Pakistan angered at ‘hellhole’ depiction in ‘Homeland’ – report

Source: rt.com

The Emmy-winning ‘Homeland’ series portrays Pakistan as an ugly, ignorant, terror-plagued “hellhole,” the country’s officials have complained to the New York Post, stressing “nothing is further from the truth.”

The Pakistani authorities reportedly complained directly to the show’s producers at Showtime, noting every detail they found irrelevant to the modern Pakistan, including the lack of green landscapes in the depiction of the capital, Islamabad.

“Maligning a country that has been a close partner and ally of the US <…> is a disservice not only to the security interests of the US, but also to the people of the US,” Pakistan Embassy spokesman Nadeem Hotiana told the New York Post.

Season four of ‘Homeland’ tells a story of a CIA station chief on a mission in Pakistan. The show explores the twists and turns of intelligence operations on the ground, as well as the troubled relations between the CIA and Pakistan’s security services.

The biggest concern of the country’s authorities is that Pakistan is depicted as undemocratic and linked with militants.

“Repeated insinuations that an intelligence agency of Pakistan is complicit in protecting the terrorists at the expense of innocent Pakistani civilians is not only absurd, but also an insult to the ultimate sacrifices of the thousands of Pakistani security personnel in the war against terrorism,” one source said.

Echoes of Peace between Muslim and Christian

By: Agape Wo Dal

Source: muslimsarenotterrorists.com

Like every other Christian on the West side of the world, I knew little of the Muslin world, except what was portrait by the media. September 11, 2001 awakened us to the existence of the Muslim world by bringing fear in the hearts of westerners. Many of us became suspicious of anyone from the Middle East.

This story however is not about the world. It’s about how one Jordanian Muslim.

The truly educated and ‘compounded ignorant’

Source: nst.com.my

By: Dzulkifli Abdul Razak

THE recognition of Professor Emeritus Tan Sri Mohd Rashdan Baba as Tokoh Akademik Negara 2013 is indeed very appropriate. It is no small task to be a founding vice-chancellor of two public universities at a time when higher education was just finding its feet in the country.

Nouman Ali Khan: Walking with Humility (Quran Weekly)

 The slaves of Allah walk on this Earth with humility and when confronted with the ignorant, deal with them peacefully.
More Quran Weekly video’s…

You want me to go Jahannam?

By: Moutasem Atiya

Source: http://almadinainstitute.org/

I’m often shocked by how often we throw the baby out with the bathwater. Someone disagrees with us on a religious matter and we are willing to play Russian roulette with our own salvation by labeling them an unbeliever (kafir). This behavior tends to be perpetrated by people who are ignorant and/or fanatical in their commitment to particular dogmatic views. In reality, what constitutes calling someone an unbeliever has a very narrow scope, not nearly as wide as some would like it to be.

The word kafir is a legal description that must come from an explicit scriptural source (nass). This means that in order to call someone an unbeliever, either Allah or the Messenger of Allah (Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him) must have said that a person who says or does “xyz” is a kafir. The scholars of Islam have long had a very difficult time in defining what that entails.

In tackling this issue Imam al-Ghazali states that there are two types of belief, “One connected to the fundamental principles of creed, the other with secondary issues. The fundamental principles are acknowledging the existence of God, the prophethood of his Prophet, and the reality of the Last Day. Everything else is secondary.”1So long as a Muslim does not deny these fundamental principles, they are still to be considered a Muslim.

Imam Abu Ja’far al-Tahawi similarly states, “We call the people of our qiblah Muslims and believers as long as they acknowledge what the Prophet (Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him) brought, and accept as true everything that he said and told us about.”2 The bulk of Sunni-centric theological debate has not come in the affirmation or denial of what the Messenger (Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him) has brought, but rather in the understanding of it. This difference in “secondary” creedal understanding can be dated back to the companions of the Messenger, in particular dealing with the Prophet’s vision of God during the Night Journey. This particular dispute is centered around Ibn Abbas and Aisha – Ibn Abbas held the view that the Messenger of Allah “saw” God, while Aisha vehemently disagreed when asked about the subject by Masruq, as related by Imam Bukhari:

I said to Aisha, “O Mother! Did Prophet Muhammad see his Lord?” Aisha said, “What you have said makes my hair stand on end! Know that if somebody tells you one of the following three things, he is a liar: Whoever tells you that Muhammad saw his Lord, is a liar.” Then Aisha recited the verse: ‘Vision comprehends Him not, but He comprehends all vision. He is the Subtle, the Aware’ (6:103), ‘And it is not given to any human being that Allah should speak to him unless it be by revelation or from behind a veil…’ (42:51).”

What is key to note here is that Aisha did not claim anyone was an unbeliever for saying the Messenger saw God. Sure, she used very strong words in calling the claimer a liar, but that is very different from stripping an individual of their faith, as unbelief means the individual will abide in hell forever. Al-Ghazali again shares pertinent advice on the risks of calling another Muslim an unbeliever: “As for the Advice, it is that you restrain your tongue, to the best of your ability, from indicting the people who face Mecca (on charges of Unbelief) as long as they say, ‘There is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God’…Indeed branding people unbelievers is a serious matter. Remaining silent, on the other hand, entails no liability at all.”3

Advice From The Messenger

Here are some straightforward warnings from the Prophet Muhammad (Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him) on branding a fellow Muslim an unbeliever:

“Whoever calls his [Muslim] brother ‘kafir‘, it becomes definitely true of one of the two.” (Narrated by al-Bukhari and Muslim)

Ibn `Umar related that the Holy Prophet said: “If a Muslim calls another kafir, then if he is akafir let it be so; otherwise, he [the caller] is himself a kafir.” (Abu Dawud, Book of Sunna)

Abu Dharr reported that the Holy Prophet said: “No man accuses another man of being a sinner, or of being akafir, but it reflects back on him if the other is not as he called him.” (Narrated by al-Bukhari)

“Withhold [your tongues] from those who say, “There is no god but Allah” – do not call them kafir. Whoever calls a reciter of “There is no god but Allah” a kafir is nearer to being a kafir himself.” (Tabarani, reported on the authority of Ibn Umar)