NewTrendMag.org   News  #  1929
[ Click on NEWS for back issues ][ OUR BOOKS ][ Contact ][ Previous Issue ]

14 Muharram 1443 AH - August 22 2021 Issue # 34, Newsletter #1929



Editorial

 America and Nato Did not understand Afghanistan

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:
  1. Shias.
  2. Communists.
  3. 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

 Pakistan

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.

Dr. Fai can be reached at: 1-202-607-6435 or gnfai2003@yahoo.com




News Within the U.S.

 News within the US

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.
 Dr. Aafia Siddiqui protest

  1. "[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.

  2. "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."

  3. The report also says that Dr Siddiqui has been placed in administrative solitary confinement for an unspecified period of time.

  4. Dr Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years imprisonment for attempted murder after a controversial trial in 2010, during which she accused witnesses of lying.

  5. "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.

  6. "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.

  7. Pakistan's foreign office has asked the US.





Invitation to Think

 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.
 Sis Yasmin
"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 }




 Islamic Thought

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




 Palestine

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

 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.




 Outreach

"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 .

Political Prisoners :

AhmedAbdelSattar.org

FreeZiyadYaghi.info

FreeMasoudKhan.net

Civil Discord Show


2021-08-22 Sun 23:07:54 ct

NewTrendMag.org