My (earnest, irate) thoughts

Culture
www.yusufari.com Photos by Yusuf Ari: Pictures of all sorts of things (butterflies and other animals including baby ducks!, kids, flowers, landscapes and architecture) taken by my husband. At the top it reads, Don’t say: “It’s beautiful.” Say: “God made it beautiful.” Mashallah (It is God’s will) is what Muslims say for a beautiful creature, like a baby. Check it often, because we add more photos all the time.

Politics
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/simon_jenkins/article727080.ece These cartoons don’t defend free speech, they threaten it: Times columnist Simon Jenkins tells the real truth about the rights and responsibilities inherent in the Western “freedom of speech” — because, after all, “we do not go about punching people in the face to test their commitment to non-violence.”

Arabic
www.mounthira.com Mount Hira: To help us memorize God’s Final Testament, the Qur’an, several of the most famous verses are here, in Arabic with translation in English and transliteration using a Latin alphabet. The sound of the recitation is so beautiful!

Islam
www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/misc/Jesus_and_Muhammad.htm Jesus and Muhammad: Brothers in faith and the challenge of walking in their footsteps in a secular world: Though the puppeteers would have us believe that Christianity and Islam are diametrically opposed, in reality Islam is the only other religion that respects Jesus as a messenger of Divine truth. “If you would trust in God as is His right to be trusted He would give you your provision as He gives it to the birds, they leave their roosts hungry and return satiated,” said Muhammad. Similarly the author of the Gospel of Matthew has Jesus saying to the crowds around him, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Who can say these messages don’t come from the same Source?