu astronomy that he learned of Hindu numerals.
Whatever the line of transmission to al-Khwarizmi was, his work helped spread Hindu numeration both in the Islamic world and in the Latin West. Although this work has not survived in the Arabic original (doubtless because it was superseded by superior treatises later on), we possess a Latin translation, made in the twelfth century A.D. From the introduction to this we learn that the work treated all the arithmetic operations and not only addition and subtraction as the title might suggest. Evidently al-Khwarizmi's usage is parallel to ours when we speak of a child who is studying arithmetic as "learning his sums".
This article is excerpted from the book "Episodes in the Mathematics of Medieval Islam" by J. L. Berggren. Click the Amazon image above to buy this book.
Ramadan in Madina
Kerim Fenari
The approach to Makka lies through mountains, sharp, unforgiving angles of
granite. The road to Madina passes through great plains of basalt: the harra
wastelands which provide dramatic reminders of the region’s volcanic
past. Several eruptions are recorded by the Muslim historians, the most fearsome
taking place in 1257, when a volcano poured out fast-moving orange streams
of lava, which were only deflected to pass to the east of the city by the
fervent prayers of its inhabitants.
Desiccated by the merciless desert air, these seas of fire have dried to form
black basalt plains, which stretch beyond the horizon. They are God’s
defence of the city, whose glassy sharpness kept at bay the idolatrous invaders
of Quraish, forcing them to confront the believers at their only point of
access, at the Battle of the Trench. The desolation of this landscape of flat
blackness, interrupted by dry sarha bushes, and, far away, the shapely profile
of extinct volcanoes, gives the impact of arrival an extraordinary dramatic
power.
The proximity of the City, on the motorway inevitably dubbed the Hijra Highway,
is first announced by the slip-road to Abyar Ali, the Wells of Ali. These
are sweetwater sources much frequented by pilgrims, eager to benefit from
the medicinal properties of these deep, cold wells once owned by the Blessed
Prophet’s son-in-law. Pilgrims from the Subcontinent, in particular,
flock here to catch the precious fluid in bottles, to be given to relatives
on their return: a gift almost as welcome as the Water of Zamzam itself.
Ten minutes drive, and Quba is reached. Here, the black barrenness of the
harrat suddenly gives way to a verdant sea of green. Alfalfa, watermelons,
cucumber and tomatoes grow here, between fruit trees and the ancient symbol
of Madina, the date palm itself. In this prosperous suburb, now a place of
coffee-shops and small parks, can still be found the Zarqa wells from which
the Blessed Prophet drank when first he reached the City, and which are the
secret of the land’s fertility. Here, too, the Madinan Muslims, and
the penniless but radiant refugees from Makkan tyranny, patiently lined the
walls and the high places, hoping for a glimpse of God’s Messenger and
the faithful Abu Bakr, as they appeared as dots on the shimmering horizon.
The mosque at Quba, the first place of worship founded in Islam, is impressive
but sober. The 1986 reconstruction retains the familiar features of Madinese
architecture, which are ribbed white domes, and basalt facing over a modest
exterior that recalls Madina’s primordial simplicity. The courtyard,
screened overhead by day from the scorching heat, is flagged with black, red
and white marble. Calligraphy by great Turkish masters soars overhead, proclaiming
the uniqueness of this place. Arabesque latticework filters the light of the
palm groves outside. Doves coo in the window-niches.
Despite the sense of peace, few linger here. The pull of the Haram, the Sanctuary,
is everywhere, and as the sun lowers in the west the pilgrims have thoughts
only for the Prophet’s Mosque. At this time, there is only one destination
for visitors and city-dwellers alike. In Ramadan, in this city, it would be
possible to switch off the traffic lights in the late afternoon. Every road
becomes a one-way street, pulling the visitor towards the cool, radiant heart
of the city.
Visitors who have not set foot in Madina before are often in tears by now.
The blessings of a still, loving Presence can be breathed everywhere, softening
hearts, and loosening tongues in dhikr. Shops and buildings pass by, but here
the city itself is no more than a blur. Visitors come here for one place,
and for one person alone.
The road skirts the Manakha district, and passes the Mosque of Abu Bakr, its
Ottoman minaret pointing to the clear, reddening sky. Then, the splendour
of the Haram is suddenly revealed. A minaret, and then several more, sparkle
in welcome. And then the adhan rises, piercing the warm air with its magnetic
summons.
A sea of quiet humanity pours into each of seventy gates. Many have removed
their sandals long beforehand, out of respect for the ground, which holds
the Messenger in its embrace. Within, there is clear light, carpets, water-barrels,
and an extraordinary dynamic which draws the visitor on, and in, until at
last the courtyard is reached, and the pilgrim stands in the presence of the
Best of Creation.
Hundreds of thousands are being fed. These guests of the Prophet sit, while
those honoured with this service circulate, smilingly handing out dates, or
small containers of yoghurt. In this palace of the Prophet, no-one, however
poor, goes hungry when the time of the fast is ended. Children tumble on the
carpets, laughing with delight at the experience of the endless sanctuary.
There is a murmur of grateful conversation, and of prayer.
The space is articulated with supreme genius. To one side is the Gate of Gabriel,
leading on, and in, to the Rawda, and to the mihrab in which the Messenger
himself laid his forehead on the earth in adoration of God. On one side is
the dakka, the carved marble platform on which the muezzin and his assistants
await the appointed time. On the other rises the gold grille beyond which
lies the cool and shaded silence beneath the great dome. The air here is perfumed
by the rarest of incense and musk, announcing the presence, beneath the flagstones,
of the Best of Creation, and Abu Bakr and Umar, his closest companions.
The modern Egyptian poet al-Fayturi expresses the emotions of millions:
Over the Prophet’s form every speck of dust
is a pillar of light
ascending from the dome of his tomb
to the dome of the skies.
And the awe that makes our foreheads bow
draws its own horizon, and higher horizons,
from hands and from lips -
the road of ‘In the name of God.’
The proximity is overwhelming for some pilgrims, whose humility and awe forces
them to sit at a respectful distance, perhaps some way down the mosque. Others
cannot sit too close. Everywhere, there is worship, bowing and prostration,
the mellifluous murmuring of the Qur’an, and wordless contemplation.
A hadith tells us that ‘Prayer in my mosque is a thousand times better
than prayer in any other mosque, saving only the Sacred Mosque itself.’
As the iqama sounds, and half a million men and women rise with longing for
the prayer, the calculation does not feel like an overstatement.
Prayer in the Rawda is especially sought after. A hadith affirms that ‘the
space between my grave and my pulpit is one of the Meadows of Paradise.’
Here, listening to the awesome gravity of God’s word, the continuity
with the blessed past is felt intensely. The greatest saints and scholars
of Islam have stood here: after the Companions came countless thousands: the
Four Imams worshipped here, as did al-Shaybani, Ibn Jurayj, al-Zuhri, Sibawayh,
Ibn Qutaybah, al-Ghazali, al-Nawawi, A’isha al-Ba‘uniyya, Ibn
Khaldun: all the great souls of Islam have prayed here, humbled by the Prophetic
presence.
After the silent prayers of the day, the worshippers drink the words of the
Qur’an thirstily. The greetings of peace are given, and the lines break
up as they worship individually. Circles of remembrance form in the Rawda,
as turbanned Turks repeat a litany, guided by their teacher, prayer-beads
in hand. Nigerians, Uzbeks, Bangladeshis and a whole sea of Indonesians do
likewise.
A Baluchi folk-melody, ‘May I see the towers of Madina’, sings,
On the tongues of this Rawda’s nightingales are words of wisdom,
More beautifully coloured than all the flowers of Madina!
Among the many Prophetic litanies which the careful ear may hear in this place,
the most widely-used is the Dala’il al-Khayrat, the Indications of Blessings,
by Imam al-Jazuli, whose tomb in far-off Marrakesh breathes something of the
spirit of Madina. This great prayer begins with over two hundred Names of
the Prophet, culled from the scriptures, and which may also be read in exquisite
Naskh calligraphy above the green tiles on the qibla wall. Hundreds of names
recall him: the Messenger of Mercy, the Emissary of Virtue, Reliant, the Beloved
of God, Seal of the Prophets ...
These pilgrims know that they are in the presence of the most influential
man in history. He had found a people divided by the crudest pagan ignorance,
and left them united in the purest and most exalted monotheism. Formerly they
had denied life after death; twenty-three short years on, they lived with
it constantly before their eyes. He had found them unable to rule themselves,
torn by age-long vendettas, knowing no law other than the selfish interest
of the tribe and the individual’s honour; and he left their hearts so
united that they withstood the shock of his death, and went out to liberate
the world.
In this place, the Messenger guided his disciples. Here they learnt how to
be still before their Lord, how to restrain their anger, to live for others,
to show compassion to young and old. This was the crucible of a New World
Order: the most effective school ever known.
And presiding over it all, still, is the presence of the Prophet. His mission
for the Muslim commonwealth awaits its final consummation, when, at the Resurrection,
he shall appear with his name of Intercessor. There is no Muslim alive who
does not hope for the honour of resurrection under his green Banner of Praise,
and for the rapture of salvation through his pleading before his Lord. Adab,
good manners in his presence, is hence passionately cultivated and prayed
for. Those who respectfully move forwards, to stand before the gold of the
Wajiha to greet him, are moved not only by love and gratitude for what he
did, but by fervent hope for his prayers, help and pleading amid the terrors
of the Apocalypse.
He said: ‘No Muslim greets me but that Allah restores my spirit to me
so that I am able to respond to him.’ Five times a day, worshippers
end their prayers by invoking blessings and peace upon his spirit. No human
being, since the beginning of time, has been more blessed. And this reciprocal
rite of taslim is the culmination of a lifetime of calling down God’s
blessings upon him, a cosmic process in which God and the Angels themselves
join. In the presence of his spirit, salat and salam come continuously. The
entire mosque is filled with prayers for him; and this is the largest building
in the world. Here, the existence of humanity finds its justification.
‘Not one of you believes,’ says a hadith, ‘until I am dearer
to him than his father, his son, and all mankind.’ The power of this
love detains many in the mosque. But the body has its rights, and others slowly
leave, to find a place to eat in this crowded city. Restaurants of all kinds
abound, and the air around the mosque loses its hint of musk and sandalwood,
to become fragrant with the aroma of Turkish kebabs, Lebanese meze, Malaysian
satay, Sudanese chicken and beans. In the darkness, street vendors offer the
garments of fifty countries: Indonesian batik, Damascus muslin, Egyptian cotton,
Moroccan chiffre. Prayer beads of olive pits, amber or ebony dangle from shelves.
Women browse through jewellery, heaped high with no fear of thieves.
The cheerful fellowship of the eating-houses is not the profane self-exaltation
of the smart Western restaurant. Here, companionship is the main item on the
menu. Struggling for words, Muslims of two hundred nationalities speak about
their homes, about the troubles of the world, about their hopes for an end
to the unbearable shallowness of the modern world, and a return to God.
The air outside is now much cooler. Those who know the city may briefly visit
some of its nearer shrines, such as the Mosque of the Two Qiblas, with its
resonances of the lost Muslim city of Jerusalem, the Third Holy City. Unlike
Madina, Jerusalem has been tragically desacralised in recent decades, with
the introduction of night clubs, pornography, and every form of degradation.
But Islam’s grasp on Madina is still strong. Such is God’s power
in defence of His Messenger that no enemy army has succeeded in capturing
it, since the dawn of Islam.
The adhan sounds for isha, and the veins of the city pump back towards the
mosque which is its heart. Grateful for God’s gift of food and drink,
the pilgrims are eager for the prayer, followed by the Tarawih rite extending
almost two hours into the night.
Tarawih in Madina is one of the great spectacles of the world. Perhaps a million
men, women and children, stand in neat lines in the mosque, on its roof, and
in the marbled spaces nearby. Tarawih in Mecca is an experience of austere
majesty; in Madina, it is characterised by delight and by love. To pray in
the company of God’s Messenger, who rose through the seven heavens to
bring to us the gift of prayer, and who will intercede for tides of humanity,
is an almost inexpressible joy. Villagers from Pakistan, shopkeepers from
Turkey, Nigerian businessmen, and Bosnian farmers, all stand together, their
differences annihilated by the presence of the man whose mission was truly
universal.
In the Qur’an, there is nothing of Arab pride. Its original context
in history was the Arab people, but it pays little attention to them. It is
farsighted, affirming that each previous prophet had been sent only to his
own people; but that now, a Prophet had come who was for all mankind. And
here is the proof of that mission’s truth and of its success under God:
a million human beings, outwardly diverse but of a single heart, basking in
the glow of Madina.
After Tarawih, it is tea-time. Midnight, under the arc-lamps of this warm
city, is no time for sleep. Sufi fraternities meet in homes, and recall the
glories of the Beloved of Madina. Hadith are read, in the sing-song style
traditional in the city. Commentaries are given in the delightful Madina dialect,
so rich in Syrian and Turkish words.
Tahajjud prayers attract perhaps a quarter of a million, deep in the small
hours. Others are sleeping in the streets, or in the hotels, which range from
small Egyptian resthouses with doubtful stairs, to the five-star plushness
of the Sheraton and the Green Palace. On the roofs of many hotels are small
gardens, and here, even at this hour, the Sufi orders are again enjoying their
fellowship in the spirit.
The sunna recommends that at least some of the night be spent in sleep. Two
hours before dawn, most of the city is silent. And then, the first adhan,
more than an hour before the adhan for the prayer, rises into the black sky.
The hotels serve a pre-dawn meal, but few linger until the last moment. An
hour before the dawn prayer begins, the mosque is already full, the worshippers
knowing by experience the value of this time. The Suffa, the small veranda
attached to the Prophetic tomb, is crowded with turbaned men, prayer-beads
in hand. Here lived the poorest of the Companions, those who were under the
most intense spiritual guidance, who hungered, and lived in rags, and prayed.
The final adhan sounds, and then the iqama. The prayer is said, followed by
the atmosphere of peace and consummation which ends each prayer. Many remain
until ishraq, the individual prayer said after sunrise. Others hail taxis,
and visit the outlying shrines.
The most important of these is Mount Uhud. The Blessed Prophet proclaimed
it as ‘a mountain which loves us, and which we love’. Its mysterious
quality has been reinforced by aerial photographs, which show that the mountain
spells the Arabic name of Allah. To walk in its dry valleys is to encounter
solitary pilgrims, meditating on the evanescence of life. Occasionally a qalandar
is seen, with untidy hair, fingers heavy with brass rings, his eyes disquietingly
bright. Some live in this hill throughout their visit, descending to the valley
to pray.
Ramadan is a time of renunciation. Although the morning air is still cool,
the sense of detachment granted by the fast has sobered the crowds, and focussed
their minds. The pilgrims clustered around the iron grille which allows them
to view the graves of the Martyrs of Uhud read from prayerbooks, or repeat
the words of the muzawwir, the official guide. ‘Peace be upon you, Hamza,
the Lion of God, the uncle of God’s Messenger! Peace be upon you, Mus‘ab,
hero of the Companions!’ Beside the cemetery, the authorities have constructed
a mosque for those who wish to pray in this place.
The great cemetery of Madina, however, is al-Baqi‘. This lies near the
Prophet’s tomb, from which it was until recently separated by one of
the gates of the walled city, the Bab al-Baqi‘. The cemetery has many
names, including Jannat al-Baqi‘ (The Garden of Baqi‘), and Baqi‘
al-Gharqad, a reference to the brambles (gharqad) which covered it when Islam
first arrived. In the fifth year of the Hijra, the Companion Uthman ibn Maz‘un
died, and was buried here, and on the Blessed Prophet’s instructions
the area was cleared of brambles and became the last resting place of the
Companions.
Today, Baqi‘ is the most visited graveyard in the world. Until recently
rough cement walls surrounded it, but in 1996 the authorities replaced these
with fine granite, pierced with large iron and brass grilles, to commemorate
and honour this place. Some pilgrims stand by the grilles, but others, particularly
in the cool hour after dawn, venture in by the splendid new gates.
To facilitate circulation, the authorities have established cement pathways
throughout the cemetery. Guidebooks provide detailed maps of the plots, naming
hundreds of the individuals who are buried here. Hence the pilgrims, guided
by their muzawwirs, stand, or crouch, before the tombs of the Mothers of the
Believers: A‘isha, Hafsa, Umm Habiba and the others. Nearby is the Blessed
Prophet’s infant son, the two year old Ibrahim, whose death caused the
Prophet such pain. The pilgrims move on to salute Uthman, the third Caliph,
and then Imam Malik and his teacher Nafi‘. Al-Abbas, the Prophet’s
uncle, is here. So too is Halima al-Sa‘diyya, the nurse whose dry breasts
miraculously flowed with milk when the infant Muhammad was set to them. To
one side is the grave of Imam Shamyl, the nineteenth-century hero of the Caucasus,
visited by Chechen and Daghistani pilgrims to this day.
Al-Baqi‘ is a powerful place. Other cities consider it their pride to
host a single saint; but here there are hundreds. All around lie at rest the
men and women who heard the Prophet’s summons, and broke the idols of
their forefathers, and gave their lives to his cause. To this blessed ambience
is added the baraka of Ramadan, and as the days pass, this too gains in power.
The fasting city of Madina has other wonders, although not all are as spectacular
as the Haram and al-Baqi‘. There is one mosque no bigger than a prayer-mat,
surrounded by two layers of bricks, which marks the spot where the Blessed
Prophet once prayed. An elderly man lives nearby, and sweeps the tiny mosque
daily, dispensing prayers and teaching-stories to the visitors.
The tribes of Aws and Khazraj, who welcomed the Prophet and his teaching,
still live in Madina, retaining their traditions of courtesy and hospitality.
The basalt homes in which they once lived: the traditional Madinese bayt al-bi’r,
built around a courtyard which was often covered with a net and filled with
tropical birds, are now mostly gone. Yet otherwise, not much has changed in
fourteen hundred years. Pernicious and cheapening influences from the world
outside are successfully excluded.
Madina shows the truth of the hadith that ‘Madina expels impurities
as a furnace expels impurities from iron.’ The form of the city has
changed, but the heart is immutable. In Ramadan, more than at any other time,
the continued strength of Islam is manifest here. The city is well-defended;
as a hadith recorded by Imam Muslim states, the Antichrist cannot enter it,
but will be driven away on the lava-plains by al-Khidr himself. In this city,
and in this month, the Muslims are at home.
Kerim Fenari
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
True Piety
5/6/2006 - Religious Social - Article Ref: IC0605-2987
Number of comments: 2
By: Quran Translation - Muhammad Asad
IslamiCity* -
True piety does not consist in turning your faces towards the east or the
west1 - but truly pious is he who believes in God, and the Last Day; and the
angels, and revelation,2 and the prophets; and spends his substance - however
much he himself may cherish - it - upon his near of kin, and the orphans,
and the needy, and the wayfarer,3 and the beggars, and for the freeing of
human beings from bondage;4 and is constant in prayer, and renders the purifying
dues; and [truly pious are] they who keep their promises whenever they promise,
and are patient in misfortune and hardship and in time of peril: it is they
that have proved themselves true, and it is they, they who are conscious of
God. (Quran 2:177)
1: Thus, the Qur'an stresses the principle that mere compliance with outward forms does not fulfill the requirements of piety. The reference to the turning of one's face in prayer in this or that direction flows from the passages which dealt, a short while ago, with the question of the qiblah.
2: In this context, the term "revelation" (al-kitab) carries, according to most of the commentators, a generic significance: it refers to the fact of divine revelation as such. As regards belief in angels, it is postulated here because it is through these spiritual beings or force's (belonging to the realm of al-ghayb, i.e., the reality which is beyond the reach of human perception) that God reveals His will to the prophets and, thus, to mankind at large.
3: The expression ibn as-sabil (lit., "son of the road") denotes any person who is far from his home, and especially one who, because of this circumstance, does not have sufficient means of livelihood at his disposal. In its wider sense it describes a person who, for any reason whatsoever, is unable to return home either temporarily or permanently: for instance, a political exile or refugee.
4: Ar-raqabah (of which ar-riqab is the plural) denotes, literally, "the
neck", and signifies also the whole of a human person. Metonymically,
the expression fi 'r-riqab denotes "in the cause of freeing human beings
from bondage", and applies to both the ransoming of captives and the
freeing of slaves. By including this kind of expenditure within the essential
acts of piety, the Qur'an implies that the freeing of people from bondage
- and, thus, the abolition of slavery - is one of the social objectives of
Islam. At the time of the revelation of the Qur'an, slavery was an established
institution throughout the world, and its sudden abolition would have been
economically impossible. In order to obviate this difficulty, and at the same
time to bring about an eventual abolition of all slavery, the Qur'an ordains
in verse 8:67 that henceforth only captives taken in a just war (jihad) may
be kept as slaves. But even with regard to persons enslaved in this or-before
the revelation of 8:67 - in any other way, the Qur'an stresses the great merit
inherent in the freeing of slaves, and stipulates it as a means of atonement
for various transgressions (see verses, e.g., 4:92, 5:89, 58:3). In addition,
the Prophet emphatically stated on many occasions that, in the sight of God,
the unconditional freeing of a human being from bondage is among the most
praiseworthy acts which a Muslim could perform.
Islam and slavery
When we think of Islam-if we do at all-we might summon an image of Denzel
Washington playing a stern and passionate Malcolm X in Spike Lee's 1992 film,
or maybe we imagine Louis Farrakhan on the speaker's platform at the Million
Man March in 1995. Some might have encountered Middle Eastern Muslims on the
nightly news, mostly as "fundamentalists" and "terrorists."
A few have met immigrant Muslims in their neighborhood. But Muslims are more
diverse than popular images allow, and American Muslim history is longer than
most might think, extending back to the day that the first slave ship landed
on Virginia's coast in 1619. It incorporates two groups-Muslims from other
countries who migrated to America by force or by choice, and African Americans
who created Muslim sects in the twentieth century. Thus, a consideration of
the Islamic presence in America provides a new perspective on several important
(and familiar) issues that will be used to organize this essay:
What is the history of slavery in the United States?
How have immigrants resisted and accommodated American culture?
What were African Americans' experiences in the northern cities after the
Great Migration?
How has African-American Islam addressed race relations since the 1960s?
Is America a Christian nation?
Islam is a diverse and long-standing American religion-one that has had a
significant presence in the United States.
Islamic Center of West Virginia
There are over one billion Muslims in the world, most of whom live in Asia,
not in the Middle East as most Americans presume. As in Christianity and Judaism,
Islam (which is second only to Christianity in worldwide adherents) includes
a number of communities or branches. The two major groups are Sunni Muslims,
who constitute about 85 percent of Muslims, and Shii (or Shiite) Muslims,
who account for 15 percent of the world's Islamic population. All traditional
groups are represented among the five million Muslims in the United States,
along with some new movements that have been cultivated on American soil.
Despite their diversity, Muslims have a good deal in common. They look to the Qu'ran- the sacred book that records the message of Allah [God] as it was revealed to his final prophet, Muhammed (A.D. ca. 570-632), and they seek to follow the example (sunna) of the prophet. All accept the Five Pillars of Islam, the basic beliefs and duties of Muslims:
A profession of faith (shahada). All Muslims must proclaim "There is no God but Allah and Muhammed is his prophet." Note here that Muhammed is not God in Muslim theology but rather a spokesperson or mouthpiece for the divine.
Prayer (salat). All Muslims pray five times daily while facing the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Alms (zakat). Faith also means outreach. To give thanks and follow the example of Muhammed, Muslims with the economic means must give alms to those who are less fortunate.
Fasting (sawm or siyam). Muslims who are physically able are to fast from dawn to dusk during the ninth month (Ramadan) of the Islamic calendar.
A pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca. At least once in their lives, all Muslims who are able must make a pilgrimage to the Great Mosque in the holy city of Mecca, toward which they have knelt while praying five times daily during their lives. (The Autobiography of Malcolm X offers a vivid account of this pilgrimage, which was life-transforming for him. It was on hajj, he recounts, that he first glimpsed the possibility that people of different races could get along.)
Muslim Slaves in America
Omar Ibn Said (1770-1864)
Click Here to Enlarge
Inscription on the portrait:
"Uncle Moro" (Omeroh), the African (or Arab) Prince whom Genl. Owen
bought, and who lived in Wilmington N.C. for many years, and died in Bladen
Co. in 1864, aged about 90 years. see other side
Click Here to Enlarge
Inscription on the reverse side of the portrait:
This old man's history was extremely interesting. Born in the region around
Timbuctoo and the son of a King or Chief, he was taught to read & write
Arabic, & having committed some offence he was banished by his people
who were named by some writers Malis, or Melles, and by Stanley, Malais. He
was captured and sold into slavery to a ship which brought him to South Carolina,
where he was purchased by a young upcountry planter, who treated him harshly,
and he ran away, wandered over the line into North Carolina, was found ill
at a negro cabin, was arrested as a runaway slave, pit in jail at Fayetteville,
and having attracted attention by writing on the walls in Arabic, was released
by Gen. James Owen on bond, afterward bought by him from the S. C. planter
and treat as a pensioner and friend the remainder of his life. Although a
devout Mahometan he became a devout Presbyterian, and lived befriended &
respected by everybody until his death in 1864, at the age of about 90 years.
He is buried in the family graveyard of the Owens in Bladen County N. C. It
was said that he was a Free Mason. He was a short "Mustee" colored
man, polite, and dignified in his manners. I remember him very distinctly.
AM Waddell. 1905
From The DeRosset Papers, the Southern Historical Collection - University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A small but significant proportion of African slaves, some estimate 10 percent,
were Muslim. An interesting story is that of Omar Ibn Said (also "Sayyid,"
ca. 1770-1864), who was born in Western Africa in the Muslim state of Futa
Toro (on the south bank of the Senegal River in present-day Senegal). He was
a Muslim scholar and trader who, for reasons historians have not uncovered,
found himself captive and enslaved. After a six-week voyage, Omar arrived
in Charleston, South Carolina, in about 1807. About four years later, he was
sold to James Owen of North Carolina's Cape Fear region. In 1819 a white Protestant
North Carolinian wrote to Francis Scott Key, the composer of The Star Spangled
Banner, to request an Arabic translation of the Bible for Omar, and apparently
Key sent one. Historians dispute how much the African Muslim leaned toward
Christianity in his final years, but Omar's notations on the Arabic bible,
which offer praise to Allah, suggest that he retained much of his Muslim identity,
as did some other first-generation slaves whose names have been lost to us.
(Omar's Arabic bible, which has recently been restored, is housed in the library
of Davidson College in North Carolina.)
Muslims and Immigration, 1878-1924
Most history courses cover the immigrants who changed America's population throughout the nineteenth century. But not all immigrants were European or Christian. Many were Chinese and Japanese migrants who practiced Buddhism and other Asian traditions. Thousands of Muslims came as well, and most of these first Islamic immigrants were Arabs from what was then Greater Syria. These Syrian, Jordanian, and Lebanese migrants were poorly educated laborers who came seeking greater economic stability. Many returned, disenchanted, to their homeland. Those who stayed suffered isolation, although some managed to establish Islamic communities, often in unlikely places. By 1920, Arab immigrants worshiped in a rented hall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and they built a mosque of their own fifteen years later. Lebanese-Syrian communities did the same in Ross, North Dakota, and later in Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Michigan City, Indiana. Islam had come to America's heartland.
The first wave of Muslim immigration ended in 1924, when the Asian Exclusion Act and the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act allowed only a trickle of "Asians," as Arabs were designated, to enter the nation.
African-American Islam in the Urban North
A Euro-American, Mohammed Alexander Webb (1847-1916), proclaimed himself a Muslim at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, but converts have been more prominent among Americans of African descent, especially those who followed the mass migrations of southern blacks to northern cities beginning in the early decades of the twentieth century. Noble Drew Ali established a Black nationalist Islamic community, the Moorish Science Temple, in Newark, New Jersey in 1913. After his death in 1929, one of the movement's factions found itself drawn to the mysterious Wallace D. Fard, who appeared in Detroit in 1930 preaching black nationalism and Islamic faith. Fard founded the Nation of Islam there in the same year. After Fard's unexplained disappearance in 1934, Elijah Muhammed (1897-1975) took over, and he attracted disenchanted and poor African Americans from the urban north. They converted for a variety of reasons, but, for some, the poverty and racism in those cities made the Nation of Islam's message about "white devils" (and "black superiority") plausible.
Race Relations since the 1960s
Islamic Cultural Center of New York
Elijah Muhammed won an important convert when Malcolm Little (1925-1965) joined
the faith in a prison cell. Malcolm X, the name he took to signal his lost
African heritage, became a public figure during the 1960s, although he separated
himself from the Nation of Islam before his death. After Elijah Muhammed's
death in 1975, the movement split. One branch, under the leadership of the
fifth son of Elijah Muhammed, moved closer to the beliefs and practices of
Islam as it is practiced in most of the world. This group, which would later
change its name to the American Muslim Mission, is the largest African-American
Islamic movement. The much smaller Nation of Islam, which the American Muslim
Mission and other Islamic groups condemn as racist and unorthodox, is much
more familiar to most Americans. Many American Muslims would claim that the
Nation of Islam, led by Louis Farrakhan, is not representative of either immigrant
or convert Islam in the United States.
Muslims and the New Immigrants after 1965
Islamic Center of Long Island
Post-1965 significant demographic changes related to Muslims took place in
America. Palestinian refugees arrived after the creation of Israel in 1948.
More important for the history of American Islam, the McCarran-Walter Act
of 1952 relaxed the quota system established in 1924, thereby allowing greater
Muslim immigration. The gates opened even more widely after the 1965 revisions
of the immigration law. Since then, Muslim migrants have fled oppressive regimes
in Egypt, Iraq, and Syria; and South Asian Muslims, as from Pakistan, have
sought economic opportunity. By the 1990s, Muslims had established more than
six hundred mosques and centers across the United States.
Is America a Christian Nation?
Islam may soon be the second largest American faith after Christianity, if it is not already. Estimates vary widely, and a moderate estimate is five million American Muslims in 1997-more than Episcopalians, Quakers, and Disciples of Christ. As we reflect on Islam in America and recall the history of Muslim slaves and the early debates about the First Amendment, we might ask whether America is a Christian nation as some have proclaimed. Could we elect a Muslim president? If so, would she (while we are imagining, let's get bold!) view this land as a New Jerusalem or take her presidential oath on a Christian Bible, as has been traditional?
Thomas A. Tweed holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Religious Studies and is currently the Zachary Smith Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Tweed is the author of Our Lady of the Exile: Diasporic Religion at a Cuban Catholic Shrine in Miami (Oxford University Press, 1997) and the editor of Retelling U.S. Religious History (California University Press, 1997). He most recently co-edited, with Stephen Prothero, Asian Religions in America: A Documentary History (Oxford University Press, 1999).
How Islamic inventors changed the world
From coffee to cheques and the three-course meal, the Muslim world has given us many innovations that we take for granted in daily life. As a new exhibition opens, Paul Vallely nominates 20 of the most influential- and identifies the men of genius behind them
Published: 11 March 2006
1 The story goes that an Arab named Khalid was tending his goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, when he noticed his animals became livelier after eating a certain berry. He boiled the berries to make the first coffee. Certainly the first record of the drink is of beans exported from Ethiopia to Yemen where Sufis drank it to stay awake all night to pray on special occasions. By the late 15th century it had arrived in Mecca and Turkey from where it made its way to Venice in 1645. It was brought to England in 1650 by a Turk named Pasqua Rosee who opened the first coffee house in Lombard Street in the City of London. The Arabic qahwa became the Turkish kahve then the Italian caffé and then English coffee.
2 The ancient Greeks thought our eyes emitted rays, like a laser, which enabled us to see. The first person to realise that light enters the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10th-century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haitham. He invented the first pin-hole camera after noticing the way light came through a hole in window shutters. The smaller the hole, the better the picture, he worked out, and set up the first Camera Obscura (from the Arab word qamara for a dark or private room). He is also credited with being the first man to shift physics from a philosophical activity to an experimental one.
3 A form of chess was played in ancient India but the game was developed into the form we know it today in Persia. From there it spread westward to Europe - where it was introduced by the Moors in Spain in the 10th century - and eastward as far as Japan. The word rook comes from the Persian rukh, which means chariot.
4 A thousand years before the Wright brothers a Muslim poet, astronomer, musician and engineer named Abbas ibn Firnas made several attempts to construct a flying machine. In 852 he jumped from the minaret of the Grand Mosque in Cordoba using a loose cloak stiffened with wooden struts. He hoped to glide like a bird. He didn't. But the cloak slowed his fall, creating what is thought to be the first parachute, and leaving him with only minor injuries. In 875, aged 70, having perfected a machine of silk and eagles' feathers he tried again, jumping from a mountain. He flew to a significant height and stayed aloft for ten minutes but crashed on landing - concluding, correctly, that it was because he had not given his device a tail so it would stall on landing. Baghdad international airport and a crater on the Moon are named after him.
5 Washing and bathing are religious requirements for Muslims, which is perhaps why they perfected the recipe for soap which we still use today. The ancient Egyptians had soap of a kind, as did the Romans who used it more as a pomade. But it was the Arabs who combined vegetable oils with sodium hydroxide and aromatics such as thyme oil. One of the Crusaders' most striking characteristics, to Arab nostrils, was that they did not wash. Shampoo was introduced to England by a Muslim who opened Mahomed's Indian Vapour Baths on Brighton seafront in 1759 and was appointed Shampooing Surgeon to Kings George IV and William IV.
6 Distillation, the means of separating liquids through differences in their boiling points, was invented around the year 800 by Islam's foremost scientist, Jabir ibn Hayyan, who transformed alchemy into chemistry, inventing many of the basic processes and apparatus still in use today - liquefaction, crystallisation, distillation, purification, oxidisation, evaporation and filtration. As well as discovering sulphuric and nitric acid, he invented the alembic still, giving the world intense rosewater and other perfumes and alcoholic spirits (although drinking them is haram, or forbidden, in Islam). Ibn Hayyan emphasised systematic experimentation and was the founder of modern chemistry.
7 The crank-shaft is a device which translates rotary into linear motion and is central to much of the machinery in the modern world, not least the internal combustion engine. One of the most important mechanical inventions in the history of humankind, it was created by an ingenious Muslim engineer called al-Jazari to raise water for irrigation. His 1206 Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices shows he also invented or refined the use of valves and pistons, devised some of the first mechanical clocks driven by water and weights, and was the father of robotics. Among his 50 other inventions was the combination lock.
8 Quilting is a method of sewing or tying two layers of cloth with a layer of insulating material in between. It is not clear whether it was invented in the Muslim world or whether it was imported there from India or China. But it certainly came to the West via the Crusaders. They saw it used by Saracen warriors, who wore straw-filled quilted canvas shirts instead of armour. As well as a form of protection, it proved an effective guard against the chafing of the Crusaders' metal armour and was an effective form of insulation - so much so that it became a cottage industry back home in colder climates such as Britain and Holland.
9 The pointed arch so characteristic of Europe's Gothic cathedrals was an invention borrowed from Islamic architecture. It was much stronger than the rounded arch used by the Romans and Normans, thus allowing the building of bigger, higher, more complex and grander buildings. Other borrowings from Muslim genius included ribbed vaulting, rose windows and dome-building techniques. Europe's castles were also adapted to copy the Islamic world's - with arrow slits, battlements, a barbican and parapets. Square towers and keeps gave way to more easily defended round ones. Henry V's castle architect was a Muslim.
10 Many modern surgical instruments are of exactly the same design as those devised in the 10th century by a Muslim surgeon called al-Zahrawi. His scalpels, bone saws, forceps, fine scissors for eye surgery and many of the 200 instruments he devised are recognisable to a modern surgeon. It was he who discovered that catgut used for internal stitches dissolves away naturally (a discovery he made when his monkey ate his lute strings) and that it can be also used to make medicine capsules. In the 13th century, another Muslim medic named Ibn Nafis described the circulation of the blood, 300 years before William Harvey discovered it. Muslims doctors also invented anaesthetics of opium and alcohol mixes and developed hollow needles to suck cataracts from eyes in a technique still used today.
11 The windmill was invented in 634 for a Persian caliph and was used to grind corn and draw up water for irrigation. In the vast deserts of Arabia, when the seasonal streams ran dry, the only source of power was the wind which blew steadily from one direction for months. Mills had six or 12 sails covered in fabric or palm leaves. It was 500 years before the first windmill was seen in Europe.
12 The technique of inoculation was not invented by Jenner and Pasteur but was devised in the Muslim world and brought to Europe from Turkey by the wife of the English ambassador to Istanbul in 1724. Children in Turkey were vaccinated with cowpox to fight the deadly smallpox at least 50 years before the West discovered it.
13 The fountain pen was invented for the Sultan of Egypt in 953 after he demanded a pen which would not stain his hands or clothes. It held ink in a reservoir and, as with modern pens, fed ink to the nib by a combination of gravity and capillary action.
14 The system of numbering in use all round the world is probably Indian in origin but the style of the numerals is Arabic and first appears in print in the work of the Muslim mathematicians al-Khwarizmi and al-Kindi around 825. Algebra was named after al-Khwarizmi's book, Al-Jabr wa-al-Muqabilah, much of whose contents are still in use. The work of Muslim maths scholars was imported into Europe 300 years later by the Italian mathematician Fibonacci. Algorithms and much of the theory of trigonometry came from the Muslim world. And Al-Kindi's discovery of frequency analysis rendered all the codes of the ancient world soluble and created the basis of modern cryptology.
15 Ali ibn Nafi, known by his nickname of Ziryab (Blackbird) came from Iraq to Cordoba in the 9th century and brought with him the concept of the three-course meal - soup, followed by fish or meat, then fruit and nuts. He also introduced crystal glasses (which had been invented after experiments with rock crystal by Abbas ibn Firnas - see No 4).
16 Carpets were regarded as part of Paradise by medieval Muslims, thanks to their advanced weaving techniques, new tinctures from Islamic chemistry and highly developed sense of pattern and arabesque which were the basis of Islam's non-representational art. In contrast, Europe's floors were distinctly earthly, not to say earthy, until Arabian and Persian carpets were introduced. In England, as Erasmus recorded, floors were "covered in rushes, occasionally renewed, but so imperfectly that the bottom layer is left undisturbed, sometimes for 20 years, harbouring expectoration, vomiting, the leakage of dogs and men, ale droppings, scraps of fish, and other abominations not fit to be mentioned". Carpets, unsurprisingly, caught on quickly.
17 The modern cheque comes from the Arabic saqq, a written vow to pay for goods when they were delivered, to avoid money having to be transported across dangerous terrain. In the 9th century, a Muslim businessman could cash a cheque in China drawn on his bank in Baghdad.
18 By the 9th century, many Muslim scholars took it for granted that the Earth was a sphere. The proof, said astronomer Ibn Hazm, "is that the Sun is always vertical to a particular spot on Earth". It was 500 years before that realisation dawned on Galileo. The calculations of Muslim astronomers were so accurate that in the 9th century they reckoned the Earth's circumference to be 40,253.4km - less than 200km out. The scholar al-Idrisi took a globe depicting the world to the court of King Roger of Sicily in 1139.
19 Though the Chinese invented saltpetre gunpowder, and used it in their fireworks, it was the Arabs who worked out that it could be purified using potassium nitrate for military use. Muslim incendiary devices terrified the Crusaders. By the 15th century they had invented both a rocket, which they called a "self-moving and combusting egg", and a torpedo - a self-propelled pear-shaped bomb with a spear at the front which impaled itself in enemy ships and then blew up.
20 Medieval Europe had kitchen and herb gardens, but it was the Arabs who developed the idea of the garden as a place of beauty and meditation. The first royal pleasure gardens in Europe were opened in 11th-century Muslim Spain. Flowers which originated in Muslim gardens include the carnation and the tulip.
"1001 Inventions: Discover the Muslim Heritage in Our World" is a new exhibition which began a nationwide tour this week. It is currently at the Science Museum in Manchester. For more information, go to www.1001inventions.com.
Monday, March
New roots
Wealthy African-Americans are using DNA kits to trace their roots - all the way back to Africa. But, says Gary Younge the results may tell them things they don't want to hear
Friday February 17, 2006
The Guardian
Oprah is a Zulu. Never mind that she was born and raised in Mississippi and
her great grandparents hailed from no further away than Georgia and North
Carolina, Ms Winfrey, the queen of the televised confessional, is not just
suggesting her lineage might stretch back thousands of years to a specific
African tribe. She is asserting it as a definitive fact. "I always wondered
what it would be like if it turned out I am a South African. I feel so at
home here ... Do you know that I actually am one?" she told an audience
of 3,200 in Johannesburg last year. "I went in search of my roots and
had my DNA tested, and I am a Zulu."
This month in the US, Oprah has been joined by eight other African-American
luminaries, including Quincy Jones and Whoopi Goldberg, in tracing their genealogy.
Thirty years after Alex Haley famously traced the oral history passed down
through his family back to Gambia to find his African ancestor, Kunta Kinte,
who had been sold into slavery these celebrities will undertake a similar
journey alongside Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr in a television series
called African-American Lives. But unlike Haley's Roots, few have been able
to turn to family historians in search of their genealogical narrative.
So when the stories stop and the paper trail of slaves bought and sold runs
out, the participants have turned to genetic science to trace their kin. But
while these journeys into the past are essentially personal, they raise broader
issues about racial authenticity and the genetic basis for racial categorisations.
Furthermore, it addresses the fundamental issue of whether any of us can,
ultimately, really say where we come from - and what use it would do us even
if we could.
Over the past few years laboratories have begun to amass a database of DNA
samples from around the world, including parts of West Africa, the area from
which most slaves were caught, sold and shipped to the Americas.
The technology aims either to trace a person's lineage through their genes
or compile a statistical breakdown, by geographical region, of their genetic
makeup. Alondra Nelson, an assistant professor of sociology and African-American
studies at Yale, says results "could stretch from several thousand years
to tens of thousands of years in a person's ancestry".
Mark Shriver, an assistant professor of anthropology and genetics at Penn
State university, conducts geographical genetic tests on his students among
others. He describes himself as white but his own tests reveal that his DNA
is 86% white but also 11% west African and 3% indigenous American. "For
most people it is consistent with what they thought," he says. "How
the west African DNA got into my family line was never explained to me."
Another method of testing follows the genes back through gender lines. One,
the patrilineal, follows the Y chromosome through your father, your father's
father, your father's father's father and so on. The other, the mitochondrial,
follows DNA through your maternal line - or your mother's mother, your mother's
mother's mother and so on.
"It's basically a matchmaking game," Megan Smolenyak, an expert
in family history research, told the New York Daily News. "I like to
warn folks: be sure you can deal with the results ... Some people don't like
what they find."
The science, now commercially available, has become something of a boom industry.
Growing numbers of relatively wealthy African-Americans have been buying up
test kits that can cost up to $350 (£200) a throw.
While other Americans could travel to towns in Ireland, Italy or Germany in
search of genealogical sustenance, slavery deprived African-Americans of a
clear and precise geographical bond with their own ancestry. As Gates puts
it: "There is no Ellis Island for the descendants of the slave trade."
Moreover, since slave-owners changed people's names, regularly split up families
and banned reading and writing, the usual methods of keeping family histories
have not been available to African-Americans until relatively recently.
This new science, then, seemed to offer a means of telling a story that had
been denied and hidden. Even as DNA evidence was freeing many - mostly black
- prisoners from death row it was also unlocking historical secrets. For example,
historians had insisted for 150 years that America's third president, Thomas
Jefferson, could not have fathered children by his slave mistress Sally Hemmings.
Many African-Americans claimed otherwise, however, and in 1998 scientists
followed the Y chromosome DNA in Jefferson's family line to establish a definitive
link with the Hemmings family. Almost 200 years after Jefferson had cryptically
parried accusations of the affair with the words "the man who fears no
truth has nothing to fear from lies", science had exposed the facts that
a mixture of prejudice and politics had kept hidden.
In reality, however, the truths this science reveals are no less selective
than those you will hear from a politician. Two years ago I swabbed my cheek
with something that felt like a cotton bud and sent it off to a Washington-based
organisation called African Ancestry. Several weeks later it sent me a letter
telling me that the "Y chromosome DNA sequence that we determined from
your sample matches with the Hausa people in Nigeria ... This result means
that you have inherited through your father a segment of DNA that was passed
on consistently from father to son to you. This segment of DNA is presently
found in Africa in Nigeria."
They also sent me a map showing me where Nigeria is and a "certificate
of ancestry" declaring that I "share paternal genetic ancestry with
the Hausa people in Nigeria". It went on,"You can display it with
pride among other important family documents."
Elsewhere in the letter, however, came information that would seem to minimise
the entire enterprise if not negate it altogether. "The Y chromosome
may represent less than 1% of your entire genetic makeup" it said. That
is to say that I had possibly been awarded an ancestry courtesy of a fraction
of my DNA.
Herein lies one of the central problems with tracing ones roots through DNA.
Science can only tell you so much. Stop the genealogical wheel at an inconvenient
moment and some of the world's greatest black icons could be rendered not
African, but European. Muhammad Ali's great grandfather was Irish; Bob Marley's
father was British. According to Shriver, Gates - the most prominent black
academic in the country - has DNA that is 50% European and 50% West African.
Both his matrilineal and paternal lines came back to Europe.
"I've spoken with African Americans who have tried four or five different
genetic genealogy companies because they weren't satisfied with the results,"
says Nelson. "They received different results each time and kept going
until they got a result they were happy with."
"There are some people who are black who may have only 10% African ancestry,"
says Shriver. "It helps create an understanding that race is an illusion
and that there isn't any real difference between races. They show that we're
all mixes."
Critics of Shriver's work say he is actually achieving the opposite - elevating
race from a social construct - a difference created to justify racism - into
something that appears both real and even calculable. Paul Gilroy, the Anthony
Giddens sociology professor at the London School of Economics, says: "To
make all these claims is to realign science with the racial categorisations
of the 18th century."
Shriver defends his work. "That is a potential problem," he admits.
"The labels are arbitrary. It's a model. We have taken these four categories
that mean something for New World people. But I don't respect people who don't
want to explore this issue and see what happens. There's quite a lot of hubris
out there when it comes to genomic work and ethics."
Neither the mixing nor the denial is exclusive to descendants of former slaves
or issues of race. Everyone could claim African ancestry given that civilisation
is deemed to have started there. Although Mediterranean Europeans define themselves
as white, they share a long heritage with North Africans.
"Everybody is mixed, but not everybody counts as mixed," says Gilroy.
"These things are interesting but the truth is that no one can say with
any certainty where they come from."
Like Nelson, Gilroy does not deny the need for these tests. "Some people
say knowing made them feel complete," she says. She tells of one African-American
woman whose match took her to an area of Sierra Leone where many of the women
were accomplished potters. This woman came from a family of skilled potters.
"I don't know how you like those two facts," says Nelson. "But
I know it was very meaningful for her."
Which brings us back to Oprah. Last week she gave author James Frey a dressing
down on her couch for the memoir he wrote and she helped promote that turned
out to owe far more to fiction than fact. Angry, and at times tearful, Oprah
asked the author of A Million Little Pieces to explain why he felt "the
need to lie". "It is difficult for me to talk to you because I really
feel duped," she said. "But more importantly I feel that you betrayed
millions of readers." Whatever Oprah's belief about her ancestry, her
assertion that she is Zulu is no less misleading.
According to most historical accounts, the Zulu nation was consolidated only
after the departure of slaves from West Africa to the Americas. Moreover,
there is little in the way of genetic lineage that comes close to matching
a particular linguistic group such as the Zulu nation. When Oprah had her
DNA tested for the programme, the results suggested her most likely match
was from the Kpelles tribe of Liberia. Indeed she was told that she could
not have come from South Africa. None of this is likely to stop her claiming
the Zulus as her kith and kin. "I'm crazy about the South African accent,"
she said. "I wish I had been born here."
Perhaps her new-found relations, and those of her fellow celebrities say less
about the power of science than something both far more elusive and compelling
- the desire for identity.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GOLD DINAR
of Offa, King of Mercia, Kent
This gold dinar, minted by King Offa of Mercia (Kent, England) between 758-796
CE., was probably the first gold coin minted in England.
There is no God [worthy of worship] except Allah (God) who has no partner
or associate.
Margin:
Muhammad is the Apostle of Allah (God), who sent him with the doctrine and
true faith to prevail over every religion.
Muhammad is the Apostle of Allah (God).
In the name of Allah (God) was coined this dinar in the year one hundred and
fifty-seven (AH -after Hijr).
Showing the Arabic inscription "La illaha il-Allah wahdahu laa shareekalahu"
(There is no God [worthy of worship] except Allah (God) who has no partner
or associate) Between the three lines forming the inscription of the field
of the reverse are the words OFFA REX.
© British Museum
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KING OFFA "REX" OF MERCIA (KENT, ENGLAND) AND THE FAITH OF ISLAM
King Offa of the Mercians (757-796), was a member of an ancient Mercian ruling family, and Offa seized power in the civil war that followed the murder of his cousin, King Aethelban (ruled 716-757) and thus he acceded to the throne. King Offa created a single state covering most of England south of modern Yorkshire (Humber) by ruthlessly suppressing resistance from several small kingdoms in and around Mercia: Lindsey, Essex, Surrey, Sussex, East Anglia, Kent and Wessex. The Lesser Kings of this region paid him homage, and he, married later during his reign his daughters to the rulers of Wessex and Northumbria in order to further extend his influence. The New Encyclopaedia Brittanica wrote (1974): "King Offa was one of the most powerful Kings in early Anglo-Saxon England." Despite all this, all the history, books state that very little is known about him and his works, which is unusual and indeed, an extraordinary, and very peculiar statement!
King Offa maintained a friendly relationship with Pope Adrian I (pope 772-795). The reason is this: Before Kent was under his Supremacy the see of Canterbury was not in his realm, and a rival to the see of York in the north, and so he allowed the Pope to increase his control over the English church, and Pope Adrian reciprocated by acceding to Offa's request for the creation of a see in Lichfield. This was a remarkable success, although temporary, and thus the change in church organization freed the Mercian church from the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was seated among Offa's enemies in the kingdom of Kent. King Offa set himself to recover Kent. and it was only after a war of three years in 775 that a victory at Otford gave it back to the Mercian realm.
King Offa's name still survives in a great earthwork as an impressive memorial known as Offa's Dyke (reminding us of the Great Wall of China which was built to protect them from the endless invasions by the Monguls). Most probably this Dyke was built for a similar purpose to protect the Anglo-Saxons from the invasion of the Welsh. Offa's Dyke runs from the mouth of Wye to that of Dee and it has a length of 125 miles which contains a large gap of some 25 miles long at its south end. King Offa's name is unreasonably connected by his establishment of a new form of coinage bearing the King's name and title, and the name of the moneyer responsible for their quality. Many coins had delicately executed portraits of Offa or his queen Cynethryth. The principles governing his coinage were employed in England for centuries afterward. But, all the English books and historians speak only about King Offa's "silver-pennies"! But what about his GOLD-COINS? They forgot all about it, what is the reason, which is indeed very impressive and magnificent!
I am here with the permission of the British Museum publishing the photos of this Gold-Coin for which I am very grateful to them. This Gold-Coin has a very great historical and religious significance, because it is written on one side in Arabic inscription and the other side in English.
1) The Arabic inscription.. "La Ilaha Il-ALLAH wahido la shareeka laho" means (There is no god but ALLAH and there is no associate unto Him).
2) Showing the English inscription "Offa Rex." But no date, therefore we cannot know when this Gold-Coin was minted. This is a unique "Gold-Coin" in the entire history of England, and even in the whole history of the world, which contains Arabic inscriptions without England being a Muslim country.
Comment on this Arabic inscription on Offa's Gold Coin: At that period in Europe outside Byzantium they had no regular gold-coins and it is prima facie evidence that King Offa, by putting this Arabic inscription, announced to the world at large. Let me further analyse this point and discuss it.
To quote the New Encyclopaedia Britannica what they wrote about King Offa, what kind of a King he was: "Although no 8th-century account of Offa's career has survived, fragmentary sources indicate that he aspired to be accepted as an equal by continental monarchs. Charlemagne, King of the Franks, quarrelled with Offa, but the two men concluded a commercial treaty in 796. "... the most enduring achievement of his reign, however, was the establishment of a new form of coinage bearing the King's name and title..." And to cite from Chamber's Encyclopaedia what they said (1966): "His position was not achieved without violence; a king of East Anglia was beheaded and there were wars... Therefore Offa had good reason to style hirnself, as he did in charters, "rex Anglorum and rex totius Anglorum patriae." Under King Offa, Mercia reached the height of its Supremacy and England came nearer to unity than at any time before the 10th Century.
Like the FLAG of any country, so its MONEY is a sign of its SOVEREIGNITY and independence, and Offa's gold coins represent this beyond any dispute and doubt! If any man is found dead in the street and he carries the passport of a country with his photo, name and signature, certainly he has the Nationality and Citizenship of that passport that had been found on him! When I asked several Englishmen (male and female alike) all of them were unanimous in their decision that King Offa must have acquired the Faith of Islam, and this is the reason that all English history-books state that they have very little documents about him; these documents might have been destroyed by "The Church of England" at its infancy! To this I fully concord! And we have learned that the Cover-ups and Watergates are not new. They are as new as ages, it goes back many "Milleniums!" If anyone is challenged to take a position on any matter or subject, and they are unable to enter the arena, it means they are unable to add anything, and therefore they are capitulating unconditionally! This is beyond any doubt, and this is an "absolute truth." But the English people are entitled to know everything about their history, and ancestors, and about their FAITH, and we do not know what kind of an end King Offa suffered.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Al Masudi's Map of the World (871-957 CE)
Muslim historian and geographer Al Masudi (871-957CE) wrote in his book "The
Meadows of Gold and the Quarries of Jewels" that during the rule of the
Muslim Caliph of Spain Abdullah ibn Muhammad (888-912CE), a Muslim navigator
Ibn Aswad crossed the Atlantic in 889 CE, reached an unknown territory (ard
majhoola) and returned with fabulous treasures.
In Al Masudi's map of the world there is a large area in "the
ocean of darkness and fog" (Atlantic ocean) which he referred to as the
"Unknown Territory" (identified today as South America).
Especially in an age where medieval europe thought of the world as flat and centre to the universe. other advances in sciences, medicine, chemistry and mathematcis follow shortly in our did you know series
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forgiveness
Allah is extremely happy when a servant repents
just as a desert traveler may be happy when he finds his lost camel ..
The man who committed 99 murders
10/7/2005 - Religious Education - Article Ref: IC0510-2815
Number of comments:
By: IslamiCity Staff
IslamiCity* -
The following is based on a hadith from Sahih Bukhari Volume 4, Book 56, Number 676.
There was a man who had heartlessly murdered ninety-nine people. Then, he
felt remorse.
He went to a learned man and told him about his past, explaining that he wished to repent, reform, and become a better person. "I wonder if Allah will pardon me?" he asked.
For all his learning, the scholar was a man who had not been able to digest what he had learned. "You will not be pardoned;' he said. "Then I may as well kill you, too," said the other. And kill him he did.
He then found another worthy individual and told him that he had killed a hundred people. "I wonder," he said, "whether Allah will pardon me if I repent?" Being a truly wise man, he replied, "Of course you will be pardoned; repent at once. I have just one piece of advice for you: avoid the company of wicked people and mix with good people, for bad company leads one into sin:"
The man expressed repentance and regret, weeping as he sincerely implored his Lord to pardon him. Then, turning his back on bad company, he set off to find a neighborhood where righteous people lived.
On the way, his appointed hour arrived, and he died. The angels of punishment and of mercy both came to take away his soul. The angels of punishment said that as a sinful person he rightfully belonged to them, but the angels of mercy also claimed him, saying, "He repented and had resolved to become a good man. He was on his way to a place where righteous people live, but his appointed hour had come." A great debate ensued, and Gabriel was sent as an arbitrator to settle this affair.
After hearing both sides he gave this verdict: "Measure the ground. If the spot where he died is closer to the good people, then he belongs to the angels of mercy, but if it is nearer to the wicked people, he will be given to the angels of punishment."
They measured the ground. Because the man had just set out, he was still closer to the wicked. But because he was sincere in his repentance, the Lord moved the spot where he lay and brought it to just outside the city of the good people.
That penitent servant was handed over to the angels of mercy.
Repentance is the most noble and beloved form of obedience in the eyes of Allah. He loves those who repent. Repentance has a status that no other form of worship has. This is why Allah is extremely happy when a servant repents just as a desert traveler may be happy when he finds his lost camel.
"Except those who repent, have faith and do good deeds,
for such people Allah will change their sins for good deeds. Certainly Allah
is most forgiving and merciful." (Qur'an 25:70)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The History of Kiswah
By Iftekar Alam
The drape or covering of the Ka‘bah, known as the kiswah, has an interesting
history through different eras. Some scholars argue that the first kiswah
was made by the Prophet Isma‘il (peace and blessings be upon him). It
is mentioned by others that the first kiswah was made by ‘Adnan ibn ‘Ad,
a great- great-grandfather of the Prophet Muhammad (saw). But most sources
agree that King As’ad Tubba’ of the South Yemeni tribe of Himyar
was the first to place a cloth covering on the Ka‘bah.
He chose one of a fancy brocaded silk. In addition to that, King Tubba’
built a gate to the Ka‘bah and had a key made for the door of the Ka‘bah.
He did this on his way through Makkah while returning from his invasion of
Yathrib 220 years before the Prophet’s birth (351 CE). The tribe of Quraysh
handled the yearly ceremony of changing the Kiswah until Abu Rabeeh of the
tribe of Makhzoom made an agreement with them that he would change the covering
every other year. This alternating practice continued on into the time of
Islam.
Prophet Muhammad (saw ) or the Muslims did not participate in draping the
Ka‘bah before the taking of Makkah, as the Quraysh did not allow them
to do so. When Makkah was taken, the Prophet (saw) left the kiswah as it was
until it was burned accidentally when a woman was fumigating the Ka‘bah.
Prophet Muhammed (saw) then draped the Ka‘bah with a striped Yemeni Kiswah.
Caliphs Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthmaan, Ibn az-Zubayr, and ‘Abdul-Malik
also continued this custom. Each Kiswah was draped one over another until
the end of the 8th century CE when the ‘Abbaasid Caliph, al-Mahdi, (ra)ordered
that only one Kiswah be on the Ka‘bah at a time.
The reason for this being that on his way to Hajj, the Caliph overheard some
pilgrims complaining that the many coverings of the Ka‘bah might cause
its walls to collapse. The Caliph al-Mamoon ( ra ) used white brocade and
the Faatimid caliphs used white, yellow, green and black during different
years. However, after the time of the ‘Abbaasid Caliph, an-Naasir lideenillah
( ra), black, the tribal color the ‘Abbaasids became the standard colour
for the Kiswah and this practice has lingered on until today.
In subsequent times, the Kiswah was furnished by the different Sultaans of
Baghdad, Egypt or Yemen, according to their respective influence over Makkah;
for, the clothing of the Ka‘bah was considered proof of sovereignty over
the Hijaaz. Kalaun, Sultan of Egypt, assumed for himself and his successors
the exclusive right, and from them the Sultans at Constantinople inherited
it. Kalaun appropriated the revenue of the two large villages, Bisans and
Sandabair, in Lower Egypt, to cover the expense of producing Kiswah and Sultaan
Sulaymaan ibn Saleem subsequently added several others. The variegated drape
(sitarah) that is hung on the front side of the Ka‘bah was introduced
in 810 a.h. Between 816 and 818 a.h., hanging this drape was stopped, then
it began again in 819 a.h., and it is still being hung until now. In 1346
A.H.(1926 C.E) his Highness King ‘Abd Al-‘Aziz Al-Sa‘ud, with
concern for the custody of the Two Holy Mosques, ordered the building of a
special factory for manufacturing the kiswah, and in the same year, the Holy
Ka‘bah kiswah factory was founded and the first kiswah was produced.
The kiswah continued to be made in Makkah for the next ten years. In order
to make this work better, in 1382 a.h.(1962 C.E.) King Faisal ordered the
renewal of the kiswah factory, and in 1397 a.h. ( 1976 C.E)., the new building
was opened at Umm Al-Joud.
Description of the Kiswah of the Holy Ka‘bah
The kiswah is woven from pure natural silk that is dyed black. The sentences
"La ilaha illa Allah; Muhammad Rasul Allah," "Allahu Jalla
Jalaluh," "Subhan Allah wa bihamdih," "Subhan Allah Al-‘Azhim,"
"Ya Hannan," "Ya Mannan" are embroidered on the black
silk in thread of gold. The kiswah is made up of 41 pieces, each 14 meters
long and 95 centimeters wide. The wide belt, 45 meters long and 95 centimeters
wide, is composed of 16 parts.
Surat Al-Ikhlas from the Qur’an is embroidered in circles with gold thread
on the four corners. These circles are surrounded with squares of Islamic
decorations. Under the belt there are also six verses of the Qur’an,
each of them inside a separate form.
The drape (sitara) of the Ka‘bah door is made of the same black silk
material, and it is 6.5 meters high and 3.5 meters wide. The border and drapes
are embroidered with silver threads covered with gold. The whole kiswah is
lined with a thick material of cotton.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interview with George Galloway
By: Dr Anthony McRoy
It’s said that as a boy you asked your grandfather,‘How come the
British had an empire on which the sun never set?’ And he said, ‘Because
God couldn’t trust them in the dark.’
That was my Irish grandfather. I don’t know if he was the originator
of that statement – I suspect not – but I believed as a child that
he was and I thought it was wonderfully profound and witty.
Can you tell us about your family background?
I was born in Dundee. My maternal grandparents were Irish immigrants who arrived
in Glasgow, like many, many thousands of others, and then walked to the east
coast to work in the jute and flax industries. I must be the only person whose
great-greatgrandmother emigrated from America to Scotland. Somehow she decided
to leave New York and come and live here with five other people in a one-roomed
house. ‘Send us your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free,’
said the sign in Dundee
Was your family political?
Very much. My grandparents, all four, and my parents were activists in the
Labour Party.
And were they religious?
My grandparents were devoutly Catholic, and my mother was a practising Catholic;
but my father not at all, I should say.
Do you still think of yourself as a Catholic?
I certainly am a believer in God. I don’t go to church but they say,
‘Once a Catholic, always a Catholic,’ and undoubtedly culturally
that’s what I am.
Has that helped to form your political values?
Sure. I believe that Jesus Christ was a great revolutionary whose message
is evergreen. That message is, number one, that we are all one human family,
we’re all God’s children, that we’re all therefore responsible
for how the other lives, in the sense that it’s not acceptable to be
comfortable yourself and not to care about your neighbour – whether your
neighbour is literally next door or on the other side of the world. And, number
two, that we’re merely passing through this life and we’ll be judged
upon it by God and we’ll answer for how we’ve lived.
Do you believe in an afterlife?
I do indeed.
How do you hope that God will judge you?
My defence – and it would have to be a defence, because I’m expecting
some difficult questions – is that I have been a sinner, I have made
mistakes but I have tried my best to use whatever attributes he gave me for
the greater good of humankind, which I believe is the purpose of life on this
earth.
Who are your political heroes? I’ve read that Arthur Scargill is one
of them.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever said Arthur Scargill was a political
hero of mine. If I did say it, it was a misstatement – he is not. But
that is not to say he did not have a heroic period, and I certainly supported
the [1984-85] miners’ strike with all my heart and I deeply regret the
defeat that the miners suffered. But I am a Labour man. I believe in Labour
values. I’m not a communist or a Trotskyist or a Leninist, and have never
been. I have been all my life in the mainstream of the labour movement. The
problem is that the mainstream (if you like) shifted. I was once not nearly
as left-wing as a number of people now in Tony Blair’s Cabinet, some
of whom were communists, some Trotskyists, who regarded me as rather moderate.
The difference is that I stayed exactly where I was while they tiptoed across
the stage hoping that the rest of us wouldn’t notice.
What particular values are most important to you?
I cannot accept the levels of inequality that exist in our own country and,
even more markedly, across the world. In the words of Mary Brooksbank, the
Dundee jute worker who wrote in the 1930s:
Oh dear me, the world’s ill divided.
Them that work the hardest
Are the least provided.
And that’s how I see the country and the world still today, 75 years
after she wrote that. You can read an autocue and earn half a million pounds
a year or you can spend your entire day with a water pot on your head in Africa
walking seven miles to and from a well in order to get dirty water to keep
your family alive – though not for very long. And that I simply can’t
accept. I’m not saying that everyone can ever be, will ever be, entirely
equal; but it’s the task of politicians and reformers to try to even
out the grotesque inequalities that exist in the world. Secondly, I cannot
accept the domination by the strong of the weak. I didn’t accept it when
I was a child in the playground and I don’t accept it as an adult in
the political world. I don’t accept that just because someone is strong
they have the right to occupy, bully or colonise people who are weaker than
them. And when they do it in the name of God, that makes it even more obscene
for me. That’s exactly what the empires of the 19th and 20th centuries
did, of course. They dressed it up in the fine clothes of Christian guidance:
‘We will hold the hand of these natives, civilise them and lead them
to the sunny uplands, at which point we’ll hand over their country to
them.’ It was all lies. Empire then, like empire now, is to go to other
people’s countries and steal their things. And I can’t accept that.
Some will say, ‘It’s all very well George Galloway protesting, "I
can’t accept poverty," but he’s not conspicuously poor himself.’
You’re well known for your penchant for big cigars and your year-round
tan…
Yeah, I never quite understood what’s wrong with having a tan. You get
a tan if you’re in the sun. I think it’s to the credit of someone
who is not poor themselves that they spend their life trying to change a situation
where the majority in the world are poor. I am not rich. My income is publicly
declared and it doesn’t make me rich; but it makes me much richer than
most of the people in the world. And I could be richer still, believe me.
I could be dedicating whatever talents God has given me to business –
and if I had, I think I’d be a good deal richer than I am. But I don’t
do that. I spend my political life – and my political life is my life
– trying to change the situation that prevails in the world. But I have
never believed in sackcloth and ashes. I paraphrase General [William] Booth’s
comment: Why should the Devil have all the best suits?
You have always opposed abortion. That’s unusual for a man of the left.
Yeah, I get a lot of stick from the left for my position on abortion, and
not much support from others. You didn’t find Spuc1 hurtling into the
fray in Bethnal Green & Bow to urge people to support the anti-abortion
candidate against the strongly proabortion New Labour candidate. I wonder
why. I mean, I’m angry about that. I have consistently spoken, written
and voted on these life issues of abortion and euthanasia. I have a very clear
position – I’ve had it all my life, even in the Seventies and Eighties,
when (believe me) it was virtually unheard of on the left in Britain for somebody
to take the point of view I take on these questions. And I take it on moral
grounds. I believe that there is no other point at which life could be said
to be created than the moment of conception, no other point at which it can
be said, ‘Life begins there.’ So, I believe that the unborn child
is not a future person but a person, and is therefore entitled to the dignity
that all human persons are entitled to. Every life has dignity and the right
to protection. Nobody has the right to take another’s life except in
very extreme circumstances, and those circumstances are not covered by the
slogan ‘A woman’s right to choose’.
How is a belief that every life has dignity compatible with your defence of
suicide attacks?
First of all, there is in principle no difference between a suicide attack
and a military or paramilitary attack of any other kind. There is no moral
difference between someone who kills themselves deliberatel in a military
attack and someone who risks being killed in a military attack. The moral
issue is: Who are the targets of the attack and how just is the war in which
that attack is being made? I have a very clear position: I am against the
targeting of innocent civilians in any attack, whether it is made by a suicide
bomber or a normal bomber. Any attack that is designed to kill or maim civilians
for any purpose is to be deplored, and I deplore it. And if the war being
fought has no moral justification, it must be deplored. I refuse to make the
distinction that others make – there is no difference between a state
visiting violence and an armed group visiting violence. I use the words of
the late Peter Ustinov: War is the terrorism of the rich and powerful, and
terrorism is the war of the poor and powerless.
You have just been elected MP for Bethnal Green & Bow, largely (I think
it would be fair to say) by the votes of Muslims. There are a lot of disagreements
between Islam and the left – over homosexuality, for example, and some
aspects of women’s rights. What are the common values that unite your
coalition, Respect, and where are the tensions?
The bigger question is a very important one, but let me first deal with a
smaller issue. First of all, Bethnal Green & Bow is not a Muslim-majority
constituency. Forty per cent of its population are Muslims, but (given the
very high percentage of very young Muslims) the percentage of the electorate
that is Muslim is considerably less. Secondly, a very significant number of
Muslims did not vote for me. There was a Muslim Conservative candidate and
a Muslim Liberal Democrat candidate, and nine out of 10 of the Labour workers
on election day were Muslims. So, there was no communal voting going on in
the constituency – that is a lazy mischaracterisation by most of the
mainstream media. Thirdly, neither you nor I, with respect, know who voted
for me. It was a secret ballot. We can all have our views, but none of us
know. I suspect that of the 16,000 or so who voted for me the majority were
probably Muslims – but not much more than a narrow majority, because
we were active in every part of the constituency and our message appeals,
I think, to every part of the community. As you’ll see, I think, next
May, when we fight the local council elections with a view to winning them.
As for the bigger question, you rightly identify that Respect is not a party
but a coalition, of different left-wing groups, people in no other organisation,
religious people of all kinds… I’m not sure if we’ve got any
Hindus but we’ve certainly got Sikhs, we’ve got Buddhists, we’ve
got Christians, we’ve got Muslims and we’ve got Jews; and all of
these people bring their own backgrounds and their own moral-philosophical
standpoints to the table. And inevitably everyone rubs off on everyone else.
Marxists who never met a religious person before begin to reshape their attitudes
when they’re working with someone religious, first to that person and
then, on reflection, to what they believe in. And vice versa. There are some
things that could divide us, but we decided that, whilst important, they were
not as fundamental to the present political juncture as the things that united
us: our opposition to war, our opposition to occupation, our opposition to
capitalist globalisation and our opposition to the attacks on people’s
civil liberties. And so far we have experienced no strain whatsoever –
largely, I should tell you, because of the selfrestraint of people on our
left. They have behaved impeccably, faithful to that concept that where issues
that are not so fundamental may divide us, they should be left to the side.
No doubt there may be pitfalls ahead, but if we all continue to behave as
we’ve behaved so far, I believe they can be negotiated.
What is your attitude to war in general?
I’m definitely not a pacifist. I would go five rounds with most people,
and there are some people I’d very much like to go five rounds with.
I believe that there are just wars; I believe there’s a duty on those
fighting such wars to make the case for their justness and to conduct them
justly as far as is possible. I opposed the war in Kosovo. I opposed the war
in Afghanistan. I opposed the war in Iraq, as is well known. But if I had
been alive, I would have been the first man at the recruiting office for the
Second World War, which I believe to have been a just and necessary war. (In
fact, we should have fought earlier, in 1936 in Spain – and if we had,
the Second World War might never have happened.)
In Iraq, even though we found no weapons of mass destruction and the Ba’thists
don’t appear to have had any connections with al-Qa’ida, we did
get rid of a murderous dictator. Isn’t that justification enough? What
if George Bush and Mr Blair had said that that was their aim all along?
Well, of course they couldn’t say that, because they support most of
the world’s murderous dictators. The only reason they are advancing that
argument now is because all their other arguments have been unmasked as lies.
They – and the system they support – are responsible for dictatorship
in the world, including that of Saddam Hussein.
When people like me were marching in protest against the dictatorship of Saddam
Hussein, they were building him up and selling him weapons – indeed,
through the export credits guarantee scheme, at the expense of British taxpayers:
when Saddam didn’t pay for the weapons, we paid for them. And the idea
that you can build up a dictator and then murder a million of his people to
punish them for having a dictator is so morally grotesque it’s amazing
that they can advance it without blushing.
The reality is that everything you do in political life has to be subject
to a cost-benefit analysis. The benefit for Iraq of getting rid of a dictator
has to be balanced against the cost of getting rid of him. Now, according
to the Johns Hopkins University and the Lancet,2 100,000 people were killed
in the invasion and the first part of the occupation of Iraq (not including
[the assault on] Falluja and those who have died since [the report]); and,
according to the United Nations, a million people were killed by the sanctions
that preceded the war. That’s a gigantic mass grave. It’s not one
you’ll find Michael Buerk and his camera crew turning up at, and when
I was trying to draw attention to it, nobody wanted to know; but it’s
certainly the biggest mass grave in Iraq.
Secondly, the argument that Saddam’s dictatorship was qualitatively different
from others was true only during the period when he was our best friend. He
committed real and serious crimes against the people of Iraq, the people of
Iran and the people of Kuwait, but virtually all of these were committed during
the time he was our ally. If you believe Amnesty International, the number
of politically-related deaths in Iraq after 1991 was in the region of 200
a year. That simply doesn’t compare with the death toll created by us
by sanctions and war.
Thirdly, you have to balance it against the cost of the war to Iraq and the
region as a whole. Islamist fundamentalism has been vastly empowered by the
actions of Bush and Blair. Islamic extremism and alienation from the West
have been fantastically amplified. Nobody could seriously dispute that. There
was no al-Qa’ida in Iraq before, but there is now. In fact, new al-Qa’idas
are germin ting all over Iraq and all over the Middle East and beyond. All
over the Muslim world, our action has created new levels of toxicity in people’s
feelings towards the West
And then you calibrate the cost to the international legal and political system
involved in the subversion of the United Nations: bugging its Secretary General,
attempting to bully and blackmail the Security Council into voting for war
and then, having failed to do so, declaring war anyway. It was a major disfigurement
of the international system.
And, lastly, you have to calibrate the cost of the destruction of people’s
faith in their own governments in countries like America and Britain, where
a very large number of people now don’t believe a word their government
tells them, even when it is telling them the truth. If there had been a referendum
on the European constitution in Britain, Tony Blair would have lost it even
if it was the best constitution ever written, because nobody’s prepared
to buy anything that he is selling any more.
So, if there was a balance sheet and getting rid of Saddam was on one side
of the ledger and all of this was on the other side, you’d have to conclude
that the operation was bankrupt.
What is your opinion now of Mr Blair, as a person and as a political leader?
I hold him in absolute contempt on both counts. I think the interests of the
people of this country have been gravely damaged by him and his bizarre ‘special
relationship’ with George W Bush.
You’re probably tired of clarifying this, but what did you mean when
in 1994 you said to Saddam, ‘Sir, I salute your courage, your strength,
your indefatigability’?
You’ll have to forgive me. I am tired of clarifying it, so I’m not
going to again. It’s on the record a thousand times. It’s on the
record in the Senate hearing, it’s on the record in the libel case, it’s
on the record in my book.3
You represent it as hypocrisy that we first supported Saddam and then turned
on him. Is it not legitimate to have a change of heart? If what the West did
in the Eighties was deplorable, isn’t it proper that the West should
now clean up the mess?
If you want to start cleaning up the mess, there arebigger messes – and
that then raises the question of who has the right to decide which messes
must be cleaned up, and in what order. And that cannot possibly be a decision
that is given to governments on the basis of how powerful they are. If there’s
going to be any international legality, it can only be the international community
that decides, on the basis that either the situation has reached such a critical
point that it’s infecting other countries around it or that there is
a level of internal repression so horrific that the community has to intervene
to stop it.
Neither of those things applied to Iraq. On the contrary, despite all the
efforts to subvert the UN, the Security Council would not accept that the
best way to deal with its dictator was to invade and occupy the country. The
rest of the world said, ‘Insofaras there are problems with Iraq, the
remedy you are proposing will make matters worse.’ And subsequent events
have absolutely vindicated that view.
But there are legitimate reservations about the UN, aren’t there? It
is dominated by vested interests, and not just US ones. France and Russia
had their own reasons for opposing an invasion of Iraq – just as China
would oppose any attempt to liberate Burma.
Well, you have your list and others will have theirs. But what we can’t
have is Mr Bush saying (as he has done, publicly): ‘God told me to strike
Afghanistanand I did. God told me to intervene in Iraq and I did. And God
told me to intervene in the Israel- Palestine dispute and I’m going to.’
This is absurd. You cannot possibly run a world in this way, with somebody
who speaks in tongues deciding which countries are going to be invaded and
which are not – and, at the same time as invading some countries because
they are doing certain things, supporting others that are doing exactly the
same things.
Such as Uzbekistan?
Uzbekistan is the most recent example, but Israel is the biggest example.
Israel has flouted more UN resolutions than all other countries in the world
put together. It possesses weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical
and biological, and the warheads to deliver them. It has invaded more countries
than any other country in the Middle East. It continues to occupy other people’s
countries but gets not punished but rewarded with endless flows of American
economic and military aid.
You cannot say that we’re going to punish this country for that but are
going to reward that country for exactly the same thing with cherries on top.
That discredits completely any idea that you are intervening justly in a situation.
In a polemic against you, the journalist Christopher Hitchens quotes you saying
that it was the worst day of your life when the Soviet Union collapsed.4 Is
that true?
It’s slightly paraphrased, but it’s a fair representation, insofar
as it goes, of my view that the unipolar world we now have is a complete disaster.
The absence of any equilibrium is down to the fact that the United States
is the sole superpower – indeed, hyperpower – and so the world is
dangerously unbalanced.
Don’t you think the US had a right to respond to the attacks of ‘9/11’?
Afghanistan didn’t attack America.
Well, al-Qa’ida was based there –
Well, the IRA attacked Britain, many times, but Britain did not have either
the right or the stupidity to send the Royal Air Force to bomb the Republic
of Ireland, where the IRA was based.
Now, why were al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan? Who sent them to Afghanistan?
Who paid for them to go to Afghanistan? Who gave them the weapons that they
had in Afghanistan? We did. Not me – on the day before Kabul fell to
what were then known as the mujahidin, I told Mrs Thatcher in the House of
Commons: ‘You have opened the gates to the barbarians, and a long, dark
night will now descend upon the people of Afghanistan.’
And she had no answer, because she and [Ronald] Reagan, and before him [Jimmy]
Carter and [his national security adviser, Zbigniew] Brzezinski, they were
the people who sent al-Qa’ida to Afghanistan. Brzezinski’s written
about it. So, we then kill tens of thousands of Afghans because on their soil
is operating a terrorist group which we sent there? Where’s the justice
in that?
No Afghan was on board those aeroplanes on ‘9/11’. Afghanistan,
the poorest, most ragged country in the world, never did any harm to the US.
In fact, Taliban officials were in America just months before, negotiating
with the US to allow them passage across their land for an oil and gas pipeline.
But for the most powerful countries in the world to then
savagely bombard the poorest people on earth for something they never did
is morally reprehensible.
It often seems as if, as far as the left is concerned, the US can do no right.
If the US is for it, then we’re against it. How do you respond to that?
The idea that I’m anti-American is absurd. I have no animus at all towards
the people of America. On the contrary, I admire very many things about them
– but I hate their economic and political system.
And, frankly, since the end of the Second World War they haven’t done
anything right. They did a lot right in the Second World War – admittedly
late, and they’ve claimed rather more credit than they’re actually
entitled to, but they did help save the world from Fascism and they did leave
many thousands of their sons in our graveyards as a result. And if I had been
alive, I would have been fighting shoulderto- shoulder with them.
But since then their government has not done anything right. On the contrary,
it has done a huge amount of wrong all over the world. From Vietnam to southern
Africa to the Middle East to Latin America, the Americans have committed blunder
after blunder, crime after crime.
In May, most people agree, you made mincemeat of the chair of a US Senate
hearing with a robust style which, I guess, is very much the product of Britain’s
adversarial politics. Do you think that in practice our system of democracy
is superior to the US version?
No, actually I think that their democracy is superior to ours. The US has
a constitution; we do not. The US has a legislature that is separate from
the executive and we do not. They have rights of freedom of information that
we do not.
However, the US media make very poor use of those rights, and their current
crop of politicians is of a particularly low calibre. Until that day, people
were openly talking of [Senator Norman] Coleman as the next Republican nominee
for President, but I don’t think he ended that day as a presidential
hopeful and I don’t think his soufflé will rise again. So, maybe
I performed them a service.
It is unusual for someone not of Arab origin to be as committed as you are
to the Palestinian cause. How did that come about?
It was entirely by chance. I had never met an Arab or a Muslim when a Palestinian
student leader came to my door in 1975, when I was 21, at a time when you
could have fitted all the British supporters of the Palestinian Liberation
Organisation into one small room. And in two hours he persuaded me that a
really historic injustice had been perpetrated. I studied the subject, so
far as it was possible to do so in the limited English literature at the time,
and I threw myself into the cause – and because so few people were involved,
I quickly became ‘prominent’. Two years later, I went to visit the
refugee camps in Lebanon, including Sabra and Shatila,5 and I absorbed myself
in this injustice and sought to change it.
I think that what happened to the Palestinians is one of the most unjust things
in modern history – and moreover (though it wouldn’t change my feelings
were it otherwise) the resolution of this question is absolutely central to
the peace and security of the world. This is not a far-off corner of darkest
Ecuador: this conflict is in the very heart of human society, at the crossroads
of the great religions, in a strategically vital part of the world, and therefore
it is a matter of importance even to those who are not (as I am) touched in
their hearts by the injustice of it. The need to resolve it ought to be occupying
the minds of politicians everywhere – but it isn’t.
Enoch Powell once said that all political careers end in failure –
Well, as mine has been a failure from start to finish, it won’t make
any difference to me.
Do you consider yourself a political failure?
It depends how you define success. If you define it in terms of progress up
the greasy pole, clearly I’ve been a total failure. I can only say that
it could have been no other way. If the price of advancement was to say things
I didn’t believe, or not to say things I did believe in, that is certainly
not a price I would ever have contemplated paying.
But I have been five times elected to the House of Commons, almost always
in the teeth of unremitting media hostility; and I’m proud about that.
I am proud that I can draw significant audiences. I’m proud that I have
built up the anti-war movement in Britain and I have built up Respect. I am
proud that in the Arab world and the Muslim world I have many supporters.
These are clearly not failures.
The media often describe you as a maverick, and a lot of people recognise
that you are one of the most powerful political orators in the country. Rhetoric
is a dangerous weapon. Who do you feel accountable to for how you use it?
Well, the dictionary definition of ‘maverick’ is ‘an unbranded
beast’. I don’t mind that. But insofar as it’s commonly used
to denote someone who is erratic and unpredictable, I utterly reject it. In
fact, my political views are entirely consistent. Insofar as I am an orator,
I have been born with attributes like anyone else – some can play football,
some can do mathematics, some can speak. Who I am accountable to is, in the
first place, the people who have elected me – five times – fully
cognisant, let me tell you, of everything I’ve ever said in public (since
my opponents and the media make sure that they are). I am accountable to my
own conscience. And I’m accountable, in the end, to God.
The above interview first published in the London based Christian 'Third Way'
magazine. Dr. Anthony McRoy is a regular contributor to the Muslim weekly.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jazzah kAllah Khayrun
