Prelasci na Islam
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njonjica
- Posts: 3973
- Joined: 05/06/2006 02:45
- Location: Šeher
#279
Nije pozeljno? Hm.Haqqani wrote:njonjica wrote:Priznajem da sam malo zbunjena...
Ako je nesto "sudjeno" - onda je to nesto nepromjenljivo, to je jedino tako moglo biti i nikako drugacije. Bar ja tako mislim.
Medjutim, ako osoba ima slobodu izbora, ona utice na sudbinu i pojam sudjeno gubi smisao.
Da ne bude skroz off topic: da li je ljudima o kojima si ovdje postirao, bilo sudjeno da predju na Islam?
O sudbini u Islamu nije bas pozeljno mnogo raspravljati , iz razloga nase ogranicenosti razumom. Tako sta god da shvatis i saznas o sudbini i Bozijem odredjenju , nije dovoljno i krnjavo je .
Sta cu kad sam pobornik one narodne: K'o pita ne skita.
Razum nam je dat da bi smo (izmedju ostalog) mogli shvatiti i odrediti se u skladu sa shvacenim. Mogu postojati kolebanja, ali ona nas (ne nuzno) ne bi trebala napraviti glupim.
Da li ovo tvoje gore znaci da je ljudska sudbina da ne moze odredjene pojmove, stvari...shvatiti? Ako je tako, onda (opet po ovom tvom gore) to se moze i promijeniti kroz slobodnu ljudsku volju?
Znam da pitam mozda previse, ali sta cu, to mi u karakteru....
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stickitout
- Posts: 1744
- Joined: 15/01/2005 23:58
#282
Haqqani wrote:Mislio sam na siluTeufik iz Los Angelesa wrote:nece nego ce se voda preljevati
Koju to tacno silu? -
stickitout
- Posts: 1744
- Joined: 15/01/2005 23:58
#285
Da nije sila necista?Haqqani wrote:Zamisli bilo kakvu varijantu_BosanaC wrote:Da ne budem sitnicav... kakvu silu da flasa pukne?Haqqani wrote: Mislio sam na silu
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_BosanaC
- Posts: 8428
- Joined: 16/08/2005 14:02
- Location: Sarajevo
- Contact:
#286
Nemoj da ti proracunavam koja sila i pritisak treba za tako nesto... U glavnom, covjeku je nemoguce stvoriti takvu siluHaqqani wrote:Zamisli bilo kakvu varijantu_BosanaC wrote:Da ne budem sitnicav... kakvu silu da flasa pukne?Haqqani wrote: Mislio sam na silu
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Teufik iz Los Angelesa
- Posts: 903
- Joined: 20/08/2006 01:36
#288
May the force be with you Luke...oops, Haqe... 
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Haqqani
- Posts: 1087
- Joined: 06/12/2005 10:49
#289
Ok. hoces da pokusam sa drugom usporedbom , posto ova nije bas najpogodnija_BosanaC wrote:Nemoj da ti proracunavam koja sila i pritisak treba za tako nesto... U glavnom, covjeku je nemoguce stvoriti takvu siluHaqqani wrote:Zamisli bilo kakvu varijantu_BosanaC wrote: Da ne budem sitnicav... kakvu silu da flasa pukne?
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Haqqani
- Posts: 1087
- Joined: 06/12/2005 10:49
#290
KEVIN BARRETT
Barrett was born in 1959 to Peter Barrett, an Olympic athlete (silver medal in Finns in 1964, gold medal in Stars in 1968), one of the founders of North Sails (then and now a world leader in sail-making technology) and University of Wisconsin-Whitewater professor in business and accounting. In the early 1990s, Barrett received two master's degrees in English literature and French from the San Francisco State University and married a Muslim Moroccan-born woman. He converted to Islam in 1992.
Barrett returned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1995. He received a Fulbright Scholarship in 1999 to study a year in Morocco. He received a Ph.D. in African languages and literature with a minor in folklore from the University of Wisconin-Madison in 2004, focusing his dissertation on the topic of Moroccan legend. Barrett has taught English, French, Arabic, American Civilization, Humanities, African Literature, Folklore, and Islam at colleges and universities in the San Francisco Bay area, Paris, and Madison, Wisconsin.
Barrett was born in 1959 to Peter Barrett, an Olympic athlete (silver medal in Finns in 1964, gold medal in Stars in 1968), one of the founders of North Sails (then and now a world leader in sail-making technology) and University of Wisconsin-Whitewater professor in business and accounting. In the early 1990s, Barrett received two master's degrees in English literature and French from the San Francisco State University and married a Muslim Moroccan-born woman. He converted to Islam in 1992.
Barrett returned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1995. He received a Fulbright Scholarship in 1999 to study a year in Morocco. He received a Ph.D. in African languages and literature with a minor in folklore from the University of Wisconin-Madison in 2004, focusing his dissertation on the topic of Moroccan legend. Barrett has taught English, French, Arabic, American Civilization, Humanities, African Literature, Folklore, and Islam at colleges and universities in the San Francisco Bay area, Paris, and Madison, Wisconsin.
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Haqqani
- Posts: 1087
- Joined: 06/12/2005 10:49
#291
INGRID MATTSON
Ingrid Mattson is a Canadian Muslim convert professor and activist and the current president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).
She was born and raised in Ontario, and studied philosophy and fine arts at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. She converted to Islam at the end of her undergraduate studies, then travelled to Pakistan where she worked with Afghan refugees for a year. She earned her Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago in 1999. She went on to be very active in educating Canadian Muslims to become active participants in Canadian society at large. She now teaches religion at the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. In 2001 she was elected Vice-President of ISNA and in 2006 she was elected President of the organization.
Ingrid Mattson is a Canadian Muslim convert professor and activist and the current president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).
She was born and raised in Ontario, and studied philosophy and fine arts at the University of Waterloo, Ontario. She converted to Islam at the end of her undergraduate studies, then travelled to Pakistan where she worked with Afghan refugees for a year. She earned her Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from the University of Chicago in 1999. She went on to be very active in educating Canadian Muslims to become active participants in Canadian society at large. She now teaches religion at the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. In 2001 she was elected Vice-President of ISNA and in 2006 she was elected President of the organization.
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Haqqani
- Posts: 1087
- Joined: 06/12/2005 10:49
#292
KNUD HOLMBOE
Knud Holmboe was born in 1902 as the son of an obscure Danish Businessman. He chose a career in journalism as a means of escape from a smug midde-class materialsim which, with his strongly adventurous and unconventional nature, he abhorred. At the age of only eighteen, his first foray into print appeared with the Copenhagen newspaper Dagens Nyheder: a sketch of the nomadic reindeer-herders of the Lappland, an area which in those days remained almost untouched by modernity. Other commissions soon followed, but his love of remote places could not long be suppressed. It was to break surface again in 1924, when he set foot for the first time on Muslim soil. A successful series of articles on the French war against the Riff mountaineers of Morocco quickly formed the nucleus of a book, in which the young and idealistsic reporter vivdly portrays a small but brutal colonial war.
The revelation of European cruelty against the threadbare Muslim tribesmen of the Riff bore heavily on Holmboe's conscience. Overtaken by a painful crisis of identity and faith, he gave up writing and sought refuge in a French moastery, with the intention of reading and reflecting on the large questions of history and religion which troubled him. We do not know what he read; and indeed in those days of imperial and missionary confidences little enough was available which could present non-European cultures in a sympatheic light. But something must have struck a chord, for a year on, we find him emerging from his retreat with his early interest in Islam confirmed. New peregrinations now took him East: to Persia, Iraq, and Turkey. He then spent time in the Balkans, where he no doubt sought out the Muslim communities which had survived the Balkan wars. Although he gives no indication in his writings as to where his conversion took place, it may have been among the gentle and hospitable villagers of Muslim Europe that he made his decision to enter the fold of Islam.
Along with his enthusiastic love for his adopted faith, he shares key attitudes with other European Muslim wrirters of the time: individualism, objectivity, and a conspicuous lack of fanaticism.
In 1931 his life was ended abruptly with his brutal murder whilst travelling in Arabia.
Knud Holmboe was born in 1902 as the son of an obscure Danish Businessman. He chose a career in journalism as a means of escape from a smug midde-class materialsim which, with his strongly adventurous and unconventional nature, he abhorred. At the age of only eighteen, his first foray into print appeared with the Copenhagen newspaper Dagens Nyheder: a sketch of the nomadic reindeer-herders of the Lappland, an area which in those days remained almost untouched by modernity. Other commissions soon followed, but his love of remote places could not long be suppressed. It was to break surface again in 1924, when he set foot for the first time on Muslim soil. A successful series of articles on the French war against the Riff mountaineers of Morocco quickly formed the nucleus of a book, in which the young and idealistsic reporter vivdly portrays a small but brutal colonial war.
The revelation of European cruelty against the threadbare Muslim tribesmen of the Riff bore heavily on Holmboe's conscience. Overtaken by a painful crisis of identity and faith, he gave up writing and sought refuge in a French moastery, with the intention of reading and reflecting on the large questions of history and religion which troubled him. We do not know what he read; and indeed in those days of imperial and missionary confidences little enough was available which could present non-European cultures in a sympatheic light. But something must have struck a chord, for a year on, we find him emerging from his retreat with his early interest in Islam confirmed. New peregrinations now took him East: to Persia, Iraq, and Turkey. He then spent time in the Balkans, where he no doubt sought out the Muslim communities which had survived the Balkan wars. Although he gives no indication in his writings as to where his conversion took place, it may have been among the gentle and hospitable villagers of Muslim Europe that he made his decision to enter the fold of Islam.
Along with his enthusiastic love for his adopted faith, he shares key attitudes with other European Muslim wrirters of the time: individualism, objectivity, and a conspicuous lack of fanaticism.
In 1931 his life was ended abruptly with his brutal murder whilst travelling in Arabia.
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Haqqani
- Posts: 1087
- Joined: 06/12/2005 10:49
#293
WILLIAM ABDULLAH QUILLIAM
William Abdullah Quilliam (1851 – 1932) was a poet, solicitor, ambassador, Islamic scholar, journalist, and leader, who is particularly noted for founding England's first mosque and Islamic centre. A convert from Christianity to Islam, Quilliam was influential in advancing Islam within the British Isles, gaining many converts through his literary work and the many charitable institutions he founded.
A descendant of Captain John Quilliam RN, First Lieutenant on HMS Victory with Horatio Nelson, William Abdullah Quilliam was born in Liverpool to a wealthy watch manufacturing family in 1851. He soon established himself as a noted solicitor, founding the largest advocacy practice in the North. While visiting southern France in 1882, Quilliam crossed over to Algeria and Tunisia, where he learned about Islam and soon converted, at the age of 31. Returning to Liverpool, he began to spread Islam among the masses, as Shaykh Abdullah Quilliam.
Quilliam influenced the paths of many converts, including his formerly Methodist mother, his sons, and prominent scientists and intellectuals. He soon published three editions of his masterpiece, The Faith of Islam, translated subsequently in thirteen languages, gaining him fame all over the Islamic world. The leaders of the Ottoman Empire, Persia, Morocco and Afghanistan accorded him many honours, including granting him finance for a potential English mosque.
The Islamic Institute and Liverpool Mosque was established by Abdullah Quilliam as England's first mosque, accommodating around a hundred Muslims, in Liverpool's Broughton Terrace. Soon followed a Muslim college, headed by the professors Haschem Wilde and Nasrullah Warren, which offered courses for both Muslims and non-Muslims. Quilliam's weekly Debating and Literary Society within the college attracted many non-Muslim intellectuals, leading to the conversion of over a hundred and fifty Englishmen towards Islam.
Quilliam's legacy lives on: the Abdullah Quilliam Society was formed in 1996, and his mosque is now Liverpool's Registry for Births, Deaths and Marriages. Western Muslims, particularly converts to Islam, see him as a forefather of the path they have undertaken.
William Abdullah Quilliam (1851 – 1932) was a poet, solicitor, ambassador, Islamic scholar, journalist, and leader, who is particularly noted for founding England's first mosque and Islamic centre. A convert from Christianity to Islam, Quilliam was influential in advancing Islam within the British Isles, gaining many converts through his literary work and the many charitable institutions he founded.
A descendant of Captain John Quilliam RN, First Lieutenant on HMS Victory with Horatio Nelson, William Abdullah Quilliam was born in Liverpool to a wealthy watch manufacturing family in 1851. He soon established himself as a noted solicitor, founding the largest advocacy practice in the North. While visiting southern France in 1882, Quilliam crossed over to Algeria and Tunisia, where he learned about Islam and soon converted, at the age of 31. Returning to Liverpool, he began to spread Islam among the masses, as Shaykh Abdullah Quilliam.
Quilliam influenced the paths of many converts, including his formerly Methodist mother, his sons, and prominent scientists and intellectuals. He soon published three editions of his masterpiece, The Faith of Islam, translated subsequently in thirteen languages, gaining him fame all over the Islamic world. The leaders of the Ottoman Empire, Persia, Morocco and Afghanistan accorded him many honours, including granting him finance for a potential English mosque.
The Islamic Institute and Liverpool Mosque was established by Abdullah Quilliam as England's first mosque, accommodating around a hundred Muslims, in Liverpool's Broughton Terrace. Soon followed a Muslim college, headed by the professors Haschem Wilde and Nasrullah Warren, which offered courses for both Muslims and non-Muslims. Quilliam's weekly Debating and Literary Society within the college attracted many non-Muslim intellectuals, leading to the conversion of over a hundred and fifty Englishmen towards Islam.
Quilliam's legacy lives on: the Abdullah Quilliam Society was formed in 1996, and his mosque is now Liverpool's Registry for Births, Deaths and Marriages. Western Muslims, particularly converts to Islam, see him as a forefather of the path they have undertaken.
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stickitout
- Posts: 1744
- Joined: 15/01/2005 23:58
#294
Dosta ih iz mrtvih vadis, svaka ti dala, tresanja naravno....
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njonjica
- Posts: 3973
- Joined: 05/06/2006 02:45
- Location: Šeher
#295
Ovo pronadjoh na jednom forumu....Ovo nije ni prva ni poslednja ovakva tema na Religiji, ali sam ja nekako uvek propuštala njihovu poentu. Šta nekome znači što je tamo neka žena ili muškarac ili grupa ljudi izabrala određenu religiju iz nekih, samo njima znanih, motiva? Da li to dokazuje da je ta religija BOLJA u odnosu na druge i da ako je ta religija kojim slučajem MOJA treba spomenutim događajem da se ponosim?
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Haqqani
- Posts: 1087
- Joined: 06/12/2005 10:49
#296
JERUSALEM -- At first glance, the scene is everything one might expect from a family of American-born Jews living in Israel. Dad is pouring Coca-Cola. Mom is laying out snacks, taking pains to ensure her uninvited guests feel welcome. The four children are curled around the television, enthralled by a cartoon episode of that modern stone-age family so familiar to North America.
But wait a moment. The star of this show is "Farid Flintstone" and his voice comes in dubbed Arabic. The holy verses hanging from the walls aren't the least bit Judaic. And the klix walkup apartment is in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
Welcome to the unlikely world of a man called Yousef Khatab -- or Joseph Cohen, depending on who is calling.
At 34, Khatab still speaks English in the tangy tongue of his native Brooklyn. But that is his only connection to the life he left behind in a single, astonishing leap of faith. Khatab has declared himself forever a man of Islam, trading sides in the midst of an Israeli-Palestinian conflict he sees very much as "us versus them."
The fateful decision to convert came two years ago, shortly after the onset of the current Palestinian uprising in September, 2000. And in the context of continuing violence, what might otherwise have been a deeply personal and private spiritual shift has blown into something far more political and public.
"All I ask is that you be fair and don't try to turn me into a terrorist," says Khatab, agreeing to an interview provided his location is not revealed. He has moved his family twice in his short time in East Jerusalem, citing security concerns. He was found for this interview after a circuitous search, knocking on doors of various Muslim clerics.
"I don't normally talk to the Western press," Khatab says, "because they seem to work in conjunction with the Entity. They make us all look like we're evil." By "Entity," he means Israel. In even refusing to speak the word aloud, one gets a sense of how profoundly his views have changed.
Khatab's long, strange journey began in the Flatbush area of Brooklyn, where he was raised in a Jewish family he describes as not particularly religious. At 17, he began looking for a deeper relationship with God "because I believed there was something greater in this life than just working and watching videos at home."
Khatab says he dove deep into all schools of Jewish faith, visiting Israel as a Yeshiva student at 18 before marrying at 23 to Luna, a Moroccan-born immigrant to New York. Together, they lived an Orthodox life and began a family.
But with children came financial pressure. Khatab worked 12-hour days selling used cars. Later, he switched to selling gold tooth caps in a jewelry store on Fulton St. in downtown Brooklyn. All his money went to private schooling for his kids, whom he rarely saw because of the long hours.
For most devout Jews, moving to Israel is known as making aliyah -- a noble and praiseworthy act of spiritual ascension. For Khatab, whose Judaic faith was already on the wane, the move was simply for a better life. "When you're working downtown (Brooklyn), you're surrounded by criminals and it just rubs off on you, wears you out," he says. But when pictures of Israel beckoned, he saw "social medicine, palm trees, the Mediterranean. It looked pretty good." The family moved in 1998, aided by the right-wing Israeli party Shas and its charismatic spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef.
Initially, the immigrants were placed beneath "an asbestos roof" in the southern Gaza Israeli settlement of Gadid. It was a poor fit, says Khatab, who requested and won a transfer for the family to another settlement, Netivot, farther north.
Khatab says he soon became disenchanted with Shas politics. He began surfing the Internet in his spare time, where he discovered and joined several chatrooms on Mideast politics. A chance encounter online brought him in contact with a Muslim cleric based in the United Arab Emirates, who in turn introduced him to religious leaders in East Jerusalem.
The transformation from Jew to Muslim, Khatab says, was gradual. By day, he worked in West Jerusalem at a software company doing a thriving business in Jewish religious titles. But in his spare moments, he would slip into the Old City to meet with his newfound Muslim friends. "Initially, the real change for me was triggered by the humanitarian situation," he says. "The biggest crime was to be born Palestinian, born Arab, born not Jewish."
But in reading the Qur'an, he says, he found an absolutism -- a clear, uncomplicated delineation between right and wrong -- that eluded him in his many years of complex Judaic study. With each passing day, Khatab began to feel more Muslim than Jewish. Without conversion, he realized, he would be living a lie.
Khatab's transformation left his wife flummoxed. Luna railed to him: "I was born a Jew and I will die a Jew." But over time, she too reached for the Qur'an in an effort to understand the mystery tearing at her family. Today, Luna is called Kamar and walks with her head covered, like any other religious Muslim woman. The children, once known as Ezra, Hasida, Rachamim and Ovadiah, are now Abdel Rahman, 9, Hesibah, 7, Abdel Aziz, 6, and Abdullah, 4.
They are known by these names colloquially, but not yet officially. Thus far, the Israeli interior ministry has refused to oblige Khatab's requests to change his family's names and have their religion restated as Muslim on their identity cards. "There is no legal basis for this denial, so I can only conclude the basis is political," says Dina Shibli, a lawyer with the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights working on the family's behalf. "Yes, it is a strange and unusual case. But under Israel's own democratic laws, he cannot be denied."
Interior ministry spokesperson Tova Ellinson declined comment, other than to say that "the topic is under klix."
A greater irony, perhaps, is that while Khatab is seeking the protection of Israeli democratic law to formalize the conversion, he has little interest in democracy itself. Just as former smokers are prone to becoming born-again breathers, more virulently anti-tobacco than anyone else, Khatab seems inordinately harsh in his comments about his previous religion. Though he maintains he is "against Judaism, rather than Jewish people as individuals," many of his statements smack of outright anti-Semitism.
His embrace of Islam is total, with the ultimate goal of an Islamic revolution covering the earth. He would never allow any of his children to undertake a suicide bombing, but in adulthood, he says, the choice would be theirs alone.
Arabic culture, he allows, is another matter. Clad in the white kufi skullcap and traditional robes of a religious Muslim, he sweeps an arm toward East Jerusalem, noting the chronic tobacco habits therein betray God's will. "It's really bad," he says. "The real Marlboro Man is from here."
Like most Israelis, Hillel Frisch, senior research fellow at Hebrew University's Truman Institute, has heard of Khatab's odyssey. He is reluctant to draw lessons from the story, other than to observe humanity's ability to produce unlikely exceptions to just about every rule.
Says Frisch: "The most famous conversion of the modern era was that of Leopold Weiss -- later, Leopold Asad -- who fled the persecution of the Nazis and then converted to Islam, eventually becoming Pakistan's representative to the United Nations for many years. It is rare, but it happens. And Jerusalem, as the holy city for three great religions, likely serves as a draw for certain people who may be predisposed to cross boundaries.
"But the vitriol of their attitudes, I believe, has everything to do with their newness. I suspect Khatab may become more sober in his views over time."
Khatab and Kamar maintain the opposite, saying their resolve is growing stronger as time passes. Initially, they worried about personal safety when they found themselves the target of Yad Lachim, a group that opposes the conversion of Jews to other faiths.
They moved to avoid unwanted attention, but no longer despair about the family's well-being. "Whatever God wants, that's going to happen," Khatab says.
His ties to his American family, meanwhile, are now completely severed, though Kamar maintains contact with her mother in Brooklyn. "My family was turned against me. Very painful things were said in the press," says Khatab. "Now, we no longer speak. I want them left alone, so I will say nothing more."
When pressed, Khatab admits there are a few fragments of his old culture that are difficult to get by without. "Okay, a good deodorant. The stuff you get here stops working by the time you reach your front door ... and Hellmann's mayonnaise. And the NFL. I was a big Pittsburgh Steelers fan. Now, we get soccer. I don't have the patience to sit for two hours just to see one goal .... But my kids, they love it."
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Haqqani
- Posts: 1087
- Joined: 06/12/2005 10:49
#297
CETVORICA AMERICKIH VOJNIKA U IRAKU PRIMILA ISLAM
At The Mosque of Mohammad's Presence in Fallujah, George Douglas has become the fourth U.S. soldier said to have converted to Islam. Douglas changed his name to Mujahed Mohammad and declared Islam the best religion, 'for its teachings of forgiveness, nobleness, love, righteousness and courage.'
Baghdad: Eyewitnesses in the city of Fallujah reported that an American soldier publicly adopted the Muslim faith in one of the city’s mosques, with a crowd of people and clerics in attendance.
Dr. Ziad Al-Fahdawi, a witness to the event, said that the soldier, George Douglas, recited the two creeds [“There is no god but God, and Mohammad is His prophet”] in The Mosque of Mohammad’s Presence after asking the mosque’s imam to witness his conversion to Islam.
Douglas was reported as saying that he is certain that Islam is the best religion that a person could espouse, for its teachings of forgiveness, nobleness, love, righteousness and courage. When Douglas was finished with his declaration, the mosque attendants shouted “Allahou-Akbar” [God is Greater] and embraced and congratulated him.
The American soldier then changed his name, as of May 30th, from George Douglas to Mujahed Mohammad. He also explained that he was very moved by the courage of the people of Fallujah, their stance as Arabs and Muslims, and their readiness to defend their country and to die for the liberation of their land, no matter what pretexts the invaders give for their aggression.
Douglas is the 4th American soldier to embrace Islam in Iraq. Officer Patrick Bett [sp?] declared his conversion to Islam in civil affairs court in the Karakh district and then married Samar Ahmed, an Iraqi doctor who worked at the hospital where the American officer was on duty in August of 2003.
The American officer said that he did not convert to Islam for Dr. Samar, but because he was convinced that the Muslim faith is the best of all religions.
Two soldiers from the 1st Armored Brigade, Sean Blackwell (27 years old) and Brett Duggan (37 years old) also converted to Islam following the U.S. officer’s conversion.
American forces have already mounted two attacks on Fallujah, the most violent and destructive of which came in November 2004. Fallujah was also a witness to some of the ugliest crimes committed by the American Army against the people of that city, including when an American soldier murdered an injured man near one of the mosques.
About 70 percent of the city’s houses have been completely destroyed. This has forced large numbers of the city’s population to erect tent cities for shelter, where they have been dwelling in ever since.
Source: http://watchingamerica.com/iraq4all000007.html
At The Mosque of Mohammad's Presence in Fallujah, George Douglas has become the fourth U.S. soldier said to have converted to Islam. Douglas changed his name to Mujahed Mohammad and declared Islam the best religion, 'for its teachings of forgiveness, nobleness, love, righteousness and courage.'
Baghdad: Eyewitnesses in the city of Fallujah reported that an American soldier publicly adopted the Muslim faith in one of the city’s mosques, with a crowd of people and clerics in attendance.
Dr. Ziad Al-Fahdawi, a witness to the event, said that the soldier, George Douglas, recited the two creeds [“There is no god but God, and Mohammad is His prophet”] in The Mosque of Mohammad’s Presence after asking the mosque’s imam to witness his conversion to Islam.
Douglas was reported as saying that he is certain that Islam is the best religion that a person could espouse, for its teachings of forgiveness, nobleness, love, righteousness and courage. When Douglas was finished with his declaration, the mosque attendants shouted “Allahou-Akbar” [God is Greater] and embraced and congratulated him.
The American soldier then changed his name, as of May 30th, from George Douglas to Mujahed Mohammad. He also explained that he was very moved by the courage of the people of Fallujah, their stance as Arabs and Muslims, and their readiness to defend their country and to die for the liberation of their land, no matter what pretexts the invaders give for their aggression.
Douglas is the 4th American soldier to embrace Islam in Iraq. Officer Patrick Bett [sp?] declared his conversion to Islam in civil affairs court in the Karakh district and then married Samar Ahmed, an Iraqi doctor who worked at the hospital where the American officer was on duty in August of 2003.
The American officer said that he did not convert to Islam for Dr. Samar, but because he was convinced that the Muslim faith is the best of all religions.
Two soldiers from the 1st Armored Brigade, Sean Blackwell (27 years old) and Brett Duggan (37 years old) also converted to Islam following the U.S. officer’s conversion.
American forces have already mounted two attacks on Fallujah, the most violent and destructive of which came in November 2004. Fallujah was also a witness to some of the ugliest crimes committed by the American Army against the people of that city, including when an American soldier murdered an injured man near one of the mosques.
About 70 percent of the city’s houses have been completely destroyed. This has forced large numbers of the city’s population to erect tent cities for shelter, where they have been dwelling in ever since.
Source: http://watchingamerica.com/iraq4all000007.html
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Haqqani
- Posts: 1087
- Joined: 06/12/2005 10:49
#298
MARY FALLOT
PARIS – Mary Fallot looks as unlike a terrorist suspect as one could possibly imagine: a petite and demure white Frenchwoman chatting with friends on a cell-phone, indistinguishable from any other young woman in the café where she sits sipping coffee.
And that is exactly why European antiterrorist authorities have their eyes on thousands like her across the continent.
Ms. Fallot is a recent convert to Islam. In the eyes of the police, that makes her potentially dangerous.
The death of Muriel Degauque, a Belgian convert who blew herself up in a suicide attack on US troops in Iraq last month, has drawn fresh attention to the rising number of Islamic converts in Europe, most of them women.
"The phenomenon is booming, and it worries us," the head of the French domestic intelligence agency, Pascal Mailhos, told the Paris-based newspaper Le Monde in a recent interview. "But we must absolutely avoid lumping everyone together."
The difficulty, security experts explain, is that while the police may be alert to possible threats from young men of Middle Eastern origin, they are more relaxed about white European women. Terrorists can use converts who "have added operational benefits in very tight security situations" where they might not attract attention, says Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defense College in Stockholm.
Ms. Fallot, who converted to Islam three years ago after asking herself spiritual questions to which she found no answers in her childhood Catholicism, says she finds the suspicion her new religion attracts "wounding." "For me," she adds, "Islam is a message of love, of tolerance and peace."
It is a message that appeals to more and more Europeans as curiosity about Islam has grown since 9/11, say both Muslim and non-Muslim researchers. Although there are no precise figures, observers who monitor Europe's Muslim population estimate that several thousand men and women convert each year.
PARIS – Mary Fallot looks as unlike a terrorist suspect as one could possibly imagine: a petite and demure white Frenchwoman chatting with friends on a cell-phone, indistinguishable from any other young woman in the café where she sits sipping coffee.
And that is exactly why European antiterrorist authorities have their eyes on thousands like her across the continent.
Ms. Fallot is a recent convert to Islam. In the eyes of the police, that makes her potentially dangerous.
The death of Muriel Degauque, a Belgian convert who blew herself up in a suicide attack on US troops in Iraq last month, has drawn fresh attention to the rising number of Islamic converts in Europe, most of them women.
"The phenomenon is booming, and it worries us," the head of the French domestic intelligence agency, Pascal Mailhos, told the Paris-based newspaper Le Monde in a recent interview. "But we must absolutely avoid lumping everyone together."
The difficulty, security experts explain, is that while the police may be alert to possible threats from young men of Middle Eastern origin, they are more relaxed about white European women. Terrorists can use converts who "have added operational benefits in very tight security situations" where they might not attract attention, says Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defense College in Stockholm.
Ms. Fallot, who converted to Islam three years ago after asking herself spiritual questions to which she found no answers in her childhood Catholicism, says she finds the suspicion her new religion attracts "wounding." "For me," she adds, "Islam is a message of love, of tolerance and peace."
It is a message that appeals to more and more Europeans as curiosity about Islam has grown since 9/11, say both Muslim and non-Muslim researchers. Although there are no precise figures, observers who monitor Europe's Muslim population estimate that several thousand men and women convert each year.
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Haqqani
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SARAH JOSEPH
Sarah Joseph is Editor of Emel magazine and commentator on British Muslims. She is a writer and a broadcaster and has spent the past ten years lecturing on Islam both within the UK and internationally. Sarah converted to Islam as a teenager after being brought up as a Catholic.
Sarah’s blend of common sense and idealism has put her in demand as a consultant on Islam. She was awarded an OBE, in 2004, for services to “interfaith dialogue”.
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Haqqani
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Amina Mohammed and Sunni Rumsey Amatullah exchange phone numbers Sunday after prayers. (Newsday/Bill Davis)
‘ALLAHU AKBAR [God is great], Allahu akbar!” called Muhammad Hannini as about 15 worshipers gathered Sunday in a mosque in the basement of a home in Richmond Hill, Queens. Instantly, they knelt and touched their heads to the floor, a gesture symbolizing submission to God in Islam.
The eight women bent in prayer a few feet behind the men were dressed in scarves and long dresses or ankle-length skirts. "You should see my humanity, my compassion, my devotion to God coming through the surface, not my body,” said Sunni Rumsey Amatullah, who became Muslim a quarter century ago.
The women say they consider the veil and modest dress symbols not of oppression but of liberation. They say the emphasis on the female body in the Western world, with all its manifestations in popular culture, has led to the sexual objectification of women. And, despite their own often problematic relationships with men, they say their religion treats each gender equally, though not identically.
Like Amatullah -- who was born Cheryl Rumsey in Jamaica, Queens, and raised Episcopalian -- these women are among the estimated 20,000 Americans a year who since the mid-'90s have adopted Islam, a religion that has been receiving much attention since the Sept.11 terrorist attacks.
Despite the persistent image of the oppressed Muslim woman, about 7,000 of those converts each year are women, according to the report of a study led by Ihsan Bagby, a professor of international studies at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. The study was financed in part by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Washington. About 14,000 of the total number of converts in 2000, the report found, were African-American, 4,000 were white and 1,200 were of Hispanic descent. (Members of the Nation of Islam were not included in the study.)