JEDDAH, 24 November 2006 — Comfort and security of pilgrims are among the top priorities of the Ministry of Haj. “All official agencies will work together to ensure security at the Jamrat area,” Minister of Haj Fouad Al-Farsy said yesterday.A number of measures have been taken by the government and the private sector to provide better services to the pilgrims, the minister told a meeting of Tawafa establishments and other Haj-related agencies at the Jeddah Hilton.

“The success of the stoning ritual at the Jamrat does not solely rest with the official administrative machinery and individual agencies. “All agencies involved in the organization and management of Haj should conduct themselves in an organized manner to the satisfaction of every pilgrim,” the minister said.

Fayeq Biari, chairman of the board of directors of the Tawafa Establishment for Arab Countries, said in a statement in Makkah yesterday that Al-Farsy had approved a plan to provide best services to all pilgrims.

The plan envisages the launch of 113 field service groups to serve the pilgrims at a number of neighborhoods in Makkah from the time of their arrival till their departure.

At the Jeddah meeting, Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs’ Undersecretary Dr. Habib Zain Al-Abidin presented a paper about the Jamrat Bridge project and various Haj-related services. He outlined a plan in which pilgrims from different countries could be systematically organized to perform the stoning ritual.

Meanwhile, the Madinah airport and the Jeddah Haj Terminal, which were officially opened for Haj flights on Wednesday, became the scene of hectic activities with pilgrims flying in from many world destinations. The first two batches of 540 Haj pilgrims from the southern Indian state of Karnataka arrived on board two special Saudi Arabian Airlines flights in Madinah.

The Ministry of Health has decided that all Haj pilgrims from Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, regardless of age and vaccination status, should receive at least one dose of oral polio vaccine (OPV) prior to their departure for Saudi Arabia.

The Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has asked all state governments to make necessary arrangements at all the health facilities for administration of OPV and issuing certificates to Haj pilgrims. The state governments have also been requested to set up polio vaccination booths at the offices of the state Haj committees as well as airports from where the flights leave for Saudi Arabia.

Immunization of all travelers prior to departure will minimize the risk of virus being carried by pilgrims. It will also boost the immunity of travelers, especially young children who are more susceptible to infection and will help stop the spread of the disease.

Source: Arab News

Shaikh Muhammad bin Salih al-’Uthaimin (may Allah have mercy upon him) was one of the prominent Muslim scholars from Saudi Arabia, and was often asked about the instruments of terrorism. Here is one verdict (fatwa) from the Shaikh:

Question: What is the ruling regarding acts of jihad by means of suicide, such as attaching explosives to a car and storming the enemy, whereby he knows without a doubt that he shall die as a result of this action?

Indeed, my opinion is that he is regarded as one who has killed himself (committed suicide), and as a result he shall be punished in Hell, for that which is authenticated on the authority of the Prophet (salallaahu ‘alaihi wa sallam):

“Indeed, whoever (intentionally) kills himself, then certainly he will be punished in the Fire of Hell, wherein he shall dwell forever”. (Bukhari (5778) and Muslim (109 and 110)).

However, one who is ignorant and does not know, and assumes his action was good and pleasing to Allah (Subhaanahu wa Ta’aala), then we hope Allah (Subhaanahu wa Ta’aala) forgives him for that which he did out of (ignorant) ijtihad (his personal judgement), even though I do not find any excuse for him in the present day.

This is because this type of suicide is well known and widespread amongst the people, so it is upon the person to ask the people of knowledge (scholars) regarding it, until the right guidance for him is differentiated from the error.

And from that which is surprising, is that these people kill themselves despite Allah having fordbidden this, as He (Subhaanahu wa Ta’aala) says: And do not kill yourselves. Surely, Allaah is Most Merciful to you (Nisaa, 4:29). And many amongst them do not desire anything except revenge of the enemy, by whatever means, be it halaal (lawful) or haraam (unlawful). So they only want to satisfy their thirst for revenge.

We ask Allah to bless us with foresight in His deen (revealed law) and action(s) which please Him, indeed He is all Powerful over all things.

Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen, Kayfa Nu’aalij Waaqi’unaa al-Aleem - page 119

Well, al-Baabaa Benedict XVI decided to find an obscure quote from a debate around 600 hundred years ago claiming that Islam brought nothing but evil and the spreading of the faith by the sword. I came across this response from Jewish atheist (?), Uri Avnery. Here are some excerpts from his response to al-Baabaa Benedict:

In his lecture at a German university, the 265th Pope described what he sees as a huge difference between Christianity and Islam: while Christianity is based on reason, Islam denies it. While Christians see the logic of God’s actions, Muslims deny that there is any such logic in the actions of Allah.

As a Jewish atheist, I do not intend to enter the fray of this debate. It is much beyond my humble abilities to understand the logic of the Pope. But I cannot overlook one passage, which concerns me too, as an Israeli living near the fault-line of this “war of civilizations”.

In order to prove the lack of reason in Islam, the Pope asserts that the Prophet Muhammad ordered his followers to spread their religion by the sword. According to the Pope, that is unreasonable, because faith is born of the soul, not of the body. How can the sword influence the soul?

Jesus said: “You will recognize them by their fruits.” The treatment of other religions by Islam must be judged by a simple test: how did the Muslim rulers behave for more than a thousand years, when they had the power to “spread the faith by the sword”? Well, they just did not. For many centuries, the Muslims ruled Greece. Did the Greeks become Muslims? Did anyone even try to Islamize them? On the contrary, Christian Greeks held the highest positions in the Ottoman administration. The Bulgarians, Serbs, Romanians, Hungarians and other European nations lived at one time or another under Ottoman rule and clung to their Christian faith. Nobody compelled them to become Muslims and all of them remained devoutly Christian.

In 1099, the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem and massacred its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants indiscriminately, in the name of the gentle Jesus. At that time, 400 years into the occupation of Palestine by the Muslims, Christians were still the majority in the country. Throughout this long period, no effort was made to impose Islam on them. Only after the expulsion of the Crusaders from the country, did the majority of the inhabitants start to adopt the Arabic language and the Muslim faith - and they were the forefathers of most of today’s Palestinians.

About Muslim Spain, Avnery writes:

There no evidence whatsoever of any attempt to impose Islam on the Jews. As is well known, under Muslim rule the Jews of Spain enjoyed a bloom the like of which the Jews did not enjoy anywhere else until almost our time. Poets like Yehuda Halevy wrote in Arabic, as did the great Maimonides. In Muslim Spain, Jews were ministers, poets, scientists. In Muslim Toledo, Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars worked together and translated the ancient Greek philosophical and scientific texts. That was, indeed, the Golden Age. How would this have been possible, had the Prophet decreed the “spreading of the faith by the sword”?

What happened afterwards is even more telling. When the Catholics reconquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. And where did the hundreds of thousand of Jews, who refused to abandon their faith, escape? Almost all of them were received with open arms in the Muslim countries. The Sephardi (”Spanish”) Jews settled all over the Muslim world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, from Bulgaria (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the north to Sudan in the south. Nowhere were they persecuted. They knew nothing like the tortures of the Inquisition, the flames of the auto-da-fe, the pogroms, the terrible mass-expulsions that took place in almost all Christian countries, up to the Holocaust.

At the closing of his piece, Avnery writes:

Every honest Jew who knows the history of his people cannot but feel a deep sense of gratitude to Islam, which has protected the Jews for fifty generations, while the Christian world persecuted the Jews and tried many times “by the sword” to get them to abandon their faith.The story about “spreading the faith by the sword” is an evil legend, one of the myths that grew up in Europe during the great wars against the Muslims - the reconquista of Spain by the Christians, the Crusades and the repulsion of the Turks, who almost conquered Vienna. I suspect that the German Pope, too, honestly believes in these fables. That means that the leader of the Catholic world, who is a Christian theologian in his own right, did not make the effort to study the history of other religions.

Another interesting read is “The Jews of Islam” by Bernard Lewis, where he demonstrates the claim that Islam was spread with the Qur’an in one hand and the sword in the other is in fact a falsification.There is also the encyclopedic, “A History of the Jewish People” by Hayim Ben-Sasson. This is a detailed Jewish history book written by Jewish scholars from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and offers an objective viewpoint on this subject. Some quotes that relate to the period between 600-1000 CE

The height of magnificence and luxury was reached by the wealthy Jews in the lands of Islam, particularly in Moslem Spain. We know that the court bankers of Baghdad in the tenth century kept open house for numerous guests and for the poor. Similarly, the ceremonies of the Jewish leaders in Babylonia and the patronage of the leading Jews in Moslem Spain, indicate conditions of ease and plenty. (p.401)

The need to maintain undisturbed relations with those on whom the existence of an economic structure and civilization depended gradually shaped the Moslem attitude towards those members of the ‘peoples of the Book’ who refused to accept Islam. The attitude toward these non-Moslems in the Islamic territories was shaped in principle in accordance with the concept of dhimma, meaning protection granted to them by agreement or treaty… The major expressions of dhimmi status were the poll-tax or jizia, which all male non-believers above the age of fifteen had to pay, and the special land-tax, known as the kharaj. In return, their lives and property were protected and, in accordance with the general attitude of Islam to infidels, they were assured liberty of faith and worship. They were also permitted to organize themselves as they wished, and the Jews fully availed themselves of that permission. Naturally there were changes for the better or for the worse in various places and at various times; but the principles established in the early days of Islam continued to serve as the basis for the relations between Moslem and dhimmi throughout the ages. (pp. 404-405)

From the Jewish viewpoint, this conglomerate of Moslem attitudes to infidels was easier to live with than the one that had been established by Christianity, particularly in the Byzantine Empire. As we have noted above, for hundreds of years the overwhelming majority of Jews lived in the Islamic territories. Although it is possible to perceive some Christian impact on the Moslem attitude towards non-believers and even towards the Christians themselves, the moderation with which the Moslems applied this influence proved to be of great importance to the majority of Jewry over a long period. Unlike the masses of Christians and pagans who joined the Moslems over the first half century or so, the overwhelming majority of the Jews under Moslem rule held firmly to their own faith. (p. 405)

The exilarch served as manifestation of the splendour of bygone days, which the Jews wished to preserve, to the extent that the Moslem government would permit a dhimmi people. He was ‘like one of the lords of the king in his behaviour’ - the reference being to the ministers of the Moslem caliph. The exilarch used to enter the royal court, speaking to the caliph ‘with pleasant words until he granted his request’. Thus the resh galuta majestically represented the Jews and performed the diplomatic function of intercession at the caliph’s court. He also appointed judges, as has been mentioned, and had an authoritative say in matters of Jewish law and the organization of the yeshivot. His office, though maintained in the shadow of the caliphate and interwoven with the leadership of the scholars and sages of the yeshivot, reflected on a small scale the ancient monarchy of Judah. (pp. 422-423)

The Jews of the Middle Ages, as we have remarked, inherited from ancient times an entire range of viewpoints and ideals that were transmitted in an extensive literature and were preserved throughout the generations. Many of their guiding institutions were, or at least claimed to be, continuations of institutions of the ancient past. Naturally, however, the social and cultural circumstances and trends of the contemporary environment had their effect. Life in the Islamic countries, with its flow of commerce and bustling urban activity, exerted considerable influence. An equal and possibly even greater influence was the new Arabic culture, in wihch the Platonic, neo-Platonic and Aristotelian elements moulded much of the spectrum of thought.

The Jewish literature of the period came to be dominated by Arabic, which gradually became the spoken and written language of the Jewish masses, as well as the language of study, even in matters pertaining to sacred Jewish tradition. Jewish religious philosophy, which made its appearance in the tenth century, was written mostly in Arabic. Admittedly, however, Arabic never fully displaced Hebrew and Aramaic. Furthermore, the Arabic of the Jewish scholars and merchants came to be written in Hebrew characters and acquired a style and grammar of its own, gradually becoming a Judeo-Arabic dialect. From the eleventh century there is evidence of cultural ties within Jewry extending from Babylonia [Iraq] to Moslem Spain by way of the Mediterranean islands. In addition, there were communications between the geonim and other Jewish scholars, on the one hand, and with the surrounding Moslem and cultures, on the other…

Under the impact of Arab culture and language, contemporary Arabic literary and verse forms were adopted by Jews, together with verse metres and genres. These were widely and successfully used in Hebrew and proved to be fruitful elements in the emergence of new literary styles. (pp. 439-440)

As Salaamu ‘Alaykum, welcome to the Islam Blog. Not going to give a big intro here, but basically you know what it’s about! We’ll be covering all things Islam inshaa’Allaah, in the contemporary world, and touch upon vital aspects of Islamic knowledge. Spread the word … let others know that the Islam Blog has launched.