Jermaine prays for Michael

Written by Islamic Times
Sunday, 11 February 2007

Jermaine Jackson, also known as Abdul Aziz emerged from the Celebrity Big Brother house in January, and in one of the first interviews he gave, he said he prays his brother, Michael Jackson will convert to Islam.

Jermaine who lives between Bahrain and Dubai said he believes his brother has given it serious thought after Michael joined his brother to live in the Middle East. “Michael, I feel, needs to become a Muslim because I think it’s a great protection for him from all the things that he’s been attacked with, which are false,”

“There’s a strength and protection there,” “I was the reason why he had gone there, I wanted him to get out of America and just go somewhere where it’s peaceful and quiet and people pray five times a day which is beautiful.”

Jermaine Jackson said his faith helped keep him sane in the enclosed confines of the reality TV programme where the contestants were kept within the compounds of the big brother house and were under 24-hour surveillance. “If I didn’t have Allah and my prayer rug, I would not have survived. It kept me focused, it kept me calm.” he said.

Khalid Mish'al - The Guardian

An interesting article from the Guardian newspaper:

Our Unity Can Now Pave The Way For Peace And Justice
The Mecca agreement gives the west the chance to break with its policy of blackmail and recognise Palestinian rights

Khalid Mish'al Tuesday February 13, 2007 The Guardian

A historic new phase in the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence has begun. Last week's Mecca agreement between Hamas and Fatah will pave the way for the first ever truly Palestinian national unity government. Hamas and Fatah, joined by all the other Palestinian factions, will now seek to rebuild Palestinian society following the destruction brought upon it by Israeli occupation and resume the campaign for our national rights.

We are determined to make sure that the recent internal fighting, which appalled our people and dismayed their supporters around the world, becomes history. We firmly believe that it would never have happened had it not been for foreign intervention and the brutal sanctions imposed on our people by Israel and its allies. The crisis would not have existed had international and regional powers respected the results of last year's democratic elections in Palestine.

The Mecca agreement has laid the foundations for a power-sharing process that will produce a functioning government capable of attending to our people's needs. It will also pave the way for rebuilding the PLO to include all the factions and become the legitimate representative of all Palestinian people. The partnership born out of the Mecca meeting is possible because of the consensus among the Palestinians that their primary objective is to win their freedom, and that their struggle should be solely against occupation. It is now up to the international community to respect this accord and the will of the Palestinian people.

We Palestinians have been the victims of invasion, occupation and oppression for almost a century. Yet we have been constantly blackmailed to make concessions and give up yet more of our legitimate rights. Since the elections of January 2006 our people have been boycotted and punished by the international community for exercising their democratic rights. In the meantime, Israel has continued to kill and detain Palestinians on a daily basis, demolishing hundreds of houses and making thousands homeless.

Today Israel has more than 11,000 of our brothers and sisters in jail and continues to deny millions of refugees the right to return to their homeland. It has defied international law by proceeding with the construction of the apartheid wall and building settlements on land expropriated from Palestinians. Meanwhile, excavation resumed last week in the compound of al-Aqsa mosque, and on Friday the mosque, to which access is denied to Palestinians below the age of 45, was invaded by Israeli troops who wounded scores of worshippers.

Now that Hamas and Fatah have agreed to form a national unity government, the international community has no excuse to maintain the siege against our people. We know that many governments around the world are unhappy with these sanctions and want to see an end to them. The Palestinian national accord achieved in Mecca envisages the establishment of a truly sovereign and independent Palestinian state on the territories occupied by Israel in June 1967 - with Jerusalem as its capital, the dismantling of the settlements in the West Bank, the release of all Palestinian prisoners and the acknowledgement of the right of the refugees to return to their homes.

Once translated into reality, this vision will pave the way for real peace in the region. There must be no more blackmail of Palestinians, for there is nothing else they can give away. Global powers should have learned by now that neither sanctions nor any other form of pressure or bribery will force the Palestinians to abandon their struggle for freedom and independence.

All previous peace proposals have failed because they were intended to impose an unjust pro-Israel settlement on our people, and were based on the assumption that the Palestinian struggle was a form of terrorism that the Palestinians had to renounce. The attempt to divide Palestinians into moderates and extremists or peacemakers and terrorists has failed. Now we are united in our determination to seek an end to oppression and occupation.

So, will the international community seize this historic opportunity, require Israel to respect our rights and stop hindering this attempt to turn the Palestinian national agreement into a reality? Or will it remain weak and ineffective in the face of Israeli intransigence and risk alienating not only Hamas but also Fatah and all the other Palestinian factions?

If the latter is the choice, the outcome will be dire indeed: the entire Middle East region will be driven towards another cycle of bloody escalation that may last for many years to come - and an entire Palestinian generation, which might not be willing to accept what we accept today, will be left profoundly embittered.

The west needs to wake up and realise that time is no longer on the side of Israel and its policies of occupation, destruction and expansion. Time no longer favours the continuation of policies biased towards Israel. It will not serve the best interests of the west to support Israel while it continues to terrorise our people, occupy our land, violate our basic human and national rights and encroach on Muslim and Christian holy places. Such blind support has proven to be very costly for the west and will increasingly damage its vital interests.

It must be understood by all that the people of Palestine have the key to both peace and war in the Middle East. There can never be peace and stability in the region without settling the Palestinian question. And that can only be achieved by ending the occupation and recognising our people's rights.

Khalid Mish'al is head of the Hamas political bureau
khmishal@gmail.com

Yvonne Ridley Talk in Audio

"Are You A Terrorist?" with Dr Azzam Tamimi and Yvonne Ridley

Monday 12th February 2007

Link to Audio Download

NB: You will need to enter the code shown and then click Submit and wait 30 seconds before getting the download link

The recording is approx. 40 minutes in duration. Unfortunately, I missed out the Q&A session at the end due to memory running out (on my mobile phone).

Sheikh Ziaullah Khan Video

Click Here for Link to Video page

Daily Recitations

Click to open PDF

The Lion Proclaims Allah

The lion makes short ablution and says the name of Allah! Thousand visitors of a zoo in city Baku became witnesses of this miracle. The inspector of the zoo said, that the Lion was brought from Iran in 1999.

Punishment in the Grave

The Effect of Belief in Punishment in the Grave on the Life of a Believer

The Underlying Problem

Here we go again, the streets of Birmingham are full of chaos, uncertainty and frustration. An alleged plot to behead a member of the British Army has been foiled by intelligence workers. Some of us feel sorry for the British Muslim member of the army, who had been serving in Afghanistan, protecting the nation from an evil eye. Others would argue that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan causes the death of several human beings everyday, therefore anyone who is responsible should be killed (not beheaded). Personally, I don't think that such plots will achieve anything because such acts are sickening and will not give birth to peace and harmony. One could say the same about most other forms of terrorism, e.g. suicide bombings and car bombs.

But then that makes me think, how can we help our fellow human beings in Iraq and Afghanistan from the situation that they have been put into? Peaceful marching? Violent protests? Well, none of these have had much of an effect as yet. How can we save the next 5-year old kid from being bombed to bits like thousands of others?

I don't have the answer because just like many others, I am helpless, I can't do anything to stop Britain and USA (in terms of their evil foreign policy). But is it ok to simply turn a blind eye to what is happening as the result of the decisions of a few politicians? The image of Britain is being ruined, it is up to the British people to do something about it. Despite living in a democracy, we are afraid of saying the truth because of the possible consequences.

Other than that, I came across a blog article which was titled, 'Muslims are not paranoid - everyone does really hate them'. My response is as follows:

My dear friend, you stop the British and American forces from killing innocent people in massive numbers and over several years (wiping out nations - Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon), and then we talk about peace. How can we stop the West from committing such crimes? By negociating with people whose hands are covered in blood? We want peace as much as you do, but won’t let you have it unless you let us have it.

It seems obvious to me that the underlying problem is British foreign policy. By arresting a few angry and frustrated individuals you are not going to solve the problem, you need to look at the bigger picture. Muslims are not targeting the West because people have a different lifestyle (as the media wants you to believe), but because the West is actively killing on a large scale day after day, as if it is some kind of natural process. Then when we get any form of retaliation, we respond in shock and label it as terrorism?