Thursday, January 18, 2007

Time for some renovation


As most of you must have noticed by now, i've made some new renovations round here ... new template, new links, added a couple of sections up there on the right menu ... Why? well ... i've been to a lot .. and i mean a LOOOOT of blogs recently ... and totally in the mood for blogging now ... plus, if Ahmadi Nejad, Current President of Iran, find time to Blog - yes guys ... a president with a personal blog ... why not? haven't u seen that before? ... noooo ... don't tell me ... u didn't? ... shame on ... ehm ... never mind! - (of course the man have got few extra bucks to get his own domain and get the site translated to four languages) ... am sure the guy has got a few more appointments on his busy schedule than i do, so why not spend some of my own time working on my blog and dropping a few words here every now and then?

So ... karart arakeb el karaneesh wanzel bel satayer ... Enjoy! :)

Yvonne Ridley's Speech at EWAMY, Cairo (EGYPT)

Yvonne Ridley: EWAMY - Cairo, Egypt Friday, November 24, 2006

The Arabic language is one of the cornerstones of Islam, as we have heard today from our brother, so I do apologize in advance that this is one of the many areas of Islam I've yet to master.
Islamic ally, I am very young, having reverted in 2003? And while I have much to learn I can identify with the frustrations shared by young Muslims today.
I know 9/11 had a huge impact on the world, but it wasn't really the start of something? It was the continuation of a legacy of US imperialism and its fear of Islam.
Just over ten years ago, fit, young Muslims across the globe flooded into Bosnia to help their brothers and sisters fight for their survival against the Serbs who were carrying out a genocide sanctioned by the silence of a watching world.
The jihad brought together Muslims from all nationalities, status and culture. All were united; even those who could not travel to fight helped in other ways such as fund-raising, public awareness events and demonstrations. The impact was to stop the genocide. Western intervention, when it happened, came only after it was apparent that the Bosnian Muslims were heading for victory. The establishment of an Islamic state deep in the heart of Europe was simply too much to bear and so the West intervened. This is not my conclusion, but US President Bill Clinton admitted it in his autobiography.
This fear of Islam has now evolved in the last 10 years to such an extent that the blood of our brothers and sisters is now flowing like rivers across Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and we saw recently what happened to Lebanon.
I have walked through many of those killing fields and let me tell you the twisted, blown up limbs of our Muslim brothers and sisters look exactly like those pulled from the rubble of the Twin Towers.Yet the message of today is quite clear. Muslim blood is a cheap commodity.
Meanwhile tens of thousands of innocent Muslims continue to be tortured in far away dungeons and cages in Guantanamo Bay, Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, Diego Garcia and ghost prisons throughout the world. Others are tortured in Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria and even here in Egypt. Brothers are being tortured at the behest and request of the United States.
So what sort of message does that send out to our young people?
They read about the heroic exploits of Salahudddin Ayyoubi, Khalid bin Walid, Tariq bin Ziad and listen intently to stories of courage and bravery about our beloved Prophet Mohamed.
Do you know, five years ago I had never even heard of The Prophet, but now I would give my last drop of blood to protect his name, his honor and his memory.
Even in death he continued to show how strong he was by uniting the Ummah in protest at those vile cartoons from Denmark.
Our modern day heroes include those two sixties martyrs Malcolm X and Sayyid Qutb, both whose writings have helped define me as a Muslim.
These are the sort of role models and influences our youth need to follow, but instead they receive confused and mixed messages.One minute they are told the fear no one but Allah while the next minute they are told to dilute their Islam and keep their heads down.
Since the events of 9-11, there has been an unrelenting campaign launched to change Islam into something more palatable to Western society. The vision is a secular and cultural Islam at peace with the world through her submission to her oppressors rather than to Allah; an Islam devoid of jihad, Shariah and khilafah? The very things we are commanded by Allah to implement in order to establish Allah's deen on this earth.
And it is in evidence everywhere I look. Hijab are being ripped off the heads of my sisters in Tunisia, France and Turkey. Sisters in Holland and Germany are also in the firing line.
And in Britain, we have Jack Straw, the former British Foreign Secretary who questioned the veil? I am not having a white, middle-aged man telling me how to dress. Keep out of my wardrobe and that of every sister on this planet.
I pick up the newspapers in Cairo today to discover the Minister of Culture has called the wearing of the veil a regression.
How dare he say that? Why are the men in Egypt standing by and doing nothing to silence him? He is insulting the honor and dignity of every Muslim woman who chooses to cover.
Farooq Hosni is a disgrace to Islam? What sort of message does he send out to our young people with his weasel words?
The nikab, like the veil, like the hijab has become a symbol of a rejection of those negative Western lifestyles like drug-taking, binge-drinking and promiscuity. It is a statement telling the West we don't want to be like you.
These Arabs who choose to be more western than Westerners make me laugh? Do they realize how pathetic they look in the eyes of the rest of the world? This Minister should be sacked from his post for dishonoring every sister who chooses to cover.
I suppose he hides behind such descriptions as moderate? Again what sort of message does that send to our young people?
If we ask them to be moderate does that not suggest that there is something wrong with Islam that it needs to be toned down, diluted?
The last time I came to Cairo I was called an extremist by none other than the Sheikh of Al Azhar? Sheikh Tantawi. The reason for this? Because, I would not shake his hand. What is a moderate and what is an extremist? I really don't know. I am a simple Muslim. I follow no scholars or sects? I merely follow The Prophet and the Sunnah. Does that make me an extremist? I once said being a Muslim is a bit like being pregnant. You are or you are not. Whoever heard of anyone being moderately or extremely pregnant?
Islam has been under attack for 1400 years and we should have learned by now to put our trust in no one but Allah. Yet there are those who continue to kiss the hand which slaps them.
I am afraid that we can no longer put our trust in to someone just because they might wear Islamic dress or have a long beard? I notice quite a few long beards in here today, but I am not referring to you, brothers.
There are those Muslim leaders who claim to guide and protect us but not all of them have our interests at heart. Our young people are going to have to be very discerning since the events of 9/11, Bali, Madrid and the London Bombings, to name a few.
There are individuals who for years rallied the masses to stand up for justice and support mujahideen groups around the world and now some have become embarrassingly silent while others condemn armed jihad, portraying mujahideen as terrorists and extremists who follow a distorted version of Islam.
In some ways we are all to blame. Our greatest shame has been our silence while martyrdom operations in Palestine and other occupied lands have been condemned as acts of terror as witnessed in 9/11 and the July 7 bombings.
Our young people have to be taught that what is happening in Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, Iraq and Afghanistan is legitimate resistance against a brutal military occupation, while crimes like 9/11 and the London bombings are blatant terrorism. Equating the two only betrays our brothers and sisters who have no other option but to fight or face being wiped off the face of this planet. The new slaves of the West criticize Islamist parties and governance by Shariah. Even student and youth movements which consistently campaigned for Palestine and Iraq have suddenly lost their tongues in a bid to be seen as? Moderate? In Britain we have an invasion of what I call the Happy Clappies. They are being flown in by the Government from the US, Canada, Yemen and Mauritania to preach a diluted form of Islam.
They are poisoning the minds of our youth and we should be very wary before the Happy Clappies spread across the world.
They attack Wahhabi groups in the most cynical manner? Some even misuse nasheeds, and I am deeply afraid that the Happy Clappies are infecting our nasheeds with the excesses of western pop culture.
The end result of all this has been a dilution of the deen of Allah, a weak and pacified Islam willing to accept the status quo in which Muslims are oppressed and subjugated; an Islam in which Muslims are content to sing and dance the night away to nasheeds, to concentrate on bettering their life in the West and to condemn the actions of their brothers and sisters who courageously resist occupation and oppression with whatever they have.
Even making dua for them now has become a crime? How long before we are told not to even pray for the mujahideen?
One of the greatest military general the world has known, Salahuddin Ayyubi, the liberator of al-Quds, was once asked why he didn't smile. He answered back that how could he smile while he knowing that Masjid al-Aqsa, remained under Crusader occupation. I wonder what he would make of the state of the world today. I wonder what advice he would give our youth?
This is a world where Arab leaders belly-danced shamelessly in front of America while handing Iraq over on a plate.
The same Arab leaders look the other way as our beautiful Palestine is continually raped and sodomized, and that other great daughter of the Arab world, Lebanon? Where was the Arab world when she was so brutally assaulted?
And the war drums are beating again. Not only is the whole world watching, but so are our children, our youth, and our future.
We must nature them, and inspire them with tales of the Prophet and the Sahaba.
As long as the Ummah continues to throw up figures like Khalid bin Walid, Salahuddin Ayyoubi, Sayyid Qutb and Malcolm X all is not lost.The more we are oppressed by the tyrants the more we will fight back. That is the nature of Islam.And this is the Islam our youth need to follow, be guided by and inspired.
Farooq Hosni and his ilk are pale imitations of real men? They have castrated themselves in a pathetic attempt to become more Western than the Westerners.
He will be consigned to the history books with barely a sentence while the courage and heroic resistance of our brothers and sisters will go down in chapters.
A rapidly increasing number of Muslim youth are now realizing that no matter how hard they compromise their deen to blend in with the wider society, when things go sour, they will be treated with suspicion. The more we are told to forget Shariah, khilafah and jihad, the more Muslims will pay the blood price to uphold these values. The jihad we are witnessing in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir and Chechnya is something noble, a just war against injustice and tyranny.
The actions of the jihadists pose absolutely no threat to the West or Western lifestyles and their resistance is not only justified but embraced and encouraged by international law. The real religious extremists who pose the greatest threat to radicalizing our youth are the Christian Fundamentalists in the White House and Downing Street. Bush and Blair have become al-Qaeda's finest recruiting officers.
More and younger Muslims are waking up with the realization that it is not terrorism or extremism that is being targeted but Islam itself. It is up to the Ummah to lead and inspire our youth, just as The Prophet led and inspired millions and continues to do so.And the first lesson we must teach our youth is to fear none but Allah.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

بحبك وحشتينى

Recently, this song has been on the top of song charts in Egypt ... and it sure deserves to be ...
i've always thought there are very few worthy songs about Egypt ... usualy were politically triggered ... and i found - and still do actually - Fairuz's songs the best that have ever been said about one's country ... and specially this one:"بحبك يا لبنان"

بحبك يا لبنان
يا وطني بحبك
بشمالك بجنوبك
بسهلك بحبك
بتسأل شو بنى وشوا اللى ما بنى
بحبك يا لبنان يا وطني

عنك بدي ابقى ويغيبوا الغياب
اتعذب واشقى يا محلي العذاب
واذا انت بتتركيني يا اغلى الاحباب
الدنيا بترجع كذبة وتاج الارض تراب

بفقرك بحبك
وبعزك بحبك
وانا قلبي عايدي لا ينساني قلبك
والسهرة عا بابك اغلى من سنة
وبحبك يا لبنان يا وطني

سألوني شو صار ببلد العيد
مزروعة عالداير نار وبواريد
قلتلن بلدنا عم يخلق جديد
لبنان الكرامة والشعب العنيد

كيف ما كنت بحبك
بجنونك بحبك
اذا نحنا تفرقنا بيجمعنا حبك
وحبة من ترابك بكنوز الدنى
وبحبك يا لبنان يا وطني

However, this new song "بحبك وحشتينى" is really touching ... may because it simply says all about how egyptians feel now under the economical, social and political atmosphere in Egypt now ... in the very begining of the song
"دا وانتى مطلعه عينى ... بحبك موت"

Yes, Egypt is now "metala3a 3enna kolena" .... but like Fairuz said it "b fo2rak b7ebbak .. w b 3ezzak b7ebbak" .... " keif ma kent b7ebbak ... b jnonak b7ebbak" ....

وبحـــبك وحشتــينـى
بحبك وانتى نور عينى
دا وانتى مطلعه عينى بحبك موت

لفيت اد ايه لفيت
مالقيت غير فى حضنك بيت
وبقوللك انا حنيت ... بعلو الصوت


وكان الوقت فى بعدك واقف مابيمشيش
وكانك كنتى معايا بعدتى ومبعدتيش
فى دمى حبيبتى وامى وزى ماكـــون ببتدى اعيش


بعدت وكنت هعمل ايه...؟
مين اختار غربته باديه...؟

لكن حبك دا منستهوش
عـــــــاش فيــــا

ليه هتاسف عالغيبه
مغبتيش لحظه وقريبه
محدش عنده كده طيبه وحنيه


وكان الوقت فى بعدك واقف مابيمشيش
وكانك كنتى معايا بعدتى ومبعدتيش
فى دمى حبيبتى وامى وزى ماكون ببتدى اعيش
وبـــحبـــك وحـــشتــينى

Fear


According to Thom Rutledge :
"Fear takes many forms --- dread, worry, panic, anxiety, self-consciousness, superstition, negativity --- and manifests itself in many ways --- avoidance, procrastination, judgment, control, agitation, and perfectionism, to name a few. Fear is our constant companion. It haunts us day and night and prevents us from living to our potential. Whether we are afraid of the dark or of being alone, failure or commitment, public speaking or flying, fear dominates our lives, affecting nearly every decision we make. "
I asked myself few days ago "what are your fears?"
dunno why i asked ... nothing really happened to provoke such a question ...
In answer, i found that what the future holds is wut i fear the most ... a little bit of a "cliché" answer, but if you look deeper into that answer you'll find that it's actually wutever "possibilities" future might hold that makes it worse than ur worst nightmare ...
I'm afraid of being alone ... i'm a single child with no siblings, unmarried .. still young yes alhamdullilah ... but my parents are getting old ... if they are gone - which is a fact no one can escape sooner or later - then i'm completely by myself ...
And I'm afraid of aging ... i see these dark spots that are increasing every day on my father's skin ... it just scares me ... i see the wrinkles invading my mother's face ... it just scares me ... wuts worse is that i'm afraid of their aging because i simply cannot/will not be able to handle it ... i'm emotionally and psychologically too fragile to see someone aging and needing me beside them ...
It came outta nowhere today that a friend of mine was telling me about her father who's showing symptoms of Alzheimer's and i was simply overwhelmed by scare at just the thought of it ... living to see ur parents forgetting how to eat or even how to use the toilet is more painfull than having them dead...
Am i too selfish to think like this? or is it normal to be scared of such things?
At the same time, i find myself totally OK with the idea of ME getting sick ... i can venture to say that i'm not afraid of this at all ... sometimes i think this is just my subconcious facing the fears listed above by finding a simple solution: may be if you get sick and die young, you won't have to go through all the above!! sometimes i think: "My God, i've got a real sick mentality!" ... other times, i sound more logical to myself than anything.
And then, may be i'm just having too much of a luxorious life ... Isn't it said that ppl who have less to worry about in their daily life make up something to worry about?
Certianly these fears of mine would sound ridiculous to someone who can hardly find food to support him for another day ... or someone who works like a machine day and night just to make enough money to support his family or get his children proper education ... or or or ... But then ... that makes these fears very "basic" in their nature which makes them infact the ULTIMATE fears a human can have ... Remove away all the daily needs that humans need to satisfy and whose shortage prevents them from thinking about these "basic" fears and then you'll get a pure, sophisticated, permenant emotion: FEAR!
Time can never stop, and so ppl can never stop agging ... !

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna

Listen: http://music.masti4india.com/php/get_song.php?id=1252

Tumko bhi hai khabar - You also know
Mujhko bhi hai pata - I also know
Ho raha hai judaa dono ka raasta - Our ways are getting separated
Door jaa ke bhi mujhse - Even going away from me
Tum meri yaadon mein rehna - You stay in my memories
Kabhi alvida na kehna (3) - Never say goodbye

Tumko bhi hai khabar - You also know
Mujhko bhi hai pata - I also know
Ho raha hai judaa dono ka raasta - Our ways are getting separated
Door jaa ke bhi mujhse - Even going away from me
Tum meri yaadon mein rehna - You stay in my memories
Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (3) - Never say goodbye

Jitni thi khushiyan sab kho chuki hai - Whatever happiness there was it’s all gone
Bas ek gham hai ke jaata nahi - Just the sadness won’t go away
Samjha ke dekha behela ke dekha - I tried to make it understand
Dil hai chain isko aata nahi...aata nahi - This heart does not receive any peace…
Aasoon hai ke hai angaarey, aag hai ab aankhon se behena - Are these tears or live coal, fire now floats down these eyes
Kabhi alvida na kehna (3) - Never say goodbye

Rut aa rahi hai, rut jaa rahi hai - Seasons have come, seasons have gone
Dard ka mausam badla nahi - The weather of pain has not changed
Rang yeh gham ka itna hai gehera - The color of sadness is so deep
Saadiyon bhi hoga halka nahi...halka nahi - Even after many seasons it will not get less…will not get less
Kaun jaane kya hona hai - Who knows what will happen
Humko hai ab kya kya sehena - What more do I have to go through
Kabhi Alvida...Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (2) - Never say goodbye

Tumko bhi hai khabar - You also know
Mujhko bhi hai pata - I also know
Ho raha hai judaa dono ka raasta - Our ways are getting separated
Door jaa ke bhi mujhse - Even going away from me
Tum meri yaadon mein rehna - You stay in my memories
Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (5) - Never say goodbye