In the pages of The Age, Keysar Trad asks why polygamy should be a crime.

Rather than argue that polygamy should be explicitly legalised and regulated by law, it might be better to simply argue that this is simply an issue of freedom of contract and individuals should be free to enter into whatever contracts they want without state interference.

The most effective, corruption free government in Afghanistan is not the central government of the American puppet Hamid Karzi, rather it is his opponent, the Taliban.

One of Washington’s top counter-insurgency advisers has warned that the Taliban is ready to take over the government in Afghanistan, with a successful local court network in the country’s south, tax collection operations and a new Taliban Ombudsman’s office, all directly challenging Kabul’s rule. David Kilcullen is an adviser to US General Stanley McCrystal and says that while Afghan authorities have been flooded with allegations of fraud after last week’s presidential election establishing a legitimate leadership will be the most important question facing the Afghanistan operation right now. Dr Kilcullen addressed Canberra’s National Press Club

From Muslim Apps:

This Islamic iphone app features a collection of du’a (supplications) from the Qu’ran and Sunnah, and based on the popular Hisnul Muslim (Fortification of the Muslim) collection.

Originally collated by Sheikh Sa’eed ibn Ali ibn Wahf al-Qahtani, Hisnul Muslim is one of the most famous and widely referenced collections of du’a in the Muslim world.

This app allows the user to search for the right du’a to say for a particular situation.  For example:

• When leaving home
• When entering a mosque
• When going to sleep
• When feeling pain
• When seeking guidance (istikharah)
• When breaking one’s fast

The Arabic and English translation of each du’a are included.

Screen shots over the fold:

Continue reading →

The best bit is at the end

Harun “Jews, Jews, Masons, Jews” Yahya (aka Adnan Oktar), our favourite Muslim Creationist Spammer, appears in the media with the news that he has teamed up with some Rabbis to work towards rebuilding the Temple of Solomon.  He told World Net Daily:

The Palace of Solomon is a historically important palace, and rebuilding it would be a very wonderful thing. It is something that any Jew, a Christian or a Muslim should welcome with enthusiasm. Every Muslim, every believer will want to return to those days, to experience those days again and, albeit partially, to bring the beauty of those days back to life.

..

“It could be done in a year at most. It could be built to the same perfection and beauty. The Torah says it was built in 13 years, if I remember correctly. It could be rebuilt in a year in its perfect form.”

The New American has an interesting article on state sponsorship of terror.  Amongst the interesting points is this mention of the so-called Andropov Paradigm:

Although Hafez al-Assad’s Baathist regime in Syria had a nine-year head start in the Soviet-sponsored terror business, Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Republic of Iran would soon eclipse him. The overthrow of Shah Pahlavi by Soviet-backed street radicals and the Carter administration in 1979 was a seismic shift of epic magnitude. Iran was flipped, virtually overnight, from being the most pro-Western, most moderate Islamic power in the region, and a critical roadblock to Soviet regional hegemony, to a force for global revolution and terror. Khomeini’s militant fusion of Marx and Mohammed would resonate with millions of Muslims who could not accept the secular socialist tenets of the region’s other Soviet client-states: Syria, Libya, and Iraq. Khomeiniism was the perfect made-to-order fit for the Andropov Paradigm: the plan to craft and promote a radicalized, Leninist form of Islam to infect millions of Muslims worldwide with fanatical anti-American hatred. Yuri Andropov (head of the KGB,1967-1982, and head of the Soviet Union, 1982-1984) assured Romania’s spymaster, General Ion Mihai Pacepa, that “the Islamic world was a waiting petri dish in which we could nurture a virulent strain of America-hatred, grown from the bacterium of Marxist-Leninist thought…. Their illiterate, oppressed mobs could be whipped up to a fever pitch.”

Ayatollah Khomeini fulfilled Andropov’s wildest dreams. Upon taking over in Iran, the Ayatollah affixed the label of “the Great Satan” to the United States. The Soviet Union was viciously persecuting the Muslims of neighboring Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan (and would soon invade Afghanistan), but Khomeini insisted that Muslims see the United States, not the Soviet Union, as Satanic. When Russia later invaded Chechnya and slaughtered Muslims by the tens of thousands, Khomeini’s successors in Tehran gave tacit approval, thereby blunting expressions of outrage by other Islamic countries.

Further background can be found in this 2006 article by General Ion Mihai Pacepa.

There has been a lot of discussion for some time around Australian cricketer Michael Clarke’s Arabic-language tattoo.

Abu Eesa explains what it means:

After looking at a few pictures it is clear that both lines say:

ألم الإنضباط هو شيء مثل الألم من خيبة الأمل

This can be translated as:

The pain of discipline is something similar to the pain of disappointment

Now it’s pretty obvious that this is a poor statement because as we all know there is simply no comparison between the two with disappointment being far worse; a quick google search shows that quite a few people have been trying to work this out over the last year or two and all of them have been puzzled over its exact meaning, with the majority of them actually translating it as:

“The pain of discipline is nothing like the pain of disappointment.”

Now this makes sense, fits the sport, fits his profile, fits the Aussie maxim in cricket. The only problem is that the Arabic doesn’t translate to this i.e. the Arab who wrote it has clearly completely messed it up and left out the negating word “laysa“!

This is absolutely hilarious, especially considering that Clarke is a big tattoo fan, thinks it was really stylish of him to stick his motto in an exotic language, and thinks that he’s got a good job done.

Over at  conservative website Town Hall, Anne Fortenberry offers a “Christian perspective” on Ramadan.  Note the passive aggressive tone as she writes about her “Muslim friends” and the gratuitous photo to the left of the main body of text.