So what happened in Egypt? After the last Israeli war, and after the treaty with Israel, the army became redundant militarily and turned to business. Mubarak, as army officer and later president, also got into business. No bank or multinational corporation could do business in Egypt without an Egyptian partner or stakeholder, so that the army and people like Mubarak basically cleaned up. Allegedly Mubarak cleaned up to such an extent that he is now the wealthiest man in the world, and this at a time when the average Egyptian is one of the poorest in the world. However, he became the most obvious symbol of a repressive regime, and the people agitated to get rid of him. The regime acquiesced in his removal because if they did not the regime itself would be threatened, business would be threatened. Or did they conspire at his removal in order to get their snouts deeper in the trough? Who knows? And now that he is gone? Business as usual.
David Cameron’s Munich Speech
The context of David Cameron’s speech is very illuminating: an on-going and worsening recession caused by greedy bankers whose system is based on rapacious usury. This is causing banks, companies and countries to default and bankrupt. In turn the resultant pressure has millions marching on the streets in protest in Athens, Dublin, Paris, Tunis and Cairo. No-one imagines that it will stop there. It has long been clear that for the UK and much of the EU, it is only a matter of time before the population march and demand change. Continue reading “David Cameron’s Munich Speech”
Errata – Hadith 28 of Imam an-Nawawi’s Forty
I am grateful to my brother Mahdi Lock for drawing my attention to the irregular nature of the addition “and every error is in the Fire” at the end of hadith 28 in the Arabic text and in my translation of Imam an-Nawawi’s commentary on his collection of forty, published as The Complete Forty by Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd., London.
Continue reading “Errata – Hadith 28 of Imam an-Nawawi’s Forty”
The Political Class in Crisis by Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi
Across the world the formulaic system designed to free banking programmes from state control is in crisis. Everywhere the political class are despised and distrusted. Everywhere the myth of government as representational is exposed. The majority of citizens in the so-called democracies are against the Afghan war yet each country in the pretended ‘coalition’ finds its government backing what it insists is a necessary war. Both Iraq II and Afghanistan III have exposed the political class to disgrace. The democratic system’s adherence to the rule that the politicians decree the war and the soldiers do the dying is itself the profound cause of democracy’s collapse. Cowards should not direct wars. Anyone wishing to experience nausea in its most acute form need only listen to a politician expressing his grief and or gratitude at the deaths of soldiers.
Fulus – Abdassamad Clarke
For the modern Arab, fulus, originally the word for small change, is money itself. It relates intimately to the word for a bankrupt, muflis, which either means someone who only has small change (fulus) and no gold or silver, or in the more extreme case, someone who does not even have small change. However, the former understanding would have to be read by a modern Arab as someone who only has ‘money’; i.e. if you only have money, you are bankrupt. Continue reading “Fulus – Abdassamad Clarke”
The Expansion of the Universe and the Qur’an – Abdassamad Clarke
The following examination of the ayah of Qur’an which is taken to refer to the expansion of the universe is a single example of what is becoming a burgeoning literature among Muslims claiming that science proves the Qur’an to be true. This literature can be said to date from the book of Maurice Bucaille: The Bible, the Qur’an and Science. As Hajj Idris Mears pointed out, it is implicit in the title of his book that there are three successive stages of revelation: first, the Bible; second, the Qur’an which the author regards as a great deal more scientific (although in the process he manages to undermine and indeed repudiate the hadith literature); and then thirdly and lastly, science, which is clearly in his view the judge and arbiter as to the truth or falsity of the previous two. Continue reading “The Expansion of the Universe and the Qur’an – Abdassamad Clarke”
The Blind Professor
Richard Dawkins is a man whose missionary zeal and the fervour of whose evangelical atheism puzzle even other atheists. I have read articles on him in which journalists have tried to analyse him and his family history (without success) looking for clues – family traumas, neuroses, etc. – which might explain what drives his passionate crusade (I know no more appropriate term) against God. He is a man who as well as anyone else and better than many embodies some of the essential themes with which to decode the science of this epoch, which arguably began with Galileo. Continue reading “The Blind Professor”
The Response of Shaykh Muhammad ibn ‘Alawi al-Maliki to Shaykh ‘Abdalhayy al-Laknawi concerning the Relative Merits of the Muwatta of Yahya and the Muwatta of Muhammad
Fifth investigation – the comparative merits of it and the narration of Yahya
Al-Laknawi thinks that the narration of Muhammad is weightier and better than the narration of Yahya, and he seeks to prove that as follows:
First, that Yahya al-Andalusi only heard the Muwatta completely from one of the pupils of Imam Malik, but as for Malik himself he did not hear it from him completely but there remained a portion of it [which he had not heard]. As for Muhammad, he heard it from him in its totality, and it is well known that hearing the totality without intermediary from someone such as this Shaykh is weightier than hearing it through an intermediary. Continue reading “The Response of Shaykh Muhammad ibn ‘Alawi al-Maliki to Shaykh ‘Abdalhayy al-Laknawi concerning the Relative Merits of the Muwatta of Yahya and the Muwatta of Muhammad”
Mukhtasar al-Quduri
The Mukhtasar al-Quduri, the classic work in Hanafi fiqh translated by Sidi Tahir al-Kiani, is now completed and on its way to the printers. It is due for publication by Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd. in April insha’Allah. Here is the Introduction.
The Norwich Conference 2010 – paving the way for the post-banking economy
For further details and breaking news visit: The Norwich Conference