If only I could use my Kufi as a weapon...

Speaking of others, I just want to make my way back to Mad Mel. No I haven't got a personal grudge against her (although it may seem it at times).

The reason I bring up Mad Mel is because, not only does she have wacky views when it comes to the environment, but she thinks that the Israelis are the victims!

Here's one of her latest articles:

As Hamas screams for yet another round of attacks against Israel, and claims responsibility for volleys of at least twelve Kassam rockets and eight mortar rounds fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip this morning, HonestReporting.com points out the astounding-if-it-wasn’t-so-routine fact that, while the western media insist that the Palestinians have maintained a ‘cease-fire’ against Israel for the past five months, the following Palestinian terrorist incidents have taken place:


• Islamic Jihad terrorist captured near Tel Aviv after his bomb belt fails to detonate

• Palestinian bride arrested on suspicion of planning to carry out suicide bombing

• 3 Israelis injured in shooting attack near Modi’in

• Hamas calls for further kidnappings of Israeli soldiers

• Israeli cars shot at in West Bank

• Israeli civilian wounded in West Bank drive-by shooting

• Arrests prevent huge Hamas-planned car bomb in Tel Aviv

• Egypt arrests would-be Hamas suicide bomber near Israeli border

• Palestinian rockets hit Sderot home; several Israelis treated for shock


Indeed, as in this typical Associated Press story, the media claim the existence of this Palestinian ‘cease-fire’ while in the very same story recording the never-ending Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel. The inescapable implication of this systematic and mind-twisting denial of Palestinian military aggression and equally systematic concentration on Israeli measures to counter it is that such Palestinian attacks aren’t considered to be attacks at all because their targets are Israelis, whose own self-defence is thus characterised falsely as aggression. Thus Israeli victimisation and Palestinian aggression continue to be airbrushed out of the moral equation, and Israel continues to be wickedly demonised in the eyes of the western world.

How dare she say that Palestinian aggression is airbrushed?! If anything, the injustices committed by the Israeli soldiers are airbrushed.

I swear, sometimes I feel like shoving a kufi down that woman's throat - but then that would be a waste of a good kufi.

Global warming and others

Its interesting to see what those more read and influential than us here at Empowering Us have to say over the Global Warming Issue. Whether it be religious leaders, politicians, journalists, etc. As I (obviously) think it is a big issue that needs to be dealt with pretty urgently, what other people think about global warming often affects my view of them. Like any prat that drives round central London in a 4x4 automatically gains my wrath and WILL get a dirty look from me. The need? A friend was speaking to a colleague of his that lives in the rough terrained Chelsea and drives one. “Ever heard of global warming?” he asked him. “Oh yes, but this thing is marvellous - you can’t feel it at all!” referring to his monster. Blooming pompous twat. Of course I don’t blindly discriminate as some people have genuine reason for them. Well actually I do because apart from 3, everyone I know that drives one its blatantly a status thing.

Last week reading the Observer I came across Nick Cohen whose article I was pleasantly surprised by. He wrote of the danger of extremists undermining their own cause: as by the “eco-extremists” picking on Al Gore for his private electricity bills they are diverting attention away from the real cause. He states it’s the last thing we need - eco-extremists “trumping Gore’s inconvenient truth with a convenient excuse for doing nothing”. This article makes me like Nick Cohen as I have yet to form my own opinion on him. (I will read something about him or that he’s written and I’m like what a fool, but then on some domestic issues I generally agree with him e.g his stance on ID cards, grammar schools.) On the other hand there are people whose stance on the environment makes me dislike them even more. Jeremy Clarkson famously doesn’t give a monkeys, which definitely makes me dislike him even more. If you’re wondering he’s just too over the top and whilst when Hammond or James May do something it’s funny, when Clarkson does its normally pathetically sad/lame. Also sometimes I feel he just promotes or goes on about something just for the sake of it, although I did think he was funny on Have I Got News for You a couple of weeks ago. Then we come to Melanie Phillip’s views as below. I frequently read her stuff although why I bother is a mystery to me. Her views on global warming are positively bizarre, especially coming from someone who has no doubt never studied the subject, let alone devoted years of her life, like global warming scientist researchers have. Strange strange lady. (No, I ain’t picking on these people but when someone is so off on one issue, it kind of makes you question their other beliefs, no?)

Lastly, the religious leaders and their responses make for interesting reading. The Church of England last week released The Ten Green Commandments entitled “How many light bulbs does it take to change a Christian?” (Every time I read that I chuckle, but then I tend to find godawful jokes like that funny). Many of my friends have told me of their local rabbis talking of the need to take urgent steps. But the Muslim leaders, the imams? Well my local imam could be talking about climate change and what we could do, but they don’t allow women in, and don’t speak in English so not like I’d know. Now I know criticising the mosques is Funzie’s special area, but the Church of England taking steps has got to have shamed them in to doing something? Somehow I doubt it.

Let’s not end there. Let’s end on this instead:
“According to a survey in this week’s Time magazine, 85% of Americans think global warming is happening. The other 15% work for the White House.”

(Like i said, i like godawful jokes)

Global Warming is a lie! well that's what Melanie says

Speaking of contrasting views about environmental issues, Melanie Phillips (that's her mugshot on the left) is one who certainly falls into that category.

Here's an excerpt from one of her more "thought-provoking and intelligent" articles:

Channel Four’s devastating documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle has blown an enormous hole in every fundamental claim made to support the climate change obsession — including the claim that the argument is over.

A procession of eminent scientists — climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, geologists, biogeographers, astrophysicists, professors of earth science, plus the former head of Greenpeace, who said that the global warming proponents were ‘anti-human’ — showed on the contrary that the theory bore no relation to science whatsoever.

The earth was much warmer during many periods in the past; the ice caps were always expanding and contracting and Greenland was much warmer 1,000 years ago; most of the atmosphere was not warming as much as surface temperatures; volcanoes, animals and vegetation each produced infinitely more carbon dioxide than human activity; carbon dioxide could not possibly be the culprit for climate change since historically the warming of the atmosphere preceded any increases in carbon dioxide, thus showing up a central claim made by Al Gore in his movie to be utter rubbish; and so on.

Read the rest of this article here

For someone who is seemingly very intelligent, to think that the issues of global warming "bore no relation to science whatsoever", well that's just crazy.

I think we can all see how the environmental changes are affecting thousands of lives - be they of humans or animals. To think that nothing needs to be done, well Melanie Phillips has then certainly lost her head.

No wonder they call her 'Mad Mel'

A Different Perspective?

A slightly different perspective by some - the glaciers are NOT melting rapidly, reducing co2 in our environment will have a devastating impact ... ? What do you make of it?



And if you think Global Warming won't affect you as you'll prob be dead by the time it all kicks in, think again:



And just something a lil' humorous as no doubt we can find any excuse to take the mick outta Bush:



Fact of the day:
*An area of rainforest - the size of England - is cut down every year!

Wake up to reality - take up the Green Jihad today!

Take up the Green Jihad

To keep in tune with EMPOWERING US’ Environmental Week, I thought I would carry out research via the inexhaustible internet. I have to add here that I was slightly apprehensive about what I would find (or how little I would find!) but I’m pleasantly surprised at what’s out there. Today I’d just like to remind readers of one of our many duties as a Muslim – our God-given responsibility to care for and safeguard our planet, what is ordained upon us by our Creator and the importance the Holy Quran gives to nature…

A fascinating article by Fareena Alam and Abdul Rahman Malik makes some crucial and insightful connections to Islam and the environment we live in…

Sacred balance

For most Muslims, Islam is more than merely a cultural or political identity. Religion matters – and thus any motivating argument about environmental activism must have at its core a message drawing on the sacred. The spiritual dimension, in other words, is at the heart of ‘Islamic environmentalism’. Nature is a sacred web of relationships, finely balanced and resonating with divinely given life. As the Quran says, “The sun and the moon follow courses precisely reckoned and the stars and the trees bow themselves in adoration and the heavens, God has raised them up, and set a balance. Transgress not in the balance.”

To transgress this balance is to commit a crime against God. Even the other creatures that inhabit this vast sacred dominion are not considered incidental. “No animal is there crawling on the earth and no bird flying on its wings that is not part of communities like yourselves,” the Quran reminds us. When we disrupt the natural order, we are upsetting communities as complex and diverse as our own. The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) once said: “The Earth is like your mother; you came from it and you will return to it.”

The relationship is intimate. By polluting the source of life and damaging the Earth we are actually doing irreparable harm to ourselves. Men and women of faith never used to see themselves as separate from the environment. They were always attuned to the natural order and the movement of the sun, the moon and the stars guided their devotions. The reality of climate change and other “inconvenient truths” are indicative of how we have upset both the physical and spiritual order of the earth.

How, then, to reconnect? As Abdal-Hakim Murad puts it: “The Prophet Muhammad gave people something they could actualise in their worlds, in order to give them a form of life that would allow them to reconnect with nature. What is it that we in the modern world can offer?”

To answer this question, he does offer some practical advice. “We can be, as we so often are, moaning from the edges. It cannot be a menu of pure Luddite rejectionism. We need to make calls to people to be recognisably human in the middle of the modern world. Muslims engage in fasting, one of the most ancient of human rituals, perhaps like no other sacred tradition in the world. We pray not according to a timetable set by someone in some distant hierarchy, but in tandem with the planet beneath our feet, the sun and the moon. We break fast when the sun drops below the horizon and no amount of manipulation can alter that. To be embedded in the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is to be embedded in the natural world. That is the kind of Muslim voice I think should be heard. We must exist, in the things we say and do, with our lifestyle, to be living witnesses to a form of life that is genuinely pre-modern. We drive cars, become lecturers, use computers – but in the basic patterns of our life, we are following a form of life that is pre-modern.”
The word on the street

This practical message has resonance for a new generation of Muslim environ-mentalists. In London, a remarkable community-based group has grown out of the work of IFEES. The London Islamic Network for the Environment, established by the World Development Movement activist and former IFEES project manager Muzammal Hussain, aims to make the message real at the grassroots level – through local events and campaigns where participants can get their hands dirty.

Borrowing from the approach of other community-based social justice movements, Hussain has sought to promote regular local engagement, with monthly meetings and links with existing campaigns, bringing a unique Islamic take to such events as last November’s Campaign for Climate Change march. Both LINE and IFEES also worked with the London Sustainability Exchange (LSx) in an innovative project in Tower Hamlets to sponsor Friday sermons on explicitly environmental issues [see Mosque with a mission].

LINE’s local focus and Hussain’s open-door approach has led to the initiative being replicated in the Midlands (MINE), Sheffield (ShINE) and Wales (WELCOME).

So to sum up – remember what has been prescribed to you by your creator. We will all be held to account for our actions (or lack of) on the Great Day so alongside our other responsibilities and obligations as a Muslim, make ‘Green Jihad’ one of them!

“The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) once said ‘The Earth is like your mother; you came from it and you will return to it.’”

Muslim Organisations and the Environment

Keeping in line with environmental week, I've decided to write about Muslim organisations and the environment.

Without a doubt, the environment is very important, and you'd expect Muslims to be right at the forefront of doing good work in this field - however, it seems that this is not the case at all.

There are very few Muslim organisations that are doing something: LINE, IFEES and MPACUK (they have a section called Green Muslims which I think is really useful) are the ones that come to mind.

I have to admit, I would've rather had said the names of mosques instead of these organisations, because the mosque should be the are where we go to learn about Islam in every sense of the word.

Imagine if our mosques taught us to be more environmentally friendly, imagine the postive impact on society. Yes, caring for the environment is common sense, but the mosque could be the centre from where we could learn how to refine our need to help the environment.

I know I seem to have moved onto the mosques, but that's because they are so important for Muslims, yet the mosque leaders don't seem to see this. I think it's great we have some organisations doing something, but imagine if our mosques were active (or atleast more active than they are), then we wouldn't need other organisations. Our mosques would be the centre of reforming society.

In conclusion, our mosques really need to shape up if they want to be the beacons of light they once were - may Allah guide us all to being true Muslims, and not just people who follow a bunch of rituals. Ameen.

“You are the best of the nations raised up for (the benefit of) men, you enjoin what is right and forbid the wrong and believe in Allah…”

(Surah Al Imran 3:110)

I recently came across this leaflet on climate change geared towards Muslims (it had pictures, parts were underlined, but i don't know how to get them to be shown so please forgive me- twas much brighter and more interesting). I implore you (don't worry I have never actually used that phrase while talking) to distribute this amongst Muslim friends (preferably by email) so in this area Muslims can be an example to the rest of the world.Here it is:

GLOBAL WARNING: THE ENVIRONMENT IS CHANGING FOR MUSLIMS TOO

As our various nations have developed and continue to develop, we need an ever increasing amount of energy to service our every day needs, such as heating, lighting, air-conditioning, travel etc. If this energy does not come from a renewable energy source, we are simply using up finite fossil fuel resources (of oil, coal, gas). More alarmingly however, we are polluting the environment to such an extent that the effects will be catastrophic. Similarly, as populations have increased, there are a greater number people using fresh water and producing a greater amount of waste.

It said in Islam that if one kills a single person, it is like killing the whole of humanity and if one person is saved, it is like saving the whole of humanity. If we compare this saying to the numbers of people that are being killed or may be killed in the future by our incorrect use of energy and our indiscriminate disposal of waste, we will have much to answer for.

It is said that there are 3 types of people:

1. Those that strive to have less than they need.
2. Those that strive to have only what they need (and no more)
3. Those that strive to have as much as possible no matter what the consequences.

By using more than one’s needs of finite resources, just means that in time, somebody else will have less.

It is acknowledged that Islam is not just a religion, but a way of life. A way of life that respects the rights of other people, (of whatever belief, and of no belief), of animals, birds, fish, of plants and of the environment in which we live. As Muslims we should undoubtedly be treating our environment with respect, in order that it may maintain its equilibrium and in turn it will sustain our children and grandchildren.

The problems include:
1. Global warming and air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels.
2. Household waste disposal.
3. Industrial waste disposal.
4. Pollution of our rivers and seas

The moral questions facing Muslims today include:

1. In order to achieve a better quality of life, should we readily accept that our actions will have a negative (and sometimes disastrous) effect on the life of others?
2. Can we afford to tolerate the wastage of water whilst we watch others suffer without?
3.Should we be [at least] attempting to minimise the negative impacts?
4. What can we do?

As Muslims we should be striving to lead the way as conservationists. Possible actions include:

1. Use of alternative energy sources, e.g. wind and solar power
2. Use of public transport whenever possible
3. Investment in bio-fuels
4. Water conservation
5. Minimising waste disposal
6. Recycling of waste
7. Planting trees wherever possible


Renewable energy

• Muslims should invest in and learn about development of technology to harness wind & solar power for the masses (e.g. solar energy to power water de-salination plants)
• Micro-generation of wind & solar energy at a local level (wind is free and blows in most parts of the world).

Waste Disposal

• Minimising disposal of waste should be a primary concern. Wherever possible, waste should be re-cycled. Only as a last resort should it be disposed. Even then it should be treated before being allowed to flow into our rivers and waterways. As we are aware, whilst Islam is a way of life built upon hygiene and cleanliness, in most parts of the (Muslim) world our waste is not treated and therefore comes back to haunt us in the form of contamination, disease and easily preventable illnesses.
• As a high proportion of the world’s population, Muslims are currently contributing significantly (some might say disproportionately) to the waste produced, whether it be day-to-day rubbish, green house gases or industrial effluent. In some instances we are literally choking on our own waste.

Recycling

Many Muslims in the West originally come from countries where in rural areas nothing is wasted, and where for example recycling a cow-pat to use as fuel for a fire is not given a second thought. Yet many of us appear to be ignorant of the need to recycle the bottles, cans, newspapers and plastics etc that we buy and throw every day. Put in perspective, the energy saved in making one tin can, is in the order of that required to power a TV for one hour.

Use of Water

As Islam was born in the desert, it is no surprise that water is honoured as the “secret of life” and that usage of water without benefits to mankind, animal, birds or plants is forbidden.

Solutions

Muslims must therefore be looking to lead the way when it comes to protecting the environment and conserving our finite resources. Initially, by learning about the environment and how to protect it. Then by implementing practical solutions, for example (but not limited to):

• For every barrel of oil extracted, there could be a tree (costing perhaps just a few pennies) planted somewhere in the world.
  
• Use of small scale wind turbines for rural communities, particularly for water extraction
  
• Micro-generation using wind and solar power to supplement domestic properties
  
• Use of grey water (i.e. collected rain-water) for use in our gardens and where possible to flush our loos
  
• Use of public transport wherever possible, (or use a bicycle for short journeys)
  
• Ensure that our vehicles burn fuel efficiently and produce minimal emissions. [Developing countries should introduce stringent MOT style tests to ensure that road vehicles, especially government vehicles, comply with emission reducing requirements.]
• Wherever possible, protect the rights of animals (of any species). It is forbidden in Islam to kill an animal cruelly or for mere play. Islam has forbidden wastage of animals and plants in peacetime and even in time of war.

As an Ummah we should be practicing green policies that will contribute safeguarding the environment for our children, grandchildren and all future generations. As current, custodians of the planet, we bear the responsibility for our actions or indeed our in-action. Yet it is future generations that will suffer the consequences of our ignorance and selfishness.

The Prophet (pbuh) said:

"That which is lawful is plain and that which is unlawful is plain and between the two of them are doubtful matters about which not many people know. Thus he who avoids doubtful matters clears himself in regard to his religion and his honor, but he who falls into doubtful matters falls into that which is unlawful, like the shepherd who pastures around a sanctuary, all but grazing therein. Truly every king has a sanctuary, and truly Allah's sanctuary is His prohibitions. Truly in the body there is a morsel of flesh which, if it be whole, all the body is whole and which, if it be diseased, all of it is diseased. Truly it is the heart."

None of us can truly say in our hearts, that we are doing everything we possibly can against the injustice of environmental pollution. This short paper can by no means raise, let alone answer the many questions about global warming that we as Muslims (and non-Muslims) should be addressing. There is however little doubt that if we as Muslims do not act quickly and effectively against what is perhaps the greatest ever challenge to humankind, we shall be answering for it in this life and in the hereafter.

Print only double-sided on recycled paper
March 2007