Yusuf Islam Wows Huge Crowd in Chile

In 1971, Cat Stevens’ rendition of the Christian hymn, “Morning Has Broken” reached #6 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and #1 in the US Easy Listening Chart in 1972. My family’s church sang this hymn every Sunday of my childhood. Also in 1971, he provided nine songs to the soundtrack of the black comedy Harold and Maude, a film which was very important in my impressionable youth. But by 1977 the pop singer Cat Stevens had already embraced Islam and taken on the name of Yusuf Islam.

“To some people, it may have seemed like an enormous jump, but for me, it was a gradual move to this,” he stated regarding his conversion.

Yusuf Islam stopped performing music for almost 30 years and used his wealth to busy himself with humanitarian service.

“A lot of people would have loved me to keep singing,” he said. “You come to a point where you have sung, more or less … your whole repertoire and you want to get down to the job of living. You know, up until that point, I hadn’t had a life. I’d been searching, been on the road.”

He finally found and married the ‘hard-headed woman’ he had prayed for in his song, Fauzia Mubarak Ali, on 7 September 1979 in London, and had five children with her. He became re-interested in music when his son brought a guitar back into the home.

I was very impressed with Sister Fauzia’s performance in 1987, when she and her husband came to Ann Arbor’s University of Michigan campus to promote the cause of Islam. Yusuf’s speech was interrupted by hecklers including a stripper who shouted out that she was a liberated woman, to the point where he left the stage and on stepped his wife, who calmed everybody down and explained Islam from the point of view of a woman. It made a long lasting impression on my 16 year old self, though it took a lot more travel before I made a decision to embrace Islam.

I visited an innocent Muslim prisoner yesterday who began to sing the old Cat Stevens song that I hadn’t heard in years, “Trouble, oh trouble set me free…” I was so surprised that he knew the song, being 20 years my junior and from a foreign country. It was an amazing moment.

This inspired me to learn the chords on my ukelele. Which I did, thank you very much. Learning a song once in a while is so important for keeping one’s youth.

While I was searching for the song online, I found out that just last week, February 2015, Yusuf ‘Cat Stevens’ Islam gave a deeply moving, almost two hour superstar performance at Festival de Viña del Mar 2015, Somos el Canal Histórico in Chile. I cried when I watched it!

While his songs on cassette tape formed my youth and guided me towards Truth even beyond where my parents could lead me, I had never actually watched the man perform. The man is a superstar, but with the most humble mannerisms, even in front of a crowd of thousands.

Except for the white sneakers, the adorable grey bearded man on stage could be assumed to be any grandfather from the Arab or Pakistani community anywhere in the west. Except that he is surrounded by an amazing sound system, magnificent stage display, light show, and multi screens… old ladies crying, lovers holding each other, so much love, the entire audience knew all the words, despite English not being their native language.

“We’re in the mood for children!” is one of the only comments he made between songs. At another point, after a rocking number he spoke, “You can see why I used to dance.”

Honestly my heart broke at that moment. At the pinnacle of success as an artist, he is still dealing with this conflict of religion in his old age. His period of introversion was so very important, to gain knowledge, but it was righteous that he decided to use the power of his music for the common good. His songs were the soundtrack to my young adulthood. Without Cat Stevens or Yusuf Islam, there would be no me as I know me.

Although I could not interest my teenager in the Cat Stevens songs from the 70s, he still remembers Yusuf Islam’s English-Arabic rendition of Tala’ al Badru ‘Alayna from the Bosnia album, which used to play in the family car when he was a toddler, back when I used to have a working CD player.

In September 2004, Yusuf Islam appeared on the US No-Fly List and was prevented from meeting with Dolly Parton, who is the biggest Christian songwriter in America. Homeland Security claimed there were “concerns of ties he may have to potential terrorist-related activities.” The two recorded a version of his song “Peace Train” on her album, anyway.

One of the coolest things he has done with his power in this life was suing media companies for slandering him. Every dollar that he won, he donated to charity.

In a very emotional moment near the end of the show, the female host reappeared all covered up in respect, wearing a black shawl. The love and deep gratitude, the crowd’s adoration was so thick and sincere.

Editor’s note: Karin Friedemann is a contributing writer for The Muslim Observer. Her views are her own.

Mysterious Boston Trial Begins: Defense Not Defending the Accused

http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1592.htm

The trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev began Wednesday, March 4. If anyone still held out any hope that we were going to get some answers, that the government would now be asked to prove their convoluted story related to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, or that Jahar’s lawyers were going to put up a fight, they were brutally disappointed like a slap in the face. I attended opening statements as well as court proceedings the following day and I am as baffled as anyone, for this is the most bizarre criminal trial anyone in history has ever seen.

The prosecution’s opening statement was as expected. It echoed what has already been leaked to the mainstream media, with a few embellishments that sound preposterous. Suddenly now they are saying Jahar’s UMass ID was found on the floor of his Honda Civic, covered in the blood of Officer Collier, the MIT cop who was killed while sitting in his car, as well as his blood covered gloves. Why would any murderer take off the victim’s gloves and then put them in his car? There was so much about the government testimony that begged to be ripped to shreds. Attorney William Weinreb drew upon public prejudice against Islam, calling the defendant  a “holy warrior” whose actions were motivated by a desire to die as a martyr and reach “paradise.”

Defense attorney Judy Clarke then shocked everybody by beginning her opening statement by conceding responsibility for “a series of senseless, horribly misguided acts carried out by two brothers: 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother, 19-year-old Jahar.”

Isn’t a defense attorney’s job to cast doubt on the government’s accusations? We all expected her top priority to be defending her client’s life but saying, “He did it” in the opening statements went above and beyond most people’s expectations. Seems to be a strategy to make the trial go by as fast as possible so they can focus on the sentencing phase, with the presumption that he is assured of a conviction no matter what arguments are presented. The defense did not cross-examine a single government witness.

I searched Jahar’s face for some sign of guilt or innocence but could find no information except that he is resigned to his situation and trying to stay positive. I watched his long, bony white fingers play with a pencil, standing it up on end, holding it upright awhile with one finger at its tip. His eyes remained downcast most of the time, though he occasionally glanced at a speaker. There was one particular cop that he glared at. Chatting with his legal team, he seemed almost too content with their decision, given that neither death nor life in prison seem like particularly good options. The second day, he looked pale and subdued. There is nothing about his demeanor that seems tense, angry, or fearful. One observer described him “like a lost puppy.” Similarly, a schoolteacher and potential juror that didn’t end up getting selected, blogged:

“There was no cloud of evil that floated around him, nothing that marked him as being different from one of my doofy sophomores.” [http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2015/03/06/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-trial-erin-dionne]

I turn to his family for some kind of insight. Jahar’s Aunt Maret posted on weebly:

“That team of defense was forced on Dzhokhar. Dzhokhar, I know that from my brother Anzor, apparently was REFUSING those lawyers back in May-June of 2013, he told them to go away, that he did not want them (obviously, he did that since he detected that they were not there for his benefit). When the parents raised the issue before Judy Clarke and William Fick for the first time in June 2013, in Makhachkala, during their first visit, that they (the parents) would want to get a private lawyer to defend Dzhokhar, because they knew that public lawyers are government paid lawyers. Fick's (mostly, it was him pressuring this issue through) and Judy's response to that intention of the parents was "there is no way" you can do that and you will be allowed to do that. Fick said if one of the attorneys go, then the whole team goes. So, Judy Clarke and William Fick also were pushed down Dzhokhar's throat by the government. And, this team got Zubeidat somehow under their influence and that is how they worked out their defense strategy, according to which, they are painting Tamerlan as "self-radicalised" mastermind of the crimes and Dzhokhar is a follower. And there, you should see why Dzhokhar would be seeming indifferent during the court proceeding to those, who report from the courthouse. It was mentioned the other day that Dzhokhar felt nauseous on Thursday, would that be side effect, he was having as a result of drugs he was pumped in before that day's court hearing? Because I cannot image Dzhokhar feeling ok and sitting quietly, while Judy Clarke was given that murderous speech, knowing that that kid is totally innocent.”

It appears to me that both defense and prosecution agreed to steer clear of any mention of FBI involvement in the brother’s lives, in exchange for sparing Jahar’s life. Nevertheless, the judge is acting outrageously, constantly interrupting the defense and even at one point inserting his opinion that “there isn’t much evidence” that the accusations against Jahar are not true! How can that be legal? Whose job is it to censure a Federal judge?

Someone in touch with Jahar’s family shared with me several audiotapes of Jahar’s loving mother, which make clear that he comes from an intensely affectionate and deeply religious family. Whatever he did or did not do, he is not the victim of poor upbringing. “I wish you would have known how full of love we all were… how happy we all were…” Tamerlan used to kiss all of his mother’s toes, saying, “This is my paradise!” Jahar would become possessive and demand to massage her other foot insisting that he should be allowed to share in paradise!

According to his mother’s descriptions of her weekly phone calls with her son, Jahar seems to be in a highly elevated state of iman:

“Allah is with us, Allah watches us always… Everything is by Allah’s will. This is another test for us and we are thanking Allah, we never complain and we know that everything Allah does is for our benefit if not in this dunya then in the Hereafter... inshallah we all will rejoin in Paradise… Tell her (his sister Ailina who cannot visit him due to false accusations) to be patient and not to cry... whatever Allah’s decision is, that is what we are happy with.”

Interpret it how you will, this the mental state of the surviving brother. His sister Ailina gets up late at night to pray for all the Believers.

“We need to love each other like one body,” Jahar’s mother Zubeida implores us. 

“Alllah azza wa jal. He knows how his brother loved him and his brother will be waiting for us inshallah by Allah’s will in Hereafter and we will be all together inshallah.”

Regular kindness, the best of deeds

Photo credit: Photodune

“The best loved deeds to Allah are the ones that are continuous even if they are not very many.”

The importance of continuous good deeds was demonstrated to me by a cat named Golden, who ended up living in my home at my children’s insistence. Originally a stray kitten taken in by a mentally ill person, the cat’s demeanor was very nervous and somewhat crazed. He had been seriously neglected by his previous owner and had survived by catching mice and getting into the garbage. When Golden came to live with us, he was so tense that I was somewhat scared of him. He would flinch anytime we tried to pat him on the head, as if he had been beaten in the past. He would scratch my youngest child whenever she tried to play with him; and even when there was food in his bowl, he would get into the cabinets and tear open garbage bags. One time I even found him on top of the refrigerator looking for food!

Golden’s transformation from a terrified stray into an adorable, docile family pet worthy of a cute meme was gradual but astonishing. After living a year at my house he no longer flinches, he no longer scratches, and he eats his food out of his bowl. Why? I suppose because he’s not living in a constant state of anxiety anymore. Because of our repetitive good deeds – filling his bowls with water and food, removing his waste from the litterbox, and affectionately spending time with him – he started feeling secure about his emotional and physical needs. Every muscle in his body including his face relaxed. He became a new person, a new cat.

However, he still exhibited some neurotic behavior, begging from my son who fed him small snacks throughout the day whenever the cat begged. As a result, Golden was getting chubby. So I told my son to start giving him exactly two half-cup scoops of food a day, once in the morning and once in the night. Once this routine had been established, and the cat understood exactly how much food he had to eat per time period, he started rationing his own cat food so that it would last throughout the day. He even sometimes leaves two pieces of cat food in his bowl just in case he gets hungry later. Such a total transformation from a kitty that behaved like a robber to a kitty that acts as his own accountant!

Compulsive habits and other destructive behaviors in humans are also often caused by a subconscious fear of scarcity. One person might hoard things while another might overeat, and another person might act in a manipulative way to try and safeguard supplies of security, whether material or emotional. A ninth-grade girl once admitted to me that she started smoking cigarettes, knowing she would become addicted, because she wanted there to be one thing in life that she could want, and have. This is why it is so important to think about engaging in continuous good deeds that provide some security to another person, no matter how little.

If you were a father who wanted to establish good self esteem in your children, you might think that a camping trip would be the best way to create a great relationship. However, in truth, after some years the memory of such a special event will become blurred or even wiped out. My own parents don’t remember our trip to New England when I was eleven! What we do remember clearly though, was that there was a donut shop across the street from the post office. When I was a small child I loved to go with my dad to the post office because it always meant that afterwards, I got to devour a delicious chocolate covered, cream filled delight! A small kindness given regularly – a donut – has more lasting value than an expensive vacation!

In an effort to get some ideas for writing, I posed the question on Facebook, “What have you learned this week about yourself, others or the universe?” The most “liked” response was: “I have learned, over the last year, how much good individuals can do for one another, under the most horrible circumstances… The BIGGEST example is the way so many people came to my support during [his wife] Toni’s final illness and since her passing!”

The support that this man was so thankful for was the online company of his Facebook friends. All we did was “like” his old photographs and read his inspiring messages, giving us hope that true love is possible. He married his wife when he was 25 and she was 40. He adored her like a queen with such humility; he remained truly astonished that someone as ordinary as himself could be at the receiving end of love from a woman so noble and beautiful, even after her death. So not only did he receive benefit from our consistent small deeds but we also gained much.

Sometimes, our well-meaning attempts at good deeds are rejected by others. This could be because we are assuming falsely that whatever we would want is what they should want. Other times, the person is in a defensive or closed-minded state because they are spiritually lost.

Arguing with a lost soul is always a waste of time, because they are actively engaged in denying inner guidance.

“A lost soul has severed ties with the love of the universe, therefore they do not understand how to make choices based on self-love,” Andrea Schulman writes in ConsciousLifeNews.com, advising us not to get sucked into drama. “Loving from afar counts.”

Small but regular kindnesses, even a daily smile from the mailman or a wave from a fellow driver letting you go first, can make the difference between a bad day and a good day, between hypertension and calm.

This could mean the difference between a bad decision and a good one.

http://muslimobserver.com/regular-kindness-the-best-of-deeds/

Witnessing ourselves in relationships

http://muslimobserver.com/witnessing-ourselves-in-relationships/

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“Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes the reason is you’re stupid and make bad decisions,” reads a joke circulating on Facebook. But sometimes even smart people make stupid decisions. Many times we don’t actually make conscious decisions but repeat similar mistakes again and again. Part of growing up and learning how to make good decisions is by recognizing our own behavior patterns and stopping ourselves. Becoming conscious requires learning to recognize subconscious emotions. If you get a disturbing feeling that you have felt this emotion before, this can serve as a warning that you are behaving unconsciously.

For example, when Gina became engaged to Frederic, she was madly in love and tried to please him. This desire for approval made her vulnerable when he would treat her in an accusing way. “Why didn’t you pick up the phone? What were you doing? Who were you talking to? Why haven’t you told me about this friend before?”

Gina’s first instinct was to reassure him of her innocence, but as this pattern continued, she realized she was experiencing a familiar emotion: the fearful childhood feeling of being “in trouble” with her parents. Once she realized that she was engaging in a subconscious reaction, she decided to bring her relationship into adulthood: Making mutual respect her goal, she resolved to stop taking her fiance’s controlling behavior behavior so seriously. She could either stop allowing him to talk to her this way, or she could walk away from the relationship. Either way, she refused to allow herself to be bullied by him anymore.

Desperate housewife Amira found herself in a situation where her husband grudgingly tolerated her. He decided he didn’t want her anymore and “sent her back to her parents.” However, 45 days later, her parents sent her back without explanation. But it sent the message that the parents didn’t want her either. Terrified of being abandoned, she engaged in passive aggressive dependency behavior to make it hard for her husband to divorce her – refusing to speak English, refusing to learn how to drive a car, and refusing to leave the house by herself, not even to buy food. How easy it is to resort to victimhood when one’s parent’s have impressed upon a person that love is conditional, and that the best one can hope for in life is to be grudgingly tolerated.

In both of these situations, the women are not only victims of their own patterns but also they are receiving the “Other” treatment.The man is treating them like a thing he owns, like chattel, which he judges according to whether or not it is living up to his hopes and expectations. When she does not please him, his instinct is either to assert control over her or to throw her in the garbage. There is no concept in his mind of a relationship with a human being of equal value. This male chauvenist attitude comes from a combination of cultural conditioning and emotional immaturity.

How can a woman react in order to make a man regard her with the same respect as he requires for himself? The solution is three-fold: she must be willing to end the relationship, love herself enough not to take neurotic responsibility for his problems relating to women, and she must recognize that he too is a victim of subconscious programming,

Compare Amira the unwanted wife to Maryem, who discovered her husband was secretly visiting other women. She threatened him that she would take their children back to her country to live with her parents if he did not immediately recommit to their marriage. Prior to this ultimatum, her husband had been engaging in the mindset of blaming his wife and children for his lack of accomplishments in life and taking revenge on her relative financial success by cheating on her. But faced with the threat of losing his family, he snapped out of this childish victim mindset and took responsibility.

It is remarkable to observe how we react in situations of uncertainty and how this corresponds to our childhood patterning as well as how we have emerged from it.

Shana’s cell phone malfunctioned for 24 hours, so that she was not receiving texts and her husband was not receiving her texts. Her first reaction was to assume he was angry with her. She went over every text she had sent to try and figure out what she had done wrong. But before resorting to abject apologizing without knowing her crime, as she habitually did with her first husband, who had frequently engaged at giving her the silent treatment, she realized that she was engaging in a past pattern and stopped herself from begging for forgiveness. She then went to the other extreme, thinking angrily that if her second husband was going to engage in passive aggressive silence instead of telling her why he’s angry, she would not tolerate it. She started going through a mental list of other men who might want her if this marriage didn’t work out.

Just then, her husband called. “I was so worried about you! I thought something happened to you. Why didn’t you return my texts?”

Shana was so relieved that he was not angry with her, and doubly relieved she had not apologized for nothing! She recognized that she had made considerable progress in protecting her dignity since her previous marriage in that regard. She also noted that she still had serious trust issues. Her husband’s caring reaction made her realize that she was so lucky to have him, and restored her faith in the relationship. His caring nature was born of a decision to live more consciously and to engage in healthier relationships. Ironically, Amira was Shana’s husband’s first wife. How is that the same man would treat two women so very differently? What is it about our attitudes that influence how others treat us?

Learning to be a witness of ourselves with others is one of the most exciting and meaningful paths we can take in life. Those who don’t do it, never fully mature. Those who do, break the chains of social conditioning taught by past generations, and empower themselves and others with enlightened perception and self-management skills.

 Editor’s note: Karin Friedemann is a contributing writer for The Muslim Observer. Her views are her own.

UK: Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill receives “Royal Assent” to seize passports, assets, and children of Muslim citizens

Even before the UK’s draconian new Counter-Terrorism bill has been passed into law, the British government has started taking Muslim children away from their parents in order to “prevent radicalization.” The Prime Minister also announced an additional £130 million which will be made available over the next two years to strengthen counter-terrorism capabilities.

This new policy has a lot of problems, starting with an extremely vague definition of “extremism,” which has already been used to target people with strong opinions, social justice activists, people returning from non-violent activities overseas, and even those who went to Syria or Iraq to join a resistance movement but then decided against it and came home. None of these people are seriously considered to be planning attacks on British soil. Rather, their advocation of Islamic ideology is being touted as a threat to “British values.”

“We must be firm to the point of ruthlessness in opposing behaviour that undermines our values. Paedophilia, FGM, Islamic radicalisation – to some extent, at some stage, we have tiptoed round them all for fear of offending this or that minority,” wrote London mayor Boris Johnson in the Telegraph, claiming that “Radicalisation is a form of child abuse” and that Muslim children who risk radicalisation by their parents should be taken into foster care.

An essential weakness of the mayor’s argument is that paedophilia and Female Genital Mutilation are both tangible crimes, while “Islamic radicalisation” is a term so vague that it could include anyone merely philosophically opposed to British participation in foreign wars.

Another serious flaw with the soon-to-be law is that non-Muslim extremists are unlikely to be targeted under the new terrorism law, even if they clearly present a danger to society.

British soldier Ryan McGee, a supporter of the far right English Defence League (EDL), only got a two-year sentence after it was discovered that he had made nail bombs filled with 187 pieces of shrapnel to maximize damage. McGee was also found in possession of knives, axes and imitation guns. He had watched videos of victims being beheaded and shot in the head under a Nazi swastika flag. He had an EDL "No Surrender" flag in his room. He was prosecuted and convicted under the Explosive Substances Act (1883). Instead of being prosecuted as a terrorist, the government prosecutor himself argued that McGee was just an immature teenager.

“Yet paradoxically, the police, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the government seek to portray Muslim returnees from Syria as the greatest threat this country has ever faced, charging them and seeking convictions for terrorism offences not connected to Britain in any way,” wrote Moazzam Begg, who argued that “the UK's terrorism legislation is not being applied evenly and should be scrapped in favour of a more common sense approach.”

Another serious double standard, is that no arrests have been made of “British mercenaries (non-Muslims of course) who have joined Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga units who fight alongside  banned terrorist organisations like the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and Iraqi militias who fight next to the Assad regime alongside proscribed terrorist group Hezbollah.”

The most emotionally disturbing part of the government’s assault on its largest religious minority is that day care centers and schools are now being told they have to report any evidence of “Islamic radicalization” to a government social worker, whose decision making power is almost absolute.

“The nurseries should insure proper training of their staff to... challenge extremist ideas which can be used to legitimize terrorism and are shared by terrorist groups,” the government document tagged “Prevent” stated.

There is no due process to determine the veracity or context of any such accusation. The government simply takes the children by force. Domestic violence organizations and other groups that should provide free legal help to mothers in such cases, have been instructed not to provide attorneys to mothers reported to the government as being suspiciously passionate about Islamic causes or religious practices.

“As a parent I may have to prove many things in order to get my child back, my question is why does a social worker and Channel officer have to prove absolutely NOTHING in order to remove her in the first place. I can’t disprove something that hasn’t ever made it to anyones sight!” protested a British mother, whose 7 year old was taken away after her twitter name raised eyebrows. The government questioned her about her plan to attend an Islamic Unity conference, her letters to Tarek Mehanna, and a passing comment she made online more than a year ago, regarding the Lee Rigby incident. She had just mentioned “that soldiers aren’t innocent fighting in a heavily opposed and morally deplorable war.”

In an earlier case last December the Daily Mail reported, “Two toddlers were snatched by the British police from their mother who had returned from war-torn Syria with them, via Turkey.

The UK’s large Muslim population is being screened for Islamic "Jihadi" style influences as “the British government tries to find effective ways to deal with the threat posed by ISIS.”

In fact, ISIS poses no direct threat to Britain. It would be wise to dig deeper into which groups would lobby England’s elected officials to enact such laws, which essentially prohibit Muslim citizens from enjoying equal rights at home and inhibit them from travelling internationally.

Syria: Let Us Be Steered Towards Mercy

February 2 marked the 33rd anniversary of the Hama Massacre, which took place in the city of Hama, Syria in 1982. A year earlier, in April 1981, Syrian security forces randomly executed 350 residents of the city, who were chosen among the male population over the age of 14. This event caused the majority of people in this area to turn against the Ba’athist, socialist government.

“Back then, the city of Hama was the stronghold of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and the center of an anti-regime uprising that had been targeting government buildings and minority Alawite military officers for years,” wrote Azmat Khan for PBS.

“In 1982, the regime basically said, ‘That’s it. That’s enough. We have to deal with this once and for all. We have to show that we’re in control,'” David Lesch told FRONTLINE.

Hafez al Assad, then president of Syria, sent the army to lay siege upon the population for 27 days, during which 45,000 people were killed. About 1,000 Syrian soldiers were also killed during the operation. Large parts of the old city were destroyed.

“Assad's troops pounded Hama with artillery fire for several days and, with the city in ruins, his bulldozers moved in and flattened neighbourhoods,” reported the Guardian. Syrian forces, flown in by helicopter, searched the rubble in order to kill any remaining rebels.

This was one of "the single deadliest acts by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East."

My friend described the situation there in the 80s, which was very similar to what is going on today. The people were demonstrating against the Assad regime and the Syrian government opened fire on them. As a result, some people started firing back. Secret police came to his home looking for his brother, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Finding him not at home, they killed two brothers and a sister. They shot his sister in the stomach so many times that her body was in two pieces. I am a moderate person by nature and I try to see all sides. I understand some people’s fear of Islamism due to its predictable excesses and even the desire for secularism. However, if this government represents them, then I cannot agree. Because any government that comes into someone’s home and shoots a family down is pure evil.

A Syrian ex-patriot gave Voice of America many gruesome examples of atrocities.

A wealthy old woman lived in a beautiful mansion with her son. “After the soldiers looted the house they poured gasoline on both of them and burned the house.”

“And in the same neighborhood, two buildings down the street, a family owned a place for wood chipping. They took the whole family down and they shot them all.  About 25 of them.”

Another woman had “many gold bracelets on her wrists, so they cut off both of her hands and let her bleed to die.”

She quickly followed up with another story about a father who was pleading with a  soldier.

“I have a 14-month-old baby,” the man said. “Please don’t make him an orphan.”

The officer said, “Oh, you don’t want him to be an orphan?

“Now your son won’t be an orphan,” the officer said.  Then he shot dead the child, the father and the rest of his family.

She said she learned about what happened to this family from a soldier, who defected from the army. He said, “I’m not going to be with an army like that.”

In a suburb of the city called New Hama, soldiers stood in the street while an officer used a bullhorn to call residents out of their homes.

“You all come down to the street.  Women, children, everybody,” the voice announced… And after that they went and raided the homes and whoever stayed in there they took them out and they dug a big ditch and shot them and threw them in the big ditch. They say in the neighborhood about 1500 people got shot.”

This actually reminds me of Dachau, Germany, where I took a tour of the concentration camp. While the “gas chambers” story never happened, at least not in Dachau, unwanted persons were told to dig a ditch, then lined up and shot. The Hollywood version of the Holocaust is a fabrication, but the behavior of socialist governments, whether of the Nazis or Assad’s tyranny, draws many parallels.

The problem resides in the ego-based concept of “unwanted persons.” Once a person becomes “unwanted,” almost anything can be justified against him, even in the name of religion. Those of us who desire to attain spiritual excellence need to learn to temper this particular passion. Like all passions, this destructive desire serves only to swerve away from the Middle Path towards the gutter. Whatever we do in life, we need to ask our Creator for personal permission first. Even when we eat a meal involving an animal who gave its life, we say grace first.

There was a moment when Hazrat Ali (ra) was dueling with an opponent, and he had got him beat to the ground. However the man spit at Ali. It was such an offensive moment that Ali let the man go free because if he had killed him now, which he could have easily done, it would have been committed in an act of anger, which Ali knew could send himself straight to the hellfire.

Muslims need to know that even in war, every act of mercy could go recorded for generations. Laura Ingalls, author of “Little House on the Prairie,” married a farmer named Almanzo. His name dates back to the Crusades, when his ancestor’s life was spared by a man who was in the position to kill him, named Al-Mansour. The Wilder family thenceforth dedicated one male in each generation to be named after this true Muslim. Laura and Almanzo’s daughter Rose Wilder later wrote some of the most beautiful statements about Islamic culture that have ever been written.

Tsarnaev Friend Changes Plea to “Guilty”

http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1587.htm

Khairullozhon Matanov, 25 year old Kyrgyzstani immigrant and friend of the deceased Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who is accused of the Boston Marathon bombings, told me during a recent prison visit that he decided to plead guilty to concealing evidence and lying to the FBI, even though he is absolutely innocent. The government is now only going to be asking for him to serve 2 1/2 years due to changing his plea to guilty, though the judge could possibly give him an even shorter sentence. 

However, the Patriot Ledger reported that under the new charge, he would face “no more than five to eight years in prison, depending on whether the offense is considered to involve terrorism.” So it sounds like the situation is very much hanging in the balance.

Matanov’s attorney requested a hearing earlier this month after Matanov agreed to be interrogated by the government; however, he doesn’t have any incriminating information to give.

Matanov was looking at 15 years for deleting files off his computer (all of which were public information) and for downplaying his relationship with the Tsarnaev brothers, even though he actually went to the police station first thing in the morning to identify them after the FBI put their photo on the TV, thinking he was doing his duty by telling them, “I don’t think they did it but I know who they are.” 

Prosecutors said Matanov called Tamerlan Tsarnaev about 40 minutes after the bombings and invited him to dinner. He is accused of lying to the FBI about whether he met them at the restaurant or whether he drove them there. He is guilty of knowing the brothers, liking them, and even worshiping at the same mosque. He is not accused of knowing anything about the bombs.

Matanov was originally facing 40 years of imprisonment due to “suspicious” wire transfers of money, some of which were made using aliases, which the FBI insinuated could have been terror related. He had wired money to people in many different countries. However, the feds backed off that charge pretty quickly after it was shown that Matanov could account for all of these money transfers, most of which were sent to needy relatives.

The God-loving kid worked 80 hours a week driving a cab in order to pay for his father’s heart surgery as well as his family’s other living expenses. It would be hard to find a more decent human being than this brother. 

Matanov was a subject of dirty journalist Michelle McPhee, who wrote about him and Tamerlan in a seriously ridiculous smear piece called “Inside the Mind of a Killer.” McPhee has been criticized repeatedly for writing apparently bogus news articles calculated to sway the trial against the accused. For example, she was the source of the “note in the boat” based on “anonymous law enforcement” statements. (The government is NOT going to use the boat confession as part of their case, as it is not legally considered as admissible evidence). 

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s attorneys attempted repeatedly to convince Judge O’Toole to find out which FBI agents have been talking to the press, circumventing legal procedure. O’Toole continues to say he’s “concerned” about media links but does nothing about it. 

The judge in Matanov’s case, Judge William Young, however, has a reputation for being tough on media leaks. Matanov filed a motion last month regarding media leaks and Young responded by demanding a list from both the defense and prosecution of anyone who had ever seen the FBI transcript that mysteriously appeared online, or any other documents related to the case. This may be the reason that the government is suddenly willing to negotiate.

Unfortunately, the government put Matanov’s lawyer under a lot of pressure, so in order to get this plea deal he now has to file a motion to withdraw the motion regarding leaks to the media. This is very disappointing. That information about the government agent who is making up stories for the media, is pretty darn important and Young is the only judge who might find out. But I guess Khair has to do what he has to do. 

He said of the government prosecutors:  "They are very powerful people." 

The issue of whether he will be deported after time served is undecided.

Matanov has many loving supporters who write to him. In a letter to a supporter, which was circulated on Facebook, he stated: "I know you guys support me, and I always claim I am innocent. I still say I am innocent, but in this tough environment I can't imagine getting a fair trial so that is why I am accepting a plea deal. I hope you guys support me and I thank you for everything you guys have done, for your support. I mean it is unimaginable good to get tonnes of support from people I have never met."

The young man has received many letters begging him not to testify negatively against Jahar and advising him not to drop the media leaks issue. It is not clear if all these pending issues played a role or not, but on January 24, 2015 it was announced that Judge Young moved the hearing regarding the potential plea deal to February 25, 2015. 

Matanov’s lawyer, Paul Glickman, would not comment when asked if the expected guilty plea means Matanov has an agreement with prosecutors and plans to testify against the only surviving brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, at his trial. Matanov assured supporters that he would not.