IslamOnline - Views Section - Denmark’s Costly Blunder

Recent escalations in the crisis spawned by the Danish Jyllands-Posten’s publication of a series of cartoons ridiculing Prophet Muhammad appear, on the surface, to be a test of Europe’s commitment to free speech. Yet the issue is substantially more complex.

Muslim Profiling: A German State Quizes Muslim Immigrants on Jews, Gays and Swim Lessons - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

Since the beginning of the year, the German state of Baden-Württemberg has been testing would-be citizens on their attitudes to the constitution. The only problem? The quiz itself might be unconstitutional.

IslamicaMagazine - CURRENT ISSUE

Embracing the Infidel: A Muslim Migrant on the Journey West. Behzad
Yaghmaian recounts the journey of an Afghan, whose personal family
tragedy compels him to leave Afghanistan in search of a better life.

Clearly the best Islamic magazine in English. Subscribe.

Poems by Rumi - The True Sufi

What makes the Sufi? Purity of heart;

Not the patched mantle and the lust perverse

Of those vile earth-bound men who steal his name.

He in all dregs discerns the essence pure:

In hardship ease, in tribulation joy.

The phantom sentries, who with batons drawn

Guard Beauty’s place-gate and curtained bower,

Give way before him, unafraid he passes,

And showing the King’s arrow, enters in.

R. A. Nicholson

‘Persian
Poems‘, an Anthology of verse translations
edited by A.J.Arberry, Everyman’s Library, 1972

First Pakistani Motorcycle/Scooter - Misc - 4×4 Offroaders Club Karachi

A view of the first motorcycle/scooter built in Pakistan. Built by Hamid Omar, inspired by plans from Popular Mechanics.

MediaGuardian.co.uk | Media | Danish paper sorry for Muhammad cartoons

Denmark’s largest selling broadsheet newspaper last night issued an apology to the “honourable citizens of the Muslim world” after publishing a series of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked protests across the Middle East.

BBC: Danes face growing Muslim storm

simplehuman | blog: 3-D Calendar

It’s mid-January - did you get a new calendar yet?  Well, look no further!  We’ve found a clever idea for a DIY calendar you can make with paper, glue and scissors: the dodecahedral calendar.  Cute and compact, the calendar features one month of the year on each of its 12 faces.  Follow the steps below for a geometric calendar of your own. [read on…]

Found via: Life Hacker

India Uncut - Karachi - Everyday and Exotic

… to soak in a city, I think one must eschew the exotic and revel in the everyday (though admittedly that means different things to different people, but you get what I mean). A travel writer who does not do that can mislead his readers about what a city is really like. For example, I could title the picture below “Karachi Streets” and you’d think Karachi was this quaint city full of charming vehicles like this one. But the city roads are strikingly modern, with the latest cars and SUVs and suchlike. A typical picture like that may not interest you, though. [more]

The World From Berlin: Merkel’s Message to Hamas - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

Following her visit to Israel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel travels to the West Bank on Monday to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The German press explores the implications of her decision not to meet the Islamists from Hamas despite their resounding election victory last week.

Rice Admits U.S. Underestimated Hamas Strength - New York Times

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
acknowledged Sunday that the United States had failed to understand the
depth of hostility among Palestinians toward their longtime leaders.
The hostility led to an election victory by the militant group Hamas
that has reduced to tatters crucial assumptions underlying American
policies and hopes in the Middle East.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Stark warning over climate change

Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases may have more serious impacts than previously believed, a major new scientific report has said.

See also:
Clinton: Climate Change is world’s biggest worry
Is it Climate Change Yet? Canada’s Weird Weather

Audio: Allah’s Blessings Be Upon You, O Light! [download]
by Shaykh Ahmad al-Alawi
source: www.Tasawuf.ws

BBC NEWS | Americas | Baby found in bag in Brazil lake

Brazilian TV has broadcast footage of a baby girl being rescued from a black plastic bag floating in a lake.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Police guarantee Lahore marathon

Police in the Pakistani city of Lahore say they are planning to deploy 6,000 officers to prevent any disruption to a marathon race planned for Sunday.

“…. if there comes to you from Me guidance, then whosoever follows My
guidance shall not go astray, neither shall he be unprosperous; but
whosoever turns away from My remembrance, his shall be a life of
narrowness, and on the Resurrection Day We shall raise him blind.’” [Qur’an, 20.124]

Nadwi: Talking of Madinah (at SunniPath Answers (http://qa.sunnipath.com))

Shaykh Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi (Allah have mercy on him)
found through: al-Haqiqat al-Muhammadiyya blog

Syed Furqan Qadri - As-Subhu Bada Min Tal`atihi

idealmotion » Posting too much information on social networking sites may be dangerous

Why parents must mind MySpace 

In the last month, authorities have charged at least
three men with sexually assaulting teenagers they found through
MySpace.com and just this week police found a missing 15-year-old girl
who investigators say was sexually assaulted by a 26-year-old man she
met through the site.

The Fiqh of Sending Peace & Blessings on the Prophet ( Allah bless him with the best of blessings and give him the most perfect of peace)

Answered by Sidi Sohail Hanif

Media and Journalism: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Will great newspapers survive? Hard to say. But there will always be a place, indeed a need, for great journalism.

Islam Online- News Section - Palestinians Deserve Respect, Support: Guardian

The Palestinians deserve respect and support as their real democratic legislative elections proved that civil society in Palestine is more vibrant than anywhere else in the region and owes nothing to Washington’s selective efforts to promote democracy out there, Britain’s mass-circulation the Guardian commented on Friday, January 27. [read more]

May sanity and good prevail.

Palestinian Elections: Could Victory Be Undoing of Hamas? - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

The Islamist winners of Wednesday’s election are woefully unprepared to assume power. Two days after the election, the Hamas Party’s weaknesses have become increasingly clear. With its intellectual leader in exile and many key cadres of the movement sitting in Israeli jails, Hamas is suffering from a power vacuum.

FRONTLINE/WORLD . Dispatches . Dispatches . Bolivia: The Rise of Evo Morales | PBS

I live in downtown La Paz, about 10 minutes away from the government palace. In the last couple of years, I’ve watched history unfold just outside my window, says Tupac Saavedra

avari/nameh: why did hamas win?

Hamas won 76 out of 132 seats for two reasons, both of which will lead me to conclude that Israel needs to negotiate with Hamas, however distasteful it finds such an exercise. (If the Palestinians can bring themselves to sit across the table from Ariel Sharon, then Ehud Olmert or whoever succeeds him - if anyone does - can do the same with Haniyeh.) [read more]

Cover story: ‘The great divide’ by Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad | Prospect Magazine February 2006 issue 119

Cinema, literature and other aspects of western culture are increasingly open to Asian influence. Not so western philosophy, which remains almost entirely sealed off from eastern traditions. Why? Institutionalised parochialism on the part of western philosophers and a loss of nerve among Asian thinkers

Killing Lions to Save Them: Is Trophy Hunting the Way to Rescue Africa’s Lion Kings? - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

With the destruction of its habitat, the African lion has become an endangered species. Conservationists have developed a controversial new plan to save them: Kill more lions.

Akram’s Razor - Svend White’s blog on Islam, Muslims & America: America’s Most Endangered Species: the Virgin

I suspect it’s hard for those born in less sexually charged times or in more religiously conservative lands to understand the incredible pull of sex for people who’ve grown recently in America.

NPR : Comparing Two Routes to Marriage

In the 1960s, when Sulochana Konur was a teenager in her native India, her family arranged for her to marry a man who would soon leave for studies in America. That marriage has stood the test of time — Konur and her husband, now residents of Tucson, Ariz., marked their 37th anniversary last year.

But the Konurs’ oldest son, Sanjay, chose a different path to the altar. While in business school at New York University, he met Melissa Smith, then a graduate student. The pair married in April 2005.

Students Are Leaving the Politics Out of Economics - New York Times

Taking as a model the research techniques that Steven D. Levitt displays in his best-selling book, “Freakonomics,” graduate students in economics are focusing on small insights about the economy rather than broad theories that explain how the overall system works. In doing so, they are withdrawing in effect from political debate.

The World from Berlin: Will the Real Hamas Please Stand Up? - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

In the face of the surprise electoral victory of Hamas, Europe’s diplomatic community strives to keep the peace process rolling. But under the surface of all the declarations of open-mindedness, which are also echoed by the press, there is much unclarity about how this unwanted situation came about and how it will develop.

BBC NEWS | Business | Gates gives $600m more to stop TB

The Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis has received a $600m (£337m) boost from Microsoft chairman Bill Gates.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Hamas win challenges US policy

For all President George W Bush’s talk of bringing democracy to the Middle East, Hamas’ victory in a ballot of the Palestinian people is as awkward a result as he could have expected.

May sanity, peace, justice, and good prevail.

What Causes Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? - WebMD

A mix of physical and psychological factors may affect chronic fatigue syndrome, according to a new review published in The Lancet.

India Uncut - Potty Room Service

Overheard in … hotel room at Karachi:

My room-mate: Hello, room service?
Disembodied voice: Yes.
Room-mate: I’m calling from room 225, can you help me with potty, please?
Voice: Certainly sir. For one person or two persons?

Half-an-hour later, pot tea came.

Source: India Uncut

TheStar.com - Bay agrees to U.S. takeover

Hudson’s Bay Co.,(TSX: HBC), Canada’s oldest company, is ready to fall into American hands after more than 335 years in business.

Marginal Revolution: Should You Treat Your Marriage Like a Job?

Haltzman believes conventional marital therapy often tries to make
men more like women — you know, getting in touch with their feelings,
talking about their feelings, feeling their wives’ feelings, etc. But
this approach is doomed to failure, he says, largely because men and
women are equipped with such different hardware from the neck up…

Use the male habits and male skills that serve him well at work, at
play, in competition, in the field and in other venues where he
thrives. View marriage as your most important task, Haltzman urges men,
and pursue success as you would anything else that matters. The
assumption is it’s a lot more pleasant, and the payoffs far greater, to
live with a woman who is satisfied, secure and feeling loved compared
to one who is none of the above. Make this your job, he says.

Alternatively, you could follow the sunna, and save yourself a lot of groping in the dark.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Man lives in tree after domestic spat

An Indian man has been living in a tree for the past 15 years despite passionate appeals by his mother to return home.

copenhagen interpretation: Burda I - An eloquent new translation of the Burda, by Yusuf Zanella.

Is it your memory of tents near Dhi Salam that
draws tears wed to blood from your eyes –
the squall from Kazima,
lightning out of Idam’s umber?And eyes, you say, enough yet they water?
Heart, you say, sense yet it soars?
The lover thinks love is hid?
What, by tears and smoking heart? [read more]

Two Shaykh Diya’ Renditions
At DeenPort, the Mawlid Hajji Imran contains a lively rendition (with duff) of the first two chapters of the Burda by Shaykh Diya’. Shaykh Diya’ also has a slow and very passionate rendition of these first two chapters of the Burda.

Tunisian and Maghribi and Yemeni Renditions
A Tunisian rendition of the Burda is also available at DeenPort (though curiously named “Borda”). There is also a full rendition of the Burda by a Maghribi group. This rendition is highly praised by Ustadh Tirmidhi. Another Maghribi rendition, by Moulay Touhami al-Harraq, is also available. The DeenPort News people are ga-ga over it. The Ahbab al-Mustafa group (from Hadhramawt, Yemen) have a full rendition of the Burda, too:

Burda (Ahbab al-Mustafa) - Parts: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

Indian Renditions
The Altaf Brothers (Pakistan) have an Indian-style rendition of the Burda, with hadra-style background dhikr. Sayyid Furqan Qadri has lively Indo-Pak rendition of the Burda, also with hadra-style background. Qari Waheed Zafar’s rendition of the Burda is one of the ‘classic’ Indo-Pak recitations of the Burda. It was the first one I ever heard. Muhammad Owais Qadri’s rendition is sublime. Other renditions by him are also available. Fasihuddin Sohrawardi’s rendition moves the heart and soul. Imam Jilani, of High Wycombe Mosque, has this rendition, hosted on Sidi Mas’ud Khan’s site.

Imam Hamza’s contributions
Zaytuna Institute & Academy has a beautiful documentary (video) on Introducing the Burda of al-Busiri. It features Imam Hamza Yusuf, Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad, and others:

RealPlayer: Low | High
QuickTime: Low | High

The Alhambra Productions has The Burda, with a full translation by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, and a powerful rendition by the Fez Singers. Beautiful.

Yahoo! Entertainment Photo Gallery - Michael Jackon, in niqab and abaya, with fully-veiled small child

Michael Jackson, center, wearing a
traditional Arabic women’s veil and all-covering gown called an abaya,
holds the hand of one of his children, also veiled, as they walk toward
his car on Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2006, behind a Manama, Bahrain, shopping
mall. Jackson is a reclusive resident of the Gulf island country since
being cleared of child molestation charges.

No, I don’t walk around like that.

Writing, Clear and Simple - Articles - Don’t get lost in translation

In our increasingly globalized world, chances are good that something you write today will be translated into another language tomorrow. But the transition from one language to the next isn’t always a smooth one, as the Coca-Cola company learned when it entered the Chinese market in 1928. While they were searching for an appropriate set of Mandarin symbols to approximate the sound their product’s name without ending up with something silly or offensive, Chinese shopkeepers stepped forward with their own renderings. Most of them sounded like Coca-Cola but their literal meanings were nonsensical, like the infamous “bite the wax tadpole.”

Geek to Live: Laptop tips - Lifehacker

You just got a shiny new laptop to use on your commute to the office, on business trips, vacations and at the coffee shop down the street. Congratulations! You’ll be a productivity powerhouse! But hold your horses for a minute there, bucko.

NPR : States’ Debate on Abortion Heats Up

As the Senate begins final debate on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, some states are imposing or considering broad restrictions on abortion. The ultimate goal is to force the high court to revisit its 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade.

Gordon Brown’s Britain Christopher Harvie - openDemocracy

The “United Kingdom” is in the throes of a major debate about national identity, patriotism and “Britishness”. The latest contribution by Gordon Brown, senior government minister and New Labour’s co-architect, recycles flawed ideas, withered histories and exhausted minds, argues Christopher Harvie….

Marginal Revolution: The best sentence I read yesterday

There is surely some irony in that fact that you
can now be prosecuted in Europe for denying a genocide and prosecuted
in Turkey for asserting that a genocide took place.

Sunni Sister: Blahg Blahg Blahg » Blog Archive » Ada’ib with the Messenger of Allah, sallalahu aleyhi wa salaam: Salawat

Until recently, Bill Gates has been viewed as the villain of the tech world, while his archrival, Steve Jobs, enjoys an almost saintly reputation…..

But these perceptions are wrong. In fact, the reality is reversed.
It’s Gates who’s making a dent in the universe, and Jobs who’s taking
on the role of single-minded capitalist, seemingly oblivious to the
broader needs of society.

Gates is giving away his fortune with the same gusto he spent
acquiring it, throwing billions of dollars at solving global health
problems. He has also spoken out on major policy issues, for example,
by opposing proposals to cut back the inheritance tax.

In contrast, Jobs does not appear on any charitable contribution
lists of note. And Jobs has said nary a word on behalf of important
social issues, reserving his talents of persuasion for selling Apple
products…. [read more]

hikm: an attempt at wisdom :حكم » Blog Archive » Encouragement and Deterrence

Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali says in Kitab Kasr al-Shahwatayn:

“Know that man has been made subject to sexual desire for two beneficial reasons….” [read more]

Between Two Worlds: How to Write Between the Lines

Mortimer Adler, author of the justly famous How to Read a Book, wrote a short essay called How to Mark a Book. Adler argued that we must not only read “between the lines,” but also write between the lines.

Why
is marking up a book indispensable to reading? First, it keeps you
awake. (And I don’t mean merely conscious; I mean awake.) In the second
place; reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to
express itself in words, spoken or written. The marked book is usually
the thought-through book. Finally, writing helps you remember the
thoughts you had, or the thoughts the author expr