Dr Kaukab Siddique | Editor-in-Chief Rabi' al-Awwal 28, 1425/ May 19, 2004 #60
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THOUGHT OF THE DAY:

INTERNATIONAL JEWRY IN ACTION:

On May 18, while Israeli tanks forces were demolishing home after home in the Rafah refugee camp, President Bush was urging on the Israelis with a speech to the biggest Jewish pressure group in America called AIPAC. Here are some quotes from his speech:

"The U.S. is stronger because of its alliance with Israel."
"Thank you for doing your part in the cause of freedom."
"Israel longs for peace, America longs for peace."
"...for the sake of peace we ended the regime of Saddam Hussain."
"Saddam's regime supported terrorism. It paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers."

The Jews were hysterical with joy during Bush's speech and got up from their seats to cheer him so many times that even the Republican Party gatherings can't match it. The President LOOKED LIKE A SCHOOL BOY MAKING HIS PRIZE SPEECH IN FRONT OF HIS TEACHERS.
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ACTION ALERT: From Jamaat al-Muslimeen

Address: Jamaat al-Muslimeen, POB 10881, Baltimore, MD 21234. Phone: 410-435-5000. Website: www.newtrendmag.org click on Jamaat al-Muslimeen.
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ISRAEL MUST BE DECLARED a TERRORIST ENTITY. Write to the United Nations. Also, urge Egypt and Jordan to withdraw recognition from Israel

May 19. With the latest massacre in Rafah, Gaza strip, Israel has once again shown that it is a terrorist entity bent on violating all laws of humanity. We urge readers to write to the Secretary General of the UN urging him to move towards definition of Israel as a terrorist entity. Send him this simple message:

DECLARE ISRAEL a TERRORIST ENTITY.

His address is: Secretary General of the UN, Mr. Kofi Annan, United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017

This is also the right time to urge the two Arab countries which have recognized Israel to withdraw their recognition.

The message should include these words:
"Withdraw your recognition of Israel."

Remember, these two countries crushed their own people to be able to recognize Israel. Hence messages from readers in other countries, particularly African-American Muslims, will be very helpful.

Please write or call:
Jordanian Mission to the UN
866 U.N. Plaza, 4th floor, New York, NY 10017
Phone: (212)750-0135 or 0136 

Egyptian  General Consulate
1110 2nd Ave.  New York, NY  10022
Phone: (212)759-7120

In Washington DC:

Embassy of Jordan
3504 International Dr. NW
Washington, DC 20008
Phone: 202-966-2664

Embassy of Egypt
3521 International Ct., NW
Washington, DC 20008
Phone: 202-895-5400
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RESPONSE TO KING ABDULLAH'S APPEAL TO ISRAEL TO LET PALESTINE "EMERGE."

[From Atlanta]

Palestine emerge? Palestine existed for centuries and is recorded in the Bible and other texts dating back several thousand of years. What does King Abdullah mean by letting Palestine emerge? Israel is a country going against its' own scripture and defying Allah (G'd) by occupying Palestine. When will Israel and the rest of the world understand the consequences of trying to exterminate a race of people and steal land given to them by Allah? Israel is an outlaw state at this moment and Palestine is an occupied land. NO ONE has the right to just move-in and attempt to take over land from anyone. NO ONE!

Hadayai Majeed
Muslim Women's Political Action Committee
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Book Notice

Churchill Deceived the British People During World War II

Churchill's War: Volume One. The Struggle for Power by David Irving. 1987. Pp. 666. $40. Available from: New Trend, P.O. Box 356, Kingsville, MD 21087

Most people who grew up after 1945 have a mental mindset about the Second World War which is nothing more than the victors' propaganda structure. After 50 years of repetition, war time propaganda took on the aura of the "Truth" according to which the war was between the forces of Good and Evil.

David Irving has done the research, looked at war time diaries and classified information which began to be released 40 years after the war. Irving presents Churchill as he was seen by those who knew him, those who were closest to him and those, friends and foes, who had to deal with him. The result is the emergence of the real Churchill who wanted war at any price and presided over the unnecessary death of millions of people. Also, we get an in-depth and DETAILED picture of Churchill as a person in his daily life: He was dictatorial, ruthless, shamelessly self-serving and lived in sybarite luxury, drenched in his drinking habits, while the British people endured bombing and stiff rationing.

The book needs to be read in its entirety for its full impact and power. Here are a few central points: -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HADITH STUDIES

REBUTTAL OF SECTARIAN ATTACK on ABU HURAIRA (r.a.) [Part 2]

[by Kaukab Siddique, Ph.D]

[This series of rebuttals began when Syed Hasan Jarchavi distributed an attack on Abu Huraira (r.a.), one of the greatest Companions of the Prophet Muhammad, pbuh. Part I showed why the sectarian Shias and Pervezi rejectors of Hadith target Abu Huraira. It also indicated the great love the Prophet, pbuh, had for Abu Huraira, r.a., and Abu Huraira's total dedication to the cause of Islam.]

Now we come to specific attacks on this great narrator of Hadith. The Pervezi sect, dedicated to attacking the credibility of hadith, has a special interest in targeting Abu Huraira, r.a. For instance, G.A. Pervez, the leader of the Pervezi sect wrote:

"Ibn Mukhlad states that his (Abu Huraira's) Hadith narrations totalled 5347 although he embraced Islam in the year of Khaibar and was with the messenger of Allah, pbuh, for only three years. Then how can it be believed that he could have so many narrations, many of which have been and can be criticized from the viewpoint of reason and knowledge. Hence our conscience cannot admit that he could have stated such narrations." [G.A. Pervez in his Urdu language book Maqame Hadith.]

This kind of slanted talk is the staple of the attack on Abu Huraira, r.a., and was initiated by Jewish scholars and Christian missionaries. The attack turns out to be absurd when one looks at it critically. I'll do a one-two-three critique of it:
  1. Factually, it is incorrect that Abu Huraira, r.a., was with the Prophet, pbuh, for THREE years. Writers like Pervez forgot that the battle of Khaibar was in Muharram of Hijri 7. Muharram is the FIRST month of the Islamic year. Thus Abu Huraira, r.a., was with the Prophet, pbuh, for all of Hijri 7, 8, 9 and 10, which is FOUR years. The Prophet, p, passed away on 12 Rabi' al-Awwal, in the 11th year of Hijra. Thus, Abu Huraira was with him for 4 years and about 2 and a half months.
  2. It is true that Abu Huraira, r.a., narrated 5347 Hadith, but in many cases the same Hadith is narrated through various chains of narration [a form of cross referencing]. If the duplicate narrations are removed, scholars have noted that the actual number of his Hadith is about 2000.
  3. In Pakistan's Islamic schools, students can memorize the 6600 plus verses of the Qur'an over a period of three years. These are ordinary students, not comparable to a great Companion of the Prophet, pbuh, like Abu Huraira. It is truly absurd to think that a man totally devoted to the Prophet, p, like Abu Huraira, would not be able to memorize 2000 sayings of the Prophet, p, in four and a quarter years.
  4. The sectarian assailants often forget that Abu Huraira, r.a., was one of the Ashab-us-sufa and had devoted himself totally to staying in the mosque and learning the teachings of the Prophet, p. Some people were naturally jealous of Abu Huraira's great knowledge of the Prophet's teachings which surpassed that of very prominent and early companions of the Prophet,p. One such person approached Talha ibn Ubaidullah, r.a., one of the most prominent sahaba and addressed him thus:
"O Abu Muhammad! Tell us, is this Yemeni person (Abu Huraira) a greater Hafiz of the Prophet's teachings or are you?We hear from him what we do not hear from you. Is he possibly narrating this from himself {making it up}?" Talha's, r.a., reply was as follows: " It is true that he (Abu Huraira) heard many Hadith from the Prophet, p, which we did not. The reason was that we were affluent people of property. We had homes, family, children. We were stuck in that way of life and returned to our homes after going to the Prophet's presence twice a day, in the morning and the evening. By contrast, Abu Huraira was a poor person, free of the responsibilities of goods, family and children. He was always a 'guest' at the door of the messenger of Allah, pbuh: his hand was in the messenger's hand. All of us are certain that he heard more Hadith of the Prophet, p, than any of us. And none of us would slander him by saying that he is narrating what he has not heard from the messenger of Allah, pbuh." [Sunan of Tirmidhi]

Thus the Companions of the Prophet, pbuh, unlike the Shi'ite and Pervezi sectarians, had nothing but respect for Abu Huraira, r.a. Some of the Sahaba themselves narrated Hadith from Abu Huraira, r.a., although they had joined the Islamic struggle much before him. One such was the elderly sahabi Abu Ayyub Ansari, r.a. Once he was asked, when he had known the Prophet, p, all of the period after the Prophet's Hijra till he passed away, why did he narrate Hadith from Abu Huraira instead of directly from the Prophet, p. He replied: "Undoubtedly Abu Huraira heard Hadith from the messenger of Allah, p, which we could not. I prefer that I should narrate Hadith from the messenger, p, via Abu Huraira which I could not be there to hear myself." [ Ibn Kathir's Al-Bidaya wun-Nihaya, Vol. 8]

Thus the great narrator of Hadith whom the messenger of Allah loved and who was deeply respected by the Sahaba (companions of the Prophet,p) is under frivolous attack by sectarians and anti-Hadith propagandists.

Perhaps the Shias don't know that Abu Huraira, r.a., narrated Hadith extolling the Ahlul Bait, and describing the great love the Prophet, p, had for his grandchildren, Hasan and Husain, may Allah be pleased with both.
[To be continued.]
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Abu Ghraib: Bush's Fig Leaf is Slipping

By
Waheeduddin Ahmed, Ph.D.
[Milwaukee, Wisconsin]

The George W’s "civilization" had a naked exposure in Iraq. The veil lifted all of a sudden to show the soldiers of the civilization, men and women, gleefully gratifying their lust with piles of captive male genitalia in the torture chambers of the Abu Ghraib prison. George W., as could be expected in the face of graphic evidence, promptly issued a disclaimer expressing his disgust. So did Rummie, the Defense Secretary. The story, as it turned out was not new, only the illustrations were. With them came the reckoning and with the reckonings the apologies. One wonders however, why apologies were needed at all, given the social mores prevalent in the "civilization".

If George W’s disgust was genuine, he would call all his pals in the Bible Belt and Francis Graham, Pat Robertson and Jerry Farwell, as well as those across the Atlantic, such as Silvio Berlusconi and issue disclaimers with regard to the superiority of one civilization over the other. Tom Friedman of New York Times might also take note, beating his drums, by the side of McDonald’s arch in some remote corner of the globe Abu Ghraib was an aberration, we are told by the Washington neo-cons. But reports are now coming in about similar abuses of prisoners in Afghanistan in American custody and in the U.S. prisons in Texas during George W’s tenure as governor. Combine these with the frequent miscarriages of justice in the U.S. courts, when the defendants are indigent, and from minority groups ... torture in Guantanamo, an island of unrestricted abuse, where no law, national or international is deemed to be applicable ... the taking away of freedoms from many faceless humans, depriving them of their identities and any recourse to justice, you have a ghastly picture of George W’s civilization. He, claiming to be the divine messenger now stands naked before the world with the fig leaf of his pretense slipping. Abu Ghraib has provided the icons to hang on the walls of the temple of "freedom", built in the Babylon of his fantasy.

To some, what went on in Abu Ghraib, is an aberration and to others fraternity frolics. If frolicking with captive bodies, naked, petrified and throbbing with fear and pain has a precedent in the history of civilization, contemporary historians would welcome such knowledge.
Now, the question before the world is: was Abu Ghraib an aberration or a normality? We may soon have a litmus test in November 2004 to find out. A strong vote for George W. in the upcoming election will disprove the aberration theory and demonstrate that Abu Ghraib was not just fraternity frolics, but a trait of his civilization.

Bush has never explained whether his civilization is synonymous with the western civilization, whose distinctiveness lies in its enormous appetite for wars without rationale. Wars in the pre-World War one period were fought for various reasons, although lofty ideals did not figure prominently among them, need and greed being the two pivotal causes.

History has witnessed marauding horsemen leaving the Gobi desert and marching across continents in search of better pastures, wealth and riches, and in doing so ravaging many sedentary communities and cultures. The world has also seen religious wars and proselytizing conquests. Each soldier, whether on foot or on horseback, ragtag or in pompous attire, was convinced of a purpose, sanctified and enshrined in his heart.

On the other hand, the wars of the Twentieth century, fought on the European continent, which was the seat of western civilization, were without conviction and purpose. The World War one started because of one assassination, the spilling of blue blood in Sarajevo, for which rivers of red blood flowed on the landscapes of Europe and beyond, the blood of those who were not even remotely connected with the conflict.

In the World War two, millions gave their lives involuntarily from each continent, for a cause neither they nor their survivors had ever been able to comprehend. This wanton death and destruction were perhaps the blackest chapter in the history of mankind.

Since then we have seen the Korean War, fought to save Korea from Koreans, and the Vietnam War, to save the Vietnamese and other Asians from the Dominos effect, an artificial scenario concocted to justify wars of aggression in Asia.

And now we have the war to find W.M.D. (weapons of mass destruction) in the areas other than our own, where we have the greatest mass of W.M.D. that one could imagine. It is obvious that W.M.D. is not a ghost, which haunts the psyche of the neo-cons but a ploy to beat up on the guys who are outside the "civilization".

As wars without reason will remain with us as a trait of western civilization, fortunately for human race, Iraq is now showing the limitations of military power however high-tech and may have saved the world from the Bushes and the Blairs. It may very well be that the military behemoth will crumble under its own weight and people will emerge from under the debris to take their place among ordinary humans, who pursue happiness as their goal.
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2004-05-25 Tue 19:08ct