Islam, the Qur'an and the Arabic Literature

Elsayed M.H Omran  Vol XIV No. 1 , Spring 1988  Since the advent of Islam and the revelation of the Qur'an in the early years of the seventh century AD, the Muslim Holy Book has been the subject of many extensive analytical studies. The focus of the great majority of these studies has been the theological and legislative aspects of the Holy Book, for the Qur'an provides Muslims with detailed guidance on their everyday problems. Together with the sayings, actions, and recommendations of Muhammad, the Qur'an has been the ultimate source of legal authority for Muslims over the past fourteen centuries. Muslim scholars have painstakingly examined, analyzed and interpreted the various verses of the Holy Book, detailing the requirements the Qur'an imposes on Muslims in order for them to achieve spiritual purity. Thus, in addition to its legislative and theological value, the Qur'an has also served as a source of spiritual guidance for the followers of Islam. 

The Prophet and Prophetic Tradition - The Last Prophet and Universal Man

Professor Syed Hossein Nasr
Vol III No. 1 , 1397
 
"Extract" The Prophet and prophetic traditions — from Ideals & Realities of Islam written by Professor S. Hossein Nasr, and published by George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 2nd edition London 1975.
The Prophet as the founder of Islam and the messenger of God's revelation to mankind is the interpreter par excellence of the Book of God; and his Hadith and Sunnah, his sayings and actions, are after the Quran, the most important sources of the Islamic tradition. In order to understand the sig- nificance of the Prophet it is not sufficient to study, from the outside historical texts pertaining to his life. One must view him also from within the Islamic point of view and try to discover the position he occupies in the religious consciousness of Muslims. When in any Islamic language one says the Prophet, it means Muhammad—whose name as such is never iterated except that as a courtesy it be followed by the formula 'Sall' Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam', that is, 'may God's blessing and salutation be upon him'.

Uruguay beat Paraguay to win Copa America

BUENOS AIRES, (Xinhua): Uruguay won the Copa America on Sunday in Argentina after beating Paraguay by a convincing 3-0.

Luis Suarez (11th) and Diego Forlan (42nd and 90th) were the scorers and gave Uruguay their 15th Copa America, one more than host Argentina (14).

On the other hand, the Paraguayans clinched the final berth without winning a single match in normal time (five draws, one loss) but their fortune ran out against Uruguay, superior in all the items, heart, efficacy and passes.

The ancient Aborigines

The image may only look like a pile of old rocks in outback Australia. But, some scientists assert that, if observed, pile the stones showed that the ancient Aborigines were the first astronomers on earth.

Believe it may not. But this conclusion was launched after the scientists observed the stone found at a farm near Mount Rothwell, 50 miles west of Melbourne. They believe large stones arranged on the ground that aims to map the movement of the sun, which made a kind of ancient sundial by primitive tribes. If that is true, then the stylist stones were thought to have been familiar with astronomy since long before the days of Stonehenge and the time of the pyramids in Egypt thousands of years ago.

Moslem in Germany

German Chancellor, Angela Merkel said the German people have so long failed to capture how immigration changed their country and be familiar with the scenery more mosques in their cities, as one newspaper reported.

Germany, with a Muslim population reaches at least 4 million, has been split a few weeks recently the one that triggered the debate about the integration of members of the central bank’s statement related to the country of Muslim immigrants.

“Our country will change and integration is also a task for the people who picked up the immigrants,” said Merkel told the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

“For years we deceive ourselves about this. Mosque, for example, will become a more important part in our cities than ever before,” he said. Thilo Sarrazin of the Bundesbank was the first person who touched the trigger debates about religion and integration. He believes the Turkish and Arab immigrants fail to integrate and flooded Germany with higher birth rates. Switzerland sparked international condemnation last year when it decided to ban the construction of the tower. Disputes over religion have occurred in the United States over the last few weeks thanks to plans to build a center of Islamic culture in the location of the World Trade Center collapse. Meanwhile, relations between Berlin and Paris disrupted this week by a dispute between Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy of France for the expulsion of migrant Roma.

Marx rivals Einstein for Best German

Millions of German television viewers picked Karl Marx, Albert Einstein and Willy Brandt among the top 10 Best Germans of all time in a national call-in contest on Friday.

Millions of German television viewers picked Karl Marx, Albert Einstein and Willy Brandt among the top 10 Best Germans of all time in a national call-in contest on Friday.

More than 1300 Germans were nominated for the competition to identify the 10 most important Germans, and a "top 100" list unveiled on Friday night contained a number of surprises. A winner will be selected from the 10 finalists in three weeks. 

In a country long weighted down by guilt from World War Two and wary of idolising national heroes as a reaction to the ultra-national Nazi era, the Best German contest reflects a growing, if still modest, sense of German patriotism.

While sports heroes like Formula One champion Michael Schumacher, Wimbledon title winner Boris Becker, tennis queen Steffi Graf and football World Cup winner Franz Beckenbauer made it into the top 40, supermodel Claudia Schiffer and Nobel-prize winning author Guenter Grass weren't even among the first 100.
BBC inspiration
Organised by Bild newspaper and ZDF television, Germans now have three weeks to cast ballots for the top 10 finalists to pick the Best German in a competition modelled on a popular British BBC television programme called Great Britons that selected war-time Prime Minister Winston Churchill ahead of Shakespeare, Darwin and Princess Diana.

"(Former chancellor and Nobel Peace Prize winner) Willy Brandt is my choice for the best because he changed the image of Germany all around the world and presented to the world a new generation of a new Germany," said former Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher in an appeal for Brandt.

Others to reach the top 10 included former chancellors Konrad Adenauer and Otto von Bismarck, poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, church reform leader Martin Luther, printing press inventor Johannes Gutenberg, and Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans - Hitler resistance fighters executed by the Nazis.

Hitler barred

Notable among the top 100 were the high number of those famed for resisting Hitler - Georg Elsner, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg. The list was rigged to exclude Hitler and most of his entourage, but Nazi, and later US, rocket scientist Wernher von Braun was ranked the 63rd.

Another surprise entry in the top 100 were the so-called Truemmerfrauen - the myriad of women in bucket brigades who cleared away the rubble from bombed out cities after the war. They got the 88th place, ahead of former world champion boxer Max Schmeling, now 97 years old.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was ranked 82nd behind Olympic figure skating champion Katarina Witt in 70th, nationalistic composer Richard Wagner at 69th and sultry actress Marlene Dietrich in 50th position. 

Mozart controversy

Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer (52), trailed rock singer Nena (38), known abroad for her 1984 antiwar song 99 Luftballons, Nazi-era businessman Oskar Schindler who saved Jews from death camps (37), Beckenbauer (36), Becker (35), Graf (32), Schumacher (26) and composer Ludwig van Beethoven (12).

Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was 13th, ahead of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (20) - a controversial pick because Austria claims the composer as its native son.

An early glimpse of the voting for the final contest that began on Friday showed the trend favouring Einstein, a physicist who fled Nazi Germany for the United States, ahead of Adenauer and Goethe. Marx, the German-born communist philosopher and author of Das Kapital, and Bismarck were in 10th and ninth place after the first five minutes of voting.

Top 10 Germans:

Albert Einstein
Johann Sebastian Bach
Karl Marx
Willy Brandt
Konrad Adenauer
Otto von Bismarck
Sophie & Hans Scholl
Martin Luther
Johannes Gutenberg
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Source

One hundred years of superconductivity

Superconductors have already helped build amazing technologies - but the next step will revolutionise physics  itself.

The world's first "quantum" computer - a machine that harnesses the magic of quantum phenomena to perform memory and processing tasks incredibly faster than today's silicon-based computer chips - was recently sold by D-Wave Systems of Canada to Lockheed-Martin. And, while some question whether the machine is truly a quantum computer, its designers have published articles in peer-reviewed journals demonstrating that the basic elements of this novel computer are indeed superconducting quantum bits.

Palestine: Palestinian youth killed by Israeli army in Nablus

IMEMC & Agencies:

Palestinian medical sources reported that a 19-year-old college student was shot and killed, on Wednesday at dawn, by Israeli military fire in Al Far’a refugee camp, north of the northern West Bank city of Nablus; several residents were kidnapped.

The sources identified the slain youth as Ibrahim Sarhan, a student of the Al Najah University in Nablus.

Eyewitnesses reported that at least eleven armored Israeli military vehicles invaded the refugee camp approximately at 3 a.m., broke into and searched several homes causing damages.

The evils of unregulated capitalism

Remedy for the US economy: end the wars, rein in military and drug costs, and raise taxes - at least on the very rich.
Just a few years ago, a powerful ideology - the belief in free and unfettered markets - brought the world to the brink of ruin. Even in its hey-day, from the early 1980s until 2007, US-style deregulated capitalism brought greater material well-being only to the very richest in the richest country of the world.
Indeed, over the course of this ideology's 30-year ascendance, most Americans saw their incomes decline or stagnate year after year.

President's brother shot dead in Kandahar

Taliban claims responsibility for death of Ahmed Wali Karzai, considered the 'super governor' of southern Afghanistan.
Ahmed Wali Karzai, half brother to the Afghan president and one of the most powerful men in the country, has been killed by one of his own bodyguards, according to a member of his security team.
Wali Karzai was shot dead on Tuesday morning inside his house by Sardar Mohammad, a bodyguard who regularly visited him, the security source told Al Jazeera.

Georgia arrests three photojournalists for spying

The Georgian authorities have arrested three photojournalists, including President Mikheil Saakashvili's own photographer, on suspicion of spying.

The interior ministry said they were accused of working for an unnamed foreign intelligence service against the interests of Georgia.
Journalists protested against the arrests in the capital Tbilisi.

SUDAN: Beyond the euphoria of Southern independence

South Sudan becomes the world's newest nation on 9 July, the final step in the six-year Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), a deal that ended the 1983-2005 North-South war.

The government is upbeat, but after the euphoria of celebrations and the pomp of speeches, the new nation faces a mammoth task.

Apple loses bid for injunction against Amazon

A federal judge has denied Apple's request to immediately stop Amazon from using the term "Appstore" to describe its digital downloads storefront.
In an 18-page opinion filed today with the U.S. District Court for Northern California, Judge Phyllis Hamilton denied Apple's request for a preliminary injunction preventing Amazon's use of the term, which Apple claims it has trademark rights to. As expected, Hamilton ruled that Apple had not established the likelihood of confusion between the competing brands, but she also said she did not agree with Amazon's contention that the mark is purely generic:

US: Troop drawdown in Afghanistan to begin slowly

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's drawdown in Afghanistan will begin slowly, with the departure of just 800 National Guard troops this summer, followed by some 800 Marines in the fall, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

The details provided by Lieutenant General David Rodriguez, the outgoing No. 2 commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and Pentagon officials offered the most detailed look so far at how the U.S. military intends to carry out the withdrawal ordered by Obama in June.
Story: 9 feared dead in cargo plane crash in Afghanistan Facing growing political opposition to the nearly decade-old war, Obama announced plans to pull out about a third of the 100,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan by the end of summer 2012 -- a faster timetable than the military had recommended.

Hackers seize control of PayPal UK Twitter account

BOSTON, July 5 (Reuters) - Hackers seized control of a PayPal Twitter feed on Tuesday, then sent out messages criticizing the payment processor in the second attack of its type in two days.

The hijacking of the PayPalUK Twitter feed came a day after hackers took control of a Fox News feed for more than five hours, then sent false tweets saying that U.S. President Barack Obama had been shot dead. 

U.S. willing to leave 10,000 troops in Iraq past year's end, officials say

Reporting from Washington and Baghdad—

The White House is prepared to keep as many as 10,000 U.S. troops in Iraq after the end of the year, amid growing concern that the planned pullout of virtually all remaining American forces would lead to intensified militant attacks, according to U.S. officials.