The Messiah will bring back all Jews to the proper understanding of how to serve Hashem and how to fulfill ourselves spiritually. The Messiah will rebuild the Holy Temple (or else it will be rebuilt just before he comes). The Messiah will bring back all Jews to the Land of Israel, with joy and hope. And he will do all this on the first try.

The Messiah has not yet come.

The Torah has *NO* prophecies that can be correctly considered as proving that jesus was the Messiah. Quite the contrary. A proper and careful study of all the verses in question shows that jesus could *NOT* have been the Messiah. (If you wish to research this matter, click here for a page that lists some websites that deal with this subject. Do not email me to try and convince me, because you will simply be wasting my time and yours.)

What does Judaism Believe?
A. Well, like all things in Judaism, I can't answer that in one sentence. With Hashem's help, I will tell you some of the most basic beliefs of Judaism, which you can use as a starting point. (And please see my FAQ pages as well).

Judaism believes that the Creator is the Only Creator, and the Only Controller. The Creator is the true One and Only Power, the true Source.

There is only One G-d. G-d is the Creator. We often use the Name "Hashem," when referring to the Creator.

The Creator is only One. The Creator is not one of two, nor one of three. The Creator is not one of a species, not one of a type, nor one of a family or group. There are no other true gods. There are other things that have power, but none of them are G-d, and none of them are like G-d. (Sometimes they are called by the term "gods," because in Hebrew that word means "something that has powers," or "something that has might." Therefore, even a powerful warrior could be called by the Hebrew word for god.)

There are no other beings like the Creator.

The Creator has no parts, limbs, sections, or anything like that. The Creator is unique. There is nothing in all of Creation or anywhere else (if there is an anywhere else) that can be compared to the Creator. The Torah uses anthropomorphic terms only so that we can understand what we are being taught, but not to literally describe the Creator. The Torah uses masculine terms to describe the Creator because there is no neuter gender in Hebrew.

The Creator cannot die. The Creator cannot suffer, and the Creator cannot bleed. The Creator is not a man, and no human can be G-d. The Creator cannot be hanged on a cross to die, or flogged like a criminal.

The Torah also teaches that the Creator does not change (Malachi 3:6).

The Creator does not have a mediator, nor does the Creator need a mediator. Furthermore, humanity does not need a mediator to have a relationship with the Creator.

Therefore, Jews pray only to the Creator. It is not proper to pray to anyone or anything else, nor is it permissible to pray through anyone else. And it will always be forbidden. It would be forbidden even if that thing or person had the ability to grant what you ask for.

The Creator is merciful. The Creator receives and cherishes to every prayer said to Him

Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood

Author of some forty books on Islam and other subjects. She gained her honours degree in Christian Theology at the University of Hull in 1963, and Post Graduate Teaching Certificate in 1964, with distinctions in theory and practice. Her professional life was spent as Head of Religious Studies at various tough UK inner city secondary schools, until she retired in 1996, to concentrate on writing and lecturing. She has since made the GCSE course in Islamic Studies available to students and converts to Islam of all ages, especially to those who have not had the opportunity to study it at school.

She grew up a devout Christian, but converted to Islam in 1986. Already established by then as an author of books on Christian and educational topics, she has since devoted her time to writing on Islam and doing dawah (explaining the faith) work to both Christian and Muslim audiences. She regularly addresses school and church groups, explaining Islam and educating in the basics of Islam, with a keen interest in presenting Islam as a world faith. She strives to raise the awareness both of non-Muslims and also of born Muslims of the traditional immigrant ethnic backgrounds living in the UK, that these numerous varieties of cultural backgrounds, tastes and emphases are all part of Islam, including cultures that are not limited to the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and North Africa.

Ruqaiyyah is an outspoken moderate Muslim, whose main interests lie in the Madinah period, the genealogy of the Prophet and his companions, and the importance of re-establishing good relationships between the Peoples of the Book (ie. Muslims, Jews and Christians – who all worship the same One True God and follow the same chain of revelation) as opposed to rather ignorant hostility. Eve more important, perhaps, is the battle to preserve the true faith of Islam - tolerant, noble, and compassionate - in face of the growth of the 'other Islam' which is extremist and intolerant, and which she regards as both false and dangerous.

For more information on Ruqaiyyah Waris' work click here

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(Sources: Ruqaoyyah Waris website; http://members.aol.com/Ruqaiyyah/)

Michael Wolfe

After twenty-five years as a writer in America, I wanted something to soften my cynicism. I was searching for new terms by which to see. The way one is raised establishes certain needs in this department. From a pluralist background, I naturally placed great stress on the matters of racism and freedom. Then, in my early twenties, I had gone to live in Africa for three years. During this time, which was formative for me, I did rubbed shoulders with blacks of many different tribes, with Arabs, Berbers, and even Europeans, who were Muslims. By and large these people did not share the Western obsession with race as a social category. In our encounters being oddly coloured rarely mattered. I was welcomed first and judged on merit later. By contrast, Europeans and Americans, including many who are free of racist notions, automatically class people racially. Muslims classified people by their faith and their actions. I found this transcendent and refreshing. Malcolm X saw his nation’s salvation in it. “America needs to understand Islam,” he wrote, “because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem”.

I was looking for an escape route, too, from the isolating terms of a materialistic culture. I wanted access to a spiritual dimension, but the conventional paths I had known as a boy were closed. My father had been a Jew; my mother Christian. Because of my mongrel background, I had a foot in two religious camps. Both faiths were undoubtedly profound. Yet the one that emphasizes a chosen people I found insupportable; while the other, based in a mystery, repelled me. A century before, my maternal great-great-grandmother’s name had been set in stained glass at the high street Church of Christ in Hamilton, Ohio. By the time I was twenty, this meant nothing to me.

These were the terms my early life provided. The more I thought about it now, the more I returned to my experiences in Muslim Africa. After two return trips to Morocco, in 1981 and 1985, I came to feel that Africa, the continent, had little to do with the balanced life I found there. It was not, that is, a continent I was after, nor an institution, either. I was looking for a framework I could live with, a vocabulary of spiritual concepts applicable to the life I was living now. I did not want to “trade in” my culture. I wanted access to new meanings.

After a mid-Atlantic dinner I went to wash up in the bathroom. During my absence a quorum of Hasidim lined up to pray outside the door. By the time I had finished, they were too immersed to notice me. Emerging from the bathroom, I could barely work the handle. Stepping into the aisle was out of the question.

I could only stand with my head thrust into the hallway, staring at the congregation’s backs. Holding palm-size prayer books, they cut an impressive figure, tapping the texts on their breastbones as they divined. Little by little the movements grew erratic, like a mild, bobbing form of rock and roll. I watched from the bathroom door until they were finished, then slipped back down the aisle to my seat.

We landed together later that night in Brussels. Reboarding, I found a discarded Yiddish newspaper on a food tray. When the plane took off for Morocco, they were gone.

I do not mean to imply here that my life during this period conformed to any grand design. In the beginning, around 1981, I was driven by curiosity and an appetite for travel. My favourite place to go, when I had the money, was Morocco. When I could not travel, there were books. This fascination brought me into contact with a handful of writers driven to the exotic, authors capable of sentences like this, by Freya Stark:

The perpetual charm of Arabia is that the traveller finds his level there simply as a human being; the people’s directness, deadly to the sentimental or the pedantic, like the less complicated virtues; and the pleasantness of being liked for oneself might, I think, be added to the five reasons for travel given me by Sayyid Abdulla, the watchmaker; “to leave one’s troubles behind one; to earn a living; to acquire learning; to practise good manners; and to meet honourable men”.

I could not have drawn up a list of demands, but I had a fair idea of what I was after. The religion I wanted should be to metaphysics as metaphysics is to science. It would not be confined by a narrow rationalism or traffic in mystery to please its priests. There would be no priests, no separation between nature and things sacred. There would be no war with the flesh, if I could help it. Sex would be natural, not the seat of a curse upon the species. Finally, I did want a ritual component, daily routine to sharpen the senses and discipline my mind. Above all, I wanted clarity and freedom. I did not want to trade away reason simply to be saddled with a dogma.

The more I learned about Islam, the more it appeared to conform to what I was after.

Most of the educated Westerners I knew around this time regarded any strong religious climate with suspicion. They classified religion as political manipulation, or they dismissed it as a medieval concept, projecting upon it notions from their European past.

It was not hard to find a source for their opinions. A thousand years of Western history had left us plenty of fine reasons to regret a path that led through so much ignorance and slaughter. From the Children’s Crusade and the Inquisition to the transmogrified faiths of nazism and communism during our century, whole countries have been exhausted by belief. Nietzsche’s fear, that the modern nation-state would become a substitute religion, have proved tragically accurate. Our century, it seemed to me, was ending in an age beyond belief, which believers inhabited as much as agnostics.

Regardless of church affiliation, secular humanism is the air westerners breathe, the lens we gaze through. Like any world view, this outlook is pervasive and transparent. It forms the basis of our broad identification with democracy and with the pursuit of freedom in all its countless and beguiling forms. Immersed in our shared preoccupations, one may easily forget that other ways of life exist on the same planet.

At the time of my trip, for instance, 650 million Muslims with a majority representation in forty-four countries adhered to the formal teachings of Islam. In addition, about 400 million more were living as minorities in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Assisted by postcolonial economics, Islam has become in a matter of thirty years a major faith in Western Europe. Of the world’s great religions, Islam alone was adding to its fold.

My politicized friends were dismayed by my new interest. They all but universally confused Islam with the machinations of half a dozen middle eastern tyrants. The books they read, the new broadcasts they viewed depicted the faith as a set of political functions. Almost nothing was said of its spiritual practice. I liked to quote Mae West to them: “Anytime you take religion for a joke, the laugh’s on you”.

Historically a Muslim sees Islam as the final, matured expression of an original religion reaching back to Adam. It is as resolutely monotheistic as Judaism, whose major Prophets Islam reveres as links in a progressive chain, culminating in Jesus and Muhammad. Essentially a message of renewal, Islam has done its part on the world stage to return the forgotten taste of life’s lost sweetness to millions of people. Its book, the Qur’an, caused Goethe to remark, “You see, this teaching never fails; with all our systems, we cannot go, and generally speaking no man can go, further”.

Traditional Islam is expressed through the practice of five pillars. Declaring one’s faith, prayer, charity, and fasting are activities pursued repeatedly throughout one’s life. Conditions permitting, each Muslim is additionally charged with undertaking a pilgrimage to Mecca once in a lifetime. The Arabic term for this fifth rite is Hadj. Scholars relate the word to the concept of kasd, “aspiration,” and to the notion of men and women as travellers on earth. In Western religions pilgrimage is a vestigial tradition, a quaint, folkloric concept commonly reduced to metaphor. Among Muslims, on the other hand, the hadj embodies a vital experience for millions of new pilgrims every year. In spite of the modern content of their lives, it remains an act of obedience, a profession of belief, and the visible expression of a spiritual community. For a majority of Muslims the hadj is an ultimate goal, the trip of a lifetime.

As a convert I felt obliged to go to Makkah. As an addict to travel I could not imagine a more compelling goal.

The annual, month-long fast of Ramadan precedes the hadj by about one hundred days. These two rites form a period of intensified awareness in Muslim society. I wanted to put this period to use. I had read about Islam; I had joined a Mosque near my home in California; I had started a practice. Now I hoped to deepen what I was learning by submerging myself in a religion where Islam infuses every aspect of existence.

I planned to begin in Morocco, because I knew that country well and because it followed traditional Islam and was fairly stable. The last place I wanted to start was in a backwater full of uproarious sectarians. I wanted to paddle the mainstream, the broad, calm water.

(Source: http://www.geocities.com/embracing_islam/wolfe.htm)

Top

hahahhh . you poor peopel u really make me laugh islam is the fast growing religion n the world...

go and revise again previous posts by charles and open you rmind welll.....
islam is the religion of british lords and elite britons..

lord headly ...
go an dread about ist brotish journy to macca to perform pilgrimage ...

http://www.nkusa.org/AboutUs/mission.cfm
OUR MISSION( nautori karta) jews against zionism
Judaism is the faith of the Jewish people. It is predicated upon G-d's existence and His revelation at Sinai.

At Sinai, in the presence of the assembled multitudes of Jews, recently released via Divine miracles from Egypt, the Creator revealed His Torah to the nation.

This Torah contains the basic doctrines of our faith, Divine commandments and the narrative of the earliest Jewish and general human encounter with G-d.

Throughout the centuries Jews pledged their assent to this Torah even when their lives were at stake. They maintained this loyalty with almost unanimous allegiance until the dawn of the modern age. In the three hundred - odd years since the so - called Enlightenment began, Jews and Gentiles throughout European civilization have been losing many souls to its evil clutches.

Today unfortunately there are many Jews who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of, and fail to, practice the basics of their faith. This is a great tragedy for many reasons. Perhaps paramount among them is the falsification of Judaism that results when those unaware of its basic assumptions speak to the general public.

It behooves all Jews loyal to their faith to proclaim to the world the truths of Judaism in as lucid a manner as possible.

Neturei Karta International is dedicated to the propagation and clarification of Torah Judaism.

Its only loyalty is to G-d and His revelation.

One of the basics of Judaism is that we are a people in exile due to Divine decree.

Accordingly, we are opposed to the ideology of Zionism, a recent innovation, which seeks to force the end of exile. Our banishment from the Holy Land will end miraculously at a time when all mankind will unite in the brotherly service of the Creator.

In addition to condemning the central heresy of Zionism, we also reject its policy of aggression against all peoples. Today this cruelty manifests itself primarily in the brutal treatment of the Palestinian people. We proclaim that this inhuman policy is in violation of the Torah.

NKI seeks peace and reconciliation with all peoples and nations. This is especially needed in our relations towards the Islamic world where Zionism has for 53 years done so much to ruin Jewish - Muslim understanding.

IN SUPPORT OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE

We seek the return of all Palestinian refugees to their rightful land.

We seek to live in the land of Palestine as anti Zionist Jews. To reside as loyal and peaceful Palestinian citizens, in peace and harmony with our Muslim Brethren. Just as our ancestors lived in Palestine for centuries before the usurpations of this tragic century.

Jews are not allowed to dominate, kill, harm or demean another people and are not allowed to have anything to do with the Zionist enterprise, their political meddling and their wars.

Neturei Karta forbid any participation with the so-called "State of Israel" or any of its subsidiaries. Neturei Karta followers do not participate in "Israeli" elections nor do they accept any aid from "Bituach Le'Umi" (Social Security), and the educational institutions of the Neturei Karta reject any form of financial support from the so-called "Va'ad HaYeshivos" (equiv. to Department of Education).

The Zionist state employs a set of chief rabbis and uses religious parties to ornament their state with a clerical image. They study the Torah with commentaries altered to clothe the words with nationalistic nuances. Our rabbis have countless times proclaimed that it matters little which individuals or parties govern in the Zionist state because the very establishment and existence of the state itself is to be condemned and to be deplored.

The true Jews remain faithful to Jewish belief and are not contaminated with Zionism.

The true Jews are against dispossessing the Arabs of their land and homes. According to the Torah, the land should be returned to them.

http://www.nkusa.org/aboutus/index.cfm
The group was founded in Jerusalem, Palestine in 1938, splitting off from Agudas Yisroel. Agudas Yisroel was established in 1912 for the purpose of fighting Zionism. Gradually lured by money and honor they sold out to the "Golden-Calf" (see Exodus, XXXII) of Zionism. Those who wanted to maintain their faith and continue the struggle against Zionism, dissociated themselves from Agudas Yisroel and associated parties.

Neturei Karta oppose the so-called "State of Israel" not because it operates secularly, but because the entire concept of a sovereign Jewish state is contrary to Jewish Law.

All the great rabbis who in accordance with Jewish Law opposed Zionism at its inception did not do so merely due to consideration of the secular lifestyles of the then Zionist leaders or even for their opposition to Torah heritage and rejection of its values and practices, but due to the fact that the entire concept of a Jewish state is in direct conflict with a number of Judaism's fundamentals.

jews against israel
http://www.nkusa.org/

donot really bother yourself try to emitate me..who are those people u claim left islam ..
no one known or famous personality .
no professores ..no religious men like those priests an dnuns nothing..
no embassadors like the two italian embassadors who converted to islam...no thing...so donot bother yourself.....
your case is loser

Dr. Gary Miller (Abdul-Ahad Omar) - Former missionary

Gary Miller (Abdul-Ahad Omar) shows how we can establish true faith by setting standards of truth. He illustrates a simple but effective method of finding out the right direction in our search for truth.

G.R. Miller is a mathematician and a theologian. He was active in Christian missionary work at a particular point of his life but he soon began to discover many inconsistencies in the Bible. In 1978, he happened to read the Qur'an expecting that it, too, would contain a mixture of truth and falsehood.

He discovered to his amazement that the message of the Qur'an was precisely the same as the essence of truth that he had distilled from the Bible. He became a Muslim and since then has been active in giving public presentations on Islam including radio and television appearances. He is also the author of several articles and publications about Islam.

http://www.islamdoor.com/former.htm

Former Christian Priests and Missionaries
who have Embraced Islam

Anselm Tormeeda - 14th century CE scholar and priest

Dr. Jerald F. Dirks - Former minister (deacon) of the United Methodist Church. He holds a Master's degree in Divinity from Harvard University and a Doctorate in Psychology from the University of Denver

Abdullah al-Faruq - Formerly Kenneth L. Jenkins, minister and elder of the Pentecostal Church

Anonymous Female Missionary - Former Catholic missionary

Martin John Mwaipopo - Former Lutheran Archbishop

Raphael - Former Jehovah's Witness minister

George Anthony - Former Catholic priest

Dr. Gary Miller (Abdul-Ahad Omar) - Former missionary

Anselm Tormeeda - 14th century CE scholar and priest (Extracted from Material on the Authenticity of the Qur'an: Proofs that it is a Revelation from Almighty God by Abdur-Raheem Greene)

'Once the truth about why the threat exists is understood, the solution becomes obvious. We must change our ways. Getting rid of our nuclear weapons unilaterally if necessary will enhance our security. Drastically altering our foreign policy will ensure it. '
'Instead of sending our sons and daughters around the world to kill Arabs so we can have the oil under their sand, we should send them to rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean water, and feed starving children. Instead of continuing to kill hundreds of Iraqui children every day with our sanctions, we should help Iraquis rebuild their electric power plants, their water treatment facilities, their hospitals, and all the things we have destroyed and prevented them from rebuilding. '
'Instead of training terrorists and death squads, we should close the School of the Americas [Ft. Benning, GA.]. Instead of supporting insurrection, destabilization, assassination, and terror around the world, we should abolish the CIA and give money to relief agencies. '
'In short, we should do good instead of evil. Who would try to stop us? Who would hate us? Who would want to bomb us? That is the truth the American people need to hear.'

'We are the target of terrorists because, in much of the world, our government stands for dictatorship, bondage, and human exploitation. We are the target of terrorists because we are hated. And we are hated because our government has done hateful things.'
'In how many countries have agents of our government deposed popularly elected leaders and replaced them with puppet military dictators who were willing to sell out their own people to American multinational corporations?'
'We did it in Iran when the US Marines and the CIA deposed Mossadegh because he wanted to nationalize the oil industry. We replaced him with the Shah and armed, trained, and paid his hated Savak National Guard, which enslaved and brutalized the people of Iran, all to protect the financial interests of our oil companies. Is it any wonder that there are people in Iran who hate us?'
'We did it in Chile. We did it in Vietnam. More recently, we tried to do it in Iraq. And, of course, how many times have we done it in Nicaragua and all the other banana republics of Latin America? Time after time we have ousted popular leaders who wanted the riches of the land to be shared by the people who worked it. We replaced them with murderous tyrants who would sell out their own people so the wealth of the land could be taken out by the likes of Domino Sugar, Folgers, and Chiquita Banana.'
'In country after country, our government has thwarted democracy, stifled freedom, and trampled human rights. That's why it is hated around the world. And that's why we're the target of terrorists.'
'People in Canada enjoy democracy, freedom, and human rights. So do the people of Norway and Sweden. Have you heard of Canadian embassies being bombed? Or Norwegian, or Swedish?'
'We are not hated because we practice democracy, value freedom, or uphold human rights. We are hated because our government denies these things to people in Third World countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational corporations. That hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism and in the future, nuclear terrorism.'

'Why the USA is hated' by Robert Bowman, bishop of the United Catholic Church in Melbourne Beach, FL.
(Robert Bowman flew 101 combat missions in Vietnam. He is presently bishop of the United Catholic Church in Melbourne Beach, FL. Originally printed in The National Catholic Reporter, Oct. 2, 1998.)
'The truth is that none of our thousands of nuclear weapons can protect us from these threats. No Star Wars system no matter how technically advanced, no matter how many trillions of dollars are poured into it, can protect us from a nuclear weapon delivered in a sailboat or a Cessna or a suitcase or a Ryder rental truck. Not one weapon in our vast arsenal, not a penny of the $270 billion a year we spend on so-called defence can defend against a terrorist bomb. That is a military fact.'
'As a retired lieutenant colonel and a frequent lecturer on national security issues, I have often quoted Psalm 33: "A king is not saved by his mighty army. A warrior is not saved by his great strength." The obvious reaction is, "Then what can we do?" Is there nothing we can do to provide security for our people?'
'There is. But to understand it requires that we know the truth about the threat. President Clinton did not tell the American people the truth about why we are the targets of terrorism when he explained why we bombed Afghanistan and Sudan. He said that we are a target because we stand for democracy, freedom, and human rights in the world. Nonsense!'

Comparative Analysis
"Do not hate your enemy for he may one day become your friend" ~
"Somebody ought to tell the truth about the Bible. The preachers dare not, because they would be driven from their pulpits. Professors in colleges dare not, because they would lose their salaries. Politicians dare not. They would be defeated. Editors dare not. They would lose subscribers. Merchants dare not, because they might lose customers. Men of fashion dare not, fearing that they would lose caste. Even clerks dare not, because they might be discharged. And so I thought I would do it myself . . . " Robert G. Ingersoll
"God sacrificed his own son in place of humans who needed to be punished for their own sins might make some Christians love Jesus, but is an obcene picture of God. It is almost heavenly child abuse, and may infect out imagination at more earthly levels as well. I do not want to express my faith through a theology that pictures God demanding blood sacrifices in order to be reconciled to us." (page 145-146) and "Actually, the fact that we have four gospels lies at the very heart of our problem. Because we read particular parables or sayings or stories in several different versions, we can't miss the disagreements between them" (page 3-4), From "Who is Jesus" by John Dominic Crossan (35 years of searching for the historical Jesus and former Catholic priest)

The Quran explicitly states that men and women are equal in the eyes of God. Furthermore, the Quran:

forbids female infanticide (practiced in pre-Islamic Arabia and other parts of the world)
instructs Muslims to educate daughters as well as sons
insists that women have the right to refuse a prospective husband
gives women rights if they are divorced by their husband
gives women the right to divorce in certain cases
gives women the right to own and inherit property (though in Sunni Islam they get only half of what men inherit. Men are expected to care for their mothers and any unmarried female relatives, and would, it is reasoned, need greater resources for this purpose.)
While polygyny is permissible, it is discouraged and on the whole practiced less frequently than imagined by Westerners. It is more frequent in the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia. Many Muslims cite the Quranic phrase "But treat them equally... and if you cannot, then one [wife] is better" and argue that monogamy is preferable, or even mandatory.

Americans believe that Muslim women are oppressed by their religion, forced to cover themselves completely, denied education and other basic rights. It is true that Muslim women, like women all over the world, have struggled against inequality and restrictive practices in education, work force participation, and family roles. Many of these oppressive practices, however, do not come from Islam itself, but are part of local cultural traditions. (To think about the difference between religion and culture, ask yourself if the high rate of domestic violence in the United States is related to Christianity, the predominant religion.)

Islam gives women a number of rights, some of which were not enjoyed by Western women until the 19th century. For example, until 1882, the property of women in England was given to their husbands when they married, but Muslim women always retained their own assets. Muslim women could specify conditions in their marriage contracts, such as the right to divorce should their husband take another wife. Also, Muslim women in many countries keep their own last name after marriage.

A peasant woman tending her sheep in Turkey [ enlarge ]

The Quran explicitly states that men and women are equal in the eyes of God. Furthermore, the Quran:

PRINCE CALLS FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING OF ISLAM
SOURCE: The Times. By Alan Hamilton.

THE need for an understanding of Islam has arguably never been greater than now, the Prince of Wales told an audience of Muslim academics and community leaders yesterday. Speaking at the opening of a postgraduate studies building at a Muslim education centre, the Prince praised the contribution of Islamic culture to European civilization in fields as diverse as mathematics, astronomy, medicine and the arts. He told an audience of 200 guests at the Markfield Institute of Higher Education, near Leicester, that the presence of Muslims in academia, public office and the higher echelons of British society was not something new, but was something to be celebrated. He also paid tribute to the sacrifice made by Muslims during the First and Second World Wars. “We might also pause to remember the hundreds of Muslims who died in the service of the Crown . . . the Merchant Navy memorials on Tower Hill in London, for example, provide ample evidence of those brave Muslim men who gave their lives on board British ships,” the Prince said. The Prince also recalled that when Lord Ahmed was elevated to the peerage in the 1990s, it was hailed as a breakthrough for the Muslim community. But the Muslim convert Lord Stanley of Adderley had beaten him into the Upper House by more than 100 years, as had Lord Headley, who announced his conversion to Islam in 1913.

Islamic culture in its traditional form has striven to preserve this integrated, spiritual view of the world in a way we have not seen fit to do in recent generations in the West. There is much we can learn from that Islamic world view in this respect.
There are many ways in which mutual understanding and appreciation can be built. Perhaps, for instance, we could begin by having more Muslim teachers in British schools, or by encouraging exchanges of teachers. Everywhere in the world people want to learn English. But in the West, in turn, we need to be taught by Islamic teachers how to learn with our hearts, as well as our heads. The approaching millennium may be the ideal catalyst for helping to explore and stimulate these links, and I hope we shall not ignore the opportunity this gives us to rediscover the spiritual underpinning of our entire existence.

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have always felt that tradition is not a man-made element in our lives, but a God-given intuition of natural rhythms, of the fundamental harmony that emerges from the union of the paradoxical opposites that exist in every aspect of nature. Tradition reflects the timeless order of the cosmos, and anchors us into an awareness of the great mysteries of the universe, so that, as Blake put it, we can see the whole universe in an atom and eternity in a moment. That is why I believe Man is so much more than just a biological phenomenon resting on what we now seem to define as "the bottom line" of the great balance sheet of life, according to which art and culture are seen increasingly as optional extras in life.
This view is quite contrary, for example, to the outlook of the Muslim craftsman or artist, who is never concerned with display for its own sake, nor with progressing ever forward in his own ingenuity, but is content to submit a man's craft to God. That outlook reflects, I believe, the memorable passage in the Koran, "whithersoever you turn there is the face of God and God is all-embracing, all knowing". While appreciating that this essential innocence has been destroyed, and destroyed everywhere, I nevertheless believe that the survival of civilised values, as we have inherited them from our ancestors, depends on the corresponding survival in our hearts of that profound sense of the sacred and the spiritual.

Prince Charles' Speech at Wilton Park

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The Prince of Wales explains how the Muslim critique of materialism helped him to rediscover the sacred Islamic spirituality and the decline of the West.
I start from the belief that Islamic civilisation at its best, has an important message for the West in the way it has retained an integrated and integral view of the sanctity of the world around us. I feel that we in the West could be helped to rediscover the roots of our own understanding by an appreciation of the Islamic tradition's deep respect for the timeless traditions of the natural order.
I believe that process could help in the task of bringing our two faiths closer together. It could also help us in the West to rethink, and for the better, our practical stewardship of man and his environment - in fields such as health-care, the natural environment and agriculture, as well as in architecture and urban planning.
Modern materialism is unbalanced and increasingly damaging in its long-term consequences. Yet nearly all the great religions of the world have held an integral view of the sanctity of the world. The Christian message with, for example, its deeply mystical and symbolic doctrine of the Incarnation, has been traditionally a message of the unity of the worlds of spirit and matter, and of God's manifestation in this world and in mankind.
But during the past three centuries, in the Western world at least, a dangerous division has occurred in the way we perceive the world around us. Science has tried to assume a monopoly - even a tyranny - over our understanding. Religion and science have become separated, so that now, as Wordsworth said, "Little we see in nature that is ours". Science has attempted to take over the natural world from God; it has fragmented the cosmos and relegated the sacred to a separate and secondary compartment of our understanding, divorced from practical, day to day existence.

Islam can teach us today a way of understanding and living in the world which Christianity itself is poorer for having lost. At the heart of Islam is its preservation of an integral view of the Universe. Islam-refuses to separate man and nature, religion and science, mind and matter, and has preserved a metaphysical and unified view of ourselves and the world around us. . . . But the West gradually lost this integrated vision of the world with Copernicus and Descartes and the coming of the scientific revolution. A comprehensive philosophy of nature is no longer part of our everyday beliefs.

The future Charles III has made several strong public statements endorsing Islam as the solution to the spiritual and cultural ills of Britain and the West. His public advocacy of Islam appears to go back to 1989,Charles first delivered a major address on Islam on October 27, 1993, at the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford where he is a vice patron of the Centre for Islamic Studies.
The guiding principle and spirit of Islamic law, taken straight from the Qur'an, should be those of equity and compassion.
Charles suggests that European women may even find something to envy in the situation of their Muslim sisters:
Islamic countries like Turkey, Egypt and Syria gave women the vote as early as Europe did its women-and much earlier than in Switzerland! In those countries women have long enjoyed equal pay, and the opportunity to play a full working role in their societies.
Charles considers Christianity inadequate to the task of spiritual restoration and denigrates science for having caused the West to lose its spiritual moorings. Echoing a common Muslim theme, he declares that "Western civilisation has become increasingly acquisitive and exploitive in defiance of our environmental responsibilities." Instead, he praises the "Islamic revival" of the 1980s and portrays Islam as Britain's salvation:

CHARLES'S PUBLIC STATEMENTS ABOUT ISLAM

Islam can teach us today a way of understanding and living in the world which Christianity itself is poorer for having lost. At the heart of Islam is its preservation of an integral view of the Universe. Islam refuses to separate man and nature, religion and science, mind and matter, and has preserved a metaphysical and unified view of ourselves and the world around us. . . . But the West gradually lost this integrated vision of the world with Copernicus and Descartes and the coming of the scientific revolution. A comprehensive philosophy of nature is no longer part of our everyday beliefs.
He concludes by suggesting that "there are things for us to learn in this system of belief which I suggest we ignore at our peril."

CHARLES'S PUBLIC STATEMENTS ABOUT ISLAM
The future Charles III has made several strong public statements endorsing Islam as the solution to the spiritual and cultural ills of Britain and the West.
Charles first delivered a major address on Islam on October 27, 1993, at the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford where he is a vice patron of the Centre for Islamic Studies.

Charles suggests that European women may even find something to envy in the situation of their Muslim sisters:
Islamic countries like Turkey, Egypt and Syria gave women the vote as early as Europe did its women-and much earlier than in Switzerland! In those countries women have long enjoyed equal pay, and the opportunity to play a full working role in their societies.
Charles considers Christianity inadequate to the task of spiritual restoration and denigrates science for having caused the West to lose its spiritual moorings. Echoing a common Muslim theme, he declares that "Western civilisation has become increasingly acquisitive and exploitive in defiance of our environmental responsibilities." Instead, he praises the "Islamic revival" of the 1980s and portrays Islam as Britain's salvation:

Prince Charles' Speech at Wilton Park

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The Prince of Wales explains how the Muslim critique of materialism helped him to rediscover the sacred Islamic spirituality and the decline of the West.
Islamic culture in its traditional form has striven to preserve this integrated, spiritual view of the world in a way we have not seen fit to do in recent generations in the West. There is much we can learn from that Islamic world view in this respect.
There are many ways in which mutual understanding and appreciation can be built. Perhaps, for instance, we could begin by having more Muslim teachers in British schools, or by encouraging exchanges of teachers. Everywhere in the world people want to learn English. But in the West, in turn, we need to be taught by Islamic teachers how to learn with our hearts, as well as our heads. The approaching millennium may be the ideal catalyst for helping to explore and stimulate these links, and I hope we shall not ignore the opportunity this gives us to rediscover the spiritual underpinning of our entire existence.

PRINCE Charles CALLS FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING OF ISLAM
SOURCE: The Times. By Alan Hamilton.

THE need for an understanding of Islam has arguably never been greater than now, the Prince of Wales told an audience of Muslim academics and community leaders yesterday. Speaking at the opening of a postgraduate studies building at a Muslim education centre, the Prince praised the contribution of Islamic culture to European civilization in fields as diverse as mathematics, astronomy, medicine and the arts. He told an audience of 200 guests at the Markfield Institute of Higher Education, near Leicester, that the presence of Muslims in academia, public office and the higher echelons of British society was not something new, but was something to be celebrated. He also paid tribute to the sacrifice made by Muslims during the First and Second World Wars. “We might also pause to remember the hundreds of Muslims who died in the service of the Crown . . . the Merchant Navy memorials on Tower Hill in London, for example, provide ample evidence of those brave Muslim men who gave their lives on board British ships,” the Prince said. The Prince also recalled that when Lord Ahmed was elevated to the peerage in the 1990s, it was hailed as a breakthrough for the Muslim community. But the Muslim convert Lord Stanley of Adderley had beaten him into the Upper House by more than 100 years, as had Lord Headley, who announced his conversion to Islam in 1913.

Americans believe that Muslim women are oppressed by their religion, forced to cover themselves completely, denied education and other basic rights. It is true that Muslim women, like women all over the world, have struggled against inequality and restrictive practices in education, work force participation, and family roles. Many of these oppressive practices, however, do not come from Islam itself, but are part of local cultural traditions. (To think about the difference between religion and culture, ask yourself if the high rate of domestic violence in the United States is related to Christianity, the predominant religion.)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/questions/women/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/questions/women/

Islam gives women a number of rights, some of which were not enjoyed by Western women until the 19th century. For example, until 1882, the property of women in England was given to their husbands when they married, but Muslim women always retained their own assets. Muslim women could specify conditions in their marriage contracts, such as the right to divorce should their husband take another wife. Also, Muslim women in many countries keep their own last name after marriage.

The Quran explicitly states that men and women are equal in the eyes of God.