book review on IBN SINA

book title: AVICENNA, His Life and Works by Soheil M.Afnan.

Ibn Sina was born in AH 370/AD 980 near Bukhara, the part of Iran. His real name was Abu Ali Al-Husayn Ibn Abdullah Ibn Sina. He also known in english by his Latinized name AVICENNA. he was a Persian Muslim polymath and the foremost physician and Islamic Philosopher of his time. He was an astronomer,hafiz,ligician,mathematician,poet,psychologist,physicist,scientist,and theologician.
By the age of 10, he had become well versed in the study of the Qur'an and various sciences. His intellectual independence was served by extraordinary intelligence and memory, which allowed him to overtake his teachers at the age of 14.
He started studying philosophy by reading various Greek,Muslim and other books on this subject and learnt logic and some other subjects from Abu Abdullah Natili, a famous philosopher of the time. He also studied logic and mataphysics. He also combined the ideas of Aristotle and Neoplutonism. He tried to reconcile philosophy with the relogion of Islam.
While he still young, he attained such a degree of expertise in medicine that his fame spread far and wide. at the age of 17, he was fortunate in curing Nooh Ibn Mansoor, the King of Bukhara of an illness in which all the well-known physician had given up hope. On his recovery, the King wished to reward him, but Ibn Sina only desired permission to use his library and its rare manuscripts to continue his researsh into modes of knowledge.
He was known by many as the "Prince Of Physicians". His works, the Canon of Medicine ans the Book of Healing was considered his greatest achievements.He was died in 1037 in his 58th year and was buried in Homedan, Iran.

Bookreview on Bediuzzaman Said Nursi

Book Title:Islam at the Crossroads:Life and thought of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi
Author:Ibrahim M. Ebu Rabi
Publisher: Nesil Yayinlari(Nesil publishing center)

BEDIUZZAMAN SAID NURSI

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi was born in 1877 in eastern Turkiye and died in 1960 in Urfa in Turkiye. The book “Islam at the Crossroads" can be referred to have more details of his long and examplary life, which spanned the last decades of the Ottoman Empire, its collapse after the First World War and the setting up of the Republic, then the twenty-five years of Republican Peoples' Party rule, well-known for the measures taken against Islam, followed by the ten years of Democrat rule, when conditions eased a little for Bediuzzaman.
Bediuzzaman displayed an extraordinary intelligence and ability to learn from an early age, completing the normal course of madrasah (religious school) education at the early age of fourteen, when he obtained his diploma. He became famous for both his prodigious memory and his unbeaten record in debating with other religious scholars. Another characteristic Bediuzzaman displayed from an early age was an instinctive dissatisfaction with the existing education system, which when older he formulated into comprehensive proposals for its reform. The heart of these proposals was the bringing together and joint teaching of the traditional religious sciences and the modern sciences, together with the founding of a university in the Eastern Provinces of the Empire, the Medresetü'z-Zehra, where this and his other proposals would be put into practice. In 1907 his endeavors in this field took him to Istanbul and an audience with Sultan Abdulhamid. Although subsequently he twice received funds for the construction of his university, and its foundations were laid in 1913, it was never completed due to war and the difficulties of the times.
Contrary to the practice of religious scholars at that time, Bediuzzaman himself studied and mastered almost all the physical and mathematical sciences, and later studied philosophy, for he believed that it was only in this way that Islamic theology (kalâm) could be renewed and successfully answer the attacks to which the Qur'an and Islam were then subject.
In the course of time, the physical sciences had been dropped from madrasah education, which had contributed directly to the Ottoman decline relative to the advance of the West. Now, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Europe had gained dominance over the Islamic world, and in efforts to extend its dominance, was attacking the Qur'an and Islam in the name of science and progress in particular, falsely claiming them to be incompatible.
Within the Empire too was a small minority which favored adopting Western philosophy and civilization. Thus, all Bediuzzaman's endeavor was to prove and demonstrate the falseness of these accusations, and that far from being incompatible with science and progress, the Qur'an was the source of true progress and civilization, and in addition, since this was the case, Islam would dominate the future, despite its relative decline and regression at that time.
The years up to the end of the First World War were the final decades of the Ottoman Empire and were, in the words of Bediuzzaman, the period of the 'Old Said'. In additions to his endeavors in the field of learning, he served the cause of the Empire and Islam through active involvement in social life and the public domain. In the War, he commanded the militia forces on the Caucasian Front against the invading Russians, for which he as later awarded a War Medal. To maintain the morale of his men he himself disdained to enter the trenches in spite of the constant shelling, and it was while withstanding the overwhelming assaults of the enemy that he wrote his celebrated Qur'anic commentary, Signs of Miraculousness, dictating to a scribe while on horseback. Stating that the Qur'an encompasses the sciences which make known the physical world, the commentary is an original and important work which in Bediuzzaman's words, forms a sort model for commentaries he hoped would be written in the future, which would bring together the religious and modern sciences in the way he proposed. Bediuzzaman was taken prisoner in March 1916 and held in Russia for two years before escaping in early 1918, and returning to Istanbul via Warsaw, Berlin, and Vienna.
Realizing the inadequacy of the 'human' science and philosophy he had studied as a means of reaching the truth, he took the revealed Qur'an as his 'sole guide.
Within a short time, Bediuzzaman's fears about the new regime of the new republic began to be realized: the first steps were taken towards secularization and reducing the power of Islam within the state, and even its eradication from Turkish life. In early 1925 there was a rebellion in the east in which Bediuzzaman played no part, but as a consequence of which was sent into exile in western Anatolia along with many hundreds of others. Thus unjustly began twenty-five years of exile, imprisonment, and unlawful oppression for Bediuzzaman. However, the attempt to entirely isolate and silence him had the reverse effect, for Bediuzzaman was both prepared and uniquely qualified to face the new challenge: these years saw the writing of the Risale-i Nur, which silently spread and took root, combating in the most constructive way the attempt to uproot Islam, and the unbelief and materialist philosophy it was hoped to instill in the Muslim people of Turkiye and the world.

Nasra on Lebanon

According to the presentation, Lebanon is located in the
Middle East, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Israel and Syria. It is a parliamentary, democratic republic, which implements a special system known as confessionalism.

what attract me about this presentation is the story about Hezbollah.
Hezbollah or the Party of God is a powerful political and military organisation of Shia Muslims in Lebanon. The group was formed with financial backing from Iran in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It has become the most powerful military force in Lebanon, but also has a parliamentary party with MPs, and has held seats in the cabinet.
Hezbollah was formed primarily to offer military resistance to the Israeli occupation.
The US and Israel view Hezbollah as a terrorist group. Its members were involved in kidnapping westerners and in attacks on foreign troops who were based in Lebanon during the civil war. The UK says the military wing of Hezbollah is a terrorist group, but not the political side of the organisation.

about the presenter, nasra, eventhough your multimedia slide can't be open,for me u still did a good job because you still can talk about the topic... this is the spirit that we want.. it is normal.. we have to be ready on any kind of situation...and you should improve more on your voice and eye contact. you got many point and can talk well but you must learn on how to attract people.. anyway, with the problem that you are facing, you did a good job and all the best to you...
tata...

Summary of the Speech of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad

Global Peace Crisis In The Muslim World (16th February 2008)


First of all I would like to say that I really enjoyed the speech because it had really logical points towards the problems that Muslims have today. Content of the speech was really good, really impressive.
I have taken some notes from the speech and wanted to share it;

Global Peace Crisis in the Muslim World

-We are supposed to look at the mistakes that we make rather than to blame others’ mistakes.
-Crisis are not happening only today but we have been having crisis since 500 years
-Old scholars studied science that we call secular (worldly) knowledge with the revealed knowledge together and they became the best scientist, best mathematician…
-Once we started to think like as if the first command “Ikra” refers to the study on religion only, we, Muslims, no longer studied worldly knowledge.
-Finally Muslims found themselves very far behind the Europeans.
-Europeans achieved their renaissance but Muslims fell down to their dark age.
-Today there are thousands of different views on religion. Muslims today follow more than 1000 religion not only one “Islam”. They are divided with the different teachings and understandings of Islam like Shi’a, Wahhabi, Sunni…
-More Muslims are killed by the Muslims than they are killed by others today. Why because one doesn’t like other, each idea holder claims that the real Muslim is himself but the rest is none.
-The very main reasons why we are in this dark age today are; poverty, illiteracy and breaking up the ties with the ummah.
-“Yes we can effort any equipments and weapons today but do you think our enemies would sell us the weapons that can kill them?”
-“We are asking others to defend us!”
-“When we know what’s the cause we will also find the solutions!”
-“To them (pointing the non-Muslim powers behind peace conversations), global peace means getting rid off Muslims.”
-“Peace is not for us”
-“Today there is more than 1.3 billion Muslim in the world but no power. Because we are divided.” (He also mentioned how they divided us to nation states.)
-We have so much loyalty to the nation but not to the religion
-On the other hand most powerful countries can ignore even UN.
-“We are the people to be blamed.”
-Solution is Return to the fundamental Islam.
-We have left the Qur’an behind that’s the reason we have crisis today.
-Suicide bombers, did we gain anything with that?? Muslims today merely reacting and behave with the emotions. We are told to go to the heaven when we such things but we can’t be sure plus we destroy other Muslims’ image. Being angry and acting with anger didn’t work.
-We are supposed to plan the future and protect the honor of our religion.
-In fact we are in control of others but not ours.
-There are many things that we can do. There are many resources that we have at our disposal. What is needed is merely-the will to do it, As Muslims, we must be grateful for the guidance of our religion, we must do what needs to be done, willingly and with determination. Allah has not raised us, the leaders, above the others so we may enjoy power for ourselves only. The power we wield is for our people, for the ummah, for Islam. We must have the will to make use of this power judiciously, prudently, concertedly. InsyaAllah we will triumph in the end.

Philippines and Dexter

Dear brother Dexter,

You had a good presentation even though you forgot to bring your slights. Well, in terms of your speech, you were a bit nervous but you still can manage it and continue presentation, that’s something very good. Eye contact was okay but maybe you need a little bit more practice on it. The conversational style of the presentation was quite good because it feels audience within the topic itself.
On the other hand there were some words that you repeat like “ and then…then…” doesn’t sound so well, I think better to decrease repeating them. And sometimes you read long notes, instead of them some short notes that can remind the main points of the topics would help much better. You have a really good criticism on the topic that’s a plus for you.
Honestly I didn’t know much about Philippines until I came here because it is a very far geography for my country. Philippines is a country with many islands and even though they have many issues that they are having conflicts but they still keep it covered maybe because of the governance.
Muslims in Philippines;
They assume on Muslims as terrorists just like Thailand
They have no genocide no war
Corruption within the government is a serious problem
An additional info I came to know is that Christian missionary is so strong but they don’t allow Muslims to establish their religious schools (they didn’t allow some Muslim organizations which wanted to establish some schools in Philippines even though those schools would not be religious ones, government didn’t allow them to open it since the organization is Muslim. They even stated that they are scared to have Islamic militants if they allow this school to be opened.)

Yusuf Islam- book review

book title:The Boy Who Looked at the Moon: The Life and Times of Cat Stevens
Author: D.Evans
publisher: East-West Publications (UK) (1995)

Yusuf Islam original name was Steven Demetre Georgiou and born at 21 July 1948.his religion was Greek Orthodox.he is the younger out of three siblings.his parent run a restaurant at Shaftesbury Avenue,Britain. unfortunately, his parent got divorce and he follow his mother to Sweden. like his said "I was the only dark-haired, dark-eyed, olive-skinned boy in the whole blond- haired, blue-eyed school. At play time, I was the centre of attention. I had a section of the playground for myself where all the boys could come to take a look at me. This way, I got to choose who would be my friends that day, but it increased my sense of being an observer.". in this point, i realized that he is quite introvert child and like to observe people behaviour.

the career
He began to perform his songs in coffee houses and pubs and change the name to Cat Steven.The first singles, "I Love My Dog" and "Matthew and Son"reached Britain's Top 10, and the album itself began charting. after that he never look back and become a pop star. Stevens was living a fast-moving pop-star life and in early 1968 at the age of 19, he became very ill with tuberculosis. During several months in the hospital and a year of convalescence, Stevens began to question aspects of his life, took up meditation, read about other religions and became a vegetarian. During that time, as part of his spiritual awakening and questioning, he wrote as many as 40 songs, which were much more introspective than his previous work. Many of those songs were to appear on his albums in years to come.

in 1975, he got accident in Malibu, and he said to himself,"Oh God! If you save me, I'll work for you". fortunately, he save from the accident and searching for religious book and until last, he feel calm and feel after reading book giving by his brother.and that is Quran. in 1977, he converted to Islam and change name to Yusof . he also stop singing at his peak popularity.

today, he devoted his life service at Muslim community. he make another recording but more into education and religious song. Yusuf Islam become popular Muslim figure at the western country.

my opinion.
Yusof Islam just like a newborn baby. he got hidayah from Allah and now turn to pious Muslim. he dedicate his life and wealth now to Muslim society. give awareness to non-Muslim. he use his fame to tell the truth to Westerners.i anm glad to have him as brother in Islam.

Somalia and sister Wan Nur Jannah...

about the country...

What i know about this country is, Somalia has been without an effective central government since President Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.
Years of fighting between rival warlords and an inability to deal with famine and disease have led to the deaths of up to one million people.

The UN also says that Somalia is the world's forgotten crisis, with 15,000 children in need of urgent aid. this means that in the era of globalization, when we are happy doing things that we want, there are many who suffered....

about the presenter...

for me Jannah did well in her presentation but sometimes she looks nervous. fortunately, she still can controll her feeling. in term of content, i think its enough for audience to know about the country.
well done Jannah.... Good job!!!