Haqiqat al-Muhammadiyya: “Many Pakistanis and people of the Naqshbandi tariqa (and maybe of others) consider the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) to be Nur Allah, the ‘Light of Allah’, and find it offensive that we call the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) bashar, a ‘human being’, even though the Qur’an states him to be so. I have also been made aware of a hadith in Tirmidhi that states that the prophets (upon whom be peace) were created from the Nur of Allah and the first amongst them was the Prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace). Do you have any knowledge about this matter? “

‘Insulting to Jews’: Leading German Rabbi Condemns Pope’s Good Friday Prayer - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News: “Jewish groups around the world have condemned Pope Benedict XVI’s new version of a Catholic Good Friday prayer. SPIEGEL ONLINE talks to prominent German rabbi Walter Homolka about why the prayer is insulting to Jews and discusses alleged anti-Semitic tendencies within the Catholic Church.”

At Harvard, Students’ Muslim Traditions Are a Topic of Debate - New York Times: “Two issues of Muslim practice — whether the call to prayer should ring out across Harvard Yard and whether the university should grant women separate gym hours — have unleashed small waves of controversy over how Harvard practices tolerance.

“

A High Price for Healthy Food - Well - Tara Parker-Pope - Health - New York Times Blog: “Healthy eating really does cost more.

That’s what University of Washington researchers found when they compared the prices of 370 foods sold at supermarkets in the Seattle area. Calorie for calorie, junk foods not only cost less than fruits and vegetables, but junk food prices also are less likely to rise as a result of inflation. The findings, reported in the current issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, may help explain why the highest rates of obesity are seen among people in lower-income groups.

The scientists took an unusual approach, essentially comparing the price of a calorie in a junk food to one consumed in a healthier meal. Although fruits and vegetables are rich in nutrients, they also contain relatively few calories. Foods with high energy density, meaning they pack the most calories per gram, included candy, pastries, baked goods and snacks.

The survey found that higher-calorie, energy-dense foods are the better bargain for cash-strapped shoppers. Energy-dense munchies cost on average $1.76 per 1,000 calories, compared with $18.16 per 1,000 calories for low-energy but nutritious foods. “

Kerry: Obama Can Bridge Divide With Islam “Because He’s A Black Man” - Politics on The Huffington Post

And I can solve the Tibetan crisis, because I’m brown.

Qasida Burda - Is it true that there is blatant shirk in many parts of the Qasida Burda? (Edited)

Christians, Muslims move ahead on global talks | csmonitor.com: “Gatherings of top religious leaders and even some heads of state will take place this year in the United States, at the Vatican, and in Britain, aimed at defusing tensions between the West and the Muslim world.

The first-of-their-kind dialogues – which will kick off in July – will begin with theological discussions but seek practical results. Yet they’re stirring some debate within the faith groups as to the proper way to engage ‘the other’ and whether common ground can be found.

The initiative was sparked last October by ‘A Common Word Between Us and You,’ an open letter from 138 Muslim clergy and scholars from more than 40 nations to the leaders of all the world’s major Christian churches. Concerned that ‘the future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians,’ the Muslim leaders proposed dialogue on the basis of the shared principles of ‘the love of God, and love of the neighbor.’

Most of the churches responded positively, buoyed both by the letter and the authority of those who signed it – representing most schools of Muslim thought.

‘The Christian response was overwhelming, and we’ve been humbled by it,’ says Sohail Nakhooda, Jordanian editor in chief of Islamica magazine and a member of the Muslim planning team. ‘This meant we had a lot of serious work ahead!’ “

TheStar.com | Health | Mom was right: Giving really is better than receiving: “Canadian-led research reveals that when it comes to money, it’s better to spend it on others than on yourself”

Laila Lalami | How to Read A Novel

Starbucks Plans Return to Its Roots - New York Times

Howard D. Schultz, the chief executive of Starbucks, announced sweeping changes on Wednesday for the company as it seeks to reconnect with customers who have left for competitors or pared back their coffee budget in hard economic times .

The initiatives are intended to restore an authentic coffeehouse experience to the stores and, in turn, re-energize an ailing stock that has lost half its value in the last 15 months.

In front of 6,000 investors, employees and analysts at the annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Schultz introduced an improved automated espresso machine that grinds coffee for each drink and has a lower height that will allow customers to see baristas making their beverage. He said the company would roll out the Swiss-made Mastrena machines to three-fourths of Starbucks stores by 2010.

at-Talib: Remembering Allaamah Anwar Shah Kashmiri (RA): “Mufti Muhammad Shafi has said: ‘One time, Hadhrat Shah Saheb was extremely sick and his illness had been prolonging. During this time, a false rumor of the demise of Hadhrat Shah Saheb spread at the time of Fajr Salah. It was as if lightning had struck us, and right after the Fajr prayer we all rushed to his house along with Allama Shabir Ahmad Usmaani. Upon arriving at his house, we found out that the news of his demise was false. However, his sickness had remained. When we all entered the room of Hadhrat, we found him sitting at his prayer place and in front of him lay a book on a pillow, which he was studying while bending down because of the lack of light. His students were perturbed at this scene, because studying in this posture could increase his illness. Hence, Allama Shabir Ahmad Usmani willingly said:

‘Hadhrat! We can not understand this. How can there still be an academic discourse that has not been studied by you? If there is some discourse that you are unaware of and should study it, what is the urgent need to know it right now and why can not this study be postponed until you feel better? If it is really urgent, then are not we here at your disposal? You could have told any of us and we would have read this material and informed you of the content. This academic endeavor and labor of yours in this poor health can not be tolerated by us’.

Maulana Anwar Shah Kashmiri looked at Allama Shabir Ahmad Usmani for some time with virtuousness and innocence and then replied: ‘Brother, you are right but books also hold a craving, what should I do about this addiction’? Hadhrat Shah Saheb would be engaged in Islamic academic research during the day and night to such a degree as if the world had nothing to do with him. To be bothered by the affairs of the world was outside the capacity of Hadhrat Shah Saheb” (Akabir Deoband Kia They?, p.43)”

Iraq: Teachers Told to Rewrite History: ”
A 1996 British law requires balance in the teaching of political issues. But on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, Britain’s biggest teacher union gives low grades to a lesson plan devised by the Ministry of Defence that includes no mention of Iraqi civilian casualties or the lack of United Nations’ approval for the war. The teachers question why the lesson plans rely on US spellings like ‘program’ rather than the British spelling of ‘programme’ and also express concern about military-recruitment efforts in the schools. An independent review by the Joseph Rowntree Trust suggests that the class material had used ‘misleading marketing with advertising campaigns that ‘glamorise warfare, omit vital information and fail to point out the risks and responsibilities associated with a forces career,’ reports Richard Garner for the Independent. The teachers offer a stark reminder that military activity and any historical analysis are complex, expanding beyond immediate defense of one’s country. – YaleGlobal”

Guess Who’s Getting the Most Work Visas: ”
Since 1990, the US has issued a set number of H-1B visas by lottery to attract talented science, technology and math professionals from around the world to its universities, research centers and companies. Increasing numbers of applications, however, combined with strict caps and a lottery system prevent many foreign professionals from entering the US workforce. A federal report points out that outsourcing firms in India receive an increasing share of the visas, reports Moira Herbst for BusinssWeek.com, and that has prompted some members of US Congress to question whether the program is really attracting the most talented workers who provide long-term benefit to the country. The report reveals a divide between US technology companies and India’s outsourcing firms; while both want a sharp increase in the annual number of visas, the former seeks permanent workers and the latter seeks temporary help. Meanwhile, many US workers remain anxious about job security and oppose any expansion in the visa program. – YaleGlobal”

NPR: Was Captain Ahab Ahead of His Time?: “Is it possible? Could Ahab — the peg-legged ship’s captain who leads that ill-fated quest for the great white whale in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick — have been misunderstood.

To most, especially those who know him only from John Huston’s film, Ahab is a petty dictator, tyrant of a tiny seaborne fiefdom, a monomaniac dedicated only to killing the whale that mauled him. Ultimately, he’s a mass murderer who drags dozens of sailors to Davy Jones’ Locker.

But under that exterior madness, some see a man of surprising talents”

Birdwatching in Karachi at Pakistan Animal Welfare Society

The wetlands of Pakistan attract a large number of migratory birds every winter. This natural phenomenon provides birdwatchers with great opportunities to enjoy birds in their natural environment.

SunniPath Blog - » The Test of True Love

TheStar.com | News | Ethanol craze raises concerns: “Corn-derived biofuel already has dramatically altered the economic reality of the American heartland and promises boom times for Ontario farmers. But how can we possibly keep up with demand? And what about the spiralling cost of food?”

Shariah - Muslims - Islamic Law - Islam - Courts - New York Times: “In some sense, the outrage about according a degree of official status to Shariah in a Western country should come as no surprise. No legal system has ever had worse press. To many, the word ‘Shariah’ conjures horrors of hands cut off, adulterers stoned and women oppressed. By contrast, who today remembers that the much-loved English common law called for execution as punishment for hundreds of crimes, including theft of any object worth five shillings or more? How many know that until the 18th century, the laws of most European countries authorized torture as an official component of the criminal-justice system? As for sexism, the common law long denied married women any property rights or indeed legal personality apart from their husbands. When the British applied their law to Muslims in place of Shariah, as they did in some colonies, the result was to strip married women of the property that Islamic law had always granted them — hardly progress toward equality of the sexes.

In fact, for most of its history, Islamic law offered the most liberal and humane legal principles available anywhere in the world.”

Hadia Mubarak: Spitzer Symptomatic of Culture’s Affliction - On Faith at washingtonpost.com

While the public’s outrage at Spitzer’s sex scandal is more than justifiable, it is also misplaced. With a number of politicians falling from grace in the past few years for infidelity and illicit sexual activities, this latest scandal should compel our society to do more than just balk and shake our heads. Spitzer’s recent behavior is reflective of a greater societal affliction, the root problems of which need to be identified and treated. Spitzer’s problem was only a symptom of this affliction; if we searched for its cause, we’d realize that many others are implicated.

It didn’t take Spitzer’s fall to reinforce the fact that our society is undergoing a moral crisis and it’s time we pay attention to it. Whether walking through the mall or watching television, I am constantly bombarded by an invasive level of ‘soft porn’ that is widely accepted as ‘advertisement.’ The greatest culprit, the marketing industry, caters to men as their primary consumers, appealing to their scopophilic desires (obtaining sexual pleasure by looking at nude or erotic images) and projecting women’s bodies as commodities. The sexually provocative images used to sell nearly everything – from a pair of jeans to a chocolate bar – depict women in a way that subconsciously leads to their degradation and objectification.

Our society’s glorification of sex through the media, music and film industries has come to haunt us. Young girls as young as 11 and 12 years old are growing up in America believing that their value as human beings is based on their sexual appeal. Dressing beyond their age, young girls engage in hyper consumerism of skimpy clothing and cosmetics – not for their own gratification – but for the gratification of men. Young boys in middle school are growing up to believe that women were created for their own sexual pleasure.

As a Muslim feminist, I have a serious problem with our society’s denial of this epidemic. If we’re going to pay so much attention to one man’s illicit sexual behavior, let’s look at our own society’s encouragement of deviant practices through the ways in which women’s bodies are exploited, commodified and objectified in film, music and – the worst culprit of them all – the marketing industry.

I am not, by any means, absolving Splitzer of responsibility for his outrageous behavior. At the same time, I find it hypocritical not to turn a critical eye inward and address our own responsibility – as a collective – for engendering the type of attitude and atmosphere where women’s bodies are treated as commodities for sale. “

Foreign Affairs - Us and Them - Jerry Z. Muller: “Summary: Americans generally belittle the role of ethnic nationalism in politics. But in fact, it corresponds to some enduring propensities of the human spirit, it is galvanized by modernization, and in one form or another, it will drive global politics for generations to come. Once ethnic nationalism has captured the imagination of groups in a multiethnic society, ethnic disaggregation or partition is often the least bad answer.”

Banks Springing Up to Serve the Underserved - New York Times: “Similarly, many of the nation’s almost five million Muslims have special banking concerns that often go unaddressed by mainstream banks. In particular, Sharia, Islamic law, forbids the charging or paying of interest. ‘This hampers most bank transactions,’ said Amjad Quadri, assistant vice president for business development and new markets at the University Islamic Financial Corporation, a bank based in Ann Arbor, Mich. As a result, many Muslims decide to rent rather than buy homes. ‘And most Muslims only have interest-free checking accounts and credit cards that they pay off at the end of the month,’ Mr. Quadri said.

To accommodate special concerns of Muslims, University Islamic, with additional offices in East Brunswick, N.J., and McLean, Va., offers rent-to-own agreements for home buyers, along with savings accounts that offer ‘profit sharing’ rather than interest. (The bank’s profit-sharing rates are competitive with those at other financial institutions.)

This profit-sharing strategy has enabled Haaris Ahmad, a lawyer in Canton, Mich., to earn money in a money market account for the first time. ‘Now, my wife and I get the same benefits that other people have, but in a way that’s compliant with our faith requirements,’ Mr. Ahmad said.”

TheStar.com | GTA | Teens with troubles get Islamic line: “Typical teenage angst rather than religious fervour is on the minds of most callers to Canada’s first hotline for Muslim youth, say its co-founders.

Based in Mississauga, the Naseeha (’advice’ in Persian) help line was launched last month to help young people navigate the usual challenges of growing up, including peer pressure, dating and curfews – but with advice that emphasizes Islamic values, says co-founder Abdussamad Khan, 27, a financial adviser.”

(Naseeha is Arabic for advice–or, more generally, sincere concern.)

The hotline number for Naseeha is 1-866-627-3342

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Kidnapped Iraqi archbishop dead: “Paulos Faraj Rahho, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of the Iraqi city of Mosul, who was kidnapped last month, has been found dead near the city. “

La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah.

Michael Pollan: Don’t Eat Anything That Doesn’t Rot | Health and Wellness | AlterNet: “Acclaimed author and journalist Michael Pollan argues that what most Americans are consuming today is not food but ‘edible foodlike substances.’ His previous book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, was named one of 2006’s ten best books by the New York Times and the Washington Post. His latest book is called In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.”

Din seeking the Deen: Abdul Hakim Murad: Qualities in prospective spouse

Masha’ Allah, an excellent find by Sidi Hammad Din…