Brilliant!

I just have a problem with the laces, I don’t think they had any. They did have thongs though.

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It is with reticence that I write this. I do not wish to place myself on the moral high ground, or to sermonise anyone. This chapter tries to show the truth and importance of dreaming of our Holy Prophet Muhammad (May Allah Convey His Peace and Blessings upon the Holy Messenger). These words seek to confirm that ours is a Prophet of Mercy, a Witness, and a Bearer of Good Tidings. It also aims to portray the consequence of du’aa in the Masjid al-Haram. It is moreover meant as a method of encouragement for our children to some day continue with the Prophetic Tradition of raising an orphan for the sake of Allah, The One of Unbounded Grace. So that they may by this means know that there is more to life than just prayer and fasting. And that they should give of themselves unreservedly. That they might through it also, temper their adhkaar with compassion.

We were asleep at the Mashrabiyya Hotel in Khalid bin Walid Street in Shubayka, Makkah al-Mukarramah when, by the Mercy of Allah, I had the most beautiful dream. I saw myself standing in the holy presence of our Truthful Prophet Muhammad (May Allah Convey His Peace and Blessings upon the Holy Prophet). Our Prophet (May Allah Convey His Peace and Blessings upon the Holy Messenger) was spotlessly dressed in white robes and a white turban. I stared aghast. Our Prophet stood about two meters away and faced me directly. I do not have the words with which to suitably portray this most wonderful man, the Seal of the Prophets. I have never seen anyone so unimaginably holy, so indescribably handsome. I reached for my turban, embarrassed for not wearing it. “Leave it,” I said to myself. “You are in the Company of the Prize of creation.” A brilliance shone from our Guided Prophet (May Allah Convey His Peace and Blessings upon the Holy Prophet). Our Prophet (May Allah Convey His Peace and Blessings upon the Holy Prophet) smiled at me. The smile radiated light. I stood alert, too humbled to speak. I wished that the dream would last forever. The heavenly smile lasted between ten and fifteen minutes, it felt like.

Alhamdu-lillaah. I had never considered myself deserving of such an enormous honour. This was a spiritual experience of the first magnitude. “What does that smile mean?” I asked myself over and over again.

Part of my da’waat in the Holy Mosque in Mecca, was to ask Allah, The One Who Makes Clear to us His signs so that we may be grateful, to Grant to ourselves the opportunity and blessings of raising an orphan for His sake.

My wife and I had, over a number of years, tried to adopt a baby by applying at several local agencies, and were given all sorts of excuses which disqualified, and sometimes discouraged us. Reasons given were that we were not married according to South African law, that few babies from local Muslim parents came up for adoption, and the fact that we have children of our own. We were also faced with, what was to my mind, the worse aspect of the South African race laws. These regulations and those administering it, in this case, the social workers, prescribed that a ‘brown’ orphaned child had to be matched with ‘brown’ adoptive parents. A ‘yellow’ baby could only be placed with prospective ‘yellow’ adoptive parents, a ‘white’ orphan could not be raised by ‘black’ adoptive parents, and so on. They played dominoes with human lives. Some social workers were more ready to read the ‘race act’ than others. In an interview and in response to a question on whether we would mind adopting a child from a ‘lower rung’ of the colour scale, I told them that “a nice green one would do.” A jab to my ribs from my wife quickly halted the acid flow down the sides of my mouth. Stirring the ire of our then masters by criticising their political beliefs would not help, she meant. “When the white boss tells a joke, and regardless of its lack of humour – laugh!” she chided me later. Race inequalities existing at the time ensured that hundreds of black orphans went begging in more ways than one. It virtually excluded us from adopting a child. No orphans that matched our race and blood mix were on offer and they weren’t likely to easily present themselves for adoption, we were told. My wife is of Indian (as in “Indian” from India, as opposed to “American” Indian) stock and I am of (well) mixed blood.

On the morning of Wednesday, 1st June 1994, just three days after arriving back home from Haj, we received a telephone call from Melanie Van Emmenes of the Child Welfare Society. She explained that a five-month old girl had come up for adoption. The baby had earlier undergone successful abdominal surgery and she asked whether we would adopt the child. We jumped at the chance.

A rush of adrenaline replaced the after-effects of travel. We were rejuvenated. Capetonians usually visit local pilgrims before departure and also on their arrival back home. We excused ourselves from the few visitors and asked my mother-in-law to host them in our absence. My wife and I immediately went to the Adoption Centre in Eden Road, Claremont. We signed the necessary papers.

Afterwards, we told our children that we were about to receive an addition to the family. We plodded through a maze of red tape in order to legalise the process. (My wife and I had to marry in court because Muslim marriages were not recognised then, believe it or not). A few days later, my wife, brother and I collected the petite infant from a foster-mother in Newfields Estate. I shall never forget the joyous feeling when I first carried the frail waif past the front door. Her name is Makkia. We named her after the great city from which we had just returned.

Taking her into our home is one of the better things that we have done. Makkia has added a marvellous dimension to our lives. She is part of our life’s work. I shall always be grateful to the people who had assisted us with the adoption.

The meaning behind the glowing smile from our Trustworthy Prophet Muhammad (May Allah Convey His Peace and Blessings upon the Holy Prophet) had played itself out in the most delightful way. In our Prophet (May Allah Convey His Peace and Blessings upon the Holy Prophet) we have a beautiful pattern of conduct. Like a lamp that spreads light, the Messenger of Allah invites to the Grace of Allah by His leave. Our Divinely-inspired Prophet is the first of the God-fearing. No person is better than him. Our Prophet Muhammad is the leader of the prophets. He is without sin. Our Prophet (May Allah Convey His Peace and Blessings upon the Holy Messenger) is faultless and the foremost of those who submit to the Will of Allah. An exemplar to those who worship God, our Kind-hearted Prophet Muhammad (May Allah Convey His Peace and Blessings upon the Holy Prophet) is the beacon of the pious. He is an inspiration to those who are thankful to God and the leader of those who remember Allah. How should I express gratitude to the Holy Messenger of Allah for his kind intervention? I am unworthy of untying the laces of our Prophet’s sandals.

Allah, The One Who Is Sufficient For those who put their trust in Him, Had Granted our want through the barakah of our Beloved Prophet Muhammad (May Allah Convey His Peace and Blessings upon the Holy Prophet).

I’ve been fairly constant about wearing a turban during ’ibaadah since.

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I’m on vacation for the next few days – see you after Easter,
which the Jews call Peschach, I believe, and the politically
correct Americans call Spring Holiday.

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this “This land is ours” thingy was right here where I live.
These so-called “riots” were performed by a bunch of punks
and misfits, many of them actually of vintage Danish/Christian
origin. You might consider finding yourself some more reliable
sources than paranoid wingnuts like in JihadWatch …

And this thing at danielpipes.org – isn’t it … isn’t it …
Yes, it is! It’s the article Daniel Pipes wrote some years back
with “historian” Lars Hedegaard which was debunked completely
and exposed as a pack of lies; Pipes subsequently distanced himself
from the article, saying it was all Hedegaard’s doing.

Oh, the odor and feel of vintage propaganda lies.

Frankly, other readers than Steve: Don’t believe a word you read in the articles at the end of those links Steve gave.

Hedegaard (Pipes’ co-author on the last piece) has a record of distorting
facts to fit his (s)creeds, and the “riots” mentioned in the uppermost
link had very little to do with islam or muslims and a lot to do with
juvenile delinquency.

Now I know another thing about you, Stevie Boy – you never check
your sources if they seem to confirm your prejudices.

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The murder of Van Gogh certainly set the environment for the cartoon publication. Why do you think they couldn’t get artists to illustrate the book about Islam, the precursor to the cartoon publication? Certainly that murder in broad daylight influenced the artists decision to reject such commissions for fear of violence.

From what I understand, Muslim on non-Muslim violence is much greater in Europe, and everywhere really, than non-Muslim on Muslim violence. That surely sets the scene as well.

While I don’t approve of phoning anonymous threats to people for holding differing opinions, I wouldn’t be so quick to assign such threats entirely to the right. While the right has its share of unhinged loonies and racists, so does the left. There is many a lefty who presents a politically correct public face but who is anything but in private.

You might consider that these bad and wrong responses are made in lieu of a proper and principled response by the government of Denmark to Muslims who wish to take advantage of your system to increase their numbers to a majority, then overthrow your state. When Muslims riot in your towns and claim that “This land belongs to us,” I would imagine that might worry some Danes who naively assumed Denmark was Danish. Likewise, some Danes may object to Muslim immigrants composing 5% of the population but consuming 40% of the welfare payments and commiting three fourths of the rapes in Denmark, Muslims clamoring to install Sharia law in Denmark when they become a majority, threatening to kill Muslim converts to Christianity, fomenting violent bigotry against Danish Jews, and offering $30,000 bounties for the murder of prominent Danish Muslims with whom the radicals disagree. When such belligerence goes unopposed and even ignored, it brings a lot of ugly and stupid reactions to the surface. Nice people sorely pressed begin to have crazy thoughts and reactions.

Steve

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Oh, but I agree. But I do understand where the prohibition came from.
The political situation in Germany and Austria in 1945 and on are very different indeed from that of a “normal” European country.

Steve:

Assassinating Theo Van Gogh for criticizing Islam is a rather strong assault on free speech. The cartoons followed from that to test free speech in the face of Muslim violence.

The cartoons actually had nothing to do with the assassination of The van Gogh – like I said, they were a part of a purely domestic discussion.

One observation, though: If you were able to read Danish newspapers you’d note that, like I said, people do actually not seem to be very afraid of saying things about Muslims which are not only bad, but completely outrageous. So there’s really no such censorship.

On the other hand, a newspaper made a survey of Danish Muslims who had defended themselves against such attacks in letters to the editor to newspapers and found that about 80% of them had subsequently received threats telling them, among other things, that they were pigs, should leave the country immediately and should shut the f*** up.

So who’s actually censoring and intending to intimidate whom?

In all fairness, I won’t accuse the entire “right wing” of trying to threaten and intimidate these people to silence. This is the work of a few extremists.

But, it makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

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Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Exposing lingering Nazi sentiments to the light of day and debate would delegitimize them. Driving them underground does not, where they can fester unchallenged.

Carsten Agger: “But other than that, your article is rubbish. I also note that none of the major US newspapers have actually run the Muhammad cartoons. Why? Well, NY Times and the like cite “consideration” or some sort of weakminded liberal stuff, but I’m sure the good ole conservative newspapers … hey wait, no, not even the good ole New York POST has run them.”

You note correctly. The reason is cowardice. The liberals who run the major media here have very nice lives and paychecks which they don’t want interrupted by a knife in their chest planted by some Muslim fanatic while they are chatting with their friends over their smoked salmon in a nice Manhattan restaurant. Running the cartoons has been left up to the much smaller conservative media.

Carsten Agger: “2) I don’t think Jyllands-Posten should have published the cartoons; I think it was a childish and deliberate insult to the Danish Muslim community – rather similar to an immigrant descrating our flag.”

Assassinating Theo Van Gogh for criticizing Islam is a rather strong assault on free speech. The cartoons followed from that to test free speech in the face of Muslim violence. When authors and artists avoid broaching the topic of Islam for fear of being harmed, then there is a serious threat to free speech and all that comes with it. No topic should be immune from criticism. The issue is whether Denmark will allow Muslims to censor their speech.

Steve

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nonsense!

They were going to pass some unfortunately strong
“anti-incitement” laws in Britain, but they gave it up again.

In Denmark, we have a law banning the demeaning (you could
say: Racist) characterization of an ethnic, religious or sexual
minority, but it’s very rarely used and anyway I wish you could
see some of the things they’re writing (especially about Muslims,
by the by) anyhoo.

In Israel, on the other hand, a young female settler was sentenced
to two years in prison for making a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad
as a pig. Well, it might have helped in the charge that she was
a settler in Hebron and was actually distributing her cartoon to
Palestinians in the town – she was convicted of inciting to riots; PM
Netanyahu (yes, him!) personally apologized to the mayor of Hebron.

But that was an aside … the Danish anti-incitement laws are actually
quite weak, and you can say whatever you want and people do. And
it’s more or less the same all over Europe, BTW.

Austria and Germany have laws against Holocaust denial. I find that
problematic, not because anybody with just a little grasp of the amount
of documentation available for that part of European history would
ever doubt it took place, but precisely because we can’t really argue
against someone who aren’t allowed to speak.

But there are historical reasons for these prohibitions. I mean, seriously:
in Germany and Austria you had enormous parts of the populations who
were accessories to the crimes, and who certainly did not want to
be reminded of what happened, and the “old ways” might easily have
reappeared (and Germany and Austria not been the open, democratic
societies they are today) if there hadn’t been laws in place against
Nazi activity.

Whether these laws are still relevant is another matter
(I think not – David Irving may be a despicable liar, but I don’t really
see any point in sending him behind bars).

But other than that, your article is rubbish. I also note that none of the
major US newspapers have actually run the Muhammad cartoons.
Why? Well, NY Times and the like cite “consideration” or some sort of weakminded liberal stuff, but I’m sure the good ole conservative newspapers … hey wait, no, not even the good ole New York POST has
run them.

I suppose you’ve got more censorship than us after all, right?

(Just for the record, re: the Muhammad cartoons:
1) The publication of the Muhammad cartoons should be understood
as a Danish domestic matter. The newspaper never intended
this to be an international affair in any way.
2) I don’t think Jyllands-Posten should have published the cartoons; I
think it was a childish and deliberate insult to the Danish Muslim
community – rather similar to an immigrant descrating our flag.
3) I don’t think we should have laws against doing such things,
tho’ – freedom of speech includes the freedom to say childish things,
even to make an ass of yourself).

I suggest you find another source for what’s going on in Europe than
the Daily Standard – freedom of speech is alive and well here.
As for the freedom to speak out against minorities, e.g. immigrants
and Muslims: Well, if you could only hear what our right-wing
politicians are actually saying, you probably would be pleased.

A lot of people wouldn’t, though.

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