Ainnbeen

How To Stop Worrying And Start Living. By Dale Carnagie.

2012-01-13T18:40:00.000+05:00

I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS BEAUTIFUL BOOK THAT SPEAK BEAUTIFULLY ABOUT ISSUES OF OUR DAILY LIFE RATHER SOMETHING ELSE!

"One of the most appalling comments on our present way of life is that half of all the beds in our hospitals are reserved for patients with nervous and mental troubles, patients who have collapsed under the crushing burden of accumulated yesterdays and fearful tomorrows. Yet a vast majority of those people would be walking the streets today, leading happy, useful lives, if they had only heeded the words of Jesus: "Have no anxiety about the morrow"; or the words of Sir William Osier: "Live in day-tight compartments.""
http://www.trans4mind.com/Carnagie.pdf

Seven Reasons Why a Scientist Believes in God

2011-09-21T13:23:00.002+05:00

"WE ARE STILL IN THE DAWN of the scientific age, and every increase of light reveals more brightly the handiwork of an intelligent Creator. We have made stupendous discoveries; with a spirit of scientific humility and of faith grounded in knowledge we are approaching ever nearer to an awareness of God.

For myself, I count seven reasons for my faith:

First: By unwavering mathematical law we can prove that our universe was designed and executed by a great engineering intelligence.

Suppose you put ten pennies, marked from one to ten, into your pocket and give them a good shuffle. Now try to take them out in sequence from one to ten, putting back the coin each time and shaking them all again. Mathematically we know that your chance of first drawing number one is one in ten; of drawing one and two in succession, one in 100; of drawing one, two and three in succession, one in 1000, and so on; your chance of drawing them all, from number one to number ten in succession, would reach the unbelievable figure of one in ten billion.

By the same reasoning, so many exacting conditions are necessary for life on the earth that they could not possibly exist in proper relationship by chance. The earth rotates on its axis 1000 miles an hour at the equator; if it turned at 100 miles an hour, our days and nights would be ten times as long as now, and the hot sun would likely burn up our vegetation each long day while in the long night any surviving sprout might well freeze.

Again the sun, source of our life, has a surface temperature of 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and our earth is just far enough away so that this "eternal life" warms us just enough and not too much ! If the sun gave off only one half its present radiation, we would freeze, and if it gave as much more, we would roast.

The slant of the earth, tilted at an angle of 23 degrees, gives us our seasons; if the earth had not been so tilted, vapors from the ocean would move north and south, piling up for us continents of ice. If our moon were, say, only 50,000 miles away instead of its actual distance, our tides might be so enormous that twice a day all continents would be submerged; even the mountains could soon be eroded away. If the crust of the earth had only been ten feet thicker, there would be no oxygen, without which animal life must die. Had the ocean been a few feet deeper, carbon dioxide and oxygen would have been absorbed and no vegetable life could exist."
source:http://www.dlshq.org/messages/sciblgod.htm

Rule people by Tricks not by Righteous Principles

2011-02-18T02:06:00.003+05:00

In the feudal state of Chu an old man survived by keeping monkeys in his service. The people of Chu called him “ju gong” (monkey master).Each morning, the old man
would assemble the monkeys in his courtyard, and order the eldest one to lead the others to the mountains to gather fruits from bushes and trees.It was the rule that each monkey had to give one-tenth of his collection to the old man. Those who failed to do so would be ruthlessly flogged. All the monkeys suffered bitterly, but dared not complain.
One day, a small monkey asked the other monkeys: “Did the old man plant all the fruit trees and bushes?” The others said: “No, they grew naturally.” The small monkey
further asked: “Can’t we take the fruits without the old man’s permission?” The others replied: “Yes, we all can.”The small monkey continued: “Then, why should we depend on the old man; why must we all serve him?”
Before the small monkey was able to finish his statement,all the monkeys suddenly became enlightened and awakened. On the same night, watching that the old man had fallen asleep, the monkeys tore down all the barricades of the stockade in which they were confined, and destroyed the stockade entirely. They also took the fruits the old man had in storage, brought all with them to the woods, and never
returned. The old man finally died of starvation.

Yu-li-zi says, “Some men in the world rule their people by tricks and not by
righteous principles. Aren’t they just like the monkey master? They are not aware of their muddle headedness.
As soon as their people become enlightened, their tricks no longer work.”

Source: http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf

Suez Canal

2011-02-11T01:47:00.002+05:00

Where is the Suez Canal located?

We learnt about the Panama Canal which is important for all types of ships. Another important man-made marvel, which holds a key position in the history is The "Suez Canal". It is located on the north of Africa, south-east of Europe. It connects the Mediterranean sea and the Red sea. Port Said is located on the Mediterranean sea & Port Suez is located on the Red sea. The picture shows the view of Suez canal from the East. At the bottom we can witness the Red sea with Port Suez at the mouth of the canal. The canal is 192 Kms long extends till Port Said at the other end of the canal, leading into the Mediterranean sea. SuezCanal

History & Importance of the Canal

The construction of the canal dates back to 18th century. In middle on 18th century, French Engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps, formed a company "Suez canal company" to carry out the construction of the canal. Due to various political, technical, financial & geographic reasons, the construction of canal was stopped plenty times and after re-started for contruction, it costed double the estimated cost. The canal was open for shipping from 1869 and closed in between as "war between Egypt & Isreal" as reason. Now the canal is open through out the year for shipping industry and declared as neutral zone, and managed by U.A.E.

The western world to get raw materials, started trading with the East. This was earlier done by adopting a route by making a round trip around Africa. The ships had a big technical problem of storing enormous quantity of fuel oil for making such a long voyage. The time involved was plenty times more than when we adopt a route through the Suez Canal. Also the cost incurred for the fuel was also high. But after the construction of Suez canal, It overtook all difficulties with the shipping industry. Ships made frequent transit which saved time, money and man power too.

Flourishing Oil Trade

The Gulf of aden & Persian Gulf countries are considered to be the major exporters of oil. Oil, thus being the major source of energy throughout the world, it was highly essential to transport oil from these Gulf region to every part of the world. So it was highly essential to construct a canal for easy transportation. Thus on this special interest, the canal construction was started and thus it made faster and easy transportation of merchant ships. But it said in the history that the Egyptians were forced to work for the construction of the canal.The death toll accounts to nearly 30,000 people.

Capacity & Operation of the canal

The capacity of Suez Canal is that it can entertain upto 1,50,000 tonnes of displacement. It permits ships upto 16 m draft to transit through. The maximum size of the vessel which can make a safe transit through the canal is called Suezmax. The limiting factor for the ship's size is the draft of the ship alone, and the lenght & beam are made irrelevant because of the absence of the locks and lock chambers. The air draft of the ship is restricted because of the Suez Canal bridge. The Supertankers, in order to avoid a round-trip via Cape of Good Hope,(Africa), discharge a part of their cargo, to the terminals, or "tranship" to smaller vessels, which enlightens the chances of the Supertankers to pass through the Suez canal. After crossing the canal, these ships again load the cargo and then start their sea voyage. As this becomes a main constrain, The Suez Canal authorities, have planned to dredge the canal up to 22 metres, which enable vessels bigger than Suezmax to be engaged in the convoy.

Dimensions of the SuezMax vessel:

deadweight: 150000 tonnes.

width(beam): 46 metres.

air draft: 68 metres

Environmental Impact - Lessepsian Migration

Wondering how can construction of a canal, creates impact on the environment? Yes. It has created a great impact on the marine environment. After the construction of the canal, the Red Sea was connected to The Mediterranean sea. This madde the species from Red sea to invade the Mediterranean sea causing the imbalance of the eco-system. The water flow is generally from the Red sea to the Mediterranean sea due to small difference in water level. This made the migration of species from Red sea to Mediterranean sea only. This migration is called as Lessepsian migration because, it was "Ferdinand de Lesseps", who engineered the construction of the canal.

The Convoy...!

suez canalThe transit through the Canal, is called a "Convoy". At any given time, only single pass can be made through the canal. But, there are 3 places where the ships are usually anchored to adjust the convoy plans. On a typical day, 3 convoys transit the canal. Two south bound, & one north bound. First, the southbound convoy enters the canal, after reaching the river area, the convoy gets anchored. The northbound convoy passes through the anchored area and then the southbound convoy transits the canal. The ships transits at a reduced speed to avoid the erosion of the canal sides.

Thus we have visualized the importance of the Suez canal, for shipping industry.

Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/engineering/marine/articles/36532.aspx#ixzz1DaT2Z8ai
Source:http://www.brighthub.com/engineering/marine/articles/36532.aspx

Pretty line by my Friend's post at Facebook

2011-02-04T00:15:00.000+05:00

"If I Could Give You
One Thing In My Life,
I Would Give You
The Ability To See
Yourself Through My Eyes"

Bravo Egyptians who demand Freedom, prosperity

2011-02-02T01:37:00.003+05:00

The power elite was in full swing. AS usual full, unshaken trust at "system"
How so suddenly it happen?
Socio economic division was rapidly increasing. The poor becomes poorer. Large number of Egyptians find it hard to fulfill the basic necessities of life. The corruption was increasing. So there was something that was preparing with the passage of time while power elite perhaps was not ready for it or unshaken trust at "system".
Indeed it was mega event, a turning point in middle east, now, just now the Jordan Government sacks cabinet...............................................

The Flood spare no time.

2011-01-31T02:16:00.002+05:00

"You have taken back your rights and what we have begun can not go back.... We have one main demand: the end of the regime and the beginning of a new stage, a new Egypt.... I bow to the people of Egypt in respect. I ask of you patience, change is coming in the next few days."
This is the speech of Mr. Hosni Mubarak to Protesters.
" Bowing to the peoples of Egypt in respect" why so much preassure, why so much frustration. Whether all this was unexpected at all, completely ignoring the power of masses or trusting, enormous trust at "system" that is "leading" the masses?

Power and sensitivity of poweless

2011-01-31T01:14:00.002+05:00

You can not stop the water, it is making own ways or it burst and wipe out every thing. Similarly injustice, use of immense power, denying the rights, very basic rights can not work for a long time. The world is changing rapidly. The minds are changing. It is different era different in many aspects.
How the Leaders, the Dictators are leading their countries? Is it possible that you ignored the power of masses or you can invent new ways to stop them? Nay it is not possible at all, though your ways(more precisely the systems) were more sophisticated and took long time and efforts possibly to invent them, but now it seems those are not going to be work. The water is making its own ways.
The power elite is always blind sided, can not foresee. Indeed it is misfortune.

Which CEO Characteristics and Abilities Matter?

2011-01-10T00:19:00.003+05:00

Steven N. Kaplan, Mark M. Klebanov, and Morten Sorensen*
Abstract
We exploit a unique dataset to study individual characteristics of CEO candidates for companies involved in buyout and venture capital transactions and relate these characteristics to subsequent corporate performance. CEO candidates vary along two primary dimensions: one that captures general ability and another that contrasts communication and interpersonal skills with execution skills. Subsequent performance is positively related to general ability and to execution skills. The findings expand our view of CEO characteristics and types relative to previous studies.

SOURCE: http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/steven.kaplan/research/kks.pdf

The woman in Islam, in Islamic world and in Non Islamic countries

2010-12-17T00:56:00.006+05:00

It is wide view especially in west, US that Islam undermine the rights and image of woman and in Islam woman are as second class citizen.
This post discuss such stereotype and I will try to shed light.
First it should be clear that teaching of Religion Islam about woman is possibly be something different one than practical illustration or events that occurred in Islamic world . If some peoples from any Muslim country flogging some woman, it is not just consider the teaching of Islam. I mean stoning to death is a punishment that is truly teaching of Islam but Islam lay rules and severely stiff regulation for this punishment, too severely stiff regulation that practically such punishment occurred very scarcely.
How is it? The Holy Quran says about it: (The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication,- flog each of them with a hundred stripes: Let not compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if ye believe in Allah and the Last Day: and let a party of the Believers witness their punishment.) (An-Nur 24: 2).
The punishment for married man and woman is very different from the punishment for unmarried man and woman. Flogging is punishment for unmarried woman and unmarried man while death penalty is punishment for married man and married woman. The testimony of FOUR WITNESSES who state under oath that they have witnessed the commission of the crime. Now practically it is very rare that four persons witness such crime when it is occurring while they state under oath that they have witness the commission of crime, if one out of four is in doubt about witness the punishment will not apply.
Scholars also says that the four witness must be trustworthy. It is not enough for four people to show up at court and give testimony. THE WITNESSES AND THEIR BACKGROUNDS HAVE TO BE CAREFULLY SCRUTINIZED BY THE COURTS TO DETERMINE THEIR TRUSTWORTHINESS AND HONESTY. They have to be able to demonstrate that they saw the crime. It is not easy to explain how one was able to witness such an act without being guilty of any wrongdoing oneself. The witnesses have to see actual sexual penetration. This is not an easy thing to explain.
If the CONDITION of four witnesses of determined trustworthiness is not fulfilled, each of those who accused the person of adultery is given 80 lashes with a whip as the punishment for bearing false witness.
Allah Almighty says: “And those who launch a charge against chaste women, and produce not four witnesses (to support their allegations), flog them with eighty stripes; and reject their evidence ever after: for such men are wicked transgressors.” [Sûrah al-Nûr: 4]
The fuqaha? (may Allah have mercy on them) stated that the basic act of zina which carries the punishment is illegal sexual intercourse, whereby the two ?circumcised parts? [i.e. genitals] come together and there is penetration of the tip of the penis, because this is actual penetration (which carries the prescribed hadd or punishment).
Now it is crystal clear that how this punishment imply in such stiff rules and regulations.
Now if flogging or stoning punishment given in any Islamic countries, it must be noted that whether it fulfilled the rules and regulation of Islam? This punishment has more psychological effects that actually work and in whole Islamic history it is scarcely rare that such conditions met and consequently sexual immorality is suffocated and eradicated in Islamic society.
The painful consequences of sexual immorality that are wide spread in our societies are not necessary to explain in this post, we all familiar about these.
How woman is treated in most part of non Islamic societies? Alas the bitter realities are very painful. Sex trade of woman is very "flourishing" industry in India and other western, eastern countries where woman are treated like sex slaves. There are more than 10 millions woman in India that are indulge in sex trade. Even in metropolitan cities of India one can watch the woman in cages. Lets watch these videos
Little knowledge is dangerous thing, similarly non serious attitude toward our bleeding social issues is very harmful.
May Allah Almighty show us right path and forgive our sins.
Perhaps there are mistakes and errors in this post related to this important and sensitive topic. Your feedback about this post is highly worthily for me.

Sharia law.

2010-12-08T11:36:00.004+05:00

Roger Algase
New York , NY
December 7th, 2010
11:13 am
I am a non-Muslim who researched and published an article on Islamic law many years ago, even though I cannot claim to be a specialist in this field. There are some aspects of Islamic law that are remarkably humane and progressive for their time, or even for ours, and others that are stuck in medieval backwardness, or even barbarity. But take a look at the laws in most Christian countries during the Middle Ages, or, going back further, in Israel during Biblical times. How many people today would want to live under those systems, even in Oklahoma?

It is also worthy of note that some western banks or investors, including, very possibly, some US based ones (though I am not sure about this) are entering into highly sophisticated "Sharia compliant" financial transactions, especially ones that avoid direct interest charges, in order to expand their business in Muslim countries. I also understand that some US food companies may be starting to produce "halal" foods complying with Muslim dietary laws, just as almost every supermarket in New York now carries staples that are now labeled as being kosher. Those of us who live or work in Manhattan are used to seeing halal food stands on almost every midtown street corner. Will all of this be banned in Oklahoma? Will people one day go to jail in that state for depositing money in American banks that may be investing in Sharia compliant financial products overseas, or for selling halal food?

It appears that the great majority of the people of Oklahoma, or at least their politicians, have no interest in learning about what the pros and cons of Sharia law really are. They know nothing (or should I say "Know Nothing"?) about the great contributions that Islamic art, philosophy, and scholarship made to the civilization of Western Europe in the Middle Ages, as well as to world civilization. They do not care, for example, that the Muslim prohibition against paying interest was shared for centuries by both the Jewish and Christian legal systems, or that these systems have many other parallels with Sharia law. Beyond that, they have no knowledge of or interest in learning about the common background and close relationship between Islam and the other two great monotheistic, or "Abrahamic" religions, Judaism and Christianity.

When hate rules supreme, there is no interest in learning the truth about the people one wants to persecute, their culture, or their contribution to our common humanity. The people who foisted this cruel and absurd Oklahoma law on an ignorant and prejudiced public do not care about who the small handful of Muslims among them really are, or what they really believe, any more than the people who passed Arizona's draconian immigration law, which seeks to drive all Mexicans out of their state, are interested in learning about the glories of Maya or Aztec civilization. How much interest was there in learning the truth about Jewish culture and civilization on the part of those who instituted the Nuremberg laws?

The Islamophobic Oklahoma law is a disgrace to America and a direct threat to the freedom and dignity of all of us. It should be vigorously opposed by every American, regardless of religious affiliation (or lack of it), just as the threat by a minister in Florida to burn copies of the Koran in his church was finally stopped when responsible leaders stepped in to speak out against it. Roger Cohen has done all of us a great service by writing this article. We ignore its warning at our peril.
Recommended Recommended by 105 Readers

These comments are taken from NYTimes, article by Mr. Roger Cohen.
Source: http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/opinion/07iht-edcohen.html

ISLAMIC AND CHRISTIAN SPAIN IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES by Thomas F. Glick

2010-11-29T21:59:00.002+05:00

AT THE CROSSROADS OF CIVILIZATION

1. The Arab Conquests: Opening or Closure

[19] The global impact of the Islamic conquests has been an issue of historical debate since Henri Pirenne formulated the problem a half century ago. In Pirenne's view, the conquest of the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean, of Spain, and of strategic islands had shut off the mainsprings of the movement of world trade which had flourished during the late Roman times, with the result that western Europe felt an intensification of ruralization and was impelled to return to a closed, moneyless, "natural" economic system. The conquests, then, set in motion a chain of events that was, centuries later, to result in the shifting of the balance of power in Europe from the Mediterranean region northward.

In fact, the Islamic conquest had more nearly the opposite effect than that posited by Pirenne: it opened the Mediterranean, previously a Roman lake, and, by connecting it with the Indian Ocean, converted it into a route of world trade.(1) Initially, there was no dislocation of the international economic system and, in the 690's when 'Abd al-Malik tried an economic blockade against the Byzantine Empire, only a limited and partial closure was achieved: only the eastern Mediterranean was affected, and although the flow of certain items, such as papyrus, was interdicted, other products, such as spices, traveled as before. When Byzantine power reasserted itself, between 752 and 827, it was the Byzantines who closed off trade, not the Arabs. During this period there was indeed a retreat from the Mediterranean, but a double retreat: the Franks to Germany, the Arabs to Iraq. Spain, it appears, was minimally affected by this situation, owing to a tacit alliance of the Umayyad Emirate with the Byzantine Empire in mutual opposition to the Franks.

The result of Byzantine-Arab confrontation was to throw the former into a situation of economic dependence on western Europe for the raw materials it could no longer obtain from the East and to make the West a market for Byzantine goods. This was a reversal of the economic balance of Roman times, when the West had been dependent on the East. By the tenth century, when the Muslims had taken control of strategically [20] important islands (Crete, Sicily, the Balearics) Islam effectively controlled the Mediterranean, which did not constitute a barrier to trade, but rather a medium whereby all bordering states could participate in a world economy, fertilized by healthy injections of Sudanese gold.

SOURCE: http://libro.uca.edu/ics/index.htm

Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (1126—1198)

2010-11-15T19:20:00.001+05:00

Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd, better known in the Latin West as Averroes, lived during a unique period in Western intellectual history, in which interest in philosophy and theology was waning in the Muslim world and just beginning to flourish in Latin Christendom. Just fifteen years before his birth, the great critic of Islamic philosophy, al-Ghazzali (1058-1111), had died after striking a blow against Muslim Neoplatonic philosophy, particularly against the work of the philosopher Ibn Sina (Avicenna). From such bleak circumstances emerged the Spanish-Muslim philosophers, of which the jurist and physician Ibn Rushd came to be regarded as the final and most influential Muslim philosopher, especially to those who inherited the tradition of Muslim philosophy in the West.

His influential commentaries and unique interpretations on Aristotle revived Western scholarly interest in ancient Greek philosophy, whose works for the most part had been neglected since the sixth century. He critically examined the alleged tension between philosophy and religion in the Decisive Treatise, and he challenged the anti-philosophical sentiments within the Sunni tradition sparked by al-Ghazzali. This critique ignited a similar re-examination within the Christian tradition, influencing a line of scholars who would come to be identified as the “Averroists.”

Ibn Rushd contended that the claim of many Muslim theologians that philosophers were outside the fold of Islam had no base in scripture. His novel exegesis of seminal Quranic verses made the case for three valid “paths” of arriving at religious truths, and that philosophy was one if not the best of them, therefore its study should not be prohibited. He also challenged Asharite, Mutazilite, Sufi, and “literalist” conceptions of God’s attributes and actions, noting the philosophical issues that arise out of their notions of occasionalism, divine speech, and explanations of the origin of the world. Ibn Rushd strived to demonstrate that without engaging religion critically and philosophically, deeper meanings of the tradition can be lost, ultimately leading to deviant and incorrect understandings of the divine.

This article provides an overview of Ibn Rushd’s contributions to philosophy, emphasizing his commentaries, his original works in Islamic philosophy, and his lasting influence on medieval thought and the Western philosophical tradition.
Table of Contents

1. Biography
2. Note on Commentaries
3. Philosophy and Religion
4. Existence and Attributes of God
5. Origin of the World
6. Metaphysics
7. Psychology
8. Conclusion
9. References and Further Reading
a. Primary Sources
b. Secondary Sources

1. Biography

Ibn Rushd was born in Cordova, Spain, to a family with a long and well-respected tradition of legal and public service. His grandfather, the influential Abdul-Walid Muhammad (d. 1126), was the chief judge of Cordova, under the Almoravid dynasty, establishing himself as a specialist in legal methodology and in the teachings of the various legal schools. Ibn Rushd’s father, Abdul-Qasim Ahmad, although not as venerated as his grandfather, held the same position until the Almoravids were ousted by the Almohad dynasty in 1146.

Ibn Rushd’s education followed a traditional path, beginning with studies in hadith, linguistics, jurisprudence and scholastic theology. The earliest biographers and Muslim chroniclers speak little about his education in science and philosophy, where most interest from Western scholarship in him lies, but note his propensity towards the law and his life as a jurist. It is generally believed that Ibn Rushd was influenced by the philosophy of Ibn Bajjah (Avempace), and perhaps was once tutored by him. His medical education was directed under Abu Jafar ibn Harun of Trujillo. His aptitude for medicine was noted by his contemporaries and can be seen in his major enduring work Kitab al-Kulyat fi al-Tibb (Generalities) This book, together with Kitab al-Taisir fi al-Mudawat wa al-Tadbir (Particularities) written by Abu Marwan Ibn Zuhr, became the main medical textbooks for physicians in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim worlds for centuries to come.

Ibn Rushd traveled to Marrakesh and came under the patronage of the caliph ‘Abd al-Mu’min, likely involved in educational reform for the dynasty. The Almohads, like the Almoravids they had supplanted, were a Northwest African Kharijite-influenced Berber reform movement. Founded in the theology of Ibn Tumart (1078-1139), who emphasized divine unity and the idea of divine promise and threat, he believed that a positive system of law could co-exist with a rational and practical theology. This led to the concept that law needed to be primarily based on revelation instead of the traditions of the jurists. Ibn Talmart’s theology affirmed that the existence and essence of God could be established through reason alone, and used that to posit an ethical legal theory that depended on a divine transcendence.

Ibn Rushd’s relationship with the Almohad was not merely opportunistic, (considering the support his father and grandfather had given to the Almoravids) for it influenced his work significantly; notably his ability to unite philosophy and religion. Sometime between 1159 and 1169, during one of his periods of residence in Marrakesh, Ibn Rushd befriended Ibn Tufayl (Abubacer), a philosopher who was the official physician and counselor to Caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf, son of ‘Abd al-Mu’min. It was Ibn Tufayl who introduced Ibn Rushd to the ruler. The prince was impressed by the young philosopher and employed him first as chief judge and later as chief physician. Ibn Rushd’s legacy as the commentator of Aristotle was also due to Abu Yaqub Yusuf. Although well-versed in ancient philosophy, the prince complained about the challenge posed by the Greek philosopher’s texts and commissioned Ibn Rushd to write a series of commentaries on them.

Through most of Ibn Rushd’s service, the Almohads grew more liberal, leading eventually to their formal rejection of Ibn Talmart’s theology and adoption of Malikite law in 1229. Despite this tendency, public pressure against perceived liberalizing tendencies in the government led to the formal rejection of Ibn Rushd and his writings in 1195. He was exiled to Lucena, a largely Jewish village outside of Cordoba, his writings were banned and his books burned. This period of disgrace did not last long, however, and Ibn Rushd returned to Cordoba two years later, but died the following year. Doubts about Ibn Rushd’s orthodoxy persisted, but as Islamic interest in his philosophy waned, his writings found new audiences in the Christian and Jewish worlds.

2. Note on Commentaries

While this article focuses on Ibn Rushd’s own philosophical writings, a word about the significant number of commentaries he wrote is important. Ibn Rushd wrote on many subjects, including law and medicine. In law he outshone all his predecessors, writing on legal methodology, legal pronouncements, sacrifices and land taxes. He discussed topics as diverse as cleanliness, marriage, jihad and the government’s role with non-Muslims. As for medicine, in addition to his medical encyclopedia mentioned above, Ibn Rushd wrote a commentary on Avicenna’s medical work and a number of summaries on the works of Galen. Besides his own philosophical and theological work, Ibn Rushd wrote extensive commentaries on the texts of a wide range of thinkers. These commentaries provide interesting insights into how Ibn Rushd arrived at certain positions and how much he was authentically Aristotelian. Commissioned to explain Aristotle Ibn Rushd spent three decades producing multiple commentaries on all of Aristotle’s works, save his Politics, covering every subject from aesthetics and ethics to logic and zoology. He also wrote about Plato’s Republic, Alexander’s De Intellectu, the Metaphysics of Nicolaus of Damascus, the Isagoge of Porphyry, and the Almajest of Ptolemy. Ibn Rushd would often write more than one commentary on Aristotle’s texts; for many he wrote a short or paraphrase version, a middle version and a long version. Each expanded his examination of the originals and their interpretations by other commentators, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius and Ibn Bajjah, The various versions were meant for readers with different levels of understanding.

Ibn Rushd’s desire was to shed the prevalent Neoplatonic interpretations of Aristotle, and get back to what the Greek thinker originally had intended to communicate. Of course, Ibn Rushd did not shy away from inserting his own thoughts into his commentaries, and his short paraphrase commentaries were often flexible interpretations. At times, in an effort to explain complex ideas in Aristotle, Ibn Rushd would rationalize the philosopher in directions that would not seem authentic to contemporary interpreters of Aristotle. Nevertheless, Ibn Rushd’s commentaries came to renew Western intellectual interest in Aristotle, whose works had been largely ignored or lost since the sixth century.

3. Philosophy and Religion

Until the eighth century, and the rise of the Mutazilite theology, Greek philosophy was viewed with suspicion. Despite the political support given to philosophy because of the Mutazilites and the early philosophers, a strong anti-philosophical movement rose through theological schools like the Hanbalites and the Asharites. These groups, particular the latter, gained public and political influence throughout the tenth and eleventh century Islamic world. These appealed to more conservative elements within society, to those who disliked what appeared to be non-Muslim influences. Ibn Rushd, who served a political dynasty that had come into power under a banner of orthodox reform while privately encouraging the study of philosophy, was likely sensitive to the increasing tensions that eventually led to his banishment. Though written before his exile his Decisive Treatise provides an apologetic for those theologians who charged philosophers with unbelief.

Ibn Rushd begins with the contention that Law commands the study of philosophy. Many Quranic verses, such as “Reflect, you have a vision” (59.2) and “they give thought to the creation of heaven and earth” (3:191), command human intellectual reflection upon God and his creation. This is best done by demonstration, drawing inferences from accepted premises, which is what both lawyers and philosophers do. Since, therefore, such obligation exists in religion, then a person who has the capacity of “natural intelligence” and “religious integrity” must begin to study philosophy. If someone else has examined these subjects in the past, the believer should build upon their work, even if they did not share the same religion. For, just as in any subject of study, the creation of knowledge is built successively from one scholar to the next. This does not mean that the ancients’ teachings should be accepted uncritically, but if what is found within their teachings is true, then it should not be rejected because of religion. (Ibn Rushd illustrated this point by citing that when a sacrifice is performed with the prescribed instrument, it does not matter if the owner of the instrument shares the same religion as the one performing the sacrifice.)

The philosopher, when following the proper order of education, should not be harmed by his studies, hence it is wrong to forbid the study of philosophy. Any harm that may occur is accidental, like that of the side effects of medicine, or from choking on water when thirsty. If serious harm comes from philosophical study, Ibn Rushd suggests that this is because the student was dominated by their passions, had a bad teacher or suffered some natural deficiency. Ibn Rushd illustrates this by quoting a saying of the Prophet Muhammad, when asked by a man about his brother’s diarrhea. The Prophet suggested that the brother should drink honey. When the man returned to say that his brother’s diarrhea had worsened, the Prophet replied, “Allah has said the truth, but your brother’s abdomen has told a lie” (Bukhari 7.71.588).

Not all people are able to find truth through philosophy, which is why the Law speaks of three ways for humans to discover truth and interpret scripture: the demonstrative, the dialectical and the rhetorical. These, for Ibn Rushd, divide humanity into philosophers, theologians and the common masses. The simple truth is that Islam is the best of all religions, in that, consistent with the goal of Aristotelian ethics, it produces the most happiness, which is comprised of the knowledge of God. As such, one way is appointed to every person, consistent with their natural disposition, so that they can acquire this truth.

For Ibn Rushd, demonstrative truth cannot conflict with scripture (i.e. Qur’an), since Islam is ultimate truth and the nature of philosophy is the search for truth. If scripture does conflict with demonstrative truth, such conflict must be only apparent. If philosophy and scripture disagree on the existence of any particular being, scripture should be interpreted allegorically. Ibn Rushd contends that allegorical interpretation of scripture is common among the lawyers, theologians and the philosophers, and has been long accepted by all Muslims; Muslims only disagree on the extent and propriety of its use. God has given various meanings and interpretations, both apparent and hidden, to numerous scriptures so as to inspire study and to suit diverse intelligences. The early Muslim community, according to Ibn Rushd, affirmed that scripture had both an apparent meaning and an inner meaning. If the Muslim community has come to a consensus regarding the meaning of any particular passage, whether allegorical or apparent, no one can contradict that interpretation. If there is no consensus about a particular passage, then its meaning is free for interpretation. The problem is that, with the international diversity and long history of Islam, it is all but impossible to establish a consensus on most verses. For no one can be sure to have gathered all the opinions of all scholars from all times. With this in mind, according to Ibn Rushd, scholars like al-Ghazzali should not charge philosophers with unbelief over their doctrines of the eternity of the universe, the denial of God’s knowledge of particulars, or denial of bodily resurrection. Since the early Muslims accepted the existence of apparent and allegorical meanings of texts, and since there is no consensus on these doctrines, such a charge can only be tentative. Philosophers have been divinely endowed with unique methods of learning, acquiring their beliefs through demonstrative arguments and securing them with allegorical interpretation.

Therefore, the theologians and philosophers are not so greatly different, that either should label the other as irreligious. And, like the philosophers, the theologians interpret certain texts allegorically, and such interpretations should not be infallible. For instance, he contends that even the apparent meaning of scripture fails to support the theologian’s doctrine of creation ex nihilo. He highlights texts like 11:7, 41:11 and 65:48, which imply that objects such as a throne, water and smoke pre-existed the formation of the world and that something will exist after the End of Days.

A teacher, then, must communicate the interpretation of scripture proper for his respective audiences. To the masses, Ibn Rushd cautions, a teacher must teach the apparent meaning of all texts. Higher categories of interpretations should only be taught to those who are qualified through education. To teach the masses a dialectical or demonstrative interpretation, as Ibn Rushd contends Ghazzali did in his Incoherence, is to hurt the faith of the believers. The same applies to teaching a theologian philosophical interpretations.

4. Existence and Attributes of God

Ibn Rushd, shortly after writing his Decisive Treatise, wrote a treatise on the doctrine of God known as Al-Kashf ‘an Manahij al-Adilla fi ‘Aqaid al-Milla (the Exposition of the Methods of Proof Concerning the Beliefs of the Community). His goal was to examine the religious doctrines that are held by the public and determine if any of the many doctrines expounded by the different sects were the intention of the “lawgiver.” In particular he identifies four key sects as the targets of his polemic, the Asharites, Mutazilites, the Sufis and the “literalists,” claiming that they all have distorted the scriptures and developed innovative doctrines not compatible with Islam. Ibn Rushd’s polemic, then, becomes a clear expression of his doctrine on God. He begins with examining the arguments for the existence of God given by the different sects, dismissing each one as erroneous and harmful to the public. Ibn Rushd contends that there are only two arguments worthy of adherence, both of which are found in the “Precious Book;” for example, surahs 25:61, 78:6-16 and 80:24-33. The first is the argument of “providence,” in which one can observe that everything in the universe serves the purpose of humanity. Ibn Rushd speaks of the sun, the moon, the earth and the weather as examples of how the universe is conditioned for humans. If the universe is, then, so finely-tuned, then it bespeaks of a fine tuner – God. The second is the argument of “invention,” stemming from the observation that everything in the world appears to have been invented. Plants and animals have a construction that appears to have been designed; as such a designer must have been involved, and that is God.

From establishing the existence of God, Ibn Rushd turns to explaining the nature and attributes of God. Beginning with the doctrine of divine unity, Ibn Rushd challenges the Asharite argument that there cannot, by definition, be two gods for any disagreement between them would entail that one or both cannot be God. This, of course, means that, in the case of two gods, at least one’s will would be thwarted in some fashion at some time by the other; and such an event would mean that they are not omnipotent, which is a essential trait of deity. Ibn Rushd’s critique turns the apologetic on its head, contending that if there were two gods, there is an equal possibility of both gods working together, which would mean that both of their wills were fulfilled. Furthermore, Ibn Rushd adds, even disagreement would not thwart divine will, for alternatives could occur giving each god its desire. Such arguments lead to absurdity and are not fit for the masses. The simple fact is that reason affirms divine unity, which, by definition, is a confession of God’s existence and the denial of any other deity.

Ibn Rushd maintains, as did most of his theologian contemporaries that there are seven divine attributes, analogous to the human attributes. These attributes are: knowledge, life, power, will, hearing, vision and speech. For the philosopher, the attribute of knowledge occupied much space in his writing on the attributes of God. He contends, especially in his Epistle Dedicatory and his Decisive Treatise that divine knowledge is analogous to human knowledge only in name, human knowledge is the product of effect and divine knowledge is a product of cause. God, being the cause of the universe, has knowledge based on being its cause; while humans have knowledge based on the effects of such causes.

The implication of this distinction is important, since Ibn Rushd believes that philosophers who deny God’s knowledge of particulars are in error. God knows particulars because he is the cause of such things. But this raises an important question: does God’s knowledge change with knowledge of particulars? That is, when events or existents move from non-existence to existence, does God’s knowledge change with this motion? Change in divine knowledge would imply divine change, and for medieval thinkers it was absurd to think that God was not immutable.

Ghazzali answered this dilemma by saying that God’s knowledge does not change, only his relationship with the object. Just like a person sitting with a glass of water on their left side does not fundamentally change when that same glass is moved to their right side. Ibn Rushd felt that Ghazzali’s answer did not solve the dilemma, stating that a change in relationship is still change. For Ibn Rushd, then, the solution came in his contention that divine knowledge is rooted in God being the eternal Prime Mover—meaning that God eternally knows every action that will be caused by him. God, therefore, does not know that event when it occurs, as humans would, because he has always known it.

As for the other traits, Ibn Rushd next turns to the attribute of life, simply stating that life necessarily flows from the attribute of knowledge, as evidenced in the world around us. Divine will and power are defined as essential characteristics of God, characteristics that define God as God. This is because the existence of any created being implies the existence of an agent that willed its existence and had the power to do so. (The implication of this, Ibn Rushd notes, is that the Asharite concept that God had eternally willed the existence of the world, but created it at some particular point in time, is illogical.)

In regards to divine speech, Ibn Rushd is aware of the great theological debate in Islam about whether the Qur’an, the embodiment of God’s speech, is temporally created or eternal. Ibn Rushd contends that the attribute of divine speech is affirmed because it necessarily flows from the attributes of knowledge and power, and speech is nothing more than these. Divine speech, Ibn Rushd notes, is expressed through intermediaries, whether the work of the angels or the revelations given to the prophets. As such, “the Qur’an…is eternal but the words denoting it are created by God Almighty, not by men.” The Qur’an, therefore, differs from words found elsewhere, in that the words of the Qur’an are directly created by God, while human words are our own work given by God’s permission.

Ibn Rushd concludes by discussing divine hearing and vision, and notes that scripture relates these attributes to God in the sense that he perceives things in existing things that are not apprehended by the intellect. An artisan would know everything in an artifact he had created, and two means of this knowledge would be sight and sound. God, being God, would apprehend all things in creation through all modes of apprehension, and as such would have vision and hearing.
5. Origin of the World

Turning from the attributes of God to the actions of God, where he delineates his view of creation, Ibn Rushd in his Tahafut al-Tahafut clearly deals with the charge against the philosopher’s doctrine on the eternity of the physical universe in his polemic against al-Ghazzali. Ghazzali perceived that the philosophers had misunderstood the relationship between God and the world, especially since the Qur’an is clear on divine creation. Ghazzali, sustaining the Asharite emphasis on divine power, questioned why God, being the ultimate agent, could not simply create the world ex nihilo and then destroy it in some future point in time? Why did there need to be some obstacle to explain a delay in God’s creative action? In response to this, Ghazzali offered a number of lengthy proofs to challenge the philosopher’s assertions.

Ibn Rushd, who often labeled Ghazzali’s arguments dialectical, sophistical or feeble, merely replied that the eternal works differently than the temporal. As humans, we can willfully decide to perform some action and then wait a period of time before completing it. For God, on the other hand, there can be no gap between decision and action; for what differentiates one time from another in God’s mind? Also, what physical limits can restrict God from acting? Ibn Rushd, in the first discussion, writes about how Ghazzali confused the definition of eternal and human will, making them univocal. For humans, the will is the faculty to choose between two options, and it is desire that compels the will to choose. For God, however, this definition of will is meaningless. God cannot have desire because that would entail change within the eternal when the object of desire was fulfilled. Furthermore, the creation of the world is not simply the choice between two equal alternatives, but a choice of existence or non-existence. Finally, if all the conditions for action were fulfilled, there would not be any reason for God not to act. God, therefore, being omniscient and omnipotent would have known from the eternal past what he had planned to create, and without limit to his power, there would no condition to stop the creation from occurring.

Ghazzali’s argument follows the typical Asharite kalam cosmological argument, in that he argues the scientific evidence for the temporal origin of the world, and reasons from that to the existence of a creator. Ghazzali’s first proof contends that the idea of the infinite number of planetary revolutions as an assumption of the eternity of the world is erroneous since one can determine their revolution rates and how much they differ when compared one to another. Ibn Rushd weakly maintains that the concept of numbered planetary revolutions and their division does not apply to eternal beings. To say that the eternal can be divided is absurd since there can be no degrees to the infinite. Oliver Leaman explains how Ibn Rushd accepted accidental but not essential infinite series of existents. There can be an infinite chain of human sexual generation, but those beings that are essentially infinite have neither beginning nor end and thus cannot be divided.

In his Decisive Treatise Ibn Rushd summarily reduces the argument between the Asharite theologians and the ancient philosophers to one of semantics. Both groups agree that there are three classes of being, two extremes and one intermediate being. They agree about the name of the extremes, but disagree about the intermediate class. One extreme is those beings that are brought into existence by something (matter), from something other than itself (efficient cause) and originate in time. The second, and opposite, class is that which is composed of nothing, caused by nothing and whose existence is eternal; this class of being is demonstratively known as God. The third class, is that which is comprised of anything or is not preceded by time, but is brought into existence by an agent; this is what is known as the world. Theologians affirm that time did not exist before the existence of the world, since time is related to the motion of physical bodies. They also affirm that the world exists infinitely into the future. As such, since the philosophers accept these two contentions, the two groups only disagree on the existence of the world in the eternal past.

Since the third class relates to both the first and second classes, the dispute between the philosophers and the theologians is merely how close the third class is to one of the other two classes. If closer to the first class, it would resemble originated beings; if closer to the second class, it would resemble more the eternal being. For Ibn Rushd, the world can neither be labeled pre-eternal nor originated, since the former would imply that the world is uncaused and the latter would imply that the world is perishable.

Ibn Rushd finds pre-existing material forms in Quranic texts such as 11:9, where he maintains that one finds a throne and water pre-existing the current forms of the universe; he contends that the theologians’ interpretation of such passages are arbitrary. This is because nowhere in the Qur’an is the idea of God existing as pure being before the creation of the world to be found.

The debate for Ibn Rushd and Ghazzali centers, ultimately, upon the idea of causation. Ghazzali, the dedicated Asharite, wants to support the position that God is the ultimate cause of all actions; that no being in the universe is the autonomous cause of anything. For instance, a spark put on a piece of wood does not cause fire; rather God causes the fire and has allowed the occasion of spark and wood to be the method by which he creates fire. God, if he so desired, could simply will fire not to occur when a spark and wood meet. For Ghazzali, this is the explanation of the occurrence of miracles: divine creative actions that suspend laws habitually accepted by humans. Ghazzali, in his Tahafut, speaks of the decapitated man continuing to live because God willed it so.

Ibn Rushd, the consummate Aristotelian, maintains in his Tahafut Aristotle’s contention that a full explanation of any event or existence needs to involve a discussion of the material, formal, efficient and final cause. Ibn Rushd, then, insists that Ghazzali’s view would be counter-productive to scientific knowledge and contrary to common-sense. The universe, according to the human mind, works along certain causal principles and the beings existing within the universe contain particular natures that define their existence; if these natures, principles and characteristics were not definitive, then this would lead to nihilism (i.e. the atheistic materialists found in the Greek and Arab worlds). As for the idea of cause and effect being a product of habitual observation, Ibn Rushd asks if such observations are a product of God’s habit or our own observations. It cannot, he asserts, be the former, since the Qur’an speaks of God’s actions as unalterable. If the latter, the idea of habit applies only to animate beings, for the habitual actions of inanimate objects are tantamount to physical laws of motion.

6. Metaphysics

Metaphysics, for Ibn Rushd, does not simply deal with God or theology; rather it concerns itself with different classes of being and the analogical idea of being. It is, thus, a science that distinguishes inferior classes of being from real being. Ibn Rushd, the adamant Aristotelian, puts his own slant on Aristotle’s metaphysics. Ibn Rushd’s classification of being begins with accidental substances, which are physical beings, then moves to being of the soul / mind and finally discusses whether the substance existing outside the soul, such as the sphere of the fixed stars, is material or immaterial. This hierarchy, notes Charles Genequand, differs from Aristotle’s hierarchy of material beings, beings of the soul / mind and unchangeable entities. The first and third categories of both thinkers are somewhat similar in that they encompass a straight demarcation between material and immaterial being. Ibn Rushd’s second class of being, however, includes both universals and mathematical beings; and as such cannot be the bridge between physics and metaphysics as it is in Aristotle. Rather, he contended that all autonomous beings, whether material or not, constitute a single category. This was likely a response to the more materialistic interpretations of Aristotle, such as that of Alexander of Aphrodisias, for Ibn Rushd did not see physics and the metaphysical at opposite sides of the spectrum.

Substance, not beings of the mind, was the common link between physics and metaphysics for Ibn Rushd. Substance, therefore, has an ontological, though not necessarily temporal, priority over other parts of being. Since, then, metaphysics covers both sensible and eternal substances, its subject matter overlaps with that of physics. In the cosmos, then, there are two classes of eternal things, the essentially eternal and the numerically eternal. This division represents the separation between the celestial realm and the physical universe, where the living beings in the latter are bound to an eternal cycle of generation and corruption, while the former are immortal animals. Ibn Rushd does not contend that celestial bodies cause the world, rather the motion of these bodies are the “principle” of what occurs on earth.

This point is more fully developed in Ibn Rushd’s discussion regarding spontaneous generation: the idea that certain beings are created by external agents without being subject to the cycle of generation and corruption. This was a common subject of debate throughout later Greek and medieval philosophy. If beings like insects spontaneously generated from rotting food are externally generated, therein lies proof for a created universe and Asharite occasionalism, neither of which Ibn Rushd maintains. His solution is the Aristotelian doctrine of emanation, which states that no being is created but merely is the principle that unites matter and form. Since Ibn Rushd asserts that physical generation is the product of both seed, which contains forms in potentiality, and solar heat, the sun being a heavenly being; spontaneous generation, in which the seed is absent, is merely the effect of solar heat upon the basic elements (i.e. earth and water).

In the cosmological sphere, according to physics, one finds things that are both moving and moved at once and things that are only moved. Therefore, there must be something that imparts motion but is never moved; this is the Prime Mover (i.e. God). Physics, thus, provides the proof for the existence of a Prime Mover, and metaphysics is concerned with the action of this mover. The Prime Mover is the ultimate agent for Ibn Rushd and it must be eternal and pure actuality. It did not merely push the universe into existence and remain idle thereafter, for the universe would slip into chaos. Ibn Rushd acknowledges that the idea of actuality being essentially prior to potentiality counters common sense, but to accept the opposite would entail the possibility of spontaneous movement or negation of movement within the universe.

How, then, is the Prime Mover the principle of motion and causation in the cosmos without being moved itself? Ibn Rushd contends that the Prime Mover moves the cosmos, particularly the celestial bodies, by being the object of desire. Celestial beings have souls, which possess the higher power of intellect and desire, and these beings desire the perfection of God, thereby they move accordingly. Desire in the celestial beings, according to Ibn Rushd, is not the real faculty it is in humans. Since these beings have no sense perception, desire is united with intellect causing a desire for what rationally is perfection – the Prime Mover.

Ibn Rushd rejects the Arab Neoplatonic doctrine of emanation because it simply implies a temporal succession of one being producing another, which is impossible for eternal beings. By this rejection, however, Ibn Rushd recognizes a problem within his system. If God is intellectually present within the celestial bodies, there is no need for them to move in an effort to acquire this perfection. Ibn Rushd responds with an analogy of a cabinet-maker, who has the idea of a cabinet existing in his mind, but his body needs to move in order to imprint this idea upon matter. Celestial beings move in likewise matter, in order to obtain perfection, which produces the physical universe. Furthermore, this effort to obtain perfection in the celestial bodies, which is in imitation of God, effects the order of the universe.

With the Prime Mover, the celestial bodies and the physical world, Ibn Rushd has a three level cosmological view. He illustrates his cosmological order by using the analogy of the state, where everyone obeys and imitates the king. All smaller social units in the kingdom, like the family, are subordinate to the head, which is ultimately under the authority of the king. There is a hierarchy among the spheres of celestial beings, based on their “nobility” (sharaf) and not, as Avicenna held, on their order in emanation. Of course, the order of nobility parallels emanation’s order, for the hierarchical order is that which we see in the universe, the fixed stars, the planets, the moon and the earth. Like a king, the Prime Mover imparts motion only to the First Body (the sphere of the fixed stars), which becomes the intermediary for the other bodies. This leads to the other spheres (i.e. planets) to desire both the Prime Mover and the First Body, which, according to Ibn Rushd, explains how the celestial bodies move from east to west at one time and from west to east at another time. It is the desire of one that moves the planets in one way, and the desire of the other that moves them in the opposite direction.

Ultimately, as H. Davidson notes, Ibn Rushd has a cosmos in which the earth is its physical center. Surrounding the earth, at different levels, are the celestial spheres, which contain celestial bodies (e.g. the sun, moon, stars and planets), which all revolve around the earth. The motion of these spheres is attributed to immortal intelligences, governed by a primary immutable and impersonal cause. Each sphere exists in its own right, though somehow the intelligence is caused by the Prime Mover, and it is through their contemplation of the Prime Mover they receive perfection equivalent to the position they hold in the cosmological hierarchy. As such, God no longer is restricted to being a cause of one thing. The active intellect is the last sphere in the hierarchy, but is not the product of another, and like the other intelligences its cognition is fixed on God. This idea has significant influence on Ibn Rushd’s doctrine of the human soul and intellect.

7. Psychology

Like Aristotle, Ibn Rushd views the study of the psyche as a part of physics, since it is related specifically to the generable and corruptible union of form and matter found in the physical world and passed from generation to generation through the seed and natural heat. Ibn Rushd’s views on psychology are most fully discussed in his Talkbis Kitab al-Nafs (Aristotle on the Soul). Here Ibn Rushd, as M. Fakhry comments, divided the soul into five faculties: the nutritive, the sensitive, the imaginative, the appetitive and the rational. The primary psychological faculty of all plants and animals is the nutritive or vegetative faculty, passed on through sexual generation, as noted above. The remaining four higher faculties are dependent on the nutritive faculty and are really perfections of this faculty, the product of a nature urging to move higher and higher.

The nutritive faculty uses natural heat to convert nutrients from potentiality to actuality, which are essential for basic survival, growth and reproduction of the living organism. , This faculty is an active power which is moved by the heavenly body (Active Intellect). Meanwhile, the sensitive faculty is a passive power divided into two aspects, the proximate and the ultimate, in which the former is moved within the embryo by the heavenly body and the latter is moved by sensible objects. The sensitive faculty in finite, in that it is passive, mutable, related to sensible forms and dependent upon the animal’s physical senses (e.g. touch or vision). A part of these senses, notes Fakhry, is the sensus communis, a sort of sixth sense that perceives common sensibles (i.e. objects that require more than one sense to observe), discriminates among these sensibles, and comprehends that it perceives. Benmakhlouf notes that the imaginative faculty is dependent on the sensitive faculty, in that its forms result from the sensible forms, which Fakhry contends are stored in sensus communis. It differs from the sensitive faculty, however, by the fact that it “apprehends objects which are no longer present…its apprehensions are often false or fictitious,” and it can unite individual images of objects perceived separately. Imagination is not opinion or reasoning, since it can conceive of unfalsified things and its objects are particular not universal, and may be finite because it is mutable (moving from potentiality to actuality by the forms stored in the sensus communis). The imaginative faculty stimulates the appetitive faculty, which is understood as desire, since it imagines desirable objects. Fakhry adds that the imaginative and appetitive faculties are essentially related, in that it is the former that moves the latter to desire or reject any pleasurable or repulsive object.

The rational faculty, seen as the capstone of Ibn Rushd’s psychology by Fakhry, is unlike the imaginative faculty, in that it apprehends motion in a universal way and separate from matter. It has two divisions, the practical and theoretical, given to humans alone for their ultimate moral and intellectual perfection. The rational faculty is the power that allows humanity to create, understand and be ethical. The practical is derived from the sensual and imaginative faculties, in that it is rooted in sensibles and related to moral virtues like friendship and love. The theoretical apprehends universal intelligibles and does not need an external agent for intellectualization, contrary to the doctrine of the Active Intellect in Neoplatonism.

In its effort to achieve perfection, the rational faculty moves from potentiality to actuality. In doing so it goes through a number of stages, know as the process of intellectation. Ibn Rushd had discerned, as seen in his Long Commentary on De Anima, five distinct meanings of the Aristotelian intellect. They were, first and foremost, the material (potential) and the active (agent) intellects.

There is evidence of some evolution in Ibn Rushd’s thought on the intellect, notably in his Middle Commentary on De Anima where he combines the positions of Alexander and Themistius for his doctrine on the material intellect and in his Long Commentary and the Tahafut where Ibn Rushd rejected Alexander and endorsed Themistius’ position that “material intellect is a single incorporeal eternal substance that becomes attached to the imaginative faculties of individual humans.” Thus, the human soul is a separate substance ontologically identical with the active intellect; and when this active intellect is embodied in an individual human it is the material intellect. The material intellect is analogous to prime matter, in that it is pure potentiality able to receive universal forms. As such, the human mind is a composite of the material intellect and the passive intellect, which is the third element of the intellect. The passive intellect is identified with the imagination, which, as noted above, is the sense-connected finite and passive faculty that receives particular sensual forms. When the material intellect is actualized by information received, it is described as the speculative (habitual) intellect. As the speculative intellect moves towards perfection, having the active intellect as an object of thought, it becomes the acquired intellect. In that, it is aided by the active intellect, perceived in the way Aristotle had taught, to acquire intelligible thoughts. The idea of the soul’s perfection occurring through having the active intellect as a greater object of thought is introduced elsewhere, and its application to religious doctrine is seen. In the Tahafut, Ibn Rushd speaks of the soul as a faculty that comes to resemble the focus of its intention, and when its attention focuses more upon eternal and universal knowledge, it become more like the eternal and universal. As such, when the soul perfects itself, it becomes like our intellect. This, of course, has impact on Ibn Rushd’s doctrine of the afterlife. Leaman contends that Ibn Rushd understands the process of knowing as a progression of detachment from the material and individual to become a sort of generalized species, in which the soul may survive death. This contradicts traditional religious views of the afterlife, which Ibn Rushd determines to be valuable in a political sense, in that it compels citizens to ethical behavior.

Elsewhere, Ibn Rushd maintains that it is the Muslim doctrine of the afterlife that best motivates people to an ethical life. The Christian and Jewish doctrines, he notes, are too focused upon the spiritual elements of the afterlife, while the Muslim description of the physical pleasures are more enticing. Of course, Ibn Rushd does not ultimately reject the idea of a physical afterlife, but for him it is unlikely.

A number of other problems remain in Ibn Rushd’s doctrine of the soul and intellect. For instance, if the material intellect is one and eternal for all humans, how is it divided and individualized? His immediate reply was that division can only occur within material forms, thus it is the human body that divides and individualizes the material intellect. Nevertheless, aside from this and other problems raised, on some of which Aquinas takes him to task, Ibn Rushd succeeded in providing an explanation of the human soul and intellect that did not involve an immediate transcendent agent. This opposed the explanations found among the Neoplatonists, allowing a further argument for rejecting Neoplatonic emanation theories. Even so, notes Davidson, Ibn Rushd’s theory of the material intellect was something foreign to Aristotle.

8. Conclusion

The events surrounding Ibn Rushd towards the end of his life, including his banishment, signaled a broader cultural shift in the Islamic world. Interest in philosophy was primarily among the elite: scholars, royal patrons and civil servants. Nevertheless, its presence among the ruling elite spoke of the diversity of what it meant to be “Muslim.” As interest in philosophy waned in the Muslim world after Ibn Rushd, his writings found new existence and intellectual vigor in the work of Christian and Jewish philosophers. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw an intellectual revival in the Latin West, with the first great universities being established in Italy, France and England. Within the walls of the University of Paris, a group of philosophers came to identify themselves with the Aristotelian philosophy presented by Ibn Rushd, particularly certain elements of its relation to religion. Later known as the “Averroists,” these Christian philosophers sparked a controversy within the Roman Catholic Church about the involvement of philosophy with theology. Averroists, their accusers charged, had promoted the doctrines of one intellect for all humans, denial of the immortality of the soul, claimed that happiness can be found in this life and promoted the innovative doctrine of “double truth”. Double truth, the idea that there are two kinds of truth, religious and philosophical, was not held by Ibn Rushd himself but was an innovation of the Averroists.

Among Jewish thinkers, however, Ibn Rushd had a more positive impact. His thoughts on Aristotle and the relationship between philosophy and religion, particularly revelation, inspired a renewed interest in the interpretation of scripture and the Jewish religion. Key Jewish philosophers, such as Maimonides, Moses Narboni and Abraham ibn Ezra, became associated with Ibn Rushd in the West, even though they took Ibn Rushd’s doctrines into novel directions. As such, Leaman notes, the category of a Jewish “Averroist” cannot be given to these philosophers, for their relationship with Ibn Rushd’s thought was one of critique and integration into their own philosophical systems. Nevertheless, without the work of the Spanish-Muslim philosopher, much of what occurred in medieval philosophy would have not existed. He became an example of how religions are dynamic and evolving traditions, often shaped by epistemological influences from other traditions.
9. References and Further Reading

a. Primary Sources

* Ibn Rushd, with Commentary by Moses Narboni, The Epistle on the Possibility of Conjunction with the Active Intellect. K. Bland (trans.). (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1982).
* Ibn Rushd, Decisive Treatise & Epistle Dedicatory. C. Butterworth (trans.). (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2001).
* Ibn Rushd, Faith and Reason in Islam [al-Kashf]. I. Najjar (trans.). (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001).
* Ibn Rushd, Long Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima. A. Hyman (trans.), Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Hackett, 1973).
* Ibn Rushd, Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories and De Interpretatione. C. Butterworth (trans.). (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 1998).
* Ibn Rushd, Tahafut al-Tahafut. S. Van Den Bergh (trans.). (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954).
* Ibn Rushd, Treatise Concerning the Substance of the Celestial Sphere. A. Hyman (trans.), Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Hackett, 1973).

b. Secondary Sources

* J. Al-Alawi, “The Philosophy of Ibn Rushd: the Evolution of the Problem of the Intellect in the works of Ibn Rushd.” Jayyusi, Salma Khadra (ed.), The Legacy of Muslim Spain, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994).
* R. Arnaldez, Ibn Rushd: A Rationalist in Islam (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998)
* A. Benmakhlour, Ibn Rushd (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2000)
* D. Black, “Ibn Rushd, the Incoherence of the Incoherence.” The Classics of Western Philosophy: a Reader’s Guide. Eds. Jorge Gracia, Gregory Reichberg and Bernard Schumacher (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003).
* D. Black “Consciousness and Self-Knowledge in Aquinas’s Critique of Ibn Rushd’s Psychology.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 31.3 (July 1993): 23-59.
* D. Black, “Memory, Time and Individuals in Ibn Rushd’s Psychology.” Medieval Theology and Philosophy 5 (1996): 161-187
* H. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Ibn Rushd, on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the Active Intellect and Theories of Human Intellect (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
* C. Genequand, “Metaphysics.” History of Islamic Philosophy. S. Nasr and O. Leaman (eds.). (New York: Routledge, 2001).
* M. Hayoun et A. de Libera, Ibn Rushd et l’Averroisme (Paris: Presses Universitaries de France, 1991).
* A. Hughes, The Texture of the Divine: Imagination in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Thought (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003)
* M. Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983)
* M. Fakhry, Ibn Rushd (Ibn Rushd) (Oxford: Oneworld, 2001)
* M. Fakhry, Islamic Occasionalism: and its Critique by Ibn Rushd and Aquinas (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1958).
* I. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988)
* O. Leaman, Ibn Rushd and His Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988)
* O. Leaman, An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)
* O. Leaman, “Ibn Rushd” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Vol. 4. E. Craig (gen. ed.) (London: Routledge, 1998).
* O. Mohammed, Ibn Rushd’s Doctrine of Immortality: a Matter of Controversy (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 1984).
* D. Urvoy, “Ibn Rushd.” History of Islamic Philosophy. S. Nasr and O. Leaman (eds.). (New York: Routledge, 2001).
* D. Urvoy, Ibn Rushd (Ibn Rushd) (London: Routledge, 1991).

Author Information

H. Chad Hillier
Email: chad.hillier@utoronto.ca
University of Toronto, Canada

Source: http://www.iep.utm.edu/ibnrushd/

"This was the house where lived Abul-Qasim."

2010-11-14T22:56:00.002+05:00

The street in Córdoba where he lived is named in his honor as "Calle Albucasis". On this street he lived in house no. 6, which is preserved today by the Spanish Tourist Board with a bronze plaque (awarded in January 1977) which reads: "This was the house where lived Abul-Qasim."

In the 14th century, the French surgeon Guy de Chauliac quoted al-Tasrif over 200 times. Pietro Argallata (d. 1453) described Abū al-Qāsim as "without doubt the chief of all surgeons". In an earlier work, he is credited to be the first to describe ectopic pregnancy in 963, in those days a fatal affliction. Abū al-Qāsim's influence continued for at least five centuries, extending into the Renaissance, evidenced by al-Tasrif's frequent reference by French surgeon Jaques Delechamps (1513-1588).

Abū al-Qāsim also described the use of forceps in vaginal deliveries.[3] He introduced his famous collection of over 200 surgical instruments. Many of these instruments were never used before by any previous surgeons. Hamidan, for example, listed at least twenty six innovative surgical instruments that Abulcasis introduced.

His use of catgut for internal stitching is still practised in modern surgery. The catgut appears to be the only natural substance capable of dissolving and is acceptable by the body. Abū al-Qāsim also invented the forceps for extracting a dead fetus, as illustrated in the Al-Tasrif.[4]

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_al-Qasim

"Decision point" by George W Bush

2010-11-12T18:32:00.003+05:00

The book is written thematically, not chronologically. This is important because it gives the book a much different flavor than one that is written month by month, and year by year. This book was not ghost written. This is his hand and his words, and it comes through on every page - all 512 of them.

I had no expectations when I opened the cover other than to enjoy the book. I found it was written with a wonderful light hand, Bush being a story teller, no question about it. And he pulls no punches, he tells you the real deal and he does not filter it. Other people will write pro and con on this book depending upon their political filters. There will be none of that here. I am only interested in enjoying a book and telling you that you will also or maybe not.

I am going to give you a flavoring of the book and you will know immediately if this is for you:

* In the Presidency there are no do-over's

* Quitting drinking was one of the toughest decisions he ever made

* It wouldn't be the last time the student George Bush slept through a Yale lecture

* He says he had the same personality as his mother. He would needle people to show affection and to make a point. He flares up rapidly. He and his mother both can be real blunt, a trait that gets them into trouble from time to time

* Bush was enormously influenced by a history teacher on crutches at his prep school which was Andover Phillips Academy in Mass. His name was Tom Lyons (crippled by polio), and he nurtured, he hectored, he praised, and demanded a lot. He instilled in George Bush a love of history that remained with him throughout a lifetime.

* Reverend William Sloan Coffin was a contemporary of the president's father, George HW Bush while both were at Yale. When George W. was a student at Yale, his father had just lost his bid to become a Senator from Texas. George W. asked the Reverend to perhaps write a letter to console his father, and the Reverend's former classmate. The Reverend responded, "Your father was beaten by a better man." I don't think the future President ever recovered from the remark.

* Having spent considerable time in Texas over the last couple of decades I thoroughly enjoyed Texas wisdom which the President captures brilliantly in one statement. He refers to some people as "Book smart and sidewalk stupid".

* He sums up his education by telling us that he went to Andover by tradition, Yale by expectation, and Harvard by choice.

* The funniest story in the book is when he is sitting at a dinner party in Kennebunkport with his parents during his heavy alcohol stage, and he says to a contemporary of his parents, so what is sex like after 50. Everyone was aghast at the statement. The future President receives a note after he is elected. The note says, "Well George how is it?"

* What you are looking at here is an absolutely honest, self examination.

* When the President becomes introspective and talks about personnel, his philosophy is that the people who surround you will determine the quality of advice you receive and the way your goals are implemented.

* He mentions meeting with Margaret Thatcher who told him that she usually makes up her mind about a man in 10 seconds, and very rarely changes it.

You cannot write 500 plus pages of biography without revealing yourself. You simply cannot hide it for that long. I do not believe that this President has a bad bone in his body. Did he make mistakes, yes lots of them, and everyone else does too. It's all so easy in hindsight, and so difficult to call them accurately before the event. He takes responsibility, and welcomes history's future judgment of him. This is a man who sleeps at night.

It's all here in 14 chapters, from stem cells, September 11th, Afghanistan, Iraq, Katrina, the Surge, his freedom agenda, and finishing with the financial crisis. You will wind up reading the whole thing, and looking for more. You will be critical, and at the same time consoling, for this was and is, a good man. They may have been errors of judgment, but not of the heart. From the hiring's to the firings, read this book and you will better understand a part of history we all lived through. He holds no punches and tells you what he thinks of the players who were part of his Administration.

And then there's the family, his love of father and mother. Their loving imprint on him, and the child they produced. George Bush is the perfect example of the apple not falling very far from the tree. He is the product of a totally enveloping family where he was not pushed, but gently supported to find his own way. There were stumbles along the way including the decade long battle with alcoholism.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and ask you my fellow reader to come to it with an open mind, with a fresh eye, and try to see if you can capture some fresh thoughts on this very interesting man who has led a very interesting life. In the end it seemed to me that if George Bush was your friend, you didn't need many more friends - you were covered. Thank you for reading this review.

Richard C. Stoyeck

I read this one right after the release, and being one of the many who was tired of W and ready for him to leave office, I have a new perspective on the man - no matter if you are a Democrat, Republican, or whatever political party affiliation you may lean I believe if you read this book with an open mind you will have a new perspective on W, too: he is a man, certainly not perfect, and every decision made with the facts and circumstances at hand is subject to second guessing. After all, hindsight is 20-20.

I thought the reflections on alcohol and religion were refreshing in a politician - when do you hear of a politician having truly candid conversations on those two subjects? The realities of not finding WMD in Iraq, the repercussions of Hurricane Katrina, Scooter Libby, and the honesty come out in this book. Love him or hate him, I think this is an honest reflection, albeit with a few cards still held close to the vest - being President of the USA has to be one of the most difficult jobs ever, and wears on you. You try to make the best decisions at the time - sometimes they work out, and unfortunately sometimes they don't and you have to live with it. That is life.

If you are looking for a good read on W's perspective, I recommend you pick this one up. If you can't get over the negative - or even highly enthusiastic - celebration of W's presidency, this one is probably not for you.

http://www.amazon.com/review/RE443OO9ESR0Q/ref=cm_cr_dp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0307590615&nodeID=283155&tag=&linkCode=

ACTIVE CITIZEN WORKSHOP

2010-11-01T22:25:00.003+05:00

Active citizen workshop held in Mid city hotel Near Dera Adda Multan at October 28, 2010 with the coordination of Awaz Foundation and British council. It was four days workshop that ended at October 31, 2010.
There were 29 Participants in this workshop from varieties of culture, ages, education, social standard, mental approach and gender.
It was like a group of flowers with different colors,size and different perfumes.
Mr. Sultan and Ms. Shabnum Ayyub were Facilitator of this workshop who performed their assigned tasks beautifully and effectively.

CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF THIS WORKSHOP AS AN OBSERVER AND PARTICIPANT
The scope of this workshop was to make realize the youth of this area that they have abundance of qualities too much that can bring a good CHANGE, the change that is long desire of our homeland.
Decreasing the trust deficit between each others, between different social groups, between peoples of rural areas and urban areas.
Understanding to each others that is key in this dimension.

Identity
Dialogue
Advocacy
Culture
Individual and society
Who has decision power
Project Planning
These were topics that were explaining with effective style:
Facilitating participants to indulge in different activities so that the required topic fully explain and than critical appreciation of those activities by intense discussion and feedback by maximum participants especially from those who were hesitate, or less educated or belong to distant rural areas or who can not easily explain their observations, emotions or point of views. This workshop to me is especially useful for all such Participants. At the end I really astonish to observe obviously a change in such participants.
Activities were design to develop creativity in Participants.
It was a good platform for youth in such circumstances, the youth that is future of every Nation.

Initial information relevant to the topic and fully grip at the topic is necessary in this regard so that it can deliver more effectively to all participants, though time is big constraint but efforts should be made.

I really enjoyed this workshop, laughing at jokes, innocence; by appreciating the participants, by understanding these topics with a new style in natural environment.

I thanks to Awaz Foundation, The field personnel who firstly motivate, our Facilitators ( There is a good list of teachers from primary level to Master level, but few are " the teachers I liked most " now these few have increase with 02.

Thanking to all of you.

2010-08-12T18:38:00.002+05:00

Pakistan flood death toll over 800, state of emergency declared

2010-08-07T00:05:00.000+05:00

2010-08-06T23:51:00.004+05:00

The worst disaster of Pakistan's history. More than ten million peoples affected from this natural disaster. The Indus river's water snatched each and every thing. The losses of dear ones, little innocents children who were slept at night time...
There are many cities, towns and villages near this River. The Google earth image of kotaddu as shown in this post is completely effected from flood. Other cities like Qasba Gujrat, town Snawan and others that were situated near River effected.
Peoples along with their little children are living under the sky. To feed, provide medicine, sheltered such a huge population is the Greatest issue the Government and Civilians institutes facing.

Man does not stand alone by A Cressy Marrison

2010-03-25T10:00:00.003+05:00

The American scientist, A Cressy Morrison, Head of the Science Academy
in New York, says in his book "Man Does Not Stand Alone":

Birds have the homing instinct. The robin that nested at your door
may go south in the autumn, but will come back to his old nest the
next spring. In September, flocks of many of our birds fly south,
often over a thousand miles of open sea, but they do not lose their
way. The homing pigeon, confused by new sounds on a long journey in
a closed box, circles for a moment then heads almost unerringly for
home. The bee finds its hive while the wind waving the grasses and
trees blots out every visible guide to its whereabouts. This homing
sense is slightly developed in man, but he supplements his meagre
equipment with instruments of navigation.

We need this instinct and our brain provides the answer. The tiny
insects must have microscopic eyes, how perfect we do not know, and
the hawks, the eagle and the condor must have telescopic vision. Here
again man surpasses them with his mechanical instruments. With his
telescope he can see a nebula so faint that it requires two million
times his vision, and with the electron microscope he can see hither
to invisible bacteria and, so to speak the little bugs that bite
them.

If you let old Dobbin alone he will keep to the road in the blackest
night. He can see, dimly perhaps, but he notes the difference in
temperature of the road and the sides with eyes that are slightly
affected by the infra-red rays of the road. The owl can see the nice
warm mouse as he runs in the cooler grass in the blackest night. We
turn night into day by creating radiation in that short octave we
call light.

The honey-bee workers make chambers of different sizes in the comb
used for breeding. Small chambers are constructed for the workers,
larger ones for the drones, and special chambers for the prospective
queens. The queen bee lays unfertilized eggs in the cells designed for
males, but lays fertilized eggs in the proper chambers for the female
workers and the possible queens. The workers, who are the modified
females, having long since anticipated the coming of the new
generation, are also prepared to furnish food for the young bees by
chewing and predigesting honey and pollen. They discontinue the
process of chewing, including the predigesting, at a certain stage
of the development of the males and females, and feed only honey and
pollen. The females so treated become the workers.

For the females in the queen chambers the diet of chewed and
predigested food is continued. These specially treated females develop
into queen bees, which alone produce fertile eggs. This process of
reproduction involves special chambers, special eggs, and the marvelous
effect of a change of diet. This means anticipation, discretion, and
the application of a discovery of the effect of diet.

These changes apply particularly to a community life and seem necessary
to its existence. The knowledge and skills required must have been
evolved after the beginnings of this community life, and are not
necessarily inherent in the structure or the survival of the honey
bee as such. The bee, therefore, seems to have out stripped man in
knowledge of the effects of diet under certain conditions.

The dog with an inquiring nose can sense the animal that has passed.
No instrument of human invention has added to our inferior sense of
smell, and we hardly know where to begin to investigate its extension.
Yet even our sense of smell is so highly developed that it can detect
ultra-microscopic particles.

How do we know that we all get the same reaction from any single odour?
The fact is that we do not. Taste also gives a very different sensation
to each of us. How strange that these differences in perception are
hereditary.

All animals hear sounds, many of which are outside our range of
vibration, with an acuteness that far surpasses our limited sense of
hearing. Man by his devices can now hear a fly walking miles away as
though it was on his eardrums, and with like instruments record the
impact of a cosmic ray.

One of the water spiders fashions a balloon-shaped nest of cobweb
filaments and attaches it to some object under water. Then she
ingeniously entangles an air bubble in the hairs of her under body,
carries it into the water, and releases it under the nest. This
performance is repeated until the nest is inflated, when she proceeds
to bring forth and raise her young safe from attack by air. Here we
have a synthesis of the web, engineering, construction, and
aeronautics. Chance perhaps, but that still leaves the spider
unexplained.

The young salmon spends years at sea, then comes back to his own river,
and, what is more, he travels up the side of the river into which flows
the tributary in which he was born. The laws of the States on one side
of the dividing stream may be strict and the other side not, but these
laws affect only the fish which may be said to belong to each side.
What brings them back so definitely?

If a salmon going up a river is transferred to another tributary he
will at once realize he is not in the right tributary and will fight
his way down to the main stream and then turn up against the current
to finish his destiny. There is, however, a much more difficult reverse
problem to solve in the case of the eel. These amazing creatures
migrate at maturity from all the ponds and rivers everywhere, those
from Europe across thousands of miles of ocean, all go to the abysmal
deeps south of Bermuda. There they breed and die.

The little ones, with no apparent means of knowing anything except
that they are in a wilderness of water, start back and find their way
to the shore from which their parents came and thence to every river,
lake and little pond, so that each body of water is always populated
with eels. They have braved the mighty currents, storms and tides, and
have conquered the beating waves on every shore. They can now grow and
when they are mature, they will, by some mysterious law, go back
through it all to complete the cycle.

Where does the directing impulse originate? No American eel has ever
been caught in European waters and no European eel has ever been caught
in American waters. Nature has also delayed the maturity of the European
eel by a year or more to make up for its much greater journey. Do atoms
and molecules when combined in an eel have a sense of direction and
willpower to exercise it?

A female moth placed in your attic by the open window will send out
some subtle signal. Over an unbelievable area, the male moths of the
same species will catch the message and respond in spite of your
attempts to produce laboratory odours to disconcert them. Has the
little creature a broadcasting station, and has the male moth a mental
radio set beside his antennae? Does she shake the ether and does he
catch the vibration? The cricket rubs its legs or wings together, and
on a still night can be heard half a mile away. It shakes six hundred
tons of air and calls its mate. Miss Moth, working in a different
realm of physics and, in apparent silence, calls quite as effectively.
Before the radio was discovered, scientists decided it was odour that
attracted the male moth. It was a miracle either way, because the odour
would have to travel in all directions, with or without the wind. The
male moth would have to be able to detect a molecule and sense the
direction from whence it came. By a vast mechanism, we are developing
the same ability to communicate, and the day will come when a young man
may call his loved one from a distance and without mechanical medium
and she will answer. No lock or bars will stop them. Our telephone and
radio are instrumental wonders and give us means of almost instant
communication, but we are tied to a wire and a place. The moth is
still ahead of us, and we can only envy her until our brain evolves
an individual radio Then, in a sense, we will have telepathy.

Vegetation makes subtle use of involuntary agents to carry on its
existence - insects to carry pollen from flower to flower and the
winds and everything that flies or walks to distribute seed. At last,
vegetation has trapped masterful man. He has improved nature, and she
generously rewards him. But he has multiplied so prodigiously that he
is now chained to the plough. He must sow, reap, and store; breed and
cross-breed; prune and graft. Should he neglect these tasks starvation
would be his lot, civilization would crumble, and earth return to her
pristine state.

Many animals are like a lobster, which, having lost a claw, will by
some restimulation of the cells and the reactivation of the genes
discover that a part of the body is missing and restore it. When the
work is complete, the cells stop work, for in some way they know it
is quitting time. A fresh-water polyp divided into halves can reform
itself out of one of these halves. Cut off an angle worm's head and he
will soon create a new one. We can stimulate healing but when will our
surgeons, if ever, know how to stimulate the cells to produce a new
arm, flesh, bones, nails, and activating nerves?

An extraordinary fact throws some light on this mystery of recreation.
If cells in the early stages of development are separated each has
the ability to create a complete animal. Therefore, if the original
cell divides into two and they are separated, two individuals will be
developed. This may account for identical twins but it means much
more - each cell at first is in detail potentially a complete
individual. There can be no doubt then, that you are you in every cell
and fibre.

An acorn falls to the ground - its tough brown shell holds it safe.
It rolls into some earthy crevice. In the spring the germ awakes, the
shell burns food is provided by the egg like kernel in which the genes
were hidden. They send roots into the earth, and behold a sprout, a
sapling, and in years a tree. The germ with its genes has multiplied
by trillions and made the trunk, bark and every leaf and acorn
identical with that of the oak which gave it birth. For hundreds of
years in each of the countless acorns is preserved the exact
arrangement of atoms that produced the first oak tree millions of
years ago.

The author says in another chapter of his book:

Every cell that is produced in any living creature must adapt itself
to be part of the flesh, to sacrifice itself as a part of the skin,
which will soon be worn off. It must deposit the enamel of teeth,
produce the transparent liquid in an eye, or become a nose or an ear.
Each cell must then adapt itself in shape and every other
characteristic necessary to fulfil its function. It is hard to think
of a cell as right-handed or left handed, but one becomes part of a
right ear, the other becomes part of the left ear. Some crystals that
are chemically identical turn the rays of light to the left, others to
the right. There seems to be such a tendency in the cells. In the exact
place where they belong, they become a part of the right ear or the
left ear and your two ears are opposite each other on your head, and
not as in the case of a cricket, on your elbows. Their curves are
opposite, and when complete, they are so much alike you cannot tell
them apart. Hundreds of thousands of cells seem impelled to do the
right thing at the right time in the right place.

Elsewhere in his book Mr Morrison says:

In the melee of creation many creatures have come to exhibit a high
degree of certain forms of instinct, intelligence, or what not. The
wasp catches the grasshopper, digs a hole in the earth, stings the
grasshopper in exactly the right place so that he becomes unconscious
but lives as a form of preserved meat. The wasp lays her eggs exactly
in the right place, perhaps not knowing that when they hatch, her
children can eat without killing the insect on which they feed, which
would be fatal to them. The wasp must have done all this right the
first and every time, or there would be no wasps of this species.
Science cannot explain this mystery, and yet it cannot be attributed
to chance. The wasp covers a hole in the earth, departs cheerfully,
and dies. Neither she nor her ancestors have reasoned out the process,
nor does she know what happens to her offspring. She doesn't even
know that she has worked and lived her life for the preservation of
the race.

In the same book we also read:

In some species, the workers bring in little seeds to feed the other
ants through the winter. The ants establish what is known as the
grinding room, in which those which have developed gigantic jaws
especially built for grinding, prepare the food for the colony. This
is their sole occupation. When the autumn comes and the seeds are
all ground, 'the greatest good for the greatest number' requires that
the food supply be conserved and as there will be plenty of grinders
in the new generation, the soldier ants kill off the grinders,
satisfying their entomological conscience by believing perhaps that
the grinders had had reward enough in having had first chance at the
food while they ground.

Certain ants, by means of instinct or reasoning (choose which you
prefer), cultivate mushrooms for food in what may be called mushroom
gardens, and capture certain caterpillars and aphids (plant lice).
These creatures are the ants' cows and goats, from which they take
certain exudations of a honeylike nature for food. Ants capture and
keep slaves. Some ants, when they make their nests, cut the leaves to
size, and while certain workers hold the edges in place, use their
babies, which in the larval stage are capable of spinning silk, as
shuttles to sew them together. The poor baby may be bereft of the
opportunity of making a cocoon for himself, but he has served his
community. How do the inanimate atoms and molecules of matter composing
an ant set these complicated processes in motion? There must be
Intelligence somewhere.

The Verses relating to Divorce from the First Surah The Cow.

2010-03-18T12:34:00.002+05:00

226. For those who take an oath for abstention from their wives, a waiting for four months is ordained; if then they return, Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.

227. But if their intention is firm for divorce, Allah heareth and knoweth all things.

228. Divorced women shall wait concerning themselves for three monthly periods. Nor is it lawful for them to hide what Allah Hath created in their wombs, if they have faith in Allah and the Last Day. And their husbands have the better right to take them back in that period, if they wish for reconciliation. And women shall have rights similar to the rights against them, according to what is equitable; but men have a degree (of advantage) over them. And Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise.

229. A divorce is only permissible twice: after that, the parties should either hold Together on equitable terms, or separate with kindness. It is not lawful for you, (Men), to take back any of your gifts (from your wives), except when both parties fear that they would be unable to keep the limits ordained by Allah. If ye (judges) do indeed fear that they would be unable to keep the limits ordained by Allah, there is no blame on either of them if she give something for her freedom. These are the limits ordained by Allah. so do not transgress them if any do transgress the limits ordained by Allah, such persons wrong (Themselves as well as others).

230. So if a husband divorces his wife (irrevocably), He cannot, after that, re-marry her until after she has married another husband and He has divorced her. In that case there is no blame on either of them if they re-unite, provided they feel that they can keep the limits ordained by Allah. Such are the limits ordained by Allah, which He makes plain to those who understand.

231. When ye divorce women, and they fulfil the term of their ('Iddat), either take them back on equitable terms or set them free on equitable terms; but do not take them back to injure them, (or) to take undue advantage; if any one does that; He wrongs his own soul. Do not treat Allah.s Signs as a jest, but solemnly rehearse Allah.s favours on you, and the fact that He sent down to you the Book and Wisdom, for your instruction. And fear Allah, and know that Allah is well acquainted with all things.

232. When ye divorce women, and they fulfil the term of their ('Iddat), do not prevent them from marrying their (former) husbands, if they mutually agree on equitable terms. This instruction is for all amongst you, who believe in Allah and the Last Day. That is (the course Making for) most virtue and purity amongst you and Allah knows, and ye know not.

233. The mothers shall give suck to their offspring for two whole years, if the father desires to complete the term. But he shall bear the cost of their food and clothing on equitable terms. No soul shall have a burden laid on it greater than it can bear. No mother shall be Treated unfairly on account of her child. Nor father on account of his child, an heir shall be chargeable in the same way. If they both decide on weaning, by mutual consent, and after due consultation, there is no blame on them. If ye decide on a foster-mother for your offspring, there is no blame on you, provided ye pay (the mother) what ye offered, on equitable terms. But fear Allah and know that Allah sees well what ye do.

234. If any of you die and leave widows behind, they shall wait concerning themselves four months and ten days: When they have fulfilled their term, there is no blame on you if they dispose of themselves in a just and reasonable manner. And Allah is well acquainted with what ye do.

235. There is no blame on you if ye make an offer of betrothal or hold it in your hearts. Allah knows that ye cherish them in your hearts: But do not make a secret contract with them except in terms Honourable, nor resolve on the tie of marriage till the term prescribed is fulfilled. And know that Allah Knoweth what is in your hearts, and take heed of Him; and know that Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Forbearing.

236. There is no blame on you if ye divorce women before consummation or the fixation of their dower; but bestow on them (A suitable gift), the wealthy according to his means, and the poor according to his means;- A gift of a reasonable amount is due from those who wish to do the right thing.

237. And if ye divorce them before consummation, but after the fixation of a dower for them, then the half of the dower (Is due to them), unless they remit it or (the man's half) is remitted by him in whose hands is the marriage tie; and the remission (of the man's half) is the nearest to righteousness. And do not forget Liberality between yourselves. For Allah sees well all that ye do.
238. Guard strictly your (habit of) prayers, especially the Middle Prayer; and stand before Allah in a devout (frame of mind).

239. If ye fear (an enemy), pray on foot, or riding, (as may be most convenient), but when ye are in security, celebrate Allah.s praises in the manner He has taught you, which ye knew not (before).

240. Those of you who die and leave widows should bequeath for their widows a year's maintenance and residence; but if they leave (The residence), there is no blame on you for what they do with themselves, provided it is reasonable. And Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise.

241. For divorced women Maintenance (should be provided) on a reasonable (scale). This is a duty on the righteous.

242. Thus doth Allah Make clear His Signs to you: In order that ye may understand.

Source: http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/QURAN/2.htm

Surah: 65 Divorce

2010-03-18T12:12:00.002+05:00

Surah 65. Divorce
Source: http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/QURAN/65.htm

DISTORTED IMAGE OF MUSLIM WOMEN

2010-03-18T11:57:00.001+05:00

by a former non-muslim, Sister Naasira bint Ellison, Taken from Hudaa magazine, Jamaica, New York

Since the height of the feminist movement in the late 70's there has been a magnifying glass placed over the status of muslim women. Unfortunately, the magnifying glass that has been used is an unusual one. Unusual in the sense that it is very selective about which items it will magnify; other items itwill distort to such a degree that they will no longer look familiar. I remember once reading in an "in depth" article about the lives of muslim women. This article "explained" that at any time a man can divorce his wife by simply stating "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you". This article can lead anyone ignorant of the Islamic ruling regarding divorce to believe that in less than five seconds the woman is left with no husband and is left to care for herself (and possibly children) by any means necessary. The question that immediately popped up in my mind was, "Did the author innocently write that out of sincere ignorance or was it another of the many attempts to degrade the religion of Islam and its followers (muslims)?" It may be my own paranoia, but I tend to believe it was the latter of the two.

The truth of the matter is that Islam has the most humane and most just system of divorce that exists. Firstly, many options are taken and tried before coming to the decision of the divorce. If the man and woman decide that they can no longer live together successfully as a husband and wife, the husband (in most cases, not always) pronounces the divorce by saying "I divorce you". At this point the waiting period begins. The waiting period lasts for three menstrual cycles to assure the woman is not pregnant. This period allows the couple time to think about what they are doing and if this is what they really want to do. There are no lawyers involved to antagonise an already delicate situation. In the case that it is realised, that the woman is pregnant, the waiting period lasts the entire time she is pregnant. During the waiting period (whether the woman is pregnant or not) the man is obligated to provide food, clothing and shelter to the woman as he did before the divorce pronouncement. If the couple carries the divorce through to the birth of the child and the woman suckles the baby, the man is obligated to feed and clothe both his ex-wife for the time the woman suckles (the maximum being two years). After this weaning, the child will be provided for by the father until he/she is no longer in need of support.

It is quite ironic that in such an "advanced society" as America, there are divorce cases in which women are being forced to pay alimony to their ex-husbands. Can this and many other things we know about the American system of divorce compare to the Islamic system of divorce?

I have also read stories wherein it is stated that women are forced to marry men without their consent. This in no way resembles the marriage system in Islam. In Islaam the woman marries the man of her choice. She may even marry someone that her mother and/or father objects to. The point is that it is the woman who makes the final decision as to whom she will marry. Once the man and the woman decide that they are interested in one another for marriage, a dowry is decided upon. A dowry is not a brides price but, it is a gift from the groom to the bride. They agree upon a gift that is affordable by the groom. In the time of the Prophet (sas), often things such as livestock and money were given. This is a wise decision in the event that a woman becomes divorced or widowed, she has some financial security to fall back on even if it is for a limited amount of time. Once the man and woman are married, the man is required to clothe, feed, shelter and educate her (or allow her to be aducated) in the same manner as he does himself.

The last distorted image that I will cover is that of the muslim women's dress. The western influenced media portrays our dress to be outdated and oppressive. Needless to say however, I differ with these adjectives. Our dress code does not hinder us from doing anything productive in our lives. Muslim women maintain a variety of jobs [under necessity], non of which are devalued nor hampered due to their dress code. And as for the timing of muslims women's dress during these contemporary times, it seems most appropriate due to decreasing morals in the world today.

For those who say that Islamic dress is outdated, they speak from great ignorance. The decreasing molarity and trials of this time makes Hijaab even more in need. More than ever before sex crimes are rampant. Although this society tells women they can wear what they want to wear, anytime a rape occurs the woman is the one put on trial an one of the first questions is, "What were you wearing?"This concept seems as though it is a set up directed against the so called contemporary woman. Also there is a direct correlation between the respect a man has for a woman and the amount of her body her body she displays flauntigly.

In conclusion, I hope this article helped to clear up some distorted/misunderstood aspects of Islam and women. Women in Islam are respected and held in high regard. We will never find success and/or solutions to our problems until we realise that Allaah knows best and that this disbelieving society will ruin itself.

Source: http://www.themodernreligion.com/women/w_distorted_image.htm

A radical Treasure, an American Hero, Mr. Howard Zinn

2010-02-01T09:28:00.004+05:00

Think of what this country would be like if Howard Zinn and others like him never bothered to fight for what they believed in.
NYTimes. Article of Mr.Bob Herbert " A radical Treasure"

The Radical treasure, American Hero died in the age of 87 at January 27, 2010

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn

THE CONCEPTION OF GOD AND THE MEANING OF PRAYER BY Dr. ALLAMA MUHAMMAD IQBAL

2010-01-02T12:48:00.000+05:00

-We have seen that the judgement based upon religious experience fully satisfies the intellectual test. The more important regions of experience, examined with an eye on a synthetic view, reveal, as the ultimate ground of all experience, a rationally directed creative will which we have found reasons to describe as an ego. In order to emphasize the individuality of the Ultimate Ego the Qur’an gives Him the proper name of Allah, and further defines Him as follows:

‘Say: Allah is One:
All things depend on Him;
He begetteth not, and He is not begotten;
And there is none like unto Him’

But it is hard to understand what exactly is an individual. As Bergson has taught us in his Creative Evolution, individuality is a matter of degrees and is not fully realized even in the case of the apparently closed off unity of the human being.‘In particular, it may be said of individuality’, says Bergson:

‘that while the tendency to individuate is everywhere present in the organized world, it is everywhere opposed by the tendency towards reproduction. For the individuality to be perfect, it would be necessary that no detached part of the organism could live separately. But then reproduction would be impossible. For what is reproduction but the building up of a new organism with a detached fragment of the old? Individuality, therefore, harbours its own enemy at home.’

In the light of this passage it is clear that the perfect individual, closed off as an ego, peerless and unique, cannot be conceived as harbouring its own enemy at home. It must be conceived as superior to the antagonistic tendency of reproduction. This characteristic of the perfect ego is one of the most essential elements in the Quranic conception of God; and the Qur’«n mentions it over and over again, not so much with a view to attack the current Christian conception as to accentuate its own view of a perfect individual. It may, however, be said that the history of religious thought discloses various ways of escape from an individualistic conception of the Ultimate Reality which is conceived as some vague, vast, and pervasive cosmic element, such as light. This is the view that Farnell has taken in his Gifford Lectures on the Attributes of God. I agree that the history of religion reveals modes of thought that tend towards pantheism; but I venture to think that in so far as the Quranic identification of God with light is concerned Farnell’s view is incorrect. The full text of the verse of which he quotes a portion only is as follows:

‘God is the light of the Heavens and of the earth. His light is like a niche in which is a lamp - the encased in a glass, - the glass, as it were, a star’ .

No doubt, the opening sentence of the verse gives the impression of an escape from an individualistic conception of God. But when we follow the metaphor of light in the rest of the verse, it gives just the opposite impression. The development of the metaphor is meant rather to exclude the suggestion of a formless cosmic element by centralizing the light in a flame which is further individualized by its encasement in a glass likened unto a well-defined star. Personally, I think the description of God as light, in the revealed literature of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, must now be interpreted differently. The teaching of modern physics is that the velocity of light cannot be exceeded and is the same for all observers whatever their own system of movement. Thus, in the world of change, light is the nearest approach to the Absolute. The metaphor of light as applied to God, therefore, must, in view of modern knowledge, be taken to suggest the Absoluteness of God and not His Omnipresence which easily lends itself to a pantheistic interpretation.

There is, however, one question which will be raised in this connexion. Does not individuality imply finitude? If God is an ego and as such an individual, how can we conceive Him as infinite? The answer to this question is that God cannot be conceived as infinite in the sense of spatial infinity. In matters of spiritual valuation mere immensity counts for nothing. Moreover, as we have seen before, temporal and spatial infinities are not absolute. Modern science regards Nature not as something static, situated in an infinite void, but a structure of interrelated events out of whose mutual relations arise the concepts of space and time. And this is only another way of saying that space and time are interpretations which thought puts upon the creative activity of the Ultimate Ego. Space and time are possibilities of the Ego, only partially realized in the shape of our mathematical space and time. Beyond Him and apart from His creative activity, there is neither time nor space to close Him off in reference to other egos. The Ultimate Ego is, therefore, neither infinite in the sense of spatial infinity nor finite in the sense of the space-bound human ego whose body closes him off in reference to other egos. The infinity of the Ultimate Ego consists in the infinite inner possibilities of His creative activity of which the universe, as known to us, is only a partial expression. In one word God’s infinity is intensive, not extensive. It involves an infinite series, but is not that series.

The other important elements in the Quranic conception of God, from a purely intellectual point of view, are Creativeness, Knowledge, Omnipotence, and Eternity. I shall deal with them serially.

Finite minds regard nature as a confronting ‘other’ existing per se, which the mind knows but does not make. We are thus apt to regard the act of creation as a specific past event, and the universe appears to us as a manufactured article which has no organic relation to the life of its maker, and of which the maker is nothing more than a mere spectator. All the meaningless theological controversies about the idea of creation arise from this narrow vision of the finite mind. Thus regarded the universe is a mere accident in the life of God and might not have been created. The real question which we are called upon to answer is this: Does the universe confront God as His ‘other’, with space intervening between Him and it? The answer is that, from the Divine point of view, there is no creation in the sense of a specific event having a ‘before’ and an ‘after’. The universe cannot be regarded as an independent reality standing in opposition to Him. This view of the matter will reduce both God and the world to two separate entities confronting each other in the empty receptacle of an infinite space. We have seen before that space, time, and matter are interpretations which thought puts on the free creative energy of God. They are not independent realities existing per se, but only intellectual modes of apprehending the life of God. The question of creation once arose among the disciples of the well-known saint B«Yazâd of Bist«m. One of the disciples very pointedly put the common-sense view saying: ‘There was a moment of time when God existed and nothing else existed beside Him.’ The saint’s reply was equally pointed. ‘It is just the same now’, said he, ‘as it was then.’ The world of matter, therefore, is not a stuff co-eternal with God, operated upon by Him from a distance as it were. It is, in its real nature, one continuous act which thought breaks up into a plurality of mutually exclusive things. Professor Eddington has thrown further light on this important point, and I take the liberty to quote from his book, Space, Time and Gravitation:

‘We have a world of point-events with their primary interval-relations. Out of these an unlimited number of more complicated relations and qualities can be built up mathematically, describing various features of the state of the world. These exist in nature in the same sense as an unlimited number of walks exist on an open moor. But the existence is, as it were, latent unless some one gives a significance to the walk by following it; and in the same way the existence of any one of these qualities of the world only acquires significance above its fellows if a mind singles it out for recognition. Mind filters out matter from the meaningless jumble of qualities, as the prism filters out the colours of the rainbow from the chaotic pulsations of white light. Mind exalts the permanent and ignores the transitory; and it appears from the mathematical study of relations that the only way in which mind can achieve her object is by picking out one particular quality as the permanent substance of the perceptual world, partitioning a perceptual time and space for it to be permanent in, and, as a necessary consequence of this Hobson’s choice, the laws of gravitation and mechanics and geometry have to be obeyed. Is it too much to say that the mind’s search for permanence has created the world of physics?’

The last sentence in this passage is one of the deepest things in Professor Eddington’s book. The physicist has yet to discover by his own methods that the passing show of the apparently permanent world of physics which the mind has created in its search for permanence is rooted in something more permanent, conceivable only as a self which alone combines the opposite attributes of change and permanence, and can thus be regarded as both constant and variable.

There is, however, one question which we must answer before we proceed further. In what manner does the creative activity of God proceed to the work of creation? The most orthodox and still popular school of Muslim theology, I mean the Ash‘arite, hold that the creative method of Divine energy is atomic; and they appear to have based their doctrine on the following verse of the Qur’«n:

‘And no one thing is here, but with Us are its store-houses; and We send it not down but in fixed quantities’

Source: http://www.allamaiqbal.com/webcont/481/conception-1.htm

Two thousand nine.

2009-12-31T13:39:00.002+05:00

It was expected great change
in the beginning of your openings
but you brought sorrows, cries
agony; the same graving problems
the Humanity is facing for decades
Your sun routinely watched
the pale faces of malnutrition children
the red blood of innocents with burning smell of flesh
Farewell 2009
Farewell.

The Sun of Dec. 8th 2009.

2009-12-09T09:12:00.002+05:00

The sun of December 8th 2009
was moving in west to hide itself
There were smiles on the faces
and rising hopes in hearts
when it arose in the morning.
Now those hopes, smiles
transform into agony, loud crying
tears and thick blood
and scattered parts of dear ones.
There is deep pain,
so much great that can shaken the earth.
One question arise in minds
Who are killer of our dear ones
In which hands we find blood of our dears.

WHEN A SON IS BORN.

2009-11-19T12:57:00.002+05:00

" when a son is born,
He is cradled in the bed,
He is clothed in robes,
Given a jade sceptre as a toy.
His lusty cries portend his vigor,
He shall wear bright, red knee caps,
Shall be the lord of a hereditary house.
When a daughter is born,
She is cradled on the floor,
She is clothed in swaddling bands,
Given a loom whorf as toy,
She shall wear no badges of honor,
Shall only take care of food and drink,
And not cause trouble to her parents"

POEM TAKEN FROM CHINESE LITERATURE
BOOKS OF SONGS.

IS RELIGION POSSIBLE? BY DR. ALLAMA MUHAMMAD IQBA L.

2009-11-10T10:07:00.001+05:00

Broadly speaking religious life may be divided into three periods. These may be described as the periods of ‘Faith’, ‘Thought’, and ‘Discovery.’ In the first period religious life appears as a form of discipline which the individual or a whole people must accept as an unconditional command without any rational understanding of the ultimate meaning and purpose of that command. This attitude may be of great consequence in the social and political history of a people, but is not of much consequence in so far as the individual’s inner growth and expansion are concerned. Perfect submission to discipline is followed by a rational understanding of the discipline and the ultimate source of its authority. In this period religious life seeks its foundation in a kind of metaphysics - a logically consistent view of the world with God as a part of that view. In the third period metaphysics is displaced by psychology, and religious life develops the ambition to come into direct contact with the Ultimate Reality. It is here that religion becomes a matter of personal assimilation of life and power; and the individual achieves a free personality, not by releasing himself from the fetters of the law, but by discovering the ultimate source of the law within the depths of his own consciousness. As in the words of a Muslim Sufi - ‘no understanding of the Holy Book is possible until it is actually revealed to the believer just as it was revealed to the Prophet.’1 It is, then, in the sense of this last phase in the development of religious life that I use the word religion in the question that I now propose to raise. Religion in this sense is known by the unfortunate name of Mysticism, which is supposed to be a life-denying, fact-avoiding attitude of mind directly opposed to the radically empirical outlook of our times. Yet higher religion, which is only a search for a larger life, is essentially experience and recognized the necessity of experience as its foundation long before science learnt to do so. It is a genuine effort to clarify human consciousness, and is, as such, as critical of its level of experience as Naturalism is of its own level.
As we all know, it was Kant who first raised the question: ‘Is metaphysics possible?’2 He answered this question in the negative; and his argument applies with equal force to the realities in which religion is especially interested. The manifold of sense, according to him, must fulfil certain formal conditions in order to constitute knowledge. The thing-in-itself is only a limiting idea. Its function is merely regulative. If there is some actuality corresponding to the idea, it falls outside the boundaries of experience, and consequently its existence cannot be rationally demonstrated. This verdict of Kant cannot be easily accepted. It may fairly be argued that in view of the more recent developments of science, such as the nature of matter as ‘bottled-up light waves’, the idea of the universe as an act of thought, finiteness of space and time and Heisenberg’s principle of indeterminacy3 in Nature, the case for a system of rational theology is not so bad as Kant was led to think. But for our present purposes it is unnecessary to consider this point in detail. As to the thing-in-itself, which is inaccessible to pure reason because of its falling beyond the boundaries of experience, Kant’s verdict can be accepted only if we start with the assumption that all experience other than the normal level of experience is impossible. The only question, therefore, is whether the normal level is the only level of knowledge-yielding experience. Kant’s view of the thing-in-itself and the thing as it appears to us very much determined the character of his question regarding the possibility of metaphysics. But what if the position, as understood by him, is reversed? The great Muslim Sufi philosopher, Muhyaddin Ibn al-‘Arabâ of Spain, has made the acute observation that God is a percept; the world is a concept.4 Another Muslim Sufi thinker and poet, ‘Ir«qâ, insists on the plurality of space-orders and time-orders and speaks of a Divine Time and a Divine Space.5 It may be that what we call the external world is only an intellectual construction, and that there are other levels of human experience capable of being systematized by other orders of space and time - levels in which concept and analysis do not play the same role as they do in the case of our normal experience. It may, however, be said that the level of experience to which concepts are inapplicable cannot yield any knowledge of a universal character, for concepts alone are capable of being socialized. The standpoint of the man who relies on religious experience for capturing Reality must always remain individual and incommunicable. This objection has some force if it is meant to insinuate that the mystic is wholly ruled by his traditional ways, attitudes, and expectations. Conservatism is as bad in religion as in any other department of human activity. It destroys the ego’s creative freedom and closes up the paths of fresh spiritual enterprise. This is the main reason why our medieval mystic techniques can no longer produce original discoveries of ancient Truth. The fact, however, that religious experience is incommunicable does not mean that the religious man’s pursuit is futile. Indeed, the incommunicability of religious experience gives us a clue to the ultimate nature of the ego. In our daily social intercourse we live and move in seclusion, as it were. We do not care to reach the inmost individuality of men. We treat them as mere functions, and approach them from those aspects of their identity which are capable of conceptual treatment. The climax of religious life, however, is the discovery of the ego as an individual deeper than his conceptually describable habitual selfhood. It is in contact with the Most Real that the ego discovers its uniqueness, its metaphysical status, and the possibility of improvement in that status. Strictly speaking, the experience which leads to this discovery is not a conceptually manageable intellectual fact; it is a vital fact, an attitude consequent on an inner biological transformation which cannot be captured in the net of logical categories. It can embody itself only in a world-making or world-shaking act; and in this form alone the content of this timeless experience can diffuse itself in the time-movement, and make itself effectively visible to the eye of history. It seems that the method of dealing with Reality by means of concepts is not at all a serious way of dealing with it. Science does not care whether its electron is a real entity or not. It may be a mere symbol, a mere convention. Religion, which is essentially a mode of actual living, is the only serious way of handing Reality. As a form of higher experience it is corrective of our concepts of philosophical theology or at least makes us suspicious of the purely rational process which forms these concepts. Science can afford to ignore metaphysics altogether, and may even believe it to be ‘a justified form of poetry’6, as Lange defined it, or ‘a legitimate play of grown-ups’, as Nietzsche described it. But the religious expert who seeks to discover his personal status in the constitution of things cannot, in view of the final aim of his struggle, be satisfied with what science may regard as a vital lie, a mere ‘as-if’7 to regulate thought and conduct. In so far as the ultimate nature of Reality is concerned, nothing is at stake in the venture of science; in the religious venture the whole career of the ego as an assimilative personal centre of life and experience is at stake. Conduct, which involves a decision of the ultimate fate of the agent cannot be based on illusions. A wrong concept misleads the understanding; a wrong deed degrades the whole man, and may eventually demolish the structure of the human ego. The mere concept affects life only partially; the deed is dynamically related to Reality and issues from a generally constant attitude of the whole man towards reality. No doubt the deed, i.e. the control of psychological and physiological processes with a view to tune up the ego for an immediate contact with the Ultimate Reality is, and cannot but be, individual in form and content; yet the deed, too, is liable to be socialized when others begin to live though it with a view to discover for themselves its effectiveness as a method of approaching the Real. The evidence of religious experts in all ages and countries is that there are potential types of consciousness lying close to our normal consciousness. If these types of consciousness open up possibilities of life-giving and knowledge-yielding experience, the question of the possibility of religion as a form of higher experience is a perfectly legitimate one and demands our serious attention.
But, apart from the legitimacy of the question, there are important reasons why it should be raised at the present moment of the history of modern culture. In the first place, the scientific interest of the question. It seems that every culture has a form of Naturalism peculiar to its own world-feeling; and it further appears that every form of Naturalism ends in some sort of Atomism. We have Indian Atomism, Greek Atomism, Muslim Atomism, and Modern Atomism.8 Modern Atomism is, however, unique. Its amazing mathematics which sees the universe as an elaborate differential equation; and its physics which, following its own methods, has been led to smash some of the old gods of its own temple, have already brought us to the point of asking the question whether the casualty-bound aspect of Nature is the whole truth about it? Is not the Ultimate Reality invading our consciousness from some other direction as well? Is the purely intellectual method of overcoming Nature the only method? ‘We have acknowledged’, says Professor Eddington,
‘that the entities of physics can from their very nature form only a partial aspect of the reality. How are we to deal with the other part? It cannot be said that other part concerns us less than the physical entities. Feelings, purpose, values, made up our consciousness as much as sense-impressions. We follow up the sense-impressions and find that they lead into an external world discussed by science; we follow up the other elements of our being and find that they lead - not into a world of space and time, but surely somewhere.’9
In the second place we have to look to the great practical importance of the question. The modern man with his philosophies of criticism and scientific specialism finds himself in a strange predicament. His Naturalism has given him an unprecedented control over the forces of Nature, but has robbed him of faith in his own future. It is strange how the same idea affects different cultures differently. The formulation of the theory of evolution in the world of Islam brought into being Rëmâ’s tremendous enthusiasm for the biological future of man. No cultured Muslim can read such passages as the following without a thrill of joy:

Low in the earth
I lived in realms of ore and stone;
And then I smiled in many-tinted flowers;
Then roving with the wild and wandering hours,
O’er earth and air and ocean’s zone,
In a new birth,
I dived and flew,
And crept and ran,
And all the secret of my essence drew
Within a form that brought them all to view -
And lo, a Man!
And then my goal,
Beyond the clouds, beyond the sky,
In realms where none may change or die -
In angel form; and then away
Beyond the bounds of night and day,
And Life and Death, unseen or seen,
Where all that is hath ever been,
As One and Whole.
(Rëmâ: Thadani’s Translation)10

On the other hand, the formulation of the same view of evolution with far greater precision in Europe has led to the belief that ‘there now appears to be no scientific basis for the idea that the present rich complexity of human endowment will ever be materially exceeded.’ That is how the modern man’s secret despair hides itself behind the screen of scientific terminology. Nietzsche, although he thought that the idea of evolution did not justify the belief that man was unsurpassable, cannot be regarded as an exception in this respect. His enthusiasm for the future of man ended in the doctrine of eternal recurrence - perhaps the most hopeless idea of immortality ever formed by man. This eternal repetition is not eternal ‘becoming’; it is the same old idea of ‘being’ masquerading as ‘becoming.’
Thus, wholly overshadowed by the results of his intellectual activity, the modern man has ceased to live soulfully, i.e. from within. In the domain of thought he is living in open conflict with himself; and in the domain of economic and political life he is living in open conflict with others. He finds himself unable to control his ruthless egoism and his infinite gold-hunger which is gradually killing all higher striving in him and bringing him nothing but life-weariness. Absorbed in the ‘fact’, that is to say, the optically present source of sensation, he is entirely cut off from the unplumbed depths of his own being. In the wake of his systematic materialism has at last come that paralysis of energy which Huxley apprehended and deplored. The condition of things in the East is no better. The technique of medieval mysticism by which religious life, in its higher manifestations, developed itself both in the East and in the West has now practically failed. And in the Muslim East it has, perhaps, done far greater havoc than anywhere else. Far from reintegrating the forces of the average man’s inner life, and thus preparing him for participation in the march of history, it has taught him a false renunciation and made him perfectly contented with his ignorance and spiritual thraldom. No wonder then that the modern Muslim in Turkey, Egypt, and Persia is led to seek fresh sources of energy in the creation of new loyalties, such as patriotism and nationalism which Nietzsche described as ‘sickness and unreason’, and ‘the strongest force against culture11’. Disappointed of a purely religious method of spiritual renewal which alone brings us into touch with the everlasting fountain of life and power by expanding our thought and emotion, the modern Muslim fondly hopes to unlock fresh sources of energy by narrowing down his thought and emotion. Modern atheistic socialism, which possesses all the fervour of a new religion, has a broader outlook; but having received its philosophical basis from the Hegelians of the left wing, it rises in revolt against the very source which could have given it strength and purpose. Both nationalism and atheistic socialism, at least in the present state of human adjustments, must draw upon the psychological forces of hate, suspicion, and resentment which tend to impoverish the soul of man and close up his hidden sources of spiritual energy. Neither the technique of medieval mysticism, nor nationalism, nor atheistic socialism can cure the ills of a despairing humanity. Surely the present moment is one of great crisis in the history of modern culture. The modern world stands in need of biological renewal. And religion, which in its higher manifestations is neither dogma, nor priesthood, nor ritual, can alone ethically prepare the modern man for the burden of the great responsibility which the advancement of modern science necessarily involves, and restore to him that attitude of faith which makes him capable of winning a personality here and retaining it in hereafter. It is only by rising to a fresh vision of his origin and future, his whence and whither, that man will eventually triumph over a society motivated by an inhuman competition, and a civilization which has lost its spiritual unity by its inner conflict of religious and political values.
As I have indicated before,12 religion as a deliberate enterprise to seize the ultimate principle of value and thereby to reintegrate the forces of one’s own personality, is a fact which cannot be denied. The whole religious literature of the world, including the records of specialists’ personal experiences, though perhaps expressed in the thought-forms of an out-of-date psychology, is a standing testimony to it. These experiences are perfectly natural, like our normal experiences. The evidence is that they possess a cognitive value for the recipient, and, what is much more important, a capacity to centralize the forces of the ego and thereby to endow him with a new personality. The view that such experiences are neurotic or mystical will not finally settle the question of their meaning or value. If an outlook beyond physics is possible, we must courageously face the possibility, even though it may disturb or tend to modify our normal ways of life and thought. The interests of truth require that we must abandon our present attitude. It does not matter in the least if the religious attitude is originally determined by some kind of physiological disorder. George Fox may be a neurotic; but who can deny his purifying power in England’s religious life of his day? Muhammad, we are told, was a psychopath13. Well, if a psychopath has the power to give a fresh direction to the course of human history, it is a point of the highest psychological interest to search his original experience which has turned slaves into leaders of men, and has inspired the conduct and shaped the career of whole races of mankind. Judging from the various types of activity that emanated from the movement initiated by the Prophet of Islam, his spiritual tension and the kind of behaviour which issued from it, cannot be regarded as a response to a mere fantasy inside his brain. It is impossible to understand it except as a response to an objective situation generative of new enthusiasms, new organizations, new starting-points. If we look at the matter from the standpoint of anthropology it appears that a psychopath is an important factor in the economy of humanity’s social organization. His way is not to classify facts and discover causes: he thinks in terms of life and movement with a view to create new patterns of behaviour for mankind. No doubt he has his pitfalls and illusions just as the scientist who relies on sense-experience has his pitfalls and illusions. A careful study of his method, however, shows that he is not less alert than the scientist in the matter of eliminating the alloy of illusion from his experience.
The question for us outsiders is to find out an effective method of inquiry into the nature and significance of this extraordinary experience. The Arab historian Ibn Khaldën, who laid the foundations of modern scientific history, was the first to seriously approach this side of human psychology and reached what we now call the idea of the subliminal self. Later, Sir William Hamilton in England and Leibniz in Germany interested themselves in some of the more unknown phenomena of the mind. Jung, however, is probably right in thinking that the essential nature of religion is beyond the province of analytic psychology. In his discussion of the relation of analytic psychology to poetic art, he tells us that the process of artistic form alone can be the object of psychology. The essential nature of art, according to him, cannot be the object of a psychological method of approach. ‘A distinction’, says Jung,
‘must also be made in the realm of religion; there also a psychological consideration is permissible only in respect of the emotional and symbolical phenomena of a religion, where the essential nature of religion is in no way involved, as indeed it cannot be. For were this possible, not religion alone, but art also could be treated as a mere sub-division of psychology.’14
Yet Jung has violated his own principle more than once in his writings. The result of this procedure is that, instead of giving us a real insight into the essential nature of religion and its meaning for human personality, our modern psychology has given us quite a plethora of new theories which proceed on a complete misunderstanding of the nature of religion as revealed in its higher manifestations, and carry us in an entirely hopeless direction. The implication of these theories, on the whole, is that religion does not relate the human ego to any objective reality beyond himself; it is merely a kind of well-meaning biological device calculated to build barriers of an ethical nature round human society in order to protect the social fabric against the otherwise unrestrainable instincts of the ego. That is why, according to this newer psychology, Christianity has already fulfilled its biological mission, and it is impossible for the modern man to understand its original significance. Jung concludes:
‘Most certainly we should still understand it, had our customs even a breath of ancient brutality, for we can hardly realize in this day the whirlwinds of the unchained libido which roared through the ancient Rome of the Caesars. The civilized man of the present day seems very far removed from that. He has become merely neurotic. So for us the necessities which brought forth Christianity have actually been lost, since we no longer understand their meaning. We do not know against what it had to protect us. For enlightened people, the so-called religiousness has already approached very close to a neurosis. In the past two thousand years Christianity has done its work and has erected barriers of repression, which protect us from the sight of our own sinfulness.’15
This is missing the whole point of higher religious life. Sexual self-restraint is only a preliminary stage in the ego’s evolution. The ultimate purpose of religious life is to make this evolution move in a direction far more important to the destiny of the ego than the moral health of the social fabric which forms his present environment. The basic perception from which religious life moves forward is the present slender unity of the ego, his liability to dissolution, his amenability to reformation and the capacity for an ampler freedom to create new situations in known and unknown environments. In view of this fundamental perception higher religious life fixes its gaze on experiences symbolic of those subtle movements of Reality which seriously affect the destiny of the ego as a possibly permanent element in the constitution of Reality. If we look at the matter from this point of view modern psychology has not yet touched even the outer fringe of religious life, and is still far from the richness and variety of what is called religious experience. In order to give you an idea of its richness and variety I quote here the substance of a passage from a great religious genius of the seventeenth century - Shaikh AÁmad of Sirhind - whose fearless analytical criticism of contemporary Sufism resulted in the development of a new technique. All the various system of Sufi technique in India came from Central Asia and Arabia; his is the only technique which crossed the Indian border and is still a living force in the Punjab, Afghanistan, and Asiatic Russia. I am afraid it is not possible for me to expound the real meaning of this passage in the language of modern psychology; for such language does not yet exist. Since, however, my object is simply to give you an idea of the infinite wealth of experience which the ego in his Divine quest has to sift and pass through, I do hope you will excuse me for the apparently outlandish terminology which possesses a real substance of meaning, but which was formed under the inspiration of a religious psychology developed in the atmosphere of a different culture. Coming now to the passage. The experience of one ‘Abd al-Mumin was described to the Shaikh as follows:
‘Heavens and Earth and God’s Throne and Hell and Paradise have all ceased to exist for me. When I look round I find them nowhere. When I stand in the presence of somebody I see nobody before me: nay even my own being is lost to me. God is infinite. Nobody can encompass Him; and this is the extreme limit of spiritual experience. No saint has been able to go beyond this’.
On this the Shaikh replied:
‘The experience which is described has its origin in the ever varying life of the Qalb; and it appears to me that the recipient of its has not yet passed even one-fourth of the innumerable ‘Stations’ of the Qalb. The remaining three-fourths must be passed through in order to finish the experiences of this first ‘Station’ of spiritual life. Beyond this ‘Station’ there are other ‘Stations’ know as RëÁ, Sirr-i-Khafâ, and Sirr-i-Akhf«, each of these ‘Stations’ which together constitute what is technically called ‘ÿlam-i Amr has its own characteristic states and experiences. After having passed through these ‘Stations’ the seeker of truth gradually receives the illuminations of ‘Divine Names’ and ‘Divine Attributes’ and finally the illuminations of the ‘Divine Essence’.’16
Whatever may be the psychological ground of the distinctions made in this passage it gives us at least some idea of a whole universe of inner experience as seen by a great reformer of Islamic Sufâsm. According to him this ‘ÿlam-i Amr, i.e. ‘the world of directive energy’, must be passed through before one reaches that unique experience which symbolizes the purely objective. This is the reason why I say that modern psychology has not yet touched even the outer fringe of the subject. Personally, I do not at all feel hopeful of the present state of things in either biology or psychology. Mere analytical criticism with some understanding of the organic conditions of the imagery in which religious life has sometimes manifested itself is not likely to carry us to the living roots of human personality. Assuming that sex-imagery has played a role in the history of religion, or that religion has furnished imaginative means of escape from, or adjustment to, an unpleasant reality - these ways of looking at the matter cannot, in the least, affect the ultimate aim of religious life, that is to say, the reconstruction of the finite ego by bringing him into contact with an eternal life-process, and thus giving him a metaphysical status of which we can have only a partial understanding in the half-choking atmosphere of our present environment. If, therefore, the science of psychology is ever likely to possess a real significance for the life of mankind, it must develop an independent method calculated to discover a new technique better suited to the temper of our times. Perhaps a psychopath endowed with a great intellect - the combination is not an impossibility - may give us a clue to such a technique. In modern Europe, Nietzsche, whose life and activity form, at least to us Easterns, an exceedingly interesting problem in religious psychology, was endowed with some sort of a constitutional equipment for such an undertaking. His mental history is not without a parallel in the history of Eastern Sufâsm. That a really ‘imperative’ vision of the Divine in man did come to him, cannot be denied. I call his vision ‘imperative’ because it appears to have given him a kind of prophetic mentality which, by some kind of technique, aims at turning its visions into permanent life-forces. Yet Nietzsche was a failure; and his failure was mainly due to his intellectual progenitors such as Schopenhauer, Darwin, and Lange whose influence completely blinded him to the real significance of his vision. Instead of looking for a spiritual rule which would develop the Divine even in a plebeian and thus open up before him an infinite future, Nietzsche was driven to seek the realization of his vision in such scheme as aristocratic radicalism.17 As I have said of him elsewhere:

The ‘I am’ which he seeketh,
Lieth beyond philosophy, beyond knowledge.
The plant that groweth only from the invisible soil of the heart of man,
Groweth not from a mere heap of clay!18

Thus failed a genius whose vision was solely determined by his internal forces, and remained unproductive for want of expert external guidance in his spiritual life,19 and the irony of fate is that this man, who appeared to his friends ‘as if he had come from a country where no man lived’, was fully conscious of his great spiritual need. ‘I confront alone’, he says, ‘an immense problem: it is as if I am lost in a forest, a primeval one. I need help. I need disciples: I need a master.20 It would be so sweet to obey.’ And again:
‘Why do I not find among the living men who see higher than I do and have to look down on me? Is it only that I have made a poor search? And I have so great a longing for such.’
The truth is that the religious and the scientific processes, though involving different methods, are identical in their final aim. Both aim at reaching the most real. In fact, religion; for reasons which I have mentioned before, is far more anxious to reach the ultimately real than science.21 And to both the way to pure objectivity lies through what may be called the purification of experience. In order to understand this we must make a distinction between experience as a natural fact, significant of the normally observable behaviour of Reality, and experience as significant of the inner nature of Reality. As a natural fact it is explained in the light of its antecedents, psychological and physiological; as significant of the inner nature of Reality we shall have to apply criteria of a different kind to clarify its meaning. In the domain of science we try to understand its meaning in reference to the external behaviour of Reality; in the domain of religion we take it as representative of some kind of Reality and try to discover its meanings in reference mainly to the inner nature of that Reality. The scientific and the religious processes are in a sense parallel to each other. Both are really descriptions of the same world with this difference only that in the scientific process the ego’s standpoint is necessarily exclusive, whereas in the religious process the ego integrates its competing tendencies and develops a single inclusive attitude resulting in a kind of synthetic transfiguration of his experiences. A careful study of the nature and purpose of these really complementary processes shows that both of them are directed to the purification of experience in their respective spheres. An illustration will make my meaning clear. Hume’s criticism of our notion of cause must be considered as a chapter in the history of science rather than that of philosophy. True to the spirit of scientific empiricism we are not entitled to work with any concepts of a subjective nature. The point of Hume’s criticism is to emancipate empirical science from the concept of force which, as he urges, has no foundation in sense-experience. This was the first attempt of the modern mind to purify the scientific process.
Einstein’s mathematical view of the universe completes the process of purification started by Hume, and, true to the spirit of Hume’s criticism, dispenses with the concept of force altogether.22 The passage I have quoted from the great Indian saint shows that the practical student of religious psychology has a similar purification in view. His sense of objectivity is as keen as that of the scientists in his own sphere of objectivity. He passes from experience to experience, not as a mere spectator, but as a critical sifter of experience, who by the rules of a peculiar technique, suited to his sphere of inquiry, endeavours to eliminate all subjective elements, psychological or physiological, in the content of his experience with a view finally to reach what is absolutely objective. This final experience is the revelation of a new life-process - original, essential, spontaneous. The eternal secret of the ego is that the moment he reaches this final revelation he recognizes it as the ultimate root of his being without the slightest hesitation. Yet in the experience itself there is no mystery. Nor is there anything emotional in it. Indeed with a view to secure a wholly non-emotional experience the technique of Islamic Sufâsm at least takes good care to forbid the use of music in worship, and to emphasize the necessity of daily congregational prayers in order to counteract the possible anti-social effects of solitary contemplation. Thus the experience reached is a perfectly natural experience and possesses a biological significance of the highest importance to the ego. It is the human ego rising higher than mere reflection, and mending its transiency by appropriating the eternal. The only danger to which the ego is exposed in this Divine quest is the possible relaxation of his activity caused by his enjoyment of and absorption in the experiences that precede the final experience. The history of Eastern Sufâsm shows that this is a real danger. This was the whole point of the reform movement initiated by the great Indian saint from whose writings I have already quoted a passage. And the reason is obvious. The ultimate aim of the ego is not to see something, but to be something. It is in the ego’s effort to be something that he discovers his final opportunity to sharpen his objectivity and acquire a more fundamental ‘I am’ which finds evidence of its reality not in the Cartesian ‘I think’ but in the Kantian ‘I can.’ The end of the ego’s quest is not emancipation from the limitations of individuality; it is, on the other hand, a more precise definition of it. The final act is not an intellectual act, but a vital act which deepens the whole being of the ego, and sharpens his will with the creative assurance that the world is not something to be merely seen or known through concepts, but something to be made and re-made by continuous action. It is a moment of supreme bliss and also a moment of the greatest trial for the ego:
Art thou in the stage of ‘life.’ ‘death’, or ‘death-in-life.’ Invoke the aid of three witnesses to verify thy ‘Station.’

The first witness is thine own consciousness -
See thyself, then, with thine own light.
The second witness is the consciousness of another ego -
See thyself, then, with the light of an ego other than thee.
The third witness is God’s consciousness -
See thyself, then, with God’s light.
If thou standest unshaken in front of this light,
Consider thyself as living and eternal as He!
That man alone is real who dares -
Dares to see God face to face!
What is ‘Ascension’? Only a search for a witness
Who may finally confirm thy reality -
A witness whose confirmation alone makes thee eternal.
No one can stand unshaken in His Presence;
And he who can, verily, he is pure gold.
Art thou a mere particle of dust?
Tighten the knot of thy ego;
And hold fast to thy tiny being!
How glorious to burnish one’s ego.
And to test its lustre in the presence of the Sun!
Re-chisel, then, thine ancient frame; And build up a new being.
Such being is real being;
Or else thy ego is a mere ring of smoke!
J«vid N«mah

Source: http://www.allamaiqbal.com/works/prose/english/reconstruction/index.htm

AL-ADIYAT (THE COURSER, THE CHARGERS).

2009-10-09T10:18:00.002+06:00

Total Verses: 11. Revealed At: MAKKA

SOURCE: PARALLEL ENGLISH QURAN. TRANSLATION BY SARWAR.
http://www.clay.smith.name/

Michael Moore Kills Capitalism with Kool-Aid.

2009-10-03T11:42:00.001+06:00

Capitalism: A Love Story.
A friend recently invited me to a private screening of Michael Moore's new film, Capitalism: A Love Story.

The September 16 invite, not surprisingly, leaned in a certain direction:

Moore takes us into the homes of ordinary people whose lives have been turned upside down; and he goes looking for explanations in Washington, DC and elsewhere. What he finds are the all-too-familiar symptoms of a love affair gone astray: lies, abuse, betrayal and 14,000 jobs being lost every day. Capitalism: A Love Story is Michael Moore's ultimate quest to answer the question he's posed throughout his illustrious filmmaking career: Who are we and why do we behave the way that we do?

http://mises.org/story/3751

The Global finaincial Crisis of 2008,2009: The Role of Greed, Fear and Oligarchs

2009-09-29T16:19:00.001+06:00

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/MSTIR/GlobalFinancialCrisis/Crisis-2008-2009/Documents/09-093%20The%20Financial%20Crisis%20of%202008-2009.pdf

O Allah Almighty save me ...

2009-09-18T19:58:00.002+06:00

The last days hours of the Holy month of Ramadan Mubarik is passing. How beautiful, blessings this month is. Showers of blessings of Allah Almighty over His Creatures. Every heart and soul is glad with this blessings. O Allah Almighty this hate with sins and discipline may survive after this month.
O Allah Almighty save me from hell fire. O Allah Almighty save me from hell fire. O Allah Almighty save me from Hell fire.(Ameen)

Individuality

2009-09-17T11:00:00.002+06:00

Since the life of the Uinverse comes from the strength of self
Life is propotional to this strength
When a drop of water gets the self's lesson by heart
It makes its worthless existence a Pearl
As the grass discovered the power of growth in itself
Its aspiration clove the breast of the Garden
Because the earth has a being that is firm
The captive Moon goes round it perpetually
The being of the Sun is stronger than that of earth
Therefore is the earth bewitched by the Sun's eye
When life gathers strength from the self
The river of life expands into an Ocean.

Dr. Allama Muhammad Iqbal.

war is raw

2009-08-22T15:50:00.002+06:00

War is raw,
Raw is red,
Like tears of blood,
On a "piece" of Earth.

SHAHNAZ GILANI

SOURCE: http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/an-introduction-to-at-war/#comment-38743

Ramadan message & Greetings

2009-08-21T15:05:00.001+06:00

“The son of Adam does not fill any vessel worse than his stomach. It is sufficient for the son of Adam to eat a few mouthfuls, to keep him going. If he must do that (fill his stomach), then let him fill one third with food, one third with drink and one third with air.” Narrated by al-Tirmidhi (1381), Ibn Maajah (3349); classed as saheeh by al-Albaani in al-Silsilah al-Saheehah (2265).”

SOURCE: http://www.iqrasense.com/ramadan/201.html

Zouq A Jannat.

2009-08-07T11:32:00.002+06:00

" Faraba zindgi da kar nikala hum ko Jannat sa
Dia phir zouq Jannat ka ya harani nahi jati_

Dr. Allama Muhammad Iqbal

2009-07-09T13:03:00.002+06:00

Same world but diffrent.

2009-07-09T12:28:00.002+06:00

Parvaz ha dono ki issi aik fizza ma
Shaheen ka jhaan aur ha kurgus ka jhaan aur
" Both the birds, eagle and Kurgus fly in the same area, but both possess the diffrent world, Eagle always has wide outlook, while kurgus spend its life like a parasite, depend upon others, upon dead bodies"

Dr. Allama Muhammad Iqbal.

" AY RAHA HAQ KA SHAHEDO WAFA KI TASVEERO"

2009-06-25T12:12:00.003+06:00

He was very brave. He used to drive cattles in his beloved village. He palyed games with his fellow villagers. He was best divers who swam in village canal. It is said that he has long arms.
Now.........his dead body was on the way to his beloved village where his wife, brothers and mother is waiting with agony in hearts, tears in eyes.
He joined Pakistan armed force before 07 years. It is said that since that time he was in Malkind division.
Last time he telephoned to his wife before a week, told her that there are lot of difficulties. He desired to return home soon. He.............................returned home very soon but..........................leaving behind tears, agony.
He is Martyr. May Allah Almighty accept his sacrifice to his religion, to his homeland, to his peoples of Pakistan. AMEEN.
May Allah Almighty grant best patience to the family members.

CONGRATULATION TO PAKISTANIS FOR WINING MATCH.

2009-06-22T10:48:00.003+06:00

The team was not showing good performance. There is a strong wave of tension, fear as there was suicide bombing, killnig, explosions have become the routine.
Yesterday's cricket match was very crucial for we Pakistanis.
So many Thanks to Allah Almighty that it is great happiness and a genuine smile appeared at Pakistanis faces.

CONCEPT OF GOD IN ISLAM

2009-06-01T10:59:00.002+06:00

CONCEPT OF GOD IN ISLAM

It is a known fact that every language has one or more terms that are used in reference to God and sometimes to lesser deities. This is not the case with Allah. Allah is the personal name of the One true God. Nothing else can be called Allah. The term has no plural or gender. This shows its uniqueness when compared with the word god which can be made plural, gods, or feminine, goddess. It is interesting to notice that Allah is the personal name of God in Aramaic, the language of Jesus and a sister language of Arabic.
The One true God is a reflection of the unique concept that Islam associates with God. To a Muslim, Allah is the Almighty, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, Who is similar to nothing and nothing is comparable to Him. The Prophet Muhammad was asked by his contemporaries about Allah; the answer came directly from God Himself in the form of a short chapter of the Quran, which is considered the essence of the unity or the motto of monotheism. This is chapter 112 which reads:
"In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Say (O Muhammad) He is God the One God, the Everlasting Refuge, who has not begotten, nor has been begotten, and equal to Him is not anyone."
Some non-Muslims allege that God in Islam is a stern and cruel God who demands to be obeyed fully. He is not loving and kind. Nothing can be farther from truth than this allegation. It is enough to know that, with the exception of one, each of the 114 chapters of the Quran begins with the verse: "In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate." In one of the sayings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) we are told that "God is more loving and kinder than a mother to her dear child."
But God is also Just. Hence evildoers and sinners must have their share of punishment and the virtuous, His bounties and favors. Actually God's attribute of Mercy has full manifestation in His attribute of Justice. People suffering throughout their lives for His sake and people oppressing and exploiting other people all their lives should not receive similar treatment from their Lord. Expecting similar treatment for them will amount to negating the very belief in the accountability of man in the Hereafter and thereby negating all the incentives for a moral and virtuous life in this world. The following Quranic verses are very clear and straightforward in this respect:
"Verily, for the Righteous are gardens of Delight, in the Presence of their Lord. Shall We then treat the people of Faith like the people of Sin? What is the matter with you? How judge you?" (68:34-36)
Islam rejects characterizing God in any human form or depicting Him as favoring certain individuals or nations on the basis of wealth, power or race. He created the human-beings as equals. They may distinguish themselves and get His favor through virtue and piety only.
The concept that God rested in the seventh day of creation, that God wrestled with one of His soldiers, that God is an envious plotter against mankind, or that God is incarnate in any human being are considered blasphemy from the Islamic point of view.
The unique usage of Allah as a personal name of God is a reflection of Islam's emphasis on the purity of the belief in God which is the essence of the message of all God's messengers. Because of this, Islam considers associating any deity or personality with God as a deadly sin which God will never forgive, despite the fact He may forgive all other sins.
The Creator must be of a different nature from the things created because if he is of the same nature as they are, he will be temporal and will therefore need a maker. It follows that nothing is like Him. If the maker is not temporal, then he must be eternal. But if he is eternal, he cannot be caused, and if nothing outside him causes him to continue to exist, which means that he must be self-sufficient. And if the does not depend on anything for the continuance of his own existence, then this existence can have no end. The Creator is therefore eternal and everlasting: 'He is the First and the Last.'
He is Self-Sufficient or Self-Subsistent or, to use a Quranic term, Al-Qayyum. The Creator does not create only in the sense of bringing things into being, He also preserves them and takes them out of existence and is the ultimate cause of whatever happens to them.
"God is the Creator of everything. He is the guardian over everything. Unto Him belong the keys of the heavens and the earth." (39:62, 63) "No creature is there crawling on the earth, but its provision rests on God. He knows its lodging place and it repository." (11:6)

God's Attributes
If the Creator is Eternal and Everlasting, then His attributes must also be eternal and everlasting. He should not lose any of His attributes nor acquire new ones. If this is so, then His attributes are absolute. Can there be more than one Creator with such absolute attributes? Can there be for example, two absolutely powerful Creators? A moment's thought shows that this is not feasible.
The Quran summarizes this argument in the following verses: "God has not taken to Himself any son, nor is there any god with Him: For then each god would have taken of that which he created and some of them would have risen up over others." (23:91) And Why, were there gods in earth and heaven other than God, they (heaven and earth) would surely go to ruin." (21:22)

The Oneness of God
The Quran reminds us of the falsity of all alleged gods.
To the worshippers of man-made objects, it asks: "Do you worship what you have carved yourself?" (37:95) "Or have you taken unto you others beside Him to be your protectors, even such as have no power either for good or for harm to themselves?" (13:16)
To the worshippers of heavenly bodies it cites the story of Abraham: "When night outspread over him he say a star and said, 'This is my Lord.' But when it set he said, 'I love not the setters.' When he saw the moon rising, he said, 'This is my Lord.' But when it set he said, 'If my Lord does not guide me I shall surely be of the people gone astray.' When he say the sun rising, he said, 'This is my Lord; this is greater.' But when it set he said, 'O my people, surely I quit that which you associate, I have turned my face to Him Who originated the heavens and the earth; a man of pure faith, I am not of the idolaters.'" (6:76-79)

The Believer's Attitude
In order to be a Muslim, i.e., to surrender oneself to God, it is necessary to believe in the oneness of God, in the sense of His being the only Creator, Preserver, Nourisher, etc. But this belief - later on called "Tawhid Ar-Rububiyyah is not enough." Many of the idolaters knew and believed that only the Supreme God could do all this. but that was not enough to make them Muslims. To tawhid ar-rububiyyah one must add tawhid al'uluhiyyah, i.e., one acknowledges the fact that is God alone Who deserves to be worshipped, and thus abstains from worshipping any other thing or being.
Having achieved this knowledge of the one true God, man should constantly have faith in Him, and should allow nothing to induce him to deny truth.
When faith enters a person's heart, it causes certain mental states which result in certain actions. Taken together these mental states and actions are the proof for the true faith. The Prophet said, "Faith is that which resides firmly in the heart and which is proved by deeds."
Foremost among those mental states is the feeling of gratitude towards God, which could be said to be the essence of 'ibada' (worship).
The feeling of gratitude is so important that a non-believer is called 'kafir,' which means 'one who denies a truth' and also 'one who is ungrateful.'
A believer loves, and is grateful to God for the bounties He bestowed upon him, but being aware of the fact that his good deeds, whether mental or physical, are far from being commensurate with Divine favors, he is always anxious lest God should punish him, here or in the Hereafter. He, therefore, fears Him, surrenders himself to Him and serves Him with great humility. One cannot be in such a mental state without being almost all the time mindful of God. Remembering God is thus the life force of faith, without which it fades and withers away.
The Quran tries to promote this feeling of gratitude by repeating the attributes of God very frequently. We find most of these attributes mentioned together in the following verses of the Quran:
"He is God; there is no god but He, He is the Knower of the unseen and the visible; He is the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate. He is God, there is no God but He. He is the King, the All-Holy, the All-Peace, the Guardian of Faith, the All-Preserver, the All-Mighty, the All-Compeller, the All-Sublime. Glory be to God, above that they associate! He is God the Creator, the Maker, the Shaper. To Him belong the Names Most Beautiful. All that is in the heavens and the earth magnifies Him; He is the All-Mighty, the All-Wise." (59:22-24)
"There is no god but He, the Living, the Everlasting. Slumber seizes Him not, neither sleep; to Him belongs all that is in the heavens and the earth. Who is there that shall intercede with Him save by His leave? He knows what lies before them and what is after them, and they comprehend not anything of His knowledge save such as He wills. His throne comprises the heavens and earth; the preserving of them oppresses Him not; He is the All-High, the All-Glorious." (2:255)
"People of the Book, go not beyond the bounds in your religion, and say not as to God but the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only the Messenger of God, and His Word that He committed to Mary, and a Spirit from Him. So believe in God and His Messengers, and say not, 'Three.' Refrain; better is it for you. God is only one God. Glory be to Him - (He is) above having a son." (4:171)

World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), P.O. Box 10845, Riyadh 11443, Saudi Arabia

http://www.ummah.net/what-is-islam/allah/02.htm

O GREAT PEOPLES OF SWAT, THE MOUNTAINS

2009-05-20T13:16:00.006+06:00

The life has changed,
the life has changed greatly,
it is full of fear, doubts, uncertainty,
I remind my cattles, my sweet cattles,
the new born babies of those cattles,
that required my attention,
how they are now?
I remind the cold, transparent water of river,
I remind with tears in eyes,
as here in very hot camps I feel so thirsty,
I remind the sweet fresh apples, berries, apricot
while eating the rice whom Baba get after long waiting in rows
I think how the sun is so fierce,
the sun that melt ice at our mountains & bring spring
where are warm colours rows of flowers
where are the butterflies, the sweet song birds
where are their voices, their sweet songs,
where are my friends, who play with me while driving the cattles
the broken heart is left
full of sorrows, painful doubts.

" THE LIMIT OF POWER: THE END OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM"

2009-05-19T16:38:00.001+06:00

Andrew J. Bacevich thinks our political system is busted. In “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism,” he argues that the country’s founding principle — freedom — has become confused with appetite, turning America’s traditional quest for liberty into an obsession with consumption, the never-ending search for more. To accommodate this hunger, pandering politicians have created an informal empire of supply, maintaining it through constant brush-fire wars. Yet the foreign-policy apparatus meant to manage that empire has grown hideously bloated and has led the nation into one disaster after another. The latest is Iraq: in Bacevich’s mind, the crystallization of all that’s gone wrong with the American system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/books/review/Tepperman-t.html

SWAT, THE EARTHLY PARADISE.

2009-05-14T13:24:00.006+06:00

Most beautiful, earthly paradise valley of our homeland Pakistan.

Migrated people is a great challenge now a days. We are optimistic that such challenges can not shaken our will. We seek the help of our Lord, The Allah Almighty.

THE OTHER KIND OF TERRORISM

2009-05-08T16:43:00.001+06:00

The following text was the basis of a presentation by Tarek El Diwany under the title "Third World Debt" at Cambridge University's "One World Week" in February 2002
One kind of terrorism hasn't been making the news recently. Its weapon is debt, and it is a most efficient killer."Relieved of their annual debt repayments, the severely indebted countries could use the funds for investments that in Africa alone would save the lives of about 21 million children by 2000 and provide 90 million girls and women with access to basic education"UNDP Human Development Report 1997, p. 93
The poor nations of the world are told that if they borrow and invest wisely, they will be able to repay their debts and more. But they've been hearing this for fifty years, and the debt just keeps on growing.

http://www.islamic-finance.com/item115_f.htm

" OBEY ALLAH AND HIS MESSENGER WITH NO DOUBT IN HEARTS

2009-04-24T17:51:00.003+06:00

With the Name of Allah Almighty most merciful.
14. The desert Arabs say, "We believe." Say, "Ye have no faith; but ye (only)say, 'We have submitted our wills to Allah,' For not yet has Faith entered your hearts. But if ye obey Allah and His Messenger, He will not belittle aught of your deeds: for Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful."
15. Only those are Believers who have believed in Allah and His Messenger, and have never since doubted, but have striven with their belongings and their persons in the Cause of Allah: Such are the sincere ones.
(Surah 49. The Private Apartments, The Inner Apartments)
source: http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/QURAN/49.htm#14

In this light, we come to know that what is faith that enter in hearts. Obeying of Allah and His Messenger, the Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad ( May Peace be upon Him) is necessary, obeying without doubt, compromise, reluctance. Than this world and the world hereafter will be peaceful: else; hovering diffrent problems, issues, tensions, hyper tension, physical disease, disappointment, series of risks, fears.
May Allah show us right path. AMEEN

Dr.Allama Muhammad Iqbal.

2009-04-22T15:50:00.002+06:00

The first witness is thine own consciousness -
See thyself, then, with thine own light.
The second witness is the consciousness of another ego -
See thyself, then, with the light of an ego other than thee.
The third witness is God’s consciousness -
See thyself, then, with God’s light.
If thou standest unshaken in front of this light,
Consider thyself as living and eternal as He!
That man alone is real who dares -
Dares to see God face to face!
What is ‘Ascension’?Only a search for a witness
Who may finally confirm thy reality -
A witness whose confirmation alone makes thee eternal.
No one can stand unshaken in His Presence;
And he who can, verily, he is pure gold.
Art thou a mere particle of dust?
Tighten the knot of thy ego;
And hold fast to thy tiny being!
How glorious to burnish one’s ego.
And to test its lustre in the presence of the Sun!
Re-chisel, then, thine ancient frame;
And build up a new being.
Such being is real being;
Or else thy ego is a mere ring of smoke!
J«vid N«mah

To Iranians, Howard Baskerville is their American martyr.

2009-04-22T15:46:00.000+06:00

Someone still leaves fresh yellow roses on his gravestone in Tabriz. To Iranians, Howard Baskerville is their American martyr.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/opinion/18calafi.html

TRANSPARECY ALSO REQUIRED ACCOUNTABILITY

2009-04-20T13:49:00.000+06:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/opinion/19sun1.html?em

GHARAR: A RISKY OR HAZARDOUS SALE.

2009-04-14T16:33:00.002+05:00

Gharar
What Does Gharar Mean?
An Islamic finance term describing a risky or hazardous sale, where details concerning the sale item are unknown or uncertain. Gharar is forbidden by the Quran, which explicitly forbids trades that are considered to have excessive risk due to uncertainty.

Investopedia explains Gharar
There are strict rules in Islamic finance against transactions that are highly uncertain or may cause any injustice or deceit against any of the parties. In finance, gharar is observed within derivative transactions, such as forwards, futures and options, in short selling, and in speculation. In Islamic finance, most derivative contracts are forbidden and considered invalid because of the uncertainty involved in the future delivery of the underlying asset

The Next Guantanamo

2009-04-14T09:33:00.003+05:00

Thank you for airing this important issue. Habeus Corpus is what makes us different from the terrorists. If we hurt people without reason, we are terrorists too. They believe strongly in the rightness of their cause, just as we believe in ours. It is only adherence to the rule of law that sets us apart.It might sound innocuous to "detain someone." But think where your family would be if you disappeared for a month, a year, six years, indefinitely. Consider your mental state from lack of work, isolation, fear. Most of these people are in their prime productive years. What are we doing to their income, their family, their social adjustment? It is not a harmless event, even if they are humanely treated. And it certainly does not "win hearts and minds."Terrorism is a crime. A heinous crime against humanity. We need to treat it as a crime, not call it a "war". We need to clarify our goals.The economy, health care, education, all will take time and probably some compromise. Habeus Corpus is different. It is not negotiable if we are a Democracy.

— Anne Newcomb, Wilson, Wyo.
(comments taken from NewYork Times editorial article " The next Guantanamo" How general people think about these issues, these comments by Ms. Anne Newcomb are best illustration. We are all Human beings & it is natural thing that we all similarly react, think, feel sorry in general environment.)

WHAT DOES ISLAM SAY ABOUT TERRORISM?

2009-04-10T17:37:00.001+05:00

Islam, a religion of mercy, does not permit terrorism. In the Quran, God has said: God does not forbid you from showing kindness and dealing justly with those who have not fought you about religion and have not driven you out of your homes. God loves just dealers. (Quran, 60:8)The Prophet Muhammad used to prohibit soldiers from killing women and children,1 and he would advise them: {...Do not betray, do not be excessive, do not kill a newborn child.}2 And he also said: {Whoever has killed a person having a treaty with the Muslims shall not smell the fragrance of Paradise, though its fragrance is found for a span of forty years.}3Also, the Prophet Muhammad has forbidden punishment with fire.4He once listed murder as the second of the major sins,5 and he even warned that on the Day of Judgment, {The first cases to be adjudicated between people on the Day of Judgment will be those of bloodshed.6}7Muslims are even encouraged to be kind to animals and are forbidden to hurt them. Once the Prophet Muhammad said: {A woman was punished because she imprisoned a cat until it died. On account of this, she was doomed to Hell. While she imprisoned it, she did not give the cat food or drink, nor did she free it to eat the insects of the earth.}8He also said that a man gave a very thirsty dog a drink, so God forgave his sins for this action. The Prophet was asked, “Messenger of God, are we rewarded for kindness towards animals?” He said: {There is a reward for kindness to every living animal or human.}9Additionally, while taking the life of an animal for food, Muslims are commanded to do so in a manner that causes the least amount of fright and suffering possible. The Prophet Muhammad said: {When you slaughter an animal, do so in the best way. One should sharpen his knife to reduce the suffering of the animal.}10In light of these and other Islamic texts, the act of inciting terror in the hearts of defenseless civilians, the wholesale destruction of buildings and properties, the bombing and maiming of innocent men, women, and children are all forbidden and detestable acts according to Islam and the Muslims. Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy, and forgiveness, and the vast majority have nothing to do with the violent events some have associated with Muslims. If an individual Muslim were to commit an act of terrorism, this person would be guilty of violating the laws of Islam.

http://www.islamdoor.com/Terror.htm

AN EMPIRE ON THE MOUNTAINS OF DEBT

2009-04-04T13:14:00.001+05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/opinion/03brooks.html?_r=1&em

THE POWER OF COMMAND.

2009-04-01T10:00:00.001+05:00

"The power of command frequently causes failure to think."
Barbara Tuchman.

From this overview, certain behaviors and goals seem self-evident: Bring cultures in conflict into Dialogue together. This effort could:
Prevent nuclear holocaust: Communication can lead to updating and implementing the Baruch Plan for controlling nuclear activities.
Remove an important cause of terror: Eliminate humiliation within and among cultures.
Increase ability to integrate all societies: Updating, internationalizing, and expanding the Peace Corp or an international equivalent can lead to further cooperation and tolerance between societies.
Effectively cap terror: Making the UN an effective World Government working to stabilize and modernize rogue countries, while preserving the best of what each culture has to offer, can be a transforming step.
Excise Extremism: Reforming societies, while preserving the best of what each culture has to offer, can bring about mutual understanding of one another.
Limit energy use: Finite sources are, well, finite. Learning to live with what is available from the sun and the atom is paramount to human survival. Maintaining that humankind has not contributed to global warming is to practice the highest form of denial (a root hang-up), to the detriment of all races and species on earth.
Limit Population Growth: There is NO CHOICE but to limit the birthrate of all humanity. If we do not, we shall all die as do microbes in a fermenting wine bottle when the sugar gives out and they drown in their own effluent. Affluent societies naturally limit their birth rates--yet another signpost on the road to peace. The "weapon of the womb" has a place in evolution. But humankind is now in control of its own destiny. There is, at the very most, a half century left to alter the population-growth paradigm. Otherwise, the exhaustion of resources and the fights over what is left will surely wipe entire societies off the face of the earth.

http://www.roadtopeace.org/index.php?itemid=479&catid=76

WHERE WE ARE NOW ?

2009-03-31T16:12:00.002+05:00

Socio economic division has widened in the world that created other ultimate problems.
The current global financial crisis has revealed many flaws.
1)
Unregulation in managment
2)
Credit rating agencies
3)
Audit firms
4)
Liberlization or free market ( wild market) concept
5)
Innovation did not allign with proper regulation
6)
"Take care of the present" future was largely ignored

THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS & ITS IMPACT ON MICROFINANCE

2009-03-26T15:14:00.002+05:00

" During the currency crisis in East Asia & Banking crisis in Latin America in 1990s, Institutions serving poor customers generally performed better financially than mainstream Banks"

http://www.cgap.org/gm/document-1.1.1305/FN_52%20ENG.pdf

GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS AND THE WORLD ECONOMY

2009-03-26T15:04:00.001+05:00

February 02, 2009
By Mizuho Research Institute Ltd.

http://www.saudichambers.org.sa/Images/Economy.pdf

IMPACT OF GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS ON SOUTH ASIA

2009-03-19T14:11:00.003+05:00

Pakistan, Srilanka & Malidives are particularly vulnerable because difficult social, political environments prevented adequate policy measure to adjust to the terms of trade shock.
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/SOUTHASIAEXT/Resources/223546-1171488994713/3455847-1232124140958/gfcsouthasiafeb172009.pdf

Basel ii

2009-03-16T16:13:00.004+05:00

Current crisis also depict flaws of inadequate capital.
wether we should follow Basel ii or more advance form, solvency ii, this article I think is helpful in this regard.
" The aim of Solvency ii is not to increase overall capital but rather to ensure a high standard of risk assessment & efficient capital allocation. It should also contribute to increased transparency & help in the development of a level playing field across Europe"

http://www.abi.org.uk/Display/File/Child/664/CEA_Guide_to_Solvency_II_tillinghast.pdf

A Tsunami of Excuses

2009-03-13T12:40:00.000+05:00

By WILLIAM D. COHAN
Published: March 11, 2009
IT’S been a year since Bear Stearns collapsed, kicking off Wall Street’s meltdown, and it’s more than time to debunk the myths that many Wall Street executives have perpetrated about what has happened and why. These tall tales — which tend to take the form of how their firms were the “victims” of a “once-in-a-lifetime tsunami” that nothing could have prevented — not only insult our collective intelligence but also do nothing to restore the confidence in the banking system that these executives’ actions helped to destroy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/opinion/12cohan.html?em=&pagewanted=all

THE 2ND INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL RESEARCH FORUM

2009-03-11T18:32:00.001+05:00

The 2nd International Financial Research Forum on "Risk Management & Financial Crisis" is an international Research Forum for academics and professionals organised by the Europlace Institute of Finance (EIF) Institut Louis Bachelier (ILB) and La Fondation du Risque with the support of Finance INNOVATION

OBJECTIVES
The forum pursues three objectives:
to identify the main streams of researches that will structure the market evolution in the future;
to organize presentations and debates on the content of these new contributions;
to assess with professionals the market/regulatory impacts of those new trends.

TOPIC: RISK MANAGEMENT AND FINANCIAL CRISES
Crises Characteristics: typology of crises : liquidity crisis, financial bubbles, mispricing (fair value, mark-to-market, model risk); contagion, agent coordination, counterparty risk, ...
Advanced indicators: risk measures, ratings, performance measures, early detection of crises
Regulation: transparency, regulation of hedge funds, convergence of regulations between countries and between products, cost of regulation, ...
Management of a crisis: monetary policy, management of liquidity, treatment of failures, management of a crisis in a securitized world, ...
Emergence of organized markets: examples of new markets : CDS, weather derivatives, pollution rights, insurance linked securities; creation of market indices, standardisation, intermediation, …

http://www.finance-innovation.org/risk09/

Quantitative easing

2009-03-06T12:38:00.000+05:00

Quantitative easing is the creation of new money out of 'thin air' by a central bank, and its injection into the banking system. The aim is to increase the amount of deposits in private banks so that, by way of deposit multiplication, they can increase the money supply by increasing debt (lending).
'Quantitative' refers to the money supply; 'easing' refers to reducing the pressure on banks.[1] A central bank can do this by using this new money to buy government bonds (Treasury securities in the United States) in the open market, or by lending the new money to deposit-taking institutions, or by buying assets from banks in exchange for currency, or any combination of these actions. These have the effects of reducing interest yields on government bonds, and reducing inter-bank overnight interest rates, and thereby encourage banks to loan money to higher interest-paying bodies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing

Modern Money Mechanics/Introduction

2009-03-06T12:36:00.000+05:00

The purpose of this booklet is to describe the basic process of money creation in a "fractional reserve" banking system. The approach taken illustrates the changes in bank balance sheets that occur when deposits in banks change as a result of monetary action by the Federal Reserve System — the central bank of the United States. The relationships shown are based on simplifying assumptions. For the sake of simplicity, the relationships are shown as if they were mechanical, but they are not, as is described later in the booklet. Thus, they should not be interpreted to imply a close and predictable relationship between a specific central bank transaction and the quantity of money.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Modern_Money_Mechanics/Introduction#What_is_Money.3F

AT-TAKATHUR (Total Verses: 8, Revelaed at Makkah)

2009-03-05T14:03:00.004+05:00

IN THE NAME OF ALLAH, MOST GRACIOUS, MOST MERCIFUL.
1. The mutual rivalry for piling up (the good things of this world) diverts you (from the more serious things),
2. Until ye visit the graves.
3. But nay, ye soon shall know (the reality).
4. Again, ye soon shall know!
5. Nay, were ye to know with certainty of mind, (ye would beware!)
6. Ye shall certainly see Hell-Fire!
7. Again, ye shall see it with certainty of sight!
8. Then, shall ye be questioned that Day about the joy (ye indulged in!).

The real culprit is Human greed.

2009-03-03T18:30:00.002+05:00

In apportioning responsibility for the worldwide-credit crisis, readers did not all point to former chairman . One called blaming Greenspan "simplistic," and another argued "banks were culpable." But after all is said and done, one wrote, "the real culprit is human greed."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/172636

In Tough Times, the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth

2009-02-26T16:58:00.000+05:00

By PATRICIA COHEN
Published: February 24, 2009

One idea that elite universities like Yale, sprawling public systems like Wisconsin and smaller private colleges like Lewis and Clark have shared for generations is that a traditional liberal arts education is, by definition, not intended to prepare students for a specific vocation. Rather, the critical thinking, civic and historical knowledge and ethical reasoning that the humanities develop have a different purpose: They are prerequisites for personal growth and participation in a free democracy, regardless of career choice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/books/25human.html?em

SURAH 35: FATIR (THE ORIGINATOR OF CREATION)

2009-02-26T14:25:00.004+05:00

"In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
-43- On account of their arrogance in the land and their Plotting of Evil. But the Plotting of Evil will hem in only the authors thereof. Now are they but looking for the way the ancients were dealt with? But no change wilt thou find in Allah's way (of dealing): No turning off wilt thou find in Allah's way( of dealing)."

Author By: Yusuf Ali.

He knows well each and every thing so precisely with aboslute perfect knowledge, verily He has perfect knowledge.
Human Beings are plotting, Plotting of Evils, though The Almighty Allah knows well about their plotting.

TWO CAUSES OF TERROISM.

2009-02-20T17:06:00.002+05:00

By Amy Zalman, Ph.D., About.com
There Are Two Causes of Terrorism
All terrorist acts are motivated by two things:
Social and political injustice: People choose terrorism when they are trying to right what they perceive to be a social or political or historical wrong—when they have been stripped of their land or rights, or denied these.
The belief that violence or its threat will be effective, and usher in change. Another way of saying this is: the belief that violent means justify the ends. Many terrorists in history said sincerely that they chose violence after long deliberation, because they felt they had no choice.
This explanation of the causes of terrorism may be difficult to swallow. It sounds too simple, or too theoretical. However, if you look at any group that is widely understood as a terrorist group, you will find these two elements are basic to their story.
http://terrorism.about.com/od/causes/a/causes_terror.htm

The Causes of Terrorism

2009-02-20T10:36:00.001+05:00

By Amy Zalman, Ph.D., About.com
Terrorism is the threat or use of violence against civilians to draw attention to an issue. Those searching for the causes of terrorism -why this tactic would be selected, and in what circumstances- approach the phenomenon in different ways. Some see it as an independent phenomenon, while others view it as one tactic in a larger strategy. Some seek to understand what makes an individual choose terrorism, while others look at it at the level of a group.

http://terrorism.about.com/od/causes/tp/Causes_of_Terrorism.htm

Learning Not to Love the Bomb

2009-02-20T10:01:00.001+05:00

By PHILIP TAUBMAN
Published: February 18, 2009
Stanford, Calif.
THE Obama administration seems ready to resuscitate relations with Russia, including by renewing nuclear-arms-reduction talks. Even before the inaugural parade wound down, the White House Web site offered up a list of ambitious nuclear policy goals, with everything from making bomb-making materials more secure to the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons.
That’s welcome news, but for such goals to be realized, the White House will need to be prepared to reimagine and reshape the nuclear era and, against strong opposition, break free from cold war thinking and better address the threats America faces today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/opinion/19taubman.html?ref=opinion

A Swiss Bank Is Set to Open Its Secret Files

2009-02-19T14:44:00.001+05:00

By LYNNLEY BROWNING
Published: February 18, 2009
In the hush-hush world of Swiss banking, the unthinkable is happening: secrets are spilling into the open.
UBS, the largest bank in Switzerland, agreed on Wednesday to divulge the names of well-heeled Americans whom the authorities suspect of using offshore accounts at the bank to evade taxes. The bank admitted conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and agreed to pay $780 million to settle a sweeping federal investigation into its activities.
It is unclear how many of its clients’ names UBS will divulge
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/business/worldbusiness/19ubs.html?hp

BUILDING A GREENHOUSE

2009-02-19T12:30:00.000+05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_IW7RWIGG4

Real Picture that spell.

2009-02-18T12:38:00.001+05:00

With thanks of Little sister.

"Children of Heaven"

2009-02-17T12:58:00.005+05:00

Children of Heaven (Persian: بچه‌های آسمان) is a 1997 Iranian film by Majid Majidi. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998. It deals with a brother and sister and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes.

The film was shot in Tehran. It was attempted to keep the filming secret in order to capture a more realistic image of the city. The production costs have been estimated at US$ 180,000.
Children of Heaven premiered in February 1997 at the Teheran Fajr Film Festival and was awarded several national film awards. It started in the US on 22 January 1999, with a total US box office result of $930,000. After the film had become well-known worldwide due to the Oscar nomination, it was shown in several European, South American, and Asian countries between 1999 and 2001.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Heaven

A Turnaround Strategy

2009-02-14T12:41:00.000+05:00

The central government is widely seen as weak, dysfunctional and utterly corrupt. Disgust with its performance has reopened the door for the Taliban, who are unpopular almost everywhere but who promise justice—albeit very rough justice—rather than the chaos of the Karzai reign.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/182651/page/2

Failure to Rise

2009-02-14T12:26:00.000+05:00

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 12, 2009

The Congressional Budget Office, not usually given to hyperbole, predicts that over the next three years there will be a $2.9 trillion gap between what the economy could produce and what it will actually produce. And $800 billion, while it sounds like a lot of money, isn’t nearly enough to bridge that chasm.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/opinion/13krugman.html?em

A New Role for Iraqi Militants: Patrons of the Arts

2009-02-14T12:15:00.000+05:00

This week in Baghdad, the city once terrorized by those killings, Sheik Mazin mingled in a white-walled art gallery as the patron of an exhibition of paintings and sculptures that would not, exactly, be out of place in Chelsea or SoHo: abstract art, expressionist paintings and conceptual works larded with symbols of Iraq’s ancient history and today’s reality.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/14/world/middleeast/14baghdad.html?_r=1&hp

"Israel’s future security depends on the establishment of a stable Palestinian state".

2009-02-11T10:12:00.001+05:00

By ETHAN BRONNER and ISABEL KERSHNER
Published: February 10, 2009

JERUSALEM — Israel’s centrist Kadima Party led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and the more conservative Likud Party led by Benjamin Netanyahu were locked in a tight battle for leadership early Wednesday that left unclear the shape of the next Israeli government.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/world/middleeast/11israel.html?_r=1&hp

Mr.Biden speech to Munich security conference

2009-02-10T12:25:00.003+05:00

Biden Addresses Munich Conference
Vice President Biden spoke to the 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy this morning during his first overseas trip since taking office. Below are his comments as released by the White House:
Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much. Ladies and gentleman, it's an honor to be back in Munich. I've attended this conference many times as a United States senator, and three of my congressional colleagues are here with me today. But I am honored to be back here, as well, as the Vice President of the United States, representing a new administration and, hopefully, a new day. Today I am especially honored to represent this administration. And we've gone through the oldest of our traditions: that is the peaceful transfer of power. And now, I bring the regrets of two friends who are usually here. But because we are still grappling with legislation relating to our so-called stimulus package to deal with our economic issues -- both Senators John McCain and John Kerry were hoping to join my three House colleagues here today, they are usually here, but they send their regrets.
I come to Europe on behalf of a new administration, and an administration that's determined to set a new tone not only in Washington, but in America's relations around the world. That new tone is rooted in a strong bipartisanship to meet these common challenges. And we recognize that these challenges, the need to meet them, is not an opportunity -- not a luxury, but it's an absolute necessity. While every new beginning is a moment of hope, this moment -- for America and the countries represented in this room -- it is fraught with some considerable concern and peril.
In this moment, our obligation to our fellow citizens is to -- in our view -- put aside the petty and political notion that -- to reject the zero sum mentalities and rigid ideologies, and to listen to and learn from one another, and to work together for a common prosperity and security of all of us assembled in this room. That's what, in our view, this moment demands. And that's what this new administration is determined to do.For 45 years, this conference has brought together Americans and Europeans -- and, in recent years, leaders from beyond the Transatlantic community -- to think through matters of our physical security. But this year, more than ever before, we know that our physical security and our economic security are indivisible. We are all confronting a serious threat to our economic security that could further spread instability and erode the progress we've made in improving the lives of all our citizens. In the United States -- like many of you -- we're taking aggressive action to stabilize our financial systems, to jumpstart our economy, and, hopefully, lay a new foundation for growth in the 21st century. Working with the Congress, we'll make strategic investments that create and save we believe 3 to 4 million jobs, and in the process, boost our competitiveness in the long run. Our plan includes doubling the production of alternative energy over the next three years; computerizing our citizens' medical records to drive down cost; equipping tens of thousands of our schools and colleges with 21st century classrooms, laboratories and libraries; expanding the broadband across America; and investing once again in science, research, technology -- all the things that spur innovation. We're looking -- we're also working to stabilize our financial institutions by injecting considerable amounts of capital, purchasing some assets and guaranteeing others. These remedies are going to have an impact, as you all know, far beyond our shores, just as the measures all of you are taking will be felt beyond your borders, as well. And because of that, to the greatest extent possible, we're going to have to cooperate to make sure that our actions are complementary, and to do our utmost to combat this global crisis. The United States is trying to do its part. And President Obama looks forward to taking our message to the G20 meeting in London in April.
And even as we grapple with an economic crisis, we're also -- have to contend with a war in Afghanistan now in its eighth year, and a war in Iraq well into its sixth year. And we have to recognize, as mentioned by both the Chancellor and President Sarkozy earlier today, that there are other forces that are shaping this new century: The spread of weapons of mass destruction and dangerous diseases, endemic disease; a growing gap between the rich and poor; ethnic animosity in failed states; and a rapidly warming planet and uncertain supplies of energy, food, water. The challenges to freedom and security from radical fundamentalism must be added to that list, as well.In meeting these challenges, the United States will be guided by this principle -- and the principle is: There is no conflict between our security and our ideals. We believe they are mutually reinforcing.The force of arms won our independence, and throughout our history the force of arms has protected our freedom. That will not change. But the very moment we declared our war of independence, at that moment we laid out to the world the values behind our revolution and the conviction that our policies must be informed, as we said at the time, by a "decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Our Founders understood then, and the United States believes now, that the example of our power must be matched by the power of our example. And that is why our administration rejects a false choice between our safety and our ideals. America will vigorously defend our security and our values, and in doing so we believe we'll all be more secure.As hard as we try, I know -- I know -- that we're likely to fall short of our ideals in the future, just as we have in the past. But I commit to you, this administration will strive every day -- every day -- to honor the values that animate American democracy and, I might add, that bind us to all of you in this room.America will not torture. We will uphold the rights of those who we bring to justice. And we will close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
But tough choices lie ahead. As we seek a lasting framework for our common struggle against extremism, we'll have to work cooperatively with nations around the world -- and we'll need your help. We'll need your help. For example, we will ask others to take responsibility for some of those now in Guantanamo, as we determine to close it. Our security is shared. And so, too, I respectfully suggest, is our responsibility to defend it. That's the basis upon which we want to build a new approach to the challenges of this century. America will do more, but America will -- that's the good news. The bad news is America will ask for more from our partners, as well. Here's what we'll do, and what we hope our partners will consider. First, we'll work in a partnership whenever we can, and alone only when we must. The threats we face have no respect for borders. No single country, no matter how powerful, can best meet these threats alone. We believe international alliances and organizations do not diminish America's power -- we believe they help advance our collective security, economic interests and our values. So we'll engage. We'll listen. We'll consult. America needs the world, just as I believe the world needs America. But we say to our friends that the alliances, treaties and international organizations we build must be credible and they must be effective. That requires a common commitment not only to listen and live by the rules, but to enforce the rules when they are, in fact, clearly violated. Such a bargain is the bargain we seek. Such a bargain can be at the heart of our collective efforts to convince Iran, for example, to forego the development of nuclear weapons. The Iranian people are a great people; the Persian civilization is a great civilization. But Iran has acted in ways that are not conducive to peace in the region or to the prosperity of its own people. Its illicit nuclear program is but one of those manifestations.Our administration is reviewing our policy toward Iran, but this much is clear: We will be willing to talk. We'll be willing to talk to Iran and to offer a very clear choice: Continue down the current course and there will be continued pressure and isolation; abandon the illicit nuclear program and your support for terrorism, and there will be meaningful incentives.
Second, we'll strive to act preventively, not preemptively, to avoid whenever possible, or wherever possible the choice of last resort between the risks of war and the dangers of inaction. We'll draw upon all the elements of our power -- military and diplomatic, intelligence and law enforcement, economic and cultural -- to stop crises from occurring before they are in front of us. In short, we're going to attempt to recapture the totality of America's strength, starting with diplomacy. On his second full day in office, President Obama, went to our State Department, where he stressed the centrality of diplomacy in our national security. The commitment can be seen in his appointments, starting with the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. It can be seen in the President's decision to name two of America's most tenacious diplomats -- Senator George Mitchell and Ambassador Richard Holbrooke -- to contend with two of the world's most urgent and vexing and complex challenges: the need for a secure, just, and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and the imperative of stopping the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan from providing a haven for terrorists. In both these efforts, America seeks your partnership. Senator Mitchell just completed his first trip to the Middle East. Above all, he went to listen. In the near term, we must consolidate the cease-fire in Gaza by working with Egypt and others to stop smuggling, and developing an international relief and reconstruction effort that strengthens the Palestinian Authority, and not Hamas. Neither of these goals can be accomplished without close collaboration among the United States, Europe, and our Arab partners. Then, we must lay the foundation for a broader peacemaking effort. In the past -- well, look at it this way -- it's long time passed for us to secure a just, two-state solution. We will work to achieve it. And we'll work to defeat extremists who perpetuate the conflict. And in building on positive elements of the Arab Peace Initiative put forward by Saudi Arabia, we'll work toward a broader regional peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and we'll responsibly draw down our forces that are in Iraq in the process.
The United States will continue to work for a stable Afghanistan that's not a haven for terrorists. We look forward -- we look forward to sharing that commitment with the government and the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and with all of our allies and partners, because a deteriorating situation in the region poses a security threat not just to the United States, but I would suggest somewhat presumptuously, to every one of you assembled in this room.President Obama has ordered a strategic review of our policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan to make sure that our goals are clear, and that they are achievable. As we undertake that review, we seek ideas and input from you and all of our partners. And we genuinely seek those ideas. I've already had bilateral meetings. I'll have the opportunity to meet with the President of France and others this afternoon. I had an opportunity to meet with the Chancellor this morning. We are sincere in seeking your counsel. As we undertake this review, there's a lot at stake. The result must be a comprehensive strategy for which we all take responsibility -- that brings together our civilian and military resources, that prevents terrorists a safe haven, that helps the Afghan people develop the capacity to secure their own future. But no strategy for Afghanistan, in my humble opinion, can succeed without Pakistan. We must all strengthen our cooperation with the people and government of Pakistan, help them stabilize their Tribal Areas, promote economic development and opportunity throughout their country. In the case of my government, we feel it's urgent to move from a relationship that was transactional to one that is based upon a long-term relationship. Thirdly, America will extend a hand to those who, as the President said, will unclench their fist. The United States of America does not believe, our administration does not believe, in a clash of civilizations; there is nothing inevitable about that. We do see a shared struggle against extremism -- and we'll do everything in our collective power to help the forces of tolerance prevail.
In the Muslim world, a small -- and I believe a very small -- number of violent extremists are beyond the call of reason. We will, and we must, defeat them. But hundreds of millions of hearts and minds in the Muslim world share the values we hold dearly. We must reach them. President Obama has made clear that he will seek a new way forward based on mutual interest and mutual respect. It was not an accident that he gave his very first interview as President of the United States to Al Arabiya. That was not an accident. To meet the challenges of this new century, defense and diplomacy are necessary. But quite frankly, ladies and gentlemen, they are not sufficient. We also need to wield development and democracy, two of the most powerful weapons in our collective arsenals. Poor societies and dysfunctional states, as you know as well as I do, can become breeding grounds for extremism, conflict and disease. Non-democratic nations frustrate the rightful aspirations of their citizens and fuel resentment. Our administration has set an ambitious goal to increase foreign assistance, to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015, to help eliminate the global educational deficit, and to cancel the debt of the world's poorest countries; to launch a new Green Revolution that produces sustainable supplies of food, and to advance democracy not through the imposition of force from the outside, but by working with moderates in government and civil society to build those institutions that will protect that freedom -- quite frankly, the only thing that will guarantee that freedom. We also are determined to build a sustainable future for our planet. We are prepared to once again begin to lead by example. America will act aggressively against climate change and in pursuit of energy security with like-minded nations. Our administration's economic stimulus package, for example, includes long-term investments in renewable energy. And we believe that's merely a down payment. The President has directed our Environmental Protection Agency to review how we regulate emissions, start a process to raise fuel efficiency, appoint a climate envoy -- and all in his first week in office, to demonstrate his commitment. As America renews our emphasis on diplomacy, development and democracy, and preserving our planet, we will ask our allies to rethink some of their own approaches -- including their willingness to use force when all else fails.
When it comes to radical groups that use terror as a tool, radical states who harbor extremists, undermine peace and seek or spread weapons of mass destruction, and regimes that systematically kill or ethnically cleanse their own people, we must stand united and use every means at our disposal to end the threat that they pose.None of us can deny or escape the new threats of the 21st century. Nor can we escape the responsibility to meet them.And we are not unmindful in the United States how difficult it is to communicate these notions to our public who don't want to hear much of what needs to be said. Two months from now, the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will gather to celebrate the 60th year of this Alliance. This Alliance has been the cornerstone of our common security since the end of World War II. It has anchored the United States in Europe and helped forge a Europe whole and free. Together we made a pact, a pact to safeguard the freedom of our people founded on the principles and the documents referring to democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law. We made a commitment to cooperate, to consult, to act with resolve when the principles we defended are challenged.There is much to celebrate. But we there's much more to be done. We must recommit our shared security and renew NATO, so that its success in the 20th century is matched in the 21st century.NATO's core purpose remains the collective defense of its members. But faced with new threats, new realities, we need a new resolve to meet them and new capabilities to succeed. Our Alliance must be better equipped to help stop the spread of the world's most dangerous weapons, to tackle terrorism and cyber-security, to expand the writ of energy security, and to act in and out of area more effectively. We continue to develop -- we will continue to develop missile defense to counter the growing Iranian capability, provided the technology is proven and it is cost-effective. We'll do so in consultation with you, our NATO allies, and with Russia. As we embark on this renewal project -- as we like to think of it -- the United States, like other allies, would warmly welcome, and we do warmly welcome, the decision by France to fully cooperate in NATO structures. That's the main reason the President got our speech. (Laughter.) You were supposed to say nicer things about me when you got the speech, Mr. President. (Laugher.) That's a joke. (Laughter.)
In a recent discussion with President Sarkozy, President Obama underscored his strong support for France's full participation in NATO, should France wish it. France is a founding member of NATO and a major contributor to its operation. We would expect France's new responsibilities to reflect the significance of its contributions throughout NATO's history, and to strengthen the European role within the Alliance.We also support the further strengthening of European defense, an increased role for the European Union in preserving peace and security, a fundamentally stronger NATO-EU partnership, and a deeper cooperation with countries outside the Alliance who share our common goals and principles. The United States rejects the notion that NATO's gain is Russia's loss, or that Russia's strength is NATO's weakness. The last few years have seen a dangerous drift in relations between Russia and the members of our Alliance. It is time -- to paraphrase President Obama -- it's time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should be working together with Russia.Our Russian colleagues long ago warned about the rising threat of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Today, NATO and Russia can, and should, cooperate to defeat this common enemy. We can and should cooperate to secure loose nuclear weapons and materials to prevent their spread, to renew the verification procedures in the START Treaty, and then go beyond existing treaties to negotiate deeper cuts in both our arsenals. The United States and Russia have a special obligation to lead the international effort to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world.We will not agree with Russia on everything. For example, the United States will not -- will not recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. We will not recognize any nation having a sphere of influence. It will remain our view that sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances. But the United States and Russia can disagree and still work together where our interests coincide. And they coincide in many places.
This conference started in the shadow of the Cold War. Now it takes place in a new century with new threats. As one great poet, an Irish poet, once wrote about another circumstance, he said: "All is changed, changed utterly: a terrible beauty has been born." Well, all changed, changed utterly. And we must change, too, while remaining true to the principles upon which this Alliance was founded. And we must have the common courage and commitment of those who came before us to work together, to build together, to stand together. In sharing ideals and searching for partners in a more complex world, America and Europeans still look to one another before they look to anyone else. Our partnership has benefitted us all. It's time -- it's time to renew it. And President Obama and I look forward to doing just that.
Posted at 11:22 AM ET on Feb 7, 2009

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/02/07/biden_addresses_munich_confere.html?wprss=44

Well, That Certainly Didn’t Take Long

2009-02-06T11:35:00.000+05:00

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: February 3, 2009
WASHINGTON

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/04/opinion/04dowd.html?em

IRAQ WAR

2009-02-04T11:15:00.004+05:00

Financial cost of war will exceed = 03 Trillion $
The US troops that have lost their lives = 4000
Number of serious injured US Troops = 30,000
Number of Iraqis peoples that have lost their lives =100,0000 ( 01 Million)
Number of Iraqis Orphans children = 50,00000 ( 05 Million) 35% of total Iraqis children
Number of Orphans that living in streets without home or family care = 500,000
Number of refugees of Iraq = 4.7 Million 16.3 % of Iraq population

Sources: Wikipedia; " Iraq war"
( Some Statistical data shows the result since March 2007)

THE POLITICAL SUSPICIONS OF 9/11

2009-02-02T11:16:00.003+05:00

The Political Suspicions of 9/11

By BRIAN STELTER
Published: February 1, 2009
A coming episode of the acclaimed FX drama “Rescue Me” will tackle what may sound like a far-fetched plot line: that the attacks of Sept. 11 were an “inside job.” The actor who espouses the theories on camera, it turns out, also subscribes to them in real life.
The actor Daniel Sunjata calls the attacks an “inside job.”
Claims that Al Qaeda terrorists were not solely responsible for the attacks have a lively following on the Internet, including on YouTube, but the second episode of “Rescue Me’s” fifth season, starting in April, may represent the first fictional presentation of 9/11 conspiracy theories by a mainstream media company (FX is operated by the News Corporation).
“They’re not discussed a lot in the press,” Daniel Sunjata, the actor who plays Franco Rivera on “Rescue Me,” told reporters at a television press tour last month. He predicted that the episode would be “socio-politically provocative.”
In the episode, Mr. Sunjata’s character delivers a two-minute monologue for a French journalist describing a “neoconservative government effort” to control the world’s oil, drastically increase military spending and “change the definition of pre-emptive attack.” To put it into action, he continues, “what you need is a new Pearl Harbor. That’s what they said they needed.”
Mr. Sunjata surprised some of the TV reporters when he said that he “absolutely, 100 percent” supports the assertion that “9/11 was an inside job.”
The alternative theories “seem to me to make a lot more sense than the ones that are popularly espoused,” he said, calling it admirable that the conversation was allowed within “Rescue Me.”
Peter Tolan, an executive producer, said Mr. Sunjata is “well read” and has “done a lot of research.”
“Look, obviously not all of us buy in,” he told reporters. “But we went: ‘Wow, that’s interesting, and he’s passionate about it. Let’s use that.’ ”
Sept. 11 has been a touchstone for the series, which is set in a New York City firehouse. Denis Leary, who plays the lead character, said Mr. Sunjata’s character creates a rift among the fictional firefighters. Similar scenes have played out in actual firehouses in New York, he said, “where some of the younger members don’t even have to completely buy into the theory of 9/11 being an inside job, but want to discuss it.” BRIAN STELTER

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/business/media/02fx.html?ref=business

end the war on terror.

2009-01-31T10:06:00.000+05:00

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=6

MONETARY POLICY.

2009-01-27T11:54:00.000+05:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy

Mr. OBAMA'S SPEECH IN MULTIMEDIA.

2009-01-23T13:39:00.000+05:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7840926.stm

Barack Obama has been sworn in as the 44th US president. Here is his inauguration speech in full.

2009-01-23T13:20:00.002+05:00

My fellow citizens,
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and co-operation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms.
At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we, the people, have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbears, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

Serious challenges

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our healthcare is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
We have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.
On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

Nation of 'risk-takers'

We remain a young nation, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labour, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and travelled across oceans in search of a new life.
For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and ploughed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

'Remaking America'

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift
This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of our economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise healthcare's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.

Restoring trust

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.
We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.
The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programmes will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.
Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - that a nation cannot prosper long when it favours only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

'Ready to lead'

As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.
We will not apologise for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defence
Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.
We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater co-operation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the spectre of a warming planet. We will not apologise for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defence, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

'Era of peace'

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

'Duties'

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honour them not only because they are the guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.
What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility
For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.
Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths.
What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

'Gift of freedom'

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.
This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.
So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have travelled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:
"Let it be told to the future world... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."
America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.
Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

2009-01-19T11:14:00.000+05:00

Op-Ed Columnist
The Long, Lame Goodbye
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: January 18, 2009
George W. Bush decided long ago to be a president representing just his base. It is relief to be getting a president determined to represent the whole country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/opinion/18dowd.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

I had a dream.

2009-01-17T11:13:00.006+05:00

I had a dream,
the pure, sacred dream
that,
there are very beautiful colours all around
the children of diffrent nations are smiling & gaglings
without any shadow of fear
there is no any sort of discrimination:
between balck and white,
among Asians, Westerns, Africans and rest of the other Nations,
among Christians, Muslims ,Jesus, Hindu and other Religions,
between rich and poor,
between man and woman,
between employer and employee
Every one pay high respect to each other
Every one spend his/ her life as he/ she wishes
without any sort of preassure; direct or indirect
There is no need of spending earned money at weapons,
because there is no any sort of threat to each other
simply they have learned the great lesson,
to live together with love, respect and honour
so the money is spending for the best welfare of whole Humanity,
such spending is the sacred task for all peoples,
under the sun
every one enjoying the freedom, the best fascilities of the world,
under the sun
The peoples of the globe have develop this modest culture,
inspite of many differences among them
They develop such culture,
with the basic principles of life;
the patience,
the forgiveness,
understanding to each other,
paying respect to each other,
share the pain and joys of each other
But,
this was the dream
Perhaps the Master, the creator of this universe
will bring such time,
under the sun,
at this planet

Twas the night before Baghdad.

2009-01-15T11:15:00.000+05:00

Twas the night before Baghdad

Twas the night before Baghdad
And all through the base
Not a heartbeat was silent
Not a smile on one face

The soldiers at attention
Fists raised in the air
Saddam is a monster!
We must all go there!

So we loaded our planes
With our guns and our tanks
And we sent all the soldiers
To Kuwaits outer banks

From Kuwait, from Turkey
From Saudi and more
With battering rams
We knocked on his door

The Fedayin heard
All the military clatter
And ran to Saddam
To ask what was the matter

Don't worry he said
With a heartening ring
They financed my reign
They won't do this thing

We bombed all the buildings
Til the fires were glowing
While Baby Bush yelled
Keep the oil pipes flowing!

He should be a magician
Our Baby Bush, cuz you see
He created the biggest illusion
The WMD's

He lied to us all
About terror and pain
When all that he's after
Is monetary gain

For Daddy, and Barbara
And Baby Bush too
There is no such thing
As too much oil revenue

Some people believe
That it's for our own good
To bomb and to kill
To shed innocent blood

They sleep in their beds
Oblivious to lies
While we who have wakened
Hear bloodcurdling cries

Cries of our fathers,
Our brothers and sons
Sent to fight in a war
That cannot be won

We liberated them!
Our Baby Bush chimes
That is why they attack us
Time after time

With Christmas upon us
He steps up his work
Of campaigning again
The self serving jerk!

He'll don his flight suit
He'll have all his fun
Wishing Merry Christmas! Keep fighting!
And to all....Duck and Run!

written by mother of a soldier

Source:http://judithpordon.tripod.com

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009

2009-01-01T16:18:00.000+05:00

My warm wishes to all my teachers,
who taught me how to live,
taught me the Great lessons of ethics
whom characters shape my personality.
My prayer to my lovely Baba,
who taught me the basics of life,
now he is the part of Graveyard,
May his soul rest in peace,
Allah Almighty shower his blessings at his grave.
My warm wishes to my mama,
who always take care of her son,
bear all my bad habits patiently.
My warm wishes to all of my friends,
whom warm living company always inspired me,
whom sweet memories are the continious source of inspiration.
My warm wishes to all of my family members,
at this new year 2009

WINNER OF THE RESEARCH CONFERENCE 2008

2008-12-31T16:04:00.001+05:00

The 2008 WHU Finance Award was conferred to Torsten Schöneborn and Alexander Schied from TU Berlin, Germany. His paper entitled "Competing players in illiquid markets" was acknowledged by the jury as the best submission to 2008´s Research Conference. Thus, the work was awarded with a prize money of € 1000.
About Torsten Schöneborn's and Alexander Schied's paper:
"The paper provides the analysis of strategic trading of distressed liquidity traders, i.e. the oprimal liquidation strategy under time restrictions. The paper is of interest for asset managers who have to unwind huge asset positions due to liquidity reasons. It delivers astonishing results: little competition (quantified by the count of competitors) is bad for the distressed liquidity trader. The paper formulates policy implications for asset managers as concnerns the disclosure of liquidity needs. The paper is written such that one understands the paper during the first read. The paper is very straightforward and immediately publishable and thus internationally competitive. It is simply excellent."

The 2nd prize witz a prize money of € 500 was awarded to Matthias Bank and Jochen Lawrenz from the University of Innsbruck, Austria for his work entitled "Demand deposits as commitment device and the optimal debt mix of banks in a continuous-time framework".
About Matthias Bank's and Jochen Lawrenz's paper:
"The goal of the paper is to present a theory for the optimal capital structure of banks. This is a challenging research question because the standard arguments in the literature, which explain optimal capital structures of non-financial firms, do not apply to banks. A major difference is - for example - the fact that banks can collect deposits which exhibit fundamentally different characteristics than the available financing instruments for non-financial firms. By incorporating the properties of both deposits and bonds into a continuous-time model, the authors provide a convincing motivation for the fact that the optimal capital structure of banks is a mix of deposits and bonds This paper is an outstanding piece of work because it applies a sophisticated model in a comprehensible way that allows to considerably contribute to the literature in the followin three ways: Firstly, while most related papers are not able to explain an optimal capital structure of banks, the paper drives the optimal amount of bank's debt. Secondly, the authors not only allow for one financing instrument but for a financing mix with deposits and bonds. Thirdly, important theoretical implications are gained from a numerical analysis that can be evaluated in a further study."

The 3rd prize (EUR 500) was granted to Aurélien Alfonsi, Alexander Schied and Antje Schulz from the TU Berlin, Germany for their paper "Optimal execution strategies in limit order books with general shape functions".
About Aurélien Alfonsi's, Alexander Schied's and Antje Schulz's paper:
"The paper is a high quality work. it is indicated to be work in progress although it is already at a very elaborate level. The referee considers it to be internationally competitive and publishable upon completion. The paper is of both interest and importance for institutional asset managers who have to transact large blocks of shares."

BEST POEM OF 2008

2008-12-31T15:15:00.000+05:00

This poem was nominated by UN as the best poem of 2008, Written by an African Kid

When I born,I black
When I grow up,I black
When I go in Sun, I black
When I scared,I black
When I sick, I black
And when I die,I still black
And you white fellow
When you born,you pink
When you grow up, you white
When you go in sun,you red
When you cold, you blue
When you scared, you yellow
When you sick, you green
And when you die,you gray
And you calling me colored?
__________________Giridhar Alwar

Picture of the Day.

2008-12-29T17:34:00.003+05:00

Israeli air raid at Gaza strip, killed record number of peoples,children.

PICTURE OF THE DAY.

2008-12-29T17:30:00.002+05:00

Many innocent children are killed, lot of injured by Isaeli brutal raid at Gaza strip.

GRIEF AND FEAR IN GAZA.

2008-12-29T14:14:00.002+05:00

BBC journalist and Gaza resident Hamada Abu Qammar describes the impact of the current wave of Israeli airstrikes against Hamas targets.

Hospitals have been struggling to cope with the injuredThe streets of Gaza are deserted, apart from a few cars taking urgent cases to hospital and families screaming and shouting as they take bodies to the cemetery to be buried.
This morning I visited Shifa Hospital, the main one in Gaza.
I spoke to one man, a civilian, and also a 14-year-old boy who were injured in an airstrike on a police station in the east of Gaza City this morning.
The man said he had been going to work in a clinic when he heard the sound of planes and turned back. But after that he cannot remember what happened - he just woke up injured, with wounds in his hand, leg and stomach.
The teenage boy had blood on his head and was in a lot of pain. He could not even remember his own name. "I don't even know where I am," he said to me.
I saw a body too, in the emergency room, with a stick of wood stuck through the chest.
Yesterday I also went into the hospital; the morgue was full and bodies were left in the streets. Parents were scouring the hospital for their children.
I followed one woman who was screaming "my son, my son" as she searched the building.
Eventually they located him, a young man was in his twenties. The staff would not let her see the body, but I saw it. It didn't have a head and there was no stomach. She fainted on top of the remains of her son, which were covered with a white sheet.
The relatives in the hospital scream and scream. They don't have words to express their feelings, they just say "God help us", over and over.
'Sitting and waiting'
I have seen several Israeli airstrikes this morning - one on a Hamas police post on the coastal road, another on a house about 200m from the BBC office. Smoke pours into the sky. The largest so far today was on the Hamas security headquarters, which is also near to our office, a few hundred metres away.
I was watching it from the window. There were three very loud bangs and a power cut. I could hear women screaming in their houses, and gunshots from Hamas men surrounding the area to keep people way.
The compound was in a big residential area, with lots of high buildings and apartments. Some of the homes are only about 5m from the site - and of course those buildings were damaged, with windows shattered and falling to the ground.
Electricity comes and goes as usual. Most shops are closed. There is a lack of everything - the UN relief agency UNRWA has not been able to deliver food aid for about 750,000 people.
There are shortages of anaesthetic gas, medical supplies, flour and milk - but many of the people I have spoken to say they don't feel like eating while this is going on.
Families are just sitting in their homes. I spoke to one of my neighbours, Iman, a 14-year-old-girl. She was so scared she could barely speak.
"I don't know where to go. I don't know where is a safe place to stay. We don't know when they will strike again," she said.
Israel is not currently permitting international journalists to cross into Gaza

Speak No Evil By Uzodinma Iweala.

2008-12-24T16:21:00.002+05:00

(This is one of the three stories from The Paris Review that were nominated for a 2008 National Magazine Award in fiction)

The house is just how I thought it would look. Right where I thought it would be. I walked here all the way up Dorset Avenue from the bus stop, sweating like I just ran ten miles, but I should be used to heat. It’s not the heat that’s got me, though. I’m sweating cause I can’t believe I’m actually about to do this. I’m looking at the house now with its white columns, black shutters, and windows with fancy curtains in them and I’m turning the small box with the compass over and over in my pocket, thinking—well, Betty Lu, I see why you didn’t tell your parents. This place looks like it could hold the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family at the same time. Now all I’ve got to do is cross the street, ring the doorbell, and stand at attention. And when his dad opens up the door, step in, sit the old man down, and give him the compass just like Betty Lu said I should do before he died. Simple. Not that simple. How do you tell somebody else’s parents about their son when you can’t even tell your own mom what’s going on in your life? But I can do it though, I keep saying to myself. It’s no different from when we were just busting into people’s houses in Iraq, telling them shit they don’t want to hear like, “America’s in charge now, bitches!” Only we weren’t in charge. That’s why I’m standing here across from this dead man’s house trying to give his parents what I know they don’t want to see. I cross the street and walk right up the flagstone to the front door, ring the doorbell, and then stand at attention with my hat low over my eyes, trying not to shake cause I’m so nervous. Seems like a full five minutes before the chain scratches and the door swings open. It’s a girl who could only be his sister—she has his crazy blue eyes and the same blond hair falling around her face down to her shoulders. She’s a bit shorter than me—which isn’t too short—and she’s wearing boxers and a black stretch tank top that shows just how pudgy she is. She’s got a twenty in her hand like I’m the pizza man or something. I take my cover off real quick and all of a sudden I don’t feel like doing this anymore, but do I have a choice now? She almost drops the phone from between her ear and shoulder, and her lips keep moving, but no words come out of her mouth. I feel real dumb cause I didn’t think about what it must have been like when the death squad came to tell them about Betty Lu. And then for me to come out here, solemn-faced in my uniform. I put it on cause I was thinking if I were dressed like normal—you know these white people—they might not have opened the door. “Come in,” she whispers before I can even introduce myself. “Excuse me, ma’am. I’m sorry to disturb you like this on a Sunday afternoon, but are your parents home?” Some girl on the phone says, “Lyds. Lydia? Babe. I’m late. I’ll call you back.” Then the line cuts. Lydia backs away from me real slow like I’m dangerous or something, so I stay standing just on the doorstep watching how her face looks like someone just pressed some fat onto it. You can tell she didn’t look that way before, cause the way she moves, she’s not used to having all that extra weight. I mean she’s not big big, but she’s bigger than she should be—than she wants to be, at least. “I’m Specialist Andre Wilson,” I say. “I served under your brother in Iraq. I have something to give to your parents. Something your brother wanted me to give to them.” Then real quick she gets all official on me, like a receptionist that always tells you, No, the boss isn’t around or the doctor isn’t in. “My parents won’t be around until next Saturday,” she says, “but I can take whatever it is. I’m sure they’ll be happy to get it.” “Well, ma’am,” I say. “Sorry to trouble you then, but I think I’ll wait for them to come back and maybe I’ll come around next Sunday. I called a couple of times before but . . .” I can’t finish because that’s a bald-faced lie. I wanted to call but I couldn’t. I wanted to call, though. That should count for something. “Well, why don’t you leave your information and I’ll let you know when maybe it’s a good time to come back,” she says, straining real hard to keep her cool. Her hands cross over her chest like she’s embarrassed because she isn’t wearing too much. I take a pen from my pocket and scribble down my name and address on a piece of paper she gives me. “OK, ma’am. Thank you very much. You have a good afternoon.” I take a step back from the door and turn around. I’m kicking myself cause I’m thinking, I should have called first. Should have called. Should have called. As I’m walking down the flagstones again, the pizza man pulls up and gets out of his car with a large pizza. A large pizza just for her? She didn’t look like she was expecting company. It’s funny how it never works out the way you think. I mean, it’s like one moment you’re sitting in the guidance counselor’s office while he’s tapping his pen against his desk like you’re wasting his time and saying, “Well. Hmm. The only option I can really think of for someone with your GPA, Andre, is the army. That’s only if you really want to go to college.” And then the next moment you’re standing in front of somebody’s sister making a fool of yourself like that’s what you were born to do. There’s a lot in between, but most of it still doesn’t make sense. Not wanting to tell your mom that you damn near flunked out of high school, that no college wants you. Sitting down with an army recruiter who’s talking about traveling the world, different cultures, learning skills, infantry, artillery, special forces while he’s fiddling with his buttons like he’s uncomfortable in his uniform. And then telling your mom about how the army is good cause it will help you pay for college. She didn’t say much when I told her except, “But you’re gonna go? Right, baby? You’re gonna get a degree?” Like she didn’t even hear the part about the army. Then there was getting my butt kicked in basic training. Every day shouting, “Huah! Yes, suh!” Shooting. Marching. Shooting and marching all the way to fucking Iraq and all that goddamned sand. That’s where Betty Lu comes in. Second Lieutenant Colin Betford. I met him before I got to Iraq—transferred into his unit while at Fort Hood waiting to ship out. Yeah, Colin was real pretty looking—just like I’m sure his sister was real pretty, until she got all that fat on her. Sandy blond hair, pale blue eyes that used to stare at you like a Gap poster model. Only Colin never got tan like they do. He got real red, and he always smelled of sunblock. Thing about Betty Lu is that all throughout training and even while we were in Iraq, he never raised his voice to yell at any of his men. I mean, he wasn’t soft-spoken, but he sure didn’t like yelling. He let the sergeant do that. And the sarge could yell. Normally—cause it seems the only way to get shit done in the army is if you’re yelling or getting yelled at—someone like Colin would have been fucked to lead a platoon. But he just did everything so much better than everyone else that nobody had the chance to challenge him. We would struggle with runs and he’d be right there with us talking like we hadn’t even run a mile. Betty Lu let the sarge do the yelling and he was the one you went to if you had problems. Can’t remember who said it—probably Morley cause his wise ass was always joking about shit—but anyway someone said, “You know what? It’s like Sarge is the dad, always yelling and shit, and Lieutenant is the mom. You know how women are? They’re always the ones pulling the strings from the back—making you work hard while cooing to you.” Any other platoon leader would’ve gotten all red or something, but Colin just laughed with the rest of us. After that, Morley started calling him Betty Lu cause he said that was a good name for a mom, and everybody kept it up cause Colin didn’t mind as long as we didn’t say it in front of the other officers or his superiors. Betty Lu was real easy like that. I was still pretty much keeping to myself then. They didn’t really pay too much attention to me anyhow, except Morley, who kept trying to get me to say shit. Then one day after we’d been outside at Fort Hood running in the midday heat, Morley looked at me and said, “Andre, you’re about as black as one of the Dobermans I got at home.” I said, “Fuck off, Morley,” but everybody started calling me Dober—even Betty Lu. Isn’t that a bitch. But it wasn’t until Iraq that I really got to know Betty Lu, and even after we were on the ground getting adjusted or whatever, it took about three weeks for the two of us to really start talking. We just didn’t have much to talk about. He was a prep-school white boy—went to a real good college and did ROTC even though he didn’t need the military to pay for his education. I grew up in southeast DC. My life wasn’t anything like his life. Never would have been, except when you’re getting shot at all the time like we were. Shit. You start talking real fast to each other about a lot of things. Even me and Morley—who never left Kansas till he joined the army—could talk. Fucking Betty Lu. I remember we were coming back from this nighttime roundup in a small village just north of Baghdad. Word was insurgents were operating out of there, so the higher-ups sent us to rough some people up—you know, “Put the fear of America’s God in them.” I remember shaking a little bit cause this was the first one, really. I mean, we’d spent some time in Kuwait getting used to the heat, training, receiving orders, but that place isn’t like Iraq. It’s the same desert in both places, but it doesn’t even smell the same. You wouldn’t think it, but it’s true. That night you could smell the sand, the trash burning, sewers flowing into the streets, and the kerosene people use for lanterns and other things. Didn’t smell that way on base in Kuwait. No moon either, so we just came up in that village like the body snatchers—night vision, flashlights, guns out, busting in houses and rounding up men and boys. None of them knew what the hell was happening. They thought they were dreaming. I’ve seen the pictures in the magazines—of us looking all scary and evil. Well, the pictures aren’t half as bad as what it’s really like to see a U.S. Army infantryman standing over your bed in night-vision goggles and holding the barrel of an M4 right between your eyes. I almost shit my pants the first time I had to do it to someone, kept on thinking, What if I fuck up and pull the trigger? Won’t look too good, will it? But try to be nice to these Iraqis and you might get killed. There’s no politeness in war. That shit is for the politicians. The funny thing about that night is we didn’t really find anything—must have been a messed-up informant or something. We did arrest ten people—none of them over thirty—and we found ten old-ass rifles. I remember mumbling to myself as we were rolling back to camp, “This is how people like Amadou Diallo end up shot.” And Betty Lu—I think he just heard me—said, “You’re right, Dober. You’re right,” real soft so Morley and Sarge couldn’t hear it. That was it—I felt like we connected, like we were on the same shit after he said that. Then we just looked at each other right in the whites of our eyes and started cracking up like it was the funniest joke we ever heard, just cracking up and spraying spit all over each other that you could see in the darkness cause the lights of the Humvee behind us caught us like we were criminals or stars in some new movie. Morley and Sarge started laughing too cause they didn’t know what else to do. Soon it was all over the radios, and people were asking, “What’s so funny, huh? Y’all high or what?” Betty Lu got on the radio and said, “You all did good. Let’s bring it in safely, pack up for the night, and get as much sleep as possible. Huah!” I didn’t really sleep that night—or really ever. Couldn’t really. You try it when there’s sand in your butt cheeks, patrols coming in and going out at all times, and all this shit on your mind about what you’re doing. They say it happens to everybody in the first few weeks, that you realize not just you’re in the army but YOU’RE IN THE ARMY NOW BOY! And you can’t go back. Most people flip out at first cause it’s real hard to take, trying to figure out what it means that you can go into somebody’s house and shoot them and no one’s going to care. Someone will even tell you, “Good job! Go get another one!” like you’re hunting. So yeah, you flip a bit. It’s funny what people start doing, trying to make it seem like normal. I remember this one dude who had a picture of his daughter and a stack of kiddie books by his cot. Every night he’d just look at that picture and read the books aloud softly. He couldn’t read too good so he caught a lot of shit for that. But then you get used to it, just like going to work. Get up. Suit up. Shoot some people or get shot at, and if you’re lucky then you come home and you sleep. The routine makes it OK cause you’re too tired to think most always, except when the order comes to relax a little bit there’s time to mess around, phone home, play cards or PlayStation, or watch whatever movies they got in the rec tent. And that’s my problem now. I don’t have that much time—I’m at the Gap three, sometimes four days a week, but that’s not like being in the army. Half the time I’m standing around staring at all those pastel colors sitting on the shelves and pressing on the laser scanner button like it’s a trigger. I’ve got too much time to think and too much thinking is pretty much the same as no thinking at all. Truth is I’d been by Betty Lu’s house a thousand times in my head before I even saw it, just marching back and forth in front of it with a whole load of what-ifs on my back. It took me so damn long to get over there and make my move. But I guess I made my move today—only my intelligence was all wrong. Should’ve called. Should’ve called. Should’ve called. Lydia calls me on Wednesday—my day off, when I’m sitting at home in front of the TV staring at the local early-morning news cause I can’t sleep. I wasn’t even gonna answer the phone except it woke my mom up. She takes Wednesday off, too, cause she says she can’t go through a whole week out in the suburbs on her knees scrubbing toilets. She’s always saying a woman’s got to have some dignity even if it’s only one day a week. Sunday is for the Lord. I feel bad when she comes down the steps slowly making them creak like they’re as tired as she is, the cordless in her hand and her voice hoarse with sleep, “You know I like to sleep late, Andre. Just one day a week, can I sleep late?” She tosses me the phone, then turns around and grabs her back with one hand while she holds her robe closed with the other, mumbling to herself while she creaks back upstairs. A girl asks, “Is this a bad time? Should I call back later?” Stupid question if you ask me, seeing as she already woke up my mom. “It’s Lydia. You know—Colin’s sister.” “Right. Right,” I say. “Hey, listen. Do you think we can get together today? Maybe for lunch?” I don’t have much else to do today so I say, “Yeah. No doubt. Just tell me where.” “Friendship Heights. Where the movies are? Around two o’clock? Can you get there?” “Yeah. Yeah. I know where it is. I work at the Gap near there. I’ll be there.” Then I hang up and slump back into the couch trying to think what she wants to talk about. The president is on TV walking his dogs to his helicopter. He’s going on vacation again?When I get to Friendship Heights, she isn’t there. It’s so hot even the buses look like they’re struggling, especially with all that exhaust coming out of the tailpipes. The world seems so unreal when you look through it. So unstable. I’m waiting in the shade of the mall, right outside the Saks, and sometimes when someone’s going in or coming out I get some of the AC, but I don’t want to go in there cause they look at you funny. Everybody’s always looked at me funny, even in Iraq. The hajjis looked at me like I was a dragon or something, like they couldn’t understand how I was even living in this world. I didn’t mind it much until one day when we were searching cars, somebody called me a nigger. I didn’t even know what I was thinking before I said, “Well, you’re a motherfucking sand nigger so shut up,” and Morley laughed real hard. That shit made me feel even worse. Lydia pulls up in one of the shiny silver Mercedes that were in front of her house. She looks funny driving the thing, sitting up tight against the wheel like she’s afraid she’s gonna hit something if she even relaxes. When she gets out she smoothes down her skirt and pulls down her top right over the part of her stomach that’s showing. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she says. “Just got caught up at home.” She looks to the Italian restaurant across the street. Some folks are sitting on the sidewalk under bright green umbrellas. When we cross, I can see the waiters and waitresses all have dark stains on their white shirts right under their arms, but nobody else seems to care. One of them’s got a square face with a nice goatee. Lydia doesn’t even wait to be seated before she starts trying to talk about it. We’re walking past tables, dodging babies trying to jump from their strollers while their moms talk to each other behind dark sunglasses or underneath golf hats. They’re all too tired to cry, so they just reach out and up, opening and closing their hands like the world owes them something. “So, you grow up around here?” I ask as we sit down. “Yes—well, not really.” She picks up her napkin and puts it on her lap. “New Mexico first. We didn’t move here until I was twelve.” “New Mexico?” I ask, and I’m remembering how it all seemed so easy for Colin—all that sand, all that heat. He complained, but not like Morley or Sarge, who kept cussing, motherfucking hot-ass-stupid-ass-desert, every five minutes. “My dad worked for a defense contractor,” Lydia said. The waiter comes over with his pad and a pen in the same hand. The other hand’s got a pitcher of water that he pours from the side so the ice clinks against the glass and reminds you how you’re so thirsty. He turns around and does the same for the table next to us and I can see he’s got perfect hands, perfect nails—real delicate. “You grew up here?” she asks softly. “Sure did. Twenty years here in DC. Don’t know nowhere else except Iraq. And Germany. But I didn’t see too much of that.” Then she can’t hold out any more. Her cheeks pinch up and her eyes close and then she says, “Andre. This thing you want to give to my parents—can I have it?” “Your brother said I should give it to your mom or your dad. Or both of them. No one else.” “Is it his compass?” “Sure is.” “Well,” she says, holding out that last l like she’s using it to think. Like it’s a diving board she’s bouncing up and down on deciding if she should jump. “I can give it to them.” “Your brother said—” “Look.” She tosses her hair back then slides her sunglasses from her forehead down to her face. “My parents—I don’t know if they can deal with another uniform at the door just yet. When they get back, I can show them. It will be better. It will be easier for everyone—including you.” She sips her water and then coughs cause it goes down the wrong way. Her face turns red starting just behind her ears and then down into her cheeks. She breathes in like she’s drowning. A truck pushes by banging and clacking in the potholes while she’s trying real hard to breathe. It smells like diesel for a moment and I forget about everything except that moment when we were loading up in convoy and the contractors who drive the trucks were idling their engines and sweating in the cabs like they were in a spa. Sarge called Iraq one big, hellish, piece-of-shit spa. Betty Lu always laughed—even if nobody else found it funny. Then the waiter comes back and takes our order. He’s smiling perfect teeth, and his lips look shiny with gloss between his mustache and beard. Lydia points to a salad on the menu cause she can’t speak yet. I didn’t have a chance to look at the menu so I say, “Same thing as her.” He smiles at me, “You sure?” My palm is a little shaky as I hand him the menu and look at him up and down. “Yeah, yeah,” I say. “Give me what she’s got.” He walks off and she’s looking at me looking at him. “Andre,” she says, “I can do it.” “How you know it’s a compass anyway? I never said what it was.” “It’s the only one of his personal items they didn’t return to us. They would have brought that back to us. Unless it got lost.” “I was given instructions. He told me.” “Do you know what’s in it?” she asks. I nod. “Well, so do I. And I don’t want my parents to know. Don’t want them seeing that. Not right now.” She gets quiet and plays with her fork, twisting it so it flashes sunshine in my eyes. She doesn’t look up when the waiter brings our salads and a little bit of bread with oil shining on the top. She doesn’t eat anything either, but I can hear her stomach growling loud as I see the babies’ hands opening and closing and hear their strollers clacking against the ground. I say, “I’m sorry. I made a promise.”“My grandfather gave it to me,” Colin said to me the day it fell from his pocket. We were playing basketball one-on-one. Sweating and cussing—wishing that the tar wasn’t so hot and the ball so flat when we tried to bounce it. His chest was red and shiny from the sunblock. Around the hairs it was redder from too many days in sweaty clothing. I had my shirt on, so I looked like I might as well have jumped in a swimming pool. Even my knuckles were sweating. They had given us some time off cause one of the convoys from our unit hit an IED and not everybody came back OK. I didn’t hardly know them. None of us really did, but it still hurt bad. Nobody wanted to say anything about it. We just did all sorts of stupid things: cards, movies, calling home and writing e-mails. Morley brought out this travel guitar he had, but it was so hot, all the tuning had come loose and he kept plucking it with his grubby-ass fingers even when people kept telling him he sounded like some shit. He damn near started a fight in the tent—everyone was so on edge. You could see it in the arms—the veins solid and throbbing even when we were sitting down. I went outside cause it was better there than inside with all that foolishness. I didn’t have much to do so I just started walking and hydrating, past the mess, past the latrines and the range, which was completely quiet. Everything looked creamy yellow cause of the sun reflecting off the sand. I said to myself, I don’t want to die out here. I was walking and talking to myself, If I have to die, I wanna get shot and I wanna get shot on my block at home so I can fall down in the grass where at least my blood can make something grow. Out here—I would just dry up and blow away. Nothing gained. “You play?” Betty Lu shouted from the court. It was really just part of the lot. Someone had rigged a net up to the back of a container that nobody had moved in forever. It was on top of a long thick pipe a few feet above the metal box. The trouble with balling there—minus the heat—was that if you missed, the ball would get stuck on top of the container and someone would have to scramble up and get it. “A little bit,” I said. “Never really my thing.” He’d already been shooting about for some time—I could see it in the shiny sweat on his chest. “Well, come on Dober. I’ll take you one-on-one.” “Nah, sir. Nah. I ain’t trying to—” “Pussy!” he shouted, half smiling. “I ain’t trying to whup your ass, sir. That ain’t my style.” He tossed me the rock. Hard. I caught it against my chest with one hand but dropped my bottle in the sand. “Let’s go, Dober. I thought you southeast boys could whip a nerdy kid from northwest DC any day.” “In my sleep.” We scrimmaged a little bit, trying to cross each other up, Allen Iversons, through the legs, and all that fancy “and one” stuff, but neither of us took a shot. Then I shot and it went out. “My ball,” he called. I gave it to him at the top of the court—just a line someone had drawn with chalk. He pump-faked and I fell for it. Then he shot. The ball rose up, turning over and over, black and orange. I was squinting against the sun and Betty Lu had his hands up where the ball left them, his head cocked to one side while he whispered, down down down. It rose up and over the hoop and backboard and then landed thunk right on the container. “Fuckin A!” “Ain’t that a bitch?” I whistled. He trotted over to the container, jumped up, and grabbed the edge. “Hey, Dober. Help me up.” I got up under him and pushed on his feet so he could get his knees up on the ledge. Something fell out of his pocket and clanked against the ground next to my foot. I looked down. It was shiny silver but scratched up all over the top. “Damn. I’m on fire up here,” he said. I picked up the thing and started turning it over in my hand when he saw me from the top of the crate. “Hey!” he shouted, and he jumped down snatching it out of my hand before he hit the ground. His face was red, and his eyes moved left to right real quick like we’d just taken sniper fire. My hands stung from the heat. “What? What is it?” Betty Lu’s voice got all proper again. “It’s a compass. My grandfather got it when he served in World War II.” “For real. Your gramps was in World War II?” “Yeah,” he said. I felt like we were in show-and-tell. Then he tucked it back into his BDU pockets right at the hip. He didn’t feel like playing too much after that and later, when I found out, I understood why. When you dodge a bullet once, you’re not trying to get shot at again. We walked on back to Morley and his stupid guitar. It was only a few weeks later that Betty Lu came up to me and said quietly, “I know.” It was the day after another nighttime search—we were doing them all the time now. “Gotta keep these guys guessing as much as they got us guessing,” all the higher-ups said. “It’s the only way.” It sucked so bad. Tired as hell, jittery as hell, popping ephedra to keep awake and busting down doors only to find scared-ass kids. That will mess you up. I remember most the smell. Seems like in every house some little boy peed on himself when we came in. And they were always hiding shit in the same place—in the latrines. AK-47s, grenades, wire—wrapped up careful in plastic and put in the latrine. I swear they were doing it just to fuck with us. Those women may wear veils, but you can tell if someone’s laughing cause of their eyes. The only good part was after a couple of night missions you got time off while another unit took over. Betty Lu came up to me while I was trying to read a People magazine from three weeks back. I had my back up against some wooden boxes and the pages of the magazine spread across my thighs. “What do you know?” I asked. Like I said, we’d become cool since that first night raid—nothing much between us really, but I smiled at him. “Why don’t you ever fuck around with the rest of them when they’re talking about all of that gay stuff?” he asked. I didn’t look up. “Why you asking me all that? I don’t got time for that shit. That’s all. Look like you don’t either.” “Just wondering,” he said. Then he asked, “You’re used to hiding it, aren’t you? That’s why you keep so quiet all the time—always going off to read. You don’t want anybody to know about you.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. But if you wouldn’t mind, I was trying to—” “You keep it from your parents too? Or you got a girlfriend you don’t want to know?” I was sweating under my armpits real bad and I had that feeling in my chest, like right before the guns start and you wonder where’s it gonna hit. Who’s it gonna hit? What if it’s me? “The fuck are you talking about, sir?” “You left your e-mail open, Dober. I checked mine right after you and you left yours open on the desktop with that nasty message from Kevin or Kermit or whatever the fuck his name is.” I froze. I couldn’t feel if I had shit or pissed myself, or if my head had come off my body. I thought it did cause I couldn’t feel anything below my neck. “Dober. Are you trying to get sent home? Are you trying to fuck up my platoon? You want out?” I shook my head slowly. He got down on one knee in front of me and whispered right in my ear, “Scared the shit out of you, huh?” I nodded slowly. Some drops of my sweat landed right in the middle of the magazine. They wrinkled the page. Betty Lu fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the compass. He clicked it open. On one side behind the silver cover was a black dial with white letters NESW and a red arrow flicking between them. On the other side, tucked behind a thin sheet of plastic, was a picture of Betty Lu with longer curly hair, almost down to his shoulders, kissing another dude with their lips just touching—kissing and smiling but their eyes looking out of the picture like they were afraid somebody was watching. Betty Lu leaned forward and whispered softly, “I know, Dober. I’ve been doing it for years.” Then he leaned back and said, “If I were somebody else—if I were Morley or Sarge or any one of those other fools—you’d be fucked and I’d be fucked cause you’d have fucked up the morale of my men and we’d all be fucked. You understand?” I nodded real slow again. “Don’t fuck up again. Clear?” He squeezed my leg, stood up, and then walked away.I get home before my mom, which means I’ve got to cook, but I’m hardly feeling hungry at all. Plus the kitchen’s so dirty, plates with dinner from last night on them just chilling in the sink, cups and pots, and water right around the sink with bits of food in it. If I want to eat, I’ve got to clean up, and lunch today cleaned me out. No energy left. So I go creaking up the stairs to my room and lie down on the bed, staring at the walls and ceiling. It’s a small room—smaller if you think about the bed and the dresser. It doesn’t look how it used to, though. I took everything down when I got back. First thing I did after dropping my bags was rip all the posters down and put the pictures in boxes. I bought new sheets, light blue ones, yellow ones, and a light purple bedspread. I wanted to paint my walls blue—light blue almost like the summer sky when it’s cooler in the morning, but my mom wouldn’t let me. “You’ve got to rest, Andre,” she said. “Get used to home again.” So I rested and then I got lazy and now my walls are still white and my ceiling is still white and it still has the bulb without the cover in it—throbbing like it’ll pop anytime soon. Took everything off my dresser too; the only things left there are a box with my Purple Heart and the bigger one next to it with Colin’s compass—both closed. It hurts my head to look at them from the bed, but I can’t take my eyes off that small black box they put Colin’s compass in. Black as ever against the white wall behind it like it won’t ever let me forget. Never.When I first came back from the war, I spent all my damn time sitting and thinking, watching the long shadows go by when the sun starts to go down and remembering places and days in the desert when all you’ve got in front of you is your own short, squat outline that can’t even give a rat no shade. Remembering people I’ve seen die, people I killed or thought I did, all like they’re standing right in front of me. It shook me up. I didn’t see anybody, no doctors, nothing. I stopped that once the psychiatrist the army gave me asked if I was gay. I said to her, “If I get one thing out of this shit, it’s gonna be a medal and an honorable discharge.” She said she can’t help me if I don’t trust her. I said, “I trusted the army recruiter and all I got was fucked up. Ain’t see no world, ain’t learn no skills, and all that bullshit they tell you.” My mom told me, “Andre, you can’t go on like that.” She said, “You’ll think yourself to death—ain’t you already been close enough once?” Mom knows what it really is all the time. She said, Get busy. So I started working, just to get a routine: get up, shower, work, home, sleep, and some eating in there too. Most days, it’s the same for me. I wake up, shower, say hi to my mom, go to work, and then come home. Since the summer started, I like to walk as much of the way home as I can. I keep occupied looking at the streets and people’s houses. You know who cares cause they’ve got little flowers in pots or a flag or something that says, I like where I live, and you know who doesn’t cause they leave their trash cans on the sidewalk the whole week even after the truck comes and leaves. And if I walk, when I get home I’m too tired to do anything—can’t cook, can’t clean, can’t think. And I like that. Simple until I opened up my duffle and found that stupid compass in a black box wrapped up in a red bandanna. You don’t even know—felt almost like getting shot again. You just stop and all you feel is that pain. Pain, throbbing like it’s all you are. I unwrapped it real slow, like it was a disease or something toxic. My hands were trembling when it finally started shining and I remembered what it was. I didn’t do anything but cry. Started bawling right there on my knees, my head half in the closet, nose full up with the smell of mothballs and shit. Didn’t even open it—couldn’t bring myself to do that. I tried to hide it from myself, but of course I made a promise. Dumbass me promised and that’s why I got dressed up in my uniform and found out where Colin’s house is. Never do a dead man’s dirty work. If he can’t say it alive—then he can’t say it. You can’t leave shit for wills or diaries. You just can’t say something and not be alive to argue about it. Fuck. It’s all fucked up now. My shit’s all fucked up now—that’s why I’m at home trying to vacuum up the place so it at least looks decent. I’ve been thinking about having to walk up to Betty Lu’s house again, thinking what if it was the other way, him walking up to mine. It’s funny. I took one look around the place—dirty dishes in the sink, dust collecting in the corners—and I could just hear my mom. “You know how them white folks is. You go into one of their homes and they filthy as the world before God. But let there be just one speck of dust on your kitchen counter, one cup in the sink, and they say your home is unclean, that you got a crack house, or that you on welfare.” I know how my hood looks. It’s not bad, but the lawns aren’t always cut and the houses have problems with paint peeling off—couple of homes with boarded-up windows. Different America. A whole other country. “Andre!” “Oh shit!” I shout and damn near trip over the vacuum cleaner and bust my head on the coffee table. There Lydia is, standing in the doorway with the screen door bumping against her back. Her skirt, frilly at the bottom, swings back and forth just above her knees and her stomach folds out a little just under her tank top. I’m not even wearing a shirt—just my sweats. She’s silent and her head’s just shaking from side to side cause she sees me—what Iraq did to me—all the scars on my back from the burns, from the shrapnel. I look like I got whipped good and proper—or like the top of macaroni and cheese you bake in the oven, just after the cheese melts and just before it burns real black, all swirls and dips and crustiness. They spent a lot of time fixing me up in Germany before I even came home. And then it took all kinds of therapy—physical therapists, psychiatrists asking all kinds of stupid questions. The best shit I ever did was quit all that and start working. “Let me just get something on. Come in,” I say, thinking, How’d she find me? As if that matters here. If I could blush I would, but—well, being black means you’re lucky in that regard. I dash up the stairs quick and dive into my closet, tossing out clothes until I find a clean shirt to go over my sweats. I look up and see my dress uniform’s the only thing on a hanger in the back of the closet. Its shoulders are all hunched forward, like it just got punched in the stomach or something. She’s already sunk low in the couch when I get back downstairs and her knees are pressed together with her fingers locked around them. She looks like she’s trying to pull her arms from their sockets the way she’s straining. The flesh of her arms hangs down a bit—it jiggles each time she pulls a bit harder. “You want anything to drink? Soda? Water? Juice?” She shakes her head. “You sure?” In the kitchen I pour two glasses of water, come back out and put them in front of us. We’ve only got the small couch and a coffee table in the living room so I sit next to her, turn a little toward her like we’re dating or something. She leans back and away from me, staring at the lines in her palms like she’s searching for something. “What did you think of him? What did you think of Colin? I mean, he must have trusted you a lot. Why? What did you do?” “I guess—you know it’s all relative out there—who you’re friends with, who you’re close to. A lot of shit isn’t straightforward when you’re out there. You know?” “I don’t know.” “Well, we had a special bond or something. We just understood where we were both coming from.” “Did you love my brother?” she asks real soft and trembling just a bit so her legs knock together right at the knees. Her hands are cupped, facing me like I’m supposed to give her something. But what’ve I got for her besides more pain? She’s trying though—trying hard not to cry—sucking in her cheeks, nostrils in and out flapping like wings, like she’s about to sneeze. She doesn’t look anything like her usual self—round-faced but with that chin, Betty Lu’s chin. I try to look away, but the only thing is her hands. What am I supposed to put in her hands? I look outside. I can see just a bit of pink over the roof of the next house, and I can’t see them but I know the neighbor’s kids are playing ball in the street, bouncing and laughing and sweating in their sneakers cause they’re having fun, not cause they’re scared or angry. And inside, the curtains have lost their glow. All the light in them is gone, but I’m sure they’re still warm, even with the AC. And with each moment I don’t say something she becomes more like a shadow except for her skin where she’s red in spots like somebody shook up a can of fruit punch over a white rug. Betty Lu didn’t tan good either. “Andre?” When I don’t speak she asks: “Do you love Colin? Did you love Colin?” I don’t say anything. “You don’t know? You don’t want to say? Ever since you came by last Sunday, I’ve been trying to figure out what’s made you do this. Why now? He’s been dead ten months. Ten whole months—too long for them to call and say it was all a mistake. And then you show up and you want to kill him again. So if you’re going to, then I want to know why. Did you love him?” “Lydia—I don’t know. We were at war. He was my platoon leader. I don’t even know what to think. Would I have done anything for him? Fuck, yeah! He was my platoon leader. But it’s not like we were thinking the same way about things. Fuck, I don’t even know if I was thinking at all half the time I was out there. You don’t know what you done till after you’ve done it.” “It’s a simple question. You did or you didn’t? You do or you don’t? You don’t need to think about it or have thought about it,” she says. And then she sniffles real soft like she doesn’t want me to hear it. Even if she weren’t making a noise I’d know, cause when someone’s crying next to you even if they ain’t making no noise it’s like they’re screaming and everything around becomes real quiet. I can’t hear the kids running up and down the street, no cars, not even birds. Nothing. I don’t know shit about loving anybody except mom. And even then, sometimes I wonder. Before I left for the war, I met this one dude, Kevon. It wasn’t much of anything—just what it was. We’d go home to his place and sleep in his bed with his arms around me, his knees in the backs of my knees, and his breath blowing down my back. He had a girlfriend. She had braids and perfect lips—plump and curved so they always looked like she was smiling. Never met her, but there were pictures of them all over the apartment. His shiny bald head, mustache, and a sharp goatee next to her lips, dark eyes, and brown braids, both of them smiling. I asked him, “Do you love her?” He didn’t even miss a beat before he said, “Yeah, man.” “Does she love you?” I asked. He stroked my back with his fingertips right from the neck down to where it really tickles. Then he moved away from me and coughed. “Well. She loves the me she knows. And that’s all she needs to love.” “Then why you cheating on her if you love her?” “Because,” he said. “Because. Look you’ll find this out when you get older. Love is only half honesty. The rest is shit made up to make the other person feel good.” So I tell Lydia, “Maybe I did love him. But it’s not what you’re thinking.” Then she lets it all out. She leans on me and starts crying and I can feel the tears run down under my shirt collar and her snot run down my neck. “What makes it so hard for you to just say yes or no? What are you keeping from me?” And each time she takes a deep breath and tries to say something, she squeezes my hand real tight. Real tight and digs her nails in. “It’s OK, Lydia,” I’m saying. “It’s all right,” and rubbing up and down her back with my palms. “Don’t even worry about anything.” “Andre,” she whispers. Her voice cracks up. “If you love him. Do this for him. For me. For my parents. Give me the compass. Please give it to me.” “Shit, Lydia. You know I can’t do that. Colin said I can’t give it to no one but your mom or your dad. He didn’t say you. He said—” “I’ll give it to them. Andre. I’ll do it.” “An order’s an order. A promise is a promise. I promised.” “He’s dead now, Andre. What can he do? When you die the living don’t owe you shit.” Then she holds her breath in real long and squeezes me real hard in her hands. She’s sucking the whole room in and I can’t breathe. Everything feels dry, scratchy—like I’m under the heat of the desert again. “Lydia, I know you won’t give it to them. I known it since the moment you told me what I had. I don’t mean no harm or nothing, but I was asked what I been asked.” “My parents don’t know. They aren’t ready to know. Not yet, Andre. Not now. And not like this.” “And if I give this to you they never will.” “No—I mean, yes. Ah, shit. My father’s not an easy man, Andre. He’s got ways of doing things. You know, ways of how things should be. And my mother doesn’t think anything but what my father thinks. And now that Colin’s gone, she doesn’t know what’s happening in the world anymore. They believe in things that maybe you don’t or I don’t, but they believe that’s how it should be. And that’s the only thing that keeps them right now.” She starts crying again, breathing heavy like an overfilled kettle puffing away. “They love him now. My father’s got a picture of him in his uniform up on the fireplace, smiling. Right next to the flag. He goes into his room every day and looks around. He keeps it super clean, like a shrine. The only reason my mother can sleep at night is cause she knows he’s with God. That’s the only reason. You tell them this and he’s in hell straightaway. Don’t send him to hell.” “Do you love him?” I don’t mean to sound rough, but I do. Like all of a sudden I’m back there searching people, shouting, pushing people into walls. “Fuck you!” she says softly and gets up just like that. She brushes herself down and uses her hands to wipe the makeup from under her eyes. “Lydia. Wait,” I’m begging by the time she reaches the door. “Hold on. Hold on. Let me tell you something.” She starts to open the door but I grab her hand. She snatches it back from me and steps back really quick like I’m about to hurt her and then she looks up at me with those eyes—watery and shining with the light coming in through the window in the door. “You’re all the same in the end,” I hear myself saying. “Hate faggots. Scared of niggers. And people like me, like your brother, get fucked up so you can go on feeling good. You know why he’s dead right now? So that you can have all the shit you have. So you can be who you are. And he can’t be who he is? That ain’t right.” Then I open the door and the light of the evening flows in. It’s not nearly as dark as I thought and when I look at her face, with its black streaks and clumps under her eyes and all of this shine under her nose, I feel bad—like I really did kill someone again. I get real quiet cause she seems so small against the wall like that, like all of them Iraqis did when we were questioning them. Small and weak and only the cement holding them up like they’ve got nothing in their skin to hold them up against all that fear. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “Lydia. I’m sorry.” She straightens up and stands right next to me so it’s like I can feel her touching me even though we aren’t touching. And I can feel her breath against my neck and down my chest and I feel weak. “Don’t come to my house again,” she says. “If I see you, I’ll tell your mother all about you. I’ll tell her what you really are.” She clicks down the steps to her car. “Or do you want me to wait until you’re dead?” All I’m thinking is, Look, man, I didn’t ask for this. He came up to me and started this, could have just kept his mouth shut, closed up the e-mail, and been done with it. But no. And now all of this shit. It’s raining. I haven’t moved from the living room since Lydia left. Just sitting on the couch, eyes moving back and forth in the dark, up and down, making a cross of stuff I can see. My mom came back from work and found me, but I pretended to be sleeping—just groaned when she shook me. She creaked up the stairs cause she knows better than to try and move me. The rain started far off in the distance, thundering softly, sounding like someone’s stomach after they ate the wrong shit. But just thunder and silence and maybe a little whisper in the trees. Shit like this don’t feel magical until you haven’t heard it for a long time, until you been out there where it can look like it’s gonna rain, it can smell like it’s gonna rain, and you get all excited like something big is gonna happen. But it doesn’t happen. When we were out there, I always wondered what it would be like to drink rainwater from my helmet, to turn it over when the drops came down and watch them one by one wetting the mesh until it couldn’t hold any more. I wondered what it would taste like—that small black pool—a little sweaty, a little bit salty, a little bit sandy, but something different. Something new. When it got like that—dark and ready—I’d stand outside staring up at the sky waiting, listening to the tents flapping in the wind. Just waiting. All it takes is one drop and the rest will follow. Just one. But it never came. It never came. I’d drink the same old stale filtered shit in my canteen. Hydrating. Hydrating. Hydrating on some military-sanctioned shit—and never feeling no less thirsty. Betty Lu said it best when he found me one day. He never talked bad about stuff cause he never wanted to demoralize anybody, but he had his days. We all did when shit just got to you and you just wanted to roll on home. He said, “Dober, it won’t rain unless the army says it’s OK. So you might as well go on inside and get some rest.” I guess the generals didn’t want no rain. When you get back, it takes a while to understand you don’t have to have official permission to do things. For the first few months I was back, I would ask my mom before I did anything. Can I go to the store? Is it all right with you if I go out tonight? Can I go to the park? Until she told me one night, “Andre, stop all this. Child, you’re a grown man. You can do what you want.” I stand and watch the rain from my front door with my face pressed up against the screen, smelling the wind and water through the mesh, feeling a little spray now and then but mostly just watching the rain go from soft to hard to soft again and then finally it starts drizzling. That’s when it hits me and I run upstairs, snatch the compass off my dresser, and then run outside down the front steps, barefoot, not even caring if the screen door slams. I make right for the gutter where the water’s rushing down to the storm drain at the end of the street. Leaves, grass, sticks, they’re all caught up and carried off. There are some ants too, fat and black and marching along like they don’t even notice the water rushing right by them. And then every few ants, one hits a slick spot, slips, and it’s peace. The whole world is like magic—not too cold, not too hot, and everything is sparkling cause of the drizzle—all the things caught in the streetlight. I put my toes right up against the edge of the gutter and let the water run over them. I stay standing still even when the water makes me shiver. Then I put my left hand in the stream and hold it there while the water splashes up against my wrist and arm. A cigarette butt gets caught up between my thumb and index finger and I start laughing, thinking about myself out here at midnight playing around in the gutter like some overgrown kid. I start thinking about what the cops would do if they found me. Probably think I was a crackhead, cuff me, and throw me in the back of their car while saying shit like, “Kids these days. All strung out. It’s a damn shame. A goddamn shame.” Well, fuck ’em. You don’t act like they want you to and you’re the crazy one—even if they’re wrong. And that’s for you too, Betty Lu. I remember how you looked at me that day you got me into all this trouble in the first place. Came up to me one day after we lost two people. You were scared and trying not to show it but everybody else was visibly shaken. You said, “If I’m doing this for my country, then my country might as well let me talk about fucking guys.” I remember how I didn’t laugh at that. And then how you whispered, “Look, man. I’ve made up my mind that I’m gonna tell my parents about me. Just gotta get home first. But if I don’t. Just do one thing for me. Just give my compass to them. That’s it. You don’t even have to say shit. Just give it right to them.” Then you looked at me like I’m crazy when I say OK, but I don’t ask you to tell my mom anything. Two weeks later you get all blown up and I’m all on fire with broken hands and a broken face thinking, Goddamn it, you motherfucker. You fucking jackass coward-ass motherfucker, while I’m clutching that compass like my life depended on it. I open my fist and let go of the compass, thinking there’s so much water it will get carried right into the storm drain and out to the river where it can’t hurt anybody no more. Keep telling myself—it’d be better that way. It has to be better that way. Dead people can’t get hurt no more, can’t get angry. And if they do, they can’t say nothing about it. So I let go, thinking the current will carry it all away, but shit’s so heavy it sink right to the bottom and I even hear it clink against the concrete. “Shit can survive anything,” Betty Lu said when he took it from me that first time. “Rust. Nuclear fucking bomb. Just do anything to it. It’s gonna be around longer than any of us.” “Ain’t that a bitch,” I hear myself saying, looking at how it just sits there right against the concrete shining with the light, refusing to go. I put my hand in and take it out. “Ain’t that a motherfucking bitch,” I say, half laughing while I wipe off all the water with my hands. A car rolls by slow on the main road and all of the raindrops caught in its lights look like they’re frozen scared, like when some terrible shit is about to happen and time doesn’t just slow down, it stops, and you get caught feeling nothing but pain. I get scared they’ll come down this way so I get up, run across the lawn and into the house. I’m so tired I can’t even make it upstairs. I just fall asleep on the sofa—all shivering wet.I’m actually gonna do this. I can’t believe this. I’ve done all the calculations. First thing in the morning they probably wouldn’t be home. If I waited a week, I probably wouldn’t do it. Besides, Lydia would have told them about me if she hasn’t already. It has to be now. I don’t got much of a choice in the matter. It’s got to be now. Could have been now a week ago, but a week ago I wasn’t operating with the right intelligence. A week ago I went to the cemetery, felt all nostalgic, felt brave and got stupid—then I came here to their house. I’m not saying I’m any smarter now, but then the army never paid anybody to think too much. They’ve got sprinklers on, those spiral things going round and round swirling water out until the stones of the walk are dark and wet. They spit at me as I move up the front walk. Watering rock! Ha! You haven’t seen stupid shit until you come to this country. No gold-paved streets, but might as well be—kills me when I think about it. Shit—America almost killed me for real. I walk up real close to the door cause they have long windows on each side and I’m not trying to get seen by anybody who doesn’t want to see me. I’m praying it isn’t Lydia or her mom that gets the door. I just couldn’t handle looking at Betty Lu’s mom first thing; I keep thinking about what my mom would have done if somebody had told her that I was dead. And I’m just standing there for a minute thinking about that—getting distracted by my mom standing there, hands on her breasts breathing real heavy like the air is cotton. Somewhere in the house I hear footsteps and I think, If not now, and then I press the doorbell. The light inside the plastic goes off, then the noise. Ding but no dong. Just that one note. I step back and get ready, feel for the compass in my pocket, wipe down my forehead with the back of my hand, wipe that on my pants, and get at attention—arms all straight, hands cupped in loose fists with my thumbs straight and feet at forty-five degrees. Nothing like this position when you’re scared out of your mind, don’t think about anything except keeping the form. Betty Lu knew it, kept at us about it when we were in Kuwait, early morning parade formation. Ten-shun! It keeps you in your head, in your body. You know where you are. Lydia opens the door. She’s dressed up like she just come back from someplace nice. Yellow skirt fluttering round her legs, white top but no sleeves. Her arms are red with the sun. For a second I think I see something like a smile on her face, there and then gone real quick, like a cockroach on the counter in the light. I see her dad a few steps behind her and then I can’t see shit cause she comes across my face with the palm of her hand. “Lydia!” her dad shouts. She starts sobbing—the sound comes in right above the ringing in my ears. I start crying cause my head’s spinning and it’s happening all again, face planting in the ground after being thrown up and out the Humvee. I remember it all—watching the ground come up at me, landing right on my face. “Karen! Karen!” he shouts. “Lydia, what’s gotten into you?” Through my one good eye, I see how she’s just slumped up against him crying into his chest, holding her hand out away from his body like she doesn’t know what else it can do. “Are you all right? Young man?” a woman says—Betty Lu’s mom. “Karen. Take her.” “What’s wrong, Peter? What’s happening?” “Can you just take her to the kitchen, Karen? Please! And then can you get some ice?” He breathes in real loud and holds it. Then he touches my shoulder, pulling me upright. “Let me see. Jesus. I don’t know what she’s . . . I don’t know what’s wrong with her.” He’s got soft hands, sweaty palms too. And his shirt is wet where Lydia was crying up against him. Then I see his face. His jaw is round, red, and he’s got large ears. Betty Lu doesn’t really look like him. “Come in. Come in. Please.” He pulls me across the doorway by my upper arm. “Karen. Let me get that ice.” “Sir. I’m all right,” I say. But my face is stinging like a bitch. Lydia doesn’t know what it means for someone to hit me in the face—what it took for them to fix me in Germany—but I follow him in anyway right into the living room, my shoes clop-clopping across the wood floor. “Sit, please. Here, take this.” Betty Lu’s dad puts a cold towel in my hand. I put it up to my face but each one of the cubes is sharp, like someone’s digging into my skin with their nails. Then I sink down into an armchair at one end of the room, right next to pictures of Betty Lu’s family, arranged in perfect staggered lines, his grandparents, his mom and dad, then him and Lydia young and blowing bubbles. My left eye starts to clear up and I can see the flag folded in a triangle right next to a picture of Betty Lu in full dress sitting on the mantel. I don’t feel right in my stomach. And my head feels like it’s full of ants crawling up and down on the inside. He sits down on the footrest right in front of me with his hands on his thighs, back straight, looking like he’s having a hard time swallowing. “Jesus. I’m sorry,” he says. “I just don’t know—” “Sir,” I say, stopping him. “I’m OK. I’m all right. I’m all right.” I reach into my pocket with my free hand, pull out the compass, and set it on the table right next to us. It hits with a clink on the glass. For a second the whole table sounds like it’s just gonna shatter into a million pieces, but it holds. Thank God it holds, and the compass just sits there in the lamplight, steel, shining, black soot in the scratches. No polish job can get that shit out. Betty Lu’s dad leans his head back slow and tips back like he’s almost about to fall off the seat. I want to reach out and grab him, but the ice has numbed my hands. His eyes are open. His mouth is open—just a little—and the lamp’s light shines on the pink of his lips. All of a sudden I want to tell him to close his mouth. I want to reach out and close it for him. No sound comes out, but Lydia is sobbing somewhere in the house and for a moment it feels like he’s the one crying. “Karen!” he finally shouts as his hand goes out for the compass. “Mr. Betford. Sir,” I say. “Mr. Betford.” I take a deep breath and look up at the picture of Colin sitting on the mantel. At all the nice shit they’ve got in this room—books all the way up to the ceiling on one wall, the pictures of the family next to little china figures on the table. A painting of sailboats on the still blue water, sails down, just drifting, the American flag in a triangle pointing out at me. “Mr. Betford. Your son,” I hear myself saying. “Your son . . . Your son . . .” just stuck on stupid saying the same shit over and over again.

Free market, what's the cost?

2008-12-23T16:28:00.001+05:00

The U.S. economy is essentially a free market economy - an economic market that is run by supply and demand - with some government regulation. In a true free market, buyers and sellers conduct their business without any government regulation, but there is a continuing debate among politicians and economists about how much government regulation is necessary in the U.S. economy. (For more, read Economics Basics.) Those who want less regulation argue that if you remove government restrictions, the free market will force businesses to protect consumers, provide superior products or services, and create affordable prices for everyone. They believe that the government is inefficient and creates nothing but a big bureaucracy that increases the cost of doing business for everyone.Those who argue that government regulations are necessary to protect consumers, the environment and the general public claim that corporations are not looking out for the public's interest, and that it is precisely for this reason that regulations are required.In this article, we consider the pros and cons of a completely free market versus a market with some government regulation.It's a Free Market Economy, ManIn its purest form, a free market economy is when the allocation of resources is determined by supply and demand, without any government intervention. (To learn more about supply and demand, see Economics Basics: Demand and Supply.)Supporters of a free market economy claim that the system has the following advantages:
It contributes to political and civil freedom.
It contributes to economic freedom and transparency.
It ensures competitive markets.
Consumers' voices are heard in that their decisions determine what products or services are in demand.
Supply and demand create competition, which helps ensure that the best goods or services are provided to consumers at a lower price. Critics of a free market economy claim the following disadvantages to this system:
A competitive environment creates an atmosphere of survival of the fittest. This causes many businesses to disregard the safety of the general public to increase the bottom line.
Wealth is not distributed equally - a small percentage of society has the wealth while the majority lives in poverty.
There is no economic stability because greed and overproduction causes the economy to have wild swings from times of robust growth to cataclysmic recessions. There are several historical examples that suggest that the free market works. For example, the deregulation of AT&T, which previously functioned as a regulated national monopoly, in the 1980s provided consumers with more competitive telephone rates. Also, the deregulation of U.S. airlines in 1979 provided consumers with more choice and lower air fares. The deregulation of trucking companies and railroads also increased competition and lowered prices.Despite its successes, there are also several historical examples of free market failure. For example, since the cable industry was deregulated in 1996, cable TV rates have skyrocketed; according to a 2003 report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), cable rates increased by more than 50% between 1996 and 2003. Clearly, in this case of deregulation, increased competition did not reduce prices for consumers.Another example of free market failure can be seen in environment issues. For example, for years the oil industry fought and defeated laws requiring double-hull oil tankers to prevent spills, even after the single-hulled oil tanker Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons into Prince William Sound in 1989. Similarly, the Cuyahoga River in Northeast Ohio was so polluted with industrial waste that it caught fire several times between 1936 and 1969 before the government ordered a $1.5 billion cleanup. As such, critics of a free market system argue that although some aspects of the market may be self regulating, other things, such as environmental concerns, require government intervention. Law and Order: The Regulated EconomyRegulation is a rule or law designed to control the behavior of those to whom it applies. Those who fail to follow these rules are subject to fines and imprisonment and could have their property or businesses seized. The United States is a mixed economy where both the free market and government play important roles.A regulated economy provides the following advantages:
It looks out for the safety of consumers.
It protects the safety and health of the general public as well as the environment.
It looks after the stability of the economy. The following are disadvantages to regulation:
It creates a huge government bureaucracy that stifles growth.
It can create huge monopolies that cause consumers to pay more.
It squashes innovation by over-regulating. Some historical examples that show how well regulation works include the ban on DDT and PCBs, which destroyed wildlife and threatened human health; the establishment of the Clean Air and Water Acts, which forced the cleanup of America's rivers and set air quality standards; and the creation of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which controls air traffic and enforces safety regulations.Several historical examples of regulatory failures include:
In response to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), an act written in response to accounting scandals, many companies decided it was too cumbersome to list in the United States and decided to do their initial public offerings (IPOs) on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) where they didn't have to worry about Sarbanes-Oxley.
The coal industry has so many regulations that it is more profitable to ship coal overseas than to sell it domestically.
Many labor and environmental regulations force businesses to move jobs off shore, where they can find more reasonable regulations. Finding a BalanceThere is a delicate balance between an unregulated free market and a regulated economy. The following are some examples in which it appears that the U.S. has struck a good balance between the two:
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was created after the Great Depression. The FDIC ensures depositors' money, so that even if banks fail, the depositors' won't lose their deposits.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulates the stock markets, ensures honest disclosure on all stock transactions and fights insider trading.
The ban on CFCs prevents the destruction of the ozone layer. Several ways in which the economy has become out of balance as a result of deregulation include:
The deregulation of the savings and loan (S&L) industry in 1982 led to fraud and abuse, causing the federal government to spend $500 billion to stabilize the industry after 650 S&Ls went under.
Improperly trained crews led to the near meltdown of a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island, which released radiation into the air and water. Gordon MacLeod, the secretary of state for Pennsylvania, was fired for voicing his concerns about the lack oversight of the nuclear industry and the inadequate preparedness of the state to respond to such emergencies.
The lack of adequate regulation of silicon breast implants led to a situation in which manufacturers knew that the implants leaked but continued to sell them anyway, leading to a settlement of $4.75 billion to 60,000 women affected. ConclusionFree market economics aren't perfect, but neither are completely regulated economies. The key is to strike a balance between free markets and the amount of government regulation needed to protect people and the environment. When this balance is reached, the public interest is protected and private business flourishes.

Trying to Redefine Role of U.S. Military in Iraq.

2008-12-22T11:07:00.002+05:00

By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: December 21, 2008
NEW YORK TIMES.

WASHINGTON — It is one of the most troublesome questions right now at the Pentagon, and it has started a semantic dance: What is the definition of a combat soldier? More important, when will all American combat troops withdraw from the major cities of Iraq?

The short answers are that combat troops, defined by the military as those whose primary mission is to engage the enemy with lethal force, will have to be out of Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, the deadline under a recently approved status-of-forces agreement between the United States and Iraq.
The long answers open up some complicated, sleight-of-hand responses to military and political problems facing President-elect Barack Obama.
Even though the agreement with the Iraqi government calls for all American combat troops to be out of the cities by the end of June, military planners are now quietly acknowledging that many will stay behind as renamed “trainers” and “advisers” in what are effectively combat roles. In other words, they will still be engaged in combat, just called something else.
“Trainers sometimes do get shot at, and they do sometimes have to shoot back,” said John A. Nagl, a retired lieutenant colonel who is one of the authors of the Army’s new counterinsurgency field manual.
The issue is a difficult one for Mr. Obama, whose campaign pledge to “end the war” ignited his supporters and helped catapult him into the White House. But as Mr. Obama has begun meeting with his new military advisers — the top two, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are holdovers from the Bush administration — it has become clear that his definition of ending the war means leaving behind many thousands of American troops.
One reason is that Mr. Obama is facing rapidly approaching, and overlapping, withdrawal deadlines, some set by the Bush administration and the Iraqis, and some set by him.
After June 2009 looms May 2010, 16 months after Mr. Obama’s inauguration, the month he set during the campaign to have American combat forces out of Iraq entirely. Next comes December 2011, the deadline in the status-of-forces agreement to have all American troops out of Iraq.
To try to meet those deadlines without risking Iraq’s fragile and relative stability, military planners say they will reassign some combat troops to training and support of the Iraqis, even though the troops would still be armed and go on combat patrols with their Iraqi counterparts. So although their role would be redefined, the dangers would not.
“If you’re in combat, it doesn’t make any difference whether you’re an adviser: you’re risking your life,” said Andrew Krepinevich, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a research group. “The bullets don’t have ‘adviser’ stenciled on some and ‘combat unit’ on another.”
There are 146,000 American troops in Iraq, including service and support personnel. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Iraq, declined to tell reporters this month how many troops might remain in cities after the June 2009 deadline, and said the exact number still had to be negotiated with the Iraqis.
But some experts, like Michael E. O’Hanlon, a senior fellow in at the Brookings Institution, argue that roughly 10,000 American troops should remain in Baghdad after next June, with thousands more in other cities around the country.
For his part, General Odierno made clear that the Iraqis still needed help — and that the United States would hardly disappear. “What I would say is, we’ll still maintain our very close partnership with the Iraqi security forces throughout Iraq, even after the summer,” he told reporters.
Military officials say they can accomplish that by “repurposing” whatever combat troops remain. Officially, a combat soldier is anyone trained in what are called combat-coded military occupation specialties — among them infantry, artillery and Special Forces — to engage the enemy. But combat troops can be given different missions. From the military’s point of view, a combat soldier is not so much what he is called but what he does.
For example, in an area south of Baghdad that was once called the “triangle of death” because of the Sunni insurgents there, a combat brigade of 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division has been replaced with what the Army calls a transition task force of 800 to 1,200 troops with the mission of training and advising the Iraqi Army.
“It’s no longer Americans providing the muscle,” Colonel Nagl said. “Now it’s Iraqi patrols with a small group of American advisers tucked inside.”
Either way, no one expects the American presence to end soon, clearly not Defense Secretary Gates. When asked by Charlie Rose in a PBS interview last week how big the American “residual” force would be in Iraq after 2011, Mr. Gates replied that although the mission would change, “my guess is that you’re looking at perhaps several tens of thousands of American troops.”