Mohamed Siruhan

Veteran broadcaster Larry King has announced that he will be ending his nightly show on CNN in the autumn. Over 25 years of the show, King, famous for wearing braces, has conducted more than 40,000 interviews. Larry King Live recently made it into in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running show with the same host in the same time slot. READ MORE

It is one of the most exquisite views we have ever had of the Earth. This colourful new map traces the subtle but all pervasive influence the pull of gravity has across the globe. Known as a geoid, it essentially defines where the level surface is on our planet; it tells us which way is "up" and which way is "down". It is drawn from delicate measurements made by Europe's Goce satellite, which flies so low it comes perilously close to falling out of the sky. Scientists say the data gathered by the spacecraft will have numerous applications. One key beneficiary will be climate studies because the geoid can help researchers understand better how the great mass of ocean water is moving heat around the world. The new map was presented here in Norway's second city at a special Earth observation (EO) symposium dedicated to the data being acquired by Goce and other European Space Agency (Esa) missions. Europe is currently in the midst of a huge programme of EO devel...

Even non-techies like me will find something interesting about the recent move by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to create a virtual ‘red-light district’ on the internet. The idea is to assign a special .xxx domain name for websites with pornographic content so that they can be easily marked and filtered out. Sounds like the days of accidental exposure and subsequent addiction to pornography on the internet are numbered? Think again. According to industry analysts, “only 10 percent of the adult sites on the web would adopt an .xxx domain name […] for schools, parents, and anyone else who wants to regulate how much pornography kids see online: [the development boils down to] nothing. Even some large religious groups opposed the creation of the .xxx domain, suggesting that the creation of such a domain would actually encourage online pornography.” Those of us who live in places where online adult and inappropriate content is filtered, tend to underestimat...

Veneration of the Qur’an is done by learning and teaching it, memorizing and respecting its laws and provisions, knowing thereby what is permissible and what is forbidden, also by honouring those who understand and have memorized it, and by making oneself aware of Allah’s promises and threats which inspire weeping. Allah has said: “Had We sent this Qur’an down upon a mountain you would have seen it humbled, rent asunder from the fear of Allah.” (Qur’an, 59:21) “Assuredly, it is a generous Qur’an, in a book kept hidden, which none touches save the purified; a revelation from the Lord of the Worlds.” (Qur’an, 56:77-80) “Had it been possible for a Qur’an to cause the mountains to move, or the earth to be torn asunder, or the dead to speak – but Allah’s is the whole command.” (Qur’an, 13:31) The Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “The best of you is he who learns and teaches the Qur’an.” (Al-Bukhari) He also said, as reported by Al-Bukhari and Muslim on the authority of Abu Musa Al-Ash’ari:...

It was said to one of the Salaf: (our righteous predecessoros) “Does the heart prostrate?” And he said: “Yes, by Allah. It prostrates such that it doesn’t lift its head until it meets Allah.” Ibn Al-Qayyim said: “This points to the humbleness of the heart, its humility, repentance and closeness to Allah wherever it may be and it points to its constant regard (for Allah) in solitude and when with others.” (Asrar Al-Salat)The first sajdah of the heart is when it submits to its Lord and recognizes His Lordship, subsequently entering into a state of complete Islam and Istislam (submission and surrender). Thereafter the heart continues to prostrate and this causes the limbs to follow suit – bringing one to physically perform sujood day and night in prayers. What is the case then of the one who has been commanded to bow, but their heart refuses to bow? They’ve been ordered with Sajdah (prostration), but their forehead never touches the ground in worship? Such is the case of those who abandon...

When the American-Palestinian textile enthusiast and art teacher Joy Totah Hilden moved in 1982 to Saudi Arabia, where her husband Robert had been appointed as an English teacher at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) in Dhahran, she embarked on an intensive exploration of Bedouin weaving. Hilden’s interest in weaving and textiles had begun at an early age. She was born in Jerusalem in 1935 to a Palestinian father and an American mother from the mid-West. Her paternal grandfather was a village weaver, and Bedouin wove on ground looms near the family orange grove in Gaza. She spent her early years in Palestine, and when her family went to live in America, she got to know the work of her mother’s ancestors in sewing and quilting. During the 12 years she and Robert spent in Saudi Arabia, Hilden traveled widely to observe the working practices of Bedouin weavers, most of them women. As she puts it: “The search for weavers and their secrets of spinning, weaving and dyeing...

Muslims are 23 percent of the world’s population. There are over 170 million Muslims in Indonesia, over 70 million in China and over 54 million in the former Soviet States. The majority of Muslims, according to population studies, are youth and children. Children below five years of age represent 43 percent of the Muslim world! By the year 2020, our population is expected to reach 2.5 billion, Insha Allah. In Canada, startling statistical data has been released. One in three children born in Canadian hospitals today is from a Muslim family. What does this mean to us?The future is bright for Muslims if we make the right choices today. We are blessed with amazing riches in the Muslim world. Over 40 percent of the mineral wealth of the planet lies under Muslim countries. We have thousands of doctors, engineers, scientists and intellectuals. We spend billions in technology, especially for the military. But we still are humiliated and destroyed. We cannot wake up in the morning and forget ...

Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon him) said: “A man suffered from intense thirst while on a journey, then he found a well. He climbed down into it and drank (water) and when he came out he saw a dog lolling its tongue and eating the moistened earth out of thirst. The man said, ‘This dog has suffered from thirst as I had.’ So he climbed down into the well, filled his shoe with water, then caught it in his mouth until he climbed up and let the dog drink it. Allah appreciated this act of his and pardoned him. Then (the Companions around him) said: “Allah’s Messenger, is there for us a reward even for (serving) such animals?” He said: “Yes, there is a reward for service to every living animal.” SG

( Basnaahaa Hilath ) Hilath Rasheed : A message to my sister Hilath Rasheed : My parents should understand that the world doesn't work ONLY according to THEIR interpretation of the Quran. Hope my family & this society will understand & tolerate Ubaid. Heck even I dont understand STRICT HOMOSEXUALITY but I tolerate the unknown. Hilath Rasheed: I have requested to move out. Things between me & my parents will definitely end today - one way or another. Hopefully happy. Stay stunned. Shehe Abdulla : i'm sorry! Hilath Rasheed: Don't worry. Everything's taken care of! A close friend has come to my rescue: I may be leaving to an uninhabited island as early as Saturday and may never come back :) Shehe Abdulla: you??????????????? at least hoping that you're taking your laptop and a w modern anywhere that to go! Hilath Rasheed: A close friend has come to my rescue: I may be leaving to an uninhabited island as early as Saturday and may never come back :) Dav...

The US has carried out its first execution by firing squad in 14 years. Convicted murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner, who had spent 25 years on death row, was executed soon after midnight local time (0600 GMT), after a final appeal had been rejected. Gardner, 49, chose the firing squad before Utah banned the method in 2004. Critics say it is barbaric, harking back to the Wild West. Gardner was only the third man put to death in this way in the US since 1976. He was convicted in 1985 of fatally shooting a lawyer during an attempt to escape from a court where he was facing another murder charge dating from 1984. READ MORE ON BBC Convicted killer Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed early Friday by firing squad, the Utah Department of Corrections said. Gardner, 49, is only the third person in 33 years to die by firing squad in the United States. He was killed at 12:20 a.m. MST (2:20 a.m. ET), a Corrections Department spokesman said. A hood was placed over Gardner's head and a paper target pinned ...

New Muslims share their story Thirteen women who embraced Islam were felicitated in a program held at Nirala restaurant, Jeddah, last week.The program organized by Haji Mohammed Ayub Welfare Organization was chaired by Umm Fakeha Zinjani, president of the organization. Dr. Talat Shawdeen, an Indian doctor working at the Manarat Polyclinic, was the chief guest and Mariyam Ibraham (formerly Mariyama Abraham), an Indian nurse at the Manarat Polyclinic, was the guest of honor. Mariyam shared her journey to Islam, which began when she came to Saudi Arabia few years back to work as a nurse in Hera hospital in Makkah.“I was always conversing with doctors and patients, most of who were Muslims. I didn’t know what Islam was. When I saw people come on Haj and Umrah, and saw people fast during Ramadan, I became inquisitive,” Mariyam said.“I started asking doctors and patients about Islam. I was then transfered to Jeddah’s Manarat Polyclinic. Most staff here were Muslim and they treated me well....

Ali Bin Abu Talib (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “Narrate to people what they can understand; do you want Allah and His Messenger to be disbelieved?” (Al-Bukhari) Ibn Hajr said in Fath Al-Bari, “(In this narration) there is evidence that ambiguous knowledge should not be mentioned amongst the general public.”Sheikh Muhammad Bin Saleh Al-Uthaymeen (may Allah have mercy on him) explained this very important and often misunderstood point beautifully. After mentioning the narration of Ali, he states: “It is therefore an aspect of wisdom in Da’wah that you should not surprise people with things they are not able to comprehend. Rather, you should call them in stages, bit by bit until their minds settle. “(The statement of Ali) ‘Do you want Allah and His Messenger to be disbelieved in?’ is a rhetorical question, posed as criticism of such behavior. It means: By narrating to people what they cannot understand, do you want Allah and His Messenger to be disbelieved in ? This is because i...

Slowly but steadily, a decade-old business around the dead and universally despised dictator Adolf Hitler is emerging as a small-scale industry in India. Books and memorabilia on the German leader's life have found a steady market in some sections of Indian society where he is idolised and admired, mostly by the young. Prayag Thakkar, a 19-year-old student in Gujarat state, is one of them: "I have idolised Hitler ever since I have had a sense of history. I admire his leadership qualities and his discipline." The Holocaust was bad, he says, but that is not his concern. "He mesmerised the whole nation with his leadership and iron discipline. India needs his discipline." Dimple Kumari, a research associate in Pune, has not read Mein Kampf but she would wear the Hitler T-shirt out of admiration for him. She calls him "a legend" and tries to put her admiration for him in perspective: "The killing of Jews was not good, but everybody has a positive and ...

Slowly but surely an extinct glacier in a remote corner of the Peruvian Andes is being returned to its former colour, not by falling snow or regenerated ice sheets, but by whitewash. It is the first experimental step in an innovative plan to recuperate Peru's disappearing Andean glaciers. But there is debate between those who dismiss the idea as just plain daft and those who think it could be a simple but brilliant solution, or at least one which should be put to the test. The World Bank clearly believes the idea - the brainchild of 55-year-old Peruvian inventor, Eduardo Gold - has merit as it was one of the 26 winners from around 1,700 submissions in the "100 Ideas to Save the Planet" competition at the end of 2009. Mr Gold, who has no scientific qualifications but has studiously read up on glaciology, is enthused that the time has come to put his theory into practice. READ MORE

Barring a last-minute stay of execution, five anonymous marksmen bearing rifles will take their places late on Thursday in a prison room to carry out the request of death-row inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner: execution by firing squad. Gardner won't see the law enforcement officers who have volunteered to carry out the death sentence. He will be bathed in light, they will be hidden in darkness some 20 feet away, probably behind a screen containing narrow slots for the guns. A target will be placed over his heart, a hood over his head. And the men, who are likely to have practised together for accuracy, will respond to the command: "Ready, aim..." None, however, will ever be certain whether they fired a lethal shot. One gun will have been loaded with a dummy - probably wax - bullet, which is said to deliver the same recoil as a live round. Gardner, 49, was sentenced to death in 1985, after fatally shooting lawyer Michael Burdell and severely wounding a bailiff Nick Kirk in an esc...

siruart.blogspot.com Gossip blogger Perez Hilton( American Hilath ) issued a warning to readers not to click for a photo of 17-year-old singer Miley Cyrus if they were “easily offended.” The link was to an uncensored, up-the-skirt photograph of Cyrus stepping out of a car, seemingly without underwear. While it was one thing for media outlets to publish pics of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears partying without panties a few years ago, the situation involving Cyrus is quite different, given that she is still a minor. The posting has consequently prompted many to question if the 32-year-old self-titled “Queen of Media” could face charges pertaining to the distribution of child pornography, and has led to one high-profile advertiser to drop its ads from the site. Child pornography is defined under United States law as the visual depiction of minor children under the age of 18 engaging in sex acts. The definition also covers photographs or depictions of children’s genitalia, with a convicti...

A study conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has cast doubt over Israel's survival beyond the next 20 years. The CIA report predicts "an inexorable movement away from a two-state to a one-state solution, as the most viable model based on democratic principles of full equality that sheds the looming specter of colonial apartheid while allowing for the return of the 1947/1948 and 1967 refugees. The latter being the precondition for sustainable peace in the region." The study, which has been made available only to a certain number of individuals, further forecasts the return of all Palestinian refugees to the occupied territories, and the exodus of two million Israelis — who would move to the US in the next 15 years. "There is over 500,000 Israelis with American passports and more than 300,000 living in the area of just California," International lawyer Franklin Lamb said in an interview with Press TV recently, adding that those who do not have Americ...

The London Times, however, attacked the Nobel Committee more intensively. Michael Binyon of the London Times wrote in a hard-hitting article that the Nobel Committee’s decision has made a mockery of the Nobel Peace Prize: “Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel Committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honor its promise to re-engage with the world.” Even if the Nobel Committee’s decision was to encourage the US president to remain the same man of “change” he had promised earlier, it should not have been taken that frantically, only 10 months after he took office. The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was a “comparative award,” and made millions of people laugh at the credibility and authenticity of the foundation which is aimed at the preservation of Alfred Nobel’s heritage; however, f...

A geological survey of Afghanistan has established that it contains a range of minerals that could together be worth a trillion dollars. Anywhere else this would be considered exciting news. The tragedy for Afghans is that it must be feared that the geologists’ findings will simply give the country something else to fight over. It does not, however, have to be this way. Providing these mineral riches are used for the benefit of Afghans and not of outsiders, their existence could actually prove to be an incentive for the Taleban to commit to talks and peace. They represent a legitimate basis on which the country can take back its destiny. However, clearly there is no chance of exploiting these world-class deposits of iron ore and copper together with magnesium, chromium, gold, nickel, mercury and lithium and other rare minerals, while the fighting is still going on. Though the Chinese have bought an iron ore concession near Kabul, no serious development has taken place. Understandably, ...

An American construction worker has been detained in the mountains of Pakistan after authorities there found him carrying a sword, pistol and night-vision goggles on a solo mission to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden. Catching bin Laden was Gary Brooks Faulkner's "passion," his brother said, noting that the 50-year-old has been to Pakistan at least six times, learned some of the local language and even grew a long beard to blend in. Relatives and acquaintances said Faulkner is a devout, good-humored Christian who requires dialysis and did time in prison years ago. "A lot of kids grow up and say, ` I want to be Rambo ,' you know? Well, he is," said Faulkner's brother, Scott Faulkner, 43. Gary Faulkner arrived June 3 in the town of Bumburate and stayed in a hotel there. The Greeley, Colo., man was assigned a police guard, as is common for foreigners visiting remote parts of Pakistan. Read more

A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm Monday night and burned to the ground, police said. The "King of Kings" statue, one of southwest Ohio's most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati. The sculpture, 62 feet (nearly 19 meters) tall and 40 feet (12 meters) wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown in a game of football. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early Tuesday. The fire spread from the statue to an adjacent amphitheater but was confined to the attic area, and no one was injured, police Chief Mark Neu said. Travelers on Interstate 75 often were startled to come upon the huge statue by the roadside, but many said A...

Oldest leather shoe steps out after 5,500 years ... from an Armenian cave About 5,500 years ago someone in the mountains of Armenia put his best foot forward in what is now the oldest leather shoe ever found. It'll never be confused with a penny loafer or a track shoe, but the well-preserved footwear was made of a single piece of leather, laced up the front and back, researchers reported Wednesday in PLoS One, a journal of the Public Library of Science. Worn and shaped by the wearer's right foot, the shoe was found in a cave along with other evidence of human occupation. The shoe had been stuffed with grass, which dated to the same time as the leather of the shoe — between 5,637 and 5,387 years ago. "This is great luck," enthused archaeologist Ron Pinhasi of University College Cork in Cork, Ireland, who led the research team. "We normally only find broken pots, but we have very little information about the day-to-day activity" of these ancient people. "...

Yameen Rasheed : It's apparently pretty easy to get out of trouble with morons. :-> 24 hours ago, they wanted Naazim's head, called him a 'gay whore', apart from demanding torture, deportation, loss of citizenship and outright murder. Today, Naazim is 'a brother'. ... I'm amazed. Hey everyone! I'm now a wahhabi (My religious views are strictly adhaalath party) Ashjay Roronoa Winchester : Yes, I am officially a haabee too . I want to kill all those evil zionist bastards in israel and the usa with my own hands....no, with an AK47! Islamic Brotherhood Abu Hurairah, radiyallahu ‘anhu, reported that the Messenger of Allah, sallallahu ‘alayhi wasallam, said: “Do not be envious of one another; do not artificially inflate prices against one another; do not hate one another; do not shun one another; and do not undercut one another in business transactions; and be as fellow-brothers and servants of Allah. A Muslim is the brother of a Muslim. He neither opp...