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Riaz Haq writes this data-driven blog to provide information, express his opinions and make comments on many topics. Subjects include personal activities, education, South Asia, South Asian community, regional and international affairs and US politics to financial markets. For investors interested in South Asia, Riaz has another blog called South Asia Investor at http://southasiainvestor.blogspot.com and a YouTube video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Alam Vs. Hoodbhoy: A Clash of Ideas in Islam
However, it would be wrong to conclude from such reports that any more than a tiny minority of the followers of the Islamic faith support the terrorists inspired by al Qaeda's ideology of hate. In a recent International Republican Institute (IRI) poll, eighty percent of Pakistanis oppose Pakistan's cooperation with the United States on the "war on terror," a figure that shot up 19 points since March. At the same time, 86 percent agreed that Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants posed a problem for Pakistan and more than two-thirds supported a recent Pakistani army offensive on extremists.
To get a sense of the intensity of the debate raging among influential Muslim scholars and opinion makers, I think it is quite instructive to read the recent exchange between Dr. Shahid Alam and Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy. Accusing Dr. Hoodbhoy and several others by name of being "native orientalists", Dr. Alam begins his recent Counterpunch article with a quote from Karl Marx, a strange choice giving Dr. Alam's well-established right-wing credentials. Here is the Karl Marx quote: "The more a ruling class is able to assimilate the foremost minds of the ruled class, the more stable and dangerous becomes its rule".
Dr. Hoodbhoy of Islamabad University begins his response with the following quote from "The Confessions of a Pakistani Native Orientalist" written by Dr. Shahid Alam, a professor of Pakistani origin who teaches at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts:
"The victory of Native Orientalists - the ones which the late Edward Said had warned us about - is nearly complete in Pakistan. It has been led by "the minions of Western embassies and Western-financed NGOs and includes the likes of "Ahmad Rashid, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Najam Sethi, Khaled Ahmad, Irfan Hussain, Husain Haqqani, and P.J.Mir".
In his response to Alam, Hoodbhoy takes umbrage with the invocation by Dr. Alam of the name of Edward Said, who "was my mentor and hero, the man who wrote a highly positive blurb displayed prominently on the backside of my book on Islam and science". Hoodbhoy goes on to recount the unspeakable horrors and daily atrocities committed by the Taliban in Pakistan, and takes Alam to task for his adulation of the perpetrators of such inhuman acts as "the sons and daughters of the mountains, yet uncontaminated by western civilisation, firm in their faith, clear in their conviction, proud of their heritage, and ready to fight for their dignity".
Here is the full text of Dr. Hoodbhoy's response:
I ought to be thrilled. Now that I am a certified foreign-funded agent/orientalist/NGO-operator who "manages US-Zionist interests", a nice fat cheque must surely be in the mail. Thirty six years of teaching and social activism at a public university in Pakistan - where salaries are less than spectacular - means that additions to one's bank balance are always welcome.
But what did I do to deserve this kindness? My sole interaction with the good professor was in mid-2008, when we shared the speaker's podium at the International Islamic University in Islamabad. Sadly, it was not terribly pleasant.
But then these are not pleasant times. There is carnage in the streets. Blood flows down the gutters and body parts are strewn in bazaars and markets. Suicide bombers have also targeted mosques, funerals, and hospitals. The internet is filled with videos of Pakistan army soldiers being decapitated, pictures of separated heaps of limbs and heads of Shiites, and women writhing under the blows of heavy whips and chains.
The Taliban, mostly from the mountains of Waziristan and other tribal areas of Pakistan, are not particularly shy to broadcast such achievements. For example, their decapitation movies - culminating in heads being stuck upon poles and paraded around town - are watched for free by kids. On 15 February 2009, the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan announced a ban on all female education and, at last count, 362 schools have been blown up in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Curiously, these very people also happen to be the heroes of Professor Alam. This self-described "anti-imperialist" and "anti-Zionist" migrant to the heart of imperialism tends to become breathless in his celebration of the brave Taliban "resistance fighters". At the meeting I mentioned above, he received ecstatic approbation from a leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Khurshid Ahmad, who chaired the meeting. This praise is also apparent in what the professor writes:
"Yet, in one corner of Pakistan, resistance comes from the sons and daughters of the mountains, yet uncontaminated by western civilisation, firm in their faith, clear in their conviction, proud of their heritage, and ready to fight for their dignity. They stood up against the Soviet marauders: and defeated them. Today, they are standing up again, now against the American marauders and their allies." [Pakistan's Mercenary Elites, by M. Shahid Alam]
Unless the professor is physically infirm, may I suggest that he head for the mountains of Waziristan to help the Pakistani Taliban movement? Or give a helping hand to Al-Qaida, an organization also known for its benevolence? To be sure, he may miss the free lunches the American taxpayer provides to him, but surely there must be satisfaction to be had in strapping a madrassa lad with explosives aimed at a Pakistani bazaar - especially one frequented by unveiled women and brides-to-be.
Politeness aside, I do take serious personal offence on just one matter in his outbursts against the opponents of Al-Qaida and the Taliban. This is when the good professor invokes the name and authority of Edward Said, author of "Orientalism", in condemning me and my colleagues in Pakistan.
Edward was my mentor and hero, the man who wrote a highly positive blurb displayed prominently on the backside of my book on Islam and science. He was also the closest friend of Eqbal Ahmad - my guru and dearest friend. With Eqbal, many were the pleasant evenings that we spent at Edward's apartment on Riverside Drive, New York. When Eqbal died, Edward and I were both lost in grief. When Edward died in 2003, I defended him against a poisonous article published the next day in the Wall Street Journal by a notorious Islamophobe, Ibn Warraq.
So cut it out, professor! Edward Said does not belong to the jihadists and their declared supporters - like you. He and Eqbal loathed their primitivism and utter ruthlessness, as well as their desecration of Islam. Please do not press him into your service.
On the contrary, Edward belongs to those of us on the Left who have worked for the Palestinians and their right to the lands on which they once lived, who keep fighting for justice and democracy in Pakistan, and who fervently opposed America's immoral invasion of Iraq in the streets of Islamabad and elsewhere. Edward was a supreme secular humanist who would have no truck with fanatics of any faith.
I do not know all the "native orientalists" and "brown sahibs" that the professor lists. Perhaps he secretly hopes that they shall receive appropriate attention from jihadist groups. But I do know some of these "traitors" - and they are among the finest people around. A couple, in their youth, had fought against the Pakistan Army in the mountains of Baluchistan. Others have stoutly defended religious minorities and worked to protect civil rights, democracy, and human values.
Professor Alam: be assured that once the expected cheque arrives, I shall be happy to send you a one-way ticket from Boston to Peshawar, from where you will easily find your way to Waziristan with help from your friends there. It shall be no less than business class, in appreciation of the services you render to your cause.
Here's a documentary on Islam narrated by Benazir Bhutto:
Related Links:
Is Pakistan Becoming Saudi Arabia?
Native Orientalists at the Daily Times by Dr. Shahid Alam
Pervez Hoodbhoy on Mumbai
The Prophet I Know!
Pakistanis See US as Biggest Threat
International Republican Institute Poll of Pakistanis
Israeli War Crimes in Gaza
America's Secret War in Pakistan
Pakistan's Mercenary Elite By Dr. Shahid Alam
Hoodbhoy Versus Atau-ur-Rahman on Higher Education Reform
Hoodbhoy on Kashmir
Is There an Islamic Problem? by Shahid Alam
Marching Toward Hell by Michael Scheuer
Hoodbhoy on India
29 comments:
So where is Muslim Martin Luther King? The lack of a Muslim Pope may mean that he will never appear. Tariq Ramadan, a person who has been touted as one is too weak or even dishonest in my opinion.
See http://dir.salon.com/story/people/feature/2002/02/15/ramadan/
As a matter of fact, Islam badly needs a reform when it comes to some things such as gender equality and non violent ways to resolve political problems(although Islam's deficiency in gender equality when compared to some other oriental cultures is grossly exaggerated by Western media because of inherent prejudices). What is deplorable is the spirit of introspection is grossly missing from contemperory Islamic popular thinking in subcontinent.
- January 2, 2010 at 5:21 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
Zen: "So where is Muslim Martin Luther King? "
I think Martin Luther King was the product a unique set of conditions and history of the Black people in the United States. And he was seen by American white establishment as an acceptable alternative to what Malcom X and Elijah Mohammad/Louis Farrakhan preached. But let's not forget that he was a harsh critic of what he described as America's "militarism", "racism" and "imperialism", who also spoke of non-violent methods to gain basic civil rights for his people.
In spite of the concept of one Ummah, the reality is that Muslims in the world are much more diverse and their practice of Islam is heavily influenced by local history, cultures and conditions in each geography. So what we might get eventually may be several versions of Martin Luther King in different parts of the Islamic work...an Arab MLK, a South Asian MLK, an South East Asian MLK etc.
But I agree that we are in serious need of reform for a renaissance and revival within Islam that allows us to peacefully co-exist with the major non-Muslim nation-states in the world.
Zen: "As a matter of fact, Islam badly needs a reform when it comes to some things such as gender equality.."
In spite of the grim picture painted by many, the status of women in Pakistan, and the rest of South Asia, continues to vary considerably across different classes, regions, and the rural/urban divide due to uneven socioeconomic development and the impact of tribal, feudal, and urban social customs on women's lives. While some women are soaring in the skies as pilots of passenger jets and supersonic fighter planes, others are being buried or burned alive for defying traditions. Girls account for 53% of all college students in Pakistan, according to the 2005 Education Census.
I think more education and increasing urbanization in Pakistan will help cure of many of the gender gap issues in Pakistan and other parts of the world.
- January 2, 2010 at 6:43 PM
Correction: I meant Martin Luther, father of Protestentanism rather than MLK. Salon was also comparing Tariq R. to former.
- January 3, 2010 at 2:10 AM
Tiny minority support terrorism??
At one time Pakistani support for Osama Bin Laden was more than 50%.
- January 3, 2010 at 6:38 AM
- Riaz Haq said...
Zen: "I meant Martin Luther, father of Protestentanism rather than MLK. Salon was also comparing Tariq R. to former."
As you rightly pointed out earlier, the Sunni Islam, the predominant sect among Muslims, has no concept of anything like the pope or the imam. Sunni Islam can more easily lend itself to reform. But I think life under colonialism (and now neo-colonial powers) has rendered Muslims too bitter to overcome their deep-seated negative emotions that are consuming them.
Colonization of the East also coincided with the industrial revolution which was denied to the Muslim nations, hence ensuring their backwardness.
Indonesians and Malaysians have done relatively well in spite of their colonial past, probably because of their distance from the Middle East.
The Turks have also done better than other Muslim nations because they were never colonized. The Afghans, too, were never directly colonized, but they have never abandoned their tribal culture and roots.
- January 3, 2010 at 4:29 PM
here is another example of what is wrong with pakistan. Just ignore monumental failure which pak is and exaggerate India's failure as if that automatically proves pak as a success.
- January 4, 2010 at 4:17 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
Here's a story about Helen Thomas' persistence in seeking answers on the core question as to "why do they want to harm us?"
After Obama briefly addressed L'Affaire Abdulmutallab and wrote "must do better" on the report cards of the national security schoolboys responsible for the near catastrophe, the President turned the stage over to counter-terrorism guru John Brennan and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
It took 89-year old veteran correspondent Helen Thomas to break through the vapid remarks about channeling "intelligence streams," fixing "no-fly" lists, deploying "behavior detection officers," and buying more body-imaging scanners.
Thomas recognized the John & Janet filibuster for what it was, as her catatonic press colleagues took their customary dictation and asked their predictable questions. Instead, Thomas posed an adult query that spotlighted the futility of government plans to counter terrorism with more high-tech gizmos and more intrusions on the liberties and privacy of the traveling public.
She asked why Abdulmutallab did what he did.
Thomas: "Why do they want to do us harm? And what is the motivation? We never hear what you find out on why."
Brennan: "Al Qaeda is an organization that is dedicated to murder and wanton slaughter of innocents... They attract individuals like Mr. Abdulmutallab and use them for these types of attacks. He was motivated by a sense of religious sort of drive. Unfortunately, al Qaeda has perverted Islam, and has corrupted the concept of Islam, so that he's (sic) able to attract these individuals. But al Qaeda has the agenda of destruction and death."
Thomas: "And you're saying it's because of religion?"
Brennan: "I'm saying it's because of an al Qaeda organization that used the banner of religion in a very perverse and corrupt way."
Thomas: "Why?"
Brennan: "I think this is a - long issue, but al Qaeda is just determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland."
Thomas: "But you haven't explained why."
Neither did President Obama, nor anyone else in the U.S. political/media hierarchy. All the American public gets is the boilerplate about how evil al Qaeda continues to pervert a religion and entice and exploit impressionable young men.
There is almost no discussion about why so many people in the Muslim world object to U.S. policies so strongly that they are inclined to resist violently and even resort to suicide attacks.
- January 10, 2010 at 8:39 PM
Ziauddin Sardar (born October 31, 1951 in northern Pakistan) is a London-based Muslim scholar, critic, futurist, journalist and a prolific writer. Considered a pioneering thinker on contemporary Islam, he has been described by the Independent newspaper as 'Britain's own polymath' [1]. His intellectual output, published in some 45 books, ranges from the future of Islam to critiques of postmodernism, science policy, contemporary aspects of science in Muslim societies, colonialism, cultural relations, literary criticism, travel and autobiography. He was worked as a science correspondent for Nature and New Scientist and in the early 1980's he became a television reporter for the London Weekend Television. He has made numerous television programmes, including Battle for Islam, a 90-minute documentary for BBC2 and Dispatches for Channel 4 on Pakistan. In 1999, he became the editor of Futures, the monthly journal of policy, planning and future studies. He co-edited edited Third Text, the critical journal of visual art and culture, from to 1999 to 2008. In 2006 he was appointed a Commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission of Britain.
Currently he is a visiting Professor of Postcolonial Studies, Department of Arts Policy and Management at City University, London and a contributing editor of New Statesman. He received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of East London in 2005.
"There is a two-word answer to the charge that Muslims who remain serious about faith have failed to engage with the science, culture and politics of the contemporary world. The words are Ziauddin Sardar."
-The Independent
"One of the finest intellectuals on the planet."
- The Herald
"A remarkable author."
- Nature
- January 10, 2010 at 10:20 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
Here's an ABC News report about US military weapons in Iraq:
Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the U.S. military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.
The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.
U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious "Crusade" in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.
One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."
Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as "the light of the world." John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, "Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions "have always been there" and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is "not Christian." The company has said the practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash.
- January 20, 2010 at 4:59 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
Here are some excerpts from NY Times about sufi Islam celebration in Lahore:
LAHORE, Pakistan — For those who think Pakistan is all hard-liners, all the time, three activities at an annual festival here may come as a surprise.
Thousands of Muslim worshipers paid tribute to the patron saint of this eastern Pakistani city this month by dancing, drumming and smoking pot.
It is not an image one ordinarily associates with Pakistan, a country whose tormented western border region dominates the news. But it is an important part of how Islam is practiced here, a tradition that goes back a thousand years to Islam's roots in South Asia.
It is Sufism, a mystical form of Islam brought into South Asia by wandering thinkers who spread the religion east from the Arabian Peninsula. They carried a message of equality that was deeply appealing to indigenous societies riven by caste and poverty. To this day, Sufi shrines stand out in Islam for allowing women free access.
In modern times, Pakistan's Sufis have been challenged by a stricter form of Islam that dominates in Saudi Arabia. That orthodox, often political Islam was encouraged in Pakistan in the 1980s by the American-supported dictator, Muhammad Zia ul-Haq. Since then, the fundamentalists' aggressive stance has tended to eclipse that of their moderate kin, whose shrines and processions have become targets in the war here.
But if last week's stomping, twirling, singing, drumming kaleidoscope of a crowd is any indication, Sufism still has a powerful appeal.
"There are bomb blasts all around, but people don't stay away," said a 36-year-old bank teller named Najibullah. "When the celebration comes, people have to dance."
Worshipers had come from all over Pakistan to commemorate the death of the saint, Ali bin Usman al-Hajveri, an 11th-century mystic. Known here today as Data Ganj Baksh, or Giver of Treasures, the Persian-speaking mystic journeyed to Lahore with Central Asian invaders, according to Raza Ahmed Rumi, a Pakistani writer and expert on Sufism. He settled outside the city, a stopover on the trade route to Delhi, started a meditation center and wrote a manual on Sufi practices, Mr. Rumi said.
- February 27, 2010 at 9:44 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
Here is Tariq Ramadan writing about his travel ban and subsequent lifting of the ban by the US in Newsweek:
It was hardly a fight I had expected. Less than a year earlier, the State Department had invited me to speak in Washington, D.C., and introduced me as a "moderate" Muslim intellectual who denounced terrorism and attacks against civilians. Now it was banning me from U.S. soil under a provision of the Patriot Act that allows for "ideological exclusions." My offense, it seemed, had been to forcefully criticize America's support for Israel and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. accused me of endorsing terrorism through my words and funding it through donations to a Swiss charity with alleged ties to Gaza. Civil-liberties groups challenged my case in court for almost six years until, in late January, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dropped the allegations against me, effectively ending my ban.
In early April I will make my first public appearance in the U.S., at New York City's Cooper Union, participating in a panel discussion about Muslims. While it's a victory of sorts, the fight is not over. Numerous foreign scholars remain banned from U.S. soil. Until the section of the Patriot Act that kept me out of the country is lifted, more people will suffer the same fate. Although the exclusions are carried out in the name of security and stability, they actually threaten both by closing off the open, critical, and constructive dialogue that once defined this country.
In my case, criticizing America's Middle East policies cast doubt on my loyalty to Western values and cost me a job. But prejudice may ultimately cost the U.S. more. By creating divisions and disregarding its values, even in the name of security, America tells the world that it is frightened and unstable—above all, vulnerable. In the long term, it also reinforces the religious, cultural, and social isolation of minority groups, encouraging the very kind of disloyalty that these ideological exclusions are meant to prevent.
It's not the first time America has tried to shield itself from dissenting opinions. During the Cold War, dozens of overseas artists, activists, and intellectuals—including British novelist Doris Lessing, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, and Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez—were denied visas because of their left-leaning ideas. Today, though, the American concept of the "other" has taken on a relatively new and specific form: the Muslim. America must face the reality that, in the West, many adherents to Islam demonstrate loyalty to democratic values through criticism. While violence must always be condemned, such debate must be encouraged if those values are to last.
- March 24, 2010 at 5:48 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
There is no question that disunity exists among Muslims and it is exploited by non-Muslims, as well as some opportunistic Muslims such as the puppet rulers in the Islamic world.
It's true for now and has been true throughout history.
But if the current tragic disunity, which is claiming more lives than ever, leads us to reform from within, it will not be a wasted opportunity. As they say, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
Today, I see some signs of serious intellectual discourse among Muslims in Pakistan.
Like Hassan Al Banna and Syed Qutb before him, Maulana Maudoodi was a foremost intellect, an influential thought leader, and a great scholar of Islam in the 20th century. He has influenced a lot of the contemporary thought among Muslims in the Middle East and South Asia. Two of his disciples, Javed Ghamidi and Israr Ahmed, each an intellectual in his own right, have evolved in very different directions.
A faction within Maulana Maududi's Jamaat-e-Islami broke away under the leadership of Maulana Amin Ahsan Islahi whose school of thought was then carried forward by Khalid Masud and Javed Ahmed Ghamidi. Javed Ahmed Ghamidi today is probably the most liberal and progressive scholar in the entire Islamic world. This Islamic scholar has come a full circle by claiming that Islamic state is not an objective of a Muslim but rather the objective of a Muslim is individual reform. Contrast this to another breakaway Jamaat faction - Dr. Israr Ahmed- whose Tanzeem-e-Islami is a religious movement working towards "Non-violent attainment of Khilafah".
- March 24, 2010 at 5:54 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
Here's an Economist report on the battle for control of IslamOnline website:
IslamOnline's mostly Egyptian staff has been wrestling for control of the website with its Qatari owner, the al-Balagh Cultural Society, which is based in Doha, Qatar's capital, and wants to cut jobs in Cairo and move some of its editorial offices back home. The Cairo staff claim that this is a ploy to take the website in a more conservative direction. The managers in Doha counter that IslamOnline has become too parochially Egyptian and has been straying from its mission to reach out to all Muslims.
But this labour dispute also reflects an Arab cold war that pits Egypt against more radical states. Qatari-owned media such as al-Jazeera and IslamOnline have relentlessly criticised Egypt in recent years, notably for its complicity in Israel's blockade of Gaza. Some suspect that toning down IslamOnline's news coverage by reining in its staff, some of whom are close to the Muslim Brothers, who in turn are close to the Islamist Hamas movement that controls Gaza, is a Qatari gesture to Egypt's government. Others point to longstanding rivalry between Saudis and Qataris, who, it is mooted, may be eager to reduce the influence of a Saudi company that has been helping to run the Cairo website.
IslamOnline began in 1997 as a student project at the University of Qatar with cash from Sheikha Mozah, an enterprising wife of Qatar's emir, and with an endorsement from the prominent and sometimes controversial Egyptian-born scholar, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. At IslamOnline's launch, speaking on his extremely popular al-Jazeera religious talk-show, "Sharia and Life", Mr Qaradawi said its mission to guide Muslims is "the jihad of our era."
On the whole, this jihad has been a soft one. IslamOnline has to some extent been a lifestyle publication, focusing on how to mix modern life and religion. It offers religious advice without fire and brimstone, tackling sensitive topics such as sexuality conservatively but straightforwardly. Bettina Graf, who writes about the media in the Muslim world, calls it "moralist-conservative and missionary, though not dogmatic." But it was also, in the words of Khaled Hamza, a reform-minded Muslim Brother, a place were "great intellectual battles" were waged over the future of Islamism, mostly influenced by Mr Qaradawi's wasatiyyah (centrist) current.
Mr Qaradawi, 84, is sometimes said to be the most influential living Sunni Muslim scholar. He has stirred controversy in the West for endorsing suicide bombings in certain circumstances and for his homophobic views, and has been banned from Britain and the United States. For siding with his Egyptian compatriots against the Qatari management, he has lost his chairmanship of al-Balagh. Some see this as a fall from grace, and wonder if Qatar, which has hosted him for most of his adult life, will now freeze him out. His ideas, notably for tackling Sunni angst over the erosion of traditional religious authority and his attempt to counter millennial strands of Islamism with a conservative reformism, may have lost a resounding voice if he is now kept off IslamOnline.
- April 22, 2010 at 10:33 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
Here are some excepts from Sherbano Taseer (Salman Taseer's daughter) interview with Pakistani Islamic scholar Javaid Ahmed Ghamidi as published in Newsweek Pakistan:
Are Islam and democracy compatible?
Yes, of course. Islam favors democratic societies. In the West, they have created democracies, which may have their shortcomings, but where people listen to one another, tolerate each other's opinions, and engage in dialogue. The majority opinion is made into law, and these laws can be criticized, debated freely, and amended based on people's beliefs.
There is furor in Pakistan over the blasphemy laws. What does the Quran say about punishing those who are proven to have committed blasphemy?
There is no punishment prescribed for blasphemy in the Quran or in the sayings of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him). Some clerics cite the case of Ibn Akhtar, but they misinterpret that incident and make it about blasphemy. Man can make laws, and these should not be misused to unfairly target or victimize anyone. Islam specifically says that taking the life of an individual is tantamount to taking the life of all humanity. It is a crime. It is wrong. Allah says true Muslims are those in whose hands others are safe.
Do you feel Pakistan can contain the extremist threat?
Let's start by not losing hope. We can contain it if we unite. There needs to be a new movement, by educated people, who can put pressure on the government so that, for one, education returns to being the responsibility of the state. Otherwise, this cancer of extremism will continue to spread. Pakistan has over 12,000 madrassahs with more than 2 million students. The countless clerics at these schools have immense sway, they have formed communities around themselves and they have weapons. And when power comes into the hands of such people—when we give them that power—you get what we have happening right now. There is nothing in the Quran or the Prophet's (peace be upon him) sayings to justify what the extremists are doing. We need to enter the playing field and correct this, and turn their arguments on their head. I have challenged them on every occasion for the past five years or so, and told them what they are saying is incorrect. They can only stay silent in return. Even in the matter of blasphemy they could not refute me, but I feel I am alone in this.
So how do we change things?
People need to understand Islam themselves, there is no other way. We need to understand the religion and launch a movement to reform society. In the West, there was a reformation movement which needs to be replicated in the East. There is strength in our arguments. You can reason with these people if you reason strongly and with facts. Islam was initially spread by a handful of people. This is how you will get success and nobody will be able to refute it. The media has a lot of power and must use this power positively, spreading the message from house to house. But the reality is that we are not ready to take up this cause. The secularists and the elite are not ready to take this up, they are not ready to talk and engage especially about beliefs.
What role do you see religious scholars playing to improve our society?
They, like doctors and engineers, are experts in their field. Their role is not to pick up guns, but to argue with facts and to present their arguments logically and calmly. Their role is not to threaten or to preach in a hostile or forceful manner in the streets, but to inform and show people the right Islam. The unfortunate reality here is that those who claim to be adherents of Allah's word are actually quite unfamiliar with the faith.
- March 25, 2011 at 10:12 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
Here are some excerpts from an interesting post by Prof Juan Cole of Univ of Michigan on what he calls "hand-wringing about religious extremism in Pakistan".
There has been a lot of hand-wringing about religious extremism in Pakistan in the wake of the assassination of Punjab governor Salman Taseer. On Sunday the fundamentalist religious parties held a rally some 40,000 strong in the southern port city of Karachi against repealing Pakistan's blasphemy law, as the Pakistan People's Party MP Sherry Rahman proposes.
It would be foolish to deny that Pakistan has a problem with religious extremism. But outsiders do not actually understand the country very well and have no sense of scale, so it is hard for them to judge the significance of these events. Here I want to offer five ironies of religious extremism in that country, in an attempt to signal that the story is more complicated and requires more nuance than you find at typical American anti-Muslim hate blogs. Let me just signal the important difference between religious traditionalism and religious fundamentalism. Many Pakistanis are traditionalists– they attend at saints' shrines, pray, sing religious songs (qawali), etc. Fundamentalists reject the idea of saints, of shrines, and of spiritual music. So on to the ironies:
1. The Pakistani parliament never passed a blasphemy law. It was promulgated in the 1980s by fiat by military dictator Gen. Zia ul-Haq. Gen. Zia made a coup in 1977 against the populist and left-leaning Pakistan People's Party, and received the warm support of the United States, especially after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Gen. Zia was a fundamentalist who sought support in civil society for his illegitimate regime among small fundamentalist parties such as the Jama'at al-Islami. The US raised no objections.
2. The murderer of Taseer, Mumtaz Qadri, is not a fundamentalist. He had a long affair with a lover in Karachi before marrying about a year ago. He is no puritan. He sometimes trimmed back his beard, something Pakistani religious conservatives usually avoid. He sometimes went to saints' shrines, which fundamentalists would denounce. He has no connection to any known terrorist group, and says he acted alone. He belongs to a moderate school of Islam. Many press reports have said that Taseer's murder points to the rise of Pakistani fundamentalism, but you could not prove it by Qadri's profile. He seems to represent no one but himself.
3. The rally of 40,000 in favor of the blasphemy law just isn't that big in Karachi, a city of over 15 million people. The 9/11 Commission estimated that there are some 200,000 students in the religious academies or madrasahs in Karachi, so the rally did not even attract very many of them, much less a significant number of the religiously committed persons in the megalopolis.
4. The people of Karachi vote for the militantly secular if rather thuggish MQM (Muttahidah Qaumi Movement) party, which runs their municipal government and represents them in the national parliament. The MQM vehemently denounced the killing of Taseer. Fundamentalists are not important in Karachi politics, except insofar as they are violent infiltrators....
- March 26, 2011 at 10:43 AM
- Riaz Haq said...
Arab protesters demand democracy, but not secularism, says Michael Scheuer, former Bin Laden hunter at the CIA:
The Arab world's unrest has brought forth gushing, rather adolescent analysis about what the region will look like a year or more hence. Americans have decided that these upheavals have everything to do with the advent of liberalism, secularism, and Westernization in the region and that Islamist militant groups like al-Qaeda have been sidelined by the historically inevitable triumph of democracy—a belief that sounds a bit like the old Marxist-Leninist claptrap about iron laws of history and communism's inexorable triumph.
How has this judgment been reached? Primarily by disregarding facts, logic, and history, and instead relying on (a) the thin veneer of young, educated, pro-democracy, and English-speaking Muslims who can be found on Facebook and Twitter and (b) the employees of the BBC, CNN, and most other media networks, who have suspended genuine journalism in favor of cheerleading for secularism and democracy on the basis of a non-representative sample of English-speaking street demonstrators and users of social-networking sites. The West's assessment of Arab unrest so far has been—to paraphrase Sam Spade's comment about the Maltese Falcon—the stuff that dreams, not reality, are made of.
A year from now, we will find that most Arab Muslims have neither embraced nor installed what they have long regarded as an irreligious and even pagan ideology—secular democracy. They will have instead adhered even more closely to the faith that has graced, ordered, and regulated their lives for more than 1400 years, and which helped them endure the oppressive rule of Western-supported tyrants and kleptocrats.
This does not mean that fanatically religious regimes will dominate the region, but a seven-year Gallup survey of the Muslim world published in 2007 shows that a greater degree of Sharia law in governance is favored by young and old, moderates and militants, men and even women in most Muslim countries. While a façade of democracy may well appear in new regimes in places like Egypt and Tunisia, their governments will be heavily influenced by the military and by Islamist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda. If for no other reason, the Islamist groups will have a powerful pull because they have strong organizational capabilities; wide allegiance among the highly educated in the military, hard sciences, engineering, religious faculties, and medicine; and a reservoir of patience for a two-steps-forward, one-step-back strategy that is beyond Western comprehension. We in the West too often forget, for example, that the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda draw from Muslim society's best and brightest, not its dregs; that al-Qaeda has been waging its struggle for 25 years, the Muslim Brotherhood for nearly 85 years; and that Islam has been in the process of globalizing since the 7th century.
As new Arab regimes develop, Westerners also are likely to find that their own deep sense of superiority over devout Muslims—which is especially strong among the secular left, Christian evangelicals, and neoconservatives—is unwarranted. The nearly universal assumption in the West is that Islamic governance could not possibly satisfy the aspirations of Muslims for greater freedom and increased economic opportunity—this even though Iran has a more representative political system than that of any state in the region presided over by a Western-backed dictator. No regime run by the Muslim Brotherhood would look like Canada, but it would be significantly less oppressive than those run by the al-Sauds and Mubarak. This is not to say it would be similar to or more friendly toward the West—neither will be the case—but in terms of respecting and addressing basic human concerns they will be less monstrous.
- March 27, 2011 at 8:10 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
Here's an interesting Op Ed by Leonard Pitts published in the Miami Herald:
OK, put your books away. We're having a pop quiz.
Below are four quotes. Each is from one of two sources: the Bible or the Koran, although, just to make things interesting, there's also a chance all four are from one book. Two were edited for length and one of those was also edited to remove a religion-specific reference. Your job: identify the holy book of origin. Ready? Go:
1) ". . . Wherever you encounter [non-believers], kill them, seize them, besiege them, wait for them at every lookout post . . ."
2) "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."
3) "If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, 'Let us go and worship other gods' . . . do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death."
4) "Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man."
All right, pens down. How did you do?
If you identified the first quote as being from the Koran (9:5) and the other three as originating in the Bible (Matthew 10:34, Deuteronomy 13:6-9, Numbers 31:17-18), I congratulate you on that degree in theology. If I have guessed correctly, most people will not have found it easy to place the quotes in their proper books. If I have guessed correctly, most people will have found a certain thematic similarity in them.
Yes, there is a point here: I wish people would stop cherry-picking warlike quotes from the Koran to "prove" the evil of Islam. You see this stuff all over the web. Just a few days ago, some anonymous person, angry with me for defending "Fascist/Nazi Islam" the writer says is trying to kill us all, sent me an e-mail quoting Koranic exhortations to violence to prove that Islam is a "religion of hate and murder."
As rhetorical devices go, it is a cheap parlor trick, a con job to fool the foolish and gull the gullible and for anyone who has spent quality time with the Bible, its shortcomings should be obvious.
If not, see the pop quiz again. The Koran is hardly unique in its admonitions to take up the sword.
It is not my intention here to parse any of those troubling quotes. Let us leave it to religious scholars to contextualize them, to explain how they square with the contention that Islam and Christianity are religions of peace. For our purposes, it is sufficient to note that, while both Christian and Muslim scholars will offer that context and explanation, only Christians can be assured of being taken at their word when they do.
Christians get the benefit of the doubt. Muslims get Glenn Beck asking a Muslim Congressman to "prove to me that you are not working with our enemies."
Because Christianity is regarded as a known — and a norm. Muslims, meantime, have been drafted since Sept. 11, 2001, to fulfill the nation's obsessive, historic, paranoiac and ongoing need to rally against an enemy within. We lost the Commies, but along came the Islamo-fascists. The names change. The endless capacity for irrational panic remains the same.
As in people who send out e-mails insisting upon the rightness of holding over a billion people — that bears repeating: over a billion people — responsible for the actions of, what . . .? A few hundred? A few thousand?
Some of us use lies, exaggerations and rhetorical gobbledygook to instill in the rest of us that irrational panic they breathe like air. Yes, it is only sensible to fear the threat we face from terrorism. But panicked, irrational people are capable of anything.
Might be wise if we chose to fear that, too.
- April 2, 2011 at 11:07 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
It appears that the Norwegian white supremacist terrorist Breivik shared the thinking of Nazi-loving Hindu Nationalists like Golwalkar and his Sangh Parivar buddies. Here's an excerpt from a Express Tribune story:
"While Breivik's rhetoric against Muslim immigration into Europe is not unusual, he cites many names that might be familiar to Pakistanis, including Allama Muhammad Iqbal and Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, as well as prominent human rights activist Hina Jilani and Dawn columnist Irfan Hussain.
He seems to believe that Iqbal, in particular, was sympathetic to communism and views multiculturalism as a Marxist concept. He quotes Iqbal as saying "Islam equals communism plus Allah."
Breivik also claims that Pakistan is systematically annihilating all non-Muslim communities. He claimed that Hindu girls are being forced to convert to Islam in Sindh. In this context he even quotes Hina Jilani as saying: "Have you ever heard of an Indian Muslim girl being forced to embrace Hinduism? It's Muslims winning by intimidation."
He goes on to describe the situation for Christians in Pakistan as being no better, citing Father Emmanuel Asi of the Theological Institute for Laity in Lahore as saying in 2007 that Pakistani Christians are frequently denied equal rights.
Jamaat-e-Islami founder Abul Ala Maududi is also quoted in the manifesto, though in a manner that would imply that the stated objective of an Islamic state is to kill or subdue all non-Muslims around the world.
Breivik seems to be a fan of Daily Times columnist Razi Azmi, whom he calls "one of the more sensible columnists of Pakistan". He mentions one of Azmi's pieces where the columnist asks whether it was possible to imagine a Muslim converting to Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism in a Muslim country, using it to support his view of Islam as an intolerant religion.
He also cites Dawn's Irfan Hussain's column criticising Hizb u-Tahrir's vision of a caliphate.
His ire against Pakistanis and Muslims seems to have at least partial origin in personal experience. He speaks at length about his childhood best friend, a Pakistani Muslim immigrant to Norway who, despite having lived several years in Europe still appeared to resent Norway and Norwegian society. "Not because he was jealous… but because it represented the exact opposite of Islamic ways," Breivik conjectures.
The inability of Muslim immigrants to assimilate into European society seems to bother him, which he blames on Muslim parents not allowing their children to adopt European ways. He also asks why Muslim girls are considered 'off-limits' to everyone, including Muslim boys, and why Muslim men view ethnic Norwegian women as 'whores'.
He also seems to believe that the Muslims in Europe who collect government benefits view it as a form of jizya, a medieval Islamic tax charged on non-Muslim minorities."
- July 24, 2011 at 10:31 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
Here's an article by Mehreen Farooq and Waleed Ziad in Foreign Policy Mag detailing campaign against radicalization in Pakistan:
In a pristine, remote valley in Kashmir, far from the theaters of war, some families are abandoning their religious and cultural traditions in favor of extremist ideologies. The trend began after the 2005 earthquake, when several Islamist organizations - notably Jamaat ud-Dawa (JuD) - came to the forefront, providing food, shelter and health supplies to devastated communities. A village elder lamented, "Many of us were impressed by their sophisticated ambulance services, and families willingly joined in their relief efforts." Most of these families had no idea that JuD was in fact a front for the banned militant organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Pakistanis, particularly in such remote areas, require tools to recognize extremist ideologies and terrorist organizations so that they can create counter-movements within their own communities. We travelled throughout Northern Punjab and the Hazara region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to learn how certain grassroots organizations have designed effective awareness campaigns within a religious paradigm that are palatable even to the at-risk population.
We began with the leaders of Pakistan's moderate religious networks. Since 9/11, dozens of religious scholars have issued public statements and fatwas against terrorism. Dr. Raghib Naeemi -- son of Dr. Sarfraz Naeemi who was killed in 2009 after he publically denounced terrorist activities as un-Islamic -- appears regularly on TV to promote peace and social cohesion.
150 miles south, in a village near Bhera, a father learned that his son was being brainwashed by a fundamentalist community member to believe that he would enter paradise if he became a suicide bomber. The father, supported by the Dar ul-Uloom community, rescued the children by publically exposing the radical mullah. He challenged the mullah: "After sending my child to paradise, why don't you send your own son to join him so that mine won't be lonely?"
Even some segments of the population that had been involved in militancy are now condemning extremism. Irfan, a former "toll collector" for a militant outfit along the Pakistan-Afghanistan Durand Line explained, "After the Taliban bombed the shrine of the Rahman Baba, the great Pashtun poet-saint, I realized that militants are destroying our country." Now as a taxi driver, Irfan makes it a point to lambast the Taliban in conversations with all of his passengers.
- October 27, 2011 at 9:04 AM
- Riaz Haq said...
Here are excerpts of an Op Ed in The Atlantic titled "The White Savior Industrial Complex"
By Teju Cole:
What Africa needs more pressingly than Kony's indictment is more equitable civil society, more robust democracy, and a fairer system of justice.
1- From Sachs to Kristof to Invisible Children to TED, the fastest growth industry in the US is the White Savior Industrial Complex.
Teju Cole @tejucole
2- The white savior supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening.
Teju Cole @tejucole
3- The banality of evil transmutes into the banality of sentimentality. The world is nothing but a problem to be solved by enthusiasm.
Teju Cole @tejucole
4- This world exists simply to satisfy the needs—including, importantly, the sentimental needs—of white people and Oprah.
5- The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.
Teju Cole @tejucole
6- Feverish worry over that awful African warlord. But close to 1.5 million Iraqis died from an American war of choice. Worry about that.
Teju Cole @tejucole
7- I deeply respect American sentimentality, the way one respects a wounded hippo. You must keep an eye on it, for you know it is deadly.
These tweets were retweeted, forwarded, and widely shared by readers. They migrated beyond Twitter to blogs, Tumblr, Facebook, and other sites; I'm told they generated fierce arguments. As the days went by, the tweets were reproduced in their entirety on the websites of the Atlantic and the New York Times, and they showed up on German, Spanish, and Portuguese sites. A friend emailed to tell me that the fourth tweet, which cheekily name-checks Oprah, was mentioned on Fox television.
These sentences of mine, written without much premeditation, had touched a nerve. I heard back from many people who were grateful to have read them. I heard back from many others who were disappointed or furious. Many people, too many to count, called me a racist. One person likened me to the Mau Mau. The Atlantic writer who'd reproduced them, while agreeing with my broader points, described the language in which they were expressed as "resentment."
This weekend, I listened to a radio interview given by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof. Kristof is best known for his regular column in the New York Times in which he often gives accounts of his activism or that of other Westerners. When I saw the Kony 2012 video, I found it tonally similar to Kristof's approach, and that was why I mentioned him in the first of my seven tweets.
Those tweets, though unpremeditated, were intentional in their irony and seriousness. I did not write them to score cheap points, much less to hurt anyone's feelings. I believed that a certain kind of language is too infrequently seen in our public discourse. I am a novelist. I traffic in subtleties, and my goal in writing a novel is to leave the reader not knowing what to think. A good novel shouldn't have a point. ....
- March 21, 2012 at 5:51 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
Here are some verses from a Holy Book:
1. "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."
2. "If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, 'Let us go and worship other gods' . . . do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death."
3. "Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man."
Q. Are these from the Quran or the Bible?
A. From the Bible. Matthew 10:34, Deuteronomy 13:6-9, Numbers 31:17-18
- April 25, 2012 at 5:28 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
Here's an excerpt of Pervez Hoodbhoy's Op Ed on popes and caliphs as published in Express Tribune:
A consensus at electing popes hasn't always been that easy. History: Pope Gregory X established the Papal Conclave in 1274 after it took the cardinals nearly three years to choose him as the successor to Pope Clement IV. Locking the cardinals in a meeting and gradually decreasing their food rations was seen as good way to expedite agreement on a new pope. Three voting cardinals died during the process. Such is life.
What enables the quick consensus on electing popes in modern times? Simple: the pope's role has become largely ceremonial since 1536. No head of state need obey his orders. For Catholics, he is an icon of piety and chastity standing above the sordid politics of the world. While they are expected to live and breed according to the dictates of the Church, they do not consider them to be infallible any more. Today, increasing numbers of Catholics are moving away from the Church because of its stand on birth control and divorce. Nevertheless, though with much lessened powers, the new pope speaks for 1.2 billion Catholics.
Who should speak for the 1.5 billion Muslims today? This question is difficult because the Islamic world has been without a caliph ever since Kemal Ataturk eliminated the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924. Earlier, a caliphate had been the norm. Today, several Muslim groups are marketing the idea that restoring ancient glories is contingent upon reviving the caliphate. But this is a prescription for fratricidal conflict.
The problem is that the caliph is generally understood to be both the spiritual as well as temporal leader. The Egyptian scholar, Taha Hussein, was unusual in suggesting that Islam permits the two aspects to be separated. This strongly conflicts with the views of Maulana Abul Ala Maududi or Sayyid Qutb and those who have been influenced by them. In 2001, Osama bin Laden called upon Muslims to "establish the righteous caliphate of our ummah", a man who would lead and organise the ummah. A Sunni, he would enforce a single Sharia. The bewilderingly many extant sects and schools of thought would have to vanish, either by persuasion or by coercion. Since Shias obviously cannot be persuaded, they (and others) would have to be subdued.
More significantly, the caliph would be the commander-in-chief of all Muslim forces belonging to an Islamic superstate that would supercede the authority of Muslim national states. He would authorise jihad, both defensive and offensive, in forms ranging from actual combat to space wars, cyber jihad, economic sanctions, oil boycotts, making treaties, and dealing with the World Bank and the IMF. Pakistan's nuclear weapons would be at the caliph's command. So would oil from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf. If any Muslim country defied his orders, waging war would be an option.
Today, a global caliphate can only be created through violence. The Hizbut Tahrir, which seeks this goal, sees mutinies and insurrections as the solution. Its website calls upon Pakistan's armed forces to rise against its leadership. Brigadier Ali Khan and his colleagues will surely not be the last officers convicted of sedition.
It is a hard enough question, answerable only by God, to judge who is truly a pious Christian or Muslim. But when the power to make war also depends on the answer, it becomes impossibly difficult. So, the 13th century cardinals locked up by Pope Gregory X would have starved to death rather than arrive at an agreement! Attempting to elect a caliph today would pit Muslim against Muslim in bloody conflict. Although there is zero chance of the caliphate's revival, this goal nevertheless looms large in the consciousness of those committed to seizing state power and to fundamentally transforming the societies they take over.
- March 23, 2013 at 8:38 AM
- Riaz Haq said...
Here's an excerpt of WSJ review of "Islam Without Extremes" by Turkish author Mustafa Akyol:
Mr. Akyol, a pious Muslim and a classical liberal, begins his case by proposing a serious rereading of the Quran. "The idea of freedom—in the theological, political, or economic sense—was not unknown in classical Islamdom, as some have claimed," Mr. Akyol writes. He notes that the Quran, compiled in the seventh century, broke with the traditions of its time and place—by mandating protections for property, appealing to the judgment of reason and promoting the idea of a rule of law (as opposed to rule by the whim of despots). Taking inspiration from the separation of church and state in the American constitution, Mr. Akyol suggests that a liberal democracy can be built on Muslim soil as long as neither Islamists nor secular strongmen are allowed to mix religion with politics.
- December 1, 2013 at 7:52 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
Hadith-based laws unnecessary, says Dr Mahathir. "We've rejected the Quran in favor of the Hadith" https://shar.es/1rbnfY #Malaysia,#Islam
In a statement that is likely to invite brickbats from several quarters, Mahathir said injunctions from the Hadith were merely guidance and not meant to be enforced as law.
"The teachings, or the performance, or the traditions of the Prophet come after he had been given the message of Allah, which is recorded in the Quran," he said.
"Between the two, it is obviously the Quran that is superior."
Mahathir pointed out that stoning to death for fornication is not called for in the Quran, but only in the Hadith, which mentions the enforcement of such punishment on two occasions.
"Allah is merciful and compassionate," he said. "One who is merciful and compassionate would not enjoy stoning people to death."
Mahathir stressed that any Islamic law would have to be just. If it were unjust, he said, it would not be Islamic.
Thus, he said, he disagreed with the law that requires a woman to produce four witnesses to back her claim of being raped.
He said deviations from the message of the Quran had led to deviant behaviour among Muslims. He cited atrocities committed by organisations like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as well as the recent conviction of a Malaysian student in London for possession of child pornography.
"We used to have great scientists and mathematicians, but now our mathematicians are downloading 30,000 pornography images," he lamented. (The convicted student was pursuing a mathematics degree.)
Mahathir also expressed his disagreement with the practice of turning fatwas into law.
Fatwas, he said, were merely opinions, and the laws derived from them were sometimes impractical and unnecessary. He gave the example of old fatwas that prohibited the use of light bulbs and motorised vehicles because they were invented by "infidels".
"There's no necessity to Islamise everything," he said. "Of course, there are things that should be abstained from as they are forbidden in Islam, but there's no reason to give unnecessary fatwas to Islamise them."
- May 11, 2015 at 9:37 AM
- Riaz Haq said...
#Islamic scripture is not the problem, #US should not fund dissident #Muslims like Ayan Hirsi Ali. #Islamophobia http://brook.gs/1BsSS53
Some Muslims have cited Scripture to justify violence, and some have cited it to justify peace. If Scripture is a constant but the behavior of its followers is not, then one should look elsewhere to explain why some Muslims engage in terrorism. And if Islamic Scripture doesn't automatically lead to terrorism, then one should not expect the reform of Islam to end terrorism. Indeed, even the ultratextualist followers of the self-proclaimed Islamic State ignore Scripture that is inconvenient for their brutal brand of insurgency.
Consider the Gospels, Scriptures that advocate far less violence than the Koran or the Hebrew Bible. Jesus taught his followers to turn the other cheek. Yet the crusaders murdered thousands in their rampage across the Middle East, and U.S. President George W. Bush, a devout Christian, invaded Iraq without military provocation. Readers may object to these examples, arguing that other factors were at play—but that is exactly the point: Christian Scripture doesn't always determine the behavior of its followers, and the same goes for Islamic Scripture.
The faulty causal chain is the biggest flaw in Hirsi Ali's essay, but there are others. Even assuming that the liberal reform of Islam would help reduce terrorism—and indeed, few outsiders would complain if the majority of Muslims decided that some of the harsher passages of their Scriptures weren't relevant to modern life—the picture Hirsi Ali paints of lonely Muslim dissidents trying to start an Islamic reformation is not accurate. A liberal reformation of Islam has been ongoing for two centuries; the problem is that it has faced some stiff competition.
As with the Protestant Reformation, there is a conservative reform movement in Islam today that competes with the liberal reformers. Foremost among the conservatives are the ultraconservative Salafists—Islam's Puritans. They want to scrape off all the foreign accretions, such as Greek philosophy, that have attached themselves to Islam over the centuries and go back to a supposedly pure version of the faith. One big reason the conservative reformers have won the day so far is that some governments, especially the wealthy states of the Persian Gulf, have sponsored the ultraconservatives. Because rich Muslim governments have put their thumbs on the conservative side of the scale, Hirsi Ali wants the United States and other Western countries to do the same on the liberal side.
There are many problems with this approach. For one thing, the United States has laws against promoting one set of religious beliefs over another. Before 9/11, the U.S. government refused to fund programs that gave preference to one sect over others or a more tolerant version of a faith over a less tolerant form, although there was some wiggle room for secular programs, such as science education, overseen by religious institutions. Better, officials argued, to promote human rights and freedoms without the trappings of religion. But after the attacks, the U.S. government began to make a few exceptions to this long-standing tradition by funding some Muslim institutions overseas to promote pluralistic versions of Islam. For example, the U.S. Agency for International Development mission in Indonesia funded a group that put pluralistic messages in religious sermons delivered by women and sponsored a radio show about religion and tolerance. That's not quite what Hirsi Ali wants—the programs didn't repudiate parts of Islamic Scripture or seek to reform the religion wholesale—but it's close.
- June 19, 2015 at 10:37 AM
- Riaz Haq said...
Shadi Hamid: Will #Muslims follow western trajectory: Reformation, Enlightenment, Secularism, Liberal Democracy?
Perhaps his most provocative claim is this: History will not necessarily favor the secular, liberal democracies of the West. Hamid does not believe all countries will inevitably follow a path from revolution to rational Enlightenment and non-theocratic government, nor should they. There are some basic arguments for this: Islam is growing, and in some majority-Muslim nations, huge numbers of citizens believe Islamic law should be upheld by the state. But Hamid also thinks there's something lacking in Western democracies, that there's a sense of overarching meaninglessness in political and cultural life in these countries that can help explain why a young Muslim who grew up in the U.K. might feel drawn to martyrdom, for example. This is not a dismissal of democracy, nor does it comprehensively explain the phenomenon of jihadism. Rather, it's a note of skepticism about the promise of secular democracy—and the wisdom of pushing that model on other cultures and regions.
Green: You open the book by asking about this inscrutable yearning for violence that seems to be felt among a small minority of Muslim extremists. What do you make of this yearning?
Hamid: On a basic level, violence offers meaning. And that's what makes it scary. In the broader sweep of history, mass violence and mass killing is actually the norm. It's only in recent centuries that states and institutions have tried to persuade people to avoid such practices.
That also reminds us that when institutions and social norms are weakened, those base sentiments can rise up again quite easily. And that's what I saw.
Green: You also frame violence as a way of grappling with theodicy, or the problem of evil. How does this play out in the Islamic tradition?
Hamid: That is the question many Muslims have been asking not just recently, but for centuries, ever since the fall of the various caliphates and empires: Why is God doing this? Why is God permitting this fall from grace? The Muslim narrative you hear a lot is that when Muslims were good, God rewarded them with success and territory. When Muslims went astray, then perhaps God decided to send them a message to encourage them to return to the straight path.
A question I get a lot is, "Wait, ok, is Islam violent? Does the Quran endorse violence?" I find this to be a very weird question. Of course there is violence in the Quran. Muhammad was a state builder, and to build a state you need to capture territory. The only way to capture territory is to wrest it from the control of others, and that requires violence. This isn't about Islam or the Prophet Muhammad; state building has historically always been a violent process.
Green: On that point, you observe that the state-building impulses of the Islamic State actually make it much more terrifying than other groups. Why?
Hamid: ISIS has gone well beyond the al-Qaeda model of terrorism and destruction. Of course, ISIS does that, too, but it attempts to build something in the place of what it has destroyed. It has an unusually pronounced interest in governance. And they are not just making things up as they go along. There does seem to be a method to the madness; they are drawing from certain strains of Islamic history and tradition. They are perverting them, I would argue, and distorting them, but it is not as if they are just making it up out of the air.
- June 15, 2016 at 1:20 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
Liberal #Islam is not the answer to #ISIS. #secularism #liberalism http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/philosophy/liberal-islam-is-not-the-answer-to-islamic-state … via @prospect_uk
"Forged in the age of empire in the 19th-century, one of the central paradoxes of liberalism has been its propagation of universal concepts in the service of particular interests. In the 19th-century Muslim world, these interests were defined largely by British imperial concerns. Today, liberal values are defined more broadly as stemming from a shared western heritage reaching back for legitimisation, as the British colonialists often did, to antiquity. Classical economic liberalism has recently even been prescribed as a panacea for both the Muslim world's civilisational underdevelopment and its problems with extremism by the American scholar and policy adviser Vali Nasr and the Turkish journalist Mustafa Akyol
For Nasr and Akyol, Muslim liberalism is a happy coincidence between the values of Islam and those of the west. But such Muslim liberals grasp for connections between Islam and the west through a modern ideology which by its nature has no provenance in the Muslim world. In this way, liberal Islam's relationship to the west becomes parasitic rather than based on any elective affinity. This is why the more that Muslim liberals aim for synthesis, the more their faith is seemingly diminished.
Liberal Islam's third problem is its preoccupation with the idea of defining a "true" Islam that excludes or even labels as heretics or non-Muslims those who don't adhere to this perceived consensus.
Perhaps the most popular response to Islamist extremism has been to reiterate the idea that the majority of Muslims are moderate. The problem here is not that most Muslims are not moderate (they are) but that projects encouraging Muslim moderation can be used against minorities, including within Islam, because they involve a process of "orientalising" others. This has been evident in the British government's fostering of "moderate" Islam through its Prevent policy agenda for over a decade and its promotion of Britishness in more recent years—strategies which arguably have both divided Muslims and alienated them from wider society, especially those with conservative beliefs.
This mode of "othering" in the name of moderation also conflates extremism with heresy. So similar arguments about being beyond the pale of "mainstream" Islam can be applied to both terrorists like IS and those on the margins of Islam who may disagree with established forms of religious authority, or simply represent the wrong sect. It also ties together the will to marginalise dissent to the need for more authoritarian forms of leadership: witness the strange sight of western governments bolstering traditional Islamic centres of authority such as Al Azhar in Egypt—an institution whose legitimacy has been sustained by authoritarian governments."
- August 28, 2016 at 8:13 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
#Saudi Prince: #Arabs Have 'Wronged #Islam And Distorted The Image Of #Muslims'
Arabs have "wronged Islam and distorted the image of Muslims," Saudi Prince Khaled Al-Faisal warned in a speech this week. The prince said Muslims should "not allow colonialism to return, or for divisions to prevail."
The prince's remarks were brief and did not reference any recent events in the Arab world. It's unclear what he was referring to, but his comments come as the Islamic State group has carried out terror attacks against Muslims across the Middle East and as Saudi Arabia is locked in a struggle against Iran for influence over the region.
"I do not envy anyone who stands to speak on behalf of Arabs today. We have wronged Islam and distorted the image of Muslims," Prince Saud, who has served as foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, said during the opening remarks at the 15th Arab Thought Foundation conference in Abu Dhabi. The theme of the event was: "Arab Integration: The Gulf Cooperation Council and the United Arab Emirates."
"Excuse me if my candor is painful, but the wounds are glaring," he added. "Arise Arabs, wake up Muslims, do not allow colonialism to return, or for divisions to prevail."
In July, Saudi officials accused the Islamic State group of bombing the holy city of Medina, the site of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad's tomb and his house, in an attack that killed four security officers and injured five others.
Saudi Arabia's King Salman has urged Muslims to unite against an epidemic of "extremism." But earlier this year, Saudi Arabia's top religious authority, the Grand Mufti, said Iran's leaders were not Muslims. Saudi Arabia and Iran represent opposite sides in Syria's civil war and other Middle East conflicts, including Yemen. Saudi Arabia cut off relations with Iran in January after its embassy was attacked in Tehran.
- December 14, 2016 at 10:08 PM
- Riaz Haq said...
#Trump take part in a debate in #SaudiArabia about how to promote "#moderate #Islam".
During his time in the Saudi kingdom, Trump is planning to lead an address to around 50 Muslim leaders and take part in a debate about how to promote moderate Islam.
According to White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster, the president will "deliver an inspiring but direct speech on the need to confront radical ideology" at the newly inaugurated Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology; one reported possibility is that Trump may propose an "Arab NATO," in part to help fight terrorism.
The setting for the speech is key. Saudi Arabia is not only a key U.S. ally in the Middle East and a powerful force in the Arab world, but the birthplace of Islam's prophet Muhammad. The Saudi leader, King Salman, is officially referred to as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques — a reference to the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Masjid al-Nabawi in Medina.
However, the location may also rankle some. The Saudi kingdom does not have a reputation as a land of religious moderation. Instead, Saudi Arabia and the al-Saud royal family have been accused of aiding and abetting religious extremism that can feed terrorism — not only granting conservative clerics vast say over daily life within Saudi Arabia, but actively exporting their views abroad.
"It's fair to say the Saudi government has spent billions of dollars over several decades to promote its ultraconservative version of Islam, which calls for hating infidels and, sometimes, jihad against them," says Will McCants, director of the Brookings Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World.
- May 20, 2017 at 2:13 PM


text:
this didn't fix the glitch for me -_-
yeah, i rebooted, turned off and turned back on, and resprung..still nothing :/
This is caused by programs that are still using the old 5.x respring method of killing springboard and not updated to kill backboardd. SBSettings respring absolutely will not do this because BigBoss has updated his tweak. For some reason IntelliscreenX respring method has not been updated yet among others. Hopefully all Devs will update their respring methods soon and this backlight dim issue will be a thing of the past.
1. Remove that tool you use to sync unsigned apps
2. Reboot
3. Open Cydia and go to Manage/Packages and at the top right near your status bar hit the "Simple" Button
4. Scroll down to find UIKit Tools and Reinstall it
5. when its done installing open iFile or an SSH or program like i-FunBox and delete these Files:
5. Reboot and Your Weather app should work
Nice tweak!
Already answered above. Guess I shoulda read through first.
I have seen the issue.. But NO WHERE and I mean NO WHERE on the modmyi repo is any fix for this. I tried to find it all 7 of my idevices in cydia.... updating the repo, rebooting my iPad, iPhone etc and zero fix to be found.
Do you have your auto brightness on?
For some reason I cannot find this in the repository. Even after a hard reboot which usually works for me. Anyone else have issues?
EDIT: when will MMI ever fix the comment issue on this forum!? It's maddening sometimes! I now have my answer after multiple clicks to see the damn comments! This has been like this forever! Please fix MMI!

subset: commoncrawl


text:
do you snowboard?
do you snowboard?
i love snowboarding, but skiing's cool, especially if your good at it like the guy in that vid
Skier over here. Phats just mad that the one time he went skiing his fat ass couldn't stand back up after falling! lol
and here's a sick edit from Tom Wallisch http://youtu.be/49PmN3MIo1U?t=20s
nah i never ski. i tried snowboarding once thinking how hard can it be if i already know how to skate... turns out the thing goes sideways and fucks you up... so no, i dont snwoboard too
the only nice thing about snow and ice is that i can go on the ice in the nature with some friends and play there icehockey.
It gives you a mad rush, but nothing really close to painting in my opinion.
well i grew up in canada and have been skiing since i was 3 or 4. so id consider my self preeeety experienced, and once you get to that level, it becomes so much more fun. but its only thing i really like about winter. and snowboardings sick, i do it once in a while
Kinda funny i was reading the posts about snow and shit. And now its fucking snowing here in my town, but its wet snow.
I didn't even think San Fran would get snow, but then again Mammoth is somewhat nearby there so who knows.
It's true, fucking true.
^ thats agreed i live with 3, 4 if you count my dog
Found IRONLAK in Hong Kong
is that expensive or not there in HK?
SF got some snow a few years back, and surrounding places get snow fairly often like Mt. Diablo and other high ass places.
And that sucky moment when your girlfriend breaks up with you and you have no paint.
Happiness doesn't require time or money.
^yup thats agreed .... only women do


text:
Damon Albarn Performs 'Everyday Robots' For Robots
Listen to Damon Albarn Radio on iHeartRadio
Damon Albarn recently got to play a few tracks from his Everyday Robots album for a pair of actual robots.
"The Creators Project" says the Blur frontman's audience during last week's gig at Japan's National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation included 48 humans and two androids.
.@Damonalbarn played a show for some androids in Japan: http://t.co/DV5HywcWwn pic.twitter.com/td0k8I097O
— The Creators Project (@CreatorsProject) July 28, 2014
Albarn called the experience "interesting." One of the robots was designed and dressed to look like a real woman, and Albarn said that from a distance the artificial audience members looked a lot like "normal people."
Check out more pics from the performance here.
Photo: Getty Images


text:
One of our most popular events! Check out our video.
The UNLV Intramural Sports Program provides UNLV students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to participate in a variety of organized, competitive activities throughout each academic year. Activities are organized on both a team and individual basis with opportunities to compete against like-minded teams/participants within specialty conferences (Ex. men's residence hall or women's Greek conferences).


text:
Health Promotion - School Health
What is School Health?
A major in Health Promotion - School Health will give you an introduction to the main ideas and theories of health and health behavior but also focus on how to teach health in schools.
Minnesota Department of Education Standards
Minnesota K-12 Academic Standards, Required State Tests and Graduation Requirements


text:
Hi All,
i am getting the following error when i try to close a window opened through client side before print dialog appears.Error: function expected
I am opening a window and print dialog simultaneously, print dialog is taking few seconds to open after the window. before the print dialog is opened when i close the window i am getting the error.below is my code,
function OnClick() {
var a = window.open('', '', 'width=300,height=300');
<asp:Button ID="btn" runat="server" Text="Click" OnClientClick="OnClick()"/>
Can any one please help me how to resolve this issue.
Thanks you,
onClick is already a javascript function, that might cause an issue.
Thank you SpikeZ for your reply, even if i change the function name still its an issue. Issue is coming when i close the popup before print window is displayed.
function OnClick()
var a = window.open('', '', 'width=300,height=300');
// presumably you're writing content here
[B]if( !a.closed )[/B]
Thank you Logic Ali, i tried as you mentioned above but no use, still i am getting error.
Thank you once again.
Where do you see this error message and what data are you writing to the window?
in the popup we are loading some content to be printed.
please find the error image attached.


text:
Sony Corp. is planning to unveil its next-generation home videogame console during a February event, showing off a successor to its current PlayStation 3 system.
It will be like the PS Vita reveal in February 2011 at the same event, released at end of the year in Japan, and at the beginning of 2012 allover the world. The same will happen with PS4, eventhough I think Sony will shoot for a worldwide release at the end of 2013 to compete with the Xbox 720, maybe November 2013 in Japan and December 2013 for the rest of the world.
Seems quite likely, but as usual we'll have to wait and see.
February is turning out better than I expected. I get to play a new Fire Emblem for the first time in years, the sequel to probably my favorite platformer of this generation, Rayman Origins is being released, a new Sly Cooper game is finally coming out, my birthday is on the 10th, and to top it all off I may just get my first glimpse of the PS4. I can't wait!
i will be home on february 20 and i know i wont be sleeping on the 19th. i dont know if its a school day or work day and i dont care, ill be home waiting for the announcement of "the future".
PS2 released in 2000, a year before the Gamecube or Xbox.
Release PS4 early and you win again.
Let the fight begin!
Happy early birthday, hope enjoy the upcoming games dude :D
I highly doubt Japan will get PS4 first, their home console market seems to shrink. I wouldnt be surprised if they launched PS4 in US/EU and then in Japan. This time around they need to make a strong debut in their main markets.
@r21: I bubbled you up just for being a nice guy. Don't bubble me down for being off-topic please :/
Awww thanks man. Your a pretty cool dude.
The future is closer than I thought just a few minutes ago....
I thought it would be shown a couple weeks or so before E3. Or at GDC in March at the earliest...
Exciting year for games huh? Perhaps I can be a bit greedy and ask them to show a glimpse of the new Media molecule IP for the PS4? Maybe the new PS4 mascot will be from this game, that would be a great way to kick things off. Oh and another few games too while I am in dream mode...
Actually they had show Vita for the first time 17th January
its gaikai, online streaming game service, there are gona be alot of people PISSED on the 20th!
Bring it on Sony.
swear....!! I can't build on more hype for anything than a NEW console from Sony...! :D :D
Right ON! I can't wait For Sony to announced the PS4. It's going to be a great year for gaming. 2013 :)
i can see it already....
play 4 free
time 4 a revolution
games 4 everyone
playstation 4.
Yes the term "4,four,for" will be recurrent and used to express their new slogans.
2nd one was kinda lame, rest of them are pretty solid. 4ndle yourself. You've earned it tentonsoftube.
OMG I can't wait for this. My Body Is Ready!!!!!!!!!
2/20/13 R.I.P Wii U
I'm excited for the PS4 as well but I won't count the Wii U out just yet. We made that mistake with the 3DS when the Vita was announced, and look how that turned out. The market is becoming harder and harder to predict these days so I wouldn't make that call just yet.
Still can't freaking wait for the PS4 though. Hope they show off some launch titles. Doubt we'll get a price though. Possibly at E3.
Nintendo got away with the 3DS because they cut the price when they saw the PS Vita specs and price point at E3. That's the only reason why the 3DS is selling well along with the help of Mario.
Once the Wii U has some 'real' Nintendo games, we'll find out just how dead it is. Its still basically surviving on 2d staples and some basic Wii games gone HD. A 3d Mario, Mario Kart, SMB, Zelda, Wii Fit, etc will pick up sales I bet as those are what people with Nintendo consoles want most. I may actually pick one up once I see a decent Zelda release.
I doubt it will ever compete with Wii in sales by any means but I bet it will outsell the Gamecube still ;) The fact is, the Wii was a fluke and if Nintendo honestly expected that to happen again they were being delusional. In the long run I expect sales to be much closer to 360/PS3 than Wii numbers but still much higher than the generation before them (PS2 excluded naturally).
Well, yeah there's that and the fact that the 3DS now has a pretty decent lineup of games as well. Now that you mention it though, maybe the same is likely to happen here.
Think about it, lets say Sony prices the PS4 to compete with the Wii U, and Nintendo pulls a 3DS and cuts the price, that in combination with the fact that Nintendo will likely release a new Mario Kart and 3D Mario game at the end of the year along with whatever they announce at E3 and we may perhaps see a repeat of the 3DS/Vita incident. However unlike with the 3DS, there is a third player involved, Microsoft. That could really change how this situation could go. Just Trying to realistic here man.
Still doesn't hamper my excitement though. Can't wait to see what Sony shows off. Love both Sony and Nintendo, don't want to see either of them fail.
I don't think nintendo would drop the Wii U price as they are selling at a loss. They have stated this many times. This also could be a vita push as well with the ps4 in showing off both systems with their cross play, remote play, etc.
Remember the 3DS has a lot of third party support that is entirely independent of the PS Vita. I don't see EA bothering dumbing down Dragon Age 3, Battlefield 4, Mass Effect etc. for the Wii U once the two "top dogs" release. Same with other publishers and their flagship series. Only reason Wii U is getting the likes of Mass Effect and COD now is because it is comparable to current-gen consoles in terms of graphics. But that's just my two cents
Did we learn nothing from the VITA? People were calling for 3DS obituaries when the VITA was first announced/teased, look how that turned out.
same thing will happen here
vita will destroy 3ds
yea doing a great job at it lol
That was before the price cut. Once priced at similar prices, people veered more to the vita.
well traditionally Sony hasnt put too much stock in their handhelds like Nintendo does. However when it comes to their Home consoles they are second to none in support and even get more than Nintendo. THATS THE DIFFERENCE.
So no, the vitas woes have little to nothing to do with how the ps4 might perform under similar circumstances.
I mean there are just a lot more people waiting for a home console from Sony than they are for their handheld, heck dont take my word for it; just ask around.
Psone,ps2 and ps3 all have tremendous support and thats evident by their catalogue of games.
Both the psp and vita have suffer in this area, so the same cant be applied. Now in 2013 is when we are starting to see some effort put into supporting the vita, so after this year we will see how it turns out.
But to your point, yeah the ps4 is likely to cost more than the wiiu and can potentially be a factor down the stretch; but i fear next gen is going to have similar faces supporting similar parties all over again. Sony and MS are more likely to get the lions share of third party support, despite arriving later at a higher price tag.
Thats not a fact, but just my guess based on a number of indicators.
I'm excited for the PS4 and i like ps brand, but your comment very sad and childish. Sorry.
2/20/13 R.I.P Wii U?? Why? C'mon man..
WiiU its good and nice console and cool gaming coming this platform.
Ps4, new Xbox same.
Are you related to Pachter?
Wait wait wait wait.Hold the phone.So it's true? They are going to reveal the PS4? Is the Wall Street Journal known for giving out wrong information or having bad sources? Because if this is true then it all makes sense. The spec leaks, the sources saying that PS4 is the name,inviting all the investors, all the rumors about next gen games for it.Oh my gosh my hands are shaking. Please don't let this be a lie. I am so amped and hyped up right now. Don't bring me crashing down.Show us the PS4 FTW!!!! Please.
I do hope you're joking regarding your question about the quality of the Wall Street Journal.
I really, truly, hope you're joking :-/
I don't live in the United States or read the Wall Street Journal or know of their practices.Why is that is hard to believe?
My body is Reggie SONY. As long as you don't call for 2nd jobs.
reggie don't work for sony
you should say
Kaz would say something like
"My body is rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrready" ;
Well knowing how most asians usually get their R's and L's confused maybe it would be more like -
"My Body Is LLLLLLLLeady"
i tought it was just an announcement of PSV-Slim?
I guess not anymore if the WSJ is backing it up. They also mention that the PS4 is supposed to implement "social gaming aspects."
my reaction to the awesomeness of this teaser trailer lol
PS3 had no games scheduled for the end of the year and now we have GTAV announced for September and an upcoming PS4 announcement.
Does that seem a bit suss to anyone else?
EDIT: Also no platforms were announced in Rockstars' release statement.
GTAV a PS4 launch title?
Nah thats crazy talk.
I wonder if a dual release (XB360/PS3 and PS4/NextXbox/PC) is out of the question
it doesnt really fit with rockstars track record but hey who knows...
The best/easiest way for them to top GTA IV sales is by doubling the amount of platforms to play it on right?
if this actually an official announcement, that'd be great, but i still don't think that it's going to hit the market until 2014. an announcement =/= release date, and they may only just acknowledge the existence of the system with no precise details (which they'll likely save for E3).
4=PS4 6=Sony's 6th system
hey guy...youre looking WAY too much into it right now LOL.
2*20=40-20 - 10 +3= 23 Oh my Gerd! It's everywhere!
People are now treating this like the Da Vinci Code.. Really?
I don't understand why people think they will release the new systems this year. Ps3 was announced at 2005 E3 and released Nov 2006! I think it will be announced this year but definitely won't come out until spring-fall of 2014. Releasing in Nov would be bad for the system. You have Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto 5, and who knows what else releasing near that date. Besides there are still games like God of War, Last of Us, Crysis 3, being released for current systems. I doubt they would release it when there are still so many popular games that would take away from people buying the new system.
2014 Q4 release ps4? Fail step, and too late. MS new xbox coming this year, and WiiU strong game lineup 2014 end.
This not 2005, this 2013 the market changes, strong concurrency.
Even if its not Nov 2014 i think it will be mid 2014. Yes its a different market, for Sony thy need it to sell well more than ever since they are losing money on vita and other things. Unless GTA5 and Call of Duty get released on PS4 also it would be stupid to bring it out at the end of the year. There is a rumor that Battlefield 4 will be released on the new consoles and current consoles so they might do that but only the hardcore gamers or people with money to spend will get PS4 to play a game that is on a system they already have.
Blue Diodes delayed it from it's original release date of Spring 2006
GTA5 was meant for Spring, it looks like it may have been delayed to launch with PS4.
Why would the release a system in September? Typically they launch during the holiday season, November seems to be a prime system launch. I just don't see the PS4 being released this year.
sony show me the console..and i show you my money!!! damn this is an early birthday gift for me...wohooo
T- minus 19 days till the beginning of next gen!
I hope they start taking pre orders that day too. Or the following week of the announcement.
Here's something interesting and wasn't the case until today I believe.
Type in www.psorbis.com in your browser and see what it takes you :)
It's certainly looking like it's the PS4. I cannot wait. Yeah, February 20th will be awesome, but my eyes are aimed at June. This is going to be an amazing E3. Sony and Microsoft will be showing off their software/hardware, and Nintendo, in addition to it's promised big guns, will almost surely have something awesome hidden away. E3 2013 will completely erase the non-news of last year.
hey guys check this out...this is what i have seen in the video teaser thingy...and i can say that this is the PS4's final image its kinda boxy like console..with blend of transparent glass?? or vent?? but you guys think about it..sorry sony but dont worry i still love you...
Don't know what you are seeing but I see an X and a reflection of a square on the X. :/
Also @BitbyDeath... http://www.rockstargames.co...
Officially announced for PS3 and Xbox 360! lol
A nice birthday present.
This will have me pump, through E3, through it's release.
I don't care what's your price for the PS4 Sony .. BUT I'M BUYING IT ! LONG LIVE PLAY ~


text:
About the Rational Team Webtop Information Center
Product documentation
The Information Center provides you with user assistance for each version of IBM Rational Team Webtop. With an Information Center, you can view, browse, and search online information related to the Rational Team Webtop family.
Information Center List
- Back- selected tab,
- Information Center- selected tab,
Information Centers provide a powerful on-line interface for finding technical information on a particular product, offering, or product solution.
The Information Centers are designed to:
- Help you plan, install, configure, use, tune, monitor, troubleshoot, and maintain the product
- Contain reference material such as product commands, parameters, and system values
Note: The information center is built upon open source software developed by the Eclipse Project.
IMPORTANT: Language of the content displayed in an information center is determined by the Language setting in your browser, if the content is available in that language.
From the Information Center, all the major documentation can be accessed.
Review the information in the Using this information center section to find out how to make this new technology work best for you.
Version 1.1 Information Center
Document information
More support for:
Rational Team Webtop
Software version: 1.0, 1.1
Operating system(s): Linux, Solaris, Windows
Reference #: 7016568
Modified date: 21 July 2010
Translate this page:


text:
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The AARP Safe Driving Course is at 9 a.m. Tuesday, March 15, in the Community Room at Capital City Bank, in Chiefland.
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text:
How LSU and Syracuse Met in the 1965 Sugar Bowl
Seven days after the Alabama-Ole Miss football game, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Louisiana statute requiring racial segregation of public entertainment and athletic events was unconstitutional. Ernest N. Morial and A.P. Tureaud, who argued the case for Horace Bynum, were the winning attorneys. Both were trailblazers in the civil rights' years and Morial, 14 years later, would become the first black mayor of New Orleans.
That decision removed a barrier that had hindered the Sugar Bowl from being the national game it had been before 1957. There was no reason New Orleans shouldn't pick up the bowl tempo again. Meanwhile, the Orange Bowl, in one of the most farsighted moves any postseason game ever took, changed its kickoff from early afternoon to prime television time-in the evening. The Rose Bowl, because of the time difference, had always started later than the other three bowls. That, combined with the tie-up between two of the country's most populous areas, had given Pasadena control of the ratings and a much larger TV contract than the others. Miami, no longer bound to the Big Eight, would now also be unopposed. Eventually, the money would be an inducement to help the Orange Bowl get the games it most desired. This was the real start of the television age for the bowls.
Hearts across the nation quickened when it was rumored Notre Dame might break its long-standing bowl ban. Irish Athletic Director Ed "Moose" Krause ended such banter by stating, "We're not going to any bowl game." He couldn't have been more definitive. Alabama, who would finish as the national champion, had no-strings-attached invitations from the Sugar, Cotton, and Orange Bowls. Coach Bear Bryant said he wouldn't consider any of them until after his Georgia Tech game.
It was known, however, that he favored the Cotton Bowl, a game he had not been to since his coaching years at the University of Kentucky. But the Orange Bowl lured Bryant from Dallas to Miami for a titanic confrontation with fifth-ranked Texas. Undefeated Southwest Conference champion Arkansas was scheduled against Nebraska in the Cotton. Both were excellent pairings. The Sugar was left with a solid, if not quite flashy, hand.
Sam Corenswet, Sr., of the Mid-Winter Sports Association was asked what he looked for in bowl matches. "Attractiveness and individual stars," he said.
That left a great deal of leeway in the 1964 season. States-Item columnist Peter Finney and his Times-Picayune counterpart Buddy Diliberto felt one team filled both bills for the Sugar Bowl: Syracuse - the East's best team - featured an incredible running tandem in fullback Jim Nance and half-back Floyd Little. The two accounted for 1,779 yards and 25 touchdowns.
The problem was the Orangemen had two defeats and one game to go before the Bowl invitations would be extended. Finney and Diliberto continued to plug for Syracuse. "For one thing," said Diliberto, "we thought it would be a dramatic way to end the segregation thing. Secondly, there was talk beginning then that New Orleans might be in line for a National Football League franchise. If there was any doubt about racial problems in the city, it could have endangered that move."
"The East vs. the South competition," wrote Finney, "as far as I'm concerned has more postseason appeal than the SWC vs. SEC or all-SEC matches we've been getting."
Louisiana State University had an iron defense and an exceptional flanker-kicker. The kicker had set a national record with 13 field goals during the regular season. LSU was a logical SEC choice since Alabama was going to the Orange Bowl. Seventh-ranked LSU, however, also had a loss and a tie with a game with Florida remaining.
The Sugar took a chance and invited both. Ninth-ranked Syracuse lost its last game to West Virginia. LSU was beaten by Florida, setting up a New Orleans match with the most combined losses since 1945.
"Finney and I were sitting in the press box when the results of the Syracuse-West Virginia game began coming in by quarters," laughed Diliberto. "Man, you should've seen the looks the Sugar Bowl people were giving us. We just kind of ducked our heads and talked to each other. No one else would. But, considering everything, it was still the right choice."
Recap excerpted from the book "Sugar Bowl Classic: A History" by Marty Mulé, who covered the game and the organization for decades for the New Orleans Times-Picayune.