Originally posted by LayZieGirl: Here we go again with the bashing, courtesy of NORTHERNER OFCOURSE. WELL DONE Who have i bashed? What do you think AH? Do you think she is right or wrong in what she is doing? Have you read the article? What is your take on it? etc etc,,,, A valued contribution none the less,,,,,,,

^^I still cant believe Sol left! How can you say Lehman should go after what he did for you last season? I cant even think of any decent players outside the top four. I havnt seen 10% of games this season. But i will try Given Jimbonda Quadrue Woodgate Stubbs Diouf Nicky Butt Steed Malbranque (Tony Blair's fave player) Lennon Berbatov Anelka

^^Waayo? Maxa la-isku haystaa?

Why so many people there?

^^i'm sure you have a phone saxib, every Arab has a phone

Looks like it. Waayo?

Taking the fight to Islam In 1989, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali Muslim, supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. But on moving to Europe her views changed and she turned against Islam. Two years ago she fled Holland after the brutal murder of her artistic collaborator Theo van Gogh. Who is this fierce critic who lives under the constant threat of death? Andrew Anthony Sunday February 4, 2007 The Observer Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not the only critic of Islam who lives with round-the-clock protection. But surely none wears their endangered status with greater style. The Dutch Somali human-rights campaigner looks like a fashion model and talks like a public intellectual. Tall and slender with rod-straight posture and a schoolgirl smile, she is a thinker of stunning clarity, able to express ideas in her third language with a precision that very few could achieve in their first. This combination of elegance and eloquence would be impressive in any circumstances. Under threat of death, it is nothing short of incredible. Article continues -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A little over two years ago, a second-generation Dutch Moroccan by the name of Mohammed Bouyeri sent a letter to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Aside from the destruction of Holland and Europe, Bouyeri called for the death of Hirsi Ali, whom he described as a 'fundamentalist unbeliever' and a 'soldier of evil'. His macabre method of delivering the correspondence was to impale the note in the chest of the filmmaker and outspoken maverick, Theo van Gogh, having already shot him eight times and cut his throat through to the spine. Van Gogh had made a short film with Hirsi Ali called Submission 1, in which lines from the Koran, detailing a man's right to beat his wife, were superimposed on the body of an actress portraying a victim of domestic violence. The murder took place in broad daylight during the morning rush hour in a busy Amsterdam high street. Though the letter was addressed to Hirsi Ali, it was intended for a wider audience. Its message, while incoherent and rambling, was shockingly simple: say the wrong thing about Islam and nowhere is safe for you. It was medieval justice meted out in one of the most liberal and modern cities in the world. The killer, it turned out, was part of a cell linked to a fundamentalist network that stretched across Europe. The murder of van Gogh had the unintended effect of bringing Hirsi Ali global recognition. While she was whisked away by Dutch security to an army base and on to a 'dismal motel' near an industrial estate in Massachusetts, cut off from the rest of the planet, the rest of the planet became suddenly very interested in her. The subject of numerous profiles, she was named the following year one of the '100 Most Influential People of the World' by Time magazine. In Holland, though, Hirsi Ali was already both famous and infamous. In Amsterdam a few days after the murder, I spoke to Muslims on the street about the killing. The majority blamed Hirsi Ali. 'This woman is the cause of all the problems, telling lies about Islam,' one told me. 'If she hadn't sucked van Gogh into this, he'd still be alive today.' The reason Bouyeri killed van Gogh rather than Hirsi Ali was that she was already under police protection. Two years before van Gogh's slaying, Hirsi Ali had called Islam 'backward' in a TV debate and was forced into hiding. Her subsequent media profile encouraged the Dutch Liberal Party to offer Hirsi Ali a position as an MP. She served with some distinction, focusing on issues such as domestic violence and female genital mutilation - the sort of campaigns that used to be part of frontline feminism but which had become increasingly neglected owing to multicultural sensitivities. I met Hirsi Ali at her publisher's office in central London last week. Dutch bodyguards follow her everywhere she goes, and reportedly in Britain Special Branch officers afford further protection, though neither were in evidence. She looked as sharp as a pin in a black trouser suit, even if she was jet-lagged and tired, having flown in from her new home in the United States. Last year Hirsi Ali, the most assimilated of all Dutch immigrants, was rejected by her adopted homeland twice over. Residents in her apartment block gained a court ruling, under European Human Rights law, stipulating that her presence placed her neighbours at risk, and she was duly evicted. At the same time a TV documentary alleged the MP had provided false information on her original asylum application. Hirsi Ali had admitted as much many times in interviews but nonetheless a minister in her own party decided to revoke her citizenship. In a farcical series of events, the citizenship was reinstated and the government collapsed. Meanwhile Hirsi Ali moved to Washington DC to take up a post at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank. She says she feels at home in America, a nation of immigrants. The move was only the latest, and perhaps least dramatic, in a lifetime of peripatetic reinventions. Born in Somalia to a resistance leader, she was exiled to Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya. In Nairobi she joined the Muslim Brotherhood and in 1989 she believed that Salman Rushdie should be killed for having blasphemed the prophet. How she went from devout believer to fearless opponent, from a loyal clan member to being renounced by her family, from Africa to Europe, and from blind faith to unbending reason is the compelling story she tells in her new autobiography entitled, with characteristic bluntness, Infidel Strictly speaking Hirsi Ali is not an infidel but an apostate, a designation that in the Koran warrants the punishment of death. The distinction is not without significance. In a poll published last week, one in three British Muslims in the 16-24 age group agreed that 'Muslim conversion is forbidden and punishable by death'. This figure comes as no surprise to Hirsi Ali. She argues that Europe's determination to maintain cultural difference will lead increasing numbers of alienated Muslims to seek the unambiguity of fundamentalism. Liberals, she says, have shirked the responsibility of making the case for their own beliefs. They need to start speaking out in favour of the values of secular humanism. And they need to make clear that they are not compatible with religious bigotry and superstition. 'You have to say that if you want the Prophet Muhammad to be your moral guide in the 21st century and you are aware of the choices the Prophet Muhammad made towards unbelievers, women, homosexuals, do you really think you're going to succeed? You will get into some sort of cognitive dissonance if you at the same time want to adapt to a life here.' Without an open and robust critique of the nature of the prophet's teachings, she goes on, 'these clerics proselytising radical Islam make much, much more sense. Because the radical Muslims say that democracy is bad, and the young Muslim mind says "Why is it bad?". Because the Koran says it's bad. That makes more sense than democracy is good, the rights of individuals must be observed but you can also hang on to what the Koran says. I say stop that and appeal to and challenge young minds.' When it comes to words, Hirsi Ali is not one to look for the mincer. She speaks in a language that makes no concessions to the softening euphemisms of political correctness. Those immersed in circumspection and ever vigilant to the contemporary sin of offence are bound to ask themselves if she's allowed to say what she says. In this respect her predicament is reminiscent of the moment in Basic Instinct when Sharon Stone lights a cigarette under interrogation in a police station. She's told that's it's non-smoking environment and she replies: 'So arrest me.' Hirsi Ali's life is already in jeopardy. She's long past the point of polite restraint. Some observers find her forthright approach refreshing and, indeed, intoxicating, but many recoil from her unadorned conviction. Writing in the New York Review of Books, the historian Timothy Garton Ash described Hirsi Ali as a 'slightly simplistic Enlightenment fundamentalist'. Last year when Garton Ash chaired a discussion with Hirsi Ali at the ICA, he seemed both to admire the incisiveness of her quietly spoken logic and to wince at its unshakeable conclusions. 'For him,' Hirsi Ali laughs, 'the Enlightenment is complex. For me, it isn't. There's nothing complex about it.' A student of 17th- and 18th-century political ideas, she doesn't mean that she thinks the Enlightenment was some kind of uniform philosophical movement. The simplicity, for her, is the legacy of the Enlightenment, the things we take for granted about Western sociopolitical culture: the rule of law, the rights of the individual, freedom of expression. To Hirsi Ali these are bedrock precepts that should not be compromised in the name of cultural diversity. Most of the political classes would agree with her in principle but like to take a more nuanced, and often evasive, stance in practice. She was one of the few intellectuals, for example, who rushed to support the Danes in the cartoon crisis last year. If you believe in the right of freedom of expression, she says, you have to defend that right. In a debate a few years back, Hirsi Ali challenged the Swiss Muslim academic Tariq Ramadan, something of a poster boy for the multicultural left, to be more consistent and clear-cut in what he said. Was the Koran the word of God or a man-made text that was out of date? Ramadan responded by questioning Hirsi Ali's adversarial style. 'The question,' he said, 'is whether you want to change the mentality or please the audience.' Does her bald delivery not further alienate Muslims, forcing them to cling to traditional values? Hirsi Ali is too smooth of skin and composure to bristle, but it is obviously an accusation she finds irritating. 'Tariq Ramadan is filled with contempt for Muslims because he believes they have no faculties of reason,' she replies in a beguilingly friendly tone, as though she had remarked that he had an excellent taste in shirts. 'If I say that terrorism is created in the name of Islam suddenly they take up terrorism? He gives me so much more power than I have. Why don't my remarks make him turn to terrorism? Because he's above that. Like many believers in multiculturalism, he puts himself on a higher plane. The other thing is that it's not about your style, it's about your content. Are my propositions right or wrong? Is it social, cultural and religious beliefs that cause economic backwardness or is it the other way round? My take on this is the cultural and religious elements are far more important to look at. That is what we should be looking at and not how I say it.' All the same, it's fair to say that her audience is made up largely of white liberal males, rather than the Muslim women she wishes to liberate. In Holland, a female Muslim politician named Fatima Elatik told me: 'She's appealing to Dutch society, to middle-class Dutch-origin people. She talks about the emancipation of women but you can't push it down their throats. If I could talk to her, I would tell her that she needs to get a couple of Muslim women around her.' Hirsi Ali dismisses this as 'a very silly remark. I started off in a position where none of these women were visible anyway except as proxies to be put forward to get subsidies from the government. Just keep singing we're discriminated against. No Muslim women are allowed into this debate by their own groups. So it's way too early. By the time these women are assertive enough, I won't be around. It will be one generation on.' She also argues that it's important to address white liberals because they need to overcome the self-censoring effects of post-colonial guilt. 'If you want to feel guilty,' snaps Hirsi Ali, 'feel guilty that you didn't bring John Stuart Mill and left us only with the Koran. It doesn't help to say my forefathers oppressed your forefathers, and remain guilty forever.' There is no zealot like the convert, goes the old saying, and many commentators have concluded that Hirsi Ali is a prime secular example. 'In a pattern familiar to historians of political intellectuals,' wrote Garton Ash, 'she has gone from one extreme to the other'. The word on Hirsi Ali is that she is 'traumatised' by her upbringing and her subsequent adoption of a Western lifestyle. It's the word that Ian Buruma uses to describe her condition in his book Murder In Amsterdam Needless to say, she finds this appraisal of her ideas patronising. It was, she says, partly in an effort to combat this impression that she wrote Infidel. 'People can see that there is not much trauma in my story.' That depends on what you think constitutes trauma. The account of being held down by the legs, aged five, and having her clitoris and inner labia cut off with a pair of scissors will certainly alarm many readers. 'I heard it,' she writes, 'like a butcher snipping the fat off a piece of meat.' The fierce beatings she receives at the hands of her embittered mother, and the fractured skull inflicted on her by a brutal religious teacher, these too would leave psychological scars on most of us. But as Hirsi Ali writes, they were normal events in her childhood and in the lives of people she knew. Death and illness were commonplace in Africa, and by African standards she lived well. There is nothing melodramatic in Hirsi Ali's prose. It's matter-of-fact and also, as she is quick to point out, entirely subjective. It's possible, she says, that her family will remember things differently. 'But it's my story and if you undertake such an endeavour you have to be honest. Usually people make excuses for their culture and family etcetera. I could tell the story that we in the Third World have things that the West could learn from, which is obviously true, but that isn't what I wanted to show. My argument is that western liberal culture is superior to Islamic tribal group culture.' Hirsi Ali was born Ayaan Hirsi Magan 38 years ago in Mogadishu, Somalia. Her father, Hirsi Magan Isse, was a leading figure in the Somali Salvation Democratic Front. He was imprisoned by the Somali dictator Siad Barre during much of Hirsi Ali's childhood, and thereafter she lived in exile with her mother and brother and sister, largely estranged from her father, who remarried. In Kenya she gained a limited amount of freedom from the strict Somali clan system, though its extended network continued to circumscribe her life. She was a good but not exceptional student at school in Nairobi and went on to attend a secretarial course. Her mother and religious instructors brought her up to distrust unbelievers and to hate Jews, who, she was told, were responsible for all the problems of the world. Her mother did not want her daughters to work and in 1992 her father announced that he had arranged a marriage to a distant cousin living in Canada. Hirsi Ali maintains that she had no desire to marry the man but also, given family and clan honour, no choice. 'I was condemned to a predictable fate,' she writes, 'that of being a subservient wife to a stranger.' En route to her husband in Canada she stopped over in Germany, and from there she went to Holland where, in a sudden surge of self-empowerment, she claimed asylum. She was told that running away from an arranged marriage was no reason to be awarded refugee status, so she made up a story about fleeing persecution in Somalia. It was then that she changed her name to Ali, the better to elude her infuriated clan. She marvelled at the free room and board and health care provided by the Dutch state: '...all these people were busy helping you, and this for foreigners. How on earth did they treat their own clans?' Not all her fellow refugees were quite so appreciative. Many complained of racism and saw themselves as victims of European imperialism. 'The Europeans had colonised Somalia,' writes Hirsi Ali in characterising this sense of grievance, 'which was why we all had no qualifications and were in this mess to begin with. I thought that was so clearly nonsense. We had torn ourselves apart, all on our own.' Little by little, she dropped the trappings of her culture and religion. First she removed her headscarf, then she wore jeans, rode a bicycle, fraternised with Dutch people, and with Jews, went to a pub, later drank a glass of wine, and eventually she met and moved in with a Dutch man. But her younger sister, who had been more of a rebel, joined Hirsi Ali in Holland and grew increasingly religious, to the point of psychosis. She returned to Africa and died following a miscarriage. Working as a translator for Dutch social services, Hirsi Ali came across a hidden world of domestic violence, honour killings and of women entombed in the home, unable to speak Dutch or English and with no idea about the society in which they lived. 'While the Dutch were generously contributing money to international aid organisations,' she writes, 'they were also ignoring the silent suffering of Muslim women and children in their own backyard.' She took a degree in political science at Leiden university - no mean feat for a refugee without any previous academic ambition - after which she became a researcher with a Labour party think tank, looking at immigration. By now her belief in Islam was precariously loose but she still held on to the idea that she was a Muslim. But the events of 11 September 2001 changed that. 'The little shutter at the back of my mind, where I pushed all my dissonant thoughts, snapped open after the 9/11 attacks, and it refused to close again. I found myself thinking that the Koran is not a holy document. It is a historical record, written by humans. It is one version of events, as perceived by the men who wrote it 150 years after the Prophet died. And it is a very tribal and Arab version of events. It spreads a culture that is brutal, bigoted, fixated on controlling women, and harsh in war.' She decided that what the Muslim world needed was its own Voltaire. And after she wrote an article outlining her ideas and concerns, some readers decided that they had found their new Spinoza, the 17th-century Jewish refugee from the Inquisition who came to Holland and founded the Enlightenment. No doubt Hirsi Ali's critics would find the comparison hard to stomach. Spinoza was against religious persecution, whereas Hirsi Ali, say her opponents, is an arch exponent of Islamophobia. One such critic has written a stinging attack on Hirsi Ali in this month's Times Literary Supplement. Maria Golia, an Egyptian-based academic, writes: 'Hirsi Ali seems far more interested in indicting Islam than helping damaged women, whose horror stories she conveniently trots out whenever she needs to bludgeon home a point.' She takes Hirsi Ali to task on female genital mutilation which, she points out, is not an Islamic practice. Hirsi Ali wanted the Dutch government to institute medical checks on young girls in vulnerable circumstances. Golia calls the idea 'institutionalised violence' and prefers an approach that 'requires understanding of context and coalition-building, not to mention compassion and subtlety'. It should be said that in Infidel Hirsi Ali specifically states that FGM predates Islam, is not limited to Islam and that it is not practised in many Islamic countries. However, she adds, it is very often 'justified in the name of Islam'. Indeed one need only look at the advice of the leading Egyptian cleric, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is considered one of the most influential scholars in Islam. Qaradawi has been promoted by London mayor Ken Livingstone as a moderate voice, but on his Islam-online website he writes of female circumcision: 'Anyhow, it is not obligatory, whoever finds it serving the interest of his daughters should do it, and I personally support this under the current circumstances in the modern world.' She characterises the manner in which liberals sidestep such details as a confusion of facts and strategy. 'Some people will accept that Islam is backward but they're not going to say that because Muslims will be offended. "We want them to become liberals, so we're just going to trick them into a secular humanistic way of thinking."' At this she lets out a giggle, as if tickled by the absurdity of the idea. 'But people are aware of what's going on. That's why many Muslims are suspicious of liberals. Because they know they are not being taken seriously.' Perhaps a more telling symbol of the growing cultural gap between mainstream Western society and doctrinaire Islam is the veil. Again Hirsi Ali does not look around for a fence to sit on. 'The veil,' she says, 'is to show that women are responsible for the sexual self-control of men.' It's a surgical observation, cutting right through to the bone of the issue. She goes on to note that in all communities where the veil is actively observed boys are not taught to restrain themselves. 'They look upon all those who are not veiled as women who are looking for sexual contact and they just go about molesting and being a nuisance.' But what about those women who say that the veil has nothing to do with sex, that is a demonstration of their love of Allah. 'That is a very small group of women?' But are you to deny them their right to dress as they please? 'No,' she insists, 'I don't want to deny them that and I don't want anyone to deny them that.' Her solution is secular civic space - for example in schools and government offices - in which all religion is removed. The French model then? That's hardly been a great success. 'It's never been tried,' she counters. 'The French have voiced it but never implemented it. They've created these zones outside Paris where people from Third World countries are put together and excluded from the secular neutral model. They've preached secular Republicanism and practised multiculturalism, that's the whole French hypocrisy.' Hirsi Ali doesn't really do small talk. She's not interested in talking about her private life, whether she is in a relationship, how often she thinks about the danger she is in, her everyday life in America, or any of the sort of personal details that fascinate people who want to know what it's like to live life under threat of death. This is partly because she is not supposed to give away any information that may aid potential attackers. But more than that, it's because she really only wants to talk about ideas. To some readers, especially Muslim readers, it may seem that she only wants to talk about one idea: the danger of Islam. Certainly, it's a major preoccupation. But for all her clinical rhetoric, Hirsi Ali is not really interested in carving the world into two blocks of clashing civilisations. At heart she is a universalist, a passionate believer in human rights. If you believe in equality for women, then you must believe in equality for all women, regardless of their culture or religion. Her deepest wish is to allow the world's oppressed peoples, especially women, to share in the fruits of reason. 'And to do that,' she says, 'someone's got to shake the tree.' As she sees it, Islamic society is inimical to development. 'So everyone wants to move here, and they want to make this place look like there. We shouldn't cling to the customs and beliefs that caused us to move out in the first place. Unfortunately people in the Third World think that just by moving house they leave their misery behind. And that's what the integration debate is about: if you take those values with you and come here, it's not going to change your misery.' This is in essence what Tony Blair said a few weeks back when he spoke about a 'duty to integrate', and suggested that those people looking to move to Britain who didn't agree with British values should perhaps think about not coming. To some, Blair's comments were tantamount to a crude 'send 'em back' agenda. This in itself is perhaps reason to be thankful for Hirsi Ali. She knows what life is like without the benefit of the freedoms and rights that Europe has established and she, at least, is not afraid to emphasise how crucial it is not to lose them. But of course in voicing her opinion in the style she does, she risks lumping together over a billion people from different nations, cultures and traditions as a single 'problem'. For Hirsi Ali, the problem is one of self-definition. If Muslims want to assert a religious text as the basis of their public identity, then they have to accept public debate of that text and its ideas with all the discomfort and offence that may involve. In truth there is probably room for both what Hirsi Ali calls 'Tariq Ramadan gymnastics' and her more uncompromising approach. Though it may say something for our incurable self-loathing that it is Hirsi Ali, the most fervent admirer of European liberalism, that we've effectively sent packing. · Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali is published by Free Press in paperback, £12.99. theobserveronsunday

However when the populance purchases some 'land' usually buying a house, then they have to register their land in the land register but in reality they don't own the land! In fact they're only leasing the land and can be evicted any time with no judicial defence as it all belongs to the 'Queen'! What about the relevant planning laws? Do they not govern what can be built on land with the rights of the owner/neighbour(s) considered? They have a right to voice their concerns, be compensated adequately for the land/building etc.

Do I hate the TFG? Yes,, The warlords who wear responsible for getting these kids to man checkpoints, extort and made their lives a mess are today asking the Int community for help in rhabilitating them. If i'm wrong do let me know. Its not about winning an argument. Its fact!

^^Waar bal yaabkan eega. Maxaad ii saadisey ninyo? You will see me often, wearing my Saudi dishdasher iyo cimaamad (Saudi of course) with plenty of 'uunsi' iyo 'cadar' driving like i own the road (nothing dangerous of course). I dont have a Rollie (yet), dont have an iPod and my phone is just a normal average joe phone. But we did buy a 22 seater bus the other day and in the process of sending it to Burco for a cousin to work with. Worldy goods indeed,,,,, ps if anyone wants to buy a motor for a family member back home do let me know. Japanese imports at very reasonable prices! :cool: pps the beema is 2nd hand

We ask the international community for help toward rehabilitating kids we got to fight,rob and rape. Cant the gaal raac govnt do anything on its own? We need help we need help we need help!

What is going on? Where are we headed? Iraq vows action after lorry bomb kills 135 By Dean Yates BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's government on Sunday renewed its pledge to crack down on militants after a massive suicide lorry bomb killed 135 people in a mainly Shi'ite area of Baghdad. Saturday's attack was the deadliest single bombing since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. It shocked even Iraqis accustomed to the relentless violence that threatens to plunge the country into full-scale sectarian civil war. In fresh violence, a series of bomb attacks and drive-by shootings killed 16 people in Baghdad on Sunday, police and residents said. Around 1,000 people have been killed across Iraq in the past week in suicide bombings, shootings and fighting between security forces and militants, according to figures compiled by Reuters from official sources. "What did we do?" said one elderly man as he wailed in front of gutted shop fronts and homes in the Sadriya market on Sunday. Rescue workers picked through blood-stained rubble looking for more bodies. A bulldozer was called in to clear debris from what was left of two and three-storey buildings. Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed the blast on Saddam Hussein supporters and other Sunni militants. "The government is determined to get rid of the terrorists and the outlaws. Yesterday's bombing is just more evidence of their evil," a senior government source said. Maliki's office, referring to militants, said in a statement late on Saturday that the government would "cut off their roots, their sources and their supporters". The prime minister vowed in January to launch a crackdown in the capital to crush insurgents who have defied attempts by his government to get control of security, but it has not yet begun. Similar campaigns have failed in the past. U.S. President George W. Bush is sending 21,500 reinforcements to Iraq, most earmarked for the Baghdad offensive, despite vocal opposition at home, especially among Democrats who now control both houses of Congress. FRUSTRATION Ordinary Iraqis are frustrated at the government's inability to curb violence. Shi'ites in Sadriya said the Mehdi Army militia of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr should handle security, not government forces. "We are fed up with the government falling short in protecting us. After four years our blood still flows," said Abu Sajad, 37, a worker living in the Sadriya area. The Pentagon has said the Mehdi Army poses a greater threat to peace in Iraq than Sunni Islamist al Qaeda. Sadr is a key political ally for Maliki. More than 300 people were wounded in the Sadriya blast, caused when the bomber drove his lorry, packed with one tonne of explosives, into the crowded market. An Interior Ministry source said efforts would be made to tighten control over roads leading into Baghdad, with attention paid to searching trucks. The planned U.S.-Iraqi offensive in Baghdad is seen as a last-ditch effort to stem worsening bloodshed between minority Sunni Arabs and politically dominant majority Shi'ites. Maliki's critics say an offensive last summer failed because the Iraqi army committed too few troops and because he was reluctant to confront the Mehdi Army. (Additional reporting by Aseel Kami, Mariam Karouny and Ahmed Rasheed) source

May Allah Guide them. Amiin indeed

Not a fan of the Tabliq movement but i'm also not a fan of sending Muslims to the hellfire. Why not furnish us with their wrongs by bringing forth views from our learned people instead of blanket overreaching statements? An inkling of the wrongs of the movement by Dr Bilaal Philips. Another movement arose in India during this period which prided itself in being totally apolitical. Maulana Muhammad Ilyas founded what came to be known as the Tabligh Movement. Its main focus was on bringing Muslims back to the mosques which had become empty over the years of Colonial rule. In order to appeal to the general masses, its founder combined the practices of the major sufi sects of the continent in its inner teachings. Travel to different locations to invite Muslims was added to its outer practices. However, those traveling to give the “da’wah” are mostly ignorant people, while the Prophet (s) used to send out scholars to teach the people and call them to Islaam. And when he sent them, he did not instruct them to spend a few days, weeks, or months in a masjid, nor did he instruct them to call people to come to the masjid then invite them to go out and give da’wah with the group. Rather, he instructed that they live among the people until they learned their religion, and ordered them to call to the correct ‘aqeedah first and foremost. And they were not to call to anything else until the people understood laa ilaaha illallaah, as is evident in the hadeeth of his sending Mu‘aath ibn Jabal as well as others. And the Tabligh’s fixed numbers of days and months to travel have no basis in the Sunnah or the practice of the Sahaabah. Yet its apolitical stance has enabled it to spread to all corners of the Muslim world without resistance from Muslim or non-Muslim governments. However, very little effort is made to correct the beliefs and practices of its members and its main text, Tablighi Nisab, is filled with inauthentic material. The tradition of Taqleed remained alive in all of these movements as avoiding it facilitated recruitment of followers. Dr Abu Ameenah Philips

Watch his full response

Dr. Bilal replied: Andrew Smith Producer, Dispatches Channel 4 Dear Mr Andrew Smith, My general advice is that the direction in which the program seems to be heading is one of stirring ill feelings and confrontation between parts of the Muslim community and the UK public. The program would better serve the interests of the public by explaining what is “Wahhabism” and allowing those accused of propagating it to explain and defend their ideas, rather than to make assumptions about the evil of “Wahhabism” and then attribute it to respectable organizations in the country. At any rate, in response to two allegations made by your crew the first of which is the following: 1. In a talk given at Green Lane Mosque on 2 September 2006, you stated that the practice of marrying girls before they reach puberty is permissible, on the grounds that the Prophet Mohammed made it permissible by his own practice of marrying a nine-year-old girl. You said: “The Prophet Mohammed practically outlined the rules regarding marriage prior to puberty, with his practice he clarified what is permissible and what is not permissible and that is why today as Muslims we don’t have or we shouldn’t have any issues about an older man marrying a younger woman, which is looked down upon by society today, they have given it a lot of nasty names but we know that Prophet practised it, it wasn’t abuse or exploitation it was marriage and the limits of marriage.” I would like to point out that the context in which this was said was in regards to attacks by some evangelists like Jerry Falwell, on Prophet Muhammad because of his marriage to one of his wives due to her age. I pointed out that the age of consensual sex (not marriage) varies in Europe from 12 in Holland, 14 in Italy, 15 in France, 16 in Germany, 17 in Ireland to 18 in the UK (16 for Hetrosexual), while in Islam - were sex outside of marriage is illegal - the age was outlined by Prophet Muhammad in his marriage to Aa’ishah. The marriage took place before puberty, however, it was not consummated until after puberty. Puberty being the natural dividing line between childhood and womanhood from the most ancient of times. Thus, from the perspective of Islamic law and thought, there is no problem in older men marrying younger women. However, I was not advocating that Muslims go against the laws of the UK, as I have always taught and explained that Muslims living in non-Muslim countries are obliged to abide by the laws of the country. If they are unwilling to do so, they should try to change the laws through due legal process, or as a last resort emigrate to a country in which they are free to practice their religion. The second point: 2. Our investigation involves the spreading of Wahhabi views in the UK by preachers who have received training in Islam in Saudi Arabian universities. Our investigation has established that you were trained in Islam at the University of Medina in Saudi Arabia. It is true that I studied, “was trained” has other implications, at the Islamic University of Madeenah from 1974-1980, and in the college of education at Riyadh University. But it should also be noted that I was “trained” for my PhD at the University of Wales, UK, with whatever that implies. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to express my views and concerns about your program, and I hope that my views will be aired along with your truncated quotes. If in future you wish to do a balanced program concerning “Wahhabism”, I would be only too happy to participate. Yours sincerely, Dr Bilal Philips

Undercover Propaganda Sunday, 21 January 2007 The recent Documentary aired on Channel 4 is a prime example of the biased and slanted reporting used by the Western media against Islaam. While this site and Dr. Bilal himself do not necessarily agree with all the views expressed by the various speakers filmed in the documentary, we would however like to point out that the whole documentary seems composed out of bits and pieces of recordings taken out of context. It is also worth noting that throughout the documentary it is repeated that their reporter secretly filmed these talks, but most if not all of these were open lectures; definitely the one by Dr. Bilal was an open lecture. If they had wished they could have just obtained the official recordings of these lectures and made their documentary. Also although they did send an email outlining what they would project of Dr. Bilal’s speech and asked for his response, they have just given a 3 sentence edited version of his comments. So for the purpose of clarification we reproduce here their email and the complete written reply that Dr. Bilal sent them. Dear Dr Bilal Philips, Hardcash Productions has been filming an investigation for Channel 4 into the spreading of Wahhabi religious teachings by Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Arabian religious establishment through British mosques and Islamic organisations. This investigation includes evidence of the influence of a radical ideology which is opposed to the principles of tolerance, multiculturalism and equal rights for women and homosexuals and which some experts claims helps to foster extremism and to radicalise Muslims. The programme will be transmitted on Monday, 15 January 2007 , as part of Channel 4’s flagship current affairs series, Dispatches, and we are now in the final stages of editing. A key part of the investigation relies on secretly filmed evidence. The covert filming was sanctioned at a senior level at Channel 4 in accordance with the Ofcom Broadcasting Code which regulates broadcasting and its broadcast is subject to the same strictures and procedures. The covert filming was carried out strictly in accordance with the Ofcom Code and best practice. The identities of all worshippers will be concealed by editing techniques which will “blob” their faces. Part of the investigation concerns the Markazi Jamiat Ahl-e-Hadith, which we have established is receiving guidance from Saudi Arabia and is promoting its version of Islam, known as Wahhabism, throughout the UK . This ideology includes hostility and intolerance for non-Muslims; the assertion that British Muslims should not be loyal to a non-Islamic state like Britain ; the promotion of the concept of an Islamic state with extreme shariah punishments like amputations and crucifixions; a denial of equal rights for women and homosexuals. Our reporter filmed undercover at Green Lane Mosque, covertly recording between 19 May 2006 and 29 September 2006 . His investigation includes the following: 1. In a talk given at Green Lane Mosque on 2 September 2006 , you stated that the practice of marrying girls before they reach puberty is permissible, on the grounds that the Prophet Mohammed made it permissible by his own practice of marrying a nine-year-old girl. You said: “The Prophet Mohammed practically outlined the rules regarding marriage prior to puberty, with his practice he clarified what is permissible and what is not permissible and that is why today as Muslims we don’t have or we shouldn’t have any issues about an older man marrying a younger woman, which is looked down upon by society today, they have given it a lot of nasty names but we know that Prophet practised it, it wasn’t abuse or exploitation it was marriage and the limits of marriage.” 2. Our investigation involves the spreading of Wahhabi views in the UK by preachers who have received training in Islam in Saudi Arabian universities. Our investigation has established that you were trained in Islam at the University of Medina in Saudi Arabia . As I have said, the programme is scheduled for broadcast on Monday 15 January 2007 . We are now approaching the final stages of editing. In order to ensure your views are fairly represented in response to the matters set out above, we would need to receive your written response on these points by close of business on Monday 8 January 2007 at the latest, which we will edit fairly in order to reflect your position in the programme. In accordance with standard industry practice it is our policy not to provide any footage filmed during our investigation to third parties prior to broadcast nor do we provide previews of programmes in these circumstances and we are not obliged by the Ofcom code to do so. We look forward to hearing from you. If you would like to discuss this matter please telephone me the programme’s producer, Andrew Smith on 0207 253 2782 Yours sincerely Andrew Smith Producer Cc Kevin Sutcliffe, Editor, Investigations, Channel 4 Jan Tomalin, Controller of Legal & Compliance, Channel 4

Anyway back to the topic,,,,,,, Watching the footy on this tonight IA

Well we await your arrival IA ps leave the multi purpose bush knife at home!

Italian football reels after Sicily riot death Matches are cancelled as fans and club bosses attempt to deal with the fallout Tom Kington in Rome Sunday February 4, 2007 The Observer It took around three hours for Filippo Raciti's heart to stop beating after a hurled missile exploded in his face during clashes on Friday between fans of Catania and Palermo, Sicily's top football teams. 'Don't worry, it's nothing, but take me to the hospital. I don't feel well,' were the 38-year-old policeman's last words as the baroque streets of Catania filled with smoke, and helicopters swooped to disperse mobs of masked teenagers to let ambulances reach him. As his despairing wife and two young children joined the throngs of injured at Catania's hospital, after what should have been a celebration of Sicily's return to footballing prominence, Raciti lost his fight to live, leaving Italy asking if its national game, already hit by match-rigging scandals and falling attendances, is also dying. Six months after Italy's World Cup triumph, masked 'teppisti', or hooligans, hurling flares at police lines have replaced the ecstatic crowds that cheered the national team home from Germany. After Friday's guerrilla war on the streets of Catania, Italy's football federation called an indefinite halt to all fixtures, with an emergency summit planned for Monday. 'People have got to understand it's time for a change,' said Prime Minister Romano Prodi. Luca Pancalli, head of Italy's football federation, summed up the views of many. 'I have stopped all activity,' he said. 'That's enough. Really. That's enough. I cannot begin to comment on this situation,' he said. 'If we lose our chance to host the 2012 European Championships, we deserve it.' After a series of violent clashes at Serie A games, 1,500 police were drafted in for the Sicilian derby. The rivalry between the historically underachieving teams, which has reached fever pitch as both joust for Champions League places, took centre stage after half time as Palermo fans fired tear gas at the home support. Choking players fled the pitch as the game was suspended, while outside the stadium Catania fans showered police with rocks, flares and the small explosive that arched its way towards Filippo Raciti who, investigators believe, may have already been stunned by a rock when the charge went off. The crunch game had been moved forward from Sunday to make way for the huge annual celebration for St. Agatha, Catania's patron saint: a weekend marked by fireworks, folk dancing and a religious procession. Yesterday all fireworks were banned, leaving just the procession to weave its way through the black volcanic stone-paved streets of a city aware that the fateful explosive may have been sold locally to celebrate the Saint's day. Many Italians saw Raciti's death as a tragedy foretold, and him as a victim of the rot within the game that was merely glossed over by the heroics of the national side in Berlin. Italy now boasts 74,000 recognised members of 445 'Ultra' groups of hardcore fans, notably at Inter Milan, who were forced to play Champions League football behind closed doors in 2005 after fans showered players with flares and bottles, despite extra security following a 2001 incident when a burning moped was launched from raised terracing. Violence is even on the march at amateur level: in January the coach of a small team in southern Italy was beaten to death on the field by opposing fans. Critics who accuse Italy of contracting the 'English disease' of hooliganism miss the point that Italian fans generally save their hatred for the police. 'The Ultras were not fighting against each other, they wanted us,' said policeman Alfio Ferrara, who was close to Raciti on Friday. The number of policemen injured at football games in Italy has increased by 42 per cent in the past year to 202, despite 2005 legislation to crack down on hooliganism, including more security at games and buyers' names printed on tickets. Many clubs have not found the funds to meet new standards. At Rome's Olympic stadium, metal turnstiles prevent ticketless fans approaching the stands, but Ultras still manage to smuggle in their flares and bangers. Speaking as events in Catania unfolded, sports minister Giovanna Melandri warned Serie A clubs to shoulder more responsibility in the war on violence, and justice minister Clemente Mastella added that the clubs were to blame for creating cosy ties with hardcore fans. To keep terraces full, many Serie A clubs have in the past farmed out free tickets to Ultra leaders, who in turn made money reselling them. But when cash-starved chairmen at clubs such as Lazio have cut off the supply, fans have reacted violently. The end of free ticketing was also reportedly behind the mailing of a goat's head to an official at Palermo football club in December. As ties between clubs and Ultras weaken, family fans are also deserting the stadiums. World Cup euphoria was short lived, and last summer's match-rigging scandal left a sour taste in the mouths of many supporters. With Juventus relegated to Serie B, AC Milan unable to recover from their points deduction and many stars fleeing to Spain, the action is lacking. Not even terrace tickets for under £10 can draw punters out of their living rooms where games are now beamed by pay TV at all hours. In Catania, St. Agatha managed to shift the game with Palermo back two days, but she is no match for Sky TV, which has brought its rescheduling ways to Italy, pushing the big games to Sunday evenings. After a lifetime of 3pm kick-offs, Italians are voting with their feet and staying at home with the decoder, leaving the hardcore Ultras, flares in their rucksacks and scarves wrapped around their faces, to brave the dark stadiums without them. As Catania's hospitals struggled with 71 injured on Friday, mostly police officers, and investigators huddled over closed-circuit imagery of Filippo Riciti's final moments, a colleague of the dead policeman said: 'Filippo no longer loved football because these *******s had destroyed all the enthusiasm he had.' link

Fury at new child abuse case Independent review into torture of a four-year-old girl uncovers social service failures similar to the Victoria Climbie scandal Anushka Asthana Sunday February 4, 2007 The Observer Britain's child protection services will face severe criticism this week when a couple are sentenced for torturing their four-year-old daughter in a case that has alarming echoes of that of Victoria Climbie. Kimberley Harte, 23 and Samuel Duncan, 26, poured boiling liquid over the child's hands, ripped out her hair, kicked her repeatedly in the groin and locked her in the toilet over seven terrifying weeks of the worst abuse experts said they had ever seen. Article continues -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The attacks happened only weeks after the girl had been returned to the parents by social services despite warnings from her foster carers that the child was distressed. She had been in care because of domestic violence between her parents. At their home in Maida Vale, London, Harte and Duncan forced the little girl, who has cerebral palsy, to eat her own faeces and take cold baths. This week, the pair, who have both been found guilty of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, could face life sentences. This is the latest in a string of cases that have caused questions to be asked about social services' decisions. In 2005, Ukleigha Batten-Froggatt, a six-year-old who was on the 'at risk' register, was strangled by her mother's boyfriend in their flat in north London. In 2003, Toni-Ann Byfield, was shot in north-west London while in the care of Birmingham social services. It has emerged that Westminster social services handed the child back to Harte and Duncan last January. The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was discovered more than two months later close to death. The abuse had lasted from 1 February until 18 March. She was examined under general anaesthetic because she was in so much pain. 'These were horrific injuries,' said Detective Sergeant Anthony Smith from the child protection unit, 'some of the worst injuries I have seen.' Her ordeal had caused her to regress with regards to her disability, but, according to Detective Sergeant Smith, she is now doing far better. The Observer can reveal that an independent review of the decision to let her go back home has highlighted a string of failures. Social workers, it revealed, allowed her to return despite strong objections from her foster carers. Once she was home, staff 'too readily' accepted injuries as accidents, made 'minimal contact' with the father and believed that, on five visits in two months, the child was 'out with her father'. The review said what happened could not be attributed to 'professional errors' or 'poor practice', but said the outcome might have been different had there been 'a greater focus on the father's relationship' with her and more attention had been given to concerning findings. Professionals 'were too parent-focused', failed to see the child on her own and should have been more sceptical. The case has horrified campaigners who worked hard to change the system after Victoria Climbie, the eight-year-old who was tortured to death in 2000. 'I did not think this would be happening so long after Victoria's death,' said Mor Dioum, director of the Victoria Climbie Foundation. 'This has many similarities to the Climbie case.' Dioum said the agencies had 'grossly failed' after he read the review of the Harte and Duncan case. 'They failed to listen to the foster carer. As in the Climbie case, the carers were concerned that the child had been abused and practitioners totally failed to identify it.' Workers should have been alarmed when they were told the girl was not at home during visits, he added: 'It is well known that abusers tend to hide their victims from the public. One of the great mistakes was a lack of child focus. Had they done their jobs in terms of assessing thoroughly, sharing information and being prepared to scrutinise each others assessments then this could have been avoided.' Westminster council pointed out that the decision to return the child was made 'with the approval of the court, specifically the Principal Registry of the Family Division, and was recommended by a number of independent expert assessments'. 'When a child is injured...everyone who had dealings with the family will inevitably consider whether they could have done anything differently that may have altered the deeply regrettable outcome,' said Julie Jones, deputy chief executive and director of children's services. 'It is clear that those staff who saw this child and her family could not have foreseen the injuries she sustained.' source

^^So what are you saying?

Originally posted by Dabshid: good news, time to talk! Will the Ethiopian govenment be there? :rolleyes: LoL, i have no doubt they will be there or be reported back to. Yes, it will be good to sit down and have a chat!

Originally posted by General Duke: ^^They are UK tax payers and thus have a right to voice their concersn. Warlord Yusuf Garad , supporter of warlord IndaCade and Xasan Dahir and his clan agenda is contrary to the interest of the Somali people and the British tax payer.. LoL, i wonder how many of the 'protestors' actually paid their TV license? (the finance for the BBC)

Arabs are the worst drivers. They actually think they are the best! They dont have much to do with their spare time so resort to copying what they see in the movies. Literally. Where are the police?