#Quran Park Project

[xtruss]

Photo Booth: A Double View of the World From Inside Mosques! — In Marwan Bassiouni’s “New Western Views,” the Windows of Muslim Houses of Worship Provide an Unfamiliar Framing For Ordinary Sights.

— By M. Z. Adnan | February 27, 2023

Photographs by Marwan Bassiouni

Marwan Bassiouni’s Photographs in “New Western Views” capture two places at once. Each picture in the series was taken inside a mosque, with the camera pointing toward the windows to reveal the buildings or landscapes beyond. But the pictures give equal weight to the interiors of the mosques themselves, which might be colorful or muted, ornate or spare. Bassiouni began the series in the Netherlands, in 2018, touring the country to visit some seventy mosques while attending art school in the Hague. (A book of those images, “New Dutch Views,” was published in 2019.) Two years ago, he expanded his travels to the United Kingdom and Switzerland. Bassiouni told me recently that he sees the project as an act of portraiture. “I’m photographing spaces that, in a way, have a soul,” he said.

Bassiouni was born in Switzerland, in 1985, to an Egyptian father and an American mother. The nearest mosque was about thirty minutes away, in Geneva—he visited twice a year during Eid and for the occasional Friday prayers. He was not a practicing Muslim until the age of twenty-four, around the time that his interest in photography began. He was working in a restaurant at a ski resort, in the Swiss Alps, and living on its premises. Left alone each evening at the top of the mountain after the other employees left, he began photographing the view with his three-megapixel phone camera. Later, he assisted a commercial photographer on fashion shoots, and then worked as a documentary filmmaker for a human-rights organization focussed on the Middle East, a gig that coincided with the Arab Spring. In making photographs that simultaneously depict both the inside of mosques and their outside environments, he was interested in engaging with popular perceptions of Islam. In the easily suggestible Western imagination, the mosque has often been cast as a site of sinister machinations. Bassiouni’s images offer an alternative gaze from within, with the windows of the prayer rooms providing an unfamiliar framing for ordinary sights: a row of suburban houses; the parking lot of a supermarket, flanked by a red bus in London; looming apartment towers; a sports pitch; a highway; a church.

Bassiouni’s approach is informed by the aesthetic values of Islamic art, such as the importance ascribed to geometry, and the notion of euphony with regard to the poetics of the Quran. Every photograph is made with natural lighting and with two exposures, one for the inside and one for the outside space. The images are then combined digitally to produce a scene that corresponds as closely as possible to what appears in reality. “From the Islamic perspective, you’re trying to respect the way things are created,” he said. “So you wouldn’t want to change things, and you wouldn’t be able to do it better. There’s a natural balance and harmony.” Some of the images bring to mind the precision of Indo-Persian miniature paintings, in which elaborate scenes are encased within intricate borders.

Elsewhere, the interior spaces are palimpsests, bearing the quiet traces of previous tenants. In the United Kingdom, Bassiouni has photographed mosques that were formerly cinemas, churches, pubs, night clubs, gentlemen’s clubs, working men’s clubs—their floors now replaced with plush carpets in sapphire or crimson, walls adorned with minarets and Quranic verses. Clues of these past lives are mostly long buried, but occasionally one can identify an old radiator or wood panelling. A wall painted in lime green evokes the possibility of psychedelic forebears.

To view the photographs is to be engulfed in these mysteries. For exhibitions the images are presented at large scale to approximate the experience of being inside the spaces peering out, allowing viewers to imagine that they, too, are standing among the congregants in the room. Ultimately, Bassiouni hopes that audiences will forget that they are looking at a photo. Perhaps they might also forget that there is a separation between the two elements of each photograph, and see that the mosque is as much a part of the landscape as the church or grocery store it looks out on, enmeshed in the mélange of the architecture beyond and the lives that are led there. Bassiouni recalled a recent visit to a mosque in the Swiss canton of Valais at sunset, during the Maghrib prayer. The space was housed in a multipurpose industrial building, whose other rooms were rented out to various businesses. As the prayer concluded, the sound of upbeat music could be distantly heard. In another room, an aerobics class was beginning.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 4.1 (after 1950)

1954 – United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the creation of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. 1955 – The EOKA rebellion against the British Empire begins in Cyprus, with the goal of unifying with Greece. 1960 – The TIROS-1 satellite transmits the first television picture from space. 1964 – The British Admiralty, War Office and Air Ministry are replaced by a unified Defence Council of the United Kingdom. 1969 – The Hawker Siddeley Harrier, the first operational fighter aircraft with Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing capabilities, enters service with the Royal Air Force. 1970 – President Richard Nixon signs the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law. 1970 – A Royal Air Maroc Sud Aviation Caravelle crashes near Berrechid, Morocco, killing 61. 1971 – Bangladesh Liberation War: The Pakistan Army massacre more than a thousand people in Keraniganj Upazila, Bangladesh. 1973 – Project Tiger, a tiger conservation project, is launched in the Jim Corbett National Park, India. 1974 – The Local Government Act 1972 of England and Wales comes into effect. 1976 – Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak found Apple Computer, Inc. 1979 – Iran becomes an Islamic republic by a 99% vote, officially overthrowing the Shah. 1984 – Singer Marvin Gaye is shot to death by his father in his home in Arlington Heights, Los Angeles, California. 1986 – Communist Party of Nepal (Mashal) cadres attack a number of police stations in Kathmandu, seeking to incite a popular rebellion. 1989 – Margaret Thatcher's new local government tax, the Community Charge (commonly known as the "poll tax"), is introduced in Scotland. 1993 – NASCAR racer Alan Kulwicki is killed in a plane crash near the Tri-Cities Regional Airport in Blountville, Tennessee. 1997 – Comet Hale–Bopp is seen passing at perihelion. 1999 – Nunavut is established as a Canadian territory carved out of the eastern part of the Northwest Territories. 2001 – An EP-3E United States Navy surveillance aircraft collides with a Chinese People's Liberation Army Shenyang J-8 fighter jet. The Chinese pilot ejected but is subsequently lost. The Navy crew makes an emergency landing in Hainan, China and is detained. 2001 – Former President of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević surrenders to police special forces, to be tried on war crimes charges. 2001 – Same-sex marriage becomes legal in the Netherlands, the first contemporary country to allow it. 2004 – Google launches its Email service Gmail. 2006 – Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) of the Government of the United Kingdom is enforced, but later merged into National Crime Agency on 7 October 2013. 2011 – After protests against the burning of the Quran turn violent, a mob attacks a United Nations compound in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of thirteen people, including eight foreign workers. 2016 – The 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict begins along the Nagorno-Karabakh Line of Contact.

[waanhurda]

after a very tough week, lots of big projects and little to no sleep consecutively, i took a mental health day at the park near cameron cafe.

i listened to the digital sisterhood, started drawing the piece that i had been imagining in my head, wrote out notes on the muslim youth program i want to organize in the future, hung out with some geese, listened to some quran, prayed outside, and read “a woman is no man”.

praying outside felt so amazing. standing under the sun with the wind blowing through my clothing brought me so much peace. i don’t know the last time I prayed outside but i want to make sure i do it more often.

learning that connecting with nature is the best cure for most of my issues. i shouldn’t be surprised, i would sneak into the woods as a child just for fun and for a bit of peace and quiet.

reminder to myself that Allah puts us in situations to intervene for others, giving us the opportunity to collect good deeds. let’s start looking at situations where everything goes wrong as opportunities to do some good.

[tessatechaitea]

The Invisibles #5

It says "Crash the bus" on the back cover and I fucking get it so hard.

My inherent nihilism doesn't show often because, ultimately, I believe in a humanitarian morality based around kindness and compassion, built upon the foundational belief that nothing exists beyond our short lifespans and any act of wanton cruelty which makes any part of that short and challenging life more difficult for another person is the only true evil in the universe. But I feel the statement, "Crash the bus," deep down in my bones sometimes. Maybe it stems from a carefree and flirtatious relationship with suicidal ideation that allows me to embrace the idea of burning it all down. Most people want safety and comfort and will bargain with the devil to keep as much of that safety and comfort as possible, no matter how illusory it may be (because we have to face the fact that a good illusion may as well be reality). We're living in a Jenga tower where we refuse to restablilize the base even though it's teetering on just three misplaced blocks. And because of that, the amount of true reform that can be applied to this system is limited to what shapes can stand upon those three blocks. Most people are willing to work in that paradigm because they're afraid of starting completely over and losing their current safety and comfort, or because they think those three blocks are too sacred to remove. But imagine if you kicked out those three blocks, or, to sort of get back to the original analogy, crashed the bus into them and brought the whole tower down. Imagine the stable structure you could build if you started from a foundation that was built to support a better, kinder, more just system rather than trying to build that better system on a foundation not meant to support anything like it. Just because a structure has stood for over two hundred years doesn't mean it's still worth living in today, or maintaining its upkeep simply because we've always maintained its upkeep. I often dream of crashing the bus. And believe me, I don't fantasize about it because I think I'll survive the crash. I fantasize about it because I don't think I'll survive the ride. On the inside cover of this issue, there's a brief description of who and what The Invisibles are. "An organization dedicated to subversive activity in all its forms...the only rule of the organization is disobedience." In an earlier The Invisibles review, I believe I equated this organization to the Upright Citizens Brigade (specifically the show and not the comedy troupe). It's probably why I understood this comic book from page one. My intro or about page on Facebook has simply said this for however long I've been on the cursed site: "My only enemy is the status quo. My only friend is chaos" (that's stolen from the Upright Citizens Brigade intro, just to be clear). So I really can't remember why I stopped reading this comic book. It was right up my alley, even at twenty-three! I highly suspect I just lost track of it because I was a terribly disorganized comic book collector. I just realized King Mob is Grant Morrison's Mary Sue, isn't he? I had an image of him in my head but I just checked the Internet to makes sure he did look just like King Mob and, well, the Internet confirmed my suspicions. Also while scanning Morrison's Wikipedia entry, I noticed a short paragraph about Morriosn noting the similarities between The Invisibles and The Matrix. You know, like I noticed as well! Me! I noticed it too! Try to remember that these reviews are really just reviews about me and no the comic books I'm pretending to read but really just looking at the pictures.

Morrison just puts the pieces of the puzzle on the table and you're supposed to put them together. But who does fucking puzzles?! Boring!

In my 30s, I planned on reading every holy book and writing copious amounts of commentary from a person who wasn't taught the dogma behind the words and was simply trying to understand the book with the words that were there. I made it about forty pages through Genesis with nearly three hundred pages of commentary and then the project just sort of petered out. I suppose I'm still alive so I can always restart this project. But sometimes life has a way of kicking you in the brain by distracting you and suddenly eighteen years have gone by and you're all, "What's the fucking point?" The Mahabharata was going to be one of those books. I read part of it in college but damned if I can remember any of it. Hell, I was even going to read Dianetics! I was going to save the Quran for last just in case I invoked the rage of some fundamentalist psycho for interpreting something in the book literally as opposed to the way it's been taught according to centuries of dogma (I was pretty sure I was going to offend Christians as well but Christian fundamentalists are mostly lazy, selfish bastards who wouldn't dare take any risks to disrupt their Earthly life for their spiritual beliefs). The few bits I've read from the Quran that line up with Genesis were far more interesting in the way they sort of held a dialogue with The Bible. Like when Abraham apparently went to sacrifice his only son in The Bible and the book claims it was Isaac. And yet the only time Abraham had an only son was before Isaac was born and his only son was Ishmael. So, you know, it sounds pretty much like The Bible is lying about what happened while the Quran is just telling it like it is (although I'm not sure the Quran ever names the child so that's another part of the mystery! Maybe it was Isaac and somehow Ishmael just didn't count as a true son for reasons. You know the reasons. Maid's sons don't count is the reason). After teaching about Indian puppetry, Morrison gives the reader a lengthy scene of Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley discussing their roles as poets in the betterment of the world. With all these conversations of dead artists who died young, I wonder if Grant Morrison is bitter that he's lived so long? Anyway, George and Percy have some interesting things to say but this isn't a synopsis but a review. Also I don't like to comment on things I don't understand, like intelligent dialogue and beautiful poetry and earnest compassion.

Meanwhile, Jack Frost learns that the most important part of being an Invisible is being more paranoid than the next guy.

King Mob has to get back to England after his Indian puppet show and a visit to a Ganesh statue but he hates flying. So instead, he takes a shortcut through the future where the world has been ravaged by a great war and the Berlin Wall was rebuilt but bigger. Probably not to keep people on either side of it (the world seems mostly devastated) but probably just because the few fascist assholes still alive felt building a monument to being controlling dicks was the right thing to do to celebrate. Some mysterious guy without a face takes the face of some kids' father in a park somewhere at some point. It's hard to tell if this story has a place in time that can be considered the "now" being that King Mob is in a ravaged future and Byron and Shelley are in a long gone past and Jack Frost is in the present. Oh, that's probably the now! And the guy who stole the face of the other guy is probably in Jack's now time. King Mob returns to his Invisibles cell with information about their next mission. He also lets everybody know that Orlando is currently in London. I think it was Orlando who stole the face of the guy in the park. But that's just supposed to raise the tension because the Invisibles are going to leave their bodies behind in present day London as they time travel to the French Revolution. If we didn't know about Orlando, we would just be all, "Okay, cool! I guess they're time traveling and leaving their bodies so it'll be safe. Not because there are no threats from long-lived assassins without their own faces but because it's fucking time travel and I imagine they can return to their bodies the exact moment in which they left them!" Although the idea that the amount of time they spend in the past is equal to the amount of time their bodies sit unguarded makes a lot more sense than having somebody from the future tell Bill and Ted in his past that their clock is always ticking no matter where they are in time. I mean, it just doesn't make any sense! Especially when they break the rules later and will probably shit all over the time travel rules of their own established universe in the upcoming movie. Anyway, I like the idea that their spirits leave their bodies in the present in this time travel and that the spirits are away exactly as long as they spend in the past. That actually makes sense to me! The Invisibles #5 Rating: B+. Well, thanks a lot, twenty-three year old asshole me from the past! You just had to stop buying this comic book, didn't you?! And now I have to suffer not knowing what happens! Although I suppose you also suffered that and you seemed to have been fine. Aside from having no ambition and never finishing any writing projects and killing all of your dreams to play more video games. You know. Aside from that, you did just fine. Yeah. Real fine. Idiot.

[nourmsworld]

Apa aja yang kamu lakukan.

Di tahun kedua aku di jkt ada banyak sekali perubahan. Dari yang sebelumnya aku hobbi jalan2 tiap minggu aku jadi orang yang tidak pernah ambil libur untuk hal yang tidak perlu. Aku lebih banyak masak. Aku lebih banyak menghabiskan liburanku di kosan aja.

Aku ikut course cousera untuk psycology dr yale dan sidney, nutritiom and health dari stanford, veterinary dari edinburgh, health dan harvard,

Veterinary bussiness training dari royal canin yang semuanya gratis selama 2 minggu di mentorin bisnis klinik sama orang2 ekspert di jakarta, liburan di puncak,skpb 5.5 lumayan buat koleksi cpd 2019 sudah terkumpul 10 poin ditambah 2018 10 poin jadi sudah 20 poin. Why?karena dokter itu profesinya harus life long learner jadi pembelajar seumur hidup, izin praktik harus di update tiap tahun dengan setoran berapa skor cpd yang sudah kamu dapat. Magang di klinik paling bagus di jkt yang super elit kaya hotel di segitiga emas jkt, depan sudirman park. Walupun aku tau untuk bergabung dan komitmen 5 th disana aku tak sanggup. Aku punya goals jelas dan harus akubcapai dalam 5 th kedepanpun akan berbeda.

Aku ikut LTQ markaz quran masih tergabung disana. Aku masih memperbaiki diri di bengkel diri, aku ikut project bareng kawan untuk riset covid 19 bersama tim riset covid, project bedah buku sudah jalan, project webinar yang sebentar lagi jalan.

Klinik masih jalan terus, masih jualan buku dan obat, herbal medicine untuk orang, makanan kucing dkk. saat aku memutuskan untuk terjun di dunia klinik saat itu pula aku punya tujuan jelas untuk punya klinik sendiri no matter what.

Tujuan jangka panjang yang bahkan sudsh aku pikirkan jika kelak ada yang menyuruhku untuk dirumah aja, aku masih punya skill klinik. Karena bagiku wanita harus mandiri finansial, apapun yang terjadi. Aku belajar managemen finansial itu sendiri, pembukuan pencatatan dkk. Belajar bisnis dari para ahli.

Ah aku sadar aku masih idealis, futuristik yang lebih banyak memikirkan masa depan untukku. Setting goals jauh kedepan. Bahkan aku sering memikirkan dari kematian, bagaimana kalo aku mati esok hari, apakah Allah ridha dengan semua yang aku lakukan.

Jika ditanya seberapa jauh hijrahku?mungkin orang berpikir sejak kuliah, aku mulai pakai rok, tidak punya sahabat laki2 dekat semua kawan berjarak. Tumbuh bersama GC yang akhi ukhti banget. 2015 aku diajakin dan ditarik sana sini untuk beberapa organisasi muslim. 2016 aku minta pakai cadar tapi belum boleh. Pada akhirnya aku pakai masker saja. 2018 aku mulai di kuatkan lagi tapi semenjak ke malay aku belum sekuat itu ternyata. Kalau ada orsng yang bilang di luar negeri apalagi malay itu enak islami banget. Iya kalo kamu hidupnya di lingkungan univ lingkungan kampus yang well educated orangnya, berada di antara orang2 terpelajar dan kehidupanmunhanyalah kampus dorm aja. Kalau kamu merasakan dunia kerja dan sendirian di luar negeri, ya kamu bisa mikir berkali2, itu merubah banyak cara pandangku terhadap kehidupan. Kalau ada orang yang sombong karena dia merasa paling pintar setelah lulus dari univ terkenal indo, aku bilang aku merasa jadi orang paling bodoh saat aku kerja dengan lulusan upm, bahkan merekanbukan top 50 univ dunia, tapi dari skill berbeda jauh. Jika ada orang yang merasa kaya karena gaji 8jt ah kalau kamu kerja diluar gaji 10 jt untuk s1 itu masih kecil kamu bisa dapat gaji lebih tinggi. Kalau ada orang yang merasa kaya abis lulus dia bisa beli mobil. Ini temen kerja ku udah bawa bmw. Kalaù ada yang merasa kaya karena punya klinik sendiri, ini kawanku udah bikin klinik dan omset dia sehari sudah bisa setara gaji orang 1-2th pegawai perushaaan bumn di jkt. Kalau ada orang yang merasa bahagia dia sudah menikah, patner kerjaku 27 sudah punya rumah menikah dan anak 2 hidup bahagia. Kalau ada yang merasa menderita karena sakit, kawanku ada yang habis meninggal di usia kurang dari 25 karena sakit yang tak ada obatnya.

Hijrah paling signifikan kupikir adalah sejak sept 2019 sampai sekarang, aku gunakan kacamata Allah. Apakah Allah ridha dengan yang apa yang aku lakukan? Aku pikir aku pernah offside lalu Allah kasih kartu merah dan aku mengulang set pertandingan dari awal. Dalam sepak bola kalau offside 3x lalu kartu kuning, offside lagi kartu merah. Nah posisiku kartu merah. Harus mengulang set pertandingan dsri awal lagi. Sejak saat itu aku sudah bertekad atas semua hal yang terjadi aku harus berada dalam track jalan yang benar lalu Allah kirimkan banyak orang baik yang menemaniku hijrah ini.

Buat apa kamu sombong untuk hal yang remeh temeh. Bolehlah kita iri sama orang yang sedekahnya lebih banyak dari kita, iri dengan orang yang seusia kita sudah jadi hafidz quran, sudah berilmu dan menerapkan ilmunya.

Belajar dari kehidupan aku belajar banyak dari kematian. Merancang kematian dengan mati sebaik2 nya keadaan, mati dengan baik khusnul khotimah. Hidup dengan baik, menjauhi hal yang Allah tidak ridhai.

Tetap beramal baik dan tumbuh dalam kebaikan.

23.6.2020

[solutionspotlight]

The Love She Waged from a Prison Cell

How environmental justice activist, Siwatu-Salama Ra, dug deep while incarcerated, and the community that lifted her up.

When Siwatu-Salama Ra arrived at the Huron Valley Correctional Facility last year to serve a two-year mandatory sentence, she was in shock, six months pregnant, and not sure how she would live through the ordeal. She spent her first days in an isolation cell staring at the wall. And yet, somehow, through the harrowing nine months that she was there, she advocated for Muslim incarcerated women, organized around birthing and parenting rights for herself and others in the pregnant and postpartum unit of the prison, and convened a poetry group where women inside wrote and shared their deepest selves. 

Now, after being released on bond since November 2018 with a GPS tether on her ankle for almost a year, Siwatu’s conviction was reversed on August 20, 2019, and the tether finally removed in late October. Her legal team is urging prosecutors to dismiss the case and not recharge her. Her next hearing is scheduled for November 15, 2019, and the tentative trial date is February 18th, 2020.

The environmental activist has spent much of her life as a community organizer. As a teen, she worked with other youth to tackle environmental concerns affecting their local communities and later became the co-director of the East Michigan Environmental Action Council, where her voice and ability to resonate with people was crucial. She was following the footsteps of her mother, Rhonda Anderson, who has been an environmental justice organizer for the Sierra Club for almost two decades. In her interviews, she expresses how being convicted of felonious assault and felony firearm was not like anything she’d ever experienced in her life or could have been prepared for. 

Michigan’s Stand Your Ground

The details of Siwatu’s case were reported by many including dream hampton in Essence, the New Yorker, and Democracy Now! as it became clear that pieces of the case weren’t adding up. 

In July 2016, Siwatu was visiting her mother at her Detroit home with her two-year-old daughter when a young girl came by to visit Siwatu’s niece, who also lived in the home. The family became concerned about the presence of the girl as the niece was recently jumped by her at school. They decided it was best she leave. The girl’s mother, Chanell Harvey, arrived to pick her up, infuriated that her child wasn’t welcome. 

Siwatu testified that she’d asked Harvey repeatedly to leave the premises. Harvey then drove her car and rammed into Siwatu's parked vehicle, where Siwatu’s two-year-old daughter was playing inside. Then she tried to hit Siwatu's mother—she’d forcefully brought the car within a hair of her. At that point, after taking her daughter inside, Siwatu reached into her car's glove compartment and brandished her licensed, unloaded gun to demand Harvey leave. 

Harvey took snapshots of Siwatu, took the pictures to the police, and filed a report that Siwatu had assaulted her and her daughter by pointing a gun at them. Siwatu dropped off her daughter and picked up her husband from work, and arrived hours later to report the incident as an attack on her family by Harvey. One day, after over a month with no response from police, Siwatu’s home was surrounded by police who arrested her because Harvey’s report, in which Siwatu had been named the aggressor, had been on file first.  

Of the many controversial details of Siwatu’s case, the most impactful one is the fact that Michigan is a self-defense "stand your ground" state, which gives a legally licensed, law-abiding gun owner the right to use deadly force if they believe it is necessary to prevent death or great harm to themselves or another person. 

Siwatu was a licensed gun owner with a concealed carry permit and her gun was unloaded. And Michigan law has consistently interpreted aiming an unloaded gun as non-deadly use of force, according to Wade Fink, one of Siwatu’s attorneys appealing the case. He also states that her case should have hinged on whether Siwatu used reasonable force to meet the threat posed by Harvey, rather than whether or not she feared for her life. 

Another issue, Fink points out, is that at the time of the event Harvey was on probation for assault; it was her third felony, and violating probation would have gotten her into trouble. Fink contends this could've been a valid motive for lying. But the defense wasn’t allowed to pursue this line of questioning. 

A YES! article that details the rise in Black gun ownership despite the racist origin of the second amendment, explores the perspective of Black gun groups who view the right to self-arm as basic for self-defense in a climate of constant violence. Yet, we also see where laws like Stand Your Ground don’t always work out positively for people of color, as we saw with Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander. 

As reported by Vox, the Urban Institute found that Stand Your Ground laws seem to worsen racial disparities. When the shooter is Black and the victim is white, only 3 percent of deaths are ruled as justifiable versus the 34 percent when the shooter is white and the victim is Black.  “Even when black shooters kill black people,” the article states, “those shootings are less likely to be deemed justifiable in a court of law than those involving white shooters who kill white people.” 

The dominant, false narrative that Black people are intrinsically violent obscures genuine issues of equity. It’s why we can have a criminal justice system that operates on implicit biases, even when all persons concerned are Black. 

Siwatu’s jury had to ultimately decide, based on Michigan self-defense law, whether Siwatu was truly afraid in that moment to warrant invoking self-defense. Despite the question as to why a woman whose daughter and mother are being endangered by a vehicle would not be afraid and feel a basic human need to protect, the jury ruled guilty because they didn’t believe Siwatu could be afraid, only angry. And the felony firearm charge, which means that a firearm was used in an assault, came with a two-year mandatory minimum. 

The power of a community

As she details in conversation with adrienne maree brown on The Practice of Freedom: A Conversation with Siwatu-Salama Ra and Rhonda Anderson on the How to Survive the End of the World podcast, when Siwatu learned that she was having charges brought against her for, essentially, acting within what she believed were her rights to defend her family, she couldn’t wrap her mind around how to continue. But then community showed up.

Siwatu was showered with love. Fellow activists, co-workers, and friends poured in. They showed up at her house asking what they could do to help. There were so many people coming to meetings that were organized on her behalf that they moved gatherings to the larger home of a friend.

At one point in The Practice of Freedom, Siwatu's mom remarks that what was truly notable was how many of the people that came to support were women with children. 

They formed the Siwatu Freedom Team and have not only accompanied Siwatu on her journey for full freedom and justice, but also collaborated with a broad coalition on several campaigns including: developing a set of bills to fight for the rights of incarcerated pregnant and postpartum mothers, parents, and caregivers in Michigan; working to end the felony firearm mandatory sentences that disproportionately criminalize Black people in Michigan; and continuing to support and work in solidarity with women Siwatu met inside prison as they return home. 

Finding a way through madness

From the moment that charges were brought against Siwatu—through her court case and eventual sentencing, right up to her release and the reversal of her conviction, and now as her legal team works to put this case to rest completely —countless people have poured enormous dedication towards supporting her, spreading the word about her case, raising legal funds, writing letters, and organizing meetings. In prison, however, she was alone, facing close walls and prison bars. The letters that poured in from community across the country were like beacons of light in the darkness. 

In the isolation of her experience, she stumbled across a book called Deep and Simple, by Bo Lozoff, who had co-founded the Prison-Ashram Project and worked for 20 years guiding people behind bars to reach their own inner peace. “He was able to steer men and women who were inside of a prison to that oneness,” Siwatu says in The Practice of Freedom. “My community, Bo, my mom, literally saved my life in prison.” 

“I remember reading this book and being just so blown away...it was answering the questions I had, the why me, the what do you want, what am I supposed to do?” Then one day she noticed a copy of Deep and Simple on her pregnancy counselor’s office desk; the counselor offered her all the Bo Lozoff books she had in her office. 

Siwatu reflects that in prison, a person is stripped of everything and anything that could offer them comfort. Reading Bo Lozoff helped her reach a place of peace inside herself despite the deep sadness all around her. “If anybody walks out of a prison...who is enlightened,” she says, “it is the work of themselves, and it is despite of the prison. Bo helped me take advantage of that hell.” 

She also witnessed the spirit of fellow inmates around her. They inspired her. She said in a recent interview with Earth First! “You normally see women on the frontlines fighting, and you saw the very same thing inside the prison: women fighting to hold on to some of their dignity and humanity to say, ‘This is not how we will live.’” 

She says there were women working on so many issues—from trying to get treatment for the yellow water coming out of prison pipes to making sure the food on their plates was sanitary.

When Siwatu learned that her challenge getting a hijab, a Quran, and the meals she required for the daily practice of her faith was not her challenge she faced alone, she led other Muslim women prisoners in organizing for religious rights that legally should have been accommodated by the facility. Her efforts attracted attention from the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Michigan, which filed civil rights complaints on a number of the prison’s practices regarding religious freedom.

Disheartened by the ways in which life behind bars was designed to cut down a person’s humanity, Siwatu also created a poetry group and fostered close bonds with the women around her as they co-created a space of beauty, where poetry offered gateways to emotional freedom.

Finally, her harrowing experiences of pregnancy and birth in prison led her to inform herself of her rights as a parent and mother, which she then shared with other prisoners. At the time of Siwatu’s delivery, the Michigan Department of Corrections did not allow loved ones to be present at labor or delivery although Siwatu’s family, community, and other activists and organizations made every effort to get the MDOC to humanely shift its position. 

In early October 2019, as a direct result of this organizing, the Michigan’s House Appropriations Subcommittee on Corrections added new language to the budget bill that states that anyone in prison due to give birth in prison can consent to one visitor being present during labor and delivery. The language states that person must be an “immediate family member, legal guardian, spouse, or domestic partner.” It’s a signal that change is happening. 

A more humane and discerning system of justice

For every person that is able to have a protest, or national news attention, or a community of devoted people call out that a wrong be brought to light, there are hundreds more sitting in a jail cell without any of these options. 

Siwatu, speaking to Earth First!, said that knowing she was innocent only made it easier for her to see how many more women were likely in prison unjustly. 

“...You have a large population of women who will be returning citizens who have literally been face to face with the very beast we’re fighting,” she said. “They are walking out of that prison cell, out of custody, with much knowledge, so resilient, and so beautiful. I encourage that everybody support women and men coming out of these prisons because they have seen so much. They know what it will take to win this.” 

When asked how being incarcerated changed her perspective on environmental issues, she explained how it strengthened her belief in looking at how different issues are connected.

“It took me to literally be taken away from my family and taken away from my children and placed in a prison cell to understand we have to step away from... self-identified work and dedicate our entire selves to a better world.”

“You have to look at everything,” she said, “and take everything into consideration of how all these injustices are interconnected and feeding off one another.”

And then what could justice look like? Life-valuing structures that value healing more than they value practices that dehumanize, and where deeper understandings of history and social problems are incorporated, so that there are sustainable options for actual accountability, wellness, and growth in communities. 

Showing up to speak, listen, learn, share, and organize wherever and whenever possible is essential for this shift to take place. We can learn from and build upon cases and experiences like Siwatu’s.

ACTIONS:

Support Siwatu’s legal fees as her hearing approaches on November 15, 2019, help sustain her family throughout this arduous process, or support continued organizing Siwatu’s freedom and policy changes, by donating here. 

Go to FreeSiwatu.org to learn more, stay posted, and find more ways to get involved.

Host a house party or community gathering to share Siwatu's story, have discussions, process the impact of this and similar stories, and brainstorm organizing ideas.

Get involved with local groups in your area fighting for prison abolition, environmental justice, and supporting people directly impacted by the prison and criminalization industrial complex who are working for liberation.

[creepingsharia]

The growing list of Muslim Student Association (MSA) terrorists – with updates

The MSA - established by members of the Muslim Brotherhood - has branches on hundreds of campuses in the U.S. and Canada. And many of its campus leaders have engaged in and been arrested for waging jihad.

Originally posted on April 25, 2015

The MSA has a growing list of terrorist alumni as noted in this post, Why Muslim Student Group Concerned the NYPD:  *updates below

The list is extensive, but among the MSA alumni who went on to terrorist involvement are:

Anwar al-Awlaki, an influential American-born al-Qaida cleric who recruited a series of homegrown jihadists before being killed by a U.S. drone strike;

Aafia Siddiqui, convicted of attempted murder and assault on U.S. officers and employees in Afghanistan;

Zachary Chesser, convicted of attempting to provide material support to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab and soliciting attacks on “South Park” producers for an episode in which the prophet Muhammad was shown in a bear suit;

Jesse Morton, convicted with Chesser of threatening the South Park producers with murder;

Adam Gadahn, an al-Qaida spokesman who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for treason and material support to al-Qaida;

Waheed Zaman, who was convicted of plotting to blow up transatlantic flights;

Adis Medunjanin, who is awaiting trial for plotting to bomb New York subways;

Ramy Zamzam, who was convicted in Pakistan of conspiring to carry out terrorist attacks;

Omar Hammami, who was indicted on charges of providing material support to al-Shabbab and is designated by the U.S. Treasury Department for his terrorist connections;

Muhammad Junaid Babar, who pled guilty to his support to al-Qaida; and

Syed Hashmi, who pled guilty to providing material support to al-Qaida.

MSA was founded in the United States in 1963 by members of the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood seeks a global Islamic state and has spawned leaders of a series of Sunni terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The Muslim Brotherhood motto established by founder Hassan al-Banna is, “God is our objective, the Quran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our way, and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations.”

MSA members remain faithful to Brotherhood ideology. At the closing session of the MSA West conference in January 2011 at UCLA, attendees recited a pledge, “Allah is my lord, Islam is my life, the Quran is my guide, the Sunna is my practice, Jihad is my spirit, righteousness is my character, paradise is my goal. I enjoin what is right, I forbid what is wrong, I will fight against oppression, and I will die to establish Islam.”

Update 1 via the Hayride: h/t terrortrends

In June 2006, Ali Asad Chandia, who had served as president of the Montgomery College (Maryland) MSA in 1998 and 1999, was convicted on terror charges as part of a Northern Virginia jihad network; he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for three separate counts of conspiracy and material support to the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Abdurahman Alamoudi, who served as MSA national president in 1982 and 1983, is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence for his extensive international terrorist activities, which included fundraising for al Qaeda.

In February 2010, Aafia Siddiqui – a woman who had been captured in 2008 with explosives, deadly chemicals, and a list of New York City landmarks – was convicted of attempting to murder a U.S. Army captain while she was incarcerated and being interrogated by authorities at a prison in Afghanistan. Described variously as “al-Qaeda’s Mata Hari” and “Lady al-Qaeda,” Siddiqui had previously been radicalized by the MSA chapter at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied neuroscience.

Wael Hamza Julaidan, who served as president of the University of Arizona MSA in the mid-1980s, went on to become one of al Qaeda’s co-founders and its logistics chief. In September 2002, the U.S. governmentlisted Julaidan as a specially designated global terrorist, identifying him as a close associate of Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders, and as a director of the Rabita Trust, which had already been designated a terrorist finance entity that supported al-Qaeda.

University of Idaho MSA president Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, who operated nearly a dozen Arabic-language websites for anti-American, pro-suicide-bombing clerics, was accused by federal authorities of using his academic studies as a cover for terrorist support activities. Al-Hussayen wasdeported to Saudi Arabia in June 2004 after agreeing to a deal with federal prosecutors.

In December 2009, Howard University dental student Ramy Zamzam, who had served as the president of MSA’s D.C. Council, was arrested in Pakistan along with four other D.C.-area men (all of whom were also active in MSA). All five were charged with plotting to join the Jaish-e-Muhammed terrorist group with plans to attack U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan; all five were convicted in a Pakistani court in June 2010 and sentenced to at least 10 years in prison.

Syed Maaz Shah, secretary of the University of Texas-Dallas MSA chapter, was arrested in December 2006, for his involvement in paramilitary training at an Islamic campground, where he was preparing to join the Taliban in order to fight U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Shah was convicted on weapons charges in May 2007.

Ziyad Khaleel, president of the Columbia College (Missouri) MSA, was a representative of the Islamic Association for Palestine (a Hamas front). He also registered and operated the English-language website for Hamas, and served as al Qaeda’s chief procurement agent in the United States during the 1990s. Among the items Khaleel purchased was a $7,500 satellite phone for Osama bin Laden. That phone, dubbed by intelligence authorities as the “jihad phone,” was used to plan the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings.

Anwar Al-Awlaki served as president of the Colorado State University MSA in the early 1990s, and as chaplain of the George Washington University MSA in 2001. In Washington, DC, he delivered sermons that were attended by two of the 9/11 hijackers and by Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan. In 2002 Alwaki fled the U.S. for Yemen, where he developed ties to al Qaeda and reportedly played a role in the Fort Hood massacre of 2009, the failedChristmas Day underwear-bomber plot of 2009, and the attempted Times Square bombing of 2010.

Carlos Bledsoe, aka Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, was a member of the MSA as a student at Tennessee State University in Nashville, TN. Bledsoe went on to receive terrorist training at a jihadist training camp in Yemen and returned to the US and murdered US Army Private Andy Long outside a Little Rock, Arkansas recruiting office on June 1, 2009.

Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, aka Omar Hammami is an American-born member of al Shahab, a Somali Islamic militant group aligned with al Qaeda. Hammami served as president of the MSA chapter at the University of South Alabama.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who would later go on to mastermind the September 11th terrorist attacks as the number 3 man in Al Qaeda, was a member of the MSA chapter at North Carolina A&T in 1986.

Update 2 via a CJR reader in Canada: h/t lburt

Here are some names in Canada

Ahmed Said Khadr MSA University of Ottawa Ahmed Said Khadr’s radicalization at the University of Ottawa

Ferid Imam MSA University of Manitoba Archive.Today (Former MSA Manitoba president Shariq Kidwai said that Ferid Imam has been a president of the association before him.)

Muhanad Al Farekh MSA University of Manitoba After being deported to the U.S. from Pakistan, former MSA Manitoba leader Al Farekh appears in a New York court to face terrorism charges

Maiwand Yar MSA University of Manitoba RCMP Warrant https://archive.is/kWAqF MSA Manitoba https://archive.is/0lxuS

Update 3: Add a pedophile to the list – Ahmad Saleem

Orlando community activist Ahmad Saleem drove to a Clermont-area house intending to meet a 12-year-old girl he had been chatting with online for sex in a vehicle with a specialty “Invest in Children” license plate, authorities said Tuesday…Saleem was also the Orlando regional coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations…

He attended the University of Central Florida, where he was President of the Muslim Students Association. He later became the MSA National Service Director before founding the Saleem Academy.

Update 4: Middle Tennessee State University added to the list:

Dareen Ahmad, leading active member in the university’s Muslim Student Association, tweeted: “…we need a new Hitler”

Dana Swaies, a well-known representative for the school’s MSA chapter stated: “May Allah annihilate the Jewish dogs”

Shaden Hamdulla contemplated putting Jews in concentration camps and called for a new Hitler to wipe them out

Update 5: Abdul Kareem Saeed Alkady – Twitter jihadi

Update 6: This list just got a lot longer.  CANADA: Biographies of MSA Alumni with Terrorism Connections (excerpts only, full description at the link)

Awso Peshdary: Ottawa born accused terrorist Awso Peshdary was arrested in February 2015 as part of operation ‘Project Servant’ by the RCMP Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET). He was charged with participation in the activity of a terrorist group

Khadar Khalib (aka AbdulBaqi Hanif): Grew up in Ottawa and later moved with his family to Calgary. Khalib was a member of the Algonquin College MSA. It is believed he was radicalized by Awso Peshdary. According to the RCMP, Khalib travelled to Syria in late March 2014 with the alleged assistance of Peshdary and former University of Ottawa business student John Maguire, who was already in Syria at the time. Khalib is now believed to be in Syria fighting with the Islamic State, therefore he was charged by the RCMP in abstentia in February 2015. Weeks before Khalib left for Syria, both he and Peshdary took part in Islam Awareness Week on Algonquin College’s Woodroffe Avenue campus, which was sponsored by the MSA.[61]

John “Yahya” Maguire: Grew up in Kemptville, ON. He received a scholarship to study in Los Angeles in 2010 and returned to Canada enrolling at the University of Ottawa in 2011, at which point friends claimed he had already begun making extremist claims, and became involved with the university’s MSA. He joined IS in 2012, travelling to Syria on a one-way ticket, and posted a propaganda video in 2014.[62] He was charged in abstentia with participating in a terrorist group in Syria, Iraq and Turkey, and conspiring with a terrorist network in Ottawa. He was reportedly killed in battle, but no official agency has confirmed his death.

Ahmed Said Khadr: Born in Egypt, Khadr moved with his family to Montreal in 1975, and then to Toronto several months later. He enrolled at the University of Ottawa, studying engineering. While there he joined the MSA, agreeing with their notions of Sharia law, and became a vocal advocate for Islamic rule in his native Egypt.[65] …Khadr was killed on October 2, 2003, along with al-Qaeda and Taliban members, in a shootout by Pakistani security forces near the Afghanistan border. An al-Qaeda website profiling “120 Martyrs of Afghanistan” described him as a leader of Bin Laden’s organization and praised him for “tossing his little child [Omar] in the furnace of the battle.”[68]

Salman Ashrafi: Originally from Pakistan but raised in Calgary, Ashrafi was enrolled at the University of Lethbridge, where he completed a bachelor degree in management. During his university years, Ashrafi started to practice Islam in a more serious manner and became heavily involved with Islamic activism in the campus, serving as president of the MSA. Following graduation, he worked at Calgary’s Talisman energy for one year before quitting in 2012, and flying to the Persian Gulf.[71] He blew himself up in November 2013 in a double suicide bombing at an Iraqi military base, reportedly killing 46 people on behalf of ISIS, using the nom de guerre Abu Abdullah al-Khorasani.[72]

Chiheb Esseghaier: A Tunisian national and scientist, who was a doctoral student with a research arm at the Université du Québec at the time of his arrest. Esseghaier admitted to “La Presse” in an interview to only becoming immersed in religion after arriving at the University of Sherbrooke, when he read books and websites about Islam and joined the local chapter of the MSA, and began attending a local Mosque. He was charged with plotting an attack on a VIA rail train in the Niagara region, and did not deny the charges, stressing that there is “no shortage of reasons” to launch a terrorist attack on North America.

Ferid Imam: University of Manitoba student who served as the local chapter of the MSA’s president.[75] He is wanted by the RCMP on terrorism related charges following a four-year investigation.

Imam has also been charged in the foiled al-Qaeda plot against New York City subways.

Khaled al-Qazzaz: Khaled al-Qazzaz was born on July 3, 1979 in Cairo, Egypt. He moved to Toronto in 2000 to do a Masters in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Toronto, where he met his wife, Sarah Attia. He served as the UTSG MSA President in 2002-2003.[97]…

He was taken in a wave of arrests alongside several other top Muslim Brotherhood aides after a military coup toppled the government on July 3, 2013. After spending 18 months in prison, he was released by Egyptian authorities in January 2015.[98]

Maiwand Yar: Born in Pakistan in 1983, Yar is a former student of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Manitoba, and was the local MSA chapter’s treasurer.[105] According to the RCMP, in 2007, it is believed that Yar departed Canada with accomplice Ferid Ahmed Imam for Pakistan. Yar is being sought on charges of conspiracy to participate in the activities of a terrorist group and participation in the activities of a terrorist group.[107]

Muhannad al-Farekh: Born in Texas, al-Farekh grew up in the United Arab Emirates and was educated in Jordan.[108] In Canada he lived with his grandmother in Winnipeg. He is a former business student at the University of Manitoba, who served as the office manager of that chapter’s MSA from 2005-2006. On April 2, 2015, an arrest warrant for Muhannad al-Farekh was unsealed after an RCMP investigation. The allegations against al-Farekh date back to 2007.[109] It was then that he disappeared to Pakistan along with University of Manitoba colleagues Farid Imam and Maiwand Yar. Though both Imam and Yar were charged in 2011 with terrorism offences following an RCMP national security investigation called Project Darken, al-Farekh was only indicted in April 2015. The criminal complaint accused him of travelling “to Pakistan to join al-Qaida” and helping a terrorist group targeting American citizens and military personnel.[110]

Omar Kalair: President and CEO of United Muslims (UM) Financial, Kalair is wanted by the RCMP with respect to a sharia banking fraud investigation. Videos of previous RIS (Reviving the Islamic Spirit) conventions available on YouTube show that UM Financial sponsored the Toronto Islamist convention in 2005 and 2006. A profile of Omar Kalair posted on a Wilfrid Laurier University alumni’s website indicates that, during his years as an Economics student, “Kalair founded the Muslim Students’ Association [MSA] and remained its President for four years.”[113]

There are many others with links to MSA in the TSEC expose.

Update 6B: New link here and additions below:

Qutbi al-Mahdi:  Involved with the Islamic movement in Sudan from a young age. While studying for his PhD in Islamic Studies at McGill University, Qutbi was active with MSA and then ISNA, where he served as President from 1984-1986.

Youssef Sakhir, Samir Halilovic and Zakria Habibi:  All three are from Sherbrooke QC, and became friends through a local Muslim association in the Eastern Townships. They were Facebook friends with the University of Sherbrooke MSA. They vanished from Quebec last year at around the same time and are currently being sought by RCMP and CSIS.

Dr. Wael Haddara (aka Al-Muraqqash Al-Akbar):    Dr. Haddara has been active with Muslim Brotherhood organizations since at least 1991 when he was listed as the contact person for the Memorial University Muslim Students Association.   He sat on the board of CAIR-CAN from 2003-2012. He sat on IRFAN’s board from 1999-2003. The group had its charity status revoked in 2011 after it was found that from 2005-2009 alone, it transferred $14.6 million to Hamas. He has also been involved with MSA national, which was mentioned in a 2011 MAC newsletter.[81] Dr. Haddara was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood delegation that was sent to meet with, but refused by, the US State Department, to advocate against the current Egyptian government.

Khaled al-Qazzaz:  He moved to Toronto in 2000 to do a Masters in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Toronto, where he met his wife, Sarah Attia. He served as the UTSG MSA President in 2002-2003.[97] In 2005, al-Qazzaz returned to Egypt. In 2011, and according to his own Twitter account, al-Qazzaz was working in Egypt as “Secretary on Foreign Relations, Office of the President Politics: Freedom & Justice Party.”  This refers to Dr. Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt in 2012 and 2013.  The Freedom and Justice Party is the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. He was taken in a wave of arrests alongside several other top Muslim Brotherhood aides after a military coup toppled the government on July 3, 2013.

Many more in the link above.

At  least eleven (11), and counting…

Update 7:  Al Qaeda’s Base at MIT

MIT Muslim chaplain Suheil Laher used his leadership of the MIT Muslim Students Association as a vehicle for raising money for Al Qaeda causes around the world. We especially focus on the Al Qaeda affiliate in Chechnya, which Laher and his associates lionized, even as MIT trusted him to be its Muslim students’ spiritual guide.

…and now Brandeis Univ. Hires Terror-Linked, Jihad-Supporting Muslim Cleric

While at MIT, Laher did not hide his Islamist views. His personal website at the time featured attacks on Jews, Christians, and kuffar (non-believers):

The kuffar, including the Jews and Christians, can never become our intimate friends, confidantes or close allies.

Laher’s personal website featured al-Qaeda leader Abdullah Azzam’s infamous call to jihad. It also linked to an al-Qaeda fundraising website. It urged Muslims to reject the “evils” of the West.

His personal website also declared: “[T]he only solution prescribed by Allah is jihad.”

Update 8: Pakistani convicted of infiltrating DC for Pakistani intelligence

Ghulam Nabi Fai, the executive director of the Kashmiri American Center (KAC) who admitted in a 26-page Statement of Facts at the time of his plea deal last December that he was an influence agent working for the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI. He penetrated the halls of Congress and successive administrations over a 20-year period to help shape U.S. foreign policy in Pakistan’s favor.

Fai served as national president of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), during which time, according to an email cited in the FBI affidavit, he began serving on behalf of his Pakistani ISI masters.

Update 9: Imam Mahmoud Shaker Shalash at the Islamic Center of Lexington charged in murder-for-hire plot is former MSA

According to a LinkedIn profile, In addition to running the Islamic Center of Lexington, a man of that name owned a mobile home park and the Bluegrass Extended Stay motel (guest reviews have complained about roaches, stained beds and unfriendliness to service dogs), was a member of the Muslim Students Association (a terror linked Muslim Brotherhood hate group) while working on a degree in electrical engineering at the University of Chicago...

Update 10: One-time president of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) at the University of Alabama Pleads Guilty to Concealing Terrorism Financing to al Qaeda

Alaa Abu Saad aka Alaa Mohd Abusaad, 22, who was arrested Oct. 23 in Ohio. She was a former student at the University of Alabama and her LinkedIn profile said she was president of the Muslim Student Association.

Abusaad pleaded guilty to concealment of terrorism financing, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 2339C and 2.

Abusaad instructed an FBI undercover employee (UCE) about how to send money to the mujahedeen—fighters engaged in jihad.  Abusaad told the UCE that money “is always needed.  You can’t have a war without weapons.  You can’t prepare a soldier without equipment.”  Abusaad also advised the UCE on how to send money in a manner that would avoid detection by law enforcement, including by using fake names and addresses when conducting electronic money transfers.  Subsequently, Abusaad introduced the UCE to a financial facilitator who could route the UCE’s money to “brothers that work with aq” (meaning al Qaeda).

Update 10:  Mohamed Soltan - arrested as leader of Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Egypt

His father, Salah Soltan was recently given the death sentence in Egypt and Mohammed will likely receive the same verdict on April 11th, just days from now for his accused role in Muslim Brotherhood operations. It should also be noted that Mohammed Soltan was former President of the Muslim Students Association at Ohio State University

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Readers: If you know of other MSA jihadists, let us know and we’ll update the list.

We leave you with Amir Abdel Malik Ali at UCLA reciting the Muslim Student Association Pledge of Allegiance:

Jihad is my spirit, I will die to establish Islam

[dominobranwen-blog]

A cave and glass house project costing Dh100 million in Quran Park has been approved by Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Minister of Finance and Chairman of Dubai Municipality.

[miyori999]

Tagged by @evieebun125

What do your favorite pair of socks look like?: I have some Christmas toe socks and the big toe is Rudolph. Can't wear them under shoes though because the antlers are uncomfortable.

What's something that made you happy today?: I wasn't forced to eat dinner immediately upon getting home so I could finally just lay down and relax.

What's your favorite and least favorite cereal?: uh, I don't have much of an opinion on cereal? I guess I like Special K with chocolate and Strawberries, but I hate cereal that cuts up my gums, like captain crunch.

What music do you listen to when you're having a hard time?: I listen to metal when I'm happy, I listen to metal when I'm sad, but I'll listen to Linkin Park's Meteora and Hybrid Theory albums or Hollywood Undead if I'm feeling especially angsty.

Do you have any stuffed animals? If so, what are they?: On my bed I have a toddler-sized teddy bear named Carmel, a 5-year-old sized dog named Cumin, that I need to wrap around in order to fall asleep. I'd be the big spoon in a relationship, through and through. I also have a little brown striped cat which is 20 years old on my self named Cinnamon, a pastel rabbit named Sherbet, and another bear named Honey (I have a theme).

What weird food quirks do you have?: bruh I got adhd I got a million quirks. One, I can't eat hot pizza using the crust? I eat olives and veggies first, then sausage, then pepperoni, then cheese, then crust. I dunno why it feels weird otherwise but I can eat cold pizza normally? I have trouble eating cereal because the milk doesn't feel right in my mouth so I? Do this thing? I can't describe it but my mom calls it smacking but with my mouth closed.

Are you working on any projects right now?: Like. 4.

Little by Little (InuKag fic),

Wrath and Resolve (Swapfell interpretation comic),

The Lady in the Woods (Soriel fic) and

It's Small World (Swapfell Papyrus/Reader fic)

What movie or TV show is your guilty pleasure?: I don't even watch Netflix bruh. My friend, Katie, had to schedule a time to sit me down and watch bnha. I like The X-Files I guess?

Do you collect anything?: This is going to sound very weird but I collect religious texts. Like. I have 14 Bibles (includes the book of Mormon which has some interesting changes from the standard bible), a Quran, and I'm looking to find a Torah and Pali Canon, but I haven't had a lot of luck and I don't want to go to Amazon because that takes the adventure out of it.

Who was the best (or worst) teacher you ever had?: ugh. I still have to see this guy. He shops at the store I work for and he's still a teacher at one of the schools I work for. (I technically have three jobs?) Mr. B was a Chem teacher who didn't actually teach? He just wrote some homework assignments on the board and some pages to read. He cared more about the sports teams he was coaching and really only focused on those. I dropped his class mid-year with a C- and begged to be allowed into the AP Chem class and AP Bio class my senior year where I got solid Bs in both classes.

I'll tag: @obsessedkatie @obito-neko @topazshadowwolf @sankontesu @inukag @polkadot-cookie @bevamart @dezzidance @grapefruitwannabe @hanmajoerin @overworked-bird @paddie-ut @redwingedangel002-art-blog @sinnydraws

[newstfionline]

Saturday, September 25, 2021

Biden Assembles the Quad (Foreign Policy) U.S. President Joe Biden is on a mission to project an image of unity and cohesion with three of the world’s largest economies today as he hosts the leaders of Australia, India, and Japan for a meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue—the Quad—at the White House. The summit, the first in-person gathering for the group since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, caps a busy few days of Asia-focused diplomacy for the White House following the agreement of the AUKUS defense pact with Australia and the United Kingdom last week. That focus is underlined by additional one-on-one meetings Biden holds today with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga. The summit is expected to conclude with the announcement of several initiatives designed to deepen relations between the four countries including student exchanges alongside plans to counter China’s domination of key industries like semiconductors and 5G networks. China’s reaction to the meeting has echoed the tone it took with AUKUS. Asked about the Quad summit last week, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian decried “exclusive ‘cliques’ targeting other countries” and said the group was “doomed to fail.”

Expensive garbage cans (Mission Local) San Francisco is years into an extremely expensive process of buying new garbage cans, with July seeing the Board of Supervisors vote to spend $427,500 on 15 prototypes for the three possible models of new trash can, with a per-trashcan price tag of $12,000 to $20,000 each. At the end of the day, San Francisco plans to buy 3,300 of the cans, and while the initial goal was to buy $1,000 cans, it’s looking like they might end up paying $5,000 a can. All told, the city will have to spend $6.6 million to $16.5 million on the misbegotten project, the brainchild of a disgraced former city official facing charges of fraud and lying to a federal agent. What’s wild is there are plenty of off-the-shelf models they could have gone with, from the $3,900 Bigbelly to New York’s $632 can, Los Angeles’ $449.51 can, D.C.’s $987 can or even Portland’s $1,851 can.

Migrant camp shrinks on US border as Haitians removed (AP) Haitian migrants waited to learn their fate at a Texas border encampment whose size was dramatically diminished from the almost 15,000 who gathered there just days ago in an effort to seek humanitarian protection in the U.S. but now face expulsion. The administration recently extended protections for more than 100,000 Haitians already in the U.S.—many of whom left their homeland after its devastating 2010 earthquake—citing security concerns and social unrest in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. But it doesn’t apply to new arrivals. Homeland Security said nearly 2,000 Haitians have been rapidly expelled on flights since Sunday under pandemic powers that deny people the chance to seek asylum. About 3,900 were being processed for possible return to Haiti or placement in U.S. immigration court proceedings. Others have been released in the U.S. with notices to appear in court or report to immigration authorities. Thousands have returned to Mexico. Authorities expect the camp will be empty in about two days, according to a U.S. official with direct knowledge who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Sub snub just one symptom of longtime French unease with US (AP) Liberty and Fraternity, yes. Equality, not so much. Born of a revolution fought for liberty, ties between the United States and its oldest ally, France, have long been fraternal, but they’ve also been marked by deep French unease over their equality. French concerns about being the junior partner in the relationship boiled over last week when the U.S., Britain and Australia announced a new security initiative for the Indo-Pacific, aimed at countering a rising China. The AUKUS agreement scuttled a multibillion-dollar submarine deal that France had with Australia, but, more alarmingly for the French, pointedly ignored them, reinforcing a sense of insecurity that has haunted Paris since the end of World War II. France has long bristled at what it sees as Anglo-Saxon arrogance on the global stage and has not been shy about rallying resistance to perceptions of British- and German-speaking dominance in matters ranging from commerce to conflict. Thus the latest affront, AUKUS, resulted in an explosion of ire, with the French loudly protesting and recalling their ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia while shunning the British in an overt manifestation of centuries of rivalry.

German millionaires rush assets to Switzerland ahead of election (Reuters) A potential lurch to the left in Germany’s election on Sunday is scaring millionaires into moving assets into Switzerland, bankers and tax lawyers say. If the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), hard-left Linke and environmentalist Greens come to power, the reintroduction of a wealth tax and a tightening of inheritance tax could be on the political agenda. “For the super-rich, this is red hot,” said a German-based tax lawyer with extensive Swiss operations. “Entrepreneurial families are highly alarmed.” The move shows how many rich people still see Switzerland as an attractive place to park wealth, despite its efforts to abolish its image as a billionaires’ safe haven. No country has more offshore assets than Switzerland and inflows accelerated in 2020, to the benefit of big banks such as UBS, Credit Suisse and Julius Baer. Geopolitical tensions and fears of the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic fallout made Switzerland’s political stability attractive.

Evergrande’s missed payment (Foreign Policy) Chinese property giant Evergrande appeared to miss a deadline to pay interest on part of its mammoth debt on Thursday, prompting fears that the company could soon default, causing ripple effects across the global financial system. Writing in Wednesday’s China Brief, FP’s James Palmer outlined the tricky politics at play for Chinese authorities. “The company appears to be doomed,” Palmer writes. “The question that remains is how much of the Chinese economy it will take down with it, and whether its fate is a symptom of much bigger problems.”

Korean War peace treaty “premature” (Foreign Policy) North Korea has again rejected a call for a formal end to the Korean war, which ended with an armistice agreement in 1953. South Korean President Moon Jae-in made the overture in his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, but on Friday, North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Ri Thae Son said any talk of a peace treaty would be premature so long as “the U.S. hostile policy is not shifted.” North Korea has so far ignored U.S. negotiation efforts, although Moon speculated that the country “is still weighing options while keeping the door open for talks,” citing the relatively low-level provocations Pyongyang has tried since Biden became president.

Taliban official: Strict punishment, executions will return (AP) One of the founders of the Taliban and the chief enforcer of its harsh interpretation of Islamic law when they last ruled Afghanistan said the hard-line movement will once again carry out executions and amputations of hands, though perhaps not in public. In an interview with The Associated Press, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, which sometimes took place in front of crowds at a stadium, and he warned the world against interfering with Afghanistan’s new rulers. “Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi told The Associated Press, speaking in Kabul. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.” Since the Taliban overran Kabul on Aug. 15 and seized control of the country, Afghans and the world have been watching to see whether they will re-create their harsh rule of the late 1990s. Turabi’s comments pointed to how the group’s leaders remain entrenched in a deeply conservative, hard-line worldview, even if they are embracing technological changes, like video and mobile phones.

Putting a Disturbingly Low Price On Life (BBC, Guardian, National Army Museum, The Conversation) There has been renewed focus on civilian deaths in Afghanistan following the U.S. military’s admission that an August 29 drone strike, intended for ISIS-K fighters, instead killed 10 civilians, including seven children. According to data collected by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), a London-based charity conducting research and advocacy on the incidence and impact of global armed violence, UK forces are linked to the deaths of nearly 300 Afghan civilians. Through a series of Freedom of Information requests, AOVA was able to obtain Ministry of Defense compensation logs revealing a total of £688,000 was paid out by the UK military for incidents involving 289 deaths, among them 86 children, between 2006 and 2014. The average amount paid was £2,380.      One of the most serious incidents listed in the logs is the award of £4,233.60 to a family following the deaths of four children, who were mistakenly shot and killed in December 2009. Some payments were less than a few hundred pounds. In February 2008, one family received £104.17 for a confirmed fatality and property damage in Helmand province. The author of the research said reading the files was difficult: “The banality of the language means hundreds of tragic deaths, including dozens of children, read more like an inventory.” AOAV estimates 20,390 civilians were killed or injured by international and Afghan forces during the two-decade-long conflict. This is just one-third of the number killed by the Taliban and other insurgents. 453 British soldiers died in combat operations between 2001 and October 2014. During the entire 20-year engagement from 2001 to 2021, 2,455 U.S. service members lost their lives, including the 13 killed by ISIS-K in the Kabul airport attack August 26, 2021; 20,740 American military personnel were injured.

Hezbollah flexes its muscles in Lebanon and provides free Iranian fuel (Washington Post) Lebanon’s new government got off to an inauspicious start this week. As parliamentarians gathered to approve the cabinet lineup, the electricity went out—a common occurrence these days—and the chamber was plunged into darkness. To the rescue came Hezbollah, the militant Shiite movement designated by the United States as a terrorist organization that is also a political party here. Lawmaker Ibrahim Musawi swiftly procured two generators from the organization’s offices. Eventually, the electricity came back on and the generators were no longer needed. But the episode provided a fresh opportunity for Hezbollah to remind the Lebanese who wields real power in their steadily collapsing country. Days earlier, Hezbollah had flaunted its clout by trucking Iranian diesel fuel into Lebanon to help alleviate chronic fuel shortages that have left people without public electricity sometimes for up to 24 hours a day. The amount of fuel imported—just 33,000 tons—was meager compared with Lebanon’s vast needs and was only enough to last the generator-dependent country for a few days. But Hezbollah has milked the opportunity to portray itself as a savior, making the fuel available free to hospitals, charitable institutions, emergency services, municipalities and other institutions that have had services crippled by the lack of electricity.

Jailbreak shines light on mass incarceration of Palestinians (AP) The cinematic escape of six prisoners who tunneled out of an Israeli penitentiary earlier this month shone a light on Israel’s mass incarceration of Palestinians, one of the many bitter fruits of the conflict. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have passed through a military justice system designed for what Israel still portrays as a temporary occupation, but that is now well into its sixth decade and critics say is firmly cemented. Nearly every Palestinian has a loved one who has been locked up in that system at some point, and imprisonment is widely seen as one of the most painful aspects of life under Israeli rule. The saga of the six, who were eventually recaptured, also underscored the irreconcilable views Israelis and Palestinians hold about the prisoners and, more broadly, what constitutes legitimate resistance to occupation. Israel classifies nearly every act of opposition to its military rule as a criminal offense, while many Palestinians see those acts as resistance and those engaged in them as heroes.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 4.1

33 – According to one historian's account, Jesus Christ's Last Supper is held. 527 – Byzantine Emperor Justin I names his nephew Justinian I as co-ruler and successor to the throne. 1545 – Potosí, Bolivia, is founded after the discovery of huge silver deposits in the area. 1572 – In the Eighty Years' War, the Watergeuzen capture Brielle from the Seventeen Provinces, gaining the first foothold on land for what would become the Dutch Republic. 1625 – A combined Spanish and Portuguese fleet of 52 ships commences the recapture of Bahia from the Dutch during the Dutch–Portuguese War. 1789 – In New York City, the United States House of Representatives achieves its first quorum and elects Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania as its first Speaker. 1833 – The Convention of 1833, a political gathering of settlers in Mexican Texas to help draft a series of petitions to the Mexican government, begins in San Felipe de Austin. 1865 – American Civil War: Union troops led by Philip Sheridan decisively defeat Confederate troops led by George Pickett, cutting the Army of Northern Virginia's last supply line. 1867 – Singapore becomes a British crown colony. 1873 – The White Star steamer RMS Atlantic sinks off Nova Scotia, killing 547 in one of the worst marine disasters of the 19th century. 1908 – The Territorial Force (renamed Territorial Army in 1920) is formed as a volunteer reserve component of the British Army. 1918 – The Royal Air Force is created by the merger of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. 1924 – Adolf Hitler is sentenced to five years imprisonment for his participation in the "Beer Hall Putsch" but spends only nine months in jail. 1924 – The Royal Canadian Air Force is formed. 1933 – The recently elected Nazis under Julius Streicher organize a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany, ushering in a series of anti-Semitic acts. 1935 – India's central banking institution, The Reserve Bank of India, is formed. 1937 – Aden becomes a British crown colony. 1937 – The Royal New Zealand Air Force is formed as an independent service. 1939 – Spanish Civil War: Generalísimo Francisco Franco of the Spanish State announces the end of the Spanish Civil War, when the last of the Republican forces surrender. 1941 – Fântâna Albă massacre: Between 200 and 2,000 Romanian civilians are killed by Soviet Border Troops. 1941 – A military coup in Iraq overthrows the regime of 'Abd al-Ilah and installs Rashid Ali al-Gaylani as Prime Minister. 1944 – Navigation errors lead to an accidental American bombing of the Swiss city of Schaffhausen. 1945 – World War II: The Tenth United States Army attacks the Thirty-Second Japanese Army on Okinawa. 1946 – The 8.6 Mw  Aleutian Islands earthquake shakes the Aleutian Islands with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VI (Strong). A destructive tsunami reaches the Hawaiian Islands resulting in dozens of deaths, mostly in Hilo, Hawaii. 1947 – The only mutiny in the history of the Royal New Zealand Navy begins. 1948 – Cold War: Communist forces respond to the introduction of the Deutsche Mark by attempting to force the western powers to withdraw from Berlin. 1948 – Faroe Islands gain autonomy from Denmark. 1949 – Chinese Civil War: The Chinese Communist Party holds unsuccessful peace talks with the Nationalist Party in Beijing, after three years of fighting. 1949 – The Government of Canada repeals Japanese-Canadian internment after seven years. 1954 – United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorizes the creation of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado. 1955 – The EOKA rebellion against the British Empire begins in Cyprus, with the goal of unifying with Greece. 1960 – The TIROS-1 satellite transmits the first television picture from space. 1964 – The British Admiralty, War Office and Air Ministry are replaced by a unified Defence Council of the United Kingdom. 1969 – The Hawker Siddeley Harrier, the first operational fighter aircraft with Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing capabilities, enters service with the Royal Air Force. 1970 – President Richard Nixon signs the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law. 1971 – Bangladesh Liberation War: The Pakistan Army massacre over 1,000 people in Keraniganj Upazila, Bangladesh. 1973 – Project Tiger, a tiger conservation project, is launched in the Jim Corbett National Park, India. 1974 – The Local Government Act 1972 of England and Wales comes into effect. 1979 – Iran becomes an Islamic republic by a 99% vote, officially overthrowing the Shah. 1986 – Communist Party of Nepal (Mashal) cadres attack a number of police stations in Kathmandu, seeking to incite a popular rebellion. 1989 – Margaret Thatcher's new local government tax, the Community Charge (commonly known as the "poll tax"), is introduced in Scotland. 1997 – Comet Hale–Bopp is seen passing at perihelion. 1999 – Nunavut is established as a Canadian territory carved out of the eastern part of the Northwest Territories. 2001 – An EP-3E United States Navy surveillance aircraft collides with a Chinese People's Liberation Army Shenyang J-8 fighter jet. The Navy crew makes an emergency landing in Hainan, China and is detained. 2001 – Former President of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević surrenders to police special forces, to be tried on war crimes charges. 2001 – Same-sex marriage becomes legal in the Netherlands, the first contemporary country to allow it. 2006 – Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) of the Government of the United Kingdom is enforced, but later merged into National Crime Agency on 7 October 2013. 2011 – After protests against the burning of the Quran turn violent, a mob attacks a United Nations compound in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of thirteen people, including eight foreign workers. 2016 – Nagorno-Karabakh clashes: The Four Day War or April War begins along the Nagorno-Karabakh line of contact on April 1.

[creepingsharia]

Georgia: Exposing The Ugly Truth Happening Inside Mosques

Imam: “there has not been another 911 such attack in America because Islam is winning and at this point another large scale attack would set their movement back 25 years.”

Taking Sun Tzu’s words to heart, a research project was launched to learn what was happening in my community.  A good friend, Dave Gaubatz, who has gone into 300+ mosques across America and over 150 internationally came into town to investigate and report on what he observed from within a couple mosques in the area.  His research is very detailed, with a defined pattern of analysis as shown in the report below.

What he found was not surprising, but it was hoped it wasn’t as bad as his report shows.  Please read and share this report across your community and send Dave a request to investigate your mosque by emailing him here:  davegaubatz@gmail.com [NOTE: The report below was notarized for legal validation and sworn by Dave Gaubatz for accuracy in reporting]

Report is shown below & in PDF form here:

Final-sworn-affidavit-Savannah-1

...

Islamic Center of Savannah, Georgia

A:  Mosque location (neighborhood, strip mall, typical identifiable mosque structure, or Islamic Center) Keep in mind a mosque is defined as a place for Muslims to gather for prayer and strategic planning.  The place can be in the basement of a house, a garage, a room in a university, a small building structure or a mega structure) The IC of Savannah is an Islamic Center which is typical for a Sunni mosque.  The term Islamic Center is not typical for identifying Shia mosques.  They do not use this term.

B:  Number of members:  350 plus

C:  Sunni/Shia/Sufi:   This is a Sunni Wahhabi/Salafist mosque that primarily use the Hanbali Islamic school of thought.  There are four Sunni schools of thought. 1.  Hanafi 2. Maliki 3. Shafi’I 4. Hanbali.   Most counter-terrorism professionals agree the Hanbali school of thought is the most dangerous.  ISIS, Al Qaeda and other Sunni terrorist organizations follow the Hanbali school of thought.

D:  Material in mosque (such as Fiqh Us Sunnah, Riyadh Ul Salheen, Sahih Muslim, Tafsir Ibn Kathir, Sahih Bukkari, Reliance of the Traveler, Maududi or Qutb material, etc…)  Fiqh US Sunnah, Riyadh Ul Salheen, Sahih Muslim and Sahih Bukkari were located in the prayer room available to all worshippers.  These manuals describe in detail for Muslims to carry out physical (fighting) Jihad,  Child marriages (authorized), Slavery (authorized),  the beating of women (authorized),  killing of non-Muslims and even Muslims  who are not Sharia compliant, informing Muslims to never take as friends Christians and Jews, killing of Apostates  of Islam (authorized  anywhere in the world), and  the describing the objective of Islam which is to establish an Islamic Ummah (nation)  worldwide and under Sharia law.  The objective can and must be established by warfare as needed.  Many other violent topics are discussed in the manuals.  Much of the material in the mosques is in Arabic.   For those Muslims who do not read Arabic they are encouraged to go online and read the materials in English which are readily available.         

E:  Conversations with worshippers:   Dave Gaubatz spoke with Islamic leaders and worshippers.   Sunni/Salafist is the predominant ideology of this mosque that the Imam tries to instill.  Copies of the Quran and two Islamic books were provided to Dave Gaubatz.  Halaco Market in Fairfax, VA, was mentioned as a source for Sunni /Salafist/Wahhabi material.  I have personally visited this Islamic market/bookstore on at least 25 occasions.   Very violent and dangerous materials are at this business.

F:  Sharia decorum in mosques (example: prayer rug/carpet) No Black Flag of jihad was observed.  The prayer rug did have the required lines on the rug for the ‘forming of the lines’.  The Wudu (cleansing of the body) was in the mosque.  The women were in a separate side away from the men.   There was a throne type seat in the front area of the prayer room.

G:  Any affiliation with CAIR, IIIT, MSA, ISNA, etc.  Brochures from IIIT and CAIR were observed.  CAIR does have an affiliation with this mosque.

H:  Sharia compliance of Islamic leaders:   The Imam and Islamic leaders Dave G. observed were Sharia compliant.

I:  How are women/children treated:  The women are not allowed contact with the men.  They are completely isolated from the men.  Children were observed in the men’s and women’s side of the prayer room.

J:  Mosque etiquette (forming of line during prayer, selling of material in mosque, etc..). The Imam paid close attention to the forming of the line before the prayer.  It is against Sharia law to openly sell materials in a mosque prayer room.  No sales were observed.

K:  Imam lecture (mention of Sharia, Jihad Qital, Punishment in the grave, Fiqh, etc…)  Sharia compliance was mentioned throughout the lecture.  Punishment in the Grave was also mentioned several times.

L:  Invited guests (out of town Islamic leaders, CAIR, etc.)  There was an Islamic leader from Chicago who was invited by the Imam to speak.  He was raising money for an Islamic school based in Chicago to prepare students to be Islamic scholars in America.  He stated thus far the program has graduated 50 students.  The program is for a period of 6 years.   

M:  Sharia compliance of non-Islamic leaders:  Many of the worshippers were not Sharia compliant in their dress, but were complaint enough to be in the mosque.  20 plus men were 100% compliant and these are the ones likely to be involved in future violence toward innocent people and/or involved in acts of terrorism against our country.

N:  Business cards shared (internet sites, businesses, emails, etc…)  Business   cards were provided to Dave Gaubatz.  These can be used for future coordination/operations if deemed feasible.

O:  Confirmed Islamic terrorists have/had not visited mosque:  No known terrorist information has been made public pertaining to any visiting the Savannah mosque, but Muslims travelling from one mosque to another is quite common. 

P:  Active duty military at mosque:  One U.S. marine and One U.S. Army member attended the mosque (males).

Q:  U.S. Govt. Civilians and/or politicians at mosque:  U.S. government stickers (passes) were observed on a few vehicles in the mosque parking lot.

R:  Local, State, Federal Law Enforcement presence:  Local city police officer conducting security.

S:  Is local govt. liberal or conservative:  Savannah govt. is predominately liberal

T:  Are U.S. military bases within 50 miles:  there are U.S. military installations within 50 miles of the mosque.

U:  Are Islamic businesses within 15 miles:   Yes, an Islamic market        and various small businesses (some medical)

V:  Is state liberal or conservative:  Georgia is a conservative state, but liberalism is increasing especially in the larger cities.

W:  Local media liberal or conservative:  Media in local area is considered liberal.

X:  Interfaith programs:  There is public information the mosque leadership are involved in interfaith activity with Christian and Jewish people/leaders.

Y:  How does mosque compare to mosques in U.S. with confirmed terrorist ties such as Dar Al Hijra mosque in Fairfax, VA):  Dave Gaubatz and his team of CT researchers have spent in excess of two weeks at Dar Al Hijra mosque in Virginia.  911 terrorists had visited the mosque.  The IC of Savannah is on the same scale as Dar Al Hijrah.  This would be a mosque that Islamic terrorists and their supporters who are travelling would feel comfortable attending.  They would be welcome at this mosque.  The Imam is Pakistani and is working to insure all aspects of Sharia are observed.

Z:  GUT feeling of qualified researcher (Very Important) This area is rated very high.  An explanation and analogy is required.   Every human and animal have internal systems fight or flight sensors that alert them to potential dangers.  This is how we survive.  Over years and years of life experiences our minds are able to fine tune this protective system.  Police officers use this safety mechanism each and every day to evaluate hundreds of potential danger signals in order to know how to respond in order to save their lives and the lives of innocent people.  In a shoot or don’t shoot situation officers sometimes have a few seconds or less to evaluate situations to best respond.  This is when their life experiences kick in and numerous things race through their mind when they are deciding to shoot (kill) or not shoot (not kill).

When evaluating the potential danger of an Islamic mosque Dave Gaubatz does the same thing as one of the 26 indicators to determine danger.  He bases over 35 years of travelling and working in Islamic based countries, visiting hundreds upon hundreds of mosques, interacting with good and bad people of the Islamic ideology, interviewing dozens of confirmed Muslim terrorists, their supporters, and reviewing thousands upon thousands of pages of their books and manuals, and in operating in dangers gang infested areas within America and in combat zones in Iraq.  Based on these experiences within a matter of minutes or less he is able to kick in his survival skills upon entering a mosque. His experiences have led him to accurately analyze and reason that all mosques are homes to potential danger, but at varying degrees.  When he worked gangs and narcotics in numerous major American cities there was little doubt a gang infested neighborhood posed likely dangers, again there were various levels of dangers based on other aspects of his experiences.  The same is true using the ITAC system.  A GUT feeling combined with 25 other important factors triggers an evaluation for danger. 

Evaluation Rating: Dangerous, Very Dangerous, or Extremely Dangerous

Final Evaluation of Statesboro, Georgia Mosque:  Dangerous, but final evaluation pending.

Final Evaluation of Masjid Jihad, Savannah, Georgia:  Dangerous, but final evaluation pending

Final Evaluation of the Islamic Center of Savannah, Georgia: Extremely Dangerous (on a scale of 1-10 this mosque would be rated 9)

Imam is Pakistani

Sunni with a strong form of Salafist/Wahhabi influence

Analysis:  It is the determination of Dave Gaubatz that the IC of Savannah is the home for Islamic terrorists and their supporters and is used as a training base and regional HQ for developing the strategy for meeting the well-established and very open goal of forming an Islamic caliphate in America (and world) and under strict Sharia law.  The Islamic leaders will use two forms of Jihad defined as the ‘pen and tongue’ before they will use the violent form of the ‘sword’.  The pen form of Jihad are the writings of Muslims to alter non-Muslims into accepting and believing Islam is a religion, is peaceful, and is the solution to all of the worlds problems.  This form of Jihad also includes the use of the media.  The tongue form of Jihad is of course verbal communication through Interfaith programs, open mosques for non-Muslims, and most dangerously the infiltration of the Islamic ideology into our public schools to brainwash American children into accepting Islam as the answer to all personal and worldly problems.  It is the belief of Islamic scholars that American children are the future of America and the majority of their Dawa (education and spread of Islam) is directed toward them.  Islamic terrorist groups have literature sent to American schools and libraries which are very colorful to influence their young minds.

The last form of Jihad is the use of the sword which is Jihad Qital (physical).  Islamic leaders have informed Dave Gaubatz during his various undercover operations that right now in America they (Islam and its leaders) are winning and their strategy of an Islamic caliphate in America is on pace to succeed with limited violence. 

One Imam informed Gaubatz, “there has not been another 911 such attack in America because Islam is winning and at this point another large scale attack would set their movement back 25 years.  When a large scale attack is required to further subdue Americans it will then be carried out.  The plans are already in place.  The Islamic leaders know there will be small scale terrorist attacks such as with Fort Hood, Texas, the Boston Bombings and others that will put fear into the hearts of the American people and its government.  Islamic leaders realize the liberal leaders and politicians will label these attacks as ‘Lone Wolf” attacks and disassociate them from mainstream Islam”.

It is important for readers to understand that there is no such thing as a ‘Lone Wolf’ terrorist attack.  Muslim terrorists who conduct small scale attacks are doing so in the name of Islam, Allah, and to please their Prophet Mohammed.  The attacks are carried out because their Islamic training has taught them the sure way to reach Allah and Paradise is to fight for the goal of an Islamic caliphate. Jihad Qital is one such way to achieve this goal.

RECOMMENDATION:  Provide this report to the public in a mass distribution campaign.  Then and only then will America’s senior law enforcement and politicians do the job they have sworn an oath to do (protect America and our children). Do not be fearful of personal attacks or frivolous lawsuits or the name calling (Islamaphobe, haters, racists) that will without a doubt come about.  The protection of America, our Constitution and our children should and must be the ultimate goal of all Americans. 

“Our American military and law enforcement officers have died by the thousands to protect our Country, Constitution, and Children (3 C’s).   They do not run from the enemy and American citizens must never run from the enemy, especially inside our great country.  To do so will result in an automatic defeat”.  Dave Gaubatz

[architectnews]

King Fahad National Library Riyadh

King Fahad National Library Riyadh Saudi Arabia, Middle East Architecture

King Fahad National Library Riyadh Building

26 Oct 2020

King Fahad National Library Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Design: Professor Eckhard Gerber – Gerber Architekten

photograph : Christian Richter

ARCHITECTURE

The King Fahad National Library, one of the most important cultural buildings in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was completed and went into use for its intended purpose in 2015. This project sees Professor Eckhard Gerber and his Gerber Architekten team accomplishing one of the most important urban development and cultural projects in the capital, Riyadh. The design functions as the central driving force behind a piece of urban development and rearrangement, and combines the challenge of designing within the existing building stock with respect for Arabian culture.

photo : Christian Richter

Interior Design The entire former roof of the existing building, which occupies an extensive area, now provides a reading landscape flooded with light and offers a special atmosphere that will encourage the exchange of knowledge in this way. Inside – as if hidden in a treasure chest, a knowledge storehouse – are the book stacks. Visitors access the open-access sections on the third floor of the new building via bridges from the reading area. Everything is covered by a new roof, punctuated by skylights under which white membranes gently distribute the light throughout the entire interior.

photo : Christian Richter

Façade The key element of the façade was developed especially for the new building. It is a cladding made up of rhomboid textile awnings, marked by its play with revealing and concealing. Inserted white membranes, supported by a three-dimensional, tensile-stressed steel cable structure, act as sunshades and interpret the Arabian tent structure tradition in a modern, technological way. This sequence of old and new creates a uniform and prestigious overall architectural appearance with characteristic styling. At night the façade glows in a soft white light and becomes the city’s cultural lighthouse.

photo : Christian Richter

INTERIOR DESIGN Interior The symbolic cuboid shape of the new building surrounds the existing building on all sides, thus presenting the National Library as a new architectural image in the Riyadh cityscape without abandoning the old building, which now operates as an internal stack, making it the centre of knowledge within the new library as a whole. The square new building is covered by a filigree textile façade following traditional Middle Eastern architectural patterns and linking them with state of the art technology.

photo : Christian Richter

Reading Landscape The entire former roof of the existing building, which occupies an extensive area, now provides a reading landscape flooded with light and offers a special atmosphere that will encourage the exchange of knowledge in this way. Inside – as if hidden in a treasure chest, a knowledge storehouse – are the book stacks. Visitors access the open-access sections on the third floor of the new building via bridges from the reading area.

photo : HG Esch

Everything is covered by a new roof, punctuated by skylights under which white membranes gently distribute the light throughout the entire interior. The main entrance hall is on the ground floor, which also houses exhibition areas, a restaurant and a bookshop. A library area for women only, in which they can spend time without a burka, is provided on the first floor of the new south wing; this space is separated from the other building uses, and is also accessed separately.

photo : Christian Richter

URBAN DESIGN The King Fahad National Library represents the new centre of the rapidly changing Olaya District, and stands out clearly from the heterogeneous existing building pattern. The square new building in the centre of the urban park looks open and light, and is tied into the urban space despite its size. Gerber Architekten designed the existing park including parts of the available green space as a spacious square, and this and the library now form an urban unit. Thus the National Library becomes the iconographic centre of a prestigious urban quarter that will become increasingly important in future years.

photo : Christian Richter

The site links King Fahd Road and Olaya Street, the two main traffic axes of the capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The new urban square described above was created on Olaya Street, offering pedestrians direct access to the library and guaranteeing an attractive space in which to spend time despite the heavy traffic.

photo : HG Esch

This new square echoes the surrounding basic structure of public squares, in which desolate and neglected building plots are redesigned as green oases. These are intended for various new leisure and recreational activities in the district. The new library stands as an important element of this spatial sequence, and makes a contribution to transforming the area into a lively and complex new urban quarter.

photo : HG Esch

LANDSCAPE The site links King Fahd Road and Olaya Street, which are the two main arteries of the capital city. On Olaya Street, a new urban space has been created which offers pedestrians direct access to the library and provides a high-quality public space away from the busy traffic. This new square continues a local programme for creating new public spaces, whereby abandoned and neglected land is transformed into verdant oases to accommodate a variety of leisure and recreational activities.

photo : HG Esch

King Fahad National Library Riyadh – Building Information

Project name: King Fahad National Library Place: King Fahad Road, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Competition: 1st prize 2002 Construction: 2008–2015 GFA: 86,630 m² GV: 452,000 m³

Photos copyright of Gerber Architekten

photo : HG Esch

King Fahad National Library Riyadh, Saudi Arabia images / information received 261020 from Gerber Architekten

Location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Middle East

Architecture in Saudi Arabia

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Saudi Arabia Buildings – Selection

Saudi Arabian Architecture Competition, Madinah Design: Rafael de La-Hoz, Spain image courtesy of architects office The Noble Quran Oasis in Madinah, Landmark in KSA

King Fahd International Stadium, Riyadh, KSA Design: Schiattarella Associati, Architects image courtesy of architects King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh

Addiriyah Contemporary Art Center Design: Schiattarella Associati, Architects image courtesy of architects Addiriyah Contemporary Art Center KSA

Saudi Arabia Buildings

Comments / photos for the King Fahad National Library Riyadh, Saudi Arabia page welcome

Website: Saudi Arabia

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[violetsystems]

#personal

This is week two.  To be fair, I woke up in a fairly horrible mood.  My final paycheck was not what I had expected it to be.  There’s not a lot that I can expect in terms of transparency these days.  Still don’t even have final paystubs to work with.  So I have to always improvise.  The last week has been a wake up call as to who I can rely on.  In absolutely catastrophic times like these, it is only me.  I definitely feel like my entire life has been disrupted.  At the same time, no one cares enough in real life to ask or reach out.  People are scared.  Embarrassed.  Maybe too overloaded with their own problems.  I’ve been scrambling to move money around to make sure bills are paid through August just in case.  Every day there seems to be a promise of a new lump sum but no solid date in sight.  I spent yesterday biking to the bank to fix an error in a transfer.  I sent money to my credit union to pay a bill ahead of schedule and the bank somehow reversed it.  Taking the money out instead of putting it in.  It may well have been my own mistake.  I withdrew money and went to deposit it at an atm to fix it quickly.  Every PNC bank that accepts deposits for my credit union no longer does.  So there was absolutely no place to fix the error myself.  I spent more time at the bank and on the phone getting suggestions on how to fix it.  In the end, I got dinged thirty two dollars but rectified it with both parties by handling it myself.  I also spoke a bit with a banker about the future in terms of checking accounts and investments.  This morning I woke up to a message from TIAA that a small windfall went from process to payment in that same account.  They sent that at one thirty in the morning.  The overwhelming message here being that throughout the process people were still working with me.  I felt embarrassed and vulnerable.  And this is week two.  And this is still all easier to navigate than the unemployment system.  I am not unemployed.  I’m self employed.  Technically I’m on severance though I am in a limbo of sorts.  It’s all not very clear.  Also I don’t even have a state id or driver’s license to claim that at the moment anyway.  Only a passport that expires in 2021.  I do have enough money to lock myself down for a long while.  And as horrible as yesterday was to deal with on my own, I learned I have far more options than I realize.  And also that working any harder for more money right now is unhealthy.  Even the printer that was on it’s way from Dell to print my resume is delayed until August 15th.  Too bad everything is online anyway.  

And then there’s the state of things in this world.  Yes, my health insurance expires in October.  Yes, I have the money to pay COBRA.  Yes, that’s expensive.  Yes, there’s a lot of taxes that the government is getting from me this year.  And yes, Mitch McConnell probably would use me as the poster boy for pension denial.  The free nest mini that YouTube sent was reading the news headlines the other day.  One of which that DeutschBank was being sued for it’s ties financially to Jeffrey Epstein.  The other big one in Chicago is longtime speaker Madigan tied to a scandal with ComEd regarding bribes.  All this money is invested and stored in these great financial institutions.  Come twenty years after how many ever lawsuits and scandals, will my pension be safe?  Will I even be alive?  People made decisions in the short term to secure their long term survival.  I was not part of that survival so I am on my own.  The process is pretty clear to me.  And thus, with some heavy penalties I decided to completely decouple and divest from twenty years of my life of constant employment.  I don’t lose sleep at night.  I don’t worry about how I feel about China.  I don’t worry about who I am sexually attracted to and why.  I don’t even worry about anything beyond August other than keeping myself alive, happy and healthy.  And this has grown out of two weeks of experiencing the world and my country.  Shit is fucked up.  Nobody wants to admit it.  Things will crumble.  I’ll still be out there in the bike lane trying to get my shit together before everything seizes up.  And the police will still park in that bike lane to openly intimidate me.  You can’t even get more than one roll of quarters at a time from the bank now.  And imagine if I had to deal with this and still bite my nails about where my next paycheck comes from.  My next paycheck comes from me.  I spent years working on music, my identity, and being a good person.  I was brainwashed into thinking that was not enough.  Now I am the only person I can rely on.  It’s strange.  Harsh.  Emotional.  But there’s no real breakdown.  And what I see from my perspective and optics is not what the world sees.  And in times like this, how you handle yourself says it all.  When the world is flailing and failing every step of the way.  My feet don’t waver.  And my instincts aren’t held back.  It’s a pretty fucking feral time for me.  Although I really haven’t changed much.  I don’t have any time to apologize really.  Because I’m owed way more than you can imagine.  On paper.

I do these weekly because it is part of my regimen.  Staying healthy and connected during times of extreme isolation is imperative.  The reality that we may go back into lockdown is going to fuck with a lot of people’s mental state.  Things are shaky for me right now for sure.  But not in a way that threatens the roof over my head or my high speed connection to the internet.  A lot of people want to jeopardize that from the outside without ever walking a mile in my shoes.  People see it now.  See just how long it’s been going on.  How many lies people told about me to make me stumble.  How many people out there are projecting openly and why.  All the trainees at the police academy who make it a point to park another squad day after day in the bike lane on my route to downtown.  People are obstinate, angry, disorganized and irritable.  And it will only get worse until it implodes.  They don’t stop and reflect.  They don’t understand their place in the ecosystem.  They don’t love thy neighbor.  They preach it.  But it’s more of a way to keep other people in check.  It’s also from the Bible.  Matthew for the record.  I’m not Christian.  I accept all religions.  I quote the Quran as much as I’d quote the Bible.  In an election year, politicians like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio ignite and manipulate voters about Hong Kong over the same type of rhetoric.  China returns the favor by sanctioning both of them.  It’s great theatre.  But I live in a city that has revealed to me a painful truth.  It’s got nothing to do with politics or sentiment.  It’s all about money.  How much you have.  How stable it is.  And how connected to the swamp that will drain over time due to the laws of physics.  People built their fortunes on pyramids that will not weather the storm.  The storm is just out there.  If you’ve ever biked in a city all season you know how it feels to bike against the wind chill across a bridge.  I doubt any of your politicians who were elected on huge piles of cash ever felt that connection to nature.  I have.  I’ve lived.  I’ve survived.  And I keep looking sexier doing it every day.  And I don’t have to cry about it.  I don’t have to command everyone’s attention.  I don’t have to say anything.  It moves within me.  Fear does at times too.  Which is why I plan and take action.  I set goals for myself.  I don’t rely on validation much.  I rely on myself.  I think maybe deep down I’m beginning to show you that more than I ever could in the past.  It’s not easy.  But I’m not angry.  Not anymore.  I do think it’s all kind of funny.  And I do still remember how to smile.  I smile a lot when I think about you.  If you think about me make sure not to worry.  I’ll be alright.  Stay fine and stay safe.  <3 Tim

[easyfoodnetwork]

Iftar in Isolation

A halal butcher shop in Spain remains open during the coronavirus outbreak | Photo by Carlos Gil Andreu/Getty Images

For Ramadan this year, Muslims are doing what they can to break the fast without breaking quarantine

Last Friday, as the first day of Ramadan drew to a close, Rami Ismail prepared his iftar, the meal to end the day’s fast, at his apartment in Hilversum, the Netherlands: laban bil balah, an Egyptian-style fast-breaking drink of chilled milk with dates and cashews; Dutch uienkruier flatbread with cheese and onions; salmon over a bed of quinoa and spinach. The portion size suggested it was a dinner for one, but Ismail was about to host an iftar party. As he sat down to eat, he turned on his Nintendo Switch and set a virtual table in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

“I built a little marketplace like they have in Egypt, with a carpet, for a communal meal, and made eight seats — one for me and the seven people that would come by,” he says, describing his corner of the popular life-simulation game. Guests soon began filing in from Singapore, London, Canada, and Seattle, some bearing virtual gifts and fruit baskets. “They just wanted to make sure that a stranger wasn’t alone for iftar,” says Ismail. “It’s meant to be a communal experience; you don’t really do it alone if you can help it.”

Thank you so so so much to everyone that came out to my first @animalcrossing Iftar today. Made my first day of Ramadan really lovely <3 pic.twitter.com/6nCxeguf3c

— Rami Ismail (@tha_rami) April 24, 2020

With Ramadan arriving as social-distancing measures remain in effect across the globe, Muslims are doing what they can to foster a sense of community in quarantine. Zoom dinners and remote prayer services have been commonplace since the early weeks of the pandemic, but Ramadan poses unique challenges. For many of the world’s 2 billion Muslims, the holy month is the most social time of the year, synonymous with large gatherings, group prayers, and community service efforts. Now, as many are in isolation during Ramadan’s requisite fast from dawn to sunset, jam-packed social calendars — lively iftar parties followed by taraweeh prayer congregations at the mosque and late nights culminating in suhoor (the pre-dawn meal before the next fast) hangouts at IHOP — have been replaced by group-chat scheduling conflicts.

While Ismail is an avid game enthusiast — he’s a developer and cofounder of the Dutch independent game studio Vlambeer — he doesn’t typically observe Ramadan virtually. His hectic travel schedule normally sees him breaking fast with large groups in Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, or India. “It’s always a fun, communal, celebratory experience for me,” he says. “It’s strange to be home in the Netherlands all month and not be able to do that.” So he tweeted an invitation to his 167,000 followers to join him in Animal Crossing for suhoor or iftar; the response was so overwhelming that he had to make a sign-up form. Ismail isn’t the only Animal Crossing fan using the game to observe Ramadan virtually — there are even simulated congregations that read the nightly taraweeh prayer together.

The next evening, as the sun began to set in New Haven, Connecticut, Omer Bajwa, his wife, Lisa, and a few friends donned masks and gloves to operate a makeshift drive-thru in the parking lot of Masjid Al Islam, a mosque in the city’s Dwight neighborhood. They handed out prepacked iftar boxes of dates, naan, and chicken curry from Ali Baba through rolled-down windows in car after car. “We all normally love the communal aspect in Ramadan — iftars are a big part of the American Muslim experience,” says Bajwa, the director of Muslim life at the Yale chaplain’s office. “There’s been a genuine anxiety leading up to Ramadan [this year], a sense of loss, people feeling bereft.”

Since many people are reliant on mosques for the nightly iftar meal, Bajwa asked his friends to pool money to feed 130 people every Saturday. “The reality of New Haven is it can be quite poor,” he says. “And we have so many Muslim-owned businesses in the restaurant industry, which is taking a huge hit — we’re trying to buy meals from them, give them business.” This first grab-and-go iftar was such a success that more donations poured in, enabling Bajwa and his friends to serve more meals this month.

Charity is one of the key components of Ramadan, and many of these same hard-hit restaurants are stepping up to serve their communities themselves. Since mid-March, Hamza Deib, owner of Brooklyn’s popular Middle Eastern restaurant Taheni, has worked with Muslims Giving Back to pass out falafels, chicken, and hummus to the homeless once a week, despite the struggles his own business faces. Now with the onset of Ramadan, Deib has increased his efforts to daily meal deliveries, while also dropping off food to a mosque and to police officers and hospital workers. “We’re not pushing our efforts to cater toward just Muslims. We’re just trying to take care of the entire city,” says Deib.

Muslims Giving Back/Facebook

Meals from Taheni, packaged to be distributed by Muslims Giving Back

Countless health care and essential workers happen to be practicing Muslims, and many of them are now fasting, too. For Dr. Uzma Syed, an infectious disease specialist and chair of a COVID-19 task force at a Long Island hospital, the last few weeks have “been an out-of-body experience — you’re in this constant feeling of being in a twilight zone.” But despite the added challenges she’s facing this Ramadan, she’s never considered not fasting. “It’s actually been fine, alhamdulillah,” she says of her first few fasts. “Fasting in itself is a practice of having resilience and willpower — it’s always been mind over matter. It’s a very spiritual time for me, very therapeutic.”

The Islamic Center at New York University, which serves 10,000 people at the university and the broader New York community, is one of many mosques across the globe that’s trying to beam the sense of spirituality that congregants crave into their living rooms. They’ve lined up a robust schedule of virtual programming, from Quranic recitations to lectures with scholars to Zoom iftars led by imam Khalid Latif, who’s also planning to offer niche iftars around interests like books and sports. In London, the nonprofit Ramadan Tent Project has also gone online, bringing its inclusive, popular Open Iftar events to people’s homes with a #MyOpenIftar pack of decorations, a trivia game, and a recipe book by chef Asma Khan of London’s acclaimed Darjeeling Express. There’s also a daily Zoom iftar with a rotating roster of speakers, and Khan plans to host a live cooking lesson later this month.

Offline, but socially distant, activities like remote potlucks — where everyone makes a dish and drops it off to other homes, letting friends enjoy the same meal at the same time — are gaining popularity. But finding the necessary ingredients to satisfy Ramadan cravings isn’t easy in the middle of a pandemic. “It’s already been like playing Tetris with your pantry — ‘We’re out of this, what can we replace that with?’ It’s been like that since the start of the pandemic,” says Brenda Abdelall, a consultant and law professor in northern Virginia, and founder of Middle Eastern food platform MidEats. Unable to go to her local Middle Eastern grocery store to stock up on her usual Ramadan supplies of lentils, fava beans, sumac, and za’atar, Abdelall has been strategizing for weeks, and in the process has become an internet-sourcing MacGyver. “It’s been tricky this Ramadan, trying to figure out how to preserve traditional foods without access to the ingredients. I had to get creative, going online to find what grocery stores sold dried fava beans — I found them on some obscure Russian website.”

Ramadan-centric, quarantine-compliant content is quickly taking over social media. You can take a fasting-friendly fitness session with a Nike trainer one day and learn how to make healthy suhoor smoothies the next on British lifestyle magazine Azeema’s Instagram feed. YouTube rounded up Ramadan content from top creators around the world, including LA-based modest-lifestyle vlogger Aysha Harun. Her “Ramadan Daily” vlogs chronicle her Ramadan decor and learning how to make the Ethiopian sambusas she grew up eating for iftar. “I do an Eid lookbook every year,” she says, referring to clothes for Eid-ul-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of Ramadan. “I haven’t gotten any of those requests this year, for obvious reasons.”

But going virtual has its own challenges. “How many people actually have access to the internet and know how to use it?” asks Samira Abderahman, who founded Black Iftar in Chicago in 2018. The iftar events geared toward black Muslims and their friends took off organically and were held in 11 cities last year; now, Abderahman is trying to figure out how best to take the events online. “I think about digital literacy a lot. That’s why in-person events are so beautiful — we’ve been gathering together since the beginning of time.”

This year, Black Iftar will offer virtual iftars centered around talks by Makkah Ali and Ikhlas Saleem, hosts of the podcast Identity Politics, and scholar and community sexual health educator Angelica Lindsey-Ali. “I just want to provide something beautiful, to not be the dominance of their Ramadan experience, but to assist it,” says Abderahman. “Ultimately, Ramadan is best experienced in person, and not through our phones.”

Just as people start to get into some semblance of a routine during this unnerving new take on the holy month, the next hurdle awaits at the end of Ramadan: how to commemorate Eid ul-Fitr in May, a holiday that’s usually marked by massive prayer congregations at mosques, sharing the traditional three hugs with strangers and friends alike, and a blur of brunch, lunch, and dinner parties. Ismail will likely host an open house-style Eid party on Animal Crossing, collecting “gifts” throughout the month and leaving them on his island for guests who pass through that day. But he isn’t sure what will be more difficult: fasting without friends and family, or marking a normally festive occasion in isolation. “Needing strength from the community while fasting [during Ramadan] and not having it is tough,” he says. “But Eid is a celebration — and celebrating alone is weird.”

Sarah Khan is a food and travel writer based in New York.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2VVunff https://ift.tt/2KRbnbn

A halal butcher shop in Spain remains open during the coronavirus outbreak | Photo by Carlos Gil Andreu/Getty Images

For Ramadan this year, Muslims are doing what they can to break the fast without breaking quarantine

Last Friday, as the first day of Ramadan drew to a close, Rami Ismail prepared his iftar, the meal to end the day’s fast, at his apartment in Hilversum, the Netherlands: laban bil balah, an Egyptian-style fast-breaking drink of chilled milk with dates and cashews; Dutch uienkruier flatbread with cheese and onions; salmon over a bed of quinoa and spinach. The portion size suggested it was a dinner for one, but Ismail was about to host an iftar party. As he sat down to eat, he turned on his Nintendo Switch and set a virtual table in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

“I built a little marketplace like they have in Egypt, with a carpet, for a communal meal, and made eight seats — one for me and the seven people that would come by,” he says, describing his corner of the popular life-simulation game. Guests soon began filing in from Singapore, London, Canada, and Seattle, some bearing virtual gifts and fruit baskets. “They just wanted to make sure that a stranger wasn’t alone for iftar,” says Ismail. “It’s meant to be a communal experience; you don’t really do it alone if you can help it.”

Thank you so so so much to everyone that came out to my first @animalcrossing Iftar today. Made my first day of Ramadan really lovely <3 pic.twitter.com/6nCxeguf3c

— Rami Ismail (@tha_rami) April 24, 2020

With Ramadan arriving as social-distancing measures remain in effect across the globe, Muslims are doing what they can to foster a sense of community in quarantine. Zoom dinners and remote prayer services have been commonplace since the early weeks of the pandemic, but Ramadan poses unique challenges. For many of the world’s 2 billion Muslims, the holy month is the most social time of the year, synonymous with large gatherings, group prayers, and community service efforts. Now, as many are in isolation during Ramadan’s requisite fast from dawn to sunset, jam-packed social calendars — lively iftar parties followed by taraweeh prayer congregations at the mosque and late nights culminating in suhoor (the pre-dawn meal before the next fast) hangouts at IHOP — have been replaced by group-chat scheduling conflicts.

While Ismail is an avid game enthusiast — he’s a developer and cofounder of the Dutch independent game studio Vlambeer — he doesn’t typically observe Ramadan virtually. His hectic travel schedule normally sees him breaking fast with large groups in Indonesia, South Africa, Brazil, or India. “It’s always a fun, communal, celebratory experience for me,” he says. “It’s strange to be home in the Netherlands all month and not be able to do that.” So he tweeted an invitation to his 167,000 followers to join him in Animal Crossing for suhoor or iftar; the response was so overwhelming that he had to make a sign-up form. Ismail isn’t the only Animal Crossing fan using the game to observe Ramadan virtually — there are even simulated congregations that read the nightly taraweeh prayer together.

The next evening, as the sun began to set in New Haven, Connecticut, Omer Bajwa, his wife, Lisa, and a few friends donned masks and gloves to operate a makeshift drive-thru in the parking lot of Masjid Al Islam, a mosque in the city’s Dwight neighborhood. They handed out prepacked iftar boxes of dates, naan, and chicken curry from Ali Baba through rolled-down windows in car after car. “We all normally love the communal aspect in Ramadan — iftars are a big part of the American Muslim experience,” says Bajwa, the director of Muslim life at the Yale chaplain’s office. “There’s been a genuine anxiety leading up to Ramadan [this year], a sense of loss, people feeling bereft.”

Since many people are reliant on mosques for the nightly iftar meal, Bajwa asked his friends to pool money to feed 130 people every Saturday. “The reality of New Haven is it can be quite poor,” he says. “And we have so many Muslim-owned businesses in the restaurant industry, which is taking a huge hit — we’re trying to buy meals from them, give them business.” This first grab-and-go iftar was such a success that more donations poured in, enabling Bajwa and his friends to serve more meals this month.

Charity is one of the key components of Ramadan, and many of these same hard-hit restaurants are stepping up to serve their communities themselves. Since mid-March, Hamza Deib, owner of Brooklyn’s popular Middle Eastern restaurant Taheni, has worked with Muslims Giving Back to pass out falafels, chicken, and hummus to the homeless once a week, despite the struggles his own business faces. Now with the onset of Ramadan, Deib has increased his efforts to daily meal deliveries, while also dropping off food to a mosque and to police officers and hospital workers. “We’re not pushing our efforts to cater toward just Muslims. We’re just trying to take care of the entire city,” says Deib.

Muslims Giving Back/Facebook

Meals from Taheni, packaged to be distributed by Muslims Giving Back

Countless health care and essential workers happen to be practicing Muslims, and many of them are now fasting, too. For Dr. Uzma Syed, an infectious disease specialist and chair of a COVID-19 task force at a Long Island hospital, the last few weeks have “been an out-of-body experience — you’re in this constant feeling of being in a twilight zone.” But despite the added challenges she’s facing this Ramadan, she’s never considered not fasting. “It’s actually been fine, alhamdulillah,” she says of her first few fasts. “Fasting in itself is a practice of having resilience and willpower — it’s always been mind over matter. It’s a very spiritual time for me, very therapeutic.”

The Islamic Center at New York University, which serves 10,000 people at the university and the broader New York community, is one of many mosques across the globe that’s trying to beam the sense of spirituality that congregants crave into their living rooms. They’ve lined up a robust schedule of virtual programming, from Quranic recitations to lectures with scholars to Zoom iftars led by imam Khalid Latif, who’s also planning to offer niche iftars around interests like books and sports. In London, the nonprofit Ramadan Tent Project has also gone online, bringing its inclusive, popular Open Iftar events to people’s homes with a #MyOpenIftar pack of decorations, a trivia game, and a recipe book by chef Asma Khan of London’s acclaimed Darjeeling Express. There’s also a daily Zoom iftar with a rotating roster of speakers, and Khan plans to host a live cooking lesson later this month.

Offline, but socially distant, activities like remote potlucks — where everyone makes a dish and drops it off to other homes, letting friends enjoy the same meal at the same time — are gaining popularity. But finding the necessary ingredients to satisfy Ramadan cravings isn’t easy in the middle of a pandemic. “It’s already been like playing Tetris with your pantry — ‘We’re out of this, what can we replace that with?’ It’s been like that since the start of the pandemic,” says Brenda Abdelall, a consultant and law professor in northern Virginia, and founder of Middle Eastern food platform MidEats. Unable to go to her local Middle Eastern grocery store to stock up on her usual Ramadan supplies of lentils, fava beans, sumac, and za’atar, Abdelall has been strategizing for weeks, and in the process has become an internet-sourcing MacGyver. “It’s been tricky this Ramadan, trying to figure out how to preserve traditional foods without access to the ingredients. I had to get creative, going online to find what grocery stores sold dried fava beans — I found them on some obscure Russian website.”

Ramadan-centric, quarantine-compliant content is quickly taking over social media. You can take a fasting-friendly fitness session with a Nike trainer one day and learn how to make healthy suhoor smoothies the next on British lifestyle magazine Azeema’s Instagram feed. YouTube rounded up Ramadan content from top creators around the world, including LA-based modest-lifestyle vlogger Aysha Harun. Her “Ramadan Daily” vlogs chronicle her Ramadan decor and learning how to make the Ethiopian sambusas she grew up eating for iftar. “I do an Eid lookbook every year,” she says, referring to clothes for Eid-ul-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of Ramadan. “I haven’t gotten any of those requests this year, for obvious reasons.”

But going virtual has its own challenges. “How many people actually have access to the internet and know how to use it?” asks Samira Abderahman, who founded Black Iftar in Chicago in 2018. The iftar events geared toward black Muslims and their friends took off organically and were held in 11 cities last year; now, Abderahman is trying to figure out how best to take the events online. “I think about digital literacy a lot. That’s why in-person events are so beautiful — we’ve been gathering together since the beginning of time.”

This year, Black Iftar will offer virtual iftars centered around talks by Makkah Ali and Ikhlas Saleem, hosts of the podcast Identity Politics, and scholar and community sexual health educator Angelica Lindsey-Ali. “I just want to provide something beautiful, to not be the dominance of their Ramadan experience, but to assist it,” says Abderahman. “Ultimately, Ramadan is best experienced in person, and not through our phones.”

Just as people start to get into some semblance of a routine during this unnerving new take on the holy month, the next hurdle awaits at the end of Ramadan: how to commemorate Eid ul-Fitr in May, a holiday that’s usually marked by massive prayer congregations at mosques, sharing the traditional three hugs with strangers and friends alike, and a blur of brunch, lunch, and dinner parties. Ismail will likely host an open house-style Eid party on Animal Crossing, collecting “gifts” throughout the month and leaving them on his island for guests who pass through that day. But he isn’t sure what will be more difficult: fasting without friends and family, or marking a normally festive occasion in isolation. “Needing strength from the community while fasting [during Ramadan] and not having it is tough,” he says. “But Eid is a celebration — and celebrating alone is weird.”

Sarah Khan is a food and travel writer based in New York.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2VVunff via Blogger https://ift.tt/3aTA0il

[a-truthaboutislam-universe]

The Day Life of Women in Islam – I

A Day in the Life of a Muslim Woman – I

Normal and everyday activities become acts of worship if they are done for the sake of pleasing Allah. The regular and consistent deeds are the best among these deeds. `Aa`ishah, may Allah be pleased with her, said that Allah’s Messenger  sallallaahu  `alayhi wa  sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) said: "The deeds most loved by Allah are those done regularly, even if they are small.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim] This means that we do not need to do anything spectacular in our day to obtain rewards from Allah, but we should establish some type of routine that incorporates not only the prayer but also reciting the Quran, Du’aa` (supplication), Thikr (mention of Allah), and other good deeds. This will increase the serenity, patience, and enthusiasm of the believer.

Early morning

This article is the first in a series aimed at bringing the spiritual side in the everyday life of a married Women In Islam:

Wake at night to perform Tahajjud: The Prophet  sallallaahu  `alayhi wa  sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) said: "The best (most rewarding prayer after the obligatory prayer is Tahajjud, night prayer.” [Ahmad and Muslim] It is best to do this toward the last third of the night as the Prophet  sallallaahu `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may Allah exalt his mention ) said: “Allah descends every night in the last third of the night [in a way that befits His majesty] and says: Is there anyone invoking Me that I may respond to his invocation? Is there anyone asking of Me so that I may grant him his request? Is there anyone asking My Forgiveness, so that I may forgive him?" [Al-Bukhari and Muslim] It is even better if the husband and wife perform the Tahajjud together as the Prophet sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) said:

“When a man wakes his wife up at night and they perform two Rak'ah together, they are written down among the men and women who remember Allah." [Abu Daawood] After this prayer, one can return to bed until the Fajr prayer.

Upon awakening in the morning, say this Du`aa`: "Al-Hamdu Lillaah, praise be to Allah who brought me to life after giving me death, and to Him is the resurrection." [Al-Bukhari] One should also greet the other members of the household who are awake. The Prophet  sallallaahu  `alayhi wa  sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) said: "O my son (to Anas), when you enter to where your family is, say Salaam. It is a blessing on you and on the people of your house." [At-Tirmithi]

When getting dressed, say this Du`aa`: "AI-Hamdu Lillaah, praise be to Allah, who clothed me with this, and who provided me with it, without any power or might of mine.” [Abu Daawood]

Make Wudu or Ghusl (except for menstruating or postnatal women):

Du`aa` when entering the bathroom: “In the name of Allah, O Allah, I seek refuge in You from the male and female devils." [Abu Daawood]

Be sure to use the left hand in the bathroom: “`Aa`ishah, may Allah be pleased with her, said that the right hand was used by Allah’s Messenger for his ablution and for taking food, and his left hand was used in the toilet and the like.” [Abu Daawood]

Say “Bismillaah” and make Wudu (ablution). It is also encouraged to use the Miswak or toothbrush, although it is not an obligatory aspect of Wudu. The Prophet sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) said: “If I had not found it difficult for my followers, I would have ordered them to clean their teeth with Miswak for every prayer.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]

Du`aa` after finishing Wudu: “I testify that there is no god but Allah, Alone, having no partner; and I testify that Muhammad  sallallaahu  `alayhi wa  sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) is His servant and Messenger, O Allah, make me of those who continually repent and purify themselves.” [At-Tirmithi]

Du`aa` when leaving the bathroom, "(I ask for) Your forgiveness." [Abu Daawood]

Perform Fajr Prayer : 2 Rak'ah of Sunnah and the two obligatory Rak’ah (except for menstruating or post-natal women). It is important to remember that the prayer should be completed soon after the time has begun. The Prophet  sallallaahu `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may Allah exalt his mention ) was asked which deed was loved most by Allah, The Exalted. He  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) said: "The prayer which is performed at its time." [Al-Bukhari] Even if a woman is busy with another task, she should interrupt this and perform her Prayer .

A woman should try to develop Khushoo` (sincere submission) in prayer since this will be the first thing that she will be accountable for on Judgment Day. The Prophet sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) said: "When you stand up for your Prayer , make it as if it was your last Prayer ; do not say a word for which you will have to make an excuse the coming day; and build no hope on what is in the hands of men." [Ahmad]

It is often asked if women need to make the Athaan and Iqaamah if they are leading the Prayer or praying by them selves. This is not required for women, although they may do it if they wish. In terms of the manner of performing the prayer, a woman's prayer is no different from that of a man's.

Recite the Quran. Early morning is often a good time to recite the Quran, especially if the children are still sleeping and the house is quiet. This allows one to fully concentrate and obtain the most benefit. The Prophet  sallallaahu `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may Allah exalt his mention ) said: "(The recital of) the Quran at dawn is always witnessed - the angels of the night and the angels of the day witness it." [At-Tirmithi] If one's spouse is available, this would be the ideal time to strengthen the marriage by reciting the Quran together and praising Allah for His blessings. The issue of Women In Islam touching the Quran during menstruation is often debated. Most scholars say that a woman should not touch the Quran during this time. However, even if she does not, she may still recite from memory or listen to tapes if she fears she may forget the Quran. This should be an incentive to memorize larger portions of the Quran, which can also be done during this early morning time.

Work on a project that will benefit the Muslim community in some way. Before the children awake and after reciting the Quran, it would be a good time to put energy into some project of interest to which one is committed. This may include such things as acquiring more Islamic knowledge by reciting or listening to tapes, writing articles, preparing for circles, developing some type of program (such as a Children's circle, Muslim scouting program, etc.), keeping in touch with other sisters through e-mail, social service projects, etc. There are many opportunities for sisters to benefit themselves (through Allah's rewards) and the community.

Mid and late morning

Prepare a healthy breakfast for the family. It is important to remember that the Prophet sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) used to eat a very healthy food such as dates, cucumbers, bread, meat, milk, etc…. Much of the unhealthy food that we have now was obviously not available at the time of the Prophet sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ). It is best to avoid processed foods and to use items that are the most natural. Allah Knows what is best for His Creation and He has provided us with all that we need. We should take care of our children's physical needs in the best manner possible. Cleanliness is also an important element of the Islamic faith and should be observed in all matters, especially in food preparation and eating.

Du`aa` when beginning the meal. "O Allah! Bless whatever You provided for us and save us from the punishment of the Hellfire. Bismillaah." The Prophet sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) told a boy who was attending a meal with him: "... Mention the name of Allah, and eat with your right hand and eat of the food that is nearer to you." [Al-Bukhari] Spend some time in conversation during the meal since this was encouraged by the Prophet  sallallaahu `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may Allah exalt his mention ).

Duaa after finishing the meal. "Praise be to Allah, who gave us to eat and to drink and made us Muslims." [Abu Daawood and At-Tirmithi] It is important to remember not to overeat due to the unhealthiness of this behavior for physical and spiritual reasons. The Messenger of Allah  sallallaahu  `alayhi wa  sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) said: "The son of Adam fills no vessel more displeasing to Allah than his stomach. A few morsels should be enough for him to preserve his strength. If he must fill it, then he should allow a thin his food, a third for his food, a third for his drink and leave a third empty for easy breathing." [At-Tirmithi] Overeating can lead to laziness and lethargy, and make acts of worship seem laborious, making it more likely that one will delay or avoid them.

Spend quality time with the children. Older children may need to be sent off to school, while younger children will continue to require the attention of their mother. Raising children is the most important and most honorable role for a woman. It is essential to include quality time with the children in a busy daily schedule. This should be given priority over household chores and other activities, although it should not interfere with obligatory acts of worship. Quality time may include such things as reading books about Islam, teaching Arabic, reciting the Quran together, playing games, going to the park, and much more. The emphasis should be on the children's spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical development. Doing this early in the day also makes it more likely that children will be content to play with themselves later on, freeing time for other activities.

Perform Ad-Dhuhaa prayer

: Abu Hurayrah said:

"My friend (the Prophet) advised me to observe three things, not to abandon them till I die; to fast three days a month, to perform two Rak’ah of Dhuhaa (forenoon) Prayer , and to perform Witr before sleeping."

[Bukhari and Muslim] This is one of the forgotten Sunnah of the Prophet sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa sallam ( may  Allah exalt his mention ) that needs to be revived. Two or more Rak’ah should be prayed some time after the sun rises until a few moments before noon. The preferred time is when it is extremely hot, which usually occurs around the hour before noon. A mother has a wonderful opportunity to renew this Sunnah by teaching her children from a very young age. Have a peaceful and blessed morning!