Saudi Arabia: Al-Aboud: I can’t believe my ears
JEDDAH: SIRAJ WAHAB ARABNEWS Published — Tuesday 4 November 2014 Last update 4 November 2014 12:09 am “Is that true? I can’t believe my ears.” That is how Aboud Al-Aboud […]
Syrian Hajis eye Kingdom asylum
Haj pilgrims from Syria have refused to return home after completing the pilgrimage citing the ongoing political unrest and have appealed for asylum in the Kingdom. With the deadline for […]
In Assad’s Syria, death notices litter the walls – and life goes on Driving along roads that cost many lives to capture, Robert Fisk sees hasty monuments to dead soldiers of a state that was once a pariah
Abdul Qadir al-Djezairi’s palace is on the right, noble in spirit as well as architecture. He is the one who brought the Christians and Jews of Damascus to his home […]
U.S. vetoes U.N. resolution declaring Israeli settlements illegal
United Nations (CNN) — The United States vetoed Friday a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said that while the United States agrees about “the folly and illegitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, […]
Commandments of the day: 281. Commandment to exceed not the bounds. Surely, Allah loves not those who exceed the bounds.
281. Commandment to exceed not the bounds. Surely, Allah loves not those who exceed the bounds [6:142] And He it is Who brings into being gardens, trellised and untrellised, and the date-palm and cornfields whose fruits are of diverse kinds, and the olive and the pomegranate, alike and unlike. Eat […]
Commandment of today: 282. Commandment to obey not the bidding of those who exceed the bounds
282. Commandment to obey not the bidding of those who exceed the bounds [26:152] ‘And obey not the bidding of those who exceed the bounds, [26:153] ‘Who create disorder in the earth, and reform it not.’
Hamas unhappy with UN Gaza reconstruction plan
GAZA CITY: The Hamas militant group says it opposes a UN reconstruction plan for the Gaza Strip following a 50-day war against Israel this summer. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri on Sunday called the UN mechanism “unacceptable, inefficient.” The UN announced the plan in September, creating a system to bring […]
Bloodbath shocks Lahore
LAHORE: A suicide bomber killed at least 55 people Sunday at the main Pakistan-India border crossing, the blast tearing through crowds of spectators leaving after the colorful daily ceremony to […]
How did Islamists receive American weapons? See the evidence from guided missile that exploded near Syrian front line
by Robert Fisk, The Independent Syria’s special forces troops are strung out across a pinnacle of hills here just north east of Lattakia on one of the country’s most dangerous […]
New conversion bill only makes Israel more of a theocracy
Haaretz: The conversion reform bill, which reaches the cabinet for approval on Sunday, contains a paradox. Three political parties, most of whose voters are secular, are promoting a new procedure for Orthodox conversion, against strong opposition from the ultra-Orthodox parties. Supporters portray the initiative as a masterpiece of liberalism against the ossified […]
Islamic State fears grow in Pakistan and Afghanistan
ET: ISLAMABAD: The Islamic State organisation is starting to attract the attention of radicals in Pakistan and Afghanistan, long a cradle for militancy, unnerving authorities who fear a potential violent contagion. Far from the militants’ self-proclaimed “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria, the name of IS has cropped up several times in […]
Lessons from Versailles for today’s imploding Middle East
Summar As the Middle East and North Africa implode, perhaps focus should be directed on the end of World War I – and specifically the settlement fashioned by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and French Prime Minister George Clemenceau at Versailles in 1919 . The […]
Qur’an lesson for today: 280. Commandment to not call one another by nicknames
280. Commandment to not call one another by nicknames [49:12] O ye who believe! let not one people deride another people, who may be better than they, nor let women deride other women, who may be better than they. And defame not your own people, nor call one another by […]
So, why is there such an explosion of violence across the Middle East?
What on earth has descended upon the Middle East? BY ROBERT FISK, THE INDEPENDENT Why such an epic explosion of violence? It feels strange to ask these questions of Dr Bouthaina Shaaban, one of President Bashar al-Assad’s close advisers and former translator to his father, Hafez. Her office is spotless, […]
Qur’an lesson for today: 279. Commandment to approach not foul deeds, whether open or secret
279. Commandment to approach not foul deeds, whether open or secret [6:152] Say, ‘Come, I will rehearse to you what your Lord has forbidden: that you associate not anything as partner with Him and that you do good to parents, and that you kill not your children for fear of […]
Jerusalem holy site is reopened amid tension
Israeli police have reopened a key Jerusalem holy site after its closure amid tensions following the shooting of a prominent right-wing Jewish activist. The Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sharif was reopened ahead of Muslim Friday prayers, but with restrictions on worshippers as a security measure. Meanwhile the Palestinian suspected of wounding Rabbi […]
Questioning the Faith in the Cradle of Islam
FP: JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Ahmed al-Ghamdi’s long, bushy beard and red-checked headscarf are emblems of his conservative approach to Islam, which is no surprise for a man who once supervised the Saudi religious police in the holy city of Mecca. But it was something surprising about Ghamdi that brought […]
The sanctity of Muharram
Muharram is the month that marks the beginning of the Hijrah calendar. It is one of the four sanctified months about which the Holy Qur’an says, “The number of the […]
Picture of the Day: Employees of Dead Sea hotels form ‘world’s largest floating image’
DEAD SEA — A total of 261 foreign and Jordanian employees as well as administrative staff members working at the Dead Sea’s eight hotels managed to break the Guinness World […]
Makkah-Madinah train to be shipped by year-end
Makkah-Madinah train to be shipped by year-end JEDDAH: ARAB NEWS Published — Friday 31 October 2014 The first Spanish-made train for the multibillion-riyal Haramain railway project would arrive in […]