Arab Humanism

Humanism

Many medieval Muslim thinkers pursued humanistic, rational and scientific discourses in their search for knowledge, meaning and values. A wide range of Islamic writings on love poetry, history and philosophical theology show that medieval Islamic thought was open to the humanistic ideas of individualism, occasional secularism, skepticism and liberalism.

Religious freedom, though limited, helped create cross-cultural networks by attracting Muslim, Christian and Jewish intellectuals and thereby helped spawn the greatest period of philosophical creativity in the Middle Ages from the 8th to 13th centuries.[5]

Bush to visit Middle East

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush heads for the Middle East on Tuesday, aiming to nurture Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts in the face of deep skepticism while trying to rally Arab opposition to Iran.

Once wary of hands-on Middle East diplomacy, Bush will make his first presidential visit to Israel and the West Bank in a bid to shore up fragile negotiations aimed at forging a peace treaty by the end of the year.

The chances of a deal before Bush leaves office in January 2009 appear slim, and no breakthroughs are expected during three days of talks following up on an international conference he hosted in Annapolis, Maryland, in November.

Ron Paul

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Dr. Paul

Dr. Ron Paul is running for president of the US. He has some very interesting ideas that I like including smaller government and fiscal responsibility in monetary policy. I hope to hear more from him in the debates, if they let him participate. Just another reason I think Fox News is a joke.
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MANCHESTER, N.H. — Shut out of a GOP presidential candidate forum sponsored by Fox News, Ron Paul staged his own televised town hall meeting today in which he fielded questions from undecided voters two days before the key primary election here.

The Lake Jackson Republican congressman faced a range of questions from the audience of about 100 people in the public access television station several miles from where four other presidential contenders were to later participate in the Fox debate.

Paul responded to one participant who asked why he should chose the libertarian-leaning Texan over more mainstream GOP contenders such as Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee, saying he had been more consistent in his views than his rivals.

"They are seen as flip-floppers," Paul said. "People look at my record and say he's a stick-to-his guns guy."

One voter noted that Paul was running hard-hitting ads that pledged a crackdown on illegal immigration. He suggested that the campaign promise would entail a beefed up federal bureaucracy and would be inconsistent with Paul's philosophy of reduced government.

Paul said his plan would not mean more federal employees, but rather would bring home border guards now serving in Iraq.

Asked about his views on the Arab Israeli conflict, Paul suggested that he had been unfairly portrayed as anti-Semitic because he opposed U.S. aid to Israel. The congressman said he would also block foreign aid to Arab countries, which would be to Israel's benefit.

The one-hour forum was choreographed to portray Paul in a positive light. He was introduced and questioned by his campaign chairman, Kent Snyder.

On the side of the studio sat his supporters, who clapped enthusiastically after each of his answers.

At times Paul took a professorial approach, lecturing the crowd on the history of monetary policy and his view that abandoning the gold standard was a critical mistake.

The decision by Fox to limit participation in the forum infuriated Paul supporters and even drew the ire of the New Hampshire Republican Party, which withdrew its sponsorship of the event.

Fox had invited Republican candidates Rudolph Giuliani, John McCain, Romney, Huckabee and Fred Thompson to the forum, but excluded Paul as well as California congressman Duncan Hunter.

Paul protested, arguing that he raised $20 million in the last quarter of 2007, almost the same amount as Hillary Clinton. Furthermore, a Research 2000 poll published in the Concord Monitor released Sunday showed Paul garnering 7 percent of the vote, besting Thompson and only 1 point behind Giuliani in the state.

Throughout the day Paul was accompanied by Barry Goldwater, Jr., the son of the late Arizona GOP senator who unsuccessfully ran for president in 1964.

bennett.roth@chron.com

Arab Foreign Ministers

Politics 1/6/2008 1:28:00 PM

CAIRO, Jan 16 (KUNA) -- Israel's settlement policy, the implications on peaceful settlement and the negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians based on the Annapolis peace conference topped the agenda of a closed session for the Arab Foreign Ministers on Sunday.
Up to 17 Arab Foreign Ministers together with representatives of five Arab countries are taking part in an extraordinary ministerial meeting that kicked off today at the Arab League in Cairo.
The closed meeting was devoted to the settlement issue and how the Arabs would respond to that obstacle that constitutes a menace to a peaceful settlement in the region. The forthcoming Middle East tour by the US President George W Bush featured high on the meeting agenda, an informed source that attended told KUNA.

Kuwait

My last two years in Kuwait have been enlightening and dangerous. This is not a safe country, especially on the roadways. It has been interesting to live in an Arab culture for a time though I have not interacted with many Kuwaitis. It seems that their are more people from other countries than from Kuwait. I am looking forward to leaving and will spend some time thinking more about what I have seen and experienced in Kuwait.
I have also traveled to Afghanistan, Qatar and Bahrain during the last two years and especially enjoyed the beauty of Afghanistan.

Language

Interesting that the only comments on my last blog entry were three different versions of the Arabic word for child, kid, etc. Wonder when child, kid was added to the Arabic language? All languages evolve over time, words are added and deleted due to non use. The source for my entry was from a book entitled "The Arab Mind" by Raphael Patai, the 2007 revised edition, the book was originally published in 1973. The book is well respected in the Social Sciences and Ethnic Studies arenas. This whole thing illustrates how hard it is to communicate with people. The response to my blog entry was to attack! I would be very interested to know when child and or kid was added to the Arabic language. My reason for reading The Arab Mind is to try to understand these people a little better. But for me the main point of the last entry was the loss to humanity and our future if we don't take full advantage of all members of the global society, men and women. No one had anything to comment about that.

"Children"

We are all aware that Arabs treat males better than females. One interesting fact I just read is that the Arab language does not have a word for "child". It has a word for son and a word for daughter but none for children. What affect does this have on the Arab culture? How does it manifest itself in daily life? Most of the rest of the world values it children as their future. Arabs value sons. What a waste of human potential.

Defining Arab

"Arab" is defined independently of religious identity, and pre-dates the rise of Islam, with historically attested Arab Christian kingdoms and Arab Jews. The earliest documented use of the word "Arab" as defining a group of people dates from the 9th century BC. [1] Islamized but non-Arabized peoples, and therefore the majority of the world's Muslims, do not form part of the Arab World, but comprise what is the geographically larger and diverse Muslim World.

In the modern era, defining who is an Arab is done on the grounds of one or more of the following three criteria:

• Genealogical: someone who can trace his or her ancestry to the tribes of Arabia - the original inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula - and the Syrian Desert. This definition covers fewer self-identified Arabs than not, and was the definition used in medieval times, for example by Ibn Khaldun.
• Linguistic: someone whose first language, and by extension cultural expression, is Arabic, including any of its varieties. This definition covers more than 250 million people. Certain groups that fulfill this criterion, such as many Egyptians, reject this definition on the basis of genealogy.^[5][6]. See also Egypt#Identity.
• Political: in the modern nationalist era, any person who is a citizen of a country where Arabic is either the national language or one of the official languages, or a citizen of a country which may simply be a member of the Arab League and thus having Arabic as an official government language, even if not used by the majority of the population. This definition would cover over 300 million people. It may be the most contested definition as it is the most simplistic one. It would exclude the entire Arab diaspora, but include not only those genealogically Arabs (Gulf Arabs and others, such as Bedouins, where they may exist) and those Arabized-Arab-identified, but also include Arabized non-Arab-identified groups (such as some Maronite Lebanese) and even non-Arabized indigenous ethnicities which may be non-Arabic-speaking, monolingually or otherwise (such as the Berbers in Morocco, Kurds in Iraq, or the Somali majority of Arab League member Somalia).

Who & What is an Arab?

Anyone care to take a shot at answering who and what is an Arab? Someone who speaks arabic, yes. Most likely Muslim. Belief in the "Arab World" of old. More to follow...

From Al-Sabah to oil

The present Al-Sabah dynasty was established in Kuwait in the mid-eighteenth century -- about 1760. Kuwait was nominally a province of the Ottoman Empire, ruled from Constantinople. This was observed on paper but seldom in fact.

When the Turks threatened to take actual control of the country in 1899, the ruling Sheikh sought and eventually received British protection.

The "Kuwait Oil Company" discovered oil in Kuwait in 1938, but due to the eruption of World War II, it was not exported until 1946. The large-scale exploitation of oil reserves turned Kuwait into a large trading centre.

Kuwait remained a British protectorate until 1961 when it became independent under Sheikh Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah. However, when Iraq claimed the emirate in the early 1960s, it once again received British protection.

In July 1961 Kuwait joined the Arab League and in 1963 became a member of the United Nations. Also in 1963 the first legislative elections were held and Sheikh Abdullah, the Emir of Kuwait, inaugurated the first National Assembly on 29 January1963.

In 1966 Kuwait and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia settled the "neutral zone" border dispute by dividing it equally between them. The "Central Bank of Kuwait" was created in 1969; a Social Security Law and a Law of Reserves for Future generations were passed in 1976. Oil changed the entire country in a few years and population's educational standards and life expectancy rose. Kuwait played a major role in establishing the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) consisting of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman in 1981.

A campaign of terror started in the early 1980s; the American embassy was bombed and a Kuwait Airways plane was hijacked; two bomb explosions claimed the lives of many innocent civilians in two sea-front cafés. There was also an assassination attempt in 1995 against His Highness the Emir and another Kuwaiti civilian airliner was later hijacked. Kuwait, like most Arab states, supported Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).

Iraqi allegations of Kuwait and the UAE deliberately overproducing oil were followed by Sadam Husein moving his troops to the Kuwaiti-Iraqi borders. In the early hours of the 2^nd of August 1990, the Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait and occupied the country until its liberation on the 26^th of February 1991.

Kuwait has since then embarked on a continuous process of redeveloping and reconstructing itself to overcome the destruction of devastation caused by the Iraqi invasion and occupation. This process managed so far in salvaging basic amenities, restoring facilities in a determined bid to return the country to normalcy.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq (Mesopotamia)

Al-Qaeda in Iraq, also known as al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, is a Sunni Muslim extremist group that seeks to sow civil unrest in Iraq, with the aim of establishing a caliphate—a single, transnational Islamic state. Established by the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an Arab of Jordanian descent, AQI rose to prominence after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. After being released from a Jordanian prison in 1999, Zarqawi reportedly commanded volunteers in Afghanistan before fleeing to northern Iraq in 2001. There he joined with Ansar al-Islam (Partisans of Islam), where he led Ansar’s Arab contingent. Many analysts say it’s this group, and not al-Qaeda, that was the precursor of AQI, though U.S. officials dispute this.

Bedouin

"The nomadic Bedouin does not dote on scenery, paint landscapes, or compile a nonutilitarian natural history... His life is so profoundly in transaction with nature that there is no place for abstraction or aesthetics or a "nature philosophy" which can be separated from the rest of his life... Nature and his relationship to it are a deadly-serious matter, prescribed by convention, muystery and danger. His personal leisure is aimed away from idle amusement or detached tampering with nature's processes. But built into his life is awareness of that presence, of the terrain, of the unpredictable weather, of the narrow margin by which he is sustained."

Paul Shepard (cultural ecologist)

Arab Worldview

Atomism - Arabs tend to see the world and events as isolated incidents, snapshots, and particular moments in time. Westerners tend to look for unifying concepts whereas Arabs focus on parts, rather than on the whole.

Faith - Arabs usually believe that many, if not all things in life are controlled by the will of God (fate) rather than by human beings. Perhaps this explains why they are such bad drivers. Say a bad accident on the drive home today. Car had rolled on side person was dead under the car and another person was outside in very bad shape.

Death in the name of Religion

Sunni's and Shia's continue to kill each other in Iraq. In August the Iraqi death toll was down to 1,500. Down to 1,500 from a high last year of 3,000 per month. Humans killing each other because they are not members of the same religious group. Does anyone think this makes any sense what's so ever? Killing in the name of religion.

Kareem???

So a letter was stuck to my apartment door yesterday. Inside it said "Ramadan Kareem" from the apartment management company. I know what Ramadan is but what is "KAREEM?" Anyone know?

Surge to Draw Down

"The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is expected to advise President Bush to reduce the U.S. force in Iraq next year by almost half, potentially creating a rift with top White House officials and other military commanders over the course of the war.

Administration and military officials say Marine Gen. Peter Pace is likely to convey concerns by the Joint Chiefs that keeping well in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2008 will severely strain the military."


I can only hope that we do draw down and then spend some of the money we are wasting on Iraq on science, R&D and education in America.

Arab's in Space?

Drive for Arab space agency
By REBECCA TORR
BAHRAINI astronomers are backing a call for the creation of an Arab space agency to involve the region in the industry and assist Arab scientists to research and promote exploration.
The issue will be discussed at an international forum on astronomy to be held in Alexandria, Egypt, in October.
Arab Union on Astronomy and Space Science vice-president Dr Shawqi Al Dallal from Bahrain, its president Dr Hamid Al Naimiy, and colleagues from other Arab countries will provide a document to the Arab League regarding the establishment of an Arab Space Agency.
"We have to convince the Arab League to discuss this matter," Dr Al Dallal told the GDN.
"Our role is to convince people to meet and discuss this matter.
"The agency can promote telecommunications, satellites, participation in space missions, get involved in the application of space science and participate in protocols with other countries.
"It's basically an opportunity for more active participation in the space science research and space missions."
Dr Al Dallal, who heads the Bahrain Astronomical Society, said he was also preparing to participate in the First International Forum for the Young and Amateurs in Astronomy and Space Science.
The event is organised by the Arab Union on Astronomy and Space Science in Latakia, Syria, from August 25 to 30.
He said the society would then be preparing a programme for Ramadan, which includes stargazing and lectures.
Its next event is a lecture on Black Holes and Gateways to Unknown Universes, which will be presented at the Youth Innovation Centre, Umm Al Hassam, today.
Dr Al Dallal will deliver the talk, which will be followed by an opportunity to observe planets through a telescope.