Debunker Buster

Sunday, May 13 2007   Debunker Buster by Tod Fletcher May 12, 2007 Debunking 9/11 Debunking is a monumental accomplishment by David Ray Griffin. He exhaustively and definitively destroys the pretensions of four major “9/11 debunking” publications published in 2006, shortly before the fifth anniversary of the events. Although the book is organized into chapters dealing with each one of the four publications in turn, Griffin has such a broad knowledge of all the evidence pertaining to the events, and such command of logic and argument, that the book is thoroughly cohesive and progressively builds an integrated critique of all dimensions of the official theory. Debunking 9/11 Debunking will effectively serve as a veritable encyclopedia of not just the facts of 9/11, but of the best arguments to debunk the official (and semi-official) lies about the facts. Griffin, as usual, avoids speculation and focuses on showing that the official story of what happened that day cannot be true.

The Big Picture

Architecture & Design Backgrounder

Source: GreenBiz.com

Buildings produce roughly a third of carbon dioxide emissions and other emissions that harm air quality. Additionally, buildings generate waste during construction and operation; can have poor indoor air quality, affecting worker health; and often don’t consider the impact made on the community through increased transportation, sprawl, and cultural and historical impact. By integrating natural resource, human health, and community concerns into building design and construction, architects and designers can create buildings that are cleaner, healthier for occupants and the environment, and which deplete fewer resources.

Qur’an alone

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Qur’an alone Muslims, Qur’anic Muslims or sometimes, anti-hadith Muslims are those Muslims who reject hadith, or preserved traditions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and follow the Qur’an, a sacred text of Islam, exclusively.

Qur’anist / Qur’an Alone groups

The Ahle Qur’an

“Ahle Qur’an”, a group formed by Abdullah Chakralawi, rely entirely on the chapter and verse of the Qur’an. Chakralawi’s position was that the Qur’an itself was the most perfect source of tradition and could be exclusively followed. According to him, Muhammad could receive only one form of revelation (wahy), and that was the Qur’an. He argues that the Qur’an was the only record of divine wisdom, the only source of Muhammad’s teachings, and that it superseded the entire corpus of hadith.

Energy Use Backgrounder

Energy Use Backgrounder

Source: GreenBiz.com

The Big Picture

Energy prices and atmospheric temperatures are rising—putting energy efficiency on everyone’s front burner as a smart environmental and business practice. Reducing energy consumption—particularly from nonrenewable sources—will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and operating, manufacturing, and consumption costs.

Ask the Green Architect: Getting Started in Green Building

Ask the Green Architect: Getting Started in Green Building

Eric Corey Freed03/23/07

Eric Corey Freed is principal of organicARCHITECT and teaches Sustainable Design at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and University of California Berkeley. He is on the boards of Architects, Designers & Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR), Green Home Guide and West Coast Green. This article has been excerpted from his upcoming book, “Green Building for Dummies” to be released in August 2007.

Globalization: A Muslim Viewpoint

We are living in hard times. This simple expression may be a cliché for others but we Muslims who are undergoing through the fifth major crisis of our centuries long history know it well what this ordinary expression means to us. Earlier we had witnessed the derailment of our caravan from the divinely ordained paths of history, the first being the civil strife leading to the murder of Othman, the third Caliph; secondly, the sack of Abbasid Baghdad; thirdly, the fall of Grenada; and fourthly the termination of the Ottoman Caliphate. However, living in a shrunken globe, a total techno polis we feel there is no space left for us to pause and reflect back on causes of our decline. The poetic expression that Muslims live like a sun, if on decline in some parts of the world yet at the same time emerging high in the other parts of the globe is no more a comforting argument owing to the complete and total grip of this monster called globalization on our only planet earth. When President Bush declares to his enemies that ‘there is no place to hide’ he in fact echoes what the most brilliant prophet of globalization can utter at the peak of his glory. This acute sense of no space left for any dissenting voice have further aggravated our concern for this seemingly ‘global’ way of life. I’m afraid if the ideological challenges posed by the process of globalization are not properly met the entire world will be converted into a Guantanamo Bay or an extension of what has happened and still happening in Iraq. If in the past the Capitalist mind has created torture cells and serfdoms to dehumanize the fellow humans today too agents of globalization are basically working the same, dehumanizing the fellow humans.

Reviving the Ummah, how?

By Jamal Harwood

When considering the multitude of problems that currently face the Islamic Ummah, whether it is foreign occupation, poverty, widespread corruption, technological decline and the like, many Muslims suggest that the answer to these lies in materialistic solutions. By materialistic solutions, it is meant to include the drive towards increasing the wealth of the Muslims, or by raising the level of technology in the Islamic world, or by increasing the availability of academic education to the Ummah. Further, they back their arguments by looking to the Western world, whom they see to enjoy all of these materialistic achievements, and they attribute the relative success of the Western nations over the Islamic world to these aspects. In this article, we will, Insh’Allah, demonstrate that this is indeed not the correct understanding of the problem and its solution. It is not the materialistic wealth that leads to revival, rather it is only the intellectual wealth that can achieve it.

Religious Human Rights and the Qur’an

By Riffat Hassan

Given the centrality of the Qur’an to the lives of the majority of the more than one billion Muslims of the world, the critical question is: What, if anything, does the Qur’an say about human rights? I believe that the Qur’an is the Magna Carta of human rights and that a large part of its concern is to free human beings from the bondage of traditionalism, authoritarianism (religious, political, economic, or any other), tribalism, racism, sexism, slavery or anything else that prohibits or inhibits human beings from actualizing the Qur’anic vision of human destiny embodied in the classic proclamation: “Towards Allah is thy limit” (Surah 53: An-Najm: 42).

Living through an uncreative tension: The case of Messianic thinking among Muslims

Having lost much of their confidence and self-esteem in post-9/11 situation the Muslims world over are living through an uncreative tension and idly though anxiously waiting for a Messiah. It is high time to find out if there is any ideological basis for the emergence of a future Messiah or such expectations are only misplaced visions of the future. Whether it is the arrival of Mahdi or the emergence of Messiah, whether it is the wait for the Imam-e Ghaib or the quest for the future mujaddid, the fact remains that they run counter to the concept of the finality of prophethood. The one who had to come had already come. No one will come after him. The rapport between the earth and the heavens has severed for all times. Now whatever needs be done should be done by his followers for whom there is the promise of (انا له لحافظون)through the Protected Book and that is about all.

Woman Leads Muslim Prayers in New York, Sparking Worldwide Controversy

By Barbara Schoetzau
New York
19 March 2005

Controversy erupted in New York Friday and spread across the Islamic world as a woman Islam scholar led Friday prayer services. The service opened with a call to prayer by another woman whose grandfather once led the call to prayer in Cairo, Egypt.

Organizers say it is the first time on record that a woman has led the Muslim Friday prayer service. Men and women generally sit separately during Muslim services and the role of prayer leader has been reserved for men, although some Islamic scholars say they are aware of a few other mixed-gender services led by women.

The Book & the Quran

The NATURE OF THE BOOK 

According to Dr. Shahroor’s research, the Book which we have received from GOD and is comprised into 114 Suras is broken down into THREE sections as follows:

1. The Quran (this is the Mutashabih verses)

2. The Message (Muhkam verses, also referred to as “Umm Ul-Kitaab”); 3. Explanations of the Book (Tafseel Ul-Kitaab).

“He sent down to you this BOOK, containing LAW (Muhkam) verses which constitute the essence of the scripture-as well as Similar (Mutashabih) verses. Those who harbor doubts in their hearts will pursue the Similar verses to create confusion, and to extricate a certain meaning. None knows the true meaning thereof except GOD and those well founded in knowledge. They say: ‘We believe in this-all of it comes from our Lord’. Only those who possess intelligence will take heed.” (3/7)

Obey God and Obey the Messenger 2

Taken from the site: (http://www.quran-islam.org/222.html)

The hadith followers in their earnest attempt to advocate the legality of following the hadith and sunna of the prophet, play on a corrupted interpretation of the Quranic command to “obey God and obey the Messenger”. They claim that obeying God is to obey the Quran while as obeying the Messenger is to obey his hadith (personal sayings) and his sunnah (methods). They add that if obeying the Messenger was the same thing as obeying God’s Quran, then God would have only said Obey God. Thus to their understanding, God’s inclusion of “obey the Messenger” implies that the Messenger has his own set of religious teachings outside of the Quran that we must obey.

Obey God & the Messenger

By Brother Naveed (e-mail: al_quraan@hotmail.com)

Many people site the Quraanic Verses that command us to Obey Allah and Obey the Messenger, and say that Obeying Allah and obeying the Messenger are two different things – Obeying Allah is to obey the Quraan and obeying the Messenger is to obey the books of Hadith. They point that if obeying the Messenger was the same thing as obeying Allah’s Quraan, then Allah would have only said Obey Allah. These people say that Allahs inclusion of obey the Messenger implies that the Messenger is saying EXTRA things outside of the Quraan that we must obey.

The thing that many proponents of Hadith forget is that Allah does not leave it to speculation as to what the people are to obey. The Ayaat do not end at Obey Allah and obey the Messenger, but they continue to include what the duty of the Messenger is:

And obey Allah and obey the messenger and be cautious; but if you turn back, then know that only a clear deliverance of the message is (incumbent) on Our messenger <wa ma_ alar rasu_li il lal balaghul mubin (5:92)

Islam as a system for everyone and the two categories of people in the Quran.

By FearfulOfAllah (e-mail: xre597j02@sneakemail.com)

My goal for this essay is to present a picture of Islam that shows it to be a system which everyone can feel a part of and thereby achieve unity with all that exists, but at the same time maintain their individuality by retaining all their basic freedoms including the intellectual freedom of choosing not to make any leap of faith and believing only those things that are rationally sound to them. It is my opinion that Islam has the potential to become the system through which a major and revolutionary world transformation of peace and social justice can take place, the likes of which has not been seen in the modern world, but that is a subject for another discussion. In this essay, I will attempt to show that Islam is a system that tolerates and appreciates the variety and diversity of different viewpoints, communities, and religions.