#ramadan begins!! :D

[dragoneyes618]

"Islam was the second religion to emanate from Judaism, but as its founder was not a Jew and as it was not originally a Jewish sect, Islam's encounter with Judaism was significantly less bitter than Christianity's. As Salo Baron notes: "It was, therefore, from the beginning, a struggle between strangers, rather than an internecine strife among brethren." Largely because of this factor, Jews in the Islamic world were rarely persecuted as violently as their brethren in the Christian world. S. D. Goitein, perhaps the twentieth century's leading historian of Jewish life in the Arab world, concludes: "when the known facts are weighed, I believe it correct to say that as a whole the position of the non-Muslims [Christians and Jews under medieval Islamic rule] was far better than that of the Jews in medieval Christian Europe."

Goitein's assessment is valid, but it tells us much more about the Jews' condition under Christians than about their treatment by Muslims. For while the Jews of the Muslim world may have rarely experienced the tortures, pogroms, and expulsions that typified Jewish life under medieval Christian rule, their life under Islam was usually a life of degradation and insecurity. At the whim of a Muslim leader, a synagogue would be destroyed, Jewish orphans would be forcibly converted to Islam, or Jews would be forced to pay even more excessive taxes than usual.

Like Christianity's, Islam's anti-Judaism is deeply rooted. Islam too was born from the womb of Judaism; it too was rejected by the Jews whose validation was sought; and it too suffered an identity crisis vis-a-vis Judaism.

When Islam was born in the seventh century, there was a substantial Jewish population in Medina, where the first Muslim community arose. The Jews of pre-Islamic Arabia were active advocates of their religion, to such an extent that several kings of Himyar, now Yemen, converted to Judaism. Contemporary inscriptions described Dhu Nuwas As'ar, the last Jewish king of Himyar, as a believer in one deity whom the king called Rahman, the Merciful One, as called in Judaism and later in Islam.

During his early years, Muhammad related well to the Jews of Arabia, and their religious practices and ideas deeply influenced him. As Goitein noted: "The intrinsic values of the belief in one God, the creator of the world, the God of Justice and mercy, before whom everyone high and low bears responsibility came to Muhammad, as he never ceased to emphasized, from Israel."

The profound influence of the Jews, their Bible, and their laws on Muhammad is clearly expressed in the Koran, the Muslim bible, and in Muhammad's early religious legislation. Indeed, Muhammad saw himself as another Moses. In the Koran, he writes of his message (Sura 46, verse 12), "Before it the book of Moses was revealed....This Book confirms it. It is revealed in the Arabic tongue." Moses is a dominant figure on the Koran, in which he is mentioned over one hundred times.The Jewish doctrine that most deeply influenced Muhammad was monotheism: "There is no God but God." Muhammad's monotheism was so attuned to the uncompromising nature of Judaism's monotheism that though he had also been influenced by Christian teachers, he rejected the Christian trinity and the divinity of Jesus as not monotheistic: "Unbelievers are those that say, 'Allah is one of three.' There is but one God. If they do not desist from so saying, those of them that disbelieve shall be sternly punished" (5:71-73).

Jewish law also deeply influenced Muhammad. In the early days of Islam, Muslims prayed in the direction of the Jews' holy city, Jerusalem, and observed the most solemn Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Only later, when Muhammad reluctantly concluded that the Jews would not embrace him as their prophet and convert to Islam, did he substitute Mecca for Jerusalem, and the fast of Ramadan for Yom Kippur. Similarly, Muhammad based Muslim dietary laws upon Judaism's laws of Kashrut: "You are forbidden carrion, blood, and the flesh of swine; also any flesh...of animals sacrificed to idols." The five daily prayers of Islam are likewise modeled on the three daily services of the Jews.

Second in importance only to his adoption of the Jews' God was Muhammad's adoption of the Jews' founding father, Abraham, as Islam's founder. In Sura 2, verse 125, Muhammad writes how Abraham and his son Ishmael converted the Kaaba, the holy rock of Arabian paganism, into the holy shrine of Islam.

Believing himself to be the final and greatest prophet of Mosaic monotheism, and having adopted so much of Jewish thought and practice, Muhammad appealed to the Jews of Arabia to recognize his role and to adopt Islam as the culmination of Judaism. "Even Luther," the late renowned philosopher Walter Kaufmann wrote, "expected the Jews to be converted by his version of Christianity, although he placed faith in Christ at the center of his teaching and firmly believed in the trinity. If even Luther...could expect that, how much more Muhammad, whose early revelations were so much closer to Judaism?" Muhammad's deep desire for Jewish recognition reflected the similar needs of Jesus and his followers. No group could validate Muhammad's religious claims as could the Jews, nor could any so seriously threaten to undermine them.

The Jews rejected Muhammad's claims as they had Jesus', holding in both cases that what was true in their messages was not new, and that what was new was not true. Islam may have served as a religious advance for Arabian pagans, but for the Jews it was merely another offshoot of Judaism.

One major factor that rendered Muhammad's prophetic claims untenable to Jews was his ignorance of the Bible. In large part because Muhammad never read the Bible, but only heard Bible stories, his references to the Jews' holy text were often erroneous. In Sura 28:38, for instance, he had Pharaoh (from Exodus) ask Haman (of the Book of Esther) to erect the Tower of Babel (which appears at the beginning of Genesis).

Another obstacle to Jewish acceptance of Muhammad was the moral quality of some of his teachings. They did not strike the Jews, or the Arabian Christians, as equaling, let alone superceding, the prophetic teachings of Judaism or Christianity. In 33:50, for example, Muhammad exempts himself from his own law limiting a man to four wives, and in 4:34 he instructs men to beat disobedient wives. Walter Kaufmann notes that "there is much more like this, especially in the 33rd Sura," and that "it must have struck the Jews as being a far cry from Amos and Jeremiah, and the Christians as rendering absurd the prophet's claim that he was superseding Jesus."

Finally, Muhammad's suspension of many Torah Laws invalidated him in the Jews' eyes.

For these and other reasons, the Jews rejected Muhammad's prophetic claims and refused to become Muslims. This alone infuriated Muhammad. But it was even more infuriating that the Jews publicly noted the errors in Muhammad's biblical teachings and may have even ridiculed his claims to prophecy. Goitein concludes, "it is only natural that Muhammad could not tolerate as a neighbor a large monotheistic community which categorically denied his claim as a prophet, and probably also ridiculed his inevitable blunders."

As a result Muhammad turned against the Jews and their religion, and never forgave them for not becoming his followers. And just as early Christian hostility to the Jews was canonized in the New Testament, so Muhammad's angry reactions to the Jews were recorded in the Koran. these writings gave Muslims throughout history a seemingly divinely-sanctioned antipathy to the Jews.

In the Koran, Muhammad attacked the Jews and attempted to invalidate Judaism in several ways. First, and most significantly, he changed Abraham from a Jew to a Muslim: "Abraham was neither Jew nor Christian. [He] surrendered himself to Allah....Surely the men who are nearest to Abraham are those who follow him, this Prophet" (3:67-68).

Second, he condemned the Jews and delegitimized their law by advancing a thesis similar to Paul's, that the many Torah laws had been given to the Jews as punishment for their sins: "Because of their iniquity we forbade the Jews good things which were formerly allowed them" (4:160).

Third, Muhammad charged the Jews with falsifying their Bible by deliberately omitting prophecies of his coming. For example, in the Koran (2:129), Muhammad has Abraham mouth a prophecy of his (Muhammad's) coming. Muhammad charged that the Jews "extinguish the light of Allah" (9:32) by having removed such prophecies from their Bible.

Fourth, Muhammad asserted that Jews, like Christians, were not true monotheists, a charge he substantiated by claiming that the Jews believed the prophet Ezra to be the Son of God. "And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah...Allah fights against them. How perverse are they." (9:30).

These anti-Jewish fabrications, articulated by Muhammad as reactions to the Jews' rejection of him, have ever since been regarded by Muslims as God's word. Though originally directed against specific Jews of a specific time, these statements often have been understood by succeeding generations as referring to all Jews at all times, and thus form the basis of Islamic antisemitism.

One common example is 2:61: "And humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon them and they were visited with wrath from Allah. That was because they disbelieved in Allah's revelations and slew the prophets wrongfully.j That was for their disobedience and transgression." This Koranic description of the Jews of seventh-century Arabia has often been cited by Muslims to describe Jews to this day. *

(* In a speech before his army officers on April 25, 1972, the late Egyptian President Anwar as-Sadat cited this Koranic verse, and then added: "The most splendid thing our prophet Muhammad, God's peace and blessing on him, did was to evict them [the Jews] from the entire Arabian peninsula...I pledge to you that we will celebrate on the next anniversary, God willing and on this place with God's help, not only the liberation of our land but also the defeat of the Israeli conceit and arrogance so that they must once again return to the condition decreed in our holy book: 'humiliation and wretchedness were stamped upon them'...We will not renounce this.")

Muhammad and the Koran thus laid the basis for subsequent antisemitism just as the early Christians had - and for basically the same reason: Jews remaining Jewish constituted a living refutation of Islamic beliefs. Thus, under Islam, just as under Christianity, Jew-hatred was ultimately Judaism-hatred. Any Jew who converted to Islam was accepted as an equal.

Christians under Muslim rule fared little better. Muslims and their laws generally dealt harshly with both Christians and Jews.

As long as Christian communities survived in the Muslim world, discriminatory legislation also applied to them as well. However, whereas Jewish communities often flourished as vibrant Jewish communities, Christian communities for the most part did not survive the intense Muslim hostility. Under the yoke of MUslim laws against Jews and Christians, hundreds of thousands of people in some of the oldest and strongest Christian communities in the world converted to Islam.

No fact better underscores the intensity of Muslim persecution of dhimmis (non-Muslim monotheists) than this disappearance of so many Christian communities under Islam. The fact that under similar conditions many Jewish communities flourished bears witness to the Jews' tenacious commitment to Judaism, not to Muslim benevolence toward them. This is often lost sight of when favorably comparing Muslim antisemitism with Christian antisemitism. Yet the conversion to Islam of nearly every pre-Islamic Christian community in the Muslim world (the Copts of Egypt constituting the most notable exception) eloquently testifies to what Jews had to endure in their long sojourn through the Muslim world.

The two guiding principles of Islam's treatment of Jews and Christians are that Islam dominates and is not dominated, and that Jews and Christians are to be subservient and degraded. Nonmonotheists were usually given the choice of conversion to Islam or death.

The Muslim legal code that prescribed the treatment of Jews and Christians, or dhimmis as they are both referred to in Islam, was the Pact of Umar, attributed to Muhammad's second successor, but assumed to date from about 720. Its key characteristic was the requirement that dhimmis always acknowledge their subservient position to Muslims. Jews and Christians had to pledge, for example, "We shall not manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it. We shall not prevent any of our kin from entering Islam if they wish it." The subservience that dhimmis were required to show publicly to Muslims is analogous to the behavior once expected of Blacks in the Jim Crow American South: "We shall show respect...and we shall rise from our seats when they [Muslims] wish to sit." They also had to pledge "not to mount saddles," since riding a horse, or, according to some Muslims, any animal, was considered incompatible with the low status of a dhimmi. The dhimmis also had to vow "We shall not display our crosses or our books in the roads or markets of the Muslims nor shall we raise our voices when following our dead."

Anti-dhimmi legislation did not end with the Pact of Umar. In the Koran, Muhammad had urged Muslims, "Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture...and follow not the religion of truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low" (9:29). Accordingly, Muslim officials often insisted that when paying tribute, dhimmis must be "brought low," that is, humiliated.

An early Muslim regulation precisely prescribed how to humiliate Jews and Christians when they pay tribute: "The dhimmi, Christian or Jew, goes on a fixed day in person to the emir, appointed to receive the poll tax, who occupies a high throne-like seat. The dhimmi stands before him, offering the poll tax on his open palm. The emir takes it so that his hand is on top and the dhimmi's underneath. Then the emir gives him a blow on the neck, and a guard, standing upright before the emir, drives him roughly away The same procedure is followed with the second, third, and the following taxpayers. The public is admitted to enjoy this show." The public was not merely "admitted" to this humiliating spectacle, but as Baron observes, "Public participation was, indeed, essential for the purpose of demonstrating, according to the Shafi'ite school, the political superiority of Islam."

In the course of time Muslim rulers developed additional ways to humiliate dhimmis. Baron describes one of them: "Equally vexatious was the tax receipt, which in accordance with an old Babylonian custom, was sometimes stamped upon the neck of the 'unbelieving' taxpayer. This ancient mark of slavery...expressly prohibited in the Talmud under the sanction of the slave's forcible emancipation, occasionally reappeared here as a degrading stamp of 'infidelity.'"

These humiliating and painful procedures had a terrible effect on the Jews: "An Arab poet rightly spoke of entering the door with bent heads 'as if we were Jews.'"

Another law designed to humiliate dhimmis required them to wear different clothing. The purposes of this law were to enable Muslims to recognize Jews and Christians at all times, and to make them appear foolish. In 807, the Abbasid Caliph Haroun al-Raschid, legislated that Jews must wear a yellow belt and a tall conical cap. This Muslim decree provided the model for the yellow badge associated with the degradation of Jews in Christian Europe and most recently imposed by the Nazis.

A Jew living in Baghdad in the days of Al-Muqtadir (1075-96) described additional measures passed by the vizier, Abu Shuja, to humiliate Jews: "each Jew had to have a stamp of lead...hang from his neck, on which the word dhimmi was inscribed. On women he likewise imposed two distinguishing marks: the shoes worn by each woman had to be one red and one black. She also had to carry on her neck or attached to her shoe a small brass bell...And the Gentiles used to ridicule Jews, the mob and children often assaulting Jews in all the streets of Baghdad.

During the same century in Egypt, the Fatimid Caliph Hakim ordered Christians to wear a cross with arms two feet long, while Jews were ordered to wear around their necks balls weighing five pounds, to commemorate the calf's head that their ancestors had once worshiped.

These clothing regulations were not only enforced in the Middle Ages. Until their departure from Yemen in 1948, all Jews, men and women alike, were compelled to dress like beggars.

 In fact, Yemen offers us a unique opportunity to understand Muslim attitudes toward the Jews. For it was the one Muslim country with a non-Muslim minority (Jews) that was never ruled by a European power. It was therefore able to treat its Jews in the "purest" Muslim manner, uninfluenced by non-Muslim domination.

In 1679, Jews in most of Yemen were expelled from their cities and villages. When allowed to come back a year later, they were not allowed to return to their homes, but were forced to settle in Jewish settlements outside of the cities. During their expulsion the synagogue of San'a, the capital, was converted into a mosque, which still exists under the name Masjid al-Jala (the Mosque of the Expulsion).

Among the many indignities to which the Jews of Yemen were constantly subjected was the throwing of stones at them by Muslim children, a practice that was religiously sanctioned. When Turkish officials (the Turks occupied Yemen in 1872) asked an assembly of Muslim leaders to see that this practice be stopped, an elderly Muslim scholar responded that throwing rocks at Jews was an Ada, an old religious custom, and thus it was unlawful to forbid it.

The greatest recurrent suffering that Yemenite Jews experienced was th e forced conversion to Islam of Jewish children whose fathers had died. This was practiced until the Jews fled Yemen in 1948, and was also based upon Islamic doctrine. Muhammad was believed to have said, "Everyone is born in a state of natural religion [Islam]. It is only his parents who make a Jew or Christian out of him." Accordingly, a person should grow up in the "natural religion" of Islam.

When a Jewish father died, there was often a "race" between Jewish communal leaders who sought to place the man's children with Jewish parents and the Muslim authorities who wanted to convert the children to Islam and place them in Muslim homes (in the Yemenite Islamic culture it would appear that the surviving mother was regarded as irrelevant). The Jews often lost. Goitein reports that "many families arrived in Israel with one or more of their children lost to them, and I have heard of some widows who have been bereaved in this way of all their offspring."

Yet as persecuted as the Yemenite Jews were, they were also denied the right to leave the country.

By the nineteenth century, the Jews' situation under Islam went from degradation to being recurrent victims of violence - as these examples from Jewish life in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine illustrate.

Egypt

In his authoritative book, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyyptisns, Edward Lane wrote that, at the time of his study (1833-35), the Jews were living "under a less oppressive government in Egypt than in any other country of the Turkish Empire." He added, however, that the Jews "are held in the utmost contempt and abhorrence by the Muslims in general." Lane explained: "Not long ago, they used often to be jostled in the streets of Cairo, and sometimes beaten merely for passing on the right hand of a Muslim. At present, they are less oppressed; but still they scarcely ever dare to utter a word of abuse when reviled or beaten unjustly by the meanest Arab or Turk; for many a Jew has been put to death upon a false and malicious accusation of uttering idsrespectful words against the Kuran (sic] or the Prophet. It is common to hear an Arab abuse his jaded ass, and after applying to him various opprobrious epithets, end by calling the beast a Jew.

That this was the Jewish situation in Egypt, "a less oppressive government" than elsewhere in the Muslim Arab world, tells us a great deal about Muslim antisemitism in the nineteenth century - prior to the Zionist movement.

Syria

In 1840, some French Catholics introduced the blood libel into the Arab world. After a Capuchin monk in Damascus vanished, Ratti-Mention, the local French consul, told police authorities that the Jews probably had murdered him to procure his blood for a religious ritual. Several Damascus Jews were then arrested, and under torture, oneo f them "confessed" that leaders of the Jewish community had planned the monk's murder. Many other Jews were then arrested, and under torture more such confessions were obtained. French officials pressured Syria'sruler, Muhammad Ali, to try the arrested men, and it was only after an international protest organized by Jewish communities throughout the world that the Jews who survived their tortures were released.

The blood libel immediately became popular among Muslims, who attacked Jews as drinkers of Muslim blood in Aleppo, Syria, in 1853, Damascus again, in 1848 and 1890, Cairo in 1844 and 1901-2, and Alexandria in 1870 and 1881.

The blood libel played a decisive role in unsettling the lives of nineteenth-century Syrian Jews, and since then it has been repeatedly utilized in Arab anti-Jewish writings.

Palestine

Jews have lived continuously as a community in Palestine since approximately 1200 BCE. The only independent states ever to exist in Palestine have been Jewish. After the destruction of the second Jewish state in 70 CE and the suppression of the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE, Jews always maintained a presence in Palestine, awaiting the reestablishment of the Jewish state. But these Jews often had to live under degrading conditions.

In nineteenth-century Palestine, which was under Ottoman Muslim rule, Jews had to walk past Muslims on their left, as the left is identified with Satan, and they always had to yield the right of way to a Muslim, by "stepping into the street and letting him pass." Failure to abide by these degrading customs often provoked a violent response.

In Palestine as elsewhere, Jews had to avoid anything that could remind Arabs of Judaism; therefore, synagogues could be located only in hidden, remote areas, and Jews could pray only in muted voices. In addition, despite the widespread poverty among Palestinian Jews, they had to pay a host of special protection taxes (in actuality, a form of extortion). For example, Jews paid one hundred pounds a year to the Muslim villagers of Siloam (just outside Jerusalem) not to disturb the graves at the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, and fifty pounds a year to the Ta'amra Arabs not to deface the Tomb of Rachel on the road to Bethlehem. They also had to pay ten pounds annually to Sheik Abu Gosh to to molest Jewish travelers on the road to Jerusalem, even though the Turkish authorities were already paying him to maintain order on that road.

These anti-Jewish laws, taxes, and practices had a rather intimidating effect on the Jews. The British consul James Finn, who lived in Jerusalem in the 1850s, described in his book Stirring Times how "Arab merchants would dump their unsold wares on their Jewish neighbors and bill them, safe in the knowledge that the Jews so feared them that they would not dare return the items or deny their purchase."

Muslim antisemitism continued to be brutally expressed through the twentieth century. Albert Memmi, the noted French-Jewish novelist, who grew up in North Africa, cites a few examples:

"In Morocco in 1907, a huge massacre of Jews took place in Casablanca, along with the usual embellishments - rape, women carried away into the mountains, hundreds of homes and shops burned, etc....In 1912 a big massacre in Fez...In Algeria in 1934, massacre in Constantine, twenty-four people killed, dozens and dozens of others seriously wounded....In Aden in 1946...over one hundred people dead and seventy-six wounded, and two-thirds of the stores sacked and burned....In June, 1941, in Iraq, six hundred people killed, one thousand seriously wounded, looting, rapes, arson, one thousand houses destroyed, six hundred stores looted....[In Libya]: November 4th and 5th, 1945, massacre in Tripoli; November 6th and 7th in Zanzour, Zaouia, Foussaber, Ziltain, etc: girls and women raped in front of their families, the stomachs of pregnant women slashed open, the infants ripped out of them, children smashed with crowbars....All this can be found in the newspapers of the time, including the local Arab papers."

Memmi summarizes the Jewish status under Islam in the twentieth century: "Roughly speaking and in the best of cases, the Jew is protected like a dog which is part of man's property, but if he raises his head or acts like a man, then he must be beaten so that he will always remember his status."

It is the Jews' refusal to accept an unequal, inferior status that lies at the heart of the Arab-Muslim hatred for Israel. (It is this, not the Palestinian refugee issue, that has been the basis of Muslim antisemitism. Without minimizing the personal difficulties of the Palestinians, as Memmi notes [on page 35 of his book Jews and Arabs]: "The Palestinian Arabs' misfortune is having been moved about thirty miles within one vast Arab nation.") As Yehoshafat Harkabi, a leading scholar of the Arab world's attitude toward Israel, put it: "The existence of the Jews was not a provocation to Islam...as long as Jews were subordinate or degraded. But a Jewish state is incompatible with the view of Jews as humiliated or wretched." The call for a Palestinian Arab state in place of Israel is for a state in which once again 'Islam dominates and is not dominated."

This hatred of Jewish nationalism was so intense that during World War II, most Arab leaders were pro-Nazi. Among them was the head of the Muslims in Palestine, the mufti Haj Amin el-Husseini (who in 1929 had helped organize the large-scale murders of the ultra-Orthodox, non-Zionist Jews of Hebron).

An ardent supporter of Hitler, the mufti spent much of the war in Nazi Germany; on November 2, 1943, at a time when the Nazis were murdering thousands of Jews daily, the mufti declared in a speech: "The overwhelming egoism which lies in the character of Jews, their unworthy belief that they are God's chosen nation and their assertion that all was created for them and that other peoples are animals...[makes them] in capable of being trusted. They cannot mix with any other nation but live as parasites among the nations, suck out their blood, embezzle their property, corrupt their morals....The divine anger and curse that the Holy Koran mentions with reference to the Jews is because of this unique character of the Jews."

Though many Arab nations formally declared war against Germany in 1945, when German defeat was imminent, in order to be eligible for entry into the United Nations, extensive Arab sympathy with the Nazis continued even after Germany's surrender. The Egyptians and Syrians long welcomed Nazis to their countries, offering them the opportunity to further implement the "Final Solution," by assisting in their efforts to destroy Israel and wipe out the Jewish community living there.

Among many Arabs the Holocaust has come to be regarded with nostalgia. On August 17, 1956, the French newspaper Le Mongde quoted the government-controlled Damascus daily Al-Manar as observing, "One should not forget that, in contrast to Europe, Hitler occupied an honored place in the Arab world....[Journalists} are mistaken if they think that by calling Nasser Hitler, they are hurting us. On the contrary, his name makes us proud. Long live Hitler, the Nazi who struck at the heart of our enemies. Long live the Hitler [i.e., Nasser] of the Arab world."

On June 9, 1960, after Israeli agents captured Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi official who had supervised the murder of six million Jews, the Beirut daily Al-Anwar carried a cartoon depicting Eichmann speaking with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Said Ben-Gurion: "You deserve the death penalty because you killed six million Jews." Responded Eichmann: "There are many who say I deserve the death penalty because I didn't manage to kill the rest."

On April 24, 1961, the Jordanian English-language daily Jerusalem Times published an "Open Letter to Eichmann," which concluded, "But be brave, Eichmann, find solace in the fact that this trial will one day culminate in the liquidation of the remaining six million to avenge your blood." At the UN sponsored "Conference Against Racism" in September 2001, an Arab pamphlet displayed at the Durban Exhibition Center featured a picture of Adolf Hitler with the caption, "If I had won the war there would be no...Palestinian blood lost."

Arab Jew-hatred also has brought about the resurrection of the blood libel. In 1962, the Egyptian Ministry of Education reissued Talmudic Sacrifices by Habib Faris, a book originally published in Cairo in 1890. The editor notes in his introduction that the book constitutes "an explicit documentation of indictment, based upon clear-cut evidence that the Jewish people permitted the shedding of blood as a religious duty enjoined in the Talmud."

On April 24, 1970, Fatah radio, under the leadership of Yasir Arafat, broadcast, "Reports from the captured homeland tell that the Zionist enemy has begun to kidnap small children from the streets. Afterwards the occupying forces take the blood of the children and throw away their empty bodies. The inhabitants of Gaza have seen this with their own eyes."

Even more disturbing, the blood libel accusations have been made by the most prominent figures within the Arab world. In November 1973, the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia said that it was necessary to understand the Jewish religious obligation to obtain non-Jewish blood in order to comprehend the crimes of Zionism. A decade later, in 1984, the Saudi Arabian delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission Conference on religious tolerance, Marouf al-Dawalibi, told the commission, "The Talmud says that if a Jew does not drink every year the blood of a non-Jewish man, he will be damned for eternity." In The Matzah of Zion, a book that has remained in print since its publication in 1983, Mustafa Tlas, the Syrian Defense Minister since 1972, wrote, "The Jew can kill you and take your blood in order to make his Zionist bread." A 2000 article about Tlas's book in Al-Ahram, Egypt's largest, and government-controlled, newspaper, reported, "The Bestial drive to knead Passover matzahs with the blood of non-Jews is [confirmed] in the records of the Palestinian police where there are many recorded cases of the bodies of Arab children who had disappeared without being found, torn to pieces, without a single drop of blood. The most reasonable explanation is that the blood was taken to be used in matzahs to be devoured during Passover." As one American journalist commented: "If this is 'the most reasonable explanation," can you imagine an unreasonable one?" The Al-Ahram article went on to report that an Egyptian movie company is planning to shoot a multimillion dollar film version of The Matzah of Zion, which will retell, as truth, the story of the Damascus blood libel.

And still the blood libel goes on. A 2001 cartoon in the Jordanian newspaper Al-Dustour depicts an Israeli soldier presenting his mother with a Mother's Day gift of a bottle containing the blood of a Palestinian child. At about the same time (November 2001), Abu Dhabi Television depicted a caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon preparing to drink a cup of blood taken from a Palestinian. A March 10, 2002, article in Saudi Arabia's Al-Riyadh, the government-controlled newspaper, by Dr. Umayma Ahmad Al-Jalahma of King Faisal University, creates a new twist to this ancient libel, claiming that Jews use blood for Purim pastry and not just for Passover matzo: "Let us now examine how the victims' blood is spilled. For this, a needle-studded barrel is used; this is a kind of barrel, about the size of the human body, with extremely sharp needles set in it on all sides. [These needles] pierce the victim's body, from the moment he is placed in the barrel. These needles do the job, and the victim's blood drips from him very slowly. Thus, the victim suffers dreadful torment - torment that affords the Jewish vampires great delight as they carefully monitor every detail of the blood-shedding with pleasure and love that are difficult to comprehend."

Arab Muslims have also reached back to classical themes of Islamic antisemitism to attack the Jews and Israel. Many Arab speakers and publications echo Muhammad's charge in the Koran (5:82) that the Jews are the greatest enemies of humankind. For example, an Egyptian textbook, published in 1966 for use in teachers' seminars, taught that Jews (not only Israelis) are the "monsters of mankind [and] a nation of beasts."

Perhaps the favorite antisemitic publication in the Arab world for over fifty years has been The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.. In an interview with the editor of the Indian magazine Blitz, on October 4, 1958, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt praised the Protocols: "I wonder if you have read a book called 'Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.' It is very important that you should read it. I will give you an English copy. It proves clearly, to quote from the Protocols, that 'three hundred Zionists, each of whom knows all the others, govern the fate of the European continents and they elect their successors from their entourage."

The late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia gave copies of the Protocols to the guests of his regime. When he presented the Protocols, along with an anthology of antisemitic writings, to French journalists who accompanied French Foreign Minister Michel Jobert on his visit to Saudi Arabia in January 1974, "Saudi officials noted that these were the king's favorite books."

Article 32 of the 1988 Palestinian Hamas (the Islamic Resistance Movement) Covenant claims that the Zionist "scheme" foe takeover of the Arab world "has been laid out in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and their present [conduct] is the best proof of what is said there." Hamas literature repeatedly accuses Jews of controlling the world's wealth and its most important media, and using them to promote Jewish and Zionist interests, even of having established the League of Nations in the 1920s "in order to rule the world."

Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority (and therefore supposedly less extreme than Hamas), regularly contains references to the Protocols. Thus, even during the height of the Oslo peace process the paper published the following: "It is important to conduct the conflict according to the foundations which both are leaning on...particularly the Jews...such as the Torah, the Talmud, and the Protocols...This conflict resembles the conflict between men and Satan." At about the same time in Egypt, Al-Ahram, the country's largest newspaper, reported, "A compilation of the investigative' work of four reporters on Jewish control of the world states that Jews have become the political decision-makers and control the media in most capitals of the world (Washington, Paris, London, Berlin, Athens, Ankara)." As the journalist Andrew Sullivan comments, "It is worth noting that every word Al Ahram prints is vetted and approved by the Egyptian government, a regime to which the United States - i.e., you and I - contributed $2 billion a year."

It is perhaps no surprise that, as of 2002, over sixty editions of the Protocols are being sold throughout the Arab world, and this libelous "warrant for genocide" is probably more widely distributed today than at any other time in its history. In 2002, the New York Times, in a front-page story, reported that a major Egyptian television station was about  to launch a forty-one-episode TV series based on the Protocols (complete with Jewish villains dressed in black hats, side curls, and beards) to run before and during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The Islamic world today has combined antisemitic motifs from Nazism and medieval Christendom, as well as from its own tradition. This potent combination has made the Arabs the major source of antisemitic publications in the world today. And as in other forms of antisemitism, in the words of Yehoshafat Harkabi, "the evil in the Jews is ascribed not to race or blood, but to their spiritual character and religion." Thus, when Pakistani Islamic terrorists kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in January 2002, they forced Pearl to say, "I am a Jew," (and videotaped him doing so) before slitting his throat.

Only through an understanding of the deep theological roots of Muslim antisemitism and an awareness of its continuous history can present-day Muslim hatred of Israel be understood. Only then does one recognize how false are the claims of Israel's enemies that prior to Zionism, Jews and Muslims lived in harmony and that neither Islam nor Muslims have ever harbored Jew-hatred. The creation of the Jewish state in no way created Muslim Jew-hatred; it merely intensified it and gave it a new focus.

So long as the Jews acknowledged their inferior status among Muslims, they were humiliated but allowed to exist. But once the Jews decided to reject their inferior status, to become sovereign after centuries of servitude, and worst of all, to now govern some Muslims in a land where the Jews had so long been governed, their existence was no longer tolerable. Hence the passionate Arab Muslim hatred of Israel and Zionism, a hatred that entirely transcends political antagonisms. Hence the widespread Muslim call not merely for a military defeat of Israel, but for its annihilation.

As so often in Jewish history, it is the Jewish nation's existence that arouses hatred and needs to be ended. Despite peace treaties between Israel and Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), for most Muslims the source of their hatred remains the Jewish sate's existence, not its policies, nor even its borders.

The Muslim and Arab claim that the issue is anti-Zionism rather than antisemitism really means that so long as the Jews adhere to their dhimmi status in Arab Muslim nations, their existence as individuals is acceptable. But for a Jew to aspire to equality among Muslims, for a Jew to aspire to a status higher than "humiliation and wretchedness," is to aspire too high."

- Why the Jews? The Reason for Antisemitism, Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, chapter nine

[buckysmith]

Ramadan Special

NON BINARY READER

First disclaimer, I'm NOT a Muslim, so I use google and a lot of websites to write that headcanon, so I DEEPLY APOLOGIZE for ANY mistakes, please let me know if I did something wrong/incorrect and I'll correct it as fast as I can!

Why do I do an Ramadan special  when I'm not an Muslim? 'Cause it's only fair for my  dear friends from another religion to have the same treatment as my own religion, so cause I did an Christmas special, I'll do an Ramadan special as well.

So as a Christian I wish all my Muslim friends, a happy Ramadan, may all your duas come true this Ramadan!

Ramadan Mubarak! <3

Enjoy it D. and thank you so much for helping me with the intel <3

Oh and dear, if you're reading this, I was just as embarrassed as gromsko, much love  😂

Ghost:

- he knows that for you it is an incredibly important period, so it hurts him even more to leave you alone during this time because of his job

- if he is not in the country due to his job and has the time, he will call you just before iftar to either wish you a good evening or to be there via FaceTime

- if he is at home, he helps you during the day to prepare food for the evening so that you can have a nice time together with friends and family in the evening

- if you are not feeling well, it is not a problem for him to take over your household chores, because he has the highest respect for what you do for your faith and seeing you happy is the most important for him

- during ramadan he also keeps some distance physically so as not to tempt you

- he would even sleep in the guest room if you want it

- it is important for him not to do anything wrong and therefore he learns through you, other muslims and many books what he has to follow and what he is allowed to do and what not, which what  he can help you and so much more

- expect him to sit next to you, almost asleep just to eat suhoor at 3 AM with you

- he doesn’t give a something when you tell him that he can go to sleep early, he stays awake for you no matter what, no matter how tired he is

Soap

- as a Roman Catholic, he is familiar with fasting, however, it was a surprise to him how big the difference are

- he was a bit confused at the beginning, not knowing exactly what he could and could not do.

- when he found out that you were going to fast for a month and therefore abstain from water and food for a month, he was already panic-stricken that you would die because of the dehydration.

- however the fear subsided after you explained it to him and he felt really stupid

- if he is not at home during ramadan because of his job, he will make sure you are near your family/friends or that you can go to his family to break the fast

- he is a really good cook and his dishes are always very good, he doesn't like spicy food but he will cook anything for you, you just have to tell him what you want.

- if you are not feeling well during Ramadan, he will make sure that he can at least make your life more comfortable

- but expect him to avoid you physically like the plague itself

- he loves you too much and has too little self control to keep the relationship between you "normal" so he tries to have as little physical contact as possible, after all he doesn't want you to commit a sin or anything like that

- while you are fasting, he is also fasting while he is at home, he thinks it is unfair that only you are fasting and so he goes along with it

- but if he goes on a mission he apologizes a thousand times for not fasting as well.

Alejandro

- he is quite awkward at the beginning concerning the topic.

- México isn't a country with  many muslims and therefore he simply lacks the knowledge.

- however, it is important to him that you know that he supports you in every aspect of your life.

- accordingly he learns a lot about your religion to not look completely stupid

- but he was really awkward the first time

- he did not know what he is allowed to do and what not

- in his base there was always music playing, when he found out that you were not allowed to listen to music among other things, he made sure that as soon as you entered the base there was no music to be heard anywhere

- when he found out that you were in fact allowed to listen to music, he felt so stupid and you teased him about it endlessly

- he even arranged for you to have your own little room on the base, which looked towards Mecca, where you could pray in peace, if you ever spent a longer time on the base

- he also tried not to drink or eat in front of you, nor to say any swear words in that time

- he would also gladly do the cooking for you if it was too much for you and you needed time to rest or pray.

- he avoided physical touch with you like the plague, cause he knew himself and he wanted everything but to commit a sin

Rudy

- he is a little awkward at the beginning, in México there are not many Muslims he could have learned from, so it is new territory for him to learn more about you, your culture and religion.

- The first time he experienced Ramadan with you, he was confused why you didn't have breakfast with him in the morning as usual

- he then offered you something to drink, which you also declined

- and when you told him that you were not allowed to eat or drink anything for a month, he died inside.

- but he didn't make a face cause he didn't want  to hurt you and just nodded with a smile.

- when he went to work that day, the first person he talked to was Alejandro.

- he talked to his best friend about how unhealthy it was to not eat for a month, but he was way more worried about you not drinking anything

- three days without water was bad, but a month?! How did you survive that before?! He was sure that you must be a super  human to go a month without water.

- he came home that evening at the time you broke your fast, and was shocked to see so much delicious food

- that confused him, he thought you were not allowed to eat and drink anything?

- after you explained it to him he understood and at the same time was so incredibly relieved and ashamed

- he also keeps his distance during Ramadan and the most you might get is a kiss on the cheek if you don't allow him to give you more attention

- but as soon as Ramadan is over he makes up for all the attention he missed during that month.

Price:

- he has traveled a lot in his life, got to know many people and many religions and is accordingly enlightened

- especially because his "adopted daughter" Farah is muslim herself

- he tries to be with you during this time, but his job doesn't allow that most of the time, so he at least tries to call you or write you an sms

- if he can't make it at all, he records a video and sends it to you so that he can be there too

- but if he is at home, he does it for you out of solidarity, because he was once not allowed to eat solid food for two weeks and was so mad at everyone who ate in front of him

- he even gives up smoking, which is incredibly difficult for him, but nothing is too hard for him when it's for you

- he is also an incredibly good cook, so you are not alone in preparing food for your whole family and believe me, even your family loves his food

- the hardest thing for him though was to avoid physical contact, because his mind quickly darts to something else and he knew yours was too, so he kept his distance.... Unless you allowed him that certain something after sunset.

Laswell:

- She has several friends who are Muslims, so it's not new territory

- she has already celebrated iftar with all of them, helped her friends to cook and is really good at it

- when you cooked together for the first time during Ramadan, you always let her taste the food to know if there was anything missing in the spices

- for that you had cooked all the dishes you would cook during Ramadan before it so she knew what they should taste like

- she also tried to avoid eating or drinking in front of you and also stopped smoking in front of you

- for her the worst thing was not to have as much physical contact with you as before, but she knew how fast your mind was elsewhere and she did not want you to break your fast because of her

Valeria

- she did not care much for religion, neither for her own nor for any of the others

- for her religion was only the strongest means to oppress people, because it threatened consequences after death and put pressure on people during their lifetime

- she saw it as the perfect means to control people the way you wanted to

- however, she knew that you were faithful to your religion and that it was important to you, which she did not understand, but she accepted it for you

- she also made sure that you had a quiet place in her villa where you could pray in peace

- the principle of fasting was not really understandable to her but it did not make much difference to her since you usually ate something after sunset anyway

- although she is not a fan of religion, she still tries to be there for you and support you

- what really annoys her is that she has to stay physically at a distance

König

- a few of his old colleagues were Muslims, which is why he partly noticed it, but other religions did not interest him very much

- his religion was more than enough for him, he didn't need to know anything about others, after all his was already too much for him!

- However, this changes when you told him about your religion, explained it to him and why you are fasting and all the other things.

- he listens to you attentively and tries to remember as much of it as possible

- he has the highest respect for you that you manage not to drink or eat anything during the day for a month, he had tried it for five days

- the food had been an easy one, he had had many missions where he had no food for a long time, but drinking had been the problem for him

- he could not do without water during the day

- the worst thing for him was that when he was at home he couldn't have that much physical contact with you anymore

- but after Ramadan he will make up for all the physical contact he missed, so be prepared.

Makarov

- for him religion is only a means to legally oppress people to make them compliant without getting violent

- he likes the principle of religion itself, because in his opinion it makes people stick to something for centuries

- For him, it's the same thing he did to people

- when you told him that you were going to fast, he was confused and didn't really understand

- you had to explain it to him and you could see in his face that he was not the biggest fan of it

- according to him it was just impossible to know if you had time to eat at night, after all you lived with him

- however, when he saw that it hurt you the way he treated your religion, he made sure that you could fully concentrate on your religion during this time

- he tries to support you in his own way, which may not always be correct but he tries his best

Gromsko

- he himself had a few colleagues who were Muslims and with whom he celebrated iftar, but only when you lived with him did he really realize what it actually meant

- he made you a Ramadan calendar like you made him an Advent calendar at Christmas

- he filled it with things he knew you would like, different sweets and a lot of other stuff

- he also helped you with cooking or did all the housework when you were not feeling well

- he also helped you cook and prepare for breaking the fast

- he found out of his own that you were not allowed to listen to music, he made sure that there wasn’t music playing anywhere

- that confused you, cause he was always listing to some Taylor swift song and when you asked him about it he told you confused himself that you weren’t allowed to listen to music, which made you giggle

- you told him that you were allowed to listen to it, but that you had to avoid it a bit, to focus more on praying and your religion

- he was SOO embarrassed that he had misunderstood it

- he helped and supported you wherever he could

[girlactionfigure]

🔅Shavua Tov, a good and blessed week!

🔻Only a few rockets over Shabbat.. Hamas at Ashkelon and Zikim, Hezbollah at Zaria and Shomera.

🔻HAMAS - Rockets from Gaza - at Be’eri and HaTzerim.

🔻HEZBOLLAH - Anti-tank missiles from Lebanon - at IDF post Sheba farms.

▪️HOSTAGE CEASEFIRE LEAKS.. The White House: Israel agreed to the outline, Hamas has not yet responded.

A senior member of the Biden administration: “Israel agreed in principle to the deal, the ball is in Hamas's court. The discussed outline includes a six-week pause in fighting, Israel demands that elderly patients and women be released first.”

President Biden: “I’m hoping so, we’re still working real hard on it. We’re not there yet,” he told reporters at the White House when asked if he expected a deal by Ramadan, which will start on March 10. “We’ll get there but we’re not there yet — we may not get there.”

▪️3 HERO SOLDIERS FELL.. in battle in Gaza, as a booby trapped building exploded on the entering force killing 3 and wounding 14.  The fallen heroes:

.. Dolev Malka, 19 of Shlomi

.. Afik Tery, 19, of Rechovot

.. Inon Yitzchok, 20,  Mitzpe Ramon

…. may their families be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem, and may G-d avenge their blood!

▪️ANTI-GOVERNMENT PROTEST THIS EVENING.. Demonstrators against the government protest at the Kaplan intersection in Tel Aviv and call for elections, the police block the intersection to prevent them from moving further. The police arrested seven protesters after they went down to demonstrate on the road near the Azrieli mall in an area not approved.

Demonstrators blocked Derech Begin in front of IDF HQ in Tel Aviv in both directions.

▪️ON RELEASING ARAB PRISONERS.. The Shin Bet will release about 30 more Palestinian administrative detainees this week; the Shin Bet clarifies: we have room to take in detainees on nationalistic grounds (who are a terror threat), we never said that we are in need of cells.

National Security Minister MK Ben Gvir responded: "We are before the Ramadan period, in the midst of a war in Gaza and in the north, attacked on a daily basis. Now they decide to freely release threatening prisoners? Does everyone in the Shin Bet think we are in Switzerland?"

▪️ATTEMPTED TERROR ATTACK - SAMARIA - ELON MOREH.. IDF forces captured 2 terrorists headed towards Elon Moreh equipment with M-16’s, en route to a terror attack.

▪️AID DROPS, BIDEN SAYS.. after day’s U.S. air drops of aid supplies into Gaza, President Biden announced that the U.S. will continue to air drop aid supplies into Ukraine and see about opening a marine corridor for supplies into Ukraine.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5_XnP0rTxg

[roo-bastmoon]

The odds we faced, with FACE

Just as a reminder for the record:

Antis and cult members began systematically targeting Jimin-focused accounts two weeks before his Set Me Free Pt. 2 prerelease, resulting in some key, experienced ARMY getting suspended right when their wisdom and fanbase alerts were needed most.

Ramadan meant that practicing Muslim ARMY could not listen to music during the release time.

The stores ran out of pre-orders multiple times.

Most physicals shipped on time, but some did not. It was a challenge for Target to keep physicals in stock.

We got less than 0.1% radio play, practically nothing in the US at all, it wasn't even a request option for any station that feeds Hot 100.

True OT7s also had On the Street, Smoke Sprite, and People Pt. 2 to support.

Jimin had only 10 uninterrupted days to promote his first solo album. No blame, no shade, I am just saying it's been a challenge for our artists that their timelines are condensed and overlapping like this due to military service.

Fake ARMY boycotted Jimin altogether and came up with bullshit reasons to attack Jimin funders.

Antis dragged Jimin to hell and back online because of a technical in-ears issue that resulted in 10 seconds of a less-than-perfect live encore performance.

Spotify froze streams.

YouTube froze and deleted MILLIONS of streams, not just for Jimin but for all of BTS and ONLY BTS, with no explanation whatsoever.

Other Kpop stans and Jimin-akgaes joined forces to mass vote against him in MCountdown out of pure spite for him topping Hot 100.

His own media began commenting in articles on his inevitable free fall.

The haters also started up again mass-reporting his Insta account to continue his shadow-ban and try to get him suspended.

All that, and Jimin has beat such odds that his success is untouchable.

So I just need to say this...

It has been an exhausting three weeks, filled with extreme highs and lows.

Whatever happens in the charts now, true ARMY worked hard to show Jimin we love him and his work. Nothing will take away the fact that he made history with Hot 100 #1, and won 3 MCountdowns, and raised stocks for Hybe, the Kpop music industry, and South Korea with his solo debut.

All that, and Jimin still made history.

Jimin says he didn't do this for charts or awards, but he got them anyway, and they will forever be proof that true ARMY adore him. So thank you for your hard work.

Whatever happens now for the second and subsequent weeks, everyone reading this can feel peace in their hearts, knowing they will always give their all.

Well done, puppykittes!

Please rest up because we need to ensure FACE has longevity in our playlists going forward and begin doing our due diligence for D-Day, too. And since YouTube is being a word my mother wouldn't want me to say out loud, we need to focus heavily on Pandora in the US and Apple and Spotify everywhere.

Let's get it for chimchim and lil meow meow, y'all!

[brunt-f-c-a]

I have seen people on my dash pull the "if you critisize zionists just say you hate jews" and i gotta say i grew up jehovas witness and just because i critisize them doesnt mean i hate christians. When i think carefully about it i realize that zionism, even with it's historical contexts, is very similar to a concept that a lot of amerians learned in school called "manifest destiny". And last i remember that ended up being a pretty fucked up ordeal. Over the past half decade or so there has been a massive uptick in antisemitsm and it's not suprising that there are people weazling their way into this to justify this. To me that is heart breaking but calling out a set of jewish people carrying harmful beliefs is not antisemitism. I have lovely amazing friends who are jewish, were jewish, or becoming jewish. And when they gain interest i learn about it to and i see a community so full of love that it binds it's very foundations along with tradition and a mind boggling amount of books. Where does zionism actually fit in those books. I know people think that the context matters but take it out of it's historical context and see if it makes sense. If all those lives hadnt have been lost and all that trauma left would it exist like that? it doesnt seem to be of g-d (out of respect). They need to be critisized. They are carrying the ugliest parts of generational grief and allowing hateful people both jew and goyim to nest within it and then symbolically. unleashing a tragedy that should never happen again onto other people. i say symbolically because the irsaeli government isnt doing this because they're zionists. They're doing it because their fucked up people with money and power and they want something and zionism is a really convenient tool for them. I just. A couple nights ago i saw a mutual just reblog the most horrendous thing nd it settled so badly that it's been boiling over in my brain for two days and i get mad everytime ithink about it i cant even remeber which mutual but as soon as i find out they're blocked i cant believe you. It's no better than the nazi's that hurt jews to begin with and i say that so so scathingly. I mean it with my chest it's so dissappointing and heart breaking to see that shit. And if the history of it is that important it cant be resolved while there is active genocide. And saying something about that isnt bringing the antisemites out of the woodwork they have been given an active voice for years now you could give them a bandwagon without a wheel and they'd hop on it and making excuses for the zionists is really not going to stop them actually it's untintentionally protecting them by stirring up backlash and giving them places to hide. I'm norse pagan and from the deep south i know exactly where they like to hide they're like cock roaches. I understand how and why this ideology exists but it doesnt make it right. Think about your fucking actions i beg you! Happy shabbat and happy ramadan. (i think they're happening around the same time)

"I’m personally a Holocaust survivor as an infant, I barely survived.

My grandparents were killed in Aushwitz and most of my extended family were killed.

I became a Zionist; this dream of the Jewish people resurrected in their historical homeland and the barbed wire of Aushwitz being replaced by the boundaries of a Jewish state with a powerful army…and then I found out that it wasn’t exactly like that, that in order to make this Jewish dream a reality we had to visit a nightmare on the local population.

There’s no way you could have ever created a Jewish state without oppressing and expelling the local population. Jewish Israeli historians have shown without a doubt that the expulsion of Palestinians was persistent, pervasive, cruel, murderous and with deliberate intent - that’s what’s called the 'Nakba' in Arabic; the 'disaster' or the 'catastrophe'.

There’s a law that you cannot deny the Holocaust, but in Israel you’re not allowed to mention the Nakba, even though it’s at the very basis of the foundation of Israel.

I visited the Occupied Territories (West Bank) during the first intifada. I cried every day for two weeks at what I saw; the brutality of the occupation, the petty harassment, the murderousness of it, the cutting down of Palestinian olive groves, the denial of water rights, the humiliations...and this went on, and now it’s much worse than it was then. It’s the longest ethnic cleansing operation in the 20th and 21st century.

I could land in Tel Aviv tomorrow and demand citizenship but my Palestinian friend in Vancouver, who was born in Jerusalem, can’t even visit! So then you have these miserable people packed into this, horrible…people call it an 'outdoor prison', which is what it is. You don’t have to support Hamas policies to stand up for Palestinian rights, that’s a complete falsity.

You think the worse thing you can say about Hamas, multiply it by a thousand times, and it still will not meet the Israeli repression and killing and dispossession of Palestinians.

And 'anybody who criticises Israel is an anti-Semite' is simply an egregious attempt to intimidate good non-Jews who are willing to stand up for what is true."

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 4.9

Holidays

Air Force Day (Indonesia)

All Over Again Day

A-ma Festival (a.k.a. Matsu; Pagan Macau) [Fishers, Sailors]

Anniversary of the German Invasion of Denmark (Denmark)

Appomattox Day

Araw ng Kagitingan (Day of Valor; Philippines)

Astronauts' Day

Baghdad Liberation Day (Iraqi Kurdistan)

Bataan Day (Araw ng Kagitingan a.k.a. Day of Valour; Philippines)

CSS Naked Day

Day of the Finnish Language (Finland)

Day of National Unity (Georgia)

Dry Milk Day

Easter Rising Anniversary Day (Ireland)

Free Cone Day

Hive Day (French Republic)

International Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) Day

International Songwriters Day

International Twitter Men’s Day

Jenkins' Ear Day

Jumbo Day

Liberation Day (Iraqi Kurdistan)

Listening Day

Maha Thingyan (Water Festival; Myanmar)

Maia Asteroid Day

Martyr’s Day (Tunisia)

Mikael Agricola (Finland)

Name Yourself Day

National Bodhi Day

National Cherish An Antique Day

National Chicken Little Awareness Day

National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day

National Health Day (Kiribati)

National Library Workers Day

National Mature Women’s Day

National Nuclear Technology Day (Iran)

National Unicorn Day

Observational of Nazi Occupation (Denmark)

Play True Day

Polling Day (Samoa)

Riot Grrl Day (Boston, Massachusetts)

Royal Thai Air Force Day (Thailand)

Seersucker Day

Sourdough Sam Day (San Francisco 49ers)

Special Forces Day

3-D Movie Day

Vimy Ridge Day (Canada)

Winston Churchill Day

World IoT Day

World Konkani Day (Goa)

Youth Homelessness Matters Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Black Beans and Rice Day

National Chinese Almond Cookie Day

National Gin & Tonic Day

National Pancit Day

National Pimento Cheese Day

2nd Tuesday in April

Be Kind to Lawyers Day [2nd Tuesday]

Identity Management Day [2nd Tuesday]

Independence & Related Days

Dita e Kushtetutes (Constitution Day; Kosovo)

Georgia (a.k.a. Independence Restoration Day; from USSR, 1991)

Mëcklewmburg-Wladir (Declared; 2021) [unrecognized]

New Year’s Days

Hindu New Year (Indonesia)

Ougadi (Mauritius)

Telugu New Year (Puducherry, Tamil Nadu; India)

Ugadi (a.k.a. Yugadi or Samvatsarādi (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Goa; India)

Festivals Beginning April 9, 2024

Brussels International Fantasy, Fantastic, Thriller and Science Fiction Film Festival (Brussels, Belgium) [thru 4.21]

Edinburgh Science Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland) [thru 4.24]

Food Northwest (Portland, Oregon) [thru 4.10]

Ice Cream Technology Conference (Clearwater, Florida) [thru 4.10]

Yogurt & Cultured Innovation Conference (Clearwater, Florida) [thru 4.10]

Feast Days

Amazon Goddess Day (Everyday Wicca)

Cereal Festival begins (Ancient Rome)

Charles Baudelaire (Writerism)

Charles E. Burchfield (Artology)

Cook Couscous Day (Pastafarian)

Day of the Amazon (Pagan)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Anglicanism, Lutheranism)

Dotto, Abbot of Orkney (Christian; Saint)

Eudoxus (Positivist; Saint)

Eupsychius (Christian; Saint)

Feast of A-Ma (Ancient Portuguese Goddess of Fisherman)

Feast of Jalal (Glory; Baha’i)

Feast of the Second Day of the Writing of the Book of the Law (Thelema)

Gaucherius (a.k.a. Gautier; Christian; Saint)

Hocktide (Ancient Saxons)

Hugh of Rouen (Christian; Saint)

Madrun (Celtic Book of Days)

Materiana (Christian; Saint)

Mary of Egypt (a.k.a. Mary of Cleophas; Christian; Saint)

Remembrance for Haakon Sigurdsson (Asatru/Norse/The Troth)

Tommy Georgiarides Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Uramar (Christian; Saint)

Verruca Day (Goblins Again; Shamanism)

Victor Vasarely (Artology)

Waltrude (Christian; Saint)

The Woodsman (Muppetism)

Yasurai Matsuri (Festival to Prevent Ill Health; Japan; Shinto)

Islamic Moveable Calendar Holidays

Eid al-Fitr (End of Ramadan; Islam; 30 Ramadan) (a.k.a. …

Eid al Fitr Holiday (Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, West Bank and Gaza, Yemen)

End of Ramadan Holiday (Egypt)

Ide el Fitr (Comoros)

id el Fitri (Nigeria)

Korité (Mali)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Nēmontēmi, Day 5 (of 5) [Aztec unlucky or fasting days, taking place between 4.5-4.18]

Taian (大安 Japan) [Lucky all day.]

Tycho Brahe Unlucky Day (Scandinavia) [15 of 37]

Premieres

All the President’s Men (Film; 1976)

Au Clair de la Lune, recorded by inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville (Song; 1860) [1st known recording of human voice]

Batman: Strange Days (WB Animated Film; 2014)

The Big Clock (Film; 1948)

Bodies, Rest & Motion (Film; 1993)

The Bored Cuckoo (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1948)

Date Night (Film; 2010)

The Day Lincoln Was Shot, by Jim Bishop (Book; 1955)

Ella Enchanted (Film; 2004)

Family Plot (Film; 1976)

Far Beyond Driven, by Pantera (Album; 1994)

Field and Scream (MGM Cartoon; 1955)

Fosse/Verdon (TV Mini-Series; 2019)

The Girl Next Door (Film; 2004)

Go (Film; 1999)

Happiness Is A Warm Puppy, by Charles M. Schulz (Cartoon Book; 1963)

How Do You Live?, by Genzaburo Yoshino (Novel; 1937)

Nashville Skyline, by Bob Dylan (Album; 1969)

Never Been Kissed (Film; 1999)

Nights in the Garden of Spain, by Manuel de Falla (Orchestral Work; 1916)

Parks and Recreation (TV Series; 2009)

Patriotic Pooches (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1943)

Reckoning, by R.E.M. (Album; 1984)

The Sandlot (Film; 1993)

Scarface (Film; 1932)

Single & Single, by John le Carré (Novel; 1999)

Time (West End Musical; 1986)

Voltaire in Love, by Nancy Mitford (Novel; 1958)

Today’s Name Days

Casilda, Waltraud (Austria)

Bozhan, Bozhana, Violeta, Vurban, Vurbana, Yasen, Yasna, Yavor, Zdravka, Zdravko (Bulgaria)

Celestina, Demetrije, Marija, Zdenko (Croatia)

Dušan (Czech Republic)

Otto, Procopius (Denmark)

Iiris, Kaira, Kaire, Kairi (Estonia)

Eeli, Eelis, Elia, Elias, Eliel, Eljas (Finland)

Gautier (France)

Casilda, Hugo, Waltraud (Germany)

Iosif, Sifis, Vaia, Vaios (Greece)

Erhard (Hungary)

Demetrio (Italy)

Valērija, Valtrauta, Varpa, Zubite (Latvia)

Aurimas, Dalia, Kleopas, Rasa (Lithuania)

Rannveig, Rønnaug (Norway)

Dobrosława, Dymitr, Maja, Marceli, Matron (Poland)

Eupsihie (Romania)

Milena (Slovakia)

Casilda, Demetrio (Spain)

Ottilia, Otto (Sweden)

Cortney, Courtney, Kortney, Kourtney (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 100 of 2024; 266 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 2 of week 15 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Fearn (Alder) [Day 24 of 28]

Chinese: Month 3 (Wu-Chen), Day 1 (Guy-Mao)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 1 Nisan 5784

Islamic: 30 Ramadan 1445

J Cal: 10 Cyan; Threesday [10 of 30]

Julian: 27 March 2024

Moon: 1%: Waxing Crescent

Positivist: 16 Archimedes (4th Month) [Pytheas]

Runic Half Month: Ehwaz (Horse) [Day 14 of 15]

Season: Spring (Day 22 of 92)

Week: 2nd Week of April

Zodiac: Aries (Day 20 of 31)

Calendar Changes

Nīsān (a.k.a. Abib) [נִיסָן‎] (Hebrew Calendar) [Month 1 of 12]

桃月 [Táoyuè] (Chinese Lunisolar Calendar) [Month 3 of 12] (Peach Month) [Earthly Branch: Dragon Month] (Sānyuè; Third Month)

[brookston]

Holidays 4.9

Holidays

Air Force Day (Indonesia)

All Over Again Day

A-ma Festival (a.k.a. Matsu; Pagan Macau) [Fishers, Sailors]

Anniversary of the German Invasion of Denmark (Denmark)

Appomattox Day

Araw ng Kagitingan (Day of Valor; Philippines)

Astronauts' Day

Baghdad Liberation Day (Iraqi Kurdistan)

Bataan Day (Araw ng Kagitingan a.k.a. Day of Valour; Philippines)

CSS Naked Day

Day of the Finnish Language (Finland)

Day of National Unity (Georgia)

Dry Milk Day

Easter Rising Anniversary Day (Ireland)

Free Cone Day

Hive Day (French Republic)

International Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) Day

International Songwriters Day

International Twitter Men’s Day

Jenkins' Ear Day

Jumbo Day

Liberation Day (Iraqi Kurdistan)

Listening Day

Maha Thingyan (Water Festival; Myanmar)

Maia Asteroid Day

Martyr’s Day (Tunisia)

Mikael Agricola (Finland)

Name Yourself Day

National Bodhi Day

National Cherish An Antique Day

National Chicken Little Awareness Day

National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day

National Health Day (Kiribati)

National Library Workers Day

National Mature Women’s Day

National Nuclear Technology Day (Iran)

National Unicorn Day

Observational of Nazi Occupation (Denmark)

Play True Day

Polling Day (Samoa)

Riot Grrl Day (Boston, Massachusetts)

Royal Thai Air Force Day (Thailand)

Seersucker Day

Sourdough Sam Day (San Francisco 49ers)

Special Forces Day

3-D Movie Day

Vimy Ridge Day (Canada)

Winston Churchill Day

World IoT Day

World Konkani Day (Goa)

Youth Homelessness Matters Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Black Beans and Rice Day

National Chinese Almond Cookie Day

National Gin & Tonic Day

National Pancit Day

National Pimento Cheese Day

2nd Tuesday in April

Be Kind to Lawyers Day [2nd Tuesday]

Identity Management Day [2nd Tuesday]

Independence & Related Days

Dita e Kushtetutes (Constitution Day; Kosovo)

Georgia (a.k.a. Independence Restoration Day; from USSR, 1991)

Mëcklewmburg-Wladir (Declared; 2021) [unrecognized]

New Year’s Days

Hindu New Year (Indonesia)

Ougadi (Mauritius)

Telugu New Year (Puducherry, Tamil Nadu; India)

Ugadi (a.k.a. Yugadi or Samvatsarādi (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Goa; India)

Festivals Beginning April 9, 2024

Brussels International Fantasy, Fantastic, Thriller and Science Fiction Film Festival (Brussels, Belgium) [thru 4.21]

Edinburgh Science Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland) [thru 4.24]

Food Northwest (Portland, Oregon) [thru 4.10]

Ice Cream Technology Conference (Clearwater, Florida) [thru 4.10]

Yogurt & Cultured Innovation Conference (Clearwater, Florida) [thru 4.10]

Feast Days

Amazon Goddess Day (Everyday Wicca)

Cereal Festival begins (Ancient Rome)

Charles Baudelaire (Writerism)

Charles E. Burchfield (Artology)

Cook Couscous Day (Pastafarian)

Day of the Amazon (Pagan)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Anglicanism, Lutheranism)

Dotto, Abbot of Orkney (Christian; Saint)

Eudoxus (Positivist; Saint)

Eupsychius (Christian; Saint)

Feast of A-Ma (Ancient Portuguese Goddess of Fisherman)

Feast of Jalal (Glory; Baha’i)

Feast of the Second Day of the Writing of the Book of the Law (Thelema)

Gaucherius (a.k.a. Gautier; Christian; Saint)

Hocktide (Ancient Saxons)

Hugh of Rouen (Christian; Saint)

Madrun (Celtic Book of Days)

Materiana (Christian; Saint)

Mary of Egypt (a.k.a. Mary of Cleophas; Christian; Saint)

Remembrance for Haakon Sigurdsson (Asatru/Norse/The Troth)

Tommy Georgiarides Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Uramar (Christian; Saint)

Verruca Day (Goblins Again; Shamanism)

Victor Vasarely (Artology)

Waltrude (Christian; Saint)

The Woodsman (Muppetism)

Yasurai Matsuri (Festival to Prevent Ill Health; Japan; Shinto)

Islamic Moveable Calendar Holidays

Eid al-Fitr (End of Ramadan; Islam; 30 Ramadan) (a.k.a. …

Eid al Fitr Holiday (Jordan, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, West Bank and Gaza, Yemen)

End of Ramadan Holiday (Egypt)

Ide el Fitr (Comoros)

id el Fitri (Nigeria)

Korité (Mali)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Nēmontēmi, Day 5 (of 5) [Aztec unlucky or fasting days, taking place between 4.5-4.18]

Taian (大安 Japan) [Lucky all day.]

Tycho Brahe Unlucky Day (Scandinavia) [15 of 37]

Premieres

All the President’s Men (Film; 1976)

Au Clair de la Lune, recorded by inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville (Song; 1860) [1st known recording of human voice]

Batman: Strange Days (WB Animated Film; 2014)

The Big Clock (Film; 1948)

Bodies, Rest & Motion (Film; 1993)

The Bored Cuckoo (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1948)

Date Night (Film; 2010)

The Day Lincoln Was Shot, by Jim Bishop (Book; 1955)

Ella Enchanted (Film; 2004)

Family Plot (Film; 1976)

Far Beyond Driven, by Pantera (Album; 1994)

Field and Scream (MGM Cartoon; 1955)

Fosse/Verdon (TV Mini-Series; 2019)

The Girl Next Door (Film; 2004)

Go (Film; 1999)

Happiness Is A Warm Puppy, by Charles M. Schulz (Cartoon Book; 1963)

How Do You Live?, by Genzaburo Yoshino (Novel; 1937)

Nashville Skyline, by Bob Dylan (Album; 1969)

Never Been Kissed (Film; 1999)

Nights in the Garden of Spain, by Manuel de Falla (Orchestral Work; 1916)

Parks and Recreation (TV Series; 2009)

Patriotic Pooches (Terrytoons Cartoon; 1943)

Reckoning, by R.E.M. (Album; 1984)

The Sandlot (Film; 1993)

Scarface (Film; 1932)

Single & Single, by John le Carré (Novel; 1999)

Time (West End Musical; 1986)

Voltaire in Love, by Nancy Mitford (Novel; 1958)

Today’s Name Days

Casilda, Waltraud (Austria)

Bozhan, Bozhana, Violeta, Vurban, Vurbana, Yasen, Yasna, Yavor, Zdravka, Zdravko (Bulgaria)

Celestina, Demetrije, Marija, Zdenko (Croatia)

Dušan (Czech Republic)

Otto, Procopius (Denmark)

Iiris, Kaira, Kaire, Kairi (Estonia)

Eeli, Eelis, Elia, Elias, Eliel, Eljas (Finland)

Gautier (France)

Casilda, Hugo, Waltraud (Germany)

Iosif, Sifis, Vaia, Vaios (Greece)

Erhard (Hungary)

Demetrio (Italy)

Valērija, Valtrauta, Varpa, Zubite (Latvia)

Aurimas, Dalia, Kleopas, Rasa (Lithuania)

Rannveig, Rønnaug (Norway)

Dobrosława, Dymitr, Maja, Marceli, Matron (Poland)

Eupsihie (Romania)

Milena (Slovakia)

Casilda, Demetrio (Spain)

Ottilia, Otto (Sweden)

Cortney, Courtney, Kortney, Kourtney (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 100 of 2024; 266 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 2 of week 15 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Fearn (Alder) [Day 24 of 28]

Chinese: Month 3 (Wu-Chen), Day 1 (Guy-Mao)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 1 Nisan 5784

Islamic: 30 Ramadan 1445

J Cal: 10 Cyan; Threesday [10 of 30]

Julian: 27 March 2024

Moon: 1%: Waxing Crescent

Positivist: 16 Archimedes (4th Month) [Pytheas]

Runic Half Month: Ehwaz (Horse) [Day 14 of 15]

Season: Spring (Day 22 of 92)

Week: 2nd Week of April

Zodiac: Aries (Day 20 of 31)

Calendar Changes

Nīsān (a.k.a. Abib) [נִיסָן‎] (Hebrew Calendar) [Month 1 of 12]

桃月 [Táoyuè] (Chinese Lunisolar Calendar) [Month 3 of 12] (Peach Month) [Earthly Branch: Dragon Month] (Sānyuè; Third Month)

[screechingkingdomhottub]

eating "healthy"

Sup so a lot of you youngings dont know what health truly is. Let me explain. Health is doing things that your body or mind is benefitted by. That's what it is. Here are some things that are commonly thought of as healthy but are actually unhealthy: - Fasting. No honey, that's starving yourself (unless for God or something but even then there's usually advice to be careful about it, as I understand it during Ramadan you don't fast if it's unsafe for you, which is a really important caveat, well done Islam! but I'm not muslim so pls dont take my word as fact) Eating is incredibly important and you shouldn't make yourself ill starving and causing yourself to lack nutrients for "health" - Cutting stuff out cold turkey. Unless it's like a super serious addiction, you should be able to ween yourself off of things, this is much healthier and less of a shock to the system.

-Smoking weed (cmon I know my branding haha), look I'll admit that some tests and personal anecdotes are concluding that CBD can be helpful in pain relief and sleep. However, smoking a mind altering substance may not be incredibly healthy due to the smoking part. Mind altering can also mess with people's mental healths sometimes and cause you to have panic attacks or similar, but that's not everyone's experience. Wow how nuanced damn I'm growing up...Weed bad! dont do it! hate everyone that does it! yknow i just dont have the energy to have that kinda hate anymore like i just got so much love now it's actually so weird. It does have side effects and it's tiring defending that it can be bad but I think the general opinion is beginning to realise people just wanna get high and I'm realising I'm salty cause I'm an alcoholic. I'm sober but like damn I wish I could have fun. Anyway that brings me to: - Red wine. "Red wine is good for your cholesterol". Anyone saying that does not know what a cholesterol is. It's when too much of a fatty substance is in your blood. Alcohol has so many risks and especially wine which hits you slower and tastes like juice (this is from a guy who downed bottles of wine in 5 minutes...it's so easy and so dangerous) , alternatives are: nuts and oily fish mainly. Have some fruit and veg. So all health is a lie? Not exactly, you can be healthy but like here's some things on the flip side. Things people think are unhealthy but are healthy.

Laziness. Be Lazy Sometimes. 99.9% of the time, people want a lazy day to have a day of rest. They're overworking themselves. Doing a thing every day is great and admirable but if your brain is dying then it isn't worth that one leg day. You can skip leg day today. <3

Fat. So much fat food. Here's the deal, some fat food is good for you. There's literally a thing called good fats. Unsaturated fats are the good ones: nuts and fish. Also a little bit of "bad" fat is good because fat itself gives you vitamins such as Vitamin A, Vitamin D and vitamin E. A helps your vision and defend against illness. D helps your bones, your mood and your immunity. (love vitamin D, take the supplements if you live in the UK they change your life mate) and Vitamin E helps healthy skin and eyes. Trust me, you'd rather have a lower risk of skin cancer than a little bit of a belly.

Sugar. Having a little bit of desert or pudding is not going to kill you. What people mean is they don't want you to eat nothing but sugar and get tooth decay.

Gaining weight. OH YEAH IM COMING FOR THIS ONE. So for the record, I'm a very low stakes body builder now. I have gained about 10kg of muscle in the past year (my god that's an unbelievable amount) and the way people in the scene treat their bodies is insane. People assume we're all healthy but it's horrible to put your body through the bulking and cutting like your kidneys can't keep up with the protein and your stomach is confused trying to digest it all and your poor intestines too. Just cause someone looks super muscly doesn't mean they are. Gaining weight isn't always bad, sometimes people desperately need to. Also if you've previously not been eating enough then your stomach will think you're overeating when you're eating normally. This eventually passes as your body adjusts but gaining weight at this point means you're eating enough and your brain will be fully prepared to function. This is something I see particularly common with people recovering from EDs. They get scared to see they're gaining weight and think they're eating too much but it's really just their body needing to adjust to the correct amount. Also you need to eat to get nutrients, important ones especially.

If this is useful pls let me know. If it's not useful...fuck you

[itslilacokay]

Continuation here, please continue to check out the gofundme and their blogs!!

additional note: i will gradually be adding newer campaign asks so expect this to be updated frequently!

>VETTED CAMPAIGNS

@noor678's campaign post

$3,560 USD/$25,000

@hassanmadi2's campaign post

€1,782/€50,000

@yosef-hussin's campaign post

$12,727 USD/$50,000

@haithem-2's campaign post

kr8,781 NOK/kr200,000

@ahlamramadan's campaign post

€630/€20,000

@mohmoud-j's campaign post

$16,845 USD/$60,000

>UNVETTED CAMPAIGNS AS OF [9/28/24], BUT ARE DONATION PROTECTED AND REVERSE IMAGE SEARCHES ARE CLEAN

@majedalgherbawi's campaign post

$6,100 USD/$70,000

@mohammad-sd's campaign post

€425/€20,000

@amanyayyad11's campaign post

€404/€50,000

@d-lmthael's campaign post

€6,772/€50,000

Hello!

It seems I gained a lot of campaign asks in the timeframe I was asleep, I dont know how you find me but I digress. I appreciate you for reaching out to me to help spread your campaigns!

To answer all of them at once, I decided I would link all their campaigns here

PLEASE DONATE IF YOU CAN, any amount will do as it helps financially support the campaigns either way!!

If you are unable to support financially, that's okay! I'm with you BUT we still have to do our part to support them, so REBLOGGING THIS POST OR THE POSTS IN EACH ONE OF THEIR BLOGS can work too as it also helps support them by spreading their word around so it reaches more people!

IMPORTANT NOTE that the fund statuses are based off [9/28/24] and are prone to change later, but still donate as much as you are able to!

now without further ado, please visit the campaigns/blogs listed below:

>VETTED CAMPAIGNS

@supportgaza's campaign post

€31,452/€55,000

@sameer-gaza1's campaign post

$6,138 USD/$50,000

@ahmedomar3's campaign post

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@maysaayahya85's campaign post

€751/€35,000

@mahmoidsy's campaign post

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@ahmad-syam's campaign post

$5,490 CAD/$40,000

@hayanahed's campaign post

€89,966/€100,000

@hadiasuudb's campaign post

kr1,551 SEK/kr250,000

@shahdgaza3's campaign post

$1,197 USD/$20,000

@samirafamily's campaign post

$1,934 USD/$20,000

[nazarbabe]

You know why.

[herecomesremi]

Larshen here, but in a traditional Emirati style! Thanks to Areath’s and Anne’s lovely illustrations, I got motivated to do mine :D

In this scenario it’s Eid Al Fitr (the one that comes directly after Ramadan), and both Rhen and Lars (they’re newlyweds here) are getting ready to visit their families and loved ones.

I’ll start with what Lars is wearing since it’s less than what Rhen has on her since she’s covered from head to toe oop-

As you can see, the white clothing he’s wearing is called Kandora, which is usually made out of cotton. The white ornament dangling from his neck is a Farukha. Similarly his headscarf? turban (I have no idea what you call it in English) is called Ghutra. Sometimes the Ghutra is wrapped around the Ugal which is a black headband. He’s holding an incense burner (Mibkhara) that has, well, an incense with a nice aroma and putting it near her hair so it also has a similar scent.

Rhen is wearing a Mukhawar, another traditional clothing that usually has beautiful patterns on it and is usually made out of cotton too but can also be silk or other material. At the top of the dress and the bottom of the sleeves are usually embroidered with all different kinds of designs. Her arms and probably her legs are covered with henna designs, and these usually last around two weeks. She’s also wearing the traditional gold jewelry which Lars probably gifted her.

Activities that Rhen and Lars would likely participate in during Eid: - Trying out delicious food: Rhen would definitley love desserts such as Luqaimat (fried dough balls topped with date syrup and sprinkled sesame at top) while Lars would be into the main meal, Biryani (rice mixed with several spices usually served with meat or chicken).

- Visiting relatives: You know, just Rhen and Lars visiting their in laws and relatives. It was awkward at the beginning when they were at Rona’s place but Lars made sure to break the ice between them (he wasn’t successful). On the contrary, Rhen’s relatives were very welcoming towards the couple.

- Playing with fireworks at the end of the day ayyyeee

- Receiving money from adults

[bunnie-the-lighthouse]

𝐼’𝓂 𝒴𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝐵𝑜𝓎𝒻𝓇𝒾𝑒𝓃𝒹?..

Pairing: ATEEZ Song Min-Gi & Reader.

Warnings: There’s Mild Bullying (In My Opinion).

Inspiration: Sleep Deprivation. 

Basic Idea: Android Boyfriend, Bully Tries To Demotivate You, Boyfriend To The Rescue. 

Type: Fluff 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Today was yet another day of waiting. You stared at your computer screen, your pointer right above the “Cancel Order” button. You had been waiting for weeks now. And yet, your package hasn’t arrived yet.

What was in the package? Well, let’s reel it back a few weeks ago. You were chatting with your friend on KakaoTalk, and that is when you learned about “boydroid.com”, a website where you could build your preferred boyfriend.

As the name suggested, yes, it was an android. You were basically creating a robot to match your preferences. The best part was the fact that it wasn’t as expensive as you thought. And so you built your own boyfriend and just waited for him to arrive.

It has been a good four weeks since you’ve done that and now you were tempted to cancel your order as you felt like it was a hoax. And just as you were going to click on the button, your doorbell rang.

You booked it, you ran to the entrance so fast that you surprised yourself. You then calmed yourself down and opened the door, to see a tall man. Around six feet you’d say.

His smile was so cute that you almost fainted -- he looked like a huge teddy bear! “Hi _____,” he waved as you felt your cheeks get heated. He was so tall too, you couldn’t help but just stare at his toothy smile -- his bubbly aura making you feel warm.

Composing yourself, you cleared your throat, “W-Who are you?” you asked as he then pouted, making you feel guilty. “I’m your boyfriend Min-Gi?..” he trailed off while looking at you with a soft frown.

“Oh my, oh my-- My heart,” you squealed as you then hugged him tightly, his arms wrapping around your waist as well. As he laughed at your reaction, you temporarily forgot that he wasn’t human. “Wait.. So you are the boyfriend?” you asked, rather weirdly as Min-Gi nodded.

“Yes, I am your boyfriend, _____,” he repeated again with the same bright smile as you then smiled back, “Come in,” you urged as he did so, stepping into your small and cozy abode. It wasn’t the most expensive or the biggest apartment, but it was definitely enough for you and possibly another person.

However, you then realized how he had no extra clothes -- so you guys went shopping. Min-Gi insisted on holding your hand, as you had actually selected that you wanted a soft boyfriend that would want to show PDA through hugs, small kisses, and by holding hands.

You entered a shop, one that you were sure Min-Gi was going to like. After all, you knew his fashion style already. “Hmm, _____? How do I look?” he asked while wearing a light pink knitted sweater and jeans.

Nodding, you gave him a thumbs up as he gave you a quick smile and left to change back to what he was originally wearing. However, while waiting, a girl that you absolutely loathe came. It was your University Bully, a girl that was jealous of your brains and personality.

“Isn’t it the forever alone girl?” she laughed as her friends followed her lead. You huffed, ignoring them as you were waiting for Min-Gi to come out. “Hey! Listen to me while I’m speaking,” she yelled at you as some of the other clients were starting to stare.

You once again, ignored her, not wanting to give her what she wanted. She then turned you around forcefully, ready to scream at your face again. 

That is until someone grabbed your arm, pulling you behind them.

“Min-Gi?..” you whisper out as he was now in front of you, looking down at the girl that would bully you. “Please refrain from making a scene,” he said with a serious tone, shocking you as you didn’t expect him to suddenly become this protective.

Granted, you did place that you wanted him to be protective in certain situations, but you didn’t expect him to be that serious.

“And who are you?~” she cooed, switching expressions horrendously fast that you cringed. Min-Gi stayed emotionless and turned around to look at your face. He then smiled brightly at you, shocking you and the bullies.

“Shall we go now? _____?” he asked as you then realized how he was the only one that would understand you fully. You then gave him a soft smile, hugging him tightly as, although he would predict your actions, was shocked.

“Sure, Min-Gi-Ah,” you giggled while grabbing the clothes that he was going to buy. “Let’s go pay, do you want to eat anything?” you asked, completely forgetting that your bully was still there.

“Can we have steak? Oh, and after that, can we go to a park or lake? I want to enjoy the cool breeze with you, sitting on the lawn and just enjoy some time with you~”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hi everyone, Bunnie here. 

I am so sorry for releasing this post so late -- I lost track of time and had a packed afternoon. 

This was originally going to be a Yun-Ho imagine, but I changed my mind and decided to change it to Min-Gi instead! (I miss him T_T).

Anywho, I hope you guys still enjoy it!~

Also, it came to my attention that Ramadan is beginning! I wish the best of luck to all of you! You guys can do it!! :D

Please stay safe and healthy! Take breaks -- take it one day at a time. 

Don’t forget that you can send me requests! My inbox is open for y’all!

Once again, thank y’all for the support, stay safe and happy! 

See y’all next time!~

[baebeyza]

RAMADAN BEGINS! <3

And because I did a Megatron Advent Calendar in December, I decided to to a Ramadan Calendar with Ultra Magnus :D ~

Why him? Because he is my second fave and because I like to imagine him as muslim 🥰 So same story, one night, one Ultra Magnus themed drawing, enjoy ~

If you have a drawing request for this event, you may send it in with an ask!

[skamesptranslations]

TRANSCRIPT

SEASON 4 EPISODE 2 CLIP 9 - I DON’T HAVE MY HEADSCARF ON

18 APRIL SATURDAY 11:32

Mom: I told you I would take care of this. And also, it’s not worth it. 

A: But it’s worth it, mum. Why don’t you wanna call the lawyer?

Mum: I don’t wanna have problems at work

[Dani text: heeeeeeey can you speak?]

Mum: *in Arabic* talk to her cause I can’t with her.

Dad: *in Arabic* your mother is right, it’s not worth it.

A: What do you mean it’s notworth it? No one can force her to take her headscarf off, the same as no one can force nobody to take the cross necklace off. This is the same thing, it’s the same thing.

Mum: Come on, Amira, having a headscarf on doesn’t make you a better or a worse Muslim. 

A: I know, I know, but it’s not that. It’s only that no one can force you to take it off.

Mum: And you can’t force me to leave it on! *in Arabic* I’ve decided, I’m not gonna wear it at work anymore. 

A: But… You haven’t decided that. They told you at work “take off your headscarf”, and you, really obedient, what have you done? Take it off.

Mum: That’s it, done! I’m not gonna get fired because of this. 

A: Mum, I told you a million times that you can’t get fired because of that, they can’t get you fired because of that, mum. 

Mum: They wouldn’t do it! But they would find any motive to fire me. And also, you don’t understand these things.

A: Yes, I understand it. I understand it perfectly. The thing is… you’re cowards.

Dad: *in Arabic* Amira, respect your mother.

A: It’s true, it’s true. The other day in the restaurant, they charged us wrong and what did you do? Nothing. You stayed quiet, with the head low, in case they would look at us or something, like “there go the moors again, making a fuss”

Mum: Stop, don’t bring this topic again!

A: Mum, the thing is… it angers me, and I don’t understand why it doesn’t anger up too. Like… like, we aren’t second-class citizens, we are like the others, we have the same rights.

Dad: Amira, stop it, safia*, now!

A: Now you’re protesting, huh? Now you protest.

Dad: *in Arabic* I don’t know what I’m gonna do with this kid…

Mum: *in Arabic* She’s so annoying!

*Amira’s memories*

Dad: Amira, stop it, safia, now!

Cris: Do you hate me a lot?

*Amira writing in a notebook*

Ramadan 2020

-Don’t fight with my parents

-Pray in time

-Restrain my bad temper.

-DON’T LIE

-Be patient

-Forgive

[Group chat texts:

C: We meet up at 9?

E: Better at half past.

V: They’ve opened up a really cheap shots place 

E: Ole, we’re gonna get wasted!

N: Drunkard

V: We are almost 30 in the trip chat

A: Great!!!

C: Amy are you coming?

A: No. I’m staying home.]

*muffled*

Mum: Hello

Dani: Hello, what’s up?

Mum: What about your parents, how are they?

Dani: Great, like always. Is Amira home?

Mum: Yes, she’s in her bedroom.

Dani: Thanks. Hey, Moustafa! How are you?

Dad: Hello, Dani, how are you?

Dani: Good, good, look at me, i’m looking fine.

Mum: Amira! Daniel has come to see you!

D: Amy, can I come in?

A: No, no, I don’t have my headscarf on.

D: Okay, okay. Hey, my sister told me that they mugged you the other day, I’m really sorry, really. I understand that you’re mad, but fuck, you went away without saying anything, okay? If you would’ve asked, I would’ve told you without any problem. 

A: Yeah, sure.

D: What?

A: Nothing. 

D: What’s up?

A: Nothing, nothing’s wrong.

D: Fuck, something’s up.

A: No, dude, I’m fine, that’s it.

D: I don’t believe you.

A: Well, don’t believe me then.

D: Hey, I’m not gonna leave until you tell me what’s up with you…

A: Okay, okay, it’s just, I saw you at the party making out with Eva and it fucked me up, and that’s it, I prefer not to see you. Go away, please. 

A: Are you still there?

D: Yes. The thing is… I’m thinking about what to say. 

A: Don’t say anything, go away, and that’s it.

D: But I don’t want to go away. I… Let’s see… I’ll start at the beginning, okay? When you asked me to train the kids I accepted immediately cause… I would see you more that way. I was sure that you didn’t care about me, that’s why I never told you anything. Fuck, I conformed just seeing you every week and spending some time together. Amira, I don’t know if it’s since a year ago or two, I lost track. But I like you. For a while. 

[Zina - Babylone]

*”stop it” in Arabic.

[dailytafsirofquran]

Tafsir Ibn Kathir: Surah Al-Baqarah Ayah 187

Part 2

187. It is made lawful for you to have sexual relations with your wives on the night of As-Siyam (fasting). They are Libas (i.e., body-cover, or screen) for you and you are Libas for them. Allah knows that you used to deceive yourselves, so He turned to you (accepted your repentance) and forgave you. So now have sexual relations with them and seek that which Allah has ordained for you (offspring), and eat and drink until the white thread (light) of dawn appears to you distinct from the black thread (darkness of night), then complete your fast till the nightfall. And do not have sexual relations with them (your wives) while you are in Itikaf in the Masjids. These are the limits (set) by Allah, so approach them not. Thus does Allah make clear His Ayat to mankind that they may acquire Taqwa.

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

There is no Harm in beginning the Fast while Junub (a state of major ritual impurity) Issue:

Among the benefits of allowing sexual activity, eating and drinking until dawn for those who are fasting, is that it is allowed to start the fast while Junub (in the state of impurity after sexual discharge), and there is no harm in this case if one takes a bath any time in the morning after waking up, and completes the fast.

This is the opinion of the Four Imams and the majority of the scholars.

Al-Bukhari and Muslim recorded that Aishah and Umm Salamah said that; Allah's Messenger used to wake up while Junub from sexual intercourse, not wet dreams, and he would take a bath and fast.

Umm Salamah added that he would not break his fast or make up for that day.

Muslim recorded that Aishah said that a man asked:

"O Messenger of Allah! The (Dawn) prayer time starts while I am Junub, should I fast?''

Allah's Messenger replied, And I, the prayer time starts while I am Junub and I fast.

He said, "You are not like us, O Messenger of Allah! Allah has forgiven your previous and latter sins.''

Allah's Messenger said:

By Allah! I hope that I have the most fear from Allah among you and the best knowledge of what Taqwa is.

Fasting ends at Sunset

Allah said: ...then complete your fast till the nightfall.

This Ayah orders breaking the fast at sunset. It is recorded in the Two Sahihs that Umar bin Al-Khattab said that Allah's Messenger said:

If the night comes from this direction (the east), and the day departs from that direction (the west), then the fasting person breaks his fast.

It is reported that Sahl bin Sa`d As-Sa`idi narrated that Allah's Messenger said:

The people will retain goodness as long as they hasten in breaking the fast.

Imam Ahmad recorded that Abu Hurayrah narrated that the Prophet said:

Allah the Exalted said, `the dearest among My servants to Me are those who hasten in breaking the fast the most.'

At-Tirmidhi recorded this Hadith and said that this Hadith is Hasan Gharib.

Prohibition of Uninterrupted Fasting (Wisal)

There are several authentic Hadiths that prohibit Al-Wisal, which means continuing the fast through the night to the next night, without eating.

Imam Ahmad recorded Abu Hurayrah saying that Allah's Messenger said: Do not practice Al-Wisal in fasting.

So, they said to him, "But you practice Al-Wisal, O Allah's Messenger!''

The Prophet replied,

"I am not like you, I am given food and drink during my sleep by my Lord."

So, when the people refused to stop Al-Wisal, the Prophet fasted two days and two nights (along with those who practiced Wisal) and then they saw the crescent moon (of the month of Shawwal). The Prophet said to them (angrily):

If the crescent had not appeared, I would have made you fast for a longer period. That was as a punishment for them (when they refused to stop practicing Al-Wisal).

This Hadith is also recorded in the Sahihayn. The prohibition of Al-Wisal was also mentioned in a number of other narrations. It is a fact that practicing Al-Wisal was one of the special qualities of the Prophet, for he was capable and assisted in his practice of it. It is obvious that the food and drink that the Prophet used to get while practicing Al-Wisal was spiritual and not material, otherwise he would not be practicing Al-Wisal.

We should mention that it is allowed to refrain from breaking the fast from sunset until before dawn (Suhur).

A Hadith narrated by Abu Sa`id Khudri states that Allah's Messenger said:

Do not practice Al-Wisal, but whoever wishes is allowed to practice it until the Suhur.

They said, "You practice Al-Wisal, O Messenger of Allah!''

He said:

I am not similar to you, for I have One Who makes me eat and drink during the night.

This Hadith is also collected in the Two Sahihs.

The Rulings of Itikaf

Allah said:

And do not have sexual relations with them (your wives) while you are in Itikaf in the Masjids.

Ali bin Abu Talhah reported that Ibn Abbas said,

"This Ayah is about the man who stays in Itikaf at the mosque during Ramadan or other months, Allah prohibited him from touching (having sexual intercourse with) women, during the night or day, until he finishes his Itikaf.''

Ad-Dahhak said,

"Formerly, the man who practiced Itikaf would go out of the mosque and, if he wished, would have sexual intercourse (with his wife). Allah then said: (And do not have sexual relations with them (your wives) while you are in Itikaf in the Masjids. meaning, `Do not touch your wives as long as you are in Itikaf, whether you were in the mosque or outside of it'.''

It is also the opinion of Mujahid, Qatadah and several other scholars, that; the Muslims used to have sexual intercourse with the wife while in Itikaf if they departed the mosque until the Ayah was revealed.

Ibn Abu Hatim commented, "It was reported that Ibn Mas`ud, Muhammad bin Ka`b, Mujahid, Ata Al-Hasan, Qatadah, Ad-Dahhak, As-Suddi, Ar-Rabi bin Anas and Muqatil said that the Ayah means, `Do not touch the wife while in Itikaf.'''

What Ibn Abu Hatim reported from these people is the agreed upon practice among the scholars.

Those who are in Itikaf are not allowed to have sexual intercourse as long as they are still in Itikaf in the mosque. If one has to leave the mosque to attend to a need, such as to relieve the call of nature or to eat, he is not allowed to kiss or embrace his wife or to busy himself with other than his Itikaf. He is not even allowed to visit ailing persons, but he can merely ask about their condition while passing by.

Itikaf has several other rulings that are explained in the books (of Fiqh), and we have mentioned several of these rulings at the end of our book on Siyam (Fasting), all praise is due to Allah.

Furthermore, the scholars of Fiqh used to follow their explanation of the rules for fasting with the explanation of the rules for Itikaf, as this is the way these acts of worship were mentioned in the Qur'an.

By mentioning Itikaf after fasting, Allah draws attention to practicing Itikaf during the month of the fast, especially the last part of the month. The Sunnah of Allah's Messenger is that he used to perform Itikaf during the last ten nights of the month of Ramadan until he died.

Afterwards, the Prophet's wives used to perform Itikaf as the Two Sahihs recorded from Aishah the Mother of the believers.

It is reported in the Two Sahihs that; Safiyyah, the daughter of Huyai, went to Allah's Messenger to visit him in the mosque while he was in Itikaf.

She had a talk with him for a while, then she got up in order to return home. The Prophet accompanied her back home, as it was night. Her house was at Usamah bin Zayd's house on the edge of Al-Madinah.

While they were walking, two Ansari men met them and passed by them in a hurry, for they were shy to bother the Prophet while he was walking with his wife. He told them: Do not run away! She is (my wife) Safiyyah bint Huyai.

Both of them said, "All praise is due to Allah, How we dare think of any evil? O Allah's Messenger!''

The Prophet said (to them): Shaytan reaches everywhere in the human body, that the blood reaches. I was afraid lest Shaytan might suggest an evil thought in your minds.

Imam Ash-Shafii commented,

"Allah's Messenger sought to teach his Ummah to instantly eliminate any evil thought, so that they do not fall into the prohibited. They (the two Ansari men) had more fear of Allah than to think evil of the Prophet. Allah knows best.''

The Ayah (2:187) prohibits sexual intercourse and anything like kissing or embracing that might lead to it during Itikaf. As for having the wife helping the husband, it is allowed.

It is reported in the Two Sahihs that Aishah said,

"Allah's Messenger would bring his head near me (in her room) and I would comb his hair, while I was on my menses. He would enter the room only to attend to what a man needs.''

Allah's statement:

These are the limits (set) by Allah, means, `This is what We have explained, ordained, specified, allowed and prohibited for fasting. We also mentioned the fast's objectives, what is permitted during it, and what is required of it. These are the set limits that Allah has legislated and explained, so do not come near them or transgress them.' so approach them not.

Abdur-Rahman bin Zayd bin Aslam said, "Allah's set limits mentioned in the Ayah mean these four limits (and he then recited): (It is made lawful for you to have sexual relations with your wives on the night of As-Siyam (fasting).) and he recited up to: (then complete your Sawm (fast) till the nightfall). My father and other are used to say similarly and recite the same Ayah to us.''

Allah said:

Thus does Allah make clear His Ayat to mankind, meaning, `Just as He explains the fast and its rulings, He also explains the other rulings by the words of His servant and Messenger, Muhammad.'

Allah continues: to mankind that they may attain Taqwa.

meaning, `So that they know how to acquire the true guidance and how to worship (Allah).'

Similarly, Allah said:

It is He Who sends down manifest Ayat to His servant (Muhammad) that He may bring you out from (types of) darkness into the light. And verily, Allah is to you full of kindness, Most Merciful. (57:9)

[theworldbrewery]

how to build a holiday in D&D

modern holidays can pretty much break down into a couple different kinds of celebrations: religious, time-of-year, and ‘moral holidays.’ historically, a holiday might actually be several of these---modern Halloween is a moral holiday, a break from normal standards of behavior, but in its origins it was also a date of religious significance.

In D&D, we tend to put a lot more effort into non-denominational “time-of-year” holidays---popular tropes include harvest festivals, midsummer and midwinter celebrations, and the new year. Sometimes there are gods involved (like a goddess of agriculture being celebrated at the harvest) and sometimes not.

In my own campaign, a religious festival of Cyric, god of lies, would also be considered a ‘moral holiday’ where chaos and revelry is the rule and daily social norms go out the window. For Ilmater, god of martyrs and suffering, there are no moral holidays, but there are several ‘feast days’ of Ilmater’s Anointed where the day is spent in reverence for their sacrifices. Full moons are ‘time of year’ celebrations of Selûne, while a more non-denominational celebration might be the end of rockslide season in the Jaws of the Sphinx mountain range or the beginning of the autumn floods in the Marsh of the Petrified.

When you’re building a customized holiday for your own campaign, I encourage you to think outside the boxes we created for modern holidays, without forgetting why people celebrate. In the categories above, we celebrate to mark the passage of time, to honor our religions and be close to family, and to escape the drudgery of everyday life and let loose! Consider what is appropriate for your campaign world.

Furthermore, I recommend thinking about what changes from culture to culture. Maybe the lizardfolk have a holiday after the first frost because it signals their seasonal migration to a warmer climate. Perhaps humans from one part of the world celebrate the end of Dragonstide with reenactments of an epic battle, while in another region they bake elaborate pastries shaped like towers guarded by a scaled foe. (I don’t know what Dragonstide is, but I want to go now.)  

More detailed suggestions below the cut:

question one: who is celebrating?

question two: why are they celebrating?

question three: where does it happen?

question four: when does it happen?

question five: what do you eat on this holiday? (food is always a big feature, but it might be ‘we eat a lot of normal food’ or ‘we eat Special Food’ or even ‘we don’t eat at all’)

question six: what traditions might you participate in on this holiday? (in the real world, we kiss on New Years, put out shoes on St. Nicholas’s feast day, fast during Ramadan, etc.)

question seven: how does this holiday look different to different groups? (might be celebrated differently in different communities, or maybe a festival celebrating warriors is interpreted as a violent bacchanal by the group’s enemies)

For an example:

In WORLD X, the elven people celebrate the astral calendar date when the dead pass on from the ethereal plane to Arvanaith, the land of the elven dead in the outer planes, from which they will be reincarnated. The celebrations take place in large community gathering spaces or family homes, depending on the size of the elven group. The elves drink bubbly liquors and eat flaky pastries fried in oil, and paint calligraphied portraits of those who have died since the last celebration and have a bonfire to light the path to Arvanaith. Half-elves who celebrate this festival sometimes honor the non-elven dead, which is met with disgust, irritation, or confused support by full elves. It’s a religious-esque holiday, but without a specific god, with some flavor of time-of-year because the date is determined by astrology and marks a new ‘era’.