Salam

Question which I wanted to ask,

Palestinians are Ahl Sunnah. Why is it that the Shi'ites are helping them more then our Sunni governments??? This baffles me.

Contrary to what you guys feel, my heart does go out to the Palestinians and I attended a rally in the UK - Liverpool against Israel's incursion.
My banner read "HAMAS RESIGN" - I was saddened to see loss of life but I was also saddened to see people being tossed from buildings because Hamas decided they had corraborated.
It is extremely unlikely that Israel will give anything to a group which denies their right to exist and is using the very land which the Israeli army forced Jewish settlers to leave, to fire missiles at Jewish schools.
Another sad thing is the lies and deception - Photographs being doctored to show more plumes of smoke than there were in reality, staging atrocities which never happened, placing a child's toy in the dust, and yesterday playing an advertisement purportedly sanctioned by the Spanish Government about boycotting Israeli goods.
That was another deliberate attempt to deceive and, if successful, would have the effect of harming the produce of Palestinians in the West Bank.
In addition to that, Abbas says one thing to English speaking audiences and another to Arabic speaking audiences.
There also seems to be the right to say something when Islam is in a lower position and change your mind when Islam is in the ascendancy.
I wish I didn't, but I am finding it very difficult to take anything which the Palestinians and their supporters are saying as true anymore.
If a group keeps on telling lies they lose their credibility. They need a friend to point this out.
They have used very clever schemes to get the world's sympathy but you can only dupe people for so long.

Hi to my friends who suggested that I read the above books - I have read both quite recently - In the comments above you say that the Prophet was never critical of Jews/Christians - Well what are the following references about?
"O believers, take not as your friends those of them, who were given the Book before you, and the unbelievers, who take your religion in mockery and as a sport..." (V: The Table: 60)
"O believers, take not Jews and Christians as friends; they are friends of each other. Whoso of you makes them his friends is one of them..." (V: The Tables: 55)
I guess that means that if a Muslim makes friends with a Jew or a Christian, i.e. becomes one of them i.e. a Kafir, that is an unbeliever. The People of the Book, unless they renounce their faith, are liable to become the victims of Jehad i.e. destruction by force of arms:
"...And he brought down those of the People of the Book who supported them from their fortresses and cast terror in their hearts; some you slew, some you made captive. And He bequeathed upon you their lands, their habitations, and their possessions, and a land you never trod. Allah is powerful over everything." (XXXIII - The Confederates: 25)
I think it's you guys who need to read the Koran not me :-) (long Jewish nose which I don't have as I am not a Jew).

Dear brother,

We applaud your kind intention to expose the cruelty of the Jews in the photographs. Surely we want to remember what those oppressors did to our brothers...

But akhii,

Some of the pictures exposes the "awrah" of our oppressed brothers.. And principally, to expose the awrah of others is haram..

And intention cannot alter the haram into halal in most normal cases. That is one of the qawaid that we learnt.

So no matter how noble, how sincere our intentions are.. we still cannot expose the awrah of our brothers.. please

The victims in the pictures are practising Muslims insya-Allah.. They did not expose THEIR awrah when they were alive.. and here we are exposing their nakedness at a time that they are helpless.. Allahul musta'aan...

I do not want to offend but I am just a brother who sees my brother doing wrong and so I am trying to change it..

If we conceal their awrah, may Allah conceal our shortcomings in the Hereafter.. but if someone chooses to reveal their awrah, then.. it may be part of embarrassing a helpless brother...

You are a more active participant of this website than many Muslims - good on you.

Ken this is an invitation to you - read the Quran , and you will find in it the message of God - it is sublimely distinct from the Old and new testmants.

Prophet Muhammed was the messenger of God - nothing else makes sense.
Think about this - why would an Arab Prophet want Arabs , who have nothing really to do with the Jews or the Christian, to love revere and belive in Jacob/Israel, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Jesus. While the old testament calls Ishamel 'a wild ass of a man', you would think Muhammed (pbuh) would repay the compliment ; yet the Quran has only praise for Jacob and the Prophets of Israel.
What benefit is it to Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) to declare the innocence of aaron from worshipping the cow, or defending Solomon from the claims that he worshipped idols as is said in the old tesatment.

If anything, in Madinah, the Jews were a potential rival political entity -as politicians do, you do everything to discredit your opponents and their lineage. You may say he wanted their support -but then why was he criticising them (just as Jesus criticised the scribes and pharisees) yet honouring their forefathers - he had no need to - the Arabs couldn't have cared less.

Why did he teach us that Jesus is the messiah and he will return - he could easily have said that he(Muhammed ) is going to return and not Jesus, to try to take advantage of his position. But on the basis of what he (pbuh) said, a billion Muslims revere Jesus and his mother and believe in his second coming.

There is not an ill word spoken of the Prophets in the Quran while the bible accuses Lot of incest (no doubt an Israelite slander to disparage the Ammonites and Moabites, their rivals, who were supposed to be the descendents of those offsprings) Aaron and Solomon of idolatry, Lot of impatience. there are no tales of sex and whoredoms and titillation in the Quran - read the books and compare for yourself - which reads like the book of God, and which reads like the tales of men(though we believe that the bible has parts of the word of God in it, but has been changed) ?!

Read what Jesus says in your book(He that is sent is not gretaer than He that sends him; it is not my will but the will of the father that art in heaven; I can of my own will do nothing) it is clearly the same message that is in the Quran. We believe 100% in what Jesus taught - the problem is the Bible has not been free from the tampering of men and had been hijacked by Rome. Any bible historian will tell you that.

THAT is WHY Prophets were sent, to set right what the people had corrupted before them. That is why Jesus was sent, that is why Muhammed was sent.

It is really blindingly obvious and plain to anyone who is objective and want to seek the pleasure of hisLord.

If anyone wants to deprive himself of salvation by beleiveing in God's message (it is what Jesus would have wanted you to do -refer to the verses of the 'paraclete' and think), either because of prejudice or pride or stubborness, then they only have themselves to blame when they stand before judgement with a blazing fire before them. The Quran warns.

Please reflect. Many do, and that is why thousands have joined what seems to be the most unpopluar religion - they have thought for themselves and been truthful despite the hatred for Islam in the west. I pray you do the same.

"Say Oh people of the book, come to a common word between us and yourselves, that we worship none but Allah, and we do not take as patron from amongst ourselves other than Allah. And if they turn away, say we bear witness that we have submitted (to God)" Quranic verse

"Say,'we believe in God and what has been revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham and Ishameel and Isaac and Jacob and the [twelve] tribes and what was revealed to Moses and Jesus and the Prophets before them , we do not distunguish between any of them , and we submit our will to God"

Peace, and may Allah guide you to his pleasure

Well Ken,

Answering your question:
The Jews can stay in certain areas of Palestine.
And we only want to try to guide them to the Straight Path... The Same Straight Path of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (May Allah bless them all)!

Amir

Ken, we are talking about the Jews in Palestine, as for the other Jews of the world incl those in Muslim countries, they have lived for centuries besides Muslims and this will not change. As for the Jews of Palestine, since one cannot turn back time and rewrite history, the issue now has nothing to do with Jews V Muslims. This is a political issue, Palestnians are still under occupation and they have no state of their own. Regardless of wheather it is a one state solution or a two state solution, I would call for the establishment of a Palestnian state, that the Isrealis stop building settlements that are reducing Palestnian land inch by inch and the end of Isreali occupation. It really is that simple.

OK guys - Just tell me one thing (or is it two)where do you want the Jews to go to and what do you want to do to them?

It was reported by Richard Falk, a professor at Princeton University that the financial aid injected by us to israel is equivalent to the amount given to all the world independent countries combined; it actually boils up to 6 to 8 millions per day. The us government even more than willing to sacrifice the welfare of their own nation in assisting the illegal israel state. And we've to bear in mind that there is no media at all that can describe palestinians plight unless one sets foot there; watch the documentary Occupation 101, voices of the of the silenced minority.

A very appropriate article rattles emotive memories !

To support and understand sheikh Haitham' s comment
"True believers enjoy dying for the sake of their Lord", and the much of the context of the article. The hadith below should go a long way to accord better understanding.

Abu hurairah r.a reported the prophet ( pbuh ) said " the martyr experiences no more pain in being slain than one of experiences from stinging of an ant " ( thirmidhi ).

Ken, it’s a measure of your obsession with prophecies that you missed the entire point of Haitham Al-Haddad’s piece. This was about reminding ourselves of the crimes as grave as they were against an innocent populace by virtue of their ethnicity and religion…I can’t even say nationality since they are not even allowed that.
The Jewish scriptures are full of prophecies, as much as they are full of Gods wrath and warning to his people not to sin and to be righteous. Jerusalem is Gods place; no man has dominion over it.
And as for your view that many would be happy if there were no Jews on the planet, speaking for myself, I have no issue with Jews or Judaism, its an exclusive religion that has no way of growing and poses no theological or ideological threat at least to Muslims. I have a massive problems with Zionism just as I have a massive problem with the kind of evangelical Christianity that justified slavery, colonisation and imperialism, in the name of Christ and spreading the ‘good news’. I wonder where the support was for blacks to have their own nation, oh wait, they didn’t have an old scripture that told the world they were the chosen people, oh well its all good they suffered and won in the end anyway.
For my misguided Christian friends, of whom I have many, it serves well to remind them that it was Christians, who enslaved, murdered, forcibly converted and burnt Jews for centuries so quit with the ‘Muslims hate Jews’.
And if Isa or Jesus were to come back today, what do you think he would make of the plight of the Palestinians and the actions of the Israelis?, the same man who by the way rejected his own heritage because of its dogma and hypocrisy.
As for the Palestinian kids that you hear talking venom, children only follow example, if you are shown violence and hatred, harassed on your way to school, having to pass checkpoints with men and their loaded guns pointing at you, living through the terror of air strikes or your father or mother being shot in front of you, I dare you not to feel the same! Love is an extension of understanding and peace is an extension of justice, without this its unrealistic to expect them to love those who oppress them.

Seems to me that you guys would be happier if there were no Jews on the planet. Sadly God got it wrong then - Abraham begat Isaac and so on.
When the Jews arrived back in the Middle East (some were there already)they bought much of the land and rescued a lot of it from malaria ridden swamps with many dying in the process. Much of it was not wanted then.
In 1948 the leaders of Arab nations all around the region told the people living in Palestine to leave their homes and they could return in 2 weeks when the Jews had been wiped out. The Jews asked them to stay.
The Jewish scriptures are full of promises that they will return to the land of their forefathers and will eventually live in peace with their neighbours.
Every year, at their Passover Feast, Jews have recited 'next year in Jerusalem' and, as I say their scriptures are littered with references to that city but where is it in the Koran?
Many Muslims have their bottoms towards Jerusalem while they face Mecca.
I do not think for a second that the nation of Israel is a perfect nation (none are.)
Incidentally, I am not Jewish - and my nose is more squashed than long - but when I hear some of the venom and even Palestinian children's TV advocating suicide to kill as many Jews as possible, I can't just stay silent. We have to teach our children love not sow seeds of hatred.
Both sides need to exercise restraint and talk.
You are right in saying that Israelis also killed Christians in Gaza but their are more Christians being slaughtered by Muslims today than by anyone else. In fact their are more Muslims being killed by fellow Muslims than by anyone else.
Finally, if being a Zionist means that I believe the Jews have the right to live in a land of their own then I gladly accept that label.
And by the way, my hero said I have to forgive 70x7 so I wouldn't be giving anyone a bloody nose :~)

Ken, you state
'At the risk of becoming 'Mr Unpopular 2011' how would you guys like Hamas living next door to you?'...at the risk of stating the obvious, how would you like Israel as your occupying power, a nation built at the expense of the excluded inhabitants of Palestine, a nation that has as its cornerstone the idea of Jews as the 'chosen people?', if that is not an innately apartheid philosophy, I don't know what is.
'There are so many beautiful areas in Gaza with shopping malls, great beaches etc paid for by Western money but the world doesn't have any idea about these'. No doubt that Gaza is a beautiful city inhabited by beautiful people, but I doubt that this is any compensation for those who suffer the blockade and all of its dire consequences every single day, what is a beautiful city without freedom?
'Over Christmas, scores of Christian worshippers were killed in the name of Muhammad in Iraq, Nigeria and Egypt but very little was in the press - and yet you guys always try to come across as the victims and place the blame elsewhere'. Have you been reading the same newspapers as me, from the Guardian to the daily mail, i have seen scores of ill informed articles on the bombings in Iraq and Egypt as well as the religious violence in Nigeria. Of course we would all condemen these actions but what I found hard to stomach was the notion that Islam is by its nature intolerant and that these are evidences of that intolerance. Prior to the war in Iraq with the exception of Nigeria, who remembers anything about religious violence of this magnitude in Egypt or Iraq? Everything has a context so let’s not distort the facts. Nigeria meanwhile has been a hot spot of religious tension for a very long time, Christians as well as Muslims have been both the aggressors and the victims so don't make it so one sided, by the way that conflict has v little to do with religion and more to do with economic resources.
As for treading carefully over Jerusalem...God is surely not an unjust God. The murder, and displacement of the Palestinians and the continued oppression by Israel constitutes as an injustice in my eyes and Daniels prayer in the book of Daniel seems very appropriate for the leaders of Israel are nothing but transgressors.
‘As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the LORD our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand thy truth.
Therefore hath the LORD watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice.’

ken, why are you calling the palestinians the "neighbours" of israel? Its THEIR house, and THEIR land. Israel came INTO the house of the palestinians in 1967 with their filth and erected walls and bombed away...israel is not their "neighbour." You're stupid enough to think that 2 countries exist there...palestine is there, and the jews are in it...end of story.

Maybe they should leave the house of their "neighbour" instead of complaining of little rockets.the palestinians are shooting rockets into Palestine, not israel, cause its their own land to begin with

The only people who cannot see the massive imbalance in the state of affairs of Israel are staunched Zionists and those from extreme Christians who want an Israeli/Jewish state in order to set in motion what they believe is the coming of the end of times and the final war and the return of Jesus alayhis salam.

How do you deny the disparity in casualties between the two sides? Ironically, it is not only Palestinian Muslim's who are suffering but the Christian orthodox palestinians who are having their lives, property and future stolen from them as well. Perhaps you should read the Goldsmith report into Gaza - that is why I said only the most staunched of Zionists still stick to such an illogical argument as yours - Goldsmith is an example of a zionist who can't hide any longer the truth that goes on.

Alternatively go read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' it might teach you a few more things than your own faith seems to have failed to make clear to you. It is not surprising when you see non-Muslims who go to Palestine on humanitarian relief projects coming back hugely effected - after all, it is a natural emotion and belief of mankind that they wish to remove oppression and tyranny and establish justice and when they see that so evidently being denied there can only be one response. How you can think otherwise, innocently, cannot be ignorance but rather from enmity! The facts are clear enough to remove ignorance...your prejudice is borne from enmity. So I think we can ignore your comment from now on.

Check out videos on Vimeo by John Pilger regarding Palestine. You can also check the award winning 'Occupation 101' documentary on Palestine - you might be shocked when you see the plight of Palestinian Christians. But then again, personally I believe you don't care because you cannot be ignorant of that.

Hello again Ken,

I wrote a response on your comment for the "Christmas, Muslims and the Paganisation of Christianity" article. Kindly read it and reply.

Moving forward on this article, you stated, "I'd be tempted to jump over the fence and give him, at the very least,a very bloody nose. Fine, do that! I am a Palestinian Muslim, and I am telling you, "DO THAT!!!".

But, don't fly over the fence and randomly target, shoot, fire missiles, and shower poisonous white phosphorus EVERYWHERE killing "your neighbor"!! And then continuing to kill your neighbor's neighbor and your neighbor's neighborhood and your neighbor's relatives and your neighbor's markets and your neighbor's friends and your neighbor's teachers and doctors and your neighbor's WHOLE city!!!

Yes Ken... I agree with you, jump over the fence and give him a damn bloody nose!


May peace be in your heart, Brother!

Amir Basel

May Allah accept them as shuhadaa and hurry the destruction of those who harm them.
Aameen

Excellent reminder mashaAllah - may Allah give victory to the people of Gaza and guide us to play our part in that victory.