Islam for Women

  Since the latest feedback from the Wahabi corner I started thinking, that maybe I am doing more harm than good. Although I still think we cannot ignore criticism and should examine our behavior  and interpretation of Islam in a changed world.   Today I received a heartwarming Email, that I wish to share with you:  

Assalaam Alaikum!

I’ve found your blog browsing blogcatalog and it is one of the best muslim blogs I’ve found so far!

I’m from Moscow, Russia and it is not easy to find information about islam because of the fact that muslim community here is divided into several ‘tribes’ by which I mean that nationality is more important for them then religion. Me and my husband are jewish but we feel that Islam is the religion that suits our views the best.

Back to your blog: I wanted to comment your latest post about provocative writers and such, but unfortunatelly didn’t find a comment form so I’m writing it here.

About 2 month ago on the second day after my marriage I was arrested by police (forunatelly for 1 night only). I was placed in a waiting caged room with some illegal immigrants from muslim countries (both men and women, but mostly men). After a while a policeman came to us and started abusing islam and prophet Mohammad. One of the men replied to the policeman telling he shouldn’t say such words. After a short conversation the muslim guy shrugged his shoulders and went silent. Later on he explained that it is useless to explain smth to an ignorant person…

With best regards,

Alexandra.

May God, the All-mighty  and Creator of all mankind show us all the right path and bring us Peace!  

It is the time of the year again -  Ramadan is approaching,  every year 11 days earlier. Islamic calendar is a  Lunar Calendar having 12 lunar months in a year of about 354 days. The Month of Ramadan is the month of fasting and reflection.

I wish to my readers a peaceful and spiritually rewarding Ramadan, may God accept our fasting and bestow His grace upon us.

Greetings to all my readers, regardless of faith or ethnicity!    

What is Islam?

Today I would like to share with You one of my favorite’s music

Buffy Sainte-Marie      
A native Canadian singer-song writer.

Listen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGWsGyNsw00

“I wrote ‘Universal Soldier’ in the basement of The Purple Onion coffee house in Toronto in the early sixties. It’s about individual responsibility for war and how the old feudal thinking kills us all.”

He’s five feet two and he’s six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He’s all of 31 and he’s only 17
He’s been a soldier for a thousand years

He’s a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn’t kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you

And he’s fighting for Canada,
he’s fighting for France,
he’s fighting for the USA,
and he’s fighting for the Russians
and he’s fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we’ll put an end to war this way

And he’s fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it’s for the peace of all
He’s the one who must decide
who’s to live and who’s to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls

But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He’s the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can’t go on

He’s the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more

They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can’t you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.

PEACE to mandkind!

Finally good news after years of mistrust, misinformation and controversy:

Catholic-Muslim Forum is to meet in November

Rome — While many Muslims remain hurt by Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 remarks in Regensburg on Islam, the decision announced Wednesday to create a joint Catholic-Muslim Forum is a “welcome sign of hope,” Muslim delegates said after two days of high-level talks with Vatican officials.

“We all make mistakes and those of big stature make big mistakes,” one of the five Muslim representatives at the talks, Aref Ali Nayed, Director of the Amman, Jordan-based Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, said.

Nayed, who spoke at a Rome news conference, was referring to the September 2006 speech in Regensburg, Germany, when the pontiff appeared to associate Islam with violence.

“For some Muslims the wounds (of Regensburg) have not healed and some important Muslims are still boycotting the Vatican“, said Nayed, but added that the results of the discussion between his delegation and top Roman Catholic officials was “a sign of great hope.”

The Catholic-Muslim Forum is scheduled to hold its first seminar in Rome from Nov. 4 -6, the Vatican said earlier.

The Vatican also said Benedict would receive participants — 24 religious leaders and scholars from each of the Catholic and Muslim sides — attending the three-day long seminar.

But besides the symbolic importance of the Rome meeting, the Forum - which is destined to meet once every two years in different locations, including majority Muslim nations - would form a “permanent” structure to address inter-religious issues including “crises and misunderstandings” he said.

“We may only meet every two years but we will be communicate every week,” Nayed said. ….

These and other initiatives — some involving Orthodox Christians, Nayed said — all stem from an open letter released in October 2007 by 138 Muslim high-profile leaders in which they called for greater co- operation with Christians on achieving peace. ..

Historical dialog from 1085

http://www.aalalbayt.org/en/conferencesandsymposiadialogue-c.html

“The idea of Muslim - Christian Dialogue is exemplified in the importance of exchanging ideas and conceptions on the Arab, local and global levels, in its strong impact in building bridges of confidence among the people of the dialogue, and in strengthening understanding, particularly in this age where no society or country can afford to live isolated from the regional and international currents by virtue of the new technologies of mass communication. Thus, the dialogue is one of these tools which is used to communicate with these cultural and intellectual currents and to keep abreast of them.

Ptolemy, The Almagest, trans. from the Greek by Ishâq ibn Hunayn and corrected by Thâbit ibn Qurra” (copied in the year 478/1085)