America and Nato Did not understand Afghanistan.
by Kaukab Siddique, PhD
Is it fair to Compare Afghan and American women?
The Plight of the translators, collaborators and guides.
Americans did not understand the word TALIBAN and always
claimed that the TALIBAN IS doing this or that. Taliban is
plural of Talib [or student].
Taliban are, not Taliban is.
The Americans did not realize that the Afghan family
structure is very strong. No one can get Afghan women to
take off the burka and wear shorts and skirts. Only a
handful of women joined the American cause and these are
mostly from Kabul where women have been westernized from the
time the Soviets came in. Americans have the dating system
and women are free to dress and behave as they wish. Why did
Americans consider it possible that Afghans would become
like them?
Thirdly Americans did not read Afghan history. Afghans have
always resisted and defeated military forces trying to
occupy their country. On the other hand, those who come as
friends are treated as members of the Afghan extended
family.
They would not give up Osama bin Laden because he was their
guest. They wanted evidence. The western powers destroyed
Afghanistan but Afghans did not give up Osama.
With vast sums of money and a heavy military presence, the
occupiers selected three elements who could be used against
Islamic fighters:
Shias.
Communists.
Tribal war lords, particularly the "northern alliance."
It's not true that the Kabul regime troops did not fight.
The Taliban inflicted serious losses on them in the battles
for Kunduz, Lashkargah, Kandahar and Herat and the Taliban
too suffered heavy losses. Only during the last two weeks,
Kabul regime troops started surrendering. because their
situation was militarily untenable.
Kashmir
India has a hard time to accept Kashmir as an international dispute
Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai,
Secretary General, Washington-based 'World Kashmir Awareness
Forum' said that the assertion of Indian Ambassador to the
U.N., T.S. Tirumurti, "I think it's important to recognize
that the issues relating to the Union Territory of Jammu and
Kashmir are internal affairs of India" was factually and
legally wrong statement. The fallacy advocated by Ambassador
Tirumurti deserves some clarification.
To begin with, under all international agreements, accepted
by both India & Pakistan, negotiated by the United Nations
and endorsed by the Security Council, Kashmir does not
belong to any member state of the United Nations. If Kashmir
does not belong to any member state of the United Nations,
then the claim of distinguished Ambassador that Kashmir was
an internal affair of India does not stand.
Secondly, Ambassador Tirumurti may remember that it was here
at the United Nations that Antonio Guterres, the Secretary
General said on August 8, 2019 that "The position of the
United Nations on this region (Kashmir) is governed by the
Charter of the United Nations and applicable Security
Council resolutions."
Dr. Fai added that the people of Jammu & Kashmir who have a
defined historical identity, are at present engaged in a
mass struggle to win freedom and release from the foreign
occupation of their land. This struggle is motivated by no
bigotry or ethnic prejudice; its aim is nothing but the
exercise of the right of self-determination explicitly
agreed by both India and Pakistan.
"The idea that the dispute over the status of Jammu and
Kashmir can be settled only in accordance with the will of
the people, which can be ascertained through the democratic
method of a free and impartial plebiscite, was the common
ground taken by both Pakistan, and India. It was supported
without any dissent by the United Nations Security Council.
There was much in these submissions that was controversial,
but the proposal of a plebiscite was not. This is clear from
the statement made on January 15, 1948 by Indian delegate,
Sir Gopalasawami Ayyangar, at Security Council,"... Whether
she [Kashmir] should withdraw from her accession to India,
and either accede to India or remain independent, with a
right to claim admission as a member of the UN - all this we
have recognised to be matter for unfettered decision by the
people of Kashmir after normal life is restored there," Fai
maintained.
Fai warned that it is not the inherent difficulties of a
solution, but the lack of the will of the world powers to
implement a solution, that has caused the prolonged deadlock
over the Kashmir dispute. The deadlock has meant
indescribable agony for the people of Kashmir and
incalculable loss for both India and Pakistan. The peace
that has eluded the South Asian subcontinent should be made
secure, Fai concluded.
WARNING: STORY CONTAINS DISTURBING CONTENT - FOR ADULT READERS ONLY.
The Amish.
Based on outward appearance they are humble and God-fearing.
They are seen as one of the most conservative religious
groups in America.
They openly shun the American way of life and refuse to live
among anyone outside of their religion. Yet, most Americans
revere them for their strict moral code.
They have set up farming communities outside of modern towns.
If you stumble across one of these Amish communities, you
will feel as though you have traveled back in time a few
hundred years because the Amish choose to live without
"modern conveniences". No electricity; they use candles and
laterns. No cars; they travel by horse and buggy. No public
schools; all of their children- no matter what their age -
all attend the same one-room school. Men wear straw hats and
have long beards, and women wear long dresses, no make-up
and they cover their hair. They have no television, no
telephone, and no internet. Their children play outside
bare-foot - the little boys with straw hats and suspenders,
and the little girls with bonnets and dresses.
The Amish say their lifestyle reflects their desire to shun
the evils of this world and to acheive purity and holiness
and to lead God-honoring lives.
So... how has this been working for them? Have they acheived
holiness? Apparently not!!
excerpted The Amish Keep to Themselves. And They're Hiding a Horrifying Secret
A year of reporting by Cosmo and Type Investigations reveals
a culture of incest, rape, and abuse.
The memories come to her in fragments. The bed creaking late
at night after one of her brothers snuck into her room and
pulled her to the edge of her mattress. Her underwear shoved
to the side as his body hovered over hers, one of his feet
still on the floor.
Her ripped dresses, the clothespins that bent apart on her
apron as another brother grabbed her at dusk by the hogpen
after they finished feeding the pigs. Sometimes she'd pry
herself free and sprint toward the house, but "they were
bigger and stronger," she says. They usually got what they
wanted.
As a child, Sadie* was carefully shielded from outside
influences, never allowed to watch TV or listen to pop music
or get her learner's permit. Instead, she attended a
one-room Amish schoolhouse and rode a horse and buggy to
church—a life designed to be humble and disciplined
and godly.
By age 9, she says, she'd been raped by one of her older
brothers. By 12, she'd been abused by her father, Abner*, a
chiropractor who penetrated her with his fingers on the same
table where he saw patients, telling her he was "flipping
her uterus" to ensure her fertility. By 14, she says, three
more brothers had raped her and she was being attacked in
the hayloft or in her own bed multiple times a week. She
would roll over afterward, ashamed and confused. The sisters
who shared Sadie's room (and even her bed) never woke
up—or if they did, never said anything, although some
later confided that they were being raped too.
Sadie's small world was built around adherence to
rules—and keeping quiet was one of them. "There was no
love or support," she says. "We didn't feel that we had
anywhere to go to say anything."
So she didn't. Even on the day the police showed up on her
doorstep to question then-12-year-old Sadie's father about
his alleged abuse of his daughters.
Even on the day when, almost two years later, Abner was
sentenced by a circuit court judge to just five years'
probation.
And even on the day when, at 14, she says she was cornered
in the pantry by one of her brothers and raped on the sink,
and then felt a gush and saw blood running down her leg, and
cleaned up alone while he walked away, and gingerly placed
her underwear in a bucket of cold water before going back to
her chores. A friend helped her realize years later: While
being raped, she had probably suffered a miscarriage.
It wasn't until now that Sadie decided to speak up, to
reveal the darkness beneath the bucolic surface of her
childhood. She's tired of keeping quiet.
Over the past year, I've interviewed nearly three dozen
Amish people, in addition to law enforcement, judges,
attorneys, outreach workers, and scholars. I've learned that
sexual abuse in their communities is an open secret spanning
generations. Victims told me stories of inappropriate
touching, groping, fondling, exposure to genitals, digital
penetration, coerced oral sex, anal sex, and rape, all at
the hands of their own family members, neighbors, and church
leaders.
The Amish, who number roughly 342,000 in North America, are
dispersed across rural areas of states like Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, Michigan, and Wisconsin,
according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist
Studies at Elizabethtown College, a leading authority on
Amish life. Because of their high birth rate—and
because few members ever leave—they're one of the
fastest-growing religious groups in America. Lacking one
centralized leader, they live in local congregations or
"church districts," each made up of 20 to 40 families. But
the stories I heard were not confined to any one place.
In my reporting, I identified 52 official cases of Amish
child sexual assault in seven states over the past two
decades. Chillingly, this number doesn't begin to capture
the full picture. Virtually every Amish victim I spoke
to—mostly women but also several men—told me
they were dissuaded by their family or church leaders from
reporting their abuse to police or had been conditioned not
to seek outside help (as Sadie put it, she knew she'd just
be "mocked or blamed"). Some victims said they were
intimidated and threatened with excommunication. Their
stories describe a widespread, decentralized cover-up of
child sexual abuse by Amish clergy.
"We're told that it's not Christlike to report," explains
Esther*, an Amish woman who says she was abused by her
brother and a neighbor boy at age 9. "It's so ingrained.
There are so many people who go to church and just
endure."
"I get phone calls now....There's a bunch of Amish who have
my cell phone number, and they use it. The men call on
behalf of the women," says Judge Craig Stedman, former
district attorney of Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania—home to nearly 40,000 Amish—who has
served on a task force that connects the Amish to law
enforcement and social services. (Although most don't have
cell phones, the Amish might use pay phones or call from
"English" neighbors' homes.)
There's no one reason for the sexual abuse crisis in Amish
Country. Instead, there's a perfect storm of factors: a
patriarchal and isolated lifestyle in which victims have
little exposure to police, coaches, or anyone else who might
help them; an education system that ends at eighth grade and
fails to teach children about sex or their bodies; a culture
of victim shaming and blaming; little access to the
technology that enables communication or broader social
awareness; and a religion that prioritizes repentance and
forgiveness over actual punishment or rehabilitation. Amish
leaders also tend to be wary of law enforcement, preferring
to handle disputes on their own.
As a child, Sadie was up before dawn every morning to milk
her family's cows, wearing a pleated head covering and long
dress, her shoes and socks a dull black, as her local church
rules, or Ordnung, required. "If you didn't work as hard as
you possibly could, you were considered lazy," she says. She
never turned on a light switch or shopped for clothes in a
store. She didn't speak English at home—just
Pennsylvania Dutch, the only language she knew until first
grade. And she never revealed her abuse to anyone, except a
cousin and her father himself, when he asked her, point
blank, if her brothers were touching her. (The next time he
asked, she lied, fearful he would beat the boys, as he often
did.)
But what was happening in her house was a poorly kept
secret, according to several of Sadie's relatives. One of
them reported Abner, who has since died, to local church
leaders—Sadie remembers her father being "shunned" for
six weeks, a common form of discipline in which the accused
is socially ostracized and forbidden from eating at the same
table as church members. After a shunning, the person
confesses in church and the community is strongly compelled
to forgive and forget that the "sin" ever happened. In
Sadie's house, she recalls, everything went back to
normal—or at least, to how it had been before.
When the police and social workers later showed up on her
doorstep, most likely after being tipped off by a local
non-Amish person, Abner told authorities that "things which
we were speaking about had been brought up and dealt with in
the church," according to a police detective's notes. He
also silenced his daughters. "You say nothing," Sadie and
another relative remember him demanding.
Authorities returned a second time, asking him "specific
questions about having sexual intercourse with his
daughters," according to the case file. Now Abner confessed
to having "sex with two of them," insisting "he made love to
them at least three times each but didn't hurt them." Sadie,
who had heard from a cousin that her dad was also abusing
her sisters, didn't dare breathe a word in their
defense.
A relative recalls that Sadie's mother told social workers
"to do whatever they could to keep him from going to
jail."
It worked. A grainy VHS recording from 2001 shows a
gray-bearded Abner standing with his hat hanging between his
hands before a judge, as an attorney explains that he is
pleading guilty to a reduced charge of sexual abuse in the
first degree, and not incest, because "the family is not
desiring that he be incarcerated." Instead of serving a
sentence that might have been five years or more, Abner got
probation.
Sadie says her father abused her for five more years. When I
reached out to her brothers, two confirmed that Abner had
touched Sadie; one of them also said he himself "messed
around" with her when they were young but that he did not
rape her; the other denied raping her. A third brother did
not respond to a request for comment.
Some victims aren't just silenced—they suffer
something worse. Lizzie Hershberger was 14 when she went to
work as a "maude," or hired girl, for a 27-year- old Amish
man named Chriss Stutzman and his wife, taking care of their
four children and helping Stutzman in the barn. One night
after they had milked the cows, he pinned her against a wall
and kissed her, then pushed her onto the feed bags. Because
it was a frigid winter in Minnesota, Lizzie wore pants under
her dress, which Stutzman removed while she tried in vain to
fight him off. "Relax," he whispered into her ear as he
raped her. (To this day, that word remains a trigger for
Lizzie.)
She didn't know why she felt pain and blood between her
legs. Her parents had never talked to her about sex or even
her period. (When Sadie got her period at age 10, while
playing outside, she remembers stuffing toilet paper in her
underwear and pulling one of her sisters into the outhouse
to ask what was going on.)
"Amish victims don't even know the names of body parts,"
confirms Stedman. "To describe a sexual assault without
having any fundamental sex education, it presents even more
challenges."
When Lizzie's abuser finally climbed off her, she was
shaking. "I felt broken and used and dirty," she says. "I
was already blaming myself, thinking, Why didn't I leave the
barn just, you know, a couple of minutes earlier?" Stutzman
would rape Lizzie 25 more times over roughly five months,
according to court records and Lizzie's diary. He raped her
in the hayloft, in his house, and on the seat of his buggy.
Once, on the way home from church, he pulled the buggy off
the road and raped her in the woods. (Through his lawyer,
Stutzman declined to comment.) Twice, male witnesses walked
in on the abuse, but neither man came to Lizzie's rescue.
Instead, Stutzman himself, perhaps sensing he'd been caught,
confessed.
Like Abner, he was shunned for six weeks. And again, no one
reported him to outside authorities, especially since the
church had already disciplined and forgiven him. Instead,
the community turned on Lizzie for what they saw as a
consensual "affair." She was bullied and mocked, spit on and
called a "schlud" and "hoodah" (Pennsylvania Dutch for
"slut" and "whore"). "They didn't ask me how I felt or my
side of the story," she says. Instead, the community
gossiped that she had "mental issues."
It's common for Amish victims to be viewed by the community
as just as guilty as the abuser—as consenting partners
committing adultery, even if they're children. Victims are
expected to share responsibility and, after the church has
punished their abuser, to quickly forgive. If they fail to
do so, they're the problem.
When the rare case does end up in court, the Amish
overwhelmingly support the abusers, who tend to appear with
nearly their entire congregations behind them, survivors and
law enforcement sources say. This can compound the trauma of
speaking out. "We've had cases where there'll be 50 Amish
people standing up for the offender and no one speaks for
the victim," says Stedman.
In one 2010 case, young female victims were pressured to
forgive their father and brother for abusing them, with one
writing a pleading letter to the court ("Hello Sir, I'm
Melvin's sister. Please have mercy. Melvin has made a big
change to let go of his committed crime in the last year.
I'd like to have our family together."), recalls former
President Judge Dennis Reinaker, who has presided over
30-plus Amish sexual assault cases in Lancaster County. In
this case, the victims agreed to cooperate only in exchange
for their abusers receiving no jail time. The deal likely
helped save the defendants from what could have been 25- to
30-year prison sentences, says Reinaker.
Things got stranger for Lizzie. She remembers her mother
telling her that she was being taken to a chiropractic
clinic in neighboring South Dakota, and then boarding a bus
full of Amish adults for the 300-mile drive to a facility
where, for a week, "they watched me all the time," she says.
She received daily deep-tissue massages to "work through my
emotional stuff," she was told.
Lizzie's is not the only account of an Amish victim being
taken to an alleged "mental health" facility staffed by
Amish or Mennonites (a similar, although typically less
strict, group) that provides Bible-based
counseling—and, in many cases, is not state licensed.
Several years ago, Esther was sent to a facility for
"counseling" after she tried to seek help for another Amish
woman who was being sexually assaulted. When she protested,
church leaders threatened to excommunicate her permanently.
No one would tell her why she was there. Instead, she was
pressured to sign papers that would allow staff to
communicate directly with her ministers, she says (she
eventually gave in and signed). "From the first evening,
they wanted to put me on medication," she recalls. She said
no, since "a lot of these people who get stuck in these
facilities come home drugged and no longer have a life.
They're zombies." (She's aware of about 30 other Amish
sexual assault victims, including two of her sisters, who
have been sent away to such facilities.)
Eventually, Esther says she was told that refusing "sleep
medication" would only prolong her stay. When she asked
about side effects, a house parent told her, "It doesn't
matter— you have to take it."
So she did. Except the drugs weren't for sleep at all:
According to her medical records, she was prescribed
olanzapine, an antipsychotic medication that treats mental
illnesses like schizophrenia. Every morning and night, she
and other Amish patients lined up to receive their drugs.
"We'd have to go and fill a small container with water and
then go up to this pedestal; we'd all take turns," she says.
"It was gut-wrenching."
Esther started having blurry vision and hallucinations. She
wanted to escape—but she knew that defying her
ministers would get her kicked out of the church. She was
ultimately on the drug for two weeks of her five-week stay.
Her discharge notes recommended she "be submissive" and that
she "challenge unhealthy thoughts toward ministers and
others using positive/good thought."
Esther now says Amish leaders use lockup stays to silence
women who are increasingly eager to go public with abuse
allegations. "When a victim speaks out," Esther explains,
"they get sent to a facility and drugged so that they shut up."
Still, as more and more women start to come forward, an
ecosystem has also risen up to help them. Two years ago,
Lizzie, who has long since left the Amish, and another
former Amish woman named Dena Schrock launched Voices of
Hope, a group for abused women. Lizzie met Sadie at one such
gathering, and they're now friends.
One Lancaster County member, Amos Stoltzfoos, told me that
"a lot of things have changed and forced us to comply and
not allow things to be swept under the rug, like they had at
one point."
Now, Stoltzfoos says, the Lancaster County Amish, at least,
"aren't interested in hiding things" and have "adapted and
recognized that we need to change with some of the education
that we give to the parents and the children." He says
they've also tried to understand the lasting trauma that can
make quick forgiveness difficult for victims: "Our community
does really care....It just takes time."
In the summer of 2018, Lizzie sought her own justice by
reporting her rapes to police, something she never felt she
could do before. To her surprise, charges were brought
against Stutzman, who was by then a deacon in the church. He
pleaded guilty to third degree criminal sexual conduct, and
at his sentencing hearing, the room was filled with his
Amish supporters. But Lizzie was also surrounded by
supporters, including Sadie, who had driven two hours to be
there. Stutzman was ultimately sentenced to 45 days in jail
and 10 years' probation, based on guidelines in place in
1988, the year before the assaults.
As for Sadie, she's now a 32-year-old mother of five living
in the Midwest. In 2013, she and her husband finally left
the Amish church. For now, she's focused on healing, not
pressing charges. She still speaks with her brothers, one of
whom has apologized "many times," she says. She knows it
sounds "weird," but she even visits them occasionally.
Sadie has tried to work through her trauma in couples
therapy with her husband. And she'd still like to get her
own Christian therapist. She's pretty sure she'll never
completely trust any man around her kids.
*Name has been changed.
Outreach
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui attacked in Prison.
Face somewhat Burned.
Nadrat Siddique
This is absolutely unacceptable. Under the Geneva
Convention, the authority holding a prisoner is responsible
for her welfare. Please call the prison to express concern
about #AafiaSiddiqui.
Her registry # (prisoner #) is 90279-054.
The phone # for FMC Carswell is:
(817) 782-4000.
Please see information provided by CAGE group below.
"[A fellow inmate] smashed a coffee mug filled with scalding
hot liquid into her face," read the press release issued by
the CAGE, an independent organisation in the UK.
"Shocked by the violent assault and in excruciating pain, Dr
Siddiqui curled into a fetal position to protect herself.
She was unable to get up after the assault and had to be
taken out of the cell in a wheelchair."
The report also says that Dr Siddiqui has been placed in
administrative solitary confinement for an unspecified
period of time.
Dr Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years imprisonment for
attempted murder after a controversial trial in 2010, during
which she accused witnesses of lying.
"Aafia Siddiqui's case remains one of the most troubling in
the sordid history of the "War on Terror," Moazzam Begg,
CAGE Outreach Director, said in a statement.
"It is time this chapter of Aafia Siddiqui's life was
closed. She needs to go home and be with the children she
never saw grow up," he added.
Pakistan's foreign office has asked the US.
Invitation to Think
Taliban's victory in Afghanistan: lessons and challenges
Dr. Firoz Mahboob Kamal
The new peak of excellence
The Taliban forces took over Kabul -the capital of
Afghanistan on Sunday 15 August. They took the whole country
only in 10 days -much quicker than the USA could achieve in
2001. It gave a sense of great victory all over the Muslim
World. After series of defeats and enemy occupations, it is
the only victory in the last several hundred years that the
Muslims could celebrate. The US President George W. Bush
declared a crusade on Muslims, and the US Army occupied
Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. After a war of 20
years -the longest war in US history, the US-led crusade met
a humiliating defeat. This is the third time that the poor
Afghan Muslims have fought and defeated a World Power. In
the past, they defeated the British Army twice in the
mid-eighteenth century. They also defeated Soviet Russia at
its peak in the eighties in the last century. So, they
proved that the World Powers are not invincible; and
Afghanistan is the sure graveyard for empires.
Taliban made history in other ways. While taking over Kabul,
they showed high morality, humanity and sagacity. Kabul is a
city of 5 million people. Not a single man was killed by the
Taliban on the day of take-over. Not a single man or woman
was harmed or humiliated. Not a single bullet was fired at
any living object on that day. Whereas when the USA took
over Afghanistan in 2001, the history was otherwise. Deaths,
blood and destruction were everywhere. Taliban leaders
declared amnesty for all men and women who fought against
them, tortured them, killed their colleagues and
collaborated with the occupying forces. It is unbelievable.
In the whole span of human history, it has happened only
once. It was at the time when the city of Makkah was taken
over by the Muslims under the leadership of Prophet Muhammad
(peace be upon him). Those who tortured and killed Muslims
and evicted Muslims from Makkah empty-handed and tried to
kill the Prophet (peace be upon him) and his companions were
forgiven. The same kindness and forgiveness are repeated by
the Taliban while taking control over Kabul.
All people all over the world with moral sense got amazed
with such a peaceful take-over. But not unsurprisingly, in
the western media such an astonishing act of moral highness
didn't get any mention. The western media were found busy
vilifying the character of the Taliban fighters. They are
described as terrorists, extremists, murderers, and
oppressors of children and women. They were busy expressing
their concern about the fate of women and children under the
Taliban rule. Whereas such concern was not seen when the
Afghan and Iraqi cities were taken mercilessly by the US
Army. Hundreds of cities and villages were razed to the
ground. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children
were killed or injured by the US bombings. The US bombers
even bombed wedding and funeral gatherings. In prisons in
Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantanamo Bay and many other places,
innocent people were tortured on an industrial scale. But
the western media didn't show any concern for that. As if
they had seen nothing and heard nothing in those days of the
US occupation. It is also accused that the Taliban will take
Afghanistan to Stone Age. The Stone Age people didn't have
clothes. Many westerners like such nudity. But burkha or
hijab for women in Taliban rule is not a Stone Age
symbol.
In the war against the USA-led coalition and the US-raised
Afghan Army, the Taliban fighters showed extraordinary
skills and excellence. They successfully resisted the
victory of the US-led coalition of more than 50 countries.
The Afghan Army had 300, 000 fighters and were trained by US
trainers. The British, the German, the Italian and the other
nationals from the EU countries also took part in the
upbringing of the Afghan Army. They had tanks, artillery
guns, armoured vehicles, helicopter gunships and bomber
planes. They were raised in US-built modern cantonments and
trained in modern military academies. They also had
high-quality war attires like well-fitted dresses for all
seasons, shoes, helmets, bullet-proof vests, night-vision
goggles, and long-vision binoculars. On the other hand, the
Taliban fighters didn't have even shoes. Their battle filed
dresses were traditional loose shalwar and kameez. Instead
of the helmet on the head, they wear a turban. Their weapons
are only AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. They
didn't receive any training in any cantonment.
Guidance by Sis. Yasmin.
.Supplication by the Prophet, pbuh,
'Abdullah bin Mas'ud (May Allah be pleased with him)
reported...
*PROPHET* ﷺ~ used to supplicate...
اللهم
إني أسألك
الهدى،
والتقى،
والعفاف،
والغن
TRANSLITERATION:
"Allahumma inni As'alukal-Huda,
wat-Tuqa, wal-'Afafa, wal-Ghina"
TRANSLATION:
"O Allah! I beseech You for Guidance,
Piety, Chastity and Contentment."
{'Aameen'}
A Little Note...
"Guidance" means guidance towards virtue which one
needs at every step. The ability to do good and
steadfastness
on the Right Path is also covered by the term guidance.
To comply with the orders of Allah[Azza wa Jal] and to
prevent
oneself from what He has forbidden is 'Taqwa' (fear of
Allah) ~!
[the importance of which needs no elaboration.]
'Affaf ' is prevention from sins.
It also means evasion from seeking help from others.
'Ghina' means riches which makes one independent of
others
so much so that all one's hopes are centered on ALLAH
Alone.{!}
'In Shaa Allah' ~'Aameen'~}
~My 'Salaams' to all~
Y a s m i n.
"Never Despair Of The Mercy Of Allah"
*******************************************************
' Son of Adam! You are nothing but a number of days,
whenever
each day passes then part of you has Gone .
{Al-Hasan Al-Basree (r)}
{Source ~ S. Muslim }
Message from Imam Badi Ali
As-slamu alaikum,
Indeed, Allah sent Moses (as) and Aaron (as), to Pharaoh and
He commanded them to speak mildly to him and to begin their
invitation to Islam with gentleness.
Allah said:
فَقُولَا
لَهُ
قَوْلًا
لَّيِّنً›
لَّعَلَّ§ُ
يَتَذَكّ¤رُ أَوْ
يَخْشَىٰ
"Speak to him mildly that perhaps he may remember or fear
Allah." (20:44)
A man recited this verse in front of Yahya ibn Muath
said: "My God, this is Your gentleness with one who claims
to be God, then how is Your gentleness with one who says You
are God?"
O Allah! Grant me patience and wisdom.
Ameen
Protesting the desecration of Al-Aqsa.
Aug. 21 (UPI) -- An Israeli soldier was critically wounded
and dozens of Palestinians left injured after violence
erupted along the Gaza border on Saturday.
A Palestinian opened fire on an Israeli border guard at
point-blank range during the clash, reports The Times of
Israel. Gazan health officials told the paper that at least
41 Palestinians were injured by Israeli troops during a
riot. Two were critically injured, including a 13-year-old boy.
War News
Syria
August 16-22
Fighting continued across Syria, according to Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights.
Russian air strikes in the deserts of al-Raqaa, Homs and
Deir ez Zor continued . 41 air strikes against ISIS stpped
thde KIslsamic advances. A successful attack killed two
Itranian commanders and several of their militia.
Russian air strikes also hit positions of Syrians supporting
Turkey on Irbid borders and parts of :Lstakias. Sevderal
fighters from Chinese Islamic Turkistan were killed.
Islaimc groups hit Assad's positions in northern and western
parts of Aleppo and Irbid with mortars and machine guns.
A Turkish drone hit a Communist Kurdish headquarters in
north central Syria killing 8 YPG.
Pro-Turkish Syrians and SDF supported by USA exchanged
heavy gunfire in several areas of north central Syria.
In Deraa province Assad's troops have surrounded armed
citizens of Dera al-Balaad. Russian peace efforts have not
worked.
Israeli jets fired at Assad's positions ner Damascus. Regime
says the Israeli missiles were successfully intercepted.
"Freedom" for Women or "Freedom" for Men to Enjoy them?
by Dr. Javed Jamil [India]
It would be hugely better, safer and healthier for mankind
if the world understands the difference between Freedom in
Method and Freedom in Results. What they talk of is the
former with massive negative impact on the latter. If
accidents are to be saved, there have to be restrictions on
trafficking. .. If society has to be safe from the diseases,
crimes and chaos, there is no other option but to make the
laws related to all kinds of behaviour strict in letter,
spirit and application.
The rise of Taliban has handed another opportunity to the
anti-Islam world and media to raise doubts about the
"Freedom of Women" in an Islamic government. I want here to
limit myself to what they actually mean and want from the
"Freedom" they talk of.
I often feel amused at the innocence with which the most
ruthless players of the current world present the issue of
'Freedom of Women'. The truth is that when they talk of the
freedom of women, it is in fact the freedom of men they are
seeking: freedom of men to enjoy the beauty of female body,
use them, exploit them and avail their all kinds of services
including those for the marketing. When women are made to
shed their clothes it is men who enjoy it. When they are
given liberty to indulge in whatever they want it is men who
get the opportunity to play with them. The man dominated
market knows it too well that the most profitable human
sentiment to market is the physical attraction between the
two genders. They have exploited this attraction to the hilt
earning trillions of dollars in the process. So all the
services of women are now available in the market and the
rising proximity between them reaps huge benefits for all
kinds of market, from garments to cosmetics, from hotelling
to tourism and from media to entertainment.
Men Enjoy, Women Suffer
If anyone suffers most from this "freedom", though all
suffer in the longer run, it is women themselves and their
children. It is they who become pregnant, it is they who
have to abort their children, and if they are forced by the
circumstances to deliver, it is mostly they who have to look
after them as single parents. While both men and women catch
Sex Transmitted Diseases, women are more likely to catch
because of their anatomy. And it is they who have to face
the brunt of crimes including rapes and attempted rapes.
Due to this freedom, sex transmitted diseases remain a big
threat even in those countries which have the most advanced
medical care system. During around last thirty years, more
than 38 million people have died of A IDS and double that
number are still fighting death. Still one million people
die of AIDS every year and of course the number is much
greater in those areas where there is more "freedom" than
where there is little. But the media will never highlight
these deaths lest the sex market suffer. Women and children
are big sufferers. Here is an excerpt from the Abstract of a
WHO report gives an idea of what the "Freedom" brings in
terms of gender:
"For HIV/AIDS cases and deaths among adults other than those
due to heterosexual transmission, there seems to be an
overwhelming excess of males. For AIDS among children, there
seems to be a small excess of males over females overall,
and a small excess of females over males for perinatal
transmission. For adult cases due to heterosexual
transmission, sex differences vary greatly according to time
and place. In the United States, female cases far exceed
male cases..."
According to another report from Sub Saharn Africa, "it is
estimated that women account for 58% of the people living
with HIV (PLWH) in the region, a skewed distribution that
has been existing for years, and women on average acquire
HIV as much as 5-7 years earlier than their male peers." If
trend is showing some change in Western countries,
especially Europe, it is because of rising homosexuality and
more frequent use of IV drugs by males. Where women are
involved, they suffer more.
Rapes and Brutal Killing of Children in Wombs
50 to 70 million times every year women have to abort but
nobody talks of this brutality on unborn human beings. Even
the sex of the aborted happens to be more females than males
especially in countries like India. Hundreds of thousands of
times women are raped but nobody ever talks of the real
reasons behind this because the reasons are related to big
markets including liquor and sex. And to swell the number of
"rapes" in the more "conservative" countries, they have
found an "excellent" idea of including complaints by wives
of force by husbands as "rapes". Still, America remains at
the top of the total number of rapes every year and in
countries like South Africa, more than a quarter of women
have faced rape attempts.
Islamic restrictions on men rather than women.
The crime rates are surely much less in Islamic countries,
especially where Islamic legal system is in force like Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and UAE. Still, Islam is often
targeted for being anti women. They again forget that the so
called restrictions on women in Islamic system are in fact
restrictions on men. They are prevented from enjoying their
bodies. If women enjoy more safety anywhere, it is in true
Islamic systems.
They face much lesser chances of being raped and kidnapped,
becoming mistresses and prostitutes, much much lesser
chances of having to abort out of compulsion, even lower
chances of becoming single parents. The children too are
safest there with remarkably lower chances of being aborted,
of having to live with a single parent and much lower
chances of living with unnatural and gay parents.
Freedom in Method and Freedom in Results
It would be hugely better, safer and healthier for mankind
if the world understands the difference between Freedom in
Method and Freedom in Results. What they talk of is the
former with massive negative impact on the latter. If
accidents are to be saved, there have to be restrictions on
trafficking. If "Freedom" is given in traffic, chaos will be
the result. It is no surprise that majority of deaths in
accidents occur due to drunken driving. Even in technology,
good results require strict methodology. If society has to
be safe from the diseases, crimes and chaos, there is no
other option but to make the laws related to all kinds of
behavior strict in letter, spirit and application.
*Dr Javed Jamil is a thinker and writer with over twenty
books including his latest, A Systematic Study of the Holy
Qur'ān".
doctorforu123@yahoo.com
.
