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Zakaat …… By Irshad Mahmood

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After reading the first two lines of this submission by Mr. Irshad Mahmood about “rethinking intellectually about Zakat in modern times” I was intrigued that he may have a simpler method of calculating zakaat in the 21st century. But it turned out he detailed the same method, which, if you followed exactly, would need an accountant to complete. But with Ramadan approaching, it certainly was a very relevant topic to discuss, at least amongst those who do believe in zakat.  Even if you don’t read the abbreviated – by 80% –  article below, just look at the zakat calculator excel spreadsheet at the end. Is calculating zakat supposed to be this complicated? The practice of Islam is not supposed to cause unnecessary hardships; there are alternatives when you cannot fast because of illness, travel or pregnancy; there are alternatives when there is no water for ablutions. Can’t there be a simpler and more practical alternative to the excel spreadsheet below?           Hopefully someone has the answers.         Shoeb Amin, EOM

AsSalaam O Alaikum (Peace be always with you. AMEEN.)

ZAKAAT – USHR – SADAQAH

by Irshad Mahmood – Director, Siraat-al-Mustaqeem Dawah Centre

————————-

In modern time we need to rethink intellectually about Zakaat on wealth,
where work system is changed where many human are working in industries
instead of lands. With the invention of modern systems, more and more
Robots and Machines are working and human are being laid off. Work
system is changed. Zakaat must be taken by Government to distribute
among the poor/needy with full accountability, (Ref:
Al_Quraan_009.102-104). If any government is taking TAX then Net Zakaat
to be paid will be differences (Zakaat – Tax), if TAX is less than
Zakaat. If one is willing to pay more must go ahead to please Allah
more. Zakaat Rates could be as follows:

(a) 2.5% annually on Wealth/Savings/unused items including clothing (not
on regular use)/jewelries (not on regular use)/properties on which one
is not collecting rent or not on businesses properties.

(b) 5 % on all items which are produced by the interaction of labour and
capital both at the time of production.

(c) 10 % on items which are produced either by labour or capital BUT not
both at the time of production.

(d) 20 % on items which are produced neither as a result of capital nor
labour at the time of production.

Nisaab:

The statutory exemptions in wealth, livestock and agricultural
production are fixed as:

Wealth: 87 grams (7.5 tolas) of gold / 612 grams (52.5 tolas) of silver
or its equivalent in total (1 tola = 11.5 grams).

Production: 1119 kilograms (5 Wasaqs) of dates or their equivalent.

Livestock: 5 camels / 30 cows / 40 goats or their equivalent.

t

 

IF ONE GETS PRODUCE OF GARDENS/FARM PAY THE DUE:

And He it is Who produces gardens, trellised and un-trellised, and palms
and seed-produce of which the fruits are of various sorts, and olives
and pomegranates, like and unlike; eat of its fruit when it bears fruit,
and PAY THE DUE OF IT ON THE DAY OF ITS REAPING, and do not act
extravagantly; surely He does not love the extravagant,
(Al_Quraan_006.141).

O you who believe! spend (benevolently) of the GOOD THINGS that you earn
and or what We have brought forth for you OUT OF THE EARTH, and do not
aim at what is bad that you may spend (in alms) of it, while you would
not take it yourselves (unless you have its price lowered/reduced), and
know that Allah is Self-sufficient, Praiseworthy, (Al_Quraan_002.267).

HOW MUCH TO SPEND:

….. And they ask you as to what they should spend. Say: THAT WHICH IS
SUPERFLUOUS (IN EXCESS). Thus does Allah make clear to you the
communications that you may ponder, (Al_Quraan_002.219).

RASOOL ALLAH (PEACE-BE-UPON-HIM) USED TO COLLECT ZAKAAT TO PAY THE
NEEDY:

And of them there are those who blame you with respect to the alms; so
if they are given from it they are pleased, and if they are not given
from it, lo! They are full of rage. And if they were content with what
Allah and His Messenger gave them, and had said: Allah is sufficient for
us; Allah will soon give us (more) out of His grace and His Messenger
too; surely to Allah do we make our petition, (Al_Quraan_009.058-059).

And others have confessed their faults, they have mingled a good deed
and an evil one; may be Allah will turn to them (mercifully); surely
Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. TAKE ALMS OUT OF THEIR PROPERTY, YOU WOULD
CLEANSE THEM AND PURIFY THEM THEREBY, AND PRAY FOR THEM; surely your
prayer is a relief to them; and Allah is Hearing, Knowing. Do they not
know that Allah accepts repentance from His servants and takes the alms,
and that Allah is the Oft-returning (to mercy), the Merciful?
(Al_Quraan_009.102-104).

TRUE ISLAAMIC GOVERNMENT HAS TO COLLECT ALMS (TAX) FROM THE RICH TO GIVE
CHARITY TO THE NEEDY ETC. IN NON-ISLAAMIC COUNTRY WHERE THERE IS NO
SOCIAL SERVICES, IF THERE IS SOME LOCAL MUSLIM COMMUNITY PERFORMING THIS
DUTY AND KEEPING ALL THE RECORDS FOR CHECK AND BALANCES, THEN THEY CAN
COLLECT OTHERWISE, AS A THIRD OPTION YOU CAN DIRECTLY PAY THE NEEDY ETC.
TRUE ISLAAMIC GOVERNMENT MUST BE ORGANIZED TO HAVE GOOD KNOWLEDGE OF THE
NEEDY ETC. ALL IN ONE NATIONAL ID CARD IS A GOOD OPTION FOR THE CHECK
AND BALANCES OF ALL, THEY MUST LEARN PRESENT TOOLS AVAILABLE AND AROUND
THE GLOBE AND IMPROVE IT WHERE EVER IT IS POSSIBLE:

Take alms out of their property, you would cleanse them and purify them
thereby, and pray for them; surely your prayer is a relief to them; and
Allah is Hearing, Knowing, (Al_Quraan_009.103).

TRUE ISLAAMIC GOVERNMENT NEED TO HAVE THE FOLLOWING:

There must be an all in one single Identity Card to know who is real
needy and there must be checks and balances for this purpose.

There must be fully functional Price Controlled Utility Stores available
to provide Basic Foods and other Basic Necessities to their low income
citizens.

Educate their citizens, which include kids for FREE. Schools, Colleges
and Universities of International Standards need huge amount of funds,
which may not be possible without Collective Efforts. Without Effective
Communication, Islaamic Government may not be able to effectively
educate their own citizens.

There must be Health Centers & Hospitals with Free Medicine to look
after the Health of their citizens.

Low Rental Housing Scheme based on Family Income so no one is sleeping
on the streets. It is Islaamic Government’s duty to make sure no one
is in Poverty, having hardship and sleeping on the street.

Security of Citizens: For all the above reasons as well, True Islaamic
Government may need trillions of dollars of budget per year, so they
need Perfect Security with Perfect Defense from Land, Sea and Space as
well. In the past many states failed to protect their citizens due to
very tiny budgets and no or very little future development programs.

REMEMBER:

ZAKAAT CALCULATOR:              Zakatcalc.xls
Zakat Calculator Ver -2005
(Use Only YELLOW cells to fill Values. Please read the Summary for details, before filling this)
Weight in Grams Price/Gm Estimated Value Zakat Payable
1 ZAKAT ON GOLD (2.5%)  
1a 24 Carat Gold/Jewelry –
1b 22 Carat Gold/Jewelery –
1c 18 Carat Gold/Jewelry –
1d Other Gold Valuables. (Pls insert the Current Estimated Value) –
 
2 ZAKAT ON PRECIOUS STONES (2.5%) (Contentious subject. Refer Notes. Don’t Calculate if you disagree or are uncomfortable.)  
Calculate the nett Market Value of the Precious stones like Diamonds, Rubies, Etc. and add them to the Estimated Value Column –
 
3 ZAKAT ON SILVER (2.5%)  
Include Household Silver Utensils, Artefacts, and Jewelery. For Utensils, usually the silver is 90% pure so take 90% of the total weight – –
 
4 ZAKAT ON CASH IN HAND /BANK (2.5%) Actual Value  
4a Cash in Hand –
4b Cash in Bank in Savings Accounts –
4c Cash in Bank in Current Accounts –
4d Cash held in Fixed Deposits –
 
5 ZAKAT ON LOANS / INVESTMENTS/ FUNDS/ SHARES, ETC (2.5%) Actual Value  
5a Loans Receivable from Friends and Relatives –
5b Investment in Govt Bonds –
5c Provident Fund Contribution to date. –
5d Insurance Premiums including bonus up to date –
5e Value of Shares (stocks) including Dividends. Take their market value on the date of calculation –
5f Government Security Deposits, ADRs, etc –
5g Investment in Private Chits, Funds, etc –
5f Other Sources of Wealth –
 
6 ZAKAT ON LANDED PROPERTY (2.5%) Estimate Value  
6a Landed Property held as an Investment / Business (Estimate the current Maket Value) –
6b Zakat on Rentals Coming from Property (After Deducting for all expenses) –
7 ZAKAT ON BUSINESS (2.5%) ———- (STOCK-IN-TRADE)  
7a Value of Saleable Stock  
7b Value of Damaged / Dead Stock  
7c Amount Receivable from Credit Sales  
7d LESS: Amount Payable to Suppliers (Credit taken from suppliers for stocking goods)        
7e LESS: Bad Debts        
TOTAL VALUE OF STOCK ( 7a+7b+7C-7d-7e)       –
 
8 ZAKAT ON SHARE IN PARTNERSHIP FIRMS (2.5%)  
8a Capital Balance as per Last balance Sheet  
8b Loans Advanced by you to the Firm as of Date  
8c LESS: Withdrawals made by you during the current Year.      
8d Accumulated Profit from the date of Balance Sheet to this Date (Estimate the Profit Value as it is difficult to get exact figures in the middle of Accounting Year)  
NETT TOTAL WORTH CALCULATED       –
 
9 ZAKAT ON AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE (10%, 7.5%, 5%) Value of Produce  
9a Produce Dependent on Rain Water – @ 10% of product (crop) in Value or Kind –
9b Produce totally dependent on Artificial Irrigation like Canal, Tank, Borewell, etc. @ 5% of Produce (crop) in Value or in Kind –
9c Produce dependent Partially on Rain Water and Partially on Artificial Irrigation @ 7.5% of the produce Value or in Kind –
 
10 ZAKAT ON ANIMALS & POULTRY & FISH FARMING Total Value  
Animals/ Birds more than 6 months Old – @ 1 Animal or Bird PER 40 either in Kind or Value thereof. –
 
11 GENERAL LIABILITIES – You need to deduct your direct Payables or Liabilities which have not been deducted earlier – Usage of the loan should have been on Zakatable Wealth only.    
11a Loans taken from from Friends / Relatives        
11b Loans Taken from Banks / Institutions        
11c Income Tax / Wealth Tax Payable        
TOTAL LIABILITIES        
 
  TOTAL ZAKAT PAYABLE        
 
IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ BELOW SUMMARY FOR INSTRUCTIONS & NOTES:          
Dear Brothers & Sisters,
Alhamdulillah, the month of Ramadhan has been bestowed upon us by Allah. ZAKAT is one of the five fundamental pillars of Islam, mandatory on all muslims who are of eligible wealth. Zakat is due from and payable by a person on his wealth (and not his income), which has remained with him/her for one Islamic year.
It is difficult to calculate the completion of one year on each item of wealth, because purchase dates may vary. To overcome this difficulty, a practical method is to fix a date (e.g. 1st of Ramadhan), compute your total wealth on that date and calculate Zakat, thereon.
The attached spreadsheet is a humble attempt at making the calculation process simple and consolidated, for all brothers and sisters who are fortunate to be worthy of paying Zakat. If there are any errors, its purely due to my incomprehension and may be brought to my notice immdtly by email at ajameel@yahoo.com. This is also available online at http://www.geocities.com/ajameel/zakat.html .Please remember me in your supplications and may Allah give us all the rewards of both worlds. Aameen.
A lot of brothers have asked me what Madhab do I belong and whether this covers Shias, Barelvis, Jaffris, Bohras and other sects. All I can say here is that let us rise above all these covert little shells we have built around us. We are Muslims first and if one is sincere, he will rise above all this secterianism, read the Quran himself and get the facts firsthand. The practical life of our Prophet SAS is there to be followed and practiced. And pray to Allah that he show us and keep us on the right path. Aaameen.
Yours Brother in Islam, Arif Jameel.  
 
 
Details of Each Section to be used in conjunction with the Calculation Spreadsheet.
Zakat on Pure Gold and Gold Jewellery
Zakat should be calculated at 2.5% of the market value as on the date of valuation (In our case we consider 1st of Ramadhan). Most Ulema favour the Market Value prevailing as on the date of Calculation and not the purchase price.
Zakat on Precious and Semi-Precious Stones
There is considerable contention on whether these are to be considered for valuation. In my humble opinion if they have a value, then they calculate towards your wealth, and it is on the wealth that Zakat is mandatory. However please consult with Moulvi, before acting on this section. Most Ulema contend that a diamond is a piece of carbon and its value varies, unlike that of gold or silver.
One may calculate the Saleable Value of Items-at-hand on the date of Zakat Calculation.
Zakat on Silver.
Zakat is to be paid on Silver in Pure form or Jewellery, Utensils, Decorative items and all household items including crockery, cutlery made of silver at 2.5% of the prevailing market rates.
Zakat on Cash and Bank Balances
Zakat should be paid at 2.5% on all cash balance and bank balances in your savings, current or FD accounts. The amount technically should be in the bank for one year. Usually it happens that the balance keeps on changing as per personal requirements.
You may make your best judgement and the best way is to pay on remaining amount on the day of calculation
Zakat on Loans Given, Funds, etc
Zakat is payable by you on loans you have given to your friends and relatives. It should be treated as Cash in Hand. You may deduct Loans Payable by you to arrive at the nett present value of your wealth. However, if you are in doubt, on the return of your money, then you may not calculate it as your wealth. You can add it to your wealth, if and when your receive your money.
Zakat is payable on all Govt Bonds, Public Sector Bond, paid-up Insurance premiums, your paid-up portion of Provident Funds, Govt Bills receivables, etc. Pls remember you need to be aware of what the sharia says about Insurance and other types of investments. It is outside od the scope of this Zakath Calculator.
Zakat on Landed Property
Zakat is not payable on personal residential House even if you have more than one and meant for residential purpose only. Also Zakat is not applicable on the value of Property given on rent irrespective of how many. However Zakat is payable on the rental income itself after deducting the maintenance and other expenses.
However if your intention of holding properties is to sell at a future date for a profit or as an investment, then Zakat is payable on the Market Value of the property. Also, if your intention of holding properties changes in the current year, I.e. from self use to business then you need to pay Zakat on that Property Value.
Zakat on Business:
This is for Business Persons only. No matter what business you are into, you’ve got to pay Zakat on all STOCK-IN-TRADE. The stock must be valued at its Landed Cost Price. If you have any bills receivable (sales given on credit) then you need to add the same towards calculations.
Deduct the Amounts due to your suppliers and deduct the loans on stock on the date of calculation. Dead Stock should be calculated on scrap value or its saleable value. Damaged stock should also be valued at its scrap value.
Be honest in the calculations, as ZAKAT is an INSURANCE on your STOCK directly from ALLAH and who better an insurer than Him.
There is no Zakat on Factory Buildings or any kind of machinery, but there is zakat on products produced in the factory (i.e. finished goods value). Please refer to a competent Moulvi or a scholar who can shed more light on your specific issues.
Zakat on Partnership Firms.
Zakat can be paid EITHER by the firm OR separately by the owners. If the firm is not paying, and the partner wants to calculate his share, he should take the amount standing to his capital and loan account as per the last balance sheet. Add his estimated share of profit till the date zakat is calculated.
This can only be estimated as it is difficult to calculate the exact profit or loss between an accounting year.
Zakat on Agricultural Product
Zakat is payable on all Agricultural produce including fruits, commercially grown flowers, vegetables and all types of grains at the harvest time itself. The passing of One year does not apply for agrultural produce. If there are two or more crops on the same land per year, then Zakat has to be paid as many times on the crop, irrespective of the time.
The Consensus formula for Zakat calculation on Agriculture is as follows:
On crops dependent purely on rain water it will be 10% of produce, On crops not irrigated through rain water but use Canal Water, Tank Water, Borewell and Open wells, the Zakat is 5% of the produce. For Crops dependent partly on Rain Water and partly on other water, the Zakat applicable would be 7.5% of produce.
Zakat on Animals
On all grazing animals like goats, sheep, camel, cows, broiler chickens, the consensus Zakat payable is one animal/bird for every 40 animals owned. However you may wish to give cash in lieu of the animal/bird itself.
Please consult your local Scholar or Maulvi or Imaam who can guide you to the right direction, or refer to books of Fiqh if you would like to have first hand confirmation of the situation.
Liabilities Deductions
If you have any pending tax payable to the govt, as of the date of Zakat Calculation, then the same may be deducted before arriving at the net worth. If you have taken any loans from any person or institution, and if you have not already deducted the same from any of the above sections, then you can deduct your Payables over here. Please be truthful, as Zakat is a sure way of protecting ones wealth if Zakat has been paid on it regularly and fully.
LOANS taken only for Zakatable-Wealth should be deducted. Cars, Houses, etc are not Zakatable wealth. So any loan taken for these purposes are not to be deducted
FOOTNOTE: Please note that RIBA in any form is Haram and strictly prohibited. So please stay away from taking Loans on Interests AND Collection of Interests from any body or institution or other forms of RIBA’.
For those who would like more details there is a good site which gives all details on Zakat. Please visit http://www.islamsa.org.za/library/books/bzewar/part3/zakaat.htm
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: You are free to distribute this Calculator, by email, by print or by posts over the Internet. My intention in creating this was to make the task of Zakat as simple and easy as the act of Zakat itself. However if you are making any modifications or changes please keep me informed.
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Is There a UNO to Protect the Besieged Humanity?

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The UNO at Crossroads While Warriors are Destroying the Humanity

 

 

 

Mahboob A Khawaja, PhD.

 

 

Is There a UNO to Protect the Besieged Humanity?

Over seventy years of its existence, the UNO should have been enriched with systematic excellence to safeguard the humanity from protracted agony, deaths and deliberate destruction. Not so, the record is otherwise filled with man-made catastrophic conflicts, sarcastic hollowness of indifference to human realities and overwhelming addiction to arrogance mocking the truth. For over 7 years, the cold blooded massacres and chemical warfare went on against the civilian population in Syria but the UN Security Council just argued and counter punched each other in paper resolutions and did nothing to protect the civilians from the scourge of inhuman atrocities. Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen are destroyed by design. Some of these places were the hub of ancient cultures and human civilizations and will never be rebuilding again by the warmongers and raging sectarian bloodbath. It reminds us all of the man-made sadistic events leading to the First World War and the 2nd World War. As a conscientious global community, what have we learned from the history? Absolutely nothing – nothing that could be rationally described in human expressions, thoughts and words to represent the indignation and prevalent disgust as if there is no civilized humanity in existence on Planet Earth. Is there a normal human conscience still intact and working?

 

Under the UN Charter, the civilians were supposed to be protected by the UNO and the global community but across the Syrian warzones the civilians are asked to move out from one place to another site while the warfare is in full swing against the victimized population. From nowhere to nowhere – where will the victims find protection under the continuous bombardment? Has the global humane conscience come to its own abstract end? All the so called moral and political intents to safeguard the people and references to UN “concerns”, “critical situation” and claim of “war crimes against the humanity” in Syria are false and wicked expressions of escape from the reality and sheer inhumanity when thousands and thousands are daily massacred by the chemical warfare and aerial bombardments. Were the global powers, more so, the Western nations claiming to be more of humanitarian impulse not supposed to protect the civilians in a war zone as the situation warranted action across Syria? Is there an international community alive and intact to ensure the principles and humanitarian values of a civilized global community?

 

Wars Kill People and Create Delusional Culture

The mankind is fraught with sorrows and pains of institutionalized animosities and wars. When fear of unknown animosities and killings overwhelm the daily thinking process, a society – a nation no matter how normal claims to be, cannot function as normal beings to co-exist with their own self, the surroundings – in the human culture and make any positive contributions to human change and progress. This state of affairs reflects complete societal breakdown and march towards self-annihilation. We are witnessing and living in that delusional culture of human degeneration. Dictators never listen to voices of reason and logic. The absolute power makes the Bashar al-Assad regime a pathological liar killing the people. The entrenched Syrians called upon the global community as if it existed in reality to protect them from barbarity of the Assad regime and Russian collaborated attacks. Some besieged children and women echoed voices on Twitter and Facebook appealing to President Trump to save their lives. They were too innocent to know the political nature and psychology of reality of the war – America and Russian are coordinating the war in Syria for their own interests and futuristic weapons sales. The human destruction and bombed habitats are not part of their sense of humanity.

 

 

Animosity and wars are not outgrowth of celestial bodies but essentially man-made follies throughout the history. All human acts are subject to change and reformation. Over the decades, this vital concern has occupied my scholarly thoughts, human interactions with so many other beings (both in the industrialized West and with people in the developing nations) to find out, how can we safeguard the “succeeding generations from the scourge of wars” and maintain normal societal living and co-existence in diversity. Had this concern and priority been in the thoughts and commitments of the governance of the international institutions evolved more than half of century ago to manage global peace and security, it would have supported the sustainable movements to protect global peace and harmony. To great surprise, looking at the modern history of international affairs, every new man-made conflicts takes new approaches and time and resources to ponder and new agenda as if we have wasted decades in doing nothing except giggling, laughing and lying about peace and the ideals of the mankind in competitive and hilarious animosities and blame games. Is it part of the human nature to look for animosity and madness of war? Wars kill people – the living human beings, destroy humanity of the man enforcing barbarism and cruelty, practically denying all prospects of peace and co-existence. Previous wars of centuries were aimed at annihilation of political and economic enemies but the 21st century conflicts are ready-made recipes not only to eliminate the mankind but also the environment in which human beings survive and the Planet Earth that sustains life. Given the strategic know-how and the scientific-technological developments, it is an established fact that any futuristic global warfare could end the very existence of man and humanity on this planet.

 

 

Arab Conflicts are Planned to Divide and Control the Region

Emerging conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Libya, Kashmir, Iraq and soon to other parts of the Arab world are the outcomes of consequential military invasions and aggression that kill people and do not produce peace and harmony but resentment and degeneration. History illustrates when a nation or its leaders challenge the limits of the Laws of God and approach near the end of their lifespan, insanity takes-over common sense and they tend to ignore warnings and reject all voices of reason. Professor John Esposito of Georgetown University – a distinguish scholar of Western-Islamic civilizations (author of Unholy War and What Everyone Needs to Know about Islam), makes a candid observation:

 

“in many parts of the Muslim world the war against global terrorism has come to be viewed as a war against Islam and Muslims. The image of America has become that of a neo-imperial power that has sought to redraw the map of the Middle East and the Muslim world, influenced by an unholy alliance of neoconservatives and the militant Christian right.”

 

Political Temptations and Hegemonic Policies Ignore the History

 

Once again, humanity appears to have been pushed back to the shameful annals of the European Dark Ages. The 1% global elite – men of king operate the UNO and other international institutions – the perverted insanity lacking basic understanding of the Human Nature and of the working of the splendid Universe in which we enjoy coherent co-existence. The mankind continues to be run down by the cancerous ego and cruelty of the few superpower warlords. Killing unjustifiably one innocent human being is like killing of the whole of the humanity. The global warlords represent cruel mindset incapable to see the human side of the living conscience. Madness of the perpetuated war on terrorism and its triggered insanity knows no bound across the global spectrum. Animals do not commit massacre of their kind and species, they do not bombard fellow animals with chemicals, nor set-up rape camps for the war victims, the Western led wars against the humanity have and continue to do so at an unparalleled global scale in Syria, Iraq and Yemen without being challenged by any global organizations or leaders. Torture and massacres of innocent civilians are convenient fun games to be defined as “collateral damage” and a statistic. Perhaps, they view humanity just in digits and numbers, not as the living entities with social, moral, spiritual and intellectual values and progressive agendas for change and development. Every beginning has its end. It is just that most powerful nations have failed to learn from the living history- a slap to EH Carr’s precious thoughts of human history. Albert Einstein (“The World as I see it”) made it known that he was against military campaigns, killings and destruction of the natural environment: “This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor… This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!.”

American historian Harry Elmer Barnes (“Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: A Critical Examination of the Foreign Policy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and It’s Aftermath”) offered this stern warning to American politicians if the US led wars continue leading to man’s annihilation from this planet:

“If trends continue as they have during the last fifteen years, we shall soon reach this point of no return, and can only anticipate interminable wars, disguised as noble gestures for peace. Such an era could only culminate in a third world war which might well, as Arnold J. Toynbee has suggested, leave only the pygmies in remote jungles, or even the apes and ants, to carry on ‘the cultural traditions’ of mankind.”

If a hate crime results in killing of the innocent people in American society, America foreign policy is actively doing the same to other nations – Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and others as if they were not entitled to be human beings.

Lessons of History Challenge the 21st Century’s Elite Global Governance

How could the Arab leadership failure be turned into change and reformation of the neo-colonialism and to revive the cultural presence and visionary leadership role in the global political arena? The Arab states are run by the Western assigned puppets, the tribal and authoritarian agents lacking knowledge-based leadership, wisdom and moral-intellectual discipline. The 21st century is more enlightened and an age of information and knowledge-driven global culture of creativity, effective leadership and human progress. It is not reasonable for the ignorant to inherit kingship or a leadership role to be successful. The emerging and complex political imperatives call for the new generation of proactive educated and intelligent people to be in the leading role of planning of change and reformation of the old and obsolete inherited infrastructures of political governance unto new sustainable system of institutional development and nation-building and to be people-oriented and represent the Islamic interests in a rational manner. The hard facts of life speak for themselves. There is not a single Arab-Muslim country to have produced a credible intelligent leader to address the international community. There was a time in history that Arab people had moral and intellectual credibility to interact with others and be influential. The oil-geared happiness has lost all that was valuable in the context of Arab civilization. The Arab elite are operating from a position of moral and intellectual weakness and deprivation, not of political or intellectual strength. To change the naïve political governance, Muslims in general and the Arabs in particular, must develop public institutions of the citizenry participation – the concept of “Shura”- public consultation is an important principle for societal decision making, of law, justice and leadership accountability. Islam underlined the accountability of leaders in dealing with societal affairs. Arab leaders have none and are afraid of losing their wealth and palaces if people were to determine the future-making and ruler’s destiny. Ironically, none of the Arab States have any public educational institutions to study and analyze peace and conflict resolution. This is what assumes the imperatives of societal change and progress.

 

We, the People Voices of Reason must envisage a new UNO and systems of governance accountable to the people of the global community, not to the hypothetically structured systems of States and dysfunctional global institutions. Such institutions do not belong to the moral, intellectual and spiritual precepts and values of the living humanity. If time and history are a reference point, we the humankind stand at a critical juncture of our own complacency to have allowed ignorance, hatred, fear and animosity to destroy our life, culture and existence. The few obsessed with invincible armies and political powers – the warriors as dreamers to control and dominate us have driven the humanity to a terrible sense of helplessness and void about its future. We are witnessing a growing culture of domination by the same as was in history- universally the self-centered maniacs claiming to be leaders of peace and mankind, the most hated and feared are turning the world into more man-made tragedies, animosities, continued bogus wars – all causing massive deaths and destruction to endanger the life, human habitats and the sanctity of Planet Earth. The need is URGENT to understand – how to change the egoistic and embittered insanity of the few hate-mongers and warlords into an equilibrium of balanced relationship between Man, Life and God, Global Governance and Peacemaking – being at accord within the Universe in which we reside all.

(Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international relations-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest book: Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution: Approaches to Understand the Current Issues and Future-Making. (Lambert Academic Publications, Germany, 2017).

We have created such a complex world that it is difficult to make sense of it!

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Worth listening to short video about the complex world we have created. The time and discoveries are moving so fast that it is hard to predict and plan for the future, which is true not just at individual level but also at national level. Link to video is below which is about 3 minutes long. f.sheikh

https://nyti.ms/2GJJtLJ

Does anyone have the right to sex? By Amia Srinivasan

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On 23 May 2014, Elliot Rodger, a 22-year-old college dropout, became the world’s most famous ‘incel’ – involuntary celibate. The term can, in theory, be applied to both men and women, but in practice it picks out not sexless men in general, but a certain kind of sexless man: the kind who is convinced he is owed sex, and is enraged by the women who deprive him of it. Rodger stabbed to death his two housemates, Weihan Wang and Cheng Hong, and a friend, George Chen, as they entered his apartment on Seville Road in Isla Vista, California. Three hours later he drove to the Alpha Phi sorority house near the campus of UC Santa Barbara. He shot three women on the lawn, killing two of them, Katherine Cooper and Veronika Weiss. Rodger then went on a drive-by shooting spree through Isla Vista, killing Christopher Michaels-Martinez, also a student at UCSB, with a single bullet to the chest inside a Deli Mart, and wounding 14 others. He eventually crashed his BMW coupé at an intersection. He was found dead by the police, having shot himself in the head.

In the hours between murdering three men in his apartment and driving to Alpha Phi, Rodger went to Starbucks, ordered coffee, and uploaded a video, ‘Elliot Rodger’s Retribution’, to his YouTube channel. He also emailed a 107,000-word memoir-manifesto, ‘My Twisted World: The Story of Elliot Rodger’, to a group of people including his parents, his therapist, former schoolteachers and childhood friends. Together these two documents detail the massacre to come and Rodger’s motivation. ‘All I ever wanted was to fit in and live a happy life,’ he explains at the beginning of ‘My Twisted World’, ‘but I was cast out and rejected, forced to endure an existence of loneliness and insignificance, all because the females of the human species were incapable of seeing the value in me.’

He goes on to describe his privileged and happy early childhood in England – Rodger was the son of a successful British filmmaker – followed by his privileged and unhappy adolescence in Los Angeles as a short, bad-at-sports, shy, weird, friendless kid, desperate to be cool. He writes of dyeing his hair blond (Rodger was half-white and half-Malaysian; blond people were ‘so much more beautiful’); of finding ‘sanctuary’ in Halo and World of Warcraft; being shoved by a pretty girl at summer camp (‘That was the first experience of female cruelty I endured, and it traumatised me to no end’); becoming incensed by the sex lives of his peers (‘How could an inferior, ugly black boy be able to get a white girl and not me? I am beautiful, and I am half-white myself. I am descended from British aristocracy. He is descended from slaves’); dropping out of successive schools and then community college; and fantasising about a political order in which he ruled the world and sex was outlawed (‘All women must be quarantined like the plague they are’). The necessary result of all this, Rodger said, was his ‘War on Women’, in the course of which he would ‘punish all females’ for the crime of depriving him of sex. He would target the Alpha Phi sorority, ‘the hottest sorority of UCSB’, because it contained ‘the very girls who represent everything I hate in the female gender … hot, beautiful blonde girls … spoiled, heartless, wicked bitches’. He would show everyone that he was ‘the superior one, the true alpha male’.

Late in 2017, the online discussion forum Reddit closed down its 40,000-member ‘Incel’ support group, for ‘people who lack romantic relationships and sex’. Reddit took the action after introducing a new policy of prohibiting content that ‘encourages, glorifies, incites or calls for violence’. What had started out as a support group for the lonely and sexually isolated had become a forum whose users not only raged against women and the ‘noncels’ and ‘normies’ who get to sleep with them, but also frequently advocated rape. A second incel Reddit group, ‘Truecels’, was also banned following the site’s policy change. Its sidebar read: ‘No encouraging or inciting violence, or other illegal activities such as rape. But of course it is OK to say, for example, that rape should have a lighter punishment or even that it should be legalised and that slutty women deserve rape.’

Soon after Rodger’s killings, incels took to the manosphere to explain that women (and feminism) were in the end responsible for what had happened. Had one of those ‘wicked bitches’ just fucked Elliot Rodger he wouldn’t have had to kill anyone. (Nikolas Cruz, who gunned down 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Valentine’s Day, vowed in a comment on a YouTube video that ‘Elliot Rodger will not be forgotten.’) Feminist commentators were quick to point out what should have been obvious: that no woman was obligated to have sex with Rodger; that his sense of sexual entitlement was a case-study in patriarchal ideology; that his actions were a predictable if extreme response to the thwarting of that entitlement. They could have added that feminism, far from being Rodger’s enemy, may well be the primary force resisting the very system that made him feel – as a short, clumsy, effeminate, interracial boy – inadequate. His manifesto reveals that it was overwhelmingly boys, not girls, who bullied him: who pushed him into lockers, called him a loser, made fun of him for his virginity. But it was the girls who deprived him of sex, and the girls, therefore, who had to be destroyed.

Could it also be said that Rodger’s unfuckability was a symptom of the internalisation of patriarchal norms of men’s sexual attractiveness on the part of women? The answer to that question is complicated by two things. First, Rodger was a creep, and it was at least partly his insistence on his own aesthetic, moral and racial superiority, and whatever it was in him that made him capable of stabbing his housemates and his friend a total of 134 times, not his failure to meet the demands of heteromasculinity, that kept women away. Second, plenty of non-homicidal nerdy guys get laid. Indeed part of the injustice of patriarchy, something unnoticed by incels and other ‘men’s rights activists’, is the way it makes even supposedly unattractive categories of men attractive: geeks, nerds, effete men, old men, men with ‘dad bods’. Meanwhile there are sexy schoolgirls and sexy teachers, manic pixie dreamgirls and Milfs, but they’re all taut-bodied and hot, minor variations on the same normative paradigm. (Can we imagine GQ carrying an article celebrating ‘mom bod’?)

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