الموضوع في طور الكتابة الأولية - سأعلم المجتمع السعودي مقامه قريبا

Article is under initial writing - I will put the Saudi community where they belong

The Pew Research Center study released Tuesday found that “Muslim Americans are very much like the rest of the country,” says Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. “They do not see a conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society.”

Muslim Americans, however, have a much more negative view about the Iraq war and the war against terrorism than the U.S. public as a whole, the survey found. The study also found pockets of sympathy for Islamic extremism, especially among younger people. Muslims between the ages of 18 and 29 express significantly greater acceptance than older people of suicide bombings in some cases.

The young show a greater tendency to identify themselves as Muslim first and American second. This faith-first pattern is even more pronounced among Muslims in Europe, according to previous Pew surveys.

Muslims here “come across as much more moderate than the Muslim public in other areas of the world,” says Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center.

Muslims in the USA have been under intense scrutiny since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. More than half of those surveyed say it is more difficult to be a Muslim since then and believe that the government singles them out for extra surveillance. Only 5% say they have a favorable view of al-Qaeda, although 27% express no opinion.

Most hold a positive view of American society. Seven in 10 say Americans can get ahead through hard work, a higher proportion than the public as a whole.

The survey shows that 47% of Muslims consider themselves Muslim first and Americans second. Previous Pew surveys show that 42% of Christians identify with their religion before their country. Among white evangelicals, 62% say they identify themselves first as Christians.

The U.S. Muslim population is one of the world’s most diverse. The nearly two-thirds who are immigrants came from 68 countries.

The poll found that African Americans are the most disillusioned segment of the Muslim American population, a possible reflection of their economic conditions and experience with racial discrimination.

The poll has a margin of error of +/-5 percentage points.

The survey “clearly shows that the American Muslim community is well integrated in our society,” says Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights and advocacy group in Washington, D.C. “The overwhelming majority of American Muslims reject terrorism and religious extremism.”

Source: USA Today

Original post by Bebichan

I am getting tired of hearing about “a new movie condemning Islam”… “Islamic nations respond with death threats and a fatwa against “…””

Once again, we are faced with a new critic of Islam…Geert Wilders.
Wilders is a member of the “Party of Freedom” in the Netherlands and is known for his backwards mentality opposing any form of immigration from non western countries, and opposition to Multi-cultured society (especially when those cultures are from “non western” parts of the world). Fitna (which is an Arabic word referring to schism) is the latest Anti-Islam movie which he released on the 29th of March.

Islamic criticism is becoming a somewhat repetitive topic which holds no facts, and no reality to what the Islamic religion really is…and I’m sure the “real Muslims” are tired of defending their religion, and arguing with the masses of ignorant, misinformed beings.

Figures like Geert Wilders fail to impress me in their so called skills of criticism, using radical figures that are obviously psychopaths and have no relation to the religion itself as their examples of what Islam truly is. One can only sit back and laugh at the completely absurd claims they make.

One of the major things Geert Wilders speaks about is his belief that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim, that this is in no way achievable.
However there is no such thing as “radical” “extreme” or “fundamental” Islam either.
There has been a growing use of the phrase “Radical Islam”… in actual fact radicalism and Islam has no correlation. There is no such thing as “extremists” in religion…its either religious or it’s not, and when it gets to what’s described as “extreme” it is no longer religion.
It’s time and time again that Muslims have to keep proving that violence, killing and suicide bombing have nothing to do with Islamic teachings and in fact are one of the three fundamental sins of Islam (suicide in any case, violence towards others and murder).
Suicide bombing derives from a psycho-mentality that we have seen in many groups, Buddhism being one of those…it does not originate from Islam.
People who condone things like this “Killing in the Name of God” are not Muslims, but rather brain washed psycho’s.

It can be agreed that there is a growth in hate amongst what’s known as the “Islamic Nations” but this is entirely for political reasons, and whilst you have insane so called Islamic leaders preaching violence and hate, one must not continue to make the mistake that they represent of Islam. It’s not just Muslims in these regions which hold tensions toward the west.
Using terrorists and radical psychotic figures as the face of Islam is much like using the KKK as the face of white people, and claiming that the KKK’s white supremacist ideologies are the ideologies of the entire White race.
This is an absolutely inaccurate suggestion, which is far too general to be realistic.

When I witness people who have not read any Islamic scripts (such as the Qur’an for Islam) in their original language (Arabic in this case), arguing and claiming that Islam is a religion of violence and not peace, hatred and not love… it becomes annoying to try and explain to them that their argument is of no significance.
Practising Muslims, strive to read and understand the Qur’an in its original script in order to gain the real meaning of it, while Islamic critics read a void translation of separated verses taken out of context and use these as evidence against Islam.
You can’t read one paragraph of a book and generate an entire synopsis on the book.

I’ll give you an example of what is being done to Islamic texts today in order to give a negative interpretation of text by taking one sentence from my above paragraph:

“Islam is a religion of violence and not peace, hatred and not love”

Without reading the sentences before and after this, we have an unfinished sentence with no back up and no explanation. For someone who is reading that on it’s own it appears as if I am attacking Islam, while in actual fact in that paragraph I am trying to point out that these are ignorant claims.

When a verse or line in the Qur’an is quoted, and used as proof of all the negative claims against Islam, I have to stick by the argument that this is absolutely foolish.

We know for sure that there is a massive tension between the West and the Middle East, and as I have stated before, this is entirely generated because of Political tensions and has nothing to do with people being Muslims.
I mean let us not forget that 9/11 caused the invasion of two countries… and a few thousand deaths of innocent civilians… led to approximately 1.7million innocent civilian deaths.
Continual western intervention has led to the fall of Iraq, the creation of a massive insurgency which some people seem to forget was started by the mistakes of a Paul Bremer (an American official working under Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush)…who thought it a good idea to disband the entire Iraqi army (which numbered to around 700,000 people), fire all Ba’ath members in Parliament, ministries, and schools (also known as the de-ba’thification of Iraq)…
Lest we forget that the reason the Bush administration claims it decided to go to war was to remove Saddam from power and enforce democracy in Iraq…despite previous American Administrations funding Saddam, helping him to gain power and helping him to carry out atrocities against Iraqi’s.

Afghanistan which was immediately invaded post 9/11 because of links to the terrorist attacks, got in the state it was before 9/11 under a Taliban regime, after America helped to train the Taliban and get them into power in Afghanistan…so there’s two terrorist organisations America has funded or trained.

See every time the west has involved itself with Middle East it has caused nothing but trouble and more atrocities…which stirs only more hatred amongst the people, not because they’re Muslims, but because of the continuous crap they go through at the hands of western governments.
This has nothing to do with radical Islam, but it has everything to do with hate growing amongst people after decades of wars, invasions and being appointed terrorist or dictatorial leaderships by the west.

This is why I’m tired of “radical Islam” crap, “Islam is a religion of hate” bullshit, critics trying to attack a religion without looking beyond it and seeing what actually causes this mass hatred amongst people. It’s simply baseless, poorly formed arguments and I’m tired of it.

Religions should have absolutely nothing to do with politics and people continuously linking the two just causes more and more problems.

The Saudi government has passed a bill to decriminalize female driving on Saudi streets, a major Saudi news website reported today. The bill also clarifies the guidelines for female drivers (must be over 30 years of age, allowed to drive in the cities alone, and with a legal relative elsewhere) and the punishments for those who interfere with driving women. A member of the government (Majlis Al-Shura) added that women will have to carry a cellular phone to contact the female police force (since when did we have female police over there?!) in case of emergency; upon applying for their driver’s license, female drivers will have to pay a mandatory fee for on-road service to have their cars fixed, tires repaired, etc.. to insure their safety from other drivers who might be on the lookout for women on the road side. The Majlis has also recommended establishing female police units within cities, monitored by the religious police of course, and a free hot-line service to help female drivers in need of any sort of help. A study conducted by the Majlis further demanded that citizens who dare to speak to a female driver be punished by 1 month in prison and a fine, those who harrass a female driver in any way will -on the other hand- serve 8 months in prison and pay a hefty fine.

Cheers Saudi girls, welcome to the jungle! Stay Safe

Update [5:45pm E.T]: AlArabiya.net has deleted the news article in about 15 minutes of the original posting time! It looks like they still can’t go public with their article yet.. But I indeed can, right?

Update [1:00am E.T - March 20th]:

NEWS CONFIRMED BY RASID.COM
CONGRATS EVERYONE!

I was touched by a response to one of my posts,

Dear Muslim Brothers:
Aslam-o-Alaikum, I am very sad after listening this news but did not see yet. I am also Bangali but can you think, all bangali muslims can be same? I cant dare to do such sin even in my own country due to fear of Allah. Please dont discriminate us due to such incident and punish all our nation by such animal behavior of only 5 Criminal Bangalis. Even in Bagladesh, We have Good and Bad people & even in Saudi Arabia, Good and bad people are there. So, dont push our poor people back to our own country with empty hand. I request you to treat us as Muslim not Jews. We have lots of hopes here for support and help because culturely we have been surrounded by Hindus and Budhs. Our country is very poor and it will go into bad economic conditions after deporting us from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. May Allah give us Haddayat. Ameen (A Bangali’s Appeal)

To clarify, I am not against Bengalis working in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else. Let me assure you that Bengalis are usually viewed as peaceful people, but the fact that Bengladish some how exports low-wage workers from their prisons is not a good idea for the image of the good people of Bengladish. There are many Bengali workers in foreign countries, and they should be rewarded with good living conditions and hospitality to insure that they feel greatful to the countries in which they work. Treatment of foreigners -and especially low wage workers- by the general public plays an important role in strengthening the ties and reduces the rate of crimes committed; clearly, the people of the GCC countries have a high rate of discriminating against foreign workers. If this problem is treated and people start respecting low-wage foreign workers, then the workers themselves will have less motives to commit crimes against the citizens.

After a tedious day between programming and physics classes, I decided with a couple of friends to go to the local mall for lunch and watch “The Bank Job” movie at the theater. We met at a bus station near school and while waiting for the bus we chatted about preparing my car for a road trip to Washington D.C. I mentioned to them a little story that happened to me once at the DMV while applying for a driver’s license:_

After waiting in line I approached the lady at the counter and presented my American passport along with my social security card
Me: Hi, I’d like to apply for a driver’s license please.
Her: Ook.. Are you a citizen of the united states?
Me: Yes I am.
Her: Since when?
Me: (in my mind: hmm?) I was born and raised here.. lived in other states, and currently here for college.
Her: Well, your social security card is laminated. I’m afraid you’ll have to get a new one and get back to us.
Me: Yeah, it was laminated at the consulate where I renew my passport abroad.
Her: Oh ok.. You’ll have to get a new one from the social security building downtown.
Me: Sure, thanks..

I continued to explain to my friends how much it bothers me when people to look at me as if I’m less of an American citizen than they are, while I -in fact- consider myself a better American than many many people who know nothing about what being an American means! -hey, I was joining the army at some point but I got a scholarship- The bus arrives, we go to the mall and have our lunch then we went to see the movie.. At around 9:30pm we were on our way out of the mall, towards the gate where the bus stop is. As we were walking we passed a couple of guys and one of them -who was talking on his phone- intentionally made us hear “…. and a bunch of mexicans, and some freaky A-raab niggzz ……..”!!!

I turned my head and looked at him while still walking with a question mark all over my face..

Him: Whachu lookin’ at?
I stop, turn around, and take a few steps back to him..
Me: What’s your problem? You always walk around and look for trouble that way?
Him: Get the fuck outta here nigga, I’ toss you to the first floor..
Me: (realize what a douche bag he is, and just smile at him keeping a laugh inside) then I start force my feet stepping away..
Him: You don’t know what I got in my pocket nigga..
Me: looking at him with sarcasm: You’re really kidding yourself..
Him: You’re in my country nigga..
Me: FURIOUSLY POINTING AT HIS FACE: IS MY COUNTRY TOO YOU GOTTA PROBLEM WITH THAT?!?!
Him: A pause.. trying to hide being surprised, kinda just noticing ~perfect American accent~college hoodie~way of speaking, expressions, etc..~
I shake my head looking at him, turn around and walk towards the gate..

Walking behind me with his friend.. just a few seconds pass, the guy makes a gun-loading “shek-click” sound with his mouth, and eventually shoots at me with a big “BOOOOOM” that resonated across the walkway (seriously).. I ignore him and continue walking out and step aside with my friends for cigarettes and he and his friend walk out towards their car (I guess he killed me already, so..)

I light up a cigarette and explain to my friends why I got really pissed off, kind of rewinding how things escalated because of an irresponsible comment.

When we were on the bus back to school, I suddenly pull the my iPod earplugs off, turn to my friends and asked “Hey, weren’t we just talking about how I don’t like people who…” My friends interrupt: “yeaa!! we were talking about it on our way to the mall from school..”

The vast majority of Muslims do not know anything about Buddhism except its name, and that Buddha is a piece of clay that Buddhists worship! While Muslims very well understand Islam, Christianity, and Judaism -to an extent- they have fallen short of understanding the Asian and far-eastern teachings and religions merely because of the fact that “they are very convinced that their religion is true” and that Buddha is a man made god that cannot save itself if it fell on the floor. The average Muslim is taught to think of Buddha -and other idols- simply as a man made god with no regard to the rich teachings, history, and culture that sprung from the mind of a philosopher who would have become a good friend of Muslim thinkers if given the chance.. While Buddhism is genuinely historically uninfluenced by the three monotheistic religions, it does not -at its core- differ from the teachings of Mohammad, Jesus, Moses, or Abraham (pbut). In fact, Buddhist teachings do seem very similar to Sufi Islam! The emphasis on self observation, meditation, states of consciousness, etc are all common factors between Buddhist teachings and Sufi Islam. I -as a Muslim- broke the rules and learned about Buddhism and found it very enlightening and spiritual! I learned that Buddha was a great teacher, not a man made god as I have been taught at school..

Thanks to Alan Watts’ podcast -which I listen to on daily basis via my iPod- and freely available Buddhist texts and wiki pages on the net. I found my way to learning about Buddhism through Watts’ podcast, it has become a habit to relax at bedtime and have my dose of Buddhism through the earphones.. The lectures are very calming and spiritual, and Alan Watts’ seems to have the appropriate voice and tone to make his Buddhist lectures enjoyable at bedtime. There’s much more to Buddhism than I ever imagined, make sure you get your dose of Buddhism because you will find it enlightening..

Salam ya 3alam,
Arabilluminist

Wanna know how nasty the religious police is over there? well, read on my friend.. read on
I am not in favor of AlArabiya news website, nor their disgusting propaganda driven writers and staff. But I very much like how they continuously expose how smelly those so-called religious bastards are! Not only does AlArabiya cover their terrible crimes, but a lot of their articles are written in a way to convey a message, and this time their message is written also written plainly in the sub-title which reads “He accused them of conspiracy”.

The story goes like this:

The court of Mecca ruled to imprison an academian for 8 months and be lashed 180 times for being in private with a female student in a coffee shop, the professor and the student were caught by the religious police in a local Mecca cafe. The university professor rejected the rule and said that he “met the student upon her request since the problem she encountered cannot be solved but in person; he asked her to come with her brother but she arrived by herself“, he also added that “he was surprised to see the religious police surrounding him in only a few minutes“. Further more, the man mentioned that “those who arrested him hated him because they received poor grades and failed as they were former students of his“. The general manager of Mecca religious police denied the conspiracy and insisted that “the religious police members are more noble than doing such conspiracies”!

I can imagine those failed students turned terrorists asking a female student of the teacher to play her part; the conspiracy is very obvious in this case! The students failed and hated the teacher, they join the religious police and maybe hear a female of their relatives mentioning the teacher’s name after a couple years, then put together a plan to arrest him. There is also no mention of the girl’s punishment by the court nor by the article, which really confirms that the whole story is a conspiracy!

One more thing, how can a public coffee shop be so private anyway?!

Please salute the conspirers of death: The failing students, the general manager of Mecca’s religious police, and their prostitute.

It looks like the best way Saudis improve their life and their country is through public shock, anger, and internal pressure. This has been the case with “The Qatif Girl” rape incident which shook the world when the victim was sentenced to 200 lashes and prison time and then pardoned by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia; well, Saudis were never more furious as this time with the “The anonymous girl” raped by 5 Bengalis because this time there was a heartbreaking video (I’ve received the video long before, but did not want to be the first to publicly display it on the internet)

Soon after the news was made public, Saudis created a facebook group labeled “The national campaign for the struggle against Bengalis“, shared related articles and news, and suggested cures for the mass trauma caused by individuals belonging to an ethnic group which has been long thought of as “poor peaceful people”. Around the 11th of Janurary, many Saudi journalists, newspapers, and online news websites published articles which concluded that:

• The Bengali council: “Our citizens count 1.5 million in Saudi, and the number will double soon”
• The bengali council: “We have recieved no official complaints regarding our citizens status or behavior”
• The Bengali council accused Saudi journalists of demonizing Bengali workers

Clearly, the intent of such articles -especially that they were published soon after the rape video case- is to further intimidate the Saudi public and persuade Saudi officials to do something about the illegal Bengali aliens whose crimes became almost impossible to fight. Eventually, the pressure caused by Saudis -along with journalists, campaigns, and bloggers- succeeded to convinced the authorities to completely stop all further importing of Bengali workforce.

• The ministry of labor prepared a “secret?” study to temporarily stop importing Bengali workers, leading to a complete prohibition.
• Bengali engineers and doctors only will be allowed to work in Saudi
• Companies and firms will only be allowed a maximum of 20% of Bengali employees.

While the ministry of labor’s decision was a relief to Saudis since it will help stop the increase of crimes, many rejoiced as this will hopefully provide more work for unemployed Saudis in their own country.

Remember, if “anyone” catches you with it..
I don’t know you n’ you don’t know me…

They say we’re a non-productive nation!!!
Move it kids!

The Saudi masses were recently struck by a video clip that spread across mobile phones of an anonymous Saudi girl, kidnapped and raped by 5 Bengali men, the video shows four Bengalis tightly holding an adult girl despite her resistance and heart breaking screams. The video -shot by one of the wolves, never shown- appears to have been shot in a rural area, inside a room where the rapists placed a blanket in preparation for their horrifying crime. Al Riyadh newspaper was the first to address the crime in public media:

The official police spokesman in the Eastern region Yousif AlQahtani stated that they have not received any report of the rape case from anyone regarding the blue tooth shared video.

While the rape victim remains anonymous, no one knows if she is still being held captive, killed, or released and preferred to keep quiet to avoid social degradation or even to save her own life. The crime came to public knowledge shortly after the infamous Qatif girl rape case, when a Saudi girl was raped by her ex boyfriend and was sentenced to 200 lashes and a few months in prison then released by an order from King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia after world shaking anger imposed social and political pressure.

Kuwait has just recently celebrated deporting the last Bengali back to his country, the majority of the Bengali foreign workforce in Gulf countries has been known to be prison graduates whom their country rids itself of. Saudi Arabia employs about 2 million Bengalis as cheap labor for a massive number of jobs while the Saudi unemployment rate is unofficially reported to have reached 35%, the case is therefore expected to raise voices of demands to deport all Bengali cheap labor outside Saudi.

A Bengali infected with with AIDS arrested working in a Saudi restaurant:
The Riyadh police task force arrested an alien working in a restaurant who was infected with AIDS, and who also didn’t seem to care about it. The arrest was made after receiving information about a Bengali who was tested positive with AIDS during the process of issuing him a medical card, but he continued to work in Riyadh with no regard at all to his medical condition. Information supplied that he entered Saudi with a ‘personal driver’ visa requested by a Saudi woman, and was found working in a Saudi authentic and fast food restaurant. The Riyadh police unit handed over the Bengali to “proper authorities” to be punished according to the law and then sent back to his country. Further more, the restaurant was closed and investigations were opened to find out how he was allowed/managed to work there.

- Various sources.

AIDS infected Bengali released, back to work in restaurant:

“Sabaq received information that the Bengali arrested for illegally working in a Saudi restaurant while tested positive for AIDS was released and he is now back to the restaurant serving authentic Saudi food. The “proper authorities” provided the excuse that “his case is not a felony and does not require detaining him or sending him back to his country”. The Bengali managed to work in a restaurant without a medical card, which is one of the primary documents required to work…”

“Suppose it was true that Iran is helping insurgents in Iraq. I mean, wasn’t the United States helping insurgents when the Russians invaded Afghanistan? Did we think there was anything wrong with that? I mean, Iraq’s a country that was invaded and is under military occupation. You can’t have a serious discussion about whether someone else is interfering in it. The basic assumption underlying the discussion is that we own the world. So if we invade and occupy another country, then it’s a criminal act for anyone to interfere with it. What about the nuclear weapons? I mean, are there countries with nuclear weapons in the region? Israel has a couple of hundred nuclear weapons. The United States gives more support to it than any other country in the world.

The real reasons for the attack on Iran, the sanctions, and so on go back into history. I mean, we like to forget the history; Iranians don’t. In 1953, the United States and Britain overthrew the parliamentary government and installed a brutal dictator, the Shah, who ruled until 1979. And during his rule, incidentally, the United States was strongly supporting the same programs they’re objecting to today. In 1979, the population overthrew the dictator, and since then the United States has been essentially torturing Iran. First it tried a military coup. Then it supported Saddam Hussein during Iraq’s invasion of Iran, which killed hundreds of thousands of people. Then, after that was over, the United States started imposing harsh sanctions on Iran. And now it’s escalating that. The point is: Iran is out of control. You know, it’s supposed to be a U.S.-client state, as it was under the Shah, and it’s refusing to play that role.”
- Noam Chomsky

Special thanks to AhlulBait Islamic Mission..

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By Gideon Levy
Source: Haaretz

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