Medical Benefits from Circumcision

Medical Benefits from Circumcision
by Dr. Brian J. Morris -from Circ-Online
 Circumcision has historically been a topic of emotive and often irrational debate. At least part of the reason is that a sex organ is involved. (Compare, for example, ear piercing.) During the past two decades the medical profession have tended to advise parents not to circumcise their baby boys. In fact there have even been reports of harrassment by medical professionals of new mothers, especially those belonging to religious groups that practice circumcision, in an attempt to stop them having this procedure carried out. Such attitudes are a far cry from the situation years ago when baby boys were circumcised routinely in Australia. But over the past 20 years the rate has declined to as low as 10%. 

However, a reversal of this trend is starting to occur. In the light of an increasing volume of medical scientific evidence (many publications cited below) pointing to the benefits of neonatal circumcision a new policy statement was formulated by a working party of the Australian College of Paediatrics in August 1995 and adopted by the College in May 1996 [2] . In this document medical practitioners are now urged to fully inform parents of the benefits of having their male children circumcised. Similar recommendations were made recently by the Canadian Paediatric Society who also conducted an evaluation of the literature, although concluded that the benefits and harms were very evenly balanced. As discussed below the American College of Pediatrics has moved far closer to an advocacy position. 

In the present article I would like to focus principally on the protection afforded by circumcision against infections, including sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). I might add that I am a university academic who teaches medical and science students and who does medical research, including that involving genital cancer virology. I am not Jewish, nor a medical practitioner or lawyer, so have no religious bias or medico-legal concerns that might get in the way of a rational discussion of this issue. 

Kosova & Kashmir: Muslims Must Share the Blame

My Muslim Teacher From: "Jamaaluddin al-Haidar" "bayan@visitus.net"
Kosova & Kashmir: Muslims Must Share the Blame
As salaamu alaikum

Twenty-something years ago, when my parents reverted to Islam, I was an adolescent teen. I was a child of the black nationalist/liberation movement of the 60's, who refused to stand for the pledge of allegiance to the US flag. This patriotic display of love for massa and his 400 years of brutalizing us, was customary and mandatory at the start of public school classes in those days. I always felt that black children should be exempt from it because the constitution at that time (and still does) defined blacks as three-fifths of a human being. I was once expelled from elementary school for convincing the entire class to pledge allegiance by placing their hands on their butts instead of over their hearts.

I was the kid on the playground who challenged the school bully saying "you can't whip me 'cause I'm a revolutionary!".....I got whipped often.... but I was still a revolutionary. While the other kids wore cartoon stickers and buttons, I wore "Free Huey" and "Africa for Africans" buttons.

I was the kid who won the school speech contest with my own anti-Vietnam War and memorial tribute to the innocent victims of the Mai Lai massacre. When school officials convinced me to change the topic to a more palatable one for the citywide DAR- (Daughters of American Revolution) sponsored contest, I submitted a speech to the lily-white, ultra-conservative group on Benjamin Franklin, only to scrub it and recite the anti-Vietnam War speech once I got on stage before the judges and audience. Needless to say, I was disqualified and summarily escorted from the auditorium...but I had my victory...because afterall.....I was a revolutionary.

I thought the revolution started in 1969. I didn't realize that the 1969 riots in Detroit were just that until I was in high school and happened to see a copy of the Congressional Committee Report. My memories of those fateful days and nights were re-kindled as I read the report. Memories filled with visions of being shoved under a table while the house filled with gun toting, black beret-wearing men and women who were shooting out of the windows at someone or something on the street...daylight brought visions of armored cars and tanks full of white soldiers patrolling through my neighborhood shouting and pointing weapons in what was a 24-hour vigil.

Dangers in the Home

Dangers in the Home

Book by Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid

In the Name of Allaah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful 
Praise be to Allaah. We praise Him and seek His help and forgiveness. We seek refuge with Allaah from the evil of our own selves and from our evil deeds. Whomsoever Allaah guides cannot be led astray, and whomsoever Allaah leaves astray cannot be guided. I bear witness that there is no god but Allaah Alone, with no partner or associate, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

 Putting things right in the home is a great trust and huge responsibility which every Muslim man and woman should undertake as Allaah commands; they should run the affairs of their homes in accordance with the rules set out by Allaah. One of the ways of achieving this is by ridding the home of evil things. The following aims to highlight some evil things that actually happen in some homes and that have become tools of destruction for the nests in which the future generations of the Muslim ummah are being raised. 

This brief paper highlights some of these evil things, explaining about some haraam things in order to warn about them. It is a gift to every seeker of truth who is looking for methods of change, so that he or she can implement the command of the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him): ?Whoever of you sees an evil action, let him change it with his hand [by taking action], and if he cannot, then with his tongue [by speaking out], and if he cannot, then with his heart [by feeling that it is wrong] ? and that is the weakest of faith.? (Reported by Muslim in his Saheeh, 1/69). 

This discussion expands upon some forbidden or evil matters that have already been mentioned in brief in my book The Muslim Home ? 40 Recommendations.

 I ask Allaah, the Most Generous, Lord of the Mighty Throne, to benefit my Muslim brothers through this book and the previous book. Allaah is the Guide to the Straight Path.
Evil things in the Home
 Advice:
 Beware of allowing non-mahram relatives to enter upon the wife in the home when the husband is absent. Some homes are not free of the presence of relatives of the husband who are not mahram for the wife, who

Common Mistakes Made in the Way Men Dress In and Outside Prayer

Common Mistakes Made in the Way Men Dress In and Outside Prayer
Notes prepared from a book by Shaikh Mashoor Hasan Salmaan
Compiled by: Abu Muntasir

1. Praying in tight clothes so that they press over the private parts ('awrah)

Praying in tight fitting clothes is deemed Makrooh according to the Sharee'ah. It also harms the body and hence it is not good from the point of view of health as well. Perhaps the one praying in such clothes actually leaves parts of his prayer out.

It is known that many people who dress in such a way do not attain their prayer at all while others attain only a little, like the prayer of a hypocrite.

Those who pray, many amongst them nowadays dress in clothes that drape around one or both of their private parts (their thighs)

Ibn Hajr says, that a group of the Hanafee scholars considered such practice as makrooh. [See Fathul-Baari 1/476]

If this is the case for normal trousers then what the case when they are very tight?

'Allaamah al-Albaanee explained that trousers have two problems:

a) This is a dress that resembles the disbelievers. Muslims used to dress in wide bottoms (saaraweel) which were loose fitting and baggy like some still do so in Syria and Lebanon. The Muslims adopted this practice of wearing trousers/pants when they were colonised. When the colonisers departed, they left behind this evil influence and changed the Muslims due to the latter's ignorance.

b) This type of dress constricts and presses upon the 'awrah. The 'awrah of a man is from his knee up to his navel. The worshipper should be as far away as he can from disobedience of Allah during his prayer. He is prostrating (in obedience and submission) to Him. How can he be praying and standing before His Lord, when his buttocks are shown up and what is between is visibly magnified?

It is surprising to find many young Muslims taking exception to ladies wearing tight clothes since they cling to their bodies, yet these young men are forgetting about themselves. There is no difference between a lady wearing tight clothes which press against her body and a man wearing trousers which also cling to his body. The buttock of both a man and a woman is part of the 'awrah and both of them are the same. So it is compulsory for the youth to be warned about this predicament about which they are blind, except for he whom Allah has guided, who are few. [Taken from one his tapes]

The Messenger (sallallaahu 'alaihi wa sallam) forbade a man from praying in his trousers (saaraweel) unless he had a wrapper (rida) on him. [Abu Dawud, al-Haakim and the hadeeth is Hasan]

For more details please consult the following:

Can we have a new UN please?

Can we have a new UN please?
Is there no limit to international duplicity and hypocrisy?

Given the intensity of global outrage over the assault on the Gaza aid flotilla, some of us were beginning to hope that the world might finally confront Israel. We were obviously mistaken — once again. 

OK, poor Palestinians have long gotten used to getting swatted like flies and being at the receiving end forever. And Israel has always gotten away with murder. But those killed in cold blood in international waters were not some faceless “Palestinian terrorists,” as Israel calls them, but international peace activists and aid workers. And mind you they were not running guns or drugs but rushing the critically needed aid like food, medicines and most mundane stuff such as books and toys for children and bricks and cement for the ravaged homes of Gaza.

This is why the least you expected from the so-called international community and its so-called institutions was some token action against Israel, or at least strong words against its shocking and brazen acts against the unarmed peace activists. The United Nations with its fine institutions and the movers and shakers who run the world body are yet to unequivocally condemn the Israeli outrage, let alone lift a finger against the regime. 

Helen Thomas, senior White House Press Corps member and the considered doyenne of international correspondents, gave a rare voice to America’s sleeping conscience when she blasted Israeli attack on the humanitarian convoy saying, “our initial reaction to this flotilla massacre, deliberate massacre, an international crime, was pitiful.”

Ms. Thomas who’s facing the combined wrath of the Israeli lobby and fanatically pro-Israel US media for advising the Jews to “get the hell out of Palestine” has been taped angrily questioning the US policy on Israel: “What do you mean you regret when something should be so strongly condemned? And if any other nation in the world had done it, we would have been up in arms. What is this sacrosanct, iron-clad relationship, where a country that deliberately kills people?”

Ms. Thomas, who grilled 10 US presidents and survived, has been brought down by the lobby and has been forced to step down. So much for the much-celebrated Western freedom of speech! Meanwhile majority of US media networks, manipulated by the pro-Israel moneybags as always, are bending over backward to justify and “explain” the madness of Israeli massacre, spawning totally bizarre and ludicrous theories about the activists brandishing weapons and assaulting Israeli troops shouting “the Prophet’s army is coming!”

April Fool

April Fool

Praise be to Allaah, we praise Him and seek His help and forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allaah from the evil of our own selves and from our evil deeds. Whomsoever Allaah guides, none can lead astray, and whomsoever He sends astray, none can guide. 

Lying is an evil characteristic, which all religions and systems of ethics warn against and which man's innate common sense (fitrah) agrees that it is wrong. Those who possess chivalry and sound reason also say this. 

Truthfulness is one of the pillars on which the moral survival of the world depends. It is the foundation of praiseworthy characteristics, the cornerstone of Prophethood, the result of taqwaa. Were it not for truthfulness, the rulings of all divinely-revealed laws would collapse. Acquiring the characteristic of lying is akin to shedding one's humanity, because speaking is an exclusively human trait. 

(Bareeqah Mahmoodiyyah, Muhammad al-Khaadimi, 3/183) 

Our purely monotheistic sharee’ah warns against lying in the Qur’aan and Sunnah, and there is consensus that it is haraam. The liar will have bad consequences in this world and in the next. 

According to sharee’ah, lying is not permitted except in specific cases which do not lead to loss of rights, bloodshed or slander of people’s honour, etc., but which concern saving lives, reconciling between people, or creating love between husband and wife. 

There is a never a day or a moment when sharee’ah permits a person to tell lies or to say whatever he wants based on lies. One of the things that have become widespread among the common people is the so called “April Fool’s Day”, where they claim that the first day of the fourth solar month is a day when lying is permitted without being subject to any shar’i guidelines. 

Many bad things may result from this, some of which we will mention below. 

The prohibition of lying. 

1.                 Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): 

“It is only those who believe not in the Ayaat (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs, revelations, etc.) of Allaah, who fabricate falsehood, and it is they who are liars

[al-Nahl 16:105] 

Ibn Katheer said: 

“Then Allaah tells us that His Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) is not a fabricator or a liar, because only the most evil of people who do not believe in the signs of Allaah, the kaafirs and heretics who are known amongst the people for telling lies, tell lies about Allaah and His Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). The Messenger Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) was the most truthful of people, the most righteous, the most perfect in knowledge, action, faith and certain belief. He was known amongst his people for his truthfulness; none of them doubted that, to such an extent that he was known amongst them as ‘al-Ameen (the trustworthy) Muhammad.’ Hence when Heraclius, the ruler of Rome, asked Abu Sufyaan about the characteristics of the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), one of the things he asked was, ‘Did you ever accuse him of lying before he said what he said?’ He said, ‘No.’ Heraclius said: ‘If he refrained from telling lies about people he would not go and tell lies about Allaah.’ 

(Tafseer Ibn Katheer, 2/588)