Islams Challenge

List Continued:

Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn Yahya (Ibn Bajjah)Philosophy, Medicine, Mathematics, Astronomy, Poetry, Music.1080 - 1138



Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar)Surgery, Medicine.1091 - 1161



Al-Idrisi (Dreses) Geography (World Map, First Globe). 1099 - 1166



Ibn Tufayl, Abdubacer Philosophy, Medicine, Poetry. 1110 - 1185



Ibn Rushd (Averroes)Philosophy, Law, Medicine, Astronomy, Theology. 1128 - 1198



Al-Bitruji (Alpetragius) Astronomy Died 1204

Ibn Al-BaitarPharmacy, Botany Died 1248



Nasir Al-Din Al-Tusi Astronomy, Non-Euclidean Geometry. 1201 - 1274



Jalal Al-Din Rumi Sociology1207 - 1273



Ibn Al-Nafis Damishqui Anatomy 1213 - 1288



Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi Trigonometry, Astronomy, Physics 1236 - 1311



Al-Fida (Abdulfeda) Astronomy, Geography, History.

1273 - 1331



Muhammad Ibn Abdullah (Ibn Battuta) World Traveler. 75,000 mile voyage from Morocco to China and back.1304 - 1369



Ibn Khaldun Sociology, Philosophy of History, Political Science. 1332 - 1395

Ulugh Beg Astronomy 1393 - 1449

Baha al-Din al-Amili 1540 - 1621

Note this list excludes the Scientists and Philosophers of the 19th and 20th centuries which is the beginning of the renaissance of Islam.

I believe now I have exposed the sweeping statements and Bigotry of both the Hindu Fanatic

Mr Harimau, and the Fundamentalist So called Muslim the Naqshbandi Sufi POS!

Tahmed, please don`t think I am classifying all Muslims as evil.

Asif Naqshbandi,

Your Mullahs and Ulama are nothing but piece of sh-- do you understand? They have brought nothing but ruin to Islam. Islam is not the religion and civilization of progress it used to be. Fools like yourself, reaping the fruits of `liberal secular democracy` in the West keep complaining of it.

Who are you, a resident of the west, to decide what the people of the Muslim world want and not want? Do you live in Pakistan?

This recent fiasco has provided the Muslim World especially Pakistan to rid itself of nonsense like yourself. We will hunt down and root out fundoos like you... and we will liberate Islam from its shackles that you have created.

-YLH

When temporal starts qualifying terrorism and deflecting valid questions, it is time to worry. While it was just the lunatic fringe (Bapu, Urstruly, ylh, sarwari, scout, etc.) doing it, there wasn`t much to worry about.

When people like Rsaxena speak of truth, one can only shake their head in disbelief... Maybe this mature grown up boy didnt see that I was on this board way before he was... But then again, what do

I know... Rsaxena is the Ivy League educated !

NEWSFLASH

Message from Osama to Pakistanis

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/09/24/ret.binladen.message/

``To our Muslim brothers in Pakistan, peace be upon you.

``The news of the death of our brother Muslims in Karachi while expressing their opposition to the crusade of American forces and their allies on Muslim lands Pakistan and Afghanistan has reached us with great sorrow.

``We ask God to accept them as martyrs and to join them with the prophets, the caliphs and the martyrs and those of goodwill and to provide for their families. Those who are left behind children are my children and I will, God willing, take care of them.

``It`s not a surprise that the Muslim nation in Pakistan will die defending Islam. It is considered on the front line of defending Islam. As Afghanistan was on the front line of defending itself and Pakistan during the Russian invasion more than 20 years ago.

``We hope that these brothers will be the first martyrs in the battle of Islam in this era against the new Jewish and Christian crusader campaign that is led by the Chief Crusader Bush under the banner of the cross.

``We tell our Muslim brothers in Pakistan to use all their means to resist the invasion of the American crusader forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

``I convey to you good news my beloved brothers that we are steadfast in the way of jihad following in the footsteps of the prophet -- peace be upon him -- with the believing heroes, the people of Afghanistan and under the leadership of our prince the warrior Mullah Mohammed Omar.

``We ask God to make us defeat the infidels and the oppressors and to crush the new Jewish-Christian crusader campaign on the land of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

``If God allows you to win, there will be no defeat; if he chooses that you will be defeated nothing will allow you to win. Therefore, depend on God.

``Your brother in Islam, (signed) Osama bin Muhammed bin-Laden``

Re religion-based political movements, their rhetoric and their justifications of violence. If you listen to the rhetoric, you will find one thing in common irrespective of which religion it is. Namely a high-pitched note of whining and complaining in the tune of `he hit me first`, which in fact is more fundamental to the philosophy of such movements than the religious constructs which are claimed to follow logically.

Hence bin Laden is truly fundamentalist about getting the US out of S. Arabia, not about Islam. If he were truly fundamentalist about Islam, he would be running clinics and schools for women and girls in Afghanistan, and hitting his hosts, the Taliban, very hard for their inhuman rule and utter disregard for the Afghans general welfare.

The challenge facing those who consider bin Laden and his modus operandi a pernicious influence on religion, religious choices and mobilization of believers is this. To draw a clear distinction between the purer intentions of religion toward individuals and society and the dirtier manipulative politics of power.

The question is such a distinction between religious practice and politics possible under the tents of a given religion? Is it desirable? Given the dynamics and circumstances of most believers lives, is it even feasible? Meaning, do we have the wherewithal to offer alternatives to religio-political activism as the vehicle for change in people`s lives?

Also is there an inbuilt bias or skew delaying the settlement of the above questions in the past many centuries? If some believers are/were more willing or better-placed historically to physically eliminate or overwhelm their competitors within their own faith, then some philosophies would be more widespread and enduring not on `merits` but due to mere longevity as the survivors.

I got my laugh of the day reading ylh`s pathetic little list.

a) All those names on his list are from several hundred, some over a thousand, years ago...a gora like Mr. Rodebaugh is going to read it and wonder what Islam has produced the past century or two (other than ylh and his Madrassa Valley High girlfriend -- no names, please)

b) Yes, indeed, there was a global librabry in 800AD to track and keep records of things like who first wiped his a$$ with a leaf and hence invented concept of toilet paper

I am A born Muslim..But some time I wonder Wether Islam was A brain child of a genius( Like Mao of China, Stalin Of Russia Or any other.or Hitler)My reasons are as follows

1) Mohmmad was a polygammist, Married a girl of nine years old(Today he would have been charged for child molestation if for nothing else). Did it not cross his mind of the legacy that will be left behind....????

2)Just after his death , there was a civil war and his own grand children were butchered..what kind of a ``teaching`` was that.. which resulted in that kind of chaos..even today the shia & sunni are at each others throat

3)All the Khaliffas following Mohmmad were killed???

4) How come Monarchy is acceptable to Islam??..

5) Women rights in a society are almost non existant...???

6)

These are only few examples..the list is very long.... I would appreciate that some learning schollar(may be URSTRULY..though self claimed fundi) throw some light for the benefit of many...though I am expecting Fatwa for committing

Balsphammi...May be some one put a price for getting me DEAD OR ALIVE ?? BUT DO NEED SOME SOME EXPLANATION

MaheshG #51 I think we are saying the same thing and there is no disagreement. I hope you will keep in mind that the battle lines between good and evil are not along the LOC in Kashmir, or along the India-Pakistan border. The battle lines are between civilization and barbarism, as I discussed earlier, and these lines cut across both India and Pakistan.

Akash #55 Is there a return address on the fax? There are some folks out looking for Osama to discuss some issues with him over a cup of tea and pakoras who would like to know.

After bin laden`s congratulatory message to the ``defenders of Islam`` in Karachi -- this column makes interesting reading.

It is `sab achcha` from this end

A. B. S. Jafri

Headlines in Saturday`s newspapers about the strike the day before in Karachi were misleading, if not incorrect. It was said to be a ``complete shutdown.`` Let it be explained that it was, in fact, a complete shutdown of the government. Experience has taught the 13 million people of Karachi that they cannot trust the government to protect them against the ruffians who rule the streets. So, a call to strike here always succeeds like the proverbial success.

Nobody would seriously doubt that the bane of Karachi is the madrassas. You might call them informal Taliban cantonments. Within minutes of the clerics` call for a strike, thousands of these Taliban surrogates invade the streets. It is total mayhem thereafter.

As for the police, they may either stand aside, or join them, or beat them up. If somebody gets killed, it is just bad luck.

Last Friday left six dead and hundreds in police hands. For nearly six hours on Saturday the government of Sindh was virtually held hostage, its top brass negotiating with around a dozen maulanas.

These maulanas were the commanders whose troops had held this city hostage the day before. Be assured that the government was negotiating from a position that was not one of strength. Anyone who can raise a slogan is now above and beyond the reach of law.

This is a city of working people. A shutdown of business is incompatible with Karachi`s essentially workaday culture. A shutdown motivated by any widely-felt business consideration may be understandable but not a strike call that has no meaning at all. All the religious organizations had committed support to the government. What was this protest strike in aid of, then? Quite clearly this strike was sheer hooliganism for its own sake.

Why did those six people have to die? Somebody has to explain that. Television viewers the world over have seen that the forces of law were acting like a pack of fun-seekerss just gone wild. For the police, such strikes are a whale of a time. They can do as they please. Those hundreds rounded up will return home sooner or later. It is all negotiable. Those who return home early should be seen as better placed to negotiate. Some of those held may actually be proceeded against. They, too, will be home, though belatedly and by a route meandering through lock-ups and jails (as UTPs - under trial prisoners). Few persons prosecuted are found guilty. That tells its own tale about efficiency and honesty of the prosecuting agencies.

Generally the perception is that protest processions are composed of the pupils (if `pupils` is the right word) of the madrassas. Their conduct in the streets is deliberate and organized violation of law. Is there no way for the process of law to take cognizance of the fact that these raw youth are motivated by their teachers playing their political hide-and-seek with this nation?

Common sense demands that these pious men, in long robes and tall turbans, should be held responsible for disrupting life and punished for doing that. The law should take its normal course. What was it that the Home Secretary and the IG Police were talking about with the assembled maulanas? Some `masail-i- tasawwuf,` eh?

If the government could convince the working people of this busy city that it is willing, and also able, to stand up to the rowdies, no frivolous strike call would ever produce a ``complete shutdown`` in this city of working people. The shopkeepers bring down the shutters because experience tells them that the ruffians will play havoc and the government will not be there to protect.

So easy it is now for the scoundrels in the streets to damage private cars and public buses that moving out is simply courting trouble. With public transport scared off the streets, life in a city like Karachi is brought to a dead stop. That is what is a ``complete shutdown`` simply because the citizen cannot trust the government to overcome the rowdies

Why there was no trouble in Lahore? Because there you have government presence in a fairly perceptible and palpable and credible manner. Not in Karachi. It is hardly any better in the interior of this province where the highways now belong to the highwaymen. Instances of railway trains being plundered are not entirely alien to our experience.

The current international crisis, focused on the Taliban regime pampered by Pakistan, has taken attention off some of our perennial pastimes like car-snatching. Around a dozen do get `taken away` every day. Some `honour killing` is always going on, quite as killing not so sanctified. A relatively fresh arrival on the scene is the ubiquitous `reckless driver.` He can be driving a bus, a truck, or a private car, but he can always be depended upon daily to account for a few lives lost on the roads of this unstoppable city.

And so, may it please you to read that, at the end of the day, in Karachi it is still ``sab achcha.`` (Dawn)

Ladies and gentlemen

Ossama bin Laden`s attempt is very clear... he wants to make this a `Christianity vs Islam` war.. when really the destruction of World Trade Center was an act of terrorism and barbarism!

It is a well known fact that Musharaff is right when he claims a majority to be supporting him. That view was seconded by Benazir Bhutto. 10 000 people marching mean jack... Pakistan is a country of 140 Million people!

If that idiot Ossama thinks he can destabilize Pakistan by announcing such BS.... he is wrong! and he better begin counting his days!

-YLH

AsiaWeek carries an absolutely fascinating piece that I would recommend to everyone.

http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/magazine/0,9754,176029,00.html

The article presents a weak military-politico-social analysis of Pakistan, but has an engrossing account of a family caught on two sides of a wide cultural chasm.

I am quite interested in learning from current residents of Karachi: Do the authors etch a real emergent cultural dichotomy in that fair city? Or, are they describing two ends of a robust cultual continuum that always exists in every city?

Does the family serve as a useful metaphor for the larger milieu in which it resides?

Thank you.

EK

To Rsaxena,

Dear sir, I know you are not blessed with a critical mind, and perhaps a proper education outside your field... so maybe its time you left this board alone. The People Roadebaugh mentions are also from the same time period.

My list was in response to the sweeping statement that your bigoted friend Mr Harimau made. There is no doubt that Islam is in a slump. Why else are there fanatic mullahs running around? Why else is

`Deoband India` the center of all reactionary movements in the Muslim World?

I can talk about Abdulsalaam, or Iqbal or Mahboob ul Haq, or Shahid Javed Burki.... but I`d rather not! Because the list indeed is small for the modern world!