Conscience invasion in shopping It was just a shopping experience. In fact the first official one since Jaihoon had been promoted to the position of a breadwinner. Al Hamdu Lillah. As usual, it was a dotcom product that had priority in my TINY shopping list: a 1.5m USB cable. However, a box of chocolates was a not a bad idea to balance the list.
Palestine: What approach next ?
The only approach that remains to be tried is a ‘spiritual approach’… not missiles and bombings.
Who guided Vasco Da Gama to India ? Not an An Arab !
Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah His Highness Dr Sheikh Sultan Bin Mohammed Al Qassimi has written a book that has come from his research to bring out the truth on who really showed famed Portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama the sea route to India.
Talking about his book at the 19th International Book Fair in the Sharjah Expo Center, Sheikh Sultan said the title was Bayan Lil Muarrikin Fi Barat Ibn Majid about famous Arab voyager Ibn Majid and the truth about whether Ibn Majid guided the Portuguese explorer on the route to India. “It was not Ibn Majid but a man from Gujarat state in India who actually took Da Gama to India,” he said.
“What made me write this book was an incident where I was giving a lecture in Sharjah University and I happened to say that an Indian took Da Gama to India,” Sheikh Sultan said, adding “just then, one of the students said the researchers refused to accept this fact and continued to maintain that Ibn Majid has shown the Portuguese explorer the way to India.”
“Realizing that in schools and elsewhere teachers would continue telling students that Ibn Majid showed Da Gama the way the India, I decided to search for proof that it was not Ibn Majid but another man who had shown the way. Finally, in a very old library in Portugal, I found an old dairy describing the trip of Ibn Majid and Vasco Da Gama. The story revealed how they found the way to India and clearly mentioned that another man – not Ibn Majid – had shown them the way to India.“, Sheikh Sultan added. Da Gama had landed in Kappad, Calicut in 1498.
He said that all money from the sale of his book would go towards the Sharjah City for Humanitarian Services.
A special library would be set up for the cause of Palestine and it would be part of the Central Library in Sharjah where all books referring to the Palestine issue would be collectively displayed, he said.
Source : The Gulf Today November 2nd 2000
Palestine belongs to the Arabs as England belongs to the English : Mahatma Gandhi
[ Mahatma Gandhi is against the very soul of Zionist philosophy. The recent moves by the present rightwing Indian government, aroused by its fascist allies, is making a historic mistake by trying to establish links with the Jewish nation. The true Indian heritage has always been whole-hearted support for the Palestinian nation. ‘MeraWatan’ is an attempt to re-enforce such a bond between the two sand dunes and the paddy fields – Jaihoon ]
“My sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and in the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after their return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?”
“Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs…Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.”
“I hold that non-violence is not merely a personal virtue. It is also a social virtue to be cultivated like the other virtues. Surely society is largely regulated by the expression of non-violence in its mutual dealing. What I ask for is an extension of it on a larger, national and international scale.”
GH Jansen wrote about the failure of Zionist lobbying with Gandhi:
“His opposition [to Zionism] remained consistent over a period of nearly 20 years and remained firm despite skilful and varied applications to him of that combination of pressure and persuasion known as lobbying, of which the Zionists are past masters.”
“But in my opinion, they [the Jews] have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism… Why should they depend on American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine?”
A few months before his assassination, Gandhi answered the question “What is the solution to the Palestine problem?” raised by Doon Campbell of Reuters: “It has become a problem which seems almost insoluble. If I were a Jew, I would tell them: ‘Do not be so silly as to resort to terrorism…’ The Jews should meet the Arabs, make friends with them and not depend on British aid or American aid, save what descends from Jehovah.”
Source: Various extracts from the Harijan editorial and others written by Gandhi. Based on paper presented by Dr. Ramakrishnan, a senior lecturer, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India. He presented this paper on June 13, 1998 at a seminar organized by the Institute of Islamic and Arab Studies.
The Palestinian Consul General handing over the invitation to Syed Muhammad Ali Shihab: The Mahatma of Malabar, to visit Al Quds in Palestine.
I know that in your being burns the fire,
Whose heat to this day the world remembers
Your balm lies not in London nor Geneva
The Jewish grasp is tight on Europe’s throat.
But nations throw off bondage, it is told
By cultivating selfhood and zest for living.
Cheese, Cartoons and the Holocaust
The most fascinating aspect in this whole episode that attracted me was that even professing but non-practicing Muslims were showing their enthusiasm for the boycott. Muslim friends and colleagues, who had no business with fasting in the month of Ramadan or attending the congregational Friday prayers, were persuading and promoting practicing pious brothers and sisters to boycott Danish makes. Boycott emails were forwarded religiously and leaflets distributed devotedly.