Aug 9, 2007

life during wartime :/

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Fatwā

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This article is about the Arabic language word. For the 2005 film, see Fatwa (film).

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A fatwā (Arabic: فتوى; plural fatāwā Arabic: فتاوى), is a considered opinion in Islam made by a mufti, a scholar capable of issuing judgments on Sharia (Islamic law). Usually a fatwa is issued at the request of an individual or a judge to settle a question where fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) is unclear.

[hide]

[edit] History

In the early days of Islam, fatawa were pronounced by distinguished scholars to provide guidance to other scholars, judges and citizens on how subtle points of Islamic law should be understood, interpreted or applied. There were strict rules on who is eligible (see below) to issue a valid fatwa and who could not, as well as on the conditions the fatwa must satisfy to be valid. Today many Muslim countries (such as Egypt and Tunisia) have an official mufti position; a distinguished expert in the Sharia is named by the civil authorities of the country. According to the Usul al-fiqh (Principles of Jurisprudence), the latter are as follows :

The fatwa is in line with relevant legal proofs, deduced from Qur'anic verses and hadiths;
It is issued by a person (or a board) having due knowledge and sincerity of heart;
It is free from individual opportunism, and not depending on political servitude;
It is adequate with the needs of the contemporary world.

Today, with the existence of modern independent States, each with its own legislative system, and/or its own body of ulemas, each country develops and applies its own rules, based on its own interpretation of religious prescriptions.

[edit] Fatwa at national level

In nations where Islamic law is the basis of civil law, but has not been codified, as is the case of some Arab countries in the Middle East, fatawa by the national religious leadership are debated prior to being issued. In theory, such fatwa should rarely be contradictory. If two fatawa are potentially contradictory, the ruling bodies (combined civil and religious law) would attempt to define a compromise interpretation that will eliminate the resulting ambiguity. In these cases, the national theocracies expect fatawa to be settled law.

In the majority of Arab countries, however, Islamic law has been codified in each country according to its own rules, and is interpreted by the judicial system according to the national jurisprudence. Fatawa have no direct place in the system, except to clarify very unusual or subtle points of law for experts (not covered by the provisions of modern civil law), or to give moral authority to a given interpretation of a rule.

In nations where Islamic law is not the basis of law (as is the case in various Asian and African countries), different mujtahids can issue contradictory fatawa. In such cases, Muslims would typically honour the fatwa deriving from the leadership of their religious tradition. For example, Sunni Muslims would favor a Sunni fatwa whereas Shiite would follow a Shi'a one.

There exists no international Islamic authority to settle fiqh issues today, in a legislative sense. The closest such organism is the Islamic Fiqh Academy, (a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)), which has 43 member States. But it can only render fatawa that are not binding on anyone.

[edit] Legal implications of a fatwa

There is a binding rule that saves the fatwa pronouncements from creating judicial havoc, whether within a Muslim country or at the level of the Islamic world in general: it is unanimously agreed that a fatwa is only binding on its author.

This was underlined by Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obeikan, vice-minister of Justice of Saudi Arabia, in an interview with the Arabic daily "Asharq al awsat", as recently as on July 9, 2006, in a discussion of the legal value of a fatwa by the Islamic Fiqh Academy (IFA) on the subject of misyar marriage, which had been rendered by IFA on April 12, 2006 (see relevant excerpts in note below). [1]

Despite this, some theologians present their fatwas as obligatory, [2] or adopt some "in-between" position.

Thus, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar in Cairo, Muhammad Sayid Tantawy, who is the leading religious authority in the Sunni Muslim establishment in Egypt, alongside the Mufti of Egypt, said the following about fatwas issued by himself or the entire Dar al-Ifta:

"Fatāwa issued by Al-Azhar are not binding, but they are not just whistling in the wind either; individuals are free to accept them, but Islam recognizes that extenuating circumstances may prevent it. For example, it is the right of Muslims in France who object to the law banning the veil to bring it up to the legislative and judicial authorities. If the judiciary decides in favor of the government because the country is secular, they would be considered to be Muslim individuals acting under compelling circumstances." Otherwise, in his view, they would be expected to adhere to the fatwa. [3]

In Morocco, where king Mohammed VI is also Amir al-Muminin (Commander of the faithful), the authorities have tried to organize the field by creating a scholars' council (conseil des oulémas) composed of muslim scholars (ulema) which is the only one allowed to issue fatwas. In this case, a national theocracy could in fact compel intra-national compliance with the fatwa, since a central authority is the source. Muslims in other nations would obviously not be required to obey it.

[edit] Some contemporary fatawa

Fatawa are expected to deal with religious issues, subtle points of interpretation of the fiqh, as well as various mundane matters, as exemplified by the cases cited in the archives linked below. In exceptional cases, religious issues and political ones seem to be inextricably intertwined, as exemplified by the following fatawa:

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 pronounced a death sentence on Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi released a fatwa on April 14th 2004, stating that the boycott of American and Israeli products was an obligation for all who are able. The fatwa reads in part:

If people ask in the name of religion we must help them. The vehicle of this support is a complete boycott of the enemies' goods. Each riyal, dirham …etc. used to buy their goods eventually becomes bullets to be fired at the hearts of brothers and children in Palestine. For this reason, it is an obligation not to help them (the enemies of Islam) by buying their goods. To buy their goods is to support tyranny, oppression and aggression. Buying goods from them will strengthen them; our duty is to make them as weak as we can. Our obligation is to strengthen our resisting brothers in the Sacred Land as much as we can. If we cannot strengthen the brothers, we have a duty to make the enemy weak. If their weakness cannot be achieved except by boycott, we must boycott them.
American goods, exactly like the great Israeli goods, are forbidden. It is also forbidden to advertise these goods, even though in many cases they prove to be superior. America today is a second Israel. It totally supports the Zionist entity. The usurper could not do this without the support of America. “Israel’s” unjustified destruction and vandalism of everything has been using American money, American weapons, and the American veto. America has done this for decades without suffering the consequences of any punishment or protests about their oppressive and prejudiced position from the Islamic world.^[1]^[2]

[edit] Other meanings

Fatawa like the above have drawn a great deal of attention in Western media, giving rise to the use of the term fatwa to apply to statements by non-Muslims that advocate an extreme religious or political position, and loosely or as slang for other sorts of decrees, for example:

"The pope issued a fatwa."

[edit] Quotations

"In Sunni Islam, a fatwa is nothing more than an opinion. It is just a view of a mufti and is not binding in India." ― Maulana Mehmood Madani, president of the Jamaat-e-Ulema-e-Hind [4]

"The current fashion for online fatwas has created an amazingly legalistic approach to Islam as scholars - some of whom have only a tenuous grip on reality - seek to regulate all aspects of life according to their own interpretation of the scriptures." ― Brian Whitaker, The Guardian, January 17, 2006

Excerpts from an interview given by Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obeikan, vice-minister of Justice of Saudi Arabia, to the Arabic daily Asharq al awsat on July 9, 2006, in which he discusses the legal value of a fatwa by the Islamic Fiqh Academy (IFA) on the subject of misyar marriage, which had been rendered by IFA on April 12, 2006:

Asharq Al-Awsat: From time to time and through its regular meetings, the Islamic Fiqh Academy usually issues various fatwas dealing with the concerns Muslims. However, these fatwas are not considered binding for the Islamic states. What is your opinion of this?

Obeikan: Of course, they are not binding for the member Islamic states.

Asharq Al-Awsat: But, what is the point of the Islamic Fiqh Academy's consensus on fatwas that are not binding for the member States?

Obeikan: There is a difference between a judge and a mufti. The judge issues a verdict and binds people to it. However, the mufti explains the legal judgment but he does not bind the people to his fatwa. The decisions of the Islamic Fiqh Academy are fatwa decisions that are not binding for others. They only explain the legal judgment, as the case is in fiqh books.

Asharq Al-Awsat: Well, what about the Ifta House [official Saudi fatwa organism] ? Are its fatwas not considered binding on others?

Obeikan: I do not agree with this. Even the decisions of the Ifta House are not considered binding, whether for the people or the State.

Shifting poles

Emil Kraepelin (February 15, 1856–October 7, 1926) was a German psychiatrist. He is seen as being the founder of modern scientific psychiatry, psychopharmacology and psychiatric genetics according to the eminent psychologist H. J. Eysenck in his Encyclopedia of Psychology. Kraepelin believed that psychiatric diseases are mainly caused by biological and genetic disorders. His psychiatric theories dominated the field of psychiatry at the beginning of the twentieth century, and have again, in their essence, since its end. Kraepelin opposed the approach of Sigmund Freud who regarded and treated psychiatric disorders as caused by psychological factors.

Rapid cycling

Rapid cycling, defined as having four or more episodes per year, is found in a significant fraction of patients with bipolar disorder. It has been associated with greater disability or a worse prognosis, due to the confusing changeability and difficulty in establishing a stable state. Rapid cycling can be induced or made worse by antidepressants, unless there is adjunctive treatment with a mood stabilizer.^[20]^[21]

Hypomania

Main article: Hypomania

Hypomania is generally a less extreme state than mania, and people in the hypomanic phase generally experience less of the symptoms of mania than those in a full-blown manic episode. During an episode of Hypomania one might feel an uncontrollable impulse to laugh at things he or she does not normally find funny. The duration is usually also shorter than in mania. This is often a very 'artistic' state of the disorder, where there is a flight of ideas, extremely clever thinking, and an increase in energy.

Dementia praecox ("premature dementia") is a term first used in 1891 in this Latin form by Arnold Pick (1851-1924), a professor of psychiatry at the German branch of Charles University in Prague. His brief clinical report described the case of a person with a psychotic disorder resembling hebephrenia (see below). It was popularized by German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) in 1896 in his first detailed description of a condition that would eventually be reframed and relabeled as schizophrenia. It refers to a chronic, deteriorating psychotic disorder characterized by rapid cognitive disintegration, usually beginning in the late teens or early adulthood.

Manic Depression may refer to:

Bipolar disorder, a mental health diagnosis
The entire bipolar spectrum, that encompasses a wide range of mood disorders
"Manic Depression", a song written by Jimi Hendrix and covered by many artists

Aug 8, 2007

Fire heals

Centralia Pennsylvania

has been burning for decades

and the fires will never stop,

allowing nature to reclaim the earth from the humans that pillaged it.

Aug 7, 2007

Kick the Can

StructurAL frAMeworkage***

It is culturally impossible for there to be an entire global generation acknowledging the Divinity of humankind and the righteous magic of Nature as long as Capitalism dominates global agendas.

The 2008 Presidential campaign of Grandmother Lee started small, and by accident.

The Found can be optimistic perspectives of depressing observations about life in babylon.

For example, governments had created or tapped into large public services for various purposes that were assisted through raw data collections... from the most Google'd words on the planet, most watched video's on the planet, most visited websites, most viewed sex clips... and it could also pinpoint that data from the perspective of every person with access to a computer

~

The Scouts are people (handicapped, born again convicts , clones) who had volunteered to be ejected into space. They were immobilized in solar eggs, essentially bio engineered into small cocoons. They used precision trajectories (exploiting planetoid orbital inertias) and nuclear ballistics for the start of their journey.
The BioSync creates a live direct translation of human thought into digital code through sensors in the soles of shoes, sandals etc. This allows artificial intelligence to merge into the immediate lives of the humans it interacts with.

~~~
WW4 is the war of mass media, governments and corporations against indigenous earth cultures . Electricity, primarily through mass media (radio, tv, phones, internet, movies) pacifies all of the “Western World”, and always has , in fact the original creation of media never had higher motives than wealth and power.

U.S. Army Recruitment pitches:

~ look at all the high tech toys you get to play with if we pay you to help us kill people.

~ you alone can be the entire military (Army of One)

~ the mundane life of a civilian is inferior to the adventures of the art of killing.

~ the only way to respectfully remember those that have been killed defending us is to continue killing more people.

~ whether the U.S. government is right or wrong is irrelevant to a mission's success.

~~~~

This world of today, where governments globally condone and assist the use of tobacco (for smoking) and alcohol (for daily imbibing) is a scary world. Headed to oblivion and ruin.

Can I Kick It?

"Can I Kick It?"

Single by A Tribe Called Quest

from the album People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm

Released

1991

Format

Digital download, 12" maxi single

Genre

Hip-hop

Length

4:11

Label

Jive Records

A Tribe Called Quest singles chronology

"I Left My Wallet in El Segundo"
(1990)

"Can I Kick It?"
(1991)

"Check the Rhime"
(1991)

"Can I Kick It?" was the third single from A Tribe Called Quest's debut album People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. The song was not a hit at the time of its release but has become much more popular over the years, thanks in part to the wide exposure gained from its appearance as the theme music for the Nike commercial which launched the company's famous tagline, "Just Do It".

It is also well known for containing a sample from Lou Reed's 1972 single, "Walk on the Wild Side".

Rapper Sage Francis covered can i kick it on his album Sick of Waging War. Francis' version contained changes in some of the lyrics.

Music Video

Image:Can I Kick It Video.jpg

A Tribe Called Quest in the music video, "Can I Kick It?".

The music video is very eccentric. The group, De La Soul, and various others are literally kicking the word "it" while rapping in a film set, an alley, and a construction site. On the film set, they are seen playing with the dot for the "i" in "it". In the alley, they are walking aroung and are flipping on top of the "it". Other things, such as throwing drumsticks around and landing them on drums, are also seen in the video.

External links

"Can I Kick It? music video at YouTube

Angels FEAR

The Dude went afk and as he headed outside for a smoke the television caught his eye...a reporter was interviewing his senator, Rick Santorum.
SANTORUM: We have laws in states, like the one at the Supreme Court right now, that [have] sodomy laws and they were there for a purpose. Because, again, I would argue, they undermine the basic tenets of our society and the family. And if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn't exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution, this right that was created, it was created in Griswold - Griswold was the contraceptive case - and abortion. And now we're just extending it out. And the further you extend it out, the more you - this freedom actually intervenes and affects the family. You say, well, it's my individual freedom. Yes, but it destroys the basic unit of our society because it condones behavior that's antithetical to strong, healthy families. Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, where it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.

"Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that's what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality

At this point, even the unnerved reporter tried to rein in Santorum. "I'm sorry," Jordan interjected. "I didn't think I was going to talk about 'man on dog' with a United States senator, it's sort of freaking
me out."

But the man was on a roll and there was no stopping him. "And that's sort of where we are in today's world, unfortunately," Santorum said. "The idea is that the state doesn't have
rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there
are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire. And we're seeing it in our society."
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair05012003.html

The Dude sneered until he frowned.

He switched the channel to "The Bernie Kristi Show" and she was saying:

http://www.deepfun.com/interview1.htm
"Kristi: He is. He asked me a question about how I got interested in play. And when I really thought about that question and, he encouraged me to kind of go as far back with it as I could. And, what I came to remember or realize was that in kindergarten, I was selected into a program in my school district which was Downingtown area schools. It was called the DEEP program, Downingtown Educational Enrichment Program. It was for "gifted children."
Bernie: Oh, you were a gifted.
Kristi: Yeah, well, all children have their gifts. Some show up on IQ tests and others don't.
Bernie: But if you get to be in one of those places you get special things. That's wonderful.
Kristi: It was. But what was so great about it was that once a week I would go off with a couple of other kids, into a special classroom and almost all of the learning that we were doing there was play-based. It was very exploratory,
Bernie: You know what? This is what I started to do with a teacher when I had to teach fifth grade, before I got into this theater thing, that's what I was doing. I was trying to do this play-based stuff and sometimes it worked and other times parents hated me for it.
Kristi: Well, I loved it. And some of the things that I learned there, or those learning experiences, have stuck with me in a way that the normal academic curriculum learning did not.
Bernie: That's just wonderful.
Kristi: And, what I'm really interested in looking at is by the time I got to Junior High, they still called it the gifted program, but it was just more work in the same classes that other kids were taking. And it was some independent study kind of projects or an extra assignment or two so that we could get extra credit. But all of what was really great for me and helped accelerate my learning as a child was gone by the time I got to Junior High.
Bernie: Right.
Kristi: Why is that? Why is it that children are allowed to play and at a certain point in adolescence, and certainly as we go through adulthood, it is no longer okay? And, what does that do to us?
Bernie: Well, you know, here's another way of looking at it. Are you ready?
Kristi: Yes, please.
Bernie: Have you ever noticed how kids play being grown up?
Kristi: Yeah.
Bernie: They get very serious.
Kristi: Right
Bernie: Well, I think what happens is that as we get older we learn how to do that better and better. I don't think it is so much that the world takes away our childhood. I think we do that to ourselves. We get so damn good at pretending to be serious
Kristi: Right
Bernie: That's my theory.
Kristi: Well, I think you are on to something here."

The Dude was in the gifted program as well as a child. From second to eigth grade one day a week he was bussed to a nearbye school for special instruction. He had always resented it for alienating him from his peers.