islam today - Issue11 -September 2013

issue 11 vol.1 September 2013

Preparing your child for school The crying dunes of Arabia The pursuit of happiness

PROGRESSING OUT OF

HUMANITY UK ÂŁ3.00

Contents Editorial team September 2013 Issue, 11 Vol, 1

Published Monthly

islam today magazine intends to address the concerns and aspirations of a vibrant Muslim community by providing readers with inspiration, information, a sense of community and solutions through its unique and specialised contents. It also sets out to help Muslims and non-Muslims better understand and appreciate the nature of a dynamic faith.

Managing Director

Mohammad Saeed Bahmanpour

Heritage

Chief Editor

Amir De Martino

Managing Editor

Anousheh Mireskandari

Book: The Life of Muhammad(s)

by Husayn Haykal 1933

Political Editor

Reza Murshid

Health Editor

Laleh Lohrasbi

Art Editor

Moriam Grillo

Layout and Design

Sasan Sarab - Michele Paolicelli

Design and Production

PSD UK Ltd.

Editorial 5

Evaluating human progress The Place to BE The Orchard - ‘A sanctuary where nature and intellect meet’

News 6

News from around the world

Book Review

Life & Community Contact us

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Information

info@islam-today.net

Letters to the Editor

letters@islam-today.net

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subscriptions@islam-today.net

Politics 24

On the threshold of the new school year, Sabnum Dharamsi offers parents some timely advice about managing the transition to a new school

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Preparing Your Child For School

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28 In The Spotlight

Frank Julian Gelli

Ali Jawad

Hamid Waqar

Ali Reza Jalili

Masoud Tehrani

Batool Hayder

Mohsen Biparva

Cleo Cantone

Muhammad Haghir

Elham Ostad-Saffari

Sabnum Dharamsi

Feature 17

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Masterpiece ‘Seeing is believing’- Shamsia Hassani, Afghanistan’s first graffiti street artist

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The Language Of Words

Opinion 34

Make room for Rumi – 13th century theologian, jurist, poet and Sufi mystic

Publisher: Islamic Centre of England 140 Maida Vale London, W9 1QB - UK

ISSN 2051-2503

19 Disclaimer: Where opinion is expressed it is that of the author and does not necessarily coincide with the editorial views of the publisher or islam today. All information in this magazine is verified to the best of the authors’ and the publisher’s ability. However, islam today shall not be liable or responsible for loss or damage arising from any users’ reliance on information obtained from the magazine.

Addendum ‘Flights of Fancy’ by Syed Baalbaki from Beirut

When Bad Fundamentalists Become Good Western policies towards the Middle East are driven more by short term interests than the stated need to fight terrorism, says Ali Reza Jalili

Poetry Back Cover

The Crying Dunes Of Arabia On the anniversary of the creation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ali Jawad examines its impact on the Muslim world

Installation – Written words by Egyptian artist Fathi Hassan

Aerial view of Imam Mosque in Isfahan - Iran A UNESCO World Heritage Site Construction began in 1611.

Picture taken from the top of the minaret half an hour before Friday prayer.

The Deadly Legacy Of Depleted Uranium Depleted Uranium used in the Iraq war continues to claim new victims, says Reza Murshid

“Out of destruction comes renewal”Hayat Gul - Contemporary Visual Artist

Alexander Khaleeli

When Titans Collide; The New Cold War Masoud Tehrani examines what lies behind the growing rift between Washington and Moscow

Arts 16

A World Made Around Maps Upside down maps, disproportionately sized countries! What shapes our geographical maps? Mohsen Biparva looks for the answers in Simon Garfield’s book

Confronting Modern Childhood Woes Batool Hayder explains how by giving too many gadgets to our children we are denying them the experiences that make up a happy childhood

Contributions & Submissions submit@islam-today.net Subscriptions

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Cover 36

Progressing Out Of ‘Humanity’ M Haghir asks if our conception of progress is dehumanising humanity

Islamic Centre of England

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Editorial

Faith

What & Where 40

The Pursuit Of Happiness While we may often find that the things we want in this world disappoint us, God never will, says Alexander Khaleeli

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Listings and Events Friday Nights Thought Forum - Islamic Centre of England Arabic Language Classes - The Arab British Centre

Euthanasia Examined

Greatness to Genocide - Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK

Hamid Waqar explains the reasons behind Islam’s strong disapproval of so-called mercy killings

Transgressing the Gulf - Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies

Interfaith

The Arab Spring: Two Years on - Liverpool John Moores University Structuring Innovative Islamic Financial Products - Ernst & Young LLP

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Man Of Steel….And LOVE Whether in Greek philosophy or Christian spirituality, the idea of a superman fighting evil has been a constant theme in history, according to Frank Gelli

Engage - Birmingham - an ‘open learning course’ London to Paris Cycle - Islamic Relief The Halal Food Festival - ExCeL London Annual AMS Schools Leadership Conference 2013 - Leicester

Health 52

Computer Syndrome Laleh Lohrasbi advises us how to prevent injuries caused by long term use of computers

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Collecting Islamic and Middle Eastern Arts - The British Museum Nahjul Balagha Academic Conference - Peterborough, Cambridgeshire The 2013 Middle East in London Photo Competition - SOAS University

Cervical Cancer An easily preventable cancer has caused the deaths of more than 200’000 women in the UK, says Laleh Lohrasbi

Views of Palestine…from the British Mandate - The British Museum

Science 56

Global Warming; Fact Or Fiction?

Elham Ostad-Saffari examines the claims and counter claims about global warming

Places 60

Sicily: Glory Of The Ocean Cleo Cantone describes the glorious Islamic past of Sicily through its remaining architectural heritage

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Evaluating human progress

Glossary of Islamic Symbols The letters [swt] after the name of Allah [swt] (God), stand for the Arabic phrase subhanahu wa-ta’ala meaning: “Glorious and exalted be He”.

The letter [s] after the name of the Prophet Muhammad[s], stands for the Arabic phrase sallallahu ‘alaihi wasallam, meaning: “May Allah bless him and grant him peace”.

The letter [a] after the name of the Imams from the progeny of the Prophet Muhammad[s], and for his daughter Fatimah[a] stands for the Arabic phrase ‘alayhis-salaam, ‘alayhassalaam (feminine) and ‘alayhimus-salaam (plural) meaning respectively: (God’s) Peace be with him/ her/ them.

T

o establish the qualitative value of human development is a serious and complex matter.

Today we find ourselves in an unprecedented historical situation, between a recent past that has witnessed the painful events caused by World War II, culminating in the use of the first atomic bomb by the Americans in Hiroshima, and an uncertain and disturbing future in which catastrophic threats are looming as a consequence of our breathless and mindless development.

and statesmen who during the course of history have elaborated utopic programmes for an ideal human society.

As Muslims we believe that the road map towards a holistic human development is already in our possession.

God has provided us with successive instructions via a cycle of prophets, the last of which was Muhammad(s).

Yet we have failed to embark on the right path towards the fulfilment of our true objectives and aspirations - and that is why a sense of fear and disappointment weighs heavily on all of us.

Blinded by scientific success and the myriad of brilliant innovations that bombard us daily, we tend to see changes as betterment and encourage them, unperturbed by the fact that they are driven by an underlying utilitarian, materialistic philosophy of life.

Today the hopes of humanity appear further away from their actualisation than ever before. While technological knowledge has extended the horizons of our thoughts and actions we are confronted with a corresponding decline in our knowledge of who we actually are. The progress of science, intended to transform us into ‘illuminated’ individuals, has in fact produced a parallel process of dehumanisation.

There is no doubt that the acquisition of knowledge and its physical products are signs of a positive progress. The term ‘progress’ itself evokes images of scientific and technological conquests and socio-economic wellbeing, but we still need to ask ourselves how effective all these achievements are on the level of the spiritual formation of the human being. It is quite normal at this juncture to question the nature of this progress.

Are we progressing or regressing?

The possibility of social progress and human improvement is far superior to the hopes of those philosophers

In the cover story of this issue M. Haghiri raises important issues concerning the disconnect between technological advances and our ‘little improved human condition’, questioning our understanding and definition of progress.

True people of faith are troubled by this condition, asking if there is another, better way, to interpret or measure progress.

Given the fact that we live in an age where the idea of perfecting man’s human qualities is either not asked or misrepresented, perhaps one measure is to examine the quality of interpersonal relationships irrespective of our culture or religion.

Such a standard would give little importance to any form of personal improvement be it psychological, cultural or even religious if this does not positively impact on how we interact with each other. The search and pursuit of harmony in existence is consistent with human aspirations and is the essence of a true belief system which makes us look at ‘the other’ with the same benevolent eyes of our Creator.

The last human generation will have as a starting point the heritage of all previous acquisitions - scientific and technical. The events of man’s spirituality are inversely proportional to the ascending curve of his scientific conquests. This contradiction can only be resolved when the disjuncture between man’s potentiality and his sense of ultimate purpose is resolved. • “I did not create the jinn and the humans except that they may worship Me” (Qur’an 51:5)

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News AUSTRALIA

into a supermarket and putting stickers saying ‘halal food funds terrorism’ on Nestle products.

She is facing charges of ‘contaminating or interfering with goods’. If convicted before polling day, she would have been barred from standing.

BRITAIN Candidate resigns after calling Islam ‘A Country’

50 percent of UK mosques attacked since 9/11

An Australian election candidate who was widely mocked after she mistook Islam for a country in a TV interview has withdrawn her candidacy.

Around half of mosques and Muslim centres in Britain have been subjected to Islamophobic attacks since 9/11, according to a report conducted by a British daily.

Stephanie Banister, 27, was contesting a seat in Queensland for the antiimmigration One Nation Party. She had only been in politics for 48 hours.

Banister also confused the term ‘haram’ (forbidden) with the Qur’an and suggested Jews worshipped Jesus Christ. ‘’I don’t oppose Islam as a country, umm, but I do feel that their laws should not be welcome here in Australia,’’ Banister told Seven News reporter Erin Edwards.

Announcing her withdrawal from the election, Banister claimed in a brief statement that ‘with the way Channel Seven edited my interview, I was left quite the fool.’ ‘I’d like to apologise to One Nation, to my friends and family, for any embarrassment this has brought to them.’

One newspaper headline said Banister had managed to put Islam literally on the map. The leader of One Nation, Jim Savage, said Ms Banister continued to have the ‘full support’ of the party executive. He said she had been under ‘enormous pressure’, including threats to her and her family. Commentators compared Banister to Sarah Palin, the gaffe-prone Republican vice-presidential candidate in the 2008 US election.

Even before this interview, Banister was regarded as a rank outsider to win her seat. The mother-of-two rose to prominence when she was arrested for going

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The figures are highlighted in a report which also found that the number of anti-Islamic attacks increased by as much as tenfold in the days following the Woolwich attack in which Drummer Lee Rigby was murdered.

Research by British daily The Independent shows Islamophobic attacks spreading across Britain, with mosques being set alight and Muslims targeted at home following the Woolwich attack.

Despite the warning signs, a senior Government adviser told The Independent that there remains a ‘lack of political will’ to take on the rise of Islamophobic attacks in Britain. The adviser, who did not want to be named, said that attempts to ‘tackle this issue – even before Woolwich – struggled to attract buy-in,’ with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, identified as the primary source of frustration.

The Muslim community was warned recently of the dangers it faces from hate groups in a sermon delivered at 500 mosques. The piece said that high-profile cases of sexual grooming of children by small groups of Muslim men ‘hitting the headlines in a short space of time and the fallout from the Woolwich case will create a major challenge for the Muslim community’.

suburb of Trappes. In May, a 17-year-old identified only as Rabia told reporters she was attacked by ‘skinheads’ who knocked her to the ground while calling her a ‘dirty Muslim’. In June, a pregnant Muslim woman lost her baby after an attack in which her veil was ripped from her by two men who taunted her with anti-Islamic slogans.

The trial of the two men accused of murdering Drummer Rigby, Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, will begin on 18 November.

Professor Nigel Copsey, of Teesside University, the author of the new report which showed that between 40 and 60 per cent of mosques and other Islamic centres (around 700) had been targeted since 9/11 – said: ‘There has undoubtedly been a spike in anti-Muslim incidents since the Woolwich murder.

An obvious concern now is whether the number of hate crime incidents return to “normal” levels or whether Woolwich has been a game-changer in terms of increasing the underlying incidence of anti-Muslim hate over the longer term.’

His report is based largely on figures from the Islamophobia watchdog Tell Mama. It shows an increase of attacks to nearly nine per day in the immediate aftermath of the Woolwich killing, but settling back to around two per day in the weeks following the killing.

Professor Copsey added: ‘What is significant about our analysis is the extent to which the far right is implicated in anti-Muslim hate crime.’

Recently swastikas and the letters ‘EDL’ and ‘KKK’ were sprayed on the walls of a mosque in Redditch. There were also reports of pigs’ heads being left at Muslim families’ homes and other attacks against individuals. There was also an attack on an Islamic centre in north London.

A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: ‘There is no place for anti-Muslim hatred or any kind of hatred in Britain, and we are committed to tackling this unacceptable scourge.’

FRANCE Air Force Sergeant nabbed for plotting to attack Lyon Mosque An air force sergeant with alleged links to the extreme right was placed under investigation for attempting to carry out a terrorist attack against a mosque near

Tensions were further fuelled in March, when a French soldier was stabbed in a Paris suburb. Judges placed 22-year-old Alexandre Dhaussy, believed to be a recent convert to Islam, under formal investigation for ‘attempted murder linked to a terrorist enterprise’.

Lyon.

The 23-year-old, who was arrested at a military base, has been placed under investigation on charges including possessing a weapon with terrorist intent.

Islamophobic attacks have risen by between 35 and 50 per cent in France this year according to data from Muslim associations.

The French interior ministry said the sergeant is believed to be ‘close to the radical far right’ and had allegedly planned to open fire on the mosque at Vénissieux in the Bordeaux region on Eid al-Fitr, a day of festivity when Muslims celebrate the end of Ramadan.

According to investigators, the soldier confessed to planning to attack the Vénissieux mosque and also admitted responsibility for firebombing a mosque in Libourne, southwestern France, in August last year. Some of the soldier’s relatives reportedly tipped off police about his most recent plans after finding him with extremist literature.

Kamel Kabtane, the rector of Lyon’s main mosque, expressed shock that the arrested man was a soldier ‘who is tasked with defending France’. Mr Kabtane said the arrest revealed ‘that a climate of Islamophobia reigns in France today, we cannot delude ourselves.’ He added: ‘It’s been going on for some years, but now people are turning their words into acts.’

Investigators said that the serviceman had sought three times to contact Maxime Brunerie, a neo-Nazi who attempted to assassinate President Jacques Chirac in 2002 during the annual Bastille Day parade. The soldier was also a supporter of the radical historian Dominique Venner, who committed suicide in Notre-Dame cathedral in May. His suicide was ostensibly in protest against the legalisation of gay marriage in France, but in a blog post, he also warned that France and Europe were going to be brought under ‘Islamist control’ and Shari‘a law.

The rector praised the interior ministry for the arrest as a sign that France ‘treats all these matters equally.’ French authorities have been accused in the past of failing to investigate anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim attacks with the same zeal, an accusation which the Interior Minister, Manuel Valls, has described as false and ‘insulting.’

Valls has been criticised by Muslim community leaders for playing down Islamophobia and for suggesting that some Islamic institutions in France were in the hands of radical Salafist factions which are stirring up sectarian friction.

Many anti-Muslim attacks have been linked to the debate on legislation which banned the wearing of the fullface niqab from April 2011, and which caused a spate of violent incidents. Riots erupted last July over a police identity check of a veiled woman in the Paris

Also recently the wall of a Muslim prayer room in Lesparre-Medoc, in the south-west, was daubed with swastikas.

There are five million of Muslims in France, out of a total population of 65 million. Some 40 mosques were attacked in 2012, twice the number than in 2011.

France Mulls Banning Hijab at Universities France’s official council promoting integration has struck a raw nerve by proposing that Muslim headscarves, already banned in the civil service and state-run schools, should also be outlawed at the country’s universities.

The High Council for Integration, in a confidential report leaked to Le Monde newspaper, said this was needed to counter problems caused by students wearing religious garb and demanding prayer space and special menus at universities.

France’s 2004 ban on headscarves in schools and 2010 ban on full-face veils in public have alienated many of its five million Muslims.

‘This is one more step in the legal stigmatisation of Muslims,’ the March 15 Liberty Committee, a Muslim group opposed to the school headscarf ban, said in reaction to the revelation.

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News reading famous free-thinking French philosophers such as Voltaire.

made to avoid mistakes and civilian casualties,’ he added.

Le Monde called the report alarmist and polemical and said it gave neither precise figures for the total of such complaints nor the names of the universities said to be involved.

The CIA drone program targeting militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas has long been a source of civilian casualties, stoking opposition in Pakistan and humanitarian concern abroad.

The High Council declined to comment on the confidential text, saying only that it would be published in its annual report at the end of the year.

While the U.N. leader criticised the drone program, he also reminded the audience that the solution for lasting stability in any region involves both security and development.

PAKISTAN Ban Ki-moon speaks out against armed drones ‘The separation of church and state cannot be reduced, as some want it to be, to an arsenal of laws against Muslims,’ the committee said.

Several politicians also weighed in, warning a new ban could fan tensions between the socialist government, which stands for a strong defence of France’s official secularism, and Muslims who feel such laws are aimed at isolating and punishing them.

‘We have to find the right balance between the need for neutrality in the public sphere and the personal choice to express a religious conviction,’ said Herve Mariton, a deputy for the opposition UMP party.

Government ombudsman Dominique Baudis said a new ban ‘may not be necessary’ but France must clarify its laws on ‘laicite’, the official secularism that has led to repeated conflicts with minorities challenging it as a violation of religious rights.

Defending secularism is a rallying cry that resonates across the political spectrum, from left-wingers upholding the liberal values of the Enlightenment to far-right voters seeking a bulwark against the growing role of Islam in French society.

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President Francois Hollande launched a new Observatory of Laicite in April and asked it for new ideas on how to apply a landmark 1905 law that aims to shield the public sphere from religious pressures while respecting freedom of religion.

The High Council’s report was submitted to the Observatory for its consideration and does not have to be part of the proposals submitted to Hollande, an Observatory official said.

Under French law, religious garb is banned in schools supposedly to protect youths from faith-related pressures but tolerated in universities because students are adults with free choice.

Extending the headscarf ban to universities would contradict this basic principle and could lead to further protests from Europe’s largest Muslim minority.

Le Monde said the High Council report cited ‘numerous complaints from all sectors of university life’ about religious activity including proselytising and students refusing to work with members of the opposite sex.

While most complaints clearly referred to Muslims, it said there were also evangelical Christian students who rejected the teaching of evolution or

Critics say Pakistan has spent too much of its budget on defence, and not enough on its health and education sectors.

exemption to the ban on hats and other headwear. She called the board’s office in Boston repeatedly to make sure it got through.

No one said anything about her headscarf when she arrived at Western New England University School of Law in Springfield to take the high-stakes test to become a lawyer on the first of August.

But halfway through the morning session, a proctor placed a note on her desk: ‘Headwear may not be worn during the examination without prior

‘Budget priorities should reflect people’s priorities: education and energy, empowerment and good jobs.

Human rights and human dignity,’ said Ban Ki-moon.

Ban Ki-moon was critical of the use of armed drones, a key but controversial component of the U.S. war against terrorism, including against targets in north western Pakistan.

Speaking to an audience of mainly Pakistani military and political leaders, Ban Ki-moon said the use of unmanned aerial vehicles must be controlled by international law. ‘As I have often said, the use of armed drones, like any other weapon, should be subject to long-standing rules of international law, including international humanitarian law,’ he said.

‘This is the very clear position of the United Nations. Every effort should be

USA Muslima asked to remove Hijab during bar exam Iman Abdulrazzak, a practising Muslim, realised at the last minute that she needed special permission to wear her headscarf while taking the Massachusetts bar exam.

She scrambled to fax her request for an

She said the board may consider revising its rule requiring prior authorisation for religious headwear. The rule was established to prevent people from concealing notes or other information that could be used to cheat on the exam, she said, not to inhibit religious practice.

Abdulrazzak said the proctor supervisor in her case seemed unable to find a notation of the authorisation in her official binder. But she said the supervisor ‘was really nice.’ ‘She apologised right away and made sure I had a complaint form,’ Abdulrazzak said.

Ban Ki-moon’s speech marked the inauguration of the Centre for International Peace and Stability of the National University of Science and Technology in Islamabad.

Pakistan is one of the top contributors of peacekeeping troops and police to the United Nations. Some 8,000 Pakistanis serve under the UN flag around the world, and 136 have died doing so.

Marilyn Wellington, executive director of the Massachusetts Board of Bar Examiners, called the mix-up ‘very unfortunate’ and said the board takes responsibility for the mistake.

Normally, the Board of Bar Examiners notifies proctor supervisors of any testtakers who have obtained authorisation to wear religious headgear during the exam.

‘Reaching out and building bridges with one’s neighbours. We must strive to overcome short-term crises of security by putting in place the long-term foundations of peace through sustainable development.’

The United Nations secretary-general has spoken out against the use of armed drones during his recent visit to Pakistan.

had approved Abdulrazzak’s request for a religious exemption. But Abdulrazzak said that the distraction and distress cost her about 10 minutes in the morning session and that she was not able to fully answer all of the essay questions.

written approval. . . . Please remove your headwear and place it under your desk for the afternoon session.’

‘I was like, “Do I leave now? Is it even worth continuing?” said Abdulrazzak of Pittsfield, who is 24 and has worn the Hijab since she was 12. ‘For 10 minutes, I was terribly confused. I tried telling one of the proctors that I had authorisation — he kind of shushed me.’

She kept working on the test. The problem was cleared up during the lunch break, when a proctor supervisor called the Board of Bar Examiners in Boston and confirmed that the office

Quesiyah Ali, a member of the board of the New England Muslim Bar Association, questioned why a proctor would interrupt a test-taker, rather than raise the issue before the test began. Ali also said proctors should be made aware that asking a Muslim woman to remove her Hijab in public is ‘a violation of the highest order,’ not remotely akin to asking someone to remove a baseball cap indoors. ‘It would be like a nun being asked to remove a [veil] or a Sikh being asked to remove a turban,’ Ali said. ‘It is such an intrinsic part of religious identity, it would be extremely distressing to be asked to remove it,’ she said, especially in the midst of a high-stress exam.

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Confronting

hood that will be a source of constant joy to them in their future?

The best way to do this is to nip the problem in the bud. In his book High Tech, High Touch, John Naisbitt presents a strong case for the need to remove the presence of technology from the lives of children, especially very young ones. Whether it is by the complete absence of television, computers and games or through highly regulated use of these mediums, he emphasises the need for children to be sent out to play by themselves and with each other.

Modern Childhood Woes Today’s children enjoy unprecedented access to entertainment, yet the very gadgets we buy to make them happy deny them the experiences essential for a rounded and happy childhood. Batool Hayder explains

Naisbitt also warns that too much exposure to technology creates individuals who are unable to socialise or understand the intricacies of human psychology and who often end up in dysfunctional, negative or unsatisfying relationships.

“The older I grow the more earnestly I feel that the few joys of childhood are the best that life has to give.”

Ellen Glasgow, American novelist

C

hildhood is viewed by most people through soft, rosecoloured lenses as a time of joy and fresh, abundant pleasure of the purest kind. We remember the numerous discoveries made for the first time about the world around us, when every turn threw up a new mystery or opened the door to a new adventure to undertake. Summer afternoons stretched endlessly and winter evenings were filled with frosty magic.

When adulthood and reality set in, these years of innocence are what we turned to for consolation. But what would happen if we didn’t have access to fond memories? What if our childhood was not one of invention and inspiration?

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It seems that this may turn out to be the future reality of many a child today.

According to a recent report by The Children’s Society, “the happiness of children in the United Kingdom is on the decline” while another article I read bemoaned the fact that society is encouraging children “to get bored”.

While these findings are originally unrelated, there is a connection between them that is extremely important.

For many of us, being bored was never an option in our childhood because there was always so much to explore.

We lived in a world where climbing trees, baking mud pies and playing catch or hopscotch or jump rope in their endless varieties filled up all the spare time we had from school and reading. With the

advent of technology and its almost unbelievable rate of advancement, the very nature of childhood has changed unrecognisably.

Where once children were given toys that they could grab, rattle, twist, throw, bite and chew on, they now play with cell phones that only interact with them visually or audibly. Parents think that their children show high intelligence when they can ‘swipe’ an iPhone and navigate to their favourite apps without realising that after the game begins, there is little more the child does than echo the game passively. What we end up with is a generation of children who are growing up staring at the flickering white-blue glare of LED screens.

Is it any wonder then that when technology cannot keep up with providing them with constant stimuli at a rate they are used to, that these children then begin to complain that they are ‘bored’? The boredom is not from lack of things to do, but more from the lack of knowledge of how to do them. When

boredom is not channelled towards constructive activity that stimulates mentally, physically and emotionally, we end up with children who are restless and dissatisfied with the challenges being presented to them – we end up with children who are unhappy.

On the flipside, when children get bored, parents often try to occupy them with either more media – new games, new DVDs, new channels, or with extra-curricular activities that are often tailored more to provide the parents with a chance to boast than to give the child a chance to enjoy, and inevitably these children end up having to shoulder the pressure of ‘performing’ when they should be free to simply ‘play’.

We seem to be burdening our children with unhappiness no matter which path we choose. How then are we to break out of the vicious cycle? How are we to allow our children the freedom to be bored and still be happy? How do we give them the gift of memories of child-

This kind of withdrawal or regulation is best started from birth, but can be implemented at any age (be prepared for resistance from older children though – which may drive home how attached they are to the media).

Children may initially complain that they are bored, but given some time, their curious natures will invent selfchallenging games. They will learn the essential lessons of life as they are best taught - through experience and interaction.

When it comes to guided activities, it may be tempting to pop in a DVD that will teach a child the name of God or read the stories of the Prophets, but nothing can replace the spiritual effect or the emotional bond that impacts a child when a parent sits down and tells them that same story.

The transmission of religious principles and teachings is a highly personal exercise. A parent with a heart full of faith can pass on numerous subtle messages to a child that no digitally recorded voice can. The descriptions of an enthusiastic storyteller can inspire far more creative images than the ones dictated to a child’s imagination through computer visualisation.

explore through Islam. Play can become prayer through the incorporation of an intention. There are histories to capture the sense of adventure innate within a child, while guiding their moral compass at every turn. The art of reading the Qur’an is a lifetime occupation and even at its basic stage provides hours of discipline and activity. Art or craft in various forms are encouraged within Islam and years can be spent in learning and practising them.

The encouragement to observe, to analyse and to think for oneself are constant themes in the Qur’an, and should these be successfully inculcated into children from a young age then even an inactive child is a quiet place of reflection and inspiration.

The greatest aim perhaps is to be able to give our children a sense of independence and inner peace. While these may seem to be goals that we seek as adults, the fact that our children are able to feel unhappy – which once upon a time was considered a sacrilegious emotion for them – should be a sign that we need to provide them with the correct alternatives.

We need to pass on the lessons of satisfaction and gratitude to God for every aspect of our lives - internal or external - to our children because these are the only counter - agents they will have to deal with the highly materialistic world they will face as adults.

There is really only one way to achieve any and all of this and that is to create these qualities in ourselves as parents and then pass them on to our children – because it is only after we are convinced of the truth of our way of life and our faith that we can then expect to convince another human being of its worth.

As the famous late American agony aunt Abigail van Buren said: “If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them and half as much money”.

Perhaps, we need to occupy our children less with things and more with our selves. •

And as a child grows, there is plenty to

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From the

COUNSELLOR'S chair

Preparing your

CHILD for School How does a new school affect you and your child? Sabnum Dharamsi offers a spiritual perspective on change and parenthood

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

Kahlil Gibran, lines from “The Prophet�

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M

y heart goes out to children. They are young in the world, sensitive and vulnerable.

When the school year begins I see them bravely travelling to their new school for the first time. It’s a huge transition - perhaps the biggest in their lives.

As an Islamic counsellor, researcher and trainer, I’m aware of how difficult school transitions can be and the lasting impact they can have. They can be felt well into adulthood. I hear statements like: “I was so lonely, I would do anything to get attention and make friends.” Or “I’d try to make rude jokes to get some cheap laughs. I felt really bad about myself – like I’d betrayed my family and religion.

I started to withdraw. I still struggle to socialise, especially outside of work.”

Children are particularly vulnerable to transitions. They can start underperforming and self-esteem can plummet to a degree that can affect employment opportunities and the ability to form relationships.

Whether primary or secondary, going to a new school is simultaneously scary and thrilling in ways that we often forget as adults.

What is it that makes these early events so important? Neuroscience tells us that emotions shape and change our brains. Emotionally charged events provoke responses that are then etched into long-term memory and behaviour. Although it is possible to change, these are deep-rooted patterns, and we are often unaware of them.

These transitional times represent rites of passage - growing up and taking one’s place in the world. They are also intense leaps of faith into the unknown.

Most parents hope that with these experiences comes growth - perhaps expansion of the mind and body, or healthy friendships. But the reality is that parents and children know that there is also the potential for pain, rejection and failure. Hope and fear, together.

For Muslim parents and children there are often the extra pressures of being different. Parents and children question their values; what is it to be a Muslim in today’s society? Secularism versus

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faith, understanding gender roles, body image, socialising, relationships, sexuality, terrorism, and the minefield of new technology - all figure strongly as young and older minds negotiate their bearings and identities. These questions are all the more vexed in the harsh light of current perceptions about Islam.

So going to a new school is a big change, but where there’s a challenge, there’s also huge potential. Unsettling times can presage the development of new skills, strength and maturity. The Qur’an points out that life was not created for ease. That’s because there is a fundamental relationship between change, challenge and human development.

Spirituality introduced into this context when parents and young people appreciate that the focus of education is to bring a precious human being to their full potential, and all that entails.

This holistic concept of education can also be seen in the Islamic concept of tarbiyyah. Nowadays tarbiyyah has come to mean children’s religious instruction, but you can get a feel for its original meaning by knowing that this word linguistically connects to Rabb, one of the Divine names of God, meaning Lord, Nurturer and Developer.

The journey of this word over time perhaps reflects society’s changing concerns; that education was once seen as elevated and expansive whereas now it is constricted and constrained.

Education is a complex field, but at its best education – tarbiyyah – is about becoming fully human, rather than simply focussing on outward achievements and knowledge. Both outward and inward aspects are important in moving our consciousness from darkness to light.

This journey from darkness to light is the concern of all human beings at all stages in our lives, but in times of transition there can be huge shifts in consciousness that enliven our hearts and exercise our minds. Being out of our comfort zones helps us grow.

When parents – and indeed young people themselves - stay focused on the principle of tarbiyyah, it helps to contextualise the stress of change.

What does this mean in practical terms? Here are some guidelines drawn from studies or real life experiences of people I’ve worked with. Each guideline reflects the core principle of tarbiyyah.

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Preparation

As well as physically preparing for a new school, emotional preparation is important. Start to treat your child in a more adult-like way before school starts, so that that they don’t get a huge shock when they go! Allow them more opportunities for decision-making. Talk to them about what it’s like to start something new. If it is primary school, talk about how it will be different getting dressed by themselves, eating at school, and asking for help, hopes and fears. If it’s secondary school, perhaps discuss the loss of teachers and friends, and the prospect of new relationships and school subjects. ‘Big school’ can seem overwhelming, so discussing the size of the school and the feeling of not knowing may help children to identify their feelings and therefore cope better with them.

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Understanding.

Understanding what’s going on for your child is essential. In all the frantic preparation, it’s worth taking a moment – and a breath - to reflect on what this change means for them. Remember for example that their upset and anger over not having the correct uniform or pencil case may really be about fears and anxiety about identity and belonging.

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Talking

‘Just talking’ with someone you love is one of the easiest things to do, and one of the hardest things to get right.

Protectiveness makes us want to step in and sort things out. But gently asking questions about their experiences allows them to feel less alone, and encouraging your child to share how they feel helps them to make sense of things for themselves. These emotional intelligence skills also teach them to be reflective. As one of my counsellor friends used to say: ‘Don’t worry if they can’t say - sometimes it can be hard

for a young person to speak - because they can’t always name what they feel.

They may act out - be more tearful, seem withdrawn. Noticing that in a non-confrontational way by giving them a hug and saying ‘I can see you look a little sad, I’m here if you want to talk', can really help to let them know you are there.” Making the time to listen when they approach nurtures the relationship so children know from an early age they can talk to you about anything.

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Balance

Easier said than done, but it’s important to strike the right balance between school, home and other activities.

Extra-curricular activities can build competence and confidence, facilitate friendships and provide a break from school.

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Modelling

As a parent you are the most important role model in a child’s life. And just as much as what you say, it’s what you do and how you are that counts. If you can be happy and sad and resilient with the changes that happen in your life, if your relationships are loving and just, then you will be teaching your children in unspoken but profoundly powerful ways.

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Religion

Religion can help children to anchor themselves, especially when children associate God with love and mercy. Religion can sometimes be made to seem like a chore, but young people are often naturally spiritual. As one colleague told me, “My mother always said that God knows everything you’re going through and is always there for you to turn to.” Simple prayers and spiritual understandings can help children in ways that are not dependent on others, and which perhaps can help them even beyond your lifetime.

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counsellors, personal tutors, or your child may also suggest a teacher they find easy to talk to.

However even with the best intentions, parents can be thrown off balance.

Children are spiritual tests, and they can push your boundaries and hurt your feelings. Can a parent ever be good enough or brave enough? Parenting demands that first you give up yourself for your children, only to ultimately and gradually let them go – out of love. When the child begins life, she comes from a union between father and mother. She is then part of her mother, and then in birth, comes separation. The umbilical cord is cut, and from then on every stage in the child’s development marks increasing separation from you – exploring their own world, that stage of saying no to everything, to becoming an independent person. It is a spiritual test that at times can be excruciating for parent and child alike because it has this paradox of attachment and separation at its centre. Yet this paradox is totally natural and designed by God to take us way beyond what we thought we knew.

When the Prophet Abraham(a) is asked to sacrifice his child, we know without being told that he is fighting the deepest instinct of all - to protect his child. Abraham’s willingness to do so is a profound act of love and trust in God. He reminds us that we need to do our best, and then hand their lives over to God. He reminds us how, though we are driven to create these bonds, that every human relationship comes from God and that children do not belong to us, but to Him. • Sabnum Dharamsi is an Islamic Counsellor and Trainer www.islamiccounselling.info

Asking for Help

If you feel concerned, speak to the school. Let the school know if there are difficulties, whether at home or school.

Many schools are aware of the pressures that transitions bring and can support children to adjust. There are school

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ARTS Art Editor Moriam Grillo

IN THE SPOTLIGHT “Out of destruction comes renewal” Hayat Gul

the Afghan Contemporary Art Prize in 2009.

by glass and its fragile, reflective quality, my current work involves creating from mirror, purposely broken to create something more beautiful than when it was whole,” says Gul.

Whilst attempting to develop her own creative style, early on in her career, Hassani began to paint fishes. These aquatic creatures became a signature of her work. This clarifies her use of the ocean in her more recent work and the symbolic rising from the waves which we see in her depiction of chaste women rising in purity to stand up for their rights as human beings.

Gul uses a mixture of materials to create her work and also specialises in henna designs for women. For her current work, Gul has created beautiful imagery devised from broken shards of glass which are assembled to uphold a vibrant and complex meaning. Her work is often based on nature and the metaphysical, taking unspoken aspects of Islamic spirituality and presenting them for discussion and consideration by the world at large.

Through her use of the burka, Hassani portrays women in the public space as ghosts, individuals who are meant to drift silently through society without causing a distraction or demanding to be acknowledged.

Gul, who believes that “art should be in our everyday life” has succeeded in creating an arena where the context of our humanness and seeking are paired inextricably with our love of beauty.

This is drawn from the reality that God is beautiful and loves beauty, which infuses us and influences our day to day motivations.

Her painterly approach is neither dynamic nor lively, it is not meant as propaganda, but rather to relate to the plight of women and remind them that they are a crucial part in changing the face of their country.

MASTERPIECE ‘Seeing is believing’

Hayat Gul is a contemporary visual artist. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Gul grew up in Canada and is a self-taught mixed media artist. As with all of the artists in this month’s edition, I came across her work at the Summer Exhibition last year at the Royal Academy of the Arts.

displayed at the Royal Academy as well as the Saatchi Online Gallery.

I was attracted to her work because it conveyed both beauty and tranquillity; I also found her use of colour satisfying and easy on the eye.

All of Gul’s work contains either Arabic calligraphy or geometry; each piece is vibrant, dynamic and unique. Her unskilled and untutored approach has allowed her the freedom to create work that speaks more to the heart than to the mind. Gul’s work successfully conveys artistic integrity whilst conveying a style which is contemporary but strongly rooted in tradition.

I am impressed at her status as a selftaught artist, one who has developed her skill to such a level as to have work

“I am attracted to juxtaposed images and ideas. Like light and dark, smooth and rough. I am perpetually intrigued

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Through her work, Hassani has developed a means of creative expression which allows her to convey the experience of a specific environment using a universal language which invites humankind to relate on its own terms.

Her work is striking and symbolic, conveying the stark reality of the lives of women living in Afghanistan.

Shamsia Hassani is described as Afghanistan's first graffiti street artist.

This artistic style was born in the same era as Hassani herself, and this itself is a worthy point to reflect upon. If we think of graffiti, we are often reminded of the highly priced work of the British artist Banksy or the ramblings that disadvantaged youth scrawl on public property.

Hassani's work places itself respectfully between both extremes.

Her work conveys a distinct political statement for which she is continually risking her own safety. The art she shares conveys the level of integrity, refinement and beauty from which the struggle of each woman unfolds.

Born in Tehran in 1988, Hassani studied fine art at Kabul University before going on to complete her studies at the Centre for Contemporary Arts of Afghanistan.

She graduated in 2006 and went on to become one of ten artists shortlisted for

Her work is revolutionary in its approach; Hassani uses the symbiotic gesture of graffiti to convey the plight of Afghanistan's lesser acknowledged inhabitants. Spray paint is the perfect medium for her message as it repre-

“I am painting women in their Burka [in a modernist style] on walls, I want to talk about their life, to find some way to remove them from darkness, to open their mind, to bring some positive changes, trying to remove all bad memories of war from everybody’s mind with covering a sad city’s walls with happy colours.” - Shamsia Hassani

sents a rebellion to the precepts of the establishment, while depicting a narrative-rich backdrop which is difficult to ignore.

Her image of a female figure sitting on concrete steps is both striking and bizarre. A woman on her own, unchaperoned. She is painted alone surrounded by her own thoughts. But what is her story? Is she safe? Is she in hiding? Hassani says of her: “She is wondering if she can get up or if she will fall.”

In a country where the rights of women are routinely undermined, Hassani hopes to raise awareness of this and offer continued hope for change.

She has chosen to use graffiti as her medium as she believes it offers the best opportunity to convey her message to the masses as opposed to less popular art forms which are confined to a few art galleries.

"The reason I got into graffiti art was because women's rights are hardly ever talked about. We're just used to being coerced into doing things but now I believe my work and what I stand for is simply a triumph for women." she says. “Injustices are still being carried out against women especially in my country; I want my art to help women feel stronger. I want to compel them to see themselves as changers of their own destiny by opposing the elements that are bent on creating pain. I want us to live without fear."

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THE LANGUAGE OF WORDS

POETRY Make room for Rumi This month is the birth anniversary of Maulana Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi, more widely known as Rumi.

Rumi was a thirteenth century theologian, jurist, poet and Sufi mystic.

He is best known for his Mathnawi, six volumes of poetic writing which consists of more than 25,000 verses.

The Mathnawi is a manual of poetic discourses intended to teach the spiritual seeker how to reach the ultimate goal; proximity with God.

Fathi Hassan is an Egyptian artist who now lives in Italy. Hassan studied Art in middle school in Cairo under the tutelage of the famous Egyptian Sculptor Ghaleb Khater, who immediately recognised that Hassan had a unique gift. In his twenties, Hassan worked in Iraq as a commercial artist at the Ministry of Culture in Baghdad before receiving a grant from the Italian Cultural Institute in Cairo which enabled him to study at the Academy of Fine Art in Naples. Of Nubian descent, Fathi's work often draws upon his own experiences and heritage. Handwritten words are emphasised in his work and he conveys them artistically, without feigning calligraphic skill. His work includes mixed media paintings, drawings and installations. The pieces that I am most taken with are his simple paintings in monochrome. These works of art are developed from the scripted letters that could derive from a page, but are, in reality, scaled up to produce large wall pieces with repeated lettering.

Using mainly Kufic calligraphy, Hassan has added deeper meaning to his work. Kufic script originated from Kufa in Iraq and is the oldest constructed calligraphic form of Arabic script which was used to record and document the earliest copies of the Noble Qur’an.

The Kufic script itself was influenced by Nabatean script. Although no Nabatean script in the form of literature survives today, many examples of inscriptions

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and graffiti on walls have been found.

Hassan, perhaps influenced by this history as well as his own, has chosen to use Kufic script consistently in his art.

It represents an aspect of his heritage which he has pared back to narrate the story of its roots as a form and his own genealogical journey. Hassan administers the Kufic script with clear Nabatean influences. He uses repetition to display words in an unskilled and unmodified manner. This style gives his work an air of innocence and purity. He has also chosen to make it appear illegible in order to reflect the ease at which language can lose its potency. This itself draws upon the loss of original language in Nubia under the influence of colonisation and empire.

His work is an artistic representation of his cultural identity. By using words, he is able to exploit perceived notions of literal meaning, by simply exploring them through graphic symbolism. In this way, he is able to reflect his cultural, spiritual and historic heritage whilst unlocking a literal meaning which is deeply personal.

Hassan was the first artist selected to represent Africa in the Venice biennale in 1988. His work is displayed in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.

Many of the poems and moral led stories from these volumes have been translated from the original Persian and used to develop smaller books of poetry. If you have not had the privilege of reading his inspiring work, here is an example of his writing. It is driven by humility, yet embedded with certainty.

The Story of My Life

“I was ready to tell the story of my life but the ripple of tears and the agony of my heart wouldn’t let me I began to stutter saying a word here and there and all along I felt as tender as a crystal ready to be shattered.

In this stormy sea we call life, all the big ships come apart board by board how can I survive riding a lonely little boat with no oars and no arms My boat did finally break by the waves and I broke free as I tied myself to a single board

Though the panic is gone I am now offended why should I be so helpless rising with one wave and falling with the next.

I don’t know If I am non existence while I exist but I know for sure when I am, I am not but when I am not then I am.

Now how can I be a sceptic about the resurrection and coming to life again.

Since in this world I have many times like my own imagination died and been born again that is why after a long agonising life as a hunter I finally let go and got hunted down and became free”

ADDENDUM ‘Flights of Fancy’

In 2010, Mohamad Syed Baalbaki an artist from Beirut, created a piece of artwork called ‘Flights of Fancy’. For this work, he took the remains from an archaeological find and created a piece of artwork which has both baffled and bewildered its audience.

At the time of the First World War a German archaeologist named Werner Von Konigswald, whilst working on an excavation site in Jerusalem, came across the remains of an ancient burial ground near the sacred mosque of

Al-Aqsa. He discovered a series of bones which he immediately recognised to belong to an animal, but was perturbed as to what type of animal it might be.

Although this animal had four legs, it also appeared to have limbs growing from its back which resembled wings.

Although the bones were destroyed in the Second World War, Baalbaki was eager to recreate this miraculous find, which could be related to the Pegasus of classical mythology and, of course, the lightning steed, Al Buraq, in the narration of the Me’raj or the Prophet’s Night Journey.

Baalbaki skilfully infused his artistic talent with truths that are latent in our consciousness to create a work of art which we are able to relate to on our own terms.

HERITAGE

Book: The Life of Muhammad(s)

by Husayn Haykal 1933

This book is not only a work of art, it is a masterpiece. Written poetically and giving a broad summation of the time, people and environment that were influential in the history of Arabia at the time leading up to the Revelation. Haykal paints a picture with his words which is beautiful, sensitive and filled with meaning. This work is timeless and can be read, appreciated and enjoyed by people from all walks of life.

THE PLACE TO BE The Orchard 'A sanctuary where nature and intellect meet' As our student population prepares to start a new year at university, establishing an antidote for the rigours of academia is a crucial aid to success. The sight of the centuryold Orchard in Grantchester, four miles from Cambridge, is a perfect environment to find peace far from the madding crowds of university life. The garden and pavilion are surrounded by an orchard of apple trees, which in turn is surrounded by meadows which lead to the river Cam. Originally founded by the poet and former Cambridge student Rupert Brookes, the orchard became a place where budding poets and writers met off campus to discuss and develop their work. Tea was normally served from the main house, but upon Brooke’s insistence, the neighbouring orchard became the new meeting place when he asked to have his tea served in the meadow that surrounded it.

“Ah God! To see the branches stir Across the moon at Grantchester!

To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten Unforgettable, unforgotten River-smell, and hear the breeze Sobbing in the little trees.”

Rupert Brookes The Orchard

45-47 Mill Way, Grantchester, CB3 9ND Open seven days a week. The Orchard can be accessed by walking, cycling or punting from Cambridge or directly by car. • Moriam Grillo is a visual artist, broadcaster, author and part time art teacher.

She holds Bachelor degrees in Photography & Film and Ceramics. Her current work involves two public Islamic commissions.

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Book review Maps are not simply two dimensional images of our world or navigation tools; they shape our lives and minds, they record our history and tell us stories. In many cases they work as media, even as propaganda tools. Simon Garfield discovers some of these marvels in his book, On the Map, reviewed by Mohsen Biparva

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f you come from Australia or South Africa, you may get teased for coming from the ‘bottom of the earth’, or ‘down under’. Across different cultures up and down are usually associated with high and low in values, as up equals good and down equals bad (or less valuable).

And since the orientation of maps is arbitrary, one would say that the way that modern maps are drawn shows a bias towards the north. Perhaps it is not hard to imagine why some in Australia and New Zealand came up with the idea of an upside-down map of the world.

Maps are not, as we used to believe, merely innocent depictions of the world and continents on a two dimensional surface; they also shape and even impose certain world views.

Orientation of maps is not the only world view that maps carry; size is also very important. In conventional maps the size of Greenland is equal to or even bigger that the continent of Africa. This is of course due to a certain type of projection (transferring shapes from the surface of a sphere over a plane surface), but it also shows a world view in which Africa is seen as a not very important place.

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book (Thomas Bassett and Philip Porter) cartographic knowledge in the nineteenth century was still ‘partly based on non-logical factors such as aesthetics, habits, and the urge to fill in blank spaces...’

According to Garfield, Mercator’s famous world map, drawn in 1569, with its size distortions (it exaggerates the size of places furthest from the Equator), is still the dominant display of the world. Mercator used a model of projection most useful and simple for one purpose: navigation. It keeps the angles between longitudes and latitudes straight so that ships can navigate in straight lines in keeping with the direction of their compasses. It was a genuine method of mapping for navigation, but not so good to map the real shape of the world.

Referring to Josef Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the author reminds us about the white man’s passion for the blank spaces on maps, for undiscovered lands, through the book’s main narrator, Charlie Marlow, who regrets that most of the empty spaces on the map had been filled since he was a boy.

It is a testimony to the precedence of maps over the real world as in many occasions a European ‘discovery’ was nothing more than putting a name on a map.

In 1970 the German Arno Peters suggested a new method of projection (known Gerard Mercator as Peters-Gall Projection) that corrects some of the problems Fictional features were not related to the unrealistic scales only limited to the Mountains of Mercator’s standard map. of Kong. The Pacific Ocean point on earth.

Peters’ projection was mainly driven had more than a hundred imaginary Elsewhere in the book, we learn about by a political concern to address the islands. In one case a British naval the legendary (and non-existing) ‘cartographic imperialism’ and ‘Eurocaptain named Sir Fredrick Evans Mountains of Kong. In 1798 an English centric ethnic bias’ of Mercator’s map. removed 123 of them from the British cartographer predicted (or invented) That is to depict, for example, Europe Admiralty Charts, according to Garfield. a mountain range stretching through considerably larger than South America In around 1830 an American captain, thousands of miles of West Africa with while in reality South America is twice Benjamin Morrell, published accounts the size of Europe, or to of his discoveries including picture Greenland the same ‘Morrell Island’, also called ‘New size as Africa, while the South Greenland’, near Hawaii. It latter is sixteen times larger.

Cartographic knowledge in the nineteenth century took half a century until Ernest The book shows that evenShackleton found that there was was still ‘partly based on non-logicalfactors such tually not all the projection no such island at that location. as aesthetics, habits, and the urge to fill in blank methods would succeed, Readers may remember that as and the standard image spaces...’ recently as October 2012, an used even today is still that Australian scientific expedition of Mercator. in the Pacific found no trace of The book documents the nineteenth century European imperialist practice of putting its names all over the world. George Everest was the Surveyor General of India from 1830 to 1843. According to Garfield he had certainly never seen the mountain that would bear his name. In fact it was the Indian mathematician Radhanath Sikdar who calculated the height of Peak XV, later named Mount Everest, and determined that it was the highest

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tremendous height. The mountain range astonishingly stayed on the map for almost a century until a Frenchman called Louis-Gustave Binger went to see them and found that they were not there (who says that the age of science doesn’t have its own mythological places?). All this was based on an assumption that the source of the River Niger must be a vast mountain range. According to two American scholars named in the

‘Sandy Island’, which was also ‘seen’ in Google Earth. They found that the ocean floor was not even shallower than 1300 metres below the supposed spot.

Among many different maps discussed in the book is that of the London Underground designed by Harry Beck, an engineering draughtsman. It has become one of the world’s most useful maps and not due to its fidelity to the real world since in reality the under-

ground looks very different. In reality all stations are not at the same distance from each other, they are not all in straight lines, and not all angles are 90 or 45 degrees. Yet in many ways it works better that a real representation of the underground. It simplifies a complex city even for an unfamiliar tourist. It is another example of the primacy of map over reality.

Garfield then directs his attention to

cinema and the presence of maps in films, from The Muppets (a children’s TV programme), to Casablanca to Indiana Jones and Dr Strangelove. More recently we have seen ‘The Marauder’s Map’ in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and the ‘Map of Middle Earth’ in Lord of the Rings’, without which the entire story is rather incomprehensible.

The book also contains interesting stories about maps in wars, including Churchill’s famous Map Room and even map thieves, as well as the difference between men and women in their sense of direction and different styles of map reading.

Garfield even deals with contemporary times and the extensive use of sat navs (satellite navigation) and the way they have changed our perceptions. Now more than ever, instead of relying on following landmarks, we rely on sat navs, and by doing so, we focus on the display and miss the scenery. ‘It is now possible to travel many hundreds of

miles without having the faintest clue about how we got there.’ He concludes by calling it ‘a victory for sat nav, a loss for geography, history, navigation, maps, human communication and the sense of being connected to the world all around us.’

This is a very readable work of nonfiction even though in places Garfield assumes we share his aficionado’s interest in the more abstruse aspects of

his specialist subject. It is a fascinating journey through the history of cartography and a remarkable account of how maps made their marks on the real world, how they changed our understanding of it and how they helped and sustained powers and authorities, either through wars, imperialism, or as an ideological tool, through education and propaganda. •

Simon Garfield is the author of several acclaimed books of non-fiction, including Just My Type A Book About Font.

He lives between London and St Ives.

On the Map: Why the World Looks the Way it Does, by Simon Garfield, Profile Books, London, 2012, £16.99

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When Titans Collide;

The New Cold War

Emerging tensions between Washington and Moscow are reminiscent of the Cold War rivalry between the two sides.

Masoud Tehrani analyses the growing chasm between the two world powers

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T

he world has certainly come a long way from the Cuban missile crisis of the 1960’s when the United States and the then Soviet Union were on the brink of war and nuclear annihilation.

Thankfully the threat of a mutually destructive war between the two sides is now a thing of the past. However tensions continue to linger between the two former adversaries despite the fact that Soviet bloc collapsed over two decades ago and the new Russia is no longer committed to Marxist-Leninism but to the basic tenets of capitalism. It has, in fact, emerged as one of the most thriving economic powers in the world.

Despite the growing tensions in recent months over a number of contentious issues, both sides have tried to appear as though they are fully able to manage the stress on their post-Soviet relationship.

At a recent press conference in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry compared the tensions between the two sides to occasional bumps in a game of hockey.

‘Sergei Lavrov and I are old hockey players and we both know that diplomacy, like hockey, can sometimes result in the occasional collision, so we’re candid, very candid, about the areas in which we agree, but also the areas in which we disagree, ’ Kerry said.

Kerry attempted to smooth things over, claiming that Washington and Moscow were trying to reach a common ground on such areas as Syria and missile defence. Also present at the press conference were Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoygu.

The press conference was held only two days after US President Barack Obama cancelled his planned summit meeting in Moscow with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, in what many described as a ‘high profile snub’.

It is the first time in decades that an American leader has called off such a trip. Obama will not even meet with Mr. Putin on the sidelines of the G-20

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gathering in September in Russia.

It should not come as a surprise that Obama has cancelled the meeting.

He does not have a good memory of their last meeting in June 2012 on the sidelines of the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland, when they both appeared before the press and the atmosphere was so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

End of Rapprochement Following the September 11th attack on New York and Washington, there emerged a short-lived sense of camaraderie between the two world powers, with Moscow claiming that it understands America’s pain because it had dealt with similar attacks by Chechen separatists.

Russia actually gave the United States a gift to memorialise the victims of the 9/11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing. The gift was a sculpture called ‘To the Struggle Against World Terrorism’ which has been installed in the city of Bayonne, New Jersey. It is a 100-foot (30 m) tower made of steel and coated in bronze. The monument was unveiled on September 11, 2006 in a ceremony attended by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Putin who was at the time serving as Russia’s premier.

But tensions have emerged in the ties not only because of Cold War style rivalry in the Middle East over the fate of the government in Damascus, but also over temporary asylum granted to the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Throughout the whole Snowden affair, while Russia’s approach has been to avoid escalating tensions, the U.S. approach has included using rather inflammatory language in the insistence that Russia returns the NSA whistleblower.

While Putin said Snowden could stay in Russia if he agreed to stop releasing further leaks, he also said that he did not want anything to harm ‘our American partner’. But statement after statement

from the United States showed that the art of diplomacy was a rare commodity in Washington and uncommunicative stone-age brutes are ruling the roost.

Condescending Attitude At the same time the mainstream US media has shown a condescending attitude in its coverage of Russia. In recent months, a massive media campaign has been underway to depict Russia as a backward country, not worthy of its world stature and not even worthy of holding international athletic events.

Russia is considered a land of ‘oligarchs’.

Yes, the American right wingers say, Russians have become capitalists, but they are still afflicted with ‘oligarchy’.

(The critics in the States should take a good look at U.S. economy where the richest 1% of the American population owns 34.6% of the country’s total wealth, and the next 19% own 50.5%) Disproportionate coverage is given to any negative or controversial news from Russia. First there was the sacrilegious activities of a certain feminist punk rock band considered by most Russians as a bunch of lunatics who decided to profane a church in Russia. After their arrest, for days on end, you could hear or watch on the UK and US radio and TV, the hullabaloo of how these talentless ‘artists’ were being persecuted in Russia.

Recently the Western media went totally agog over Alexei Navalny, a critic of Putin and a contender in Moscow’s mayoral race. The trial of Navalny on charges of embezzlement received such prominence that one might be justified in asking if he was a close friend of agenda setters in the Western media.

An ignoramus in the British press who could not curb his enthusiasm called the recent newcomer to Russian politics ‘Russia’s Mandela’. Navalny may well be a good honest critic of the Russian establishment but the same media hardly notices other critics who engage in criticising pro-American establishments.

Most recently the world noticed a well-

orchestrated campaign against Russia for its alleged persecution of homosexuals. The gay activists in Western capitals were upset about a new Russian law that bans pro-gay propaganda to minors. The campaigners, who received plenty of airtime on Western television channels, demanded a boycott of the upcoming Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

Not quick on the uptake In this conflict, it appears that while the United States seems to have forgotten its bitter lesson from decades of misadventure in the Middle East, Russia has moved on from its Soviet era mindset.

Russia’s support for Syria remains nuanced, whereas the American support for the Free Syrian Army and the rebels is rather gung ho, even ignoring the long-term interests of the United States.

(After all, the rise of al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra in the Syrian conflict is against America’s stated goal of crushing al-Qaeda and its allies…)

Tell Washington pundits, for instance, that rebels have added beheading, rape, and cutting out and eating the hearts of an enemy combatant to their repertoire of atrocities, and they just don’t want to hear about it. Tell them that the rebels have killed over 400 Kurds in northern Syria and taking scores of Kurds as hostages and they just turn a deaf ear.

But tell them that you have a scoop on an atrocity committed by Assad’s forces, and you will not only be listened to, but also feted and given plenty of column inches or airtime.

To be sure, Russia has its own skeletons in the closet. Moscow sided with Belgrade while the genocide in Bosnia was underway and had its own killing fields in Chechnya more than a decade ago and these memories are still fresh for Muslims all over the globe.

The collision of these two titans should not come as a surprise to anyone.

The fact remains that the US-Russian relationship started out on a collision course on the day the Syrian crisis began.

Washington is adamant on arming the rebels, even though it dithers over what it will provide and which of the multitudinous factions will receive anything.

Russia meanwhile fears loss of historic influence in the region which the fall of Assad would potentially bring, not to mention its Mediterranean naval base in Tartus.

One of the aims of U.S. involvement in the Middle East is to appease and protect its principal Arab client states, especially the Gulf monarchies headed

by Saudi Arabia. There is a strange symbiotic relationship at work. Both sides need each other. The unelected monarchies need the United States for their protection and Washington needs and relies on them for the flow of oil.

This is despite the fact that these monarchies are quite ‘fundamentalist’ in their approach to Islam, an approach that Washington pundits have always abhorred in other Muslims, especially if they appear to be critical of U.S. policies.

A case in point is the recent bloody crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood

by Egyptian putchists which has not been sufficiently condemned by officials in Washington. The Brotherhood consists of the other -unobliging - type of fundamentalists who are undeserving of sympathy.

The explanation for this apparent condition is that the policies continue to be defined by Realpolitik and not by morality. The U.S. sees the Middle East as a game of chess in which the ultimate goal is to ensure the constant flow of oil, bring about absolute security for Israel and maximum pain and insecurity for independent forces such as Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. •

Masoud Tehrani is a London based journalist who writes on the dynamics of the Islamic world.

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Deadly Legacy

government does not seem to be able to contain the spread of this deadly trade which appears to be quite lucrative and could involve children.

of Depleted Uranium

Depleted uranium used in the attacks on Iraq in 1991 and 2003 continues to play havoc with the lives of new-born Iraqis and their families. Reza Murshid says serious attention should be given to the victims of these weapons

E

xcept for ardent pacifists who oppose all types of war and the terrible human cost of war, most people assume that bodily harm inflicted on combatants is a natural outcome of war. However any rational person would deem it totally unjustified for bodily harm to come to the infants and children who have yet to be born in the vicinity of the theatre of operation. Unfortunately since the 9/11, this has been the outcome of the so-called American War on Terror. A generation of Iraqi children have been born with serious congenital deformities due to the use of depleted uranium

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in the battle to oust Saddam Hussein.

The War on Terror was a cause of terror for me recently as I watched with tears in my eyes the latest exposé on the birth defects caused by depleted uranium used by American forces in the holy city of Najaf, some 160 kilometres south of Baghdad and home to the blessed shrine of Imam Ali(a). The city is also home to Wadi al-Salam, considered the largest cemetery in the world, and also the site of some of the heaviest fighting between the U.S.-led forces and the Ba’thist army.

Aired on RT, the short documentary showed that a decade after U.S.-led

Nonchalance, Strategic Ambiguity & Denial

forces invaded Iraq there remains a deadly legacy of birth defects in areas where occupying armies used depleted uranium in their fight against Saddam’s forces. It is said that depleted uranium is used because it cuts through armour as a knife cuts the butter. More than 400 tonnes of depleted uranium ammunition are estimated to have been fired by jets and tanks in the two Iraq wars in 1991 and 2003, the vast majority

by US forces. The UK government admits that British forces fired less than three tonnes. According to the RT report, congenital deformities are quite normal nowadays in childbirths in every neighbourhood in Najaf. Dr Sundus Nasif, who has been documenting the effects of depleted uranium, was quoted as saying: ‘After the start of the Iraq war, rates of cancer, leukaemia and birth defects rose dramatically in Najaf.

The areas affected by American attacks saw the biggest increases. We believe it’s because of the illegal weapons like depleted uranium that were used by the Americans. When you visit the hospital here you see that cancer is more common than flu.’ However Najaf is not the only affected city.

If you have the stomach for it, just google the images of ‘Fallujah Depleted Uranium’ and you will see hundreds of gruesome photos of infants whose entry into this ugly world of ours has been associated with so much pain for them and their forlorn parents.

Fallujah is a city 50 miles west of Baghdad.

A year after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, there was a bloody battle between occupying forces and Iraqi fighters in Fallujah.

The information about the type of weaponry used by U.S. forces in that confrontation is scarce. But in 2005, alarming reports emerged showing that there was a sudden

increase in cancer and leukaemia rates and congenital birth defects.

In 2010 a group of scientists organised a team of researchers who visited 711 houses in Fallujah and obtained responses to a questionnaire in Arabic on cancer, birth defects and infant mortality. (Chris Busby , Malak Hamdan and Entesar Ariabi, ‘Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005 – 2009, in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health).

The total population in the resulting sample was 4,843 persons. Their research showed that the increases in cancer and infant mortality were alarmingly high. They also found out that due to genetic damage stress the ratio of boys to girls was not normal. Their research suggested that ‘normally the sex ratio in the human population is a constant with 1,050 boys born to 1,000 girls’ whereas the ratio in Fallujah was quite distorted.

Reports also indicate a huge level of contamination in Basra in southern Iraq. Some have suggested that the contamination in Basra dates back to the first Gulf War in 1991. In Basra there has been a rise in childhood leukaemia.

It is estimated that there are over 300 contaminated sites in Iraq. What compounds the problem is that this sort of contamination is spreading because of a lack of awareness on the part of Iraqis themselves. The latest report indicates that scrap metal dealers in Iraq have been instrumental in spreading the contamination. The Iraqi

In December 2012, some 155 countries voted in favour of a resolution calling for "a precautionary approach" to the use of depleted uranium weapons at the United Nations General Assembly. Four countries who voted against it were: U.S., UK, France and Israel. Israel is believed used depleted uranium during its attack on Jamayra near Damascus, Syria, last May and also during the attacks on Gaza in the winter of 2008– 2009. The weapons’ manufacturers themselves appear to be indifferent to the effect of their weaponry on civilians (not to mention the very soldiers who fire them if they are on the ground).

The U.S. has failed to confirm where it fired depleted uranium weapons, a refusal for which it was criticised recently

by IKV Pax Christi, an inter-church peace group at Utrecht in the Netherlands.

‘It is unclear exactly how many locations may still be contaminated, or the extent of the risks that civilians face’, Wim Zwijnenburg, the author of the latest report by IKV Pax Christi, said in a recent interview.

Like any maladjusted personality, these countries are in denial. For example, despite the evidence to the contrary, the UK government insists that it will continue to use depleted uranium weapons when the need arises. A UK government spokeswoman recently told the Guardian: ‘There is no reliable scientific or medical evidence to suggest depleted uranium causes ill health and the UK is therefore one of various countries that do not favour adopting a precautionary approach to its use." (Note the Newspeak, referring to only four countries as various).

requirement is to help to improve the lives of those affected by this demonic modern day weaponry.

The situation demands the immediate attention of important global organisations, governments, charitable organisations and NGOs. A concerted effort is needed on the part of everyone involved to ban depleted uranium, to engage in more research on how to tackle its effects, to raise funds for clearing the depleted uranium from the affected countries, and most importantly, to ensure that new pregnancies are safeguarded against ill effects while its victims get the medical and humanitarian assistance that they need. •

What Needs to Be Done

The situation is so tragic that there is no time for bickering among the contending powers, activist groups and those supporting the rights of the victims. The first and most important

Reza Murshid is a political analyst and a freelance writer.

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Feature

The crying

Arabia dunes of

Despite entrusted with the most precious holy places of the Muslim world, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia remains at the heart of Muslim anguishes. Ali Jawad explains why

T

he Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a land wedged in multiple paradoxes. As the only modern-day nation named after a ruling family (the Aal-Saud), the resource-rich nation upholds itself as a beacon and a mouthpiece for the world’s Muslims. Despite such grand pretences however, its role in the region has come under close scrutiny in the last two decades, and further still after the Arab Spring.

Due to geographic size, religious symbolism and its natural wealth,

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the Kingdom has acted as the ‘Big Brother’ of the Arabian Peninsula for much of the last century. Alongside the traditional powerhouses of Egypt and Syria, ownership of the Arab position has invariably been claimed by Saudi Arabia. With the passage of more than seventy years since its formal founding, one cannot but help question the role that the Kingdom has played, its foreign policy priorities and how these affect the political destiny of Muslims around the world.

Sacred Symbolism

With its borders closely approximating the traditional land of Hejaz, the Gulf state is steeped in religious symbolism.

Across its sands and shifting dunes walked the great prophets of God. The father of the monotheistic religions, Abraham came upon this land with his wife Hajar and infant-child Ishmael.

Many centuries later, the Almighty in his limitless wisdom chose from Ismail's bloodline the seal of the prophets and the most perfect amongst his

creation, Muhammad(s). In and around the holy cities of Makkah and Medina, the greatest epics of early Islam were written and there God revealed his final message of guidance for humankind.

As a result of all these iconic associations to the land, the modern-day kingdom holds a special place in the hearts of Muslims all around the globe. Year on year, millions of Muslims throng to the holy sites surrounding the Kaabah, the House of God, to perform the rites of the Hajj following in the foot-

steps of Abraham - the friend of God. Aside from this overwhelming symbolism – one that quite understandably blurs a Muslim’s first impression of the land – there is the ‘fact’ of a nation state existing in modernity; a political entity that has established a particular social contract with its own citizens, and that acts in line with a certain rationale on the regional and global stage.

The Kingdom and its lasting ties to Wahhabism

Founded in 1932, the current Kingdom

of Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy named after the family of Saud – descendants of Muhammad ibn Saud. The current Saudi state is, in reality, the ruling family’s third attempt at power. The first Saudi state (1744-1818) and the second state (18241891) met their end at the hands of the Ottomans and a vicious, self-destructive spell of infighting respectively.

Throughout these three phases however, the Aal-Saud’s allegiance to Wahhabi ideology has remained unswerving. As an ideology, Wahhabism

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has historically provided a legitimising function to the rule of the ruling family.

In Bowen’s History of Saudi Arabia, the author notes that this ideology “was one of the foundations for the eventual rise to power of the dynasty”.

Hamid Algar’s acclaimed essay (Wahhabism: A Critical Essay) touches on some of the theological premises and distinctive aspects that set apart this ideology. The piece also briefly surveys some of the heinous crimes committed by this Saudi-Wahhabi alliance, including the ransacking of the shrines of Karbala in the 19th century and the destruction of the Jannatul Baqee’ cemetery in Medina in 1925. It must be stated that the Saudi monarchy continues to systematically destroy landmarks of Islamic heritage right up to the present under the inspiration of this warped ideology; a pattern that has been closely followed by its proxies outside the Kingdom.

In modern times, the success of the Islamic Revolution in Iran marked a new juncture in the Kingdom’s proselytisation of Wahhabism. Leading specialist on the Kingdom’s politics and foreign policy, Professor Mai Yamani notes that the forceful Wahhabist agenda was principally aimed at

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serving as a counter-balance to the revolutionary ideology of Iran. This project was often undertaken with tacit approval from the United States, and at times under its direct orders.

As the patron and sponsor of this hostile and intolerant outlook, Saudi Arabia embarked on exporting Wahhabism to as far and wide as Pakistan, the Far East and parts of Africa. The impact that this has had on radicalisation, intolerance and religious violence in these locations cannot be overstated. Over the last few years, the noticeable presence of militant Salafist groups in Iraq, the wider Levant and North Africa has been blamed on the Kingdom, which has been motivated by its ambition to wrestle control of the region’s changes.

Geopolitics: Oil, superpowers & the fate of Palestine

Ever since the dramatic first moments after the discovery of oil in Iran followed by the Persian Gulf region, the natural resource has become an intensely coveted political commodity.

The enormous oil reserves under the sands of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia formed the backdrop of an intense rivalry between a waning superpower, Great Britain, and the emerging

hegemon, the United States of America, in the lead-up to the Second World War. Such was the importance of the kingdom’s oil riches that US President Roosevelt declared in 1943: ‘the defence of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defence of the United States’. This diplomatic closeness has brought together the United States and the Saudi Kingdom since those early beginnings.

For political analysts, the relationship between the US and its Saudi ally can be summarised in a simple equation: oil for security. Or in other words, as long as Washington enjoys access to Saudi oil reserves, the security of the Aal-Saud dynasty is ensured by its ally.

In fact the global oil price shocks of the 1970s and US outrage at some of the political positions of the Kingdom were followed by a situation in which the relationship between the two parties became inseparably entrenched. In his famous book, Petrodollar Warfare, Willam Clarke observes that the Nixon administration’s move to force Saudi Arabia to price its oil in US dollars formed the basis “for the second phase of the American Century”.

Admittedly, this is a contribution that cannot be glossed over lightly.

As a consequence of this overt depend-

ency on the United States, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has quite rightly come to be known as a lackey of empire. The most damaging outcomes of this reality are two-fold: • Firstly, the absence of an independent foreign policy of arguably the leading Arab state invariably exposes the region as a whole to imperial control. Furthermore, a united position

by Muslim-majority nations in defence of key issues that affect them (e.g. Palestine) is rendered close to impossible.

• Secondly, as an important tool in the hands of a superpower the Kingdom holds immense potential to poison relations between Muslim nations and foster divisions. This is further amplified by the hostile nature of its formal Wahhabi ideology and the religious symbolism enjoyed by the monarchy in its self-adopted designation as ‘Custodian of the two Holy Mosques’.

Given the above factors, it is interesting to note that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the third largest per-capita buyer of military equipment – eclipsed only by the United States and the Zionist state. Yet despite this strange sense of national budgeting, there has been virtual pin-drop silence by the Kingdom

on the most sensitive and lingering political issue for Muslims: ‘Palestine’.

Contrast the reaction of the decisionmakers in Riyadh to the peaceful protests in Bahrain, due to which the Kingdom promptly sent entire brigades and slithering columns of state-of-theart military vehicles across the King Fahd Causeway on the one hand, and the deafening silence on Palestine that has lasted more than 60 years.

Or perhaps the dispatching of thousands of so-called ‘freedom fighters’ to neighbouring Syria while proclaiming that the Assad government’s atrocities left no room for dialogue on the one hand, and its repeated insistence on the need for peaceful talks with the Zionist state based on the Arab Peace Initiative tabled by King Abdullah in the Arab League Summit of 2002.

To Muslims across the world, the double-standards by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are increasingly obvious.

Furthermore, its vocal promotion of an intolerant Wahhabist mentality whose sole objective is to fuel the flames of chaos in the region – from the Levant to Iraq, has stifled the words of even its most ardent supporters in various Muslim quarters.

In more recent years, the systematic drive

to promote sectarianism by the Kingdom has further emphasised the interlocked nature of its interests with those of the imperial powers led by the United States and its biggest ally, the Zionist state. At its heart, the divisive sectarian rhetoric is motivated by politics and not religious interpretation. Until recently, the ‘Sunni’ resistant movement Hamas was viewed by the Saudis as an Iranian surrogate due to its resistance-priority.

It is clear that with this ‘politicosectarian’ agenda and its almost complete dependence on the global superpower – the prime exploiter of natural resources from Muslim nations and the purveyor of the biggest misfortunes and sufferings to beset the Middle East in the last decade, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is fundamentally incapable of acting in the greater interests of either its own people or Muslims around the globe. To the contrary, if history is the selected yardstick, it could well be argued that the rule of Aal-Saud has been the largest single curse to have befallen the Muslim ummah in recent memory. •

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Opinions

When

‘BAD’ fundamentalists

become

‘GOOD’ Shifting Western policies in the Middle East are driven more by short-term interests than the need to fight terrorism, according to Ali Reza Jalili

T

he problem of Islamic fundamentalism in Europe is a much discussed subject.

Just before the so called Arab Spring, Western policy towards the Muslims world - led by the USA - was based primarily on the war on terror.

After 9/11 billions of dollars were poured into fighting Islamist terrorism in different contexts from Afghanistan to Pakistan and Iraq.

With the advent of the Arab Spring the situation changed.

Political movements that were once defined as ‘fundamentalists’, ‘fanatical’ etc, changed labels, suddenly becoming champions of moderate Islam as in the case of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.

Political Islam is no longer a threat but a potential ally in a regional war aiming at countering the influence of Russia, China and Iran in the Middle East.

Ordinary people in Europe might ask why they should be concerned about what is happening in a geographical

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area so far away and with a culture and religion so different to their own. But this is exactly the point. Europe and Italy in particular, have seen the arrivals of large numbers of migrants during the last few decades, many of whom hold radical ideologies with a declared objective to undermine European culture.

Many cases have arisen to demonstrate this point. One is of Jojoen, a young Belgian man converted to radical Islam who went to fight his holy war against the Syrian government (evidently guilty of being too secular, Alawite and therefore heretical, according to the standard of the young convert).

The story goes that last May, Jojoen’s father Dimitri Bontinck, a 38 year old ex-military man, left Antwerp in search of his 18 year-old son who had disappeared in the mists of the Syrian conflict. At the age of 15 Jojoen had met a Moroccan girl with whom he had shared a few joints and who had introduced him to a mosque. In that

mosque Jojoen came under the sway of a group of radical fundamentalists.

“From that day we saw him changing under our eyes”, recalled Dimitri.

When an Italian journalist asked the father how his son managed to reach Syria he replied, “He told me that he wanted to study Islam and Arabic in Egypt. Silly me I gave him the money.

In March I heard of a young man who had gone to fight in Syria.

Suddenly a thought came to my mind.

I searched all the photos of foreigners who have joined the Syrian rebels on the internet until I found him.”

Recently Italy also discovered that it was the country of origin of another Islamist radical gone to fight against the Syrian army.

Giouliano Delnevo died in Syria in early June, probably at the hands of Syrian government forces.

According to some, Giuliano was a regular visitor to internet forums related to Islamist extremism. It is worrying that

the leading organisation of Muslims in Italy, the UCOII, refers to him as ‘fallen’.

While the judiciary is investigating the case, Italian sites report that 24 year-old Delnevo was also a recruiter.

Delveno allegedly managed to recruit three Moroccans and another Italian who was himself a convert to Islam. It is reported that Delnevo would recruit people by preaching on an internet blog.

Events such as these are not unusual but what is worth noting is the different political responses that they generate.

In the past when news like this has emerged, particularly in Italy, many political parties would start a heavy indiscriminate media campaign of defamation against all Muslims as if they are all adherents to fanatical, radical and intolerant Islam.

Today things are different; there is a heavy silence not only in Italy but the rest of Europe on the support that these ‘Islamic’ extremists are receiving from Europe and other regional states. Why

is this? The answer lies in Washington.

The US has changed its approach to the Islamic world, attempting to create a heterogeneous synergy to combat the “threat” of Russia, China and Iran, in the same as they did in the 80’s against the Soviet Union.

In this mission, radical Islam, identified as the author of 9/11 attacks, appears to be an ideal ally, because of its fanaticism, radicalism and anti-Shiism. Just examining the forums and blogs of these fundamentalists shows what they think of Muslims who do not conform to their narrow visions of Islam.

As the US has changed its strategy in the Middle East, its European allies including Italy have had to adapt to the shift.

Before they used to condemn all Muslims for the actions of a few fanatics; now the actions of the same fanatics are overlooked not to upset the alliance between these ‘new goodies’ and Uncle Sam. These groups claim to be revolutionary, fighting injustice, dictator-

ships, foreign invaders, but in many cases they are themselves financed and controlled by the foreigners.

If we look at their conduct and readiness to kill people of other faiths and destroy their places of worship, even their Islamic credentials are called into question.

Practically the USA supports these entities keeping them more or less active to prevent the rise in the Islamic world of authentic independent reform movements that are nation builders and have the interests of the local population at heart. •

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Cover

Progressing out of ‘Humanity’ Humankind has made staggering technological advances in recent centuries but they seem to have contributed little to improving the human condition, believes M Haghir

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I

f a dead person from the sixteenth century came back to life they might not realise that they had returned to the same planet. This is because, ever since the Renaissance in Western Europe, human beings have changed the face of the earth and the conduct of human life upon it. These changes have impacted, in fundamental and irreversible ways, our understanding of what it means to be human.

From around the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, events in Western Europe the maritime discovery of new lands, the Reformation, and especially the beginnings of modern science and the scientific method - contributed to a new perception of humankind.

The discovery of new lands allowed access to all of the world’s resources, human as well as material. The process of the Reformation entailed a break from the chains of the Middle Ages and the advent of what is generally known as the European Enlightenment in the seventeenth century. Finally, the idea of science meant that human beings could both understand and conquer their natural environment in such a systematic way that the resultant knowledge could be safely trusted. The collective influence of these phenomena on human thinking and imagination gave rise to the spirit of what was later called the Age of Progress. This was so because most people of that age, major thinkers, artists, industrialists, monarchs, politicians, the military, landowners, artisans, and even some clergymen, all adhered to the philosophy of progress.

So, what is progress? Simply put, we can say that science forms the backbone of the modern idea of progress. Following Copernicus and Galileo, Francis Bacon (1561-1621) propagated the modern idea that, through the use of the scientific method, human beings could put their theories of the natural world to the test and thereby produce knowledge (see islam today, March 2013).

Cartesian philosophy further enhanced this approach when Descartes (15961650) highlighted the trust we could reasonably put into the certainty and

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irrefutability of our human knowledge.

Thus, the idea that there is nothing in the natural world about which we cannot theorise, and then test, was born. Through the acquisition of scientific knowledge, it was thought we could continuously improve the material condition of our existence. Newton’s (1642-1727) physics sealed this notion of science as the engine of progress.

The French conception of progress followed the same spirit to the extent that August Comte (1798-1857) founded sociology (see islam today, May 2013) as the science of society. In Germany, the likes of Kant and Hegel applied the idea of progress to history itself, and posited a future universal history of mankind which would occur through progress based on scientific laws. This progress would lead humanity to its golden age.

With the scientific approach, our future would be continuously better than our past. This was an unstoppable, unidirectional march towards a more complete human society.

There are not many who would disagree with the basic tenets and future outlook at the root of the idea of progress. It would be safe to assume that all humanity desires a better future. To this extent we ought to do our best to imagine and implement progressive ideas and activities that would better ourselves and all others.

However, there appears to be an anomaly in the outcome of the idea of progress and the very humanity that we all also claim. This is a point not hidden from early articulators of the idea. Indeed, Bacon himself ‘…did not believe in social progress as such…’.

Our global society, (a good example of an outcome of Enlightenment philosophy), though undoubtedly progressive in some ways, holds great dangers that must be addressed if we are to avoid the seesaw effect whereby the more we progress technologically, the lower our humanity falls.

One look at current wars and poverty, and the politics that drive them, is enough to know that humanity itself is in dire need of holistic development.

Ironically, it is progress in technology that has ‘contributed’ greatly to war and destruction. We could say then, that the philosophy of progress, as propounded by its European fathers, is an idealised philosophy that bears only a selective relation to present reality.

Given our recognition and acceptance of the philosophy of progress, we can highlight some of its significant failures, at least in regards to substantial aspects of our humanity, by asking a series of questions: 1. Why is it that now, at the start of the twenty-first century and some five hundred years after the seeds of the idea of human progress were sown in Western Europe, continuous, costly, and pointless wars continue to be waged and unimaginable poverty sits beside unimaginable wealth?

2. Why is the Western military industrial complex pouring untold billions into research and development for the creation of the latest, most sophisticated, efficient, and destructive weaponry?

3. Why, where, how, and by whom, are these destructive forces used?

4. Who benefits when there is war and hunger?

5. What would happen to the world if a fraction of the money and resources dedicated to the creation of destruction were used to lift the poor out of poverty?

6. What would happen to the world if another fraction of the money spent on ‘creative destruction’ was used to provide honest, useful education to people, in the West as well as elsewhere?

9. If the history of progress is universal, why is it that five centuries after its inception only western societies and their allies have (partially) progressed at the cost of a reduction of with others’ humanity?

There are many more similar questions that could be posed in the same spirit.

The point is not to extract any particular answers at first, but to provoke more questions and then to highlight the fact that despite early formulations of the philosophy of progress and its future predictions for a golden human existence, this philosophy, as we stand, has failed massively in some areas whilst its successes (mainly scientific, e.g. in information technology and biogenetics) are increasingly difficult to handle. Take for example, the latest secrets revealed by Edward Snowden. The USA has more information collection and storage capacity than it knows what to do with and arbitrarily attempts to collect data about people and organisations around the entire world.. This is not a new phenomenon. As Albrecht and McIntyre (Spychips 2003) have shown, the US’s capacity for data collection far exceeds the numbers of every object, including human beings, on earth. To what end?

Does it make anyone of us a better person? And can we really interpret the erosion of our freedoms as progress?

Perhaps we have arrived at a point in history when it is necessary for us to interpret progress in terms other than an overall emphasis on scientific and technological development. Perhaps we had better relegate science and technology to their original positions as tools - and use them to develop our diminishing humanity. •

7. What kind of a world would we have if everyone had decent shelter and clothing?

8. Why are financial considerations (in a capitalist system that portrays itself as the best economic system suited to human progress) allowed to determine decisions on where and with whom there should be war, or who is rewarded and who is punished?

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Faith

The

Pursuit of

Happiness Alexander Khaleeli explores the concept of happiness in our modern, commercially-driven societies and asks if there is not something more basic and obvious we all seem to be missing

40

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If someone was to ask us what we want from life how would we answer? Write a best-selling novel, become famous perhaps, or maybe even establish world peace.

But look beyond the initial contextual limitations and reply ‘why’ enough times and you will discover that they all come down to one single reason: ‘Because I want to be happy.’

Happiness is the destination–conscious or otherwise – of as many journeys as there are answers to the question I just asked. We want things, whatever they may be, because on some level we believe that those things will make us happy: inner peace, heroin, a puppy - happiness is universally desired. If someone could just figure out how to distil the stuff and bottle it, he would be an instant billionaire.

The problem, of course, is that the things we want do not always make us happy. We can and – with shocking frequency – do miss the mark and end up disappointed, failing to comprehend why the cherished object of our heart’s desire for the last 10 years (or thirty seconds) has not fulfilled our expectations. Or have we been looking in the wrong place altogether? Perhaps the root of the problem is that we have failed to ask the most important question of all: What is happiness and is there a particular way of attaining it?

I am sure most of us would agree that our material wellbeing has a role to play here. It is, after all, hard to be happy if you are cold, unprotected and starving (unless you happen to be one of those rare ascetic types that thrive on being in a state of wilful and abject poverty). But

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are material possessions the best guarantor of leading a fulfilled life? Walk down the street, turn on the television or ride a bus almost anywhere in the world today and you could be forgiven for believing it so: The Future’s Bright, Have It Your Way, Just Do It. From every direction our senses are assailed by advertisements and slogans promising us that our life will be much improved if we just buy this one must-have product. We know that a smartphone, hamburger or pair of trainers are not really going to change our lives, but perhaps, on a more subtle level, we do believe that material wealth and the opportunities it brings can make us happy; a good job, a nice home, a better future for our children – what could be wrong with that?

The rags-to-riches film, The Pursuit of Happiness, exemplifies this ideal. Will Smith plays a single-dad who struggles to make ends meet and guarantee a better future for himself and his son.

The story’s happy ending comes when Smith, through determination and hard-work, wins a coveted full-time position at a stockbroking firm. Aside from an improvement in his material status, Smith’s character remains fundamentally unchanged throughout the film; any positive personal qualities that made this transition possible were already shown to be there at its outset. So the “happiness” of the film’s title is conceived of in almost exclusively material terms. The antithesis of this success-driven fairy tale is Arthur Miller’s classic play, Death of a Salesman. Here, we see Willy Loman, the eponymous salesman, who is no less determined or hard-working than

the character Smith plays, driven to exhaustion, madness and, finally, death in an effort to secure a better future for his own children. But the real tragedy of the play is that while Miller wrote it more than half a century ago, we have yet to heed its wisdom.

Psychological studies have shown that beyond having enough money to comfortably afford food, clothing and shelter, wealth contributes very little to a person’s actual happiness. It should come as no surprise then that a study conducted in 2011 showed that depression was most prevalent in countries that were either very wealthy or had very high levels of income inequality; places where most people either enjoy substantial material wealth or are most aware of their lack of it. In an ironic twist to The Pursuit of Happiness, it seems that depression is a disease that afflicts the affluent.

The root of this problem is that, aside from the logic of continuous material accumulation, liberal capitalism has very little in the way of concrete advice for us; it is the irresponsible parent that lets its children learn – by trial and error – what is good for them. Essentially speaking, we are free to pursue happiness however we want as long as we do not interfere with other people’s freedom to do likewise. Capitalism maintains a mercantile agnosticism about the specific ways in which its consumers choose to seek fulfilment in life. An archetypal capitalist thinks only in terms of profit; by not endorsing any one view of human happiness but maximising “consumer choice”, he maximises his opportunities to “sell” you whatever goods or services you

think will make you happy. Our ideal of happiness is only real to him insofar as it can be commodified and sold back to us, not insofar as any of the beliefs it entails are actually true. This is commodity realism.

A classic example of this is the self-help industry. Despite the complete lack of scientific evidence of its efficacy, it has grown into a multi-billion dollar global enterprise. It is perhaps the closest thing we have to happiness distilled and bottled for our consumption, or so its gurus would have us believe. We buy their books, films and seminars to be told that we can be happy if only we want it badly enough. A combination of feel-good stories, magical thinking and fetishised eastern philosophies promise to answer all existential questions. But behind all of this is still the unspoken assumption that you can buy happiness as a sort of commodity. Self-help and the pseudo-philosophies that go with it are to happiness what fast-food is to hunger; a quick and convenient fix for sure, but one that is ultimately lacking in substance – do you want to supersize that inner-peace?

Islam, on the other hand, has some very clear ideas about what human happiness entails and it does not think we should waste our time with anything less than the truth unlike capitalism which, by implication, denies the existence of anything beyond the material world.

Islam sees Man’s material existence in the context of his ultimate origin and destination. And if Man’s life in this world is not isolated from what comes after it, neither, then, is the question of his ultimate happiness.

The Qur’an uses many words to signify

happiness. Two of the most common are farah (exultation) and istibshar (rejoicing). In almost all instances they are experienced in response to some external factor. Sometimes they are used in the context of the martyrs exulting in God’s rewards (3:170-171) or the faithful at God’s help (30:4-5), but more often they are used to denote a temporary and misplaced sense of happiness, which reflect the material happiness promoted in our modern societies; fickle, fleeting and ultimately unsatisfying.

Compare these to the word sa’adah. (felicity) which appears in only one place of the Qur’an: ‘The day it comes, no one shall speak except by His leave; some of them will be wretched and [some] felicitous… As for the felicitous, they will be in paradise.’ (11:105, 109) Sa’adah here represents the enduring happiness of the hereafter, and the verse implies that the wretched (shaqi) and the felicitous (sa’id) are already wretched and felicitous before arriving in their respective abodes of Hell and Heaven. They do not rely on external stimuli, but emanate from within the very core of a person’s own being. It is only fitting that while the relative happiness of farah and istibshar appears frequently and in various contexts, the genuine but elusive happiness of sa’adah appears only once throughout the entire Qur’an.

This does not mean that Islam promises us happiness in the hereafter at the expense of happiness in this world; the classical Islamic theologians have said that God revealed the Shari’ah to guarantee us happiness in this world and in the hereafter. Not only does Islam allow

us ample opportunities to enjoy the bounties of this world – (2:172) – but it also helps us to have the correct attitude towards worldly success: (13:26) More importantly, Islam also provides us with a way of life that is in accordance with our innate human nature (fitrah). In other words, practising Islam should make us happy because it represents the natural and healthy state of human life: (9:111) So whereas Capitalism leaves the ultimate question of human happiness open, Islam offers a single clear answer.

But far from limiting us, we can find a surprising clarity and freedom once we have our priorities straight. Whereas modern societies seem desperate for us to be in a perpetually happy “mood”, Islam recognises that happiness is something much more deeply rooted in our souls and that there is more to life than whatever is going on right now and whatever goals we might have in our mind at this point of time. Yes, it is not only OK but healthy and necessary to want things, so long as we keep in mind our ultimate purpose and value these things in relation to it. Our success and happiness in this world derives not from the contents of our homes, but the contents of our hearts; we are happy because we are living a good life in accordance with God’s will.

And while we may often find that the things we want in this world disappoint us, God never will. • Alexander Khaleeli is a researcher and student in the Hawza ‘Ilmiyyah of Qum. He earned his BA and MA at the Islamic College in London.

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Euthanasia Examined

The issue of euthanasia or ‘mercy killing’ continues to divide opinion across the world but Islam is clear about its impermissibility, says Hamid Waqar

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ometimes for terminally ill patients, as well as their families and friends, with no apparent medical hope for survival, putting an end to their misery seems to be the only remaining option.

Euthanasia has no doubt occurred to many who are desperately ill.

Recent years have seen pro-euthanasia campaigns gather pace in the west and more and more governments are confronting demands to legalise assisted suicide.

Euthanasia bills were defeated in the Canadian Parliament, South Australia, and the Scottish Parliament in 2010.

The following year saw a landmark ruling in a case brought before the European Court of Human Rights.

Ernst Haas, a 57-year-old man suffering from bipolar disease, sued the Swiss government for failing to provide him with lethal drugs with which to kill himself. He argued that this violated his right to privacy. The court ruled that the right to die was included in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, but the obligation for states to ensure the protection of the right to life

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under Article 2 was stronger.

This ruling was welcomed by anti-euthanasia organisations. Peter Saunders, CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, said: “In a democratic society there are limits to human autonomy. The law is there to primarily to protect vulnerable people and public safety will always trump the demands of determined individuals backed by pressure groups who want to undermine existing laws.”

Currently euthanasia is legal in many European countries. In the Netherlands euthanasia has been legal since 2001. The legalisation of this practice constitutes one of the most fatal slippery slopes of all time. Euthanasia started with the terminally ill, and then expanded to cover the chronically ill.

The practice eventually allowed the assisted suicide of patients with serious disabilities and the mentally ill. Today Dutch doctors also terminate infants who are born with serious disabilities or terminal illnesses. The Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) wants to take euthanasia yet further and include those who fall under the category of “unbearable suffering,” which would

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take in non-medical issues, such as poverty and loneliness.

In the Netherlands’ southern neighbour, Belgium, euthanasia has been legal since 2002. Today euthanasia here is coupled with organ harvesting, raising the prospect that the decision to terminate may be motivated, at least partially, by considerations that are not solely confined to the suffering of the patient or indeed his prospects of improvement. Euthanasia patients are told that by terminating their lives they will be saving or improving the lives of others. Doctors in Belgium have also started the practice of performing joint euthanasia of elderly couples: a spouse who is terminally ill is euthanised with her partner who is not terminally ill but who does not want to live without his/ her other half.

Euthanasia stems from the Greek word euthanatos, which in turn is derived from ‘eu’ and ‘thanatos’ meaning good and death. Therefore, the literal definition of euthanasia is an ‘easy and good death’.

Euthanasia is performed medically in three different ways. In the first method an overdose of barbiturates or other lethal injections is administered to the patient, which eventually leads to the termination of life. Another way is to withhold life-prolonging treatment with the aim of hastening the patient’s death.

The third method relies on administering large doses of opioids, thus dramatically increasing the probability of death, with no apparent intention of causing the patient’s immediate death.

Euthanasia is also categorised into active and passive types. Active euthanasia is a deliberate act undertaken by the attending physician to cause the death of a patient, with or without his consent – what is referred to by its proponents as “assisted suicide”.

The first and third methods described above would fall under this category.

Islam strongly opposes this type of euthanasia, regardless of whether it is the patient’s desire or not.

The Qur’an states: “Do not kill a soul [whose life] God has made inviolable,

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except with due cause.” (17:33). Active euthanasia has not been presented through traditions as being a “due cause.” An example of a due cause would be cases of capital punishment.

The Islamic Code of Medical Ethics endorsed by the First International Conference on Islamic Medicine concluded: “Mercy killing, like suicide, finds no support except in the atheistic way of thinking that believes that our life on this earth is followed by void.

The claim of killing for painful hopeless illness is also refuted, for there is no human pain that cannot be largely conquered by medication or by suitable neurosurgery...”

Addressing this issue, Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei has said: “Murder is not permissible in any case and one would have to pay blood money [if he performed this form of euthanasia].”

The Qur’an clearly denies granting the choice of taking one’s own life and committing suicide. It states: “And do not kill yourselves. Indeed God is most merciful to you.” (4:29) Hence, life is sacred and the physician is not given the permission to actively terminate his patient’s life, even if the patient requests it.

The following tradition found in the collection of al-Bukhari is narrated from the Prophet Muhammad(s): “Amongst the nations before you there was a man who got a wound and growing impatient [with its pain], he took a knife and cut his hand with it and the blood did not stop till he died. God said, ‘“My slave hurried to bring death upon himself so I have forbidden him [to enter] Paradise’.” This tradition illustrates the extent to which Islam is opposed to suicide, whether self-inflicted or assisted.

The second type of euthanasia is passive euthanasia. This is defined as an omission on the part of the attending physician to resuscitate the terminally ill, which results in the death of the patient.

Islam may allow this type of euthanasia to take place under strict conditions.

These are mentioned by the Islamic

Medical Association of America (IMANA): “When death becomes inevitable, as determined by physicians taking care of terminally ill patients, the patient should be allowed to die without unnecessary procedures.” Unnecessary procedures can also be interpreted as ceasing any further actions prolonging the patient’s life. The physician does not administer lethal medication; rather he withholds medication or surgery which might prolong the patient’s life.

Regarding this type of euthanasia Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei has stated: “It is not obligatory to keep the dying person alive or delay his death, [the passive method]. But, any action that would cause death would not be permissible, [the active methods].”

The Fiqh Council of North America has a similar opinion. “Islam considers human life sacred. Life is to be protected and promoted as much as possible. …. there is no provision in Islam for killing a person to reduce his pain or suffering from sickness. It is the duty of the doctors, patient’s relatives and the state to take care of the sick and to do their best to reduce the pain and suffering of the sick, but they are not allowed under any circumstances to kill the ill person”.

“If, however, a number of medical experts determine that a patient is in a terminal condition and there is no hope for h/her recovery, then it could be permissible for them to stop the medication.”

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In conclusion, as with many other contemporary ethical issues in the world, euthanasia cannot be seen as a black and white or right and wrong matter. But what is clear from Islamic sources is active euthanasia is not permitted. Human life is sacred and terminating it is the prerogative of God alone. •

Subscribe online:

http://www/islam-today.net/subscribe.asp Hamid Waqar is an American revert scholar, graduated from Islamic seminaries

For subscriptions by post, send a cheque payable to the Islamic Centre of England Write ‘islam today magazine’ on the back.

Please note that the above fees are for the UK only and include postage.

For subscriptions outside the UK please write to: subscriptions@islam-today.net

47

Interfaith

Man of Steel.....

and LOVE The idea of a superman goes as far back as the Greek philosophers.

Whatever one might think of his modern silver screen manifestation, the aims of the evil-fighting superhero do find parallels in Christian spirituality, says Frank Gelli

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justice. His cataclysmic clashes with General Zod, the criminal Kryptonian who had been exiled into the phantom zone by Jor-El, our superhero’s father, do perhaps look apocalyptically predictable after a bit but...this is what that kind of cinema audiences expect. The dastardly villain had initially sought to stage a military coup on Krypton (sounds topical...). Humble Planet Earth is a second best. However Zod does not even wish to rule us earthlings but to exterminate all and replace us with his own kind. Grim prospect but fear not: at last, Zod gets his comeuppance and the world is saved. Happy ending.

with his formidable dialectics demonstrate how the idea is nonsense.

Nietzsche, as everybody knows, tried to revive the superman after a more imaginative and professorial manner. Since National Socialism took it up the concept of a superior human being who lords it over his fellow creatures has definitely been out of fashion. That is, until American comics and Hollywood turned it around and gave it a new lease of life.

‘Unhappy is the land that needs heroes’ wrote Bertold Brecht. He meant of course real, actual heroes, not fictional characters. What would he say about fictive superheroes, supermen, I wonder? A sign of malaise, alienation or...simply a harmless expression of boyish wish-fulfilment? Or both, maybe?

In Western thought you first encounter the figure of the superman in one of Plato’s dialogues, Gorgias. His doctrine in a nutshell is that might is right and that the superman is the mightiest man of all. Brutally simple. Plato has Socrates

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Man of Steel, the latest Superman movie, is both fun and reasonably intelligent. Superhuman capers apart, the superhero does not lack depth. A troubled young man in search of his identity is a pretty universal trope. Expelled in a rocket from his exploding planetary home, Krypton, the child Kal-El is fortunate enough to be fostered by loving parents on earth. Yet, as he grows up, the existential question ‘Who am I?’ cannot be evaded, especially by a being who knows he can turn a lump of coal into a diamond just by compressing it in his hand.

Make no mistake about it, this is a superman utterly devoted to goodness and

Umberto Eco, the prolific Italian semiologist, has compared Superman to the mythic Greek hero Hercules. However, as son of the god Zeus and of a human mother, Hercules’ semi-divine qualities place him in a category apart. Kal-El is not divine in origins – US culture would not stand for that. Further, although much admired by the Greeks, Hercules differs from our Superman in a crucial respect: he kills. No one in the ancient world would have perceived that as problematical – how can you defeat the forces of evil unless you are prepared to shed blood? Moreover, Greek gods were never morally perfect – indeed, they shared many of the flaws and vices of human beings. This Yankee-adopted goody-goody defies that principle.

Superman kills no one. This is surely a bit paradoxical for a culture in which guns are legally available and where violence between classes, races and people has been endemic since its beginning. The intent is probably educational but, again, for a nation endlessly involved in wars of aggression and in world domination, well...a tad hypocritical?

Critics have sometimes asked the embarrassing question: why does Superman display his superhuman powers in altruistic feats such as saving a child from a car crash or apprehending a couple of burglars while glibly ignoring weightier matters such as world injustice, poverty and hunger?

John Byrne has observed how the city

of Metropolis, in which Superman operates under the disguise of timid Clark Kent, while not being quite a utopia, does not seem to offer any glimpse of the black ghettoes, the wretched, the excluded and the marginalised who are so glaringly ubiquitous even in happy America’s capital, Washington DC. Metropolis is indeed a nevernever land, without corruption, graft and racism. As hard to believe as the actual existence of Superman, I think.

Why has there not been a black or brown superman, I occasionally wonder? Until now blacks in superheroes movies have been mere tokenism, like Laurence Fishburne playing editor Perry White in Man of Steel. Will Smith apparently once was offered the coveted role of Superman but he refused it. Did he fear prejudice might have scuppered the movie? If so, a pity. There is really no reason why the superhero could not belong to an ethnic minority. After all the white percentage of the US population is fast decreasing. Soon America’s majority face will no longer be pale but rainbow-coloured. An ethnic superman would simply reflect that changed, more realistic, reality.

Luthors are impeccably all-white American chaps. It is something...

Naturally, imaginary baddies are forever doomed to frustration and defeat but in the Superman comics you do occasionally get a real shock: evil triumphs!

Unbelievable but true. I possess a book, The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told, in which Luthor, the arch-fiend, actually manages to murder the superhero he so insanely hates. The plot: it seems at first that Luthor has changed his heart. He forsakes his crime career and devotes himself to selfless scientific research to aid humanity. But it is a fake, a trap. Luthor had only pretended.

His guard down, the not so super-clever Superman is lured into an ambush.

Weakened by kryptonite and strapped to a couch, the man of steel is gradually and...gulp... painfully terminated by the grinning, exulting criminal. The only consolation is that afterwards Supergirl apprehends Luthor. He is then tried, sentenced and banished to the phantom zone for all eternity. A kind of justice, I suppose. And the story ends with the proviso that it was only that, a story. Superman is not really dead, we are told: he will return. Good news!

To be fair, in one important respect Superman’s demonology compares positively with another iconic fictional hero. Not technically superhuman, granted, but pretty super-special anyhow. I mean the celebrated British spy, James Bond. The films have been somewhat sanitised but reading the Bond novels, authored by Ian Fleming, is an eye-opener. Racism and xenophobia rule OK. This again is something Umberto Eco drew the reader’s attention to in The Bond File. All of 007’s enemies are foreigners. They belong to races and peoples hated or disliked by the British. Dr No is Eurasian; Mr Big is black; Blofeld is Greek-Polish; Emilio Largo is Italian; Le Chiffre French; Hugo Drax is German; Scaramanga a Latino; Red Grant Irish; Rosa Klebb is Russian; Goldfinger possibly Jewish...and so on.

By contrast, Superman’s enemies have the good taste of avoiding such blatant stereotypes – at least Gene Hackman and Kevin Spacey’s diabolical Lex

To me as a priest this unlikely story suggests, however remotely, an affinity with the Christian sacred narrative.

The Gospels too tell of the apparent defeat of Jesus by the forces of darkness and evil on Mount Golgotha, outside Jerusalem. Satan through Judas has cunningly brought about the arrest and the execution of the Messiah on the Cross and so he feels cock-a-hoop at his victory. Three days later, however, with the empty tomb the resurrection shows how Satan was deluded. It is him who has fallen into God’s trap, not the Christ. A bracing, wholesome moral.

Not evil but goodness and love have the last word. • Revd Frank Julian Gelli is an Anglican priest, cultural critic and a religious controversialist, working on religious dialogue. His last book “Julius Evola: the Sufi of Rome’ is available on Amazon Kindle.

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Health

Computer Syndrome

Medical Editor Laleh Lohrasbi

Our lifestyle demands that we spend long hours sitting at the computer. This prolonged use can have negative consequences on our health. While doing away with computers is impossible Laleh Lohrasbi gives us some guidelines on how to minimise the dangers they pose to our health

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amaged eyesight, bad posture, arthritis in fingers, stress injuries caused by sitting in one position for a long period, even diabetes, increased risk of heart diseases and high cholesterol levels are just a few gifts of modern life’s most precious commodity - the computer.

It is estimated that at least 75% of all jobs involve some level of computer use; this means three-quarters of the workforce are being exposed to numerous health problems. The same can be said about students and educators who simply cannot do without access to a computer for their work.

This ratio is expected to increase in the years to come, highlighting the crucial need for accurate and comprehensive guidelines to reduce computer related health problems.

While some issues such as high cholesterol level and diabetes take years to manifest themselves, others such as back and neck pain are the first visible problems caused by bad posture and long periods sitting at the desk. How to sit is a very important consideration, especially for those who spend more than six hours a day in front of computers or

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even just sitting on the sofa at home.

Although subconsciously we are aware of the fact that to avoid back pain one must sit upright, we tend to forget and start to hunch after a few hours. An appropriate ergonomic position should be assumed while sitting. The correct ergonomics for sitting at the desk are: • Back of the chair should be adjusted so that the upper body is relaxed and supported.

• The lower back should be supported with the chair as well. If needed a small cushion can be used for extra support.

• The seat height should be adjusted in a way that forearms are horizontal and wrists are straight when hands are placed on the keyboard. Shoulders should be relaxed and the underside of the elbow should be at desk height.

• Some support should be placed under the thighs if there is pressure on the back of the thighs.

• Feet should not hang down. Either the height of the chair and desk should be adjusted or feet should be rested on something.

• There should be enough space under the desk for the legs to be placed freely underneath without twisting or leaning.

• If a chair has armrests it should be positioned at elbow height with the shoulders relaxed. If they are too high they will push up the shoulders creating neck tension. If they are too low you are liable to lean over to one side to rest on one which can cause extra back strain.

• The screen should be at arm’s length and at eye level in front of the user. If using laptops for a long period of time, use a separate keyboard so that you can put the laptop on a stand at eye level.

• If you intend to read paper documents at the same time then use a document holder to raise documents to a comfortable height and viewing distance.

• It is important to organise the desk in such a manner that everything you need such as phones and stationary are at hand.

• Light reflections or glares are the most harmful factors for the eyes so the screen should be adjusted in a way that minimises reflection. Lights directly in front or behind the screen should be

avoided and if the screen cannot be adjusted in an angle to minimise reflection, then window blinds or curtains should be used to cut out the light.

Adjusting the contrast and brightness of the display is useful too.

hand in the small of the back and gently bend backward, then interlock the fingers away from body and lift them up so the palms face the ceiling. Then curl the fingertips into the palm keeping the elbow straight and passively bend the

• Keeping screens clean decreases the chance of eye defects.

Even if sitting in a good position, regular stretching is still essential to avoid cramps and spasms. A few minutes’ break to do some simple stretching to move joints, stretch the muscles and nerves, stimulate the circulation, lubricate the joints and relieve muscle and nerve tightness, is essential There are some exercises you can perform while sitting such as stretching the head from side to side, breathing in and pulling in the chin to make a double chin for 5 seconds and then relaxing it, stretching the arms back behind the head.

For other exercises it is better to stand up and stretch. Place the palms of the

wrist with the opposite hand so that the palm side of that hand moves towards the inside of the forearm. This is a good exercise for arms, hands and shoulders.

Remember, doing one or two stretches

every 20 minutes is better at relieving fatigue than doing long exercises. Try to get into good habits before the aching starts. Neck, shoulder and back problems gradually build up over time.

It may be strange but it is true that sitting for long hours can dramatically change many of the physiological functions of the body too. Sitting down slows down the rate of calorie burning to a third of what is burnt if walking which reduces the glucose uptake due to insulin by 40 percent and can lead to Type2 Diabetes.

Sitting for more than 6 hours a day increases blood cholesterol (LDL), triglycerides and insulin resistance and if continued for one year will result in loss of 1% of the bone mass. If a person has the same office work for a life time, he or she will have the risk of heart disease increased by up to 64 per cent and will shave off seven years of quality life. The good news is that regular breaks and stretching exercises can keep almost all of the above problems at bay. •

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Cervical Cancer easy to spread, easy to prevent Gynaecologic cancer mainly refers to five common types of cancer which may affect women’s reproductive organs:

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cervical, ovarian, uterine, vaginal, and vulvar. Each gynaecologic cancer is unique, with different signs, symptoms,

risk factors and different prevention strategies. Gynaecological malignancies account for 9% of all female

cancers worldwide. Cervical cancer is the leading gynaecological cancer, representing 4% of all female cancers.

Cervical cancer is the most common cancer in women under 35, and is the second largest cancer killer of women in low and middle-income countries, with a mortality rate of 52%. Cervical cancer is a disease in which malignant (cancer) cells form in the tissues of the cervix (the lower, narrow end of the uterus). Cancer begins with the change in the structure of the cell’s DNA molecule which provides all the instructions for a cell to grow and multiply. DNA change, which is called mutation, may alter the instruction of cell growth. This means that the cells continue growing instead of stopping when they should and produce a tumour. Almost 3,400 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer in the UK each year and it is responsible for 275,000 deaths every year worldwide.

Cervical cancer usually develops very slowly and begins with cell changes known as dysplasia which may later turn into cancerous cells. These cancerous cells may go deep into the cervix tissue or may spread to surrounding tissues.

The most common risk factor for developing cervix cancer is previous HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) infection. There are at least 100 types of HPV from which 40 types are passed through sexual intimacy. HPV is the major cause of two main types of cervix cancers (squamous cell cancer and adenocarcinoma) and throat cancer.

Most sexually active women and men are exposed to at least one type of HPV during their lifetime. Some types of HPV cause genital warts, while some do not have any symptoms and go away without causing harm. Between all the HPV types, there are 15 high risk types which bring persistent infections with them, increasing the risk of developing pre-cancerous cervical cells. These HPVs contain genetic material that can be passed into the cells of the cervix and make DNA mutations.

Men may also be infected by the same types of the virus. The HPV infection in men may also appear in the form of genital warts or may have no symptoms

at all. The important point is that men are the carriers of this virus and will pass it on. A comprehensive study on cancer in India has shown that areas such as Jammu and Kashmir and Assam, whose population is up to 75 per cent Muslim, have “less than a quarter of the national rates of cervical cancer.

This study showed that Muslim women had a notably lower risk of cervical and oral cancer. The study suggests that circumcision among Muslim men is the most likely cause of lower rate of cervical cancer among Muslim women.

The reason that the HPV infection is very common but cervical cancer is relatively uncommon is that only a very small proportion of women are vulnerable to the effects caused by HPV infection and it seems that other risk factors are also involved in developing cervical cancer.

These include: • Smoking. Chemicals found in tobacco have harmful effects on the cervix cells and double the risk of developing cervical cancer • Having a weakened immune system.

This may happen due to use of some certain medications like immunosuppressive drugs or from being affected by diseases such as AIDS. • Taking oral contraceptive pills for more than 5 years. Long term use of oral contraceptives increases the chance of developing cervical cancer twofold.

• Having children at a very young age. It seems hormonal changes during pregnancy make the cervix more vulnerable to the effects of HPV. • Multiple pregnancies. The reasons are unknown but women who have two children are twice more likely to develop cervical cancer than women who have just one child.

Human Papilloma Virus infection may or may not show any symptoms.

However the virus stays in the genital area and may cause abnormal cells.

This process may take long and even the abnormal cells and cancerous cells may not show any symptoms before reaching an advanced stage. Cervix cancer may

present in the form of vaginal bleeding and pain in or around the vagina.

Cervical cancer can be diagnosed by a routine cervical screening through a PAP smear or liquid based cytology testing.

Cervical screening is very important because by diagnosing the abnormal cells early on, cervical cancer can be stopped in its tracks. Cervical screening is a process in which a sample of cells from the surface of the cervix is taken to be examined for any abnormal cells.

It typically takes 10-15 years for a normal cell to become abnormal due to HPV so the cervical screening is a must. In the UK, women between the ages of 25-60 are called every 3-5 years to undertake the test.

Currently there is a vaccine which can prevent the two strains of HPV (HPV-16 and HPV-18) that are thought to be responsible for 70% cases of cervical cancer. Gardasil vaccine can also protect against HPV-6 and HPV-11, the two strains of HPV that cause most cases of genital warts.

It is important that young adults are vaccinated at an early age so that the vaccine can be effective. In the UK, due to an increase in teenage sexual activity, this vaccine is currently administrated to girls and boys as young as 11 and 12.

Women in all parts of the world are at risk of gynaecological cancers, but this risk is exacerbated in areas of the world where access to prevention and treatment is low. Over 80% of cervical cancer cases occurring in the developing world are not due to cultural trends but due to lack of regular pap smears and other interventions.

This year, September has been designated Gynaecological Awareness Month with the aim of increasing awareness of the five major gynaecological cancers and encouraging more screenings, earlier detection and increased support for gynaecological cancer research. • Dr Laleh Lohrasbi is a pharmacologist. She has worked as an editor for the medical section of “Hamshahri”, a daily newspaper in Tehran.

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Science

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Fact or Fiction?

ou may have heard the soundbite that 97% of scientists accept the current scientific consensus on climate change and global warming. But as we sweltered in the UK’s recent heat wave and hear experts warn of hotter summers year upon year, we may have wondered what it is that gives climate change sceptics the confidence to try and buck the mainstream consensus.

consensus on global warming. Disputes over key scientific facts are ever more prevalent in the popular media too, with celebrities weighing into the debate; Al Gore, the former U.S. VicePresident, is a famous climate change campaigner. Prince Charles is another.

In May 2013 the heir to the UK throne criticised climate change deniers as well as corporate lobbyists, likening the earth to a dying patient.

The received wisdom on global warming is that the warming of the earth is a relatively recent phenomenon caused primarily by the environmentally damaging activities of humans, particularly the increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

What is important to bear in mind when considering this debate is that we are discussing catastrophic man-made global warming theory. What is being debated is not just a little warming but warming which is significant enough to produce catastrophic effects for the world and its inhabitants, justifying immediate and expensive government intervention.

There are, however, a small but vocal number of scientists in climate and climate-related fields who would disagree with this majority view. Oil industry advocates, fossil fuels lobbies and free market think tanks have also been accused of supporting efforts – both overtly and covertly – to undermine and/or discredit the scientific

The first discussion point is carbon dioxide or CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

While it is accepted that CO2 will warm the earth to some degree what is debatable is the amount of warming that will actually occur. The generally

accepted value for direct greenhouse gas warming from CO2 is in the region of 1-1.2C per doubling of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Previous UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports would also agree on this temperature range.

Scientists are in complete agreement that the continual rise in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will inevitably lead to global warming and global climate change. So what is the problem? Why the debate? Doesn’t this admission mean ‘game-over’ for the climate sceptics? Well actually no!

The main disagreements are about the timing and amplitude of the expected warming.

The current CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are approximately 390 parts per million by volume (ppm) or about 0.039% of the Earth’s atmosphere. Importantly however, even if we were to reach the pessimistic level of 800 ppm by the end of the century, using the numbers above, this would imply a warming of the earth by 1C.

Is the temperature of our planet rising? Are we destroying our planet for our future generations? Are disasters imminent? Or is this all simply scaremongering? Elham Ostad Saffari examines the evidence

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While even this increase in warming is clearly undesirable, it is nowhere near the catastrophic warming that scientists are warning of.

What is important to consider when looking at all the evidence is that while the earth is indeed warming, we also need to be aware that feedback mechanisms may cause these changes to further accelerate or decelerate. As an example, with global warming there is likely to be less snow and ice coverage of the earth. As snow and ice tend to reflect heat back into space more than bare water or land, this loss is expected to add to the warming of the earth above and beyond initial CO2 warming.

The IPCC believes that strong positive feedbacks can in the future add as much as 2-4C to the 1C from direct CO2.

The science of these positive climate feedback mechanisms is far from settled. Some argue that these figures are over-estimated, as well as the fact that these feedbacks may well be negative thus actually reducing the earth’s warming. For example, many plants grow faster with warmer air levels, and one consequence of such growth could be to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels and slow down the expected warming rate. This is because plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere by locking the carbon into their bodies and releasing the dioxide as oxygen into the atmosphere, (as a by-product, through a process known as photosynthesis). As CO2 is a greenhouse gas, any reduction of CO2 will lessen the amount of global warming. Also, in some places, trees reflect more sunlight away from the earth than bare soil or grass making for less global warming.

Further fuelling the scepticism is the fact that the world has only warmed over the past century by 0.7C, coinciding with the increase in burning of fossil fuels by man. Some would argue this lack of significant warming is due

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to the flaws in our current surface temperature measurement systems, even though new technologies like satellites, which do not have the same flaws and coverage gaps, have over the past 30 years measured an upward shift/drift in temperatures. However sceptics would look at the historic temperature records and say that these have levelled off over the past 10-15 years. Looking at global temperatures more broadly above 15 years, one could also agree that temperatures have been relatively flat. Indeed sceptics say that temperatures have been flat for the past 10-15 years and conversely global warming advocates reply that we have

seen some of the hottest temperatures over the past 100 years.

So what are we to believe? The truth is that both are correct. It is like imagining you have been ascending a mountain to reach a plateau. When you’ve reached the plateau every step you take will be the highest point you have been at during the day. At the same time it’s also correct to say that you are not climbing any longer!

The main problem that global warming advocates have is that they expected the past warming from CO2 to be considerably higher than 0.7C. If one considers the IPCC’s high feedback models, we should expect a figure of approximately 3C of warming per doubling of CO2.

However we are clearly seeing nothing

like this figure; indeed one could argue our past warming is more consistent with low or negative feedbacks. One could even say there are other climate effects which are holding down this increase due to CO2. From this has come the theory that the increasing use of man-made sulphate aerosols – minute atmospheric particles - is keeping the earth cool by forming clouds which themselves reflect sunlight, that hits the earth’s atmosphere back into space.

According to this theory, as the developed countries begin to reduce their emissions more considerably, we will see a rapid rise in global warming.

While climate change sceptics may have sown the seeds of doubt in the public mind, the truth remains that this is an important discussion as we are all responsible for our future. There is abundant evidence that the climate of our planet is sensitive to the smallest disturbances.

Indeed the smallest change in distribution of sunlight on the earth has the potential to cause climate change as dramatic as a recurrent ice age. Despite this known sensitivity of the climate of the earth, we proceed along the path of introducing a huge disturbance; increasing our atmospheric CO2, a powerful greenhouse gas. We persist with our efforts despite the fact that we are hugely vulnerable to even the most modest climate fluctuations. Whether we accept the mounting evidence for global warming, or remain sceptical, we are at a crossroads and what we decide to do will have a lasting effect on future generations. •

Dr Elham Ostad-Saffari has a PhD in Medical Genetics from Imperial College London. She is currently working in the pharmaceutical industry.

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Places

Sicily:

Glory of the Ocean Taking us to the southern tip of Italy Cleo Cantone describes a time when Islamic culture and civilisation was at home on the Italian island of Sicily

Weep as you will your tears of blood, O grave of Arabian civilisation.

Once this place was alive with the people of the desert, And the ocean was a playground for their boats. ...

O Sicily you are the glory of the ocean. ... You were the cradle of this nation's culture, Whose fire like beauty burnt the world; Sa’di the nightingale of Shiraz wept for the destruction of Baghdad; Dag shed tears of blood for the ruination of Delhi; When the heavens destroyed Granada It was the sorrowing heart of Ibn Badrun who lamented it; Unhappy Iqbal is fated to write your elegy. .

Iqbal, Bang-i Dara, Trans. G. D. Gaur

San Giovanni degli Eremiti, Siculo-Norman church in Palermo inspired by Muslim architecture

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ike the Pakistani poet Iqbal, I also bemoan the loss of this precious part of Sicilian history when Islam and Christianity, Arabs and Sicilians, created a pluralist society based on mutual respect and reciprocal admiration. I was born under the volcanic Mount Etna known locally as Monte Gibello after the Arabic jabal.

When, in adult life, I embraced Islam, it felt like I had found something I had lost, something that had always been a part of me: being Sicilian and Muslim seemed naturally compatible, synonymous even. Although Arab influence is palpable - in the language, food, customs - it's strange not to hear the adhan instead of the ubiquitous chiming of bells. But perhaps this is part of Sicily's irresistible attraction: it looks European, it sounds European but oh does it feel anything but!

Fontana, capitels, columns and arches in Monreale cloister, near Palermo, Sicily

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Poised in the heart of the Mediterranean, Sicily's strategic location has been at once envious prize and resistant object of many. For the Muslims of North Africa its domination became nothing short of an obsession as successive dynasties attempted to subdue its recalcitrant population. Ironically, it was not until the Norman conquest of Sicily in the mid-11th century that ArabIslamic art and culture truly flourished.

Indeed, there are no extant Arab monuments but the Normans admired their

predecessors to the extent that they built their palaces and churches using Arab craftsmen and following Islamic designs.

Palermo, the Muslim capital of the island, was then an important commercial and cultural centre on a par with larger cities such as Cairo and magnificent ones like Cordova. Boasting a perfect climate and location, the Muslim occupants of the Mediterranean island had provided it with a range of amenities as well as so-called 'pleasure palaces' which entranced the Normans and inspired them to perpetuate a certain Arab dolce vita. When Ibn Jubayr visited in 1184 he compared Palermo to Cordova describing it as "old, elegant, splendid and grandiose, ... it binds the eye with its beauty."

Reputed to have been one of the most beautiful cities by the medieval geographer Idrisi, today little survives from the Islamic period but if Norman re-construction of these lost monuments are anything to go by, we can assume they were nothing short of magnificent. Following the example of emirs from Andalusia to Baghdad, Sicilian rulers enjoyed an opulent lifestyle while remaining engaged in erecting places of worship. According to the 10th century traveller Ibn Hawkal, Palermo possessed some 300 mosques,

mostly consisting of small, private oratories. Under the reign of Roger I many of these were converted into churches. It is interesting to note that mosques in Portugal followed the same fate while in Cordova, miraculously, the Christian sovereign decided to plant his cathedral in the midst of the mosque, presumably to preserve its incomparable beauty.

The cathedral of Palermo was initially a church converted into the main Friday Mosque which the Normans re-converted into their main place of worship. Construction began in 1131 but the facade dates from 1240. With its interlaced and pointed arches, polychrome stonework and mullioned windows, this monument encapsulates the fusion of North African Islamic heritage with Northern European Norman architecture producing a unique blend whose appellation 'Arabo-Norman' inadequately describes the multitude of influences that were adopted to produce it. Indeed, the term Arab is reductive, for the Muslim population was comprised of Africans and Berbers among others. By the mid-12th century, however, eastern and western styles faded away and gave rise to what has been described as a 'perfect sunny, southern Romanesque'.

Palermo had a bourgeoning population of around a quarter of a million inhabitants - an impressive number for the

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period. As well as a fertile mercantile economy, the city possessed one of the first paper mills in Europe, further evidence of the importance given to the production of manuscripts and literature. The city was divided into two districts: Al-Qasr - the Fortress - with its crowded markets or souks clustered around the Grand Mosque and enclosed in gated walls, and the other was Al-Khalesa still known today as La Kalsa where the administrative and governmental buildings as well as the Emir's palace were found.

If the city was a bustling node of activity, its surroundings consisted of endless orange groves and nestled among them were lavish country homes surrounded by Persianinspired gardens with fountains and cubbas - small domed pavilions from which to admire the view and be protected from the intense summer heat. Of the summer pavilions also used as hunting lodges, only La Ziza (originally al-Aziza and built by William II, 1166-89) has been fully restored to date. La Cuba remains largely closed to the public as it belongs to the military while La Favara, located further out of Palermo, is in a state of ruin.

Among Palermo's jewels, is the Palatine Chapel or La Cappella Palatina, concealed in the Norman Royal palace,

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once the Muslim fortress. In line with the tradition of building private oratories, King Roger decided to build one himself inside his palace. It was consecrated in 1140 following Greek and Latin rites but the artists who produced the exquisite mosaics and carved the wooden ceiling were Latin, Byzantine and Muslim. The carved wooden stalactite ceiling (known as muqarnas in Arabic) with paintings of courtly life, animal and vegetal

motifs that hailed from the Abbasid painting tradition perfected in Fatimid Egypt pays homage to the respect and admiration in which Muslim craftsmen were held by their Norman rulers.

Norman kings adopted Arab titles, used Arabic alongside Greek and Latin in their official documents, minted coins with Arabic inscriptions praising the sovereign and embellishing buildings

with Arabic calligraphy. King Roger's doctors were Muslims and his secretaries were polyglots. Kings William I and II were also 'Arabised', spoke fluent Arabic, and kept harems with Muslim women. In fact, they became increasingly uninterested in stately affairs and spent more time in the sumptuous country abodes outside the city. Their negligence of government coincided with a growing intolerance of Muslim subjects who had to choose between conversion to Christianity and emigration.

Andalusia, North Africa and the Middle East received Sicilian Muslim refugees fleeing persecution and massacres at home.

Architecturally, the Muslims left little trace and what remains is either in a state of ruin or was adapted by the Normans. What is certain is that much of Norman palatial architecture borrowed heavily from these prototypes: buildings were articulated around courtyards and possessed fountains and water courses. Indeed, the 'Arab' style continued to influence local architecture until the 12th century: many cities had public baths or hammams, mosques and souks. Furthermore, the artisans who produced Norman signature monuments were Arab and Greek. A splendid example of such a

blend is Monreale - a complex originally comprising a palace and a cathedral with a cloistered convent around a Moorish fountain. Here Byzantine mosaics blend with Islamic arabesques and polygonal interlacing. Other religious buildings worthy of note are the churches of San Giovanni degli Eremiti and San Cataldo in Palermo with their distinctive violet bulbous domes and pointed arches. Some of the columns in La Martorana are surmounted by North African capitals and on one of the columns is an Arabic inscription.

I was saddened to see the mosaics of the Norman palace plastered all over Dolce & Gabbana's latest women's collection complete with crowns atop the models' heads. It's as though the iconic logos of big fashion houses were no longer enough: inspiration comes from the past, usurping centuries of knowhow and reproducing it cheaply on a computer screen. It should be noted that the Norman kings and their courtiers adopted the garbs of Muslim sultans and that Christian women

covered their heads, wore cloaks and oriental perfumes and ornaments. King Roger II's beautiful red cloak, made with silken velvet and embroidered with Kufic inscriptions, is now a treasure kept in Vienna. Silk was produced in a Sicilian tiraz (textile factory) in the king's court.

Other minor arts included ceramics, metalwork and goldsmiths. Rather than patrons, the Normans were wise administrators of the values of Islamic society.

As Muslims around the globe flock to countries where a relaxing holiday can be combined with an interest in its Islamic past, Sicily should be given greater consideration as a travel destination and an alternative to the already saturated tourist attractions such as Turkey, Morocco and Tunisia.

Along with Spain and ex-Yugoslavia, there is an ideal opportunity to discover an Islamic past in this 'glory of the ocean'. If Islam hopes to co-exist harmoniously in Europe it is through the Siculo-Norman example that it can derive some inspiration, not through an artificial implantation of “Arab” or

“Asian” Islam in an environment where it has no recognisable place. As for the decaying material legacy of the Muslims in Sicily, the younger generation born on the island needs to be made aware of the history in order to forge a future based on Islamic cultural values rather than national culture: "You were the cradle of this nation's culture, whose fire like beauty burnt the world..." •

Dr Cleo Cantone holds a PhD from the University of London. Her book “Making and Remaking Mosques in Senegal”, based on her doctoral research, has recently been published

by Brill.

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Square, London EC4A 3DE Email: info@arabbritishcentre.org.uk Web: www.arabbritishcentre.org.uk/events

8 September 2013

Greatness to Genocide Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPACUK)

Friday Nights Thought Forum Weekly open gathering.

Time: 19:00 - 21:00 Venue: Islamic Centre of England

6-8 September 2013

The Three Peaks Challenge The equivalent of walking nearly a marathon, it’s the UK’s most popular mountain challenge and simply involves a climb up the three highest mountains in England, Scotland and Wales – within 24 hours. Complete it and you can truly say that you have reached the highest points in each country.

Registration fee: £150 Contact: Web: www.islamichelp.org.uk Email: challengepoverty@islamichelp.org.uk Phone: 01214465682

7 September 2013

Arabic Language Classes This course will focus on conversational Levantine Arabic covering simple topics for everyday situations such as taking a taxi, shopping, ordering food and drink, basic numbers, asking for directions and emergencies.

The course will be taught using English transliteration. Prior knowledge of Arabic is not required. This course is suitable for absolute beginners, native and non-native speakers.

Time: 12pm-2pm Venue: The Arab British Centre, 1 Gough

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How did we go from being the beacons of justice to the most oppressed people on earth? Attend this ground breaking one day conference to learn about how your history and your story has been distorted and manipulated by those who wish to oppress you and discover the practical steps you can take to counter these injustices.

Ticket: £7 Time: 10:00am- 4:00pm Venue: Ripple Centre, 121-125 Ripple Road, Barking, London IG11 7FN Email: Ilford@mpacuk.org Phone: 08707605594

9-10 September 2013

Transgressing the Gulf: Dissidence, Resistance and Potentiality in the GCC States Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies This symposium aims to examine the theme of transgression in the Gulf.

It therefore seeks to bring together scholars from both the social sciences and the humanities.

Venue: Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter EX4 4ND Web:www.socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk Phone: +44 (0)1392 724029 Email: l.mcgroggan@exeter.ac.uk

13 September 2013

The Arab Spring: 2 Years On Following the conference held in 2011 which considered issues arising from the Arab Spring, a symposium will be

held in the School of Law which considers the impact of the Arab Spring two years later.

Speakers to include: Dr Chris Henderson (University of Liverpool), Dr Jackson Maogoto (University of Manchester), Dr Nirmala Pillay (Liverpool John Moores University), Dr James Summers(Lancaster University), Dr Jure Vidmar (University of Oxford), Dr Gary Wilson (Liverpool John Moores University).

Ticket: Attendance is free. All are welcome.

However, if you wish to attend the event, for organisational purposes please register your attendance with Dr Gary Wilson Venue: School of Law, Liverpool John Moores University Web: www.ljmu.ac.uk/LAW/125939.htm Email: G.Wilson@ljmu.ac.uk

13-15 September 2013

Structuring Innovative Islamic Financial Products In this three-day workshop, an extensive and detailed analysis will be conducted to explore the basis of the Islamic financial innovations that have been employed for the development and reshaping of existing Shari’a-compliant products.

Delegate Fee: £1,090 Time: 9:00am-5:30pm Venue: Ernst & Young LLP, 1 More London Place, London, SE1 2AF Web: http://islamic-banking.com/resources/ Phone: +44(0)20 7433 0840 Fax: +44(0)20 7433 0849 Email: farhan.quadri@islamic-banking.com

14 September 2013

ENGAGE Birmingham ENGAGE Birmingham is an ‘open learning course’ using different elements enabling participants to learn more about youth work and to develop their own understanding and skills. It is a nationally accredited youth work

practice programme leading to a certificate at Level 3, Assistant Youth Support Worker (A Level standard). This is the foundation level training required by local authority youth services.

Price: £450 Venue: The Feast office, The Faithful Neighbourhood Office: 10 Court Road, Sparkhill, Birmingham B11 4LX Web: http://christianmuslimforum.org Email: Nahim@thefeast.org.uk Phone: 07976 256360

18-22 September 2013

London to Paris Cycle Cycling from London to Paris is one of the great cycle experiences in Europe.

Passing through picturesque countryside, we cross the Channel and continue through the small villages and medieval market towns of northern France. With long days in the saddle and some strenuous hill climbs, the sight of the Eiffel Tower, the finishing point, will evoke a real sense of achievement.

Registration Fee: £99 Venue: England and France Web: www.doitforcharity.com Phone: 020 7424 5533

27-29 September 2013

The Halal Food Festival The Halal Food Festival is the world’s largest halal consumer food show, showcasing innovative halal products, high end restaurants, live demo kitchen, cooking school, with world renowned chefs.

Opening Times: 27th & 28th September 10am - 8pm 29th September 10am - 6pm Venue: ExCeL London, E16 1XL Email: info@halalfoodfestival.com Phone: 07947 634 484 Web: www.halalfoodfestival.com

28 September 2013

Annual AMS Schools Leadership Conference 2013.

‘Rising to the challenge of leadership in Muslim schools’ Suitable for Headteachers, Deputy Heads, Assistant Heads, Governors and Trustees.

Good opportunity for networking and sharing best practice with other leaders.

Ticket: £40 Time: 9:30am-7:00pm Venue: Madani High School 77 Evington Valley Road, Leicester LE5 5LL Web: http://ams-uk.org/events/schoolsleadership-conference/

Phone: 07983 992 746

The 2013 Middle East in London Photo Competition The London Middle East Institute at SOAS would like to announce a photo competition for its bi-monthly magazine - Middle East in London.

Harness the power of photography and share your experiences from around the Middle East with us. A selection of entries will be published in a future edition of the Middle East in London magazine. The winner will be awarded £100 worth of Amazon tokens.

Venue: LMEI, SOAS, University of London, Russell Square, WC1H 0XG Web: www.arabbritishcentre.org.uk/events/ Email: sj39@soas.ac.uk

3 October 2013

Collecting Islamic and Middle Eastern Arts A 45- minute Gallery talk by John Reeve, independent speaker.

Views of Palestine: perspectives and experiences from the British Mandate

Suitable for all levels of knowledge.

Ticket: Free Time: 13:15-14:00 Venue: Room 34, The British Museum Web: www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/ events_calendar/

29 September 2013

Nahjul Balagha Academic Conference This academic conference aims to explore in depth the wide-ranging themes of faith, humanity and politics in the sermons, letters and sayings of Imam Ali(a) contained within the book.

Fee: £15 Time: 11am-6pm Venue: Marriott Hotel – Peterborough, Cambridgeshire Web: www.islamicthought.wufoo.com/ forms/ Email: maulana@islamicthought.co.uk

Joint Middle East Department/Palestine Exploration Fund lecture series Anne Lineen discusses her search for images of the British Mandate in Palestine.

Ticket: Free Time: 16.00–17.00 Venue: Stevenson Lecture Theatre, The British Museum Web: www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/ events_calendar/

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