Was watching the game and completely stunned. LMAO! Just imagined the Arab crowds, their blood boiling and hair pulled out of its roots . What a foolish thing to do! Why not raise the national flag after such a performance? Strange, indeed.

It is not the fault of the government of Sudan, it is not the fault of the government of Mali, or Chad. It is because people have stopped worshipping…… Why so quick to exonerate governments of all culpability only to place it squarely upon the people of Darfur? If he follows his own understanding of the prophetic saying that ‘famine is next to kufr’, then certain parts of the world enjoying great wealth would be facing hunger as well. Shaykh Ibn al-Habib, rahimahullah, said, ‘As far as I am concerned this whole world is a hospital, and the Shuyukh and the Salihun are the doctors and the nurses. Hmm. So who heals the ‘Shuyukh’ and ‘Salihun’ in our global infirmary? Curious metaphor.

So a muslim cannot be a kafir and Christians/Jews are automatically kuffar? Sorry, but that's not an assumption that can be made from the man's name alone.

^ Who said he's a kafir? It is cruel and in poor taste to post the man's dead body on the net, especially so soon after the murder. Does Hiiran have any editors?

^ . I'll give it a shot: 1. Radicalists are using the faith to shove women back in the house (barefoot and pregnant, I presume) to empty the jobs they took away from deserving men among other reasons. 2. The Western world and its stooges are cloaking their imperialist intentions under a save-the-muslim-woman mission. Apparently, they are the last group in the world (beside the spotted owl) that must be saved, whether they like it or not or need them or not. 3. Ayan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji can't think or write. They have personal vendettas that must be avenged and Islam is just as good a target. Only the author wishes (and so do I) that these bats-out-of-hell could at least use sound scholarship in expressing their ideas. She presumes their hateful rhetoric suits the West and makes worthy muslim scholars easy to ignore. Here is her conclusion: Muslim women are used as pawns by Islamist movements that make the control of women's lives a foundation of their retrograde agenda, and by Western governments that use them as an excuse for building empire. These women have become a politicized class, prevented by edicts and bombs from taking charge of their own destinies. The time has come for the pawns to be queened.

Originally posted by Jimcaale: I’m not here to defend or convict him of alleged crime. The court needs to answer all those questions you posed, not someone whom you perceive as pro circumcision. The questions are not for you and I have no perceptions about what you’re pro or against. No reason for me to think you have any more info than what is in the original post. They’re hypothetical and in relation to the father’s claims of ignorance that were discussed in the thread. I understand that you’re for giving the guy the benefit of doubt and I agree he is entitled to that and more, even on an online discussion forum. The Swedish or Western laws are not designed to protect innocent girls in Africa or Somalia facing the abuse of female genital mutilation…… If I understand the article correctly, the child is Swedish or a resident. If found guilty, it would be punishment for a crime he committed. It might even be a lesson for other parents who are aware of the law, living in Sweden, and are thinking about doing the same. My 'sensitivity' is all for a harsh punishment but my 'rationale' will take any sort of punishment as a deterrant for others. Parents are responsible for the welfare of their children and held to it by Allah. Provide education and alternatives to those likely to benefit from such practice and you’re more likely to cut the number of girls getting circumcised each year in half. Agreed.

^ He is innocent until proven guilty, and if innocent, he probably will be left alone. How was this child exposed to the three people (the men holding her down and at least one more person) who did the cutting? Did she fly back home as an 11 or 12 year old on her own and arrange for this? Was she going back home on holiday in January just for the honour of leaving body parts back home? There maybe more to the story than in the article. Perhaps a mother was involved and he knew nothing about it. Highly unlikely. I don't wish anyone harm, certainly not rape. I am dismayed, though, that liberties are taken too easily with the body of a child in the case of FGM and it has lifelong consequences in a woman's sexual and reproductive health. Parents are ultimately responsible for their children and will be held to it. If they want to do this to their daughters, they can't avoid breaking Swedish law and prosecution by claiming ignorance after the fact.

Saudi Eve, who is in her late 20s, single, and often travels abroad on business , says she was singled out for being female and for daring to write about her love life and God in the same post. Love life? What gives! I thought Saudi women didn't travel without a mahrem. If she's travelling alone, then the morality police/ministry have a bigger problem on their hands than a couple of racy blogs.

Originally posted by KEYNAN22: The 41-year-old Somali man, who lived with his family in Sweden, allegedly took his daughter to Somalia in January 2005 where she was held down by two men while her clitoris was cut off, according to the charge sheet submitted to the Gothenburg district court. If there is any justice at all, they'll find him guilty and send him to prison (even for a short while). Then he'll be roommates with two men who will hold him down for a violation of a different sort. After a few months in the hospitality of these upstanding citizens, this father and his little girl will be even and can resume their father/daughter relationship with no ill-will. Payback is a motherclucker.....

Outrageous :mad: . It made me sick everytime I've read about it, not entirely surprised from the soldiers of My Lai. They should be investigated, convicted and sentenced to the harshest punishment. We will never know how many other executions of civilians can be added to the 'collateral' damage.

^Maybe you can spit out some qaldaan chat-up lines for him. Edit: Didi Kong, perhaps I misunderstood you. Qaldaan? bilal1979, No one here can guess how people they don't know will react. A Somali family is like any other family and the best thing to do in serious matters like marriage is to go to the family and walk through the front door, as Arabs often say. Speak to her and her family and if you are ready for marriage, find out what she wants and what her family will find acceptable. Good luck .

^ She may very well be an exception. Given the number of lucrative contracts from clothes manufacturers (who are making a killing in the past few years) and satellite offers, she will most likely not suffer any for this 'repentance'. No one can judge what's in her mind but it seems an outwardly pious wealthy woman simply exchanges one place of distinction for another.

Originally posted by Paragon: We just need few things: an individual with sufficient communication skills -dressed in a presentable fashion- Definitely. Somalis in Canada could use some of this advice as well. It's frustrating to see how disorganized we are in dealing with the media. I often notice other ethnic/immigrant communities using spokespeople who are fluent in the language, presentable in appearence and most importantly, able to handle obtuse and sensationalizing questions from reporters. With Somalis, the closest rag tag person who stares at the camera, licks his/her lips, and plugs a mom-and-pop community center says whatever they please in broken English. Sleazy local newscasters also seem to avoid the younger or more learned members of the community when looking for interviewees. :rolleyes:

Never fails to amaze me the amount of feedback, encouragement, appeasment, and new opportunities given to wealthy and influential members of a society. When bored or on their way to obscurity, Hollywood women have babies in exotic lands or hire 'mannies'. When bored, arab actors put on a veil and appear decked in sultanate era garbs posing for photo ops. *Yawns*

JB, Naden what do you verify statements like " our individual existence is so limited in time and space " against, if not Reality?, simply put i´m agreeing with you becouse i can really verify that sort of human limitation to be a Fact [Razz] I can't verify, JB, but it is my closest conjecture since we live in ever decaying bodies (not mine, everyone else's ). I do wonder every once in a while if we are plugged into a giant matrix (damn Hollywood :mad: ). That there are some ( trillions if u like ) of unknown or hidden facts to us today can only make us realise that we've limits and our truths are not the whole of Reality, but it doesen't make us realise that we can belive our way out of that fact.or reality. Agreed. Like many social and cultural beliefs, I think religious beliefs usually need not facts and proofs from believers. That they largely correspond to what could be described as instinctive needs, wants, fears and so on are what makes religious/divine questioning ever present in human consciousness. I had an instructor some years ago wonder if a religious ‘gene’ would someday be identified. Like with all things sociobiological, I am a little impatient with and unsure of the importance of this questioning. I think that some find comfort in faith doctrines more than others and feel less inclined to question whether these doctrine correspond to physical realities. If you haven't already, you might find Ibn Sina's writings interesting. I would even try Al Ghazali's work if you find translations. It's a little difficult to ignore his vicious rhetoric against women but I suppose like all historical work, we cannot divorce the man and his time in history from his writings.

I have faint but frightening memories of the mentally ill in Xamar. This particular gentleman stood with a brick in each fist running a one-man toll in the street. You give him a few shillings and he spares you a few thousand in window repair damages. I remember cringing as my brothers and I sat in the back of the car glaring at him with fear. Part of me wanted to see him smash a window at least once. Anything would have been better than those long, boring, sticky summer days of BLAH. I almost got killed by a truck once running across the street because his macawiis dropped and he had no knickers. It was all too hideous for my 8 year old brain, even with growing up with 3 brothers. I can still hear his demonic laugh. :eek:

JB, As humans, we can be eye and/or thinking witnesses to a truth (not ‘the’ truth whatever that may be). When we get up in the morning, brush our teeth and back out of our driveways to go to work, we are eyewitnesses to our daily reality, the only truth in it is our presence. Most of us (if not all) are also thinking witnesses to Watson & Crick’s discovery of the double helix. We were not in their labs and we did not search with them this minutiae of human biology. We can read and think about the results of their discoveries and the subsequent extensive body of work in genetics. In a sense, we are thinking witnesses to that. Science and enquiry can make us thinking witnesses of human and world history through its cumulative study because our individual existence is so limited in time and space. There are truths that may not correspond to a verifiable fact or a sensible reality in our lifetimes. I gather that would mean they will remain largely conjectures in the same manner that DNA was unknown to people in the 19th century. This is where belief appears; it has an inextricable link to the truth about beings, history and so on. It is not all about truths, though. Some beliefs can become downright falsehoods in the light of increased knowledge; you’d be hard pressed to find a scientist that defines any of his/her work as the truth. My truth? I’m still thinking about it.

Originally posted by ALexus-: Are black people intellectually lower than the white race?..........Is the black dumbness gene hereditary? Alexus, No such thing as a 'dumbness' gene and to entertain any intellectual differences between ethnic groups (there are no biological races), there have to be greater differences between groups than within groups. This is tenuous at best as the groups overlap tremendously. IQ testing has a heavily racist history that you might find interesting to explore. In the meantime, this may be a good book to read: Race and racism in psychology by A.W. Winston (2004).

LOOOL. Socod Badne, you trickster! And here I brought my tea and biscuit, hoping to enjoy a serious African dance moment and a skinny Arab-looking guy shaking a bony bum pops out. Boom, boom, boom, it is not! :mad: Oh well, thanks for the gesture.

Castro, I’ve only found a few things about the tribe of Daus but not enough to shed light on their significance and link to the ‘hour’. They were a fairly strong tribe and their Dhil-Khalasa place of worship was referred to as Ka’aba Al-Yamaniyeh. Interestingly, they had a noted poet, Tufail bin ‘Amr Ad-Dausi , who had contact with the prophet (csw) and embraced Islam. More reading in these early tribes is in order. A little off topic but I found the following curious: (Sura 31, Verse 34) Surely Allah is He with Whom is the knowledge of the hour, and He sends down the rain and He knows what is in the wombs; and no one knows what he shall earn on the morrow; and no one knows in what land he shall die; surely Allah is Knowing, Aware. Narrated Ibn Umar: The Prophet said, "The keys of the unseen are five and none knows them but Allah: (1) None knows what is in the womb, but Allah: (2) None knows what will happen tomorrow, but Allah; (3) None knows when it will rain, but Allah; (4) None knows where he will die, but Allah (knows that); (5) and none knows when the Hour will be established, but Allah." (Book 93, Number 476) Notice any similarities? Could the hadith simply have been a recitation and/or explanation of the verse? What has struck me in the above two is the change in wording. There are a couple of versions closer to the Quran which also reference the verse. In the Quranic verse, it says ‘he knows what is in the wombs’. In the hadith, it says ‘none knows what is in the wombs but Allahâ€. I have seen many a Muslim website where befuddled people are wondering about this hadith and asking the scholars what to make of today’s ultrasound and other imaging technology. The answers are always creative but I’ve yet to come across one that presents the possibility that the narrators of the hadith could have simply heard the verse recited and/or explained. The Quranic verse states that God knows what is in the wombs but not to the exclusion of others as it is arranged linguistically. The land where we die, on the other hand, points to an exclusive knowledge by God as the future, we believe from the Quran, is in the ghaib or ‘unseen’. There is some clarity I find in how the verses explain what is in the realm of the 'unseen' as shown in this verse: 20.015 Lo! the Hour is surely coming. But I will to keep it hidden, that every soul may be rewarded for that which it striveth (to achieve). 'Sudden' and 'keep it hidden', I think, put the knowledge of it in the unseen. The signs, on the other hand, are a little less clear but perhaps could be studied in relation to verses in the Quran.

Codetalker, I believe humans, no matter their faith, are aware of their mortality and ponder what will happen to them in the afterlife in some religions or whether they will come back as house plants in others. As they can only control their behaviour in the present and have little knowledge of the end, the greater emphasis should always be living as deliberately as possible in this one life they have. The 'not so important' remark was in reply to Castro's question about my belief in the authenticity of the hadeeth. It was not relevant in this discussion. In regards to what I deem important or care about, that is not something to be concerned about and no cause for me indulge. If you're asking about my convictions or motivations, they must be clear from the questions (even if they seem banal or rhetorical to some). I assure you they are not seditious. LOL @ SB & ThePoint

ThePoint, No harm, no foul. Castro, If I find out any information on the tribe of Daus and their significance, I'll be sure to share.

The Point, Not understanding someone’s viewpoint doesn’t give you the right to question their intentions. This hasty vanguard-of-the-faith bunk is uninspiring to say the least. Don’t concern yourself with my tone and delivery and if you have anything of substance that you can add to the discussion, by all means, do so. If the whole thing is ‘uninteresting’ or you find the post to be vapid, ‘high-handed’ editorializing, you always have the option of ignoring it.

Modesty, I find the higher end stores to have the best selections and better fits. If you don't mind paying a little bit more, I would try Tristan and Ralph Lauren if they have them in your area. I find most regular store sizes laughable; some are only fit for pre-adolescent bodies.

^ Yes, you did, brother, and your warnings are now well-heeded.