Future Islamic effect

Dear Tony,

The subject you started is very hard one, but let me start my round,

The Islam is the way of live and deal. Normally the spirit of society should built as a triangle and the Islam should be applied in all of triangle’s corners: firstly Islam is the relation between Muslim and God, secondly it is the relation between Muslim himself and the environment surrounding him including plant, animals and all people, and thirdly it is the relation between Muslim and himself. any failure in one of any corner, the triangle base will collapse, the key of successful is the relation between Muslim and himself, therefore to build our self we have to revised; our schools and media after that we will get the suitable rigid block which can withstand the load of this triangle, If we are truthful with ourselves then we could recognize the correct way for live.

One of our problem is we are evaluate a our societies with western community regardless the last five hundred years, I do believe this is not fair, it looks like twenty years man rising three years children, what could be the result?! Yes I do agree that in all societies there are equal leaders. But no one can weighs any Muslim country with Great Britten or France, who start their renaissance before five centuries, or even USA how pass through a very valuable experiments ( first and second world war) which boost its capability as full society. Such hard and successful period is pushing the country forward.

As I now western countries has a lot of civilization appearances, they look like a mesh you can find a nods points as well as just string or even the Square hall, they have a lot of nods who hold this mesh and surrounding the empty square by their frame relation through the low, like paying the task, or through the charities who is taking care of different parties of society.To reach this level of society frame, we have to build our selves starting from homs, throgh mosques and ending by our school systems, after that only we can build our ideal Islamic society.

By monitoring the people quantity in the mosque any one can discover the Islamic disillusions and improvement of mosque effect in our live. Universities is an important centers which have an important responsibility. At last; government with logical plans to improve the society as a dynamic mass is the most important factor in this strategy.

A missed opportunity...

Dear brothers and sisters

Well, I said I'd write up that lecture by Sheikh Hamza Yusuf Hanson on "The Forgotten Debt - the Islamic world's contribution to the West", so here goes:

The lecture started 45 minutes late, the vast National Theatre in Abu Dhabi had a respectable audience, the event was organised by the Zayed House For Islamic Culture - their website is http://www.zhic.ae/

Hamza Yusuf spoke very eloquently for 100 minutes, a tribute to his scholarship and devotion to spreading the true meaning of Islam to his fellow Americans and the world at large. He is a very impressive speaker, extremely articulate and knowledgeable. Unfortunately, I feel that this particular evening, 21 April 2008, he was 'preaching to the converted' and that we were already aware of his central thesis - how the Islamic world interacted with the classical world prior to the establishment of Islam and that the Islamic world flourished during the 'Dark Ages' in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Hamza Yusuf is a linguist and gave interesting points as to the origin of words and how the Islamic world "contributed" or "flowed into" the Western world and beyond. At length, aided by PowerPoint slides he listed this contribution:

• coffee
• soda
• spices
• candy
• ice cream
• wheat
• music
• textiles
• furniture
• architecture
• glass making
• gardens
• windmills
• the Arabian horse
• science - mathematics / medicine / astronomy / robotics / herbology / pharmaceuticals / navigation / cartography / university education / libraries / literature / hygiene / chess / polo

OK, great, fine, Sheikh Hamza, your particular audience was probably aware of these contributions and we learned a few extra items and were entertained by your witty jokes and excellent command of Arabic. My point is that your discourse would have had so much more weight if it had brought us up to the 21st century and considered the PRESENT world situation of how is the Islamic world contributing to the pursuit of knowledge and enrichment of the human condition. With the immense resources at its disposal, has the Islamic world witnessed another 'Renaissance' and dynamic push for development and progress? What about the FUTURE? Sheikh Hamza Yusuf played safe by looking in the rear mirror and focusing on the 'Golden Age' when Islamic rulers, scholars and travellers spread knowledge far and wide across the ancient world.

Yes, I was disappointed. I learned very little new from Hamza Yusuf and questioned some of his interpretations. Indeed, if you a quick Wikipedia http://www.wikipedia.org/ search on Hamza Yusuf, you will see that he has evolved from a very radical, 'anti-Western' stance to the smooth-talking, 'acceptable' face of Islam for the likes of George Bush and Tony Blair - how and why did this come about?

I felt that Hamza Yusuf was very slick and a very polished speaker. He would do well in the corporate world, his Institute in California http://www.zaytuna.org/ will fill you in on some of his activities.

So, has this digression helped? Is this the future of the blog to look at such issues and to see if we can inaugurate some debate? If so, then we need ideas and discussion. I will quite happily get on with my life and let this blog drift along in CyberSpace. However, if my report has proved interesting and the questions that I have posed might provoke some answers, then comment below and post your thoughts!

WE are waiting to hear from YOU!

Standing by

Yours in faith

Tony