Feeding Arrogance

'One evening a sheikh was talking about humility and service. He spoke eloquently about service and putting others' needs before our own. Then, someone asked, "What do you do with the arrogant? How can you serve the arrogant?"

The sheikh drew himself up and raised his powerful voice, "With the arrogant, you must behave arrogantly!" Everyone was shocked.

Then, the sheikh went on, "To treat the arrogant with humility would be like giving them poison. It would only feed their arrogance."'

Hmm, I can't decide if this is good advice or not. Any comments?

The Face of a Shahid (insha'allah)

Four munafiqs stumbled across the body of Sheikh Abdul-Halim Sadulaev, President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria after he had been killed by the Russians in a chance encounter. One of them recognised him and was struck by the nur (light) shining from his face.

"Look at his face," he cried involuntarily. A second one, who it seems could read Arabic, cried out, "And look at his arm too. The name ALLAH is traced out in his blood."

At that moment one of them photographed Sadulaev and hid his telephone. The awe-struck munafiqs left Sadulaev's body untouched, left his money, which had been destined for the mujahideen, untouched by his side.

Sadulaev's corpse was later found and mutilated, and the money looted.

The munafiq who took the photograph has circulated the story of what he witnessed and says he is now ready to join the mujahideen resistance.

Знамение Аллаха на Шейхе Абдул-Халиме

70,000 US Mercenaries in Iraq

The kidnapping of four American security contractors earlier this month in Iraq revived allegations that U.S. private security companies are involved in the current bloodshed in Iraq. Iraq war is not just fought by occupation armies and resistance fighters- private firms, consisting of gun-wielding ex-soldiers, are also involved.
Could some of the Pentagon’s hired Mercenaries be the real perpetrators of the daily bombings and assassinations of Sunnis and Shias in Iraq?

Are the 70,000 Pentagon Mercs in Iraq killing Shias, Sunnis?

US Dirty Bombs

'Doctors in southern Iraq are making comparisons to the birth defects that followed the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII. They have numerous photos of infants born without brains, with their internal organs outside their bodies, without sexual organs, without spines, and the list of deformities goes on and on. Such birth defects were extremely rare in Iraq prior to the large scale use of DU Weapons. Now they are commonplace. In hospitals across Iraq, the mothers are no longer asking, "Doctor, is it a boy or girl?" but rather, "Doctor, is it normal?"'

Depleted Uranium Dust in Iraq and Afghanistan

A little-known fact. Four million pounds of radioactive uranium was dropped on Iraq in 2003 alone. US missiles, smart bombs, dumb bombs, bullets, tank shells, cruise missiles all contain high amounts of radioactive uranium. Its half-life is 4.5 billion years.

The UMRC (Uranium Medical Research Center) found hundreds of Afghan civilians suffering acute symptoms of radiation poisoning and chronic symptoms of internal uranium contamination. And deformed newborn babies. News they won't show on the TV.

Fake News Stories on TV

Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news…

Investigators from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are seeking information about stations across the country after a report produced by a campaign group detailed the extraordinary extent of the use of such items.

The report, by the non-profit group Centre for Media and Democracy, found that over a 10-month period at least 77 television stations were making use of the faux news broadcasts, known as Video News Releases (VNRs). Not one told viewers who had produced the items.

Bush 'planted fake news stories on American TV'

Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, “My son, the battle is between two “wolves” inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.”

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Wisdom Stories

Rewritten Geography

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."

David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978.


"[They] killed between 80 to 100 Arabs, women and children. To kill the children, they fractured their heads with sticks. There was not one house without corpses. The men and women of the villages were pushed into houses without food or water. Then the saboteurs came to dynamite the houses. One commander ordered a soldier to bring two women into a house he was about to blow up...Another soldier prided himself upon having raped an Arab woman before shooting her to death. Another Arab woman with her newborn baby was made to clean the place for a couple of days, and then they shot her and the baby. Educated and well-mannered commanders who were considered "good guys"...became base murderers, and this not in the storm of battle, but as a method of expulsion and extermination. The fewer the Arabs who remained, the better."

Testimony of an Israeli soldier who participated in the massacre at al Duwayma Village on October 29, 1948. Published in Davar, June 9, 1979. Quoted in Censored 2005, Peter Phillips & Project Censored.

Edward Burtynsky's Photos of China

Edward Burtynsky

The Wilderness

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Life after Death

Nasmah. There exists a subtle vapour in the body of man, which is the creation of the essence of his four humours. Those four humours are: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile, but among them the proportion of blood is large, so much so that it can be said that the subtle vapour is its essence. These four humours are made of four elements, namely, air, earth, water and fire. This vapour is just like a white fog, pervading the whole body and is responsible for its functioning.

Physicians know very well that so long as it is in the body, man is alive, but as soon as it separates from it, he is dead. We call this subtle vapour Nasmah (the spirit). It is in the body, as the rose-water is in the rose, or as the fire is in the charcoal, but this spirit is of inferior type.

Death. At the time of death, it is the Nasmah which separates from the body and its separation becomes the cause of death. The connection of soul, however, remains with it intact. The soul penetrates the Nasmah there as it had penetrated the body here, and as the body was a vehicle for it in this world, similarly the Nasmah would be the vehicle for the soul in the next world.

When man dies, his earthly body decays, but its decay in no way affects the soul, as it maintains its connection with the Nasmah which does not completely disintegrate; and its (Nasmah’s) condition at that time is like that of an expert writer with his fingers cut off, still retaining the faculty of writing. The Nasmah after man’s death retains in its airy essence almost all the faculties of the head and heart.

The actions of the animals, even though optional, leave no abiding impression on their hearts. It is temporary and disappears very soon. The case of man is quite different. Whatever action he performs, if done deliberately, its impression stays on his heart and the heart, in a way, absorbs that impression and makes it as its own. The intention for action, however, first proceeds from his Rational Soul and, after the action is performed, returns to it rather comparatively strong and clings to it and becomes inseparable. Thus, his actions done with the full presence of his mind are preserved in his Nasmah and after death, when his body will decompose, they will appear to him in true colours.

Shah Waliyullah of Delhi

Saying of the Prophet: People are asleep, and when they die, they awaken.

Attainment of Perfection

The Arabic word for ginger is zanjabil. It is said to have a property that is heating or warming, strengthening to the venereal faculty, clearing to the phlegm, sharpening to the intellect and exhilarating. The first cup of the love of God is spoken of in v.5, as being tempered with camphor and bringing about suppression of evil, and this second cup is now spoken of as strengthening and exhilarating, i.e., enabling man to perform great and noble deeds. The love of God thus not only suppresses the evil inclinations of man, but also enables him to attain a still higher stage of spiritual advancement, giving him the strength to perform wonderful deeds of self-sacrifice.

Commentary on Chapter 76, Al-Insan: The Man, Section 1: Attainment of Perfection, The Holy Qur'an

Democracy, US-Style

Democracy, NWO-Style

The Blue Distance, the Cobalt Forests

The blue distance, the cobalt forests,
The faraway road leading straight to heaven.
Blood streaming on the snow, closer all becomes clearer,
But you don’t wander up to your knees in it,
But you have no black hole ripped through your roof
And yesterday your children didn’t die
And armoured personnel carriers didn’t drag
Your eighteen-year-old brothers in tow
Along these roads, in blood-soaked trails.
In the mountains genocide hasn’t yet become normal.
So many tears and blood upon my land,
Conscience of all of Europe – bathe in it!

Alla Dudayeva

Chechnya, a land steeped in the ancient traditions of honour and valour. The Russians have slaughtered so far between ten and twenty-five percent of the Chechen population. Alla Dudayeva is the Russian widow of Djokhar Dudayev, first president of Chechnya, killed by Russian special forces.

Inventing the Enemy

In the beginning we create the enemy. Before the weapon comes the image. We think others to death and then invent the battle-axe or the ballistic missiles with which to actually kill them. Propaganda precedes technology.
Sam Keen, Faces of the Enemy

Brook's Theatrical Laboratory

“I see… a vicious ruined world, where puny, fearful, hard men live tiny lives… no more flowers, no more purity; ambition, corruption, commerce; it's the age of Kali, the black time. The countryside's a desert, crime stalks the cities… The fire rises borne by the wind, fire pierces the earth, cracks open the underground world, wind and fire calcinate the world…”
Peter Brooks

The experiment began by each actor attempting to communicate an internal state purely by thought transfer, adding vocal sound and physical rhythms “to discover what was the very least he needed before understanding could be reached”, and developing a body language “beyond psychological implication and beyond monkey-see-monkey-do facsimiles of social behaviourism”.

“If you imagine music buried in the earth for a few thousand years, decayed back to its sources, not the perfectly structured thing we know as music, then that is what we tried to unearth”.
Ted Hughes

The Dark Dusk Settles

Utter a word of truth
That goes against the king,
And behead yourself with
The sword of your own tongue.

Amir Khusrau was away from Delhi when Nizamuddin Auliya died. Pir sahib’s dying instructions to his followers were that Khusrau should not be allowed to come close to his grave, lest he break the ordinances of Allah and rise from beneath the earth to embrace his friend. So, a very tearful Khusrau was halted a few paces away from his pir sahib’s grave. He composed a memorable elegy:

Gori sovay sej pay, mukh par daray kes;
Chal Khusro ghar aapnay, saanjh bhaee chahu des.

(My beloved sleeps on her bed
Her black hair scattered over her head;
Come Khusrau for you it’s also time to go
Shades of twilight over the land have spread)

(The fair maiden rests on the bed (of roses), her face covered with a lock of hair; let us oh Khusro, return home now, the dark dusk settles in four corners of the world).

Saddam Hussein's Teeth

When they first caught "Saddam Hussein", I felt suspicious straight away. Something about the man's looks just wasn't right. Now here's the proof. His teeth! The man in the dock has crooked teeth. But Saddam Hussein, former President of Iraq, has a beautiful set of straight pearlies. Check it out.

Rixon Stewart – October 20, 2005

In June 2005 the BBC broadcast film of what it said was Saddam Hussein facing a tribunal in Iraq. The footage was broadcast without the sound of Hussein speaking and the BBC made no comment other than to say that the film was “mute”. Prompting veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk to ask why we were not allowed to hear what Hussein had to say. However this writer would suggest that his court appearance was without sound because man in the dock was not Saddam Hussein himself but one of his many doubles. Just think about that for a moment: because previously, the real Saddam had employed the services of a small band of look-a-likes to thwart possible assassination attempts. And there are many indications that the man, or should that be the men, who faced the Tribunal is one such. From his dental work to stories of the real Saddam flying out of Iraq at the beginning of the invasion, to the fact that his wife could not recognise him when she visited her husband to reports of Saddam being given safe haven in Belarus, there are numerous stories which cast doubt on the official line that the real Saddam Hussein is still in Iraq. So much so that, although we don’t hear too much about it, many ordinary Iraqis refuse to believe that the Coalition authorities are holding Saddam Hussein captive in Iraq. Note the varied dental work on these 'Saddam Husseins here…

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=3717

Stories of the Saints

A thief broke into Ahmad-e Khazruya’s house. He searched everywhere but could not find anything. He was about to leave disappointed when Ahmad called out to him.

“Young fellow, take the bucket and draw water from the well and purify yourself, then attend to your prayers. When something comes I will give it to you, so that you shall not leave my house empty-handed.”

The youth did as Ahmad bade him. When daylight returned, a gentleman brought a hundred dinars and gave them to the shaikh.

“Take this as a reward for your night of prayer,” he said to the thief.

The thief suddenly trembled all over. He burst into tears.

“I had mistaken the road,” he cried. “I worked for God just one night, and He has favoured me so.”

Repenting, he returned to God. He refused to take the gold, and became one of Ahmad’s disciples.

A Final Solution?

“Arthur Miller wrote, ‘Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.’

Miller's truth was a glimpsed reality on television on 9 June when Israeli warships fired on families picnicking on a Gaza beach, killing seven people, including three children and three generations. What that represents is a final solution, agreed by the United States and Israel, to the problem of the Palestinians. While the Israelis fire missiles at Palestinian picnickers and homes in Gaza and the West Bank, the two governments are to starve them. The victims will be mostly children. This was approved on 23 May by the US House of Representatives, which voted 361-37 to cut off aid to non-government organisations that run a lifeline to occupied Palestine. Israel is withholding Palestinian revenues and tax receipts amounting to $60m a month. Such collective punishment, identified as a crime against humanity in the Geneva Conventions, evokes the Nazis' strangulation of the Warsaw ghetto and the American economic siege of Iraq in the 1990s. If the perpetrators have lost their minds, as Miller suggested, they appear to understand their barbarism and display their cynicism. ‘The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet,’ joked Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert…”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13627.htm

Not thinking

'The proles are not human beings,' he said carelessly. 'By 2050 – earlier, probably – all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron – they'll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like "freedom is slavery" when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.'