at-Talib: The Conquest of Istanbul: From the Travel Diary of Mufti Taqi ‘Uthmani

Book shines light on Pakistan military’s ‘£10bn empire’ | News | Guardian Unlimited Books

The Pakistani military’s private business empire could be worth as much as £10bn, according to a ground-breaking study. Retired and serving officers run secretive industrial conglomerates, manufacture everything from cement to cornflakes, and own 12m acres [4.8m hectares] of public land, says Dr Ayesha Siddiqa, author of Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy.

The book tackles a previously taboo subject - the range and depth of the military’s business interests - considered a major factor in the ambitions of the generals who have ruled Pakistan for more than half of its 60-year history. “It feeds directly into the military’s political power; it’s an expression of their personal and organisation strength,” said Ms Siddiqa, a former director of research at the Pakistan navy.

Moving Web-Based Software Offline - New York Times

Millions of people enjoy free Web-based software programs that deliver
e-mail, news and many other services. But those programs are available
to users only when they are online.

Now Google
is hoping to help make many of those programs, among them its own free
Web applications like Gmail and Docs and Spreadsheets, available
offline, say when a user is on an airplane. In doing so, Google will
more openly challenge Microsoft and its office productivity tools, like Excel and Word, which users must buy for hundreds of dollars.

That
rivalry was heightened Wednesday when Google released a set of tools to
software programmers, which it calls Google Gears, that addresses what
is perhaps the single most critical shortcoming of Web-based software.
The tools can be used by all programmers, whether they work for Google
or not, to enhance their own Web-based programs for offline use. The
company is making the technology available in an open-source model, so
programmers can use it free, test its abilities and extend them as
necessary to fit their needs.

Horror film about ‘Dancing Bears’ banned by Pakistan TV at Pakistan Animal Welfare Society

Eye-Opening Scenes Depicting Mutilation and Abuse Deemed Too Gruesome

Islamabad - A provocative new public service announcement (PSA) which
aims to educate people about the plight of Pakistan’s dancing
bears has been banned by Pakistan Television Corp. In a bid to expose
viewers to the horrific mutilations and abuse that dancing bears
endure, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Asia-Pacific (PETA)
tried to buy a spot during the network’s prime time. PTV ad
executives said the video - which shows a screaming man being burned
and tethered through the nose like a dancing bear - was too graphic. PETA’s subsequent attempts to meet PTV’s
requirements and run the ad during late-night spots with a subtitle
ensuring viewers that it was made using special effects were also met
with resistance. The 40-second PSA, written
by Tony Burke and directed and produced by the award winning London
based production company, Diamond Bullet Productions, has been forced
on to the internet at www.peta.org.

From Mr D’s Notes on Teaching..

Joseph Caro (1488-1575) a Jewish writer once mentioned some of the actions a young man should take when in the presence of a teacher.

1. He held that the student was to honor his teacher above his parents.
2. He likened anyone striving or complaining with/to his teacher to striving or complaining with/to the Lord.
3. A scholar was not allowed to answer a point of law if his teacher was present. To do so without permission was open to punishment.
4. The student was never, even after death, to call his teacher by his first name.
5. The student was never allowed to sit in the teachers seat.
6. When a teacher died the student was to tear his coat as if his father had died.
7. Basically the teacher in many ways was to be held as superior to one’s own father.
8. The teacher however was also to honor the scholar as the scholar was to honor the teacher.

Telling India’s Modern Women They Have Power, Even Over Their Skin Tone - New York Times

The modern Indian woman is independent, in charge — and does not have to live with her dark skin.

That is the message from a growing number of global cosmetics and skin
care companies, which are expanding their product lines and advertising
budgets in India
to capitalize on growth in women’s disposable income. A common
thread involves creams and soaps that are said to lighten skin tone.
Often they are peddled with a “power” message about taking
charge or getting ahead.

Fifty Writing Tools - Poynter Online

1. Writing Tool #1: Branch to the Right
2. Writing Tool #2: Use Strong Verbs
3. Writing Tool #3: Beware of Adverbs
4. Writing Tool #4: Period As a Stop Sign
5. Writing Tool #5: Observe Word Territory
6. Writing Tool #6: Play with Words
7. Writing Tool #7: Dig for the Concrete and Specific
8. Writing Tool #8: Seek Original Images
9. Writing Tool #9: Prefer Simple to Technical
10. Writing Tool #10: Recognize Your Story’s Roots
11. Writing Tool #11 Back Off or Show Off
12. Writing Tool #12: Control the Pace
13. Writing Tool #13: Show and Tell
14. Writing Tool #14: Interesting Names
15. Writing Tool #15: Reveal Character Traits
16. Writing Tool #16: Odd and Interesting Things
17. Writing Tool #17: The Number of Elements
18. Writing Tool #18: Internal Cliffhangers
19. Writing Tool #19: Tune Your Voice
20. Writing Tool #20: Narrative Opportunities
21. Writing Tool #21: Quotes and Dialogue
22. Writing Tool #22: Get Ready
23. Writing Tool #23: Place Gold Coins Along the Path
24. Writing Tool #24: Name the Big Parts
25. Writing Tool #25: Repeat
26. Writing Tool #26: Fear Not the Long Sentence
27. Writing Tool #27: Riffing for Originality
28. Writing Tool #28: Writing Cinematically
29. Writing Tool #29: Report for Scenes
30. Writing Tool #30: Write Endings to Lock the Box
31. Writing Tool #31: Parallel Lines
32. Writing Tool #32: Let It Flow
33. Writing Tool #33: Rehearsal
34. Writing Tool #34: Cut Big, Then Small
35. Writing Tool #35: Use Punctuation
36. Writing Tool #36: Write A Mission Statement for Your Story
37. Writing Tool #37: Long Projects
38. Writing Tool #38: Polish Your Jewels
39. Writing Tool #39: The Voice of Verbs
40. Writing Tool #40: The Broken Line
41. Writing Tool #41: X-Ray Reading
42. Writing Tool #42: Paragraphs
43. Writing Tool #43: Self-criticism
44. Writing Tool #44: Save String
45. Writing Tool #45: Foreshadow
46. Writing Tool #46: Storytellers, Start Your Engines
47. Writing Tool #47: Collaboration
48. Writing Tool #48: Create An Editing Support Group
49. Writing Tool #49: Learn from Criticism
50. Writing Tool #50: The Writing Process

One of the best books on the adab of knowledge and learning - English translation
Imam Ibn Jama`a’s Tadhkirat al-Sami` wa’l Mutakallim fi Adab al-`Alim wa’l Muta`allim

“The Memoir of the Listener and the Speaker in the Training of Teacher and Student”

UPDATE: A dear friend of mine (whom I know well enough, I think, that he’d want to remain anonymous regarding something like this) said:

Don’t know if you’ve looked at it, but the translation of
the Ibn Jama’a book you posted is terrible. In the sense of just
downright WRONG meanings in several locations. I was using it for
my thesis, and found out there was an English version; thinking it
might save me some short bits of translating time, I ordered it,
received it, and compared it to the Arabic. I’m not just being mean here;
it is downright incorrect and conveys no sense of what Ibn
Jama’a was saying. Don’t mean to be a downer, but so it is.Of course, the original book itself is a gem, as you say.

Faraz be noting in adition:

It be noted or should by translating persons of desiredness of translating all book  that there be conditions for sound translation, including such things as:

(1) Understanding what you translate, properly
(2) Conveying the meaning of what you translate, soundly
(3) Expressing this meaning in a manner faithful to the original–in substance, form, and style.

And be Allah the Always-Granter of the successes of the life. [= And Allah alone gives success.]

Dr. Imran Usmani: Meezan Bank Guide to Islamic Banking & Finance [Online Book] « Islamic Finance Affairs

Study Islam at SunniPath - the Online Islamic Academy

View Recorded Events:

• Mawlid - with Shaykh Anas Khalifah
• Pride & Humility - by Shaykh Abdul-Kareem Yahya
• Reality of the Spiritual Path - by Shaykh Nuh Keller
• The Opening: An Explanation of Surat al-Fatiha - by Shaykh Sohail Hanif

Informed Comment -  24 Killed,90 wounded;Qadiriya Shrine Damaged in Blast

Reuters reports that 33 bodies were found in the streets of Baghdad on Monday. Karrada took mortar fire, which left 8 dead and 35 wounded. McClatchy reports that on Sunday night, guerrillas had taken 40 persons hostage
in Salahuddin Province, in a bid to counter the operation of a new
anti-Salafi tribal council. There were other bombings, shootings and
assorted mayhem in Baghdad, Mosul and some other places.

But
one above all took the cake. Guerrillas detonated a huge bomb in front
of the shrine of Abdul Qadir al-Gilani (Jilani, Kilani) in central
Baghdad on Monday, killing (according to Reuters, above) some 24
persons and wounding 90 according to late reports. The bombing damaged the dome and the base of the minaret of the mosque attached to the shrine.

Shaikh Abdul Qadir al-Gilani (d. 1166 A.D.) was a great mystic who founded the vast Qadiriya Sufi order.

An Ottoman mystic, Shaikh Muzaffer Ozak Efendi, later wrote of him,

‘
“The venerable ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani passed on to the Realm of Divine
Beauty in A.H. 561/ 1166 C.E., and his blessed mausoleum in Baghdaad is
still a place of pious visitation. He is noted for his extraordinary
spiritual experiences and exploits, as well as his memorable sayings
and wise teachings. It is rightly said of him that ‘he was born in
love, grew in perfection, and met his Lord in the perfection of love.’
May the All-Glorious Lord bring us in contact with his lofty spiritual
influence!” ‘

The Qadiri Sufi order is very important in Iraq, Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Turkey, Pakistan and India, among other places.

The
shrine was likely attacked by radical Sunni Salafis, with several
objects in mind. First, Salafis hate Sufi shrines (see below). Second,
the Salafi Jihadis in Iraq are trying to mobilize all Iraqi Sunnis
behind them, and do not want rivals from among the Sufi orders and
tribal shaikhs. Third, the Salafi Jihadis want to throw Iraq into ever
greater chaos, such that they strike at all national symbols. Fourth,
they are probably hoping that at least some Sunni Arabs will blame
Shiite militiamen for the attack, or will blame the Shiite government
for not preventing it, so that the bombing has the effect of
heightening sectarian tensions further. The guerrilla attack on the
Shiite Askariya Shrine in Samarra in February, 2006, set off an orgy of
sectarian violence, and was the most successful single act of terrorism
the guerrillas have ever carried out.

One saving grace is that
Sufis are oriented toward symbolic meaning, and physical places are
therefore not central to their worship. One famous medieval Sufi,
al-Hallaj, famously thought that it was better to visit God in your
heart truly than to undertake a perfunctory pilgrimage to Mecca. (The
orthodox were outraged.) It is a little unlikely, therefore, that there
will be a backlash from this bombing in Nigeria or Senegal or India.
For Iraqi Sunnis, likewise, it seems a little unlikely to produce
further violence, since the imam himself blamed the radical Salafis
(takfiris), themselves Sunni.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that
Muhammad al-Isawi, the prayer leader and preacher at the mosque
attached to the shrine, said, “I send condolences not only to myself
but to all Iraqis for what befell this mosque for everyone, for Sunni
and Shiite, for Turkmen and Kurd. Who venefits from blowing it up? We
must be patient and resigned and deny any opportunity to the enemies,
the Takfiri terrorists.” [Takfiris are radical Salafis who declare
Sufis and other non-Salafis to be non-Muslims and deserving of death.]
He added, “They have idled the charitable works in the mosque, which
provides food to widows, orphans and the needy; it also contains a
library, to which seekers after knowledge resort. It was, truly, a
cowardly act.”

There are lots of strands of Sunni Islam.
Many of them are better thought of as tendencies than as sects in their
own right. If we make an analogy to Christianity, so there are
scriptural literalists (fundamentalists), and there are mystics seeking
union with God, and there is everything in between.

The mystics
organized into orders or brotherhoods (tariqa) are called Sufis. (The
etymology of ‘Sufi’ is disputed. Some say it refers to the early
mystics’ preference for woollen (suf) cloaks. Others say it is derived
from the Greek Sophia or wisdom.) The mystics typically get together on
a Thursday night (or other occasion) at the mosque and sit in a circle
and chant spiritual verses and listen to the teachings of their
spiritual master or shaikh (in Persian, pir). Some Sufi meetings, with
their chanting and rhythmic dancing, resemble Pentacostal services in
Christianity. When the shaikh died, often a shrine grew up around his
tomb, which was thought a center of blessings and people would come
there to touch it and be cured of infertility and other woes.

Sufism
was so successful as an organized movement from about the 1100s that it
took over Islam, and there were very few Muslims who were not in some
sense Sufis in the period 1200 through about 1850. From the mid-1700s,
Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab in Arabia began attacking Sufism. The attacks
were taken up and refined by the Salafis (revivalists) of the late 19th
and early 20th century. It began being argued, under Wahhabi and Salafi
influence, that it was wrong to attend at shrines, wrong to seek the
intercession of saints, wrong to chant and to dance for God. Modern
Wahhabism (mostly a Saudi Arabian phenomenon) and Salafism (much more
widespread) have a “Protestant” character to them, emphasizing
puritanism and the casting down of all images (iconoclasm) and saints’
shrines.

Sufism has rapidly declined in much of the Muslim
world. The Sufi orders still have a central place in society and even
politics in Senegal. The Sufis of Morocco are not inconsiderable. But
they no longer are in the mainstream in Egypt and are minor affairs in
Palestine, Syria and Jordan. The Sufis of the Hijaz in western Arabia
are said to be having a bit of a revival, but Wahhabism has reduced
them to a shadow of their former selves. Aside from Morocco, Iraq may
have been the Arab country with the biggest Sufi presence, both among
Sunni Arabs and among Kurds (a lot of Kurds in Iraq, Iran and Turkey
are Sufis and some are Qadiris).

Some of the Sufi orders,
including branches of the Qadiriya, have at one time or another joined
the Sunni Arab insurgency (a major guerrilla leader at Falluja was a
Qadiri shaikh). Other branches of the Qadiriya have, however, been
quietists and avoided politics (the shrine keeper is in that category,
another reason that the shrine may have been hit).

There is a whole web site on al-Gilani and his order by an adherent.

Eight ways to save time at the office - - MSNBC.com

Author Stuart Levine shows you how to use your hours at the work more efficiently. Read an excerpt from his new book “Cut to the Chase”

In India, Grandma Cooks, They Deliver - New York Times

Gaurav Bamania, a hedge fund analyst who works in one of the many downtown office towers that now dominate the skyline of India’s financial capital, could easily eat lunch at one of the city’s better restaurants. Instead, Mr. Bamania, 26, follows a practice dating back over a century to the early years of British rule: he has a hot meal, lovingly cooked at home by his grandmother, and delivered to his desk every workday.

In India, where many traditions are being rapidly overturned as a
result of globalization, the practice of eating a home-cooked meal for
lunch lives on.

Lifehacker Code: Better Gmail (Firefox extension) - Lifehacker

Gmail’s good, but it could be better. We’ve featured several
Greasemonkey scripts that enhance Gmail in lots of different ways -
like adding saved searches, attachment icons, label colors, keyboard
macros, a filter assistant and right-click conversation previews. But
not everyone wants to install Greasemonkey and hunt down all those
scripts.

To save you the time, I’ve compiled the best
Greasemonkey scripts for Gmail into one handy Firefox extension, called
Better Gmail. After the jump, put your Gmail on steroids with Better
Gmail.

Better Gmail Firefox extension

Version: 0.7
Released: April 16, 2007
Updated: May 28, 2007
Creator: Gina Trapani, using scripts by Mihai Parparita and others, compiled using Anthony Lieuallen’s Greasemonkey Compiler.

What it does:
Adds a menu of optional extra features to Gmail. To view the enabled
features and get more information on each, in Firefox’s Add-ons dialog,
click on Better Gmail’s Preferences dialog, as shown…

Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini | Review | Guardian Unlimited Books

Khaled Hosseini’s follow-up to The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, will not disappoint his many fans, says Natasha Walter

Other Reviews:

Source: Reviews of Books - A Thousand Splendid Suns - by Khaled Hosseini

About SunniPath Answers Service

The Prophet (God bless him and give him peace) said, “The
cure for confusion is asking” [Abu Dawud, 336; Ibn Maja,
572; Ahmad, 3057; a sound hadith].

The focal point of traditional Muslim communities has always been the local religious scholar who directed them to God
and taught them how to live. Such communities are now
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The voice of conscience | Hay Festival | Guardian Unlimited Books

For decades he was the scourge of successive Nigerian despots. Now aged 72, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka tells Maya Jaggi how ‘repetitions of history’ - most recently the atrocities in Darfur - continue to haunt his life and work

Marifah - The Existence of Allah

Imagine
a house whose rooms are well provided with luxurious furniture,
standing on a high mountain surrounded by a thick forest; suppose that
a man came across this house, but could not find anybody nearby.
Suppose that he thought that the rocks from the mountain had been
scattered around, and then automatically collected together to take the
shape of this splendid palace with its bedrooms, chambers, corridors,
and fittings, that the trees in the wood had split of their own accord
into boards, and formed themselves into doors and beds, seats and
tables, each taking its place in the palace;

The Existence of Allah
Shaykh al-Azhar Abd al-Halim Mahmud

The Attributes of Allah

Claim: You [the Ash`arīs, Maturīdīs] contradict yourselves. You
affirm for Allāh Life, Power, Will, Knowledge, Speech, Hearing and
Sight, while making ta`wīl (figurative interpretation) of istiwā
(rising), nuzūl (descending), māji’, ityān, wajh (face), yad (hand),
sāq, qadam (foot), janb (side), `ayn (eye) and relocation in (various)
levels. The basic rule with regards to the Attributes is one, so if you
affirm the seven Attributes, what prevents you from affirming the rest?
What is the difference? This is nothing less than contradiction.

Response: The response to this consists of two points:

The Attributes of Allāh
Imām Taqīyyudīn al-Subkī

Shadhili Tariqa - Sufi Path

Download the audio file(s) by right clicking and selecting “Save As”.

‘Noah’s Ark’ of 5,000 rare animals found floating off the coast of China | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

· Cargo of abandoned vessel destined for restaurants
· Illegal trade drives species closer to extinction

Multiculturalism and the discontents of globalisation Yahya Birt - openDemocracy

Tariq Modood’s reconsidered multiculturalism needs to be extended to a global and cosmopolitan canvas, says Yahya Birt.

There is much to admire in Tariq Modood’s defence of multiculturalism, developed in his book Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea and presented in his openDemocracy article “Multiculturalism, citizenship and national identity”
(17 May 2007). The gist of his case is that it needs to be mended and
not ended, surely the only sensible response to an inescapable shift to
superdiversity in our globalising world. Multiculturalism may be
reinvigorated by linking it positively to more inclusive notions of
citizenship and national identity and belonging. If the nation-state is
more inclusive, then the “multilogical” processes by which integration
may take place allows more easily for the inclusion of minorities
within an expanded vision of Britishness, which (as Modood indicates)
has more to do with process than with lists of core values….

Virtually Islamic - Tablighi Jamaat Hires PR firm for giant mosque cause

I have been following this story for several years, but it has taken a new turn: The Times, Sect hires PR firm to win support for giant mosque, 21 May 07
This is an interesting article about Tablighi Jamaat in the UK, who
have hired a PR company to promote the proposed construction of a large
mosque in east London: “Indigo has put Tablighi Jamaat on YouTube with
a short statement from an unnamed representative who tries to calm
fears about the size of the mosque and says that it will reach its
12,000 capacity only once or twice a year.” A related article is thisislondon.co.uk, Architects sacked over designs for huge mosque, 30 April 07. There is a useful breakdown of planning issues here: transformnewham.com, Mosque at Abbey Mills. The Abbey Mills Mosque website is here, and has a pic of Ken Livingstone on the front…