The Chinese Executioners

Massacre of the Muslims

THE CHINESE executioners came for Ismail Semed before 9am. They led him out of his cell as the sun climbed over the Tien Shan mountains in the land he called East Turkestan. The day before, he had seen his wife, Buhejer, his son, 7, and his daughter, 6, for the last time. After three years in prison and 15 months of uncertainty since a secret trial, they had 10 minutes to say farewell.

Semed was 37, a Muslim and a political activist. He was not guilty of murder nor any act of violence.

Three Chinese judges sentenced him to death for "attempting to split the motherland" and possession of firearms and explosives. He said he was tortured into a confession. Two men whose evidence was used against him were already dead, having been executed in 1999.

In his final moments with his family - his parents, brother and sister were also there, all crying - he quietly accepted his fate.
"I did my best to prove I was innocent. I am so sorry that I leave you with two children. Please take care of them and let them get a good education," he told his wife.

The end seems to have been quick. A group of prisoners were executed at the jail that morning, February 8, Chinese officials confirmed, and economy was the order of the day.
They gave Semed's body back to his family at a dusty cemetery where devout Muslims are laid to rest with no tombstones to mark their graves.

Buhejer described it to a reporter who called from Washington on behalf of Radio Free Asia, about the only source of regular news on this forbidding place. "I saw only one bullet hole," she said, "in his heart."
The dead man was one of 9m Uighur Muslims in China's far west, a Turkic people whose quest for national identity is one of history's lost causes.

The dying embers of their struggle flamed into protests, shootings and bombings in the 1990s, all concealed from the world until September 11, 2001, when China discovered the usefulness of the "war on terror".
Today China is waging a propaganda and security battle to guarantee its control over Xinjiang, its name for the vast province rich in minerals and strategic supplies of oil and gas which are vital to the expanding Chinese economy.

China claims that Al-Qaeda has trained more than 1,000 members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, classified as a terrorist group by America and the United Nations.
The group took its name from the short-lived Republic of East Turkestan that was declared in Xinjiang after the second world war, then crushed by the communist revolution of 1949.

China has persuaded Pakistan and Kazakhstan to hand over captured militants for interrogation, secret trials and execution, a policy that may have fuelled the fundamentalist rage now gripping Pakistan.
Semed, alleged to be a political thinker behind the group, was caught while studying in Rawal-pindi in 2003 and was sent back.

Next month 1,600 Chinese troops will join exercises with Russia and the former Soviet Central Asian republics to cooperate against Islamic extremists.

Chinese security services have also created a pervasive apparatus of informers and deployed new units of black-clad anti terrorist police to patrol around mosques and markets in the cities of Xinjiang.
But the iron-fisted security policy has made more enemies than friends. Extensive travel and interviews in Xinjiang this month unveiled a society segregated by religion and ethnicity, divided by reciprocal distrust, living in separate sections of tightly policed cities.

The same human rights abuses that exist across China - forced labour for peasants, children trafficked to slave as beggars, girls lured into sweatshops - deepen political tensions here and turn young men to violence.
Two western intelligence officers said the Chinese consistently exaggerated Uighur terrorist links with Al-Qaeda to exploit any opportunity to strike at their home-grown opponents. Chinese information was unreliable and no western intelligence service had handed back Muslim citizens to China, they said.

One of the officers said the real concern was that Chinese repression was creating recruits for terrorism.
In recent weeks has come proof that 58 years of Chinese military occupation have crushed significant opposition but failed to win loyalty. Officials have confiscated the passports of thousands of Muslims in a crackdown to break the growing influence of militant Islam.

Police ordered the Muslims to hand in their passports and told them that the documents would be returned only for travel approved by the authorities.

The aim is to stop Chinese Muslims slipping away to join militants in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The decision has inflamed resentment among Muslims preparing to go to Mecca for the annual hajj in December. "Bin Laden, hao [good]," said one angry Muslim, who had been deprived of his passport. "Saddam, hao. Arafat, hao."
The memory of state violence exercises a powerful deterrent, however. Flying into the border city of Yining, the Chinese airliner descends over dun-coloured mountains into a bountiful valley rich in orchards and farms, home to a mixture of Uighurs, Kazakhs and Russians.

The ethnic Chinese inhabitants of Yining stick to their own districts. It is the tenth anniversary of a time when blood ran in the streets here and bitterness still runs deep.

"I was in the People's Armed Police when the rebellion broke out in '97," said a burly Chinese driver, who proceeded to give a vivid and satisfied account of this barely known massacre.

"For a while we lost control," he said. "The insurgents got into an armoury, killed our men and seized the weapons. There was chaos. We brought in the army - they changed into police uniforms - and then we got even. The central government ordered us to crush them without any hesitation. Believe me, we did.

"We lost a few people but we killed - I don't know exactly - thousands of them. These people know our strength. We taught them a good hard lesson."

Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur businesswoman and politician now in exile, says she saw a horrific police video of the "good hard lesson" when she went to Yining in 1997 to investigate. It showed unarmed adolescent boys and girls shot dead on camera, their bodies tossed into trucks. A mother and her group of children, aged five or six, crumpled under a volley of bullets. The taped slaughter went on and on, with excited commands and shouts of glee from the Chinese on the soundtrack. Perhaps one of them was the driver.
A subdued hush has now descended on the city. The cold looks from Muslims when a Chinese walked into a shaded cafe near the main mosque told their own story. He left sharply.

Today the clash of civilisations resounds loudest in Kashgar, 2,400 miles west of Beijing, a crossroads of religions, commerce and culture. In January, only 48 miles to the southwest, "anti terrorist" units raided a training camp in the mountains where the old Silk Road winds into Pakistan, and killed 18 men with the loss of one policeman.

The clash was hailed by the state media, which called it a blow to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. But Chinese residents said the operation was bungled, allowing militants to escape.

"They made a mess of it and those people are still out there. We know they have many smuggled weapons," said a retired military officer, "so now our side is distributing arms to trained men in the bingtuan."

He was referring to the gigantic army-controlled companies that built up Chinese economic activity in Xinjiang and still dominate its business.
"All cars travelling south from Kashgar must have an armed escort along a section of the road through the desert," said a local tour operator.
China has invested billions of yuan to modernise Kashgar, renovating the square in front of its principal mosque and building new hotels to accommodate backpackers and upmarket western tourists. It has also imported thousands of ethnic Han Chinese to populate new apartments, a pattern of mass immigration used across Xinjiang.

They dwell in effective segregation from the Muslims, who keep to their old quarters of mud-brick houses, mosques and reeking alleys where freshly killed sheep hang up for sale.
The communist party does its best to achieve integration through politics. According to the Kashgar Daily, 84% of local members are Uighurs.

"Good relations are only on the surface," said a Chinese businesswoman. "They're not real."
Loud-mouthed Chinese tourists strut around the precincts of the great Id Kah mosque, reclaimed only at prayer times by the Uighur men who sit outside and stare at them sullenly.

In 1949 the Uighurs were 90% of the population of Xinjiang. Today they account for less than half.
"It is the classic colonialist model," said Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch, author of a critical report on Xinjiang.

In Urumqi, the industrialised capital city of Xinjiang, there was evidence that repression had united Uighurs with rival Muslim sects. A red banner hung from the eaves of a 100-year-old mosque, whose lines recalled a classical Chinese temple and whose congregation were members of the Hui, a Muslim minority from central China. "All pilgrimages to Mecca must be organised by the National Islamic Organisation under the law," it read.

"They have taken all our passports too," said an elder at the mosque.
"We Muslims must follow the party and the government to make our prayers in a stable setting and under a correct policy," the imam warned his flock at Friday prayers.

Chinese intelligence woke up late to the fact that Hui Muslims were being financed by extremists from the Middle East.
Their clerics, influenced by Saudi Arabia's purist Salafi doctrine, often fulminated against Israel and the West.

"The Hui are much more radical than the Uighurs," said Bequelin. Such radicalisation is fuelled by injustices endured by many Chinese but all the more potent when suffered by an angry minority.
South of Kashgar, an almost medieval system of forced labour, known as the hasha, continues to exist on plantations, where local Muslims are ordered to pick almonds and fruit for sale to the thriving markets of China.

The government denied it, but several people in Kashgar said their relatives were engaged in such unpaid work, and a fruit wholesaler in Urumqi admitted that it still went on.
The practice dates from the era of Khans and slave traders and was supposedly abolished after "liberation" by the Chinese communist party.

Then there is outright child slavery, exposed last month in a brave report by the Hong Kong magazine Phoenix Weekly. More than 4,000 Uighur children have been kidnapped and turned into beggars or thieves by "big brother" Fagin figures, an estimate confirmed by the provincial welfare office.

The gangmasters, usually Uighurs themselves, set daily targets of up to £50 for stealing or begging, on pain of beatings. The children are sent to richer parts of China, the girls subjected to sexual harassment and the boys tempted into drug addiction to make them easier to manipulate.

Almost as bad is the plight of hundreds of Muslim girls conscripted from desert villages and sent for "work experience" in factory sweatshops. Last March Chinese officials went into the dirt-poor villages around Yarkand, south of Kashgar, to collect more than 200 girls as young as 15 for a work programme.

The girls found themselves labouring long hours in a factory more than 1,000 miles from home on the east coast of China. Their promised wages of £33 a month went unpaid.

Several girls escaped and made their way back to Xinjiang. Chinese officials then threatened their relatives with punishment.
The other families fear that their daughters will drift from factories into prostitution, a frequent refuge for the penniless migrant female in China.

In a traditional Muslim society that fears shame and values dignity, such a fate can be seen as worse than death. It is a powerful incentive for the militants.

All over Xinjiang, China can point to growing prosperity, cleaner water, new schools, paved roads, modern hospitals, efficient airports, cybercom-merce and huge energy plants.

The price, say Uighurs, is the slow extinction of their identity. Their children take compulsory Chinese lessons. Teaching in Uighur is banned at the main university. Their fabled literature, poetry and music are fading under the assault of karaoke culture. Their history is rewritten.

For western tourists, who come to Xinjiang to roam the ruins of the Silk Road, the Chinese have erected a new museum in Urumqi. It portrays the final Chinese conquest of this harsh territory, first claimed by the Han emperors in the era before Christ.

The slick exhibits equate its 9m Uighurs with the 4,900 Tartars, 11,100 Russians and 14,500 Uzbek inhabitants.
"All cooperate as one family under the glorious nationality policy of the party," an inscription in Chinese characters proclaims.
To the family of Ismail Semed, however, it stands for grief, not glory.
Additional reporting: Sara Hashash <BR>
Bloody history of Xinjiang <BR>Xinjiang province is crossed by the centuries-old Silk Road trade route once travelled by Marco Polo
1949 Conquered by Chinese communists
1990s Shootings and bombings against Chinese targets
1997 Massacre of Muslims in border town uprising
2001 China joins war on terror, extradites and executes militants
2007 Crackdown continues to sustain oil and gas, building boom and gold rush
Population About 20m - 45% Uighur Muslims, 40% Han Chinese. As many as 45 other minority nationalities, including Kazakhs and Mongols, officially recognition

Article of the Sunday Times

Hajj

Part 1

http://www.esnips.com/doc/fb42c169-e2ef-43d9-b70e-92cff8b76956/001_A_003_Political-awareness-of-Hajj-Pt1_2006_01_01

Part 2

http://www.esnips.com/doc/82f03280-b6a7-4802-ac2b-ef07d5cd8054/001_A_002_Political-awareness-of-Hajj-Pt2_2006_01_01

Enjoy

Need!!!

Need for Love,Music,Parties,etc

Smokey dance floors with dim lights, loud music and a sickly sweet smell of aftershave, perfume, hair gel, sweat and cigarette smoke draw the crowds as university freshers arrive on campus. From Rocky Horror and Toga parties, to ''mummies and daddies'' night, up to a fortnight of hedonism has been pre-planned by university student unions to ease the new arrivals into student life. For the majority it is why they came to university, for others it has become clichéd and out of date, while others find the parties degrading. However, one thing is certain; the alcohol will be flowing and the teen arrivals will be flirting, exhibiting themselves to their new colleagues.

The experiment

University has become a human experiment. A generation of children is brought up with the idea that life is about having a good time and that they should be free to live it any way that they want to. After they all go through puberty and begin obsessing about the opposite sex, the most intelligent of them are taken away from their families and all of their friends and placed in a totally new and unfamiliar environment with some money and a lot of spare time. They are accommodated with each other in densely populated youth hostels called ''halls'' where their only semi-private space is their bedroom. Before having time to unpack they are bombarded with an itinerary of parties and social events and physically dragged to them. The lights are dimmed, pop songs are played, people dance and everyone becomes paralytically drunk night after night until the experiment yields results.

If Hollywood is to be believed, the way relationships occur is as follows. Two people meet by chance. They like each other based mainly on appearances. A quick sequence of events leads them to sleep with each other. Then they may or may not have a long relationship based on the success of the previous steps. Since this procedure is seen to have logistical problems in day-to-day life, alcohol and parties are used to catalyse the reaction in order to reach the final result as fast as possible.

Everyone knows the result of this experiment. Many of the freshers expect the result of this experiment, being willing volunteers in it. For many freshers this is the first time they have lived away from their parents. It is the first time they have had their own accommodation. It is the first time they have had the opportunity to disperse their oats and everyone wants to do it – so it's not difficult.

The results

It is astounding that the same people potentially responsible for intellectual advancement are, in their personal lives, amongst the most primitive of all human beings. Secular society has created immense insecurity in many young women, who define their success according to their ability to attract men. Thus, they decorate themselves with dresses of light materials, make up and appropriate hairstyles to make themselves available to approaches. Boys embellish themselves in similar terms and go fishing – using themselves as the bait and the attractive girl as the prize.

There are three different types of relationship that are sought after by both the boys and the girls. The first is simply physical. It may last one night or several nights or be ongoing over several years with no personal commitment. The next is a pseudo-relationship where each person commits to the other in sincerity, but the defining feature of their relationship is physical which lasts for a few months and is ended by some sort of infidelity. The final sort is a real relationship where both people truly commit to each other, believe that they love the other and build a strong personal bond to each other aside from the physical. These relationships are often characterised by strong emotions, ''creeping'', mistrust leading to possessiveness and jealousy, culminating either in marriage or a painful break up.

Most male students veer to the side of the first two types while many female students look for the third, but this is by no means the rule. The only rule is that the vast majority of students are looking for one of these three.

''He say, she say''

Every year, arrival at university is going to lead to misery, pain, the spread of disease and immense promiscuity. Many female students will be raped, probably whilst heavily under the effects of alcohol by a male student she met at a party. Recent home office statistics put the probability for each female university student to be raped in each academic year at 2%; that's 1 in 50! The culprit will probably have been drunk and excited by the nature of the fresher's parties. They would probably have mutually decided to go to one of their rooms in halls. Such a high statistic is not surprising. It will probably never be reported, the victim feeling guilty and responsible for what happened and seriously affected by it.

Many will also suffer from emotional torment. They may sleep with someone after a drunken party, thinking that it would lead to a serious relationship and finding the next day that person is off with someone else. Students arriving at university already in long-term relationships with people from their hometown will begin to cheat, causing emotional distress for both in the relationship. There will probably be hundreds of unwanted pregnancies up and down the country, requiring either the ''morning after pill'' or surgical abortion. The spread of genital warts, gonorrhoea, syphilis and HIV will accelerate, colonising a new young generation.

If the physical and direct personal aspects are not enough to worry about, reputations will be under attack. Rumours will fly; gossip and backbiting will be rife amongst the student body. Everyone wants to know what everyone else is doing, whom he or she slept with, whom he or she cheated on and how he or she did it. Stories will stir up distrust and even hatred between individuals, sparking off arguments and fights.

''Those who slander chaste believing women carelessly are cursed in this life and in the Hereafter: for them is a grievous Penalty''

[ An-Nur: 23].

Fortunately, student unions have all encompassing solutions to all of these problems…namely free contraceptives and student helpline telephone numbers. In reality, it is the student union members who revelled in the activities of previous years so much, that they wanted to provide it to all of the new students arriving on campus and so they are the last people that can be relied upon to deal with these problems.

The Problem of Trust It is banded around in reality and on chat shows that relationships are about trust. If two people can't trust each other, how can they go on together? It's fashionable to talk about it but few students can truly trust the person they are with. Almost everyone has cheated on a boyfriend or girlfriend at some point in their lives. Men know that other men will be trying to seduce their girlfriends and the women know that their men like looking at other women who in turn are trying to seduce them. So where does the trust come from. It's like putting a child in a sweetshop, telling him not to eat any sweets and leaving him there for a week with a pile of carrots.

The simple fact of the matter is that men and women get together in such an environment because of some benefit that they can get from the other. It may be image, sex, money or good conversation but it's always some benefit that is fulfilled by the other. So what happens to that relationship when an outsider comes along who can give something extra, or the same thing but better? It's natural for any individual to go for the bigger benefit. Sentimental reasons may hold that person back at first but it is likely to be for a very short time. Further to this, if a man or woman can get away with it without the other half finding out, it is simple business sense to maximise the benefits by mining several sources. The only thing that inhibits individuals from doing that is the fear of losing something that could not be replaced – but if they think they can get away with it, these inhibitions melt away.

How can true ''trust'' exist in such relationships? It is romantic fiction. It is true that trust is vital in relationships, but it cannot exist between two secular, capitalist ideologues that base their decisions on maximising benefit. This is why the divorce rate in the UK is now well over 50% of all new marriages and is still climbing. You cannot trust a secular capitalist!

''Let no man guilty of adultery or fornication marry any but a woman similarly guilty or an Unbeliever, nor let any but such a man or an Unbeliever marry such a woman: to the Believers such a thing is forbidden''

[ An-Nur: 3]

What do Muslims do?

Any relationship between two people is based on the thoughts that they carry. Those who carry secularism and capitalism believe in following the maximum benefit and so it is natural that the anarchy described above arises. In Islam, the objective of life is the pleasure of Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta'aala) and the attainment of Jannah. This is achieved by believing in the core beliefs of Islam, sticking to what has been obliged and avoiding what has been forbidden. As long as the Muslim does this, he or she is tranquil and content.

The relationship between man and woman in Islam is marriage. It is held amongst the youth in the West that marriage should be reserved for the late 20's or 30's, that the teens and early 20's should be reserved for the aforementioned debauchery. This is a stupid misconception. The only difference between two people having an extra-marital relationship (if they are serious about each other) and having a marital relationship is that when they get married they pledge to show each other a degree of respect and dignity and afford each other certain rights. It's natural for men and women to want to get together, but Islam filters this through marriage. Thus neither of them can abuse the other in a one-night stand or a purely physical relationship without any guarantee that the next day it wouldn't be over. While they are married, the Creator (Subhanahu Wa Ta'aala) demands that they provide the other with certain rights. These include that they should be faithful, truthful, kind and supportive. Because these things are done for the sake of the Creator (Subhanahu Wa Ta'aala), and pleasing Him (Subhanahu Wa Ta'aala) is the objective of life, one can easily trust that if the other is conscious of his or her accountability before Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta'aala), he or she will fulfil such rites.

Those who say that they are too young to get married are effectively saying ''I am too young to treat a woman (or man) fairly, justly and kindly.'' They are effectively professing their lack of determination to commit, to be faithful, fair or just. Some may argue that both people in the relationship just want to have a bit of fun and are not ready to commit, so what's wrong with that? The reality of that is that people get seriously hurt, abused and exploited. Freedom backfires again.

Islamically, when a relationship begins the man and woman should respect each other and treat each other well. In Islam, men and women do not socialise freely as this is the first step in the path of fornication. Muslims don't drink alcohol, they don't gossip or backbite, they don't sleep around, go to nightclubs or pubs. Hence, the situations in which unwanted pregnancies are obtained, STDs are spread and young girls are raped and abused are avoided.

Thus, men have loyal, supportive, kind wives who are trustworthy irreplaceable companions. Likewise women have strong, kind, devoted husbands who dedicate themselves to their wives' comfort and happiness. And on top of that, they love each other.

This is the way the Creator (Subhanahu Wa Ta'aala) organises relationships between men and women, in perfect harmony with the rest of the universe. It is not the author of this article who has decided that a relationship of this form is perfect, rather it is the One, the All-Knowing, all-Seeing, Lord, Master and Sustainer of the universe who decided that this is the way that men and women should relate. May His (Subhanahu Wa Ta'aala) guidance protect us all from the misery of secular ideologies.

''Which then is best? He that lays his foundation on piety to Allah and His good pleasure? Or he that lays his foundation on an undermined sand-cliff ready to crumble to pieces? And it does crumble to pieces with him into the fire of Hell. And Allah guides not people that do wrong. The foundation of those who so build is never free from suspicion and shakiness in their hearts until their hearts are cut to pieces. And Allah is All-Knowing Wise''

[ at-Taubah: 109-110].

The veil

Interesting discussion about the veil and feminism



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/video/real/veilingandfeminism-hi.html

Thinking

Psychology and Sociology

People mix up between the inferred thoughts that result from the rational method (of thinking) and the scientific thoughts that result from the scientific method (of thinking). Due to this confusion, they consider psychology, sociology and education disciplines, as sciences. They consider their thoughts as scientific thoughts, for they resulted based on observations followed on children under different circumstances and different ages; or followed on different groups at different conditions; or on different actions of different people under different conditions. They called the repetition of these observations as experiments. The truth of the matter is that the thoughts of psychology, sociology and education are not scientific thoughts; they are rather (incorrectly concluded) rational thoughts. This is because the scientific experiments are the subjugation of the matter to conditions and factors other than its original condition and factors and the observation of the effect of that subjugation. In other words, it is carrying out of the experiments on the same matter, like the experiments of physics and chemistry. As regards the observation of a thing at different times and situations, it is not considered scientific experiments. Therefore, the observation of the child at different situations and different ages, and the observation of groups in different countries and at different circumstances, and the observation of actions from different people at different situations; all of that does not enter in the subject of scientific experiments, so it is not considered a scientific method. It is rather an observation, repetition of the observation and conclusion only. Thus, it is a rational method and not scientific method. Accordingly, the thoughts of so-called psychology, sociology and education sciences are rational thoughts, and they belong to the culture and not in the science.

Moreover, psychology, sociology and education sciences are speculative and subject to error; they are not of the definite matters. So, it is invalid to use them as a basis for judging on matters, nor it is allowed to use them as evidence for the validity or invalidity of matters. This is because they are not of the subject of scientific facts or scientific laws so as to say they are correct unless proved wrong. They are rather speculative information that came through speculation. Though they are concluded through the rational method, they are not of the subject of judging the existence of things, but rather of the subject of judging the reality of the thing. This sort of view is definitely speculative, and liable to error. Furthermore, these three disciplines: psychology, sociology and education sciences are built on erroneous bases, a matter that made many of the thoughts that they contain erroneous.

Psychology, in its generality, is built on its view towards the instincts and its view towards the brain. It views man to have many instincts, only some of them have been discovered, while others are not. Psychologists built on this view erroneous theories; a matter that led to the error that exists in many of the thoughts of psychology. Psychology views the brain divided into areas, where each area has a specific capability, and that some brains have powers not existent in their brains. Based on that, some people have capability to understand the languages, but not the mathematics. While others, in contrast to that, they have capability to understand mathematics but not the languages. Thus, there are erroneous theories that were built on this view. This, also, led to error in many of the thoughts of psychology.

The truth of the matter in all of this is that it is obscured by sensation through the following up the response, that man has a live energy that has two aspects: One of them requires the inevitable satisfaction, where man dies if it was not satisfied. The second requires satisfaction, but if it was not satisfied, man remains alive, though he feels pain and becomes worried due to the absence of satisfaction. The first aspect is represented in the organic needs such as the hunger and thirst and answering to the nature’s call. The second aspect is represented in the instincts, which are the religiousness instinct, the reproduction instincts and the survival instinct. These instincts are the feeling of deficiency, the feeling of the race survival and the feeling of the personal survival. There is nothing more than these three. Anything beside these three instincts are only aspects of the instincts, such as the fear, sovereignty and ownership are appearances of the survival instinct; reverence of the heroes and worship are appearances of the religiousness instinct; and the sexual inclination, fatherhood, motherhood and brotherhood are appearances of the procreation instinct. Thus, every one of the appearances belongs to one of these three instincts.

As regards the brain, the truth of the matter is that the brain is one and the same. Disparity and variance of the thoughts is due to the disparity and variance of the sensed matters and the previous information, and also due to the disparity of the power of linkage. There is no a capability that exists in one brain but does not exist in another. Rather, all the brains have the capability of thinking in every matter once the tangible reality, the senses, the previous information and the brain exist. The brains only vary in the power of linkage and the power of sensation, as the eyes vary in the power of sight, in strength and weakness, and as the ears vary in the power of hearing, in strength and weakness. Therefore, it is feasible to give everybody any information, and he/she has the capability to comprehend them. Accordingly, there is no basis to what came in the psychology of the capabilities in the brains or the same brain. Thus, the wrong view of psychology to the instincts and the wrong view of psychology to the brain, led to the error of the theories that were built on that view.

As for sociology, it is, in its totality, based on its view towards the individual and the society, ie, it is based on its individualistic view. Thus, its view moves from the individual, to the family, to the group (community) and to the society, on the account that the society is consisted of individuals. So, the societies, in their view, are considered separate from each other, and what suits one of them does not suit the other society. The sociologists built on this view erroneous theories that fundamentally led to the error of the thoughts of sociology. The truth of the matter is that society does not consist of individuals absolutely; for the individual together with another individual consist a group, but not a society. The group does not constitute a society unless permanent relationships developed amongst its individuals. If, however, relationships did not develop between its individuals, it would remain as a group. Accordingly, the presence of 1,000 persons as travellers in a ship does not make of them a society; they rather remain as a group. However, the presence of 200 people in one village makes of them a society due to the permanent relationships between them. Thus, the presence of the permanent relationships amongst the group is what makes of them a society. So, the study of the society must be a study of the relationships and not the group. However, what initiates this relationship between the individuals is the instinct (maslahah) they have. So, if they had an interest to them, a relationship would develop; but if they had no interest to them, then relationships would not develop. The interest would not develop a relationship unless there existed in it three matters; firstly, the thought of the two sides is unified in considering it as interest. So, if one side considers it an interest while the other considers it bad (evil),then no relationship would develop between them. So, in order that the interest exists, each one of them has to view it as an interest. Secondly, the emotions about the interest must be unified over the interest. If both sides were delighted of it or both were angry of it, then a relationship would exist. If however, one of them was delighted of it, while the other was angry of it, then no relationship will exist from it. Thirdly, the system that regulates this interest (maslahah) must be unified. So, if one of the two sides regulated the interest in accordance with a certain system, while the other side rejected that system, and regulated it in accordance with another system, then no interest would exist between them. Thus, the two sides must agree on the manner by which their interest is regulated. Accordingly, the society exists by the unification of the thoughts, emotions and the system between the individuals. However, these individuals would generate a system, specific to them. If they, however, wished to annex other individuals from other societies, then they have to refute the thoughts, emotions and systems acceptable to all of them, so as to make a society. Therefore, defining the society as individuals does not apply to the ideological society; it rather applies to a specific society. While the true meaning of society is that it is composed of people, thoughts, emotions and the systems. What is good to man in a certain place, in terms of the thoughts, emotions and systems is suitable for man in every place; and it changes the various societies to the same society, which is reformed by the thoughts, emotions and systems. The difference between the individual and man, is that when you study Mohammad, Khalid or Hasan, in regards to the characters which are not shared naturally by human beings, then you would have studied him as an individual. If, however, you studied Mohammad, Khalid or Hasan, in terms of what he has of natural characters that exist naturally in human beings, then you would have studied him as a human being, though you studied specific individuals. Thus, the reform of the society has to be radical, thou it is by studying the society, in its capacity as humans, thoughts, emotions and systems, and not as individuals. So, the view has to be a human outlook and not an individual outlook, even if the study was for a particular individual. This is the definition of the society; this is the correct view towards it; and this is the reality of the society, the reality of the group (jama’ah) and the reality of the individual. It thus becomes obvious that the error of the view of the society led to the error of the theories, and the error of sociology as a whole. In regards to what came in the sociology about the group (jama’ah), that its understanding of the matters is generally weaker than the individual’s understanding, and it is easier to be agitated emotionally then the individual. The correctness of this view does not result from the view about the society. It rather results from the prevalence of the numerous and frequent information over the individual information, thus leading to influence the view on reality. It also results from the fact that the aspect of the crowd that appears in the group agitates the emotions, for it is one of the appearances of the survival instinct. Accordingly, everything that is built on the view about the society is false; and whatever is correct of it, its correctness does not result from its view to the society, but from another reason. Therefore, sociology is invalid, because it is built upon a false view, that is the view towards the society and the individual.

As for the education sciences, they are built on psychology, and affected by the sociology theories, and result from the observation of the actions of the individuals and the conditions of the children. This makes the education sciences contain the right and the wrong at the same time. Whatever is built on psychology, and affected by sociology is invalid. Thus, invalidity led to false educational thoughts that led to the corruption of the syllabuses and methods of teaching. Considering the child not capable for some disciplines while capable for others is false. Therefore, dividing the teaching into scientific and literary, and allowing the person to choose what he studies based on his capability is of the most false views. This is contrary to the reality and harmful to the Ummah. Considering the person not capable to learn some disciplines, while capable to learn others, is also false, which led to deprive some people from studying some disciplines and deprived many people from continuing study.

ORGAN

Organ transplant

A sound understanding of organ transplant would also provide the Islamic perspective on post-mortem

Organ transplant here means the transfer of organs from one human to another, such as the transplant of a hand, a kidney, or a heart. The transfer of one organ or more from a person during his life or after his death to another person has the following sharii rules:

A. Transfer of organs during the life of the donor: It is allowed for a person during his life to donate an organ or more, with his free will, to another person who needs the donated organ, like the hand or kidney. This is because the person has a legal (sharii) authority ,if his hand was severed or his eye was removed by another person; he can take the ‘‘diya’‘ (blood money), or he can forgive for severing his hand or taking out his eye. The fact that he is allowed to forgive the severance of his hand or removal of his eye means that he can donate the ‘‘diya’‘; this means that the person owns the ‘‘diya’‘ and, therefore, he owns the organ which he donates its ‘‘diya’‘. The fact that he owns his organs means that he has the right to act on them. Therefore, that person can donate his organ to somebody who needs it. Allah has allowed forgiveness for qisas and diyat. He said: ‘‘But if the relatives (or one of them) of the killed (person) forgive their brother (the killer) something (i.e. not to kill the killer by accepting the blood money in intentional murders) then the relatives should demand blood money in a reasonable manner, and the killer must pay with handsome gratitude. This is an alleviation and a mercy from your Lord.’‘





Conditions for donating organs during the person's lifetime:





It is a requirement for somebody who is donating an organ during his life that the organ should not be vital for his own life. His life should not depend on it, such as his heart, liver or lungs. This is so, because donating such an organ will cause death to that person, and he will be killing himself. It is not allowed for a person to kill himself, or to allow somebody else to kill him with his consent. Allah Says: ‘‘Do not kill yourselves.’‘ He also said: ‘‘And do not kill the soul that Allah has prohibited except by truth.’‘ This includes killing others and also killing oneself. Imam Muslim narrates that Thabit Ibn Addahak said that the Prophet of Allah peace be upon him said: ‘‘... and whoever kills himself with a tool, then Allah will punish him with that tool in hell fire.’‘ Imams Bukhari and Muslim narrated on the authority of Abu Hurayra that he said that the Prophet of Allah peace be upon him said: ‘‘Any one who throws himself from a mountain to kill himself, then he is in hill fire.’‘



It is not allowed for a person to donate his testicles, even if donating them does not lead to his death. This is so, because the Prophet peace be upon him disallowed castration which makes a person impotent. Imam Bukhari narrates that Abdullah Ibn Masood said: ‘‘We used to go with the Prophet peace be upon him on expeditions and we did not have our women; so we asked him: Can we castrate ourselves? He did not allow us to do it.’‘ This same ruling applies to donating one testicle, even if it does not make the person impotent. This is because the sexual cells are the cells of the reproductive organs which are the testicle for the male and the ovary for the female, which produce children. The offspring of the person comes from the sexual cells. In the testicle, there exist the cells that make the sperms; it is the factory that makes the sperms. The testicle is the storage place and the factory that produces the sperms from its cells. This is regardless if it is still with the original owner or with the person that it was transferred to. As a result, the children produced by the person who received the testicle, will have the chromosomes (which carry the characteristics to be inherited) >from the chromosomes of the person who donated the testicle because that testicle will produce the sperms that will produce the children. Therefore, these children will inherit the characteristics of the person who donated the testicle, and they will not inherit from the person who received the testicle any of the characteristics. Thus, the person who donated the testicle is considered the father from a biological point of view. Therefore, it is not allowed to donate one testicle, and it is not allowed to donate two testicles. The donation of one testicle leads to impotence of the donor, and the donation of one testicle or two testicles leads to the mix of affinity; it will be lost. Islam has prohibited this, and it commands that kinship needs to be preserved. It also makes it Haram for a person to relate to someone other than his father. Ibn Majah narrated from Ibn Abbas that the Prophet of Allah peace be upon him said: ‘‘Who ever claims relationship by birth to other than his father or gives partnership to other than his patrons, then the curse of Allah, the angles, and all the people be upon him.’‘ Ibn Majah also narrated from Abi Othman Annahri that he heard Saad and Aba Bakrah each of them saying that I have heard and understood >from Mohammad peace be upon him saying: ‘‘Anyone who makes a claim for somebody other than his father and he knows that he is not his father, then Paradise is forbidden for him.’‘ Islam also made it forbidden for any woman to introduce to some people an offspring that does not belong to them, or for a man to deny his own son. Al-Darimi narrated from Abu Hurayra that he heard the Prophet of Allah saying (when the verse of cursing was revealed): ‘‘Any woman who introduced to some people an offspring that does not belong to them, then she has nothing to do with Allah and she will not enter Paradise; and any man who denies his son while looking at him, he will not see Allah and Allah will disgrace him in front of the first and last generations.’‘



B. Donating organs after death: The rule concerning the donation of organs from a person after his death to another person differ from the rule of donating the organ during the life of the donor.



In order to reach the ruling about donating organs just after life ends, first we need to know the rule of who owns the dead body, the rule on the sanctity of the dead person, and the rule of necessity.



As for the rule concerning the ownership of the body after its death, we say that the body of the person after his death is not owned by anybody. So when the person dies, everything that he used to own or have any authority over is now out of his authority or domain, such as the person's wealth, body, and spouse. Therefore, the dead person has no control over his body. So he cannot donate any of his organs, and he cannot put it in his will. Therefore, it is not allowed to donate the organ or to put it as part of the will. As for the rule that allows the person to donate part of his money in his will, despite the fact that the money is taken after his death, the legislator has allowed a person to giveaway up to the third of his wealth without the permission of the people who will inherit him. Also, he can giveaway more than the third with their permission. This sharii rule concerns only the wealth and can't be extended to his body. Therefore, it is not allowed for a person to donate an organ after his death.



As for the people who will inherit him, Allah has given them his wealth and did not give them his body. Thus, they cannot donate one of his organs because they do not own his body and they have no authority to act on it. A condition of allowing the organ donation is that the donor and the acting body own what is being donated and have the legal right to act on it. If the people who inherit the dead person don't have the authority to deal with his body (in terms of donating organs), then others do not have such a right, by default, regardless of their position. Therefore, neither the doctor nor the ruler can decide on what to do with one or more organs, from a person who died, to transfer it to another person who needs it.



As for the sacredness of the dead body and harming it, Allah has made the sacredness of the dead equal to the one for the living. He made it forbidden to harm the dead body as is the case when he is alive. Aisha, the mother of the believers, may Allah bless her, narrated that the Prophet of Allah peace be upon him said : ‘‘Breaking the bone of a dead person is just like breaking it when he is alive.’‘ (Narrated by Imam Ahmad, Abu Daoud, and Ibn Habban). Imam Ahmad narrated that Amir Ibn Hazm Alansari said : the Prophet of Allah peace be upon him saw me leaning on a grave and said : ‘‘Do not harm the owner of this grave’‘. Imam Muslim and Ahmad narrated on the authority of Abu Hurayra that the Prophet of Allah peace be upon him said: ‘‘For somebody to sit on a piece of burning charcoal and burns him is better for him than to sit on a grave.’‘



These ahadith show clearly that the dead has a sanctity just like the living body. It also shows that violating the dead body and hurting it is like violating the living body and hurting it. So, as it is not allowed for one to hurt the living by cutting his tummy, cutting his neck, taking out his eye, or breaking his bone; similarly, it is not allowed for the dead. As it is not allowed to hurt the living by cursing, beating, or injuring, it is not allowed to do this for the dead. The exception is that hurting the dead body by breaking, cutting or injuring does not require compensation as is the case with the living. This is the case since the Prophet of Allah peace be upon him did not hold the person, who broke the bone of a dead body while digging the grave, financially liable. He only commanded him to bury the bone. He told him that to break the bone of the dead is similar to breaking it alive in terms of it being a sin.



To remove the eye of the dead person, or to cut him open to remove his heart, kidney, liver, or lungs, to transfer it to another person who needs it, is to mutilate the dead body. Bukhari narrated that Abdullah Ibn Zaid Alansari said: ‘‘The Prophet of Allah peace be upon him prohibited looting and disfiguring’‘. Imam Ahmad, Ibn Majah, and Nasaii narrated that the Prophet of Allah peace be upon him sent us on an expedition and said: ‘‘Go in the name of Allah, and for the sake of Allah. Fight those who disbelief in Allah. Do not mutilate, betray, or kill children’‘.



By explaining the ruling of violating the sacredness of the dead and hurting him, it becomes clear that it is forbidden to cut open the dead person, and to take an organ from the dead to give it to somebody else; this is considered a violation on the dead person's sacredness. This is hurting and disfiguring it. Violating the dead body and mutilating it is certainly forbidden by the Shariah.



Case of Necessity:





The case of necessity is the case where Allah allowed the person who is in dire need because he has no food, and his life is threatened by death, to eat of whatever he finds of food, which is otherwise forbidden, such as the dead meat, blood, flesh of swine, and others. So, will it be allowed in this case to transfer an organ from a dead person to a living person to save his life where his life depends on the transfer of such an organ to him? To answer this question, we need to know what is the rule concerning necessity so that we can know the rule of transferring organs from a person who is dead to one who needs it.



As for the rule of necessity, Allah almighty has allowed the person who is in dire need and has no food, and his life is threatened, to eat from what he finds of the food that Allah has otherwise prohibited, so that he can save his life. He is allowed to eat the dead meat, blood, swine and other things prohibited by Allah. Allah said: ‘‘He has forbidden you Al-Maytah (meat of a dead animal), blood, flesh of swine, and any animal which is slaughtered as a sacrifice for other than Allah. But if one is forced by necessity without willful disobedience and not transgressing, then there is no sin on him.’’



So, the person who is in dire need can eat of what he finds from these prohibited food which is enough to keep him alive. If he did not eat from what is prohibited and died, he is sinful, and he has killed himself. Allah almighty said: ‘‘And do not kill yourselves.’‘ Based on what was mentioned of the rule of necessity, can the same rule be applied to transferring organs >from a person who is dead to another person who is in need of it to save his life by the rule of analogy? The answer for this requires deep consideration. The condition to apply the rule of analogy in this matter requires that the ‘‘illa’‘ (legal reason) in the thing being analogized (Maqis), which is transferring the organs in this case, be common with the ‘‘illa’‘ of the thing which analogy is being applied to (Maqis Alaih), which is the case of necessity for the one who does not have food. This has to be either in the essence (Ayn) or in the type (Jinns). This is so, because analogy is to extend the ruling of the original case to that of the desired case, using the ‘‘illa’‘ of the original. If there is no common ‘‘illa’‘ either in generality or specialty, then we cannot extend the ruling of the original case to the desired one.



For the case of organ transfer, these organs are either essential ones, by which the life can be saved by the best of thinking, such as the heart, liver, kidneys, or lungs, or non-essential organs. These include the eyes, the second kidney for the person who has a working kidney, the hand, the leg, and the like.



The non-essential organs, which life does not depend on, the ‘‘illa’‘ of the original case, which is saving the life, is not present here. Hence, the ruling of necessity does not apply. So, it is not allowed to transfer the eye, second kidney, for that who has a working one, hand, or leg from a dead person to a living one in need of it.



For the case of essential organs, by which life can be saved by the best of thinking, there are two objections:



First, the ‘’illa’‘, which is saving the life, is not certainly existent, like the case of eating the forbidden for necessity. Eating from what is prohibited of food will certainly save the life. On the other hand, transferring the heart, liver, lungs, or kidneys does not certainly lead to saving the life of the person to whom they were transferred. Saving the life may occur and it may not occur. The numerous incidents which happened with those whom these organs were transferred to certify this. So, ‘‘illa’‘ is not complete here.



The second objection relates to another condition for ‘‘qiyas’‘ (analogy). The desired (Farii) case has to be void of any outbalancing objection that indicates the opposite of ‘‘illa’‘ of the analogy. In this case, which is transferring organs, a clear outbalancing objection is present which indicates the opposite of the result of ‘‘qiyas’‘. This objection is the forbidding of violating the sanctity of the dead body, hurting, or mutilating it. This outbalancing text indicates the opposite of the ‘‘illa’‘ of permitting transferring organs.



Based on these two objections, it is not allowed to transfer essential organs, by which life can be saved, such as the heart, liver, kidneys, or lungs from a dead person who has a protected blood, whether he is a Muslim, "Thimmi" (from the people of the book who are citizens of the Islamic State), "Mu'ahid" (from people who have a treaty with the Islamic State) or "Musta'min" (asylee) to another person whose life depends on transferring these organs.



Based on what have been said regarding the Islamic perspective on dead bodies,it is haraam to perform post-mortem. Period.

Gordon Brown

Britain under Gordon

Much has been said about Tony Blair stepping down as the Prime Minster of Britain. Most political commentators and media pundits have summed up Blair’s legacy in one word— Iraq. They describe his decision to invade Iraq as a monumental failure of British foreign policy in the Middle East and a setback to Anglo-Muslim relations world-wide. Others have gone much further in their condemnation of Blair’s neo- colonial policies, and attribute Blair’s servitude to American interests behind Britain’s flagging popularity around the world. However, away from the critics both at home and abroad, the astute observer cannot help but notice that Blair— far from the discredited leader— may go down as the most influential British Prime Minister of modern times.

On May 10 2007, Blair delivered a telling speech at Trimdon Labour Club in his Sedgefield constituency. Apart from the obvious announcement of his resignation, Blair unashamedly justified his decision to invade Iraq and Afghanistan, and gave a buoyant assessment of Britain’s position in the world. Blair said, "Britain is not a follower, it is a leader. It gets the essential characteristic of today's world: its interdependence. This is a country today that, for all its faults, for all the myriad of unresolved problems and fresh challenges, is comfortable in the 21st Century, at home in its own skin, able not just to be proud of its past but confident of its future… But believe one thing if nothing else - I did what I thought was right for our country. I came into office with high hopes for Britain's future. I leave it with even higher hopes for Britain's future." …This is the greatest nation on Earth. It has been an honour to serve it."

Ten years ago, under the shadow of America’s ever expanding empire, Britain faced an uncertain future. Her influence in Africa was openly challenged, her Raj in the sub-continent, especially India was in decline, and her surrogates in the Middle East suffocated under immense American pressure. A decade on, the fortunes of Britain and the US appear to have reversed. America is slowly bleeding to death from two open wound in Iraq and Afghanistan that show no signs of abating. This has prompted Richard Hass the head of the most powerful US think tank to comment:”the age of U.S. dominance in the Middle East has ended and a new era in the modern history of the region has begun. It will be shaped by new actors and new forces competing for influence, and to master it, Washington will have to rely more on diplomacy than on military might.”

Whilst influential US policy makers spell out the numerous challenges to US primacy in various parts of the world, Blair is among the few in Britain who foresee a golden opportunity for Britain to take maximum advantage of America’s predicament. Blair’s recent tour of Africa bears testimony to this newfound optimism. During his tenure in office, Blair thwarted America’s bid to oust President Kabbah of Sierra Leone and worked diligently to rescue Gaddafi’s government from clutches of American neoconservatives who after September 11 wanted regime change in Libya. In South Africa Blair competed tirelessly with the US to protect British influence there and made the country the mainstay of anti-government activities in neighbouring African countries. Mbeki the loyal servant of the Crown paid tribute to Blair. He said, “Now there isn’t anybody in the world who wouldn’t want to put the Africa issue on the agenda. And I say it’s thanks a lot, Prime Minister, to the position that you took.”

It was during Blair’s period in office that Britain reasserted its influence over India through the ascendancy of the Congress Party to power in May 2004. The defeat of the pro-American Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was a severe blow to American interest. With India under British control, Britain felt confident enough to foment opposition to American governance in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh. In both countries the opposition was engineered and led by pro-British personalities like Benazir Bhutto and Shiekh Hasina.

Apparently, the greatest shift in the political landscape is materializing in the Middle East. For the first time in many years, British agents find themselves with more room to breathe and operate in. In Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries British assets have been mobilised to foil American projects under the guise of partnership and co-operation. Graham Fuller former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council described America's predicament correctly when he wrote in the issue of the National Interest, "diverse countries have deployed a multiplicity of strategies and tactics designed to weaken, divert, alter, complicate, limit delay or block the Bush agenda through death by a thousand cuts."

Many people in Britain and around the world still hope that Blair’s replacement Gordon Brown will lessen Britain’s involvement in foreign affairs, and guide Britain to tread a foreign policy path independent of US interests. They are gravely mistaken. Britain cannot afford to squander the gains it has made by re-recalibrating its relationship with the US. In this respect, Blair’s recent visit to the US, closely followed by Brown’s meeting with President Bush is confirmation that Britain will continue to support the Bush administration. Like Blair, Brown is expected to fully extend Britain’s cooperation to America and at the same time search for opportunities to frustrate American plans and strengthen British assets. This duplicity in policy should not be misconstrued as Britain possessing the ability to confront America. On the contrary, Britain’s ability is far removed from replacing America as the leading state. Nonetheless, Britain is very slowly navigating that the direction and actively participates in ventures that threatens to dislodge America from its perch.

On the domestic front there are no significant changes in policies of the Labour Party. The Brown government intends to further rollback civil liberties, introduce more draconian laws, and make life difficult for its Muslim populace. The recent amateur attacks in London and Glasgow will be exploited to establish new anti terror measures, consolidate Brown’s popularity and send an unequivocal message to its counterparts in the US that Britain is fully committed to America’s Global War on Terror (GWOT). The only noticeable difference between Blair and Brown is in the manner of ruling. Brown wants to reach members of the Labour Party and British society disgruntled by Blair’s authoritive style of ruling. To accomplish this, Brown has sought to broaden his parliamentary base and public appeal. He has appointed ministers of different political persuasions, as well as Muslims MPs to his cabinet. He also unveiled plans to formulate a written constitution and a bill of rights. The aim is to engender trust in the British political system, reduce political alienation and convey a sense of pride in the British identity.

There is a modicum difference between Labour and Conservative— the leaders of both parties i.e. Brown and Cameron endeavour to emulate the policies left behind Blair but each faces a different set of problems. The Labour Party is replete with internal schisms between the supporters of Blair and Brown. On the other hand the Conservative Party is struggling to define policies that differ from Labour and are attractive to the electorate. Brown’s success in the 2009 general election largely depends on how well he manages his party rather than concentrate on how to marginalize the opposition.

Rational / Scientific Thinking

Thinking

First, let us begin by defining the thinking process. Human beings possess the capacity to think, and this capacity is a distinguishing feature of human beings that separates him from all other creations. Although it has been known that human beings possess this capacity, very little effort was dedicated towards producing a concrete definition of thinking. Several ideas and philosophies were flouted, but the first serious attempt at producing a definition of thinking came from the Communists. The Communists defined thinking as a process by which the brain senses matter, producing sensation. Through repeated sensation upon sensation, the human being eventually comprehends the reality he is sensing and is able to develop concepts about it. An example of this is a human being who senses a book in Arabic. Repeated sensation will eventually produce comprehension of the meaning of the words, enabling the human being to think about the meaning of the Arabic text.

While this may have been the first attempt at laying down a definition of thinking, the definition put forth by the Communists was flawed. What the Communists described was SENSATION, but in order for the sensation to produce thinking, the sensation must include an additional element, which is RELEVANT OR BACKGROUND INFORMATION, in order to produce thought. Thus, the thinking process emerges when four elements exist: The reality or subject being thought about, a human brain, senses to transfer the reality to the brain, and relevant or background information. The first three elements (brain, reality, and senses) will merely produce sensation, and this aspect the human being shares with many animals. A human being will take a bite from an apple and sense that it satisfies his hunger, as will an animal, and this will produce a feeling of satisfaction, which will attract the human being (or any other animal) to anything that looks like an apple. However, the process of analyzing the apple physical and chemical attributes, questioning where the apple came from, studying how the apple grows, and attempting to harvest and grow the apple, require relevant information, which the human being can link to his sensation and produce thoughts and concepts related to the apple. This is where the similarity between human beings and animals stop, because only a human brain has this capacity to link sensation to information to produce thought.

Why did the Communists fail to recognize the importance of relevant information? Most probably, to safeguard their Atheistic doctrine. The information that exists nowadays regarding everything, which human beings utilize as a basis to build thoughts and concepts upon, was transmitted by the previous generation, which received its information from the generation before. One can trace this lineage all the way to the first human being and ask the question: Where did the first human being obtain the first information from? If one accepts that the thinking process can only exist when sensation is mixed with information, then he must conclude that the first information came from Allah, which enabled the first human being to think. This is related in the Qur'an in Surat Al-Baqarah: ''And We taught Adam the names of things.'' Thus, to maintain consistency with their Atheistic doctrine that matter is eternal and there is no Creator, the Communists denied the existence of information in their definition of thinking. Instead, they claimed that thinking is eventually produced by ''trial and error'' after repeated sensation. For example, a human being would be able to eventually comprehend the meaning of an Arabic book or design a computer through repeated sensation and ''trial and error.'' However, this view is erroneous because sensation after sensation, even a million sensations, would produce only sensation. It is inconceivable that a human being can understand a language without relevant information related to the language itself, or that a human being can design a machine or a computer without background information.

In summary, the rational or intellectual thinking process is a process that requires two elements: Sensation, which itself requires a functioning brain, a reality of subject matter, and senses; and relevant information. Of course, people will vary in the accuracy and content of the information they possess, their ability to link the information to their sensation, and how refined their sensation of their surroundings are, and this will produce conclusions and thoughts of varying degrees of accuracy and strength. However, the process itself is something that exists in all human beings. The only constraint to the thinking process is that the subject matter or reality at hand must be something that the human mind and senses can comprehend. Thinking about what will occur after death or the physical structure of Angels or the Essence of the Creator is not possible because such realities are beyond the mind and senses; any attempt to do so will produce only speculation and conjecture, but no thoughts build upon solid intellectual proof. However, one can think about the existence of the Creator because the proof of the existence of the Creator is the effects of his existence (the surrounding universe), which can be comprehended and sensed by human beings. In fact, one can prove the existence of anything in this manner. Even something as simple as a pizza is proof that there exists a ''pizza maker.'' One does not have to know anything about what the pizza maker looks like or his attributes, because the proof of his existence is in the pizza itself. We know from reality that dough does not prepare itself and flatten itself, and we also know that cheese does not shred itself, nor do tomatoes puree themselves to make tomato sauce. Even if one were to place a prepared dough, tomato sauce, and shredded cheese side by side, nothing would happen. Similarly, the matter in this universe does not possess the capacity to assemble itself or to operate on its own. Rather, the matter in the universe operates in accordance to a system of laws. In order for one to claim that matter is the origin of everything (as the Communists claimed), then there must have been a period where there existed matter without system, and eventually the matter organized itself and produced a system. This idea is easily refutable through both common everyday experience as well as through examining the nature of matter itself. If you strip away the system of laws from the matter, then not even something as simple as a proton can exist. Thus, it is the system that not only organizes the matter but defines its very shape and existence. How about the other way around – that there was a system without matter, and eventually the system created matter, as some people claim. This idea is also false because the system emanates from the matter itself. All the forces that we know of that define the very existence and shape of matter, whether the gravitational force, or the electromagnetic force, or the strong nuclear force, are themselves a characteristic of matter. Without matter, these forces would not even exist (What would gravity be without matter? What would the electromagnetic force be without charged particles? What would the strong nuclear force be without protons and neutrons?). In conclusion, neither matter nor system have the capacity to exist without the other, which means that both matter and system came from something that is neither matter nor system, and that thing is the Creator. The only other alternative is to claim that both matter and system emerged by themselves from nothing, and to claim that nothing created something is a paradox that has no basis in reality.

Another way of approaching this issue is the following: Everything in the universe, including the universe, is limited and dependent. Life is limited because it depends upon certain parameters to exist, without which life would not exist. The universe is limited because it can be measured, and it depends upon a system of laws that govern and organize it. Limitedness and dependence means that everything has a beginning. One cannot claim that something is limited and unlimited simultaneously, unless that person is trying to fool himself or play games. Therefore, everything must have had a beginning, and since this universe does not have the capacity to create itself, then it must have had its origins from a Creator, who Himself is Unlimited. If someone imagines the Creator to be limited, then He must have had a beginning, and He must be dependent upon something else to bring about His existence, which means that He would not be the Creator but rather a limited and dependent creation.

A question may arise regarding the scientific thinking. The scientific thinking process shares certain similarities with the rational thinking process. Both the rational and the scientific thinking process require sensation and information, and both processes involve research and a reality that is the subject of the research. However, the difference between them lay in the type of reality and in the type of research that is conducted. The rational thinking process, the reality or subject at hand is examined as is, and the results of this examination is linked with all relevant information, and a rational or intellectual conclusion is deduced. Whereas, in the scientific thinking, the reality is subjected to the process of experimentation and compared with a comparison group (in scientific terminology, the ''control group'' and the ''experimental group''), and based upon the outcome of this experiment, conclusions are deduced through measurements and observation. This important distinction leads to fundamental differences between the rational and scientific processes:

1). Because the intellectual or rational thinking involves studying the reality as is, then the intellectual process can produce absolute truths or conclusions. This is not to say that every intellectual study will produce an absolute conclusion; it merely indicates that the intellectual process has this capacity. However, the scientific thinking cannot produce absolute truths, and no scientist will ever claim that any scientific conclusion will be absolute. The reason for this is because scientific conclusions are derived through measuring the outcomes of experiments, and hence, the results will always vary depending upon the parameters of the experiment and the instruments used to measure the outcome. And as instruments become more precise and experiments are repeated greater refinement, scientific results are continuously updated and revised. If anyone claims that science can produce absolute conclusions, then the challenge is open for that person to open any scientific journal or magazine and locate a scientific study or experiment where the conclusion states that ''this is the absolute truth, and no further research or experimentation can be done on this issue.''

One can utilize the intellectual process to observe that objects have a tendency to fall towards the earth and conclude that there exists a force that pulls objects towards the earth. This is an absolute truth – there definitely exists a force that pulls things towards the earth, and this fact is agreed upon by every human being and has been proven for an uncounted number of times. However, measuring the precise magnitude of this force is the job of science, and this measurement will continuously change as the instruments used to measure the force become more precise. Also, one can utilize the intellectual process to observe that the universe must have been created because the properties of the universe lead to this absolute conclusion that there must exist a Creator (as was discussed previously). However, studying the physical composition of the planets and stars, analyzing the atmosphere, and studying the mechanisms of biological systems, are the subject of science and the scientific thinking.

2). The cornerstone of the scientific thinking is the experiment. Any study devoid of an experiment cannot be classified as scientific and will be immediately rejected as a scientific study. Such a study can be classified as an intellectual study or a statistical study, but it cannot be considered a scientific study unless an experiment was conducted. This fact means that the scientific thinking can only apply to those realities that can be subjected to experimentation, such as rocks, liquids, or gases. However, the intellectual method can apply to realities where subjugation to experimentation is not possible, such as in studying the behavior of nations or societies.

Therefore, the distinction between the scientific thinking and the intellectual thinking is clear, and it must remain clear in our minds. Unfortunately, nowadays, this distinction has been clouted, due to two reasons. First, the understanding of Islam has been muddled, and as a result of this, the understanding of Islam's scope. When Allah revealed Islam to humanity, He defined the scope of Islam clearly, and He made it clear that Islam came to address the thinking and the actions of the human being. At the same time, Allah clearly indicated that He gave the human being the full authority to discover the natural universe He created (which is science) and to utilize this knowledge to build the tools necessary to make life more livable (which is technology and engineering). Thus, one will find that Islam defined rules of conduct in war and combat, and defined the reasons for Muslims to fight; however, Islam did not define instructions on how to manufacture swords, airplanes or missiles, but rather left it to the Muslims to develop whatever tools they need to protect Islam and fight effectively for the reasons that Islam defined. Also, Islam defined rules and systems for organizing the wealth of the society, regardless of whether this society is a village in the desert or a city with skyscrapers or a domed colony on Mars. How to build a city infrastructure is not the scope of Islam, and Allah never intended for this to be the scope of Islam; however, what is very much the scope of Islam is how to organize the affairs of the people.

Muslims in the past understood this distinction. They understood that their job was to believe in Islam, to understand Islam clearly, to implement Islam and to carry the Message of Islam it to the people. This firm conviction that they had the correct system and way of life from Allah propelled Muslims to excel in their understanding of Islam, but it also created within them the motivation to excel in whatever sciences and technologies were needed to establish the supremacy of their way of life and to improve the conditions of life itself. And there was never any conflict between Islam and science. When Muslims were confronted with a scientific or technical issue, they realized that they had full permission from Allah to use their minds to deduce an answer, and there was never any conflict between this and full obedience to Allah in their actions. In this context, the Muslims would refer to a chemistry book for a problem in chemistry, or they would refer to a book of medicine when confronted with a medical issue. However, when it came to an issue related to the actions of the human being (such as how to punish a criminal for a certain crime, how to distribute the wealth in the society, or how to select the rulers), or an issue related to a thought (such as what will happen after death) they would refer to the Qur'an and the Sunnah.

As time progressed, the understanding of Islam began to wane, and as a result, this understanding of the distinction between the scope of Islam and the scope of science began to diminish. As the Muslims were declining, Europe witnessed the Industrial Revolution, which paralleled a revolution in science and technology. This sudden shift overwhelmed many Muslims, to the point that some Muslims became fascinated by the West and began to call for Western culture. This in turn caused some other Muslims to shift to the other extreme and denounce anything emanating from the West, including the sciences and technology that Islam allowed for Muslims to take from others. Others attempted to reconcile between these two extremes by calling for a ''middle ground.'' Today, Muslims find themselves caught between these voices, all of which are incorrect. The correct approach that Muslims should have adopted was to understand Islam and to clarify among themselves the distinction between the scope of the Islamic Message (which include the thoughts and actions of human beings), and the scope of science and technology.

A second factor that further clouted this distinction had its roots in the development of the scientific culture in the West. After the West adopted Capitalism as a way of life, with Secularism as its creed, the West experienced a dramatic revival, and as a result, scientific culture flourished in the West. Parallel to this revival was the emergence of an intellectual split in which the West classified knowledge into two realms: the realm of ''faith,'' which included fields such as theology, and the realm of ''reason,'' which included the sciences. Those fields where the scientific thinking applied, such as physics and chemistry, were categorized as fields of ''reason,'' and were uplifted to a very high status as a result. This created a feeling among the West that science was synonymous to reason and that the only valid conclusion was a scientific one. However, other fields of knowledge where the scientific thinking did not apply, such as history, anthropology and sociology, felt excluded and, for fear of being relegated to the domain of ''faith,'' began to classify themselves as scientific and presented their findings as having a ''scientific basis.'' In reality, such fields had nothing to do with science whatsoever. Muslims were not immune from this influence. Even today, many Muslims harbor the notion that any intellectual thought must be established on scientific grounds. Many Muslims even have the idea that, in order for Islam itself to have any credibility, it must be proven scientifically.

What the Muslims must realize is that science must be confined to those fields where the scientific method apples. Attempting to extend the scientific thinking to fields of knowledge that are beyond the scope of science and presenting such findings as scientific amounts to a mockery of the entire scientific institution. Furthermore, fields of knowledge where the scientific method does not apply should not disregarded, nor should a non-scientific conclusion be dismissed as ''faith.'' Science is not the only source of knowledge, not to mention that scientific knowledge can never establish absolute truths. Let us always remember that the scientific conclusion, but its very nature, is always in error, and for this reason, scientific knowledge always subjected to continuous change or modification. And there are many fields of knowledge where the scientific method cannot apply, yet they are very much needed. The knowledge that is derived from many of these fields and disciplines are not borne out of ''faith'' but are arrived at through the intellectual method of thinking, which is the most noble gift that the human being possesses. Both the intellectual or rational method of thinking and the scientific method of thinking should be given their due respect, and this respect will materialize only by recognizing the limits of each and where each process applies. Regarding the issue of belief, this issue lies within the domain of the intellectual method, and rightly so because only the intellectual method is capable of developing absolute conclusions. And in order for belief to stand on firm and solid ground, must be built with nothing short of absolute certainty.

May Allah (swt) help us understand Islam and clarify our thoughts.