Islamic Revival

Backdrop of Middle East Uprising The  ummah  (Islamic nation) around the world is rising and seeking to reclaim the authority from rulers of the Middle East. In country after country we are seeing the people lose their fear of the regimes that have been suppressing, repressing, torturing and imprisoning them and standing in the way of their political aspirations. Some of these rulers have fallen, and others are living precariously; and the momentum is for change. Fatwah legitimising Rulers Although the Ummah is seeking to change its rulers certain Ulama have given fataawa legitimising the rule and authority of the rulers of their respective countries. One prominent example is the fatwah of the ‘Council of Senior Scholars’ in Saudi Arabia which gave the fatwa that even protests and demonstrations are not permitted as Saudi Arabia is legitimate Islamic state, below is some key sections of the fatwa: ‘ Protection of the community is of the greatest principles of Isl ā m. It is from the

With the extra-judicial illegal murder of Anwar Al-Awlaki by the United States as part of their ongoing War of Terror, we are revisiting a piece originally published back in June regarding the Obama administration’s adoption of the predator drone as their favoured weapon. If confirmed – the murder of al-Awlaki highlights the two points made in the article – firstly the disregard that the American government has for any idea of rule of law and the continued belief in their exceptionalism, and secondly the complicity of the Yemeni government with the Americans in killing their own citizens illegally. The question asked is whether this was the price paid by Ali Abdullah Saleh to return home with continued American backing? With more drone strikes carried out in Pakistan during his first year in office than were carried out in the whole second term of his predecessor George W. Bush, and the number of attacks in 2010 more than double those in 2009, extra-judicial killing seems to have bec

The world of physics has been surprised by results that have emerged from the CERN laboratory, where they have conducted experiments that suggest that particles, known as neutrinos, may travel faster than the speed of light. The results have been published in the hope that they will be scrutinised – then either validated or else the errors be exposed. Physicists who have been asked to comment about these latest findings have, for the most part, kept an open mind saying that it is most likely the results are incorrect and caused by experimental error. But, they added, if the results were shown to be correct it would mean a complete rewriting of the way physics has been understood for a century. Even the Big Bang theory of the origins of the universe is underpinned by this physics – and many people assume this is fact, and not theory. Non-scientists will find this stunning, since the Big Bang theory, the speed of light barrier, E=mc 2  and Einstein’s theory of general relativity are a