Member of Parliament, the right honourable Shaikh Jassim Al-Saidi, an upstanding citizen, and erstwhile Imam of a mosque in Riffa, and brought to parliament rightly by gathering 1673 votes in a hard-fought and contested election in his Southern Governate out of 4,413 (as opposed to any candidate in the Northern Governate who would have had a pool of around 10,000 to get in), wants to bring the Shi’a terrorists of the 1990s to book for the various terrorist acts they have perpetrated against the state, and its employees, citing his direct cousin’s murder at the terrorists’ hands. His cousin was a member of the respectable and ever vigilant police forces and champions of human rights then. He demands full compensation to what he claims over 1,000 affected locals and expatriates in those dark times of Bahrain.
He too wants Law 56 repealed in order to seek reparation.
He too wants to open the wounds. (arabic)
You would think that he would use his good offices to dampen the enmity between the two main sects. You would think that he would work tirelessly through the parliamentary mechanism to force the government and this country’s leaders to create a truth and reconciliation commission to repair the damage that the black nineties have wrought on these isles’ peace-loving people.
But that would take a humane human being to think of these things.
Not the respectable Shaikh Jassim Al-Saidi.
Taking his full track record of absolute hatred of the Shi’a community, who by some estimates top the 70% of the indigenous population of Bahrain, and finds fault in their very existence on these sacred isles, I am not at all surprised by his various attacks on this community, nor by his perpetual sectarianism and even simple-mindedness of seeking to inculcate his ample self only to his own constituency, thus throwing to the winds the very essence of parliamentary work: a representative of the people. All the people.
Shaikh Jassim Al-Saidi would undoubtedly would want Hussain to stand trial and compensate the police forces, including Mr. Adel Flaifel, for being too belligerent and not confessing under duress. After all, what are a few knocks and bruises to Shaikh Jassim Al-Saidi? He must have gone through more than the following:
They took me upstairs to an office, I don’t know whose. There they told me to stand on one leg and bray like a donkey. “What am I accused of?” I asked. “Get some manners,” the officer said, and he hit me and left. Then someone came in wearing a dishdasha [traditional white shoulder-to-ankle garment worn by men in the Gulf]. I recognized him from photos I had seen: It was Adil Flaifil. He asked me if I was Hussain Shahraqani and I said yes. He had a piece of paper marked “confidential” on top, otherwise blank. He told me to sign it. I refused. They took me to a different room and trussed me up with a pole under my knees. There were four men, two in uniform. They kicked me and took turns hitting me with a hose. After half an hour of this they took me back to Adil Flaifil, who told me again to sign. I refused again. I went back and forth several times between the hanging and beating and the questioning. At one point he [Flaifil] asked for my hand. Two people held my hand, and he burned the back of my hand with his cigarette [displays light scars].
Shaikh Jassim Al-Saidi didn’t have to endure the torture most probably perpetrated or at least aided and abetted by the likes of his cousin.
Comments
Law 56, again.
Why do people always seek to tear each other apart? These people are al munafeqeen, the most reviled in The Qur’an. They seek to spread fitna, again a grave sin. Unity and peace, that is what religious men should try to spread, not division, fear and violence
These are the types, along with bin Laden, who are mentioned in the Hadith “Upon ‘Abdullah b. Amr (may Allah be pleased with them both) who said: The Messenger of Allah (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) said: There will be a fitna that will clean (tastanzifu) the Arabs, its dead will be in Hell. During which the tongue will be more severe (ashadd) than a blow of the sword. ”
It is even claimed, and I believe it, that the anti-Christ will come from the Najd. Hadith supports this.
The Messenger of Allaah, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, said,
“O Allaah bestow your blessings on our Shaam. O Allaah bestow your blessings on our Yemen.” The people said, “O Messenger of Allaah, and our Najd.” I think the third time the Prophet, sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam, said, “There (in Najd) will occur earthquakes, trials and tribulations, and from their appears the Horn of Satan.”
Reported in al-Bukhaaree [Book of Trials, Chpt. ‘The afflictions will come from the East’ 9/166 no. 214 Eng. Trans]
Any Arabic Speaker
Any Arabic Speaker,
I know this is off topic, but since it keeps coming up…
[quote]sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam [/quote]
This is an Arabic phrase written with Roman characters. How do you know how to spell it? Does each person try to sound it out as best he/she can? Or is there some standard dictionary you use to get the correct spelling?
i guess I am thinking of the Pinyin system for transliterating Chinese, and am wondering if Arabic has the same thing.
Thanx
Aliandra
Re: Any Arabic Speaker
[quote]Any Arabic Speaker,
I know this is off topic, but since it keeps coming up…
Quote :
sallallaahu alayhi wa sallam
This is an Arabic phrase written with Roman characters. How do you know how to spell it? Does each person try to sound it out as best he/she can? Or is there some standard dictionary you use to get the correct spelling?
i guess I am thinking of the Pinyin system for transliterating Chinese, and am wondering if Arabic has the same thing.
Thanx
Aliandra [/quote]
There is standard way of transliterating that scholars use, but I dont know anyone who uses it. The best way, honestly, of dealing with written Arabic is to actually use the Arabic script. There are several problems with this in the virtual world. First of all not all computers or software support Arabic script. Second, and especially in the USA and Europe, you have many Arabic speakers who cannot read and write Arabic well. It is a very hard language to learn, I have heard it compared to learning 3 European languages. It is written differently than it is spoken, so a fair amount of Arabic speakers who have not had formal Arabic classes cannot write or read it properly.
I have taken two university level Arabic classes, and two university level Arabic grammer classes, all from a Saudi university, and I still have trouble with reading, it is time consuming for me. Arabic, when written, does not include all of the symbols you need to be able to read and understand the words if you do not already know them. Only long vowels are written, outside of religious texts. So short vowels and other diacritical symbols are left out. If you do not know the word, you will not know how to say it. You can guess, but without the dolma, sheda, fatha, sekkund and other symbols, you might get it wrong. This happens to me often. I will not know a particular word. I can guess the meaning because of the context within the sentence, but I am unsure as to how to say it, so I must ask someone or look it up. I have taken formal classes, but most of my knowledge comes from the people closest to me, so sometimes I am unfamiliar with regional dialects. Formal classes are okay, but people just do not talk like that on a day to day basis. I remember going into my first formal class and having to relearn how to pronounce words, even basic ones, to conform to classical Arabic standards and not the Hijazi dialect I am used to. Even counting……I say the words for even counting differently than it is said in classical Arabic and other dialects. I say itenen(two) when it would be ithenen, or talata(three) when it should be thalatha. It is a very hard language to learn.
I also had loads of trouble with imla(dictation). Some Arabs often have a tendency to not pronounce completely and properly, so the words often seem to blend together. Problem is sometimes the letters are very close and if you get it wrong it changes the meaning of the word itself. Once again, if you are not a native speaker it can be hard to figure it out.
So yes, it is a lot about sounding things out. Some people will use numbers that match roughly what they look like in the Arabic alphabet, like the number 7, 3, and 9(which I just learned recently). It differs from place to place and from forum to forum. There are no hard and fast rules. Some people will use an apostrophe to indication a glottal stop, some not. So the name As’ad, could also be spelled Asaad. A speaker would know the difference, but they are the same words.
Here at work I remember a bunch of us trying to put together a food order after prayers on Friday once. In talking to an Egyptian and Morrocan we had several misunderstandings based on the different words used for chicken and lamb alone. Hard language……. I have MAJOR respect for Westerners who learn the language and do it well. One good example is Hamza Yusuf, an American convert who does complete shows on Arabic TV, in Arabic, and is astounding in his accent and his grasp of the language.
I know, long answer for what you asked.
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Al-Wefaq won’t be playing come October 2006. They’re just not interested, and judging by how impotent our parliament, its bylaws and the constitution is and the impossibility of changing it from within, I don’t blame them. Yes, I realise…
Law 56, again.
I think that we shouldnt always be idealists when it comes to shia sunni spilit, this has been a problem for 1400 years or more and we will not solve it in a few months of years, there will always be different opinions and different people will view things and try and back up there ideas through information that who knows could be false or not even reliable, this is regardless of whether they are sunni shia sufi ahmadi etc i could list so many groups all day.
And another thing that many people are guilty of is judging people, who are we to judge people like Osami Bin Laden or whoever, we can all have our opinions on peoples actions but we cannot say these people are munafiqeen or this person is going Hell etc etc , because if we look back to Asma ela al husna (99 names of God) one of them says he is ‘The Judge
Law 56, again.
[quote]who are we to judge people like Osami Bin Laden [/quote]
Say what?
Law 56, again.
Hibba, by your reasoning we shouldn’t even have courts, as who are we to judge?
Reason will tell you that people like Osama Bin Laden are wicked, their thoughts and ideologies should not be supported by anyone with more than a smidgen of common sense.
Although I do agree that Muslims should put aside their sectarian views and lean to get along, but then you could say that about everyone in the world, we’re all human after all, why the hate?
Unfortunately, that’s just human nature. Let’s hope one day we can move beyond that.
GB
Law 56, again.
I can’t believe how a man of religon who’s supposed to be a role model to people can say such thing and have so much hatred for the Shia’a community. Aren’t they muslims as well??
Why all this hatred in such a small community in be beautiful island of Bahrain? the whole world is becoming cosmopolitan and mixed, and yet Bahrainis (both sunnis and shia’as) are too uncivilized to come to an understanding.
Let’s hope things change, but with people like Mr. Al-Saidi with power…we have to wait a long time to see some changes.
Law 56, again.
It’s the Bahraini mentality…very backwards…
Even some people who hardly practice islam whether it’s sunni or shia have predijuice when it comes to a person from the other sect. funny but true!