Why was the Quran revealed in Arabic?

I noticed this question being asked a lot.  Many people assume that because the Quran was revealed in Arabic that Islam must only be for Arabs.   Watch this video to understand the truth about it.

New Greek Muslim needs your advice

This came in through our old blog site.  Can you give her some advice?

 

My name is Aisha(19 years old) and I am Greek currently living in Czech Republic for my studies. When I was in Greece i had no idea about Islam, due to the lack of information about it in Greece. I just thought that it is a religion for Arabs… However Allah gave me the opportunity to see this beautiful way of life in Czech Republic.

As most of the Greeks understand being a muslim in Greece is not very common. In about 1 month i will go back to Greece and i will have to face my Christian parents. Although they are not very religious, they don’t go to church except Easter and Christmas and sometimes not even then, the idea of having a different religion from the rest of my family (and the rest of the Greek citizens) and the idea that i will make it so obvious by wearing the hijab will not give a very good reaction according to their behaviour…

I would appreciate it a lot if you could give me some advise on how to talk to them and what to tell them because they don’t know anything for islam except that it is a religion that people from Pakistan that live in the city center,where most of violence occurs in Athens. May Allah help me and make it easy for me.

Moreover, showing off in Greece is something that I use to do but i find it meaningless anymore. Girls nowdays in Greece have lost their mind and walk almost naked in the street,driving the attention of every female person that passes next to them.

However this is something very common, but wearing the hijab isn’t.. I don’t know what my non-muslim friends will be with the idea of going out with a girl that covers her body… Iknow them since i was a little child and they will understand but i will have to explain them in the right way… do you have any suggestions?

Even a very small advice might be very usefull for me so please help a new muslim girl that needs your help.  please take in consideration that i reverted to islam 2 weeks ago

The following text is for muslim women:

In Czech Republic like in Greece there are not a lot of muslims especially girls. Can you please send me a few basic information about basic things concerning the islam?

not for the social life but the every day life and things that muslim gilrs do!

Peace be upon all of you!!

Thanks to all of you spending time even reading about my story.

ALL PRAISES BE TO ALLAH!

Salam!

Cargo ship to Gaza leaves Greece (full photo gallery)

Note from the people from the “Ship to Gaza”:

Subject: The Greek ships leave for Gaza!

First the truck (FREE MEDITERRANEAN) and after the cruise (Sfendoni) depart from Piraeus today bound for the port of Gaza. After weeks of preparation and hard work uploading the truck for three days and nights, ready to join other ships of the “Liberty Fleet” and become the means for breaking the siege of the Zionists, who threatened to stop it. The briefing will be ongoing and will be from the site and from the digital platform. They should be ready for mass mobilization, when it enters the latter part of the business (about four days). We want you all with us!!!

More information and digital broadcasts boat picture of the ships for all of us who can not travel, visit the site www.shiptogaza.gr.

Click on the photo to view the photo gallery from the Muslim Association of Greece.

Enet.gr: Immigrant neighorhood in Athens

The Arabs have their own corner at the Neos Cosmos neighborhood of immigrants

Source : Enet

Διαβάστε στα Ελληνικά

A scent of aromatic spices is spread at the alleys of Neos Cosmos in Athens. Satellite dishes and men’s washed clothes coexist in the tiny balconies of the old residential buildings for the workers. Young Arabs ask for 30€ a day at construction jobs.

The Arabs settled at Neos Cosmos since the 80s looking for a new life. The central mosque of the Arabs is located at a multi-storey building on Galaxia Street.  At the entrance we met Naim Elghandour, president of the Muslim Association of Greece, “Yesterday night they attempted again to attack an Arab store of the neighborhood. It was the same group. The Arabs caught on to them and they chased them. Now they are guarding their stores”.

There is an Arabic supermarket in the building’s basement.  The owner is Mazen Rassas, vice president of the Association. He treats us mango juice saying that “around the neighborhood there are about ten Arabic mini markets. Our customers are Syrians, Egyptians and Iraqis. But Greeks also come.”

Rassas narrates, “We settled at Neos Cosmos in the 80s. It was then that the first Arabs were arriving. Then we began constructing this building. We used the underground garage as a mosque. We were asking permission from the governments to build our mosque ourselves but they did not allow it. We hope one day to achieve it”.

The shelves of the store – as in all Arab stores – are loaded with Arabic bread, dates, Arabic newspapers, rice and lentils of fine quality, spices that their smell is spread out to the street. But there are no customers, “the same situation we share with all Greek store owners. We are dancing the same dance…”

Brothers, cousins, the whole family lives on the upper floors of the building. For so many years there has never existed a single problem with the neighbors. Even when we gather every Friday more than 1000 Arabs to pray”. They squeeze, one next to the other, and they do not fit in. They fill the stairs, the pavement…

We descend with Naim Elghandour to the second basement that operates as a mosque. A blue carpet is laid down and has a ventilation system. Young Arabs are studying the Quran.

Behind a curtain at the right corner is the library. Every weekend, they say, is full of students that learn Greek and Arabic language, and are taught the Quran.

No cemetery

The vice president of the Muslim Association is pointing out the need for a cemetery. “I buried my parents at Komotini. For years and years we knock the doors of the ministries without an answer”.

N.Elghandour adds, “We pay the operating expenses from our pockets. We do not ask for funding and European programs, we want to be independent. But a program for integration of the Arabs could be launched in the local society. We also ask from the City of Athens to bestow us a place with low rent to cover the needs of the community. We closed our offices to save the rent.”

We discussed the attack at the two stores, “It was a fascist attack. Some young people attacked, but also young are the Arabs. If they chase them they will catch them. And then we will go to another situation. The state must secure the fortune of the victims of such terroristic attacks. We noted down the destruction and we will claim compensation at the courts.”

In Attica, more than 700 000 Muslims live legally. We need an imam theologist, with academic education. If they allow this we will pay from our wages his salary and his accommodation. Now every community sets an imam that is a construction worker…” he adds.

A few meters away, at Dorm Street, the workers’ residential building are located. Men’s clothes freshly washed and satellite dishes are witnessing that there lives exclusively Arab immigrants. “They repaired the face work, the apartments. They were dilapidated,” an old woman remembers.

We met her across the street at the store “Salma” that was destructed at the attack. Salle gives her a bottle of water. He says that “I am trying to replace the broken glass windows. I pay 350 euro for 9m².” His customers are the Arabs of the buildings across. “Here lives more than 200 Syrians. They all work at construction jobs. They pay rent of 250-270 euro for 30 m² at these dilapidated buildings. Three to six people live in every small apartment.

We go four floors up by the stairs. There was never an elevator. Nor central heating. From the moldy walls of the corridors old pieces of plaster are dropping. Hussein, 28, opens his door and shows us the repairs proudly. He tiled the bathroom and repaired the old window doors. He lives with an Iraqi to share the rent. He complains, “There are no jobs. A year without a wage. And I just ask for 30 euro a day. But in Syria and Iraq things are worse. It is impossible to go back”.

The Greeks

At the entrance we meet a Greek man, “Some Greeks and Arabs sub-rent rooms by person. Things get wild. It’s like we have a piece of meat, we pull from the edges like dogs”.

At the Arabic café, at Kasomouli Street, the Arabs of the neighborhood met. “Here we live 350 Arabs. Every morning we go to work, at evening we go home. We gather ten people in each apartment. We drink tea, chess, backgammon, cards. This is our life,” says Aiman Alahmat.

“Did the neighbors stand up for you?”

“One does not bother the other. We do not steal, we do not make trouble. We know each other, many of us are relatives. We need work and legal documents. Not to be attacked by the fascists and not to be disturbed by the police. We do not need them.”

At the café, before the gathering of Arabs and Greeks in order to group the “committee of Greeks and immigrant residents of Neos Cosmos,” we met Thanasis Kourkoulas from the movement ‘Deport Racism’: “Many Arabs from Neos Cosmos are attending the Sunday immigrant school. They have an organized community, they help each other to overcome the difficulties. They are angry though because suddenly fascist groups are appearing that question their peaceful coexistence.”

By Georgia Dhama

Photo by Spyros Tsakiris

Allah and the economy

Source:   http://news.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_w_art … 009_316813

When Muslims were building Granada, Europeans were not exactly eating … acorns, but they remained a part of the underdeveloped world. When Arabia discovered the Algebra and Aristotle, their northern neighbours were sending heretics to the fire . Up to the Middle Ages the Muslim world dominated part of the then known world . It had invaded Spain and had come to the gates of Vienna.

With “yeast “the Ancient Greek Secretariat from the 7th century AD all the sciences flourished. Al Haitham, born in today’s Iraq in 965, did experiments with light and lenses, putting the foundations of modern optical science . He declared long before Galileo that the foundation of science should be the experiment. The mathematician and astronomer Al Birouni was born in today’s Uzbekistan in 973. He wrote 146 books (some 13,000 pages) one of which could now be characterized a sociological and geographical study of India. The philosopher and physician Ibn Sina, born in Bukhara (now Uzbekistan) in 891, made the encyclopaedia «The rules of medicine» a monumental achievement of one million words which was used as a university study manual in the West up to the 17^th Century.

What happened however, the West got the upper hand; because as the Arab culture started to diminish slowly slowly, the culture of the West started to rise. When the economy produces just enough for what is necessary for the livelihood of the people, there is no room….for arts. During the Middle Ages and up to the 19^th century the Arab merchants were extremely successful, but the Muslim institutional framework was tailored for only small scale trade.

For the Professor of Duke University, Timour Kouran, the Islamic law was the main obstacle to the transition, from the small trade to the next step: The concentration of big capital and big business. In his work “ The Islamic Commercial Crisis” : The institutional roots of the delay in modernising the economy in the Middle East, he proposes an explanation: “The Islamic law on partnership and inheritance rights has led to the businesses of the Middle East to remain small without allowing the development of equity firms.”

During the Middle Ages , both the Islamic and European laws required the partnerships to be dissolved if one of the partners died or was unable to work. In Europe the tradition was for the immediate family members of the deceased to inherit him,with result the company shares not to be divided between so many parties. The partnership was typically being dissolved and a new one was formed with the new partners. In Islamic law instead, the inheritance should be distributed to all the relatives (parents,uncles, children, etc.). So there was no way for it to be limited to one or two people only. This command came directly from the Qur’an and it was impossible to change.

Thus in Europe was the beginning of the formation of large companies that were able to push for changes in the legal frame work, to finally create large anonymous companies and the Stock Market, which financed the rapid growth. In the Islamic World instead, the development of such institutions was not possible due to the inheritance laws restricting the companies to a small size.

The large companies increased their productivity and the financial surplus to finance multi faced development. In the Islamic world things continued without major changes. The difference in the economic potential of the two worlds at first did not cause any problems. Up to the 18^th century the small Muslim partnerships had been extremely successful in their trade with Africa and Asia.

The companies In the west and especially in UK grew tremendously in size, gaining political influence and beginning to expand in areas dominated by Muslim traders. A clash was inevitable and surely the West dominated at times with heavy blood taxes.

Religious Minorities

But even within the Islamic States the religious minorities of Christians and Jews had the same advantages over the Muslims. Thus, over time the trade and business passed into their hands. This created tension between populations, revolutions and massacres, and also the need for the modernisation of the business laws in the 19^th century. “Today” says Professor Kouran “The Islamic inheritance law puts no barriers in large companies. The property is divided into shares and the companies have no reason to be dissolved .”

“I do not want to blame  the Islamic law. That is by definition wrong” concludes Mr Kouran, noting that institutions can not be judged ex post i.e. having the historical experience. “When the inheritance law was established into the 7^th century, Muslims did not think of the impact that this law would have in their right to trade after. It was referring to the inequalities of their time, their daughters remaining without properties and without job opportunities. But in the process the problem emerged  1000 years later.”

Greece vs. Turkey

This is a very odd video (to say the least) but it has a good message about the truth on the Greece vs. Turkey issue.  Interesting perspective, especially, when Turkey is trying so hard to be a secular society.

Mmm, my mouth is watering

Ok, this post is a little off-beat from the rest of my topics.  I was flipping through a Greek recipe book I picked up from my mom and it got my mouth watering!

Interesting enough, many Greek dishes, like bamya, spinach pies, grape leaves and baklava are known in Southern Europe or the Sham area of the Middle East also. In fact, where I live, many of the Greek restaurants are owned by Arabs.

Sometimes, I can find some good YouTube videos on Greek and Arabic cooking.  I have lots of favorite Greek dishes but I was just watching this video below and I started to crave pastitsio!

 

 

What are some of your favorite foods?  Post them here by clicking on “Comments” directly below this post.

 

 

Notes: Sham= Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Syria; bamya=okra; baklava=phyllo pastry