VOICE OF GLOBAL UMMAH
Volume 73, April 6, 2009
St. Louis, Missouri

Editors: Mohamed & Rashida Ziauddin

In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent and the Most Merciful

EDITORIAL:

We urge the Ummah to raise up and condemn barbaric acts perpetrated by our own brothers towards our sisters. We should have zero tolerance towards their anti-Islamic & criminal act and we hope that below perpetrator is apprehended and punished to the fullest extent of the law.

On the second note mentioned below in which a Arab male was racially profiled and discriminated, the outcome of him winning close to quarter million dollars reward is a clear victory for FREE SPEECH. The American Justice System compared to other justice systems around the world, has confirmed yet once again the JUSTICE PREVAILS. (Disclaimer: We realize that this does not applies to ALL cases of injustice)

(THE NEWS) www.thenews.com

Husband chops off wife’s nose on alleged infidelity

April 06, 2009

SUKKUR: "A husband cut her wife’s nose on allegations of having illicit relations with another man here in Kashmor.

According to police, a man named Jalnar Mamdani chopped off his wife Asia Mamdani’s nose with a sharp edged tool after blaming her of having illicit relations with another man. Following the incident, the man took his two children along and escaped.

Asia Mamdani was first admitted to Kashmor Hospital and later she was shifted to Sukkur Hospital where her surgery was carried out.

Injured Asia has appealed the police for providing her security. DCO Kashmor Syed Abid Ali Shah hoped that Jalnar Mamdani would soon be arrested".

240,000 dollars awarded to man forced to cover Arab T-shirt

New York: (AFP) Jan 5, 2009:

An airline passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it display ed Arabic

An airline passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it displayed Arabic script has been awarded 240,000 dollars in compensation, campaigners said Monday. Raed Jarrar received the pay out on Friday from two US Transportation Security Authority officials and from JetBlue Airways following the August 2006 incident at New York's JFK Airport, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced. "The outcome of this case is a victory for free speech and a blow to the discriminatory practice of racial profiling," said Aden Fine, a lawyer with ACLU.

Jarrar, a US resident, was apprehended as he waited to board a JetBlue flight from New York to Oakland, California, and told to remove his shirt, which had written on it in Arabic: "We will not be silent."

He was told other passengers felt uncomfortable because an Arabic-inscribed T-shirt in an airport was like "wearing a T-shirt at a bank stating, I am a robber,'" the ACLU said.

Jarrar eventually agreed to cover his shirt with another provided by JetBlue. He was allowed aboard but his seat was changed from the front to the back of the aircraft. (news.yahoo.com)

Jazakullah Khair

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VOICE OF GLOBAL UMMAH

Volume 72, March 29, 2009
St. Louis, Missouri

Editors: Mohamed & Rashida Ziauddin

بــــــــــسم الله الرحمن الرحيـــــــــــــم
In The Name Of Allah, Most Gracious and Most Merciful
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركات

As'salamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh

EDITORIAL:

As the title of this blog rightly indicates, it is VOICE OF GLOBAL UMMAH, we will continue to publish information we receive from our readers. In this issue, we would like to thank Br. Amer Sayeed from Los Angeles, California to forward us below informative e-mail.

Ahead of Iraq Deployment, 37 Korean Troops Revert to Islam

"I became a Muslim because I felt Islam was more humanistic and peaceful than other religions. And if you can religiously connect with the locals, I think it could be a big help in carrying out our peace reconstruction mission." So said on Friday those Korean soldiers who converted to Islam ahead of their late July deployment to the Kurdish city of Irbil in northern Iraq. At noon Friday, 37 members of the Iraq-bound "Zaitun Unit," including Lieutenant Son Hyeon-ju of the Special Forces 11th Brigade, made their way to a mosque in Hannam-dong, Seoul and held a conversion ceremony.

Captain Son Jin-gu from Zaitoon Unit recites an oath at ceremony to mark his conversion to Islam at a mosque in Hannam-dong, Seoul on Friday. /Yonhap

The soldiers, who cleansed their entire bodies in accordance with Islamic tradition, made their conversion during the Friday group prayers at the mosque, with the assistance of the "imam," or prayer leader. With the exception of the imam, all the Muslims and the Korean soldiers stood in a straight line to symbolize how all are equal before God and took a profession on faith. They had memorized the Arabic confession, " Ashadu an La ilaha il Allah, Muhammad-ur-Rasool-Allah," which means, "I testify that there is no god but God (Arabic: Allah), and Muhammad is the Messenger of God."

Soldiers from Zaitoon Unit pray after conversion ceremony at a mosque in Hannam-dong, Seoul on Friday./Yonhap

Moreover, as the faithful face the "Kaaba," the Islamic holy place in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, all Muslims confirm that they are brothers. For those Korean soldiers who entered the Islamic faith, recent chances provided by the Zaitun Unit to come into contact with Islam proved decisive.

Taking into consideration the fact that most of the inhabitants of Irbil are Muslims, the unit sent its nonreligious members to the Hannam-dong mosque so that they could come to understand Islam. Some of those who participated in the program were entranced by Islam and decided to convert. A unit official said the soldiers were inspired by how important religious homogeneity was considered in the Muslim World; if you share religion, you are treated not as a foreigner, but as a local, and Muslims do not attack Muslim women even in war.

Zaitun Unit Corporal Paek Seong-uk (22) of the Army's 11th Division said, "I majored in Arabic in college and upon coming across the Quran, I had much interest in Islam, and I made up my mind to become a Muslim during this religious experience period [provided by the Zaitun Unit]." He expressed his aspirations. "If we are sent to Iraq, I want to participate in religious ceremonies with the locals so that they can feel brotherly love and convince them that the Korean troops are not an army of occupation but a force deployed to provide humanitarian support." (englishnews@chosun.com )

GLOBAL UMMAH IN PICTURES:
One picture speaks a thousand words

Jury selection began in the trial of former US soldier Steven D Green, seen here in this undated Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) handout, accused of being the ringleader of a plot to rape a teenage Iraqi girl, murder her family and set the house alight to cover their crime (AFP/MCSO-HO/Getty Images/File)

Sara Azme Rasmussen symbolically sets fire to a hijab, a traditional garment in many Islamic countries and seen by many as oppressive, at International Women's Day. (AP Photo/Cornelius Poppe/Scanpix Norway)

(Editorial Note: Such actions as above including the perception of wearing hijab as oppressive is coming out of sheer ignorance, hate and prejudice, the same characteristics held by extremists. It is not clear why the so called Champions of freedom are unsuccessfully trying to stifle the freedom of millions of Muslim women who voluntarily choose to wear the hijab. When will people understand to respect each others values and NOT impose one's values on others?)

Refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh hold Friday prayers in Sabang. Indonesia said that it will repatriate 174 "economic migrants" who fled Myanmar claiming persecution, as new accounts emerged of their harrowing sea journey and alleged abuse by the Thai navy. (AFP/Chaideer Mahyuddin).

A boy cries during the funeral of his relatives who were killed in a bomb attack in Baghdad's Um al-Maalif, South Baghdad) Reuters/Ahmed Malik

DIVERSITY IN LIFESTYLES/DRESS OF FEMALES

(Female Buddhist nuns at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, Myanmar. (AP Photo/Khin Maung Win)

Cheng Shiqun displays her long hair at a park in Yunyang, Chongqing Municipality March 30, 2009. Cheng has grown her hair, measuring 2.5 metres, for 16 years, according to China Daily. Effect created by the photographer's assistant holding and releasing her hair. Picture taken March 30, 2009. REUTERS/China Daily

Police women dismantle their rifles during a training course at a police academy in Kerbala, Iraq.

High Jump: Amy Acuff clears the bar at 6 feet, 3
(AP Photo/Henny Ray Abrams)

An Iraqi female police cadet trains with a weapon at the police academy in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 80 kilometers south of Baghdad, Iraq on March 26, 2009 (AP Photo/Ahmed al-Husseini)

With her powerful jumps and flexible spins, Irina Slutskaya of Russia is heavily favored to win the gold medal.
(YURI KADOBNOV/AFP/Getty Images)

Iraqi female police cadets in training (AP)

Police offers parade during a ceremony in Sibate, Columbia
(AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

An Iraqi police office supervises the training of policewomen on dismantling weapons at a police academy in Kerbala, 80 km southwest of Baghdad on March 22, 2009. About 2000 policewomen are in the three month training course.

Women police cadets jog during a training session in Baghdad on March 22, 2009. About 48 women have attended 9 months of training and will graduate as police officers at the Higher Institution for developing security and management in Baghdad. Reuters/May Naji (Iraq Military)

A policewoman takes part during a graduation ceremony at a police academy in Baghdad on January 26, 2009. Some 500 female police officers finished the first batch of an inspector course at the Baghdad Police College. Reuters/Sadd Shalash

A Jordanian woman weaves a traditional rug using a traditional weaving machine in Iraq-al-Amier rural town to the West of Amman on Sunday, March 8, 2009, as the country joins the world celebrating Women's Day. The woman is a member of one of the several women's societies that focus on reviving indigenous crafts and help market the products to improve the income of women in rural areas. (AP photo/Mohammad abu Ghosh

A campaign poster for Zainab Sadik Jaffar, a lawyer running for provincial council in the upcoming provincial election, is seen as an Iraqi Army soldier stands guard in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 550 kilometers (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Jan. 12, 2009. Freed last year from the grip of militias, Basra has emerged as the main political battlefield in this month's regional elections, as Shiite parties allied in the national government are competing for control of the oil-rich south. The Jan. 31 election, in which voters across the country will choose ruling provincial councils, will be the first since U.S.-backed Iraqi forces wrested control of Basra from Shiite militias and criminal gangs. The poster reads ' The national list # 190. Today the vote is yours. Change and build.' (AP Photo/ Nabil al-Jurani)

A Romanian model displays wedding dress with a train measuring 1,579 metres long for a new world record for the longest wedding train in Bucharest Romania, Wednesday, April 1, 2009. (AP Photo)

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VOICE OF GLOBAL UMMAH
Volume 71, March 22, 2009
St. Louis, Missouri

Editors: Mohamed & Rashida Ziauddin

In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent and the Most Merciful

Editorial:

As unusual as it may seem, a guard from Guantanamo prison converts to Islam. We recommend below article (condensed version) from NEWSWEEK by Dan Ephron as an interesting read. Thanks to Jabeen Mubashira from Los Angeles, California, who forwarded below article. Of particular interest is the guard's past before he joined the military.

The Guard Who Found Islam

Terry Holdbrooks stood watch over prisoners at Gitmo. What he saw made him adopt their faith. By Dan Ephron / NEWSWEEK Mar 21, 2009

Army specialist Terry Holdbrooks had been a guard at Guantanamo for about six months the night he had his life-altering conversation with detainee 590, a Moroccan also known as "the General."

So Holdbrooks began spending part of the night sitting cross-legged on the ground, talking to detainees through the metal mesh of their cell doors. He developed a strong relationship with the General, whose real name is Ahmed Errachidi. Their late-night conversations led Holdbrooks to be more skeptical about the prison, he says, and made him think harder about his own life.

Soon, Holdbrooks was ordering books on Arabic and Islam. During an evening talk with Errachidi in early 2004, the conversation turned to the shahada, the one-line statement of faith that marks the single requirement for converting to Islam ("There is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet"). Holdbrooks pushed a pen and an index card through the mesh, and asked Errachidi to write out the shahada in English and transliterated Arabic. He then uttered the words aloud and, there on the floor of Guantanamo's Camp Delta, became a Muslim.

But as the fog of secrecy slowly lifts from Guantanamo, other scenes are starting to emerge as well, including surprising interactions between guards and detainees on subjects like politics, religion and even music. The exchanges reveal curiosity on both sides—sometimes even empathy. "The detainees used to have conversations with the guards who showed some common respect toward them," says Errachidi, who spent five years in Guantanamo and was released in 2007.

"We talked about everything, normal things, and things [we had] in common," he wrote to NEWSWEEK in an e-mail from his home in Morocco. Holdbrooks's level of identification with the other side was exceptional. No other guard has volunteered that he embraced Islam at the prison (though Errachidi says others expressed interest). His experience runs counter to academic studies, which show that guards and inmates at ordinary prisons tend to develop mutual hostility.

...his misgivings about Guantanamo—including doubts that the detainees were the "worst of the worst"—were shared by other guards as early as 2002. A few such guards are coming forward for the first time. Specialist Brandon Neely, who was at Guantanamo when the first detainees arrived that year, says his enthusiasm for the mission soured quickly. "There were a couple of us guards who asked ourselves why these guys are being treated so badly and if they're actually terrorists at all," he told NEWSWEEK.

Holdbrooks says growing up hard in Phoenix—his parents were junkies and he himself was a heavy drinker before joining the military in 2002—helps explain what he calls his "anti-everything views."

He has holes the size of quarters in both earlobes, stretched-out piercings that he plugs with wooden discs. At his Phoenix apartment, bedecked with horror-film memorabilia, he rolls up both sleeves to reveal wrist-to-shoulder tattoos. He describes the ink work as a narrative of his mistakes and addictions. They include religious symbols and Nazi SS bolts, track marks and, in large letters, the words BY DEMONS BE DRIVEN. He says the line, from a heavy-metal song, reminds him to be a better person.

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VOICE OF GLOBAL UMMAH

Volume 70, March 15, 2009
St. Louis, Missouri

Editors: Mohamed & Rashida Ziauddin

In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent and the Most Merciful

GLOBAL UMMAH IN PICTURES: ONE PICTURE SPEAKS A THOUSAND WORDS

(Heads of sovereign wealth funds which control three trillion dollars of assets opened a meeting in Kuwait on Sunday with a call for Coordination in the face of the global economic meltdown. (AFP/Yasser al-Zayyat)

(An Afghan girl carries her little sister in Naray, Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province. (AFP/File/Liu Jin)

(Burqa-clad women walk at the Hazrat Ali shrine in the northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan in March. AFP/File/Jes Aznar).

Graduation party: An Iraqi student wearing a traditional outfit attends a graduation party at Baghdad IT and Technology University. (APP/Patrick Baz)

Afghan women attend a gathering to mark the International Women's day on Sunday, March 8, 2009 in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Afghan women, putting blue scarves that symbolizes justice on their heads, during a ceremony to mark the International Women's day on Sunday, march 8, 2009 in Kandahar province, south of Kabul, Afghanistan (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)

An Afghan girl looks a portrait during a ceremony to mark International Women's Day (Reuter/Omar Sobhani (Afghanistan Anniversary Politics Society)

France President Nicolas Sarkozy (L) and Bahrain's King Hamad bin issa al-Khalifa are pictured prior to their bilateral meeting at the Al-Hudaibiya Palace in Manama Feb 11, 2009 (Reuteres/Gerard Cerles/Pool)

Jazakullah Khair

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VOICE OF GLOBAL UMMAH
Volume 69, March 8 , 2009
St. Louis, Missouri

Editors: Mohamed & Rashida Ziauddin

In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent and the Most Merciful

EDITORIAL:

Unfortunately some misinformed Imams have abused the privilege they have been given by their local Muslim community to give speech during Friday prayers by giving false information and stirring up hatred between various groups of human beings.

One such Imam is Ahmad Abd Al-salam whose hate filled propaganda against Jews has no truth or basis whatsoever. Allah has declared in the Holy Quran: "Mankind is but one Community". We only wish Imams such as Ahmad Abd Al-Salam work towards fostering love, affection between people of above ONE COMMUNITY of Mankind.

Below is a condensed version of his speech:

February 24, 2009 No. 2259 MEMRI (THE MIDDLE EAST MEDIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE)

Ahmad Abd Al-Salam: "The Jews 'will not fail to corrupt' the believers. What does this mean? The Jews are never remiss - they invest their utmost efforts, day and night, in conspiring how to corrupt the Islamic nation, the nation led by the Prophet Muhammad.

"I want you, Muslim viewers, to imagine the Jews sitting around a table, conspiring how to corrupt the Muslims, and how to destroy their worldly and religious affairs. The Jews 'will not fail to corrupt you,' and this is why we hate them."

The Jews "Infect Food with Cancer and Ship It to Muslim Countries"

"The Jews conspire day and night to destroy the Muslims' worldly and religious affairs. The Jews conspire to destroy the economy of the Muslims. The Jews conspire to infect the food of the Muslims with cancer. It is the Jews who infect food with cancer and ship it to Muslim countries."

"We Hate the Jews Because They Spare No Effort in Stripping Muslim Girls of their Clothes"; "Sexual Temptations... Were Conspired By the Jews"

"We hate the Jews because they spare no effort in stripping Muslim girls of their clothes. It is the Jews who conspire to have Muslim girls, and even married Muslim women, wear clothes that are tight, short, or see-through, or clothes that are open from the front, or the back, from the right or the left.

"The Jews 'will not fail to corrupt you,' and this is why we hate them. The Jews conspire to destroy Muslims. The Jews conspire to bring Muslim youth down to the pit of sexual temptation. The sexual temptations, which are prevalent worldwide, were conspired by the Jews."

(EDITORIAL NOTE CONTINUED)

IT IS HIGH TIME THAT BOTH MUSLIMS AND JEWS WHO HAVE HAD HISTORY OF EXTREME SUFFERINGS DEVELOP INCREASED EMPATHY AND WORK TOWARDS FULFILLING ALLAH'S DECLARATION IN THE HOLY QURAN: "Mankind is but one Community".

As an example, during the brutal Israel aggression against the Palestinians, we appreciate the Jews who came out in support with the Muslims against such Israel heavy handedness and aggression. Below is a condensed version of related article.

January 15, 2009 (Yahoo News)

Jews Join Protests Against Israel’s Gaza Actions

By Lilly Fowler

Protesters demonstrate in front of Israeli Consulate.

Wearing white masks with eyes surrounded by red paint and streams of red teardrops, a coalition of protesters gathered in front of the Israeli Consulate last week to speak out against Israel’s invasion into Gaza. Chief among them were members of Los Angeles’ Jewish community, many of them active in L.A. Jews for Peace.

“Every single human being in Israel, whether I agree with them or I don’t agree with them, deserves their human rights respected,” said Rick Chertoff, co-chair of the organization. “Solve the problem without killing people. Do they [Israel] have the power? I think it’s so obvious that they have the power.”

“And to oppress people in that way and expect them not to react and then damn them for the resistance,” Chertoff continued, referring to Israel’s blockade of the territory, “is not only nonsensical, it doesn’t conform to human decency, and that’s why I’m here.”

Among those seen enthusiastically carrying signs at the protest were Latinos and some, like Victor Kozaski, Jewish Latinos.

“We, the Latinos, feel the injustices felt by people everywhere,” he said in Spanish, while a poster reading “Latinos united with the people of Palestine” waved in the background.

“We are part of the same pain,” he said.

Carolyn Rosenstein, 71, explained her decision to stand against Israel this way: “I was raised on the story that it was, you know, a purely good, wonderful thing that happened that Israel was established,” she said.

But “there’s more to the story than that, which is somebody else was living there when they came there,” she said. “There’s blood on everybody’s hands.”

Although the number of protesters gathered at the candlelight vigil was relatively small, with an estimated 150 people stemming from three different organizations, including the Quaker group, American Friends Service Committee, and the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, members of the Jewish community have also been heard on local radio stations speaking out against the war.

That same week, KCRW’s “Which Way, L.A.?,” the station’s discussion-oriented program led by moderator Warren Olney, welcomed as a guest Diane Balser, executive director of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, a grass-roots organization dedicated to promoting a two-state solution.

“This is a political problem,” Balser said on the program. “It can’t be solved militarily.”

Some rabbis have also begun speaking out against the war, including Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller of UCLA Hillel and Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater of Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center.

In a recent letter to The Jewish Journal, they wrote that the war had “led to the loss of lives of innocent civilians without offering any prospect of political resolution to either Israelis or Palestinians.”

That night in front of the consulate, as cars whizzing by honked their horns, Warner went one step further and argued that his organization represents a majority of Jewish opinion, not the minority.

“I think most Jewish Americans really are on the same side as I am, but they’re silent,” he said.

Jazakullah Khair

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