Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Wednesday announced it was giving $20 million in direct aid to the Palestinian Authority to help it through a financial crisis. A senior Bush administration official said it hoped the aid would encourage additional donations from other countries "at a time when the Palestinian Authority is in desperate need of budget support to pay its bills, maintain stability and allow it to focus on the larger question of governing." The Palestinian Authority is facing a severe financial crisis due to falling tax revenues during four years of violence which has paralyzed the Palestinian...

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Countering a surge in anti-Islamic bigotry requires urgent action by Muslims as well as non-Muslims, governments, the media and educators, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday. Muslims must condemn and isolate extremists who target and kill civilians in the name of their religion and governments must make good on commitments to protect Muslims from discrimination, Annan told a seminar on Islam and intolerance at U.N. headquarters. At the same time, others must recognize that anti-Western feelings of some Muslims have been fed by a history of colonialism and domination by the West and...

Muslim voices Lisa Fabrizio Lisa Fabrizio December 3, 2004 I usually write my own column, but recent events in the Middle East call for voices from that region to be heard among the mainstream media din. Some Muslims promote Jihad while others support democratic reform. It has long been my contention that — contrary to the caterwauling of the American and European left — the forces of the current Islamist Jihad are limited by their preferred method of combat and by one of their main tenets; opposition to democratic institutions. The first is a fact of nature: A movement whose...

TEHRAN (MNA) -- Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on Sunday that Iran is seriously concerned about the rise in human rights violations in Europe and especially the rise in anti-Islamic sentiments and the treatment of minority groups. Asefi made the remarks in response to a question about the decision of the European Union to lodge a protest with Tehran expressing concern about the human rights situation in Iran. “The issue of human rights is on the agenda of Iran-EU talks and this is not something one-sided, and we have also some criticism about their (human rights) situation,”...

Washington -- The county council of Howard County, Maryland -- a suburb of Washington and Baltimore -- made headlines recently when it passed legislation prohibiting the scheduling of public hearings on the two Eid holidays, the most holy days in Islam. Although Howard County's action is unusual, it does reflect a growing trend toward official recognition of Muslim holidays in the United States, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which informally tracks such developments. Especially since the attacks of September 11, 2001, "more and more Muslims are working to get their communities integrated into U.S. society and have...

Islam stands for universal peace Human dignity has been proclaimed in the Holy Quran : "And surely we have honoured the children of Adam...." (17:70) Fraternity and unity of mankind has also been proclaimed : "Mankind was one single nation....."(2:213) "Verily this brotherhood of yours is a single brotherhood..." (21:92) "Mankind was but one nation, but differed (later)." (10:19) There are other verses in the Quran on unity, integrity and solidarity of humanity. The Holy Quran marks the friends of division and conflict in the human race, which lead to human disaster and destruction : "But people have cut off...

Five days before 9/11, Charles Vincent bought his first Koran. Six weeks later, while smoke was still pouring from the remains of the World Trade Center, he formally converted to Islam in the mosque attached to the Islamic Cultural Center on 96th Street and Third Avenue in New York City. A blonde, blue-eyed 29-year-old from Torrance, California, he readily admits that he chose an unlikely moment to fall in love with the world's most newsworthy religion. But in the three years since, his devotion to Islam has only deepened. Like a growing number of white Americans and Europeans, he has...

This past week, I have received many responses from Muslims concerning my two most recent columns: ''Followers of Islam: Can You See the Blood on Your Hands'' and ''Here Comes the Arab/Muslim Outrage.'' In one breath, some of the writers would call themselves ''intellectuals'' and then accuse me of being a Jew when I put tough questions to them that they could not answer. They maintained that as an American, I just was not intelligent enough to understand Islam. The mistake these ''intellectuals'' made is believing that I have any intention of ''understanding'' Islam.   It has taken me since...

Tripoli, Libya, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Muslim clerics and scholars meeting in Libya from around the world Tuesday denounced attempts to link Islam to terrorism as an injustice to one billion Muslims. A final communiqué, issued at the end of a two-day conference in Tripoli organized by the International Islamic Daawa (Call) organization, called on participants to combat all actions that tarnish Islam and undermine its aspects of love and tolerance. The conferees, some 500 clerics and scholars from 120 countries, condemned all aspects of injustice, enmity and the use of force such as invasions, sieges and wars in violation...

CHICAGO -- When David Kelly -- aka "Capital D" -- raps, he doesn't follow the mainstream mantra of women, cars and jewelry. Instead, the Chicago rapper uses his rhymes to dish out praise for Allah, criticize the war in Iraq and blast corporate America. Kelly is among a new group of Muslim rap artists gaining popularity among Muslim-Americans looking for entertainment that reflects both their mainstream tastes and religious beliefs. "Muslims in the United States are not going away. They're part of the culture, but they're not creating their own culture," Kelly says. "I try to show them that you...

ONDON – Hunched in black robes over his microphone, Sheikh Omar Bakri suddenly heaves himself upright in rhetorical climax and pounds the table. "Embrace capitalism or Christianity, you go to hellfire!" he bellows. The crowd of men seated before him nod in agreement as Sheikh Bakri warns against misplaced sympathy for Western society. "Don't think that because [the unbelievers] give us income support we should have less hate," he continues. "Because we hate not for our sakes, but for the sake of Allah." ... Hard-line Islamists like Bakri have become the bête noire for Britons who question whether the growing...

We have studied the background of Thanksgiving day- to express gratitude to the favours of the natives of the 16th century. IN principal to express gratefulness and gratitude for favours rendered is encouraged. However, Thanksgiving being a national holiday express its salient position in the American culture, which has many unislamic values and principles. Celebrating Thanksgiving purposefully or subordinately is an expression of accepting the general American Culture. It is not celebrated independent of the American Culture. In view of the above it is not permissible to celebrate Thanksgiving Day. and Allah Ta'ala Knows Best Mufti Ebrahim Desai FATWA DEPT.

Zohal Faqeeri has more reason than ever to be thankful this Thanksgiving Day. The 10-year-old girl from Kabul, Afghanistan, is thankful not only to be living with her family in the United States, but also because she won a contest with her essay on what she is thankful for. snip--- cause the author writes for AP ---- snip ----

Animated Islam comes to US screens By Salim Rizvi in New York Screenings began on Eid - the end of Ramadan After the turbulence that followed the attacks of 11 September, 2001, Muslims in America are making efforts to reach out to the rest of the country. An animated film of the life of the Prophet Mohammed is the latest attempt to improve the interaction of Muslims in US society. The movie, Mohammed: The Last Prophet, began screenings on the religious holiday, Eid, when Muslims celebrate the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. According to the film's distributors, the...

KUWAIT (RTRS): At a Kuwaiti hotel Sheikh Ali Abu al-Hassan holds an audience spellbound with his talk about “the pleasures of heaven”, a paradise where true Muslims will enjoy virgins, eternal bliss and bounty. Down the road at Kuwait’s university, women and men are brought down to earth with the reality of life in the country. They are segregated to prevent them from “sin”. Islamist protests in Kuwait have forced the government to ban pop concerts, while at hospitals devout women surgeons are refusing to operate on men saying it is religiously forbidden for them to see their genitals. In...

(New Haven-WTNH, Oct. 29, 2004 10:00 PM) _ Muslim-Americans are fearful of the possible fallout from the Osama bin Laden tape. Muslim leaders in New Haven are worried the tape could make them targets of intolerance. "It's just disheartening." New Haven's Islamic leaders reject Osama bin Laden and his message. In a newly released video the terrorist leader ties Muslim security to American security. Those threats are not accepted by American born Muslims. "To speak about security and threatening people, I think that anyone who as we said has a heart alive and feels for humanity would shake their head...

One of the gravest mistakes we, as Americans, can make is to forget how it felt on the morning of September 11, 2001 to witness the catastrophic and barbaric acts of murder and destruction that unfolded before our eyes on television. Sadly, three years after the worst attack in our nation’s history, I think we may already have. To me, it is a disservice of the highest order to those innocent souls savagely slaughtered on that terrible morning, as well as an injustice to a nation at war while her bravest men and women continue to serve in harm’s way,...

Michael Moore Seated In President Carter's Box At DNC MOORE QUESTIONSABOUT THE HEART AND SOUL OF SENATOR KERRY'S CAMPAIGNIssue Three____________________________________»»»»In 2003, Michael Moore Downplayed Threat Posed By Death Of 3,000 Americans On 9/11. MOORE: "Three thousand Americans were killed. There's 290 million Americans, all right? The chance of - of any of us dying in a terrorist incident is very, very, very small."(CBS' "60 Minutes," 7/27/03)WHAT DO YOU THINK, SENATOR KERRY?