Ramadan Mubarak!

Saturday, August 22nd, marked the first day of Ramadan, which is the ninth month of Islamic Calendar. Ramadan Mubarak to all Muslims around the world. We are among the blessed ones to have the privilege to live in this Holy month. May Allah give us patience and help us make the best of this blessed month. As I was reading a few articles about Ramadan, I came across a sermon by Prophet Muhammad (SAW), so I thought I would share it with you:

O People! The month of Allah (Ramadan) has approached you with His mercy and blessings. This is the month that is the best of all months in the estimation of Allah. Its days are the best among the days; its nights are the best among the nights. Its hours are the best among the hours.

This is a month in which he has invited you. You have been, in this month, selected as the recipients of the honors of Allah, the Merciful. In this holy month, when you breathe, it has the Sawab/thawab (heavenly reward) of 'Tasbeeh' (the praise of Allah on rosary beads), and your sleep has the thawab of worship.

Your good deeds are accepted in this month. So are your invocations. Therefore, you must invoke your Lord, in right earnest, with hearts that are free from sins and evils, that Allah may bless you, observe fast, in this month, and recite the Holy Quran.

Verily! The person who may not receive the mercy and benevolence of Allah in this month must be very unfortunate having an end as bad (in the Hereafter). While fasting, remember the hunger and thirst of tomorrow in Qiyamat. Give alms to the poor and the needy. Pay respects to your elders.

Have pity on those younger than you and be kind towards your relatives and kinsmen. Guard your tongues against unworthy words, and your eyes from such scenes that are not worth seeing (forbidden) and your ears from such sounds that should not be heard by you.

Be kind to orphans so that when your children become orphans they also may be treated with kindness. Do invoke that Allah may forgive your sins. Do raise your hands at the time of Salat (Prayers), as it is the best time for asking His mercy. When we invoke at such times, we are answered by Him, when we call Him, He responds, and when we ask for anything, it is accepted by Him.

O People! You have made your conscience the slave of your desires; make it free by invoking Him for Istighfar (repentance/forgiveness). Your back is breaking under the heavy load of your sins, so prostrate before Him for long intervals and make it lighter.

Do understand fully well that Allah has promised in the name of His Majesty and Honor that He will not take to task such people who fast and offer Salat in this month and perform 'sajda' (prostration), and will guard their bodies against the Fire of Hell on the Day of Judgment.

O People! If anybody amongst you arranges for the Iftar (foor for the ending of the fast) of any believer, then Allah will give him a reward as if he has set free a slave. He will forgive his minor sins.

Then the companions of Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw) said: "But everybody amongst us does not have the means to do so?"

Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw) told them: - Keep yourself away from the Fire of Hell, by inviting for 'Iftar', though it may consist of only half a date or simply with water if you have nothing else. O People! Anybody who may cultivate good manners in this month will walk over the 'Siraat' (Bridge) in 'Qiyamat', though his feet may be shaking.

Anybody who in this month may take light work from his servants (male or female), Allah will make easy his accounting on the Day of Judgment.

Anybody who does not tease others in this month, Allah will keep him safe from His wrath in Qiyamat. Anybody, who respects and treats an orphan with kindness in this month, Allah shall look at him with dignity in Qiyamat. Anybody who treats well his kinsmen, in this month, Allah will bestow His mercy on him in Qiyamat, while anybody who maltreats his kinsmen in this month, Allah will keep him away from His mercy, in Qiyamat.

Whoever offers 'Sunnat' (Recommended) prayers in this month, Allah will give him a certificate of freedom from Hell. Whosoever offers one 'Wajib' Salat in this month, for him the Angels will write the rewards of 70 such prayers, which were offered by him in any other months.

Whosoever recites repeatedly 'Salat and salam (Salawat)' on me, Allah will keep the scales of his deeds heavy, when in Qiyamat the scales of others will be tending towards lightness.

Whosoever recites in this month only one 'Ayat' (verse of the Holy Quran), he will be rewarded in a manner as if he had recited the full Holy Quran in the other months.

O People! The Gates of Paradise remain opened in this month. Do invoke that the gates may not be closed on you, while the Gates of Hell are closed. Do invoke that these gates may never be opened. During this month Shaytan (Saten) is imprisoned so ask your Lord not to let him have power over you.

Here is the link the original website for the sermon.

Ramadan Reruns!

Latest Updates on Afghanistan’s Election

by Robert Mackey
To supplement the main news articles on Thursday’s elections in Afghanistan, which is being written and updated throughout the day by Carlotta Gall in Kabul with input from New York Times reporters around the country, the At War blog will be rounding up coverage of the election on other Web sites today. We will also be bringing readers news from various polling stations submitted to us by our colleagues in the field. Readers who are in Afghanistan are invited to share their experiences of the day with us. read the latest on the election...

As Afghan Polls Open, Contest for Presidency Tightens

by Carlotta Gall
Afghanistan’s presidential race is proving tighter than expected as polls opened in an election that has become a critical benchmark of the nation’s progress for the Afghan government and the Obama administration.

The major question, diplomats and analysts said, is whether President Hamid Karzai will succeed in winning over 50 percent of the vote in the first round on Thursday, thus securing a victory, or be pushed into a second, more unpredictable round of voting. continue reading...

Afghan Election|2009

I have come up with the following links in hopes of providing you with brief overview of the status of Afghan Election|2009:

Al-Jazeera is covering the Afghan Elections 2009 with articles, video and pictures, here.

More information about the candidates and articles about the election could be found on Afghan Online Press' special-coverage website.

The Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan's website has information on the election process (and more) in Dari, Pashto and English.

On Afghanistan's campaign trail

by Tanya Goudsouzian and Fatima Rabbani

In the final days before millions in Afghanistan begin to vote in the country's second democratic presidential election since a US-led invasion ousted the Taliban in 2001, candidates for the top job have gone into eleventh hour campaigning to try and win over undecided voters. continue reading...

Taliban threatens Afghan voters

The Taliban in Afghanistan has threatened to cut off voters' fingers and attack polling stations in its bid to force Afghans to boycott the presidential elections.

The threats on Sunday were made in leaflets pinned up and left on the ground in villages in southern Afghanistan. continue reading...

Chaos in the Capital

An attack in the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, took the lives of eight and injured more than 85 others, four days before the election. While some are encouraging voting, the Taliban are doing their best to stop voters from going to the polls in the upcoming elections, which they claim to be an American invention, Al-Jazeera reports. Such incidents, combined with issued threats, will discourage the Afghans from participating in the election.

Elections "dar lab-e-Darya"

The Afghan election is starting in exactly eight days. This will mark Afghanistan's second election since the United States' invasion. Unfortunately, I have not been keeping up-to-date with all the news, therefore, I'll refrain myself from commenting on the elections; however, I do want to share an article that was sent to me by a friend. It is an article about the attempt of an artist to make a difference in Afghanistan's historic moment. Farhad Darya, one of my all-time favorite Afghan singers, is performing a free show in an attempt to encourage the Afghan population to vote. This is an attempt to Rocking the Vote, Afghan-Style.

Afghan Election in Pictures

From New York Times:

Lynsey Addario, a freelance photographer who has been taking pictures in Afghanistan since 2000, returned recently to shoot photos of the campaign leading up to the presidential election on Aug. 20. Ms. Addario says she has never seen Afghans as excited about an election. “People are talking about change, people are talking about who might win,” says Ms. Addario, who is represented by VII photo agency and whose work appears regularly in The Times. [For campaign picture, click here]

Ms. Addario began photographing President Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace in December 2008 and has also photographed the two leading candidates running against him, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah and Dr. Ashraf Ghani. Last weekend, she took pictures of President Karzai at a campaign rally in Baghlan, the first time she had photographed him outside the palace. At the rally, Ms. Addario says, she and other journalists were roughed up by the president’s security guards. “They basically came off the helicopter with the president and just beat up all of the journalists,” she says.

In an audio slide show, Ms. Addario discusses this most recent assignment, the first since an automobile accident in May that killed her driver and left her with a broken collarbone, and talks about the challenges of working as a female photographer in a conservative Islamic culture. Her pictures accompany a Times Magazine article about President Karzai and his campaign.
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I would recommend taking a further look at the NYTimes blog that includes many great pictures on various topics, from many places, including those from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Rapper Converts to Islam

Today, Islam is the fastest growing religion in the United States and in the world. In the recent years, more and more rappers and hip hop artists have been converting to Islam. Loon, a rapper who was part of P.Diddy's Bad Boys Records, is an example. Here is his interview with Al-Jazeera:

Ashraf Ghani

Ashraf Ghani is one of the forty-one presidential candidates but one of the few who have a realistic chance against Hamid Karzai in this year's August 20th election. Here is his brief biography by Abdullah Qazi:

Ashraf Ghani, who holds a PhD degree in Anthropology from Colombia University in New York, is an Afghan-American intellectual who served briefly as Hamid Karzai's chief advisor in his interim administration and eventually was chosen as Afghanistan's finance minister from 2002 - 2004, during Hamid Karzai's transitional administration. Before joining the Afghan government, Ghani held positions with the United Nations and the World Bank, and helped prepare the Bonn Agreement.

Because of his success at carrying out a series of important reforms as finance minister, he was voted as the best finance minister of Asia in 2003 by Emerging Markets. Ghani is a strong advocate of foreign investment in Afghanistan, and even today works towards having Afghanistan be seen as a great opportunity for investment, not a charity.

When Afghanistan's new constitution was put it place, it required that the president's cabinet members must have only Afghan citizenship and so dual citizenships were not allowed. Not wanting to give up his American citizenship, Ghani declined to remain as finance minister and instead asked to be appointed as Chancellor of Kabul University. He later resigned from his position as Kabul University Chancellor and in 2005 co-founded and is currently chairman of the Institute for State Effectiveness (ISE). On their website, it states that the ISE "uses a citizen-centered perspective to rethink the fundamentals of the relationship between citizens, the state and the market in the context of globalization."

Ashraf Ghani wrote a book titled The Frameworks: Fixing Failed States, with Clare Lockhart (also from the the Institute for State Effectiveness), and was published in May 2008 by Oxford University Press.

Ghani was born in 1949 in the province of Logar.

by Abdullah Qazi / October 15, 2008