Saudaraku yang teraniaya
Assalamualaikum,
Duhai saudara-saudaraku di Palestin. Maafkanku kerna tidak dapat menolongmu seadanya. hanya doa dan rintihan hati yang dapat ku kirimkan. Moga kalian semua dibantu sentiasa olehNya.
Gaza Schooling…No Books, Labs, Schools
By Motasem Dalloul, IO Correspondent
With the lack of books, students take turns in using old copies. (IOL photo)GAZA CITY — The long-running, watertight Israeli closure of the impoverished Gaza Strip is not only affecting the livelihood of its 1.6 million people, but also the future of their children who are forced to do without books, labs and even power to study at home.
Two months after the start of the second term, more than half of the students still go to school without their curriculum books.
Iman Shameyya, a ninth grader, is using old copies of the books but must share them with schoolmate Soha al-Shaqra.
"I only get half the chance to read from my books. Both of us use the same book at school and each one takes it home day after day," she told IslamOnline.net.
"My results will surely be bad this year."
Dr Mohammed Al-Agha, the education minister in the Hamas-led Gaza government, complained of the lack of printing paper to print the books.
"We only afforded to print 14 of the total 66 books needed," he told IOL.
He blamed the problem on the siege clamped on the Gaza Strip.
Israel has been closing the Gaza Strip's exits to the outside world since Hamas took control of the territory last June after routing rival Fatah.
It has completely locked down the coastal area since January, causing its sole power plant to shut down for lack of fuel.
"We won’t be able to afford the needed amount of paper for books unless the siege on Gaza is really left," said minister Al-Agha.
He appealed for keeping the educational process from political disputes "whether with Fatah or the Israelis."
Multiple Problems
"UNRWA was forced to use caravans instead of classrooms in several school," Hemdeyyat told IOL.
Khadeeja Sarsour, the mother of 4 students, complains that her kids have to used old books.
"Many pages are lost in several books which I see once every two days with my children."
She has to copy all exercises on separate papers when she wants to revise new lessons for her children.
Teacher Sameera al-Baghdadi insist this is affecting the achievement levels of her students.
"They can’t revise or prepare for the new topics."
Minister Al-Agha laments that the educational process in Gaza suffers more than that.
"The loss of electricity darkens classrooms, stops the use of visual aids whose portion has increased in recent syllabus and impairs the administration process," he explained.
"The loss of fuel stops vehicles so teachers and students can’t go to their schools, especially in winter."
Hamdi Abu-Laila, a field education supervisor in Gaza government schools, confirms schools are unable to use visual aids or laboratories.
"This is considered a huge obstacle in the education process as the new school curriculum depends mainly on the heavy use of visual aids computers as well as getting materials through the internet."
The shortage of construction materials because of the Israeli closure is also affecting the rebuilding of schools affected by Israeli strikes and shelling, let alone the building of new schools to overcome the problem of overcrowded classrooms.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says the Gaza Strip needs at least 15 new schools every year.
"UNRWA was forced to use caravans instead of classrooms in several school," said Mahmoud al-Hemdeyyat, the head of UNRWA education directorate in the Strip.
For Al-Shaqra, the ninth grader, the most serious of all these challenges is the power shortage.
"I have to use the time of the day after school to study my lessons before being trapped by the darkness of the night."
This Is a Message for Humankind
In Face of the Gaza Holocaust
By Dr. Salah Soltan
Academician Activist
Click here to watch the Palestine Holocaust Museum (Reuters Photo)[All praises and thanks be to Allah, Who (Alone) created the heavens and the earth and originated the darkness and the light; yet those who disbelieve hold others as equal with their Lord.] (Al-An`am 6:1)
And I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but Allah, Who puts the clouds to their course, Who revealed The Book (the Qur'an), and Who Alone defeated the Confederates (Al-Ahzab). All peace and blessings be upon Muhammad — the leader of the mujahideen and the master of the first and last generations — and those persevering people who follow him to the Day of Judgment.
Concerning the issue at hand, I call on the human conscience to make a unified stand against this Zionist tyranny against the men, women, and children in the Gaza Strip and I call for the following:
1. Continuous peaceful demonstrations and a one-day strike by every person who feels solicitude for Jerusalem, Palestine, and the martyrs and casualties of Gaza. This is to declare an overwhelming fury that calls the attention of the world and passes the point that we will not silently accept these injustices. And let these demonstrations and strikes escalate until governments reconsider their shameful stances of submissiveness to the oppressors and failing the victimized, and let them think of these words of a poet:
The blazing of fire in the midst of dust provokes the furor of the Volcano
The small water drops precede the flood and the hurricane
It surges, uproots the tyrants with a roar beyond the tyranny of their cane
2. Communication with human relief agencies in each country — or establishing them where none exist — is a must, to provide all medical and food requirements for our fellow Gazans. This is a religious obligation for every Muslim who owns more than his or her basic needs.
This is a religious obligation for every Muslim who owns more than his or her basic needs.3. I hope that mosque imams and orators will take on their responsibilities before Allah of uniting Muslims at mosques and stating clearly the duty of fighting against Zionist assailants; giving our complete support for our brothers and sisters in Palestine; making Qunoot (Arabic for: supplication before or after bowing in prayer) against the Zionist oppressors in every prayer, those who support them, and those who turn a blind eye to them; encouraging Muslims to fast and do late-night prayers collectively; and reminding them of what Allah says in these verses of the Qur'an,
[Those who believe in Allah and the Last Day would not ask your leave to be exempted from fighting with their properties and their lives; and Allah is All-Knowing of the pious. It is only those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and whose hearts are in doubt that ask your leave (to be exempted from Jihad), so in their doubts they waver.] (At-Tawbah 9:44-45)
4. I believe that it is a firm obligation on the elites of every village, city, town, and governorate to send delegations that represent all public levels to impel officials to take on their historical, religious, and human responsibility toward Palestine generally and our sons and daughters in Gaza particularly and form peaceful pressure groups to compel these regimes to retreat from this terrible ignominy.
5. I call on visual, audio, and printed media outlets to act on their responsibility of media jihad, unveiling the crimes of the Zionist enemy and highlighting the tragic situation in Gaza. I also call on all actors, actresses, and singers to stop acting and singing except in one direction: support for Gazans — who have been wronged and whose close ones have been killed — and furor at those Zionist assailants.
6. I call on our youth in sports clubs to whom the hearts of young fans are tied to act like this professional, unique, Muslim football player Abu Treka and get to double Allah's love and support for them and with this the love of Muslims all over the Arab and Muslim Worlds.
I hope that mosque imams and orators will take on their responsibilities before Allah of encouraging Muslims to fast and do late-night prayers collectively.7. I call on all Muslim traders, businessmen, and consumers to boycott all Israeli products or those produced by companies that donate to the Zionist entities.8. I call on imams, speakers, journalists, poets, writers, and literary authors to enrich the religious, cultural, and media pulpits with resistance literature and to send out a message of hope that the more ferocious events get, the more hope we lay on Allah who promised to exterminate the tyrants and grant victory to the believers and Who made it a duty on Him in His grandeur saying in the Qur'an, [and it was due (to them) upon Us to help the believers.] (Ar-Rum 30:47).Let them act as Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) when the confederating tribes gathered to exterminate the people of Madinah and the Muslims started digging the trench around Madinah. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would then tell them these cheering words to spread hope and eliminate any seeds of despair, "Allah is the Greatest, Khaybar is conquered; Allah is the Greatest, Persia is conquered; Allah is the Greatest, the Romans are conquered." Then Allah's victory was granted to the Muslims, the disbelievers were turned down with no gains, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) then said, "Now we conquer them and they do not conquer us."
[And Allah has full power and control over His Affairs, but most people know not.] (Yusuf 12:21)
And [Allah will grant after hardship, ease.] (At-Talaq 65:7)
Dr. Salah El-Deen Soltan is a distinguished prominent Islamic activist. Among several others, he founded the American Center for Islamic Research, the Sultan Publishing Company, and the Islamic American University. Currently, Dr. Soltan is a professor of Islamic Shari`ah at Cairo University. For more about him, visit his personal website.
Hijab Makes Me Stronger
IslamOnline.net & Newspapers
Canada is home to some 700,000 Muslims. (Photo through Google) CAIRO — Ramzah Khan was only 12 when she chose to put on a hijab. Now at 17, the young Canadian says that decision has blessed her life in so many ways.
"It has made me a stronger person," Khan told the Calgary Herald on Tuesday, April 15.
She recognizes donning the hijab was no easy step.
Though her mother and sister were both hijab-clad, Khan was the first in her circle of friends to opt for the Muslim headscarf.
Hijab, Why?Hijab: Always A Woman’s Business?
She still recalls the long nights she spent nervous and worried about how her friends would react.
While there were some who didn't understand, most of them were supportive.
"You find out who your real friends are."
Five years later, the Calgary high school student says hijab is a source of identity, pride and a tool of developing her personality.
"It has made me realize that looks aren't everything. It has made me look beyond that, even with other people."
Islam sees hijab as an obligatory code of dress, not a religious symbol displaying one’s affiliations.
Some 700,000 Muslims live in Canada, making less than two percent of the country's 32.8 million population.
Islam has become the number one non-Christian faith in Canada.
Serenity
For Hanan Qasqas, 16, hijab brings a sense of serenity and mental peace.
"Internally I feel very blessed having this piece of scarf around my face," she told the Herald.
Like Khan, wearing hijab was a personal choice.
Qasqas, a Canadian-born of Palestinian origin, was about 11 when she decided to don the headscarf.
Now a high school student, she believes hijab has blessed her life.
She says that the modesty that goes with wearing hijab has brought a mental relief that protected her from many of the stress and challenges of her age.
"I know when I wear this, I just feel content and I feel very peaceful."
Hijab has taken central stage in the West since France outlawed it in state schools in 2004.
The issue came to the fore in Canada itself in recent months.
Last November, a Canadian girl was thrown out from a national Judo tournament for wearing hijab.
In March 2007, an 11-year-old girl in Quebec was expelled from a soccer game for the same reason.
Duhai saudara-saudaraku di Palestin. Maafkanku kerna tidak dapat menolongmu seadanya. hanya doa dan rintihan hati yang dapat ku kirimkan. Moga kalian semua dibantu sentiasa olehNya.
Gaza Schooling…No Books, Labs, Schools
By Motasem Dalloul, IO Correspondent
With the lack of books, students take turns in using old copies. (IOL photo)GAZA CITY — The long-running, watertight Israeli closure of the impoverished Gaza Strip is not only affecting the livelihood of its 1.6 million people, but also the future of their children who are forced to do without books, labs and even power to study at home.
Two months after the start of the second term, more than half of the students still go to school without their curriculum books.
Iman Shameyya, a ninth grader, is using old copies of the books but must share them with schoolmate Soha al-Shaqra.
"I only get half the chance to read from my books. Both of us use the same book at school and each one takes it home day after day," she told IslamOnline.net.
"My results will surely be bad this year."
Dr Mohammed Al-Agha, the education minister in the Hamas-led Gaza government, complained of the lack of printing paper to print the books.
"We only afforded to print 14 of the total 66 books needed," he told IOL.
He blamed the problem on the siege clamped on the Gaza Strip.
Israel has been closing the Gaza Strip's exits to the outside world since Hamas took control of the territory last June after routing rival Fatah.
It has completely locked down the coastal area since January, causing its sole power plant to shut down for lack of fuel.
"We won’t be able to afford the needed amount of paper for books unless the siege on Gaza is really left," said minister Al-Agha.
He appealed for keeping the educational process from political disputes "whether with Fatah or the Israelis."
Multiple Problems
"UNRWA was forced to use caravans instead of classrooms in several school," Hemdeyyat told IOL.
Khadeeja Sarsour, the mother of 4 students, complains that her kids have to used old books.
"Many pages are lost in several books which I see once every two days with my children."
She has to copy all exercises on separate papers when she wants to revise new lessons for her children.
Teacher Sameera al-Baghdadi insist this is affecting the achievement levels of her students.
"They can’t revise or prepare for the new topics."
Minister Al-Agha laments that the educational process in Gaza suffers more than that.
"The loss of electricity darkens classrooms, stops the use of visual aids whose portion has increased in recent syllabus and impairs the administration process," he explained.
"The loss of fuel stops vehicles so teachers and students can’t go to their schools, especially in winter."
Hamdi Abu-Laila, a field education supervisor in Gaza government schools, confirms schools are unable to use visual aids or laboratories.
"This is considered a huge obstacle in the education process as the new school curriculum depends mainly on the heavy use of visual aids computers as well as getting materials through the internet."
The shortage of construction materials because of the Israeli closure is also affecting the rebuilding of schools affected by Israeli strikes and shelling, let alone the building of new schools to overcome the problem of overcrowded classrooms.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says the Gaza Strip needs at least 15 new schools every year.
"UNRWA was forced to use caravans instead of classrooms in several school," said Mahmoud al-Hemdeyyat, the head of UNRWA education directorate in the Strip.
For Al-Shaqra, the ninth grader, the most serious of all these challenges is the power shortage.
"I have to use the time of the day after school to study my lessons before being trapped by the darkness of the night."
This Is a Message for Humankind
In Face of the Gaza Holocaust
By Dr. Salah Soltan
Academician Activist
Click here to watch the Palestine Holocaust Museum (Reuters Photo)[All praises and thanks be to Allah, Who (Alone) created the heavens and the earth and originated the darkness and the light; yet those who disbelieve hold others as equal with their Lord.] (Al-An`am 6:1)
And I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but Allah, Who puts the clouds to their course, Who revealed The Book (the Qur'an), and Who Alone defeated the Confederates (Al-Ahzab). All peace and blessings be upon Muhammad — the leader of the mujahideen and the master of the first and last generations — and those persevering people who follow him to the Day of Judgment.
Concerning the issue at hand, I call on the human conscience to make a unified stand against this Zionist tyranny against the men, women, and children in the Gaza Strip and I call for the following:
1. Continuous peaceful demonstrations and a one-day strike by every person who feels solicitude for Jerusalem, Palestine, and the martyrs and casualties of Gaza. This is to declare an overwhelming fury that calls the attention of the world and passes the point that we will not silently accept these injustices. And let these demonstrations and strikes escalate until governments reconsider their shameful stances of submissiveness to the oppressors and failing the victimized, and let them think of these words of a poet:
The blazing of fire in the midst of dust provokes the furor of the Volcano
The small water drops precede the flood and the hurricane
It surges, uproots the tyrants with a roar beyond the tyranny of their cane
2. Communication with human relief agencies in each country — or establishing them where none exist — is a must, to provide all medical and food requirements for our fellow Gazans. This is a religious obligation for every Muslim who owns more than his or her basic needs.
This is a religious obligation for every Muslim who owns more than his or her basic needs.3. I hope that mosque imams and orators will take on their responsibilities before Allah of uniting Muslims at mosques and stating clearly the duty of fighting against Zionist assailants; giving our complete support for our brothers and sisters in Palestine; making Qunoot (Arabic for: supplication before or after bowing in prayer) against the Zionist oppressors in every prayer, those who support them, and those who turn a blind eye to them; encouraging Muslims to fast and do late-night prayers collectively; and reminding them of what Allah says in these verses of the Qur'an,
[Those who believe in Allah and the Last Day would not ask your leave to be exempted from fighting with their properties and their lives; and Allah is All-Knowing of the pious. It is only those who believe not in Allah and the Last Day and whose hearts are in doubt that ask your leave (to be exempted from Jihad), so in their doubts they waver.] (At-Tawbah 9:44-45)
4. I believe that it is a firm obligation on the elites of every village, city, town, and governorate to send delegations that represent all public levels to impel officials to take on their historical, religious, and human responsibility toward Palestine generally and our sons and daughters in Gaza particularly and form peaceful pressure groups to compel these regimes to retreat from this terrible ignominy.
5. I call on visual, audio, and printed media outlets to act on their responsibility of media jihad, unveiling the crimes of the Zionist enemy and highlighting the tragic situation in Gaza. I also call on all actors, actresses, and singers to stop acting and singing except in one direction: support for Gazans — who have been wronged and whose close ones have been killed — and furor at those Zionist assailants.
6. I call on our youth in sports clubs to whom the hearts of young fans are tied to act like this professional, unique, Muslim football player Abu Treka and get to double Allah's love and support for them and with this the love of Muslims all over the Arab and Muslim Worlds.
I hope that mosque imams and orators will take on their responsibilities before Allah of encouraging Muslims to fast and do late-night prayers collectively.7. I call on all Muslim traders, businessmen, and consumers to boycott all Israeli products or those produced by companies that donate to the Zionist entities.8. I call on imams, speakers, journalists, poets, writers, and literary authors to enrich the religious, cultural, and media pulpits with resistance literature and to send out a message of hope that the more ferocious events get, the more hope we lay on Allah who promised to exterminate the tyrants and grant victory to the believers and Who made it a duty on Him in His grandeur saying in the Qur'an, [and it was due (to them) upon Us to help the believers.] (Ar-Rum 30:47).Let them act as Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) when the confederating tribes gathered to exterminate the people of Madinah and the Muslims started digging the trench around Madinah. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would then tell them these cheering words to spread hope and eliminate any seeds of despair, "Allah is the Greatest, Khaybar is conquered; Allah is the Greatest, Persia is conquered; Allah is the Greatest, the Romans are conquered." Then Allah's victory was granted to the Muslims, the disbelievers were turned down with no gains, and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) then said, "Now we conquer them and they do not conquer us."
[And Allah has full power and control over His Affairs, but most people know not.] (Yusuf 12:21)
And [Allah will grant after hardship, ease.] (At-Talaq 65:7)
Dr. Salah El-Deen Soltan is a distinguished prominent Islamic activist. Among several others, he founded the American Center for Islamic Research, the Sultan Publishing Company, and the Islamic American University. Currently, Dr. Soltan is a professor of Islamic Shari`ah at Cairo University. For more about him, visit his personal website.
Hijab Makes Me Stronger
IslamOnline.net & Newspapers
Canada is home to some 700,000 Muslims. (Photo through Google) CAIRO — Ramzah Khan was only 12 when she chose to put on a hijab. Now at 17, the young Canadian says that decision has blessed her life in so many ways.
"It has made me a stronger person," Khan told the Calgary Herald on Tuesday, April 15.
She recognizes donning the hijab was no easy step.
Though her mother and sister were both hijab-clad, Khan was the first in her circle of friends to opt for the Muslim headscarf.
Hijab, Why?Hijab: Always A Woman’s Business?
She still recalls the long nights she spent nervous and worried about how her friends would react.
While there were some who didn't understand, most of them were supportive.
"You find out who your real friends are."
Five years later, the Calgary high school student says hijab is a source of identity, pride and a tool of developing her personality.
"It has made me realize that looks aren't everything. It has made me look beyond that, even with other people."
Islam sees hijab as an obligatory code of dress, not a religious symbol displaying one’s affiliations.
Some 700,000 Muslims live in Canada, making less than two percent of the country's 32.8 million population.
Islam has become the number one non-Christian faith in Canada.
Serenity
For Hanan Qasqas, 16, hijab brings a sense of serenity and mental peace.
"Internally I feel very blessed having this piece of scarf around my face," she told the Herald.
Like Khan, wearing hijab was a personal choice.
Qasqas, a Canadian-born of Palestinian origin, was about 11 when she decided to don the headscarf.
Now a high school student, she believes hijab has blessed her life.
She says that the modesty that goes with wearing hijab has brought a mental relief that protected her from many of the stress and challenges of her age.
"I know when I wear this, I just feel content and I feel very peaceful."
Hijab has taken central stage in the West since France outlawed it in state schools in 2004.
The issue came to the fore in Canada itself in recent months.
Last November, a Canadian girl was thrown out from a national Judo tournament for wearing hijab.
In March 2007, an 11-year-old girl in Quebec was expelled from a soccer game for the same reason.
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