History Rehearsing: Dark Ages of Islam this artice is plain gibberish, insult on intelligence, piece of story-telling and does not deserve the space it has recieved.

what happened with mr amir is that this idea spooked up in his mind and then he streched all facts to somehow align them with his idea. september 11th was a act of 20 individuals, it was not act of all 57 muslim states. how can he equate action of two dozen individauls with a community of 1.2 billion.

Amir states `` 1991, in a fit of anger, the President of the United States, supported economic sanctions on Iraq``. What should not be dragged in this discussion is first gulf war. a muslim state was invaded by another muslim state, that was no crusade, it was saddam`s lack of common sense.

Over the last 10 odd years, all attacks on american lives and interests have been carried out by al-qaeda. Be it the bombing of american embassies in africa, blowing up american ships in yemen to the september 11th, these were all actions of al-qaeda. So to me this is not a crusade, it is war between america and al-qaeda.

Mr Amir writes ``It was a call marked by ambiguous, barely legitimate, holy language, ``Fi sabillillah`` (For God!); and it energized the demure landscape of the Muslim world. Businessmen, ex-army generals, media moguls, and the destitute picked up their lives and pressed their anger against the West``. I am not sure which world is he living in but on planet earth nothing like this happened. People all over the world, including muslims, watched the afghanistan war on TV, sipped some tea and went to sleep. There were some protests but that is it.

Comparing present scenario to tenth century crusade is as absurd as suggesting Iraq war was for WMD`s.

Land of the Pure Land of the Pure is quiet a eye opener. As an indian, i was not aware of the plight of the women in pakistan. i must say that pakistan had highly censored media as all these stories dont make headlines or discussed.

what i often wonder is how come the feudal system is still prevalent in pakistan? right after independence, indian government passed laws that took care of all the big zamindars and nawabs basically curtailing their assets and power. Why didnt pakistan took similar steps? As per my understanding this ancient feudal system is abhorrent and could only create trouble for the state.

Gujarat, Madrasas and Other Things Harimau #106

you seem to have some knowledge of hinduism. maybe you can enlighten us (non-hindus) with some answers

Q1) why do hindus pray a penis (shivling) or a man with elephant head (ganesh) who travels on a rat?

Q2) why is a cow holy but chicken is not?

Gujarat, Madrasas and Other Things Firstly let me point out that as far as i know, Rabbil alameen means lord of the worlds. In arabic alam means world and alameen is plural of alam.

I think zarine has made some good points. let me mention few things. Communalism is much more prevalent in North India. As any objective observer would realise that most of recent communal violence has been in North India. South india still has communal harmony, however given that Pravin tagodia is now establishing his hate institutions in southern states this harmony might be a thing of past soon.

Secondly, i think we should look at other side of the story as well. BJP is party which is as anti-muslim as any party could be. The whole saffron brigade is rigidly anti-muslim. It would be naive to think otherwise. It has been a consistent effort of the sangh to stereotype muslims as pakistanis, traitors or religious fanatics. So BJP`s political existence is based on the communal divide it so strongly needs.

Regarding indian muslims, they do need to further integrate into the mainstream society. Definately indian muslims also need to make an effort to explain their point of view and to counter stereotypes. Incidents like Godhra should not occur at all.

How Muslims Can Win The Coming Wars! i agree with asif`s statement that muslims need to abstain from violence as the enemies are very strong militarily and muslim nations are weak. However, i wonder how would sufi way of life help syria/iran from american bombs? I dont know how will muslim world reclaim its strength but i do know that it will. Islam is a resilient faith and muslims stubborn people, few bombs do not weaken their faith.

Why I Am Not A Muslim? Aamir Afraid menttion that muslims are ``a group of people who, for at least seven centuries, had only been excelling at losing.``

This emotional statement is factually and historically incorrect.

ottoman empire reached its zentih at the end of 17th century and then it was followed by period of decline till the empire formally ended around 1920.

similarly mughal empire in india reached its zenith at the end of 17th century under Auranzeb. following Auranzeb`s death (1707) decline of mughal emprire started.

Going by these facts decline of muslim empires started around the end of sixteenth century. Hence `` losing for atleast seven centuries`` is
not a correct statement.

However this is just history, it appears Aamir`s religious beliefs are driven by history.

To my understanding, religion is a personal matter and one accepts a religion because it gives him/her peace of mind. Religion is not history.

The Right To Bigotry ``We are, simply put, unfit to have this freedom because we will misuse it. For murder.``

quiet right. being an indian myself, i do think that indians were not and are not reaedy for democracy and freedom. what india needed and still needs is a system where freedom is restricted. close example to that would be china.

50 years since freedom, half the population is living below poverty line, half the population is illiterate. what kind of leaders would such people choose.

Sex is Bad mr shiraz,

your article is a product of a sick mind that finds it hard to think beyond sex. try to keep religion out of your filth going forward.

there are sick religious people in all communities (you must be following the priest scandals of USA), but it is left leaning commies like you who want to portray that as the norm not exception.

Why Anti-American Sentiments Exist in The Muslim World this is for all the indians who are lecturing muslims states on human rights, good governance, corruption, free society etc.

all of you guys should first look at india and its state before giving your learned opinion to muslims and muslim nations.

india has been independent for more than 50 years and still you have a nation where half the population is illiterate, half the population lives below the poverty line and corruption is the way of life.

child labour, dowry deaths, child marriages, state abetted oppression of minorities, burning of churches, demolition of mosques, caste divisions... you name it and all the vices you would find in india.

as regards india being a secular state, events of past few years have clearly exposed the fascist agenda of indian government. is it just a conincidence that india`s two minority dominated states, punjab and kashmir, have witnessed terrorism?



having few software technology parks and missiles doesnt make a nation great.

so first indians need to look into their sorry state of affairs before lecturing others.

Why Anti-American Sentiments Exist in The Muslim World nice article, i do agree that western policies towards muslim nations has not been fair. but however it is upto muslims to build strong muslim nations, fair societies. it is up to muslims to improve their state, muslims should not expect others to come to their help. why has israel won all the wars against combined arab armies? reason being when israelis were building strong nation muslims were drinking coffee. so our main effort must be to build strong communities, nations and stop complaining about historical injustices.

frankly speaking in world affairs might is right. until and unless we have strong muslim nations with a say in world affairs muslims will continue to be oppressed. It will take decades of planning and hard work to achieve that.

The Mahatma’s Progeny What a load of crap. It is surprising how much trash can someone come up with.

Author is simply a member of the gandhi-bashing club, one of the ``in-things`` these days.

Comparing Gandhi and RSS is sheer nonsense. Gandhi stood for truth and non-violence. RSS stands for exactly the opposite. Gandhi worked for Hindu-Muslim amity, RSS wants indian society divided on communal lines.

``His fasts achieved nothing except murder and mayhem``. Rubbish, historically incorrect. During partition when Punjab was burning, Gandhi was able to keep peace in Bengal by his stay in Calcutta.

Following is the text of letter send by Mountbatten to Gandh on 26thAugust 1947

My dear Gandhiji,

In the Punjab we have 55 thousand soldiers and large scale rioting on our hands. In Bengal our forces consist of one man, and there is no rioting.

As a serving officer as well as an administrator, may I be allowed to pay my tribute to the One Man Boundary Force, not forgetting his Second in Command, Mr. Suhrawardy

You should have heard the enthusiastic applause, which greeted the mention of your name in the Constituent Assembly on the 15th of August when all of us were thinking so much of you.

Edwina has gone off to-day on a courageous mission to the Punjab with Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, to see what they can do to help relieve the suffering and distress among the refugees.

Yours very sincerely,

MOUNTBATTEN OF BURMA

Source : http://www.gandhian.com/



Author blames Gandhi for swadeshi, for letting us down. It is indians who have let gandhi down. It is our leaders who have tarnished khadi. Our failiure to build a prosperous state has nothing to do with gandhi.

It is our leaders, the whole nation shares the blame for bringing society to such a point. To put it simply, whole society is corrupt. So dont blame our failiures on a person who died more than 50 years ago.

Fact remains that Gandhi united Indians in their freedom struggle. His mode of protests bought a super power to its knees.

Fact also remains that Gandhi was the only leader who ended up with no direct benfit in independent india. Nehru, Patel and Jinnah were running countries.