islam

The title page announces as a second series of souras 52-79, but this second series only starts by soura 64! So, I cannot find soura 52-63… Could this important work of Muhammad Asad be completed please? I would be very grateful!

Eleven men were arrested and a policewoman was taken to hospital Saturday after violence broke out at a far-right group's demonstration against Islamic extremism in central England, police said.

The 29-year-old policewoman hurt her arm while policing a cordon at the protest by the English Defence League in the city of Nottingham, but no one else was seriously hurt in the skirmishes, Nottinghamshire police said.

About 500 members of the EDL, a marginal group which has staged a number of demonstrations against radical Islam in recent months, sang the English national anthem and football songs as they gathered in the city.

Many of them had their faces covered with scarves and hooded tops as they chanted: "We want our country back" and held aloft placards saying "Protect Women, No to Sharia (law)" and "No Surrender".

A counter-demonstration by Unite Against Fascism, who claim the EDL are a racist organisation, took place nearby, despite police requests that they move.

Concerns about immigration and Islamic extremism in Britain were highlighted by the success of the anti-immigration British National Party (BNP) in European elections this year, where they secured their first two MEPs.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jcuzzL8GAnyYdhGzZ7zvY4J_lzpA

Allama Ghulam Ahmed Pervez (1903-1985) was a well-known Islamic scholar. He was born and brought up in an orthodox Muslim family - A follower of sunni-cum-hanafi sect of Islam. God has blessed him with an open heart and mind. Like any other Muslim he, too, cherished the past glory of Islam and earnestly craved for its revival. He had an inquisitive mind and never let the things to go unquestioned. He often questioned, if our beliefs and practices are true then why these are not yielding the desired results? The Quran claims that the Muslims are the best people on earth [3:110] but we find them on the contrary. Excluding the years of the Prophet (pbuh) and the righteous caliphs, the rest of Islamic history is full of ZILLAT AND MASKANAT (degeneration and inertness). Furthermore, it says: “If you (Muslims) are the true believers you will be dominant." And, in an another verse it says: "God will never let the unbelievers to subdue the believers." [4:141.
However, the ground reality is different. The Muslims, are nowhere free. They are, either politically enslaved or suffer economic domination of non believers. Why the promises and predictions of the Quran are not coming true? Why the Muslims are humiliated and downtrodden everywhere in the world? Such questions haunted Pervez often and over a long period of time.

As a staunch believer, he never doubted the authenticity of Quran and Sunnah. He believed in the absolute value system and universality of the Quran. According to him, Quran gives a plain, practical and very dynamic values system for the functioning and development of human society and for achieving international peace and justice. In this regard, the Life of the Prophet (pbuh), as mentioned in Quran, is the best model for Muslims. He did not simply received and delivered the message but, in a short span of 23 years, established a mighty State in Medina based on the Value System of Quran and had turned the wild Arabia into an highly civilized society and a cradle of peace and justice.

The Quran is intact and the life of the Prophet is a well-recorded historical document. Then what is wrong with the Muslims that they are not coming up to the mark ? Why they are not achieving their goals ? Is something wrong with the Message or the Muslims failed to get the true understanding of Quran and Sunnah ? Is it possible to find the real problem ?

These and many other such questions lead Pervez to find out the reality. He broke the cocoon of simple beliefs and practices and stepped into the vast expanse of free inquiry. Henceforth, he never accepted any belief or practice without a critical test. He revisited all the traditional beliefs and practices of Islam in the light of Quran, because it is the only criterion for judging right and wrong.

Pervez's journey in the vale of Quran is spread over 50-years.He was a prolific writer and has written
volumes of books and delivered lectures on Quranic topics which are recorded on audio-video cassettes. If the definition of a scholar is: " a person possessing or manifesting wide and deep knowledge then I have no doubts in the scholarship of Pervez. He got to his credit more than 60 voluminous books, hundreds of pamphlets, recorded lectures on more than 500 audio and 70 video cassettes and numerous articles on various topics published since 1935 in monthly Toluislam. His highly acclaimed work is the compilation of Lughat-ul-Quran (Dictionary of the Quran), which is unique in style and outstanding in knowledge. Apparently, it is an Arabic lexicon but in truth it is more than that. It makes the maximum use of morphological system of Arabic in a limited space. It is like a fountainhead of pure and pristine meanings of Arabic words used in the Quran. No one can understand Pervez unless he has studied Lughat-ul-Quran. Any criticism or comment about his work without referring to Lughat-ul-Quran would be unqualified and biased.
During his journey in search of truth he came to the conclusion that the primary cause of Muslims' degeneration and inertia is misunderstanding of the concepts of the Quran. No doubt, they revere Quran like a sacred religious book. They read and recite Quran abundantly but, unfortunately, majority of them do not understand or seek knowledge. They follow the Quran individually to earn Thawab and seek salvation in the hereafter. They do not follow its permanent values collectively and do not struggle to establish a just and peaceful society. Consequently, despite of high respect and sincere devotion to Quran and Sunnah they are deprived of God’s blessings and bounties which are enumerated in the Quran in these words: A life full of contentment [13:28]; A civil society free of social injustices and economic exploitations [20:112]; and an honourable and dignified status among the comity of nations [3:139].
Pervez's Insight of The Quran
Pervez, as we have seen above, was a famous scholar known nationally and internationally for his deep, trustworthy and unpolluted study of Islam. In recognition of the services rendered by him to the cause of Islam, he was granted a Gold Medal by the Government of Punjab (Pakistan). This fact is published along with a note in recognition of his services in the official publication 'Tehreek-e-Pakistan Gold Medal 1989'. It was also recognized in the said official publication that Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah placed great confidence in him and he was at one time the personal consultant of Quiad-e-Azam in regard to the religious foundation of Pakistan.

Allama G.A. Pervez work on Quran remains unprecedented as a rational gloss in Islamic scholarship. It is not an attempt to duplicate what has already been achieved, nor is it intended to be a substitute for other translations. Its genius lies in its rigorous attempt to go beyond the traditional “word-for-word” concept of translation to bring out the richness of the Arabic language and pristine purity of the Quranic concepts. Its purpose is to help masses achieve to the greatest possible clarity and understanding in their reading of the text of Quran and comprehend what the Arab listener in Prophet's time understood, instantly. Learning of Quran is an un-ending and un-restrictive process. It is like a stream with great potentialities unfolding itself as the human knowledge expand – and shall remain so till dawn: ëhiya hatta mutleh al fajjerí- [97:5]

Pervez has faithfully attempted to present Quran through creative use of amplification in contemporary language. As long as he lived he never claimed infallibility of views. He held some views with great vigour because he saw them clearly as edicts of the Holy Quran. Other interpretive views were always presented with the caveat that he was not beyond making mistakes. The rise of militant fundamentalism and the traditionalist clergy in Pakistan has obscured his message: the seminarian authority overcame, as always, the struggle of the non-seminarian mind.

Perveziyat is today synonymous with heresy. But his encyclopaedic work will always live because of its usefulness to the fundamentalist and modernist alike.

The basic problem with Pervez thoughts is that his critics made no mental distinction between writing critically on the subject of Islam and intending to deliberately bring about the malicious disputes. You may find in his work the meaning of many words and verses different than the traditional translations. In this respect, two things are important to know.

Firstly, one should know that he did not translate 'word-for-word '. Rather, he gave comprehension of the Quranic passages. The difference between translation and comprehension is obvious. Secondly, it should be remember that even the traditional translations are not all the same. These differ at many places among themselves. For example, take these two translations: one by Shah Abdul Qadir and the other by Maulana Abu-al-Kalam Azad (both were eminent scholars). Former is so important that Shaikh-ul-Hind Maulana Mahmood-ul-Hassan revised it and Maulana Shabeer Ahmed Usmani wrote its footnotes. In other words, this translation has the approval of three great scholars of the sub-continent. It gives the translation of verse 2:102 (wa ma unzila a'lalmalakaine bebabila haruta wa maruta) as follow: "(and they followed) such things as came down at Babylon to the angel Harut and Marut". According to this translation, the reader comes to understand that God has sent something to the angels at Babylon. Now, compare it with this translation by Maulana Abu al-Kalam Azad: "It is also not true that something came down at Babylon to the angel Harut and Marut". According to this translation God has sent nothing to the angles.
These translations not only differ but also negate each other. Nevertheless, these are popular among the masses and no Scholar or Mullah ever raised a voice against them. It shows the true mentality of those who bash Pervez for distortions and twists in the Quran.
They criticize Pervez not because he ignored the principles of Arabic or objectivity of the Quran; Not at all! No one can blame him on this ground. His major fault is that he did not become a holy sheep, which never leave the herd. Instead, he left the traditional path immediately when he felt that it is leading towards the wrong direction. No doubt he adopted a different style than the traditionalist but it is not new one. In fact, it was the original style of understanding the Quran. Unfortunately, it was lost in the dust of history. Pervez has simply removed that dust and revived it in its pristine purity. Actually, the criterion for testing right and wrong has become the ancestral sanctity instead of intellectual honesty. That is why when they listen to Pervez they turn their face saying: ìma samehna behaza fi abainal awaleenî - " never did we hear such a thing (as he says) among our ancestors of old ". (23:24).

I request the honourable readers, in order to know the truth about Pervez, you must visit the following websites.

www.tolueislam.com, www.toluislam.com,
www.IslamicDawn.com

On these sites, you will find lot of literature on Pervez and by Pervez. Also, on these sites, you can listen to his audio-video lectures. I am sure you will like it.

I found this article in an archive so I have put it up here for your readers. Thanks

There are a lot of sites where you can download the translation and Tafsir by Muhammad Asad and if you like a hard copy, you can purchase online as well.
You can check some links here:
http://www.islamicity.com/QuranSearch/
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10720330/Message-of-Quran-Muhammad-Asad-Islam-Translation
http://www.mininova.org/tor/1923269
http://arthursclassicnovels.com/arthurs/koran/koran-asad10.html

Hope it helps.

A lot of online shops from Pakistan are bogus. Also, The Message of Quran being sold in Pakistan is a pirated copy. Because of this, its not expensive. I bought my copy two years back for less than US$10. But this also means the paper quality is not good. It is available on all major/big bookshops in Islamabad and Lahore.

One solution would be to ask someone to physically buy it and then post it.

By the way, why do you want to buy from Lahore (only)???

Dear Sir/ Madam

Is there any possibility to purchase Muhammad Asad translation of the Quran. I live in Australia. Can one order this book from Lahore Pakistan safely?

If you have any news kindly email me. I am very happy about your online translation of Muhammad Asad translation of the Quran

greetings Eckbert

Right-wing Dutch legislator Geert Wilders, who faces prosecution in his homeland for anti-Islam remarks, won an appeal on Tuesday against a ban from entering Britain.

Wilders was barred in February because British ministers said his presence would threaten community harmony and public safety.

He had planned to show his film "Fitna", which argues that the Koran incites violence, in the British parliament but was turned back after landing at London's Heathrow Airport.

Britain's Asylum and Immigration Tribunal has now overturned that decision following a challenge by Wilders, meaning he could now be allowed into the country.

"It's a fantastic decision," Wilders told Reuters. "It's not a victory for myself, but a victory for freedom of speech."

Wilders said he had no specific travel plans but would return to Britain "as soon as it's possible".

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Police arrested 48 men during skirmishes between a far-right group and opponents in the northern English city of Manchester on Saturday.

Supporters of the English Defense League, a new group which stages street protests against what it terms "radical Islam," clashed with anti-racism campaigners from Unite Against Fascism.

Around 2,000 rival protesters congregated in the Piccadilly Gardens area of the city center. The two groups were mainly kept apart by a line of police in riot helmets and anyone trying to break through the cordon was led away.

Most of those arrested were held on suspicion of public order offences, police said. One person suffered minor injuries but did not require hospital treatment.

Police eventually herded the English Defense League supporters out of the area and put them on double-decker buses to take them out of the city center. Their rivals were forced away in the opposite direction.

"The presence of so many protesters in the city has proved a challenge and while many have turned out to protest peacefully the police reaction has been necessary in order to prevent the few hell-bent on violent confrontation," Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan said in a statement.

Police described many of those arrested as "agitators and trouble-makers."

The English Defense League sprang up this year after a small group from a local Muslim community staged a protest in the southern town of Luton against soldiers returning from Iraq.

The far right has made political progress this year, with the British National Party winning two seats in the European parliament.

Experts on community relations fear a rise in tensions between working class whites and immigrant communities could lead to further violence in the run-up to an election due by next June

source: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE5991Q620091010

This short article is intended to summarize Islamic point of view on insurance. In the current century insurance has become a necessity of daily life, with insurance companies charging insance amounts. In a true Islamic country where its citizens pay all the required taxes, it would be the responsibility of the state to help its citizens recover any losses they incur due to different circumstances. It is also logical that if a state does not provide for its citizens when they are in trouble, then there is no use of paying the taxes.

Boozing it up in adolescence contributes to risky behavior in adulthood, according to a new study with rats. Some researchers suspect that the same is true for people, but they've had a hard time establishing whether adolescent drinking makes people prone to risk-taking or whether risk-prone people are simply more likely to start drinking as teenagers. Although the new work doesn't settle the issue, it bolsters the case that early alcohol use can cause lasting changes in behavior.
Some of the best data available show that people who start drinking as adolescents and drink more heavily then are more likely to have problems with alcohol and drug abuse later in life, says Ilene Bernstein, a neuroscientist at the University of Washington, Seattle, and the senior author of the new study. But those studies have fallen short of determining cause and effect, Bernstein says. To get around this pitfall, she and her colleagues turned to rats, assigning individuals from a genetically identical strain to either drinking or teetotaling groups.

Although rats don't voluntarily like to drink alcohol, the researchers found they could entice the rodents with spiked gelatin—the murine equivalent of the Jell-O shots beloved by college students everywhere. Adolescent rats assigned to the drinking group had access to the stuff for 20 days. They consumed the equivalent of "multiple, multiple drinks" a day but spread their drinking over many hours and never appeared visibly drunk, Bernstein says.

To test the rats' propensity for risk, the researchers adopted a gambling task used by psychologists to study risk-taking in people. The animals learned that pressing one lever produced small but certain rewards in the form of small sugar pellets and an adjacent lever yielded bigger rewardsmore pelletsbut paid off less frequently. The researchers rigged the game so that in some testing sessions choosing the certain reward was the best overall strategy, while in other sessions the "risky" lever yielded the greatest overall payoff.

Teetotaling rats figured out the game over the course of a testing session and adjusted their strategy accordingly. Rats in the alcohol group also quickly learned that pressing the levers could lead to food, which Bernstein says argues against a general learning impairment. But 3 months after their last drink, they always preferred the risky lever, even when they payoff was poor, the researchers report this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"It's a good step forward," says Martin Paulus, a psychiatrist who studies addiction and decision-making at the University of California, San Diego, and the Veterans Affairs San Diego Health Care System. Paulus says the findings provide solid evidence that alcohol use in adolescence can cause lasting effects on adult behavior. He notes that the genetic and environmental influences at play are far more complex in people, but he thinks the study will facilitate further investigation of how early alcohol exposure could alter decision-making circuitry in the brain.

One possibility, Bernstein says, is that brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex, which plays an important roles in decision-making and is still maturing in human teenagers, are particularly sensitive to the effects of adolescent drinking: "Alcohol for some reason is very toxic to developing nervous systems

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/921/1

Scientists are greeting with surprise and dismay a project to use DNA and isotope analysis of tissue from asylum seekers to evaluate their nationality and help decide who can enter the United Kingdom. “Horrifying,” “naïve,” and “flawed” are among the adjectives geneticists and isotope specialists have used to describe the “Human Provenance pilot project,” launched quietly in mid-September by the U.K. Border Agency. Their consensus: The project is not scientifically valid—or even sensible.

“My first reaction is this is wildly premature, even ignoring the moral and ethical aspects,” says Alec Jeffreys of the University of Leicester, who pioneered human DNA fingerprinting.

U.K. immigration policies have been under scrutiny recently as the number of people claiming asylum has soared and as French police in Calais last week cleared a camp of migrants hoping to make it across the English Channel. The existence of a DNA-based program to identify nationality was recently revealed by the Daily Mail and The Observer, sparking protests from refugee advocates.

The Border Agency’s DNA-testing plans would use mouth swabs for mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome testing, as well as analyses of subtle genetic variations called single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). One goal of the project is to determine whether asylum-seekers claiming to be from Somalia and fleeing persecution are actually from another African country such as Kenya. If successful, the Border Agency suggests its pilot project could be extended to confirming other nationalities. Yet scientists say the Border Agency’s goals confuse ancestry or ethnicity with nationality. David Balding, a population geneticist at Imperial College London, notes that “genes don’t respect national borders, as many legitimate citizens are migrants or direct descendants of migrants, and many national borders split ethnic groups.”

Another geneticist says the Forensic Science Service, a former government agency that has been privatized, requested his opinion earlier this year on how to develop a genetic assay to distinguish among East African populations. “I thought it was for forensic purposes, not border control,” says Christopher Phillips of the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, who with colleagues recently used a DNA sample to correctly infer the ancestry of a suspect in the 2004 train bombings in Madrid. After expressing skepticism about the goal,Phillips suggested some research the FSS could conduct but says he heard no more from them.

Mark Thomas, a geneticist of University College London who considers the Human Provenance program “horrifying,” contends that even determining a person’s ancestryas distinct from nationalityis more problematic than many believe. “mtDNA will never have the resolution to specify a country of origin. Many DNA ancestry testing companies have sprung up over the last 10 years, often based on mtDNA, but what they are selling is little better than genetic astrology,” he says. “Dense genomic SNP data does have some resolution … but not at a very local scale, and with considerable errors.”

Details of the plan to use isotope analyses in addition to DNA analyses have intensified skepticism. The plan is to look for ratios of certain isotopes in tissue that could be matched to ratios in the environment where a person was born or grew up. But isotope specialists point to a seemingly obvious flaw: There’s no scientifically accepted evidence that isotope signatures at birth or during childhood are still present in adult samples of constantly growing tissues such as hair and nails. At best, researchers say, those tissues reflect the past year or so of a person’s life. “It worries me as a scientist that actual peoples’ lives are being influenced based on these methods,” says Jane Evans, head of Science-based Archaeology at the National Environment Research Council Isotope Geosciences Laboratory in Nottingham.

Although the agency hasn’t detailed the isotopes it is examining, the use of hair and nail samples suggest the tests will look at “lighter” element isotopes, such as those of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen, all of which are incorporated into the keratin and other proteins as those tissues grow. Isotopes of strontium and other “heavier” elements incorporate into bones and teeth throughout life and some evidence suggests that strontium measurements can match people to geographic locales in which they were born, or at least grew up. In contrast, the lighter isotopes in tissues such as hair and nails being collected by the Border Agency are typically used to reveal recent diets and climatic conditions, not ethnicity. “I don’t think I could tell the difference between a Kenyan and a Somalian,” says Tamsin O'Connell of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, an archaeologist who specializes in studying light isotopes from soft tissues.

http://www.isb.pakistanleague.org/index.php/news/70-uk-to-implement-dna-tests-for-asylum-seekers-scientists-claim-its-deeply-flawed

Researchers have unveiled the oldest known skeleton of a putative human ancestor—and it is full of surprises. Although the creature, named Ardipithecus ramidus, had a brain and body the size of a chimpanzee, it did not knuckle-walk or swing through the trees like an ape. Instead, "Ardi" walked upright, with a big, stiff foot and short, wide pelvis, researchers report in Science. "We thought Lucy was the find of the century," says paleoanthropologist Andrew Hill of Yale University, referring to the famous 3.2-million-year-old skeleton that revolutionized thinking about human origins. "But in retrospect, it was not."
Researchers have long argued about whether our early ancestors passed through a great-ape stage in which they looked like protochimpanzees, with short backs; arms adapted for swinging through the trees; and a pelvis and limbs adapted for knuckle-walking (Science, 21 November 1969, p. 953). This "troglodytian," or chimpanzee, model for early human behavior (named for the common chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes) suggests that our ancestors lost many of the key adaptations still found in chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas, such as daggerlike canines and knuckle-walking, which those apes were thought to have inherited from a common ancestor.

Evidence has been hard to come by, however, because there are almost no fossils of early chimpanzees and gorillas. Until now, the oldest known skeleton of a human ancestor was Lucy, who proved in one stroke that our ancestors walked upright before they evolved big brains. But at 3.2 million years old, she was too recent and already too much like a human to reveal much about her primitive origins. As a result, researchers have wondered since her discovery in 1974, what came before her—what did the early members of the human family look like?

Now, that question is being answered in detail for the first time. A multinational team discovered the first parts of the Ar. ramidus skeleton in 1994 in Aramis, Ethiopia. At 4.4 million years old, Ardi is not the oldest fossil proposed as an early hominin, or member of the human family, but it is by far the most complete—including most of the skull and jaw bones, as well as the extremely rare pelvis, hands, and feet. These parts reveal that Ardi had an intermediate form of upright walking, a hallmark of hominins, according to the authors of 11 papers that describe Ardi and at least 35 other individuals of her species. But Ardi still must have spent a lot of time in the trees, the team reports, because she had an opposable big toe. That means she was probably grasping branches and climbing carefully to reach food, to sleep in nests, and to escape predators.

Most researchers, who have waited 15 years for the publication of this description and analysis, agree that Ardi is indeed an early hominin. "This is an extraordinarily impressive work of reconstruction and description, well worth waiting for," says paleoanthropologist David Pilbeam of Harvard University. But he takes issue with the idea that the common ancestor of chimps and humans didn't share many traits with the African apes. "I find it hard to believe that the numerous similarities of chimps and gorillas evolved convergently," he says. Regardless, the one thing all scientists can agree on is that the new papers provide a wealth of data for the first time to frame the issues for years. "It would have been very boring if it had looked half-chimp," says paleoanthropologist Alan Walker of Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

http://eforum.vim.im/index.php?topic=498.0

A rise of at least two meters in the world's sea levels is now almost unstoppable, experts told a climate conference at Oxford University on Tuesday.

"The crux of the sea level issue is that it starts very slowly but once it gets going it is practically unstoppable," said Stefan Rahmstorf, a scientist at Germany's Potsdam Institute and a widely recognized sea level expert.

"There is no way I can see to stop this rise, even if we have gone to zero emissions."

Rahmstorf said the best outcome was that after temperatures stabilized, sea levels would only rise at a steady rate "for centuries to come," and not accelerate.

Most scientists expect at least 2 degrees Celsius warming as a result of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, and probably more. The world warmed 0.7-0.8 degrees last century.

Rahmstorf estimated that if the world limited warming to 1.5 degrees then it would still see two meters sea level rise over centuries, which would see some island nations disappear.

His best guess was a one meter rise this century, assuming three degrees warming, and up to five meters over the next 300 years.

"There is nothing we can do to stop this unless we manage to cool the planet. That would require extracting the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. There is no way of doing this on the sufficient scale known today," he said.

Scientists say that ice melt acquires a momentum of its own - for example warming the air as less ice reflects less heat, warming the local area.

"Once the ice is on the move, it's like a tipping point which reinforces itself," said Wageningen University's Pier Vellinga, citing various research.

"Even if you reduce all the emissions in the world once this has started it may be unstoppable. I conclude that beyond 2 degrees global average temperature rise the probability of the Greenland ice sheet disintegrating is 50 percent or more."

"(That) will result in about 7 meters sea level rise, and the time frame is about 300-1,000 years."

STORM

Delegates from about 190 nations are meeting in Bangkok to try to speed up U.N.-led negotiations to replace the Kyoto Protocol with a tougher climate pact.

Speakers in Oxford used history to back up their arguments on rising seas. Three million years ago the planet was 2-3 degrees warmer and the sea 25-35 meters higher, and 122,000 years ago 2 degrees warmer and 10 meters higher, they said.

"What we now see in Greenland, Antarctica could be a temporary phenomena but it could also be the start of what we saw 122,000 years ago," said Vellinga.

Sea levels have risen about 20 centimeters in the past century and that effect was accelerating, speakers said.

That rise was adding to storms such as that in the Philippines, although that single event couldn't be attributed to climate change, said Rahmstorf.

"Of course the flooding from a given storm event would be less severe if we hadn't added those extra centimeters."

About 40 million people worldwide live in flood plains, said Southampton University's Robert Nicholls. That is 0.6 percent of the global population and 5 percent of global wealth, because of valuable assets such as airports and power plants.

He was confident that coastal protection could hugely reduce lost land and assets. The cost of that speakers put at anywhere from 50 billion euros ($72.85 billion) a year by 2020 to up to $215 billion a year by 2100.

A second earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.8 on the Richter Scale, has hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra, causing fresh panic.

The U.S. Geological Survey has reported that the quake struck at 9:31am local time (0131 GMT) on land, 96 miles northwest of Bengkulu.

It is thought at least 200 bodies have now been recovered from the earlier earthquake on Wednesday, which set off landslides and cut power lines. Buildings, including hospitals, collapsed in the capital of West Sumatra, Padang.

Thousands could be buried under the rubble. Officials say that heavy rain is also hampering rescue efforts.

Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari has told reporters at an airport in Jakarta that the number of victims "could be more (than hundreds or thousands). I think it's more than thousands, if we look at how widespread the damage is… but we don't really know yet."

The national disaster agency earlier put the toll at between 100 and 200 in the city of 900,000. Rescue workers have said they expect the number to rise further.

TV footage has shown piles of debris, collapsed houses and multi-storey buildings, with scores of crushed cars.

Hijab has become a heated debate in these times. I think, following the current environment, the women should modify their hijab to avoid the troubles.

Maulana Mahmood Madani of India tries to Humiliate Musharraf to show he is political worthy. He tells Musharraf to back off and Indian Muslims can take care of themselves. However, he does not talk about anything related to Gujrat massacre or other persecutions which middle class and lower class muslims suffer in India.

He, himself, however does not endure any such thing and after his confrontation with Musharraf is well on his way to a political stardom.

This thread is dedicated to the News and reports which document the religious elite aka Mullahs, Maulanas, Molvies, Allamas and all the rest selling other Muslims for their personal gains such as money, power, recognition, fame or anything else.

Militants in Pakistan have been accused of killing two relatives of top Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, who died last month in a US missile strike.

The men were seized by the Taliban on suspicion of spying and providing information about the Taliban commander's whereabouts.

The Taliban deny killing the men and said they are investigating.

Meanwhile, at least 10 corpses have been found in the troubled northern district of Swat, officials say.

About 300 bodies of suspected militants have turned up in the Swat valley over the last two months.

Locals say the army are responsible for the deaths. But the military has consistently denied involvement with any extra-judicial killings.

They say many militants were killed during operations in the valley and also point the finger at local tribal militias taking revenge on Taliban militants in the area.

Eyewitnesses told the BBC that the bodies were found lying by the river. All of them were shot in the head and chest from close range.

'Signs of torture'

Meanwhile there is continuing disquiet in South Waziristan, where the Taliban are reported to have seized six of Baitullah Mehsud's relatives.

The captives included his father-in-law Ikramuddin and his nephew Iqbal Mehsud.

Two of the captives are reported to have died in the militants' custody. They have been identified as Iqbal Mehsud and a cousin of Baitullah Mehsud called Akram Gul.

Iqbal Mehsud was well-known and considered to be very close to his uncle.

He had acted as Baitullah Mehsud's envoy to the government during negotiations with the Taliban on many occasions.

Iqbal Mehsud had also been involved in negotiating with the government over the release of certain militants.

The Taliban say he has died in custody due to illness. The body has been handed over to his family.

However, other clansmen and officials have told the BBC's Abdul Hai Kakar in Peshawar that Iqbal Mehsud died after being tortured.

They say cuts made by knives are visible all over his body and his nails have been pulled out.

Baitullah Mehsud's father-in-law is still being held.

The Taliban say they have set up an an investigative team to inquire into the incident.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8260451.stm

Right-wing protesters failed in their attempts to disrupt a pro-Palestinian march in central London on Sunday.

The English Defence League, an anti-Islam fringe group, sought to confront an annual pro-Palestinian march through the city, but only mustered about 30 supporters.

Police kept the group away from hundreds demonstrating against Israel’s control of Jerusalem as part of the annual “al-Quds day” (Jerusalem day) march.

A handful of the right-wing activists marched through Piccadilly Circus in the centre of the city’s shopping district shouting “Muslim scum off our streets” before they were barricaded into a small area by police, while the pro-Palestinian supporters marched past.

Bemused tourists watched as the groups exchanged taunts. They were prevented from physical confrontation by large numbers of police.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said there were no arrests.

The presence of the right-wing activists marked the latest in a series of confrontations in London, Luton and Birmingham.

On Friday there were several arrests as the activists clashed with young Muslims and anti-fascist groups outside a mosque in Harrow, north London.

Another group, called Stop Islamification of Europe, had organised a protest against “violent extremism” outside the Harrow Central Mosque on the anniversary of September 11. However they were vastly outnumbered by up to 2,000 Muslim and anti-fascists, who gathered to “defend the mosque”.

Police used “kettling” tactics — keeping the protesters within a small area — to maintain control and were involved in skirmishes with youths, who threw fireworks and bottles at officers.

source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6833142.ece

Seven people have been arrested after clashed at an anti-Islam demonstration, police have said.

Officers were dealing with a gathering of around a 1,000 people in Station Road, Harrow, north-west London, said a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police.

The pressure group Stop Islamification of Europe (SIOE) had pledged to hold a peaceful protest outside Harrow Central Mosque in London.

Counter protests were also planned at the site, where a new five-floor mosque is under construction, and hundreds of people were expected to attend.

The seven arrests were for possession of offensive weapons.

source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/latest/2009/09/11/clashes-at-anti-islam-demonstration-115875-21666551/