THOUSANDS OF FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES

Words of Wisdom ...or so it seems...


Blog Archive

VIDEO OF THE MOMENT

Monday 19 January 2009

Pt II : SCIENTIFIC QURAN; How could we have missed it !!

In case you're wondering what is going on in this post, this is the continuation of my previous post "Scientific Quran; how could we have missed it!!" in participation of the "Let's read the Quran Campaign". I'll be talking Astrophysics to you, and for those who think Astrophysics is an impossible subject to understand, well think .... Obama. (sorry, I'm an Obama Mama), or if you don't know who Obama is, then think ....MAWI...or maybe not...Astrophysic deals with explainable phenomena...


Men have long been awed by the big blue sky be it night or day, and what lies within and beyond, to feast their eyes upon in an inevitable abyss of wonderment. Amongst the endless questions that never failed to come to mind is "how did it all began?"

According to God, in Surah al Anbiyaa Ayah 30;

"Do not the Unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of Creation), before We clove them asunder? We made from water every living thing. Will they then believe?"


The Arabic words, 'ratqa' means 'something that is gathered, sticking together and contracted' whilst 'fataq' means 'open, split, ripped apart'. Fast forward a few decades later, the Big Bang Theory emerged. For those who have a misconception that "big bang" have got something to do with films like "Amme-get-it-On", "Forrest Hump", "Tales of Two Siti-s" (not Siti Norhaliza, I hear she sues people for defamation) , "Pussy in Boots...only Boots" (okay you get the picture), please do everyone a favor by clicking here to get an idea what the rest of the world is talking about when they talk about the Big Bang Theory.

From the basis of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity ( not to be mistaken for the Special Theory of Relativity, or STR), formulated by Alexander Friedmann, The Big Bang The Big Bang generally refers to the idea that the universe was initially in a dense and primordial hot condition that gradually expanded at some finite time in the past and resume to expand hitherto.

Imagine the raisins on the bread, baked in the oven, expanding. Get the picture?

Before I resume, let me make it clear what theory means. A theory is good if it satisfies two criterion

  1. It must accurately describe a large class of observations on a basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements and

  2. 2. it must make definite predictions about the results of the future observations.

    An easy example would be, Newton's theory of gravity. It was based on a simple model in which bodies attracted each other with a force was proportional to a quantity called their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. And it is able to predict the motion of the sun, the moon and the planets to a high degree of accuracy.

    Base on this; it is safe to assume that “Theory of the Doom of Barisan National” is a good theory. (Just checking whether you're still with me)

Now,back to the big bang, the observed velocities of distant galaxies, taken together with the cosmological principle appeared to show that the Universe was expanding in a manner consistent with the Friedmann-Lemaître model of general relativity . Edwin Powell Hubble later discovered that the degree of redshift observed in light coming from galaxy increased in proportion to the distance of that galaxy from Milky Way, help establishing that the universe is, in fact, expanding, and this was later known as Hubble's Law.


Putting aside the scientific jargon, it simply means that when Hubble made the landmark observation that wherever we look, distant galaxies are moving rapidly away from us, ergo, we can say that the universe is expanding. This means, during the earlier times, object were closely adjacent to each other. Hubbles' observation suggested that there was a time, when the universe was infinitesimally small and infinitely dense, before the explosion,sometime 12 to 14 billion years ago,hence the term "big bang", followed by expansion and cooling of the particles resulting in the celestrial bodies in the vast universe


In 2001, cosmologists celebrated as NASA launched a satellite mission from Cape Carnival to investigate a think dark layer of space at the outermost edge of the visible universe. The mission was called WMAP (pronounced as W-Map) short for Wilkinson microwave Anisotrophy Probe. (hmmm....I wonder if medical line can come up with a similar but obviously smaller microwave probe to shove up some of the politician's asses, to confirm the suspician that their brains are actually herniation of the gut that poured into the skull hence the shitty ideas on tax payers' expenses....not to mention the shitty answers that are used to account for them). What is the significance of this probe? (Honey, I'm talkin' about the WMAP now). Read on my friends...for those not interested, kindly jump to the next two paragraphs.


For further reading on WMAP click here. WMAP has highly sensitive detectors designed to gather some of the ancient light emitted from the dark layer nearly 14 billion years ago, at the time when the first atoms were just beginning to form. Every 2.2 minutes, the satellite spins once around it's axis and every hour the axis itself traces out a circle.From the combination of motions, light from a narrow ring on the sky is collected.

Over the course of six months, the entire satellite keeps shifting until the detectors have covered the entire sky. The sequence will be repeated to make a detailed portrait of the infant universe. Are you still with me or have you entered cuckoo land? Nineteen months later, in February 2003, WMAP was able to confirm the scientists suspicion on the big bang theory, and beyond. (For those who are interested in the latest WMAP reading, showing composition of the universe, click here.)

For those of you who are lazy to click there, I took the liberty to copy and paste this from our dear friend, Mr Wikipedia;

"WMAP measures a remnant of the early universe - its oldest light. The conditions of the early times are imprinted on this light. It is the result of what happened earlier, and a back light for the later development of the universe. This light lost energy as the universe expanded over 13.7 billion years, so WMAP now sees the light as microwaves. By making accurate measurements of microwave patterns, WMAP has answered many longstanding questions about the universe's age, composition and development."

Anyway, WMAP came back with this atlas of the universe below. Dig that, because I cannot comprehend shit how this eggnog got interpreted into the stuff wrote below. That is why I am not a cosmologist.

What is the significance of WMAP ? (Derived from the book "Endless Universe" authors are the cosmologists partly responsible of the initial building of WMAP)

1. the big bang itself is not explained. it is simply imagined that space and time emerged somehow.

2. just after the ban, a small region of the universe underwent a dramatic process called inflation, during which it expanded a googol or more within a billionth of a billionth of a trillionth of a second.(gee..I'm still struggling to comprehend Malaysian time. Imagine God saying "You're a trillionth of a second late, which butt do you want me to whack? right or left?...). Once this period of inflation ended, the energy causing the inflation was transformed into a dense gas of hot radiation. The gas cooled and the expansion slowed, allowing atoms and molecules to clump into galaxies and stars.

3. 9 billion years after the Big Ban, (sorry, I meant the Big Bang. Got confused with the Avril Lavigne's concert ban in Malaysia. Well, the mentality of the banners that seem to coincide with people from the ages of 9 billions years ago had triggered my thought. My bad..), a mysterious force called dark energy took over and started to accelerate the expansion again. in the standard picture, the expansion of the universe will accelerate forever, turning all of space into a vast and nearly perfect vacuum.


In az-Zariyat Ayah 47; God said; (Translation by Edip Yuksel)

"We constructed the universe with might,
and We are expanding it."


This verse together with al-Anbiyaa verse 30 supports the big bang theory and the expansion of the universe after the big bang.

The #2 significance of WMAP result is the energy causing the expansion was transformed into a dense gas of hot radiation that later cooled resulting in the slowing down of expansion allowing atoms and molecules to clump into galaxies and stars. This statement is consistent with the verse 11 of Surah Fussilat, when God said;

"Moreover, He comprehended in His design the sky, and it had been (as) smoke: He said to it and to the earth: "Come ye together, willingly or unwillingly." They said: We do come (together), in willing obedience." "

Smoke : fume or vapor often resulting from the action of heat on moisture. As we all know, gas turns to vapour when it looses energy, and this further loosing of energy from vapour resulted in solid. Water is a simple example; from vapour, you can turn it into water then ice.

Having explained 2 components of the inflationary model of the universe, which comprises of three concepts I've explained above, which are;

1. the hot big bang theory - developed in the early twentieth century
2. the inflation mechanism, introduced in the 1980s
3. the dark energy hypothesis - added in the 1990s

with the mention of them in the Quran, I have to add that currently, scientists have gone way beyond the big bang. If you can recall the WMAP findings stated above, finding is without any evidence associated with the earliest instant of the expansion, the Big Bang Theory cannot and does not provide any explanation for such an initial condition; rather it describes and explains the general evolution of the universe since that instance.

According to Paul J Steinhardt and Neil Turok, authors of the book I mentioned earlier,

"Scientists now believe, that the big bang is not the beginning of space and time, but rather an event that is , in principle , fully describable using physical laws. Nor does the big bang happen only once. Instead, the universe undergoes cycles of evolution. In each cycle, a a big bang creates hot matter and radiation which expand and cool to form the galaxies and stars observed today. Then the expansion of the universe speeds up, causing the matter to become so spread out that space approaches a nearly perfect vacuum. Finally after a trillion years or so, a new big bang occurs and the cycle begins anew. The events that created the large- scale structure of the universe today occurred a full cycle ago, before the last big bang."

Wow....a vicious cycle of big bangs....I'm dumbfounded and awed by the universe, even more so by it's Creator.

"Allah! There is no god but He, the Living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth. Who is there can intercede in His presence except as He permitteth? He knoweth what (appeareth to His creatures as) Before or After or Behind them. Nor shall they compass aught of His knowledge except as He willeth. His Throne doth extend over the heavens and the earth, and He feeleth no fatigue in guarding and preserving them for He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory)." (Al Baqarah:255)

I will be back with more Astrophysics....whatever you do, don't fall asleep.....( Freddie Kruger smile.....)

...Click here to find out how deep the rabbit hole goes.....

Sunday 18 January 2009

Scientific Quran. How could we have missed it? Pt1


Among the questions that intrigues me, is why we Muslims tend to implicate science from the Quran AFTER the Science have been uncovered, not from Quranic sources. We have the Quran in our hands and we have failed to apply it forward, instead we tend to backtrack proven scientific phenomena, and work our way back to the Quran. Had we payed attention to God's words, and really analyze them and observe the scientific values, then we may have become the people uncovering God's creations.

Of course we can't talk about science in Islam without bragging about the Islamic Golden Age, a renaissance that was a one time off, which is sad. Don't get me wrong. I am thrilled that Muslims at that era made use of the Quran, even though mainly for the purpose of religion. What should have happened was, the Muslims of generation that came after that, should have sustained the effort hitherto. Instead, Muslims chose to become pedantic and parochial, indulging in trivial matters that led to inter-Muslim disintegration and somehow have missed the bigger picture. Anyone who cannot agree with this, please explain to me the war between Iran and Iraq, with the Americans bagging cash from arms sales. I rest my case.

Islam during the Islamic Golden Age was progressive in nature. And when I say Muslims, please bear in mind that Muslims does not mean just the Arabs, but comprises of many races like the Egyptian, Persian etc.

Encouraged by God's words like, (the first Ayat ever bestowed upon the prophet)

Read ! In the name of thy Lord who created” al-Alaq Ayah:1

and;

"And He made subservient to you whatsoever is in the heavens and whatsoever is in the earth, all from Himself; most surely there are signs in this for the people who reflect." (Al-Jathiya Ayah 13)

that had made Muslims realize the importance of reading ergo learning, and encourages the thirst for knowledge, for curiosity only kills the cat, but on human, combined with tenacity of satisfying that curiosity, results in discoveries, in any aspect of life.

In al-Haj Ayah:26-27 We appointed Abraham to establish the Shrine: "You shall not idolize any other god beside Me, and purify My shrine for those who visit it, those who live near it, and those who bow and prostrate. "And proclaim that the people shall observe Hajj pilgrimage.They will come to you walking or riding on various exhausted (means of transportation). They will come from the farthest locations."

and;

The count of months, as far as GOD is concerned, is twelve.* This has been GOD's law, since the day He created the heavens and the earth. Four of them are sacred. This is the perfect religion; you shall not wrong your souls (by fighting) during the Sacred Months. However, you may declare all-out war against the idol worshipers (even during the Sacred Months), when they declare all-out war against you, and know that GOD is on the side of the righteous.”[9:36]
(Footnote: *9:36 The word ``month'' is mentioned in the Quran 12 times, and ``day'' 365 times. )

and also;

"And it is He who ordained the stars for you that you may be guided thereby in the darkness of the land and the sea." (6:97)

which was the basis of motivation of Muslim involvement in the astronomical and navigational success during that era..How else could Muslims from far come to perform Hajj, coming from afar, without a superior astronomical/ navigational knowledge? His words was made to full use for people to perform Hajj and needed to navigate their ships hence the Muslims began to find better observational and navigational instruments. Most navigational stars today have Arabic names.

This spending time in trivial matters had made the Muslim loose out on Scientific discoveries, which should have been ours should we have paid attention to Quran instead of getting caught up with invading of land in the name of God.

Here are some of the verses in the Quran that has scientific scent on them.

THE EARTH IS ROUND

When Christopher Columbus made the discovery that the earth was round, centuries later backed up by the photos taken from space by astronaut, it was no surprise. I bet someone may have said "Yeah, so? The main news channel , the women gossipers (even from way back) have not reported anyone falling off an abyss, so the world cannot be flat". The poor guy did not have to sail all the way across the world to prove the world is round. All he had to do was look into the Quran and he may have saved the hassle, which, ironically not even the Muslims did. But then again, it's not about the destination, rather, the journey.(not to mention the hidden intentions disguised with the love for spices.)

In surah; Al Hijr: 19

"And the earth We have spread out (like a carpet); set thereon mountains firm and immovable; and produced therein all kinds of things in due balance."

For those who observe, they will deduct that the only shape logical for men to be at any point on earth, only to find it “spread out”, would be a round shape. Otherwise, we would have found and abyss somewhere on earth, which was never the case.

Moreover, in surah An-Nazi'at Ayah 30; God said;


"And the earth moreover, Hath he extended (to a wide expanse)"

The word "daha-ha" in Arabic have an ambiguous meaning to it. It symbolizes, meaning in Arabic, something that is roundish in shape. The Arabs named the Ostrich egg "udhiyyah" and "udhuwwah", both derived from the word "daha".

I suppose there is a good reason for the God to sound ambiguous as He wanted His words to reach out to that present generation, as well as the generations later, who are more accustomed to ideas of science. Besides, a Prophet burnt like Bruno at the stake by Rome for merely suggesting that the earth move around the sun, would not serve any purpose to mankind.

THE EARTH, SUN AND MOON ROTATES WITHIN THEIR OWN ORBITS.

In al-Anbiyak; Ayah 33, God said,

"It is He who created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon: all (the celestial bodies) swim along, each in it's rounded course"


and again in surah Ibrahim Ayah33;
"And He hath made subject to you the sun and the moon, both diligently pursuing their course; and the Night and the Day hath He(also) made subject to you"
God said in az-zumar ayah 5;

"He created the heavens and the earth in true (proportions): He makes the Night overlap the Day, and the Day overlap the Night: He has subjected the sun and the moon (to His law) each one follows a course for a time appointed. Is not He the Exalted in Power, He Who forgives again and again? "


According to translation from Edip Yuksel,
az-Zumar Ayah 5;
"He created the heavens and the earth with truth. He rolls the night over the day, and He rolls the day over the night. He committed the sun and the moon, each running for an appointed term. Absolutely, He is the Noble, the Forgiving".*
*FootnoteThe verb " yuKaWiRu" (rotates, rolls around) used in the verse clearly indicates the roundness of the earth. See 21:33; 27:88; 36:40; 68:1; 79:30

The word "rotates and roll around" indicates that the earth rotates on it's axis and role around it's orbits.
And in the Surah an-Naml, Ayah:88,
"Thou seest the mountains and thinkest them firmly fixed: but they shall pass away as the clouds pass away: (such is) the artistry of Allah, Who disposes of all thing in perfect order: for He is well acquainted with all that ye do"

Take note at the words:

"........thinkest them firmly fixed; but they shall pass away as the clouds pass away"

The word "they shall pass away as clouds pass away" suggests that the earth is not static, but moves "as clouds pass away". How do clouds pass away? It is driven to move by the wind, an external force. We can therefore, postulate that the mountains are moving due to some force and the force is the movement of the earth.


Surah Yasin:

The constant argument that I have when engaged with a discussion with the elder generation would be that of a lost cause in explaining that, although reciting the Al-Quran is good, it is more superior to understand the meaning of the Quran instead of just reciting them like a parrot. I argued, while it is very easy to find teachers to teach children to read and recite the Quran, the accessibility and abundance of teaching force to learning it's translation is scarce.

We celebrate with feast of pulut kuning when our children "khatam Quran" but only a few are bothered that the children were not taught the content of what they are able to recite.

At a young age, I was able to memorize then recite the Yasin, but when ask the meaning, that was when I will use the Malay standard answer, "tak tahu". And there it is, right under our very noses, this beautiful surah;

Surah Yasin Ayah 38-40

(Translation by Yusuf Ali)

Surah Yasin:

[38] And the sun runs its course for a period determined for it; that is the decree of (Him), the Exalted in Might, the All-Knowing.


[39] And the Moon, We have measured for it mansions (to traverse) till it returns like the old (and withered) lower part of a date-stalk.

[40] It is not permitted to the Sun to catch up the Moon, nor can the Night outstrip the Day: each (just) swims along in (its own) orbit (according to law).


From this surah, we can postulate;
1. The sun and moon runs on their own courses, the orbits with under a set of laws meant for them . Each will not run into the other.

2. The night will not catch up with the day , only means they exist simultaneously.
This suggests that the earth have got to be in such a way that even though men experience night and day at separate times, the fact remains that night and day is present at same time. This hint, paired with the ayah that hinted that the world is round, should have resulted in the "globe experiment" (minus the globe of course, but if one can think of a world being round instead of flat, for sure he could have thought of a substitute for a globe.) that later will come to conclusion that the earth rotates on it's axis

















"
And the sun runs its course for a period determined for it......."
Together with this phrase; you can postulate:-

-. That the sun revolves on it's own axis, towards somewhere until something happens to it and it ceases ; some kind of an expiry date.
Either or, with the advanced technology that took us years to get here, (and the journey is hardly over), it is an establish theory that the sun does revolve on it's own axis, while moving towards a spot known as Solar Apex, which I will talk about in the second part.

With the discovery of sun spot , men are able to observe via a telescope and to project images of the sun onto a piece of white card so that you can see the sunspots. Observation over several days will show the sunspots appear to move across the face of the sun therefore it is safe to deduce that the sun is rotating on it's axis. In fact, the rotational day is about 25 days.
Modern science are also working on the belief that the sun is slowly moving toward a spot called the solar apex, southwest of Vega and adjacent to the constellation of the Hercules.

My next article would be current astrophysics findings that have correlation with the surah in the Quran. I have time constrain but I will do my best to satisfy your curiosity of the universe.
I remember a snippet from the film "Sumolah"

"Masa. Siapakah yang mencipta masa? Kerana masa lah jiwaku sentiasa berada di dalam keadaan tertekan"....

But think about it. Is there such a thing called time, in relation to the universe? What could possibly God meant when he said;
"By (the Token of) Time (through the Ages), Verily Man is in loss" al-Asr Ayah 1&2

And what about when God said; in al Ma'arij Ayah 4:


"The angels and the Spirit ascend unto Him in a Day the measure whereof is (as) fifty thousand years"

.......means we are always behind time. Could it possibly be that life as we see it at present, our present, is actually what may have been in the past? I'll let you boggle your mind upon pondering..Till the next post, have a good weekend.

THE QURAN CAMPAIGN : THE DEBUT











I jumped at the suggestion from a group of fellow bloggers, to join a session to write about the Quran , once a month here in the blog. I think it's brilliant and almost slapped myself for not having thought of it earlier. Well, my excuse would probably be that I blog to relax my mind , a moment of escapism from stressful work when my fingers hit the keypads , as well as have an outlet of self expression. This suggestion, to me, will bring back the Importance of Being Quran-ers.


I'd start mine with a couple of verses from the Quran that have scientific value in them. The reason being, to prove that Quran is not a book a man named Muhammad just created based on books before him as a guide, eg the Taurat and Zabur, or what he had created out of thin air. People from the past may claim Muhammad to be illiterate, just to prove that he could not have come up with the beautiful verses himself, simply because they could not at the time understood some of the verses that indicates scientific value to prove that Quran could not have come up from a mere mortal without scientific knowledge, but instead prove that Quran came from a higher being.

I do not see the point to continue preaching the Quran, should there be any doubt that it is all man made, a fake, to create a religion merely to tame the humans, or for some party to gain self interest. The beauty in any religion, is it's truthfulness and it's honesty in answering life's questions, so that that beauty may instigate a well founded faith. Having said that, Islam to me, is more of a way of life, a Deen as we call it, rather than a religion. Oh do go on and tap on the blue link to understand what “religion” means, and try to differentiate it with the word religion.

Of course someone may turn around and say to my face, "who are you to think you can interpret the Quran? There are people out there who spend years studying the Quran". Well, to them my answer would be, " I may not be an expert on the Quran studies, but what I'm not is an imbecile. God had given me the brains that functions well, and by God I shall repay my gratitude towards Him, by using it. That and of course there's the Internet" . Honestly, Artificial Intelligence is by far the most beneficial intelligence to the human species compared to CIA, British Intelligence, or Mossad put together.

No doubt I was born a Muslim, but I took Islam for granted and did what was told necessary for me to do without taking the time to decipher it's true meaning, until somewhere along the life's path, wisdom gained through life's experiences,( you know, the Kodak and the Prozac Moments interweaving), have made me realized that the only true thing in this world, is the love of Creator and the love for Him. Whilst Eden Ahbez may have meant love between humans when he wrote, “The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is to love and be loved in return”, I think this is so true when it comes to loving God.

Even parents' may ditch their child,for whatever possible reasons, husbands divorce their wives ( applicable for one husband divorcing 4 wives, maybe after deciding to come clean with being gay..who knows..), fathers may rape their own daughter,s keep them in a secret room underground for years to bear them children, humans may destroy or kill each other , your child may leave you cold in the old folks' home, (although the kinder ones may let you choose which homes you may want to go to), one true thing remains, constantly loving us every minute, if only we'd stop to reach out to Him. He will ALWAYS be there for us. Even your own husband who loves you like crazy may not be there to send you in time to the hospital when your water bag pops, hence the term, BBA in Obstetric Department (birth before arrival), some cab drivers may have tales of the screaming Moms, if you care to ask.

What is the importance of loving our Creator? Simple. You do less out of insincerity and fear as you do for love.. For love, you'd end up doing everything you can to please the one you love, sometimes, to the point of stupor. Ask those people who buy flowers on Valentine's Day, they'll tell you.What better way to know God, but to listen to His words.

Why the Quran?

When God says,

“The Word of your Lord is complete, in truth and justice.”
(Quran, 6:115)

He expects us to comprehend that complete means what it means.....complete. We have God's words on it... “....complete, in truth and justice”. If I were to play god, I'd say, “errr....which part of the word “complete”, that you uncivilized spec of carbons don't decipher?

If His words are complete, then it is safe to say that, everyone who embraces the teachings in the Quran, should read God's commands and practice them, in their daily lives, each an every one of them,ergo the expression "Ad deen". The Quran, to me, is a reference/manual . Imagine putting in water in the gas tank of a car meant to be function on petrol, because you did not read the manual. It's okay, take your time to ponder on this.

“Today I have perfected your religion and completed My favor upon you.”
(Quran 5:3)

There He goes again, reiterating completion and perfection of Quran, as a favor upon us. What else do we need other than the assurance of the Creator Himself?

So yes, I shall start my series of understanding the Quran, with Quranic Sciences. And I truly hope that we will all benefit from it.




Surah Fusilat Ayah 53-54

" Soon will We show them Our Signs in the (furthest) regions (of the earth), and in the
ir own souls, until it becomes manifest to them that this is the Truth. Is it not enough that thy Lord doth witness all things?
Ah indeed! are they in doubt concerning the Meeting with their Lord? Ah indeed! it is He that doth encompass all things!"

Wednesday 14 January 2009

PALESTINE-ISRAEL CONFLICT - Part IV. WW1

Ladieeeeeees aaaaand Gentlemeeeeeeeeeeeeeen....in the Blue corner, weighing all the sins from past barbaric actions of a conqueror, I present you, Otto-man, Ger-man and Austria-Hungry maaaaaan........(and the crowd went wild...). Sitting in the Red corner, weighing all the burden of Jewish as well as the Arab lobbists I present you ...The All-Lies........................(again, the crowd went wild.....)...No, I'm not talking about World Wrestling, WW1, but I will be talking about World War 1 and it's impact on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. While World Wrestling bears the impact of horrible images of stuffed lard in an undersized un-mentionables (hence the wild crowd) forever in you mind, World War imprints an ever more deplorable reminder of how not far the humans are from the rest of the animal kingdom, when they make the wrong decisions.

World War 1 : The tragedy that rebuked Darwin's Theory of Evolution, because world war proved that humans did not evolved from apes, because, we haven't reach the stage whereby we evolve into something better yet. We are still in the ape form, even though physically we are homo erectus, our behaviour remains ape-like. ( the erectus part in men contributed to the greed for more power, more wealth and ultimately more harems. Women on the other hand, have no erectile problem instead busy managing their temperament hormones, they make bad leaders too. Basically, to achieve the balance, the Ying and the Yang, I think Gay Men should be able to handle the job better).

1914 - 1918, many became the casualty of World War 1. The result to this war saw British invasion including Palestine. A small group of Jews founded NILI, an underground movement fed information to the British Intelligence, the aim being to liberate Palestine from Turkish rule. The resentment started when famine and disease outbreaks plague the effected countries during the war. Turkish government, in order to decrease the short food supply etc, ordered deportation of all foreign nationals. At the time, a large number of Jews were Russian Nationals. They were able to enter the country via Russian passport because of the concession granted to Russian citizens, hence overcome the restriction of immigration. They maintained Russian citizenship to avoid enrollment into Turkish army ( and we thought only the Malaysians are experts on loopholes)

Anyway, British and France, having succeeded in taking over Palestine , planned to divide the Ottoman holdings in the Middle East amongst themselves post war. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 intended part of Palestine to be under the British rule, partly by a joined allied government, where else Syria and Lebanon to be given to France. Although denying it, the British agreed to back Arab demands for independence from the Turks and in return the same territories were promised to them too, as reward for support for the Allies. (heloooo..ever heard of the word "paper, pen, signature, thumbprints...contract...treaty..."?)

With the belief of a promise of independence, the Arabs, led by T.E. Lawrence and backed by Sharif Husayn revolted against the Turks. Of course we know today that the Arabs were short-changed by the British. Actually, the appropriate word would be "made to feel used and stupid" because, they did the dirty job of chasing the Ottoman for the British, for free of charge. At this point, that made the Jews lucky, (no more sphincter immigration Turks choking them), the British a cheapskate employer who did not pay for a job claimed to be well done, and the Arabs, well, resentful until today.

Before we proceed further, please browse through Prof Chaim Wiezmann to understand the next level:

The British Mandate for Palestine.
As you can see if you were not lazy enough to tap on the hyperlink, Dr Wiezmann's was an important figure in the British society, whose emigration from Russia to Britain,was motivated by British strategic considerations. ( I bet this guy learned Chess from Russia, obviously he is good in strategy). Dr Wiezmann , along with other Jewish lobyists, tenaciously lobbied for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine, without violating the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities. As a result of the intense lobbying, The Balfour Declaration of 1917 was produced. (Please don't get this mixed up with Balfour Declaration of 1926).
The Arabs however, opposed to the idea of a Jewish national home , considering that the areas now called Palestine were their land. Feeling the danger of dispossession by the Zionists, they lobbied the American King-Crane Commission, in favor of annexation of Palestine mandate area to Syria. (please read the King-Crane Commission to understand this sentence). Although some British army mistranslated the sentiments of the people during the commission, believed to be intentional, everyone was quite sure that this one was not one of them (that was mistranslated);

Aref Pasha Dajani's opinion of why the Arabs cannot possibly live with Jewish reign, "Their history and their past proves that it is impossible to live with them. In all the countries where they are present, they are not wanted...because they always arrive to suck the blood of everybody.." (It is not a famous speech like "I have a dream", but it is out there...)

Later, David Ben Gurion, who led Yishuv (the Jewish community in Palestine) said,
"But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question..We as a nation, want this country to be ours, the Arabs as a nation, want this country to be theirs". (He was the first Israel Prime Minister).
Where is all this going? Gee...I don't know. I just got carried away and now I feel like I have a heart pumping in my the arteries in my brains. And I'm just involved in the narrating of the history.

Ultimately, the British plan was adopted.

So you see, I've basically presented the earlier history of Palestine in order to understand, the root problems of the Palestine-Israeli conflict. After this point, things just never seem to be improving.

It all comes down to this;

The Jews see Palestine as how the Arabs see Macca and think that Jerusalem, and Palestine had always been theirs, even though they were forced into exile or emigration, they they have never left in spirit. The Arabs on the other hand, thinks that since Palestine had changed reigns more than any man could change their underwear, Palestine does not belong to the Jews anymore, and since the majority Arabs possess the land at the time British came in, plus the nationalism they felt going to war defending Palestine, the country is theirs and they do not want to share it with the Jews. The Arabs also blamed Europe for "dumping their problem - namely the unwanted European Jews" onto Palestine. I will stop here because the later history are just history repeating itself, same issue, different faces handling them.

If you notice how the map, shrank like Oprah on a successful diet program, it was because Transjordan, part of Palestine then, was taken over by Abdullah, the son of King Husayn of the Hijaz. In March 1921, he marched (hey it rhymes, maybe that was why he picked month of March) in with 2000 armies, against British's 50, announcing that he was going towards Damascus, and the British underestimated his guts to attack British controlled area, which was a blunder on the British side because two he occupied the whole of Transjordan by March 1921, and he never did attempted to march to Damascus, perhaps intentionally.
So what was this;



became this.........
















Transjordan became Jordan today.


You can resume yawning, after I've concluded this episode of the Palestine-Israel Conflict. Check out the map below, and observe it carefully. To get to this current map below; (the current map, well at least for now, of Palestine)

take note of the borders and understand that the lines drawn separating the region are lines that represent blood shed, each time the lines are altered. To reach to this map, these are the transformations:

From this;
to this: (Syria was the early Israel, conquered by Assyrians, remember?)

then this: along came Abdullah and minus the Trans from Transjordan to become what is is today, Jordan.
















So for now, this;



















It makes me sick to see the news showing how many innocent lives, mostly civilians' were and are sacrificed to get those lines on the bloody map. The "enlightened" people of the earth have forgotten that the whole soil belongs to the same God they pray to everyday. How ironic is that?
So go on and click on the map below, gaze at it all you want, for who knows, with the continuous aggression of Israel regime onto Gaza, this map may change ......yes..again....


The US state department actually did something for Islam, wow.

http://www.islamnewsroom.com/content/view/500/52/

III. The Rise of The Machine..oops...I meant..Zionism..

I'm back and if you're wondering what this post is all about, please browse through the 2posts prior to this one. Once you start with the history of Palestinian-Israeli conflict, you will get stuck in it with no other way to go, and this is just the writing, not the killings.

Where was I again? Ah yes. Rise of Zionism. Who needs to define anything in their writings when you can just hyperlink it, so go ahead and tap on the word zionism to know what it means, in the context of Israel. To the Jewish, the need to go back to Jerusalem is more like the need for Muslims to go to Mecca, it's considered their "holy land". That and the connection to Jerusalem with dreams of messianic redemption So although the Jews are exiled, emigrated, they keep going to the holy land of Jerusalem or Palestine in minute numbers.

In the nineteenth century, the emancipation of European Jews, inspired by the French revolution, had brought Jews of to the Ghetto and into the modern world. They became comfortable with the ideas about Israel and Zion. The emancipation of Jews provoked an anti-Jewish sentiments amongst political and social movement in Europe, hence stimulating the emigration of Jews to Palestine.

In 1897, Zionist movement became a formal organization and they held the first Zionist congress in Basle. Check out their agendas here. The Jews aim to establish a Jewish Homeland in Palestine under Turkish or German rule. They ignored the Arab population and assumed that the Arabs would agree to voluntary trnasfer to adjacent Arab countries. The Zionists (take note of the word "the zionist" and not the Jews), established farm communities in Palestine, and later a new city called Tel Aviv. Arab population grew simultaneously (with the help of keeping women at home, restrained from window shopping , with no TV or Play Station to keep them occupied) and by 1914, total population of Palestine was approximately 700,000, comprising of 615,000 Arabs and the rest were Jews.

I wonder if the Arabs secretly knew the Zionist agendas and started to procreate to ensure that there are too many Arabs to shoo away from Palestine, or, procreating is their National Sports, but whatever the reason, the consequence to that "Forrest Hump"ings was that the Arabs were too big a majority to shoo away.

So now what? We have two races, one believes that Palestine in their religion is the holy land, the Promised Land and will do anything to redeem it. The other, well, imagine removing one Arab from a room, in the hotel you stayed for your vacation, and now multiply that to 700,000 times over. Get the picture?

No, of course the story did not end here, in fact, this is just the beginning to the conflict. ( I know, it took me 3 blogs to get bloody here). The rabbit hole had just turned into a rabbit abyss, quite similar to the abyss created in our local political scene. No, I'm not talking about the abyss where the missing "Government X files" and Altantuya's immigration record plunged into....(at least we know Khir Toyo shredded his files).

Oh, I shall be back to prove to you that "when things can go wrong, it just will". So stay tuned folks

Monday 12 January 2009

PALESTINE-ISRAEL CONFLICT - II. The Birth of Palestine

It begins with a map. Without a map, we will all get lost. If you are myopic, a condition suffered by mostly aging grumpy old men and women, and some of our politicians who, ironically, have yet to reach their 40th birthday, then kindly tap on the map to get a bigger view. For those of you who grumble why the map is in black and white, read properly, "Map of Ancient Near East"...ancient...get it?


Moving along. There will be many version of the early history of Palestine, and since history is mostly bullshit anyway, we will just get it from sources that makes the most unbiased sense.

WHO'S LAND ARE THEY FIGHTING FOR ANYWAY?

Between 1800 and 1500 B.C., it is thought that Semitic people called Hebrews (Haipiru), left Mesopotamia and settled in Canaan . There are others who settled there, including other Semitics, Hittities and later Philistines ( people from the sea who are thought to have arrived from Mycenae, or to be part of the ancient Greek that settled in Mycenae). Oooohhhh....look at the amount of hyperlink I have..talk about deeper than the rabbit hole....( Matrix...duuuhh)

The archaeological record indicates that the Jewish evolved out of native Cana'anites and the invading tribes. According to the Bible, Moses led some of the Israelites out of Egypt (south of Cana'an), who under Joshua, conquered the tribes and city states of Cana'an. King David conquered Jerusalem sometime in 1000B.C.

I'm sure the burning question by now would be, who are the Jewish, who are the Israelites ? Well, to find out, click here for a clear answer.

Oh by the way, 1000B.C. comes later than 1500B.C , and so forth. Smaller number means later chronologically. For a freaking 5 minutes, I was trying to figure out, who was there first in Cana'an, the Hebrews, ergo the Jews, or the Israelites. (and I thought I was going to get only confused by who are the Jewish and who are the Israelites....told you I slept through History class....but wait...there's more to come...the Zionist...gulp in more aspirins). The kingdom was divided into Israel, in the north and Judea in the south. Jerusalem however, remained the center of Jewish sovereignty all the way till Jewish revolt in 133 A.D. (not After Dinosaur but Anno Domini , Latin for "In the year of our Lord.")

The conquering did not stopped there. Assyrians conquered Israel in 722 B.C. Babylonians conquered Judea around 586B.C. Solomon's Temple was destroyed and a large number of Jews were exiled.

Israel (the northern part of the earlier split mentioned) was forced into exile by Assyria and were replaced by other captives of the Assyrian Empire. The Israelites who were captured were placed in the western part of the empire. Later, when Babylon became the world ruling empire - replacing Assyria, they migrated westward rather than becoming captives of the Babylonians, ergo, pushing the Israelites farther westward.

Some clay cuneiform tablets containing containing Assyrian records of this 700's BCE Israelite deportation, were discovered sometime in late 1800's (translated in 1930s). There were records of four deportations, which proved the ten tribes of the northern Nation of Israel were assembled into Assyrian culture and became identifiable as the Camerians, the Sycthians, and the Goths, who later , through different paths, migrated essentially to northwest Europe. They were later known as the Anglo-Saxon Celtics.

Babylon was conquered by Cyrus, the Persian king some time in 536B.C. (50years later), and ruled the land until 331 B.C. They allowed the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem and settle in it. However, a large number of Jews remained in Babylonia, forming the first Jewish Diaspora .

With the conquer of Persian by Alexander the Great and after his death in 323B.C , the empire was divided by his generals.

Sometime around 61 B.C, Rome invaded Judea and sacked Jerusalem in support of King Herod. Judea had become a client state of Rome. The Romans called the large central area of the land, including Jerusalem, Judea. In A.D. 135, the Romans drove the Jews out of Jerusalem after a failed Bar Kochba revolt in about 70A.D. and again, in 132 A.D.

Palestina was given it's name by the Romans at about this time. Most of the Jews fled or forced into exile where they form the second Jewish Diaspora. There are Jewish community that existed mainly in Galilee, northernmost part of Palestine.

Palestine was governed by Romans until the fourth century A.D. and then by the Byzantine Empire. It is believed by the Christians, that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, Judea, in early years of the Roman rule. For some time, there was calm before the next diarrhoea spasm.

Then the conquering spasm started again with the Muslim Arab armies moving in north from Arabia to conquer most of the Middle East, including Palestine. For the historians that denied the fact that, just like Christianity, the Islam is spread via war, eat that fact and try not to get indigestion. Jerusalem was conquered by Caliph Umar Al Khatab, who gave protection to it's inhabitants. Jewish and Christians were allowed to keep their religion albeit most of the local population embraced Islam and the Arab-Islamic culture of their rulers. Muslim powers controlled the region until the early 1900's. Jerusalem ( Al-Quds) became holy to Muslims as it is believed that the Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. ascended to heaven after a miraculous overnight ride from Mecca on his horse Al-Buraq. Al Aqsa mosque was erected on the site regarded generally as the area of the Jewish temples.

In keeping with the Turki Boleh spirit, the Seljuk Turks conquered Jerusalem in 1071, lasting 30 years of ruling. Initially, they were replaced by The Fatimid rulers of Egypt. The Fatimids took advantage of the Seljuk struggles with the Christians Crusaders. They made and alliance with the crusaders in 1098 and captured Jerusalem, Jaffa and other parts of Palestine. The Crusaders, however, broke the alliance and invaded Palestine about a year later. They captured Jaffa and Jerusalem in 1099. slaughtered many Jewish and Muslim defenders and forbade Jews to live in Jerusalem. and held the city until 1187. Then weaving like ketupat, the Muslim ruler Saladin conquered Jerusalem. Of course the Crusaders had to recapture Jerusalem, the holy land that had seen generations of bloodshed in the name of religion.

By now, if anyone have not wondered what is it about men and conquering, then they have not been paying attention to the history. Basically this is the era whereby countries got gang banged and they still have the audacity to call it "civilization". Changing from B.C to A.D obviously have no impact on men's habit of conquering and engaging in war. Funny how people who have been granted enlightenment by the higher being behave no less than how a Pagan would behave. Apparently enlightenment did not change men's greed for more land, more power and ultimately more concubines.

Question : Have men change through time? The history of Palestine will answer your question.

Basically the Crusaders lost the war in 1291 in a battle in Acre, whereby Muslims captured it. They deterred the Crusaders during post-crusade period, who raided the coastline of Palestine by pulling people back from the coasts and destroyed coastal towns and farms, rendering it depopulated and impoverished for hundreds of years.

Marmelukes, soldier-slave of the Arabs (based in Egypt), established an empire that included Palestine sometime in 1200's. At that time, the population comprises of mostly Arab speaking Muslims. Beginning in the late 1300's Jews from Spain and other Mediterranean lands settled in Jerusalem and other parts of the land. The Ottoman Empire defeated the Mamelukes in 1517, and the Palestine became part of the it's empire. Jews fleeing the Spanish Catholic Inquisition were invited by the Turkish Sultan to settle in the Turkish empire, including several cities in Palestine.

And you think this is the "and they live happily ever after part" ? Well, you're wrong. This is just a tad bit of serial conquering spree Palestine had endured. In 1798, Napoleon came into the scene. ("aaaaaaaaaaaam coming up, so you better get the party started" I can hear Pink singing in the background of my mind ). Needless to say, most people fled. Those who stayed revolted against Egyptian and Ottoman rule. It is believed that this time may have helped to catalyze Palestinian Nationalism. Things went back to "normal" when the Turkish Empire opened to foreigners , allowing the beginnings of Jewish settlement under varios Zionist and proto-Zionists movements. Population of both Arabs and Jewish increased. ( no entertainment like TV etc, that's why).

1880 boasted population of Palestine , surmounted to 400,000, only 24,000 Jews. At that time, the Ottoman government imposed severe restriction on Jewish immigration and land purchase, and began inviting Muslims from other parts of the Ottoman empire to settle in Palestine, including Circassians and Bosnians. However, chiefly by bribery, Jews managed to seek colonization in Palestine.

Up to this point, I hope we now have a clearer view (albeit it is difficult to see anything pass the thick smoke of burnt land from the blasting canons of war), of why the Jews want their land back, and why the Arabs think the land is theirs. As for me, I am tired of thinking, therefore, just like the History Class back in school, I am calling for a recess. Got to go to the loo to puke while slowly deciphering why despite many allegations, there was never a sighting of Intelligent Life form from outer space....because they are intelligent enough to stay away from the human species. I shall be back in Part 3 of the history I've managed to turn into a mini series soap opera, minus the bad hairdo and the shoulder padding. I shall return in the next blog (after my throbbing headache is gone. Now I remember why I slept during my History lessons), with The Rise of the Machines.....oops..I meant The Rise of Zionism.

Before that, what is the conclusion derived from all this conquering of Palestine?

- WOMEN SHOULD LEAD THEIR COUNTRIES not men with their crooked minds designed for conquest. Women on the other hand, would spread love onto the land they rule. The worst fight they'll ever engage in would be just pulling hair in the parliament, just to prove a point when diplomacy fails.


Saturday 10 January 2009

PALESTINE-ISRAEL CONFLICT - I. The Beginning.

"History is a myth agreed upon"
- Napoleon Bonaparte -

"That is why men should stick to mathematics old man, because with Maths, when you are right, you are right. Ilmu Hisab on the other hand, have many personal history attached so that is why Science and Mathematics be taught in English"
- Pah Nur -

Everyone's talking about the assault on Gaza strip. Come to think of it, Palestinian and Israel have been in conflict, for the past, well, as far as I had learned to utilize my memory cells. When something have been around too long, we tend to take it for granted. The same, to me, goes to that region. It has been in troubled waters from the time just about past the extinction of dinosaurs, (ergo the term A.D. for "after dinosaur") until, well, hitherto.

For the first time in my life however, I took the trouble and the time to dig deep into the history of Palestine, in an attempt to decipher the existing conflict. What I found out however, is , it could be made simpler, should both parties practice less arrogance and learn how to compromise. The past cannot be altered. How can you alter history of a land that have been conquered by numerous "civilizations"? (Well, as far as I'm concern, any "civilization" that go into war for whatever reasons behind them are barbarians. Nothing civilized about killing our own species to prove whatever madness point the politician have in their corrupted minds).

Even if one party wins this war, the victory was long dead, and there is nothing to celebrate, except peace. If any country decide to go into war, it simply meant they have not learned from history of Palestine.

It is my intention to produce a non biased history of Palestine, so as for us to comprehend the current conflict that has grabbed world headlines, again. War, genocide, assault against human is the act of inhumanity. It takes two to tango. No one wants war and it is never a fair event. I just want to bring you into history of this region, unbiased, in order to learn the truth. Of course looking for absolute truth in history is like looking for uncorrupted politician, but, I guess we have not much choice but to rely on them.

I will not write down every single thing, because I will end up writing a book instead. What I'll do is what the Bumiputra contractors are famous for doing, that is "mengAli Babakan" the contract. So I'll "Ali Baba" (with double B.A hon - get it, B.A. and another B. A. so okay it's a dumb joke. I'm just trying to wake everyone up to this boring history. I sleep in history classes most of the time by the way)

After doing some fishing in the net, I concluded that the war in Palestine did not start from within Palestine itself, rather, instigated by Jewish outside Palestine, who faced pressure to exile from places where they have emigrated to via Zionist movement to create an Israeli state met by resistance from the Arabs that came later to settle in this land. That brought me to mainly, Germany. Besides the allegation that Hitler suffered a syphilis induced schizophrenia, ergo making him mad enough to slaughter , claimed, 6million Jewish in Germany in what is termed as a holocaust , I was intrigued by his speeches prior to the holocaust itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution#Historiographic_debate_about_the_decision

Here are some snippets I took from the above link;

"Prior to the beginning of World War II, during a speech given on January 30, 1939 (the six year anniversary of his accession to power), Hitler foretold the coming Holocaust of European Jewry when he said:

"Today I will once more be a prophet: If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"

Christian Gerlach has argued for a different time frame, suggesting the decision was made by Hitler on December 12, 1941, when he addressed a meeting of the Nazi Party (the Reichsleiter) and of regional party leaders (the Gauleiter). In his diary entry of December 13, 1941, the day after Hitler’s private speech, Joseph Goebbels wrote:

"Regarding the Jewish Question, the Führer is determined to clear the table. He warned the Jews that if they were to cause another world war, it would lead to their own destruction. Those were not empty words. Now the world war has come. The destruction of the Jews must be its necessary consequence. We cannot be sentimental about it. It is not for us to feel sympathy for the Jews. We should have sympathy rather with our own German people. If the German people have to sacrifice 160,000 victims in yet another campaign in the east, then those responsible for this bloody conflict will have to pay for it with their lives."

These statement got me wondering, what did the Jews actually did to have cause Germany to go to war, World War1. (this is what happens when you allow men to lead their countries. Should women run their countries, then men would learn how to behave!!!). It is difficult to search for articles on the role of Jews in instigating the Germans to go to war, as Hitler had mentioned in his speech. You can however easily obtain articles depicting the holocaust, written by Jews writers.

The question of "how did the Jews made Germany go into war?" is still unanswered. The closest I could get was the political influence of Jews in German political scenario" as written in the Wikipedia, please tap HERE. My suspicion would be, it was the political influences via the positions held in German politics at that time that had led the them into World War 1.

You can however learn this from a non Jew source, via a book written by David Irving titled "Hitler's War". David Irving was jailed in Germany for having written this provocative book and was deemed a holocaust denial . You can download it here
The holocaust made it necessary for the Jews living in German mainly to establish the Israel state.

There's more on the next blog. So stay tuned