Dr Kaukab Siddique | Editor-in-Chief Shawwal 11, 1425/ November 24, 2004 #115
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SIX FASTS IN SHAWWAL

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) used to fast on six days during the month of Shawwal.
[Source: Sahih Muslim.]
The purpose is to build on the month long fasting in Ramadan. As the Hadith implies, it is meant to prepare the Muslim to be in a condition of fasting and awareness throughout the year.
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SUDANESE CHARITY ORGANIZATION COMPLAINS OF UNJUST and ILLEGAL ACTION BY the U.S

November 22: Speaking to journalists in Khartoum, Sudan, Director of the Islamic African Relief Agency [IARA], Muhammad Ibrahim Suleman, said that the U.S. government did not investigate the charity or inform it that there were any charges against it. Just before Ramadan, the five man office of IARA in Columbia, Missouri was suddenly closed down by the U.S. Suleman said that we learned from the MEDIA that the U.S. was charging IARA with links to Osama bin Laden and terrorism. The Director said there is absolutely no basis to the charges against IARA.
[New Trend analysts say: The U.S. imaking making big propaganda about "genocide" in Darfur, Sudan but it closed down a charity which was actually helping the people of Darfur. The message seems to be: No Islamic charity should be permitted to help the suffering Muslim ummah.]
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"IMAM" W. D. MUHAMMAD's KUFR: He Cannot accept that there won't be any Messenger after Muhammad [pbuh]!

[Eyewitness account.]

On November 10, 2004, speaking at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, W.D. Muhammad, who is often presented in his own magazine Muslim Journal as the "leader" of the Muslims of America, declared with great emphasis that it is wrong to believe that there will be no messenger after Muhammad [peace be on him]! Very few students and none of the Muslim faculty attended the meeting, but the Muslim students who were there were shocked to hear W.D. Muhammad's beliefs from his own lips. The belief that Islam has been completed and perfected is CENTRAL to Islam. When Mirza Ghulam Ahmed Qadiani tried to claim that "revelation" could come to him too, the Pakistani people led by Maulana Maudoodi and others had a popular law passed that anyone who claims that there was a prophet or a messenger after Muhammad [pbuh] cannot be considered a Muslim
[To be continued.]
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MARGARET HASSAN's KIDNAPING and MURDER WAS OPPOSED BY ALL ISLAMIC RESISTANCE GROUPS.
The murderers USED it to DEFLECT ATTENTION FROM THE DESTRUCTION OF FALLUJAH

By Yvonne Ridley
[The writer is a journalist of international stature.]
[Exclusive to New Trend.]

I hate conspiracy theories. Most have their roots in the realms of fantasy and generally serve no real positive purpose at all. For instance, so many people are in denial that the 9/11 hijackers were Muslims. Why can't people just accept that 19 brothers turned up at the right airport, at the right time and boarded the right planes ... yeh, I know it's pretty unbelievable - but the truth often is. If we believe some conspiracy theories, the Pentagon was never hit ... well if that's the case it developed a severe termite problem on September 11 2001! But every now and again some event happens which really does defy all logic. For instance, let's examine the brutal kidnap and murder of Margaret Hassan. On the surface we have an Irish-born woman with dual British and Iraqi nationality who is picked up from the streets of Baghdad as she goes about her work for a charity. What sets Margaret aside from other westerners is that she was not really Irish or British ... she'd gone native. Margaret was married to an Iraqi and had lived in Baghdad for 30 years. She had also reverted to Islam. So in many ways you would have expected her kidnappers to have released her almost immediately on realising the Westerner they had seized was actually of more use a free woman than a hostage. Instead there were harrowing vidoes showing Margaret Hassan to be pleading for her life. The videos were slightly different to the other videos we have been shown, but the horrific content tends to cloud such minor details. People were outraged and shocked. Ordinary Iraqis took to the streets and marched, demanding her release ... it produced international condemnation of the Iraqi resistance wholesale. The propaganda was immensley powerful and the harrowing Margaret videos certainly had impact. Media commentators roundly condemned the hostage-takers and all sections of the Iraqi resistance found itself covered with the same black propaganda. The images were so dreadful it took many peoples' attention away from the impending massacre of Fallujah. The timing of her kidnap and release of the videos could not have come at a better time for the US military planners who were about to lay Fallujah to waste. This deliberate, and selective focusing on Margaret, repeated frequently on the television news must have had an awesome impact on the viewer. Indignation about Fallujah would have melted away, the anger being effectively replaced by outrage and horror as we watched Margaret pathetically pleading for her life. The heart-rending pleas of Margaret were in vain. She is now believed to be the first woman killed by kidnappers. But there are certain aspects about the Margaret videos which make me feel slightly uneasy. Firstly all sections of the Iraqi resistance denied any role in her captivity from the outset. Then we were told that the much-feared and ruthless resistance leader Abu-Musab Al-Zarqawi issued his own statement ordering her release. (If this man tells you to jump you ask: "How high?"). Now let's face it - Al-Zarqawi cares less for public opinion than George W Bush or Tony Blair so why would he try and distance himself from this particular kidnapping? Furthermore, another statement issued by his group emphasised that they don't hold women prisoners unless they are revealed as spies. In fact many of their keys demands have focussed on demanding the release of the women who are still being held captive by the US military. Should Margaret have been uncovered as some sort of secret agent her head would have been lopped off quicker than you could say 007. Furthermore, no group has claimed responsibility, which is unprecedented in relation to previous cases of hostages. And then when her body was found it looked as though she had been shot in the back of her head and her corpse mutilated. The mutiliation of a dead body is a total no-no in Islam, it is beyond scholarly debate, it is simply forbidden. And while the finest Islamic minds in the world can argue about the merits of executing Westerners (yes, the Qur'an does say Smite the enemy at the neck), messing around with a dead body is totally out. So we now have to ask ourselves just who did kidnap Margaret and for what purpose? And can I just remind you all, I do know what I am talking about. During my 10 days in the hands of the Taliban, a dodgy dossier making me out to be a super spy was handed over to my captors. Whoever compiled all the phoney intelligence went to extreme lengths to make a very convincing case that the Taliban had indeed arrested a key intelligence officer and not a humble journalist. I have since discovered the clumsy attempt was the work of Mossad and American intelligence. But in my efforts to track down the authors of the dossier I have since been told not to take it too personally! Apparently my demise - the more violent my death the better -would have silenced the growing anti-war movement in America and Europe and would have provided the West with some additionally powerful propaganda depicting the Taliban as brutal, evil and haters of women. Thank Allah my captors saw through the nonsense - and that is one of the main reasons I was released so quickly to the shock and awe of many Westerners. But let's return to Baghdad. Remember the two Italian women taken hostage who were released once it was verified that they were innocent of any collaboration? According to my man in Baghdad, women are treated with courtesy and respect by the Mujahideen, just as I was by the Taliban. Since money was not demanded, you can rule out criminal gangs. Examining the videos in detail, Margaret's captors did not use the same flags or same modus opperandi as the others, and there were no Qur'anic recitals. You know I can just sense the clumsy hands of the bungling intelligence services at work again. Please don't let Margaret's death divert your attention from the real war crimes being carried out in Fallujah. And if you think I've seriously lost the plot, please read a newly-published book by Jon Ronson called: The Men Who Stare At Goats. It is a clever, detailed investigation into the increasingly bizarre activities of a small group of highly placed men in US intelligence. And it reveals the extraordinary legnths these people will go to, to win your hearts and minds over this obscene war in Iraq. Next time you switch of your television, beware - because you could be the next target of mind-bending, thought control police ... that is if you haven't been targeted already.
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Strategic Studies

Kerry Admits Osama Video was a factor in his Defeat
Destruction Of Fallujah in 12 Days Indicates Bush's Next 4 Years

by Butshikan [Idol Breaker]

Many Muslims still don't realize it but President Bush's first four years were years of defeat for his policies. He puts on a brave face and says, we toppled the Taliban and removed Saddam Hussain. That's too simplistic an explanation for what happened. Here is the harsh reality of his first four years and the implications it has for his second four years. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Christians who do not Support Israel: The Presbyterians

On the Web at:
http://www.divestmentproject.org/index.shtml

"The Somerville Divestment Project focuses on grassroots organizing in Somerville, Massachusetts. Our goal is to pressure our city to withdraw its money from companies that help Israel commit extensive and ongoing human rights violations. "We have great news. The Presbyterian National Assembly just voted 491 to 62 for divestment, and we are using this to propel our outreach forward in the communities of faith. Archbishop Desmond Tutu's moral call for divestment is at the heart of our campaign. "We call on our cities, towns, states, as well as unions and socially responsible investors to divest from Israeli bonds and companies which provide the arms and equipment to carry out Israel's military occupation. To this end, we have submitted a Socially Responsible Investment Resolution to the Somerville Board of Alderman. We are grateful that 8 out of 11 Aldermen have chosen to co-sponsor this resolution. "Please, support our work to uphold human rights and contribute today.
Calendar
November - December
Nov. 30 "An Evening in Algiers" Fundraiser Details here
Dec 7th Aldermen's Legislative Committee Meeting - City Hall
Dec. 9th Full Board of Alderman Meeting - City Hall more
"New on the Site:
"A Voice from Israel: Shamai K. Leibowitz
"As an Israeli citizen and former tank gunner in the Israeli army, I feel the need to explain why I, along with many other Jews, support divestment from Israel. "We are asking the city of Somerville, as well as other cities and civic institutions, to divest from companies involved in selling arms, bulldozers and military technologies that are used to by the Israeli army to commit war crimes against Palestinians. As people committed to human rights for all, we call upon Americans to demand that their tax-dollars are not invested in companies that sell equipment and ammunition that fuel Israel's consistent and appalling violations of international law and human rights. "As a young soldier serving in the Israeli army, I was ordered to commit war crimes in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. My platoon meted out collective punishment on whole Palestinian communities, shot live ammunition at unarmed civilians, killed women and children, enforced prolonged curfews, creating humanitarian disasters, arrested and detained Palestinians without charge, demolished their homes, and arbitrarily destroyed crops and property. "Being an eyewitness to these war crimes led me eventually to announce my refusal to serve in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 1994. But the Israeli government, unaffected by the growing 'refusenik' movement, has continued the dehumanizing Occupation. More than 3.5 million Palestinians continued to live under a military regime and were subject to bombings of neighborhoods, extra-judicial killings, torture, home demolitions, unlawful detentions, deportations and a myriad of human rights violations. "Dozens of Jews were among the many supporters of the divestment resolution who gathered in the Somerville City Hall on Monday Nov. 8. I, and several others, spoke in favor of this resolution, saying that it is precisely because we are Jews and because we truly care about Israel that we are asking the City of Somerville to pass this resolution. All of us present in Somerville were profoundly hurt when accused of being "anti-Semitic" or "anti-Israeli". People abusing the concept of "anti-Semitism" in order to support the Israeli government's racist policy towards the Palestinians do nothing less than desecrate the memory of those Jewish victims of real anti-Semitism. "I have heard too many times the argument that "now is not the time to divest because Israel is involved in a peace process". The "peace process" argument was used for dozens of years as an excuse to continue inflicting suffering, humiliation and destruction upon the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. It is high time to do away with this myth. "It has become clear that even during the Oslo process, Israeli governments pulled the wool over the world's eyes. Israel continued to resettle its own citizens on confiscated Palestinian land in the Occupied Territories, in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, while at the same time entrenching a cruel military regime in the same areas and punishing 3.5 million Palestinians. "It became the primary objective of Israeli propaganda to hide the brutal reality of Occupation. To this end, Israeli governments constantly came up with "peace plans" and built a sophisticated "we only want peace" propaganda machine. However, over time, many of us who lived in Israel and visited or served in the Occupied Territories, saw the reality for what it is: Israel was intensifying an oppressive military regime over millions of Palestinians who were denied all human, civil and political rights, while building more Jewish-only settlements for Jews who enjoyed full civil and political rights. "As an Israeli thoroughly familiar with Israeli politics, I believe that selective economic pressure is the most effective way to end the brutal Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and bring peace and security to Israelis and Palestinians. If the Jewish people are ever to become "a light unto nations" (Isaiah 42:6), and return to their core values of justice and human dignity, Israelis and Jews of conscience must call now for effective measures to end the Occupation of millions of Palestinians. I realize how hard it is, conceptually, for American Jews to support divestment, but they should understand that these painful measures will eventually lead to the path of peace and security. The call for divestment reflects true loyalty both to Israel's peaceful existence and to the highest Jewish values. I call upon the Jewish community, as well as other communities, in the US - if you really want to see in your lifetime Israelis living in peace with Palestinians - unite with us behind divestment resolutions."
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2004-11-25 Thu 17:51ct