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Golden Mean Point of the Earth 1.618

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The scientists, artists, aestheticians, architects, mathematicians, financial analysts agree that application of this Golden Mena ratio 1.618 creates perfection, proportion, beauty and balance to their works.<br />
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The Holy Qur’an also reveals that Mecca is the first house founded for the mankind.<br />
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“Surely, the first House founded for mankind is that at Becca, abounding in blessings and guidance for all peoples. (Al Qur’an 3:97)<br />
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Allah placed Mecca at the Golden Mean of our earth.<br />
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The other names used for the Golden Mean are the Golden Ratio, extreme and mean ratio, medial section, divine proportion, divine section (Latin: sectio divina), golden proportion, golden cut, golden number, and mean of Phidias.<br />
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The Holy Qur’an reveals that God has raised heavens and has set up a measure for them.<br />
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“And the heaven He has raised high and set up a measure”( Al Qur’an 55:8)<br />
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The Golden Ratio is one such measure which is extensively applied in nature. It is represented with Greek letter phi in the mathematical calculations and its value is always 1.6180339887…..<br />
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Two quantities are said to be in the golden ratio when the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one. Diagrammatically it can be represented as follows: (DiagramONE)<br />
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Golden Mean Point of the Earth 1.618

The scientists, artists, aestheticians, architects, mathematicians, financial analysts agree that application of this Golden Mena ratio 1...

Friday, February 05, 2016

Objectives of Shariah: A Quranic Perspective by Nouman Ali Khan

Objectives of Shariah: A Quranic Perspective by Nouman Ali Khan

Islamic Sharia: A Divine Legal Framework for a Prosperous Society at the ICNA 2011 Convention - Objectives of Sharia: A Quranic Perspect...

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Non-Muslim Women Push ‘World Hijab Day - Feb 1’ To Undermine Western Opposition

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Some non-Muslim women in the <b>United States</b> and other countries voluntarily donned the “hijab” on Monday (Feb 01) to show “solidarity” with Muslim women.<br />
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World Hijab Day is part of a major effort supported by Muslim Student Association (MSA) to foster empathy toward Muslims and Islam in America.<br />
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“People see a veil, the hijab, but people don’t understand why we wear it,” said Doha Medani, a sophomore at North Carolina State University (NCSU), reports The Technician, the school’s newspaper. “My hijab is how I represent myself to the world: as a Muslim, first and foremost,” Medani said.<br />
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“The first thing people see … is my hijab. It makes it clear to the world, or whoever else, that I’m Muslim… it tells people a lot about who you are,” she added.<br />
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The campaign, however, is spurring protests from Americans. For example, two Muslim women penned a December op-ed at the Washington Post in which they say the hijab campaign is intended to hide Islam’s sexist political agenda, and urged Americans to stand against Islam’s ideological oppression of women.<br />
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“Journalists and media outlets must stop making the mistake of defining hijab as ‘headscarf,’ furthering a sexist propaganda campaign to equate the two,” wrote Asra Q. Nomani and Hala Arafa.<br />
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In the name of ‘interfaith,’ well-intentioned Americans are getting duped by the agenda of Muslims who argue that a woman’s honor lies in her ‘chastity,’ pushing a platform to put a headscarf on every woman,” the Muslim women added. “Please do this instead: Do not wear a headscarf in ‘solidarity’ with the ideology that most silences us, equating our bodies with ‘honor.’ Stand with us instead with moral courage against the ideology of Islamism that demands we cover our hair.<br />
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Hijabs are tight or loose headcloths that leave the face uncovered. They’re a less restrictive version of the face-hiding burkas imposed on Afghans women, or the eye-revealing niqabs forced on Saudi women, including Saudi journalists.<br />
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Advocates of the Hijab campaign downplay their Islamic political goals, and instead portray their campaign as a women’s solidarity event.<br />
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“It’s like a ‘Walk a day in their shoes’ type of thing, for women to wear the hijab and see what happens, how things around them change when they are viewed as a Muslim woman — to step into that and get that perspective,” said NCSU senior Hoda Abrahim. “So you can empathize in a way, or just better understand it.”<br />
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At NCSU, the school’s MSA and Women’s Center jointly allowed non-Muslim women the opportunity to wear the hijab and share their stories about their experience.<br />
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World Hijab Day was billed as “an open invitation to Muslims and non-Muslims to experience the hijab for a day.” Ads for the event were clearly aimed at attacking negativity toward Muslims and proposals to limit their immigration due to concerns about terrorism from Islamic jihadists.<br />
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“Before you judge, cover up for a day,” read one ad. “Covered by choice, not force,” another read, tying to countering the widespread view that Islam oppresses women. Yet another featured a woman in a hijab with the message, saying “Beautiful, confident, empowered.”<br />
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The Penn State Berks MSA hosted “World Hijab Day” and advertised a “free scarf for female attendees, a tutorial on how to wear the hijab, and a free lunch for all who attend.” Participants were asked to wear the hijab for the entire day and send their stories about their experiences to the school’s MSA president, reports Penn State News. A prize was awarded to the woman who submitted the most “engaging submission.”<br />
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At Texas A & M, biology junior Salam Yamak told The Battalion, “Anytime you sit down with someone and you have a conversation and you show them what your religion is all about should be casual like this,” she said about marking the day. “It creates a better environment and so we can better show the true nature of Islam.”<br />
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“Whenever you have Islamophobia or any other group that is seen as different it’s because of people not having enough knowledge or having enough experiences with Muslim people,” Yamak added.<br />
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Similarly, chemical engineering senior Danielle Gore said Islamophobia must be fought through dialogue that shows how peaceful Islam is as a religion.<br />
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“Especially for people who have only seen negative portrayals of Islam in the media and that’s what this holiday [sic] is for, to create a dialogue and to ask questions and to humanize a group of people who have been dehumanized,” he said. “Even if we do get some crazy people who yell things at us when we’re walking around campus we have definitely seen the goodness come out from our fellow Aggies by showing us support, despite the rhetoric that’s been created.”<br />
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World Hijab Day was launched in 2013 by Nazma Khan, a New York resident who hoped to change the image of the hijab as a sign of oppression of women of Islam. The day has been especially marked on college and university campuses.<br />
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Among World Hijab Day’s “endorsers” is Felixia Yeap, an ex-Playboy bunny and ex-Playboy model, who writes in support:<br />
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I support world hijab day because I have heard enough stories of why hijabi women are being bullied and mocked just because they wear a hijab. I have been and still am being sarcastically mocked and insulted just because I chose to be a full time “hijabster” despite the fact that I have not reverted yet. Thanks for coming up with this 1st Feb!<br />
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“Revert” is the Islam term for “convert,” and illustrates the orthodox Islamic claim that everybody is born a Muslim, but many are led away from the Islamic lifestyle, or “deen,” by their parents and non-Islamic societies.<br />
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Source:  <a href="http://worldhijabday.com/" target="_blank">http://WorldHijabDay.com/</a><br />
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/02/muslim-student-associations-celebrate-world-hijab-day-to-foster-empathy-toward-muslim-women/</div>
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Non-Muslim Women Push ‘World Hijab Day - Feb 1’ To Undermine Western Opposition

Some non-Muslim women in the United States and other countries voluntarily donned the “hijab” on Monday (Feb 01) to show “solidarity” with...

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Halal goes global: tourism, food, lifestyle products are driving explosive growth worth US $3.7 trillion

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Worldwide spending on global Halal food and lifestyle products could rise 10.8 percent a year until 2019 to create an international industry worth US $3.7 trillion, according to the latest Global Islamic Economy Report.<br />
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Commissioned by the Government of Dubai and produced by ThomsonReuters in collaboration with strategy and research advisory firm DinarStandard, the report says that the past year has seen major advancements in the global Halal food and lifestyle sectors. These include investments by a Brazilian Halal food provider in a UAE production plant, new Halal testing technologies from France, Malaysia and the UAE, and international marketing of Dubai as a new Halal and Islamic Economy hub.<br />
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At the same time, the Halal tourism sector, a huge driver of food, beverage and hospitality sales, has also advanced following product investments in the UAE, the Maldives, Spain, Japan, the Philippines and Russia, amongst others. The lucrative Halal tourism market now represents 11.6 percent of global tourism expenditure, excluding the busy Hajj and Umrah seasons, and is expected to be worth US$238 billion by 2019.<br />
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According to the report, the Halal food sector alone will grow to a valuation of US$2.537 trillion by 2019, up from US$795 billion in 2014, equating to 21.2 percent of global food expenditure. The top countries with Muslim consumer food consumption are Indonesia, with a market worth US$190 billion, Turkey, where the market is valued at US$168 billion, Pakistan at US$108 billion and Iran, where the market equates to US$97 billion based on 2013 data.<br />
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Meanwhile, Malaysia, the UAE and Australia lead the report’s Halal Food Indicator, a gauge that focusses on the health of the country’s Halal Food ecosystem in relation to its size.<br />
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The UAE’s advancing status as an international centre for Halal food trading is evidenced by Halal World Food, the world’s biggest annual Halal food sourcing trade event, featuring more than 800 certified suppliers in only its third year. The segmented show-within-a-show concept at Gulfood 2016 returns to Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) from February 21st-25th.<br />
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"Adding more than 100 new Halal food companies highlights a leap in demand as major local, regional and international Halal food producers explore new areas of business opportunity and investment," said Trixie LohMirmand, Senior Vice President, Exhibitions and Events Management, DWTC. "The increase in our Halal exhibitors and companies is being driven by investment opportunities across the Halal food value chain, Halal food SMEs seeking Islamic financing for working capital, trade financing and expansion needs, M&A opportunities, organic, pure and wholesome new products, Halal ingredients and co-operation on building global or regional brands that deliver on Halal integrity."<br />
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Becoming a trusted name and solutions provider in the global Halal food sector and a destination of choice for Islamic families are among the seven strategic objectives of the ‘Dubai - the Capital of Islamic Economy’ initiative launched in early 2013 by His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.<br />
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"Halal World Food’s growth is helping the initiative attain some of these overarching objectives," added LohMirmand. "With an anticipated visitor turnout of over 85,000 from more than 170 countries including international heads of state, ministers, government officials and national trade associations from five continents, I think we can confidently predict an increase in the emirate’s share of year-round trading in Halal foods."<br />
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Following successful editions of Halal World Food in 2014 and 2015, scores of major international retail buyers are already using the specialised Gulfood event as their preferred Halal food sourcing platform. With Muslim populations rising across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, major food retailers in Europe and the Americas are also exploring new avenues to augment stocks of Halal certified products on supermarket shelves. The growing international appetite for increasingly diverse, certified Halal food products is expected to see Halal World Food serve as an enabler in Dubai’s strategy to cement its credentials as a Halal food re-export hub, another strategic objective in the emirate’s Islamic Economy capital vision.<br />
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The global Halal food sector also underpins this year’s two-day Gulfood Conference programme at the five-star Conrad Dubai Hotel from February 22nd-23rd. The Gulfood Halal Forum, a dedicated summit on February 23rd, will examine the potential of and opportunities across the global Halal economy, the regulations and trade procedures behind exporting Halal products to the GCC, Halal food and Dubai’s economic ambitions, growing Halal demand and the ratification of new GCC standards and the global call for unified Halal practices.<br />
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Confirmed speakers include Asad Sajjad, CEO, Gulf Halal Centre, Dr. Ashraf Ali Mahate, Head of Export Market Intelligence, Dubai Exports, Sarah Ahli and Yousef Almarzooqi of ESMA, Mazen Al Saleh, Manager of Strategic Execution, Islamic Finance, Sunjeh Raja, CEO of the Islamic Community Center Of Anchorage, Alaska, and Y. Bhg. Dato Seri Jamil Bin Bidin, CEO of the Halal Industry Development Corporation.<br />
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Halal World Food and the Gulfood Halal Forum are integral components of Gulfood 2016, the 21st edition of the world’s biggest annual food and hospitality trading platform. This year’s show will feature more than 5,000 international companies from 120 countries and 117 national and trade association pavilions, five more than last year, with first-time group participation from Russia, Costa Rica, Belarus, Mauritius and New Zealand returning after a six-year break.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Source: http://www.albawaba.com/business/halal-goes-global-tourism-food-lifestyle-products-are-driving-explosive-growth-800688</span></div>
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Halal goes global: tourism, food, lifestyle products are driving explosive growth worth US $3.7 trillion

Worldwide spending on global Halal food and lifestyle products could rise 10.8 percent a year until 2019 to create an international industr...

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Australian Halal food appreciation group goes viral

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A group of non-Muslim men have unwittingly made a stand against anti-halal critics thanks to a Facebook group. In under a month 25-year-old Sydney-sider Luke Eagles' Facebook group the Halal Snack Pack Appreciation Society has garnered almost 16,500 members.<br />
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Often the result of a night on the town, a halal snack pack is a bed of chips and kebab meat with a choice of sauces and cheese. Mr Eagles told Sky News that the group was started by him and friends for people who 'genuinely love Halal food' but it has quickly added a new purpose.<br />
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'It's good to see everyone come together and accept a different culture and realise that there is nothing to be afraid of and wake up to reality,' he said. Despite daily 'racist, offensive and unnecessary' comments on the page, Mr Eagles says that the response to the group has been overwhelmingly positive.<br />
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According to the group's founder the members of the page are from all walks of life with roughly 60 per cent of them identifying as Muslim. Although not religious himself, Mr Eagles credits growing up in mulitcultural Regents Park in Sydney's west for giving him an 'appreciation of culture and tradition.'<br />
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The page administrators 'all day, every day' receive gratitude from the Australian Muslim community who 'appreciate the culture clash and finally seeing everyone get along,' Luke said. Although the Facebook page taken on a much bigger role than initially intended Mr Eagles claims 'at the end of the day it's about the quality of the food.'<br />
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- See more at: http://www.skynews.com.au/culture/offbeat/2016/01/22/halal-food-appreciation-group-goes-viral.html#sthash.UcqWGWEw.dpuf<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Source: https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=Halal+food+appreciation+group+goes+viral&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 </span></div>
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Australian Halal food appreciation group goes viral

A group of non-Muslim men have unwittingly made a stand against anti-halal critics thanks to a Facebook group. In under a month 25-year-old...

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

How do people perceive Bible verses if they think they're coming from the Quran?

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<i>So they disguised a copy of the Bible as the Qur’an and read sections of it to people.
"According to this Entire Bible the woman has to be submissive"
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Dutch YouTube duo Dit Is Normaal decided to conducted a social experiment following the attacks in Paris to dispel misconceptions about Islam. They disguised a Bible as a Quran, and then went out onto the streets of the Netherlands to ask people about certain verses from it.<br />
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The pair chose specific Biblical passages that are far out of touch with modern Western culture, and they read them out loud to passerby, pretending they were reading from the Quran. People said the readings were "aggressive," while they described the Bible as "more peaceful" and "positive." The shock was palpable when they found out the verses they had just heard were actually part of the Christian holy text.<br />
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"Our experiment was a way to highlight our prejudice as a society about Islam, one that has been fed to us through mass media over the past couple of years," Alexander Spoor of Dit Is Normaal wrote to The Huffington Post in an email Monday. "The responses we got from the people on the streets were interesting, but not surprising. The outcome of this experiment pretty much proved our hypothesis to be correct. The responses we've been getting from people online are slightly surprising, though. We've received so many messages of thankfulness from Muslims from all over the world for making this video. It's been quite incredible."<br />
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So they disguised a copy of the Bible as the Qur’an and read sections of it to people.</div>
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<b>"According to this Entire Bible the woman has to be submissive"</b></div>
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The Bible verses are read (they think its from the Quran)</div>
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The Bible verses are read (they think its from the Quran)</div>
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The Bible verses are read (they think its from the Quran)</div>
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The Bible verses are read (they think its from the Quran)</div>
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The Bible verses are read (they think its from the Quran)</div>
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The Bible verses are read (they think its from the Quran)</div>
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AND they are told it is the Bible!</div>
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Source: <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/alanwhite/these-guys-read-people-passages-from-the-bible-but-made-them#.bwR0pvd3G" target="_blank">Buzzfeed</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEnWw_lH4tQ" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEnWw_lH4tQ</a></div>
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How do people perceive Bible verses if they think they're coming from the Quran?

So they disguised a copy of the Bible as the Qur’an and read sections of it to people. "According to this Entire Bible the woman has t...

Monday, February 01, 2016

Islam Offers Easy Answers for Reducing Waste

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As you might expect, we’ve discussed the environmental impacts of food waste on numerous occasions. We’ve also discussed the economics of sending edible food to landfills, as well as the innovative ideas created to address this waste. But food waste as an issue of faith? Actually, it makes total sense: certainly, it can’t be moral to dispose of food that people who are hungry could eat… can it?<br />
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The Hebrew scripture and Christian Bible speak to the notion of gluttony, but (to my knowledge, anyway) the Quran is the only holy book of the Abrahamic religions that speaks directly to the waste of food. Aisha Abdelhamid of our sister site Eden Keeper wrote about this topic very thoroughly at the beginning of the week, and I was just itching to find a place in the schedule for her post.<br />
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It’s easy to see why ancient cultures might have put a religious prohibition on the waste of food: their survival wasn’t guaranteed, and hunger was just a poor harvest away. Share your thoughts with us on Islam’s approach to the morality of waste. And, if you know of other religious obligations or prohibitions here, let us know about them… I’m fascinated by this topic.<br />
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UPDATE: Thanks to former Green Options writer and mom blogger extraordinaire Jessica Wilzig Gottlieb for filling me in on Bal Tashchit, the Jewish commandment forbidding wanton destruction and waste. In Deuteronomy 20:19-20, this concept is expressed specifically in terms of food waste…<br />
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<b>Islam Offers Easy Answers for Reducing Waste</b><br />
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Since the beginning of time, waste has been an environmental issue for humans. Waste is often equated with trash, but even before the existence of trash, there was waste. Understanding the various forms of waste can help us identify ways to avoid and reduce it. Muslims have had lessons on avoiding and reducing waste for over 1,400 years and we can all benefit from the guidance offered in Islam.<br />
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It is He Who has brought into being gardens, the cultivated and the wild, and date-palms, and fields with produce of all kinds, and olives and pomegranates, similar (in kind) and variegated. Eat of their fruit in season, but give (the poor) their due on harvest day. And do not waste, for God does not love the wasteful. [Quran 6:141]<br />
From this verse we comprehend that food is a primary source of waste. Leftover food in the days before refrigeration was probably a perilous invitation for predators to come visiting. Even today, leaving food out for the bears while camping in Yosemite is a dangerously bad idea. However, not only does God command us not to waste, but in the same verse He also teaches how to avoid it. God instructs us to share our food with the poor — not from leftovers after it’s been to the market, but on the same day it is harvested.<br />
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<b>A Criminal Degree of Commercial Food Waste</b><br />
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During ten years of life as a small family farmer in South Carolina, I saw a criminal degree of commercial food waste firsthand. Not only did we raise animals for halal meat, we also planted two acres of fruit trees. Taking fruit to market requires separating the very ripe fruit away from the fruit that will handle to sell for a few days. Imagine offering that very ripe fruit to the poor, how thoughtful and generous. No matter who you give it to, it’s much better than discarding it as “rotten” because it won’t handle transporting to the market.<br />
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This verse also identifies waste that occurs with consumption of food outside of its natural season. “Eat of their fruit in season” implies that this is better for us than, for example, importing grapes from halfway around the world. It is possible that this one simple command might have spared us all from global warming had we simply followed the guidance from Islam. Just think of all the fossil fuel emissions we might have avoided from only eating what is in season locally.<br />
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<b>Waste as a Result of Excess</b><br />
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Waste is also a problem resulting from having too much. It may be the most sweet cantaloupe you will ever eat in your life, but if the farmer planted too much cantaloupe, it’s going to go to waste. Allah addresses this problem of excess in the Quran:<br />
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O you who believe! Do not make unlawful the wholesome things which God has made lawful for you, but commit no excess for God does not love those given to excess. [Quran 5:87]<br />
Excess produce is a problem every farmer tries to cope with in a variety of ways. In the case of small family farms, neighborly sharing always was, and still is, a regular practice. In Islam, Allah requires that Muslims share a portion of every harvest with the poor in our neighborhoods. But, sadly, industrialized commercial farming practices have led to the worst forms of food waste due to excess.<br />
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Many acres may ripen their produce all at once, and often laborers can not physically harvest fast enough to avoid food spoilage. Sometimes whole fields of produce lay rotting in the sun, and it’s a very depressing sight. My husband and I drove up to the house of a farmer with huge fields full of rotting cantaloupes. The farmer told us the field is under contract, and no more money would be paid for laborers because it was late in the season and the cost of labor was higher than the value of the cantaloupes.<br />
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<b>Posted: No Trespassing Allowed</b><br />
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And don’t imagine the poor people in the neighborhood are allowed to take from those fields. We asked about that, too. Even the migrant farm workers are not allowed to do that. Contract farms are tightly patrolled and trespassers will be prosecuted – if they’re lucky and don’t get shot at.<br />
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Next, the produce that does get harvested and packaged is distributed to wholesale produce markets in huge quantities. This also is far more produce than can be distributed to grocery stores and restaurants without avoiding another huge loss of food to spoilage. Men drive forklifts around all day in the wholesale markets, carrying pallets of rotten produce to the dumpsters. The dumpsters are also patrolled, and it is illegal to remove any produce from them.<br />
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Drive behind your local grocery store and you will witness the next round of food waste from huge quantities of fresh produce on permanent display inside the store. But if it gets one little black spot on it, out it goes, onto the heaping, rotting pile out back. There are some grocery stores where poor people can stealthily grab from the dumpster out back, but in most communities this is definitely illegal trespassing, and I have no idea where poor people can turn for food. Thank God for religious organizations and food banks because harvest day sharing isn’t happening on commercial farms, wholesale markets, or out behind the grocery stores.<br />
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<b>Gluttony as a Form Of Waste</b><br />
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From the two verses above, we can understand that God has provided a wide variety of delicious and lawful, or halal, food for us to eat. We can infer from this that God intends for us to enjoy our food, and understands our pleasure in having a wide variety of flavors. This is confirmed by the fact that He gave us taste buds to appreciate the various flavors of food which He provides. But eating excessively, on the other hand, carries a terrible penalty:<br />
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<i>Eat of the wholesome things We have provided for your sustenance, but commit no excess therein, lest My condemnation fall upon you; he upon whom My condemnation falls has indeed thrown himself into utter ruin. (20:81)</i><br />
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Gluttony is a form of personal sabotage, leading to a large number of health risks. Overeating may be seen by many as a simple act of self-indulgence in the presence of delicious food, but God obviously doesn’t see it that way. It is easy to understand that unwholesome consumption, like taking drugs, clearly carries dangerous health risks. But the 1,400-year-old lesson here is that even the good, wholesome foods carry dangerous risks when eaten excessively.<br />
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Obesity and diabetes, among other life-wasting conditions related to overeating, are risks that God clearly would like us to avoid. And, just as we put the spoon in our own mouth with our own hand, God makes it clear that we are responsible for our own condemnation: “he upon whom My condemnation falls has indeed thrown himself into utter ruin.”<br />
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<b>“Jonesing” Is Another Form of Waste in Islam</b><br />
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“Keeping up with the Jones’s,” or conspicuous spending for the sake of prestige, is not an evil born of 20th century, Western society. It is clearly present in the earliest days of Islam, in the Saudi Arabian desert society of 600 A.D., as we see in the following verses of the Holy Quran:<br />
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Children of Adam! Wear your beautiful apparel at every time and place of prayer and eat and drink. But do not be excessive – verily God does not love the wasteful. [Quran 7:31]<br />
Not only are we provided with delicious food, but we are also encouraged to wear our beautiful clothes when eating, drinking, and praying. Clearly this is community socializing, and donning your duds is not discouraged. On the other hand, in Islam showing off your personal fortune by spending it on an outrageously expensive outfit is both excessive and wasteful.<br />
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Social spending can spiral out of control when being seen as Mr. or Ms. Big Spender becomes more important than enjoying a community gathering. Peer pressure is a trigger for conspicuous spending throughout a community, leading to envy, jealousy, and back-stabbing. Families and whole communities can be destroyed this way, but God provides a warning against this hateful form of waste. And, in fact, even the cycle of peer pressure can be broken easily by following the simple words of the Prophet of Islam:<br />
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“When you see one who has more, look to one who has less.” [Prophet Muhammad]<br />
It is easier to count our blessings when we focus more on the poor people around us, rather than the rich. When God is our mentor, our peers become less impressive. And when we read all this down-to-earth guidance about avoiding waste, it becomes clear that the answers in Islam are simple. They are personal and self-evident.<br />
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We need only to focus on our own personal attempt at avoiding waste, and the net effect is possible to ripple through the entire population. Our environment will not change. We will not wake up one morning to a lovely clean environment without each one of us turning our attention inward.<br />
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<b>I am not responsible for anyone else’s waste but my own, and no one else will clean up my waste for me. But, God willing, if I clean up my mess and stem my own flow of waste, then I’ll be free and very happy to help out wherever I can!</b><br />
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Source: http://sustainablog.org/2014/10/food-waste-faith-quran-say-wasting-food/</div>

Islam Offers Easy Answers for Reducing Waste

As you might expect, we’ve discussed the environmental impacts of food waste on numerous occasions. We’ve also discussed the economics of...

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Vatican Fully Recognizes The State of Palestine As The Comprehensive Agreement Enters Into Force

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The L'Osservatore Romano published an article on June 26 about the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement between the State of Palestine and the Vatican. The accord, which covered the activities and life of the Catholic Church in Palestine while also reaffirming the Holy See's support to end the conflict in the region, was the first treaty entered into since Vatican recognizedPalestine as a state in February 2013.<br />
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The agreement was signed by Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, Vatican's Secretary for Relations With States, and Dr. Riad Al-Malki, Palestine's Minister of Foreign Affairs.<br />
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While the said treaty was perceived as a motion to improve the longstanding conflict between Israel and Palestine, Israel condemned it saying that it was a "hasty step that damages the prospects for advancing a peace agreement," Reuters noted on Jun. 26.<br />
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Despite the strong condemnation of Israel against the said agreement, Vatican remained eager to establish a significant role in the Middle East that is rooted in soft diplomacy.<br />
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On Jan. 2, the Holy See announced that the comprehensive agreement forged last year has come into full force, implying that the Holy See fully supports the "much-desired two-state solution," Russia Today reported Sunday.<br />
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"The Holy See and the State of Palestine have notified each other that the procedural requirements for its [the agreement's] entry into force have been fulfilled, under the terms of Article 30 of the same Agreement," both countries said in a joint statement.<br />
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Furthermore, this step has extended a full and official recognition to Palestine as an equal partner of Vatican, and sealed support to the resolution of the 2012 United Nations General Assembly that granted Palestine a non-member observer status.<br />
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"The Agreement ... regards essential aspects of the life and activity of the Church in Palestine, while at the same time reaffirming the support for a negotiated and peaceful solution to the conflict in the region," said the Vatican.<br />
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Source: http://www.eurasiareview.com/04012016-vatican-recognizes-palestine-as-a-state/<br />
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Vatican Fully Recognizes The State of Palestine As The Comprehensive Agreement Enters Into Force

The L'Osservatore Romano published an article on June 26 about the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement between the State of Palestin...

Friday, January 15, 2016

Osservatore Romano says cartoon shows sad paradox of world that is increasingly careful to be politically correct yet does not respect believers’ faith

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Charlie Hebdo anniversary cover disrespects all faiths, Vatican newspaper says.<br />
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The Vatican’s newspaper on Tuesday criticised French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo for a front cover portraying God as a gun-wielding terrorist to mark the first anniversary of a terrorist attack on the publication’s offices in which 12 people died.<br />
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A million copies of the special edition hit France’s newsstands on Wednesday with a cover featuring a bearded man representing God with a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder, accompanied by the text: “One year on: the assassin is still out there.”<br />
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Hebdo’s cover for the one-year-anniversary of the tragedy uses Christian iconography to depict God as a terrorist covered in blood, who is running away with a Kalashnikov slung on his back. The title of the cover reads “L’assasin court toujours,” translating roughly as “the assassin is still at large.”<br />
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In the L’Osservatore Romano article, the Vatican said the decision to use this specific image begs the question: “is the kind of controversy France needs right now?”<br />
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France has been site of numerous terrorist attacks over the past year, the most recent of which was a series of coordinated attacks by Islamic terrorists in Paris Nov. 13 that left 129 people dead.<br />
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However, the Vatican said the cover choice is “nothing new,” and that behind their flag of “uncompromising secularism,” Hebdo has forgotten that religious leaders have for some time insisted that “using God to justify hatred constitutes true blasphemy,” as Pope Francis has often repeated.<br />
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Charlie Hebdo’s decision, they said, “illustrates the sad paradox of a world that is becoming so sensitive to political correctness it is verging on the ridiculous, but which doesn’t want to recognize or respect the faith in God of every believer, whatever creed they profess.”<br />
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In comments to AdnKronos news agency, Bruno Forte, Archbishop of Chieto-Vasto and secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, described the French weekly’s choice as “distressing, as well as unfounded.”<br />
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“It offends the sensitivity of all people, not only Christians, Jews or Muslims. It also offends those who despite not being believers sense how important it is to respect the religious conscience and dimension in life.”<br />
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The paper’s insinuations, he said, “are far from the truth, because all religions, not just Christianity, but also the Jewish and Muslim faiths, preach non-violence in the name of God. If anything, one shows violence by adopting an ideological stance, claiming to possess the truth, judging and excluding others.”<br />
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Charlie Hebdo is known for its provocative paper covers, and has a history printing such cartoons about the prophet Mohamed. In February 2006 it reprinted cartoons from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that provoked outrage among many Muslims; the newspaper’s offices were firebombed in November 2011 after publishing one cartoon of Mohammed.<br />
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In September 2012 the newspaper published cartoons showing Mohammed naked. The cartoon came at a time of violent protests over a low-budget film made in the U.S. that was insulting towards the founder of Islam.<br />
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Shortly after the last year’s massacre took place, Pope Francis commented on the incident, saying that killing in God’s name is never acceptable, but neither is insulting faith.<br />
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While on his way to the Philippines Jan. 15, 2015, the Pope held an in-flight news conference, during which he was asked by a French journalist if he saw freedom of expression as a fundamental human right.<br />
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In response, Francis said that “You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith.” If you do, he said, you “can expect a punch.”<br />
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On the other hand, he stressed that one “cannot kill in the name of God, This is an aberration. Killing in the name of God is an aberration against God. I think this is the main thing with freedom of religion. You can practice with freedom but without imposing or killing.”<br />
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He said that every person has not just the freedom or right, but also an obligation “to say what he thinks” in order to build the common good: “We have the obligation to freely have this liberty, but without offending.”<br />
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Source: http://www.eurasiareview.com/08012016-vatican-paper-blasts-charlie-hebdo-cover-as-insulting-to-all-faiths/</div>

Osservatore Romano says cartoon shows sad paradox of world that is increasingly careful to be politically correct yet does not respect believers’ faith

Charlie Hebdo anniversary cover disrespects all faiths, Vatican newspaper says. The Vatican’s newspaper on Tuesday criticised French sa...

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

French TV documentary explores Christianity and Islam.

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<i>A French television documentary has explored the close relationship between Christianity and the emergence of early Islam. Further research could lead to a wider reinterpretation of its founding texts </i><i>by Akram Belkaïd</i><br />
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<b>Jesus in the Quran,</b><br />
It is not easy to tackle Islam and its origins without mentioning current events, yet Gérard Mordillat and Jérôme Prieur have done just that in their recent French television documentary on the influence of Christianity on early Islam (1). Credit to them for showing that a multi-disciplinary study of the Quran — going beyond theological commentary — is the scholarship of the future. Islam’s holy book is often presented as a text without context because of its complex literary structure and the impossibility of dating the suras (chapters) or even of determining the chronological order of their revelation. Such a study is important because better knowledge of the historical and social context in which Islam, the last of the three great monotheistic religions, emerged would help overcome some of today’s political and religious challenges.<br />
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The dialogue between Christians and Muslims, like the separation between the temporal and the spiritual, can only benefit from being reminded of the original proximity between the cross and the crescent. The documentary includes contributions by scholars from different countries and backgrounds, who point out that in Islam Jesus was as important a figure as Adam, the first man, since Muslims believe that Isa ibn Maryam (Jesus son of Mary) will return at the end of the world to kill the Antichrist. Muslims know that the figure they call masih (the Messiah) is a prophet, but many are not aware of his fundamental and unique role in the Quran, where he is called the spirit, breath or word of God, and described as a handsome, unusual man who can perform miracles. The Quran is far more laconic about Muhammad who, as an ordinary man (no miracles performed), is no more than Allah’s messenger (rasul) and a prophet (nabi) among others. The importance of Mary is another indication of the proximity between the religions. She is mentioned several times in the Quran (the only woman named in it) and sura XIX is devoted to her.<br />
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Revealing the close relationship may ease tensions in face of an increasingly divisive vocabulary — particularly radical Islamists’ designation of Christians as “crusaders”, the failure of many westerners to distinguish between Islam the faith and (political) Islamism. Religion is gradually disappearing in western European society, and noting the Christian-Islamic kinship might discredit the prevailing line about the “otherness” of Islam in relation to Judeo-Christian references. There are considerable theological differences: the Quran refutes the divine nature of Jesus and asserts that God is “neither born nor gives birth”. It also denies that Jesus died on the cross. The documentary gives considerable time to this, mentioning verses which state that those who thought they had seen the Messiah on the cross were deluded. Islam denounces Christianity for having broken with strict monotheism through shirk (idolatry) by associating Jesus and the Holy Ghost with God (2).<br />
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An interesting aspect of the documentary is the scholars’ claim that Islam was not born in opposition to Christianity, but as a continuation of it, or even as an attempt to reform it. Islam used or reformulated Christian doctrines prevalent in the 7th century. That happened with Docetism, an early Christian heresy that held it impossible for Christ to have died on the cross. Mary’s role in the Quran becomes far clearer after reading apocryphal Christian texts that disagree with the canonical ones recognised by the Church, which hardly mention her.<br />
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Early Islam knew about the Christian theological debates of the time, and in a way closed their disputes about the nature of Christ. The pre-eminence of Jesus in the Quran even leads to the supposition that Muhammad was not only addressing the polytheists of Mecca and the Arabian peninsula, but also Middle Eastern Christians, to win them over to his cause. That would be a reason, though not the only one, for the astonishing speed with which Christians in the Levant adopted this new religion. Was Islam an offshoot of Christianity? A reply based on historical evidence is impossible. Nevertheless, as the experts interviewed in the documentary admit, there was a sharing of texts between early Islam and 7th-century Christianity.<br />
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<b>Reform of Judaism?</b><br />
The documentary also mentions another factor that might help to consolidate a more urgent inter-religious dialogue. Anti-Jewish sentiment in the Muslim world today is fuelled by the fate of the Palestinians, but is also based on a certain reading of the Quran (3), which makes it important to consider the context in which the relevant verses appeared. The accusation in them that the Jews demanded the death of Christ reflected Christian beliefs widespread in the 7th century, and well beyond — not until 1963 did Pope John XXIII publish his Prayer for the Jews: “Forgive us Lord, for the curse we unjustly placed on their name as Jews. Forgive us for crucifying Thee a second time in their flesh. For we knew not what we did” (4). The experts point out that the dispute between Muhammad and the two Jewish tribes of Medina, where he found refuge after his flight from Mecca (hijra) in 622, was not only political but theological. <b>Historically, Muhammad probably came into conflict with Medina’s rabbis because he followed in the line of Moses and Jesus, and intended to reform both Judaism and Christianity, which is viewed in the Quran as a distortion of the original religion. </b>Hence the experts’ view that the Quran is not anti-Judaic but anti-rabbinical.<br />
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A century after its creation, Islam was in full territorial expansion, had been gradually freed from the tutelary figure of Jesus and had given a predominant role to Muhammad. The divergence with Christianity grew over centuries. Today we can see the value of rereading the Quran in the light of its original historical and social context. That is an essential step for the ambitious critical interpretation needed to renew Islamic thought. Ijtihad, or interpretation of the texts, was immensely rich in the centuries after the Prophet’s death in 632, but has stagnated since the 11th century, often now amounting to an endless repetition of commentaries on the Quran.<br />
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Fields of study such as anthropology and linguistics — for the detailed study of Quranic Arabic and its many borrowings from other languages (notably Syriac, a Semitic language derived from Aramaic) — would be invaluable for this much-needed revision of the texts. And fresh archaeological discoveries would give a better understanding of the historical context — on condition that Saudi Arabia authorises many more excavations. The lessons learnt from the reinterpretation of the Quranic texts must be made accessible to the public — and that is no easy task.<br />
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Source: <a href="https://mondediplo.com/2016/01/14islam">https://mondediplo.com/2016/01/14islam</a> </div>

French TV documentary explores Christianity and Islam.

A French television documentary has explored the close relationship between Christianity and the emergence of early Islam. Further research...

Saturday, January 09, 2016

Why our food is making us fat

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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Up a rickety staircase at the </span><a href="http://www.leicester.gov.uk/your-council-services/lc/leicester-city-museums/museums/newarkehouses/" style="color: #135cae; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Newarke Houses Museum</span></a><span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> in Leicester, England hangs a portrait of Britain's first obese man, painted in 1806. </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/articles/2009/06/23/daniel_lambert_feature.shtml" style="color: #135cae; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Daniel Lambert</span></a><span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> weighed 53st (335kg) and was considered a medical oddity. Too heavy to work, Lambert came up with an ingenious idea: he would charge people a shilling to see him. Lambert made a fortune, and his portrait shows him at the end of his life: affluent and respected – a celebrated son of Leicester.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Two hundred years on, I'm in a </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/feb/03/ambulance-services-adapt-larger-patients" style="color: #135cae; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">bariatric ambulance</span></a><span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> (an alternative term for obese, favoured by the medical world because it's less shaming to patients) investigating why the UK is in the midst of an </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/obesity" style="color: #135cae; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">obesity crisis</span></a><span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">. The crew pick up a dozen Daniel Lamberts every week. Fifty-three stone is nothing special, it's at the lower end of the weight spectrum, with only the 80st patients worthy of mention when a shift finishes. The specially designed ambulance carries an array of bariatric gizmos including a "spatula" to help with people who have fallen out of bed or, on a recent occasion, an obese man jammed between the two walls in his hallway. As well as the ambulance, there's a convoy of support vehicles including a winch to lift patients onto a reinforced stretcher. In extreme cases, the cost of removing a patient to hospital can be up to £100,000, as seen in the recent case of </span><a href="http://m.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2150598/Georgia-Davis-63-stone-teens-desperate-plea-I-stand-sparks-100k-rescue-operation.html" style="color: #135cae; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">63st teenager Georgia Davis</span></a><span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">But these people are not where the heartland of the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/obesity" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Obesity"><span style="color: #d8a936;">obesity</span></a> crisis lies. On average, in the UK, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7307756/Obesity-rates-20-per-cent-higher-now-than-in-the-1960s.html" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">we are all – every man, woman and child – three stone heavier than we were in the mid-60s</span></a>. We haven't noticed it happening, but this glacial shift has been mapped by bigger car seats, swimming cubicles, XL trousers dropped to L (L dropped to M). An elasticated nation with an ever-expanding sense of normality.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Why are we so fat? We have not become greedier as a race. We are not, contrary to popular wisdom, less active – <a href="http://www.earlybirddiabetes.org/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">a 12-year study, which began in 2000 at Plymouth hospital</span></a>, measured children's physical activity and found it the same as 50 years ago. But something has changed: and that something is very simple. It's the food we eat. More specifically, the sheer amount of sugar in that food, sugar we're often unaware of.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The story begins in 1971. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-nixon" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Richard Nixon</span></a> was facing re-election. The Vietnam war was threatening his popularity at home, but just as big an issue with voters was the soaring cost of food. If Nixon was to survive, he needed food prices to go down, and that required getting a very powerful lobby on board – the farmers. Nixon appointed <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/04/usa.obituaries" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Earl Butz</span></a>, an academic from the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/farming" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Farming"><span style="color: #d8a936;">farming</span></a> heartland of Indiana, to broker a compromise. Butz, an agriculture expert, had a radical plan that would transform the food we eat, and in doing so, the shape of the human race.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Butz pushed farmers into a new, industrial scale of production, and into farming one crop in particular: corn. US cattle were fattened by the immense increases in corn production. Burgers became bigger. Fries, fried in corn oil, became fattier. Corn became the engine for the massive surge in the quantities of cheaper food being supplied to American supermarkets: everything from cereals, to biscuits and flour found new uses for corn. As a result of Butz's free-market reforms, American farmers, almost overnight, went from parochial small-holders to multimillionaire businessmen with a global market. One Indiana farmer believes that America could have won the cold war by simply starving the Russians of corn. But instead they chose to make money.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">By the mid-70s, there was a surplus of corn. Butz flew to Japan to look into a scientific innovation that would change everything: the mass development of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/sep/15/high-fructose-corn-syrup-rename" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">high fructose corn syrup</span></a> (HFCS), or glucose-fructose syrup as it's often referred to in the UK, a highly sweet, gloppy syrup, produced from surplus corn, that was also incredibly cheap. HFCS had been discovered in the 50s, but it was only in the 70s that a process had been found to harness it for mass production. HFCS was soon pumped into every conceivable food: pizzas, coleslaw, meat. It provided that "just baked" sheen on bread and cakes, made everything sweeter, and extended shelf life from days to years. A silent revolution of the amount of sugar that was going into our bodies was taking place. In Britain, the food on our plates became pure science – each processed milligram tweaked and sweetened for maximum palatability. And the general public were clueless that these changes were taking place.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">There was one product in particular that it had a dramatic effect on – soft drinks. Hank Cardello, the former head of marketing at <a href="http://www.coca-cola.com/index.jsp" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Coca-Cola</span></a>, tells me that in 1984, Coke in the US swapped from sugar to HFCS (In the UK, it continued to use sugar). As a market leader, Coke's decision sent a message of endorsement to the rest of the industry, which quickly followed suit. There was "no downside" to HFCS, Cardello says. It was two-thirds the price of sugar, and even the risk of messing with the taste was a risk worth taking when you looked at the margin, especially as there were no apparent health risks. At that time, "obesity wasn't even on the radar" says Cardello.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">But another health issue was on the radar: heart disease, and in the mid-70s, a fierce debate was raging behind the closed doors of academia over what was causing it. An American nutritionist called <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2004/dec/08/guardianobituaries1" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Ancel Keys</span></a> blamed fat, while a British researcher at the University of London <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yudkin" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Professor John Yudkin</span></a>, blamed sugar. But Yudkin's work was rubbished by what many believe, including <a href="http://profiles.ucsf.edu/ProfileDetails.aspx?Person=5291002" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Professor Robert Lustig</span></a>, one of the world's leading endocrinologists, was a concerted campaign to discredit Yudkin. Much of the criticism came from fellow academics, whose research was aligning far more closely with the direction the food industry was intending to take. Yudkin's colleague at the time, <a href="https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/research/personal/index?upi=KRBRU16" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Dr Richard Bruckdorfer at UCL</span></a>says: "There was a huge lobby from [the food] industry, particularly from the sugar industry, and Yudkin complained bitterly that they were subverting some of his ideas." Yudkin was, Lustig says simply, "thrown under the bus", because there was a huge financial gain to be made by fingering fat, not sugar, as the culprit of heart disease.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The food industry had its eyes on the creation of a new genre of food, something they knew the public would embrace with huge enthusiasm, believing it to be better for their health – "low fat". It promised an immense business opportunity forged from the potential disaster of heart disease. But, says Lustig, there was a problem. "When you take the fat out of a recipe, food tastes like cardboard, and you need to replace it with something – that something being sugar."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Overnight, new products arrived on the shelves that seemed too good to be true. Low-fat yoghurts, spreads, even desserts and biscuits. All with the fat taken out, and replaced with sugar. Britain was one of the most enthusiastic adopters of what food writer <a href="http://garytaubes.com/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Gary Taubes</span></a>, author of Why We Get Fat, calls "the low-fat dogma", with sales rocketing.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">By the mid-80s, health experts such as <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/15/andrew-lansley-department-big-macs" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Professor Philip James</span></a>, a world-renowned British scientist who was one of the first to identify obesity as an issue, were noticing that <a href="http://www.theobesityepidemic.org/introduction/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">people were getting fatter</span></a> and no one could explain why. The food industry was keen to point out that individuals must be responsible for their own calorie consumption, but even those who exercised and ate low-fat products were gaining weight. In 1966 the proportion of people with a BMI of over 30 (classified as obese) was just 1.2% for men and 1.8% for women. By 1989 the figures had risen to 10.6% for men and 14.0% for women. And no one was joining the dots between HFCS and fat.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Moreover, there was something else going on. The more sugar we ate, the more we wanted, and the hungrier we became. At New York University, <a href="http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/academics/faculty/faculty_profile.jsp?faculty=376" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Professor Anthony Sclafani</span></a>, a nutritionist studying appetite and weight gain, noticed something strange about his lab rats. When they ate rat food, they put on weight normally. But when they ate processed food from a supermarket, they ballooned in a matter of days. Their appetite for sugary foods was insatiable: they just carried on eating.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">According to <a href="http://research.tu.edu/laboratories/schwarz/staff.html" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Professor Jean-Marc Schwarz</span></a> of San Francisco hospital, who is currently studying the precise way in which the major organs of the body metabolise sugar, this momentum creates "a tsunami" of sugar. The effect this has on different organs in the body is only now being understood by scientists. Around the liver, it coalesces as fat, leading to diseases such as type-2 diabetes. Other studies have found that sugar may even coat semen and result in obese men becoming less fertile. One researcher told me that, ultimately, perhaps nothing needs to be done about obesity, as obese people will wipe themselves out.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The organ of most interest, however, is the gut. According to Schwarz and Sclafani, the gut is a highly complex nervous system. It is the body's "second brain", and this second brain becomes conditioned to wanting more sugar, sending messages back to the brain that are impossible to fight.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The <a href="http://www.sugar.org/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Sugar Association</span></a> is keen to point out that sugar intake alone "is not linked to any lifestyle disease". But evidence to the contrary appears to be emerging. In February, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/feb/01/tax-regulate-sugar-alcohol-tobacco" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis of the University of California wrote an opinion article for the journal Nature</span></a> citing the growing body of scientific evidence showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases, and in March, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/health/research/sugar-sweetened-drinks-linked-to-heart-disease.html" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">the New York Times reported a study that had been published in the journal Circulation</span></a>, which found that men who drank sweetened beverages most often were 20% more likely to have had a heart attack than those who drank the least. <a href="http://www.theendofovereatingbook.com/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">David Kessler</span></a>, the former head of the US government's most powerful food agency, the <a href="http://www.fda.gov/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">FDA</span></a>, and the person responsible for introducing warnings on cigarette packets in the early 90s, believes that sugar, through its metabolisation by the gut and hence the brain, is extremely addictive, just like cigarettes or alcohol. He believes that sugar is hedonic – eating it is "highly pleasurable. It gives you this momentary bliss. When you're eating food that is highly hedonic, it sort of takes over your brain."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">In London, <a href="http://www1.imperial.ac.uk/medicine/people/tony.goldstone/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Dr Tony Goldstone</span></a> is mapping out the specific parts of the brain that are stimulated by this process. According to Goldstone, one of the by-products of obesity is that a hormone called <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/leptin" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">leptin</span></a> ceases to work properly. Normally, leptin is produced by the body to tell you that you are full. However, in obese people, it becomes severely depleted, and it is thought that a high intake of sugar is a key reason. When the leptin doesn't work, your body simply doesn't realise you should stop eating.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Leptin raises a big question: did the food industry knowingly create foods that were addictive, that would make you feel as though you were never satisfied and always wanted more? Kessler is cautious in his response: "Did they understand the neuroscience? No. But they learned experientially what worked." This is highly controversial. If it could be proved that at that some point the food industry became aware of the long-term, detrimental effects their products were having on the public, and continued to develop and sell them, the scandal would rival that of what happened to the tobacco industry.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The food industry's defence has always been that the science doesn't prove its culpability. <a href="http://www.ameribev.org/about-aba/board-of-directors/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage Association</span></a>, a lobby group for the soft-drinks industry, says: "there's a lot of work to try to establish causality, and I don't know that I've seen any study that does that." But it looks as though things might be changing. According to <a href="http://publichealth.yale.edu/people/kelly_brownell.profile" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Professor Kelly Brownell </span></a>at Yale University, one of the world's foremost experts on obesity and its causes, the science will soon be irrefutable and we may then be just a few years away from the first successful lawsuit.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The relationship between the food industry and the scientists conducting research into obesity is also complicated by the issue of funding. There is not a great deal of money set aside for this work and so the food industry has become a vital source of income. But this means that the very same science going into combating obesity could also be used to hone the products that are making us obese. Many of the scientists I spoke to are wary about going on the record because they fear their funding will be taken away if they speak out.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The relationship between government and the food industry is also far from straightforward. <a href="http://www.andrewlansley.co.uk/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Health secretary Andrew Lansley</span></a> worked, until 2009, as a non-executive director of <a href="http://www.profero.com/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Profero</span></a>, a marketing agency whose clients have included Pizza Hut, Mars and PepsiCo. In opposition, Lansley asked public health expert<a href="http://www.liv.ac.uk/researchintelligence/issue32/chd.htm" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Professor Simon Capewell</span></a> to contribute to future policy on obesity. Capewell was amazed at the degree to which the food industry was also being consulted: the equivalent, he says, "of putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank". Lansley has made no secret of his work for Profero, and denies a conflict of interest, saying that he did not work directly with the company's clients. And the government argues, not unreasonably, that it's essential to have the industry on board to get anything done. But the relationships are not always kept at arms length. Professor James was part of a <a href="http://www.who.int/en/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">WHO</span></a> committee to recommend global limits on sugar in 1990. As <a href="http://whqlibdoc.who.int/trs/who_trs_916.pdf" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">the report</span></a>was being drafted, something extraordinary happened: the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/apr/21/usnews.food" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">US secretary of state for health Tommy Thompson flew to Geneva to lobby on behalf of the sugar industry</span></a>. "Those recommendations were never made," says James.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">In New York, Mayor Bloomberg is currently planning to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/31/soft-drink-obesity" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">reduce soft drink super-sizing</span></a> while last week, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/former-coke-executive-slams-share-of-stomach-marketing-campaign/2012/06/07/gJQAKwgKMV_story.html" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">a former executive at Coca-Cola Todd Putman</span></a> spoke publicly about the need for soft drink companies to move their focus to "healthy products". But it's not going to be easy to bring about change. A previous attempt to bring in a soda tax was stopped by intense lobbying on Capitol Hill. The soft-drinks industry paid for a new ward at Philadelphia Children's Hospital, and the tax went away. It was a children's obesity ward.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Why has Kessler, when he has had such success with his warnings on cigarette packets, not done the same thing for processed foods high in sugar? Because, he tells me, when the warnings came in on cigarettes, the game was already up in the west for the tobacco industry. Their new markets were the far east, India and China. It was no concession at all. The food industry is a different matter. For one thing, the food lobby is more powerful than the tobacco lobby. The industry is tied into a complex matrix of other interests: drugs, chemicals, even dieting products. The panoply of satellite industries that make money from obesity means the food industry's relationship to obesity is an incredibly complex one.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/category/ministers/anne-milton/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">Anne Milton, the minister for public health</span></a>, tells me that legislation against the food industry isn't being ruled out, because of the escalating costs to the NHS. Previous governments have always taken the route of partnership. Why? Because the food industry provides hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions in revenue. It is immensely powerful, and any politician who takes it on does so at their peril. "Let's get one thing straight," Milton tells me, however. "I am not scared of the food industry."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3f4954; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">And I believe her, because now, there is something far bigger to be frightened of. Eventually, the point will be reached when the <a href="http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/category/policy-areas/public-health/obesity-healthy-living/" style="color: #135cae; text-decoration: none;" title=""><span style="color: #d8a936;">cost to the NHS of obesity</span></a>, which is now £5bn a year, outweighs the revenue from the UK snacks and confectionery market, which is currently approximately £8bn a year. Then the solution to obesity will become very simple</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.uaekhutba.com/index.php/articles/51-health/172-why-our-food-is-making-us-fat" target="_blank"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 15.3333px;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 15.3333px;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">http://www.uaekhutba.com/index.php/articles/51-health/172-why-our-food-is-making-us-fat </span></span></a></div>
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Why our food is making us fat

Up a rickety staircase at the Newarke Houses Museum in Leicester, England hangs a portrait of Britain's first obese man, painted ...

Friday, January 08, 2016

Jesus (peace be upon him) - Muslim & Christian Common Beliefs

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<b>Isa</b> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_language" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Arabic language">Arabic</a>: <span lang="ar" xml:lang="ar">عيسى</span>‎, <span class="Unicode" title="Arabic transliteration"><i>ʿĪsā</i></span>; <small>pronounced </small><span class="IPA" title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Arabic" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none !important;" title="Help:IPA for Arabic">[ʕiːsɑ]</a></span>) is an Arabic name corresponding to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_(name)" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Jesus (name)">Jesus</a> in English. It is a common male given name for <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_people" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Arab people">Arabs</a> and <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslims" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Muslims">Muslims</a>.</div>
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Arabic-speaking Muslims refer to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Jesus">Jesus</a> as ʿĪsā, while Arabic-speaking Christians refer to Jesus as <span class="Unicode" title="Arabic transliteration">Yasūʿ</span> (<span lang="ar" xml:lang="ar">يسوع</span>).<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-1" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isa_(name)#cite_note-1" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">[1]</a></sup><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-2" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isa_(name)#cite_note-2" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap;">[2]</a></sup> The name for Jesus is used in these two forms in the <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qur%27an" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="Qur'an">Qur'an</a> and in Arabic versions of <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible" style="background: none; color: #0b0080; text-decoration: none;" title="The Bible">the Bible</a>, respectively.</div>
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Jesus (peace be upon him) - Muslim & Christian Common Beliefs

Isa ( Arabic : عيسى ‎, ʿĪsā ; pronounced [ʕiːsɑ] ) is an Arabic name corresponding to Jesus in English. It is a common male give...

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

A Group of Men Test the Trust of a Sheep Herder in the Desert

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A group of men came across a shepherd in the desert and asked him to give them the sheep that was not his. Instead of letting his desires take over him for some riyals, he was honest and showed his strong faith in Allah.<br />
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This is the honesty and taqwa of a true Muslim!

Subhan'Allah! Allahu Akbar. May Allah grant him Jannatul Firdaus and make him a Companion of the Prophet Sal'Allahu 'Alayhi Wasallam in the Hereafter!<br />
Ameen!<br />
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Indeed, if you put your trust in Allah, he will provide for you in ways you never imagined.
Allahu akbar! The honest Shepherd has been given 200,000 Riyals from the Sudanese Embassy as a token of respect!

You can see the poor shepherd refusing to take 200 Riyal for a sheep that did not belong to him, saying "By Allah even if you give me 200,000 Riyal I will not give it"<br />
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The honest Shepherd was tracked down and given 200,000 Riyals from the Sudanese Embassy as a token of respect. SubhanAllah.

"And whoever fears Allah - He will make for him a way out, And will provide for him from where he does not expect"

[Quran 65:3-4]

Honesty and Strong Faith in Allah shown by a shepherd may Allah bless him, this is Islam the way we should follow the Quran and Sunnah.<br />
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Happened around 2012/2013</div>

A Group of Men Test the Trust of a Sheep Herder in the Desert

A group of men came across a shepherd in the desert and asked him to give them the sheep that was not his. Instead of letting his desir...

Monday, January 04, 2016

Muslims not responsible for terrorists distorting faith. But terrorism is not mine, I will not claim it not even through an apology.

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<i>"I believe in a freedom that is true, that is real, and that is unapologetically principled. I will always do my part and fight for justice. But terrorism is not mine. I will not claim it, not even through an apology."  </i>Rana Elmir is the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, USA<br />
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Ran Elmir,<br />
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As an American Muslim (USA), I am consistently and aggressively asked - by media figures, religious leaders, politicians, and Internet trolls - to condemn terrorism to prove my patriotism.<br />
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I emphatically refuse.<br />
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Make no mistake: The terror imposed by those who sympathize with Daesh (an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State extremist group), al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, al-Shabab, and other groups is just as foreign to me as the terror advanced by mostly white men at the alarming rate of one mass killing every two weeks in this country.<br />
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Therefore, just as I have never been asked to condemn Dylann Storm Roof's attack on parishioners of a historic black church in South Carolina, Robert Dear's attack on a Planned Parenthood facility, the murder of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, or the slaughter of moviegoers in Colorado or Louisiana, I will not be bullied into condemning terror perpetrated by psychopaths who misrepresent and distort Islam for their deranged purposes.<br />
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Not surprisingly, nativist rhetoric and policies targeting American Muslims always start with the same feral calls for condemnation. Asking us to apologize for violence that has orphaned generations of Muslims has the perverse effect of revictimizing us by erasing our humanity and experiences. There is no other acceptable scenario in which the media, politicians, and even our president would urge and expect victims to apologize publicly and rout out the ideology that contributed to their own persecution.<br />
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Since 2000, the majority of terror attacks have occurred in five countries - Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria, all Muslim-majority countries. Close to 90 percent of the victims of Daesh are Muslims. A 2009 study conducted by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point concluded, conservatively, that al-Qaeda has killed eight times as many Muslims as non-Muslims.<br />
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<b>Muslims across the globe are not threats. They are threatened.</b><br />
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Muslim vulnerability is not just contained abroad. The pernicious disease that is Islamophobia is spreading at home, thanks to a steady diet of repugnant rhetoric and equally misguided policies. While the number of hate crimes reported to the FBI fell in 2014 in most categories, the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes rose, with Muslim Americans experiencing five times the number of hate crimes today than they did before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.<br />
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Examples of crimes, threats, and harassment against American Muslims abound.<br />
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In November, a group of individuals euphemistically called "armed protesters" by the media rallied outside the Islamic Center of Irving in Texas, greeting worshipers with assault rifles and other weapons. Later, the organizing group published the names and addresses of Muslim families and "sympathizers" on social media.<br />
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In New York, a store clerk was beaten by a man who yelled "I kill Muslims!"<br />
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In California, a woman berated a group of Muslims praying in a park and then threw hot coffee on them. Elsewhere in California, police are investigating a fire at a mosque as a hate crime.<br />
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The list goes on, with even children in the role of both target and perpetrator. A Muslim girl in New York was put in a headlock, punched repeatedly, and called "ISIS" by her classmates. An aggrieved mother reported on social media that she had to comfort her 8-year-old daughter because she began packing a bag after she heard "someone with yellow hair named Trump wanted to kick all Muslims out of America."<br />
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A friend who has committed herself to bringing interfaith communities together and who has never shrugged off a question about her identity as an American Muslim woman who wears hijab spoke to me of a paralyzing fear she feels every time she leaves the house.<br />
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In a country that cherishes religious freedom, countless other women are sincerely questioning whether they should remove their hijab for the safety of their children.<br />
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Sadly, as Muslims, we contribute to our own oppression by erroneously believing that if we just apologize, then the anti-Muslim rhetoric will end. And it never does.<br />
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Condemnation becomes our admission of guilt, and we indirectly concede that terror is borne of us, and, therefore, we must atone and condone policies that criminalize us to prove "we have nothing to hide."<br />
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But these calls for condemnation serve only zealots who will never be satisfied. They thrive and profit off of the fear-mongering, hate, and violence generated by othering and silencing an entire community who has lived and contributed to our nation since its founding.<br />
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The first Muslims in the United States were brought over bound as slaves, not immigrants. Muslims fought in every war starting with the American Revolution and have contributed to every facet of society - law, education, medicine, government, fashion, music, architecture, and sports.<br />
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And while some American Muslims have prospered, many face challenges - poverty, unemployment, and undereducation - often overshadowed by foreign policy and compounded by pervasive discrimination in our country.<br />
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But I believe in a freedom that is true, that is real, and that is unapologetically principled. I will always do my part and fight for justice.<br />
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<b>But terrorism is not mine. I will not claim it, not even through an apology.</b><br />
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Rana Elmir is the deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, USA</div>

Muslims not responsible for terrorists distorting faith. But terrorism is not mine, I will not claim it not even through an apology.

"I believe in a freedom that is true, that is real, and that is unapologetically principled. I will always do my part and fight for ju...

Sunday, January 03, 2016