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Monday, March 28, 2011

Rakyat Jepun Dikagumi

Oleh KHAIRUL ABIDIN NUAR
utusanperak@utusan.com.my

IPOH 27 Mac - Jepun kini menjadi inspirasi dunia bukan hanya kerana perkembangan teknologinya tetapi kecekalan rakyatnya berdepan malapetaka besar.

Raja Muda Perak, Raja Dr. Nazrin Shah bertitah, rakyat Jepun membuktikan bahawa manusia mampu meneruskan hidup dengan mempamerkan sifat keberanian, kecekalan, ketenangan dan kemurahan hati yang menjadi nilai budaya mereka selama ini.

"Penduduk di wilayah yang terjejas teruk tidak teragak-agak untuk membantu orang lain meskipun rumah serta harta milik mereka sendiri musnah dibawa arus.


"Walaupun mereka mempunyai pelbagai sebab untuk menitiskan air mata, mereka melakukannya secara terkawal. Mereka mempunyai sifat semulajadi untuk tetap tenang dan bersikap hormat dan sopan," titah baginda.

Baginda bertitah demikian pada majlis bersama komuniti Jepun di Perak yang turut dihadiri Menteri Besar, Datuk Seri Dr. Zambry Abd. Kadir dan Konsul Jeneral Pejabat Konsulat Jepun di Pulau Pinang, Tetsuro Kai di sini hari ini.

Pada majlis tersebut, baginda menyampaikan bantuan sumbangan sebanyak RM687,000 kepada Tabung Bencana NSTP-Media Prima bagi membantu mangsa tragedi gempa bumi dan tsunami yang melanda Jepun pada 11 Mac lalu.

Antara pihak yang memberi sumbangan tersebut ialah Yayasan Sultan Azlan Shah, kerajaan negeri Perak, Sunway City Berhad, Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad serta UMNO Perak.

Baginda bertitah, meskipun terdapat 500,000 orang penduduk Jepun dipindahkan dari rumah mereka akibat bencana itu, namun tidak wujud sebarang kejadian rusuhan, asakan mahupun desakan tidak puas hati.

Menurut baginda, lelaki dan wanita yang sihat di negara itu membawa bekalan kepada mangsa lain selain sanggup menyerahkan catuan makanan kepada keluarga yang mempunyai anak dan warga emas.

"Ketenangan mangsa yang berbaris panjang untuk mendapatkan makanan, minuman dan minyak mengatasi keganasan gempa bumi yang menggegarkan negara itu. Kemesraan mereka juga mampu melawan cuaca sejuk yang perlu ditempuh," titah baginda.

Baginda turut menyampaikan rasa simpati Sultan Perak, Sultan Azlan Shah dan Raja Permaisuri Perak, Tuanku Bainun serta seluruh rakyat negeri ini kepada Maharaja Jepun, Maharaja Akihito dan Maharani Michiko serta seluruh rakyat Jepun atas tragedi yang menimpa negara itu.

http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/info.asp?y=2011&dt=0328&pub=Utusan_Malaysia&sec=Dalam_Negeri&pg=dn_04.htm

Monday, March 21, 2011

THE OTTOMANS

During the second Mongol invasion, Tamerlane had met and very nearly annihilated another rising power: the Ottomans. Under a minor chieftain named Othman, groups of Turkish-speaking peoples in Anatolia were united in the Ottoman confederation which, by the second half of the fourteenth century, had conquered much of present-day Greece and Turkey and was threatening Constantinople.

The Ottoman state was born on the frontier between Islam and the Byzantine Empire. Turkish tribes, driven from their homeland in the steppes of Central Asia by the Mongols, had embraced Islam and settled in Anatolia on the battle lines of the Islamic world, where they formed the Ottoman confederation. They were called ghazis, warriors for the faith, and their highest ambition was to die in battle for their adopted religion.

In addition to their military abilities the Turks seem to have been endowed with a special talent for organization. Towards the end of the Ottoman Empire, this talent fossilized into bureaucracy - and a moribund bureaucracy at that. But at the beginning, when its institutions were responsive to the needs of the people and the state, the Ottoman Empire was a model of administrative efficiency. This, together with a series of brilliant sultans - culminating in the redoubtable Suleiman the Magnificent - established the foundations of an empire that at its height was comparable to that of the Romans.

The first important step in the establishment of this empire was taken in 1326 when the Ottoman leader Orhan captured the town of Bursa, south of the Sea of Marmara, and made it his capital.

It was probably during the reign of Orhan that the famous institution of the Janissaries, a word derived from the Turkish yeni cheri ("new troops"), was formed. An elite corps of slave soldiers conscripted from the subject population of the empire, they were carefully selected on the basis of physique and intelligence, educated, trained, introduced to Islam, and formed into one of the most formidable military corps ever known. At a later period the Janissaries became so powerful that they made and unmade sultans at their will, and membership in the corps was a sure road to advancement.


Photo: The mosque at Kyustendi in Bulgaria was founded during Ottoman rule.

Orhan's successor, Murad I, who launched naval attacks upon the Aegean coasts of Europe, established himself on the European shores of the Bosporus, and crushed a Balkan coalition. The next Ottoman leader was Bayazid I, who besieged Constantinople and routed the armies dispatched by an alarmed Europe to raise the siege.

It was at this point in history that Tamerlane and his Mongols advanced into Anatolia and very nearly crushed the Ottomans forever. They recovered, however, and later, under the leadership of a new sultan, Murad II, besieged Constantinople for the second time. They were repulsed, but by 1444 they had advanced into Greece and Albania, leaving Constantinople isolated though unconquered. Murad II was succeeded by Mehmed (Muhammad) II, called "The Conqueror" because on May 29, 1453, after his artillery finally breached Constantinople's massive walls, the city fell.

After the fall of Constantinople, and during the sixteenth century, the Ottoman system evolved the centralized administrative framework by which the sultans maintained effective control over the extraordinarily diverse peoples in the vast empire.

An important part of this framework was the millet system - essentially a division of the empire into a communal system based upon religious affiliation. Each millet was relatively autonomous, was ruled by its own religious leader, and retained its own laws and customs. The religious leader, in turn, was responsible to the sultan or his representatives for such details as the payment of taxes. There were also, however, organizations which united the diverse peoples. Particularly important were the guilds of artisans which often cut across the divisions of religion and location.

There was also a territorial organization of the empire, at the upper levels of which was a unit called the muqata'ah under the control of a noble or administrator who could keep some portion of the state revenues derived from it. The amount varied with the importance of the individual noble or administrator, and he could use it as he saw fit. Such rights were also given to some administrators or governors in place of, or in addition to, salaries, thus insuring a regular collection of revenues and reducing record keeping.

The Ottoman Empire reached its peak in size and splendor under the sultan called Suleiman the Magnificent, who ruled from 1520 to 1566 and was known to the Turks as Suleiman the Law-Giver. But from the middle of the sixteenth century on the empire began to decline. This process got under way as the office of the Grand Vizier gradually assumed more power and indifferent sultans began to neglect administration. Another factor was that the Janissaries became too strong for the sultans to control The sultans were further weakened when it became customary to bring them up and educate them in isolation and without the skills necessary to rule effectively.

Some sultans later regained power through political maneuvering and by playing off factions against one another, but as a result administration was paralyzed. When Europe found a new route to India - thus eliminating the traditional transshipment of goods through the Arab regions of the empire, revenues began to fall, triggering inflation, corruption, administrative inefficiency, and fragmentation of authority.

Temporary reforms under various sultans, and the still formidable, if weakened, military prowess of the Ottomans helped maintain their empire. As late as 1683, for example, they besieged Vienna. Nevertheless, the decline continued. Because of the increasingly disruptive part played by the Janissaries, the empire, in a series of eighteenth-century wars, slowly lost territory. Because of administrative paralysis, local governors became increasingly independent and, eventually, revolts broke out. Even the various reform movements were balked, and with the invasion of Egypt in 1798 by France it became obvious that the once powerful empire was weakening.

In 1824 Mahmud II finally broke the power of the Janissaries, brought in German advisers to restructure the army, and launched a modernization program. He also brought the semi-autonomous rulers in various provinces under control, with the exception of the defiant and able Muhammad 'Ali in Egypt. On the death of Mahmud, his sons continued his efforts with a series of reforms called the tanzimat. Some of these were no more than efforts to placate European powers - which by then had great influence on the empire's policies - but others, in education and law, were important. Again, however, the effects were temporary and the empire continued to lose territory through rebellion or foreign intervention.

By the early years of the twentieth century the Ottoman Empire was clearly in decline and was referred to as the "Sick Man of Europe." There were, however, some positive accomplishments in this period, such as the Hijaz Railway. Building the railway was undertaken in 1900 by Sultan Abdul-Hamid, as a pan-Islamic project. Completed in 1908, it permitted thousands of Muslims to make the pilgrimage in relative comfort and safety. It also helped to give the Ottoman government more effective control over its territories in western Arabia.


Photo: The Hijaz Railway, completed by the Turks in 1908, linked Damascus with Medina, eight hundred miles to the south.

During the early twentieth century too, a group called the Young Turks forced the restoration of the constitution (which had been suspended by Abdul-Hamid), eventually deposed the sultan, and again attempted to modernize the Ottoman state. The Turkish defeat in the First World War (in which the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany and the Central Powers) finally discredited the Young Turks, however, and paved the way for the success of a new nationalist movement under the leadership of an army officer named Mustafa Kemal, later known as Ataturk or "Father of the Turks." The nationalist government under Ataturk, dedicated to leading Turkey in the direction of secularism and Westernization, abolished the sultanate, declared a republic, and eventually (in 1924) abolished the caliphate as well

THE MONGOLS AND THE MAMLUKS

In the thirteenth century still another threat to the Muslim world appeared in the land beyond the Oxus: the Mongols. Led by Genghis Khan, a confederation of nomadic tribes which had already conquered China now attacked the Muslims. In 1220 they took Samarkand and Bukhara. By mid-century they had taken Russia, Central Europe, northern Iran, and the Caucuses, and in 1258, under Hulagu Khan, they invaded Baghdad and put an end to the remnants of the once-glorious 'Abbasid Empire. The ancient systems of irrigation were destroyed and the devastation was so extensive that agricultural recovery, even in the twentieth century, is still incomplete. Because a minor scion of the dynasty took refuge with the Mamluks in Egypt, the 'Abbasid caliphate continued in name into the sixteenth century. In effect, however, it expired with the Mongols and the capture of Baghdad. From Iraq the Mongols pressed forward into Syria and then toward Egypt where, for the first time, they faced adversaries who refused to quail before their vaunted power. These were the Mamluks, soldier-slaves from the Turkish steppe area north of the Black and Caspian Seas with a later infusion of Circassians from the region of the Caucuses Mountains.

The Mamluks had been recruited by the Ayyubids and then, like the Turkish mercenaries of the 'Abbasid caliphs, had usurped power from their enfeebled masters. Unlike their predecessors, however, they were able to maintain their power, and they retained control of Egypt until the Ottoman conquest in 1517. Militarily formidable, they were also the first power to defeat the Mongols in open combat when, in 1260, the Mongols moved against Palestine and Egypt. Alerted by a chain of signal fires stretching from Iraq to Egypt, the Mamluks were able to marshal their forces in time to meet, and crush, the Mongols at 'Ayn Jalut near Nazareth in Palestine.


Photo: The Mamluks, originally a class of soldier slaves, seized power in Egypt in the thirteenth century and stood fast against the Mongols.

In the meantime, the Mongols, like so many of the peoples who had come into contact with Islam, had begun to embrace it. At the dawn of the fourteenth century, Ghazan Khan Mahmud officially adopted Islam as the religion of the state, and for a time peace descended on the eastern portion of the Mongol empire. During this period the Mongols built mosques and schools and patronized scholarship of all sorts. But then, in 1380, a new Turko-Mongol confederation was hammered together by another world conqueror: Tamerlane, who claimed descent from Genghis Khan. Under Tamerlane, the Mongol forces swept down on Central Asia, India, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, occupying Aleppo and Damascus and threatening - but not defeating - the Mamluks. Once again, however, the Muslims survived their invaders. Tamerlane died on his way to conquer China, and his empire melted away.

Politically and economically, the Mongol invasions were disastrous. Some regions never fully recovered and the Muslim empire, already weakened by internal pressures, never fully regained its previous power. The Mongol invasions, in fact, were a major cause of the subsequent decline that set in throughout the heartland of the Arab East. In their sweep through the Islamic world the Mongols killed or deported numerous scholars and scientists and destroyed libraries with their irreplaceable works. The result was to wipe out much of the priceless cultural, scientific, and technological legacy that Muslim scholars had been preserving and enlarging for some five hundred years.

THE LEGACY

The foundation of this legacy was the astonishing achievements of Muslim scholars, scientists, craftsmen, and traders during the two hundred years or so that are called the Golden Age. During this period, from 750 to 950, the territory of the Muslim Empire encompassed present-day Iran, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Palestine, North Africa, Spain, and parts of Turkey and drew to Baghdad peoples of all those lands in an unparalleled cross-fertilization of once isolated intellectual traditions.

Geographical unity, however, was but one factor. Another was the development of Arabic, by the ninth century, into the language of international scholarship as well as the language of the Divine Truth. This was one of the most significant events in the history of ideas.

A third important factor was the establishment in Baghdad of a paper mill. The introduction of paper, replacing parchment and papyrus, was a pivotal advance which had effects on education and scholarship as far reaching as the invention of printing in the fifteenth century. It made it possible to put books within the reach of everyone.

Unlike the Byzantines, with their suspicion of classical science and philosophy, the Muslims were enjoined by the Prophet to "seek learning as far as China" - as, eventually, they did. In the eighth century, however, they had a more convenient source: the works of Greek scientists stored in libraries in Constantinople and other centers of the Byzantine empire. In the ninth century the Caliph al-Mamun, son of the famous Harun al-Rashid, began to tap that invaluable source. With the approval of the Byzantine emperor, he dispatched scholars to select and bring back to Baghdad Greek scientific manuscripts for translation into Arabic at Bayt al-Hikmah, "the House of Wisdom."

Bayt al-Hikmah was a remarkable assemblage of scholar-translators who undertook a Herculean task: to translate into Arabic all of what had survived of the philosophical and scientific tradition of the ancient world and incorporate it into the conceptual framework of Islam.

As the early scholars in the Islamic world agreed with Aristotle that mathematics was the basis of all science, the scholars of the House of Wisdom first focused on mathematics. Ishaq ibn Hunayn and Thabit ibn Qurrah, for example, prepared a critical edition of Euclid's Elements, while other scholars translated a commentary on Euclid originally written by a mathematician and inventor from Egypt, and still others translated at least eleven major works by Archimedes, including a treatise on the construction of a water clock. Other translations included a book On mathematical theory by Nichomachus of Gerasa, and works by mathematicians like Theodosius of Tripoli, Apollonius Pergacus, Theon, and Menelaus, all basic to the great age of Islamic mathematical speculation that followed.

The first great advance on the inherited mathematical tradition was the introduction of "Arabic" numerals, which actually originated in India and which simplified calculation of all sorts and made possible the development of algebra. Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwaraznli seems to have been the first to explore their use systematically, and wrote the famous Kitab al-Jabr wa-l-Muqabalah, the first book on algebra, a name derived from the second word in his title. One of the basic meanings of jabr in Arabic is "bonesetting," and al-Khwarazmi used it as a graphic description of one of the two operations he uses for the solution of quadratic equations.

The scholars at Bayt al-Hikmah also contributed to geometry, a study recommended by Ibn Khaldun, the great North African historian, because "it enlightens the intelligence of the man who cultivates it and gives him the habit of thinking exactly." The men most responsible for encouraging the study of geometry were the sons of Musa ibn Shakir, al-Mamurl's court astronomer. Called Banu Musa - "the sons of Musa" - these three men, Muhammad, Ahmad, and al-Hasan, devoted their lives and fortunes to the quest for knowledge. They not only sponsored translations of Greek works, but wrote a series of important original studies of their own, one bearing the impressive title The Measurement of the Sphere, Trisection of the Angle, and Determination of Two Mean Proportionals to Form a Single Division between Two Given Quantities.

The Banu Musa also contributed works on celestial mechanics and the atom, helped with such practical projects as canal construction, and in addition recruited one of the greatest of the ninth-century scholars, Thabit ibn Qurrah.

During a trip to Byzantium in search of manuscripts, Muhammad ibn Musa happened to meet Thabit ibn Qurrah, then a money changer but also a scholar in Syriac, Greek, and Arabic. Impressed by Thabit's learning, Muhammad personally presented him to the caliph, who was in turn so impressed that he appointed Thabit court astrologer. As Thabit's knowledge of Greek and Syriac was unrivaled, he contributed enormously to the translation of Greek scientific writing and also produced some seventy original works - in mathematics, astronomy, astrology, ethics, mechanics, music, medicine, physics, philosophy, and the construction of scientific instruments.

Although the House of Wisdom originally concentrated on mathematics, it did not exclude other subjects. One of its most famous scholars was Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Ishaq's father - known to the West as Joanitius - who eventually translated the entire canon of Greek medical works into Arabic, including the Hippocratic oath. Later a director of the House of Wisdom, Hunayn also wrote at least twenty-nine original treatises of his own on medical topics, and a collection of ten essays on ophthalmology which covered, in systematic fashion, the anatomy and physiology of the eye and the treatment of various diseases which afflict vision. The first known medical work to include anatomical drawings, the book was translated into Latin and for centuries was the authoritative treatment of the subject in both Western and Eastern universities.

Others prominent in Islamic medicine were Yuhanna ibn Masawayh, a specialist in gynecology and the famous Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi - known to the West as Rhazes. According to a bibliography of his writings al-Razi wrote 184 works, including a huge compendium of his experiments, observations, and diagnoses with the title al-Hawi, "The All-Encompassing."

A fountainhead of medical wisdom during the Islamic era, al-Razi, according to one contemporary account, was also a fine teacher and a compassionate physician, who brought rations to the poor and provided nursing for them. He was also a man devoted to common sense, as the titles of two of his works suggest. The Reason Why Some Persons and the Common People Leave a Physician Even If He Is Clever, and A Clever Physician Does Not Have the Power to Heal All Diseases, for That is Not within the Realm of Possibility.

The scholars at the House of Wisdom, unlike their modern counterparts, did not "specialize." Al-Razi, for example, was a philosopher and a mathematician as well as a physician and al-Kindi, the first Muslim philosopher to use Aristotelian logic to support Islamic dogma, also wrote on logic, philosophy, geometry, calculation, arithmetic, music, and astronomy. Among his works were such titles as An Introduction to the Art of Music, The Reason Why Rain Rarely Falls in Certain Places, The Cause of Vertigo, and Crossbreeding the Dove.

Another major figure in the Islamic Golden Age was al-Farabi, who wrestled with many of the same philosophical problems as al-Kindi and wrote The Perfect City, which illustrates to what degree Islam had assimilated Greek ideas and then impressed them with its own indelible stamp. This work proposed that the ideal city be founded on moral and religious principles from which would flow the physical infrastructure. The Muslim legacy included advances in technology too. Ibn al-Haytham, for example, wrote The Book of Optics, in which he gives a detailed treatment of the anatomy of the eye, correctly deducing that the eye receives light from the object perceived and laying the foundation for modern photography. In the tenth century he proposed a plan to dam the Nile. It was by no means theoretical speculation; many of the dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts constructed at this time throughout the Islamic world still survive.

Photo: At Hama in Syria, antique wooden wheels still lift the waters of the Orontes to gardens, baths, and cooling fountains.

Muslim engineers also perfected the waterwheel and constructed elaborate underground water channels called qanats. Requiring a high degree of engineering skill, qanats were built some fifty feet underground with a very slight inclination over long distances to tap underground water and were provided with manholes so that they could be cleaned and repaired.

Agricultural advances are also part of the Muslim legacy. Important books were written on soil analysis, water, and what kinds of crops were suited to what soil. Because there was considerable interest in new varieties - for nutritive and medicinal purposes - many new plants were introduced: sorghum, for example, which had recently been discovered in Africa.

The introduction of numerous varieties of fruits and vegetables and other plants to the West via the Islamic empire was, however, largely the result of the vast expansion of trade during the Golden Age. This trade was vital; in the central lands of the 'Abbasid empire natural resources such as metals and wood were scarce, and increases in urban populations had outstripped the capacity of the agricultural system to support them. The 'Abbasids, therefore, were forced to develop extensive and complicated patterns of trade. To obtain food, for example, Baghdad had to import wheat from Syria and Egypt, rice from the Fayyum in Egypt, southern Morocco, and Spain, and olive oil from Tunisia. Called "a forest of olive trees," Tunisia exported so much olive oil that its port of Sfax was called "the port of oil."

To obtain scarce metals the 'Abbasids had to turn elsewhere. They imported the technologically advanced "ondanique" steel from India, for example, and then processed it at such famous centers of weapons manufacture as Damascus and Toledo, both of which cities won fame for their blades. The 'Abbasids also imported iron from Europe, tin from the British Isles and Malaya, and silver from northern Iran, Afghanistan, and the Caucuses. For gold, once the vast quantities in the treasuries of the conquered countries were exhausted, they turned to several sources. One was the gold mines of the Hijaz which were reopened around 750, reworked for about four hundred years, and then, in 1931, explored again by Karl Twitchell, who was searching for minerals in that area on behalf of King 'Abd al-'Aziz of Saudi Arabia.

For these necessities the 'Abbasid traders exchanged a wide variety of products: pearls, livestock, paper, sugar, and (a specialty of the Islamic world) luxurious cloth. The traditional cloths were wool and linen - the latter an Egyptian specialty since ancient times - but cotton, which was introduced into upper Iraq about the time of the Prophet, later spread with Islam around the Mediterranean, to Syria, North Africa, Spain, Sicily, Cyprus, and Crete.

The cloth trade produced a number of auxiliary exports: gold and silver thread for embroidery, gum from the Sudan for glazing, and needles, looms, and dyestuffs. Closely connected with the trade in dyestuffs was the trade in medicines, an offshoot of 'Abbasid advances in medicine and the spread of hospitals in all major Islamic cities. As scientific research and translation of medical texts from India and possibly even China expanded the earlier pharmacopoeia, ingredients for medicines were brought from all over the known world and also reexported.

Because the religious, political, and military achievements of the Islamic period loom so large in the history of the world, the extraordinary cultural, scientific, technological, and commercial achievements are frequently obscured or overlooked. Yet these advances were, in fact, of enduring significance to mankind as a whole. The destruction by the Mongols of many of these achievements and of much of what the Muslims had accomplished by the end of the Golden Age was a tragic loss for the world as a whole.

Architectural monuments spanning a thousand years bear witness to the spread of Islam.


Photo: Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock, built in 691-692.


Photo: Purity of line characterizes the late twelfth century Kutubiyah Mosque of the Berbers in Marrakesh.


Photo: Water courses and fountains make an oasis of the Alhambra palace built at Granada in the fourteenth century Here incredibly light and elegant elements of Islamic decoration find their highest realization.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

THE SELJUK TURKS

THE SELJUK TURKS:

Although individual Turkish generals had already gained considerable, and at times decisive, power in Mesopotamia and Egypt during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the coming of the Seljuks signaled the first large-scale penetration of the Turkish elements into the Middle East. Descended from a tribal chief named Seljuk, whose homeland lay beyond the Oxus River near the Aral Sea, the Seljuks not only developed a highly effective fighting force but also, through their close contacts with Persian court life in Khorasan and Transoxania, attracted a body of able administrators. Extending from Central Asia to the Byzantine marches in Asia Minor, the Seljuk state under its first three sultans- Tughril Beg, Alp-Arslan, and Malikshah- established a highly cohesive, well-administered Sunni state under the nominal authority of the 'Abbasid caliphs at Baghdad.

One of the administrators, the Persian Nizam-al-Mulk, became one of the greatest statesmen of medieval Islam. For twenty years, especially during the rule of Sultan Malikshah, he was the true custodian of the Seljuk state. In addition to having administrative abilities, he was an accomplished stylist whose book on statecraft, Siyasat-Namah, is a valuable source for the political thought of the time. In it he stresses the responsibilities of the ruler: for example, if a man is killed because a bridge is in disrepair, it is the fault of the ruler, for he should make it his business to apprise himself of the smallest negligences of his underlings. Nizam-al-Mulk, furthermore, was a devout and orthodox Muslim who established a system of madrasahs or theological seminaries (called nizamiyah after the first element of his name) to provide students with free education in the religious sciences of Islam, as well as in the most advanced scientific and philosophical thought of the time. The famous theologian al-Ghazali whose greatest work, the Revival of the Sciences of Religion, was a triumph of Sunni theology taught for a time at the nizamiyah schools at Baghdad and at Nishapur. Nizam-al-Mulk was the patron of the poet and astronomer 'Umar al-Khayyam (Omar Khayyam), whose verses, as translated by Edward FitzGerald in the nineteenth century, have become as familiar to English readers as the sonnets of Shakespeare.

After the death of Malikshah in 1092, internal conflict among the young heirs led to the fragmentation of the Seljuks' central authority into smaller Seljuk states led by various members of the family, and still smaller units led by regional chieftains, no one of whom was able to unite the Muslim world as still another force appeared in the Middle East: the Crusaders.

The most imposing of the many fortresses built by the Crusaders the elegant Krak des Chevaliers in Syria (top) held out against the Muslims for over a century and a half. The Crusader castle at Sidon in Lebanon (below) was abandoned after the final defeat of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.

THE CRUSADERS

THE CRUSADERS:

To Arab historians, the Crusaders were a minor irritant, their invasion one more barbarian incursion, not nearly as serious a threat as the Mongols were to prove in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

The First Crusade began in 1095 after the Byzantines - threatened by Seljuk power- appealed to Pope Urban II for military aid. Pope Urban, hoping to divert the Christian kings and princes from their struggles with each other, and perhaps also seeing an opportunity to reunite the Eastern and Western churches, called for a "Truce of God" among the rulers of Europe and urged them to take the Holy Land from the Muslims.

Photo: The most impossing of the many fortresses built by the crusaders, the elegant krak des Chevailers in Syria held out against the Muslims for over a century and a half.

Considered dispassionately, the venture was impossible. The volunteers - a mixed assemblage of kings, nobles, mercenaries, and adventurers - had to cross thousands of miles of unfamiliar and hostile country and conquer lands of whose strength they had no conception. Yet so great was their fervor that in 1099 they took Jerusalem, establishing along the way principalities in Antioch, Edessa, and Tripoli. Although unable to fend off the Crusaders at first - even offering the Crusaders access to Jerusalem if they would come as pilgrims rather than invaders - the Muslims eventually began to mount effective counterattacks. They recaptured Aleppo and besieged Edessa, thus bringing on the unsuccessful Second Crusade.

In the meantime the Crusaders - or Franks, the Arabs called them - had extended their reach to the borders of Egypt, where the Fatimids had fallen after two hundred years. There they faced a young man called Salah al-Din (Saladin) who had founded still another new dynasty, the Ayyubids, and who was destined to blunt the thrust of the Crusaders' attack. In 1187 Saladin counterattacked, eventually recapturing Jerusalem. The Europeans mounted a series of further crusading expeditions against the Muslims over the next hundred years or so, but the Crusaders never again recovered the initiative. Confined to the coast, they ruled small areas until their final defeat at the hands of the Egyptian Mamluks at the end of the thirteenth century.
Photo: The Crusader castle at Sidon in Lebanon was abandoned after the final defeat of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Although the Crusades achieved no lasting results in terms of military conquest, they were important in the development of trade, and their long-range effects on Western society - on everything from feudalism to fashion - are inestimable. Ironically, they also put an end to the centuries-old rivalry between the Arabs and Byzantines. By occupying Constantinople, the capital of their Christian allies, in the Fourth Crusade, the Crusaders achieved what the Arabs had been trying to do from the early days of Islam. Although the Byzantine Empire continued until 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks, it never recovered its former power after the Fourth Crusade, and subsisted only in the half-light of history during its remaining years.

For the West, however, the Crusaders' greatest achievement was the opening of the eastern Mediterranean to European shipping. The Venetians and Genoese established trading colonies in Egypt, and luxury goods of the East found their way to European markets. In the history of the Middle Ages, this was far more important than ephemeral conquests. Control of the Eastern trade became a constantly recurring theme in later relations between the European countries and the East, and in the nineteenth century was to lead to widespread Western intervention.

http://www.islamicity.com/education/ihame/default.asp?Destination=/education/ihame/10.asp

THE GOLDEN AGE

THE GOLDEN AGE:

The early 'Abbasids were also fortunate in the caliber of their caliphs, especially after Harun al-Rashid came to the caliphate in 786. His reign is now the most famous in the annals of the 'Abbasids - partly because of the fictional role given him in The Thousand and One Nights (portions of which probably date from his reign), but also because his reign and those of his immediate successors marked the high point of the 'Abbasid period. As the Arab chronicles put it, Harun al-Rashid ruled when the world was young, a felicitous description of what in later times has come to be called the Golden Age of Islam.

The Golden Age was a period of unrivaled intellectual activity in all fields: science, technology, and (as a result of intensive study of the Islamic faith) literature - particularly biography, history, and linguistics. Scholars, for example, in collecting and reexamining the hadith, or "traditions" - the sayings and actions of the Prophet - compiled immense biographical detail about the Prophet and other information, historic and linguistic, about the Prophet's era. This led to such memorable works as Sirat Rasul Allah, the "Life of the Messenger of God," by Ibn Ishaq, later revised by Ibn Hisham; one of the earliest Arabic historical works, it was a key source of information about the Prophet's life and also a model for other important works of history such as al-Tabari's Annals of the Apostles and the Kings and his massive commentary on the Quran.

Photo: Persian miniature depicts students with a teacher of astronomy - one of the sciences to which scholars of the Golden Age made great contributions.

'Abbasid writers also developed new a genres of literature such as adab, the embodiment of sensible counsel, sometimes in the form of animal fables; a typical example is Kalilah wa-Dimnah, translated by Ibn al-Muqaffa' from a Pahlavi version of an Indian work. Writers of this period also studied tribal traditions and wrote the first systematic Arabic grammars.

During the Golden Age Muslim scholars also made important and original contributions to mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and chemistry. They collected and corrected previous astronomical data, built the world's first observatory, and developed the astrolabe, an instrument that was once called "a mathematical jewel." In medicine they experimented with diet, drugs, surgery, and anatomy, and in chemistry, an outgrowth of alchemy, isolated and studied a wide variety of minerals and compounds.

Important advances in agriculture were also made in the Golden Age. The 'Abbasids preserved and improved the ancient network of wells, underground canals, and waterwheels, introduced new breeds of livestock, hastened the spread of cotton, and, from the Chinese, learned the art of making paper, a key to the revival of learning in Europe in the Middle Ages.

The Golden Age also, little by little, transformed the diet of medieval Europe by introducing such plants as plums, artichokes, apricots, cauliflower, celery, fennel, squash, pumpkins, and eggplant, as well as rice, sorghum, new strains of wheat, the date palm, and sugarcane.

Photo: Muslim scientists developed the astrolabe, an instrument used long before the invention of the sextant to observe the position of celestial bodies.

Many of the advances in science, literature, and trade which took place during the Golden Age of the 'Abbasids and which would provide the impetus for the European Renaissance reached their flowering during the caliphate of al-Mamun, son of Harun al-Rashid and perhaps the greatest of all the 'Abbasids. But politically the signs of decay were already becoming evident. The province of Ifriqiyah - North Africa west of Libya and east of Morocco - had fallen away from 'Abbasid control during the reign of Harun al-Rashid, and under al-Mamun other provinces soon broke loose also. When, for example, al-Mamun marched from Khorasan to Baghdad, he left a trusted general named Tahir ibn al-Husayn in charge of the eastern province. Tahir asserted his independence of the central government by omitting mention of the caliph's name in the mosque on Friday and by striking his own coins - acts which became the standard ways of expressing political independence. From 821 onward Tahir and his descendants ruled Khorasan as an independent state, with the tacit consent of the 'Abbasids.

Al-Mamun died in 833, in the town of Tarsus, and was succeeded by his brother, al-Mu'tasim, under whose rule the symptoms of decline that had manifested themselves earlier grew steadily worse. As he could no longer rely on the loyalty of his army, al-Mu'tasim recruited an army of Turks from Transoxania and Turkestan. It was a necessary step, but its outcome was dominance of the caliphate by its own praetorian guard. In the years following 861, the Turks made and unmade rulers at will, a trend that accelerated the decline of the central authority. Although the religious authority of the 'Abbasid caliphate remained unchallenged, the next four centuries saw political power dispersed among a large number of independent states: Tahirids, Saffarids, Samanids, Buwayhids, Ziyarids, and Ghaznavids in the east; Hamdanids in Syria and northern Mesopotamia; and Tulunids, Ikhshidids, and Fatimids in Egypt.

Photo: Books of fables, often illustrated, served a dual purpose to instruct and to entertain.

Some of these states made important contributions to Islamic culture. Under the Samanids, the Persian language, written in the Arabic alphabet, first reached the level of a literary language and poets like Rudaki, Daqiqi, and Firdausi flourished. The Ghaznavids patronized al-Biruni, one of the greatest and most original scholars of medival Islam, and the Hamdanids, a purely Arab dynasty, patronized such poets as al-Mutanabbi and philosophers like the great al-Farabi, whose work kept the flame of Arab culture alive in a difficult period. But in historical terms, only the Fatimids rivaled the preceding dynasties.

http://www.islamicity.com/education/ihame/default.asp?Destination=/education/ihame/7.asp

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Minum Berdiri Dan Keajaiban Air Zam-Zam


Islam telah menetapkan adab bagi umatnya dalam melakukan sesuatu kegiatan bagi mendapat kesejahteraan. Begitu juga islam telah menetapkan adab-adab ketika minum. Permasalahan berkaitan minum berdiri ini telah menyebabkan ulama berbeza pendapat mengenai hukum minum berdiri itu. Hadis yang menunjukkan tegahan minum berdiri ialah hadis yang diriwayat oleh muslim iaitu:
Terjemahan: dari anas, sesungguhnya nabi Muhammad saw melarang minum berdiri.

Hadis ini merupakan hadis yang diriwayatkan oleh muslim didalam kitab minuman, bab tegahan minum berdiri, hadis yang ke 3771. Hadis ini menjelaskan larangan yang berbentuk tegahan minum secara berdiri. Namun ulama telah berselisih pendapat mengenai larangan minum berdiri ini. Ibn qym berpendapat hukum minum berdiri ini adalah haram dan hanya dibenarkan sekiranya terdapat halangan yang menghalangnya minum secara duduk

Namun beberapa fuqaha seperti imam malik berpendapat laranagn ini telah dimansukhkan dengan hadis Ibn Abbas iaitu:

Terjemahan: dari Ibn Abbas berkata, aku memberi air zam-zam kepada Rasulullah saw, lalu baginda meminumnya sambil berdiri( riwayat muslim).

Hadis ini merupakan hadis yang diriwayatkan oleh muslim didalam kitab minuman, bab minum air zam-zam berdiri, hadis ke 3776. Hadis ini menunjukkan rasulullah minum air zam-zam dalam keadaan berdiri. Imam malik telah memansukhkan hadis yang pertama tadi dengan hadis ini yang menunjukkan minum berdiri bukan haram. Perkataan nabi melarang minum berdiri itu, menurut zahirnya larangan minum sambil berdiri itu. Tetapi hadis ibnu abbas menunjukkan bolehnya minum berdiri. Al-Mazuri berkata, orang-orang yang berselisih pendapat dalam masalah ini ialah jumhur yang berpendapat boleh minum berdiri dan pendapat yang lain berpendapat makruh.

Hadis dari anas merupakan hadis sunnah qauliyah manakala hadis dari Ibn Abbas merupakan hadis sunnah fi’liyyah. Apabila kedua-dua hadis ini bertembung, maka yang menjadi dasar hukum ialah hadis sunnah qauliyah, manakala hadis sunnah fi’liyyah berperanan menafsirkan maksud sebenar yang terkandung dalam hadis sunnah qauliyah tersebut. Ini bererti tegahan pada hadis anas tadi bukan membawa maksud haram, tetapi makruh.

Nawawi berkata yang sebenarnya, larangan yang di maksudkan itu adalah untuk kebersihan dan perbuatan nabi minum berdiri itu menjelaskan bolehnya minum berdiri dan tidak haram.

Berdasarkan pada hadis yang menegah minum berdiri itu, dapat di lihat mengapa rasulullah saw menegah kita minum berdiri. Di antara sebab di larang minum berdiri ialah, menurut pakar perubatan Dr Abdul Razzak Al-Kailani “Sesungguhnya makan dan minum duduk lebih baik dr segi kesihatan, lebih selamat, lebih puas; dimana makanan dan minuman lalu di dinding perut dgn tenang. Adapun minum berdiri menyebab cecair akan jatuh ke dasar perut dgn keras dan akan melanggar lapisan perut. Kalau perkara ini selalu berlaku dan lama masa berlalu akan menyebabkan perut akan longgar dan jatuh sehingga menyebabkan susah nak hadam. Begitu juga dgn makanan.

Menurut pandangan Dr Ibrahim Ar-Rawi, apabila seseorang itu berdiri ototnya menjadi tegang (strain) dan pada masa yang sama sisitem imbangan pada sistem saraf pusat (central nervous system) dalam keadaan terlampau aktif mengawal semua otot, untuk melakukan proses pengimbangan dan berdiri tegak. Ia adalah proses gabungan diantara sistem saraf dan sistem otot dlm satu masa yg menyebabkan manusia tidak mampu mendapat kerehatan anggota. Kerehatan otot adalah syarat yg terpenting ketika makan dan minum dan wujud ketika mana duduk. Apabila duduk maka sistem saraf dan sistem otot dlm keadaan tenang dan sensation (rasa) akan menjadi aktif serta sistem penghadaman akan bertambahnya kemampuan (ability) untuk menerima makanan dan minuman dan akan menyerap (assimilation) makanan dengan cara yang betul. Namun demikian diharuskan berdiri ditempat yg tak sesuai duduk sprti tempat yg terlampau sesak. Ini adalah kerana Nabi s.a.w pernah minum berdiri,ini berdasarkan kepada hadis Ibn Abbas yang menyatakan rasulullah minum air zam-zam berdiri.

Persoalannya di sini, mengapa rasulullah minum air zam-zam dalam keadaan berdiri. Menurut kajian pakar, air zam-zam mengandungi fluorida yang memiliki daya efektif membunuh kuman serta ia mengandungi kalsium dan garam magnesium yang tinggi berbanding air biasa, dari segi saintifik air zam-zam bersifat alkali, jadi air zam-zam boleh meneutralkan asid hidroklorik yang terhasil di dalam perut dan mengurangkan pedih ulu hati. Jadi inilah sebab rasulullah minum air zam-zam berdiri supaya air tersebut cepat dapat meneutralkan asid yang terhasil dalam perut.

Keajaiban Air Zam-Zam

Selain itu, air zam-zam juga mengandungi iodin, sulfat dan nitrat. Kandungan makronutrien yang tinggi khususnya magnesium, sodium dan potassium menyebabkan air zam-zam bersifat nutritif berbanding sumber lain, inilah yang membuatkan air zam-zam dapat menyegarkan para jemaah haji yang meminumnya dan memberi ketahanan anbodi kepada orang yang meminumnya. Di sini saya tunjukkan perbandingan unsur-unsur yang terdapat di dalam air zam-zam dengan air mineral:

PERBANDINGAN UNSUR KIMIA:
Antara air ZAM ZAM ( Mg/l ) ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,dan air MINERAL
* Klorida (cl) 159,75 ,........................................................Mineral : 30
* Sulfat (SO24) 140 ,........................................................Mineral : 27
* Nitrat (NO3) - ,.............................................................Mineral : 15
* Nitrit (NO2) 0,045 ,........................................................Mineral : -
* Bikarbonat (HCO3) 398,22,................................................Mineral : 32
* Flour (F) - ,.................................................................Mineral : 0,7
* Besi (Fe) tak terdeteksi ..................................................Mineral : 0
* Mangan (Mn) 0,014.........................................................Mineral : -
* Natrium (Na) 318,0 ,.......................................................Mineral : 20
* Kalium (Ca) 182,2 .........................................................Mineral : 3
* Zat Padat Terlarut (TDS) 858 ,...........................................Mineral : 170
* Magnesium (Mg) 6,86......................................................Mineral : 5
* Zat Organik 2,79-..........................................................Mineral : -
* Jumlah Mikro Organisme (TPK) 38 kolom/ml -.........................Mineral : -
* PH 7,3.......................................................................Mineral : 7,2

Jadual di atas kita dapat lihat perbezaan yang sangat ketara di antara unsur-unsur yang terdapat dalam air zam-zam dengan unsur yang terdapat dalam air mineral, air zam-zam mempunyai kualiti yang sangat tinggi dan tidak dapat di tandingi oleh mana-mana air.

Ustaz kemudian bercerita bahawa dia telah berkesempatan menghadiri satu seminar mengenai AIR yang berlangsung di Hotel Istana baru-baru ini yang mana kebanyakan peserta yang hadir terdiri daripada orang bukan Islam kecuali 2 orang (Ustaz Abdullah dan seorang Pensyarah dari Universiti Malaya).

Penceramahnya seorang Profesor yang pakar tentang air dari Jepun. Beliau menunjukkan hasil kajiannya mengenai air, beberapa “slide” ditunjukkan dan dipancarkan dilayar putih kepada hadirin sekelian. Sampel-sampel air yang diambil dari berbagai sumber air (sungai, laut, perigi dan bermacam lagi).

Maka terpancarlah berbagai-bagai rupa bentuk susunan molekul-molekul air tersebut. Ada yang berupa seolah-olah seperti jin tetapi samar-samar, tidak begitu jelas (dengan telinga yang besar, bertanduk dan sebagainya) rupa yang menggerunkan dan menakutkan. Lalu Profesor itu berkata “banyak lagi sampel-sampel air yang lain tetapi rupa molekul-molekulnya hampir sama, sekarang saya nak tunjukkan sampel air yang berlainan dari sampel-sampel air yang saya tunjukkan tadi”

Profesor itu pun tunjukkan, maka terpancarkan satu rupa bentuk molekul air yang tersusun cantik berupa seolah-olah seperti berlian (bersegi-segi) ,bersinar- sinar dan sinarannya mengeluarkan warna-warna yang menarik melebihi 12 warna.

MasyaAllah, cantiknya. Lalu profesor bertanya “Siapakah di antara kamu semua yang tahu sampel air apakah ini”. Hadirin semua senyap, dan kemudian, Pensyarah dari UM mengangkat tangan dan menjawab “saya rasa itu adalah sampel air zam-zam”. Profesor berkenaan memanggil Pensyarah tersebut naik ke atas dan bertanya “Berikan saya sebab kenapa awak berkata air itu adalah air zam-zam.

“Kerana air zam-zam adalah air yang termulia didunia ini” Jawab Pensyarah. Profesor berkata ”Saya tak tahu samada betul atau tidak air zam-zam itu mulia tetapi memang betul ini adalah sampel air zam-zam.”

Kemudian Professor mengatakan bahawa, kata-kata juga dapat mempengaruhi rupa bentuk molekul-molekul air. Lalu didalam dewan itu mereka membuat “experiment” bagaimanakah yang dikatakan kata-kata dapat menpengaruhi rupa bentuk molekul-molekul air. Semua hadirin dikehendaki membaca sesuatu kepada air mineral masing-masing. Lalu seorang ”volunteer” bangun untuk menguji bagaimana rupa air yang telah dibaca. Bila ditunjukkan diskrin, nampak molekul air membentuk seolah-olah seperti tokong cina (dengan janggut yg panjang dan perut yang buncit).

Bila tiba giliran Ustaz, air yang dibaca dengan Al-Fatihah, Selawat dan Ayat Kursi maka nampaklah rupa molekul air seperti berlian dan berkilau-kilau. Lalu Ustaz disuruh oleh Profesor membaca sebarang ayat/kata-kata yang tidak baik…maka nampaklah diskrin molekul air berupa seperti sel-sel barah.Subhanallah. …. daripada ceramah yang Ustaz sampaikan ini marilah kita sama-sama mengambil iktibar daripadanya. Ini adalah kata-kata dari Ustaz Abdullah :

“Jika hendak air itu merasa manis maka masukkanlah gula, jika hendak air itu berwarna maka masukkanlah pewarna dan jika hendak air itu mulia maka masukanlah ayat-ayat yang mulia kepadanya”

Ahli sains Jepun mengakui setitik air zam-zam memiliki khasiat lebih dari seribu titik dari air biasa.Walaupun telah diolah dengan pelbagai cara dan dengan peralatan yang canggih tetapi tetap tidak dapat menandingi khasiat yang terdapat pada air zam-zam. Air zam-zam adalah berkhasiat, berkat, bersih dan Penawar paling mujarab anugerah Allah S.W.T

Telaga Zamzam ialah telaga biasa yang terletak di dalam Masjidil Haram di Makkah, hampir dengan Kaabah, tempat paling suci dalam Islam. Telaga zam-zam merupakan satu-satunya sumber air bersih dari bawah tanah di Mekah satu ketika dahulu. Umat Islam sangat mengambil berat tentang air zamzam ini untuk air wuduk dan perubatan.

Telaga zamzam dalamnya 30 meter sahaja dan kedalaman air hanya 3.32 meter. Dapat bayangkan. Ada beberapa punca mata air di bawah 13 meter. Ujian mengeluarkan air pada kelajuan 8000 liter/second selama tempoh 24 jam menunjukkan paras air surut dari para 3.23 meter kepada 12.72 meter dan kemudian 13.39 meter selepas itu. Paras air kembali normal ke paras 3.9 meter selepas 11 minit.

Selain itu diantara kelebihan air zam-zam ialah apabila peminumnya berniat menjadikannya sebagai penawar nescaya allah akan menyembuhkannya atau dengan niat untuk mendapatkan pertolongan nescaya allah akan menolong. Oleh sebab inilah rasulullah telah mengajarkan beberapa kaedah dan doa apabila hendak minum air zam-zam ini supaya mendapat keberkatan dari Allah.

Air zam-zam juga mempunyai kelebihan dimana mata airnya tidak pernah kering, walaupun berjuta-juta umat manusia meminumnya setiap hari terutamanya pada musim haji, bahkan pada masa kini dengan peralatan canggih orang yang berada di masjid nabawi yang jaraknya 450km dari mekah dapat meminum air zam-zam setiap saat dan ianya tidak pernah berkurang apatah lagi kering. Ini menunjukkan keistimewaan yang terdapat pada air zam-zam.

Di bawah ini (kanan) saya tunjukkan bukti hasil kajian Dr Emoto. Ini merupakan molekul yang di hasilkan oleh air zam-zam.

Cuba teliti gambar ini,jelas menunjukkan molekul air zam-zam ini berkilau sperti Kristal dan sangat menarik. Ini menunjukkan keistimewaan dan kelebihan yang terdapat pada air zam-zam ini. Molekul ini sangat menarik dan bercahaya.

Selain itu menurut Dr Emoto bahawa, kata-kata atau ucapan juga dapat mempengaruhi rupa bentuk molekul-molekul air. Molekul air berubah mengikut apa yang diucapkan oleh manusia. Profesor Jepun ini telah mengkaji struktur air yang diucapkan dengan beberapa perkataan seperti ‘arigato-khozaimas’, ‘Thank You’, ‘I am sorry’, ‘Go to the hell!’, lirik lagu Linkin Park, dan beberapa lagi termasuk alunan surah Yaasin. Selepas air didedahkan dengan perkataan yang dipilih, strukturnya dianalisa menggunakan mikroskop. Hasilnya air yang dianalisis menunjukkan struktur yang amat menarik. Perkataan yang sopan menghasilkan struktur air yang cantik, sejuk mata memandang dan lebih teratur. Sebaliknya imej air yang kotor dan menjijikkan terhasil apabila terdedah kepada perkataan biadab. Di sini saya akan menunjukkan beberapa hasil gambar molekul yang telah di kaji.
Ini diantara bukti kajian yang dilakukan oleh Dr Emoto:


Gambar diatas kita dapat melihat perbezaan yang ketara kedua-dua molekul air tersebut, air yang diucapkan dengan perkataan yang baik menghasilkan struktur yang cantik dan menarik tetapi sebaliknya berlaku kepada air yang diucapkan dengan perkataan biadap.


Bebarapa contoh air mineral , air paip dan air yang telah di tapis di uji dengan alat water Electrolysis tester bagi menguji tahap kebersihannya.


Setelah di uji, di dapati air-air tersebut masih terdapat kekotoron yang tidak nampak (sebelum di uji).


Tetapi setelah di uji beginilah hasilnya.Hatta, air yang sudah di tapis dengan penapis berjenama pun tidak berkesan.( masih terdapat kekotoran )

Apabila di uji kepada air zam-zam ini, subahanallah, tidak sampai 5 saat,water Electrolysis tester meletup dan fiusnya terbakar.


Ini menunjukkan air zam-zam tidak lagi dapat di pertikaikan kesuciannya.

Jadi inilah hikmah kita di tuntut membaca bismillah dan doa ketika hendak makan atau minum, supaya kita mendapat keberkatan dari allah. Molekul-molekul air ini akan mempengaruhi apa yang kita ucapkan.

Jadi kesimpulan yang dapat dibuat disini ialah hendaklah kita duduk kita hendak makan atau minum kerana ia membawa lebih banyak kebaikkan kepada manusia. Tetapi minum berdiri bukanlah membawa maksud haram Cuma makruh mengikut beberapa pendapat dan mengikut jumhur ianya di bolehkan. Selain itu,kita hendaklah membaca bismillah dan doa semasa hendak makan atau minum supaya mendapat keberkatan dari Allah.

Dapat juga di simpulkan di sini bahawa air zam-zam itu mempunyai banyak keberkatan dan kelebihan padanya, dan ianya merupakan air yang paling mulia, padanya mempunyai banyak khasiat dan keberkatan dari allah. Jadilah kita haruslah mengikut apa yang telah di anjurkan oleh Rasulullah ketika hendak minum air zam-zam supaya kita memperoleh barakah daripadanya.

http://www.tkodaily.net/v4/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=112

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Buku Muhammad ubah hidup Davis

Susunan SITI AINIZA KAMSARI

MUSTAFA Davis (kiri) bersama Khadim (tengah) dan Usama Canon yang kembali bertemu dalam ikatan persaudaraan Islam yang murni baru-baru ini.

PERTEMUAN dua sahabat, iaitu Mustafa Davis dengan Usama Canon hampir 15 tahun dahulu bukan sekadar satu kebetulan. Ia lebih kepada suratan ilahi yang akhirnya membawa kedua-dua memeluk Islam melalui satu catatan perjalanan yang agak menarik.

Bermula dengan Davis yang menegur Canon ketika mereka mengikuti kelas Bahasa Sepanyol dan duduk pula bersebelahan menyebabkan mereka akhirnya menjadi kawan akrab.

Lebih-lebih lagi kedua-duanya berkongsi minat yang sama dalam bidang muzik dan budaya.

Mereka sering bermain piano di kampus berjam-jam lamanya yang diselang-seli dengan perbincangan terutamanya dalam soal-soal kepercayaan dan spiritual.

Sehinggalah pada suatu hari Davis perlu meminta pendapat Canon mengenai hasratnya untuk kembali ke jalan kehidupan yang benar. Kala itu, Davis tinggal seorang diri di San Jose. Pada sebelah malam dia bekerja sementara, siang ke kuliah.

"Saya merasakan kehidupan masa lalu sering menjadi beban dan selalu menghantui hidup.

"Saya beritahu Canon saya sedang mempertimbangkan untuk kembali pada Katholik, untuk memperbaiki hidup," katanya.

Namun Canon bertanya sama ada sahabatnya itu pernah mendengar dan terfikir mengenai Islam?

"Saya jawab tidak pernah, kerana saya merasa Islam hanyalah agama untuk orang Arab atau agama kelompok pemisah kulit hitam," katanya.

Mendengar jawapan itu, Canon, seorang penganut Kristian bertanyakan pula sama ada dia pernah mendengar mengenai Nabi Muhammad SAW.

Davis menjawab dia hanya kenal atau mendengar nama Elijah Muhammad sahaja. Manakala Nabi Muhammad SAW yang beliau tahu berasal dari bangsa Arab dan agamanya yang dibawanya adalah untuk orang Arab sahaja.

Sehinggalah pada suatu malam, Davis singgah ke sebuah kedai buku untuk membeli kitab Injil - sebagai permulaan untuk kembali kepada ajaran Kristian.

Namun, matanya terus tertarik kepada sebuah buku berkulit hijau dengan Muhammad tertulis besar dalam warna tinta keemasan.

Lantas beliau terus mengambil buku yang tajuk lengkapnya ialah Muhammad - His Life Based On The Earliest Sources karya Dr. Martin Lings (seorang pakar Matematik yang memeluk Islam).

"Yang menarik perhatian saya adalah frasa earliest sources dalam judul itu. Walaupun ingin kembali kepada ajaran Katholik tetapi saya sedar ada pelbagai perdebatan secara teologi mengenai kesalahan-kesalahan yang ada dalam Injil.

"Lalu saya cuba membaca buku Dr. Martin Lings itu bagi mendapatkan sesuatu yang baru," katanya.

Namun kerana menemui banyak perkataan Arab terutamanya kalimah al-Quran yang banyak diulang dalam buku itu menyebabkan Davis mengembalikan buku itu ke raknya.

"Saya cuba membaca tetapi kerana kesukaran memahami perkataan dalam bahasa Arab maka saya rasa benarlah tanggapan saya sebelum ini bahawa Islam adalah agama untuk orang Arab sahaja," katanya.

Namun buku Dr. Ling itu bagaikan sebuah bayang yang memburu. Langkah kaki Davis dirasakan sangat berat sehinggalah dia kembali semula ke rak buku mengenai Islam. Matanya tertancap kepada sebuah buku yang tertulis tajuknya The Quran.

Ia terus mengingatkan Davis mengenai perkataan al-Quran yang kerap beliau temui dalam buku Dr. Ling sebentar tadi.

Lalu buku yang sebenarnya senaskhah terjemahan al-Quran itu dibuka dan diselak dengan penuh minat.

Kebetulan yang diselak itu adalah surah Maryam. Davis terus tertarik untuk membaca isi kandungan surah itu yang menceritakan kelahiran Nabi Isa a.s.

"Sebaik sahaja saya membaca ayat-ayat dari surah tersebut, terus dirasakan tubuh saya panas dan dingin, silih berganti.

"Malah saya tahu saya bagaikan menggigil kerana tidak menyangka Islam juga meyakini keajaiban dalam kelahiran Jesus yang diyakini dalam agama Kristian.

"Namun Islam tidak meyakini Jesus sebagai anak dari Tuhan seperti keyakinan umat Kristian," katanya.

Tidak diketahui apa sebabnya, Davis kemudiannya teresak-esak di kedai buku itu saat membaca terjemahan al-Quran.

"Akhirnya saya membeli naskhah terjemahan itu supaya dapat membaca dengan lebih banyak apa yang diyakini oleh kaum Muslimin.

"Dalam situasi perasaan yang sedang emosi itu, saya benar-benar sudah lupa untuk membeli Alkitab (Injil) dan meninggalkan toko buku itu," ujarnya.

Mahfuz: Jangan Bayar Kompaun Saman Ekor!

Jawatankuasa Kempen Anti Saman Ekor (Kase) menasihatkan mangsa saman ekor agar tidak membayar kompaun yang dikenakan biarpun tempoh promosi pembayaran berakhir hari ini,.

Harakahdaily memetik pengerusi Kase, Datuk Mahfuz Omar yang juga ahli parlimen Pokok Sena berkata, sekiranya selepas ini mereka disenarai hitam, Kase akan membantu untuk berdepan masalah berkenaan di mahkamah.

"Rakyat tidak perlu bayar, yang penting ambil insurans bawa ke JPJ (Jabatan Pengangkutan Jalan) untuk perbaharui cukai jalan, kalau JPJ tak benar, wajib pengarah JPJ kena bagi jawapan bertulis, kenapa.

"Kemudian bawa insurans dan surat itu, kalau polis tahan, biar dia saman, kita lawan di mahkamah," katanya ketika ditemui selepas membangkitkan perkara itu di parlimen semalam.

Tambahnya, keputusan sama ada seseorang itu bersalah dan perlu membayar kompaun hanya ditentukan mahkamah, dan bukan oleh notis saman yang dikeluarkan.

Menurutnya lagi, tindakan JPJ menyenarai hitam pesalah saman ekor adalah salah mengikut keputusan Mahkamah Kucing dalam kes Leonad Lim Yaw Chiang melawan Pengarah JPJ negeri Sarawak pada 2007.

Dalam kes itu hakim memutuskan bahawa tindakan JPJ menyenarai hitam mengikut Seksyen 17(1)(d) adalah tidak betul dan bertentangan dengan Perkara 13 Perlembagaan Persekutuan.

"Kita minta Peguam Negara nasihat JPJ supaya akur keputusan mahkamah iaitu tak boleh blacklist.

"Rakyat tidak boleh dipaksa membayar kompaun yang ditawarkan," katanya.

2 Mac lalu kerajaan bersetuju melanjutkan tempoh pemberian diskaun 50 peratus bagi pembayaran saman trafik bermula 1 Mac sehingga 10 Mac ini.

Menteri Dalam Negeri Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein mendakwa keputusan itu dibuat selepas mengambil kira rintihan orang ramai yang ingin menjelaskan saman itu tetapi tidak dapat berbuat demikian berikutan masalah sistem tergendala serta kesesakan di kaunter untuk membuat pembayaran.

Namun mengikut perangkaan, hanya kira-kira empat peratus atau 700,000 daripada kira-kira 17.3 juta saman telah dibayar.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Seven Phases of Prophet Muhammad's Life

The Seven Phases of Prophet Muhammad's Life
2/15/2011 - Religious Education - Article Ref: IC0405-2299
Number of comments: 20
By: Javeed Akhter
IslamiCity* -


Traditional scholarship's divides Prophet Muhammad's life into Makkan and Madinahn phases. This is chronologically valid and represents the two broad aspects of his life before and after the watershed event of the Migration. It is historically important and marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar.

Additionally I believe Muhammad's struggle can be naturally divided into seven phases. Each phase brings forth a different aspect of his personality and highlights a different facet of his mission. Studying the Messenger's mission for its various phases and analyzing its internal dynamics is important as it gives the narrative relevance for today. Since his life is better documented than the lives of other prophets and leaders of major world religions, it is possible to build this analysis on a historical foundation.

The Search for Light in a Period of Darkness: The Seeker of Truth

As his biography (Seera) is recorded we find Prophet Muhammad pondering over societal ills for years. The society he was born in was in a state of moral, religious, economic and social chaos. It is difficult to resist drawing analogies between the seventh century world and the state of the human morality in today's world at the beginning of the new millennium. The nuclear man-woman two-parent family, as a core unit of society has eroded seriously in the West. Brazen sexual exploitation in the media is commonplace and illicit sex condoned and even accepted. Violence at home, against women, children, and violence in the streets, is frightfully routine. Substance abuse is widespread, with United States as the largest consumer of drugs in the world. Alcoholism is rampant, especially among college students, with only feeble attempts being made to address the problem. African- Americans have been liberated as slaves for a century and a half, yet many are still trapped in an unending cycle of poverty and discrimination, which is in a way a form of economic slavery. Because of a system that allows unrestrained growth of wealth without encouraging proper redistribution, economic disparities and injustices continue to grow at an alarming rate.

There are many excellent characteristics in Western societies, especially in the US that include the freedom of thought, speech and assembly, a tolerant attitude toward eccentricities in human nature and an ambition to be a just and compassionate society. These qualities of the ordinary American however are not always reflected in the policy makers and political leaders.

The unraveling of the moral fabric in today's society must weigh heavily on the minds of individuals with insight. They can draw personal solace and inspiration from the Prophet's life. The Arab tribal society of the Seventh century, whose structure was based on greed, debauchery, and violence, was changed in a very short time, by the Prophet, into a society with one of the highest moral standards in history. Compassion, humility, devotion to God and egalitarianism replaced the old well-entrenched tribal attitudes of pride in wealth, family and class and self-centered behavior. Women, for the first time in history, had rights and dignity, and the vulnerable and weak sections of the society were protected. Sexuality was removed from public prurience and became private and wholesome. Wealth was re-circulated so that even the poorest segments of the society were infused with energy and indigence became nearly extinct.

The Warner and Exhorter

During one his meditative trips to a cave near Makkah, Prophet Muhammad receives the revelation. Divine revelation is the reaffirmation of the fact that celestial knowledge is essential in guiding the inherently limited human intellect. The profundity of this realization that he is the recipient of this divine revelation and the enormity of the task ahead overawes him. Initially he shares the message only with his closest family and a few loyal supporters. It is both fascinating and revealing that even the individual who would later be rated as the most influential man in human history had these initial periods of doubt and uncertainty about his mission. It was the reassurance from the Quran and the confidence and support of his wife Khadijah (may Allah be pleased with her), and his close companions which provided him the support he needs-surely a lesson for us lesser mortals!

The Stoic Optimist

The next facet of his life is of bringing about proactive change by inviting people (Dawa) to Islam. With it comes the inevitable hostility of the entrenched powers in the society. Change is always threatening, and the greater the change, the more threatening it is. This would be true of the change against any established system of practices, whether it be economic, social or behavioral. It would also be true for change in personal behavior like wearing immodest clothing, promiscuity, and consumption of intoxicants. Changing attitudes that valued pride in wealth and country or class and color of the skin over all else would also be difficult. Not surprisingly the struggle for change becomes life threatening. Muhammad (Peace be upon him) had to lay his life on the line and on several occasions the nascent Muslim community faced the possibility of total extinction. Fortitude in the face of adversity is the salient feature of this phase. The patience and stoicism Muhammad displays during this phase has been a source of strength to many a Muslim who has found himself beleaguered by apparently hopeless circumstances

The Pluralistic Leader

The Migration, which marks the beginning of the next phase, involves careful planning and meticulous execution. He demonstrates that self-help and reliance on Allah go together and are both essential for success. With his nomination by the community in Madinah to a position of leadership, he shows another facet of his personality: the capacity to create a truly pluralistic society with equity and dignity for all religious and ethnic groups. In a very short period after the Migration to Madinah, Muhammad proves he is capable of uniting various factions and setting exemplary standards of cooperation between them. He makes a seamless switch from being a person under constant persecution to a leader with a large administrative and judicial responsibility. The "Covenant (Constitution) of Madinah" that lays out the rules of living in a pluralistic society is a document that needs to be studied carefully and implemented to the fullest extent in today's inescapably multi-religious and multi-cultural world.

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The Courageous Yet Reluctant Warrior

After a brief respite, his mission is consumed by the need to fight wars of survival. These three wars in four years, Badr, Uhad and Ahzab, besides posing a physical threat, must have been extremely distracting and demanding of his time and energy. Yet the work of building the community goes on.

It is important to remember that even though faced with very aggressive proponents the Prophet and his followers never initiated or instigated any wars. Muhammad and the Muslims engaged in these battles with great discipline, avoiding injury to the innocent and using only the minimum force needed. Women, children and non-combatants were not to be harmed. When the enemy stopped fighting, he was to be given immediate sanctuary. Striking a blow in anger, even in battle, was prohibited. He uses innovative strategies in the battles, which include the use of the trench as a defense. During the digging of the trench he is an active participant. He consults frequently (Shura) with his companions and follows the majority opinion (Ijma'), even when it sometimes goes against his own judgment.

The Statesman Par Excellence and Teacher

During the next phase, he shows the capacity to compromise and demonstrates the foresight and wisdom to realize that peace, even at seemingly unfavorable terms, is better than hostility. The "Treaty of Hudaybia" also needs to be studied and emulated by all who negotiate with their opponents. The peace dividend, following this treaty with the Quraysh, is huge and results in an exponential increase in the number of Muslims.

This also allows the building of a model and just society that functions in a coherent manner. Wealth is allowed to be accumulated but has to be circulated fairly into even the tiniest capillaries of the community's economic system. It is an egalitarian society with equity and justice for all, governed by mutual consultation, equality before the law and protection of its most vulnerable members, women, children, orphans, indigents and slaves.

As illustrated by many incidents from this phase of his life, the Prophet proves to be an exemplary statesman. He mediates disputes, defuses potentially explosive situations with ease, allowing the parties to the conflict to walk away as friends and allies. He is unafraid to take risks but is never reckless and compromises for the sake of peace. His emissaries to other nations bring with them a message of cooperation seeking common ground. When he gives a pledge, he always keeps it. If the other party breaks the pledge, he does not flinch from measures that are appropriate to maintain the sanctity of the pledge.

The Compassionate Ruler and Spiritual Leader.

The final phase begins with the conquest of Makkah, which is a demonstration of meticulous planning and the use of overwhelming force to achieve a victory with practically no loss of life on either side of the battle front. The stunning magnanimity and humility shown during victory by Muhammad and his companions is unmatched in history. He is humble in victory, compassionate, and forgiving to even his most intractable opponents.

The final sermon consolidates the social, economic, and moral changes that have been brought about in the society. It is time to prepare for the end.

The anatomy of the mission, its growth and evolution in some ways parallels the various stages of human life itself. These various phases reflect not only the growing sophistication of the message but also the increasing maturity of the audience to whom the message is directed. The audience grows in its understanding of what it would take to bear the burden of passing on the message to posterity. The Prophet's mission in its most fundamental analysis was to interpret and spread the Quranic ideology. This Quran centered spirituality remains the constant theme through all of the phases of his life. The Quran says about him "Indeed there is for you in the Messenger of Allah an excellent pattern" (Quran 33:21). His wife Ayesha (may Allah be pleased with her) calls him the living embodiment of the Quran. It is this complementary bequest of the Quran and Sunna that is our special blessing.

Over time, many differences based on dogma, politics, personality cults and egos have emerged amongst the followers of Islam. In spite of many heterodox sects, the core messages of Quran, and its realization in the life of the Prophet are alive and potent, and continue to provide spiritual solace, intellectual satisfaction and societal discipline to many making Islam the fastest growing religion in the world.

Javeed Akhter, is the Executive Director of the Chicago based International Strategy and Policy Institute and he is the author of the book "The seven phases of Prophet Muhammad's Life,"

http://www.islamicity.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IC0405-2299

Muhammad in the Bible

Muhammad in the Bible
2/24/2010 - Religious Education - Article Ref: IC0404-2296
Number of comments: 117
By: Dr. Jamal Badawi
IslamiCity* -


Those who follow the Apostle, the unlettered Prophet, Whom they find mentioned in their own Scriptures, in the Torah and the Gospel... (Holy Qu'ran: VII - 157; Translation: Yusif Ali)


BIBLE PROPHECIES ABOUT THE ADVENT OF MUHAMMAD

Abraham is widely regarded as the Patriarch of monotheism and the common father of the Jews, Christians and Muslims. Through His second son, Isaac, came all Israelite prophets including such towering figures as Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus. May peace and blessings be upon them all. The advent of these great prophets was in partial fulfillment of God's promises to bless the nations of earth through the descendents of Abraham (Genesis12:2-3). Such fulfillment is wholeheartedly accepted by Muslims whose faith considers the belief in and respect of all prophets an article of faith.

BLESSINGS OF ISHMAEL AND ISAAC

Was the first born son of Abraham (Ishmael) and his descendants included in God's covenant and promise? A few verses from the Bible may help shed some light on this question;

Genesis 12:2-3 speaks of God's promise to Abraham and his descendants before any child was born to him.

Genesis 17:4 reiterates God's promise after the birth of Ishmael and before the birth of Isaac.

In Genesis, ch. 21. Isaac is specifically blessed but Ishmael was also specifically blessed and promised by God to become "a great nation" especially in Genesis 21:13, 18.

According to Deuteronomy 21:15-17 the traditional rights and privileges of the first born son are not to be affected by the social status of his mother (being a "free" woman such as Sarah, Isaac's mother, or a "Bondwoman" such as Hagar, Ishmael's mother). This is only consistent with the moral and humanitarian principles of all revealed faiths.

The full legitimacy of Ishmael as Abraham's son and "seed" and the full legitimacy of his mother, Hagar, as Abraham's wife are clearly stated in Genesis 21:13 and 16:3. After Jesus, the last Israelite messenger and prophet, it was time that God's promise to bless Ishmael and his descendants be fulfilled. Less than 600years after Jesus, came the last messenger of God, Muhammad, from the progeny of Abraham through Ishmael. God's blessing of both of the main branches of Abraham's family tree was now fullfilled. But are there additional corroborating evidence that the Bible did in fact foretell the advent of prophet Muhammad?

MUHAMMAD: The Prophet Like Unto Moses

Long time after Abraham, God's promise to send the long-awaited Messenger was repeated this time in Moses' words.
In Deuteronomy 18:18, Moses spoke of the prophet to be sent by God who is:

From among the Israelite's "brethren", a reference to their Ishmaelite cousins as Ishmael was the other son of Abraham who was explicitly promised to become a "great nation".

A prophet like unto Moses. There were hardly any two prophets ,who were so much alike as Moses and Muhammad. Both were given comprehensive law code of life, both encountered their enemies and were victors in miraculous ways, both were accepted as prophets/statesmen and both migrated following conspiracies to assassinate them. Analogies between Moses and Jesus overlooks not only the above similarities but other crucial ones as well (e.g. the natural birth, family life and death of Moses and Muhammad but not of Jesus, who was regarded by His followers as the Son of God and not exclusively a messenger of God, as Moses and Muhammad were and as Muslim belief Jesus was).

THE AWAITED PROPHET WAS TO COME FROM ARABIA

Deuteronomy 33:1-2 combines references to Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. It speaks of God (i.e. God's revelation) coming from Sinai, rising from Seir (probably the village of Sa'ir near Jerusalem) and shining forth from Paran. According to Genesis 21:21, the wilderness of Paran was the place where Ishmael settled (i.e. Arabia, specifically Mecca).

Indeed the King James version of the Bible mentions the pilgrims passing through the valley of Ba'ca (another name of Mecca) in Psalms 84:4-6.

Isaiah 42:1-13 speaks of the beloved of God. His elect and messenger who will bring down a law to be awaited in the isles and who "shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgement on earth." Verse 11, connects that awaited one with the descendants of Ke'dar. Who is Ke'dar? According to Genesis 25:13, Ke'dar was the second son of Ishmael, the ancestor of prophet Muhammad.

MUHAMMAD'S MIGRATION FROM MECCA TO MEDINA: PROPHECIED IN THE BIBLE?

Habakkuk 3:3 speaks of God (God's help) coming from Te'man (an Oasis North of Medina according to J. Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible), and the holy one (coming) from Paran. That holy one who under persecution migrated from Paran (Mecca) to be received enthusiastically in Medina was none but prophet Muhammad.

Indeed the incident of the migration of the prophet and his persecuted followers is vividly described in Isaiah 21:13-17. That section foretold as well about the battle of Badr in which the few ill-armed faithful miraculously defeated the "mighty" men of Ke'dar, who sought to destroy Islam and intimidate their own folks who turned -to Islam.

THE QUR'AN (KORAN) FORETOLD IN THE BIBLE?

For twenty-three years, God's words (the Qur'an) were truely put into Muhammad's mouth. He was not the "author" of the Qur'an. The Qur'an was dictated to him by Angel Gabriel who asked Muhammad to simply repeat the words of the Qur'an as he heard them. These words were then committed to memory and to writing by those who hear them during Muhammad's life time and under his supervision.

Was it a coincidence that the prophet "like unto Moses" from the "brethren" of the Israelites (i.e. from the lshmaelites) was also described as one in whose mouth God will put his words and that he will speak in the name of God, (Deuteronomy 18:18-20). Was it also a coincidence the "Paraclete" that Jesus foretold to come after Him was described as one who "shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak (John 16:13)

Was it another coincidence that Isaiah ties between the messenger connected with Ke'dar and a new song (a scripture in a new language) to be sang unto the Lord (Isaiah 42:10-11). More explicitly, prophesies Isaiah "For with stammering lips, and another tongue, will he speak to this people" (Isaiah 28:11). This latter verse correctly describes the "stammering lips" of Prophet Muhammad reflecting the state of tension and concentration he went through at the time of revelation. Another related point is that the Qur'an was revealed in piece-meals over a span of twenty three years. It is interesting to compare this with Isaiah 28:10 whichspeaks of the same thing.

THAT PROPHET- PARACLETE- MUHAMMAD

Up to the time of Jesus (peace be upon him), the Israelites were still awaiting for that prophet like unto Moses prophecied in Deuteronomy 18:18. When John the Baptist came, they asked him if he was Christ and he said "no". They asked him if he was Elias and he said "no". Then, in apparent reference to Deuteronomy 18:18, they asked him "Art thou that Prophet" and he answered, "no". (John 1: 1 9-2 1).

In the Gospel according to John (Chapters 14, 15, 16) Jesus spoke of the "Paraclete" or comforter who will come after him, who will be sent by Father as another Paraclete, who will teach new things which the contemporaries of Jesus could not bear. While the Paraclete is described as the spirit of truth, (whose meaning resemble Muhammad's famous title Al-Amin, the trustworthy), he is identified in one verse as the Holy Ghost (John 14:26). Such a designation is however inconsistent with the profile of that Paraclete. In the words of the Dictionary of the Bible, (Ed. J. Mackenzie) "These items, it must be admitted do not give an entirely coherent picture."

Indeed history tells us that many early Christians understood the Paraclete to be a man and not a spirit. This might explain the followings who responded to some who claimed, without meeting the criteria stipulated by Jesus, to be the awaited "Paraciete".

It was Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) who was the Paraclete, Comforter, helper, admonisher sent by God after Jesus. He testified of Jesus, taught new things which could not be borne at Jesus' time, he spoke what he heard (revelation), he dwells with the believers (through his well-preserved teachings). Such teachings will remain forever because he was the last messenger of God, the only Universal Messenger to unite the whole of humanity under God and on the path of PRESERVED truth. He told of many things to come which "came to pass" in the minutest detail meeting, the criterion given by Moses to distinguish between the true prophet and the false prophets (Deuteronomy 18:22). He did reprove the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment (John 16:8-11)

WAS THE SHIFT OF RELIGIOUS LEADERSHIP PROPHESIED?

Following the rejection of the last Israelite prophet, Jesus, it was about time that God's promise to make Ishmael a great nation be fulfilled (Genesis 21:13, 18)

In Matthew 21:19-21, Jesus spoke of the fruitless fig tree (A Biblical symbol of prophetic heritage) to be cleared after being given a last chance of three years (the duration of Jesus' ministry) to give fruit. In a later verse in the same chapter, Jesus said: "Therefore, say I unto you, The Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruit thereof" (Matthew 21:43). That nation of Ishmael's descendants (the rejected stone in Matthew 21:42) which was victorious against all super-powers of its time as prophesied by Jesus: "And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder" (Matthew 21:44).

OUT OF CONTEXT COINCIDENCE?

Is it possible that the numerous prophecies cited here are all individually and combined out of context misinterpretations? Is the opposite true, that such infrequently studied verses fit together consistently and clearly point to the advent of the man who changed the course of human history, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Is it reasonable to conclude that all these prophecies, appearing in different books of the Bible and spoken by various prophets at different times were all coincidence? If this is so here is another strange "coincidence"!

One of the signs of the prophet to come from Paran (Mecca) is that he will come with "ten thousands of saints" (Deuteronomy 33:2 KJV). That was the number of faithful who accompanied Prophet Muhammad to Paran (Mecca) in his victorious, bloodless return to his birthplace to destroy the remaining symbols of idolatry in the Ka'bah.

Says God as quoted by Moses:

And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. (Deuteronomy 18:19)

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About the author:

Dr. Jamal Badawi was born in Egypt where he completed his undergraduate education. He completed his Ph.D. from the Indiana University and subsequently joined the faculty of Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Canada.

In addition to teaching in his formal field of education (Management), he has been teaching a course on "Islamic Religious Tradition" which is part of the offerings of the Religious Studies department at the same university.

Dr. Badawi has also taught a course on Islam at Stanford University (USA) and gave a series of lectures on the Quran at Oxford University (UK).

Dr. Badawi is the author of several works on Islam, the last of which is 'Gender Equity in Islam'. He also researched, designed and presented 352 half hour TV programs on Islam broadcasted from several local cable stations and radio stations in the US and Canada, in addition to their use in several countries overseas. Audio and video copies of these programs were made available to users in nearly 35 countries around the world. Sets of these programs are included in the library collections of several universities.

Dr. Badawi is a member of the Consultative Council of North America, a member of the Juristic Council of North America and the founder/chairman of the Islamic Information Foundation, a non-profit educational foundation registered in Canada and the US.