Britain has finally came to her senses

We’ve been reading a lot of news about British residents travelling to middle-east countries like Iraq and Syria to cause havoc and promote instability. A lot of them have been radicalized by Internet Mullahs who are encouraging young men to go there and fight. Women are also encouraged to join the cause (only god knows for what).

Recent news from England

Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley said arrests for suspected fanatics heading to or from Syria as well as fund-raisers are running at five times the rate of last year.

The warning came as he said “significant progress” was being made in the hunt for “Jihadi John”, the Briton who is believed to have beheaded American journalist James Foley.

Intelligence and security agencies in the UK and US are said to be close to identifying the man who was seen apparently murdering Mr Foley in a video broadcast by the terror group Islamic State.

It is believed the murder took place in Syria and had reignited concerns over the level of involvement by young British extremists in the conflict there and in Iraq as well as the risk they pose if they return.

It is estimated that at least 500 Britons have travelled to Syria to fight alongside extremists there, of who around half are thought to be from London.

In one of my post, I asked why the western governments (like France and UK) are not doing more to stem or stop these radicalized individuals. It’s as if the authorities in those (western) countries are turning blind eyes because violent/terror acts are committed in someone else’s backyard.

Perhaps, some may think that these men are doing everyone a favor by fighting Assad of Syria even though extremely brutal tactics (which are sadistic and completely against human nature) are employed against civilians and many innocents are deliberately targeted/killed in revenge.

One of the things I find lacking the most, not only in Muslim but also in western communities, is ethics. Everyone is looking after their convenience and their self-interest with no regards to greater good of humanity. And every method, no matter how unethical, is okay (halal) and can be used as long as it for our self-interest, goal and objective…

For the past three years, these same people have been committing extreme brutality against Syrians and Iraqis but the world has just started to notice it now? Did no one take note of the barbaric human-liver eating man?

If you read some of the profiles of some of the Jihadists, they all seem to be very sinful people and complete losers.

Choudhruy in 2010;he conned them (family) out of £25,000, under the false pretence of needing treatment for cancer, to go to Singapore, not once but twice for surgery. Once there, Choudhury, who was in perfect health, spent the money on prostitutes costing £200 a night, his penchant for young women revealed in text messages discovered by police. Back in Portsmouth, he resumed the habit. He went on what he called “lads’ holidays” to Morocco three times and twice more to Singapore in 2011 and 2012, while at the same time downloading lectures by extremist preachers, extolling the virtues of an Islamic caliphate. To atone for his sins, Choudhury decided to embark on a holy war.

One key figure was missing: Jaman, a former worker in a Sky customer service call centre, whose parents owned an Indian takeaway restaurant in Portsmouth. He had studied at an Islamic boarding school in London, but life in a call centre proved boring and un-demanding. In May last year, he went to Syria and began recruiting his eager friends. In messages posted on Twitter and other internet sites, he painted a romanticised version of life on the front line, boasting of a “five star jihad”.

References
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11053444/Portsmouth-jihadists-from-Primark-worker-to-enemy-of-the-state.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/11057026/Arrests-of-would-be-British-jihadis-increase-five-fold.html

Book - My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, Israeli journalist Ari Shavit

Don’t really have time to read books for leisure, but this book sounds interesting enough.

Content:

The book is based on interviews with hundreds of Israelis — Jews and Arabs — as well as his own story and family history (two of Shavit's great-grandfathers became Zionists in the late 1800s).


Shavit, a columnist for Israel's Haaretz newspaper, was born in 1957. He says serving in the Israeli army in the occupied territories left him "morally outraged" and turned him into a peace and human rights activist. But he writes that there are no simple answers in the Middle East, which is why he prides himself on challenging "both right-wing and left-wing dogmas."

"The great challenge for Israel is that there's an inherent contradiction between our values — which are basically democratic, liberal, humane values — and the brutal reality we live in,

On his generation's responsibility in Israel

I think that my grandparents' generation and my parents' generation had a difficulty in seeing the Palestinians because they were so much into this amazing revolution of creating the Jewish national home that they tended not to see the others.

I see it as my role — as my commitment and my mission, the mission of my generation — to balance the two: to keep Zionism, to maintain the Jewish state, to protect Israel, to love Israel, and yet to realize that we have done wrong to others and to try to limit that moral damage that was done and to enable the two people[s] to live, eventually, in the future, in peace after they come to terms with their dramatic and traumatized pasts.

Change of heart

When I was sent to a detention camp in Gaza in the early '90s, I was sent there as a guard, and that was probably the most traumatic experience I had as an Israeli because the fact that I found myself being a guard — serving my country by imprisoning others — was horrific for me.

I had the time there to sit in that watchtower in Gaza, to look at the beautiful Mediterranean, to see all the potential beauty of the country and what the country can be, and to see how these two people[s] — they were doing terrible things to us as terrorists, and we were doing terrible things to them, imprisoning them, occupying them, not giving them the fresh air needed to survive and live properly.

News of the week

Exciting news recently. A woman, ethnic Iranian, by the name Maryam Mirzakhani received the most prestigious award in mathematics, the Field medals or International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics.

In the long history of this award, since 1936, not even a single woman has won. So, this seems to be a rare occurrence, not only because of winning but also for proving that women are capable of pursuing mathematic, the discipline, at its highest level.

Maryam was born in Tehran in year 1977. Her undergraduate is from Sharif technology university and her Ph.D. in 2004 from Harvard University. She’s currently a professor at Stanford.

Guardian website has a story of how she became interested in mathematic.

Her success can be summed in following points, briefly:

• Interest and curiosity
• Having supportive parents
• Necessary background or fundamentals at a young age
• Realize what is still lacking within you
• Having the opportunity to pursue your interest and a complete freedom to dedicate your time and energy towards your passion
• ..move to a western country or to a nation that has a history of winning international awards?

References
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-08-13/maryam-mirzakhani-and-fields-medal-how-to-do-math-like-a-genius
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13930522000799
http://www.mathunion.org/fileadmin/IMU/Prizes/2014/news_release_mirzakhani.pdf

Islamist schizophrenic or a pretender?

Recently, a western psychiatrist made the claim that Religious Fundamentalism is a Mental Disorder. By this if someone become influenced by Islamic extremism then that is a mental disorder just like any other disorder.

I felt that the idea was interesting enough to be pursued and made a post on my blog. However, I was also doubtful if these sorts of statements (someone’s mental state) can even be evaluated or validated objectively especially when you don’t have access to that person as a patient or his/her medical record.

Islamic teaching (at least the ancient form of it) only recognizes schizophrenia, mainly because the signs from people afflicted by it were clear enough and recognizable. We have rules and regulations on how to deal with schizophrenics and societal expectation of them. Islamic literatures also contain stories about a number of pretenders who had to fake their mental state in order to avoid severe punishment for having opinions that were against the conventional wisdom of the time.

Information about the brain and how it’s wired was not available back then and still not available in many of the Muslim communities because a lot of people are still living a very basic and primitive life. Hence people are mostly not aware that mental disorder can span a whole big spectrum

Secondly, it’s not easy for lay person to deal with mental issues (if he is suffering from it or has family members affected by it) because it requires expertise not available to most of us hence this area should be deal professionally (or in a professional manner by well trained professionals).

So, far I’ve noticed that even in western countries people don’t really get the help they need when they need until it’s too late. In Muslim society, sometimes a lot of people who are suffering from mental disorders or depressions have been crudely ‘misdiagnosed’ as suffering from a possession (usually by Jinns).


I was reading this news: Australian jihadist who posted decapitated head image is 'paranoid schizophrenic'


I’m quoting the relevant parts (or what I find interesting) here:

An Australian Islamist who proudly published a photo of his seven-year-old son holding a severed head in Syria is – according to psychiatrists who treated him – a paranoid schizophrenic who has hallucinated for years.

Days after he was widely described in Australia as "a lunatic", convicted terrorist Khaled Sharrouf was confirmed as a paranoid, schizophrenic depressive who has suffered mental illness since the 1990s by Dr Olav Nielssen, a leading Australian psychiatrist.

Following Dr Nielssen's assessment, a court sentenced Sharrouf to four years in prison and concluded his condition "predicated him towards
extremism and radicalisation by others".

Sharrouf, 33, a high-school dropout and former drug user, posted a photograph on Twitter of his son in northern Syria which was described by United States secretary of state John Kerry this week as one of the worst, most stomach-turning photos the world had ever seen.

Justice Anthony Whealy, the former Supreme Court judge who sentenced Sharrouf, said this week that the former defendant was "very" mentally ill and was unable to understand the court proceedings.

"His symptoms were quite severe, he was quite delusional," he told ABC News.

"He was overheard talking to other people when no one was there. This was observed on quite a few occasions and it was a state of mind that persisted for some time. He was unfit to plead and that means in legal terms that he was simply incapable of understanding what the court case would be about."

I’d really like to read more on this topic in the future. Some of the questions I have so far are

• Does Islamic radicalism/extremism attract people who have mental disorders?
• Does any form of radicalism/extremism make you lose your sanity (because we know that not all radicals are Muslim)
• The allegation in the newspaper was that this man already had a prior mental health situation and incarceration only made it worse. Did his lower functioning mental state made him embrace ideas (pushed by Islamic radicals)?
• Can we say that folks like us who are not interested in silly radicals’ ideas are at least very stable mentally?
• The judge dismissed the claim that somehow this man got away from the law system by pretending to be a mentally insane individual. Is the judge mistaken and is now trying to save himself or is the law system designed to let the criminals and the criminally insane walk away freely?

Reference
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/11036230/Australian-jihadist-who-posted-decapitated-head-image-is-paranoid-schizophrenic.html

Egypt doesn’t get enough air time or attention

Really bad things are happening in the world. And the Medias are keeping us very well informed to these events so we continue to lose our faith in the humanity because you know how we all are attracted to negativity; like bees to flowers.

Egypt with her population over 80.7 million is one of the largest countries in the Arab world/Africa/Asia having over 90% of the population being Muslim. Two other countries similar in size (population and religious composition) are Turkey (74 million) and Iran (76.5 million).

Yesterday, Iran’s president said something very boring. It was so unremarkable that I can’t even recall what it is exactly. However it made the headline around the world. Hassan Rohani, Iran’s president is getting way too much publicity …like some Hollywood celebrity. Since Rohani doesn’t have a clown-like personality similar to his predecessor, Mr Ahmadinejad (Iran’s ex-President) and is not prone to silly outbursts, you’d think we wouldn’t be forced to read insignificant news from Iran…


Real crazy stuff is going on in Egypt. Western media have not been paying enough attention to it. Today is one-year-anniversary of one of the most brutal day you could imagine.

It was the day Egypt's security forces used automatic weapons, armored personal carriers and military bulldozers to raid and crush a month long sit-in protest by thousands of supporters of former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy.

According to a yearlong Human Rights Watch investigation released this week, at least 817 people were killed.

The rights group called it "one of the world's largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history."

Remember Neda Soltan the Iranian girl who was shot to death in a protest which caused a massive outrage in the world?


This is equivalent to 800 Neda Soltans who died in a single day. Sadly not enough outrage was shown as much as when Neda Soltan was killed.

Let’s have a moment of silence to those who lost their life needlessly.

Reference
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/14/world/meast/egypt-sayah-rabaa-anniversary/

Yezidi sect in Iraq is in danger of being wiped out

Iraq is the home of the largest population of Yezidi (Yazidi) sect. Sadly, they are now in danger of being wiped out by the Islamic State terrorists (ISIS).

Yezidi is a very secretive ancient/pre-Islamic religion. Some have claimed that Yezidi’s sect is a remnant of the old Zoroastrian religion because of some similarity in belief between the two faiths. Others have claimed that Yezidi is a syncretic religion (mixture of Pagan/Animism, Christianity and Islam).

A couple of days ago, we read the news of an ISIS attack on a Yezidi village. The ISIS fighters killed many Yezidis, took a few hundred female as slaves and threaten to slaughter more if the rest of the population doesn’t abandon their devil worshipping cult and embrace the Islamic faith. ISIS also gave a similar ultimatum to the Christians of Iraq.

The Yezidi population fled to the mountainous region of Sinjar, their historical homeland.


This situation was soo alarming that even the President of the United States, Mr Obama, felt that the recent crisis in Iraq (ISIS inflected) has reached a critical stage and that the US need to step up their game in Iraq. The US is sending weapons (possibly to the Kurds if not a direct military intervention) and also humanitarian aid to the people (Yezidi and the Christians) who are trapped in this conflict.

In the book The Cult of the Peacock Angel By R.H. Woolnough Empson, Yezidi not only is connected to ancient religion of Iran but also to ancient Iraqi religion.

Zoroastrianism had undergone numerous and sometimes almost incompatible changes before Yezidism came into existence. There are, however, several points in which Yezidi ideas approach the old Zoroastrian. Thus, there is a tradition that the term Yezidi represents Yazdan, the Good Spirit, as opposed to Ahriman the Evil Spirit. It may be noted, too, here that it has been said that among the Zoroastrian Parsees of India Yezid Farfar is the Evil Spirit. In modern Persian both Yazd and Yazdan are used as terms for God, and Yazd Farfar are used as terms for God, and…

Other reminiscences of Zoroastrianism among the Yezidis are the clear persistence among them of Dualist principles, as shown in the rival Spirits of Good and Evil with equal powers, and in the worship of Fire, besides others already noticed.


It may be mentioned also that, like the Zoroastrian Parsees, the Yezidis do not admit converts from other religions, but this exclusiveness was far from being an attribute of the older Zoroastrianism, which was a vigorous missionary religion.

Among the later Zoroastrians generally, ritualism especially that connected with magic became all powerful. And it is to be observed that some of the Yezidi village sheikhs or head men claim magic powers.

Zoroastrian objection to the burial of corpses, because their presence in the earth would pollute it, seems to survive in the Yezidi custom of not allowing earth to touch the corpse as it is laid in the grave for munkir/nakir to descend from heaven to examine it.

There is another interesting point in this connection which seems to have its origin in the old Zoroastrianism. Wood is collected in large quantities at the shrine of ‘Adi to be burn at the annual sacrifice of a sacred white bull to the Sun-god Shamsu’ddin. There is also, as has been already noticed, a ceremony of the capture of a white bull at certain festivals. A white sheet (kifri) is used to wrap the corpse at funerals, a widow must wear white clothing, and white as a colour is held in much esteem.

Under the Sabean Tradition: Yezid ibn Abi Anisa, a heterodox Sabean leader, is believed by some, without much reason, to have been the founder of the Yezidis, who was looked on as his companions. This tradition is, however, more than doubtful, as that great authority ibn-Hazm of Cordova (994-1027) calls the leader in question Zaid ibn Ubaissa, but it may be noted that ibn-Hazm’s father, who was a high official, claimed descent (perhaps apocryphally) from a Persian, Yezid ibn Abi Sufian. Historically, Yezid ibn Abi Anisa founded a sect called Yezidiyas, which does not appear to have been in any way connected with the Yezidis. But he was a Khariji, who were, if anything, orthodox puritan Muhammadans, as are their modern representatives the Ibadiyas (Abadiyas). The only thing that seems to give colour to the idea that he could have been the founder of the Yezidis is a statement that ‘God will send a new Quran to a prophet among the Persians, and he will found a new religion for them, divine in the same sense as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which will be no other than that of the Sabiun mentioned in the Quran. Here, however, it is clear that the Mandaeans or Christians of St John the Baptist are referred to, and they were very far indeed from being at one with the Yezidis.

Nevertheless, Sabean tenets may have had much to do with the religion of the Yezidis. As-Sabia/Sabaean, is a name for two distinct sects: 1) the Mandaeans or Judeo-Christians of Mesopotamia, who were Baptists and known as Christians of St John the Baptist 2) The Sabaens of Harran (Carrhoe) who were Ghulat or Extremists, and largely pagan, but for political reasons they, too adopted baptism, and they had an important literature in Syriac. The as-Sabiun of the Quran were Mandaeans, but it is the creed of the Sabaeans of Harran that might well have been absorbed, in part at any rate, by the Yezidis among whom baptism is a prominent rite. .. The Sabeans of Harran disappeared about 1033.

As-Sharastani classes them among those who admit spiritual substances (ar-Ruhaniyun) especially the great astral spirits. They recognize as their first teachers two philosopher prophets, adhimun(agathodaemon = the good spirit) and Hermes who have been identified with Seth and Idris respectively. Orgheus was also one of the prophets. They believe in a creator of the world, wise holy, not produced and of inaccessible majesty who is reached through the intermediary of the spirits. The latter are pure and holy in substance, in act and state as regards their nature they have nothing corporeal neither physical faculties, nor movements in place, not changes in time. They are our masters, our gods, our intercessors with the sovereign lord. By purifying the soul and chastising the passions one enters into relations with them. As to their activities, they produce renew and change things from state to state.

This is the snippet from the book (mentioned in the reference below) pertaining to the Yezidi and its connection to other ancient religions. You may also read my other posts about the Yezidi sect by clicking on the label on the right side of the blog under the heading research into other sects/religion (Yezidi).


References
The Cult of the Peacock Angel By R.H. Woolnough Empson

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/09/yazidis-iraq-refugees-isis
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28756544

Pre-Islamic Pagan of Arabia

The following page entitled Ancient Forms of {Pre-Islamic} Pagan Worship has a summary of what people used to believe.

The five pre-Islamic pagan deities are mentioned by name: Wadd, Suwâ`, Yagûth, Ya`ûq and Nasr.

The quran also mentioned pre-Islamic goddesses: Lât, `Uzzâ, and Manât.

The website also stated that the pre-Islamic Arabs borrowed some Gods from neighboring religious cults.

It is not clear whether these names are to be connected with true Arabic verbal roots or are merely Arabicised forms of names derived from foreign cults, such as those of Babylonia or Assyria, the region of Noah's Flood.

It may be noted that the five names of deities mentioned here to represent very ancient religious cults are well-chosen. They are not the names of the deities best known in Mecca, but rather those which survived as fragments of very ancient cults among the outlying tribes of Arabia, which were influenced by the cults of Mesopotamia (Noah's country). The Pagan deities best known in the Ka`ba and round about Mecca were Lât, `Uzzâ, and Manât. (Manât was also known round Yathrib, which afterwards became Medina.) See liii. 19-20. They were all female goddesses. Lât almost certainly represents another wave of sun-worship: the sun being feminine in Arabic and in Semitic languages generally. "Lât" may be the original of the Greek "Leto", the mother of Apollo the sun-god (Encyclopædia of Islam, I., p. 380). If so, the name was brought in prehistoric times from South Arabia by the great Incense Route (n. 3816 to xxxiv. 18) to the Mediterranean. `Uzzâ probably represents the planet Venus. The origin of Manât is not quite clear, but it would not be surprising if it also turned out to be astral. The 360 idols established by the Pagans in the Ka`ba probably represented the 360 days of an inaccurate solar year. This was the actual "modern" Pagan worship as known to the Quraish contemporary with our Prophet. In sharp contrast to this is mentioned the ancient antediluvian worship under five heads, of which fragments persisted in outlying places, as they still persist in different forms and under different names in all parts of the world where the pure worship of God in unity and truth is not firmly established in the minds and hearts of men.

References: The classical work on Arabian idol-worship is Ibn al-Kalbi's Kitrâb-ul-asnâm, of the late second century of the Hijra. The book is not easily accessible. Our doctors of religion have evinced no interest in the study of ancient cults, or in comparative religion, and most of them had not before them the results of modern archæology.

Reference
[1] http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/pip.htm

Your daughters are no longer safe

Police in Spain arrested two young ladies that were going off to join the Islamic State militants.

(Reuters) - Two young Spanish women, one of them under 18, have been arrested in the Spanish North African enclave of Melilla on suspicion of trying to join an Islamic State militant cell in the Middle East, the Interior Ministry said on Monday. The women were detained on Saturday trying to cross from Melilla into Morocco, where they planned to make contact with a network that would transport them to conflict zones in Iraq or Syria, the ministry said. The older one was 19. The younger one was not identified but media reports said she could be as young as 14.


Thousands of young people have set off from European countries to join Islamist rebels fighting in Syria, often finding recruitment agents through social media.

Teenage girls are no longer safe even in their home as too many weirdoes on Internet are trying to lure them away from their family.

Reference
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/04/us-spain-security-jihadists-idUSKBN0G41FL20140804

Women should not laugh out loud

Turkey, in the recent time, has been going through an interesting ‘Islamic’ phase where more people are turning into ‘practicing’ Muslim. The rise of Turkey’s Islamification coincides with the 2002 landslide victory of the AKP party of Turkey. I remembered that back then some folks blamed corruption, harsh implementation of secularism, lack of religious freedom and the repeat failures to gain entry into the white Christian club (European Union) as the cause of why many Turks were simply fed-up with existing political parties and were even willing to try something new.

The Turkish AKP political party seems to want to represent all Turks using modern democratic principles with progressive policies while at the same time wants to be an ‘Islamic’ party with traditional Islamic ideology and way of life to many of her followers. As expected these two systems don’t really work very well together.

Recently, one of the high ranking politicians from the Islamic party (AKP) had this to say

Bulent Arinc, speaking at a ceremony to mark Eid - celebrating the end of Ramadan- urged Turkish women to abide by a rigorous code - and know what is "haram," or forbidden. "A woman will know what is haram and not haram," he said. "She will not laugh out loud in public. She will not be inviting in her attitudes and will protect her chasteness."

Turkey had the most progressive rights for Muslim women vs anywhere else in the world. Turkish women had almost all the rights that a male in her country would have. They were not required to be obedient to their father, grandfather/brothers or husband (the male hierarchy in the family) unless they themselves wish to. They were not restricted from pursuing any career of interest. They were not required to refer to ancient Islamic literatures or read up books written by Mullahs about women rights and proper behavior. They were also not restricted socially in any form (not requiring male companion for traveling or be fully covered from head to toe) or forced to stay away from participating in social arena. So, being born a female didn’t put them at a disadvantaged position. So naturally, after many years of no one telling these women how they should behave or conduct themselves in public, we now have a guy who is trying to reset the clock on feminism and naturally women didn’t like that. So, he’s being ridiculed publicly.

First off, based on most authentic sources, what the guy is saying about how a good Muslim woman should behave (not laughing loudly) is firmly established in the Islamic teaching. The most common (logical) reason provided is that if you laugh to loudly then a pervert will fall in love with you so it’s for your own safety. This regulation is not just single women but also for married women (all women in general).

I don’t really agree with this approach that your life should be entirely focused on what a pervert think about you. You should do what is sensible to you. Besides, laughing is not something you can control or have a good control on. It’s one of the most natural human expressions like sneezing, crying or feeling sad and not everyone is acting out when they display that sort of emotions. And most societies have rules that punish the ‘perverts’ without victimizing the victims.

Islamists generally have a tendency to equate women as Satan’s Weapon of Mass Misguidance. Women have to be covered up properly and strictly and she has to watch her behaviors at all time so she doesn’t become a loose woman whose only mission in life is to orchestrate the downfall of men. You can even find this thinly veiled attack on women in the politician statement.

Now on Internet, everyone is lol, at him and not with him.

His comments were widely ridiculed, with Instagram, Facebook and Twitter ablaze with pictures of women laughing and the hashtag, #direnkahkaha (ignore him - laugh) was born.

The politician dig himself further when he was defending his remark with more derogatory comments … about how women like to have affairs when they have perfectly good husbands at home … obviously it never occurred to this man that there’s also another guy involve here who is perhaps just as much to be blame as the woman. The Islamists don’t see that. They always see everything as a one-sided affair where men are being victimized by women and not the other way around.

Reference

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/11005428/Emma-Watson-joins-protest-against-Turkish-politicians-claim-women-should-not-laugh-out-loud.html