Available online http://archive.org/details/secretsectsofsyr032392mbp
Book metadata:
Secret Sects Of Syria And The Lebanon (1922)
Author: Springett,Bernard H.
Subject: SOCIAL SCIENCES; Social Welfare; Social welfare
Publisher: George Allen And Unwin Limited.
Language: English
Call number: 32392
Book contributor: Osmania University
Collection: universallibrary
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Friday, July 6, 2012
The Syrian Alawites - Rise to Power
There has been much interest in the Syrian Alawite/Alawi in the recent time, mainly due to the conflict in Syria.
The history of Alawite rise to power in Syria is quite interesting. It started in the early nineteen century when the French was occupying Syria.
The majority of the Syrian (Sunni Muslim) were against the French. Alawis, who were treated as the second class citizen by the Sunnis, saw a bright future for themselves and perhaps an opportunity to get rid of their leper-like-status among the Syrians.
They formed a strong alliance with French, and in return, the French provided moral and material support to the Alawis. And in a very short time, they established their autonomous state and a strong military presence.
In the next 30 to 40 years, a lot of interesting things started happening in Syria and around the Middle East. A lot of worthless ideas like Pan-Arabism/Bathism were also floating around the Middle East.
The Alawis were unwilling to see their power and influence being diminished by democracy since democracy would most certainly favor the Sunni Majority.
The rest of the history is pretty much predictable. The Alawis used their vastly superior powers (mostly military) to get rid of all their opponents and placed members of their own sects on the top of the chain (at helm).
The Alawis, under Hafeez al-Assad, who was a very brutal dictator, carried out unimaginable horrific acts against his own people to silence their political voice and aspiration.
The Alawis (and I shouldn't really be using this term loosely because they are not really a monolithic block) also exert their influence and took a number of measures to ensure that their religious sect would be more inline with the mainstream Islam.
In the next couple of posts, I am going to delve deeper into the Alawi sect.
The history of Alawite rise to power in Syria is quite interesting. It started in the early nineteen century when the French was occupying Syria.
The majority of the Syrian (Sunni Muslim) were against the French. Alawis, who were treated as the second class citizen by the Sunnis, saw a bright future for themselves and perhaps an opportunity to get rid of their leper-like-status among the Syrians.
They formed a strong alliance with French, and in return, the French provided moral and material support to the Alawis. And in a very short time, they established their autonomous state and a strong military presence.
In the next 30 to 40 years, a lot of interesting things started happening in Syria and around the Middle East. A lot of worthless ideas like Pan-Arabism/Bathism were also floating around the Middle East.
The Alawis were unwilling to see their power and influence being diminished by democracy since democracy would most certainly favor the Sunni Majority.
The rest of the history is pretty much predictable. The Alawis used their vastly superior powers (mostly military) to get rid of all their opponents and placed members of their own sects on the top of the chain (at helm).
The Alawis, under Hafeez al-Assad, who was a very brutal dictator, carried out unimaginable horrific acts against his own people to silence their political voice and aspiration.
The Alawis (and I shouldn't really be using this term loosely because they are not really a monolithic block) also exert their influence and took a number of measures to ensure that their religious sect would be more inline with the mainstream Islam.
In the next couple of posts, I am going to delve deeper into the Alawi sect.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Discovery of a Higgslike Particle
Too soon to tell but this was the news yesterday
The researchers at CERN discovered Higgslike Particle (or the God Particle)
According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson is the only manifestation of an invisible force field, a cosmic molasses that permeates space and imbues elementary particles with mass. Particles wading through the field gain heft the way a bill going through Congress attracts riders and amendments, becoming ever more ponderous.
Without the Higgs field, as it is known, or something like it, all elementary forms of matter would zoom around at the speed of light, flowing through our hands like moonlight. There would be neither atoms nor life.
Ten things you may want to know about Higgs Boson
The researchers at CERN discovered Higgslike Particle (or the God Particle)
According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson is the only manifestation of an invisible force field, a cosmic molasses that permeates space and imbues elementary particles with mass. Particles wading through the field gain heft the way a bill going through Congress attracts riders and amendments, becoming ever more ponderous.
Without the Higgs field, as it is known, or something like it, all elementary forms of matter would zoom around at the speed of light, flowing through our hands like moonlight. There would be neither atoms nor life.
Ten things you may want to know about Higgs Boson
7. Standard particle theory will be incomplete even if the Higgs particle is discovered.
The Higgs boson is the last undiscovered particle predicted by the Standard Model, a beautiful mathematical framework physicists use to describe the smallest bits of matter and how they interact. Experimental results have time and again validated the model's other predictions. But finding the Higgs boson would not close the book on particle physics. While the Standard Model accounts for fundamental forces such as electromagnetism and the strong nuclear force, it cannot make sense of gravity, which is disproportionately weak compared to the other forces. One possible explanation is that we experience only a fraction of the force of gravity because most of it acts in hidden extra dimensions.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Interesting Documentary about Qatar
Qatar: A tiny country asserts powerful influence
Bob Simon: I think Americans are going to be shocked about a few things here: That there are no taxes. That electricity is free. Health care is free. Education is free. Sounds like a paradise.
The work is being done by a million man army of immigrants: 94 percent of Qatar's labor force is foreign; Filipinos, Indians, Nepalese mainly - creating a home for a mere 250,000 Qataris. Paying for it? No problem. Qatar sits on top of the third largest natural gas reserves on the planet.
Those "problems" - the chaos, violence and killings throughout the Middle East are not cooling down at all - and many Arab leaders say, to a large extent, it is the emir's fault.
That's because of the television network he created 15 years ago. It's called Al Jazeera and it does something unprecedented in the Arab world. It covers the news. It's on the air 24 hours a day, broadcasts in Arabic and English and is widely considered to be the engine of the Arab Spring.
Simon: This was the first and the only network in the Arab world that was independent. Everyone else was just doing what their government told them to do.
Bin Khalifa: Of course, it caused us a lot of problem with the top people in the Arab countries.
Simon: You say that Al Jazeera created problems for some leaders in the Middle East. It created big problems. It got them overthrown.
Faisal al Qasim: We Arabs have been fond over the years of hiding our dirt under the carpet.
Faisal al Qasim is the host of one of Al Jazeera's most popular talk shows.
Al Qasim: We are here to reveal everything, to cover everything. That's why they don't like us. We are talking here about Arab governments, Arab regimes. I'm not talking about the Arab people. The Arab people love Al Jazeera.
Egyptians sure loved it last year. Thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square watched themselves and their own revolution "live" on Al Jazeera.
Al Qasim: And nobody can negate the fact that Al Jazeera played a big role in what happened in Egypt at the time.
Simon: Here at Al Jazeera, are you covering the news or do you have an agenda?
Al Qasim: What is wrong with transforming the Arab world from tyranny and despotism into a democracy? What's wrong with that? If there is an agenda, it's a very good agenda.
Bob Simon: I think Americans are going to be shocked about a few things here: That there are no taxes. That electricity is free. Health care is free. Education is free. Sounds like a paradise.
The work is being done by a million man army of immigrants: 94 percent of Qatar's labor force is foreign; Filipinos, Indians, Nepalese mainly - creating a home for a mere 250,000 Qataris. Paying for it? No problem. Qatar sits on top of the third largest natural gas reserves on the planet.
Sheik Hamid bin Jasim: Everything is free. That become, like, a part of our culture.
Sheik Hamid bin Jasim is Qatar's prime minister.
Bin Jasim: Even when the-- people died, they were-- we take care of them.
Simon: Free funerals.
Bin Jasim: Yes.
Simon: From cradle to grave--
Bin Jasim: Yes, yes.
Simon:--everything's taken care of.
Those "problems" - the chaos, violence and killings throughout the Middle East are not cooling down at all - and many Arab leaders say, to a large extent, it is the emir's fault.
That's because of the television network he created 15 years ago. It's called Al Jazeera and it does something unprecedented in the Arab world. It covers the news. It's on the air 24 hours a day, broadcasts in Arabic and English and is widely considered to be the engine of the Arab Spring.
Simon: This was the first and the only network in the Arab world that was independent. Everyone else was just doing what their government told them to do.
Bin Khalifa: Of course, it caused us a lot of problem with the top people in the Arab countries.
Simon: You say that Al Jazeera created problems for some leaders in the Middle East. It created big problems. It got them overthrown.
Faisal al Qasim: We Arabs have been fond over the years of hiding our dirt under the carpet.
Faisal al Qasim is the host of one of Al Jazeera's most popular talk shows.
Al Qasim: We are here to reveal everything, to cover everything. That's why they don't like us. We are talking here about Arab governments, Arab regimes. I'm not talking about the Arab people. The Arab people love Al Jazeera.
Egyptians sure loved it last year. Thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square watched themselves and their own revolution "live" on Al Jazeera.
Al Qasim: And nobody can negate the fact that Al Jazeera played a big role in what happened in Egypt at the time.
Simon: Here at Al Jazeera, are you covering the news or do you have an agenda?
Al Qasim: What is wrong with transforming the Arab world from tyranny and despotism into a democracy? What's wrong with that? If there is an agenda, it's a very good agenda.
Monday, July 2, 2012
I Don't Like the First Cause Argument
Wikipedia states the Kalām cosmological argument as
I know that a lot of Christians and Muslims believe in the cosmological argument but I don't really believe in it. I think it is just created by religious people to justify the existence of God.
Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence;
The universe has a beginning of its existence;
Therefore:
The universe has a cause of its existence.
I know that a lot of Christians and Muslims believe in the cosmological argument but I don't really believe in it. I think it is just created by religious people to justify the existence of God.
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