When bigots talk sensibly

Krauthammer is an unabashed card carrying neocon. And the Pope is far from being an intellectual historian but Islamists are such a pathetic bunch of idiots that even the Pope and Krauthumer appear to be men of Englightenment in comparison . As I say sometimes, Islamist zealots make even Jerry Falwell look like Jerry Springer. :)


Islam is a religion of peace and if you disagree, we will kill you!! Ah, with "friends" like these, who needs enemies. See Krauthammer's Charles Krauthammer
Friday, September 22, 2006; Page A17

Religious fanatics, regardless of what name they give their jealous god, invariably have one thing in common: no sense of humor. Particularly about themselves. It's hard to imagine Torquemada taking a joke well.

Today's Islamists seem to have not even a sense of irony. They fail to see the richness of the following sequence. The pope makes a reference to a 14th-century Byzantine emperor's remark about Islam imposing itself by the sword, and to protest this linking of Islam and violence:

· In the West Bank and Gaza, Muslims attack seven churches.

· In London, the ever-dependable radical Anjem Choudary tells demonstrators at Westminster Cathedral that the pope is now condemned to death.

· In Mogadishu, Somali religious leader Abubukar Hassan Malin calls on Muslims to "hunt down" the pope. The pope not being quite at hand, they do the next best thing: shoot dead, execution-style, an Italian nun who worked in a children's hospital.

"How dare you say Islam is a violent religion? I'll kill you for it" is not exactly the best way to go about refuting the charge. But of course, refuting is not the point here. The point is intimidation.
First Salman Rushdie. Then the false Newsweek report about Koran-flushing at Guantanamo Bay. Then the Danish cartoons. And now a line from a scholarly disquisition on rationalism and faith given in German at a German university by the pope.

And the intimidation succeeds: politicians bowing and scraping to the mob over the cartoons; Saturday's craven New York Times editorial telling the pope to apologize; the plague of self-censorship about anything remotely controversial about Islam -- this in a culture in which a half-naked pop star blithely stages a mock crucifixion as the highlight of her latest concert tour.
In today's world, religious sensitivity is a one-way street. The rules of the road are enforced by Islamic mobs and abjectly followed by Western media, politicians and religious leaders.

The fact is that all three monotheistic religions have in their long histories wielded the sword. The Book of Joshua is knee-deep in blood. The real Hanukkah story, so absurdly twinned (by calendric accident) with the Christian festival of peace, is about a savage insurgency and civil war.

Christianity more than matched that lurid history with the Crusades, an ecumenical blood bath that began with the slaughter of Jews in the Rhineland, a kind of preseason warm-up to the featured massacres to come against the Muslims, with the sacking of the capital of Byzantium (the Fourth Crusade) thrown in for good measure.

And Islam, of course, spread with great speed from Arabia across the Mediterranean and into Europe. It was not all benign persuasion. After all, what were Islamic armies doing at Poitiers in 732 and the gates of Vienna in 1683? Tourism?

However, the inconvenient truth is that after centuries of religious wars, Christendom long ago gave it up. It is a simple and undeniable fact that the violent purveyors of monotheistic religion today are self-proclaimed warriors for Islam who shout "God is great" as they slit the throats of infidels -- such as those of the flight crews on Sept. 11, 2001 -- and are then celebrated as heroes and martyrs.

Just one month ago, two journalists were kidnapped in Gaza and were released only after their forced conversion to Islam. Where were the protests in the Islamic world at that act -- rather than the charge -- of forced conversion?

Where is the protest over the constant stream of vilification of Christianity and Judaism issuing from the official newspapers, mosques and religious authorities of Arab nations? When Sheik 'Atiyyah Saqr issues a fatwa declaring Jews "apes and pigs"? When Sheik Abd al-Aziz Fawzan al-Fawzan, professor of Islamic law, says on Saudi TV that "someone who denies Allah, worships Christ, son of Mary, and claims that God is one-third of a trinity. . . . Don't you hate the faith of such a polytheist?"

Where are the demonstrations, where are the parliamentary resolutions, where are the demands for retraction when the Mufti Sheik Ali Gum'a incites readers of al-Ahram, the Egyptian government daily, against "the true and hideous face of the blood-suckers . . . who prepare [Passover] matzos from human blood"?

The pope gives offense and the Mujaheddin al-Shura Council in Iraq declares that it "will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose the 'jizya' [head] tax; then the only thing acceptable is conversion or the sword." This to protest the accusation that Islam might be spread by the sword.

As I said. No sense of irony.

Strange Bedfellows

Strange Bedfellows Nothing illustrates the irony of politics and political correctness better than this! Some of the world's most radical secularists acting as apologists for some of the world's most radical anti-secular theo-fascists! Strange bedfellows indeed. ==================================== http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-terrorism/left_crisis_2892.jsp They assume that groups like al-Qaida are almost entirely reactive, responding to western policies and actions, rather than being pro-active creatures with a virulent homegrown agenda, one not just of defence but of conquest, destruction of rivals, and, ultimately and at its most megalomaniacal, absolute subjugation. It misses the central point: that, unlike traditional “third-world” liberation movements looking for a bit of peace and quiet in which to nurture embryonic states, al-Qaida is classically imperialist, looking to subvert established social orders and to replace the cultural and institutional infrastructure of its enemies with a (divinely inspired) hierarchical autocracy of its own, looking to craft the next chapter of human history in its own image. Simply blaming the never quite defined, yet implicitly all-powerful “west” for the ills of the world doesn’t explain why al-Qaida slaughtered thousands of Americans eighteen months before Saddam was overthrown. Nor does it explain the psychopathic joy this death cult takes in mass killings and in ritualistic, snuff-movie-style beheadings. The term “collateral damage” may be inept, but it at least suggests that the killing of civilians in pursuit of a state’s war aims is unintentional, regrettable; there is nothing unintentional, there is no regret, in the targeting of civilians by al-Qaida’s bombers. Moreover, many of those who reflexively blame the west do not honestly hold up a mirror to the rest of the world, including the Muslim world, and the racism and sexism and anti-semitism that is rife in many parts of it. If bigotry were indeed the exclusive preserve of the west, their arguments would have greater moral force. But given the fundamentalist prejudices that are so much a part of bin Ladenism, the cry of western racism is a long way from being a case-closer. We should attend to the way bin Laden and his followers invoke “the west.” They do so alternately to describe any expansive and domineering “first world” economic and political system and, even more ominously, to demarcate a set of ostensibly decadent liberal political, cultural, social, and religious beliefs and practices. Indeed, what al-Qaida apparently hates most about “the west” are its best points: the pluralism, the rationalism, individual liberty, the emancipation of women, the openness and social dynamism that represent the strongest legacy of the Enlightenment. These values stand in counterpoint to the tyrannical social code idealised by al-Qaida and by related political groupings such as Afghanistan’s Taliban. In that sense, “the west” denotes less a geographical space than a mindset: a cultural presence or a sphere of anti-absolutist ideas that the Viennese-born philosopher Karl Popper termed the “open society.” In his day, when fascists and Stalinists held vast parts of the globe, the concept of “the west” prevailed over a smaller territory than today. But with the rise of bin Ladenism, the prevalence of this concept again is shrinking. It is because bin Ladenism is waging war against the liberal ideal that much of the activist left’s response to 11 September 2001 and the London attacks is woefully, catastrophically inadequate. For we, as progressives, need to uphold the values of pluralism, rationalism, scepticism, women’s rights, and individual liberty and oppose ideologies and movements whose foundations rest on theocracy, obscurantism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and nostalgia for a lost empire.

According to Bill Frist, US Senate Majority Leader, Taliban fighters were too numerous and too popular to be defeated. "You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government," he said. "And if that's accomplished, we'll be successful."


It seems America wants to concentrate its efforts on resource-rich Iraq and Pakistan on resource-rich Balochistan. Meanwhile, "Enlightened Moderation" and "Islamic Reformation" can be put on hold and Taliban be given trusteeship of Waziristan and parts of Afghanistan.

After 9/11, ISI and CIA have been trying to co-opt some Taliban defectors, although not without much success -and for US perspetive, it makes perfect sense. Their top prioity in Afghanistan is to clear the area of trans-national jihadists associated with Al-Qaeda. If somehow they are able to separate Shariah-enthusiasts ("conservatives") from Khilafa-enthusiasts ("radicals"), then it's anothing but a political and strategic victory for them. Although, I seriously doubt if lines are so sharp between the two groups of enthusiasts and US would be able to create (in the first place) or perpeture (in case of success) the schicsm between them.

Of course, US is in "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kinda situation. If they cozy up to "moderate" Taliban, the "anti-implerialist" crowd will blame them for being in cahoots with Islamists, linking it back to US's support for Islamists during Cold War and Afghan War. And if they get tough on Islamists, the same "anti-imperialist" crowd will make outcries about "impostion of Western values", "disrespect of indigenous cultures" blah blah blah..
The sad truth, as I see, is that both the Left and necons, as well as Muslim liberals, have grossly understimated that obscurantism has much wider constituency among the rank and file of Ummah than they seem to have imagined.

On another note, what happened to the "Great Game in Central Asia", the grand Imperialist plan of constucting oil pipelines from Central Asia to Arabian Sea. Many Pakistanis were/are convinced that Bin Laden and Alqaeda has nothing to do with 9/11 attacks and US invaded Afghanistan to occupy the natural resources of Central Asia. I wonder what they have to say about US's lukewarm attitude towards Adghanistan.

And btw, last night, I saw PBS documentary, The Return of the Taliban. Interesting watch!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/taliban/view/

Nadia Ali - First Pakistani-American electronic diva


Never heard of her before! Wonder how could a news junkie like me be unaware of her. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aiek_wW6zyk


She was member of IIO band and her songs "Rapture" and "At the end" topped dance charts in US. Now she is pursing solo career. Here is her website:

http://www.nadiaali.com/


Nice voice and great music! "Moral brigade" of Pakistan is undoubtedly going to be outraged at her skimpy outfits :) - but I'd say: More power to her.

Mind Your Language

British sitcom, “Mind your Language”, used to be one of my favorite TV show, in which people from different nationalities tried to speak English in their native accents. Okhil Babu gives a good picture of the students of Mr. Brown. Take a look at the funny letter below:

Okhil Babu's Letter to the Railway Department: (Verbatim)

"I am arrive by passenger train Ahmedpur station and my belly is too much swelling with jackfruit. I am therefore went to privy. Just I doing the nuisance that guard making whistle blow for train to go off and I am running with lotah in one hand and dhoti in the next when I am fall over and expose all my shocking to man and female women on plateform. I am got leaved at Ahmedpur station. This too much bad, if passenger go to make dung that dam guard not wait train five minutes for him. I am therefore pray your honour to make big fine on that guard for public sake. Otherwise I am making big report to papers."

Okhil Chandra Sen wrote this letter to the Sahibganj divisional railway office in 1909. It is on display at the Railway Museum in New Delhi. It was also reproduced under the caption 'Travelers' Tales' in the 'Far Eastern Economic Review'.

Any guesses why this letter is of historic value?

It apparently led to the introduction of toilets on trains.

Interesting and historic!!

In the Line of Fire... this time in real life.....

There is lot in traditional religious rulings that stands poles apart from liberal humanist values of 21st century. How can one persuade the "believers" to expunge regressive streaks of their religions? What to do when freedom of religion clashes with the values of Enlightenment? These issues merit serious consideration. All major religions (including Islam and Hinduism) face/faced these issues and I don't think there are straightforward answers.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1733357,00300001.htm

Even in "free world", there exists various pressure groups who tend to arm-twist the "undesirable" voices, but I'm not aware of any group in our times - other than Islamists - that uses voilence and death threats as a means to enforce censorship.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1887929,00.html

Never mind that Voltaire probably never said exactly what is so often attributed to him: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." That famous quotation seems to have originated in an early 20th-century paraphrase. But this was indeed the spirit of Voltaire.

The order of phrases is vital. Too many recent responses in such cases - from the Rushdie affair onward - have had this backhanded syntax: "Of course I defend his/her freedom of expression, but..." The Voltaire principle gets it the right way round: first the dissent, but then the unconditional solidarity. Now we are all called upon to play our part. The future of freedom depends on words prevailing over knives.

Good heavens! Yet another infidel has "insulted Islam" !


http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1541776,00.html

And yet again, we are to witness the sorry state of deep widespread intellectual immaturity of "defenders of Islam" who consider death threat to be a convincing counter-argument. Sigh!

Sounds interesting! Would love to watch the movie:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/03/AR2006100300195.html

Hollywood casts Indian actor as Pakistani leader

By Prithwish GangulyReutersTuesday, October 3, 2006; 5:27 AM
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A veteran Indian actor has been chosen to play Pakistan's former military ruler, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, in a Hollywood production about the CIA's role in arming Mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan.

Bollywood actor Om Puri, known for playing strong, serious characters, said he had been cast in Universal Pictures' "Charlie Wilson's War" alongside Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.
The film, based on a book of the same name, revolves around Charlie Wilson, a charismatic, wheeler-dealer Texas Congressman, played by Hanks.

Wilson teams up with a rogue CIA agent to manipulate U.S. Congress, the CIA and a host of foreign governments in a covert operation.

"The film discusses the entire political scenario of the time," 56-year-old Puri told Reuters.
"I appear as a well-settled Pakistani President who strikes a deal with the Americans that money and arms to the Afghans must flow through his country," said Puri, adding that he loved the character of Zia.

Zia ruled Pakistan from 1977, when he took power in a bloodless military coup, until 1988 when he died in a still unexplained plane crash.

His reign witnessed the enforcement of strict Islamic law in the country and was instrumental in providing U.S.-backed military aid to the Afghan resistance against the Soviet occupation.
Puri has starred in several Hollywood productions in the past, including "Gandhi," "City of Joy," "East is East" and "The Ghost and The Darkness" in a career spanning about 30 years.
"Charlie Wilson's War" is directed by Mike Nichols, who made "The Birdcage" and "Closer," and also stars Julia Roberts who plays Wilson's aide.

The movie is slated for release next year and Puri said he was looking forward to working with Hanks and Roberts in locations such as Morocco later this month.

"Most of my scenes are with them. I expect to have a wonderful time with them as they are very talented professionals," he said.

"Islam and science – unhappy bedfellows", an excellent article by MIT-trained Pakistani physicist, Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy.

http://www.globalagendamagazine.com/2006/Hoodbhoy.asp


These attempts to seek scientific justification for religious beliefs remind me of Procrustes. Procrustes is a robber in Greek mythology who forced his victims to lie on a very long bed and then stretchedthem to fit it. He also had a very short bed and to make the victimfit this, he would simply cut off their legs. The aim in both cases was to make the victim "fit the bed".

The so-called "religious scientists" adopt same kind of strategy in their discourses. They will *DELIBERATELY* pick up certain passages from their holy books which -- with a certain effort ofhair-splitting and verbal manipulation -- can be proven confirmed by science. But that's not the end of the story. These very same"scientists" *DELIBERATELY* put to back burner those other passages in their holy books which have been contradicted by science.

This game of *DELIBERATELY* putting forward "scientifically correct"passages and *DELIBERATELY* overshadowing "scientifically incorrect"passages (to be fair, the number of "scientifically incorrect"passages is far greater than that of "scientifically correct"passages in almost every religion's holy book), and then claiming that the whole scripture is scientifically valid is nothing but agrotesque example of intellectual dishonesty.

A good research requires a dispassionate detachment from the object of study. A *professional* researcher first observes, studies,analyzes and then comes to a certain conclusion. What "religious scientists" do is that they already have a pre-determined conclusionin their minds and their whole effort is directed at collecting evidence to support their conclusion and *DELIBERATELY* ignoring the other pieces of evidence --no matter how sound and strong they are-- which contravenes their "faith-based" conclusion. And mind you, Hindus, Christians and others also have their clones of HarunYahyas and Maurice Buccais. If you go through their writings, they also appear DAMNED convinced that their religions are scientifically valid. In India, previous BJP government had launched a vigiourous drive to introduce "Vedic" science, mathematics and astronomy inIndian universities but Indian academics, to their eternal credit,vehemently opposed this attempt of intellectually forgery.

The mental attitudes of religion and science are not just different but mutually hostile. Religion is based on faith i.e accepting something without doubt and question. While science requires constant doubting and questioning. Scientists never claims that a certain theory is *true*, but "given the evidence we have, this theory seems most acceptable and if we get stronger evidence in support ofanother theory, we will embrace that and abandon what's in voguetoday". Science is humble enough and confident enough to confess that it *can be* mistaken and there is always a room for rectification and improvement. If religion allows such kind of intrsocpetion, it would vanish away in moments. Try refuting a religious belief with a sound evidence; the maximum"reward" will be a fatwa on your head. On the other hand, tryrefuting a scientific theory with a sound evidence; the maximum"penalty" will be --- what they call -- Nobel Prize.

Some beautiful pictures of my homeland. Take a look!

http://beautifulpakistan.com

Problem of being anti-status quo

In my opinion, in most of the Muslim countries, the worst problem is not the status quo but that the only viable anti-status quo force there are the Islamists. Sadly, it also suits the "enlightened moderate" rulers of Muslim world who have left no stone unturned to weaken the secular opposition to prove their credentials as the sole only antidote to radical Islam.

Some extracts from the article below. The article(http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/3044) is worth reading in spite of the author.

Fascism is most effectively fought through an extension of liberties, the creation and/or strengthening of political institutions. There can be no compromise with fascism, no give and take, no quest for consensus. Those who think they can ally themselves with fascism to win power against a regime that they do not like, have not heard the proverb about falling from the frying pan into the fire. Many of the intellectuals that the Shah used to put in detention for brief periods were shot, jailed or driven into exile by Khomeini despite the fact that they had signed the "devil's pact" with him or, may be, because they had. They did not realise, or did not wish to realise, that freedom, democracy and human rights are incompatible with fascism. They fought a regime that they disliked, rightly or wrongly, by supporting a movement which they should have disliked even more intensely. They did not realise that those who use religion as their stock-in-trade cannot offer pluralism and democracy even if they tried. The ayatollah, the Pope, the Hindu gurus or the Dalai Lama have no freedom and democracy to offer.

The first lesson that Muslim intellectuals must learn from the Iranian experience is that that ought to be themselves. They should not abandon their core political beliefs to forge an alliance with the fascists. Today, most regimes in the Muslim world are corrupt and despotic and, thus, must be fought as enemies of their people. But one must always fight them from positions that are more human, more progressive and more democratic than those of the regime in place. To try and bring down a bad regime only to replace it with something much worse is a costly error that I hope will not be repeated by intellectuals in other Muslim countries.

There are some conflicting reports coming out about General Mahmood, ex-DG of ISI. In one report, he is described as a chicken-hearted fellow who accepted all the demands of Americans right off the bat without any ifs and buts, after 9/11. In other reports, we are told he was the Islamist zealot who gave a pat on the back of Mullah Umar to "stay firm and stand up to Crusader USA". Which version is closer to truth (or perhaps both are far from truth), perhaps we may not be able to know soon.


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\09\26\story_26-9-2006_pg7_13

People coming late in office, leaving earlier, an atmosphere of lethargy everwhere.

As things stand in Pakistan, the Holy Month looks like a "Holiday Month". Welcome to Ramadhan :)



http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005\10\13\story_13-10-2005_pg3_2

I once read somewhere that essence of all Christian teachings is"Love" and that of Islam is "Justice". And unlike "Love", "Justice"is not a matter of private relation - but that of social and legalenforcement. Hence, the Christian approval of secularism and Islamic dismissal of it. Some writers consider Christianity as "orthodox"religion (occupied with the dogma - instead of daily life matters)and Islam and Judaism as "orthoprax" religions i.e. their empahsis onoutward forms and rituals and laws. Clearly, the idea of separation ofstate and church is alien to Islam and Judaism - however, over theyears, Jews have developed a strong culture of intellectual skepticismthat has substantially watered down the "Orthodox" version of theirreligion. That's not the case with Muslims, unfortunately!In theory, both Christianity and Islam have libertarian as wellauthoritarian tendencies.
Re Christanity:

1. Render unto God what's God's and render unto Ceaser what'sCaesar's.(libertarianism)

2. Only the Holy Father has the right to interpret what is to renderedto God and Caesar (totalitarianism)

Re Islam,

1. God, not man, is the lawmaker. (totalitarianism)

2. There is no intermediary between man and God and every Muslim isfree to interpret the word of God. (libertarianism)

The devil lies in details (of practice). As remarked by Steve Sailer,if a Martian's entire knowledge of the world came from reading theBible, he would be bound to deduce, after hearing the thundering,angry voice of the Old Testament Jehovah, and reading of theconquests of Joshua, Gideon and David, followed by the gentle wordsof Christ and St. Paul, that those warlike, fighting Jews must havebeen kicking around the meek, cheek-turning Christians for the last2,000 years.

Or as someone said: "In theory, there is no difference between theoryand practice, but in practice, there is."

Land of opportunities

America is rightly called the "land of opportunities". That also includes the opportunity to play around with words. "Dating" is "matrimonial banquet" and "arranged marriage" is "assisted marriage" but "fun" is still "sin". Not a bad attempt to reconcile tradition and modernity, and get the best of the both worlds. :)



http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/us/19dating.html


September 19, 2006
It's Muslim Boy Meets Girl, but Don't Call It Dating
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

CHICAGO — So here's the thing about speed dating for Muslims.

Many American Muslims — or at least those bent on maintaining certain conservative traditions — equate anything labeled "dating" with hellfire, no matter how short a time is involved. Hence the wildly popular speed dating sessions at the largest annual Muslim conference in North America were given an entirely more respectable label. They were called the "matrimonial banquet."

"If we called it speed dating, it will end up with real dating," said Shamshad Hussain, one of the organizers, grimacing.

Both the banquet earlier this month and various related seminars underscored the difficulty that some American Muslim families face in grappling with an issue on which many prefer not to assimilate. One seminar, called "Dating," promised attendees helpful hints for "Muslim families struggling to save their children from it."

The couple of hundred people attending the dating seminar burst out laughing when Imam Muhamed Magid of the Adams Center, a collective of seven mosques in Virginia, summed up the basic instructions that Muslim American parents give their adolescent children, particularly males: "Don't talk to the Muslim girls, ever, but you are going to marry them. As for the non-Muslim girls, talk to them, but don't ever bring one home."

"These kids grew up in America, where the social norm is that it is O.K. to date, that it is O.K. to have sex before marriage," Imam Magid said in an interview. "So the kids are caught between the ideal of their parents and the openness of the culture on this issue."

The questions raised at the seminar reflected just how pained many American Muslims are by the subject. One middle-aged man wondered if there was anything he could do now that his 32-year-old son had declared his intention of marrying a (shudder) Roman Catholic. A young man asked what might be considered going too far when courting a Muslim woman.

Panelists warned that even seemingly innocuous e-mail exchanges or online dating could topple one off the Islamic path if one lacked vigilance. "All of these are traps of the Devil to pull us in and we have no idea we are even going that way," said Ameena Jandali, the moderator of the dating seminar.

Hence the need to come up with acceptable alternatives in North America, particularly for families from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, where there is a long tradition of arranged marriages.

One panelist, Yasmeen Qadri, suggested that Muslim mothers across the continent band together in an organization called "Mothers Against Dating," modeled on Mothers Against Drunk Driving. If the term "arranged marriage" is too distasteful to the next generation, she said, then perhaps the practice could be Americanized simply by renaming it "assisted marriage," just like assisted living for the elderly.

"In the United States we can play with words however we want, but we are not trying to set aside our cultural values," said Mrs. Qadri, a professor of education.

Basically, for conservative Muslims, dating is a euphemism for premarital sex. Anyone who partakes risks being considered morally louche, with their marriage prospects dimming accordingly, particularly young women.

Mrs. Qadri and other panelists see a kind of hybrid version emerging in the United States, where the young do choose their own mates, but the parents are at least partly involved in the process in something like half the cases.

Having the families involved can help reduce the divorce rate, Imam Majid said, citing a recent informal study that indicated that one third of Muslim marriages in the United States end in divorce. It was still far too high, he noted, but lower than the overall American average. Intermarriages outside Islam occur, but remain relatively rare, he said.

Scores of parents showed up at the marriage banquet to chaperone their children. Many had gone through arranged marriages — meeting the bride or groom chosen by their parents sometimes as late as their wedding day and hoping for the best. They recognize that the tradition is untenable in the United States, but still want to influence the process.
The banquet is considered one preferable alternative to going online, although that too is becoming more common. The event was unquestionably one of the big draws at the Islamic Society of North America's annual convention, which attracted thousands of Muslims to Chicago over Labor Day weekend, with many participants bemoaning the relatively small pool of eligible candidates even in large cities.

There were two banquets, with a maximum 150 men and 150 women participating each day for $55 apiece. They sat 10 per table and the men rotated every seven minutes.

At the end there was an hourlong social hour that allowed participants time to collect e-mail addresses and telephone numbers over a pasta dinner with sodas. (Given the Muslim ban on alcohol, no one could soothe jumpy nerves with a drink.) Organizers said many of the women still asked men to approach their families first. Some families accept that the couple can then meet in public, some do not.

A few years ago the organizers were forced to establish a limit of one parent per participant and bar them from the tables until the social hour because so many interfered. Parents are now corralled along one edge of the reception hall, where they alternate between craning their necks to see who their adult children are meeting or horse-trading bios, photographs and telephone numbers among themselves.

Talking to the mothers — and participants with a parent usually take a mother — is like surveying members of the varsity suddenly confined to the bleachers.

"To know someone for seven minutes is not enough," scoffed Awila Siddique, 46, convinced she was making better contacts via the other mothers.

Mrs. Siddique said her shy, 20-year-old daughter spent the hours leading up to the banquet crying that her father was forcing her to do something weird. "Back home in Pakistan, the families meet first,'' she said. "You are not marrying the guy only, but his whole family."
Samia Abbas, 59 and originally from Alexandria, Egypt, bustled out to the tables as soon as social hour was called to see whom her daughter Alia, 29, had met.

"I'm her mother so of course I'm looking for her husband," said Mrs. Abbas, ticking off the qualities she was looking for, including a good heart, handsome, as highly educated as her daughter and a good Muslim.

Did he have to be Egyptian?

"She's desperate for anyone!" laughed Alia, a vivacious technology manager for a New York firm, noting that the "Made in Egypt" stipulation had long since been cast overboard.
"Her cousin who is younger has babies now!" exclaimed the mother, dialing relatives on her cellphone to handicap potential candidates.

For doubters, organizers produced a success story, a strikingly good-looking pair of Chicago doctors who met at the banquet two years ago. Organizers boast of at least 25 marriages over the past six years.

Fatima Alim, 50, was disappointed when her son Suehaib, a 26-year-old pharmacist, did not meet anyone special on the first day. They had flown up from Houston especially for the event, and she figured chances were 50-50 that he would find a bride.

When she arrived in Texas as a 23-year-old in an arranged marriage, Mrs. Alim envied the girls around her, enthralled by their discussions about all the fun they were having with their boyfriends, she said, even if she was eventually shocked to learn how quickly they moved from one to the next and how easily they divorced. Still, she was determined that her children would chose their own spouses.

"We want a good, moderate Muslim girl, not a very, very modern girl," she said. "The family values are the one thing I like better back home. Divorces are high here because of the corruption, the intermingling with other men and other women."

For his part, Mr. Alim was resisting the strong suggestion from his parents that they switch tactics and start looking for a nice girl back in Pakistan. Many of the participants reject that approach, describing themselves as too Americanized — plus the visas required are far harder to obtain in the post-Sept. 11 world.

Mr. Alim said he still believed what he had been taught as a child, that sex outside marriage was among the gravest sins, but he wants to marry a fellow American Muslim no matter how hard she is to find.

"I think I can hold out a couple more years," he said in his soft Texas drawl with a boyish smile. "The sooner the better, but I think I can wait. By 30, hopefully, even if that is kind of late."

Few months ago, Sunday Magazine of New York Times published an article about the life and works of Juan Goytisolo, a Spanish writer who is currently based in Morocco.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/magazine/16goytisolo.html?ex=1159675200&en=afb01b16c722928f&ei=5070



I've to admit it is one of the most interesting and intellectually stimulating articles I've gone through lately. I've not read any of Goytisolo's works but would love to give him a shot.



Umar

Here's one news:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5351988.stm
"Pope Benedict XVI has said he is sorry that a speech in which he referred to Islam has offended Muslims. "

Here's a take on the Pope's stance towards Islam.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5352404.stm
Benedict XVI undoubtedly wants to achieve better relations with Islam, but there is an important proviso.

It can be summed up in a single word: reciprocity. It means that if Muslims want to enjoy religious freedom in the West, then Christians should have an equal right to follow their faith in Islamic states, without fear of persecution.



And here's another news:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5353208.stm

Security has been tightened in Rome ahead of Pope Benedict XVI's first public appearance since making comments deemed offensive by many Muslims.
............................
In the West Bank city of Nablus, two churches were firebombed on Saturday in attacks claimed by a group which said it was protesting against the Pope's remarks.

Mind boggles who is being the gratuitous offender here. As they say, actions speak louder than the words.

Muslims can be accused of being simple-minded, inward-looking and self-absorbed when they blame US and Israel for staging 9/11 attacks. But mind boggles what makes Europeans and North Americans to profess such "theories". Perhaps it's just a symptom of deep widespread distrust against the establishment .


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/07/ap/national/mainD8JBB7PG0.shtml



On the Net:

Scholars for Truth: http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/

Nat'l Institute of Standards: http://wtc.nist.gov/

Debunking Conspiracy Theories: http://www.debunking911.com/