Let us remember that this wealth was generated from two sources: one, from trade and two, by way of ghanima i.e. loot in the wars of conquests and Baladhuri has given figures in hisFutuh al-Buldan i.e. Conquest of Countries. With these conquests the whole economic scenario especially of Bedouin Arabs changed and they began to lead comfortable life.

 We should also remember that the then Arab economy was basically mercantile economy which depended on trade and production of date palms from few oases. Thus it cannot be compared with modern industrial economy and its problems. And with development of monarchy with Yazid the economy underwent further change and it became more feudal than mercantile.

 Thus one must understand these specificities of the then Islamic society before comparing it with modern political and economic ideologies. However, one can say that the greatest contribution of Islam was the concept of welfare state and establishment of Bait al-maal in its early stages. But with establishment of monarchy and feudalization, Bait al-Maal also ceased to be as source of welfare of people. – Asghar Ali Engineer

The Quran-e-Kareem says, “Call them (adopted sons) by (the names of) their fathers: that is more just with Allah. But if you know not their father’s (names, call them) your brothers in faith and Mawalikum  (your freed slaves). And there is no sin on you concerning that in which you made a mistake, except in regard to what your hearts deliberately intends. And Allah is Ever-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Surah Al-Ahzab: 5)

It clarifies that adoption is not legal in Islam as it is in the Hindu religion. In the words of Allamah Aalavi, “Authenticating an adoptee like the son is one of the acts which neither has any base in Shariat, nor in worldly affairs” (Ruhul Ma’ali: 150/2). Qazi Abu Bakar Jassas (RA) explains the meaning of this revelation, “Adoption has no authentic justification, and it is a meaningless and fake assertion” (Ahkamul Quran: 222/5) -- Maulana Nadeemul Wajidi, (Translated from Urdu by Raihan Nezami)

Allama Sajid Mir [Ahl-e-Hadith Leader of MMA [A political Alliance of Rampantly Deviant Political Mullahs] has declared in Daily Jang Dated 6 Nov 2009 that Suicide Attack is allowed in War against Infidel Enemy whereas the Quran and Hadith proclaim that Suicide is Haram. When Suicide is Haram then how could Suicide Attack be Halal. Read the Fanatic Mullah below. The Daily Jang published the news without raising any questions. No fatwa is valid when clear teachings of Allah and Prophet Mohammad [pbuh] are available to contradict it. —Aamir Mughal, a Karachi blogger

The greatest impact of believing in God for me, meant that I lost all fear of human beings. The Qur’an liberates man from man when it says that life and death and respect and humiliation are God’s jurisdiction, so we do not have to bow before other human beings.  Moreover, since this is a transitory world where we prepare for the eternal one, I broke out of the self-imposed prisons, such as growing old (such a curse in the Western world, as a result of which, plastic surgeons are having a field day), materialism, ego, what people say and so on. It is important to note that one does not eliminate earthly desires. But instead of being controlled by them, one controls them. By following the second part of believing in Islam, I have become a better human being. Rather than being self-centered and living for the self, I feel that because the Almighty gave so much to me, in turn I must use that blessing to help the less privileged. This I did by following the fundamentals of Islam rather than becoming a Kalashnikov-wielding fanatic. -- Imran Khan

Iraq will be an Islamic democracy, which is an oxymoron. Democratic government is illegal in Islam. How many Christian American boys died to establish an Islamic government in Iraq? Now we are told that 40,000 additional troops are needed for the “war on terror” in Afghanistan. There is no freedom of religion in Afghanistan, no rights of the individual, no rights for women, and Islam is the established religion. The President must be a Muslim. Peace in Afghanistan will result in the continued establishment of an Islamic Republic ruled by a nation of Islamic Clerics (Judges). In Muslim majority nations, such as Saudi Arabia, non-Muslims are regarded as Dhimmis, second-class people whose testimony in court does not count as much as that of a Muslim and who must pay extra taxes. Forget equal treatment under the law, and don’t even ask how they treat Dhimmi women. -- Coach Dave Daubenmire

Please recall that in the heydays of Islam, a Muslim from Baghdad, Bokhara, Cairo, Damascus, Samarkand and elsewhere learnt his theology in the same madrasa (educational institution, literally) where he was also taught science and mathematics, logic, philosophy and mysticism, music, literature and architecture. You adore Imam Ghazali; consider his to be among the most respected names in the field of Islamic theology. But do you teach in your madarsas what Imam Ghazali did: “He who has never doubted is not a true believer”, or that every ayat (verse) of the Quran can be interpreted in 60,000 ways? Do you tell them ever that this highly learned Imam believed that Allah has prescribed two basic texts for the ummah: one, the Quran, the other is His “open book”, otherwise known as the Universe/ Cosmos. And that the Quran itself repeatedly asserts that to even begin to fathom Divine Intent, in addition to imaan (faith) you need aql (intellect) and ilm (reasoning). A rounded education for the 4 per cent is critical, for it is they from whom the 96 per cent learn their Islam. Because of the compartmentalised, fragmented, insular and sectarian nature of his education, the Maulvi Sahib’s ignorance of the world he inhabits is tragic — and the Mr Muslim’s knowledge of Islam pathetic. -- Javed Anand

Many of the Taliban leaders and other terrorists who destroyed Afghanistan were also graduates of Deoband

I believe that this is the basic and fatal flaw that is solely responsible for the demise of the Muslims including the old scholars mentioned in Article. They do not know the Quran. Without knowing the Quran they have embarked on acquiring religious knowledge from their own sources many of which are illogical and also false. And most unfortunately after the passage of a 1000 years, the writings of these so called religious scholars have come to be almost engraved in stone.  Today in Malaysia if a Muslim does not subscribe to the religious sect of Ahlul Sunnah Wal Jamaah he can be sent to jail. For example if you are a SHiah you can be sent to jail. In Shiah majority countries like Iran (and now Iraq) the opposite happens i.e. the Ahlul Sunnah Wal Jamaah minority can be persecuted or discriminated against because of their religious beliefs. I would like to quote two examples to explain further what I mean when I say that the scholars do not know the Quran. In India there are famous religious madrassahs like Darul Uloom in a place called Deoband. Folks like Nik Aziz Nik Mat the Menteri Besar of Kelantan have been educated in religion from Deoband. Many of the Taliban leaders and other terrorists who destroyed Afghanistan were also graduates of Deoband. -- Syed Akbar Ali

Another problem is that by the time non-Muslims examine Islam, other religions have typically heightened their scepticism: If every "God-given" scripture we have ever seen is corrupt, how can the Islamic scripture be different? If charlatans have manipulated religions to suit their desires, how can we imagine the same not to have happened with Islam? Sure, previous religions have been corrupted, and that is why we have a chain of revelations. Ask yourself: why would God send another revelation if the preceding scriptures were still pure? Only if preceding scriptures were corrupted would God need to send another revelation, to keep mankind on the straight path of His design. -- Laurence B. Brown

A provincial decision on adultery doesn’t characterize the whole country

Indonesia will be the 7th largest economy in the world by 2045, bigger than Japan, the UK or Germany, says a Standard Charter Bank Report, September 2nd entitled Indonesia: Asia´s Emerging Powerhouse.  And Indonesia will probably have to be a nuclear power by then to meet high volume demand for clean energy. It is perhaps a good thing that an outgoing defeated provincial parliament of yesterday´s men in Aceh have made such a stupid decision. They clearly don’t care or are not aware of the impact this will have on the reputation of Indonesia or Islam. A recent report in the UK Sunday Times (26.07.09) confirmed that voluntary use of shariah law to resolve family and commercial disputes is increasingly common, with non-Muslims starting to use it to solve business problems in the Muslim community. -- Terry Lacey

The relatively few number of Muslims who dare to convert to Christianity do it in extreme secrecy. That is because the penalty for leaving Islam is death in all schools of Sharia, both Sunni and Shiite. Those who wrote Sharia centuries ago knew that keeping Muslims in total submission would be very difficult to maintain, and thus they established barbaric laws condemning Muslims to death for exercising their basic human rights to choose their own religion. Sharia never entrusted its enforcement only to the formal legal system. Islam promises heavenly rewards to individual Muslims who take the law into their own hands. Sharia also states that the killers of apostates and adulterers are not murderers and therefore are not to be punished. That is why, for Islam to achieve 100% compliance to Sharia enforcement, Muslim individuals are encouraged to take matters into their own hands. -- Nonie Darwish

By Maualana Nademul Wajidi

All Muslims, even including those who champion the Hadith, accept the fact that after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, false hadith reports about or attributed to the Prophet Muhammad “mushroomed” into hundreds of thousands. The compilations that were made more than two centuries after the Prophet’s death were done after sorting through mountainous piles of individual hadith reports. Bukhari, for example, made a selection of some seven thousand traditions (including repeated ones) out of reportedly six hundred thousand he found in circulation – roughly one out of every one hundred. That means that he discarded all but a tiny fraction of the hadith in circulation as false. This factor alone leaves open the question whether his selection has been foolproof. -- Abdur Rab

New Age Islam Editor’s note: This is all the more important at a time when Jihadis are stealing our children away from us and turning them into sacrificial goats in their war of supremacy over other sects on the basis of patently concocted and fabricated Ahades. One of the funniest I found in a manifesto of a Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir-based terrorist organization Al-Badr claiming that the Prophet (PBUH) said that Jihad against India is Jihad-e-Afzal, that is greater in importance and reward than even the Jihad against the Meccan enemies of Islam that the Prophet himself fought. But apparently our children, some of them even the most highly educated and intelligent ones are not able to differentiate between a correct and a fabricated Hadees. The moment you ascribe a quotation to the Prophet, it acquires a certain sanctity in the eyes of a devout Muslim. However the knowledge of the fact that authentic compilers like Bukhari and Muslim discarded hundreds of thousands of Ahadees should help Muslims understand that they just cannot attach much sanctity to Ahadees unless they find that they are merely elaborating an injunction of the Quran while maintaining the same spirit inculcated into us through the Quran. This makes Mr. Abdur Rab’s study very valuable.

The Liberal would dismiss Islam as sinister for its take on human rights and women in particular. The Left would fall into the trap of denouncing religion in general as ‘reactionary’. Maybe without realizing it, both Lib and Left are falling here into a clear supremacist argument. Since both Islam and Judaism are more than just religions, they convey a ‘way of life’ and stand as a totally thorough answer to questions regarding being in the world, the Western Lib-Left are at danger of a complete dismissal of a large chunk of humanity.
I have recently accused a genuine Leftist and good activist of being an Islamophobe for blaming Hamas for being ‘reactionary’. The activist, who is evidently a true supporter of Palestinian resistance was quick to defend himself claiming that it wasn’t only ‘Islamism’  that he didn’t like, he actually equally hated Christianity and Judaism. For some reason he was sure that hating every religion equally was a proper humanist qualification. Accordingly, the fact that an Islamophobe is also a Judeophobe and Christiano-phobe is not necessarily a sign of a humanist commitment. -- Gilad Atzmon

A variety of opinions on the subject of Islam and homosexuality led to a heated debate. Panelist Amal Amireh, professor of women and gender studies at George Mason University, said there are many homosexual Muslims that practice Islam, adding that it is important to speak for these people."Speaking about homosexuality and Islam is risky," Amireh said. "Not speaking about homosexuality and Islam is riskier." While a majority of the Muslim panellists agreed that homosexuality was permissible under Islam, some said being gay was against their religion. Hisham Mahmoud, a lecturer at Princeton University, said, "No jurist will ever accept homosexuality as a practice," and condoned the punishment of homosexuality. The lecturer's comment provoked an outburst of emotion from panellist Imam Dayiee Abdullah of the Al-Fatiha Foundation and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Religious Roundtable, both of which advocate for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Muslims.- - Jennifer Tchinnosian -------------------------
We must reiterate, as does Isabelle Levy in “Soins et croyances” [1] that all the worlds’ major religions and spiritual traditions—from the majority view in Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism to Christianity and Islam—condemn and forbid homosexuality. The great majority of rabbis hold the same position, as do the Pope and the Dalaï Lama, who condemns homosexuality. For these traditions, as for Freud (who speaks of “perversion”), homosexuality is considered to be “against nature,” an “expression of disequilibrium” in the growth of a person. The moral condemnation of homosexuality remains the majority opinion of all religions, and Islam is no exception. It would be senseless to wish to deny the facts, to contradict the textual sources and to force believers to perform intellectual contortions so that they can prove they are in tune with the times. -- Tariq Ramadan

If the idea is to cover up the body, then some of the undulating heaps , faces peeping out are more stimulating than ladies in Club Mediterranee or erotic gyrations by Bollywood prima donnas. Although the custom of covering women with head scarves is now generally associated with Islamic societies, the practice predates Islamic culture by many millennia. Veiling and seclusion were marks of prestige and status symbols in the Assyrian, Greco-Roman and Byzantine empires, as well as in Sasanian Iran. The Muslim Umayyads copied it from the Byzantines in Damascus, which they took over lock stock and barrel. According to one tradition, the Prophet Mohammad's wife Aisha did not veil her face. Generally, there was greater freedom for women among nomadic Arabs, Turks and Mongols before Islam.  -- K Gajendra Singh