It seems that Mr. Peres also had some free time on his hand and he went shopping?!!!
No Comment :(
30 January 2007
Shimon Peres Visits Qatar
Isn’t it strange that the Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres visit to Qatar was not mentioned at all on Al Jazeerah as if it never took place?!
It seems that Mr. Peres also had some free time on his hand and he went shopping?!!!
No Comment :(
It seems that Mr. Peres also had some free time on his hand and he went shopping?!!!
No Comment :(
27 January 2007
CHILDREN'S' LAWS OF OWNERSHIP
1. If I like it, it is mine
2. If it's in my hand, it's mine
3. If I can take it from you, it's mine
4. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine
5. If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way
6. If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces are mine
7. If it looks just like mine, it's mine
8. If I think it's mine, it's mine
9. If it's yours and I steal it, it's mine
10.If I........... ......... .......!
Oops, sorry! I've been reading Israeli Foreign Policy documents!
Never mind....
2. If it's in my hand, it's mine
3. If I can take it from you, it's mine
4. If I had it a little while ago, it's mine
5. If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way
6. If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces are mine
7. If it looks just like mine, it's mine
8. If I think it's mine, it's mine
9. If it's yours and I steal it, it's mine
10.If I........... ......... .......!
Oops, sorry! I've been reading Israeli Foreign Policy documents!
Never mind....
19 January 2007
First Politician in History
National Geographic team makes landmark discovery
At a press conference this morning, a renowned 'beltway insider' confirmed that an archeological team from the National Geographic Society digging in Washington DC have unearthed the 17,000 year old bones and fossilized remains of what scientists now believe to be the very first politician.
14 January 2007
10 Reasons WHY Egyptians can't be terrorists !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1. We are always late; we would have missed all the flights.
2. The pretty girls on the plane would distract us.
3. We would talk loudly and bring attention to ourselves.
4. With food and drinks on the plane, we would forget why we're there.
5. We talk with our hands; therefore we would have to put our weapons down.
6. We would ALL want to fly the plane.
7. We would argue and start a fight in the plane.
8. We can't keep a secret; we would have told everyone a week before doing it.
9. We would have put our country's flag on the windshield.
10. We would all have fallen over each other to be in the photograph being taken by one of the hostages.
2. The pretty girls on the plane would distract us.
3. We would talk loudly and bring attention to ourselves.
4. With food and drinks on the plane, we would forget why we're there.
5. We talk with our hands; therefore we would have to put our weapons down.
6. We would ALL want to fly the plane.
7. We would argue and start a fight in the plane.
8. We can't keep a secret; we would have told everyone a week before doing it.
9. We would have put our country's flag on the windshield.
10. We would all have fallen over each other to be in the photograph being taken by one of the hostages.
13 January 2007
Brutal Censorship
In order to protest against censorship in our part of the world I found it useful to list all the violations of freedom of thought that have been recorded in the Greater Middle East from 1925 to date. This list, in chronological order; it includes numerous examples of ‘censorship’ which makes one wonder. From philosophy to cinema, literature, and art – no field has been spared, and no act of violence has been avoided. From the mere banning of the work to a death sentence - every kind of obscurantist horror has taken place in our part of the world. Given that we are one of the Civilizations of a great book the “Koran” this is a complete absurdity.
The list may seem exhaustive, but it is in no way complete. Therefore if you know of other incidents that occurred in our part of the world please do not hesitate to add a comment and I will include it in the list. I hope, however, that it will some day come to an end, inshallah! For this to happen, our societies and governments must show greater respect for freedom of thought, and must pass laws that will protect this freedom.
- 1925, [Egypt]: Sheikh Ali Abdel-Raziq is expelled from Al-Azhar University and his writings are banned [because] he advocates the separation of religion and state. His book "Islam and Principles of Government" is declared heretical, and banned.
- 1926, [Egypt]: [The book] On Pre-Islamic Poetry by Taha Hussein is banned. In 1931, the Education Ministry had him expelled from the university, for his rationalist interpretation of pre-Islamic literature and the Koran.
- 1946, Iran: The terrorist group Fedayyan-i Eslam accuses historian, jurist,and linguist Ahmad Kasravi of unbelief. In March, he is murdered for heresy, based on a fatwa [issued against him].
- 1973, Algeria: The poet Jean Sénac is assassinated by fundamentalists.
- December 18, 1975, Morocco: Omar Benjelloun, leader of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USPF) and director of the paper Al-Mouharrir, is stabbed to death by fundamentalists.
- February 1977, [Syria]: The president of Damascus University is murdered on
campus by fundamentalists.
- 1981, Egypt: The book History of the Arabic Language by Fikri Al-Aqad is
banned.
- 1982, [Iran]: Writer Ata Nourian, a member of the Iranian Writers Union, is
killed by fundamentalists for his ‘anti-Islamist ideas.’
- 1984, Iran: 83-year-old Ali Dashti, the author of a book critical of Islam, dies in prison after mistreatment.
- January 1985, Sudan: The writer Mahmoud Muhammad Taha, over 80 years old, is sentenced to death and hanged in Khartoum. [His crime:] writing a book on the history of Islam which advocated separation of the political and the religious domains. In the book…, he stated that the spiritual message of the Prophet as revealed in Mecca is universal, but that the judicial framework which [later] developed [in Medina emerged] in a particular historical context and is [therefore] not adapted to the life of Muslims
today.
- In the same year 1985, the Ethical Court in Cairo sentences the publisher of One Thousand and One Nights to jail for corrupting the morals of the younger [generation]. The Court [also] orders the destruction of 3000 copies of this popular masterpiece.
- 1987, Iran: 80,000 books, labeled as ‘attacking Islam,’ are burned at Isfahan University.
- 1988: A book published in Saudi Arabia accuses more than 100 Arab writers - some dead and some living - of apostasy and hostility towards Islam. [They include] Salama Moussa, Shibli Shmmayyil, Nagib Mahfuz, Lofti As-Sayyid, Muhammad Al-Jabiri, Shakir Shakir, Said Aql, Adonis, and others. These authors’ [books] are still banned by the Wahhabis in Saudi.
- February 14, 1989, [Iran]: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, [rules that] that The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie is blasphemous and calls to murder its author and publishers. A reward of $3 million is offered to anyone who kills Rushdie (but only $1 million if the murderer is not Iranian). For years, the Iranian author
[Rushdie] lives like a hunted animal in Britain, though he receives
protection from British police. The Italian and Japanese translators [of his
book] are less fortunate: [both] are killed in 1991, in Milan and Tokyo
[respectively].
- In February 1989, Iranian writers Amir Nikaiin, Manouchehr Behzadi, Djavid Misani and Abutorab Bagherazdeh, and two Iranian poets, Said Soltanpour and Rahman Hatefi, are killed for their liberal ideas.
- 1990, Egypt: Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid, a university teacher who wished ‘to consider Islam from within and propose a profoundly reformist approach’receives death threats from fundamentalists…
- 1991, Sudan: Ajjabna Muhammad is accused of apostasy and is expelled from
the university. Rejected by his own family, he tries to flee [the country,
but is caught] and tortured in prison.
- January 1992, [Egypt]: A delegation of Al-Azhar scholars demands the
banning of eight books on Islam.
- June 8, [1992], writer Farag Foda is shot dead by fundamentalists along with his son Ahmad and a friend of his son’s. A few days earlier, the secular intellectual was
declared an ‘apostate’. Islamist fundamentalists group Al-Gamma’ah Al-Islamiya took responsibility for the murder…
- September 3, [1991], Saudi Arabia: The poet Sadiq Melallah was beheaded in
the main square of the city of Qatif for denying [the faith], on [the orders
of] the state authorities.
- 1993, Algeria: This was a very bloody year for writers, journalists, academics, and artists [in Algeria]. The victims, most of them murdered by fundamentalists, include Ruptures magazine writer and editor Taher Djaout; sociologist Djilali Liabès; Beaux-Arts [College] head Ahmed Asselah; sociologist M’hamed Boukhobza; Bab-Ezzouar University head Salah Djebaïli; poet and writer Youssef Sebti; playwright and stage director Abdelkader Alloula; psychiatrist Mahfoudh Boucebci, national education superintendent
Salah Chouaki; playwright Izzedine Medjoubi; pediatrician Dilalli Belkhanchir; economist Abderahmane Faredeheb; and journalists Ferhat Cherkit, Youssef Fathallah, Lamine Lagoui, Ziane Farrah, Abdelhamid Benmenni, Rabah Zenati, Saad Bakhtaoui, and Abderrahmane Chergou…, and the list is far from complete…
- In Iran, cartoonist Manouchehr Karimzadeh is sentenced to 10 years in prison for sketching a soccer player who slightly resembles [Ayatollah]Khomeini. The cartoonist and the editor of the newspaper [that published the cartoon] are flogged. Their [prison] sentences are later reduced.
- In Saudi Arabia, the publication of a comic [strip] leads to the arrest of
two Indian employees of the Arab News [paper]. According to theologians, the
comic [strip] questioned the existence of God. The two men are sentenced to
a harsh flogging. Following international pressure, they are pardoned by the
[Saudi] king.
- In May, in Saudi Arabia, reformist professor M. Al-Awajj is sentenced to
four years’ imprisonment. He is dismissed [from his job] and his passport is
confiscated.
- On September 24, a group of Bangladeshi fundamentalists issues a fatwa against [Bangladeshi author and doctor] Taslima Nasreen, accusing her of blasphemy… The fundamentalists destroy bookshops that sell her books. The government confiscates her passport and orders her to stop writing if she wants to continue working in a state hospital. She leaves the country…
- In May, in Iran, university lecturer and human rights activist E. Sahabi is arrested for participating in a conference in Germany, and is accused of ‘anti-revolutionary behavior.’
On October 14 in Egypt, literature Nobel prize laureate Nagib Mahfuz, aged 83, is stabbed in the throat by a young extremist in Cairo. Al-Gamma’ah Al-Islamiya takes responsibility for the assassination attempt…
- In Iran, author Ali Akbar Saidi Sirjani is murdered in prison for publishing his
works outside the country after they are banned in Iran.
- April 1995, [India]: Mufti Shabbir Siddiqi of Ahamdabad issues a fatwa of
excommunication against the poet Muhammad Alvi. [The poet was excommunicated] because of a [single] line in a poem written 17 years earlier: ‘O God, if you are too busy to visit us, send us a good angel to guide us.’
- In the same year, the Egyptian Supreme Court declares Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid
an apostate and orders him divorced from his wife - since a Muslim cannot be
married to an apostate. The couple… escapes to the Netherlands.
- In Iran, Ahmad Miralai, a translator of foreign literature, is murdered.
- 1996, Iran: Four ’subversive’ writers and editors are murdered: Ghafar Hosseini, Reza Mazlooman, Ebrahim Zalzadeh, and Ahmad Tafazoli…
- 1997, [Egypt]: Al-Azhar University compiles a list of 196 books to be banned on moral and religious grounds…
- 1998, Pakistan: Ayub Masih, [a young Pakistani] sentenced to prison and released six years later on 15 August 2002 for blasphemy
- In Egypt, author Alaa Hamed stands trial for [writing] a novel that ‘insults Islam.’
- In Iran, [several] writers, journalists and academics - Pirouz Davani, Hamid Pour, Hajizadeh, Majid Sharif, Daryoush and Parvaneh Furouhar, Muhammad Jafar Pouyandeh, and Muhammad Mokhtari - are murdered by fundamentalists because of their writings.
- In Turkey, journalist Nuredin Sirin is sentenced to 20 months in prison for writing that ‘we must support the oppressed even if they are atheists.’
- 1999, Iran: The religious reformist Hadi Khamenei is beaten by fundamentalists students…
- 2000, Kuwait: Two female authors, Leila Othman and Alia Shaib, are each sentenced to one month in prison for moral and religion offenses…
- In Egypt, writer Haydar Haydar is declared an apostate and sentenced to
death by fundamentalists for writing [his book] A Banquet for Seaweed.
- 2001, Egypt: Writer Salaheddin Mohsen and female preacher Manal Manea are each sentenced to three years in prison for atheism and blasphemy…
- 27 May 2003, Saudi Arabia: Jamal Khashoggi, editor of [the daily] Al-Watan, is fired for approving the publication of articles criticizing the religious establishment, and in particular the mutawa (religious police)…
- Saudi teacher Muhammad Al-Harbi is sentenced to 750 lashes and three years and four months in prison for ‘harming the integrity of Islam.’
- Saudi teacher Muhammad Al-Souheimi is accused of apostasy, sentenced to 300 lashes and three years’ imprisonment, and banned from teaching.
- In Iran, the Canadian-Iranian journalist Zahra Kazemi is brutally tortured by the Iranian police and then murdered in detention - [all] for writing her articles.
- 2004, Iran: The musician and poet Ahmad Bayat Mokhtari is abducted and run down by a car in Chiraz because of his artistic activities.
- On October 30, in Damascus, researcher and writer Nabil El-Fayadh, author of many books banned in Syria and other Arab countries, is arrested by the intelligence service…
- 23 January 2006, [Iran]: Journalist Elham Afrotan, head of the weekly Tamadone Hormozgan, is imprisoned with six others… [for writing] an article comparing Ayatollah Khomeini’s [rise to power] with the AIDS [epidemic]. The journalists are arrested in Bandar-Abbas…”
It must be pointed out that such acts did not happen during the first three centuries of Islam, which was the golden age of Islam. No one saw books burned, and freedom of thought was at its peak. No controversial topic was avoided in philosophical or theological debate. From the authenticity of the prophecies to the very nature of divinity - each doctrine had its proponents, its platforms, and its leading thinkers…
Considering the delightful freedom that pervaded Arab literature in those days. One could say anything, write anything, sing about anything… the love of women, sex, and wine … [Even] the sacred could be laughed at, and [religious] devotion as well… This golden age was also the age of that eclectic and refined aestheticism of which Abu
Hayane Attaouhidi wrote so beautifully.
References:
Zyed Krichen “Ban… Bange “ (Réalités)
List: The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
The list may seem exhaustive, but it is in no way complete. Therefore if you know of other incidents that occurred in our part of the world please do not hesitate to add a comment and I will include it in the list. I hope, however, that it will some day come to an end, inshallah! For this to happen, our societies and governments must show greater respect for freedom of thought, and must pass laws that will protect this freedom.
- 1925, [Egypt]: Sheikh Ali Abdel-Raziq is expelled from Al-Azhar University and his writings are banned [because] he advocates the separation of religion and state. His book "Islam and Principles of Government" is declared heretical, and banned.
- 1926, [Egypt]: [The book] On Pre-Islamic Poetry by Taha Hussein is banned. In 1931, the Education Ministry had him expelled from the university, for his rationalist interpretation of pre-Islamic literature and the Koran.
- 1946, Iran: The terrorist group Fedayyan-i Eslam accuses historian, jurist,and linguist Ahmad Kasravi of unbelief. In March, he is murdered for heresy, based on a fatwa [issued against him].
- 1973, Algeria: The poet Jean Sénac is assassinated by fundamentalists.
- December 18, 1975, Morocco: Omar Benjelloun, leader of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USPF) and director of the paper Al-Mouharrir, is stabbed to death by fundamentalists.- February 1977, [Syria]: The president of Damascus University is murdered on
campus by fundamentalists.
- 1981, Egypt: The book History of the Arabic Language by Fikri Al-Aqad is
banned.
- 1982, [Iran]: Writer Ata Nourian, a member of the Iranian Writers Union, is
killed by fundamentalists for his ‘anti-Islamist ideas.’
- 1984, Iran: 83-year-old Ali Dashti, the author of a book critical of Islam, dies in prison after mistreatment.
- January 1985, Sudan: The writer Mahmoud Muhammad Taha, over 80 years old, is sentenced to death and hanged in Khartoum. [His crime:] writing a book on the history of Islam which advocated separation of the political and the religious domains. In the book…, he stated that the spiritual message of the Prophet as revealed in Mecca is universal, but that the judicial framework which [later] developed [in Medina emerged] in a particular historical context and is [therefore] not adapted to the life of Muslimstoday.
- In the same year 1985, the Ethical Court in Cairo sentences the publisher of One Thousand and One Nights to jail for corrupting the morals of the younger [generation]. The Court [also] orders the destruction of 3000 copies of this popular masterpiece.- 1987, Iran: 80,000 books, labeled as ‘attacking Islam,’ are burned at Isfahan University.
- 1988: A book published in Saudi Arabia accuses more than 100 Arab writers - some dead and some living - of apostasy and hostility towards Islam. [They include] Salama Moussa, Shibli Shmmayyil, Nagib Mahfuz, Lofti As-Sayyid, Muhammad Al-Jabiri, Shakir Shakir, Said Aql, Adonis, and others. These authors’ [books] are still banned by the Wahhabis in Saudi.
- February 14, 1989, [Iran]: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, [rules that] that The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie is blasphemous and calls to murder its author and publishers. A reward of $3 million is offered to anyone who kills Rushdie (but only $1 million if the murderer is not Iranian). For years, the Iranian author[Rushdie] lives like a hunted animal in Britain, though he receives
protection from British police. The Italian and Japanese translators [of his
book] are less fortunate: [both] are killed in 1991, in Milan and Tokyo
[respectively].
- In February 1989, Iranian writers Amir Nikaiin, Manouchehr Behzadi, Djavid Misani and Abutorab Bagherazdeh, and two Iranian poets, Said Soltanpour and Rahman Hatefi, are killed for their liberal ideas.
- 1990, Egypt: Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid, a university teacher who wished ‘to consider Islam from within and propose a profoundly reformist approach’receives death threats from fundamentalists…- 1991, Sudan: Ajjabna Muhammad is accused of apostasy and is expelled from
the university. Rejected by his own family, he tries to flee [the country,
but is caught] and tortured in prison.
- January 1992, [Egypt]: A delegation of Al-Azhar scholars demands the
banning of eight books on Islam.
- June 8, [1992], writer Farag Foda is shot dead by fundamentalists along with his son Ahmad and a friend of his son’s. A few days earlier, the secular intellectual was
declared an ‘apostate’. Islamist fundamentalists group Al-Gamma’ah Al-Islamiya took responsibility for the murder…
- September 3, [1991], Saudi Arabia: The poet Sadiq Melallah was beheaded in
the main square of the city of Qatif for denying [the faith], on [the orders
of] the state authorities.
- 1993, Algeria: This was a very bloody year for writers, journalists, academics, and artists [in Algeria]. The victims, most of them murdered by fundamentalists, include Ruptures magazine writer and editor Taher Djaout; sociologist Djilali Liabès; Beaux-Arts [College] head Ahmed Asselah; sociologist M’hamed Boukhobza; Bab-Ezzouar University head Salah Djebaïli; poet and writer Youssef Sebti; playwright and stage director Abdelkader Alloula; psychiatrist Mahfoudh Boucebci, national education superintendentSalah Chouaki; playwright Izzedine Medjoubi; pediatrician Dilalli Belkhanchir; economist Abderahmane Faredeheb; and journalists Ferhat Cherkit, Youssef Fathallah, Lamine Lagoui, Ziane Farrah, Abdelhamid Benmenni, Rabah Zenati, Saad Bakhtaoui, and Abderrahmane Chergou…, and the list is far from complete…
- In Iran, cartoonist Manouchehr Karimzadeh is sentenced to 10 years in prison for sketching a soccer player who slightly resembles [Ayatollah]Khomeini. The cartoonist and the editor of the newspaper [that published the cartoon] are flogged. Their [prison] sentences are later reduced.- In Saudi Arabia, the publication of a comic [strip] leads to the arrest of
two Indian employees of the Arab News [paper]. According to theologians, the
comic [strip] questioned the existence of God. The two men are sentenced to
a harsh flogging. Following international pressure, they are pardoned by the
[Saudi] king.
- In May, in Saudi Arabia, reformist professor M. Al-Awajj is sentenced to
four years’ imprisonment. He is dismissed [from his job] and his passport is
confiscated.
- On September 24, a group of Bangladeshi fundamentalists issues a fatwa against [Bangladeshi author and doctor] Taslima Nasreen, accusing her of blasphemy… The fundamentalists destroy bookshops that sell her books. The government confiscates her passport and orders her to stop writing if she wants to continue working in a state hospital. She leaves the country…
- In May, in Iran, university lecturer and human rights activist E. Sahabi is arrested for participating in a conference in Germany, and is accused of ‘anti-revolutionary behavior.’
On October 14 in Egypt, literature Nobel prize laureate Nagib Mahfuz, aged 83, is stabbed in the throat by a young extremist in Cairo. Al-Gamma’ah Al-Islamiya takes responsibility for the assassination attempt… - In Iran, author Ali Akbar Saidi Sirjani is murdered in prison for publishing his
works outside the country after they are banned in Iran.
- April 1995, [India]: Mufti Shabbir Siddiqi of Ahamdabad issues a fatwa of
excommunication against the poet Muhammad Alvi. [The poet was excommunicated] because of a [single] line in a poem written 17 years earlier: ‘O God, if you are too busy to visit us, send us a good angel to guide us.’
- In the same year, the Egyptian Supreme Court declares Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid
an apostate and orders him divorced from his wife - since a Muslim cannot be
married to an apostate. The couple… escapes to the Netherlands.
- In Iran, Ahmad Miralai, a translator of foreign literature, is murdered.- 1996, Iran: Four ’subversive’ writers and editors are murdered: Ghafar Hosseini, Reza Mazlooman, Ebrahim Zalzadeh, and Ahmad Tafazoli…
- 1997, [Egypt]: Al-Azhar University compiles a list of 196 books to be banned on moral and religious grounds…
- 1998, Pakistan: Ayub Masih, [a young Pakistani] sentenced to prison and released six years later on 15 August 2002 for blasphemy
- In Egypt, author Alaa Hamed stands trial for [writing] a novel that ‘insults Islam.’
- In Iran, [several] writers, journalists and academics - Pirouz Davani, Hamid Pour, Hajizadeh, Majid Sharif, Daryoush and Parvaneh Furouhar, Muhammad Jafar Pouyandeh, and Muhammad Mokhtari - are murdered by fundamentalists because of their writings.
- In Turkey, journalist Nuredin Sirin is sentenced to 20 months in prison for writing that ‘we must support the oppressed even if they are atheists.’ 
- 1999, Iran: The religious reformist Hadi Khamenei is beaten by fundamentalists students…
- 2000, Kuwait: Two female authors, Leila Othman and Alia Shaib, are each sentenced to one month in prison for moral and religion offenses…- In Egypt, writer Haydar Haydar is declared an apostate and sentenced to
death by fundamentalists for writing [his book] A Banquet for Seaweed.
- 2001, Egypt: Writer Salaheddin Mohsen and female preacher Manal Manea are each sentenced to three years in prison for atheism and blasphemy…
- 27 May 2003, Saudi Arabia: Jamal Khashoggi, editor of [the daily] Al-Watan, is fired for approving the publication of articles criticizing the religious establishment, and in particular the mutawa (religious police)…
- Saudi teacher Muhammad Al-Harbi is sentenced to 750 lashes and three years and four months in prison for ‘harming the integrity of Islam.’- Saudi teacher Muhammad Al-Souheimi is accused of apostasy, sentenced to 300 lashes and three years’ imprisonment, and banned from teaching.
- In Iran, the Canadian-Iranian journalist Zahra Kazemi is brutally tortured by the Iranian police and then murdered in detention - [all] for writing her articles.- 2004, Iran: The musician and poet Ahmad Bayat Mokhtari is abducted and run down by a car in Chiraz because of his artistic activities.
- On October 30, in Damascus, researcher and writer Nabil El-Fayadh, author of many books banned in Syria and other Arab countries, is arrested by the intelligence service…
- 23 January 2006, [Iran]: Journalist Elham Afrotan, head of the weekly Tamadone Hormozgan, is imprisoned with six others… [for writing] an article comparing Ayatollah Khomeini’s [rise to power] with the AIDS [epidemic]. The journalists are arrested in Bandar-Abbas…”It must be pointed out that such acts did not happen during the first three centuries of Islam, which was the golden age of Islam. No one saw books burned, and freedom of thought was at its peak. No controversial topic was avoided in philosophical or theological debate. From the authenticity of the prophecies to the very nature of divinity - each doctrine had its proponents, its platforms, and its leading thinkers…
Considering the delightful freedom that pervaded Arab literature in those days. One could say anything, write anything, sing about anything… the love of women, sex, and wine … [Even] the sacred could be laughed at, and [religious] devotion as well… This golden age was also the age of that eclectic and refined aestheticism of which Abu
Hayane Attaouhidi wrote so beautifully.
References:
Zyed Krichen “Ban… Bange “ (Réalités)
List: The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
12 January 2007
Prophet Mohamed Cartoonist Burns to Death
Today I received an SMS in Arabic stating “Breaking News: The Danish cartoonist, who drew the Prophet Mohamed offensive cartoons died, he was burned up in a fire. Spread the word as his country is trying to hide the news.”
The questions that automatically came to my mind: which one? Which Cartoonist?
How did all start? Kåre Bluitgen, was working on a childeren’s book called “The Koran and the life of the Prophet Mohamed “ he was trying to find an illustrator to work with him and was unable to find one.Three artists declined Bluitgen's proposal before an artist agreed to assist anonymously. On 30 September 2005, the daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten invited around forty different artists to give their interpretation of Mohamed, twelve caricaturists chose to respond with a drawing each.
So now that we know that they are 12 cartoonists which one of these burned to death: Franz Füchsel, Peder Bundgaard, Poul Erik Poulsen, Claus Seidel, Kurt Westergaard, Rasmus Sand Høyer, Jens-Julius, Erik Abild Sørensen, Arne Sørensen, Annette Carlsen, Bob Katzenelson, or Lars Refn??!!!
Why would someone wake up, invents an incident that never occurred, punch on the keyboard of his/her cell phone, and write such an SMS?! Then decides to send it to a bunch of people that he/she knows very well (the numbers are saved on the phone memory) asks all his friends to makes sure to send this stupid rumor that he/she just invented to everyone?! My only explanation this person works for a Mobile Operator company!! This person if Egyptian works for either Vodafone or Mobinil and wants to increase his profit sharing :) There is no other explanation for such an idiotic act! mmm…. Maybe the person is sick?!!! OK OK there are 2 reasons, can you think of another reason?
The Danes already apologized, so please give me a break and shut up for ever.
The questions that automatically came to my mind: which one? Which Cartoonist?
How did all start? Kåre Bluitgen, was working on a childeren’s book called “The Koran and the life of the Prophet Mohamed “ he was trying to find an illustrator to work with him and was unable to find one.Three artists declined Bluitgen's proposal before an artist agreed to assist anonymously. On 30 September 2005, the daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten invited around forty different artists to give their interpretation of Mohamed, twelve caricaturists chose to respond with a drawing each.
So now that we know that they are 12 cartoonists which one of these burned to death: Franz Füchsel, Peder Bundgaard, Poul Erik Poulsen, Claus Seidel, Kurt Westergaard, Rasmus Sand Høyer, Jens-Julius, Erik Abild Sørensen, Arne Sørensen, Annette Carlsen, Bob Katzenelson, or Lars Refn??!!!
Why would someone wake up, invents an incident that never occurred, punch on the keyboard of his/her cell phone, and write such an SMS?! Then decides to send it to a bunch of people that he/she knows very well (the numbers are saved on the phone memory) asks all his friends to makes sure to send this stupid rumor that he/she just invented to everyone?! My only explanation this person works for a Mobile Operator company!! This person if Egyptian works for either Vodafone or Mobinil and wants to increase his profit sharing :) There is no other explanation for such an idiotic act! mmm…. Maybe the person is sick?!!! OK OK there are 2 reasons, can you think of another reason?
The Danes already apologized, so please give me a break and shut up for ever.
11 January 2007
World's greatest orgy (BUBASTIS, Egypt)
As an Egyptian I never heard of a temple called BUBASTIS until today. It could have never occurred to me that the biggest Orgy in the entire world had occurred in Egypt?!!! If it did, I would have guessed that it took place in a costal city or so. In our modern world if it occurred here in Egypt it might be in a place like Dahab?! But in Zagazig?! Never ever?! How could it possibly be?! Zagazig one of the most conservative cities in modern Egypt?! You must be kidding me.
The main temple area of Bubastis is a part of modern-day city of Zagazig it is strange to think, or even imagine what went on in Bubastis! BUBASTIS was for centuries the centre of the largest annual orgy of all of the eastern Mediterranean, perhaps the entire world. In the 5th century BCE, Herodotus reported that 700,000 people participated, drinking wine without limits and having sex with whoever and wherever.
Herodotus gave a lively account of the annual festival -- believed to have been a bean feast. He described how large numbers of men, women and children were conveyed to the sacred complex by boat and that, throughout the journey, they sang, clapped hands, shouted and teased one another. "The women," he added, "danced in a bawdy and unseemly manner." (Al Ahram Weekly)
Bubastis was the center of the worship of the lion-headed (or cat-headed) goddess Bast. In the time of Herodotus it had an annual Saturnalia, an orgiastic festival (The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition 2006)
The Festival of Bast in April or May was one of the greatest in Egypt and
Herodotus describes this well in his Histories Book II Chap 60:
"When the Egyptians travel to Bubastis they do so in the following manner. Men and women sail together, and in each boat there are many persons of both sexes. Some of the women make a noise with rattles, and some of the men play flutes during the whole journey, while the other men and women sing and clap their hands. When they come to a town on the way, they lay to, and some of the women land and shout and mock the women of the place, ,others stand up and lift their skirts, while others dance and get up to mischief. They do this at every town lying on the Nile; But when they have reached Bubastis, they make a festival with great offerings and sacrifices, and more wine is drunk at this feast than in the whole year besides. It is customary for men and women (but not children) to assemble there to the number of
seven hundred thousand, as the people of the place say"
The site was excavated by Edouard Naville between 1887 and 1889. Though the site was so ruined that it was impossible to reconstruct any more then the basic layout of the Temple of Bastet, he confirmed much of what Herodotus originally wrote about the site
One of the few surviving sphinxes of Bubastis, put up in a little park with a handful of statues
10 January 2007
I want an iPhone :)
The iPhone is 11.6-millimeters (0.5-inches) that means it is thinner than some of the sleekest cell phones, such as Motorola Inc.’s RAZR.
The iPhone has five hours of continuous talk time and 15 hours for playing music, and includes a camera. It runs Apple’s OS X operating system, has the Safari browser for Web access and e-mail functions that can handle graphics and work with external services.
The iPhone can connect to the Internet wirelessly via Wi-Fi and has Bluetooth, a short-range wireless technology that supports wireless headsets or links to devices like printers.
Disadvantages:
1-The iPhone is not a 3G phone. Apple intends to make 3G phones in the future, but not yet.
2-The iPhone runs "OS X," butyou won't be able to download or run standard OSX applications from anyone but Apple.
3-You will also need a special version of Safari to browse the web on a tiny screen, but surely there are plenty of developers chomping at the bit to get their apps running on the iPhone!
Who cares :)
According to statistics quoted by Steve Jobs, 957 million mobile phones were sold worldwide last year. (That compares with 209 million PCs.) Just a 1 percent market share would mean selling around 10 million units, the Apple CEO figures ;)
One other big question: how will the iPhone sync? To succeed, the iPhone will need to sync with Microsoft Outlook running on Windows, something Steve Jobs didn't mention. It's hard to believe Apple doesn't know that?! I don't think syncing with iTunes is going to cut it.
Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs holds the new iPhone in San Francisco, California January 9, 2007. Apple unveiled an eagerly-anticipated iPod mobile phone with a touch-screen on Tuesday, priced at $599 for 8 gigabytes of memory, pushing the company's shares up as much as 8.5 percent. Jobs said the iPhone, which also will be available in a 4-gigabyte model for $499, will ship in June in the United States. The phones will be available in Europe in the fourth quarter and in Asia in 2008.(REUTERS/Kimberly White 09 Jan 2007)
This is really SICK?!!!
Arab Times, 9th Jan 2007 : Web Edition No: 12757
Kuwaiti in talks to buy Saddam's 'noose'
Businessman ready to pay any amount of money
KUWAIT CITY: A well-known Kuwaiti businessman is negotiating hard to own the noose which hung ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to death.
Reliable sources say the businessman's representatives have asked the Iraqi Ministry of Interior Affairs to sell the rope to them.
The businessman is apparently ready to pay any amount of money for the noose. According to sources, it is with Shiite leader Muqtada Al-Sadr and the businessman's representatives are negotiating with him.
The businessman had earlier purchased the vandalized statue of Saddam Hussein which stood at Al-Firdous Square in Baghdad. Sources say he obtained the statue through American representatives and exhibits the head of the statue in his diwaniya(sitting room).
Kuwaiti in talks to buy Saddam's 'noose'
Businessman ready to pay any amount of money
KUWAIT CITY: A well-known Kuwaiti businessman is negotiating hard to own the noose which hung ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to death.
Reliable sources say the businessman's representatives have asked the Iraqi Ministry of Interior Affairs to sell the rope to them.
The businessman is apparently ready to pay any amount of money for the noose. According to sources, it is with Shiite leader Muqtada Al-Sadr and the businessman's representatives are negotiating with him.
The businessman had earlier purchased the vandalized statue of Saddam Hussein which stood at Al-Firdous Square in Baghdad. Sources say he obtained the statue through American representatives and exhibits the head of the statue in his diwaniya(sitting room).
09 January 2007
Muqtada among hooded men who hanged Saddam?
Is it really Muqtada Al-Sadr?
Keeping in mind that Saddam killed Muqtada's father, I still believe that this is far fetched???!!!
If this is true?! Then Bush has been had (again)
US media and columnists reported that the men who hanged Saddam Hussein were portly. Some were chubby, fat.
News has emerged from Iraq that one of those men wearing a balaclava was Muqtada Sadr, leader of the Mehdi Army.
Sadr, who the US once wanted dead or alive.
Sadr, the man behind all the death squads.
In any case, the death of Saddam is backfiring faster than the US government can control it.
Saddam Hussein, according to the Iraqis inside the country, is now being called the Imam of the muqawama - resistance.
The rumor - as yet unconfirmed - explains the reason why those who hanged Saddam Hussein on December 30th were chanting "Moqtada! Moqtada!" it was not just because they were members of his Mahdi Army, but because they were cheering one of the hangmen - Sadr himself??!!!!
You can check Iraqi Rabita
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