China has imposed tight surveillance of the practices of the Muslim Uyghur community during the month of Ramadan in the Xinjiang province in the far west of the country, according to what has been reported by Uyghur exiles and local officials. And sources have stated the Chinese measures include forbidding Muslim students from fasting during the days of Ramadan and surveillance of their phone calls.
Alcohol flows in the streets of Western cities and towns, where those whose reason has been set aside by it stagger and fall into sidewalks and gutters, and those who suffer alcohol-induced violence and chronic degeneration are carried into hospital wards and morgues. The alcohol problem is huge. According to a research paper, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004, alcohol consumption and illicit use of drugs accounted for a staggering 102,000 deaths in the US during the year 2000. This was higher than the death toll due to microbial agents (75,000), higher than the death toll due to toxic agents (55,000), and far higher than the death toll due to motor vehicle crashes (43,000).
The US has taken many steps to protect its citizens against harmful microbial agents and toxins and has enacted legislation to protect against motor vehicle crashes, but what has been done to protect its citizens from the murderous effects of alcohol and illicit drugs use, which claims more lives than any of these other causes of death? Illicit drugs have been made illegal, but alcohol, which accounts for 85,000 of the 102,000 deaths, is freely available in the US, as it is in all Western countries. This legislative gap contradicts the claim that Western civilization is built upon ‘reason' as a European Renaissance value, which is pertinent, as Western thinkers and politicians often call for Islam to undergo a similar Renaissance. However, Islam has been protecting the minds and bodies of its followers from alcohol's destructive influence for fourteen centuries, without the need to adopt Western culture.
The Western comprehension of ‘reason' is confined majorly to one of its branches, namely the scientific method, which has been amply applied to the subject of alcohol abuse, but, to no avail. There are tens of thousands of scientific articles available in university databases upon the harmful effects of alcohol consumption, and one of these was published in 2010 in a British medical journal, The Lancet, that looked at two types of harm: self harm and harm to others, and what was striking was that alcohol was ranked as the most harmful of 20 drugs; about 40% more harmful than heroin or crack cocaine for example, and yet these later two are prohibited, while alcohol is permitted in the West. In addition to being the most harmful drug overall, alcohol was also shown to have the distinction of being the only drug that is more harmful to other people (victims) than to the drug users themselves. This makes the free availability of alcohol even more strange, as although the personal freedoms in Western civilization have become a fundamental creedal imperative, this is upon one condition: that while people are free in the West to destroy themselves against all reason, it is generally considered desirable to restrict individual freedom where other people are being harmed against their wishes. So why is alcohol use, with all its ills, so exceptionally tolerated?
It is certainly not because of any doubt about how harmful it is to other innocent people. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta tabulate data for alcohol use, as they do for other harmful human pathologies, and much of these data relate to the link between alcohol and violence against other persons: about 35% of victims of violent crime report that offenders were under the influence of alcohol at the time of their crime, alcohol use is also associated with 2 out of 3 incidents of intimate partner violence (i.e. 3 million violent crimes, according to the US Department of Justice, being committed against spouses, girl/boyfriends and children), and alcohol is a leading factor in child maltreatment and neglect cases. The CDC also publishes data collected from the medical professions, and reports that in 2006, there were more than 1.2 million hospital emergency room visits and 2.7 million physician office visits due to excessive drinking. The human and social cost of alcohol consumption is very high, and so also is the economic cost, which was estimated at $223.5 billion for 2006.
Western reticence about solving the alcohol problem today can be traced back to the failure of the US's National Prohibition Act of 1919, also known as the Volstead Act, which criminalised alcohol. Prohibition was repealed in December 1933 due to massive public opposition to the law, which is an example of a democracy abrogating reason and the public good in favour of the will of the majority. This episode in history has become a symbol of secular democracy prevailing against religious opposition to the right of the people to enjoy what they choose. This right is the right of the majority only, and France is a case in point here. While no one seriously considers the Muslim woman's Hijab to cause death, it is prohibited to be worn in many places in France, while alcohol is always welcomed, even though the European Journal of Public Health reported that in France, alcohol consumption was responsible for the deaths of around 49,000 people in 2009 and is "responsible for 22 percent of deaths between 15 and 34 years of age."
Alcohol dependency has ensnared 140 million people worldwide according to the World Health Organization, and this stems from the highly addictive nature of alcohol, which has profound effects upon the central nervous system at even low doses. Long before blood-alcohol levels become high enough to cause direct harm to the drinker, other more subtle effects lead to the unseating of reason from its normal place, wherein increased self-confidence and sociability become evident along with impaired judgement, and release of normal inhibitions against primitive desires.
Western civilization proclaims itself to be rational, but democratic societies are only as rational as the majority of people want them to be. That being so, the rapes, murders, wife beatings, child abuse, suicides and financial and social ruin shall for now continue in the West. And all of this, under the giddy banner of preserving individual freedom, without regard to preserving individuals themselves.
Dr. Abdullah Robin
The documentary film was presented at the annual assembly organized by Hizb ut Tahrir / Wilayah Lebanon marking the anniversary of the Battle of Badr, in this year's assembly titled: "Signs of the Ummah's Progress and the Decline of Western Hegemony"
Saturday, 18 of Ramadan 1434 AH corresponding to 27 July 2013
Hizb ut Tahrir/ Wilayah Lebanon Assembly: "Signs of the Ummah's Progress and the Decline of Western Hegemony"
Event:
MUAR: The Government will not trade off Malaysia's dignity and lead it to bankruptcy in regard to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) negotiations held in Kota Kinabalu last week.
Deputy Minister of International Trade and Industry Datuk Hamim Samuri said the government would not ink any agreement without considering the views of all concerned parties and safeguarding the people's rights.
"This is evident from the nation's earnings of around RM200bil annually from international trade," he said at a zakat presentation to 120 orphans and breaking of fast under the SME Bank social corporate responsibility programme at the Pekan Bukit Gambir Mosque here Friday night.
He further assured that the people had no cause to be anxious about the TPPA negotiations as they had not been finalised.
"As a developing country that depends on international trade, Malaysia cannot isolate itself but must participate in such negotiations," he said.
Meanwhile, Hamim described the objections of non-governmental organisations in Kota Kinabalu and Kuala Lumpur to the negotiations as politically motivated. - Bernama. [Source: The Star Online]
Comment:
For the past few weeks, in anticipation to the upcoming rounds of talks in Kuala Lumpur on the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), there had been dissenting voices in Malaysia on this opaque agreement fathered by the US and to be agreed upon by 10 other pacific countries, possibly by the end of this year. Much of the negotiations and documentations related to this agreement are kept in secrecy, although some has been leaked. Incomplete information on TPPA has in turn resulted in various speculations and arguments for and against Malaysia signing the agreement. The upcoming visit of Barack Obama to Malaysia en route to Brunei is also said to catalyse the Malaysian government's desire to sign the agreement, tentatively in October 2013. It is quite clear that TPPA is not just about trade. Its leaked chapters show that TPPA also involve sectors such as the various public services, government procurement, intellectual property etc. Agreeing to a free trade agreement such as TPPA means that local laws and policies must undergo drastic changes which will surely affect the domestic economy and the society as a whole.
Clearly, the ensuing discussion on TPPA is a manifestation of the public anxiety over the inherent evils of capitalism. Capitalism has a battery of armaments in ensuring its survival. One of its most effective survival weaponry is the promotion of free trade. Fundamentally, free trade has a positive connotation but lean it towards capitalism, it becomes the most effective and efficient method of ensuring domination and hegemony of major capitalist economies over economically weaker countries. Often, free trade is conveyed as a platform where all participating countries would be able to trade freely, liberalising a huge market where business deals can be made in a fair, highly profitable manner. TPPA is said to provide such a platform for the 11 participating countries. But is this really true? Is it true that by signing a free trade agreement, a country would be able to reap the promised benefits? In reality what is promised is nothing more than a façade. Free trade agreements such as TPPA are not an equal partnership that stands for mutual gain. It is a one-sided binding agreement which protects the interest of investing foreign companies, especially from US, enabling them to undermine weaker countries and consolidating their hegemony over these countries.
Free trade agreements in the world over convey myths and unseen traps which economically weak countries fall into much too often. These agreements are frequently presented as catalysts of development and economic stability. However, what has been happening to the world economy within the past two decades have certainly proven this wrong. In the name of globalization, we see frequent economic crisis, we see countries being stripped bare, unable to protect themselves from waves of foreign financial attacks, and we see wealth being stolen from right in front of our eyes by unscrupulous international conglomerates and speculators.
This is capitalism. This is a system that breeds on pillars built on freedom; freedom to own anything one likes, freedom to say anything one wishes, freedom to believe in anything one feels comfortable with and freedom to express oneself the way he or she likes. This is a system that never guarantees the basic livelihood of an individual and a system that have clearly manifested its unfairness in undeniable ways since its inception until today. Yet, man still clings to this system, despite knowing very well that this is the very system that brings so much misery and despair to him. For Malaysia, signing the agreement would mean opening up the country to unscrupulous capitalists bent on usurping the wealth of the country. But in reality, Malaysia and other Muslim countries have already signed this ‘agreement', knowingly or unknowingly, by agreeing to implement capitalism and to live by it. Consequently, when a certain part of capitalism is seen to be unfair, a solution within the system is searched for, only to find more unfairness and more grief and this is what one would expect in a system created by man. Allah SWT has endowed upon man a perfect system, a system that solves all problems of mankind. Man, Muslims in particular, should take heed and learn from the disastrous and detrimental manifestations of capitalism and look into history to see that the perfect system of Islam had been implemented before and only by re-implementing this system under the umbrella of the Khilafah "Caliphate" that growth, stability and equality can really be achieved and sustained.
Dr. Muhammad
Malaysia
On Friday 17 Ramadan 1434 AH corresponding to 07/26/2013, supporters of Hizb ut Tahrir held halaqat and lectures in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque, speakers addressed the crowds about various political topics relating to matters of Muslims, such as the events in Egypt, and the need for the rule of the Quran to prevail in Egypt, and that this can not be through the republican or democratic system, but through the application of the law of Allah and to declare Egypt an Islamic caliphate state.
Speakers also stressed the sanctity of Muslim blood and the sanctity of the fighting for the sake of the rulers' chairs and positions, and they also criticized America who stands behind the events in Egypt, and behind the alleged democracy in the beginning and then stood behind the coup.
Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Palestine
Picture Slideshow: Click Here
The emotional acknowledgement of accepting the existence of Allah Ta'ala is a natural disposition for all human beings at all periods since creation of the first human being. This condition will continue to manifest itself in human beings at all times despite there being various efforts termed ‘development' that object to the whole concept of religion on the pretext of ‘sufficiency of science and technology'.
This feeling is the condition that stirs in a human being to a point that he directly senses the existence of the Creator of the world and Creator of all beings himself included. The Creator who has limitless authority over human beings and what surrounds them. A demonstration of this feeling is the sense of man that clearly shows his physical weakness e.g. his need for air to breathe, food, sickness and ultimately death. All these gives man an inner understanding about his weakness and acknowledgement of the existence of Allah Ta'ala, the Almighty, who has authority and abilities beyond limit. This is the meaning of ‘Fitra' i.e. the natural disposition that man was created with.
However, some human beings are seen outwardly based on their pride and haughtiness to deny the existence of the Creator, but inwardly, this matter cannot be denied. Basically, it is intended to lie in front of people. Allah Ta'ala tells us of Fir-aun and his people:
((وَجَحَدُوا بِهَا وَاسْتَيْقَنَتْهَا أَنْفُسُهُمْ ظُلْمًا وَعُلُوًّا فَانظُرْ كَيْفَ كَانَ عَاقِبَةُ الْمُفْسِدِينَ))
"And they belied them (our signs) wrongfully and arrogantly though their ownselves were convinced thereof. So see what the end of the evildoers was!" [TMQ 27:14]
Also the fourth Khilafah "Caliphate", Imam Ali (ra), says:
"Allah has two arguments against man i.e. the open argument (Dhwaahirah) and the hidden argument (Baatwinah). The open argument concerns Prophets and Messengers and the hidden argument is the mind".
Darwin, the originator of the ‘evolution' theory which presumes the origin of man is from apes! (May Allah protect us from this foolishness), was once asked while on his deathbed a few days before passing away: "What do you say about the beauty of various things. Is it possible that the handiwork of such things is the work of the human mind and not the work of Allah"? Darwin looked keenly at the Duke of Argyle and answered: "That feeling (of there being a Creator) has persistently been strong in me but at sometimes, it was as if it is not on my mind." (Hayward Alan, God Is, uk.113)
After man attains this understanding of the existence of Allah Ta'ala, he has no option but require some form of worship to show his obedience and humility to his Creator who controls his life. Based on this reality, it is the reason that man at all times has been making various worships to demonstrate his obedience and humility to the God he worships. This condition was evident even during the period of threats, authoritarianism and dictatorship of the false communist ideology which was a major denier of religion. However, the greatest thing it could manage was to remove the public from their old worships and alternatively direct them to a new idol worship of communist leaders. Therefore, in earnest, Communism failed to prevent the natural perception of worship by their people but instead it changed the type of worship.
Following the natural requirement by man to worship Allah Ta'ala, at all times Allah Ta'ala has been sending Messengers (as). First, with the objective to elaborate to man the attributes of the Creator with comprehensive elaboration so that those attributes are not given to anyone else or being given attributes that are not His. Second is to inform man solutions to all their problems in life. Lastly, to educate them on the correct type of worship so that man attains peace by obeying his Lord and satisfying his natural thirst of worshipping his Creator.
Based on this, it is the reason our Prophet Muhammad (saw) who is the last Prophet was given various types of worship e.g. Salat (prayer), Hajj, Fasting etc. so that from those worships, we show our humility to our Creator Allah Ta'ala and satisfy our natural thirst of worshipping our Creator.
Therefore, from the mercy and glory of Allah, He has given us this noble worship of Fasting in Ramadhan. It is one of the major worships that he revealed to us so as to get the taste of submission and our hearts get tranquility by worshipping our only Lord.
It has strongly been recommended that we adhere to this worship. In a hadith of Abu Hurairah, quoting the Prophet (saw) as saying:
:عن أبي هريرة ( رضي الله عنه ) أن رسول اللَّه ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) قال
"إذا دخل رمضان فُتِّحت أبواب الجنة، وغلقت أبواب جهنم، وسلسلت الشياطين"
"When Ramadhan is with us, doors of the heavens (Paradise) are opened, the doors of Jahannam are closed and the devils are chained" (Bukhari).
Therefore, let's enter the holy month of Ramadhan by striving to fast and perform various worships so as to get closer to Allah Ta'ala with one intention of cementing our bond with our Lord. It should not be for the purpose of haste to eat sweet meals or other worldly interests but to seek the pleasure of Allah Ta'ala while expecting his Paradise and fearing His Fire.
((وَأَنْ تَصُومُوا خَيْرٌ لَكُمْ إِنْ كُنتُمْ تَعْلَمُونَ))
"And if you fast it is better for you if only you know" [TMQ 2:184]
Masoud Msellem
