Shaykh Salman’s reprimand of Bin Laden October 8th, 2007

Sheikh Salman b. Fahd al-Oadah, the general supervisor of IslamToday.net, delivered the following address to Osama bin Laden live on NBC television on 14 September, 2007, which corresponds to the second day of Ramadan in Saudi Arabia:

Brother Osama:

How much blood has been spilled? How many innocent children, women, and old people have been killed, maimed, and expelled from their homes in the name of “al-Qaeda”?

Are you happy to meet Allah with this heavy burden on your shoulders? It is a weighty burden indeed – at least hundreds of thousands of innocent people, if not millions.

How could you wish for that? – after knowing that Allah’s Messenger said: “Whoever as much as kills a sparrow in vain will find it crying before Allah on the Day of Judgment: ‘My Lord! That person killed me in vain. He did not kill me for needful sustenance.”

This religion of ours comes to defense of the life of a sparrow. It can never accept the murder of innocent people, regardless of what supposed justification is given for it.

Didn’t you read where the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “One of the prophets once sat under a tree and was bitten by an ant. Because of this, he burnt the ant’s nest. Thereupon, Allah inspired to him: ‘Why not only the one ant?’ ” [Sahîh Muslim]

Allah revealed to that prophet: “What? Just because one ant had bitten you, you have set fire to an entire nation that extols Allah’s glory!” [Sahîh Muslim (2241)]

If this is the case for a nest of ants, consider how much worse it must be to visit harm upon human beings.

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Dr. Wan Azhar bin Wan Ahmad: Malaysian Common Law September 19th, 2007

The Star, 18/09/2007

The Chief Justice of Malaysia, YAA Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim, in his officiating speech at IKIM’s seminar surrounding ‘Ahmad Ibrahim: His Intellectual Thought and Contributions’ last August, expressed his disappointment over the captive mentality of our legal experts, practitioners, judges and lawyers in reference to the high esteem the aforementioned accord English law, or to be more specific, English Common Law (ECL).

He regrettably noted that despite the fact that our nation has been independent for fifty years now, we still retain, follow and rigidly adhere to s. 3 and 5 of the Civil Law Act 1956 (CLA). The provisions of these two sections prescribe the complete application of ECL for the entire nation.

In reality, many tend to interpret these sections as if we are duty bound to refer to English Law in case of lacuna in our own law. In relation to this, Tun Ahmad Fairuz posits four important questions for us to ponder, particularly by the legal fraternity: (i) Does this condition reflect that this country is bereft of legal expertise? (ii) Does it mean that English Common Law is the best option? (iii) Does it mean that our legal experts are still shackled by the yoke of the colonials (di bawah tempurung penjajah)? (iv) Is it true that our legal scholars are impotent, in other words unable to formulate and develop a legal system better in comparison with ECL? He has called for the Common Law of England to be replaced by our very own common law.

The CJ’s remarks were reported in local dailies nationwide. Amazingly, many commented positively, including some political leaders. But, there were also voices of discontent from certain quarters describing the call to replace ECL as “baseless”.

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A mathematical breakthrough 500 years earlier than Western scholars August 16th, 2007

Islam is the most superior of all religions in the world today, and truly the Muslims are the ummatan wasatan of world civilisation. Do not let anyone allow you to think otherwise. When we are greeted with such news, Muslims reply with the phrase “Alhamdulillah!” in praise of Almighty Allah and “Subhanallah!” in acknowledgement of Him.

Takbir! Allahu Akbar!

A mathematical breakthrough 500 years earlier than Western scholars
By Will Dunham 2 hours, 16 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Magnificently sophisticated geometric patterns in medieval Islamic architecture indicate their designers achieved a mathematical breakthrough 500 years earlier than Western scholars, scientists said on Thursday.

By the 15th century, decorative tile patterns on these masterpieces of Islamic architecture reached such complexity that a small number boasted what seem to be “quasicrystalline” designs, Harvard University’s Peter Lu and Princeton University’s Paul Steinhardt wrote in the journal Science.

Only in the 1970s did British mathematician and cosmologist Roger Penrose become the first to describe these geometric designs in the West. Quasicrystalline patterns comprise a set of interlocking units whose pattern never repeats, even when extended infinitely in all directions, and possess a special form of symmetry.

“Oh, it’s absolutely stunning,” Lu said in an interview. “They made tilings that reflect mathematics that were so sophisticated that we didn’t figure it out until the last 20 or 30 years.”

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Tun Haniff Omar: Bury those grouses August 1st, 2007

The Star

When land becomes an increasingly rare commodity in major cities, it’s not just non-Muslims who have difficulty in getting permission for building their places of worship or for burial grounds.

WE went through 18 holes of golf last weekend – and right through I was almost overwhelmed by the deafening sound of silence. Not so long ago, it was the hottest topic in town but last weekend my three playing partners did not utter a single word about the Altantuya murder trial. Why?

I asked some other friends soon after. Apparently, they are also not so glued to the ongoing trial any more because “we already have the postscript ready and are just waiting for the verdict so that we can append our postscript”.

What have been more on my non-Malay friends’ mind were the questions of religious freedom and the New Economic Policy. At first, there were the couple of activist friends who would e-mail to me every shred of literature produced by anyone who showed the Muslims and the Malays as being unreasonable on these two issues. Then I started to get direct questions on these issues from friends and even relative strangers with whom I sat down. How do I answer these questions in a plausible way? This time I will stick only to the first issue.

Article 11 of our Federal Constitution is often brought up and cases like Lina Joy’s are brought up to prove the lack of freedom to profess, practise and propagate one’s religion. My view is that we have as complete a freedom as is envisaged by Article 11 which, by the way, does not give absolute freedom in every sense. Clause 4 of Article 11, for instance, restricts the propagation of any religious belief among Muslims. Thus, adherents of other religions who evangelise, openly or secretly, among Muslims fall foul of this stricture. But what the punishment is for doing so I do not know, as my limited interest in this field in the past has not brought me to discover any Act of Parliament covering this. Perhaps someone knowledgeable will enlighten us in time.

I am not aware of any lay authority or Muslim religious affairs department interfering with the way Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, etc, practise their religion unless such practices infringe any general law relating to public order, public health or public morality. This limitation under Clause 5, Article 11, equally applies to Muslims!

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