Tuesday, January 13, 2009

In the Footsteps of the Prophet

Speaking Up for 9/11 Truth is "Deep Sunnah"

By Kevin Barrett, www.truthjihad.com

Muslims everywhere try to imitate the Prophet Muhammad, peace upon him, just as serious Christians practice imitatio christi, "imitation of Christ." Following the sunnah (prophetic tradition) is central to the religion of Islam.

Muslims follow the Prophet's example in prayer, and also in daily life. Some carry it too far. The Taliban, for example, made it mandatory for all men to wear beards of prophetic length. Personally, I think that's a wee bit excessive.

Emulation of the Prophet is generally a good thing. But blind imitation of every superficial aspect of his life, without consideration of the deeper meaning, risks missing the point. You want to eat the way the prophet ate? Fine. You'll feel a connection with an age-old spiritual tradition, and also save money on silverware. Want to travel the way he traveled? A bit impractical, unless you live somewhere where walking beside camels is feasible. Want to marry as many women as he married? Allah has specifically told you not to.

There are, of course, many time-tested traditions about what we should emulate. Alongside those traditions, there is the all-important issue: How can we follow the prophetic example at the inner, spiritual level?

If the best guide to the surface details of the prophetic life is the Hadith, the collections of reports passed down from eyewitnesses, the ultimate guide to following in the spiritual footsteps of the Prophet, peace upon him, is the Qur'an. To understand why, we will need to take a brief detour through literary theory.

Literary theorist M.M. Bakhtin has explained that the deep meaning of any text or utterance depends on who is speaking to whom, in what context. The exact same words can mean entirely different things if they are spoken in anger or in jest, by a lover or a killer, in a playful tone of voice to a friend or harshly to a stranger. In many great works of literature, the issue of who is speaking to whom in what context often becomes extremely rich and nuanced. Baktin called this feature of texts dialogism, and praised such richly nuanced texts as dialogic.

The Qur'an, widely regarded as a literary masterpiece even by non-Muslim readers, is an extremely dialogic text. That may strike some non-Muslims as odd, since the Qur'an is the direct word of the one omnicient God who can simply say "be" and it is. But the next time you read the Qur'an, ask yourself two questions: Who is Allah speaking to? And who or what is this "Allah" anyway?

Let's look at the second question first. In the Qur'an, Allah has 99 names (al-asma' al-husna) and speaks of him/her/itself in both the first and third persons. That's right: Allah alternatively refers to Allah as the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate, the All-Majestic, the All-Knowing, and so on, using as pronouns both "we" and "he/it." This shifting of pronouns and perspectives emphasizes that Allah is not any particular entity, but rather the limitless source of all entities.

And who is Allah's ever-shifting "we," and "he/it" addressing? The Qur'an's first addressee, of course, is the Prophet Muhammad, peace upon him. Allah speaks directly to Muhammad, telling him what to recite.

Say: Have ye imagined, if Allah should take away your hearing and your sight and seal your hearts, who is the God who could restore it to you save Allah? See how We display the revelations unto them? Yet still they turn away. -- Qur'an, 6:46 (Pickthall translation)

On the one hand, Allah is telling the Prophet (pbuh) what to recite to the Muslim community. At the same time, Allah is personally speaking to the Prophet, consoling and encouraging him to persevere despite the frustration he is experiencing from those who reject and deride his divinely-inspired message. Yet that personal message to the Prophet Muhammad, is at the same time a message to the entire Muslim community, consoling all Muslims in the face of the opposition they will face as they, in turn, spread the divine message.

This example illustrates an extremely important feature of the Qur'an: Whenever Allah says "qul!" (say!) s/He is telling the both the Prophet and the Prophet's audience, i.e. the entire Muslim community, to speak, to say something--in this case to ask who could restore our hearing and sight, and unseal our hearts, other than the one God, and to repeat "See how We display the revelations unto them? Yet still they turn away."

As the individual Muslim reads, recites, or listens to the Qur'an, he or she hears God speaking to Muhammad, to the community of believers, and to (or within) him- or herself all at the same time! This feature of the Qur'an is one of the secrets of its simultaneous intimacy and universality. The Qur'an is an intimate dialogue between God and the individual Muslim, an intimate dialogue between God and Muhammad (p.b.u.h.), and at the same time a universal utterance from the one Source of all creation to that entire creation.

This amazing feature of the Qur'an suggests that we emulate Muhammad not just by following his table manners, or clipping our beards to the length of his, but also (and perhaps more importantly) by taking the Qur'anic dialogue to heart the way he did, to persevere in spreading the truth the way he did.

If you really listen to the Qur'an, you'll hear its oft-repeated consolations for the heartbreaking fact that so many refuse to hear the truth: they are "deaf, dumb, and blind," there is "rust on their hearts," they mock and turn away from the truth and call it lies. As it hails the Prophet Muhammad, peace upon him, the Qur'an also hails you, consoling you for the heartbreak you face as you suffer for the slights you receive as you persevere in telling an all-important truth.

But are you actually out there spreading the truth and suffering the consequences, as the early Muslims were?

In a sense you are, if you are a minimally practicing Muslim; for in that case, you are bearing witness that there is no god but God many times a day, and bearing witness to the truth of the message through your actions. But unless you are performing dawa--propagating the message of Islam where it is not always welcome--you may not be able to personally relate to Allah's consolations for those who publicly proclaim the truth and are scorned for their efforts. And the whole of the Qur'an is steeped in those consolations.

So if you really want to emulate the Last Prophet (all the prophets, in fact) get out there and publicly proclaim the truth among people who mostly don't want to hear it.

The now well-established fact that the crimes of 9/11 were committed not by Muslims, but by the enemies of Islam, is the most important historical truth of our time. Proclaiming it, especially among non-Muslims, is the most powerful form of dawa available to us today.

By doing so, you will be following deep sunnah; accomplishing hassanaat (good actions that will be rewarded); and opening up for yourself the possibility of a deeper and more intimate relationship with al-Qur'an al-Karîm, the final message of God to humankind.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

WARNING OF A GLOBAL WAR ON ISLAM

In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate

TO THE MUSLIM COMMUNITIES OF NORTH AMERICA, EUROPE, THE MIDDLE EAST AND ELSEWHERE

WARNING OF A GLOBAL WAR ON ISLAM

“The best jihad is a word of truth flung in the face of a tyrant.”
Prophet Muhammad [Sunan al-Nasa'i #4209]

We have lived with calamity for seven years since the so-called terrorist attacks on September 11 2001. At that time we were told that evil Muslim fanatics has committed suicide in the process of killing thousands of innocent civilians. The events of that day ushered in a dark new era. For many Muslims it has meant death and torture, for others loss of livelihood and imprisonment, and for others, as yet untouched by disaster, it has meant public ridicule and mistrust, a sense of gathering doom.

We have observed large numbers of Muslims in the West pretending that life is otherwise normal, that all will soon be well again, that this will blow over. They are like ostriches with their heads in the sand. They hide from reality in order to preserve their enjoyment of the Dunia.

You know that suicide is forbidden in Islam. You know that harming innocent civilians is forbidden in Islam. You know that the source of these prohibitions is the Qur’an itself . Yet you continue to believe that “Muslims” were involved in the terrorist attacks? Ask yourself if the alleged motivation of the hijackers could possibly be true. Is it possible that actual hijackers could expect “72 virgins” after violating two of the most fundamental prohibitions in Islam? Come now. Is it possible that the hijackers were all “jealous of our freedoms?” What freedoms?

There is now incontrovertible evidence — whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not — that 9/11 was not carried out by Muslims. We know that the towers at the World Trade Center were brought down by a form of controlled demolition. We have reason to believe that the aircraft that struck the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were not Flights AAL 11 and UAL 175. And we have the elements of deception in hand: radar swapping, remote control of aircraft, and the war games being carried out on that day — including scenarios involving planes being flown into public buildings!

If you finally come to understand this one crucial fact, you will have taken the most important step into the global struggle to expose the perpetrators of 9/11 — not to mention the subsequent deceptions of Bali, Madrid, London and most recently Mumbai. Muslims worldwide must rise as one and demand a new investigation of the seminal event without which there would be no “war on terror” today, much less a war on Islam.

What will be your role in this war? Will you turn aside and call us “conspiracy theorists?” That would be convenient. Will you ignore this message altogether, being unable to bring yourself to believe in a deception so huge? Or will you finally grasp the essence of the matter and take your place in the ranks of those who demand justice and are willing to struggle for it?

Without knowing the source of your trouble, how can you struggle against it? Will you confront an imaginary enemy in front of you while your real enemy lies hidden behind you? Jihad without haqq is like running with a blindfold on. How long before you come to grief?

Who Knows?

We will now provide details of our warning, beginning with the current state of what amounts to a vast investigation, with most of the results posted on the internet. Alongside the horde of amateur inquirers, there are over a thousand professionals, many highly placed, with excellent specialized educations, years of dedicated service, high-achievers, all of whom declare the attacks of 9/11 to be bogus. The backgrounds of many of these dissenters are especially relevant to the inquiry. The list includes (high-ranking) military officers, government officials, airline pilots, intelligence officers, engineers and architects, forensic specialists, crash investigators, air traffic control operators, and scholars with critical acumen, including experts on Islam.

Go and visit the people who are trying to save you while you call them names. See the faces and read the words of the people you have been slandering. See how few Muslims there are!

http://www.patriotsquestion911.com

Did you see those endless faces and the words those faces speak? The combined expertise of these people cannot be weighed in the balance of your own experience. You owe them your respect and support.

Please also read the essay "Was America Attacked by Muslims on 9/11?" by Dr. David Ray Griffin: http://truthjihad.com/griffin.htm

Summary of Evidence

There are many websites that have posted the results of numerous investigations. To begin your own inquiry in to 9/11 you could visit

http://www.physics911.net or http://www.journalof911studies.com
These sites link to many others, so they amount to your portal into the world of evidence pointing to an inside job. Briefly, the main elements of the forensic investigation are as follows:

1. Extremely high temperatures were reached inside the twin towers just before their respective collapses. The evidence comes in the form of microspherules, tiny spheres that can only be formed at 2600º C. Jet fuel and office fires burn at around 800º C. There is nothing in a commercial airliner that would burn at that temperature. Thermodynamic calculations have revealed an average temperature on the floors struck by the respective aircraft of approximately 375º C. Whatever the intense heat source may have been, it created pools of molten steel under the buildings that remained red-hot for weeks.

2. Multiple witnesses attest to explosions within the building just prior to collapse. Firemen describe demolition squibs going off in rapid succession as the buildings collapsed in free fall mode. The Lamont-Dougherty seismic station recorded ground tremors just prior to collapse.

3. The cellphone calls alleged to have been made from three of the flights could not possibly have taken place as described. Cellular networks were designed as a solely terrestrial communization system and several aerial experiments in light aircraft bear this out, with an absolute ceiling at 5000-6000’. For heavy aircraft the ceiling is about 1000’.

4. There is no evidence whatever of a passenger airliner at the pentagon: no large wings (that, given the nature of the holes should have sheared off), no seats, no passenger bodies. One engine found at the crash site is much too small for a Boeing 757, being used in the A3 Skywarrior, among other aircraft.

Other suspicious elements include: a de facto stand-down by the US Air Force; no hijacker names on the passenger lists published after the event; mysterious explosions in the Pentagon prior to the impact of the incoming aircraft and, of course, the Qur’anic prohibition against suicide and violence against civilians.

What Can You Do?

Make no mistake about it: This is jihad and those who engage in it will be rewarded, as promised by the Qur’an. But what kind of war involves no bullets or bombs? An information war. Muslims — those with courage and love for their Creator — are in fact obliged to engage the enemy. In this case, we fling words of truth in the “face of a tyrant.”

Specifically, you can

1. form a local Muslim 9/11 Truth Group by registering at the following website:

http://www.911truth.org/page.php?page=grassroots_contacts

2. join or contribute to the Muslim/Christian/Jewish Alliance for 9/11 Truth http://mujca.com/ by emailing MUJCA coordinator Lou Stolzenberg at loubikes@charter.net

3. join or contribute to Muslims for 9/11 Truth, http://m911t.com, by emailing muslims4truth@gmail.com

4. engage in outreach activities within your local community.

We will be happy to consult with individual communities for these and other activities. or

We were promised that the “war on terror” would be a very long one. Do you think this will all blow away? If so, you’re sadly mistaken. For example, 28 million copies of a DVD outlining Muslim plans for world conquest have been sent to American homes — often enclosed in newspapers and magazines. Rumors persist of large-scale detention facilities currently under construction by Haliburton Inc with a capacity of about three million persons. Given the nature of this war on Islam, you have no choice but be involved.

You have been warned by knowledgeable and sincere Muslim brothers. You really have no choice.

Kevin Barrett, Ph.D., African Literature/Arabic-Islamic Studies: www.truthjihad.com

Khalil Dewdney, Ph.D., Mathematics and physics: www.physics911.ca/