veiled4allah

[Max Baucus's bill] really will be the most important progressive policy passed since Lyndon Johnson. - Ezra Klein

Five committees in Congress have jurisdiction over healthcare reform, three in the House of Representatives and two in the Senate. Before Congress rose for its summer recess in August, four of the five committees had passed fundamentally similar healthcare reform bills. Yesterday, the final committee, the Senate Finance Committee lead by Montana Democrat Max Baucus, introduced its own bill. It has not yet passed it, but is beginning the process of debating and voting on it.

With the Baucus draft bill, Democrats in Congress agree in principle on 99% of what Obama wants in healthcare reform. In its current format, the Baucus draft bill would enact about 95% to 97% of what Obama campaigned on. This is a huge victory for Obama and for Democrats if only we have the wit to see it.

The healthcare reform package that Obama campaign on includes the following among its most notable elements:

• Regulation of insurance companies including preventing them from dropping people or reducing their coverage because of a pre-existing condition
• Expansion of coverage to most of the current uninsured, primarily through expansions to Medicaid, Medicare, and other existing government programs
• Make health insurance more affordable through a variety of cost-cutting measures within healthcare as well as subsidies and tax credits for working families
• Require employers to provide health insurance for their employees or face a fine
• Establishment of healthcare exchanges where (some) individuals and businesses can choose a health insurance plan from among a menu of options, increasing competition
• Creation of a "public option", a government run health insurance program available on the exchanges

The Baucus draft bill provides for all of these except the last item (the public option). Per the analysis by Ezra Klein, it is unfortunately weak on the employer mandate and on the healthcare exchanges, but it does include these elements. It is on this basis that I say that all of the Congressional committees agree in principle on 99% of what Obama wants (everything but the public option) and that if the Baucus version is enacted it will provide about 95% to 97% of what Obama wants (minus the weakness in the employer mandate and exchanges, and minus the public option).

If you think about it, this is an amazing achievement. Every Democratic president since Harry Truman has tried to pass universal healthcare. The most successful was Lyndon Johnson, but Medicare and Medicaid only cover a relatively small portion of the population. Yet not only does Obama look to be on the verge of succeeding where so many before him have failed, but he looks likely to get it through Congress in nearly the exact form he proposed it. That's one for the history books, folks!

Even if the Baucus draft bill is the final version that is enacted - without the public plan - it will be a huge improvement for this country, not only for the 47 million uninsured, but also for the majority of us who do already have health insurance. As Ezra Klein notes:

The legislation really would protect millions of Americans from medical bankruptcy. It really would insure tens of millions of people. It really will curb the worst practices of the private insurance industry. It really will expand Medicaid and transform it from a mish-mash of state regulation into a dependable benefit. It really will lay down out-of-pocket caps which are a lot better than anything people have today. It really will help primary care providers, and it really will make hospitals more transparent, and it really will be a step towards paying for quality rather than volume.

I absolutely and without reservation support passing the Baucus bill. We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good and continue to suffer under a broken system because we are too proud to accept a partial reform. It will be a lot more than "half a loaf". In fact, it will be most everything we want.

Unfortunately, many progressives seem to have made the public option the sine qua non of healthcare reform. It isn't. It does not by itself regulate insurance companies in any way. It is not the element that is primarily responsible for covering most of the uninsured (that's the Medicaid and Medicare expansions). A healthcare reform bill without it will do nearly everything for people today that a bill with it will do. Yet to hear many progressives talk, you would think it alone is the only true element - oh, and it will give everybody a pony too!

Read Ezra Klein (different post; he is the one indispensible blogger on this issue) and Nate Silver for a reality check.

The fact is, the flaws in the Baucus draft bill in regard to the employer mandate and the exchanges are the kind of things that can and likely will be resolved in negotiations, either within the Senate Democratic caucus, or between the House and the Senate. Everybody agrees in principle that these elements must be included, the only dispute is over the details.

Which leaves the public option as the one issue left to be resolved (think about this for a minute - if someone had told you a year ago that Congressional Democrats would all agree on those health insurance regulations, would you have believed them? Yet they do). Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine has proposed a compromise solution, a "trigger" under which if insurance companies do not reduce costs and increase coverage within a few years, the public option will be created. Read Nate Silver on why this may be the most progressive course.

Snowe's trigger option may yet be added as the Finance Committee considers the Baucus draft bill. Or it might be added as the Senate Democratic caucus decides what bill to take to the floor. Or it might be added during the conference between the House and the Senate to resolve differences between their bills.

If this compromise does get enacted, I think we will have about 99.5% of what we want. I'll take it. Will you?

President Obama's speech in Cairo this morning covered an amazing amount of ground. Beyond the message that Obama was directly conveying, he also communicated a message through the Islamic citations and allusions that he made in his speech. Many of these may not be familiar to non-Muslims so in this post, I provide links to references where you can learn more.

Overall, Obama displayed a deep knowledge of Islamic scripture, history, and views, and that in itself conveys his respect far more than just saying "I respect Islam and Muslims". I think this will be appreciated by many Muslims, even if they do not agree with the positions he took.

As the Holy Koran tells us, "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth."

This is from Surah al-Ahzab, verse 70. The Arabic text of this verse is Ya ayyuha alladhina amanu ittaqu Allaha wa qulu qawlan sadidan. The phrase ittaqu Allaha is often translated as "fear God" but the noun form taqwa really refers to an awareness or consciousness of God's presence, hence Obama's rendering.

That's why the United States government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and to punish those who would deny it.

Here, Obama alludes to the case of Nashala Hearn, an Oklahoma schoolgirl who was prohibited from wearing her headscarf (hijab) to school. As detailed on the White House blog, the U.S. Department of Justice went to court to fight for Nashala's right to express her religion. I covered this case in 2003 and 2004.

The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent it is as if he has killed all mankind. And the Holy Koran also says whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.

This is Surah al-Ma'ida, verse 32, a verse that I and many other Muslims have cited again and again to remind what Islam actually teaches about killing the innocent (see also here).

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That's not how moral authority is claimed; that's how it is surrendered.

I have posted a number of times about Islamic non-violence movements. The reference to South Asia is most likely an allusion to Bacha Khan, who was a contemporary of Gandhi and founder of a 100,000-strong Islamic non-violence movement in India.

I also thought Obama's evocation of the non-violent struggle of African-Americans against slavery and segregation was very powerful.

All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer.

Here, Obama refers to Isra and Mi'raj, the miraculous night journey taken by the Prophet Muhammad (sAas), in which he traveled to Jerusalem and ascended into the heavens. As Obama mentions, as part of this journey, the Prophet met and prayed with both Moses and Jesus (sAas). This is a wonderful story, and Wikipedia has links to a number of resources for further reading.

Obama also uses the standard invocation "peace be upon them" (in Arabic, sal'Allahu alayhi wa sallam, abbreviated sAas as above) that Muslims use whenever referring to God's prophets, not just the Prophet Muhammad. Whenever Muslims mention Jesus or Moses (holy to Christianity and Judaism, respectively), their names are always followed by invoking peace upon them.

Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition.

Here Obama refers to Muslim Spain. At a time when medieval Europe was often expelling Jews, Andalusia welcomed them. You can read more about Jews under Islamic rule from Jewish sources here.

The Holy Koran tells us: "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."

This is Surah al-Hujurat, verse 13, which is one of the more beautiful verses of the Quran, in my opinion. Rather than our differences being something we should fear, they are a gift from God to allow us to learn and grow.

What really struck me about all these citations and allusions is that they are all things that I, as a Muslim, would have mentioned and used to support what I was saying. It's obvious that Obama took a lot of time to talk to those learned in Islam and really listened to what they told him. Mashallah.

P.S. No, I did not intend for this to survive only as an Obama blog. But he keeps making it necessary for me to come back and post!

P.P.S. Thanks for the link, Al! Visitors from The Field, feel free to look around, and browse my older posts, although the blog is no longer active and comments have been shut down. I hope that you find this post of value to you and perhaps other posts on the blog as well.

The president orders the detention facilities at Guantanamo shut down, and bans torture.

I am very proud that Obama is president and that I voted for him, and I am proud of America for electing him.

Update: Here are the key executive orders - closing Guantanamo, ending enemy combatant status, banning torture, shutting down CIA black sites, and stopping extraordinary rendition, and providing an overall review of the entire detention policy process. Read them and rejoice.

No, not for endorsing Obama for president. For this:

And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

During the past week, people at McCain-Palin campaign events have shouted things like terrorist, "Kill him" (again, investigated by the Secret Servce!), treason, "Off with his head", socialist hooligan, and terrorist-lover and killer about Obama. They've shouted racial epithets at African American media personnel and people have shouted "Bomb Obama" at other Republican events. See also these people talking to a blogger journalist and here; another report features McCain field staff and volunteers.

On Friday, McCain briefly tried to tone things down but on Saturday when civil rights hero John Lewis warned McCain that he was playing with fire, McCain went back on the defensive (the people who attend his events are just "hardworking Americans").

Frank Rich explains it very well:

What makes them different, and what has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies, is the violent escalation in rhetoric, especially (though not exclusively) by Palin. Obama "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist." He is "palling around with terrorists" (note the plural noun). Obama is "not a man who sees America the way you and I see America." Wielding a wildly out-of-context Obama quote, Palin slurs him as an enemy of American troops. By the time McCain asks the crowd "Who is the real Barack Obama?" it's no surprise that someone cries out "Terrorist!" The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. It is stoked further by the repeated invocation of Obama's middle name by surrogates introducing McCain and Palin at these rallies. This sleight of hand at once synchronizes with the poisonous Obama-is-a-Muslim e-mail blasts and shifts the brand of terrorism from Ayers's Vietnam-era variety to the radical Islamic threats of today.

Blogger Greg Sargent has similar thoughts. I do believe that the constant association of Obama (stressing his Muslim-sounding name) with words like "terrorist" and insinuations that he hates America leads inevitably to what we are seeing. The claim about Ayers is thin, but it allows this linkage and I can only believe that this is why McCain and Palin are using it.

I am scared for Obama's safety, I would be scared as someone who is visibly Muslim by my dress to go near a McCain rally, and I am scared that nutcases may also attack Obama offices or Obama supporters because they are stoked up by this rhetoric.

Senator McCain and Governor Palin, I call on you to take down your Ayers ads and stop the rhetoric that claims Senator Obama does not love America. People are scared right now because of the financial and economic crisis and many may be looking for someone to blame. Do not stand by when they take African Americans, Muslims, Arab Americans, or other racial and religious minorities as scapegoats. Stand up against it. All people of conscience should do so.

I am serving as a judge for the Brass Crescent Awards this year.

What are the Brass Crescent Awards? They are named for the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights. Today, the Islamsphere is forging a new synthesis of Islam and modernity, and is the intellectual heir to the traditions of philosophy and learning that was once the hallmark of Islamic civilization - a heritage scarcely recognizable today in the Islamic world after a century's ravages of colonialism, tyrants, and religious fundamentalism. We believe that Islam transcends history, and we are forging history anew for tomorrow's Islam. These awards are a means to honor ourselves and celebrate our nascent community, and promote its growth.

The categories this year are as follows:

BEST BLOG: This category honors the most indispensable, Muslim-authored blog there is. Period.

BEST WRITER: Who is the most stimulating, insightful, and philosophically wise among us? This category is intended to highlight a blogger who may not post daily, but when they do post, they really make an impact.

BEST NON-MUSLIM BLOG: Which blog writen by a non-Muslim is most respectful of Islam and seeks genuine dialogue with Muslims?

BEST BLOG DESIGN: Which blog has the most aesthetically pleasing site design, appealing to the eye, evoking Islamic themes, and/or facilitating debate and discussion?

BEST POST OR SERIES: Which single post or group of posts in the Islamsphere was the most original and important, above all the others?

BEST FEMALE BLOG: The woman's voice in Islam is equal to the man's, and in the Islamsphere we seek to make sure the female perspective is highlighted and given its rightful due. Which Muslim woman's blog has done the most to explore the role that women play within Islam and society?

BEST NEW BLOG: Which blog is a true diamond in the rough, one that everyone should be reading but who most just haven't heard of (yet)?

BEST GROUP BLOG: Which multiple group blog in the Islamsphere has the best diversity of writers and the most interesting debate on Muslim issues?

BEST HUMOR BLOG: Which blog gets their point across by using humor in the most effective way?

BEST MIDDLE EAST/AFRICAN, EUROPEAN, SOUTH ASIAN, AND ASIAN BLOGGERS: The Islamsphere is truly a global phenomenon. In Iraq, despite the chaos and uncertainty, there is a sea change of free speech and expression, the vanguard of which are blogs. There are also bloggers in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Palestine, Jordan, and most other countries that host Muslims, all of whom have their own perspectives on faith, culture, and politics.

The nominations phase for all 13 categories is now underway, so head over and start nominating your favorite blogs now!

Note, that the Awards methodology is slightly different this year:

1. Nomination phase (Wed Oct 1 - Fri Oct 24). Anyone with a valid email address may nominate blogs to appropriate categories. Blogs may only be nominated once for any given category. We also encourage you to nominate your own blog!

2. Panel phase (Fri Oct 24th to Fri Nov 7th). The top nominees in each category will be forwarded to the judges' panel, who will review the nominees and select the finalists.

3. Voting phase (Fri Nov 7 to Fri Dec 1).

4. Winners will be announced at brasscrescent.org around Eid ul-Adha.

What a night! What a victory! An historic day for our nation, with the first African-American presidential nominee of a major party. An incredible victory for Obama's insurgent campaign against the ultimate Democratic party machine (the Clinton campaign). And the first time a candidate I supported has actually won the nomination!

Truly a night to remember. Tomorrow (technically, later today ) the next stage of the fight begins, but for now a time to savor.

God willing, McCain is toast.

For the sixth year running, a tribute to some of the most important parts of Dr. King's legacy, which are usually overlooked.

Here are some highlights of a speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1967. The speech is far too long for me to post here (even the excerpts that I've selected are quite long), but you can read it in its entirety here. I think Dr. King's words speak very eloquently to our situation today.

"A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on.

Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us...

...All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy -- and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us -- not their fellow Vietnamese --the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go -- primarily women and children and the aged.

They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals, with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one "Vietcong"-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them -- mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children, degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.

What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?...

...What must they think of us in America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the south? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of "aggression from the north" as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts...

...Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours...

...If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. It will become clear that our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and men will not refrain from thinking that our maximum hope is to goad China into a war so that we may bomb her nuclear installations. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horribly clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play.

The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways...

...Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken -- the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

Returning briefly from the dead...

As long-time readers of this blog know, I supported Kucinich in 2004 and have been supporting him this year as well, though not as actively (in part because I was unemployed last time around, but now my work schedule keeps me busy). This has always been because I agree with his positions and I want them to be part of the debate, so as to encourage other Democrats to move in that direction.

I'm realistic enough to know that he's not going to win, in part because too many people who otherwise agree with him don't bother to support him at all thinking he can't win (thus it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy). So even while supporting Kucinich, I continue to look at the leading candidates to decide which, if any, of them I think would be the best nominee for the Democrats.

In 2004, I wasn't very inspired by any of the candidates. And while this year's race is better in many ways, I was still holding back. I've liked a lot of what I've seen about Obama - and to be completely honest, every time the Republicans try to make a smear out of claiming he's Muslim, that makes me support him more. But I've also had reservations about his positions on some issues and that held me back.

However, after watching his win in Iowa and the sense of hope it's given so many people, I've decided to support him over Clinton and Edwards as far as he can go. I want to see our country be bold enough to choose him over the Clinton machine, to look forward instead of back.

Because of the way the caucus system works, I still plan to caucus for Kucinich here in Washinton on February 9, to help him stay in the race and hopefully get a few delegates so he can participate at the convention and represent his issues. But if/when he's not viable (based on my experience from 2004, this will be at the district rather than precinct level because I'll probably be one of only a handful of people from my precinct) then I'll switch to Obama and I'll definitely be rooting for Obama in New Hampshire and other races.

And hopefully, if Obama gets the nomination he will choose a great running mate to make the Democrats really solid on the all the issues!

Update 1/24/08: Since Kucinich has withdrawn from the race, I will support Obama from here on out and caucus for him on February 9.

Eid mubarak! Taqabbala Allahu minna wa minkum. (Happy Eid! May Allah accept from us and from you).

Ramadan has begun with the fasting starting tomorrow morning at dawn.

Ramadan mubarak! May our fasting and prayers and other worship this month be pleasing to Allah. May He make it easy for us and strengthen us by it.

Bumped up from last year and will be as long as the words still need to be spoken

The following is a speech given by Frederick Douglass (pictured at left) on July 4, 1841. It's a reminder that what makes America great is the ideals of liberty and justice that we stand for, and that we must always work to make sure that America lives up to our ideals. There are times when America has not done so. Slavery will forever remain a dark blot on our record. When we see America doing wrong, we need to speak up as Douglass did to set it right.

I post this as a reminder that sometimes the most patriotic act, the one that shows the most love, is to criticize. No, America is not doing anything today that approaches slavery for its injustice, but there are things happening in this country, laws being made, actions being taken, that take us away from our ideals. I have spoken up against these laws and actions and will continue to do so because I want us to turn back from this path before we have gone very far down it.

Without further ado, here's Frederick Douglass:

Fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that the dumb might eloquently speak and the lame man leap as an hart.

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.

To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn that it is dangerous to copy the example of nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrevocable ruin! I can today take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people.

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! We wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."

Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! Whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, today, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorry this day, "may my right hand cleave to the roof of my mouth"! To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow citizens, is American slavery.

I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine. I do not hesitate to declare with all my soul that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting.

America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery – the great sin and shame of America!

"I will not equivocate, I will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, shall not confess to be right and just ... For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not as astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, and secretaries, having among us lawyers doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; and that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!...

What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply....

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms – of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

It's getting to the point where I post only once or twice a year, but the blog isn't completely dead, and it is now 5 years old! Hard to believe, but the first posts were on May 24, 2002. Where did the time go?

If anybody is still reading this, thanks for sticking with me. I can't promise more frequent posts in the future, as my job keeps me busy and after working with blogs all day, I often don't feel like updating my own. Mostly I don't get any further than bookmarking stuff on del.icio.us so you might want to subscribe to that if you're looking for something to read!

Life is going well. This is going to be a busy summer for my family. My dad is retiring at the end of May, my sister is getting her Ph.D. in mid-June, and my grandmother will (inshallah!) be turning 100 at the start of August. I'll be going down to California for the second event and to Minnesota for the third.

Thanks again to everybody who still checks in, I hope you're doing well and getting what you want out of life. Peace and blessings to all

I just finished reading In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad by Tariq Ramadan. This is an excellent book that tells the story of the Prophet's (sAas) life, with a focus on the moral and spiritual lessons to be learned from episodes within it.

I highly recommend it both to Muslims, to deepen your understanding of the model that the Prophet (sAas) is for all of us, and to non-Muslims to learn more about Islam. There are many misconceptions spread about the life and teachings of the Prophet (sAas) and this book is an excellent rebuttal to those misconceptions. It also conveys the beauty of Islam and why Muslims find spiritual sustenance through this religion. Mashallah.

Awhile ago, I posted about an apparent terrorist plot in Britain that wasn't getting any news coverage, apparently because the suspects are white right-wing extremists. When we last heard anything about this story, the suspects were scheduled to go on trial in February.

So now it's February and the trial has begun, with one of the suspects pleading guilty. And now it's getting a lot of coverage in the mainstream media. These headlines give an idea why:

Ex-BNP man 'wanted to shoot PM'

Former BNP candidate wanted to shoot prime minister, court hears

Former BNP candidate 'said he would shoot Tony Blair'

Other coverage:

Ex-BNP candidate admits stockpiling weapons

BNP candidate who feared civil war 'had hoarded explosives'

Ex-BNP candidate 'had cache of explosive chemicals'

Some bloggers commenting on this story include BlairWatch, Rachel from North London, and Iain Dale.

There is also a Wikipedia page devoted to the story.

Eid Mubarak! Eid al-Adha is today (Saturday) or tomorrow, depending on the community.

May you have a blessed and joyous Eid and may your prayers and deeds be pleasing to Allah SWT.

CAIR:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today condemned a conference in Iran that seeks to deny the Holocaust, the systematic destruction of the Jewish community in Europe by the Nazis during World War II.

In a statement, CAIR said:

"No legitimate cause or agenda can ever be advanced by denying or belittling the immense human suffering caused by the murder of millions of Jews and other minority groups by the Nazi regime and its allies during World War II. Cynical attempts to use Holocaust denial as a political tool in the Middle East conflict will only serve to deepen the level of mistrust and hostility already present in that troubled region."

CAIR also expressed concern that individuals who have promoted racist views, like former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, were invited to speak at the conference. "Islam, through the example of the Prophet Muhammad, has always rejected racism in any form," said CAIR's statement.

In his final sermon, the Prophet stated: "All mankind is from Adam and Eve. An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab. Also, a white (person) has no superiority over a black (person), nor does a black have any superiority over a white - except by piety and good action." SEE: http://www.cair.com/Muhammad/

The Washington-based council has in the past condemned an Iranian contest soliciting political cartoons mocking the Holocaust and supported calls for an apology from an Arab-American newspaper that published excerpts from an anti-Semitic tract.

In its past statement supporting an apology from the newspaper, CAIR said "we must challenge those who would fan the flames of anti-Semitism." CAIR's statement condemning the Iranian cartoon contest called the Holocaust "one of the lowest moments in human history."

Later: Ibrahim Raney for the Muslim American Society:

History will recall the tragedy of the genocide that slaughtered some six million European Jews between the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party in 1933 and the culmination of the Second World War in Europe in May, 1945.

The evidence of this crime, and the horrible magnitude of this killing, is irrefutable. From sources as varied as Nazi war records, film documentation, and most importantly, the testimony of survivors and witnesses, we know that the mass murder of European Jews was, indeed, the single greatest crime of genocide in the twentieth century.

Yet the world now witnesses yet another wave of historical revisionism and Holocaust denial, this time emerging not from European Anti-Semites, but from none other than the President of Iran. Indeed, this head of state has taken the unprecedented act of hosting an international conference of anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers, and even white racists like former Klan leader David Duke, to gather in Tehran to deny the magnitude, if not the very existence, of this barbaric act.

As a Muslim of African decent in the United States, whose ancestors were victimized by the enormous crime of slavery, I object. And I believe that all Muslims, like other human beings who value compassion and truth, must vigorously object to this gathering as well.

Like many in the global Muslim community, I regard the occupation of Palestinian land and the policies of the State of Israel as issues of extreme importance. I am certainly among those who believe that the occupation of Palestinian territory and the denial of full human rights to Palestinians, and even to Arab people regarded as Israeli citizens, is deplorable.

But I find it to be morally unconscionable to attempt to build political arguments and political movements on a platform of racial hatred and the denial of the suffering of the human beings who were victimized by the viciousness of Hitler's genocidal rampage through Europe.

President Ahmedinejad should recognize that the issue of the Palestinian people must not, and cannot, be transmogrified into the ugly and spiritually bankrupt context of racial hatred. The cause of freedom must never drink from the well of hatred and racism.

And indeed, as the Holy Qur'an compels Muslims to demand justice for the oppressed, we are also called to witness against ourselves when we are in error.

And in this case, the President of Iran most certainly is.

It's those other women that wear the veil - Time magazine has an interesting look at young women becoming nuns.

My mom, who is Catholic, has said more than once that she sometimes thinks of me as having become a nun, just in a different religion.