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Romantic Quote of the Day

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Quotes on ISLAM from Famous People . . .

2011-08-06T11:34:00.000-07:00

Judged:

Quotes on ISLAM from Famous People

1. Winston Churchill On Islam

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men."

"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."

2. John Quincy Adams on Islam

"The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force."

3. John Wesley on Islam

"Ever since the religion of Islam appeared in the world, the espousers of it...have been as wolves and tigers to all other nations, rending and tearing all that fell into their merciless paws, and grinding them with their iron teeth; that numberless cities are raised from the foundation, and only their name remaining; that many countries, which were once as the garden of God, are now a desolate wilderness; and that so many once numerous and powerful nations are vanished from the earth! Such was, and is at this day, the rage, the fury, the revenge, of these destroyers of human kind."

4. Hilaire Belloc on Islam

"Will not perhaps the temporal power of Islam return and with it the menace of an armed Mohammedan world, which will shake off the domination of Europeans - still nominally Christian - and reappear as the prime enemy of our civilization? The future always comes as a surprise, but political wisdom consists in attempting at least some partial judgment of what that surprise may be. And for my part I cannot but believe that a main unexpected thing of the future is the return of Islam."

5. Bishop Fulton J Sheen on Islam

"Today (1950), the hatred of the Moslem countries against the West is becoming hatred against Christianity itself. Although the statesmen have not yet taken it into account, there is still grave danger that the temporal power of Islam may return and, with it, the menace that it may shake off a West which has ceased to be Christian, and affirm itself as a great anti-Christian world Power."

6. Patriarch Cyrus of Alexandria on Islam

"I am afraid that God has sent these men to lay waste the world".

7. Gregory Palamus of Thessalonica on Islam

"For these impious people, hated by God and infamous, boast of having got the better of the Romans by their love of God...they live by the bow, the sword and debauchery, finding pleasure in taking slaves, devoting themselves to murder, pillage, spoil and not only do they commit these crimes, but even - what an aberration - they believe that God approves of them. This is what I think of them, now that I know precisely about their way of life."

8. William Eaton on Islam

"Considered as a nation, they are deplorably wretched, because they have no property in the soil to inspire an ambition to cultivate it. They are abject slaves to the despotism of their government, and they are humiliated by tyranny, the worst of all tyrannies, the despotism of priestcraft. They live in more solemn fear of the frowns of a bigot who has been dead and rotten above a thousand years, than of the living despot whose frown would cost them their lives. The ignorance, superstitious tradition and civil and religious tyranny, which depress the human mind here, exclude improvement of every kind."

9. John Quincy Adams on Islam

"In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar [i.e., Muhammad], the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind."

"THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE (Adams's capital letters). Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant. While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and goodwill towards men."

10. Lord Tebbit on Islam

"The Muslim religion is so unreformed since it was created that nowhere in the Muslim world has there been any real advance in science, or art or literature, or technology in the last 500 years."

11. Vernon Richards on Islam

"The true Islamic concept of peace goes something like this:'Peace comes through submission to Muhammad and his concept of Allah'(i.e. Islam). As such the Islamic concept of peace, meaning making the whole world Muslim, is actually a mandate for war. It was inevitable and unavoidable that the conflict would eventually reach our borders, and so it has."

12. Andre Servier on Islam

"Islam was not a torch, as has been claimed, but an extinguisher. Conceived in a barbarous brain for the use of a barbarous people, it was - and it remains - incapable of adapting itself to civilization. Wherever it has dominated, it has broken the impulse towards progress and checked the evolution of society."

13. Theodore Roosevelt on Islam

"The Greeks who triumphed at Marathon and Salamis did a work without which the world would have been deprived of the social value of Plato and Aristotle, of Aeschylus, Herodotus, and Thucydides. The civilization of Europe, America, and Australia exists today at all only because of the victories of civilized man over the enemies of civilization, because the victories stretching through the centuries from the days of Miltiades and Themistocles to those of Charles Martel in the eighth century and those of John Sobieski in the seventeenth century."

"During the thousand years that included the careers of the Frankish soldier and the Polish king, the Christians of Asia and Africa proved unable to wage successful war with the Moslem conquerors; and in consequence Christianity practically vanished from the two continents; and today nobody can find in them any 'social values' whatever, in the sense in which we use the words, so far as the sphere of Mohammedan influence. There are such 'social values' today in Europe, America, and Australia only because during those thousand years the Christians of Europe possessed the warlike power to do what the Christians of Asia and Africa had failed to do - that is, to beat back the Moslem invader."

14. David Selbourne on Islam

"Of course, there are distinguished precedents even for the bleakest and coarsest of these judgements. To Montesquieu in 1748, Islam's 'destructive spirit' spoke 'only by the sword'; to Schopenhauer in 1819, the Koran was a 'wretched book' in which he had 'not been able to discover one single idea of value'; to De Tocqueville in 1843, Islam was 'deadly','to be feared’ and a 'form of decadence'".

Abdullah wrote:

#447 <quoted text> NO it is not like that. Muslims can’t attack any one who did not attack them. you talk about resistence to conversion. Forcefull conversion is not acceptable in islam. it is included in SHARIA LAW.

APPETIZING VAGINAS FOR HOLY FIGHTERS!---A REALLY MIND-BOGGLING OFFER!!

Mr Abdullah, why are you so thick in your head? I already said that this is the Islam that many non-Muslims like me believe; but most of your own people do not know or refuse to believe. If they believe, they are only pretending to do so!

Even you yourself are quite ignorant of your Quran's good teachings. In Fusilat 41:34, Muslims are not to take bloody revenge if attacked, but to return/repel evil with something which is better. Then non-Muslims who are their enemies will become their best friends.

And here you are encouraging bloody revenge attacks by your Muslim people if they are attacked, when Muslim holy fighters are the ones who are often doing the attacking and even the mass-slaughtering almost daily of their own Muslim people. And you are keeping very quiet.

Even if Muslims can take revenge, often times they were the ones who started the fightings and the killings of the non-Muslims, in imitation of your Prophet Mohammed who often started the fights with his countless caravan raids of the Arab merchants during his days. How would you like it if robbers were to attack you and kill you after taking your wealth and property?

So why are you not preaching this to your own people who need so much of the good and peaceful teachings of the Quran? What unfortunately is driving them crazy is the bad teachings of the Quran---to hate, kill and take bloody revenge, which you have correctly stated in your post #447 is allowed [by your Quran].

So Muslims must make up their minds what they want to believe---the good or the bad in their Quran. And then, say, if the Pakistani Muslims choose good, they can hope to turn around your bloody Islamic paradise of Pakistan from being the most dangerous place for Muslims to live to being truly the best.

Of course you will have an uphill task, as Muslims are so hooked up on the idea that if they do evil for Allah in their holy wars, they will be rewarded with plentiful of houris (i.e. voluptuous paradise virgins) for endless sex orgies there. So which Muslim men can resist such tempting offers?

Here is what WLsciencejunkie posted: TIRMZI, volume two (p 35-40) declares:
A houri is a most beautiful young woman with a transparent body. The marrow of her bones is visible like the interior lines of pearls and rubies. She looks like red wine in a white glass. She is of white color, and free from the routine physical disabilities of an ordinary woman such as menstruation, menopause, urinal and offal discharge, child bearing and the related pollution.

A houri is a girl of tender age, having large breasts which are round (pointed), and not inclined to dangle. Houris dwell in palaces of splendid surroundings. The Prophet was asked:'Do we have sex in Paradise?' He answered:'Yes, by him who holds my soul in his hand, and it will be done dahman, dahman (that is intercourse done with such shove and disturbance [79]). And when it is finished she will return pure and virgin again."

Imam Suyuti is reported to have said, "each time we sleep with a houri we find her virgin.
Besides, the penis of the Elected never softens. The erection is eternal; the sensation that you feel each time you make love is utterly delicious and out of this world and were you to experience it in this world you would faint. Each chosen one [ie Muslim] will marry seventy [sic] houris, besides the women he married on earth, and all will have appetising vaginas ...”

muslims are ignorant to their surroundings and even their own religion. they are kept uneducated so they are easily manipulated by their cultish leaders who seek to exploit all they can from their own people. the sad thing is their own people are too blind to see it.
how many muslims live in poverty while their own leaders live like proverbial gods?
we need to exterminate the ignorance of islam. the sad thing is that means we need to exterminate many generations of muslims since theu brainwash their children and indoctrinate them into the cult at birth. the only was to stop islam is to educate the new children

15. Steven Runciman on Islam

"Unlike Christianity, which preached a peace that it never achieved, Islam unashamedly came with a sword."

16. Jon Stewart on Islam

"The nation of Dubai banned the movie Charlie's Angles because it's 'offensive to the religion of Islam.' Apparently, the religion of Islam is offended by anything without a plot."

17. Alexis de Tocqueville on Islam

"I studied the Koran a great deal...I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. As far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world, and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion infinitely more to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself."

18. William S. Burroughs on Islam

"The exact objectives of Islam Inc. are obscure. Needless to say everyone involved has a different angle, and they all intend to cross each other up somewhere along the line."

19. Ernest Renan on Islam

"Muslims are the first victims of Islam. Many times I have observed in my travels in the Orient that fanaticism comes from a small number of dangerous men who maintain the others in the practice of religion by terror. To liberate the Muslim from his religion is the best service one can render him."

20. Benedict XVI on Islam

"Islam has a total organization of life that is completely different from ours; it embraces simply everything," he said. "There is a very marked subordination of woman to man; there is a very tightly knit criminal law, indeed, a law regulating all areas of life, that is opposed to our modern ideas about society. One has to have a clear understanding that it is not simply a denomination that can be included in the free realm of a pluralistic society."

HummerH3 wrote:
7. Gregory Palamus of Thessalonica on Islam
"For these impious people, hated by God and infamous, boast of having got the better of the Romans by their love of God...they live by the bow, the sword and debauchery, finding pleasure in taking slaves, devoting themselves to murder, pillage, spoil and not only do they commit these crimes, but even - what an aberration - they believe that God approves of them. This is what I think of them, now that I know precisely about their way of life."
8. William Eaton on Islam
"Considered as a nation, they are deplorably wretched, because they have no property in the soil to inspire an ambition to cultivate it. They are abject slaves to the despotism of their government, and they are humiliated by tyranny, the worst of all tyrannies, the despotism of priestcraft. They live in more solemn fear of the frowns of a bigot who has been dead and rotten above a thousand years, than of the living despot whose frown would cost them their lives. The ignorance, superstitious tradition and civil and religious tyranny, which depress the human mind here, exclude improvement of every kind."
9. John Quincy Adams on Islam
"In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar [i.e., Muhammad], the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind."
"THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE (Adams's capital letters). Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant. While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and goodwill towards men."

21. Richard Dawkins on Islam
"Islam deserves criticism on account of the logical consequences of its dogma, namely, that the murder of fellow human beings is to be rewarded with sensual pleasure in a hedonistic 'Paradise'- a concept born in the fantasies of an Arab rebel some fourteen centuries ago. The religion of Mohammed is a dangerous system when the teachings and example of the 'prophet' are believed and followed."

22. Jacques Ellul on Islam

"...But care is taken not to say how Islam expanded, how countries 'passed into [Muslim] hands.'...Regarding this expansion, little is said about jihad. And yet it all happened through war!...the jihad is an institution...that is to say it is a part of the normal functioning of the Muslim world...The conquered populations change status (tney become dhimmis), and the shari'a tends to be put into effect integrally, overthrowing the former law of the country. The conquered territories do not simply change 'owners.'"

23. Sam Harris on Islam

"Islam, more than any other religion human beings have devised, has all the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death."

"As a matter of doctrine, the Muslim conception of tolerance is one in which non-Muslims have been politically and economically subdued, converted, or put to sword."

"The penalty for apostasy is death. We would do well to linger over this fact for a moment, because it is the black pearl of intolerance that no liberal exegesis will ever fully digest."

"There are other ideologies with which to expunge the last vapors of reasonableness from a society's discourse, but Islam is undoubtedly one of the best we've got."
"The truth that we must finally confront is that Islam contains specific notions of martyrdom and jihad that fully explain the character of Muslim violence."

Proud American wrote:
muslims are ignorant to their surroundings and even their own religion. they are kept uneducated so they are easily manipulated by their cultish leaders who seek to exploit all they can from their own people. the sad thing is their own people are too blind to see it.
how many muslims live in poverty while their own leaders live like proverbial gods?
we need to exterminate the ignorance of islam. the sad thing is that means we need to exterminate many generations of muslims since theu brainwash their children and indoctrinate them into the cult at birth. the only was to stop islam is to educate the new children

it seems like the forum of islam becomes the forum of HummerH3

try to do sth good in your life and stop spreading misconception about islam because no one can believe you

for people who want to discover islam, forum is not the best way of course

read this from translation of the meaning of the holy Quran

Surah 2. Al-Baqara
1. Alif. Lam. Mim.
2. This is the Scripture whereof there is no doubt, a guidance unto those who ward off (evil).
3. Who believe in the unseen, and establish worship, and spend of that We have bestowed upon them;
4. And who believe in that which is revealed unto thee (Muhammad) and that which was revealed before thee, and are
certain of the Hereafter.
5. These depend on guidance from their Lord. These are the successful.

(and from the sam surah)
284. Unto Allah (belongeth) whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth; and whether ye make known
what is in your minds or hide it, Allah will bring you to account for it. He will forgive whom He will and He will punish
whom He will. Allah is Able to do all things.
285. The messenger believeth in that which hath been revealed unto him from his Lord and (so do) the believers. Each
one believeth in Allah and His angels and His scriptures and His messengers We make no distinction between any of
His messengers and they say: We hear, and we obey.(Grant us) Thy forgiveness, our Lord. Unto Thee is the journeying.
286. Allah tasketh not a soul beyond its scope. For it (is only) that which it hath earned, and against it (only) that which
it hath deserved. Our Lord! Condemn us not if we forget, or miss the mark! Our Lord! Lay not on us such a burden as
15
Thou didst lay on those before us! Our Lord! Impose not on us that which we have not the strength to bear! Pardon us,
absolve us and have mercy on us, Thou, our Protector, and give us victory over the disbelieving folk.

List of Famous people who converted to Islam . . .

2011-08-06T11:17:00.000-07:00

Alphaetic
ally Arranged :

From Haseeb Ashir Bhandara

Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar (Sharmon Shah) – former NBA player
Abdullah Beg of Kartli – Georgian convert to Islam who was a claimant to the kingship of Kartli.
Abel Xavier – former Portuguese professional footballer converted to Islam with his new name Faisal.
Abu Tammam – 9th century Arab poet born to Christian parents.
Abu Usamah – American-born Imam of Green Lane Masjid in Birmingham, UK.Accused of preaching messages of hate towards non-Muslims in a UK Television documentary.
Adam Gadahn (born Adam Pearlman) – al-Qaeda English language spokesman. Homeschooled Christian.
Adam Neuser – a German Lutheran pastor who criticized the doctrine of the trinity and was consequently imprisoned.
Addas – Companion of the prophet Muhammad during his time. One of the earliest Christian converts to Islam.
Adi ibn Hatim – Companion of the prophet Muhammad during his time.
Ahmad Faris Shidyaq – a Lebanese scholar, writer and journalist who was a Maronite convert to Islam.
Ahmad Rashād – Emmy award-winning sportscaster (mostly with NBC Sports) and former American football wide receiver.
Ahmed Santos – Filipino, fugitive, founder of the Rajah Solaiman Movement & suspected by Filipino authorities to be an Al Qaeda operative converted from Catholicism
Ahmad Thomson – British barrister and writer and also a member of the Murabitun movement.
Akhenaton – French rapper and producer of French hip hop.
Allahverdi Khan – general and statesman of Georgian origin who was Christian and converted to Islam.
Alexander Litvinenko – former FSB officer converted to Islam on his deathbed
Alexander Russell Webb – Former Presbyterian. American journalist, newspaper owner, and former Consul-General of the U.S.A. in the Philippines.
Aminah Assilmi – Formerly a Southern Baptist preacher, she converted to Islam in 1977 in college while trying to convert some Muslims to Christianity.
André Carson – former Baptist, second Muslim to serve the United States Congress.
Anselm Turmeda – a Majorcan writer and a Franciscan friar who converted to Islam
Art Blakey – American Jazz musician
Aukai Collins – fought in Chechnya, paid FBI informant, author of an autobiographical book
Anthony Mundine – former Australian rugby league player for the St George Illawarra Dragons and now a boxer
Anthony Small – professional boxer
Sir Archibald Hamilton, 5th Baronet – a distinguished British convert to Islam.
Atik Sinan – a Greek architect for the Ottomans.

Badr al-Din Lu’lu’, an Armenian convert to Islam and successor to the Zangid rulers of Mosul.
Benjamin Chavis – controversial former head of the NAACP; joined the Nation of Islam.
Bernard Hopkins – American boxer
Betty Shabazz – wife of Malcolm X; former Methodist.
Bilal Philips – Islamic scholar and author
Bruno Metsu – French coach of the Senegal team at the 2002 FIFA World Cup
Bryant Neal Vinas – participated in and supported al-Qaeda plots in Afghanistan and the U.S., and helped al-Qaeda plan a bomb attack on the LIRR

Colleen LaRose – American citizen charged with terrorism-related crimes
Chris Eubank – British boxer
Christian Gonzalez – Indonesian-Uruguay footballer. He changed his name become Mustafa Habibi Gonzalez
Claude Alexandre de Bonneval or Humbaracı Ahmet Paşa is 18th century French nobleman.
Count Cassius- Visigothic aristocrat who founded the Banu Qasi dynasty of Muladi rulers.

Daniel Maldonado – American Islamist convicted in the United States on charges of training with al-Qaida in East Africa. Raised Catholic.
Danilo Fernando – Brazilian Footballer. He changed his name become Muhammad Danilo Fernando
Danny Thompson – English double bass player converted from Catholicism.
Danny Williams – British boxer
David Belfield – American, fled to Iran after assassinating Ali Akbar Tabatabai, an Iranian dissident.
David Benjamin Keldani, a former Catholic priest.
Dave Chappelle – comedian and television star
Dawud Wharnsby-Ali (David Wharnsby) – Canadian singer/poet.

Elsa Kazi – German writer of one-act plays, short stories, novels and history, and one of the greatest poets of her time.
Erekle I of Kakheti – Georgian convert to Islam who ruled the kingdoms of Kakheti and Kartli.
Éric Abidal (changed his name to Bilal) – French football player, currently playing for FC Barcelona, converted to Islam after marriage.
Everlast – Rapper from the Irish-American hip-hop group House of Pain, converted from Catholicism.

Farqad as-Sabakhi – an Armenian Islamic preacher who was formerly a Christian known for his knowledge of Judeo-Christian scriptures.
Franck Ribéry- a French football player. His name after he converted to Islam is Tarek.
Firouz – an Armenian Christian convert to Islam who served as a spy for Bohemund during the Siege of Antioch.

Gabriele Torsello – Italian freelance photojournalist based in London who was abducted in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
Gauhar Jaan-British-Indian Singer.
George XI of Kartli – Saffavid commander.
Germaine Lindsay – one of the suicide terrorists in the 7 July 2005 London bombings in which 52 people were murdered.

Hamza Yusuf – American convert from Greek Orthodox to Sunni Islam; co-founder of the Zaytuna College.
Hedley Churchward – English painter
Hersekzade Ahmed Pasha – born to a Christian Croatian family, he was an Ottoman general and statesman from Hercegovina.

Ian Dallas – Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi — Sufi shaykh of Scottish origins.
Ibn Jazla – an 11th century physician and Christian convert to Islam who later wrote to refute doctrines of Christianity.
Ibrahim Bey – an Egyptian Mamluk of Georgian Christian origins.
Ibrahim Muteferrika (original name not known) – From Unitarian Christianity, an early example of a Muslim publisher and printer.
Ilie II Rareş – prince of Moldavia.
Ingrid Mattson – Canadian scholar and current president of the Islamic Society of North America (2006) converted From Catholicism.
Isabelle Eberhardt – from Lutheran Christianity, 19th century explorer & writer
Ismael Urbain – French journalist and interpreter.
Ivan Aguéli (Johan Agelii) – famous Swedish painter.
Iyasu V – Ethiopian emperor.

C. Jack Ellis – Mayor of Macon, Georgia
Jacques-Francois Menou – French general under Napoleon I of France.
James Yee – previously Lutheran and former U.S. Army Muslim chaplain.
Jermaine Jackson (Muhammad Abdul Aziz) – former member of The Jackson 5.
Jerôme Courtailler – one of two French brothers convicted by French authorities in 2004 for abetting terrorists
Joe Tex – soul singer and recording artist.
Johann Ludwig Burckhardt was a Swiss traveller and orientalist.
St. John Philby – Arabist, explorer, writer, and British colonial office intelligence operative; converted from Anglicanism.
John Tzelepes Komnenos – a Greek Byzantine leader.
John Walker Lindh – the “American Taliban” converted From Catholicism
John Whitehead – an American singer, songwriter, and record producer.
John Nelson – first recorded Englishman to become a Muslim.
Joseph Thomas – Australian convert, acquitted of terrorism charges, placed under a control order under the Australian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005, currently pending retrial.
Józef Bem – Polish general, an Ottoman Pasha and a national hero of Poland and Hungary.
Judar Pasha – conqueror of the Songhai Empire.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor) – retired basketball player & the NBA’s all-time leading scorer
Keith Ellison – American, Representative from Minnesota’s 5th congressional district, first Muslim to be elected to the United States Congress, converted From Catholicism
Kevin Barrett – university lecturer and member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth.
Khaled Edward Blair – British barrister, later married Princess Badiya bint El Hassan of Jordan.
Khalid Yasin – Executive Director of the Islamic Teaching Institute, and a Shaykh currently residing in Australia.
Knud Holmboe – Danish journalist and explorer converted From Catholicism.
Koca Yusuf Pasha – a Georgian Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire who also served as the governor of Peloponnese.
Köse Mihal – a Byzantine renegade, he accompanied Osman al-Ghazi in his ascent to power and converted to Islam.
Kumba Ialá – a Guinea-Bissau politician who converted in 2008.

Dolores “LaLa” Brooks – American musician.
Leo of Tripoli – a Byzantine Greek renegade who freed 4000 Muslim prisoners while attacking the Byzantine city of Thessalonica.
Loon – American hip hop and rap artist
Lee Hughes – professional association football player, currently playing for Notts County F.C.
Lauren Booth – A journalist Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s sister-in-law in 2010.

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (Chris Jackson) – retired basketball player
Marcio Souza Da Silva – Brazilian Footballer
Markus Horison – Indonesian Goalkeeper. He changed his name become Muhammad Markus Haris Maulana
Marmaduke Pickthall – famous translator of the Quran.
Mario Scialoja – Italian ambassador and President of the World Muslim League.
Matthew Saad Muhammad (formerly Matthew Franklin) – former boxer, converted From Catholicism.
Michael Muhammad Knight – American novelist, writer, and journalist.
Mike Tyson – Is an American boxer to Sunni
Mihnea Turcitul – was a Prince (Voivode) of Walachia. Converted from Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
Mirza Malkam Khan – an Iranian Armenian proponent of Freemasonry who was active during the period leading up to the Iranian Constitutional Revolution.
Mleh, Prince of Armenia – an Armenian convert to Islam from Catholicism, he was the eighth lord of Armenian Cilicia.
Mohammad Yousuf – Pakistani cricketer. Known for holding the world record for the most Test runs in a single calendar year, converted From Catholicism.
Mohammed Knut Bernström – Swedish ambassador to Venezuela (1963–1969), Spain (1973–1976) and Morocco (1976–1983)
Mohammed Zakariya – an American master of Arabic calligraphy, best known for his work on the popular Eid U.S. postage stamp.
Moralı Enişte Hasan Pasha – Greek Ottoman Grand Vizier.
Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barker (Philip Barker) – professor of Urdu, former chair of the University of Minnesota’s Department of South Asian studies and creator of the Tékumel fantasy world.
Muhammad Ali (formerly Cassius Clay), from Baptist to The Nation of Islam to sufism Islam. famous boxer.
Muhammed al-Ahari born January 6, 1965 as Ray Allen Rudder is an American essayist, scholar and writer on the topics of American Islam, Black Nationalist groups, heterodox Islamic groups and modern occultism.
Murad Wilfred Hofmann – NATO official, converted From Catholicism

Nicolas Anelka – French football player
Nuh Ha Mim Keller – from Catholicism to agnosticism to Sunni Islam, Islamic scholar.

Olu Dara (born Charles Jones III in Natchez, Mississippi on 12 January 1941) is an American cornetist, guitarist and singer
Omar Bongo – Gabonese, President of Gabon.
Omar Hammami – American-born member of the Somali Islamist paramilitary group al-Shabaab. Known by the nom de guerre Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki.
Omar Pasha – Ottoman general. Converted from Serbian Orthodoxy.
Omar Sharif – Egyptian actor who converted from Catholicism.

Pargalı İbrahim Pasha – born to a Christian Greek family, he was the first Grand Vizier in the Ottoman Empire appointed by Suleiman the Magnificent.
Peter Murphy – vocalist of the goth/rock group Bauhaus, converted from Catholicism.
Pierre Vogel – German Islamic preacher and former professional Boxer.
Poncke Princen – Dutch soldier, later human rights activist, converted From Catholicism.
Preacher Moss – Former Baptist, American comedian and comedy writer.

Raghib Pasha – was a Greek Ottoman politician who served as Prime Minister of Egypt^[131] and who converted to Islam from Christianity.^[132]
Radu cel Frumos – was the younger brother of Vlad Ţepeş (Dracula) and prince of the principality of Wallachia, converted From Catholicism.^[133]
René Guénon – French Author in the field of metaphysics, converted From Catholicism.^[134]^[135]
Richard Colvin Reid – shoe bomber (convicted terrorist)^[136]
Richard Thompson – British musician, best known for his guitar playing and songwriting.^[137]
Robert of St. Albans – an English templar knight who converted to Islam from Christianity in 1185 and led an army for Saladin against the Crusaders in Jerusalem.^[138]
Robert D. Crane is the former adviser to the late President Richard Nixon, and is former Deputy Director (for Planning) of the U.S. National Security Council.^[139]
Robin Padilla – Filipino actor.^[140]
Roger Garaudy – French philosopher, converted From protestant.^[141]
Ronald Bell or Khalis Bayyan (born 1 November 1951, Youngstown, Ohio) is an American singer, composer and saxophonist
Rowland Allanson-Winn, 5th Baron Headley – British soldier and peer.^[142]
Rudolf Carl von Slatin – Anglo-Austrian soldier and administrator in the Sudan. Later reverted to Catholicism.^[143]
Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood – British author, converted from Protestantism.^[144]
Ryan G. Anderson – former Lutheran, convicted of charges of espionage for Al Qaeda^[145]^[146]
Ryan Harris- football player for the Denver Broncos^[147]

Salman the Persian A convert from Christianity^[148] who was previously Zoroastrian.
Sana al-Sayegh, dean of the Science and Technology Faculty at Palestine International University, converted to Islam in August 2007. Fatah has accused its political rival Hamas of forcing the professor to convert from Christianity, a charge Hamas denies.^[149]
Sarah Joseph – commentator on women’s issues and founder of emel magazine, converted From Catholicism.^[150]
Brad Terrence Jordan (“Scarface”) – American rapper^[151]
Shah Shahidullah Faridi – Writer of German descent born to a Christian family.^[152]
Sheila Musaji – founder of The American Muslim magazine.^[153]
Silma Ihram – formerly a born again Baptist who is an Australian pioneer of Muslim education in the West, founder and former school Principal of the ‘Noor Al Houda Islamic College’, campaigner for racial tolerance, and Author.^[154]
Siraj Wahaj – Former Baptist.^[155] African-American Imam, noted for his efforts to eliminate Brooklyn’s drug problems.^[156]
Snoop Dogg – Rapper, Joined Nation Of Islam.^[157]
Suhaib Webb – American Islamic activist and speaker.^[158]
Suleiman Pasha – French-born Egyptian commander.^[159]

T. B. Irving – An American scholar, author and translator
Tariq Abdul-Wahad (Olivier Saint-Jean) – originally from France, former basketball player for the Mavericks and Kings^[160]
Tawana Brawley (changed her name to Maryam Muhammad) – African American woman noted for claiming to have been raped by several white men, a claim determined to be a fabrication by a grand jury. Later in life she converted to Islam.^[161]^[162]^[163]
Tekuder – Mongol leader of the Ilkhan empire who was formerly a Nestorian Christian.^[164]
Thomas J. Abercrombie – photographer^[165]
Timothy Winter – prominent British Islamic thinker and scholar, and a lecturer in Islamic studies in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge.^[166]
Torquato Cardilli – Italian ambassador, converted From Catholicism.^[167]

Vincenzo Luvineri – American rapper and the lyricist behind the Philadelphia underground hip-hop group Jedi Mind Tricks, converted From Catholicism.^[168]

Wadih el-Hage born to a Maronite Christian family in Sidon, Lebanon, a former al-Qaeda member.^{[citation needed]}
William Abdullah Quilliam – 19th century British poet, ambassador and journalist.^[169]
Willie Brigitte – French convert to Islam who associated with al-Qaeda in Pakistan and was possibly involved in a plot to conduct a terrorist operation in Australia.^[170]
Wojciech Bobowski – raised Protestant, he was a Polish musician and translator of the Bible into Ottoman Turkish.^[171]

Yahiya Emerick – American Muslim scholar, President of the Islamic Foundation of North America, converted from Protestantism.^[172]
Yasin Abu Bakr (Lennox Philip) – of Trinidad and Tobago, under trial for an attempted coup as of 9 March 2006^[173]
Yusuf Estes – Former preacher and federal prison chaplain, converted from Protestantism.^[174]
Yvonne Ridley – British journalist, from Anglicanism. She converted after being kidnapped and released by the Taliban.^[175]^[176]

Zaid Shakir – American Muslim convert former Baptist to Sunni Islam, speaker, intellectual, author, Islamic scholar, and co-founder of Zaytuna College in the United States.^[177]^[178]
Zağanos Pasha – one of the prominent military commanders of Mehmet II (Mehmet the Conqueror) and a lala, at once an advisor, mentor, tutor, councillor, protector, for the sultan.^[179]

From Judaism

Abdullah ibn Salam – 7th century sahabi said to have been a rabbi of aristocratic stock.^[180]
Hibat Allah Abu’l-Barakat al-Baghdaadi – influential 12th century physicist, philosopher, and scientist who wrote a critique of Aristotelian philosophy and Aristotelian physics.^[181]
Ibn Yahyā al-Maghribī al-Samaw’al – 12th century mathematician and astronomer.^[182]^[183]
Ibn Sahl of Seville – 13th century Andalusian poet.^[184]
Jacob Querido – 17th century successor of the self-proclaimed Jewish Messiah Sabbatai Zevi.^[185]
Leila Mourad – Egyptian singer and actress of the 1940s and 1950s.^[186]
Lev Nussimbaum – 20th century writer, journalist and orientalist.^[187]
Muhammad Asad (Leopold Weiss) – Viennese journalist, author, and translator who visited the Hijaz in the 1930s, and became Pakistani ambassador to the United Nations.^[188]
Rashid-al-Din Hamadani – 13th century Persian physician^[189]
Sultan Rafi Sharif Bey (Yale Singer) – 20th century pioneer in the development of Islamic culture in the United States.^[190]
Tali Fahima – Israeli left-wing activist, convicted of aiding Palestinian fighters. Converted to Islam in Umm al-Fahm in June 2010.^[191]
Yaqub ibn Killis – 10th century Egyptian vizier under the Fatimids.^[192]
Youssef Darwish – a labour lawyer and activist^[193] who was one of the few from the Karaite Jewish community to remain in Egypt after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

From Dharmic religions

From Buddhism

The Barmakid family – originally the guardians of the great Buddhist shrine near Balkh, upon conversion they became “the greatest family” in the early Abbasid caliphate.^[194]
Daniel Moore – poet^[195]
Donei Kalaminjaa – king of the Maldives.^[196]
Korguz – was an Uyghur governor of Khorasan^[197] during the reign of the Mongol ruler Ogedei Khan.^[198]
Mahmud Ghazan – seventh ruler of the Ilkhanate.^[199]
Muhammad Khodabandeh – eighth Ilkhaid dynasty ruler in Iran from 1304 to 1316.^[200]
Mubarak Shah – head of the ulus of the Chagatai Khanate (1252–1260, March–September 1266).^[201]
Tarmashirin – Khan of the Chagatai Khanate following Duwa Timur.^[202]
Hussein Ye – An Islamic scholar of Chinese descent whose lectures are frequently aired on Peace TV.^[203]

From Hinduism

Abdul Wahid Pedersen – Danish cleric.^[204]
A.R. Rahman (stands for Allah Rakha Rahman) – Modern South Indian singer ,songwriter & Oscar winner officially converted to Islam from Hinduism.^[205]
Dhiren Barot – Born in India to a Hindu family, Barot was later sentenced to 40 years in prison in the United Kingdom for conspiracy to murder. Barot admitted to plotting to bomb the New York Stock Exchange, the International Monetary Fund headquarters, and the World Bank, amongst other targets.
Divya Bharti – Indian actress who converted on marriage to producer Sajid Nadiadwala
Jalaluddin Muhammad Shah – son of Raja Ganesha; he converted to Islam, then to Hinduism and finally reverted back to Islam, and later introduced Islam to many Hindus.^[206]
Kabir Suman- Modern Bengali singer & songwriter officially converted to Islam from Hinduism in 2000.^[207]
Kamala Suraiyya (formerly Kamala Das) – Anglo-Malayalam writer^[208]
Khusro Khan – a medieval Indian military leader who was a Hindu convert to Islam.
Malik Kafur – Indian military general.^[209]
Malik Maqbul – Prime Minister or Wazir of the Delhi Sultanate,^[210] during the reign of Feroz Shah Tughlaq.
Murshid Quli Khan – the Mughal governor of Bengal.^[211]
Muhammed Yusuf Khan – Born Maruthanayagam Pillai, he converted to Islam^[212] and later served as Commandant for the British East India Company troops.
Rama Varma Kulashekhara – reportedly the first Indian king to accept Islam^[213]^[214]
Sahaj Ram Sapru – the grandfather of the British-Indian Muslim Philosopher, Sir Dr. Muhammad Iqbal, who was an official in Kashmir during the administration of the Afghan Governor Azim Khan.^[215]
Sharmila Tagore – Converted after marriage to M A Patudi
Steven Vikash Chand – Arrested in the 2006 Toronto terrorism arrests^[216]
Tansen – Notable musician and poet.^[217]^[218]

From Sikhism

Ubaidullah Sindhi – religious leader and political activist.^[219]

Other

From agnosticism or atheism

Charles le Gai Eaton – British writer.
Martin Lings – a widely acclaimed British scholar. He was raised as a Protestant, became an atheist, and later converted to Islam.^[220]
Mos Def – American rapper and actor.^[221]
Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) – British musician and singer (had a nominally Christian upbringing, but never was a believer)^[222]
Zhang Chengzhi – contemporary Hui Chinese author; raised as an atheist.^[223]

From Paganism

Abba Jifar I – king of the Gibe Kingdom of Jimma.^[224]
Baraq – a ruler of the Chagatai Khanate who took the name Ghiyas-ud-din after converting.^[225]
Berke – grandson of Genghis Khan and leader of the Golden Horde who was the first Mongol ruler to establish Islam in a Mongol state.^[226]
David Myatt – from Paganism, former Neo-Nazi-activist^[227]
Nawrūz (Mongol emir) – a convert to Islam;^[228] he played an important role in the politics of the Mongol Ilkhanate.
Negudar – Mongol general and noyan^[229]
Nogai Khan – Mongol general and great-grandson of Genghis Khan.^[230]
Samori Ture – founder of the Wassoulou Empire who resisted French rule in West Africa.^[231]^[232]
Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan – 9th century Uyghur ruler who was one of the first Turks to convert to Islam.^[233]
Tuda Mengu – Mongol leader of the Golden Horde^[234]
Tughlugh Timur – the Khan of Moghulistan.^[235]

From Sabianism

Hilal al-Sabi – a historian, bureaucrat, and writer of Arabic.^[236]
Sinan ibn Thabit – a physician and son of Thābit ibn Qurra.^[237]

From Zoroastrianism

Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa – author and translator of Kalīla wa Dimna from Middle Persian.^[238]
Abu’l Hasan Mihyar al-Daylami – a Persian poet from Daylam.^[239]^[240]
Abu-Lu’lu’ah Al-Nahawndi – a Persian who assassinated Umar al-Khattab.^[241]
Abu-Mansur Daqiqi – a Persian poet.^[242]
Fadl ibn Sahl – Persian vizier of the Abassid era.^[243]
Naubakht – Pahlavi translator of the Abassid court.^[244]
Rattanbai Petit – second wife of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan
Saman Khuda – founder of the Samanid dynasty, one of the first native Persian dynasties in the Middle East and Central Asia after the collapse of the Sassanids.^[245]

Undetermined former religion

Abd al Malik – birth name Régis Fayette-Mikano — French rapper of Congolese origins.^[246]
Abd al Haqq Kielan – Swedish cleric.^[247]
Abdallah Schleifer – prominent Middle East expert, former NBC Cairo Bureau chief, and a professor of TV journalism at the American University in Cairo who converted to Sufi Islam.^[248]^[249]
Abdul Alim Musa – Muslim activist and director of Masjid Al-Islam in Washington, D.C.^[250]
Abdul Waheed (Don Stewart-Whyte) – accused of participating in the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot.^[251]^[252]
Abdullah Ibrahim – South African Jazz musician.^[253]
Ahmad Jamal – Jazz pianist.^[254]
Ahmed el Inglizi – was an English architect and engineer who worked for the Sultan of Morocco Mohammed ben Abdallah in the 18th century and converted to Islam.^[255]
Ajdin Muzaka – was the commander in the Battle of Torvioll.
Ali Shaheed Muhammad – member of A Tribe Called Quest.^[256]
Alys Faiz – human rights and peace activist;^[257] converted at the time of her marriage to Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz.^[258]
Amir Butler- author, engineer and Islamic activist.^[259]
Anthony Mundine – Australian Boxer, Former 2 time Super Middleweight Champion.^[260]
Antoni Aleksander Iliński – a Polish-Ottoman military officer and general.
Apisai Tora – Fijian politician.^[261]

Batool Al-Toma – Irishwoman who is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism.
B.G. Knocc Out – American west coast rapper.^[262]
Begum Om Habibeh Aga Khan – born Yvette Blanche Labrousse, Miss France 1930, wife of Aga Khan III.^[263]
Bob Denard – French mercenary.^[264]
Brandon Mayfield – American attorney-at-law, was erroneously linked to the 2004 Madrid train bombings.^[265]
Busta Rhymes – American rapper, songwriter and actor

Charles Brooks, Jr. – converted while serving a sentence for murder; first person to be executed by lethal injection in the United States.^[266]
Ilich Ramírez Sánchez – aka “Carlos the Jackal”, convicted murderer and terrorist, currently in prison in France.^[267]
Celestino Caballero – Boxer, Current Super Bantamweight Champion.^[268]
Charles John Pelham (Abdul Mateen)- 8th Earl of Yarborough.^[269]
Christian Ganczarski- Head of “al Qaeda in Europe”.^[270]
Christopher de Bellaigue – journalist and author
Christopher Paul (aka Paul Kenyatta Laws aka Abdulmalek Kenyatta) – American citizen, alleged member of al-Qaeda.^[271]^[272]
Colleen LaRose – alleged intended assassin of Danish cartoonist Lars Vilks.^[273]
Craig Hodges – former NBA player.^[274]

David Hicks – convicted Australian terrorist.^[275]
Derrick Shareef- charged in a plot to set off four hand grenades in garbage cans 22 December at the CherryVale Mall in Rockford, Illinois during the Christmas rush.^[276]
Divine Styler – American hip-hop musician.^[277]
Dwight Muhammad Qawi – Former boxing world Light Heavyweight and Cruiserweight champion.^[278]

Edoardo Agnelli – eldest son of Gianni Agnelli, the industrialist patriarch of Fiat.
Everlast – Irish-American rapper and singer-songwriter.^[279]

Frithjof Schuon – metaphysician, poet, painter, philosopher (in the original and Platonic sense of this term), and a leading figure of the perennialist school.^[280]

Gary Legenhausen – American philosopher and writer.^[281]
Ghostface Killah – member of the Wu-Tang Clan.^[282]
Gigi Gryce – American saxophonist, flutist, clarinetist, composer, arranger, and educator.^[283]
Gustave-Henri Jossot – French caricaturist, illustrator and Orientalist painter.^[284]

Hasan Akbar (born Mark Fidel Kools) – American sentenced to death for the murder of two fellow soldiers during the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.^[285]
H. Rap Brown – civil rights activisit.^[286]

Ibrahim Hooper (Douglas Hooper) – Islamic activist, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).^[287]
Ibrahim Savant – one of the suspects arrested in the UK in connection to the 2006 transatlantic aircraft terrorist plot in the United Kingdom.^[288]
Idris Muhammad – American jazz musician.^[289]
Iliaş Colceag – Moldavian military commander in the Ottoman and Russian Empire.
Isabelle Eberhardt – explorer and writer.^[290]

Jack Roche – convicted of involvement in an al-Qaeda plot to blow up the Israeli embassy in Canberra.^[291]
Jadel Gregório – a Brazilian athlete.
James Achilles Kirkpatrick – was the British Resident in Hyderabad.^[292]
Jan Janszoon – Dutch pirate.^[293]
Jason Walters – of the Netherlands, member of the Hofstad Network, convicted on charges of terrorism.^[294]
Jeff Fort – former Chicago gang leader, co-founder of the Black P. Stones gang, and founder of its El Rukn faction. He was convicted in 1987 of conspiring with Libya to perform acts of domestic terrorism.^[295]^[296]
Jeffrey Mark Deskovic – served 15-year wrongful imprisonment sentence.^[297]
Jemima Goldsmith daughter of the billionaire Sir James, who was married to Imran Khan
Jesse of Kakheti – a ruler of Kakheti in eastern Georgia from 1614 to 1615.
John Allen Muhammad – convicted serial killer, known as the Beltway Sniper.^[298]^[299]
John Ward – (changed name to Yusuf Reis) British corsair and pirate.^[300]
Johann von Leers – advisor to Muhammad Naguib known for his anti-Semitic polemics.^[301]^[302]^[303]
José Padilla – the respondent in Rumsfeld v. Padilla currently on trial as an alleged al-Qaida operative, converted while in prison for aggravated assault.^[304]
Juan Carlos Gomez – Former Cruiserweight Boxing Champion.^[305]

Kérim Chatty- Swedish bodybuilding stuntman who was once suspected of attempted hijacking. The preliminary inquiry was dropped.^[306]
Khaled Edward Blair – British barrister, later married Princess Badiya bint Al Hassan of Jordan.^[307]
Khalid Sheldrake – an English pickle manufacturer who established a branch of the Western Islamic Association in South Shields in 1930.

Larry Johnson – retired American professional basketball player.^[308]
Lauren Booth – a British^[309] broadcaster, journalist and human rights activist.^[310]^[311]
Li Nu – a Chinese scholar in the Ming dynasty who visited Persia, converted to Islam, married a Persian or an Arab girl and brought her back to Quanzhou in Fujian.^[312]^[313]^[314]
Lim Yew Hock – Singapore’s second Chief Minister from 1956 to 1959.^[315]

MC Ren – American rapper and hip-hop producer.^[316]
Malcolm X – American to Nation of Islam to Sunni Islam, African-American civil rights leader.^[317]
Malik ul Salih – established the first Muslim state of Samudera Pasai.^[318]
Maryam Jameelah – formerly Margret Marcus. Author of many books covering several subjects, including Modernism, Sociology, History, Jihad, Theology and Technology.^[319]
Maurice Béjart – French choreographer.^[320]
Mike Tyson (Malik Abdul Aziz) – former heavyweight boxing champion of the world. Converted while in prison after being convicted of rape.^[321]^[322]
Mohammed Knut Bernström – Swedish ambassador.^[323]
Michael Wolfe – American poet, author, and the President and Executive Producer of Unity Productions Foundation.^[324]^[325]
Michael X – civil rights activist in the United Kingdom^[326]

Nahshid Sulaiman – alternative hip hop artist.^[327]
Nur al-Anwar al-Jerrahi (born Lex Hixon) – syncretist, Sufi convert, and co-founder of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order in the United States.^[328]

Omar Ong Yoke Lin – (1917–2010) Malaysian politician, former government minister and founder of the Malaysian Chinese Association.^[329]
Baron omar Rolf von Ehrenfels – Austrian anthropologist and orientalist.^[330]

Philippe Fragione – French rapper and producer of French hip hop.^[331]
Philippe Grenier – (1865–1944) French doctor, first Muslim MP in France.^[332]

Q-Tip – North American hip-hop emcee, actor, and hip hop producer who was the leader of the critically acclaimed group A Tribe Called Quest.^[333]

Rakan Ben Williams – suspected member of Al-Qaeda terrorist.^[334]
Robert “Kool” Bell – musician.^[335]
Robert D. Crane – former Presidential advisor and ambassador.^[336]
Rodrigo de Triana – sailor and the first European since the Vikings known to have seen America who converted to Islam from Judaism^[337] or Christianity.^[338]
Ronald Bell – musician.^[339]
Rory McLeod – British snooker player.

Sahib Shihab – jazz saxophonist and flautist.^[340]
Saida Miller Khalifa – British author who was originally called Sonya Miller.^[341]^[342]
Shaheed Akbar – notable rapper who converted to Islam.^[343]
Stephen Schwartz – American journalist, columnist, and author.^[344]
Susanne Osthoff – German archaeologist who had worked in Iraq since 1991 and had been taken captive there for three weeks.^[345]

Thomas J. Abercrombie -Famous photographer and writer for National Geographic Magazine http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/06/AR2006040602187.html
Tiara Jacquelina – Malaysian actress.^[346]
Titus Burckhardt – Swiss writer and scholar.^[347]
Tony Hussein Hinde – an Australian-born Maldivian surfer and surfing pioneer who converted to Islam.^[348]

Umar Islam – one of the suspects arrested in the UK in connection to the 2006 transatlantic aircraft terrorist plot in the United Kingdom.^[288]
Uri Davis – an academic and activist who works on civil rights in Israel, Palestinian National Authority and the Middle East.^[349]

Vladimir Khodov – leader of the Beslan school hostage crisis- converted in prison.^[350]
Vernel Fournier – jazz drummer.

Walt Hazzard – former NBA player.^[351]

Yusef Lateef – American Jazz musician.^[352]

We Invite You To ISLAM

2011-08-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

Assalamu ‘alaikum.
Hi and welcome,

This website is dedicated especially to our not-yet-Muslim friends, so that they can learn from their friends’ experience of converting to ISLAM. The compilation of articles and videos in this website is based on their true stories published in various sources of books, magazines, websites etc. I hope this tiny effort can be an opening door for those who are interested in knowing about ISLAM, to unfold further and seek the truth of ISLAM.

I invite you to embrace ISLAM and may ALLAH guide us to the truth, ameen.

“…Verily, the Right Path has become distinct from the wrong path.” (Al-Qur’an 2:256)

VIDEOS ON CONVERT/REVERT TO ISLAM

ARTICLES ON CONVERT/REVERT TO ISLAM

MUHAMMAD ALI the Great BoXeR

2011-08-06T10:47:00.000-07:00

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1960
October 29 - Tunney Hunsaker, Louisville, KY - W 6
December 27 - Herb Siler, Miami Beach, FL - KO 4

1961
January 17 - Tony Esperti, Miami Beach, FL - KO 3
February 7 - Jim Robinson, Miami Beach, FL - KO 1
February 21 - Donnie Fleeman, Miami Beach, FL - KO 7
April 19 - Lamar Clark, Louisville, KY - KO 2
June 26 - Duke Sabedong, Las Vegas, NV - W 10
July 22 - Alonzo Johnson, Louisville, KY - W 10
October 7 - Alex Miteff, Louisville, KY - KO 6
November 29 - Willi Besmanoff, Louisville, KY - KO 7

1962
February 19 - Sonny Banks, New York, NY - KO 4
March 28 - Don Warner, Miami Beach, FL - KO 4
April 23 - George Logan, Los Angeles, CA - KO 6
May 19 - Billy Daniels, New York, NY - KO 7
July 20 - Alejandro Lavorante, Los Angeles, CA - KO 5
November 15 - Archie Moore, Los Angeles, CA - KO 4

1963
January 24 - Charlie Powell, Pittsburgh, PA - KO 3
March 13 - Doug Jones, New York, NY - W 10
June 18 - Henry Cooper, London - KO 5

1964
February 25 - Sonny Liston, Miami Beach, FL - KO 7
Muhammad Ali wins the Heavyweight Title

1965
May 25 - Sonny Liston, Lewiston, ME - KO 1
November 22 - Floyd Patterson, Las Vegas, NV - KO 12

1966
March 29 - George Chuvalo, Toronto - W 15
May 21 - Henry Cooper, London - KO 6
August 6 - Brian London, London - KO 3
September 10 - Karl Mildenberger, Frankfurt,Germany - KO 12
November 14 - Cleveland Williams, Houston, TX - KO 3

1967
February 6 - Ernie Terrell, Houston, TX - W 15
March 22 - Zora Folley, New York, NY - KO 7
Ali is stripped of his title in April, for refusing the
military draft on religious grounds.

1970
Ali returns to boxing after three-and-a-half year layoff.
October 26 - Jerry Quarry, Atlanta, GA - KO 3
December 7 - Oscar Bonavena, New York, NY - KO 15

1971
March 8 - Joe Frazier, New York, NY - L 15
Ali loses Heavyweight Title match.
It is his 1st loss as a Professional.
Frazier is now the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion.

July 26 - Jimmy Ellis, Houston, TX - KO 12
November 17 - Buster Mathis, Houston, TX - W 12
December 26 - Jurgen Blin, Zurich, Switzerland - KO 7

1972
April 1 - Mac Foster, Tokyo, Japan - W 15
May 1 - George Chuvalo, Vancouver, Canada - W 12
June 29 - Jerry Quarry, Las Vegas, NV - KO 7
July 19 - Al 'Blue' Lewis, Dublin - KO 11
September 20 - Floyd Patterson, New York, NY - KO 7
November 21 - Bob Foster, Stateline, NV - KO 8

1973
February 14 - Joe Bugner, Las Vegas, NV - W 12
March 31 - Ken Norton, San Diego, CA - L 12
Jaw is broken in 2nd round, but Ali fights 10 more rounds. Loses by decision. Only the 2nd loss of Ali's career.

September 10 - Ken Norton, Los Angeles, CA - W 12
October 20 - Rudi Lubbers, Jakarta, Indonesia - W 12

1974
January 28 - Joe Frazier, New York, NY - W 12
October 30 - George Foreman, Kinshasa, Zaire - KO 8
Muhammad Ali Regains the Heavyweight Title,
becoming only the 2nd Heavyweight to ever do so.

1975
March 24 - Chuck Wepner, Cleveland, OH - KO 15
May 16 - Ron Lyle, Las Vegas, NV - KO 11
June 30 - Joe Bugner, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - W 15
October 1 - Joe Frazier, Manila, Phillipines - KO 14

1976
February 20 - Jean Pierre Coopman, San Juan, PR - KO 5
April 30 - Jimmy Young, Landover, MD - W 15
May 24 - Richard Dunn, Munich, Germany - KO 5
September 28 - Ken Norton, New York, NY - W 15

1977
May 16 - Alfredo Evangelista, Landover, MD - W 15
September 29 - Earnie Shavers, New York, NY - W 15

1978
February 15 - Leon Spinks, Las Vegas, NV - L 15
Ali loses the Heavyweight Title by Split-Decision.
3rd Loss of Ali's Career

September 15 - Leon Spinks, New Orleans, LA - W 15
Muhammad Ali wins the Heavyweight Title for the 3rd time,
becoming the first Heavyweight in boxing history to do so.

Muhammad Ali announces his retirement from boxing.

1980
October 2 - Larry Holmes, Las Vegas, NV - L by TKO 11
Ali makes a failed comeback after 2-year layoff and loses
in an attempt to win Title for the 4th time.

1981
December 11 - Trevor Berbick, Nassau, Bahamas - L 10
Ali loses again in a final failed comeback attempt.

MUHAMMAD ALI retires from boxing for good.

Charlie Brown history . . .

2011-08-01T01:29:00.000-07:00

Charlie Brown was a famous cartoon character created by Charles M. Schulz. He was the protagonist of the cartoon strip ‘Peanut’, one of the most famous and talked about cartoon strip. Charlie Brown was first casted in 1950 as a kid with no skills. He represented kids without any luck whatsoever, facing failures at all stage of their life. Charlie Brown was a child who was a prey to the comments and mockery of the other casts of the cartoon strips. Though he was always mocked at and was a target for some or the other disappointment, he never used to give up and always tried to prove his stand. There was a common connection between Charlie Brown and his creator - the similarity being that they both were the sons of a barber. The character of Charlie Brown is an example of the great American un-success story, as he used to fail in almost everything he did. This article will provide you with some interesting and amazing information on the origin and background of Charlie Brown.

Interesting & Amazing Information On Origin & Background Of Charlie Brown
Charlie Brown is a comic character of the 20th century American comic strip ‘Peanut’, created by Charles Schulz. ‘Peanut’ was one of the most famous and highly acclaimed newspaper cartoon strip, which first got published on 2nd October, 1952. Charlie Brown represented a youthful character in it. He was a lovable and endearing loser who got humiliated by everyone and was always dominated by the bossy ‘Lucy van Pelt’ and other characters of the cartoon strip. Though having endless determinations and hope, Charlie was always overpowered by his bad luck and was ultimately dominated by several insecurities. He was a kid who realized his failures and the bad luck that he faced.

Charlie Brown is usually considered to be bald, though he had a bit of hair at the front of his head, which is actually an artistic shortcut given to him, representing the frontline of his hair. The back of his head which carried a few strands of hair was known as tote. Charlie Brown looked almost similar in all his casts, except some stylistic differences in Schulz’s art style. He used to wear an unadorned striped t-shirt. The Charlie Brown and the Peanut gang included Charlie’s beagle, ‘Snoopy’ and ‘Woodstock’, a little yellow bird, along with other human characters. These two characters were featured in many animated television specials later on, starting with ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’, 1965 and the award winning and quite successful, long-running live-action stage musical ‘You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown’, 1967. Apart from these, they were also featured in several other cartoon strips and films after that.

In the initial strips of Peanut, Charlie Brown was projected as more assertive and playful character, than what he became later on. He used to play tricks on other members of the strip. He was projected as a brat who used to cause headache to adults, though he was not competent in any skills from the beginning. Few of the cartoon strips even had romantic overtones between Charlie and Patty and Violet. In the later strips, Charlie Brown evolved into a ‘Sad Sack’ character, which he is well known as. He used to feel enslaved, as he had to care for snoopy, beset by comments from other casts and characters around him. Coming to the storyline, a common approach used included Charlie being stubborn and refusing to give in even when he had lost everything, or suddenly displaying a skill only to suffer humiliations when he used to lose on what he was just about to win.

Charlie’s life was full of sad and disgraceful happenings and surrounded by his disposition to bad luck. He never used to receive any valentine or Christmas gifts or cards. However, he never lost hope and always tried to prove his stand. His misfortunes granted him the sympathy of his audience and such was his popularity that audience used to send Charlie Brown Valentine and Christmas cards and gifts, in an effort to show that they cared for Charlie Brown. Amidst the uncountable loses, Charlie Brown did have occasional victories though, such as hitting a game winning run off a pitchy by Roy Hobbs’ great granddaughter on March 30, 1993. He even defeated “Joe Agate” in a game of marbles on April 11, 1995. Charlie Brown continued and maintained this deportment until the strip ended in 2000.

Elizabeth Taylor: history of health problems

2011-08-01T01:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFeeuDPz-u8&feature=related

Taylor was born with the condition and suffered back problems all her life as a result.

"My body's a real mess," she admitted in a 2004 interview, aged 72.

"I've become one of those poor little women who's bent sideways. I feel so stupid and feeble that I can't do the work I was meant to do because of my bloody body."

Accidents also dogged the Hollywood star from her early days.

She broke her foot filming Lassie Come Home as a child, fell from her horse making National Velvet and underwent surgery to save her sight in 1953 after a flint fragment became embedded in her eye on the set of Elephant Walk.

There were dozens of operations for back pain, tonsilitis, appendicitis, kidney problems, bronchial infections, an ovarian cyst, and several broken bones acquired on various skiing holidays and film sets.

She underwent a partial hysterectomy and was admitted to hospital with amoebic dysentery.

In 1961 she almost died after contracting pneumonia and required an emergency tracheotomy, and in 2000 another bout of pneumonia left her clinging to life.

Doctors diagnosed a benign brain tumour in 1997, which was successfully removed.

She was treated for skin cancer in 2002.

In May 2005, after a piece in Vanity Fair noted her long absence from public life, she put on one last show by turning up at Sir Elton John's Oscar-night party.

With huge effort, she got out of her wheelchair and walked up to the cameras.

"I want to make sure that people know I'm still alive," she said.

Taylor was once asked why she had experienced so many brushes with death.

She replied: "I don't know. I have kind of wondered about that once or twice. And I think each time I have learned a lesson from it. Each time that I have almost died, while I have been recuperating and not quite knowing whether I was going to make it or not, you have time, plenty of time.

"Even an hour is plenty of time when you don't know whether you are going to live or not. And you think: Why did I make it? Why am I not dead? Everything indicated that I should be.

"There must be some reason that God wants me to live. There must be something left for me to do. And I have to find out what that something is and go out there and do it."

In May 2009 the star sent a message to her fans on the Twitter website, announcing she was home after a hospital stay. She thanked them "for all the love and support".

Publicist Dick Guttman said that she was admitted "for a routine visit".

Dame Elizabeth, an avid Twitter user, also sent a tweet asking a friend to get her puppy past hospital security . . .

Walt Disney History . . .

2011-08-01T01:10:00.000-07:00

Introduction

(Born December 5, 1901, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.—died December 15, 1966, Los Angeles, California) American motion-picture and television producer and showman, famous as a pioneer of animated cartoon films and as the creator of such cartoon characters as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. He also planned and built Disneyland, a huge amusement park that opened near Los Angeles in 1955, and before his death he had begun building a second such park, Walt Disney World, near Orlando, Florida. The Disney Company he founded has become one of the world's largest entertainment conglomerates.
Early life

Walter Elias Disney was the fourth son of Elias Disney, a peripatetic carpenter, farmer, and building contractor, and his wife, Flora Call, who had been a public school teacher. When Walt was little more than an infant, the family moved to a farm near Marceline, Missouri, a typical small Midwestern town, which is said to have furnished the inspiration and model for the Main Street, U.S.A., of Disneyland. There Walt began his schooling and first showed a taste and aptitude for drawing and painting with crayons and watercolours.

His restless father soon abandoned his efforts at farming and moved the family to Kansas City, Missouri, where he bought a morning newspaper route and compelled his young sons to assist him in delivering papers. Walt later said that many of the habits and compulsions of his adult life stemmed from the disciplines and discomforts of helping his father with the paper route. In Kansas City the young Walt began to study cartooning with a correspondence school and later took classes at the Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design.

In 1917 the Disneys moved back to Chicago, and Walt entered McKinley High School, where he took photographs, made drawings for the school paper, and studied cartooning on the side, for he was hopeful of eventually achieving a job as a newspaper cartoonist. His progress was interrupted by World War I, in which he participated as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross in France and Germany.

Returning to Kansas City in 1919, he found occasional employment as a draftsman and inker in commercial art studios, where he met Ub Iwerks, a young artist whose talents contributed greatly to Walt's early success.

First animated cartoons

Dissatisfied with their progress, Disney and Iwerks started a small studio of their own in 1922 and acquired a secondhand movie camera with which they made one and two-minute animated advertising films for distribution to local movie theatres. They also did a series of animated cartoon sketches called Laugh-O-grams and the pilot film for a series of seven-minute fairy tales that combined both live action and animation, Alice in Cartoonland. A New York film distributor cheated the young producers, and Disney was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1923. He moved to California to pursue a career as a cinematographer, but the surprise success of the first Alice film compelled Disney and his brother Roy—a lifelong business partner—to reopen shop in Hollywood.

With Roy as business manager, Disney resumed the Alice series, persuading Iwerks to join him and assist with the drawing of the cartoons. They invented a character called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, contracted for distribution of the films at $1,500 each, and propitiously launched their small enterprise. In 1927, just before the transition to sound in motion pictures, Disney and Iwerks experimented with a new character—a cheerful, energetic, and mischievous mouse called Mickey. They had planned two shorts, called Plane Crazy and Gallopin' Gaucho, that were to introduce Mickey Mouse when The Jazz Singer, a motion picture with the popular singer Al Jolson, brought the novelty of sound to the movies. Fully recognizing the possibilities for sound in animated-cartoon films, Disney quickly produced a third Mickey Mouse cartoon equipped with voices and music, entitled Steamboat Willie, and cast aside the other two soundless cartoon films. When it appeared in 1928, Steamboat Willie was a sensation.

The following year Disney started a new series called Silly Symphonies with a picture entitled The Skeleton Dance, in which a skeleton rises from the graveyard and does a grotesque, clattering dance set to music based on classical themes. Original and briskly syncopated, the film ensured popular acclaim for the series, but, with costs mounting because of the more complicated drawing and technical work, Disney's operation was continually in peril.

The growing popularity of Mickey Mouse and his girlfriend, Minnie, however, attested to the public's taste for the fantasy of little creatures with the speech, skills, and personality traits of human beings. (Disney himself provided the voice for Mickey until 1947.) This popularity led to the invention of other animal characters, such as Donald Duck and the dogs Pluto and Goofy. In 1933 Disney produced a short, The Three Little Pigs, which arrived in the midst of the Great Depression and took the country by storm. Its treatment of the fairy tale of the little pig who works hard and builds his house of brick against the huffing and puffing of a threatening wolf suited the need for fortitude in the face of economic disaster, and its song “Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”was a happy taunting of adversity. It was in this period of economic hard times in the early 1930s that Disney fully endeared himself and his cartoons to audiences all over the world, and his operation began making money in spite of the Depression.

Disney had by that time gathered a staff of creative young people, who were headed by Iwerks. Colour was introduced in the Academy Award-winning Silly Symphonies film Flowers and Trees (1932), while other animal characters came and went in films such as The Grasshopper and the Ants (1934) and The Tortoise and the Hare (1935). Roy franchised tie-in sales with the cartoons of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck—watches, dolls, shirts, and tops—and reaped more wealth for the company.
Feature-length cartoons

Walt Disney was never one to rest or stand still. He had long thought of producing feature-length animated films in addition to the shorts. In 1934 he began work on a version of the classic fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), a project that required great organization and coordination of studio talent and a task for which Disney possessed a unique capacity. While he actively engaged in all phases of creation in his films, he functioned chiefly as coordinator and final decision maker rather than as designer and artist. Snow White was widely acclaimed by critics and audiences alike as an amusing and sentimental romance. By animating substantially human figures in the characters of Snow White, the Prince, and the Wicked Queen and by forming caricatures of human figures in the seven dwarfs, Disney departed from the scope and techniques of the shorts and thus proved animation's effectiveness as a vehicle for feature-length stories.

While Disney continued to do short films presenting the anthropomorphic characters of his little animals, he was henceforth to develop a wide variety of full-length entertainment films, such as Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942). Disney also produced a totally unusual and exciting film—his multisegmented and stylized Fantasia (1940), in which cartoon figures and colour patterns were animated to the music of Igor Stravinsky, Paul Dukas, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and others. In 1940 Disney moved his company into a new studio in Burbank, California, abandoning the old plant it had occupied in the early days of growth.

Major films and television productions

A strike by Disney animators in 1941was a major setback for the company. Many top animators resigned, and it would be many years before the company produced animated features that lived up to the quality of its early 1940s classics. Disney's foray into films for the federal government during World War II helped the studio perfect methods of combining live-action and animation; the studio's commercial films using this hybrid technique include The Reluctant Dragon (1941), Saludos Amigos (1942), The Three Caballeros (1945), Make Mine Music (1946), and Song of the South (1946).

The Disney studio by that time was established as a big-business enterprise and began to produce a variety of entertainment films. One popular series, called True-Life Adventures, featured nature-based motion pictures such as Seal Island (1948), Beaver Valley (1950), and The Living Desert (1953). The Disney studio also began making full-length animation romances, such as Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Peter Pan (1953), and produced low-budget, live-action films, including The Absent-Minded Professor (1961).

The Disney studio was among the first to foresee the potential of television as a popular entertainment medium and to produce programs directly for it. The Zorro and Davy Crockett series were very popular with children, and a weekly showcase (known by several titles, including Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color) became a Sunday night fixture. The Mickey Mouse Club, a variety show featuring a cast of teenage performers known as the Mouseketeers, was also successful. The climax of Disney's career as a producer, however, came with his release in 1964 of the motion picture Mary Poppins, which won worldwide popularity.
Disneyland

In the early 1950s Disney had initiated plans for a huge amusement park to be built near Los Angeles. When Disneyland opened in 1955, much of Disney's disposition toward nostalgic sentiment and fantasy was evident in its design and construction. It soon became a mecca for tourists from around the world. A second Disney park, Walt Disney World, near Orlando, Florida, which was under construction at the time of his death, opened in 1971.

Assessment

Disney's imagination and energy, his whimsical humour, and his gift for being attuned to the vagaries of popular taste inspired him to develop well-loved amusements for “children of all ages” throughout the world. Although some criticized his frequently saccharine subject matter and accused him of creating a virtual stylistic monopoly in American animation that discouraged experimentation, there is no denying his pathbreaking accomplishments. His achievement as a creator of entertainment for an almost unlimited public and as a highly ingenious merchandiser of his wares can rightly be compared to the most successful industrialists in history . . .

A.Q. Khan Nuclear Chronology

2011-07-31T08:30:00.000-07:00

he complete extent of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan’s decades-long involvement in
the illegal transfer of nuclear materials and technologies is not known. The details are
submerged in Khan’s work over the past thirty years, which has included both the development
of Pakistan’s uranium enrichment capabilities and a complex international network of experts,
suppliers, and front companies that have aided Iran, Libya, North Korea, and potentially others.
Since we do not know exactly what Khan did, we cannot know when he did it. As more
information is released from those who have questioned Khan and his network partners, a more
complete image of the nuclear black market will emerge. This chronology summarizes what we
now know.
Khan Builds His Base in Pakistan
Pre-1985: Khan’s early exposure to European technology and supply chains allow him to establish and develop
uranium enrichment technologies in Pakistan. Knowledge of the technologies, and more importantly, the companies
from which to obtain the necessary components set the foundation for how the future proliferation network would
operate.
1936
• Khan is born in Bhopal, which is part of British India. Khan will immigrate with his
family to Pakistan in 1952, several years after India and Pakistan are partitioned.
1961
• Khan moves to Europe to complete his studies, first in West Berlin and later at the
Technical University in Delft, Holland, where he receives a degree in metallurgical
engineering in 1967.
1
1972
• Khan receives Ph.D. in metallurgical engineering from the Catholic University of Leuven
in Belgium.
• May – Khan begins work at Physical Dynamic Research Laboratory (FDO), a
subcontractor of Ultra Centrifuge Nederland (UCN). UCN is the Dutch partner in the
Urenco uranium enrichment consortium.
2
• 8 May - Within one week of starting work at FDO, Khan visits the advanced UCN
enrichment facility in Almelo, Netherlands to become familiar with Urenco centrifuge
operations and the aspects relevant to his own work to strengthen the metal centrifuge
T2
components. Khan is not officially cleared to visit the facility, but does so many times
with the consent of his employers.
3
Early 1970s
• Dutch intelligence begins to monitor Khan soon after he begins work at FDO, concerned
by a series of inquiries about technical information not related to Khan’s own projects.
4
1974
• 18 May – India conducts its first nuclear test, a “peaceful nuclear explosion.”
5
• September – Khan writes to Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to offer his services and
expertise to Pakistan.
6
• Late – Khan is tasked by UCN at Almelo with translations of the more advanced
German-designed G-1 and G-2 centrifuges from German to Dutch, to which he has
unsupervised access for 16 days.
7
Late 1970s and Early 1980s
• American intelligence officials convince Dutch authorities on two occasions not to arrest
Khan for the purposes of monitoring his activities further.
8
1975
• August – Pakistan begins buying components for its domestic uranium enrichment
program from European Urenco suppliers. S.A. Butt, a physicist in the Pakistani
embassy in Belgium, contacts a Dutch company to obtain high frequency inverters, which
are used to control centrifuge motors. Purchases accelerate in the following years and
many components are secured from companies in the Netherlands that Khan is familiar
with.
9
• October – Khan is transferred away from enrichment work with FDO as Dutch
authorities become increasingly concerned over his activities. He is reportedly observed
asking “suspicious questions” at a nuclear trade show in Switzerland.
10
• 15 December – Khan suddenly leaves FDO for Pakistan with copied blueprints for
centrifuges and other components and contact information for nearly 100 companies that
supply centrifuge components and materials.
11
1976
• Khan begins centrifuge work with the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC),
headed by Munir Ahmad Khan.
• July – After conflicts at the PAEC, Prime Minister Bhutto gives Khan autonomous
control over Pakistani uranium enrichment programs.
12
Khan founds Engineering
Research Laboratory (ERL) on July 31, which focuses exclusively on developing an
indigenous uranium enrichment capability.
13
• The PAEC continues nuclear research and experiments in both weapons and power
programs in competition with A.Q. Khan and will later develop Pakistan’s first generation
of nuclear weapons.
143
1978
• ERL develops working prototypes of P-1 centrifuges, adapted from the German G-1
design Khan worked with at Urenco. Pakistan enriches uranium for the first time on
April 4 at Khan’s enrichment facility at Kahuta.
15
1979
• April - Pakistan is cut off from economic and military assistance by the United States
after U.S. intelligence learns of the recently commissioned enrichment facility at Kahuta.
16

However, the strategic importance of Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
ensures that no meaningful sanctions will be imposed. This policy is consolidated
following the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
17
Early 1980s
• Khan acquires blueprints for the Chinese bomb that was tested in China’s fourth nuclear
explosion in 1966.
18
• Khan is, reportedly, approached by an unknown Arab country (possibly Saudi Arabia or
Syria) requesting nuclear assistance.
19
1981
• 1 May – ERL is renamed A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) by President Zia ulHaq in recognition of Khan’s contributions to the operational enrichment facility at
Kahuta.
20
1983
• Khan is convicted, in absentia, in Dutch court for conducting nuclear espionage and
sentenced to four years in prison.
21
1985
• Khan’s conviction is overturned based on an appeal that he had not received a proper
summons. The Dutch prosecution does not renew charges because of the impossibility
of serving Khan a summons given Pakistan security and the inability to obtain any of the
documents that Khan had taken to Pakistan.
22
The Network Flows Both Ways
Mid-1980s to mid-1990s: Khan’s early successes with the Pakistani uranium enrichment program are followed by
the more advanced design and technologies of the P-2 centrifuge, an adapted version of the German G-2 that can
spin twice as fast as the previous P-1 design. Khan is left with an excess inventory of P-1 components and begins
to purchase additional P-2 components that he will export through many of the same channels he had used to
import centrifuge components. Khan makes nuclear sales in this period to Iran and offers technologies to Iraq and
possibly others.
Mid 1980s
• Pakistan produces enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a nuclear weapon. KRL
continues work on enrichment and is tasked with research and development of missile
delivery systems.
234
• Khan, reportedly, begins to develop his export network and orders twice the number of
components necessary for the indigenous Pakistani program. This transition from
importer to exporter of centrifuge components is, apparently, completely missed by
western intelligence services who believe Khan is only working on Pakistan’s domestic
nuclear weapons program.
24
1986 to 1987
• Pakistan and Iran are suspected of signing a secret agreement on peaceful nuclear
cooperation. Allegedly, the deal includes a provision for at least six Iranians to be trained
in Pakistan at the Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology in Islamabad and the
Nuclear Studies Institute. Iranian scientists might also receive centrifuge training at
KRL.
25
• Khan is suspected of visiting the Iranian reactor at Bushehr in February 1986 and again in
January 1987. These early interactions may have led directly to Khan’s assistance to Iran,
but the content of the visits is unknown.
26
Late 1980s
• Khan and his network of international suppliers are reported to begin nuclear transfers to
Iran. The period of cooperation is thought to continue through 1995 when P-2
centrifuge components are transferred. The Pakistani government claims no transfers
occurred after the shipments of P-1 components and sub-assemblies from 1989 to 1991.
27
• German intelligence investigates potential Pakistani assistance to Iraq, and possibly Iran
and North Korea, with processes related to melting uranium.
28
1987
• Khan is suspected of having made an offer to Iran to provide a package of nuclear
technologies, including assistance for the difficult process of casting uranium metal. The
price for the package is reported to be from the tens of millions to the hundreds of
millions.
29
• Khan is believed to make a centrifuge deal with Iran to help build a cascade of 50,000 P-1
centrifuges.
30
In addition, Iran may have received centrifuge drawings through an
unknown foreign intermediary around this time.
31
• KRL begins to publish publicly available technical papers that outline some of the more
advanced design features Khan has developed. The papers include information that
would normally be classified in the U.S. and Europe and show that KRL is competent in
many aspects of centrifuge design and operation. The papers also include specifications
for centrifuges with maraging steel that can spin faster than earlier aluminum designs.
Later, in 1991, KRL publishes details on how to etch grooves around the bottom bearing
to incorporate lubricants. These technical developments are important for Khan’s P-2
centrifuges.
32
1988
• Iranian scientists are suspected of having received nuclear training in Pakistan.
335
1989
• Iran is suspected of receiving its first centrifuge assemblies and components around this
time. The shipped components are likely older P-1 centrifuge components that Khan no
longer has use for in Pakistan. Through 1995, Khan is reported to have shipped over
2000 components and sub-assemblies for P-1, and later P-2, centrifuges to Iran.
34
1990
• An Iraqi memo, found during inspections in 1995, indicates that Khan may have offered
significant nuclear assistance to Iraq in late 1990. He offered to sell Iraq a nuclear bomb
design and guarantee material support from Western Europe for a uranium enrichment
program. Khan stated that any materials needed from Europe could be routed through a
company he owned in Dubai and that a meeting with a friendly intermediary could take
place in Greece. However, Iraq is believed to have turned down the offer, suspecting it
to be a sting and no known follow-ups were made after the 1991 Gulf War. The
investigation in the 1990s was inconclusive in its efforts to determine the authenticity of
the memo.
35
1992
• Pakistan begins missile cooperation with North Korea. Within Pakistan, KRL is one of
the laboratories responsible for missile research and will develop the Ghauri missile with
North Korean assistance. This cooperation probably establishes the connections that
Khan could have used to transfer nuclear technologies. However, very little is known
about when any nuclear transfers began, what nuclear components might have been
obtained by North Korea, and whether or not the Pakistani government was privy to
Khan’s activities.
36
1994 or 1995
• More advanced components for P-2 centrifuges are suspected to have arrived in Iran.
B.S.A. Tahir, a Sri Lankan business man and Khan’s chief lieutenant, told Malaysian
police that Iran paid approximately $3 million for these centrifuge parts.
37
The Network Expands
Mid-1990s to the Present: After initial nuclear transfers to Iran, A.Q. Khan appears to have expanded his
network of customers to include Libya and North Korea. Khan’s network was based on a complex structure of
international suppliers that shipped components unimpeded by ineffective controls. Details of Libya’s acquisition
trace the network to Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey, South Africa, Switzerland, South Korea, Dubai, and possibly
others.
38
Khan appears to have been financially motivated and, reportedly, received over $100 million from sales to
39
Libya alone
Many details of the sales to Libya have been uncovered since late 2003, when it decided to come
clean about its nuclear program. However many aspects of the network remain mysterious, including network
sources for some necessary centrifuge components and details about suspected transfers to North Korea.
Mid 1990s
• Khan starts travel to North Korea where he receives technical assistance for the
development of the Ghauri missile, an adaptation of the North Korean No Dong design.
Khan makes at least 13 visits before his public confession in 2004 and is suspected of
arranging a barter deal to exchange nuclear and missile technologies, though the details of 6
any nuclear transfers remain unknown. Khan travels with military personnel from KRL.
These officials could have helped with the transfer of nuclear technology because
programs under the Ministry of Defense were exempt from normal export controls.
40

The military presence at KRL, including personnel who traveled to North Korea,
suggests that the Pakistani government might have been aware of Khan’s activities.
President Musharraf denies this claim.
41
• Khan is suspected to have met with a top Syrian official in Beirut to offer assistance with
a centrifuge enrichment facility.
42
1996
• The Pakistani currency reserve crunch may motivate Khan to expand his nuclear network
with sales to North Korea. The crisis might have made a barter agreement attractive to
Pakistan to avoid defaulting on external debt. Visits of North Korean and Pakistani
officials accelerate following the crisis, but it is not known if these meetings include
discussions of nuclear transfers or deal exclusively with missile technologies.
43
1997
• Khan begins to transfer centrifuges and centrifuge components to Libya. Libya receives
20 assembled P-1 centrifuges and components for 200 additional units for a pilot
enrichment facility. Khan’s network will continue to supply with centrifuge components
until late 2003.
44
• Khan is suspected of beginning nuclear transfers to North Korea around this time,
though the dates of the first transfers are highly uncertain.
45
Transfers to North Korea
are believed to have continued through 2003, but the Pakistani government claims these
transfers ceased in 2001. Over this period, Khan may have supplied North Korea with
old and discarded centrifuge and enrichment machines together with sets of drawings,
sketches, technical data, and depleted uranium hexafluoride.
46

• December – Several reports state that Pakistan's then-Chief of Army Staff General
Jehangir Karamat secretly visited Pyongyang.
47
Khan has claimed that Karamat was aware
of the deal between Pakistan and North Korea to exchange enrichment assistance for
missile technologies.
48
Karamat, now Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States, says
that this information is incorrect. He says that he never visited North Korea and did not
have any knowledge of the proliferation activity.
1998
• India detonates a total of five devices in nuclear tests on May 11 and 13.
• Pakistan responds with six nuclear tests on May 28 and 30.
49
1999
• Pakistani government releases an advertisement of procedures for the export of nuclear
equipment and components. The ad lists equipment for sale, including gas centrifuges
and magnet baffles for enriching uranium.
50
Other advertisements from KRL are
reported to include an “unsubtle drawing” of a mushroom cloud and vacuum devices that
attach to centrifuge casings.
51
2000 7
• June – Peter Griffin sets up Gulf Technical Industries in Dubai, which serves as a front
company for Khan’s network. B.S.A. Tahir will use Gulf Technical Industries as one of
his front companies to order centrifuge components from Malaysia.
52
• September – Libya receives two P-2 centrifuges as demonstrator models and places an
order for components for 10,000 more to build a cascade. Each centrifuge contains
around 100 parts, implying approximately 1 million parts total for the entire P-2
centrifuge cascade.
53
2001
• Libya obtains 1.87 tons of uranium hexafluoride, the gas that is used to feed enrichment
centrifuges. The amount is consistent with that required for a small pilot enrichment
facility.
54
The source of the uranium hexafluoride remains uncertain. In 2004, evidence
emerges that North Korea might have supplied Libya with the material, which would be
the first discovered transfer of nuclear material from North Korea to an A.Q. Khan
network recipient. The evidence remains inconclusive, however, and authorities continue
to suspect that the uranium hexafluoride came from Pakistan.
55
• March – Khan is forced into retirement. Khan refuses the compensatory position of
“advisor to the chief executive” and is later given the ceremonial title of “Special Advisor
to the Chief Executive on Strategic and KRL Affairs.” However, neither Khan nor the
press use this title.
56
President Musharraf has admitted that Khan’s suspected
proliferation activity was a critical factor in his removal from KRL.
57
• Summer – American spy satellites detect missile components being loaded into a
Pakistani cargo plane outside of Pyongyang. Intelligence services assume the cargo to be
missile technology traded in direct exchange for nuclear technology, but no hard evidence
exists.
58
• December – B.S.A. Tahir signs a $13 million contract with Scuomi Precision Engineering
(SCOPE) in Malaysia for 25,000 aluminum centrifuge components. The components will
be shipped to front companies in Dubai, including Gulf Technical Industries and SMB
Computers. SCOPE representatives later acknowledge manufacturing parts for Tahir,
but believed that they would be used in Dubai oil and gas industries.
59
Late 2001 or Early 2002
• Libya receives blueprints for nuclear weapons plans. The plans are reported to be of
Chinese origin with Chinese notes in the margins.
60
There is reported to be a note on the
blueprints that “Munir’s bomb would be bigger,” possibly a reference to Munir Ahmad
Khan of the PAEC, who was in competition with A.Q. Khan to develop a Pakistani
bomb.
61
2002
• December – Shipments begin from SCOPE of aluminum centrifuge components. Four
shipments are believed to have been sent from Malaysia to Dubai before August 2003, en
route to Libya.
62
20038
• Spring – The State Department announces some sanctions against KRL, citing illegal
missile transactions. The State Department also states that it has insufficient evidence to
issue sanctions for illegal nuclear transactions.
63
• April – German authorities intercept a ship in the Suez Canal with a large cargo of strong
aluminum tubing en route to North Korea. The tube specifications suggest that they are
intended for use as outer casings for P-2 centrifuges.
64
• October – The German cargo ship BBC China is intercepted en route to Libya with
components for 1,000 centrifuges. The parts were manufactured in Malaysia by SCOPE
and shipped through Dubai.
65
• December – Libya renounces its nuclear weapons program and begins the process of full
disclosure to the IAEA, including the declaration of all foreign procurements.
66
2004
• 4 February – Khan makes a public confession on Pakistani television (in English) of his
illegal nuclear dealings. Khan claims that he initiated the transfers and cites an “error of
judgment.” He is pardoned soon after by President Musharraf and has been under house
arrest since. The Pakistani government claims that Khan acted independently and

without state knowledge.
67
• March – A container aboard the BBC China (the ship that was previously intercepted)
arrives in Libya with one additional container of P-2 centrifuge components. Colonel
Qaddafi reports the arrival to American intelligence and the IAEA. The Libyans warn
American officials that not all of the components from Libya’s orders had arrived and
some might still show up in the future.
6

BRIEF LIFE SKETCH of Allama Iqbal

2011-07-30T11:49:00.000-07:00

BRIEF LIFE SKETCH

Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938) is one of the preeminent writers of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. Indeed, the attention he has received from numerous writers, translators, and critics from Western as well as Islamic countries testifies to his stature as a world literary figure. While his primary reputation is that of a poet, Iqbal has not lacked admirers for his philosophical thought. He has in fact been called “the most serious Muslim philosophical thinker of modem times.” The frequently used appellation of “poet-philosopher” is thus well deserved. The hyphen in the phrase is all-important: Iqbal’s poetry and philosophy do not exist in isolation from each other; they are integrally related, his poetry serving as a vehicle for his thought. Iqbal wrote poetry in Urdu and Persian, and several collections in each language exist. In the following page a life-sketch of Iqbal is followed by a brief treatment of some of the major themes and literary features of his poetry.

*****

Iqbal was born in Sialkot, in the present-day province of the Punjab in Pakistan, in 1877. He received his early education in that city, where one of his teachers was Mir Hasan, an accomplished scholar who commanded a knowledge of several Islamic languages. Mir Hasan gave Iqbal a thorough training in the rich Islamic literary tradition. His influence on Iqbal was formative. Many years later (1922), when the English governor of the Punjab proposed to the British Crown that Iqbal be knighted in acknowledgment of his literary accomplishments, Iqbal asked that Mir Hasan also be awarded a title. To the governor’s remark that Mir Hasan had not authored any books, Iqbal responded that he, Iqbal, was the book Mir Hasan had produced. Mir Hasan received the title of Shams al-’Ulama’ (“Sun of Scholars”).
For higher education Iqbal went to Lahore (1895), where he enrolled in Government College, getting, in 1899, an MA in philosophy; he had already obtained a degree in law (1898). In Lahore, a major center of academic and literary activity, Iqbal soon made a name for himself as a poet. One of the teachers of Government College Iqbal admired most was Sir Thomas Arnold. Arnold, too, had great affection for Iqbal, he helped Iqbal in his career as a teacher and also encouraged him to undertake several research projects. When Arnold returned to England in 1904, Iqbal wrote a touching poem in which he expressed his resolve to follow Arnold to England. The very next year, in fact, Iqbal left for study at Cambridge. His choice of Cambridge was probably dictated by the fact that Cambridge was reputed for the study not only of European philosophy but also of Arabic and Persian. In his three years of stay abroad, Iqbal obtained a BA from Cambridge (1906), qualified as a barrister at London’s Middle Temple (1906), and earned a PhD from Munich University (1908).
After returning to Lahore in 1908, Iqbal taught philosophy at Government College for a few years. In 1911 he resigned from government service and set up legal practice. Meanwhile he continued to write poetry in Urdu and Persian, Asrar-i Khudi (Persian) was published in 1915. Translated into English as The Secrets of the Self (1920) by Professor Reynold Nicholson of Cambridge, the book introduced Iqbal to the West. Asrar-i Khudi was followed by several other volumes: Rumuz-i Bikhudi (1918), Payam-i Mashriq (1923), Bang-i Dara (1924), Zabur-i ‘Ajam (1927), Javid Namah(1932), Musafir (1936), Zarb-i Kalim (1937), and Armaghan-i Hijaz (1938, posthumously). Iqbal wrote prose also. His doctoral thesis, The Development of Metaphysics in Persia, was published in 1908, and hisReconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (with a 7th chapter added to the original set of six lectures, first published in 1930), in 1934. Many of Iqbal’s poetical works have been rendered into foreign languages, including English, German, Italian, Russian, Czechoslovakian, Arabic, and Turkish. His works have also spawned a vast amount of critical literature in many languages.
Although his main interests were scholarly, Iqbal was not unconcerned with the political situation of the, country and the political fortunes of the Muslim community of India. Already in 1908, while in England, he had been chosen as a member of the executive council of the newly established British branch of the Indian Muslim League. In 1931 and 1932 he represented the Muslims of India in the Round Table Conferences held in England to discuss the issue of the political future of India. And in a 1930 lecture Iqbal suggested the creation of a separate homeland for the Muslims of India. Iqbal died (1938) before the creation of Pakistan (1947), but it was his teaching that “spiritually ... has been the chief force behind the creation of Pakistan.” He is the national poet of Pakistan.

II

A detailed discussion of the thematic and literary features of Iqbal’s poetry is not be undertaken here. A few general points may, however, be made.
A reader of Iqbal’s poetry is struck by its sheer thematic variety. Iqbal was deeply interested in the issues that have exercised the best minds of the human race—the issues of the meaning of life, change and constancy, freedom and determinism, survival and progress, the relation between the body and the soul, the conflict between reason and emotion, evil and suffering, the position and role of human beings in the universe—and in his poetry he deals with these and other issues. He had also read widely in history, philosophy, literature, mysticism, and politics, and, again, his catholic interests are reflected in his poetry.
Iqbal celebrates humanity, in more than one sense. On one level he shows broad acceptance for humanity. In “The Story of Adam”, the protagonist, Adam, plays a variety of roles-those of prophet, thinker, reformer, scientist, inventor, astronomer, martyr, and iconoclast. Adam in this poem is not simply a religious figure belonging to a certain tradition, but represents the whole of humankind. On another level, Iqbal takes pride in being human and has no desire to partake of the godhead of God. To be God is to have concerns and worries that would give one a headache, but to be human is to have that sweet pain called heartache. Humans can hold their heads high in view of their achievements in the world to which they were banished from paradise: if God has made the night, then humans have made the lamp, and if God has made deserts and mountains, then humans have made parks and meadows (“A Dialogue Between God and Man,”). Humans must, therefore, strive to be perfect qua humans, and that is a goal yet to be achieved.
The theme of humanity is closely linked in Iqbal with that of khudi(literally, “selfhood”). Khudi is a complex thought in Iqbal. Broadly speaking, it represents the principle of the inner self with an urge to manifest itself Societies as well as individuals have khudi, and it is on the development or suppression of one’s or failure in the world depends,khudi that one’s success the khudi of slaves, for example, is moribund.
Recognition, discovery, cultivation, and assertion of their khudi should, therefore, be the aim of humans. Iqbal’s critique of Muslim societies is predicated on the assumption that these societies have lost their khudi or have allowed it to become seriously impaired. The best way to understand Iqbal’s concept of khudi is by reading poems in which he discusses the subject.
Perfection, or rather limitless perfection, is a frequently occurring motif in Iqbal’s poetry. “I seek the end of that which has no end,” says Iqbal in “The Houri and the Poet”, and, in the same poem: “From the spark I seek a star, from the star a sun.” Iqbal sees no end to human potentialities. He wishes humans to embark on a never-ending journey of discovery, and to this end emphasizes the importance of action. Constant action and perpetual movement are in fact the only guarantee of survival in the world. Nations fall behind when they cease to be dynamic and start preferring a life of idle speculation over one of purposive action.
But the quest for perfection can give rise to irony. Irony, in fact, fills human life, for while they have been imbued with the desire to achieve perfection, humans have been denied the ability to achieve it in practice. The poems “Man”, “Solitude”, and “The Dew and the Stars” discuss several aspects of the irony of human life. The poem, “The Story of Adam,” though it ends on a more optimistic note, yet implies that it takes humans a long time to discover the most important secret of existence.
“The heart has its reasons, of which reason is ignorant,” says Pascal. Iqbal, who frequently speaks of the conflict of the head and the heart, would agree, though he would add that while the conflict exists, it does not have to. More often than not it is reason (or the intellect) that belittles the heart (or intuition), but both are essential to a harmonious life; ideally, then, reason and the heart should cooperate rather than clash.
Although he has wide-ranging interests, Iqbal essentially belongs to, and speaks from within, the Islamic tradition, employing, for his purposes, the historical, religious, philosophical, and literary resources of that tradition. A full appreciation of Iqbal requires an understanding of these resources, and the notes and commentaries in this volume elucidate Iqbal’s use of them.
Iqbal held to the doctrine of art for life’s sake. Acutely aware of the problems of Muslim decadence and backwardness, Iqbal takes it upon himself to shake the Muslims of India and other countries out of their lethargy, urging them to take the path of progress, so that they can gain an honorable position in the polity of nations, He uses the medium of poetry to arouse socio-religious consciousness among Muslims. As a result, Islamic religious and social themes predominate in his poetry. But Iqbal’s vision of a revived religion is far from conservative. He is sharply critical of many of the institutions of historic Islam (of the institution of monarchy, for example), and his vision of a new world derives from the Islamic notions of egalitarianism and social justice. He rejects dogmatism in religion, advocates rethinking of the Islamic intellectual heritage, and stands for the establishment of a forward-looking community. But the conviction of art for life’s sake never allows Iqbal’s poetry to degenerate into bland or crass propaganda. The worldwide acclamation he has won is proof that Iqbal’s strength consists in writing purpose poetry of the highest artistic standards.
Ultimately, however, the secret of the appeal of Iqbal’s poetry lies in the personality behind that poetry. Whether he is dealing with a broadly humanistic or a specifically Islamic theme, Iqbal views it from a unique perspective. Consider his boldly critical attitude toward certain aspects of the received tradition, an attitude reflected, for example, in the poems referred above. Unlike almost any other poet in the Islamic tradition, Iqbal enters into a dialogue with God, raising issues the orthodox would consider disturbing. He asks whether Adam’s expulsion from heaven has turned out to be Adam’s loss or God’s own; he challenges God to speak to him face to face rather than through messengers, and, noting the discrepancy between the boundlessness of human ambition and the limitedness of the resources put at humans’ disposal, he asks God whether His experiment involving Adam is to be taken seriously. Iqbal’s view of the role of Satan in the world is also highly intriguing and, as one would expect, highly unconventional (see “Conquest of Nature” and “Gabriel and Iblis”).
A notable thing about Iqbal’s perspective is ambiguity, a typical modem quality. Especially when he is talking about metaphysical issues, Iqbal raises some difficult questions, without providing a single “valid” answer. In “Paradise Lost and Regained” the question whether Adam should have sinned or not (each scenario being theoretically defensible) is not answered by Iqbal. In “Gabriel and Iblis” we are left to wonder about Iqbal’s own view of Iblis’ self-justification. And in “Solitude” we cannot be certain why God smiles.
In several places Iqbal talks about himself about his Eastern background and Western education, and the contradictions of his own personality; his conviction that his study of historic Islam had furnished him with certain valuable insights which he must share with his people; his hope that his message will spread across the Muslim world, and his apprehension that he will be misunderstood or appreciated for the wrong reasons. Here it may be added that the various attempts made to identify (or label) Iqbal as a Sufi or an orthodox Muslim, as a radical or a reactionary are wide of the mark because Iqbal is too large a figure to fit any narrow, procrustean category; he demands and deserves attention on his own terms.

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III

Iqbal had a fine sense of the dramatic, and in his poetry he frequently employs dramatic techniques. Many of his poems are structured like a play, with the first half of the poem building a tension or conflict that is resolved, or raising a question that is answered, in the second half Examples are “Gabriel and Iblis”, “The Dew and the Stars”, “The Houri and the Poet” and “Fatimah bint ‘Abdullah”. Many poems are dialogues, with well-argued positions taken by the interlocutors (“A Dialogue Between God and Man”, “The Dew and the Stars”, “Reason and Heart” and “A Dialogue Between Knowledge and Love”; also the fables). Some poems are one-sided dialogues or monologues (“Give Me Another Adversary”, “The Falcon’s Advice to Its Youngster”). Again, Iqbal carefully weaves the “plot” of a poem, arousing the reader’s curiosity, dropping seemingly casual hints that turn out to be prophetic, providing flashback, and saving his masterstroke for the end. Two excellent examples are “The Night and the Poet” and “The Houri and the Poet”.
Iqbal has some favorite images and motifs. The eagle is Iqbal’s favorite bird, and the tulip his favorite flower. We will here say a few words about the tulip. The tulip is a pretty flower, but, when it grows in the desert (Lala’-i sahra’), it combines strength with beauty, for it then represents the assertion of one’s self (khudi) in the face of hostile circumstances. The tulip owes its splendor not to an outside source but to the “scar” inside its heart, its glow being indigenous to it, as befits a flower with akhudi of its own. The tulip is thus a “model” for individuals and nations to follow. In one of his quatrains (“Freedom and Determinism and Philosophy of History”), speaking of the difficult circumstances that alone give birth to new nations, Iqbal says: “From mountains and deserts do nations arise.” Although Iqbal does not mention the tulip in this quatrain, it would not be far-fetched to suggest that, conceptually, Iqbal here has the desert tulip in mind. The cup-shaped flower suggests to Iqbal’s mind several analogies, and in one piece (“Locke, Kant, and Bergson,”) Iqbal, makes consistent use of the tulip image to describe and analyze complex philosophical ideas. It is in view of the deep significance of the flower in Iqbal’s poetry that I have chosen Tulip in the Desert as the title of my volume of translations (Mustansir Mir, Tulip in the Desert,Hurst and Company, London, 2000). The images of the eagle and the tulip illustrate how Iqbal adds to the native literary tradition or makes an innovative use of that tradition (the tulip). Another example in this connection is that of the moth. In Persian and Urdu poetry the moth represents the devoted and self-immolating lover. Like the moth, which keeps circling the light, the lover (a male) desires to stay close to the beloved (a female). But in Iqbal, typically, the moth often represent a reprehensible rather than a praiseworthy quality: the shining light it is in love with is not its own. The moth is to be contrasted with another, the firefly, which, though it has a weak light, can at least call this light its own. The firefly, in other words, is possessed of khudi, but the moth has no khudi. Iqbal often uses a series of images to convey a thought, producing a cumulative effect. In “Fatimah bint -Abdullah,” for example, he uses no fewer than four images to express the idea that, even in its present age of decadence, the Muslim Community can produce individuals of exceptional caliber:

O that our autumn-stricken garden had
A flower-bud like this!
O that in our ashes would be found, O Lord,
A spark like this!
In our desert is hidden many a deer still.
In the spent clouds lies dormant still
Many a flash of lightning.

FATHER OF THE NATION Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah

2011-07-30T04:41:00.000-07:00

Early Life Political Career Constitutional Struggle Muslim League Reorganised The New Awakening Demand for Pakistan Cripps Scheme The Quaid's last Message

Father of the Nation Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's achievement as the founder of Pakistan, dominates everything else he did in his long and crowded public life spanning some 42 years. Yet, by any standard, his was an eventful life, his personality multidimensional and his achievements in other fields were many, if not equally great. Indeed, several were the roles he had played with distinction: at one time or another, he was one of the greatest legal luminaries India had produced during the first half of the century, an `ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, a great constitutionalist, a distinguished parliamentarian, a top-notch politician, an indefatigable freedom-fighter, a dynamic Muslim leader, a political strategist and, above all one of the great nation-builders of modern times. What, however, makes him so remarkable is the fact that while similar other leaders assumed the leadership of traditionally well-defined nations and espoused their cause, or led them to freedom, he created a nation out of an inchoate and down-trodeen minority and established a cultural and national home for it. And all that within a decase. For over three decades before the successful culmination in 1947, of the Muslim struggle for freedom in the South-Asian subcontinent, Jinnah had provided political leadership to the Indian Muslims: initially as one of the leaders, but later, since 1947, as the only prominent leader- the Quaid-i-Azam. For over thirty years, he had guided their affairs; he had given expression, coherence and direction to their ligitimate aspirations and cherished dreams; he had formulated these into concerete demands; and, above all, he had striven all the while to get them conceded by both the ruling British and the numerous Hindus the dominant segment of India's population. And for over thirty years he had fought, relentlessly and inexorably, for the inherent rights of the Muslims for an honourable existence in the subcontinent. Indeed, his life story constitutes, as it were, the story of the rebirth of the Muslims of the subcontinent and their spectacular rise to nationhood, phoenixlike.
Early Life Born on December 25, 1876, in a prominent mercantile family in Karachi and educated at the Sindh Madrassat-ul-Islam and the Christian Mission School at his birth place,Jinnah joined the Lincoln's Inn in 1893 to become the youngest Indian to be called to the Bar, three years later. Starting out in the legal profession withknothing to fall back upon except his native ability and determination, young Jinnah rose to prominence and became Bombay's most successful lawyer, as few did, within a few years. Once he was firmly established in the legal profession, Jinnah formally entered politics in 1905 from the platform of the Indian National Congress. He went to England in that year alongwith Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1866-1915), as a member of a Congress delegation to plead the cause of Indian self-governemnt during the British elections. A year later, he served as Secretary to Dadabhai Noaroji (1825-1917), the then Indian National Congress President, which was considered a great honour for a budding politician. Here, at the Calcutta Congress session (December 1906), he also made his first political speech in support of the resolution on self-government.
Political Career Three years later, in January 1910, Jinnah was elected to the newly-constituted Imperial Legislative Council. All through his parliamentary career, which spanned some four decades, he was probably the most powerful voice in the cause of Indian freedom and Indian rights. Jinnah, who was also the first Indian to pilot a private member's Bill through the Council, soon became a leader of a group inside the legislature. Mr. Montagu (1879-1924), Secretary of State for India, at the close of the First World War, considered Jinnah "perfect mannered, impressive-looking, armed to the teeth with dialecties..."Jinnah, he felt, "is a very clever man, and it is, of course, an outrage that such a man should have no chance of running the affairs of his own country."
For about three decades since his entry into politics in 1906, Jinnah passionately believed in and assiduously worked for Hindu-Muslim unity. Gokhale, the foremost Hindu leader before Gandhi, had once said of him, "He has the true stuff in him and that freedom from all sectarian prejudice which will make him the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity: And, to be sure, he did become the architect of Hindu-Muslim Unity: he was responsible for the Congress-League Pact of 1916, known popularly as Lucknow Pact- the only pact ever signed between the two political organisations, the Congress and the All-India Muslim League, representing, as they did, the two major communities in the subcontinent."
The Congress-League scheme embodied in this pact was to become the basis for the Montagu-Chemlsford Reforms, also known as the Act of 1919. In retrospect, the Lucknow Pact represented a milestone in the evolution of Indian politics. For one thing, it conceded Muslims the right to separate electorate, reservation of seats in the legislatures and weightage in representation both at the Centre and the minority provinces. Thus, their retention was ensured in the next phase of reforms. For another, it represented a tacit recognition of the All-India Muslim League as the representative organisation of the Muslims, thus strengthening the trend towards Muslim individuality in Indian politics. And to Jinnah goes the credit for all this. Thus, by 1917, Jinnah came to be recognised among both Hindus and Muslims as one of India's most outstanding political leaders. Not only was he prominent in the Congress and the Imperial Legislative Council, he was also the President of the All-India Muslim and that of lthe Bombay Branch of the Home Rule League. More important, because of his key-role in the Congress-League entente at Lucknow, he was hailed as the ambassador, as well as the embodiment, of Hindu-Muslim unity.
Constitutional Struggle In subsequent years, however, he felt dismayed at the injection of violence into politics. Since Jinnah stood for "ordered progress", moderation, gradualism and constitutionalism, he felt that political terrorism was not the pathway to national liberation but, the dark alley to disaster and destruction. Hence, the constitutionalist Jinnah could not possibly, countenance Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's novel methods of Satyagrah (civil disobedience) and the triple boycott of government-aided schools and colleges, courts and councils and British textiles. Earlier, in October 1920, when Gandhi, having been elected President of the Home Rule League, sought to change its constitution as well as its nomenclature, Jinnah had resigned from the Home Rule League, saying: "Your extreme programme has for the moment struck the imagination mostly of the inexperienced youth and the ignorant and the illiterate. All this means disorganisation and choas". Jinnah did not believe that ends justified the means.
In the ever-growing frustration among the masses caused by colonial rule, there was ample cause for extremism. But, Gandhi's doctrine of non-cooperation, Jinnah felt, even as Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) did also feel, was at best one of negation and despair: it might lead to the building up of resentment, but nothing constructive. Hence, he opposed tooth and nail the tactics adopted by Gandhi to exploit the Khilafat and wrongful tactics in the Punjab in the early twenties. On the eve of its adoption of the Gandhian programme, Jinnah warned the Nagpur Congress Session (1920): "you are making a declaration (of Swaraj within a year) and committing the Indian National Congress to a programme, which you will not be able to carry out". He felt that there was no short-cut to independence and that Gandhi's extra-constitutional methods could only lead to political terrorism, lawlessness and chaos, without bringing India nearer to the threshold of freedom.
The future course of events was not only to confirm Jinnah's worst fears, but also to prove him right. Although Jinnah left the Congress soon thereafter, he continued his efforts towards bringing about a Hindu-Muslim entente, which he rightly considered "the most vital condition of Swaraj". However, because of the deep distrust between the two communities as evidenced by the country-wide communal riots, and because the Hindus failed to meet the genuine demands of the Muslims, his efforts came to naught. One such effort was the formulation of the Delhi Muslim Proposals in March, 1927. In order to bridge Hindu-Muslim differences on the constitutional plan, these proposals even waived the Muslim right to separate electorate, the most basic Muslim demand since 1906, which though recognised by the congress in the Lucknow Pact, had again become a source of friction between the two communities. surprisingly though, the Nehru Report (1928), which represented the Congress-sponsored proposals for the future constitution of India, negated the minimum Muslim demands embodied in the Delhi Muslim Proposals.
In vain did Jinnah argue at the National convention (1928): "What we want is that Hindus and Mussalmans should march together until our object is achieved...These two communities have got to be reconciled and united and made to feel that their interests are common". The Convention's blank refusal to accept Muslim demands represented the most devastating setback to Jinnah's life-long efforts to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity, it meant "the last straw" for the Muslims, and "the parting of the ways" for him, as he confessed to a Parsee friend at that time. Jinnah's disillusionment at the course of politics in the subcontinent prompted him to migrate and settle down in London in the early thirties. He was, however, to return to India in 1934, at the pleadings of his co-religionists, and assume their leadership. But, the Muslims presented a sad spectacle at that time. They were a mass of disgruntled and demoralised men and women, politically disorganised and destitute of a clear-cut political programme.
Muslim League Reorganized Thus, the task that awaited Jinnah was anything but easy. The Muslim League was dormant: primary branches it had none; even its provincial organizations were, for the most part, ineffective and only nominally under the control of the central organization. Nor did the central body have any coherent policy of its own till the Bombay session (1936), which Jinnah organized. To make matters worse, the provincial scene presented a sort of a jigsaw puzzle: in the Punjab, Bengal, Sindh, the North West Frontier, Assam, Bihar and the United Provinces, various Muslim leaders had set up their own provincial parties to serve their personal ends. Extremely frustrating as the situation was, the only consultation Jinnah had at this juncture was in Allama Iqbal (1877-1938), the poet-philosopher, who stood steadfast by him and helped to charter the course of Indian politics from behind the scene.
Undismayed by this bleak situation, Jinnah devoted himself with singleness of purpose to organizing the Muslims on one platform. He embarked upon country-wide tours. He pleaded with provincial Muslim leaders to sink their differences and make common cause with the League. He exhorted the Muslim masses to organize themselves and join the League. He gave coherence and direction to Muslim sentiments on the Government of India Act, 1935. He advocated that the Federal Scheme should be scrapped as it was subversive of India's cherished goal of complete responsible Government, while the provincial scheme, which conceded provincial autonomy for the first time, should be worked for what it was worth, despite its certain objectionable features. He also formulated a viable League manifesto for the election scheduled for early 1937. He was, it seemed, struggling against time to make Muslim India a power to be reckoned with.
Despite all the manifold odds stacked against it, the Muslim League won some 108 (about 23 per cent) seats out of a total of 485 Muslim seats in the various legislature. Though not very impressive in itself, the League's partial success assumed added significance in view of the fact that the League won the largest number of Muslim seats and that it was the only all-India party of the Muslims in the country. Thus, the elections represented the first milestone on the long road to putting Muslim India on the map of the subcontinent. Congress in Power With the year 1937opened the most mementoes decade in modern Indian history. In that year came into force the provincial part of the Government of India Act, 1935, granting autonomy to Indians for the first time, in the provinces.
The Congress, having become the dominant party in Indian politics, came to power in seven provinces exclusively, spurning the League's offer of cooperation, turning its back finally on the coalition idea and excluding Muslims as a political entity from the portals of power. In that year, also, the Muslim League, under Jinnah's dynamic leadership, was reorganized de novo, transformed into a mass organization, and made the spokesman of Indian Muslims as never before. Above all, in that momentous year were initiated certain trends in Indian politics, the crystallization of which in subsequent years made the partition of the subcontinent inevitable. The practical manifestation of the policy of the Congress which took office inJuly, 1937, in seven out of eleven provinces, convinced Muslims that, in the Congress scheme of things, they could live only on sufferance of Hindus and as "second class" citizens. The Congress provincial governments, it may be remembered, had embarked upon a policy and launched a PROGRAMME in which Muslims felt that their religion, language and culture were not safe. This blatantly aggressive Congress policy was seized upon by Jinnah to awaken the Muslims to a new consciousness, organize them on all-India platform, and make them a power to be reckoned with. He also gave coherence, direction and articulation to their innermost, yet vague, urges and aspirations. Above all, the filled them with his indomitable will, his own unflinching faith in their destiny.
The New Awakening As a result of Jinnah's ceaseless efforts, the Muslims awakened from what Professor Baker calls (their) "unreflective silence" (in which they had so complacently basked for long decades), and to "the spiritual essence of nationality" that had existed among them for a pretty long time. Roused by the impact of successive Congress hammerings, the Muslims, as Ambedkar (principal author of independent India's Constitution) says, "searched their social consciousness in a desperate attempt to find coherent and meaningful articulation to their cherished yearnings. To their great relief, they discovered that their sentiments of nationality had flamed into nationalism". In addition, not only had they developed" the will to live as a "nation", had also endowed them with a territory which they could occupy and make a State as well as a cultural home for the newly discovered nation. These two pre-requisites, as laid down by Renan, provided the Muslims with the intellectual justification for claiming a distinct nationalism (apart from Indian or Hindu nationalism) for themselves. So that when, after their long pause, the Muslims gave expression to their innermost yearnings, these turned out to be in favor of a separate Muslim nationhood and of a separate Muslim state.

Demand for Pakistan "We are a nation", they claimed in the ever eloquent words of the Quaid-i-Azam- "We are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moral code, customs and calendar, history and tradition, aptitudes and ambitions; in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all canons of international law, we are a nation". The formulation of the Muslim demand for Pakistan in 1940 had a tremendous impact on the nature and course of Indian politics. On the one hand, it shattered for ever the Hindu dreams of a pseudo-Indian, in fact, Hindu empire on British exit from India: on the other, it heralded an era of Islamic renaissance and creativity in which the Indian Muslims were to be active participants. The Hindu reaction was quick, bitter, malicious.

Equally hostile were the British to the Muslim demand, their hostility having stemmed from their belief that the unity of India was their main achievement and their foremost contribution. The irony was that both the Hindus and the British had not anticipated the astonishingly tremendous response that the Pakistan demand had elicited from the Muslim masses. Above all, they failed to realize how a hundred million people had suddenly become supremely conscious of their distinct nationhood and their high destiny. In channelling the course of Muslim politics towards Pakistan, no less than in directing it towards its consummation in the establishment of Pakistan in 1947, non played a more decisive role than did Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. It was his powerful advocacy of the case of Pakistan and his remarkable strategy in the delicate negotiations, that followed the formulation of the Pakistan demand, particularly in the post-war period, that made Pakistan inevitable.
Cripps Scheme While the British reaction to the Pakistan demand came in the form of the Cripps offer of April, 1942, which conceded the principle of self-determination to provinces on a territorial basis, the Rajaji Formula (called after the eminent Congress leader C.Rajagopalacharia, which became the basis of prolonged Jinnah-Gandhi talks in September, 1944), represented the Congress alternative to Pakistan. The Cripps offer was rejected because it did not concede the Muslim demand the whole way, while the Rajaji Formula was found unacceptable since it offered a "moth-eaten, mutilated" Pakistan and the too appended with a plethora of pre-conditions which made its emergence in any shape remote, if not altogether impossible. Cabinet Mission The most delicate as well as the most tortuous negotiations, however, took place during 1946-47, after the elections which showed that the country was sharply and somewhat evenly divided between two parties- the Congress and the League- and that the central issue in Indian politics was Pakistan.

These negotiations began with the arrival, in March 1946, of a three-member British Cabinet Mission. The crucial task with which the Cabinet Mission was entrusted was that of devising in consultation with the various political parties, a constitution-making machinery, and of setting up a popular interim government. But, because the Congress-League gulf could not be bridged, despite the Mission's (and the Viceroy's) prolonged efforts, the Mission had to make its own proposals in May, 1946. Known as the Cabinet Mission Plan, these proposals stipulated a limited centre, supreme only in foreign affairs, defense and communications and three autonomous groups of provinces. Two of these groups were to have Muslim majorities in the north-west and the north-east of the subcontinent, while the third one, comprising the Indian mainland, was to have a Hindu majority. A consummate statesman that he was, Jinnah saw his chance. He interpreted the clauses relating to a limited centre and the grouping as "the foundation of Pakistan", and induced the Muslim League Council to accept the Plan in June 1946; and this he did much against the calculations of the Congress and to its utter dismay.

Tragically though, the League's acceptance was put down to its supposed weakness and the Congress put up a posture of defiance, designed to swamp the League into submitting to its dictates and its interpretations of the plan. Faced thus, what alternative had Jinnah and the League but to rescind their earlier acceptance, reiterate and reaffirm their original stance, and decide to launch direct action (if need be) to wrest Pakistan. The way Jinnah maneuvered to turn the tide of events at a time when all seemed lost indicated, above all, his masterly grasp of the situation and his adeptness at making strategic and tactical moves. Partition Plan By the close of 1946, the communal riots had flared up to murderous heights, engulfing almost the entire subcontinent. The two peoples, it seemed, were engaged in a fight to the finish. The time for a peaceful transfer of power was fast running out. Realizing the gravity of the situation. His Majesty's Government sent down to India a new Viceroy- Lord Mountbatten. His protracted negotiations with the various political leaders resulted in 3 June.(1947) Plan by which the British decided to partition the subcontinent, and hand over power to two successor States on 15 August, 1947. The plan was duly accepted by the three Indian parties to the dispute- the Congress the League and the Akali Dal (representing the Sikhs).

Leader of a Free Nation In recognition of his singular contribution, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was nominated by the Muslim League as the Governor-General of Pakistan, while the Congress appointed Mountbatten as India's first Governor-General. Pakistan, it has been truly said, was born in virtual chaos. Indeed, few nations in the world have started on their career with less resources and in more treacherous circumstances. The new nation did not inherit a central government, a capital, an administrative core, or an organized defense force. Its social and administrative resources were poor; there was little equipment and still less statistics. The Punjab holocaust had left vast areas in a shambles with communications disrupted. This, along with the en masse migration of the Hindu and Sikh business and managerial classes, left the economy almost shattered.

The treasury was empty, India having denied Pakistan the major share of its cash balances. On top of all this, the still unorganized nation was called upon to feed some eight million refugees who had fled the insecurities and barbarities of the north Indian plains that long, hot summer. If all this was symptomatic of Pakistan's administrative and economic weakness, the Indian annexation, through military action in November 1947, of Junagadh (which had originally acceded to Pakistan) and the Kashmir war over the State's accession (October 1947-December 1948) exposed her military weakness. In the circumstances, therefore, it was nothing short of a miracle that Pakistan survived at all. That it survived and forged ahead was mainly due to one man-Mohammad Ali Jinnah. The nation desperately needed in the person of a charismatic leader at that critical juncture in the nation's history, and he fulfilled that need profoundly. After all, he was more than a mere Governor-General: he was the Quaid-i-Azam who had brought the State into being.

In the ultimate analysis, his very presence at the helm of affairs was responsible for enabling the newly born nation to overcome the terrible crisis on the morrow of its cataclysmic birth. He mustered up the immense prestige and the unquestioning loyalty he commanded among the people to energize them, to raise their morale, land directed the profound feelings of patriotism that the freedom had generated, along constructive channels. Though tired and in poor health, Jinnah yet carried the heaviest part of the burden in that first crucial year. He laid down the policies of the new state, called attention to the immediate problems confronting the nation and told the members of the Constituent Assembly, the civil servants and the Armed Forces what to do and what the nation expected of them. He saw to it that law and order was maintained at all costs, despite the provocation that the large-scale riots in north India had provided. He moved from Karachi to Lahore for a while and supervised the immediate refugee problem in the Punjab. In a time of fierce excitement, he remained sober, cool and steady. He advised his excited audience in Lahore to concentrate on helping the refugees, to avoid retaliation, exercise restraint and protect the minorities. He assured the minorities of a fair deal, assuaged their inured sentiments, and gave them hope and comfort. He toured the various provinces, attended to their particular problems and instilled in the people a sense of belonging. He reversed the British policy in the North-West Frontier and ordered the withdrawal of the troops from the tribal territory of Waziristan, thereby making the Pathans feel themselves an integral part of Pakistan's body-politics. He created a new Ministry of States and Frontier Regions, and assumed responsibility for ushering in a new era in Balochistan. He settled the controversial question of the states of Karachi, secured the accession of States, especially of Kalat which seemed problematical and carried on negotiations with Lord Mountbatten for the settlement of the Kashmir Issue.
The Quaid's last Message It was, therefore, with a sense of supreme satisfaction at the fulfillment of his mission that Jinnah told the nation in his last message on 14 August, 1948: "The foundations of your State have been laid and it is now for you to build and build as quickly and as well as you can". In accomplishing the task he had taken upon himself on the morrow of Pakistan's birth, Jinnah had worked himself to death, but he had, to quote richard Symons, "contributed more than any other man to Pakistan's survivial". He died on 11 September, 1948. How true was Lord Pethick Lawrence, the former Secretary of State for India, when he said, "Gandhi died by the hands of an assassin; Jinnah died by his devotion to Pakistan".

A man such as Jinnah, who had fought for the inherent rights of his people all through his life and who had taken up the somewhat unconventional and the largely misinterpreted cause of Pakistan, was bound to generate violent opposition and excite implacable hostility and was likely to be largely misunderstood. But what is most remarkable about Jinnah is that he was the recipient of some of the greatest tributes paid to any one in modern times, some of them even from those who held a diametrically opposed viewpoint.

The Aga Khan considered him "the greatest man he ever met", Beverley Nichols, the author of `Verdict on India', called him "the most important man in Asia", and Dr. Kailashnath Katju, the West Bengal Governor in1948, thought of him as "an outstanding figure of this century not only in India, but in the whole world". While Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, called him "one of the greatest leaders in the Muslim world", the Grand Mufti of Palestine considered his death as a "great loss" to the entire world of Islam. It was, however, given to Surat Chandra Bose, leader of the Forward Bloc wing of the Indian National Congress, to sum up succinctly his personal and political achievements. "Mr Jinnah", he said on his death in 1948, "was great as a lawyer, once great as a Congressman, great as a leader of Muslims, great as a world politician and diplomat, and greatest of all as a man of action, By Mr. Jinnah's passing away, the world has lost one of the greatest statesmen and Pakistan its life-giver, philosopher and guide". Such was Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the man and his mission, such the range of his accomplishments and achievements.

Brief History of Hazrat Abdul Lateef Shah R.A known as Bari Imam Sarkar

2011-07-29T22:56:00.000-07:00

Hazrat Syed Abdul Latif Shah Qadri Kazmi

Silsila: Qadria

Date of Urs: May 24

Address:
Noorpur Shahan Village, near Parliament Houses, Islamabad, Pakistan

Aqtab Syed Abdul Latif Shah Qadri Kazmi known as Hazrat Bari Imam, Shah -e- wilayat of Federal Capital of Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Islamabad).

Hazrat Bari Imam was married but don't have any childern, people claimed to be his family are from the brother of Hazrat Bari Imam. This area was jungle when Hazrat Bari Imam stay here, area was famous due to robbers, when Hazrat came here he change the lives of this area and now this area is known as Noor Pur Shahan. Its been more than 300 years when Hazrat Bari Imam Came here.

All sufis of indo pak when came to Rawalpindi, Islamabad do come here, Urs of Hazrat Bari Imam Qadri held every year by April or May (as decided by Govt of Pakistan) for 5 years. People from all over Pakistan came here to attend Urs.

This place is on the back of the President House and Prime Minister Office. If you see any development here, that will be done by the people not by the Govt, Officials just have plan to build a new complex over here but could not make it happen.

Bari Imam (1617 to 1705), whose real name is Shah Abdul Latif Kazmi, was born in 1026 Hijra (1617 AD). His father, Syed Mehmood Shah, shifted his family from Jhelum District to Baghan village, presently called Aabpara. At that time, it was a barren land. Soon after the arrival of Bari Imam's family, his father started farming and also kept some animals. Shah Latif helped his father in grazing the animals, but left his father at 12 and came to Nurpur Shahan. From Nurpur Shahan, Bari Imam went to Ghaur Ghashti (now known as Attock) where he stayed for two years for learning fiqh, hadith, logic, mathematics, medicine and other disciplines, because at that time Ghaur Ghashti was great seat of learning.

The Saint Bari Imam used to live in a cave, where he was visited by wild animals and djinns. A rock in the cave which resembles a cave is said to be a real snake turned into stone by the Holy man. There is a fire burning in the cave for some 300 years now, and a tree in front of the cave is said to bee also 300 years old. According to legend Bari Imam lived a hermits life in this cave for twelve years.

He was the first spiritual guide of Gohar Shahi as well. As Gohar Shahi states in his book about Bari Imam that at the age of 34 Bari Imam appeared before me (Gohar Shahi) and said: "My son your time has come, your must go to the shrine of Sakhi Sultan Bahoo Sahib to receive the Sacred Inner Dimensions of Spiritual Knowledge."

To get spiritual knowledge and satiate his love for Islam, Bari Imam visited many places, including Kashmir, Badakhshan, Bukhara, Mashhad, Baghdad and Damascus. He not only received spiritual knowledge in these places but also held discussions with scholars belonging to different schools of thought on various subjects. Later, he went to Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj.

Bari Imam received spiritual knowledge from Hayat- al-Mir (Zinda Pir). His 'Pir' gave him the title of Bari Imam, which proves his link to Syed family. Bari Imam converted thousands of Hindus into Muslims through the teachings of Islam at Nurpur Shahan. It is stated that once Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir himself came there to pay respects to Bari Imam.

Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, who was devoted to spreading his empire, originally built the silver-mirrored shrine of Hazrat Bari Imam [RA]. It has been renovated and is now is maintained by the government. Inside the mausoleum, where the great saint rests, only men are permitted, a steady stream of worshippers enter and exit, most bending to kiss and strew rose petals on the green cloth covering the grave of Hazrat Bari Sarkar [RA]. The shrine is a tourist spot in the tour guide's list. Every year as the Urs of the saint, who spread Islam in this part of the world, gains momentum, devotees in their thousands set out for the Margalla foothills and gather at Nurpur Shahan to pay their respect. Although many swarm the shrine all year round, only last year the number exceeded a head count of 1.2 million people.

Nighttime is the best time to visit the shrine, as the atmosphere is hyped by glittering lights, sounds of qawalis and dhammals of malangs. There was a time when the event attracted a number of dancing girls from Lahore. Although dancing is no more allowed, the women still come to pay their respect.

Reciting verses from the Quran, women view the grave through a glass window, which many touch and kiss while praying for the blessings of Almighty Allah.

The faithful read from one of the hundreds of the copies of the Quran, the moment when one leaves after recitation. Some simply sit in silence as mark of respect for the great saint, taking a moment to say a final prayer and to collect the inspiration and strength to make the journey back home.

History of Islam

2011-07-29T22:46:00.000-07:00

World of Islam

The Spread of Islam

From the oasis cities of Makkah and Madinah in the Arabian desert, the message of Islam went forth with electrifying speed. Within half a century of the Prophet's death, Islam had spread to three continents. Islam is not, as some imagine in the West, a religion of the sword nor did it spread primarily by means of war. It was only within Arabia, where a crude form of idolatry was rampant, that Islam was propagated by warring against those tribes which did not accept the message of God--whereas Christians and Jews were not forced to convert. Outside of Arabia also the vast lands conquered by the Arab armies in a short period became Muslim not by force of the sword but by the appeal of the new religion. It was faith in One God and emphasis upon His Mercy that brought vast numbers of people into the fold of Islam. The new religion did not coerce people to convert. Many continued to remain Jews and Christians and to this day important communities of the followers of these faiths are found in Muslim lands.Moreover, the spread of Islam was not limited to its miraculous early expansion outside of Arabia. During later centuries the Turks embraced Islam peacefully as did a large number of the people of the Indian subcontinent and the Malay-speaking world. In Africa also, Islam has spread during the past two centuries even under the mighty power of European colonial rulers. Today Islam continues to grow not only in Africa but also in Europe and America where Muslims now comprise a notable minority.

General Characteristics of Islam

Islam was destined to become a world religion and to create a civilization which stretched from one end of the globe to the other. Already during the early Muslim caliphates, first the Arabs, then the Persians and later the Turks set about to create classical Islamic civilization. Later, in the 13th century, both Africa and India became great centers of Islamic civilization and soon thereafter Muslim kingdoms were established in the Malay-Indonesian world while Chinese Muslims flourished throughout China.

Global Religion

Islam is a religion for all people from whatever race or background they might be. That is why Islamic civilization is based on a unity which stands completely against any racial or ethnic discrimination. Such major racial and ethnic groups as the Arabs, Persians, Turks, Africans, Indians, Chinese and Malays in addition to numerous smaller units embraced Islam and contributed to the building of Islamic civilization. Moreover, Islam was not opposed to learning from the earlier civilizations and incorporating their science, learning, and culture into its own world view, as long as they did not oppose the principles of Islam. Each ethnic and racial group which embraced Islam made its contribution to the one Islamic civilization to which everyone belonged. The sense of brotherhood and sisterhood was so much emphasized that it overcame all local attachments to a particular tribe, race, or language--all of which became subservient to the universal brotherhood and sisterhood of Islam.The global civilization thus created by Islam permitted people of diverse ethnic backgrounds to work together in cultivating various arts and sciences. Although the civilization was profoundly Islamic, even non-Muslim "people of the book" participated in the intellectual activity whose fruits belonged to everyone. The scientific climate was reminiscent of the present situation in America where scientists and men and women of learning from all over the world are active in the advancement of knowledge which belongs to everyone.
The global civilization created by Islam also succeeded in activating the mind and thought of the people who entered its fold. As a result of Islam, the nomadic Arabs became torch-bearers of science and learning. The Persians who had created a great civilization before the rise of Islam nevertheless produced much more science and learning in the Islamic period than before. The same can be said of the Turks and other peoples who embraced Islam. The religion of Islam was itself responsible not only for the creation of a world civilization in which people of many different ethnic backgrounds participated, but it played a central role in developing intellectual and cultural life on a scale not seen before. For some eight hundred years Arabic remained the major intellectual and scientific language of the world. During the centuries following the rise of Islam, Muslim dynasties ruling in various parts of the Islamic world bore witness to the flowering of Islamic culture and thought. In fact this tradition of intellectual activity was eclipsed only at the beginning of modern times as a result of the weakening of faith among Muslims combined with external domination. And today this activity has begun anew in many parts of the Islamic world now that the Muslims have regained their political independence.

A Brief History of Islam

The Rightly guided Caliphs

Upon the death of the Prophet, Abu Bakr, the friend of the Prophet and the first adult male to embrace Islam, became caliph. Abu Bakr ruled for two years to be succeeded by 'Umar who was caliph for a decade and during whose rule Islam spread extensively east and west conquering the Persian empire, Syria and Egypt. It was 'Umar who marched on foot at the end of the Muslim army into Jerusalem and ordered the protection of Christian sites. 'Umar also established the first public treasury and a sophisticated financial administration. He established many of the basic practices of Islamic government.'Umar was succeeded by 'Uthman who ruled for some twelve years during which time the Islamic expansion continued. He is also known as the caliph who had the definitive text of the Noble Quran

The Caliphate

Umayyad

The Umayyad caliphate established in 661 was to last for about a century. During this time Damascus became the capital of an Islamic world which stretched from the western borders of China to southern France. Not only did the Islamic conquests continue during this period through North Africa to Spain and France in the West and to Sind, Central Asia and Transoxiana in the East, but the basic social and legal institutions of the newly founded Islamic world were established.

Abbasids

The Abbasids, who succeeded the Umayyads, shifted the capital to Baghdad which soon developed into an incomparable center of learning and culture as well as the administrative and political heart of a vast world.They ruled for over 500 years but gradually their power waned and they remained only symbolic rulers bestowing legitimacy upon various sultans and princes who wielded actual military power. The Abbasid caliphate was finally abolished when Hulagu, the Mongol ruler, captured Baghdad in 1258, destroying much of the city including its incomparable libraries.
While the Abbasids ruled in Baghdad, a number of powerful dynasties such as the Fatimids, Ayyubids and Mamluks held power in Egypt, Syria and Palestine. The most important event in this area as far as the relation between Islam and the Western world was concerned was the series of Crusades declared by the Pope and espoused by various European kings. The purpose, although political, was outwardly to recapture the Holy Land and especially Jerusalem for Christianity. Although there was at the beginning some success and local European rule was set up in parts of Syria and Palestine, Muslims finally prevailed and in 1187 Saladin, the great Muslim leader, recaptured Jerusalem and defeated the Crusaders.

North Africa And Spain

When the Abbasids captured Damascus, one of the Umayyad princes escaped and made the long journey from there to Spain to found Umayyad rule there, thus beginning the golden age of Islam in Spain. Cordoba was established as the capital and soon became Europe's greatest city not only in population but from the point of view of its cultural and intellectual life. The Umayyads ruled over two centuries until they weakened and were replaced by local rulers.Meanwhile in North Africa, various local dynasties held sway until two powerful Berber dynasties succeeded in uniting much of North Africa and also Spain in the 12th and 13th centuries. After them this area was ruled once again by local dynasties such as the Sharifids of Morocco who still rule in that country. As for Spain itself, Muslim power continued to wane until the last Muslim dynasty was defeated in Granada in 1492 thus bringing nearly eight hundred years of Muslim rule in Spain to an end.

After the Mangol Invasion

The Mongols devastated the eastern lands of Islam and ruled from the Sinai Desert to India for a century. But they soon converted to Islam and became known as the Il-Khanids. They were in turn succeeded by Timur and his descendents who made Samarqand their capital and ruled from 1369 to 1500. The sudden rise of Timur delayed the formation and expansion of the Ottoman empire but soon the Ottomans became the dominant power in the Islamic world.

Ottoman Empire

From humble origins the Turks rose to dominate over the whole of Anatolia and even parts of Europe. In 1453 Mehmet the Conqueror captured Constantinople and put an end to the Byzantine empire. The Ottomans conquered much of eastem Europe and nearly the whole of the Arab world, only Morocco and Mauritania in the West and Yemen, Hadramaut and parts of the Arabian peninsula remaining beyond their control. They reached their zenith of power with Suleyman the Magnificent whose armies reached Hungary and Austria. From the 17th century onward with the rise of Westem European powers and later Russia, the power of the Ottomans began to wane. But they nevertheless remained a force to be reckoned with until the First World War when they were defeated by the Westem nations. Soon thereafter Kamal Ataturk gained power in Turkey and abolished the six centuries of rule of the Ottomans in 1924.

Persia

While the Ottomans were concerned mostly with the westem front of their empire, to the east in Persia a new dynasty called the Safavids came to power in 1502. The Safavids established a powerful state of their own which flourished for over two centuries and became known for the flowering of the arts. Their capital, Isfahan, became one of the most beautiful cities with its blue tiled mosques and exquisite houses. The Afghan invasion of 1736 put an end to Safavid rule and prepared the independence of Afghanistan which occured fommally in the 19th century. Persia itself fell into tummoil until Nader Shah, the last Oriental conqueror, reunited the country and even conquered India. But the rule of the dynasty established by him was short-lived. The Zand dynasty soon took over to be overthrown by the Qajars in 1779 who made Tehran their capital and ruled until 1921 when they were in turn replaced by the Pahlavis.

India

As for India, Islam entered into the land east of the Indus River peacefully. Gradually Muslims gained political power beginning in the early 13th century. But this period which marked the expansion of both Islam and Islamic culture came to an end with the conquest of much of India in 1526 by Babur, one of the Timurid princes. He established the powerful Mogul empire which produced such famous rulers as Akbar, Jahangir, and Shah Jahan and which lasted, despite the gradual rise of British power in India, until 1857 when it was officially abolished.

Malaysia And Indonesia

Farther east in the Malay world, Islam began to spread in the 12th century in northem Sumatra and soon Muslim kingdoms were establishd in Java, Sumatra and mainland Malaysia. Despite the colonization of the Malay world, Islam spread in that area covering present day Indonesia, Malaysia, the southern Phililppines and southern Thailand, and is still continuing in islands farther east.

Africa

As far as Africa is concemed, Islam entered into East Africa at the very beginning of the Islamic period but remained confined to the coast for some time, only the Sudan and Somaliland becoming gradually both Arabized and Islamized. West Africa felt the presence of Islam through North African traders who travelled with their camel caravans south of the Sahara. By the 14th century there were already Muslim sultanates in such areas as Mali, and Timbuctu in West Africa and Harar in East Africa had become seats of Islamic leaming.Gradually Islam penetrated both inland and southward. There also appeared major charismatic figures who inspired intense resistance against European domination. The process of the Islamization of Africa did not cease during the colonial period and continues even today with the result that most Africans are now Muslims carrying on a tradition which has had practically as long a history in certain areas of sub-Saharan Africa as Islam itself.

Islam in the United States

It is almost impossible to generalize about American Muslims: converts, immigrants, factory workers, doctors; all are making their own contribution to America's future. This complex community is unified by a common faith, underpinned by a countrywide network of a thousand mosques.Muslims were early arrivals in North America. By the eighteenth century there were many thousands of them, working as slaves on plantations. These early communities, cut off from their heritage and families, inevitably lost their Islamic identity as time went by. Today many Afro-American Muslims play an important role in the Islamic community.
The nineteenth century, however, saw the beginnings of an influx of Arab Muslims, most of whom settled in the major industrial centers where they worshipped in hired rooms. The early twentieth century witnessed the arrival of several hundred thousand Muslims from Eastem Europe: the first Albanian mosque was opened in Maine in 1915; others soon followed, and a group of Polish Muslims opened a mosque in Brooklyn in 1928.
In 1947 the Washington Islamic Center was founded during the term of President Truman, and several nationwide organizations were set up in the fifties. The same period saw the establishment of other communities whose lives were in many ways modelled after Islam. More recently, numerous members of these groups have entered the fold of Muslim orthodoxy. Today there are about five million Muslims in America.

Aftermath of the Colonial Period

At the height of European colonial expansion in the 19th century, most of the Islamic world was under colonial rule with the exception of a few regions such as the heart of the Ottoman empire, Persia, Afghanistan, Yemen and certain parts of Arabia. But even these areas were under foreign influence or, in the case of the Ottomans, under constant threat. After the First World War with the breakup of the Ottoman empire, a number of Arab states such as Iraq became independent, others like Jordan were created as a new entity and yet others like Palestine, Syria and Lebanon were either mandated or turned into French colonies. As for Arabia, it was at this time that Saudi Arabia became finally consolidated. As for other parts of the Islamic world, Egypt which had been ruled by the descendents of Muhammad Ali since the l9th century became more independent as a result of the fall of the Ottomans, Turkey was turned into a secular republic by Ataturk, and the Pahlavi dynasty began a new chapter in Persia where its name reverted to its eastern traditional form of Iran. But most of the rest of the Islamic world remained under colonial rule.

Arab

It was only after the Second World War and the dismemberment of the British, French, Dutch and Spanish empires that the rest of the Islamic world gained its independence. In the Arab world, Syria and Lebanon became independent at the end of the war as did Libya and the shaykdoms around the Gulf and the Arabian Sea by the 1960's. The North African countries of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria had to fight a difficult and, in the case of Algeria, long and protracted war to gain their freedom which did not come until a decade later for Tunisia and Morocco and two decades later for Algeria. Only Palestine did not become independent but was partitioned in 1948 with the establishment of the state of Israel.

India

In India Muslims participated in the freedom movement against British rule along with Hindus and when independence finally came in 1947, they were able to create their own homeland, Pakistan, which came into being for the sake of Islam and became the most populated Muslim state although many Muslims remained in India. In 1971, however, the two parts of the state broke up, East Pakistan becoming Bengladesh.

Far East

Farther east still, the Indonesians finally gained their independence from the Dutch and the Malays theirs from Britain. At first Singapore was part of Malaysia but it separated in 1963 to become an independent state. Small colonies still persisted in the area and continued to seek their independence, the kingdom of Brunei becoming independent as recently as 1984.

Africa

In Africa also major countries with large or majority Muslim populations such as Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania began to gain their independence in the 1950's and 1960's with the result that by the end of the decade of the 60's most parts of the Islamic world were formed into independent national states. There were, however, exceptions. The Muslim states in the Soviet Union failed to gain their autonomy or independence. The same holds true for Sinkiang (called Eastem Turkestan by Muslim geographers) while in Eritrea and the southern Philippines Muslim independence movements still continue.

National States

While the world of Islam has entered into the modern world in the form of national states, continuous attempts are made to create closer cooperation within the Islamic world as a whole and to bring about greater unity. This is seen not only in the meetings of the Muslim heads of state and the establishment of the OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) with its own secretariat, but also in the creation of institutions dealing with the whole of the Islamic world. Among the most important of these is the Muslim World League (Rabitat al-alam al-Islami ) with its headquarters in Makkah. Saudi Arabia has in fact played a pivotal role in the creation and maintenance of such organizations.

Revival and Reassertation of Islam

Muslims did not wish to gain only their political independence. They also wished to assert their own religious and cultural identity. From the 18th century onward Muslim reformers appeared upon the scene who sought to reassert the teachings of Islam and to reform society on the basis of Islamic teachings. One of the first among this group was Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, who hailed from the Arabian peninsula and died there in 1792. This reformer was supported by Muhammad ibn al-Sa'ud, the founder of the first Saudi state. With this support Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab was able to spread his teachings not only in Arabia but even beyond its borders to other Islamic lands where his reforms continue to wield influence to this day.In the 19th century lslamic assertion took several different forms ranging from the Mahdi movement of the Sudan and the Sanusiyyah in North Africa which fought wars against European colonizers, to educational movements such as that of Aligarh in India aiming to reeducate Muslims. In Egypt which, because of al-Azhar University, remains to this day central to Islamic learning, a number of reformers appear, each addressing some aspect of Islamic thought. Some were concerned more with law, others economics, and yet others the challenges posed by Western civilization with its powerful science and technology. These included Jamal al-Din al-Afghani who hailed originally from Persia but settled in Cairo and who was the great champion of Pan-Islamism, that is the movement to unite the Islamic world politically as well as religiously. His student, Muhammad 'Abduh, who became the rector of al-Azhar. was also very influential in Islamic theology and thought. Also of considerable influence was his Syrian student, Rashid Rida, who held a position closer to that of 'Abd al-Wahhab and stood for the strict application of the Shari'ah. Among the most famous of these thinkers is Muhammad Iqbal, the outstanding poet and philosopher who is considered as the father of Pakistan.

Reform Organizations

Moreover, as Western influence began to penetrate more deeply into the fiber of Islamic society, organizations gradually grew up whose goal was to reform society in practice along Islamic lines and prevent its secularization. These included the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al-muslimin) founded in Egypt and with branches in many Muslim countries, and the Jama'at-i Islami of Pakistan founded by the influential Mawlana Mawdudi. These organizations have been usually peaceful and have sought to reestablish an Islamic order through education. During the last two decades, however, as a result of the frustration of many Muslims in the face of pressures coming from a secularized outside world, some have sought to reject the negative aspects of Western thought and culture and to return to an Islamic society based completely on the application of the Shari 'ah. Today in every Muslim country there are strong movements to preserve and propagate Islamic teachings. In countries such as Saudi Arabia Islamic Law is already being applied and in fact is the reason for the prosperity, development and stability of the country. In other countries where Islamic Law is not being applied, however, most of the effort of Islamic movements is spent in making possible the full application of the Shari'ah so that the nation can enjoy prosperity along with the fulfillment of the faith of its people. In any case the widespread desire for Muslims to have the religious law of Islam applied and to reassert their religious values and their own identity must not be equated with exceptional violent eruptions which do exist but which are usually treated sensationally and taken out of proportion by the mass media in the West.

Education and Science in the Islamic World

In seeking to live successfully in the modern world, in independence and according to Islamic principles, Muslim countries have been emphasizing a great deal the significance of the role of education and the importance of mastering Western science and technology. Already in the 19th century, certain Muslim countries such as Egypt, Ottoman Turkey and Persia established institutions of higher learning where the modem sciences and especially medicine were taught. During this century educational institutions at all levels have proliferated throughout the Islamic world. Nearly every science ranging from mathematics to biology as well as various fields of modern technology are taught in these institutions and some notable scientists have been produced by the Islamic world, men and women who have often combined education in these institutions with training in the West.In various parts of the Islamic world there is, however, a sense that educational institutions must be expanded and also have their standards improved to the level of the best institutions in the world in various fields of leaming especially science and technology. At the same time there is an awareness that the educational system must be based totally on Islamic principles and the influence of alien cultural and ethical values and norms, to the extent that they are negative, be diminished. To remedy this problem a number of international Islamic educational conferences have been held, the first one in Makkah in 1977, and the foremost thinkers of the Islamic world have been brought together to study and ponder over the question of the relation between Islam and modern science. This is an ongoing process which is at the center of attention in many parts of the Islamic world and which indicates the significance of educational questions in the Islamic world today.

Influence of Islamic Science and Learning Upon the West

The oldest university in the world which is still functioning is the eleven hundred-year-old Islamic university of Fez, Morocco, known as the Qarawiyyin. This old tradition of Islamic learning influenced the West greatly through Spain. In this land where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived for the most part peacefully for many centuries, translations began to be made in the 11th century mostly in Toledo of Islamic works into Latin often through the intermediary of Jewish scholars most of whom knew Arabic and often wrote in Arabic. As a result of these translations, Islamic thought and through it much of Greek thought became known to the West and Western schools of learning began to flourish. Even the Islamic educational system was emulated in Europe and to this day the term chair in a university reflects the Arabic kursi (literally seat) upon which a teacher would sit to teach his students in the madrasah (school of higher learning). As European civillization grew and reached the high Middle Ages, there was hardly a field of learning or form of art, whether it was literature or architecture, where there was not some influence of Islam present. Islamic learning became in this way part and parcel of Western civilization even if with the advent of the Renaissance, the West not only turned against its own medieval past but also sought to forget the long relation it had had with the Islamic world, one which was based on intellectual respect despite religious opposition.

Conclusion

The Islamic world remains today a vast land stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with an important presence in Europe and America, animated by the teachings of Islam and seeking to assert its own identity. Despite the presence of nationalism and various secular ideologies in their midst, Muslims wish to live in the modern world but without simply imitating blindly the ways followed by the West. The Islamic world wishes to live at peace with the West as well as the East but at the same time not to be dominated by them. It wishes to devote its resources and energies to building a better life for its people on the basis of the teachings of Islam and not to squander its resources in either internal or external conflicts. It seeks finally to create better understanding with the West and to be better understood by the West. The destinies of the Islamic world and the West cannot be totally separated and therefore it is only in understanding each other better that they can serve their own people more successfully and also contribute to a better life for the whole of humanity.

Lal Shahbaz Qalandar history . . .

2011-07-29T10:28:00.000-07:00

Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar (1177–1274) (Sindhi: لال شھباز قلندر), a Persian (Tajik) Sufi saint,philosopher, poet, and qalandar. Born Syed Usman Shah Marwandi,^[1] he belonged to theSuhrawardiyya order of Sufis. He preached religious tolerance among Muslims and Hindus. Thousands of pilgrims visit his shrine every year, especially at the occasion of his Urs.

Life

Shahbaz Qalandar (Syed Shah Hussain Marwandi) was born in Marwand, Afghanistan^[2] to adervish, Syed Ibrahim Kabiruddin^[3] whose ancestors migrated from Baghdad and settled down inMashhad, a center of learning and civilization, before migrating again to Marwand.

A contemporary of Baha-ud-din Zakariya, Fariduddin Ganjshakar, Syed Jalaluddin BukhariSurkh-posh of Uchch, Shams Tabrizi, Mehre Ali Shah Mast and Rumi, he travelled around theMuslim world settled in Sehwan (Sindh, Pakistan) and was buried there.^[4]

His dedication to the knowledge of various religious disciplines enabled him to eventually become a profound scholar. During his lifetime, he witnessed the Ghaznavid and Ghurids rules inSouth Asia.^[5] He became fluent in many languages including Persian, Turkish, Arabic, Sindhiand Sanskrit. His mysticism attracted people from all religions. He was called Lal (red) after his usual red attire, Shahbaz due to his noble and divine spirit, and Qalandar for his Sufi affilitation. Hindus regarded him as the incarnation of Bhrithari. Lal Shahbaz lived a celibate life.

Evidence shows that Shahbaz Qalander was in Sindh before 1196, when he met Pir Haji Ismail Panhwar of Paat; it is believed he enteredSehwan in 1251. Shahbaz Qalander established his Khanqah in Sehwan and started teaching in Fuqhai Islam Madarrsah; during this period he wrote his treatises Mizna-e-Sart, Kism-e-Doyum, Aqd and Zubdah.

In poetry and prose

A qawwal sung by Abida Parveen and many others, "Lal Meri Pat Rakhiyo ..." is in honour of Shahbaz Qalandar, as is one sung in various versions by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and the Sabri Brothers, "Mast Qalandar".

Legends and Stories

On his way from Baluchistan to Sindh, he also stayed in present day Karachi's Manghopir area for muraqba (meditation), and it is said that Manghopir's natural warm fountain is a miracle of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar. That warm fountain started to flow from beneath the hill, on which Lal Shahbaz sat for muraqba (meditation). After passing hundreds of years, that warm fountain is still flowing continuously and is said to have miraculous healing power especially for asthma patients.

In Multan, Lal Shahbaz met Bahauddin Zachariah Multani of the Suhurwardiya order, Baba Farid Ganjshakar of Chishtiya order, and Makhdoom Jahanian Surkh Bukhari. The attachment was so cordial and spiritual that their friendship became legendary. They were known as Chahar Yar (Persian = four friends). According to some historians, the four friends visited various parts of Sindh and Punjab, in present day Pakistan.

Many saints of Sindh, including Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, Makhdoom Bilawal and Sachal Sarmast, were devout followers of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar.

It is also believed that he turned into a falcon to pick up his friend Fariduddin Ganjshakar from the gallows. The legend goes that the incumbent fakirs in Sehwan sent him a bowl of milk filled to the brim, indicating that there was no room for anything more. But surprisingly, he returned the bowl with a beautiful flower floating on the top. This legend spread far and wide by the time of his death in 1274, after living a good span of 97 years.

Shrine

The shrine around his tomb, built in 1356, gives a dazzling look with its Sindhi kashi tiles, mirror work and one gold-plated door - donated by the late Shah of Iran, and installed by the late Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.^[2] The inner sanctum is about 100 yards square with the silver canopied grave in the middle. On one side of the marble floor is a row of about 12-inch-high (300 mm) folding wooden stands on which are set copies of Quran for devotees to read. On the other side, beside a bundle of burning agarbattis (joss sticks), are rows of diyas (small oil lamps) lighted by devotees.

This famous mystic often quoted the teachings of Maulana Jalal ad-Din Rumi. A book detailing his life is called "Solomon's Ring" by Gul Hasan.

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Urs

His annual Urs (death anniversary celebration) is held on the 18Sha'aban - the eighth month of the Muslim lunar calendar. Thousands of devotees flock to the tomb while every Thursday their number stands multiplied especially at the time of his ‘Urs’ being a carnival as well a religious festival and celebrated every year. Sehwan springs to life and becomes the focal point of more than half a million pilgrims from all over Pakistan. On each morning of the three day feast, the narrow lanes of Sewhan are packed to capacity as thousands and thousands of pilgrims, fakirs and devotees make their way to the shrine to commune with the saint, offer their tributes and make a wish. Most of the people present garlands and a green chadar (a cloth used to cover a tomb) with Qur’anic inscriptions in silver or gold threads. Humming of verses, singing and dancing in praise of the saint continues till late at night. A devotional dance known as ‘dhamal’, being a frenzied and ecstatic swirl of the head and body, is a special ritual that is performed at the rhythmic beat of the [dhol] (a big barrel-shaped drum), some of them being of giant size and placed in the courtyard of the shrine. Bells, gongs, cymbals and horns make a thunderous din, and the dervishes, clad in long robes, beads, bracelets and colored head-bands whirl faster and faster in a hypnotic trance, until with a final deafening scream they run wildly through the doors of the shrine to the courtyard beyond.

Hazrat Ali Hajveri (Data Ganj Bakhsh)

2011-07-29T09:44:00.000-07:00

He was born in 400 A.H. in Ghazni (Afghanistan). He belonged to a Syed family (descendant of the Holy Prophet). He completed his earlier education in Ghazni by memorizing the Holy Quran. Then he studied Arabic, Farsi, Hadith, Fiqh, Philosophy etc. At that time Ghazni was the center of education in Central Asia, and it was the realm of the famous Afghan ruler Sultan Mahmood Ghaznavi.

After completing the wordly education, he searched for the spiritual education. He travelled to many places for this purpose, and finally became spiritual disciple of Hazrat Abul Fazal Mohammad bin Khatli, in Junaidiya Sufi Order, who lived in Syria.

In Syria, Hazrat Ali Hajveri started his spiritual education under the guidance of Hazrat Abul Fazal, he slept less, ate less, performed tough contemplations & meditation. Then he travelled to many countries & places like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Arabia, Azerbaijan etc. There he met many Sufi saints & dervishes.

Once he entangled in a spiritual mystery, and wasn't able to solve it, so then he went to the tomb of Hazrat Bayazid Bistami, where he meditated for many days, even he finally solved that spiritual mystery. On another occasion he entangled, and also went to the tomb of Hazrat Bayazid Bistami, but this time he found no clue. So then he left for Khurasan (A Province in Iran), he stayed in a village, where he found a group of Sufi dervishes. Because Hazrat Ali Hajveri always wore simple & normal dress, so those Sufis said to eachother that this person (Ali Hajveri) doesn't belong their group, (As they all were wearing specific dress of dervishes). Hazrat Ali Hajveri stayed with them, they ate delicious foods, and gave him a dry bread to eat. They also mocked on Hazrat Ali Hajveri, threw on him the crusts of fruits. Hazrat Ali Hazjveri addressed God: "O God! if these people wouldn't be wearing the clothes of your friends (dervishes), then I wouldn't tolerate their insulting behavior."

During the journey of Syria, he visited the tomb of the great Companion of the Holy Prophet, Hazrat Bilal. There he slept for a while, and found himself in Makka, where he saw the Holy Prophet with an old man, he didn't recognize him & thought who he could be? Then Hazrat Ali Hajveri fell on the feet of the Holy Prophet & kissed them. The Holy Prophet knew what Hazrat Ali Hajveri had in his mind, so he told Ali Hajveri: "This old man is Abu Hanifa, your Imam."

Later his spiritual teacher Hazrat Abul Fazal ordered him to go to Lahore to preach the spiritual teachings of Islam. He said: "Hazrat Shah Hussain Zanjani is already there for this purpose, so then why should I go to there? Hazrat Abul Fazal said: "It's none of your business, just go to Lahore." So he left Syria & came to Ghazni. From Ghazni he went to Peshawar & then to Lahore, in 1041 A.D (431 A.H). When he reached to Lahore, he saw that people are taking a coffin towards the graveyard for burial. He asked who is he? People replied that it is the dead body of Hazrat Shah Hussain Zanjani. After hearing that, he understood why his teacher Hazrat Abul Fazal sent him to Lahore. After reaching to Lahore, he started to preach Islam & built a mosque there.

At that time Lahore was included in the Ghazni Kingdom, whose ruler was Sultan Mahmood Ghaznavi. And the governer of Lahore was Ra'e Raju, who was a Hindu & had many great mystical abilities. People of Lahore were used to supply milk to Ra'e Raju in big quantity, as a capitation. Once an old woman was on her way to pass before Hazrat Ali Hajveri, holding a water-pot poured with milk. Hazrat Ali Hajveri asked her to give him some milk from that. The woman refused & said that she has to give it to Ra'e Raju. Hazrat Ali Hajveri said: "Give some milk to me, by the grace of God, your cow will produce much more milk than usual". The woman gave him the pot, Hazrat Ali Hajveri drank some milk, and then threw the remaining into the river. The old woman when went to her home, she was surprised to see the breasts of her cow who were full of milk. She poured all of her pots from milk, but still the cow's breasts were full. Soon this news spread all around the Lahore, and people started to visit Hazrat Ali Hajveri, and all people brought milk for him, and he also drank some milk from their pots & then threw the remaining into the river, and all of their cows started to produce more milk. So they stopped to supply milk to Ra'e Raju.

Later Ra'e Raju sent one of his disciples to Hazrat Ali Hajveri, as his disciples also had mystical abilities. That disciple didn't come back, so Ra'e Raju sent another disciple, who also didn't come back. In that way, he sent all of his disciples, but no one came back at all. Finally he himself went to Hazrat Ali Hajveri, in anger. Ra'e Raju challenged Hazrat Ali Hajveri to show him any miracle. Hazrat Ali Hajveri replied: "I'm not a juggler." But Ra'e Raju tried to impress him with his miracles, and started flying in the air, Hazrat Ali Hajveri ordered his shoes to bring him down. So the shoes of Hazrat Ali Hajveri went to the flying Ra'e Raju & started to strike on his head & broght him down. Ra'e Raju was inspired & embraced Islam on his hands. After accepting Islam he changed his name as Shaikh Ahmed Hindi.

When Hazrat Ali Hajveri built a mosque in Lahore, that mosque's front was towards south, and differed from all other mosques of Lahore. So there became a doubt that this mosque's fron't isn't towards Ka'ba. The Scholars of Lahore objected over that mosque, but Hazrat Ali Hajveri didn't reply them. When the mosque was built completely, he invited all scholars of Lahore & said to them: "You objected over this mosque's Ka'ba direction, now look by yourself in which direction Ka'ba actually is!" When they looked at the front, they saw Ka'ba, as they are sitting before Ka'ba in Makka. All scholars felt ashamed after watching that, and apologized.

Hazrat Ali Hajveri also built a room adjacent to that mosque, and used that room as Khanqa (Spiritual School). Many unbelievers accepted Islam on his hands, many people touched the higher stages of spirituality under his guidance. He married twice, but both of his wives died soon after marriage. He had a son, named "Hasan".

He lived in Lahore for 21 years, and then went to Syria to meet his spiritual teacher Hazrat Abul Fazal. And after the death of Hazrat Abul Fazal in 453 A.H, he again came to Lahore.

Hazrat Ali Hajveri wrote many books, some of his books are: Diwan-e-She'r; Minhajuddin; Al-Bayan Lahal- Al-Ayan; Israrul Kharq Wal-Mauniyat; Behrul Quloob; Kitab Fana Wa Baqa; Birri'ayat Be-Huqooq-Ullah; Kashful Israr; Sharah-e-Kalam; and Kashful Mahjub.

He died at the age of 65 in 465 A.H., in Lahore.

When Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti came to Lahore in 561 A.H (1165 AD), he stayed at the tomb of Hazrat Ali Hajveri for two weeks, where he medidated. And when he finished his meditation, he said a couplet in Farsi:

Baba Farid shakar Ganj

2011-07-29T09:30:00.000-07:00

Baba Farid Shakar Ganj

Baba Farid was born around 1170 in Afghanistan. He was the descended of Farrukh Shah, King of Afghanistan and Ghazni. Baba Farid 's greatgrandfather was the son of Farrukh Shah. He was killed along with most of his family members when the Mongol hordes invaded Kabul. Baba Farid'sgrandfather Shaykh Shoaib left Afghanistan and settled in Punjab in 1125.

Shaykh Shoaib then went to Multan where he established in Kothiwal a private college for religious instruction and attracted much attention. His eldest son Jamaluddin married Bibi Mariam, daughter of Syed Muhammad Abdula Shah - a descendant of Imam Ali. Bibi Mariam had three sons, Khwaja Azizuddin, Fariduddin Masaud (Baba Farid) and Khwaja Najibuddin, and one daughter Khatun Jamila.

When Baba Farid was a few years old his mother taught him his prayers. The boy asked her what was gained by prayer. His mother replied sugar. Accordingly, she used to hide some sugar under his prayer rug and when he would finished his prayers he would find the sugar-candy hidden inside the rug. One day his mother forgot to put the sugar-candy but she was surprised to see that there was sugar-candy under the rug. From that day on, Bibi Miriam started calling her son Shakar Ganj, or the treasury of sugar in Farsi.

He went to Delhi and was initiated into the Sufi order by Shaykh Bakhtiar Kaki. When Khwaja Qutub-ul- Bakhtiar Kaki died at Delhi Baba Farid assumed the mantle of his late spiritual guide. He ultimately left it in the keeping of Jamaluddin of Hansi and thence proceeded to Ajodhan, the present day Pak Pattan.
Shaykh Farid made Pak Pattan a great center of Sufi thoughts. People from all over India and Middle East would come to see him He generally rejected offeringsof money, but would accept gifts of food, etc for public kitchen. BabaFarid went to Delhi again and was received with a most hospitable reception. Emperor Nasiruddin Balban introduced him to his family. Baba Farid looked to Emperor's daughter Hazabara and asked Emperor to marry her to him. Thus Hazabra was married to Baba Sheikh Farid, but only after Emperor Balban promised not to give any costly gifts, Baba Farid distributed all her dowry to the needy.

Baba Farid ji died of Pneumonia on the fifth day of the month of Muharram in 1266. He was buried outside the town of Pak Pattan at a place called martyrs grave. Baba Farid was also a poet and a large part of his poetry is included in the Holy book of Sikhism, Guru Garanth Sahib