why am I not a nomad? Most Somalis aren't nomads; they live in urban centers and lead an urban lifestyle. Also, the few remaining nomads have changed; their lifestyle (clothing, food, housing and etc) has greatly changed and can longer be classified as a nomad lifestyle.

Amin to the prayers above.

Somali:1,710,000 results Somalian:174,000 results Funny: Google asks "Did you mean: Somali" for the second query.

Originally posted by Farxan: ^^Is that a crime? That's to let others know who Amin Amir is/was. The word crime isn't applicable here, because this isn't about someone who physically/fatally harmed others; this is merely about an artist and history.

Originally posted by Dinho: What are the new government's chances of success? Before anyone knows, few years will elapse, and people will look back and say "This was a government doomed to fail from its inception." The reason why it will fail is; it's not based on Islamic ideology, plus other systems have been exhausted and people are no longer in mood for a recurrence of failed and incompatible systems (democratic, socialist, dictatorship, anarchy and etc). Ultimately, people will go back to a system that has worked for hundreds of years before the colonialists set foot on Somalia's shores.

Originally posted by Shyhem: People are cutting down 200 hundred yrs old Acacia trees just to sell them as charcoal to the Arabs for pennies. The article of the link is about dumping radioactive chemicals, heavy metals, medical waste; I don't see what Acacia trees got to do with the article. Maybe, you need vision correction. The average citizen of somalia has little to do with the destruction of their ancestoral lands; it's the warlords who are responsible for that. The average citizen of somalia is trying hard to meet the ends. Your reasoning and thinking is flawed and misplaced.

Somalia shouldn't rely on Ethiopia, the US or any non-Muslim country. Ethiopia hasn't yet recovered from the shocks it sustained from mujahid Ahmed Gurey's battles and conquests, when it come that close to be totally overrun, and cried to Europe for help (the result of the Portuguese helping them). For that, Ethiopia will forever view Somalia as its eternal enemy, and work behind the scenes to undermine its stability. The US has no interest in a stable Somalia, because it has failed to stabilize it while spending $billions. Ethiopia's worst fears is a Somalia run with an Islamic system of governance. The US also fears that. And the reason why they associate such a system or anyone involved in the word "Islam" or "Islamic" with "terrorism" is, because they fear a repeat of what happened in the times of Ahmed Gurey.

Originally posted by Shyhem: If war is declared,i personally wouldn't want to be on the recieving end of the US military. There's nothing to be awed about the US military. It's an overhyped military whose performance is subpar. It relies too much on technology advantage, that's why its performance is abysmal. It might win a few wars or battles (mostly through the manipulation of the media), but it will be defeated in the long run. No matter how its technology is superior, its enemies will adapt and get stronger. While it's occupied with the so-called war on "terror", while its economy is recessing- other giants, namely China & India, are emerging. It has proven to be a paper military, for it has failed to contain or quell a few tens thousands Iraqi insurgents. This is an institution based on hype and little substance. In the end, those on the haq side will win.

This isn't a bad article, but its title is misleading. No one can reform Islam, for Islam is complete and perfect. As for reforming Muslims to adapt to the "modern world", it means little. Muslims don't need reform. What is holding them from going back to their glorious past is their liberal and Western-dependent leaders. Without those leaders, and with an Islamic leadership, the state of Muslims in general and their transformation to a force to reckon with automates rapidly. That's what the West fears, and that's why it invests heavily in the current leaders.

Amen. Allahu akbar.

Originally posted by DinkiWinki: I asked my iman this question and he was annyoed and said that i should not worry about them and look after my own soul. You talk to your iman and ask he questions? I know you meant imam, and since I don't know what you meant by the rest of your comments/questions, my suggestion is you should first work on expressing yourself clearly to a working degree, and then come back to ask questions in topics that relate to it or in a new one. Yet better, take the advice of NGONGE.

Originally posted by Shyhem: but much of what he said is the truth. Your above quote doesn't make a sense. That's not how to say it. Much of what he said that's the truth is what you found it to be the truth.

Gabdhaheena yaan uga tageynaa? Waa run in gabdho Soomaali badan ay raaligelinta nimankooda ku liitaan, waana run in badankooda ay gold-diggers yihiin, waana run markaad gabar Soomaali guursato aadna guursaneysid qoyskeeda- laakiin waxaad xisaabta ku dartaa inaan isu dhaqan nahay, isu af nahay, iwm. Aniga waxaa ila roon in mid baari ah la raadsado, waxaana hubaa in mid la heli karo.

Originally posted by Sakina: Wind.talker if the Sheikhs condemned this action Bashir Goth would never have an excuse to write articles like this. The sheikhs got nothing to do with the desecration, and they have already condemned it. It's corrupt politicians and liberal Somalis like Goth who are making allegations about Somali sheikhs/Islamists, which is nothing new, because they have been making it for a numbers of years. It's mere allegations, which will not translate into action by the US and/or the West. The US cannot open a new front in Somalia, because its hands is tied and wouldn't dare acquire new enemies.

Originally posted by wind.talker: it shouldn't be used as a catalyst to wage a war against shieks in Somalia and Mogadishu. What kind of catalyst should be used to wage a war against them? Originally posted by rudy: i dont know who bashir is! i dont see him as any of the contributers here!! You're not making sense. Half (or more) of what is discussed in this forum doesn't pertain to any of the contributers here. Originally posted by rudy: so why not let them rip Because, when politics is an element of the equation, it doesn't/wouldn't matter. Besides, the militias who are behind this do not respect live people, so disrespecting dead people (or bones) isn't as important or worse than disrespecting live people. The usual desperate Somali politicians are still trying to attract the involvement of the US & the West in Somalia to fight Wahhabists, Militant Islamists and etc- but will not succeed.

Originally posted by Hasna: Do you mind giving me the source and where u got this article. You need to learn how to find a source when one isn't given and you want to verify it. It's not rocket science. All you need to do is search Google News. All it takes is a few clicks, sometimes highlighting (in Firefox, or IE with Google toolbar) the news and searching it with Google. Check this link, with query "chinese+restaurant" in Google News: Google News

I don't know about Ayatollah Al-Fayad's powers as their top religious leaders; Al-Sistani and other influential religious leaders gave indications Iraq's constitution/system of governance will not be solely (or at all) based on Islam. Afterall, the kind of constitution/system of governance Al-Sistani and other influential religious leaders want to adopt will not materialize; it's what the US wants that will materialize. An Islamic constitution/system of governance runs against the interests/national security of the US and the West. How events unfold remains to be seen, but the only means to adopt an Islamic constitution/system of governance is through jihad (the armed struggle kind), and Shiites haven't shown they're likely to take that course (the exception being Al-Sadr).

First, the title of the article is misleading; Islam rescues human beings, not the other way. Islam isn't a commercial or human product whose image or reputation has to be rescued.

“Those who believe (in the Qur’Än) and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians, any who believe in God and the last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their lord: on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.†Qur’Än, (2:62). When the Taliban zealots destroyed the 5 th century statues of Buddha in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, in March 2001 the world watched with derision and disgust at the barbarism of such primitive hordes but did nothing to stop them. It took a human and civilizational tragedy of Sept11 to make the world realize how unstopped evil could spillover even to distant lands in today’s global world. When Nazis in Germany ordered the burning of books in May 1933, it was only a handful of intellectuals and few newspapers that could see through the fog of history the oncoming disaster predicted a long way back by the German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine in his prophetic statement “ where one burns books, one will soon burn people.†It was the bibliocaust as described then by the Time magazine that was a prelude to the Jewish holocaust that followed for which the memory of Auschwitz stands as the ugliest crime committed in the name of an ideology. Presently the world was outraged at the scene of Somali Militant Islamists unearthing the remains of bodies in an Italian cemetery in Mogdishu, dumping the skeletons in the most disrespectful way at a garbage dump and building a mosque in the middle of the cemetery and on top of whatever remains of the dead bodies. One has to wait and see what tragic consequence this also has to bring before the world acts to move against such barbarism. It is not coincidental that all three acts of barbarism had to be committed in the name of puritanical ideologies with the Nazis burning the books to cleanse the German nation of unGerman ideas, while the Afghani Taliban and their counterparts in Mogadishu spearheaded by the Wahhabist Islamic courts, committed their crimes in the name of cleansing infidel traces of history from the House of Islam. It is also tragic that both the Afghan and Somali Talibans had to hijack Islam and drag it in the mud in the face of the unforgivable silence and indifference of the majority of the mainstream Muslims. It may help here to refresh the minds of the non-Muslim world and confused Muslims as well that such desecration of the cemeteries and destruction of historical relics amount also to desecration and an act of aggression against Islam as well. Taking the lead from the actions of the Prophet of Islam, one may recall it was Muhammad (PBH) who allowed a delegation of Christians from Najran who called on him to stay in the Holy Mosque of Medina. And when at evening, the Christians desired to offer religious service; the Prophet permitted them. It was also Prophet Muhammad who, when he saw a funeral procession of a dead Jew passing by, stood up to show respect for the dead. When he was told that the deceased was not a Muslim but a Jew, he said, “The funeral may be of a Muslim or a non-Muslim we must get up to show respectâ€. It was again the Prophet of Islam who prayed for the soul of the Abyssinian Negus when he heard about his death. History revealed to us that when the word of the death of Negus of Abyssinia reached him, Muhammad turned to the congregation after the next prayer and said to them: “This day a righteous man hath died. Therefore, arise and pray for your brother Ashamah.†He then led the prayers. The Islamist groups claim that the Negus had secretly converted to Islam as they cannot accept the idea of Muhammad praying on the soul of a non-Muslim, but experts in the history of Islam say that Muhammad prayed for the Negus for being a good Christian who also protected his followers from prosecution in the hands of their non-Muslim tribesman at the beginning of Islam. It may also be worth mentioning here that it was the same Christian King of Abyssinia for whom the Prophet of Islam had asked him to stand on his behalf and to ratify his marriage to Umm Habiba, Abu Sufyan’s daughter, whose husband died while Muslims were in the protection of the Negus. The Negus solemnized the marriage and threw a feast in his palace with all Muslim exiles invited. Another shinning example of the Islamic tolerance and respect toward other religions was evidenced by the well-documented Covenant of Omar. When the Caliph Omar Ibn al-Khattab, entered the city of Jerusalem in 638 AD, he granted to the people of Jerusalem and to the Patriarch Safronius a covenant of peace and protection which came to be known the Covenant of Omar, or the Code of Omar. In addition, to ensure the care and protection of Christian and Jewish Holy places, Omar entrusted each of the major holy places to the care and protection of a different Muslim family. The text of the Covenant read as follows: “This is an assurance of peace and protection given by the servant of Allah Omar, Commander of the Believers to the people of Ilia' ( Jerusalem). He gave them an assurance of protection for their lives, property, church and crosses as well as the sick and healthy and all its religious community. Their churches shall not be occupied, demolished nor taken away wholly or in part. None of their crosses nor property shall be seized. They shall not be coerced in their religion nor shall any of them be injured.†History says that Omar also prohibited the destruction of any Christian images or places of worship. It is related that Omar had refused to pray in the Church when the prayers time came and there was no mosque yet built for the victorious Muslim forces. Invited by the Patriarch Safronius to offer prayers in the Church, Omar declined the invitation saying that if he did, Muslims would lay claim to the Church years later as the place where Omar had prayed. This is the true Islam that the new Talibans in Mogadishu like the Afghan Talibans before them are trying to replace with their Wahhabism brand which is known for its demolition of the domes and cemeteries of the Prophet’s wives and his prominent supporters when they captured the holy cities in the early 19 thC. They leveled the domes of the houses of Khadijat al Kubra, prophet’s first wife, Imam Ali and Abu Bakr-al-Siddiq, first and fourth Caliphs of Islam. In Medina they laid waste to the gravestones of the Janat al-Baqi cemetery next to the Prophet’s Mosque, where the remains of some of the greatest names of Islam in its nascent years lie. The Wahhabists also plundered treasuries of the Prophet’s mosque. It was due to Muslim world outrage and the forces of the Ottoman Empire that saved the dome of the Prophet’s Mosque from destruction. It must be clear to all Muslims and non-Muslims alike that the zealots of Islamic courts in Mogadishu have committed a crime against humanity and against the respect for the dead resting in peace in their last abode regardless of their previous creed, color or race. It is an irony that when Somali refugees are sheltered by Italian Churches, when generations of Somali children get home and education and dream of a good future in Europe and other countries of the West, when churches rush to the rescue of the Tsunami victims of Somalia and home thousands of Somali refugees from man-made disasters, when even the clerics of Mogadishu themselves owe their subsistence to the monthly assistance send to them by their sons and daughters living on the handouts of churches and the welfare of the Western tax payers, when the Christian world is trying to help the living Muslims to have a decent life; that Christians who died decades ago cannot find peace in their lasting abode in a small plot of land in the House of Islam. It is time that mainstream Muslims should stand up and call this by what it is “an act of barbarism and a crime against Islam, against all recognized human norms and against human decencyâ€. They should break their eerie silence and declare this as a plague that has to be condemned and confronted before it is too late. They should know that to describe this as only a land-grab and real estate companies fighting for spoils of public land is an ugly euphemism tantamount to a derelict of duty and an incongruous attempt to insult to human intelligence and absolve the perpetrators of their barbaric act of vandalism. It is time to rescue noble Islam from the claws of the hijackers. I may not find a better way to conclude this piece than to remind the fanatics that we do not need them to preach to us as who is right and who is wrong in the ways of God as Almighty Allah has told us 14 th centuries ago and in the mouth of the Great Prophet of Islam that it was only Almighty God and no else that held the truth of the matter. That it was He alone who could judge who is right and who is wrong as it is evident in the following Ayah of the holy Qur’Än: “To each among you have we prescribed a Law and an open way. If God had so willed, He would have made you a single people, but (His plan is) to test you in what He hath given you: so strive as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to God; it is He that will show you the truth of the matters in which ye dispute.†( 5:48). I may not claim absolute claim on whose side the truth lies but as is obvious to every living human being and particularly to the victims of Tsunami and every other calamity that bests human beings, I have no doubt as who has won the race in virtues, in rubbing the tears of the deprived and alleviating the misery of the poor, the homeless and the refugee. Bashir Goth bsogoth@yahoo.com Source

Originally posted by Intuition: lakiin a Somali man?? Why not? Somalis aren't special.

Originally posted by juba: if you had a daugher would you kill her if she wasn't a virgin? Maybe. Originally posted by juba: or do you just support when others do it but could never do it yourself? Contradiction.

Originally posted by juba: but it doesn't make it right! For some.

Honor killing is practiced by all kinds of people, including Somalis. Man's killer must serve 15 years

This is really shocking.