Dr Kaukab Siddique | Editor-in-Chief ---------------------------------------------------------
Jamada al-thani 13, 1426/July 19, 2005 #54
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Scroll down for important letters from a British Muslim and a U.S. Muslimah
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Jamaat al-Muslimeen News [4 items]
P.O. Box10881
Baltimore, MD 21234

Tragedy, Mourning & Community in Augusta, Georgia

It was a stunning blow for the small Muslim community in Augusta, Georgia. On July 13,three of its best young men, college students Tariq Fischer, Imran Khan and Muhammad Hasan were killed in a car crash as they travelled from Augusta to Atlanta in stormy weather. Their vehicle is said to have hydroplaned and crossed the median into the path of an 18-wheeler.

On July 14, 15 and 16 the entire Muslim community of Augusta, Georgia was in the travail of intense mourning. Just about everyone was affected as the religious and family bonds here are very close. On July 14, almost a thousand people turned up at the local Islamic Center, including dozens of Christians, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs.

Following Janaza prayers, there were scenes of intense emotion at the burial ceremony . On July 15, a special program was held in the mosque to help young adults in the community vent their own emotions anout the companions they lost so tragically and suddenly.

On July 16 speeches and ceremonies were held at the homes of the Fischer family and the Khan family to search for ways of dealing with tragic death, suffering and Islamic concepts of life after death. The steady recitation of the Qur'an and the teachings of the local imam and various speakers higlighting relevant passages from Qur'an and Hadith helped the people to deal with intense emotion.

The Muslims of Augusta displayed admirable unity, cohesion and sharing of grief during these days of mourning which are a good example for Muslims all over America.
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A Web Page for Br. Ahmed 'Abdel Sattar

One of the most outstanding Muslims in America, Ahmed 'Abdel Sattar, an Egyptian American who opposes the tyrant of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, was convicted on totally silly charges of connection with terrorists.
[He used to talk on the phone to men who want to overthrow the Killer of Cairo, and worked to keep alive the case of the blind Shaikh Dr. Omar 'Abdel Rahman.]

New Trend has put together a page where you can see him and some of his family. Go to:
http://AhmedAbdelSattar.org/photos.htm
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Islamic Orator and Preacher, Ali Timimi, given LIFE IN PRISON : No Justice Left for Muslims in this Country

On July 13, 2005 Ali Al-Timimi, of Iraqi descent, was given life plus 70 years by a judge in Alexandria, Virginia. How did this absurd sentence come about against a man who is NOT part of any Islamic group, has never committed any violence, has not sent money anywhere and has not travelled?

The story behind this injustice is that the government has broken three Muslims under threats of life sentences and alleged threats to their families. These three plea bargainers are being used as false "witnesses" against other Muslims.

Ali-Al-Timimi used to give scholarly khutbas at a small mosque on Falls Church, Virginia. These were often about the meaning of Jihad. He advised his small audience that in these harsh times Muslims might face physical attacks in their homes in America. He is said to have advised audiences to learn self-defense or go to Muslim countries where they would be safe.

This advice was construed by the prosecutors into "incitement to terrorism." The Judge, Ms. Brinkema, claimed she was shocked by the sentencing guidelines she had been given but professed her inability to not give the maximum sentence to this man of God who has never hurt anyone.

[Surely under Zionist Jewish control, Justice has become a bad joke in America.]
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Our Human Rights Volunteer Meets Masaud Khan in Prison

On July 12, 2005 a Jamaat volunteer met Masaud Khan, one of the Virginia Innocents, who is being held at a prison in Warsaw, Maryland [south east of Richmond, Virginia] in a holding cell for re-sentencing on July 29.

Former attorney general Ashcroft claimed that Masaud Khan, a Pakistani American, was part of a "Virginia Jihad Network!" and had him duly sentenced to 90 years in prison!

This obscene act of injustice falls apart as soon as it is analyzed. Masaud Khan was never against America in any way. He belongs to an affluent Pakistani family: not the type of people who would go off to fight America.

He had gone to Pakistan to take care of his family's property. As property matters take a long time to settle in Pakistan, he became interested in the cause of Kashmir, a Muslim nation occupied by Indian forces. One day he went to visit a camp of fighters supporting the cause of Kashmir.
[There are millions in Pakistan who support Kashmir and take part in such camps.]
At the camp, he took a gun and fired three shots at a target. All this in friendly Pakistani territory.

The Judge gave him THIRTY YEARS for EACH shot he fired!

The government used the three plea bargainers to paint Masaud as a "terrorist."
[The entire story is pre-9.11. At that time the U.S. was supposed to be neutral between India and Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. After the Jewish-Zionist takeover, America has started siding with India. Masaud is one of the victims of this change.]

Standing behind the plastic divider in the visiting cell, he looked like a handsome man, somewhat like a Pathan, with a trim beard. In prison, he uses the long hours to study western literature, including Dostoevesky, Ayn Rand and Victor Hugo. He prays regularly and reads the Qur'an.

The guards and the other prisoners consider him dangerous because he has been branded as a terrorist!
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New Trend's Fatwa Department
by Dr. Kaukab Siddique [Sent to newspaper editors]

Specific Advice to Bring An End to Attacks on Civilians.
One Sided Fatwas Meant to Please the British and U.S. Governments have no Validity in Islam.

Dear editor

My suggestions for peace and an end to ALL terrorism are as follows: Peace cannot be attained or even approached if we accept only the humanity of British and American citizens and reject the humanity of Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Kashmiris and Chechens. It is time for the rulers of Britain and the United States to realize that projection of power into Muslim lands does not impress Muslims. Instead it stokes the fires of Jihad and retaliation [qisas].

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is now involved in the same political amnesia from which President Bush often suffers. Blair claims that the London strikes allegedly by the three Pakistanis and the Afro-Carribean bomber had nothing to do with Afghanistan and Iraq and that nothing happened before 9.11 to upset the Muslims. He somehow forgot Britain's participation in the decade long sanctions on Iraq during which, according to UN figures, nearly a million Iraqis, many of them children, died a slow death. Also unforgettable are the "no-fly" zones imposed by the "coalition" which every now and then bombed Iraqi positions.

Muslims are not unaware of British history. The Balfour Declaration and Churchill's ties with Wiezmann led to the creation of Israel. The Radcliffe Award gave India a corridor to Kashmir and we have the biggest military occupation of modern times, with 700,000 Indian troops in Kashmir.
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The writer is Associate Professor of English and author of six books and more than 500 articles on Islam and related issues.
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Letter

British Muslim Analyzes Blair's Moves After London Bombings

Live 8 served to indirectly endorse the criminal world leaders, by creating the impression that they can really be persuaded to make poverty history!? when they themselves have helped to create the situation.
Following the London bombings, instead of acknowledging his role in taking Britain to war and hence making it a target, Blair and the politicians have cunningly taken the heat off themselves and placed it on the unwitting British Muslim community. They have done this by using phrases like "it was an attack on our way of life" and "they hate what we stand for", "they will not undermine our values." All thinly coded terms to imply some sort of Islamic ideological attack. Since Muslims profess Islam, then this will put them on the defensive. Indeed as I write I'm listening to the most pathetic attempts at apology, i.e. "Islam means peace", "those people were NOT Muslims", "we must learn to control our youth", "we are sorry on behalf of the community" etc. The attempts at apology just dig the Muslims further into a hole. Meanwhile the government (who've just stirred it all up) can appeal for calm, set up help lines and generously place police guards around mosques. Muslim women can come on TV and explain that because THEY WEAR HIJAB they are now the prime targets.
(Thanks the population was so ignorent they were attacking Gurdwaras and beating up anyone with a brown skin. But now the media and the police have clarified everything for the future reference of the thugs.)

How odd that in a situation of globalisation when intelligent people increasingly see themselves as citizens of the world, something alluded to in Live 8 and G8, people should be surprised when some youths take it to the logical conclusion in terms of "Direct Action" using the London transport system as their stage!?
Below is a brief statement I have made regarding the recent pressure that has been put on the UK muslim community.
...shoaib

Alligators do not drain their own swamp!
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Muslim community has nothing to apologise for.
The youths who carried out the bombings did it with full regard to their "British" heritage. The desire to see justice and fairplay in the world. Their tactics are wrong, just as other "direct action" groups in the west have been wrong.

Our leaders Blair and Bush have condemned us to an open-ended conflicit "The war on terror". Their predecessors created Israel inside the Arab homeland. They stationed their troops all over the muslim world, esp S. Arabia, the muslim holy land. They have recently invaded and killed civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, tortured prisoners in Guantanimo and Abu Ghraib, and recently desecrated the Quran.

In the context of the bombings there was a "Live 8" concert and a G8 summit, given the global aspect of these events, one would have expected the politicians and media to show the global context of the London bombings. Thanks to clever manipulation by the leaders using expressions like "attack on our way of life" to hint that the bombers are trying to spread Islam with the sword. We see the UK muslim community being placed on the defensive.

There is a vulgar expression that "If you're up to your arse in alligators, then it's easy to forget, that the objective was to drain the swamp". Out of this wisdom, the leaders including Blair proclaimed a two-fold strategy, i.e. confront the terrorists directly + destroy their environment. By destroying their environment it meant solve the problems in the "Muslim" regions i.e. reduce the tension, solve the simmering disputes, bring about democracy, reduce poverty etc.

However, these same leaders are loathe to attack Israel and in fact have been recently speculating which Muslim country has WMD and should therefore, be invaded next. The same people who identify the swamp don't identify that they themselves are a type of alligator! And alligators don't drain their own swamp.

We must work together PEACEFULLY with all people who desire justice and fairplay in the world. We must increase awareness that the so-called leaders are incapable of solving the problems because they are a type of alligator. If we do this then we really benefit from the democratic environment here. Then maybe we can create a climate, where those inclined to make bombs would defer, in the knowledge that the people here can, and want to change.
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Letter
[Re; New Trend's article opposing condolences to British embassy.]

CAIR Considers Muslims Sheep: Local Mosques are in Mess Too.

If CAIR chooses to address all Muslims to encourage them to send condolences to the British gov't and people, then CAIR has the right to do so. What is alarming is that national Muslim organizations are addressing all of us as if we are sheep; as if we have no minds, no hearts, no sense of right and wrong. Are we as an ummah that are illiterate and we need CAIR to tell us what to do? That CAIR should feel the need to say that, is our leadership that obtuse that they have to instruct the individuals about what to do when it is common sense what should be done?

Does president Bush urge the nation to apologize for the slaying of the 3 civil rights workers whose murderer was recently sentenced. No, he assumes that US citizens individually will come to that resolve. What kind of people elect leaders that feed them hand and mouth and what is the maturity level of an organization that promps them to address its membership as such! Subhana'Allah.

All the points made in the New Trend article are well done and may Allah swt reward the one who wrote it. May He also reward those at News trend for making some very valid points to educate the ummah.

My second set of concerns are about the following in New Trend:

"You don't need a subservient organization like CAIR to help you. Your local MOSQUE should be your center of support. Mobilize your mosque for this situation. In the LONG RUN there is no alternative to local roots and support.
Your non-Muslim neighbors, next door and across the street and across town, at your job, should know you as a person who cares, is decent and helpful and supportive of good causes."

Local mosques are not as free and objective as you think. They are also marred in confusion, political tug of war and identity crisis! Looking to the local mosques is not the answer either and local mosques are fighting to align themselves with national organizations. In every mosque, there is a fight to retain local roots but sadly, they are losing.

The cancer is within our ummah as more and more families look for support from their Muslim brothers and sisters and their non-Muslim neighbors. We, the ummah, don't help each other let alone others....we are too busy, too confused, too misdirected. We should first look at Muslims as our helpers; but shamefully, there are few and far between. How many of us can say that we would confide in a Muslim brother or sister with our most personal side? If we can't confide, we can't trust; if we can't trust, we can't help or feel. So your naseeha about looking to non-Muslims is a double edge sword; we go there and break away from our own but our own is not really ours in this day and time. Sad.

Jazakum Allahu Khayrun,

Shahnaz Baten
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2005-07-19 Tue 20:38ct
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