Mar 08
SadifPolitik
To anyone reading this, please write to your Members of the European Parliament via the website http://www.writetothem.com/ and get them to take some form of action following their discussions on the Goldstone Report on the 10th March.
this is what i sent:
Dear MEPs,
I believe you are to discuss the Goldstone Report on the 10th of March.
It is very disappointing that every time this report is published, no
action follows, leading to the assumption that Israel is untouchable
and does not have to follow the International Laws and UN Resolutions.
I urge you to have the courage and conviction to support:
1. Immediate and full implementation of the Goldstone Report, and
demand accountability for all violations of international law committed
by Israel in its war on Gaza;
2. Unconditional, immediate and sustained opening of the crossings into
Gaza, including from the sea. Official visitors from EU countries,
including the new High Representative Catherine Ashton, should
routinely include Gaza when visiting the region, to see the devastating
effects of the two and a half year old blockade of Gaza and Operation
Cast Lead;
3. Removal of Hamas from the EU terrorist list. Ex-US President Jimmy
Carter asked President Obama in 2009 to remove Hamas from the US’
terrorist list. Palestinians elected their parliamentary
representatives in elections declared free and fair by the
international observers. The collective punishment of 1.5 million
Palestinians in Gaza, which was severely tightened after the
parliamentary election, is inhumane and illegal and must end;
4. Ending of the Israeli government’s obstruction of the work of Human
Rights organisations and NGOs in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian
Territories.
Yours sincerely,
Sadif Raza Ditta
Narrated Anas: Allah’s Apostle said, “Help your brother, whether he is an oppressor or he is an oppressed one. People asked, “O Allah’s Apostle! It is all right to help him if he is oppressed, but how should we help him if he is an oppressor?” The Prophet said, “By preventing him from oppressing others.” Sahih Bukhari: Volume 3, Book 43, Number 624.
Feb 24
SadifPolitik
No tears are to be shed and no corporation is to be investigated on their “precision bombs” that have caused and are still causing the constantly mounting numbers of “collaterally damaged” in democratic and sovereign Iraq and Afghanistan over the past years in this decade.
If they’re luck “Oh, sorry” is sometimes uttered, and that suffices for these non-U.S. non-entities.
Feb 03
SadifIslam
from MuslimMatters.org
“Learn how to die, and you learn how to live.”
“Everyone knows that they’re going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.”
“To know you’re going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time…that’s better. That way you can be more involved in your life while you’re living.”
Feb 02
SadifIslam
1. Surgery
Around the year 1,000, the celebrated doctor Al Zahrawi published a 1,500 page illustrated encyclopedia of surgery that was used in Europe as a medical reference for the next 500 years. Among his many inventions, Zahrawi discovered the use of dissolving cat gut to stitch wounds — beforehand a second surgery had to be performed to remove sutures. He also reportedly performed the first caesarean operation and created the first pair of forceps.
2. Coffee
Now the Western world’s drink du jour, coffee was first brewed in Yemen around the 9th century. In its earliest days, coffee helped Sufis stay up during late nights of devotion. Later brought to Cairo by a group of students, the coffee buzz soon caught on around the empire. By the 13th century it reached Turkey, but not until the 16th century did the beans start boiling in Europe, brought to Italy by a Venetian trader.
3. Flying machine
“Abbas ibn Firnas was the first person to make a real attempt to construct a flying machine and fly,” said Hassani. In the 9th century he designed a winged apparatus, roughly resembling a bird costume. In his most famous trial near Cordoba in Spain, Firnas flew upward for a few moments, before falling to the ground and partially breaking his back. His designs would undoubtedly have been an inspiration for famed Italian artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci’s hundreds of years later, said Hassani.
4. University
In 859 a young princess named Fatima al-Firhi founded the first degree-granting university in Fez, Morocco. Her sister Miriam founded an adjacent mosque and together the complex became the al-Qarawiyyin Mosque and University. Still operating almost 1,200 years later, Hassani says he hopes the center will remind people that learning is at the core of the Islamic tradition and that the story of the al-Firhi sisters will inspire young Muslim women around the world today.
5. Algebra
The word algebra comes from the title of a Persian mathematician’s famous 9th century treatise “Kitab al-Jabr Wa l-Mugabala” which translates roughly as “The Book of Reasoning and Balancing.” Built on the roots of Greek and Hindu systems, the new algebraic order was a unifying system for rational numbers, irrational numbers and geometrical magnitudes. The same mathematician, Al-Khwarizmi, was also the first to introduce the concept of raising a number to a power.
6. Optics
“Many of the most important advances in the study of optics come from the Muslim world,” says Hassani. Around the year 1000 Ibn al-Haitham proved that humans see objects by light reflecting off of them and entering the eye, dismissing Euclid and Ptolemy’s theories that light was emitted from the eye itself. This great Muslim physicist also discovered the camera obscura phenomenon, which explains how the eye sees images upright due to the connection between the optic nerve and the brain.
7. Music
Muslim musicians have had a profound impact on Europe, dating back to Charlemagne tried to compete with the music of Baghdad and Cordoba, according to Hassani. Among many instruments that arrived in Europe through the Middle East are the lute and the rahab, an ancestor of the violin. Modern musical scales are also said to derive from the Arabic alphabet.
8. Toothbrush
According to Hassani, the Prophet Mohammed popularized the use of the first toothbrush in around 600. Using a twig from the Meswak tree, he cleaned his teeth and freshened his breath. Substances similar to Meswak are used in modern toothpaste.
9. The crank
Many of the basics of modern automatics were first put to use in the Muslim world, including the revolutionary crank-connecting rod system. By converting rotary motion to linear motion, the crank enables the lifting of heavy objects with relative ease. This technology, discovered by Al-Jazari in the 12th century, exploded across the globe, leading to everything from the bicycle to the internal combustion engine.
10. Hospitals
“Hospitals as we know them today, with wards and teaching centers, come from 9th century Egypt,” explained Hassani. The first such medical center was the Ahmad ibn Tulun Hospital, founded in 872 in Cairo. Tulun hospital provided free care for anyone who needed it — a policy based on the Muslim tradition of caring for all who are sick. From Cairo, such hospitals spread around the Muslim world.
RSS
Comments