……God bless his soul…..

(( patient mountain Gooooo))

When he come in his come like better horse..

And when he go primes are not any one..

And when he move the sun is not tended…

His prestige from young age..

He has the friendship’ the faithful’ the potent..

He save companionship and he is not hotheaded with his friends..

He has greybeard wisdom with greybeard skill…

He is patient’ preserve his God’ debonair and allowed  his smile predicated you about lion in his chest roaring..

 (( This is what say about him and This is what poets say about him))…

(( patient mountain Gooooo))

Parting my Nobel brother make my eyes graying…

 planet in sky load over shoulders…

moon lights space burn out has no alternative…

(”Turky”) lesson my voice..

The cry my heart cry..

Planets near from me to solace me in lover..

What they are doing when the sad as Horror army …

((And the patient mountain Goooooo))

((My dear brother Gooooooo))

I want from you to call Allah to him…

Oh Allah’ I ask you to get him paradise..

……..God bless his soul……..

I ask Allah to Respond…

This passage consider about Worst days of my life

the day that my dear brother left the live

 ( he death in 17 /3 /1430)

   I was contemplate memories tape, I see in small girl in the beginning of her study stages, She is fill in love the life and she is ignorance it’s meaning, She is love her doll and her friends only , And  she is cry if she missing her doll. This girl grew and grew with her childhood friends, The concepts change with her and she is still ignorance what is the life carry of great meaning, She is left playing in her favorite doll and she become miss to see it.

     The tape pass in my eyes and I see her grew and grew until she arrived to university study, She study English language. And with passing her study stages she begin understand life and it’s meaning with what it contain from new concept army, And she become suffer responsibilities.

           This girl is me…

       I love the hope in this life and I live on remember it, I am it’s story. I wish to make some thing in my life still after my death garter because the life is moments.

I like reading stories and sahabah biographies, I fall in love horseback riding ( because the dear person learn me this go for ever ), I like creativity and innovation in handicraft , I impressive in speculate in the cosmos oddity and creatures wonders.

       His is my tape life it is short, is it not also ??

We don’t know if it was the remaining shorter..

What I wish for me and you that we complete the life in  obedience Rahman..  

From those around I hear a Cry

A muffled sob, a Hopeless sigh

I hear their foot steps leaving slow

And then I know my soul must Fly

A chilly wind begins to blow

within my soul , from Head to Toe

And then, Last Breath escapes my lips

It’s Time to leave, And I must Go

So, it is True But it’s too Late

They said : Each soul has its Given Date

When it must leave its body’s core

And meet with its Eternal Fate

Oh mark the words that I do say

Who knows? Tomorrow could be your Day

At last , it comes to Heaven or Hell

Decide which now, Do NOT delay

Come on my brothers let’s pray

Decide which now do not delay

Oh God Oh God I can not see

My eyes are Blind ! Am I still Me

Or has my soul been led astray

And forced to pay a priceless Fee

Alas to Dust we all return

Some shall rejoice, while others burn

If only I knew that before

The line grew short , and came my Turn

And now , as beneath the sod

They lay me with my record flawed

They cry, not knowing I cry worse

For , they go home , I face my God !

Oh mark the words that I do say

Who knows? Tomorrow could be your Day

At last , it comes to Heaven or Hell

Decide which now, Do NOT delay

Come on my brothers let’s pray

Decide which now do not delay

Silences make the real conversation between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what count.A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.A joy shred is doubled.Happiness seems made to be shred.Hold a true friend with both hands.Odd how much it hurts when a friend moves away and leaves behind only silence.Life is nothing without friendship.There’s nothing more precious in this world than the feeling of being wanted.It’s the friends that you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.When a friend asks there is no tomorrow.What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other.The truth in friendship is to me every bit as sacred as eternal marriage.Blind to all faults to a friend one must close one eye: to keep him two.Ah, how good it feels the hand of an old friend.A friend in need is a damned nuisance.Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes

listen to enjoy, press here

Literary works in sixteenth-century England were rarely if ever created in isolation from other currents in the social and cultural world. The boundaries that divided the texts we now regard as aesthetic from other texts were porous and constantly shifting. It is perfectly acceptable, of course, for the purposes of reading to redraw these boundaries more decisively, treating Renaissance texts as if they were islands of the autonomous literary imagination. One of the greatest writers of the period, Sir Philip Sidney, defended poetry in just such terms; the poet, Sidney writes in The Defence of Poetry (NAEL 8, 1.953–74), is not constrained by nature or history but freely ranges “only within the zodiac of his own wit.” But Sidney knew well, and from painful personal experience, how much this vision of golden autonomy was contracted by the pressures, perils, and longings of the brazen world. And only a few pages after he imagines the poet orbiting entirely within the constellations of his own intellect, he advances a very different vision, one in which the poet’s words not only imitate reality but also actively change it.

We have no way of knowing to what extent, if at all, this dream of literary power was ever realized in the world. We do know that many sixteenth-century artists, such as Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare, brooded on the magical, transforming power of art. This power could be associated with civility and virtue, as Sidney claims, but it could also have the demonic qualities manifested by the “pleasing words” of Spenser’s enchanter, Archimago (NAEL 8, 1.714–902), or by the incantations of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (NAEL 8, 1.1022–1057). It is significant that Marlowe’s great play was written at a time in which the possibility of sorcery was not merely a theatrical fantasy but a widely shared fear, a fear upon which the state could act — as the case of Doctor Fian vividly shows — with horrendous ferocity. Marlowe was himself the object of suspicion and hostility, as indicated by the strange report filed by a secret agent, Richard Baines, professing to list Marlowe’s wildly heretical opinions, and by the gleeful (and factually inaccurate) report by the Puritan Thomas Beard of Marlowe’s death.

Marlowe’s tragedy emerges not only from a culture in which bargains with the devil are imaginable as real events but also from a world in which many of the most fundamental assumptions about spiritual life were being called into question by the movement known as the Reformation. Catholic and Protestant voices struggled to articulate the precise beliefs and practices thought necessary for the soul’s salvation. One key site of conflict was the Bible, with Catholic authorities trying unsuccessfully to stop the circulation of the unauthorized Protestant translation of Scripture by William Tyndale, a translation in which doctrines and institutional structures central to the Roman Catholic church were directly challenged. Those doctrines and structures, above all the interpretation of the central ritual of the eucharist, or Lord’s Supper, were contested with murderous ferocity, as the fates of the Protestant martyr Anne Askew and the Catholic martyr Robert Aske make painfully clear. The Reformation is closely linked to many of the texts printed in the sixteenth-century section of the Norton Anthology: Book 1 of Spenser’s Faerie Queene (NAEL 8, 1.719–856), for example, in which a staunchly Protestant knight of Holiness struggles against the satanic forces of Roman Catholicism, or the Protestant propagandist Foxe’s account of Lady Jane Grey’s execution (NAEL 8, 1.674-75), or the Catholic Robert Southwell’s moving religious lyric, “The Burning Babe” (NAEL 8, 1.640-41).

If these windows on the Reformation offer a revealing glimpse of the inner lives of men and women in Tudor England, the subsection entitled “The Wider World” provides a glimpse of the huge world that lay beyond the boundaries of the kingdom, a world that the English were feverishly attempting to explore and exploit. Ruthless military expeditions and English settlers (including the poet Edmund Spenser) struggled to subdue and colonize nearby Ireland, but with very limited success. Farther afield, merchants from cities such as London and Bristol established profitable trading links to markets in North Africa, Turkey, and Russia. And daring seamen such as Drake and Cavendish commanded voyages to still more distant lands. The texts collected here, which supplement the selections from Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana (NAEL 8, 1.923-26) and Hariot’s Brief and True Report (NAEL 1.938-43) in the Norton Anthology, are fascinating, disturbing records of intense human curiosity, greed, fear, wonder, and intelligence. And lest we imagine that the English were only the observers of the world and never the observed, “The Wider World” includes a sample of a foreign tourist’s description of London. The tourist, Thomas Platter, had the good sense to go to the theater and to see, as so many thousands of visitors to England have done since, a play by Shakespeare.

The miracle of wood and fire

In the name of Allah,Most gracious,Most merciful

Allah says:«See ye the Fire which ye kindle? * Is it ye who grow the tree which feeds the fire, or do We grow it? * We have made it a memorial (of Our handiwork), and an article of comfort and convenience for the denizens of deserts» SURAH: AL WAQI`AH(71.74).

As known,wood consists of a main chemical substance “lignocellulose”. PureLignocellulose is available in cotton ,whereas mixed one exists in wood.The three vital chemical components of lignocellulose are Hydrogen,Oxygen,and Carbon(Coal).One of the miracles of God’s grandeur, that until this moment, more than a million chemical compounds have been made up of only these three chemical elements.They differ according to the substances’ arrangement and their compination together.They are called organic compounds.Allmost they are made in the plant,and so is lignocellulose.The plant makes up lignocellulose of available and valueless permitive materials such as air (Oxygyn and Carbon),water,and sun rays.Despite these permitive materials are widespread and free for any person,the chemists niether can do a similar one nor are they able to make a small piece of wood. The Divine miracle tells them that they are self-concieted and they deny  God’s abilities.If they are so , why they are incapable of making a piece of wood although its components ( air , water and sunrays ) are at hand and under their control.This leads them to  know the powerful and thinkful ability of Allah which is higher than their abilities.

These are the plants and trees that make lignocellulose day and night from these valueless  permitive elements .

This is just one side of wood miracle. On the other hand, water is one of the components of lignocellulose which is versus fire. After its complete combination of water , it is concidered one of the most important sources of fire .

God’s gift

 In the name of Allah Most Gracious Most Merciful

Look within and around you. Contemplate, ponder and think.God said in Quran 45 Verse 3 “…the heavens and the earth are full of signs for the believers..”.God, expressing His infinite love through nature so beautifully woven spreading on the face of the entire universe above and below.The beauty of it all just amazes me but have we ever take time to ponder?

When your love for God is immensely strong, you see God in all that you do, in all that there is and in all that ever will be.  Travelling to work 1 hour daily can be a hectic and tiring schedule for some.For me, it is a journey of new discoveries in the horizon pondering the signs of God. Awesome mountain view with formation of clouds clinging at its tip and carpets of green grass spreading the entire fields and trees emerging its bountiful leaves seems like an ‘eyemo’ to my sight. Its enchanting beauty is beyond imagination.Trees with coloured redolent flowers spreading all over its branches and clinging on to each other thus creating illuminating beauty and the wind that brushes the trees creating a rhapsody of rhyme lingering in my ears, branches clutching each other at the sides of the road forming a cave like quintessential sanctuary….just magnificent! Such is the vast richness and abundance of God’s creation. Such is His state of the art expressing His passion of lullaby beauty blossoming and cascading the entire universe.Suddenly, a sparkle of epiphancy transcend and triggers my heart from a mystical standpoint of view that can only be esoteric.

With faith in God and bonds that we bind with each other despite genders and religion, we will be able to create a peace filled world and a transformational multitudes of freedom, joy, unity, harmony and peace build so strongly none could separate us.This should be our legacy.A legacy we must carry from generation to generation. Generations that are filled with faith and wisdom.And with that, we shall prosper and be divinely guided if we cling on to God’s faith and with His infinite love shining upon us, we can move mountains.

As we lift our God consciousness, we know there is nothing that we cannot understand nor overcome or change. You know you have the power, strength and energy to do whatever you need to do, and the courage to move forward in faith.

Life is meant to be lived lovingly, abundantly, fully, joyously, positively, and victoriously just like the trees.Lift your consciousness and let your horizons expand to opening new possibilities. Be better than before; see more clearly the vast prosperity and abundance that is ready for you now. As you lift your vision and to the higher conciousness of God within you, you see the beauty and upliftment of a joyous life, and there is new light shining upon your path.Your path of wondrous values.Such is God’s infinite love for us.

Life like rose  .. Each paper imagination .. Every thorn fact.

“Lift your God consciousness within you and your life will be filled with wondrous values”

Dismiss suspicion, and replace it with trust

Manifest your loyalty in word and deed

Do a random act of kindness

Think of the Beauty of providers Creature

Global war is one of the defining features of twentieth-

century experience, and the first global war is the subject of one of this period’s topics, “Representing the Great War.” Masses of dead bodies strewn upon the ground, plumes of poison gas drifting through the air, hundreds of miles of trenches infested with rats—these are but some of the indelible images that have come to be associated with World War I (1914-18). It was a war that unleashed death, loss, and suffering on an unprecedented scale. How did recruiting posters, paintings, memoirs, and memorials represent the war? Was it a heroic occasion, comparable to a sporting event, eliciting displays of manly valor and courage? Or was it an ignominious waste of human life, with little gain to show on either side of the conflict, deserving bitterly ironic treatment? What were the differences between how civilians and soldiers, men and women, painters and poets represented the war? How effective or inadequate were memorials, poems, or memoirs in conveying the enormous scale and horror of the war? These are among the issues explored in this topic about the challenge to writers and artists of representing the unrepresentable.

Another of the twentieth century’s defining features is radical artistic experiment. The boundary-breaking art, literature, and music of the first decades of the century are the subject of the topic “Modernist Experiment.” Among the leading aesthetic innovators of this era were the composer Igor Stravinsky,

 the cubist Pablo Picasso, and the futurist F. T. Marinetti. The waves of artistic energy in the avant-garde European arts soon crossed the English Channel, as instanced by the abstraction and dynamism of Red Stone Dancer (1913-14) by the London-based vorticist sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. Other vorticists and modernists include such English-language writers as Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, and Mina Loy, who also responded to the stimulus and challenge of the European avant-garde with manifestos, poems, plays, and other writings. This topic explores the links between Continental experiment and the modernist innovations of English-language poets and writers during a period of extraordinary ferment in literature and the arts.

Another of the defining features of the twentieth century was the emergence of new nations out of European colonial rule. Among these nations, Ireland was the oldest of Britain’s colonies and the first in modern times to fight for independence. The topic “Imagining Ireland” explores how twentieth-century Irish writers fashioned new ideas about the Irish nation. It focuses on two periods of crisis, when the violent struggle for independence put the greatest pressure on literary attempts to imagine the nation: in the aftermath of the Easter Rising of 1916 and the later outbreaks of sectarian violence from 1969 (known as the Troubles) in Northern Ireland. How do poems, plays, memoirs, short stories, and other literary works represent the bloodshed and yet the potential benefits of these violent political upheavals? Do they honor or lament, idealize or criticize, these political acts? And how do these literary representations compare with political speeches and treaties that bear on these defining moments in modern Irish history? “Imagining Ireland” considers these and other questions about literature and the making of Irish nationality, which continue to preoccupy contemporary writers of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the Irish diaspora.

Dads Blessings

A young man was getting ready to graduate from college. For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer’s showroom, and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him that was all he wanted.

As Graduation Day approached, the young man awaited signs that his father had purchased the car.  Finally, on the morning of his graduation, his father called  him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and told him how much he loved him. He handed his son a beautifully wrapped gift box.  Curious, but somewhat disappointed, the young man opened the box and found a lovely, leather-bound Bible, with the young man’s name embossed in gold. Angry, he raised his voice to his father and said “With all your money, you give me a Bible?” and stormed out of the house, leaving the Bible.

Many years passed and the young man was very successful in business. He had a beautiful home and  wonderful family, but realized his father was very old, and thought perhaps he should go  to  him.  He had not seen him since that graduation day.  Before he could make arrangements, he received a telegram telling him his father had passed away, and willed all of his possessions to his son. He needed to come home immediately and take care of things.

When he arrived at his father’s house, sudden sadness and regret filled his heart.  He began to search through his father’s important papers and saw the still new Bible, just as he had left it  years ago.  With tears, he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages.  And as he did, a car key dropped from the back of the Bible.  It had a tag with the dealer’s name, the same dealer who had the sports car he had desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation, and the words PAID IN FULL

Sciences

Main article: Islamic science

Further information: Islamic contributions to Medieval Europe

, Timeline of science    and technology in the Islamic world,

 and List of Muslim scientists 

Early scientific methods were developed in the Islamic world, where significant progress in methodology was made, especially in the works of Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) in the 11th century, who is considered the pioneer of experimental physics.^[85][94] The most important development of the scientific method was the use of experimentation and quantification to distinguish between competing scientific theories set within a generally empirical orientation. Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) wrote the Book of Optics, in which he significantly reformed the field of optics, empirically proved that vision occurred because of light rays entering the eye, and invented the camera obscura to demonstrate the physical nature of light rays.^[95][96]

Ibn al-Haytham has also been described as the “first scientist” for his introduction of the scientific method,^[97] and his pioneering work on the psychology of visual perception^[98][99] is considered a precursor to psychophysics and experimental psychology.^[100]

 Medicine

Main article: Islamic medicine

Further information: Islamic psychology, Bimaristan, and Ophthalmology in medieval Islam

Islamic medicine was a genre of medical writing that was influenced by several different medical systems. The works of ancient Greek and Roman physicians Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Soranus, Celsus and Galen had a lasting impact on Islamic medicine.^{[125][126][127]}

Muslim physicians made many significant contributions to medicine, including anatomy, experimental medicine, ophthalmology, pathology, the pharmaceutical sciences, physiology, surgery, etc. They also set up some of the earliest dedicated hospitals,^[128] including the first medical schools^[129] and psychiatric hospitals.^[130] Al-Kindi wrote the De Gradibus, in which he first demonstrated the application of quantification and mathematics to medicine and pharmacology, such as a mathematical scale to quantify the strength of drugs and the determination in advance of the most critical days of a patient’s illness.^[131] Al-Razi (Rhazes) discovered measles and smallpox, and in his Doubts about Galen, proved Galen’s humorism false.^[119]

  Abu al-Qasim (Abulcasis) helped lay the foudations for modern surgery,^[132] with his Kitab al-Tasrif, in which he invented numerous surgical instruments, including the first instruments unique to women,^[133] as well as the surgical uses of catgut and forceps, the ligature, surgical needle, scalpel, curette, retractor, surgical spoon, sound, surgical hook, surgical rod, and specula,^[134] and bone saw.^[75] Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) made important advances in eye surgery, as he correctly explained the process of sight and visual perception for the first time in his Book of Optics.^[133]

 Ibn Sina (Avicenna) helped lay the foundations for modern medicine,^[135] with The Canon of Medicine, which was responsible for introducing systematic experimentation and quantification in physiology,^[136] the discovery of contagious disease, introduction of quarantine to limit their spread, introduction of experimental medicine, evidence-based medicine, clinical trials,^[137] randomized controlled trials,^[138][139] efficacy tests,^[140][141] and clinical pharmacology,^[142] the first descriptions on bacteria and viral organisms,^[143] distinction of mediastinitis from pleurisy, contagious nature of tuberculosis, distribution of diseases by water and soil, skin troubles, sexually transmitted diseases, perversions, nervous ailments,^[128] use of ice to treat fevers, and separation of medicine from pharmacology.^[133]

Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) was the earliest known experimental surgeon.^[144] In the 12th century, he was responsible for introducing the experimental method into surgery, as he was the first to employ animal testing in order to experiment with surgical procedures before applying them to human patients.^[145] He also performed the first dissections and postmortem autopsies on humans as well as animals.^[146]

Ibn al-Nafis laid the foundations for circulatory physiology,^[147] as he was the first to describe the pulmonary circulation^[148] and coronary circulation,^[149][150] which form the basis of the circulatory system, for which he is considered “the greatest physiologist of the Middle Ages.”^[151] He also described the earliest concept of metabolism,^[152] and developed new systems of physiology and psychology to replace the Avicennian and Galenic systems, while discrediting many of their erroneous theories on humorism, pulsation,^[153] bones, muscles, intestines, sensory organs, bilious canals, esophagus, stomach, etc.^[154]

Ibn al-Lubudi rejected the theory of humorism, and discovered that the body and its preservation depend exclusively upon blood, women cannot produce sperm, the movement of arteries are not dependent upon the movement of the heart, the heart is the first organ to form in a fetus‘ body, and the bones forming the skull can grow into tumors.^[155] Ibn Khatima and Ibn al-Khatib discovered that infectious diseases are caused by microorganisms which enter the human body.^[156] Mansur ibn Ilyas drew comprehensive diagrams of the body’s structural, nervous and circulatory systems.^[5]

Professor Robert Hickling has spent many years in watching insects and recording the sound vibrations they release. Yet, the matter couldn’t be asserted till he was able to record sounds coming from ants. Hisaim was to follow up ants in the field crops; they didn’t find better method  than following ants’ sounds.      

However, what surprised that scientist is that the sounds frequencies that ants release vary from an ant to another and from ants’ species to another. There are twelve thousand species in the world and the ants’ number on the earth outnumbers human beings’ number. Before these tremendous numbers, researchers stood confused for how they can deal with all these sounds.

Many different sounds of ants could be recorded successfully and these pieces of research was published in Journal of Sound and Vibration magazine in 2006 and it was the first time that man can hear a real sound of ants!

This researcher published a lot of research  and the most important one is about the communication among ants under the title “The Analysis of acoustic communication by ants”: in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America magazine.

 These researchers showed that ants exceed us at acoustic communication. Scientists expect that ant uses antennas to send and receive acoustic vibrations. The ant amplifies the received signals like the advanced receiving devices Moreover, it removes sounds overlapping , so it makes filtration or clarification to the sound to distinguish it from another. This is a very developed communication system that was unknown to scientists and they only discovered it a few years ago. Yet the Holy Qur’an dealt with that matter and told us that ants speak.

Allah said what means: Till, when they come to the valley of the ants, one of the ants said” O, ants enter your dwellings, lest Suleiman and his hosts crush you, while they perceive not.( suret al-naml 18 – ants) . In this verse, there is a clear evidence that ants have a language to understand one another and Allah gifted Suleiman with the ability to hear and understand these sounds.   The scientists attempt to grasp these acoustic signals that ants utter. Yet, they distinguished four different kinds of these sounds after very long years of watching.

Ants use special acoustic signals that release during anger; we find that an ant takes the task of warning, so it releases a call that its mate receives, understands, and responds immediately. Listen  to the ant’s voice  while it was warning the other ants against a certain danger.(for listening , press here )

 Scientists assert that ants are like us, they perform their tasks efficiently. While working, ants speak to each other and talk like human beings. We have found out that  ants organize the process of food collecting  and other tasks through certain sounds and instructions it releases and the others hear and respond

This is the ant’s sound during its normal life and during working, moving and food collecting(press here)

When an ant attacks a caterpillar, it releases fearful sounds. These sounds were completely unknown and they resemble the human battle

  Listen to this sound of an ant attacking a caterpillar( press here.)

The Phil De Vries discovered that insects release weak acoustic vibrations that ants can distinguish; the aphid, secretes a sugary substance that ants like, this insect releases vibrations during its work that ants pick and consequently rush to their livelihood. Thus acoustic vibrations are tools of communication among insects.

Allah said: {the seven heavens and the earth and all that is herein glorifying Him but there is not a thing but glorifies His Praise but you understand not their glorification. Truly, He is Ever Forbearing, oft-forgiving.}  Al-Isra.44.          

  Robert Hickling, one of the notabl researcher , said” ants don’t respond to the human voices nor are they affected by it. But when we direct it to  suitable vibrations, it is affected  and respond to them. This  means that ants have their own language and they are completely like  human beings. Here we remember the saying of Glorified Allah {there is not an animal in the earth nor a flying creature on two wings, but they are people like unto you. We have neglected nothing in the book (of our decrees. Then unto their Lord they will be gathered.} Al-An ậm 38.

Hence we realize that The Holy Qur’an agrees with modern science

O Allaah , I ask you by your mercy which envelopes all things , that you forgive me .

If someone does you a favour and you say .

Allaah has decreed and what he wills , he does

Allaah is sufficient for me . and how fine a trustee (he is )

There is no might nor power except with Allaah.

1. What is Islam?

The word “Islam” means peace and submission. Peace means to be at peace with yourself and your surroundings and submission means submission to the will of God. A broader meaning of the word “Islam” is to achieve peace by submitting to the will of God.

This is a unique religion with a name which signifies a moral attitude and a way of life. Judaism takes its name from the tribe of Juda, Christianity from Jesus Christ, Buddhism from Goutam Buddha and Hinduism from Indus River. However, Muslims derive their identity from the message of Islam, rather than the person of Muhammed (P), thus should not be called “Muhammadans”.

2. Who is Allah?

Allah is the Arabic word for “one God”. Allah is not God of Muslims only. He is God of all creations, because He is their Creator and Sustainer.

3. Who is a Muslim?

The word “Muslim” means one who submits to the will of God. This is done by declaring that “there is no god except one God and Muhammad is the messenger of God.” In a broader sense, anyone who willingly submits to the will of God is a Muslim. Thus, all the prophets preceding the prophet Muhammad are considered Muslims. The Quran specifically mentions Abraham who lived long before Moses and Christ that, “he was not a Jew or a Christian but a Muslim,” because, he had submitted to the will of God. Thus there are Muslims who are not submitting at all to the will of God and there are Muslims who are doing their best to live an Islamic life. One cannot judge Islam by looking at those individuals who have a Muslim name but in their actions, they are not living or behaving as Muslims. The extent of being a Muslim can be according to the degree to which one is submitting to the will of God, in his beliefs and his actions.

4. Who was Muhammad? (P)

In brief, Muhammad (Peace be upon him) was born in a noble tribe of Mecca in Arabia in the year 570 AD. His ancestry goes back to Prophet Ishmael (P), son of Prophet Abraham (P). His father died before his birth and his mother died when he was six. He did not attend a formal school since he was raised first by a nurse as it was the custom those days, and then by his grandfather and uncle. As a young man, he was known as a righteous person who used to meditate in a cave. At age 40, he was given the prophethood when the angel, Gabriel, appeared in the cave. Subsequently, the revelations came over 23 years and were compiled in the form of a book called the Quran which Muslims consider as the final and the last word of God. The Quran has been preserved, unchanged, in its original form and confirms the truth in the Torah, the psalms and the Gospel

5. Does Islam oppress women?

No. On the contrary, Islam elevated the status of women 1,400 years ago by giving them the right to divorce, the right to have financial independence and support and the right to be identified as dignified women (Hijab) when in the rest of the world, including Europe, women had no such rights. Women are equal to men in all acts of piety (Quran 33:32). Islam allows women to keep their maiden name after marriage, their earned money and spend it as they wish, and ask men to be their protector as women on the street can be molested. Prophet Muhammad (P) told Muslim men, “the best among you is the one who is best to his family.” Not Islam, but some Muslim men, do oppress women today. This is because of their cultural habits or their ignorance about their religion. Female Genital Mutilations has nothing to do with Islam. It is a pre Islamic African Custom, practiced by non Muslims including coptic Christians as well.