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Valentine's Day

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Valentine and Valentine's Day (disambiguation).

Valentine's Day
Antique Valentine's card
Observed by	Many countries
Type	Cultural, Christian, commercial
Significance	Love and affection celebrated between lovers
Date	February 14 (in most countries, see text)
Observances	Sending greeting cards and gifts, dating
Related to	Lupercalia

Saint Valentine's Day, often simply Valentine's Day, is a holiday observed on February 14 honoring one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentinus. It was first established byPope Gelasius I in 496 AD, and was later deleted from the General Roman Calendar of saints in 1969 by Pope Paul VI. It is celebrated in countries around the world, mostly in the West, although it remains a working day in all of them.

The day first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. By the 15th century, it had evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offeringconfectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines").

Modern Valentine's Day symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-producedgreeting cards.

Saint Valentine

For more details on this topic, see Saint Valentine.

Historical facts

Numerous early Christian martyrs were named Valentine. The Valentines honored on February 14 are Valentine of Rome (Valentinus presb. m. Romae) and Valentine of Terni (Valentinus ep. Interamnensis m. Romae). Valentine of Rome was a priest in Rome who was martyred about AD 269 and was buried on the Via Flaminia. The flower crowned skull of St Valentine is exhibited in the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome. Other relics are found in the Basilica of Santa Prassede, also in Rome, as well as at Whitefriar Street Carmelite Churchin Dublin, Ireland.

Valentine of Terni became bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) about AD 197 and is said to have been martyred during the persecution under Emperor Aurelian. He is also buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different location than Valentine of Rome. His relics are at the Basilica of Saint Valentine in Terni (Basilica di San Valentino).

The Catholic Encyclopedia also speaks of a third saint named Valentine who was mentioned in early martyrologies under date of February 14. He was martyred in Africa with a number of companions, but nothing more is known about him.

No romantic elements are present in the original early medieval biographies of either of these martyrs. By the time a Saint Valentine became linked to romance in the 14th century, distinctions between Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni were utterly lost.

Saint Valentine's head was preserved in the abbey of New Minster, Winchester and venerated. But there is no evidence that Saint Valentine was a popular saint before Chaucer's poems in 14th century, not even in the area of Winchester. Saint Valentine's celebration didn't differ from the celebrations of many other saints, and no church was ever dedicated to him.

In the 1969 revision of the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints, the feast day of Saint Valentine on February 14 was removed from the General Roman Calendar and relegated to particular (local or even national) calendars for the following reason: "Though the memorial of Saint Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars, since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on February 14. The feast day is still celebrated in Balzan (Malta) where relics of the saint are claimed to be found, and also throughout the world by Traditionalist Catholics who follow the older, pre-Second Vatican Council calendar. February 14 is also celebrated as St Valentine's Day in other Christian denominations; it has, for example, the rank of 'commemoration' in the calendar of the Church of England and other parts of the Anglican Communion.

Legends

Saint Valentine of Terni and his disciples.

The Early Medieval acta of either Saint Valentine were expounded briefly in Legenda Aurea. According to that version, St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer.

Since Legenda Aurea still provided no connections whatsoever with sentimental love, appropriate lore has been embroidered in modern times to portray Valentine as a priest who refused an unattested law attributed to Roman Emperor Claudius II, allegedly ordering that young men remain single. The Emperor supposedly did this to grow his army, believing that married men did not make for good soldiers. The priest Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail.

There is an additional modern embellishment to The Golden Legend, provided by American Greetings to History.com, and widely repeated despite having no historical basis whatsoever. On the evening before Valentine was to be executed, he would have written the first "valentine" card himself, addressed to the blind daughter of his jailor Asterius, signing as "From your Valentine.

Attested traditions

Lupercalia

Main article: Lupercalia

There is no evidence on any link between the modern romantic connotations of modern Saint Valentine's Day and the rites of the ancient Roman festival, despite many claims by many authors. The celebration of Saint Valentine didn't have any romantic connotations untilChaucer's poetry about "Valentines" in the 14th century.

Popular modern sources link unspecified Greco-Roman February holidays alleged to be devoted to fertility and love to St. Valentine's Day, but prior to Chaucer in the 14th century, no links between the Saints named Valentinus and romantic love existed. Earlier links as described above were focused on sacrifice rather than romantic love. In the ancient Athenian calendar the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion, dedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera.

In Ancient Rome, Lupercalia, observed February 13–15, was an archaic rite connected to fertility. Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome. The more general Festival of Juno Februa, meaning "Juno the purifier "or "the chaste Juno", was celebrated on February 13–14. PopeGelasius I (492–496) abolished Lupercalia.

Alban Butler in his Lifes of the Principal Saints (1756-1759) claimed without any proof that men and women in Lupercalia drew names from a jar to make couples, and that modern Valentine's letters originated from this custom. In reality, this practice originated in the Middle Ages, with no link to Lupercalia, with men drawing the names of girls at random to couple with them. This custom was combated by priests, for example by Frances de Sales around 1600, apparently by replacing it with a religious custom of girls drawing the names of apostles from the altar. However, this religious custom is recorded as soon as the 13th century in the life of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, so it could have a different origin.

Geoffrey Chaucer by Thomas Occleve(1412)

Chaucer's love birds

The first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love is in Parlement of Foules(1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer Chaucer wrote:

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

["For this was on Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate."]

This poem was written to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia. A treaty providing for a marriage was signed on May 2, 1381.(When they were married eight months later, they were each only 15 years old).

Readers have uncritically assumed that Chaucer was referring to February 14 as Valentine's Day; however, mid-February is an unlikely time for birds to be mating in England. Henry Ansgar Kelly has pointed out that Chaucer could be referring to May 2, the celebration in the liturgical calendar of Valentine of Genoa, an early bishop of Genoa who died around AD 307.

Chaucer's Parliament of Foules is set in a fictional context of an old tradition, but in fact there was no such tradition before Chaucer. The speculative explanation of sentimental customs, posing as historical fact, had their origins among 18th-century antiquaries, notably Alban Butler, the author of Butler's Lives of Saints, and have been perpetuated even by respectable modern scholars. Most notably, "the idea that Valentine's Day customs perpetuated those of the Roman Lupercalia has been accepted uncritically and repeated, in various forms, up to the present".

There were other three authors who made poems about birds mating in Saint Valentine's Day around the same years: Otton de Grandsonfrom Savoy, John Gower from England, and a knight called Pardo from Valencia. Chaucer most probably predated all of them, but, due to the difficulty of dating medieval works, we can't know for sure who of the four had the idea first and influenced the others.

Medieval period and the English Renaissance

Using the language of the law courts for the rituals of courtly love, a "High Court of Love" was established in Paris on Valentine's Day in 1400. The court dealt with love contracts, betrayals, and violence against women. Judges were selected by women on the basis of a poetry reading. The earliest surviving valentine is a 15th-century rondeau written by Charles, Duke of Orléans to his wife, which commences.

Je suis desja d'amour tanné
Ma tres doulce Valentinée...
—Charles d'Orléans, Rondeau VI, lines 1–2

At the time, the duke was being held in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415.

Valentine's Day is mentioned ruefully by Ophelia in Hamlet (1600–1601):

To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
And dupp'd the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
—William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5

John Donne used the legend of the marriage of the birds as the starting point for his Epithalamion celebrating the marriage of Elizabeth, daughter of James I of England, and Frederick V, Elector Palatine on Valentine's Day:

Hayle Bishop Valentine whose day this is
All the Ayre is thy Diocese
And all the chirping Queristers
And other birds ar thy parishioners
Thou marryest every yeare
The Lyrick Lark, and the graue whispering Doue,
The Sparrow that neglects his life for loue,
The houshold bird with the redd stomacher
Thou makst the Blackbird speede as soone,
As doth the Goldfinch, or the Halcyon
The Husband Cock lookes out and soone is spedd
And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed.
This day more cheerfully than ever shine
This day which might inflame thy selfe old Valentine.
—John Donne, Epithalamion Vpon Frederick Count Palatine and the Lady Elizabeth marryed on St. Valentines day

The verse Roses are red echoes conventions traceable as far back as Edmund Spenser's epic The Faerie Queene (1590):

She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew,
And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew.

The modern cliché Valentine's Day poem can be found in the collection of English nursery rhymes Gammer Gurton's Garland (1784):

The rose is red, the violet's blue,
The honey's sweet, and so are you.
Thou art my love and I am thine;
I drew thee to my Valentine:
The lot was cast and then I drew,
And Fortune said it shou'd be you.

Valentine's Day postcard, circa 1910

Modern times

In 1797, a British publisher issued The Young Man's Valentine Writer, which contained scores of suggested sentimental verses for the young lover unable to compose his own. Printers had already begun producing a limited number of cards with verses and sketches, called "mechanical valentines," and a reduction in postal rates in the next century ushered in the less personal but easier practice of mailing Valentines. That, in turn, made it possible for the first time to exchange cards anonymously, which is taken as the reason for the sudden appearance of racy verse in an era otherwise prudishly Victorian.

Paper Valentines became so popular in England in the early 19th century that they were assembled in factories. Fancy Valentines were made with real lace and ribbons, with paper lace introduced in the mid-19th century. The reinvention of Saint Valentine's Day in the 1840s has been traced by Leigh Eric Schmidt. As a writer inGraham's American Monthly observed in 1849, "Saint Valentine's Day... is becoming, nay it has become, a national holyday. In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland (1828–1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts.

Child dressed in Valentine's Day-themed clothing.

Her father operated a large book and stationery store, but Howland took her inspiration from an English Valentine she had received from a business associate of her father. Intrigued with the idea of making similar Valentines, Howland began her business by importing paper lace and floral decorations from England. The English practice of sending Valentine's cards was established enough to feature as a plot device in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mr. Harrison's Confessions (1851): "I burst in with my explanations: '"The valentine I know nothing about." '"It is in your handwriting", said he coldly. Since 2001, the Greeting Card Association has been giving an annual "Esther Howland Award for a Greeting Card Visionary.

Since the 19th century, handwritten notes have given way to mass-produced greeting cards. In the UK, just under half of the population spend money on their Valentines and around 1.3 billion pounds are spent yearly on cards, flowers, chocolates and other gifts, with an estimated 25 million cards being sent. The mid-19th century Valentine's Day trade was a harbinger of further commercialized holidays in the United States to follow.

In the second half of the 20th century, the practice of exchanging cards was extended to all manner of gifts in the United States. Such gifts typically include roses and chocolates packed in a red satin, heart-shaped box. In the 1980s, the diamond industry began to promote Valentine's Day as an occasion for giving jewelry.

The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately 190 million valentines are sent each year in the US. Half of those valentines are given to family members other than husband or wife, usually to children. When you include the valentine-exchange cards made in school activities the figure goes up to 1 billion, and teachers become the people receiving the most valentines. In some North American elementary schools, children decorate classrooms, exchange cards, and are given sweets. The greeting cards of these students sometimes mention what they appreciate about each other.

The rise of Internet popularity at the turn of the millennium is creating new traditions. Millions of people use, every year, digital means of creating and sending Valentine's Day greeting messages such as e-cards, love coupons or printable greeting cards. An estimated 15 million e-valentines were sent in 2010.

Valentine's Day is considered by some to be a Hallmark holiday due to its commercialization.

Antique and vintage Valentines, 1850–1950

Valentines of the mid-19th and early 20th centuries

Esther Howland Valentine, circa 1850: "Weddings now are all the go, Will you marry me or no"?
Handwritten poem, "To Susanna" dated Valentine's Day, 1850 (Cork, Ireland)
Comic Valentine, mid-19th century: "R stands for rod, which can give a smart crack, And ought to be used For a day on your back."
Valentine card, 1862: "My dearest Miss, I send thee a kiss" addressed to Miss Jenny Lane of Crostwight Hall, Smallburgh, Norfolk.
Folk art Valentine and envelope dated 1875 addressed to Clara Dunn of Newfield, New Jersey
Whitney Valentine, 1887; Howland sold her New England Valentine Company to the George C. Whitney Company in 1881
Seascape Valentine, date unknown
Vinegar Valentine, circa 1900

Postcards, "pop-ups", and mechanical Valentines, circa 1900–1930

Buster Brown Valentine postcard by Richard Felton Outcault, early years of 20th century
Advertisement for Prang's greeting cards, 1883
Postcard by Nister, circa 1906
Valentine postcard, circa 1900–1910
A tiny 2-inch pop-up Valentine, circa 1920
Football-playing Disney-like rat and bulldog are set in motion by the pull-tab on the right, circa 1920
A grommet affixed to the center of the card permits the dog's eyes to glance side-to-side when the blue bow is moved
Rocking horse and rider, circa 1920–1930

Children's Valentines

Children's Valentine, 1940–1950
Anthropomorphic Valentine, circa 1950–1960

Similar days celebrating love

In the West

Europe

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While sending cards, flowers, chocolates and other gifts is traditional in the UK, Valentine's Day has various regional customs. In Norfolk, a character called 'Jack' Valentine knocks on the rear door of houses leaving sweets and presents for children. Although he was leaving treats, many children were scared of this mystical person. In Wales, many people celebrate Dydd Santes Dwynwen (St Dwynwen's Day) on January 25 instead of (or as well as) Valentine's Day. The day commemorates St Dwynwen, the patron saint of Welsh lovers. In France, a traditionally Catholic country, Valentine's Day is known simply as "Saint Valentin", and is celebrated in much the same way as other western countries. In Spain Valentine's Day is known as "San Valentín" and is celebrated the same way as in the UK, although in Catalonia it is largely superseded by similar festivities of rose and/or book giving on La Diada de Sant Jordi (Saint George's Day). In Portugal it is more commonly referred to as "Dia dos Namorados" (Lover's Day / Day of those that are in love with each other).

In Denmark and Norway, although February 14 is known as Valentinsdag, it is not celebrated to a large extent, but is largely imported from American culture, and some people take time to eat a romantic dinner with their partner, to send a card to a secret love or give a red rose to their loved one. The cut-flower industry in particular is still working on promoting the holiday. In Sweden it is called Alla hjärtans dag ("All Hearts' Day") and was launched in the 1960s by the flower industry's commercial interests, and due to the influence of American culture. It is not an official holiday, but its celebration is recognized and sales of cosmetics and flowers for this holiday are only exceeded by those for Mother's Day.

In Finland Valentine's Day is called Ystävänpäivä which translates into "Friend's day". As the name indicates, this day is more about remembering all your friends, not only your loved ones. In Estonia Valentine's Day is called Sõbrapäev, which has the same meaning.

In Slovenia, St Valentine or Zdravko was one of the saints of spring, the saint of good health and the patron of beekeepers and pilgrims. A proverb says that "St Valentine brings the keys of roots". Plants and flowers start to grow on this day. It has been celebrated as the day when the first work in the vineyards and in the fields commences. It is also said that birds propose to each other or marry on that day. Another proverb says "Valentin – prvi spomladin" ("Valentine — the first spring saint"), as in some places (especially White Carniola), Saint Valentine marks the beginning of spring. Valentine's Day has only recently been celebrated as the day of love. The day of love was traditionally March 12, the Saint Gregory's day, or February 22, Saint Vincent's Day. The patron of love was Saint Anthony, whose day has been celebrated on 13 June.

In Romania, the traditional holiday for lovers is Dragobete, which is celebrated on February 24. It is named after a character from Romanian folklore who was supposed to be the son of Baba Dochia. Part of his name is the word drag ("dear"), which can also be found in the worddragoste ("love"). In recent years, Romania has also started celebrating Valentine's Day, despite already having Dragobete as a traditional holiday. This has drawn backlash from several groups, institutions and nationalist organizations like Noua Dreaptǎ, who condemn Valentine's Day for being superficial, commercialist and imported Western kitsch.

In Lithuania and Latvia, it is common for people to put stickers on faces and clothing of a friend or a relative. The holiday was first celebrated after the two countries gained independence from Soviet Union in 1990.

Valentine's Day is called Ημέρα του Αγίου Βαλεντίνου in Greece and Cyprus, which translates into "St Valentines day". In the Orthodox church there is another Saint to protect people who are in love, but for Greeks Valentine's Day is more popular.

According to Jewish tradition the 15th day of the month of Av – Tu B'Av (usually late August) is the festival of love. In ancient times girls would wear white dresses and dance in the vineyards, where the boys would be waiting for them (Mishna Taanith end of Chapter 4). In modern Israeli culture this is a popular day to pronounce love, propose marriage and give gifts like cards or flowers.

Latin America

In some Latin American countries Valentine's Day is known as "Día del Amor y la Amistad" (Day of Love and Friendship). For exampleMexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Puerto Rico, as well as others. It is also common to see people perform "acts of appreciation" for their friends.

In Guatemala it is known as the "Día del Cariño" (Affection Day).

In Brazil, the Dia dos Namorados (lit. "Lovers' Day", or "Boyfriends'/Girlfriends' Day") is celebrated on June 12, probably because it is the day before Saint Anthony's day, known there as the marriage saint, when traditionally many single women perform popular rituals, calledsimpatias, in order to find a good husband or boyfriend. Couples exchange gifts, chocolates, cards and flower bouquets. The February 14's Valentine's Day is not celebrated at all, mainly for cultural and commercial reasons, since it usually falls too little before or after Carnival— that can fall anywhere from early February to early March.

In Venezuela, in 2009, President Hugo Chávez said in a meeting to his supporters for the upcoming referendum vote on February 15, that "since on the 14th, there will be no time of doing nothing, nothing or next to nothing ... maybe a little kiss or something very superficial", he recommended people to celebrate a week of love after the referendum vote.

In most of Latin America the Día del amor y la amistad and the Amigo secreto ("Secret friend") are quite popular and usually celebrated together on the 14 of February (one exception is Colombia, where it is celebrated every third Saturday of September). The latter consists of randomly assigning to each participant a recipient who is to be given an anonymous gift (similar to the Christmas tradition of Secret Santa).

East Asia

Thanks to a concentrated marketing effort, Valentine's Day is celebrated in some Asian countries with Singaporeans, Chinese and South Koreans spending the most money on Valentine's gifts.

In South Korea, similar to Japan, women give chocolate to men on February 14, and men give non-chocolate candy to women on March 14 (White Day). On April 14 (Black Day), those who did not receive anything on the 14th of Feb or March go to a Korean restaurant to eat black noodles (자장면 jajangmyeon) and "mourn" their single life. Koreans also celebrate Pepero Day on November 11, when young couples give each other Pepero cookies. The date '11/11' is intended to resemble the long shape of the cookie. The 14th of every month marks a love-related day in Korea, although most of them are obscure. From January to December: Candle Day, Valentine's Day, White Day, Black Day, Rose Day, Kiss Day, Silver Day, Green Day, Music Day, Wine Day, Movie Day, and Hug Day. Korean women give a much higher amount of chocolate than Japanese women.

In China, the common situation is the man gives chocolate, flowers or both to the woman that he loves. In Chinese, Valentine's Day is called (simplified Chinese: 情人节; traditional Chinese: 情人節; pinyin: qíng rén jié). The so-called "Chinese Valentine's Day" is the Qixi Festival, celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. It commemorates a day on which a legendary cowherder and weaving maid are allowed to be together. Modern Valentine's Day is also celebrated on February 14 of the solar calendar each year.

In Taiwan the situation is the reverse of Japan's. Men give gifts to women on Valentine's Day, and women return them on White Day.

In the Philippines, Valentine's Day is called "Araw ng mga Puso" or "Hearts Day". It is usually marked by a steep increase in the prices of flowers.

Japan

In Japan, Morozoff Ltd. introduced the holiday for the first time in 1936, when it ran an advertisement aimed at foreigners. Later in 1953 it began promoting the giving of heart-shaped chocolates; other Japanese confectionery companies followed suit thereafter. In 1958 the Isetan department store ran a "Valentine sale". Further campaigns during the 1960s popularized the custom.

The custom that only women give chocolates to men appears to have originated from the translation error of a chocolate-company executive during the initial campaigns. In particular, office ladies give chocolate to their co-workers. Unlike western countries, gifts such as greeting cards, candies, flowers, or dinner dates are uncommon, and most of the activity about the gifts is about giving the right amount of chocolate to each person. Japanese chocolate companies make half their annual sales during this time of the year.

Many women feel obliged to give chocolates to all male co-workers, except when the day falls on a Sunday, a holiday. This is known as giri-choko (義理チョコ), from giri ("obligation") and choko, ("chocolate"), with unpopular co-workers receiving only "ultra-obligatory" chō-giri chokocheap chocolate. This contrasts with honmei-choko (本命チョコ, favorite chocolate), chocolate given to a loved one. Friends, especially girls, may exchange chocolate referred to as tomo-choko (友チョコ); from tomo meaning "friend".

In the 1980s the Japanese National Confectionery Industry Association launched a successful campaign to make March 14 a "reply day", where men are expected to return the favour to those who gave them chocolates on Valentine's Day, calling it White Day for the color of the chocolates being offered. A previous failed attempt to popularize this celebration had been done by a marshmallow manufacturer who wanted men to return marshmallows to women.

Men are expected to return gifts that are at least two or three times more valuable than the gifts received in Valentine's Day. Not returning the gift is perceived as the man placing himself in a position of superiority, even if excuses are given. Returning a present of equal value is considered as a way to say that you are cutting the relationship. Originally only chocolate was given, but now the gifts of jewelry, accessories, clothing and lingerie are usual. According to the official website of White Day, the color white was chosen because it's the color of purity, evoking "pure, sweet teen love", and because it's also the color of sugar. The initial name was "Ai ni Kotaeru White Day" (Answer Love on White Day).

In Japan, the romantic "date night" associated to Valentine's Day is celebrated on Christmas Eve.

In a 2006 survey of people between 10 and 49 years of age in Japan, Oricon Style found the 1986 Sayuri Kokushō single, Valentine Kiss, to be the most popular Valentine's Day song, even though it sold only 317,000 copies. The singles it beat in the ranking were number one selling Love Love Love from Dreams Come True (2,488,630 copies) and Valentine's Radio from Yumi Matsutoya (1,606,780 copies). The final song in the top five was My Funny Valentine by Miles Davis.

Similar Asian traditions

In Chinese culture, there is an older observance related to lovers, called "The Night of Sevens" (Chinese: 七夕; pinyin: Qi Xi). According to the legend, the Cowherd star and the Weaver Maid star are normally separated by the milky way (silvery river) but are allowed to meet by crossing it on the 7th day of the 7th month of the Chinese calendar.

In Japan, a slightly different version of 七夕 called Tanabata has been celebrated for centuries, on July 7 (Gregorian calendar). It has been considered by Westerners as similar to St. Valentine's Day, but it's not related to it, and its origins are completely different.

India

In India, in the antiquity, there was a tradition of adoring Kamadeva, the lord of love; exemplificated by the erotic carvings in the Khajuraho Group of Monuments and by the writing of the Kamasutra treaty of lovemaking. This tradition was lost around the Middle Ages, when Kamadeva was no longer celebrated, and public displays of sexual affections became frowned upon. Around 1992, Valentine's Day celebrations started catching up in India, with special TV and radio programs, and even love letter competitions. The economic liberalization also helped the Valentine card industry.

In modern times, Hindu and Islamic traditionalists consider the holiday to be cultural contamination from the West, result of the globalization in India. Shiv Sena and the Sangh Parivar have asked their followers to shun the holiday and the "public admission of love" because of them being "alien to Indian culture". Although these protests are organized by political elites, the protesters themselves are middle-class Hindu men who fear that the globalization will destroy the traditions in their society: arranged marriages, Hindu joint families, full-time mothers (see Housewife#India), etc.

Despite these obstacles, Valentine's Day is becoming increasingly popular in India.

However, leftist and liberal critiques of Valentine's Day remain strong in India. Valentine's Day has been strongly criticized from a postcolonialperspective by intellectuals from the Indian left. The holiday is regarded as a front for Western imperialism, neocolonialism, and the exploitation of working classes through commercialism by multinational corporations. Studies have shown that Valentine's Day promotes and exacerbates income inequality in India, and aids in the creation of a pseudo-westernized middle class. As a result, the working classesand rural poor become more disconnected socially, politically, and geographically from the hegemonic capitalist power structure. They also criticize mainstream media attacks on Indians opposed to Valentine's Day as a form of demonization that is designed and derived to further the Valentine's Day agenda.

Middle East

Egyptians celebrate Valentine's Day on February 14.^{[citation needed]}^{[clarification needed]}

In Iran, the Sepandarmazgan, or Esfandegan, is an age-old traditional celebration of love, friendship and Earth. It has nothing in common with the Saint Valentine celebration, except for a superficial similarity in giving affection and gifts to loved ones, and its origins and motivations are completely unrelated. It has been progressively forgotten in favor of the Western celebration of Valentine's Day. The Association of Iran's Cultural and Natural Phenomena has been trying since 2006 to make Sepandarmazgan a national holiday on 17 February, in order to replace the Western holiday.

In Israel, the Tu B'Av is considered to be the Jewish Valentine's Day following the ancient traditions of courtship on this day. Today, this is celebrated as a second holiday of love by secular people (besides Saint Valentine's Day), and shares many of the customs associated with Saint Valentine's Day in western societies.

Conflict with Islamic countries and political parties

Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia, in 2002 and 2011, religious police banned the sale of all Valentine's Day items, telling shop workers to remove any red items, as the day is considered a Christian holiday. In 2008 this ban created a black market of roses and wrapping paper.

Pakistan

The concept of Valentine's Day was introduced in Pakistan during the late 1990s with special TV and radio programs. The Jamaat-e-Islamipolitical party has called for the banning of Valentine's Day celebration. Despite this, the celebration is becoming popular among urban youth and the florists expect to sell great amount of flowers, especially red roses. Same is the case with card publishers. However, public at large still consider Valentine's Day as opposed to Pakistani culture and Islamic teachings.

Iran

In the first part of the 21st century, the celebration of Valentine's Day in Iran has been harshly criticized by Islamic Teachers who see the celebrations as opposed to Islamic culture. In 2011, the Iranian printing works owners' union issued a directive banning the printing and distribution of any goods promoting the holiday, including cards, gifts and teddy bears. "Printing and producing any goods related to this day including posters, boxes and cards emblazoned with hearts or half-hearts, red roses and any activities promoting this day are banned... Outlets that violate this will be legally dealt with", the union warned.

Malaysia

Islamic officials in Malaysia warned Muslims against celebrating Valentine's Day, linking it with vice activities. Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said the celebration of romantic love was "not suitable" for Muslims. Wan Mohamad Sheikh Abdul Aziz, head of the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim), which oversees the country's Islamic policies said a fatwa (ruling) issued by the country's top clerics in 2005 noted the day 'is associated with elements of Christianity,' and 'we just cannot get involved with other religion's worshipping rituals.' Jakim officials planned to carry out a nationwide campaign called "Awas Jerat Valentine's Day" ("Mind the Valentine's Day Trap"), aimed at preventing Muslims from celebrating the day on 14 February 2011. Activities include conducting raids in hotels to stop young couples from having unlawful sex and distributing leaflets to Muslim university students warning them against the day.

On Valentine's Day 2011, Malaysian religious authorities arrested more than 100 Muslim couples concerning the celebration ban. Some of them would be charged in the Shariah Court for defying the department's ban against the celebration of Valentine's Day

Is Chocolate Good For You?

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:23:00 +0000

Flavanoids in cocoa may protect the heart, but don't overdo it.

By Karen Collins, R.D.

updated 4/15/2005 1:11:45 PM ET

Recent research shows that chocolate can provide natural health-promoting substances called FLAVONOIDS.

Since flavonoids seem to help prevent heart disease and cancer, the idea of eating chocolate sounds like a tempting and delicious way to better your health. The complete message is, however, that although chocolate might be preferable to other treats, it is no substitute for vegetables and fruits, which also contain flavonoids.

The flavonoids in chocolate that laboratory studies demonstrate to have powerful antioxidant effects are called flavanols and procyanidins. These two compounds come from the flavonoid “family” that includes resveratrol, found in grape juice, and EGCG, found in green tea. When people consume these substances in chocolate and cocoa, the antioxidant status of their blood increases.

This rise in antioxidant levels helps protect us from damage to the heart and blood vessels, while it also guards our DNA from damage that can lead to cancer.

In addition, the flavanols and procyanidins in chocolate improve the function and flow of blood vessels and help control inflammation.

The antioxidants in chocolate have generated a lot of interest because studies show that these compounds are more powerful antioxidants than EGCG in tea, which is a strong antioxidant.

One study that compared the total antioxidant activity in single servings of cocoa, green tea, black tea and red wine scored cocoa markedly higher than the rest.

Yet the flavonoid content of cocoa and chocolate is highly variable. The more cocoa in a chocolate product, the higher the antioxidant flavonoid content is.

Because dark chocolate is more concentrated in cocoa content, it is higher in flavonoids than milk chocolate. For this reason, dark chocolate is used in research studies. White chocolate has no cocoa content.

Beware calorie load
A cup of hot or cold cocoa may sound like a health drink loaded with antioxidants, but almost all cocoa drink mixes contain cocoa treated with alkali (also called Dutch cocoa) to produce a darker, richer taste. Unfortunately, this process drastically reduces flavonoid content.

Unless you find a chocolate mix made with untreated cocoa, start with plain cocoa (not Dutch) and add your own sweetener and milk to make a flavonoid-rich cup.

Surprisingly, the fat content of chocolate is not a reason to avoid it. Technically, chocolate contains saturated fat, but the particular type of saturated fat – stearic acid – is unique because it does not raise blood cholesterol.

Studies show that neither dark or milk chocolate is a cholesterol concern in moderate amounts. But keep in mind that other ingredients added to some chocolate candies can change their nutrition impact.

But one of the reasons you shouldn’t rely on chocolate for antioxidants, in the place of vegetables and fruits, is the calorie load. A small piece of dark chocolate has only 50 calories, but most candy bars contain at least 200.

In comparison, a serving of vegetables and fruits contains a generous amount of health-promoting phytochemicals and only 25 to 80 calories. An antioxidant-rich serving of green tea has no calories at all.

Besides, vegetables and fruits have more than flavonoids. They provide vitamins, minerals like magnesium and potassium, and phytochemicals that protect our health in other ways. Some, for example, block the activation of carcinogens, while others interfere with the life cycle of cancer cells and promote their destruction.

Recent research on the flavonoids in chocolate implies that we can enjoy limited amounts of this sweet treat without guilt. But this news shouldn’t discourage us from eating a mostly plant-based diet loaded with vegetables and fruits.

Nutrition Notes is provided by the American Institute for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C.

This Article Taken From: WWW.MSNBC.MSN.COM

Useful Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7339594/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/chocolate-good-you/#.TwSVRjXZ8yI

Possible UFO in Kansas mystery solved

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 09:40:00 +0000

Residents of Cowley County, Kansas caused a sensation last week when they captured video of the military towing a concealed object on a flatbed truck down US Highway 77. It wasn't long before a wave of speculation hit, claiming the object was a UFO.

Depending on the angle from which you spotted it, the 30 foot-wide mysterious craft appeared to be saucer-shaped. It was so large that local law enforcement had to remove roadside signage so it could pass through. But it was covered in a tightly concealed tarp, making any further examination impossible.

However, as Gizmodo points out, the craft does not technically meet the definition of UFO. For starters, even if it were an alien craft, the object was not flying. And more important, it's no longer unidentified.

Local sheriff Don Read announced that the tarp was in fact covering a flying object, but one of decidedly Earthly origins. More specifically, it was a drone aircraft manufactured by Northrop Grumman. After Read's disclosure, Northrop Grumman senior manager of public relations Brooks McKinney stepped forward to provide more details, telling Life's Little Mysteries that the "UFO" is a X-47B unmanned combat drone designed to operate from aircraft carriers. It was headed to the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland.

The X-47B unmanned drone (NorthropGrumman.com)

Drone technology, or Unmanned Systems (UMS) have become so commonplace, that Northrop Grumman has a section dedicated to them on its public website. There's even a page for the X-47B itself.

"Clearly people are interested in what's going through town. It's unusual to see a shrink-wrapped aircraft, especially one with that shape," McKinney said.

"We built two for the Navy, they were being tested at Edwards Air Force Base [in California] since March. One is on its way to Maryland, and the other will remain in California."

And the reason they weren't actually flying the high-tech aircraft was even simpler. "It's difficult to fly an unmanned drone through commercial airspace," McKinney said.

Finally, the question "What's the matter with Kansas?" can be answered: A painful lack of alien spaceships.

This Article Taken Form: New.Yahoo.Com

Useful Link: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/did-military-haul-ufo-kansas-150544531.html

Muhammad Iqbal (On Iqbal Day)

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 11:28:00 +0000

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Iqbal" redirects here. For other uses, see Iqbal (disambiguation).

Muhammad Iqbal
Sir Allama Mohammad Iqbal
Full name	Muhammad Iqbal
Born	November 9, 1877 Sialkot, Punjab, British India
Died	April 21, 1938 (aged 60) Lahore, Punjab, British India
Era	Modern philosophy
Region	British India
School	Islamic philosophy
Main interests	Urdu poetry, Persian poetry
Influenced by[show]
Influenced[show]
Website	allamaiqbal.com

Sir Muhammad Iqbal (Urdu: محمد اقبال) (November 9, 1877 – April 21, 1938) was a Muslim poetand philosopher born in Sialkot, British India (now in Pakistan), whose poetry in Urdu andPersian is considered to be among the greatest of the modern era.^[1] He is commonly referred to as Allama Iqbal (علامہ اقبال‎, Allama lit. Scholar).

After studying in England and Germany, Iqbal established a law practice, but concentrated primarily on writing scholarly works on politics, economics, history, philosophy and religion. He is best known for his poetic works, including Asrar-e-Khudi—which brought a knighthood—Rumuz-e-Bekhudi, and the Bang-e-Dara, with its enduring patriotic song Tarana-e-Hind. InAfghanistan and Iran, where he is known as Iqbāl-e Lāhorī (اقبال لاهوری‎ Iqbal of Lahore), he is highly regarded for his Persian works.

Iqbal was a strong proponent of the political and spiritual revival of Islamic civilization across the world, but specifically in India; a series of famous lectures he delivered to this effect were published as The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. One of the most prominent leaders of the All-India Muslim League, Iqbal encouraged the creation of a "state in northwestern India for Indian Muslims" in his 1930 presidential address.^[2] Iqbal encouraged and worked closely with Muhammad Ali Jinnah, and he is known as Muffakir-e-Pakistan ("The Thinker of Pakistan"), Shair-e-Mashriq ("The Poet of the East"), and Hakeem-ul-Ummat ("The Sage of theUmmah"). He is officially recognised as the "national poet" in Pakistan. The anniversary of his birth (یوم ولادت محمد اقبال‎ – Yōm-e Welādat-e Muḥammad Iqbāl) on November 9 is a holiday in Pakistan.

Early life

Muhammad Iqbal was born on November 9, 1877 in Sialkot, in the Punjab province of British India in what is now Pakistan. During the reign ofMughal emperor, Shah Jahan—according to scholar Bruce Lawrence—Iqbal's Kashmiri Pandit ancestors from Kashmir had converted toIslam. According to some sources: "The family had migrated from Kashmir where Iqbal's Brahmin ancestors had been converted to Islam." Iqbal often wrote about his being "a son of Kashmiri-Brahmins but (being) acquainted with the wisdom of Rûm and Tabriz."

Iqbal's father, Nur Muhammad, was a tailor, who lacked formal education, but who had great devotion to Islam and Sufism and a "mystically tinged piety." Iqbal's mother was known in the family as a "wise, generous woman who quietly gave financial help to poor and needy women and arbitrated in neighbor's disputes." After his mother's death in 1914, Iqbal wrote an elegy for her:

Who would wait for me anxiously in my native place?
Who would display restlessness if my letter fails to arrive
I will visit thy grave with this complaint:
Who will now think of me in midnight prayers?
All thy life thy love served me with devotion—
When I became fit to serve thee, thou hast departed.

At the age of four, young Iqbal was sent regularly to a mosque, where he learned how to read the Qu'ran in Arabic. The following year, and for many years thereafter, Iqbal became a student of Syed Mir Hassan, who was then the head of the Madrassa in Sialkot, and later to become a widely known Muslim scholar.^[5] An advocate of secular European education for the Muslim's of British India—in the tradition of SirSayyid Ahmad Khan—Hassan convinced Iqbal's father to send him to Sialkot's Scotch Mission College, where Hassan was professor of Arabic.^[5] Two years later, in 1895, Iqbal obtained the Faculty of Arts diploma from the college.

That year Iqbal's family arranged for him to be married to Karim Bibi, the daughter of an affluent Gujrati physician. The couple had two children: a daughter, Mi'raj Begum (born 1895) and a son, Aftab (born 1899). Iqbal's third child, a son, died soon after birth. Husband and wife were unhappy in their marriage and eventually divorced in 1916.

Later the same year, Iqbal entered the Government College in Lahore where he studied philosophy, English literature and Arabic and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating cum laude. He won a gold medal for placing first in the examination in philosophy. While studying for his masters degree, Iqbal came under the influence of Sir Thomas Arnold, a scholar of Islam and modern philosophy at the college. Arnold exposed the young man to Western culture and ideas, and served as a bridge for Iqbal between the ideas of East and West. Iqbal was appointed to a readership in Arabic at the Oriental College in Lahore, and he published his first book in Urdu, The Knowledge of Economics in 1903. In 1905 Iqbal published the patriotic song, Tarana-e-Hind (Song of India).

At Sir Thomas's encouragement, Iqbal travelled to Europe and spent many years studying there. Before leaving for London he visited theDargah of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi and wrote a famous poem to acknowledge the great Sufi and by doing so he confirmed his own lifelong association with Sufism. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Trinity College at Cambridge in 1907, while simultaneously studying law at Lincoln's Inn, from where he qualified as a barrister in 1908. In Europe, he started writing his poetry in Persian as well. Throughout his life, Iqbal would prefer writing in Persian as he believed it allowed him to fully express philosophical concepts, and it gave him a wider audience.^[1] It was while in England that he first participated in politics. Following the formation of the All-India Muslim League in 1906, Iqbal was elected to the executive committee of its British chapter in 1908. Together with two other politicians, Syed Hassan Bilgramiand Syed Ameer Ali, Iqbal sat on the subcommittee which drafted the constitution of the League. In 1907, Iqbal travelled to Germany to pursue a doctorate from the Faculty of Philosophy of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität at Munich. Working under the supervision of Friedrich Hommel, Iqbal published a thesis titled: The Development of Metaphysics in Persia.^[6]

Literary career

Upon his return to India in 1908, Iqbal took up an assistant professorship at Government College in Lahore, but for financial reasons he relinquished it within a year to practice law. During this period, Iqbal's personal life was in turmoil. He divorced Karim Bibi in 1916, but provided financial support to her and their children for the rest of his life.

While maintaining his legal practice, Iqbal began concentrating on spiritual and religious subjects, and publishing poetry and literary works. He became active in the Anjuman-e-Himayat-e-Islam, a congress of Muslim intellectuals, writers and poets as well as politicians. In 1919, he became the general secretary of the organisation. Iqbal's thoughts in his work primarily focus on the spiritual direction and development of human society, centred around experiences from his travels and stays in Western Europe and the Middle East. He was profoundly influenced by Western philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson and Goethe. He soon became a strong critic of Western society's separation of religion from state and what he perceived as its obsession with materialist pursuits.

The poetry and philosophy of Mawlana Rumi bore the deepest influence on Iqbal's mind. Deeply grounded in religion since childhood, Iqbal began intensely concentrating on the study of Islam, the culture and history of Islamic civilization and its political future, while embracingRumi as "his guide." Iqbal would feature Rumi in the role of guide in many of his poems. Iqbal's works focus on reminding his readers of the past glories of Islamic civilization, and delivering the message of a pure, spiritual focus on Islam as a source for socio-political liberation and greatness. Iqbal denounced political divisions within and amongst Muslim nations, and frequently alluded to and spoke in terms of the global Muslim community, or the Ummah.^[7]

Works in Persian

Iqbal's poetic works are written primarily in Persian rather than Urdu. Among his 12,000 verses of poetry, about 7,000 verses are in Persian. In 1915, he published his first collection of poetry, the Asrar-e-Khudi (Secrets of the Self) in Persian. The poems emphasise the spirit and self from a religious, spiritual perspective. Many critics have called this Iqbal's finest poetic work^[8] In Asrar-e-Khudi, Iqbal explains his philosophy of "Khudi," or "Self." Iqbal's use of the term "Khudi" is synonymous with the word "Rooh" mentioned in the Quran. "Rooh" is that divine spark which is present in every human being, and was present in Adam, for which God ordered all of the angels to prostrate in front of Adam. One has to make a great journey of transformation to realize that divine spark which Iqbal calls "Khudi".

A similitude of this journey can be understood by the relationship between fragrance and seed. Every seed has the potential for fragrance within it, but to reach its fragrance the seed must go through all the different changes and stages: First breaking out of its shell. Then breaking the ground to come into the light, developing roots at the same time. Then fighting against the elements to develop leaves and flowers. Finally reaching its pinnacle by attaining the fragrance that was hidden within it. Similarly, in order to reach one's khudi or rooh, one needs to go through the multiple spiritual stages which Iqbal himself went through, and encourages others to travel. Not all seeds reach the level of fragrance; many die along the way – incomplete. In this same way, only a few people can climb this Mount Everest of spirituality; most get consumed along the way by materialism.

The same concept was used by Farid ud Din Attar in his "Mantaq-ul-Tair". He proves by various means that the whole universe obeys the will of the "Self." Iqbal condemns self-destruction. For him, the aim of life is self-realization and self-knowledge. He charts the stages through which the "Self" has to pass before finally arriving at its point of perfection, enabling the knower of the "Self" to become a viceregent of God.^[7]

In his Rumuz-e-Bekhudi (Hints of Selflessness), Iqbal seeks to prove the Islamic way of life is the best code of conduct for a nation's viability. A person must keep his individual characteristics intact, but once this is achieved he should sacrifice his personal ambitions for the needs of the nation. Man cannot realise the "Self" outside of society. Also in Persian and published in 1917, this group of poems has as its main themes the ideal community, Islamic ethical and social principles, and the relationship between the individual and society. Although he is true throughout to Islam, Iqbal also recognises the positive analogous aspects of other religions. The Rumuz-e-Bekhudi complements the emphasis on the self in the Asrar-e-Khudi and the two collections are often put in the same volume under the title Asrar-e-Rumuz (Hinting Secrets). It is addressed to the world's Muslims.

Iqbal sees the individual and his community as reflections of each other. The individual needs to be strengthened before he can be integrated into the community, whose development in turn depends on the preservation of the communal ego. It is through contact with others that an ego learns to accept the limitations of its own freedom and the meaning of love. Muslim communities must ensure order in life and must therefore preserve their communal tradition. It is in this context that Iqbal sees the vital role of women, who as mothers are directly responsible for inculcating values in their children.

Iqbal's 1924 publication, the Payam-e-Mashriq (The Message of the East) is closely connected to the West-östlicher Diwan by the famous German poet Goethe. Goethe bemoans the West having become too materialistic in outlook, and expects the East will provide a message of hope to resuscitate spiritual values. Iqbal styles his work as a reminder to the West of the importance of morality, religion and civilization by underlining the need for cultivating feeling, ardour and dynamism. He explains that an individual can never aspire to higher dimensions unless he learns of the nature of spirituality.^[7] In his first visit to Afghanistan, he presented his book "Payam-e Mashreq" to King Amanullah Khan in which he admired the liberal movements of Afghanistan against the British Empire. In 1933, he was officially invited to Afghanistan to join the meetings regarding the establishment of Kabul University.

The Zabur-e-Ajam (Persian Psalms), published in 1927, includes the poems Gulshan-e-Raz-e-Jadeed (Garden of New Secrets) and Bandagi Nama (Book of Slavery). In Gulshan-e-Raz-e-Jadeed, Iqbal first poses questions, then answers them with the help of ancient and modern insight, showing how it affects and concerns the world of action. Bandagi Nama denounces slavery by attempting to explain the spirit behind the fine arts of enslaved societies. Here as in other books, Iqbal insists on remembering the past, doing well in the present and preparing for the future, while emphasising love, enthusiasm and energy to fulfill the ideal life.^[7]

Iqbal's 1932 work, the Javed Nama (Book of Javed) is named after and in a manner addressed to his son, who is featured in the poems. It follows the examples of the works of Ibn Arabi and Dante's The Divine Comedy, through mystical and exaggerated depictions across time. Iqbal depicts himself as Zinda Rud ("A stream full of life") guided by Rumi, "the master," through various heavens and spheres, and has the honour of approaching divinity and coming in contact with divine illuminations. In a passage re-living a historical period, Iqbal condemns the Muslim who were instrumental in the defeat and death of Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula of Bengal and Tipu Sultan of Mysore respectively by betraying them for the benefit of the British colonists, and thus delivering their country to the shackles of slavery. At the end, by addressing his son Javid, he speaks to the young people at large, and provides guidance to the "new generation."^[7]

His love of the Persian language is evident in his works and poetry. He says in one of his poems:^[9]

گرچہ اردو در عذوبت شکر است

garche Urdū dar uzūbat shekkar ast

طرز گفتار دري شيرين تر است

tarz-e goftar-e Dari shirin tar ast

Translation: Even though in sweetness Urdu* is sugar – (but) speech method in Dari (Persian) is sweeter *

Works in Urdu

Iqbal in Spain, 1933

Iqbal's first work published in Urdu, the Bang-e-Dara (The Call of the Marching Bell) of 1924, was a collection of poetry written by him in three distinct phases of his life.^[7] The poems he wrote up to 1905, the year Iqbal left for England imbibe patriotism and imagery of landscape, and includes the Tarana-e-Hind (The Song of India), popularly known as Saare Jahan Se Achcha and another poem Tarana-e-Milli (Anthem of the (Muslim) Community), which was composed in the same metre and rhyme scheme as Saare Jahan Se Achcha. The second set of poems date from between 1905 and 1908 when Iqbal studied in Europe and dwell upon the nature of European society, which he emphasized had lost spiritual and religious values. This inspired Iqbal to write poems on the historical and cultural heritage of Islamic culture and Muslim people, not from an Indian but a global perspective. Iqbal urges the global community of Muslims, addressed as the Ummah to define personal, social and political existence by the values and teachings of Islam. Poems such as Tulu'i Islam (Dawn of Islam) and Khizr-e-Rah (Guide of the Path) are especially acclaimed.

Iqbal preferred to work mainly in Persian for a predominant period of his career, but after 1930, his works were mainly in Urdu. The works of this period were often specifically directed at the Muslim masses of India, with an even stronger emphasis on Islam, and Muslim spiritual and political reawakening. Published in 1935, the Bal-e-Jibril (Wings of Gabriel) is considered by many critics as the finest of Iqbal's Urdu poetry, and was inspired by his visit to Spain, where he visited the monuments and legacy of the kingdom of the Moors. It consists of ghazals, poems, quatrains, epigrams and carries a strong sense religious passion.^[7]

The Pas Cheh Bayed Kard ai Aqwam-e-Sharq (What are we to do, O Nations of the East?) includes the poem Musafir (Traveler). Again, Iqbal depicts Rumi as a character and an exposition of the mysteries of Islamic laws and Sufi perceptions is given. Iqbal laments the dissension and disunity among the Indian Muslims as well as Muslim nations. Musafir is an account of one of Iqbal's journeys to Afghanistan, in which the Pashtun people are counseled to learn the "secret of Islam" and to "build up the self" within themselves.^[7] Iqbal's final work was theArmughan-e-Hijaz (The Gift of Hijaz), published posthumously in 1938. The first part contains quatrains in Persian, and the second part contains some poems and epigrams in Urdu. The Persian quatrains convey the impression as though the poet is travelling through the Hijazin his imagination. Profundity of ideas and intensity of passion are the salient features of these short poems. The Urdu portion of the book contains some categorical criticism of the intellectual movements and social and political revolutions of the modern age.

Political career

Iqbal with Muslim political activists.
(L to R): Mohammad Iqbal (third), Syed Zafarul Hasan (sixth) (at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India)

While dividing his time between law and poetry, Iqbal had remained active in the Muslim League. He supported Indian involvement in World War I, as well as the Khilafat movement and remained in close touch with Muslim political leaders such as Maulana Mohammad Ali and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He was a critic of the mainstream Indian National Congress, which he regarded as dominated by Hindus and was disappointed with the League when during the 1920s, it was absorbed in factional divides between the pro-British group led by Sir Muhammad Shafi and the centrist group led by Jinnah.

In November 1926, with the encouragement of friends and supporters, Iqbal contested for a seat in the Punjab Legislative Assembly from the Muslim district of Lahore, and defeated his opponent by a margin of 3,177 votes.^[10] He supported the constitutional proposals presented by Jinnah with the aim of guaranteeing Muslim political rights and influence in a coalition with the Congress, and worked with the Aga Khan and other Muslim leaders to mend the factional divisions and achieve unity in the Muslim League.

Revival of Islamic polity

Iqbal's second book in English, the Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, is a collection of his six lectures which he delivered atMadras, Hyderabad and Aligarh; first published as a collection in Lahore, in 1930. These lectures dwell on the role of Islam as a religion as well as a political and legal philosophy in the modern age. In these lectures Iqbal firmly rejects the political attitudes and conduct of Muslim politicians, whom he saw as morally misguided, attached to power and without any standing with Muslim masses. Iqbal expressed fears that not only would secularism weaken the spiritual foundations of Islam and Muslim society, but that India's Hindu-majority population would crowd out Muslim heritage, culture and political influence. In his travels to Egypt, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey, he promoted ideas of greater Islamic political co-operation and unity, calling for the shedding of nationalist differences. He also speculated on different political arrangements to guarantee Muslim political power; in a dialogue with Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Iqbal expressed his desire to see Indian provinces as autonomous units under the direct control of the British government and with no central Indian government. He envisaged autonomous Muslim provinces in India. Under one Indian union he feared for Muslims, who would suffer in many respects especially with regard to their existentially separate entity as Muslims.^[10] Sir Muhammad Iqbal was elected president of the Muslim League in 1930 at its session inAllahabad, in the United Provinces as well as for the session in Lahore in 1932. In his presidential address on December 29, 1930, Iqbal outlined a vision of an independent state for Muslim-majority provinces in northwestern India:

Iqbal with Choudhary Rahmat Ali and other Muslim activists

"I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistanamalgamated into a single state. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated Northwest Indian Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of Northwest India."^[2]

In his speech, Iqbal emphasised that unlike Christianity, Islam came with "legal concepts" with "civic significance," with its "religious ideals" considered as inseparable from social order: "therefore, the construction of a policy on national lines, if it means a displacement of the Islamic principle of solidarity, is simply unthinkable to a Muslim."^[11] Iqbal thus stressed not only the need for the political unity of Muslim communities, but the undesirability of blending the Muslim population into a wider society not based on Islamic principles. He thus became the first politician to articulate what would become known as the Two-Nation Theory — that Muslims are a distinct nation and thus deserve political independence from other regions and communities of India. However, he would not elucidate or specify if his ideal Islamic state would construe a theocracy, even as he rejected secularism and nationalism. The latter part of Iqbal's life was concentrated on political activity. He would travel across Europe and West Asia to garner political and financial support for the League, and he reiterated his ideas in his 1932 address, and during the Third Round-Table Conference, he opposed the Congress and proposals for transfer of power without considerable autonomy or independence for Muslim provinces. He would serve as president of the Punjab Muslim League, and would deliver speeches and publish articles in an attempt to rally Muslims across India as a single political entity. Iqbal consistently criticised feudal classes in Punjab as well as Muslim politicians averse to the League. He fell prey to Punjabi dominated Muslims of region. Muslims across Indian subcontinent opposed the idea of two nation theory. Many unnoticed account of Iqbal's frustration toward Congress leadership were also pivotal of visioning the two nation theory. He also wanted to prove that defeat of Muslim ummat can be at least saved in this region by dividing the societies within British India in the name of Islam.

Patron of The Journal Tolu-e-Islam

The First Journal of Tolu-e-Islam

He was also the first patron of the historical, political, religious, cultural journal of Muslims of British India and Pakistan. This journal played an important part in the Pakistan movement. The name of this journal is The Journal Tolu-e-Islam. In 1935, according to his instructions, Syed Nazeer Niazi initiated and edited, a journal Tolu-e-Islam^[12] named after the famous poem of Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Tulu'i Islam. He also dedicated the first edition of this journal to Sir Muhammad Iqbal. For a long time Sir Muhammad Iqbal wanted a journal to propagate his ideas and the aims and objective of Muslim league. It was Syed Nazeer Niazi, a close friend of his and a regular visitor to him during his last two years, who started this journal. He also made Urdu translation of The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, by Sir Muhammad Iqbal.

The page of First Journal of Tolu-e-Islam in which Syed Nazeer dedicated this journal to Sir Iqbal

In the first monthly journal of Oct. 1935, an article "Millat Islamia Hind" The Muslim nation of India was published. In this article Syed Nazeer Niazi described the political conditions of British India and the aims and objectives of the Muslim community. He also discussed the basic principles of Islam which were aims and objective of Sir Muhammad Iqbal' concept of an Islamic State.

The early contributors to this journal were eminent Muslim scholars like Maulana Aslam Jairajpuri, Ghulam Ahmed Pervez, Dr. Zakir Hussain Khan, Syed Naseer Ahmed, Raja Hassan Akhtar, Maulvi Ghulam Yezdani, Ragheb Ahsan, Sheikh Suraj ul Haq, Rafee ud din Peer, Prof. fazal ud din Qureshi, Agha Muhammad Safdar, Asad Multani, Dr. Tasadaq Hussain, Prof. Yusuf Saleem Chisti.

Afterward, this journal was continued^[13] by Ghulam Ahmed Pervez, who had already contributed many articles in the early editions of this journal. After the emergence of Pakistan, the mission of the journal Tolu-e-Islam was to propagate the implementation of the principle which had inspired the demand for separate Muslim State according to the Quran. This journal is still published by Idara Tolu-e-Islam, Lahore.

Relationship with Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Final years & death

Tomb of Muhammad Iqbal at the entrance of the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore

In 1933, after returning from a trip to Spain and Afghanistan, Iqbal began suffering from a mysterious throat illness.^[18] He spent his final years helping Chaudhry Niaz Ali Khan establish the Dar ul Islam Trust Institute at the latter's Jamalpur estate near Pathankot,^[19]^[20] an institution where studies in classical Islam and contemporary social science would be subsidised, and advocating the demand for an independent Muslim state.^[21] Iqbal ceased practising law in 1934 and he was granted pension by the Nawab of Bhopal. In his final years he frequently visited theDargah of famous Sufi Hazrat Ali Hujwiri in Lahore for spiritual guidance. After suffering for months from his illness, Iqbal died in Lahore on 21 April 1938. His tomb is located in Hazuri Bagh, the enclosed garden between the entrance of the Badshahi Mosque and the Lahore Fort, and official guards are maintained there by the Government of Pakistan.

Iqbal is commemorated widely in Pakistan, where he is regarded as the ideological founder of the state. His Tarana-e-Hind is a song that is widely used in India as a patriotic song speaking of communal harmony. His birthday is annually commemorated in Pakistan as Iqbal Day, a national holiday. Iqbal is the namesake of many public institutions, including the Allama Iqbal Campus Punjab University in Lahore, the Allama Iqbal Medical College in Lahore, Iqbal Stadiumin Faisalabad, Allama Iqbal Open University, the Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore, and Gulshan-e-Iqbal Town in Karachi. Government and public organizations have sponsored the establishment of colleges and schools dedicated to Iqbal, and have established theIqbal Academy to research, teach and preserve the works, literature and philosophy of Iqbal. Allama Iqbal Stamps Society established for the promotion of Iqbaliyat in philately and in other hobbies. His son Javid Iqbal has served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Javaid Manzil was the last residence of Allama Iqbal.

Influence and legacy

Street named in Iqbal's honour in Heidelberg, Germany.

If we are resolved to describe Islam as a system of superior values, we are obliged, first of all, to acknowledge that we are not the true representatives of Islam.
—Muhammad Iqbal

Allama Iqbal's poetry has also been translated into several European languages where his works were famous during the early part of the 20th century. Iqbal’s Asrar-i-Khudi andJaved Nama were translated into English by R A Nicholson and A J Arberry respectively.

EID-UL-ADHA

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 04:37:00 +0000

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eid al-Adha (Arabic: عيد الأضحى‎ ‘Īd al-’Aḍḥá, IPA: [ʕiːd al ʔadˁˈħaː], "feast of sacrifice") or "Festival of Sacrifice" or "Greater Eid" is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslimsworldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrifice his son Ishmael(Isma'il) as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a sheep— to sacrifice instead.

Eid al-Adha is the latter of two Eid festivals celebrated by Muslims, whose basis comes fromSura 2 (Al-Baqara) Ayah 196 in the Qur'an.^[2] Like Eid ul-Fitr, Eid al-Adha begins with a Sunnahprayer of two Raka'ah (units) followed by a sermon (khuṭbah).

The word "Eid" appears in Sura al-Mai'da ("The Table Spread," Chapter 5) of the Qur'an, meaning 'solemn festival'.^[3]

Eid al-Adha is celebrated annually on the 10th day of the 12th and the last Islamic month of Dhu al-Hijjah (ذو الحجة) of the lunar Islamic calendar.^[4] Eid al-Adha celebrations start after the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia by Muslims worldwide, descend from Mount Arafat. The date is approximately 70 days (2 Months & 10 days) after the end of the month of Ramadan, i.e. Eid-ul-Fitr. Ritual observance of the holiday lasts until sunset of the 13th day of Dhu al-Hijjah.

Other names

Eid al-Adha celebrations start after the annual Hajj is completed in Mecca.

The Arabic term "Festival of Sacrifice", ‘Eid ul-’Aḍḥā, is similar to the Semitic roots that evolved into Indic languages such as Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati and Bengali and Austronesian languagessuch as Malay and Indonesian (the last often spelling it as Idul Adha or Iduladha).

Another Semitic word for "sacrifice" is the Arabic Qurbān(Arabic: قربان‎), which is used in Dari Persian and Standard Persian as Eyde Ghorbân عید قربان, and in Tajik Persian as Иди Қурбон (Idi Qurbon), into Kazakh as Құрбан айт (Qurban ayt), into Uyghur as Qurban Heyit, and also into various Indic languages. Other languages combined the Arabic word qurbānwith local terms for "festival", as in Kurdish (Cejna Qurbanê^[6]),Pashto (Kurbaneyy Akhtar), Chinese (古尔邦节 Gúěrbāng Jié), Malay and Indonesian (Hari Raya Korban, Qurbani), andTurkish (Kurban Bayramı).Azeri (Qurban Bayramı), Tatar(Qorban Bäyräme), Bosnian (Kurban bajram),Albanian(Bajramin e Kurbanit) Croatian (Kurban-bajram),Serbian (Курбан бајрам), Russian (Курбан-байрам), (Eid Kurbani Wari) in Sindhi.

Eid al-Kabir, "the Greater Eid" (the "Lesser Eid" being Eid ul-Fitr^[7]), is used in Yemen, Syria, and North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt). The term was borrowed directly into French as Aïd el-Kebir. Translations of "Big Eid" or "Greater Eid" are used in Pashto لوی اختر Loy Akhtar, KashmiriBaed Eid, Hindi and Urdu Baṛā Īd, Malayalam Bali Perunnal, and Tamil Peru Nāl.

Another name refers to the fact that the holiday occurs after the culmination of the Hajj (حج), or pilgrimage to Mecca (Makka). Such names are used in Malay and Indonesian (Hari Raya Haji "Hajj celebration day",Lebaran Haji), and in Tamil Hajji Peru Nāl.

In Urdu-speaking areas, the festival is also called بقرعید Baqra Īd or Baqrī Īd, stemming either from the Arabic baqarah "heifer" or the Urdu word baqrī for "goat", as cows and goats are among the traditionally sacrificed animals. That term was also borrowed into other languages, such as Tamil Bakr Eid Peru Nāl.

Other local names include 宰牲节 Zǎishēng Jié ("Slaughter-livestock Festival") in Chinese, Tfaska Tamoqqart in the Berber language of Djerba, Tabaski or Tobaski in West African languages,^[8]^[9] Babbar Sallah in Nigerian languages, and ciida gawraca in Somali.

Eid-al-Adha has had other names outside the Muslim world. The name is often simply translated into the local language, such as English Festival of Sacrifice, German Opferfest, Dutch Offerfeest, RomanianSărbătoarea Sacrificiului and Hungarian Áldozati ünnep. In Spanish, it is known as the Fiesta del Cordero, the Festival of the Lamb.

In Bangladesh and West Bengal it is known as Korbanir Eid..............

Origin

According to Islamic tradition, approximately four thousand years ago, the valley of Mecca (in what is nowSaudi Arabia) was a dry, rocky and uninhabited place. Abraham ('Ibraheem in Arabic) was instructed to bring his Egyptian wife Hajra (Hāǧar) and Ishmael, his only child at the time (Ismā'īl), to Arabia from the land of Canaan by God's command.

As Abraham was preparing for his return journey back to Canaan, Hajra asked him, "Did Allah (God) order you to leave us here? or are you leaving us here to die." Abraham turned around to face his wife. He was so sad that he couldn't say anything. he pointed to the sky showing that God commanded him to do so. Hagar said, "Then Allah will not waste us; you can go". Though Abraham had left a large quantity of food and water with Hajra and Ishmael, the supplies quickly ran out, and within a few days the two began to feel the pangs of hunger and dehydration.

Hajra ran up and down between two hills called Al-Safa and Al-Marwah seven times, in her desperate quest for water. Exhausted, she finally collapsed beside her baby Ishmael and prayed to God for deliverance. Miraculously, a spring of water gushed forth from the earth at the feet of baby Ishmael. Other accounts have the angel Gabriel (Jibrail) striking the earth and causing the spring to flow in abundance. With this secure water supply, known as the Zamzam Well, they were not only able to provide for their own needs, but were also able to trade water with passing nomads for food and supplies.

Years later, Abraham was instructed by God to return from Canaan to build a place of worship adjacent to Hagar's well (the Zamzam Well). Abraham and Ishmael constructed a stone and mortar structure —known as the Kaaba— which was to be the gathering place for all who wished to strengthen their faith in God. As the years passed, Ishmael was blessed with Prophethood (Nubuwwah) and gave the nomads of the desert his message of submission to God. After many centuries, Mecca became a thriving desert city and a major center for trade, thanks to its reliable water source, the well of Zamzam.

One of the main trials of Abraham's life was to face the command of God to devote his dearest possession, his only son. Upon hearing this command, he prepared to submit to God's will. During this preparation, Satan (Shaitan) tempted Abraham and his family by trying to dissuade them from carrying out God's commandment, and Ibrahim drove Satan away by throwing pebbles at him. In commemoration of their rejection of Satan, stones are thrown at symbolic pillars signifying Satan during the Hajj rites.

In many Muslim cultures the graves of the deceased are also visited during the day of Eid al-Adha.

When Ishmael was about 13 (Ibrahim being 99), Allah (God) decided to test their faith in public. Abraham had a recurring dream, in which God was commanding him to offer his son as a sacrifice – an unimaginable act – sacrificing his son, which God had granted him after many years of deep prayer. Abraham knew that the dreams of the prophets were divinely inspired, and one of the ways in which God communicated with his prophets. When the intent of the dreams became clear to him, Abraham decided to fulfill God's command and offer Ishmael for sacrifice.

Although Abraham was ready to sacrifice his dearest for Allah's sake, he could not just go and drag his son to the place of sacrifice without his consent. Isma'el had to be consulted as to whether he was willing to give up his life as fulfillment to God's command. This consultation would be a major test of Isma'el's maturity in faith, love and commitment for Allah, willingness to obey his father and sacrifice his own life for the sake of Allah.

Abraham presented the matter to his son and asked for his opinion about the dreams of slaughtering him. Ishmael did not show any hesitation or reservation even for a moment. He said, "Father, do what you have been commanded. You will find me, Insha'Allah (God willing), to be very patient." His mature response, his deep insight into the nature of his father’s dreams, his commitment to Allah, and ultimately his willingness to sacrifice his own life for the sake of Allah were all unprecedented.

When both father and son had shown their perfect obedience to Allah and they had practically demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice their most precious possessions for His sake — Abraham by laying down his son for sacrifice and Ishmael by lying patiently under the knife – Allah called out to them stating that his sincere intentions had been accepted, and that he need not carry out the killing of Ishmael. Instead, Abraham was told to replace his son with a ram to sacrifice instead. Allah also told them that they had passed the test imposed upon them by his willingness to carry out God's command.

This is mentioned in the Qur'an as follows:

"O my Lord! Grant me a righteous (son)!" So We gave him the good news of a boy, possessing forbearance. And when (his son) was old enough to walk and work with him, (Abraham) said: O my dear son, I see in vision that I offer you in sacrifice: Now see what is your view!" (The son) said: "O my father! Do what you are commanded; if Allah wills, you will find me one practising patience and steadfastness!" So when they both submitted and he threw him down upon his forehead, We called out to him saying: O Ibraheem! You have indeed fulfilled the vision; surely thus do We reward those who do good. Most surely this was a manifest trial. And We ransomed him with a momentous sacrifice. And We perpetuated (praise) to him among the later generations. "Peace and salutation to Abraham!" Thus indeed do We reward those who do right. Surely he was one of Our believing servants.^[11]

As a reward for this sacrifice, Allah then granted Abraham the good news of the birth of his second son, Is-haaq (Isaac):

And We gave him the good news of Is-haaq, a prophet from among the righteous.^[12]

Abraham had shown that his love for God superseded all others: that he would lay down his own life or the lives of those dearest to him in submission to God's command. Muslims commemorate this ultimate act of sacrifice every year during Eid al-Adha.

The Sunnah of Eid al-Adha

In keeping with the tradition of the Prophet Muhammad, Muslims are encouraged to prepare themselves for the occasion of Eid. Below is a list of things Muslims are recommended to do in preparation for the Eid al-Adha festival:

Make wudu (ablution) and offer Salat al-Fajr (the pre-sunrise prayer).
Prepare for personal cleanliness - take care of details of clothing, etc.
Dress up, putting on new or best clothes available.

Salat al-Eid (Eid prayer)

Muslims from the Ottoman Empire gather after Eid prayers to greet the Imam.

Salat al-Eid is a Wajib, not a fard kafaya. Fard kafaya meaning that if performed by some, the obligation falls from the rest congregational prayer. Eid prayer must be offered in congregation. It consists of two Raka'ah (units) with seven Takbirs in the first Raka'ah and five Takbirs in the second Raka'ah. For Sunni Muslims, Salat al-Eid differs from the five daily canonical prayers in that no adhan (Call to Prayer) or iqama (call) is pronounced for the two Eid prayers.^[13] However, Shi'ite Muslims may begin Salat al-Eid with adhan (Call to Prayer)—with a third repetition of the line "Hayya ala salah" ("Come to prayer")—and iqama (call).^[14] The Salaat (prayer) is then followed by the Khutbah, or sermon, by the Imam.

At the conclusion of the prayers and sermon, the Muslims embrace and exchange greetings with one other (Eid Mubarak), give gifts (Eidi) to children, and visit one another. Many Muslims also take this opportunity to invite their non-Muslims friends, neighbours, co-workers and classmates to their Eid festivities to better acquaint them about Islam and Muslim culture.^[15]

The Takbir and other rituals

The Takbir is recited from the dawn of the tenth of Dhu al-Hijjah to the thirteenth, and consists of:

Allāhu akbar, Allāhu akbar, Allāhu akbar	الله أكبر الله أكبر الله أكبر
lā ilāha illā Allāh	لا إله إلا الله
Allāhu akbar, Allāhu akbar	الله أكبر الله أكبر
wa li-illāhil-hamd	ولله الحمد

Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest,

There is no deity but Allah

Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest

and to Allah goes all praise

Variation

Allāhu akbar, Allāhu akbar	الله أكبر الله أكبر
lā ilāha illā Allāh	لا إله إلا الله
wa Allāhu akbar, Allāhu akbar	والله أكبر الله أكبر
wa li-illāhil-ḥamd	ولله الحمد
Alḥamdulillāh `alā mā hadānā, wa lahul-shukru `ala mā awlānā	الحمد لله على ما هدانا و له الشكر على ما اولانا

Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest,

There is no deity but Allah

and Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest

and to Allah goes all praise, (We) sing the praises of Allah because He has shown us the Right Path. (We) gratefully thank Him because He takes care of us and looks after our interests.

Variation:

Allāhu akbar, Allāhu akbar, Allāhu akbar	الله أكبر الله أكبر الله أكبر
lā ilāha illā Allāh	لا إله إلا الله
Allāhu akbar, Allāhu akbar	الله أكبر الله أكبر
wa li-illāhil-ḥamd	ولله الحمد
Allāhu akbar kabīra, wal ḥamdu lillāhi kathīra, wa subḥāna Allāhi bukratan wa aṣīlā	الله أكبر كبيرا والحمد لله كثيرا وسبحان الله بكرة وأصيلا
lā ilāha illā Allāh waḥdah(i)	لا اله إلا الله وحده
Ṣadaqa wa`dah, wa naṣara abdah, wa 'a`azza jundahu wa ḥazama al-aḥzaba waḥdah	صدق وعده ونصر عبده وأعز جنده وهزم الأحزاب وحده
lā ilāha illā Allāh	لا إله إلا الله
walā na`budu illā iyyāh	ولا نعبد إلا إياه
Mukhliṣīn lahu ud-dīn wa law kariha al kāfirūn	مخلصين له الدين ولو كره الكافرون
Allāhumma ṣallī `alā Sayyidinā Muḥammad, wa `alā āla Sayyidinā Muḥammad, wa `alā aṣḥabi Sayyidinā Muḥammad, wa `alā anṣāri Sayyidinā Muḥammad, wa `alā azwāji Sayyidinā Muḥammad, wa `alā ḏurriyyati Sayyidinā Muḥammadin wa sallim taslīman kathīra	اللهم صل على سيدنا محمد وعلى آل سيدنا محمد وعلى أصحاب سيدنا محمد وعلى أنصار سيدنا محمد وعلى أزواج سيدنا محمد وعلى ذرية سيدنا محمد وسلم تسليما كثيرا

Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest,

There is no deity but Allah

Allah is the Greatest, Allah is the Greatest

and to Allah goes all praise

Allah is the Greatest, all Praise is due to Him, And Glory to Allah, eventide and in the morning

There is no god, but Allah the Unique

He has fulfilled His Promise, and made Victorious His worshipper, and made Mighty His soldiers and defeated the confederates

There is no deity but Allah

He alone we worship

With sincere and exclusive devotion, even though the infidels hate it

O Allah, have Mercy on our Prophet Muhammad, and on the family of our Prophet Muhammad, and on the Companions of our Prophet Muhammad, and on the Helpers of our Prophet Muhammad, and on the wives of our Prophet Muhammad, and on the offspring of our Prophet Muhammad, and bestow upon them much peace.

Eid Prayer is Wajib, not a fard kafaya.

Traditions and practices

A panorama in 12 folds showing Muslims returning from their Mosques after Eid prayers in the Mughal Empire.

Men, women, and children are expected to dress in their finest clothing to perform Eid prayer (ṣalātu l-`Īdi) in a large congregation is an open waqf field called Eidgah ormosque. Those Muslims who can afford, i.e Malik-e-Nisaab; sacrifice their best domestic animals (usually a cow, but can also be a camel, goat, sheep or ram depending on the region) as a symbol of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his only son. The sacrificed animals, called Uḍhiyyah (Arabic: أضحية‎, also known by its Persian term, "al-Qurbāni"), have to meet certain age and quality standards or else the animal is considered an unacceptable sacrifice. This tradition accounts for more than 100 million slaughtering of animals in only 2 days of Eid. In Pakistan alone nearly 10 million animals are slaughtered on Eid days costing over US$ 3 billion.^[17]

The meat from the sacrificed animal is divided into three parts. The family retains one third of the share; another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors; and the other third is given to the poor and needy. The regular charitable practices of the Muslim community are demonstrated during Eid al-Adha by concerted efforts to see that no impoverished person is left without an opportunity to partake in the sacrificial meal during these days.

During Eid al-Adha, distributing meat amongst the people, chanting the Takbir out loud before the Eid prayer on the first day and after prayers throughout the three days of Eid, are considered essential parts of this important Islamic festival. In some countries, families that do not own livestock can make a contribution to a charity that will provide meat to those who are in need.

Eid al-Adha in the Gregorian calendar

Lady teacher breaks the arm of a girl-student

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 14:38:00 +0000

Released on - Saturday,05 November , 2011 -13:13

CHINIOT: A lady teacher getting furious over not bringing the fees of paltry rupee one by her class-I girl-student severely tortured and broken her tender arm, Geo News reported.

Zeenat Bibi, a teacher of Danga government primary school tortured and broken the arm of her Class-I girl-student Ruqaiyya Bibi, 9 for failing to bring a paltry rupee one fees.

Ruqaiyya?s mother Shamim Bibi told that the brute teacher had tortured her daughter for the same reason a month ago also, but on intervention of the neighbours and an apology from the teacher, the matter was hushed up. Now on repeated teacher?s brutality, she (Shamim Bibi) has submitted a petition against the teacher for registering a case.

This Article Taken From: PK.MSN.COM

Useful Link: http://pk.msn.com/news/localnews/jg/2011/november/10509364.aspx?region=pk.&featuredPK1

This Taxi Driver Wants You to Google Him!

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:38:00 +0000

You've seen Google on Business Cards but now meet a taxi driver from Pakistan who uses the Google logo to promote his cab service as well his book "For Hire."

Asif's unique idea may have already won him some prospective customers. Alexia Tsotsis, from San Francisco Weekly writes, "Asif, if we ever need a cab in Pakistan, we promise you'll be the first person we'll call."

Asif Hussain Shah doesn't have a web page yet but if you search for his name on Google, the first few links point to some YouTube videos about his Urdu book.

This Article Taken From: WWW.LABNOL.ORG

Useful Link: http://www.labnol.org/home/google-taxi-driver/12884/

The Launch of Paksat-1R Satellite / Pakistan & China Cooperation

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:55:00 +0000

Pakistan's first Communications Satellite PAKSAT-1R, as a part of Pakistan's Space Programme 2040, was launched on 11th August 2011 at 2117 hrs, on board China's Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre.

Besides others, launch was witnessed by Secretary Defence Lt Gen Syed Athar Ali (R), Secretary Foreign Affairs, Salman Bashir, Director General, Strategic Plans Division Lt Gen Khalid Ahmed Kidwai (R) and Ambassador of Pakistan to China, Muhammad Masood Khan, said a press release issued here.

PAKSAT-1R has a total of 30 transponders, 12 in C-band and 18 in Ku-band.The satellite will be deployed at 380E in the Geo-stationary orbit and it will replace the existing satellite PAKSAT-1.

PAKSAT-1R has a design life of 15 years and will provide TV broadcasting, Internet and data communication services across South and Central Asia, Eastern Europe, East Africa and the Far East. This satellite now enables extending of communication services to all areas of Pakistan.

How To Become A Superhero?

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 16:16:00 +0000

Science:

David M. Ewalt, 06.28.06, 3:00 PM ET

What's the best way to develop your own super powers? Click here to find out.

Look up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s ... you?

Why not? Who hasn’t dreamed about casting off the bonds of gravity and soaring through the air like Superman or sticking to the side of buildings like Spider-Man?

Unfortunately, physics has a way of ruining a good fantasy. After all, superheroes only exist in comic books and movies. People can't really fly, shoot laser beams or bench-press pickup trucks.

Or can they?

Traditionally, heroes develop their powers in unusual ways--radiation exposure, mutant genes, even deals with the devil. As a result, they can lift cars, control the weather or change their appearance. Is any of this even remotely plausible? Do any of the comic-book methods for gaining superpowers actually work?

Can a radioactive spider really give you superpowers? Click here to find out.

Superman was lucky enough to gain his powers as an accident of birth. Born Kal-El, the sole survivor of the destroyed planet Krypton, his alien anatomy is supercharged by the light of our yellow sun, giving him abilities as varied as flight, heat vision and bullet-proof skin.

Much of Superman's story doesn't ring true, says Phil Plait, an astronomer who runs Bad Astronomy, a Web site dedicated to correcting misconceptions about our universe and promoting good science. "I can't think of any way of making a planet explode," he says. "It would take a huge amount of energy."

But there could be a kernel of truth to the Superman legend. "Krypton orbited a star that was a red giant," says Plait. "The difference between a red giant and our sun is that a red giant is cooler. There are other things, but a star like the sun is hotter, so it puts out more light in the ultraviolet, in the blue part of the spectrum. So if you could think of some way that ultraviolet light would take someone like Kal-El and make him able to fly around, then more power to you."

Of course, those of us born here on Earth have to find other ways to fuel our superpowers. Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk and Daredevil all benefited from exposure to radioactive materials--what about giving yourself a dose of some unstable atomic nuclei to jump-start your powers?

Not a good idea, according to radiation safety consultant George J. Vargo. "The bottom line is, what all of this stuff does when it enters the body is collide with atoms and molecules," he says. Small doses of radiation cause damage that can easily be repaired. A little more can make you very sick or result in the loss of limbs through amputation. Crank up the dosage past 600 rem (a standard unit for measuring radiation)--an amount 1,600 times what the average person is exposed to every year--and you'll be dead within 14 days. "That's a one-way trip," says Vargo. "You damage the cells that line the small intestine, begin to lose one of the body's most important fluid barriers, and quite literally you leak out the gut."

Given enough money, you could probably buy your way into the crime-fighting game. Batman doesn't have any superpowers--just a superwallet. The Caped Crusader's alter ego, Bruce Wayne, is the owner of Wayne Enterprises, a massive international technology conglomerate. In our Forbes Fictional Fifteen listing of the richest fictional characters, we estimated his net worth at $6.3 billion. If Wayne was a real guy, he'd be the 33rd richest person in America, tied with Fidelity Investments 'Edward Crosby Johnson III, and right behind News Corp.'s (nyse: NWS -news - people ) Rupert Murdoch.

Bruce Wayne uses his riches to equip himself with high-powered military hardware. It's a recipe that could certainly work in the real world, but at a hefty price: In our story " Being Batman," we estimated Batman's startup costs at over $3.3 million.

So what to do if you're not a billionaire or an extraterrestrial? The good folks at DC and Marvel (nyse: MVL - news - people ) comics have come up with lots of ways to turn man into superman. Join us as we examine whether any of the comic book super power-ups would actually work.

What's the best way to develop your own super powers? Click here to find out.

This Article Taken From: Forbes.com

Useful Link: http://www.forbes.com/2006/06/28/become-superman-superhero_cx_de_0628superhero.html

Teenagers recruited, trained as suicide bombers

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:38:00 +0000

Staff Report

For CentralAsiaOnline.com 2011-04-11

Children, some as young as 10, attend a Taliban-run suicide bomber training centre in Spinaki, South Waziristan. The Pakistani Army recovered this video showing a masked instructor and armed guards when it liberated the area in 2008. [YouTube frame grab]

First in a series

On April 3, two suicide bombers struck the Sakhi Sarwar Shrine in Dera Ghazi Khan, killing 50 worshippers and wounding more than 100 others.

The bombers who died – and two would-be bombers arrested at the shrine – were all teenagers. In 2010 suicide bombings in Pakistan reached a deadly peak. Just 49 bombings claimed 1,167 lives, according to official statistics. This represents a startling increase over 2009, when 76 suicide bombings killed 949.

Perhaps even more troubling than the numbers of victims is that many of the suicide bombings are committed by teenagers – usually boys – abducted and brainwashed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Taliban sources have claimed to have anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand teenagers trained as suicide bombers, while government sources say as many as 5,000 teenagers have undergone training by militants.

Pakistan’s children don't sow terror just at home. About 10% of the local suicide bombers are used locally while the rest are sent across the border to Afghanistan, one official of the Forensic Science Section of the Peshawar Police Department said.

Today, Central Asia Online begins a six-part series examining how the Taliban transforms teenagers into walking bombs ready to end their own lives.

Recruitment

The process begins with recruitment, which usually means kidnapping and brainwashing. Teenagers in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are kidnapped by the TTP while on their way to school or work, or plucked from a madrassa where they have been studying, and sent to one of a number of training centres in areas under Taliban control.

The children of the poor are usually more vulnerable to abduction and training as suicide bombers. Poor parents lack the resources to pay a ransom to free their child. And teenagers from impoverished homes are more emotionally vulnerable to the TTP’s brainwashing because they have little hope for a good life – and have received little or no education, leaving them ill-prepared to stand up to the Taliban’s techniques.

Training

Teenagers already studying in a madrassa, especially one run by extremists, may be more ready than peers attending a non-religious school to become a militant combatant or suicide bomber, especially after five or 10 years of study.

“A cleric has plenty of time to mould them to his way of thinking,” said Abdul Basit, an expert on suicide bombings at the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies in Islamabad. “The child sees no life outside the madrassa. It is everything – provider of food, education and social security. It’s the world he knows.”

Kept in isolation, the children receive a distorted view of the teachings of Islam and hear that it is the duty of Muslims to kill infidels. In some cases they learn it is no sin to kill other Muslims – as martyrs, they, too, will go straight to paradise along with the bomber. And once they reach paradise, rivers of milk and honey and beautiful virgins await.

Police remove explosives from Umar, 14, who failed to detonate his suicide vest at the Sakhi Sarwar Shrine in Dera Ghazi Khan April 3 after he was wounded by a grenade. Umar later said as many as 400 suicide bombers – many of them teenagers – are being trained in North Waziristan. [REUTERS/Sheikh Asif Raza]

That training can turn them into religious fanatics convinced they’re following Islam.

Umar, one of the teenagers arrested at the Sakhi Sarwar Shrine, was not ready to give up even after one of his grenades blew off his hand, said Khalid Mahmood, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), Dera Ghazi Khan.

“When we captured him, he was shouting to let him free since he wanted to be a martyr and it’s a moral duty to send all policemen and army personnel to hell,” Khalid said. “It portrays the level of indoctrination he had received.” Some don’t accept the Taliban’s dogma, and in those cases militants threaten, beat or forcibly drug children into compliance.

Families suffer

Often the families do not know what has become of their children – until it’s too late. In a society where children play an important role in financially and emotionally supporting the entire family, their loss is especially devastating.

The 15-year-old son of Allah Dad Khan in a village near Mardan disappeared on his way to work one day. Allah Dad learned his son had carried out a suicide bombing in Afghanistan only when the Taliban offered him some money as compensation. Allah Dad still can’t fully accept that his son won’t return one day.

De-radicalisation

Not every child trained as a suicide bomber is sent to blow up others. A number have been freed after the army has retaken territory from the militants.

The Mishal school in Barikot Tehsil of Swat is one of a number of government-run schools that work with teens freed from the grip of the Taliban. Psychologists and others work with the children to correct the misperceptions of Islam the Taliban has given them. They also receive vocational training to give them hope for a better future.

Regrets of a lone survivor

Central Asia Online’s series will end with an interview with Zara Jan Khan. In many ways, Zara Jan is a typical Taliban-recruited teenager. Uneducated and from a poor family, he agreed to Taliban training because militants assured him he would be killing infidels. On February 19, Zara Jan took part in the assault on the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, branch of Kabul Bank. The only militant to survive that attack, he now knows the Taliban misled him and has come to regret his actions.

This Article Taken From: CentralAsiaOnline.com

Useful Link: http://centralasiaonline.com/cocoon/caii/xhtml/en_GB/features/caii/features/pakistan/main/2011/04/11/feature-02

Obama: bin Laden sea burial ‘was respectful’

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Fri, 06 May 2011 11:57:00 +0000

Earlier this week, we told you that some Islamic scholars questioned President Obama's decision to bury Osama bin Laden at sea--arguing that a maritime burial isn't in keeping with Muslim practice.

In his interview with 60 Minutes --excerpted above, and to air in full Sunday--the president was at pains to beat back those criticisms.

Asked by correspondent Steve Kroft about the decision, Obama responded:

Frankly, we took more care on this than, obviously, bin Laden took when he killed 3,000 people. He didn't have much regard for how they were treated and desecrated. But that, again, is something that makes us different. And I think we handled it appropriately.

Kroft followed up by asking whether Obama himself had made the decision. The president responded:

It was a joint decision. We thought it was important to think through ahead of time how we would dispose of the body if he were killed in the compound. And I think that what we tried to do was--consulting with experts in Islamic law and ritual--to find something that was appropriate, that was, respectful of the body.

(In an image taken from a video broadcast, Dec. 24, 1998, Osama bin Laden spoke during an interview at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan.: ABC News/AP)

This Article Taken From: YAHOO! News

Useful Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110505/ts_yblog_thelookout/obama-bin-laden-sea-burial-was-respectful

The Real Story Of Prostitution in Pakistan(Kahani Tawaif Ki Zubani - Hira Mandi)

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 10:48:00 +0000

A banned documentary which never came on TV. A must watch for every Pakistani and take a positive message and try to understand the true story of these Prostitutions(Tawaifes). We call our society an Islamic Society do we deserve for it? May ALLAH show us a rite path. (Amin!)

Strangest Creature Found on Earth

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 04:09:00 +0000

I don’t think these photos requires any special comment. These are fantastic world news worthy of headlining any newspaper around the world. This creature, was found on Thailand, its strangely shaped body leaves a lot of mastery around it . The photographer has captured with his camera a truly unique and amazing moment, and got himself a fantastic photographs that make up a great story.

As all good mysteries it happens in far away from the technology wonders of the modern society in Thailand. You can see a lot of local folks in the background of these photos that seem to worship this creature they have “found”. The end result is an even more absurd and even humorous scene. They managed to get me even more amazed by this baby powder and juices they brought as a tribute to this creature. They have even brought a fan to keep it well preserved for the scientists.

Lets turn to the main subject, or should I say object, of this photo series the fantastically colored and shaped body of the creature. There has been a lot of debates about what this creature might be and that is exactly the beauty of mystery, the inability to solve it. It might be some kind of strange animal, it even looks like a mythical creature. Honestly I don’t know what to think about this event. These photographs do raise more questions than answers…

This Article Taken From: CHILLOUTPOINT.COM

Useful Link: http://www.chilloutpoint.com/odd_world/strangest-creature-found-on-earth.html

Soviet Russia had two chances to kill Hitler

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 04:47:00 +0000

The Soviet Union had at least two opportunities to eliminate Adolf Hitler, but Joseph Stalin did not give the go ahead, fearing the signing of a separate peace treaty between Germany and the Allies.

The facts were revealed by Russia’s former Interior Minister, General Anatoly Kulikov, at the “Unknown Pages of the Great Victory” conference, which took place in the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia.

“Few people know that in 1941 the leadership of the Soviet Union made a decision to eliminate Hitler. At first, it was planned to do in Russia, in Moscow, in case German troops captured the capital. It was later planned to liquidate Hitler in his headquarters, but, suddenly in 1943, Stalin decided not to do so, fearing that, after Hitler’s death, his entourage will sign a separate peace treaty with Britain and the US without the involvement of Russia. The facts proving such negotiations exist,” RIA Novosti news agency cited Kulikov.

According to the General, who now heads the Club of Military Commanders of the Russian Federation, the USSR had a second chance to assassinate Hitler in 1944.

“The detailed plan of the assault was already prepared, but a sudden rejection from Stalin came once again. And this happened despite the fact that there was already a person prepared, who intentionally surrendered to the Germans and was enjoying their confidence. That operation had all the chances for success,” he stressed.

Kulikov added that the Club of Military Commanders possesses an even larger amount of lesser-known facts about the Great Patriotic War.

“We plan to publish a 500 or 600-page collection of these materials and reveal it to the public,” he announced.

The Article Taken from: RT.COM

Useful Link: http://rt.com/news/soviets-chances-kill-hitler/?utm_source=2leep&utm_medium=2leep&utm_campaign=2leep

Mysterious Finding in the Steppe of Volgograd

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 04:39:00 +0000

You might hear this spring that in Mokraya Olkhovka village of the Volgograd region there were found strange spherical objects and the first version sounded that they found petrified eggs of a dinosaur!

We got a chance to look closer at the interesting finding…They are approximately of the same size – about one meter in the diameter and in the height as well. They consist of silicon, sand and metal so there’s no any connection to dinosaurs … Besides, we may see corrosion on some of them.

Another version: hundreds of millions years ago here was a sea and an active underwater volcano that could produce not only steam but water-insoluble minerals as well. They melted in the volcanic orifice, agglomerated, cooled and sank out.

It’s not a bad idea but it doesn’t explain why these objects have the same spherical shape and are located so close to each other.

It turned out that similar objects have already been found in other areas of the Earth, particularly in Kazakhstan and New Zealand. There is a scientific term to such phenomenon – “Concretion”, according to their discription these objects do look like silicon concretion.

Concretion found in New Zeland.

Concretion found in the steppe of Kazakhstan.

These findings are not protected and anyone may ruin them or take with him … Such indifference is still shocking even for this country.

This Article Taken From: ENGLISHRUSSIA.COM

Useful Link: http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2010/10/05/mysterious-finding-in-the-steppe-of-volgograd/

Funniest Action Movie Ever(Ashamed For Pakistani Film Industry)

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 05:26:00 +0000

There’s HOLLYWOOD, there’s BOLLYWOOD but hey don’t you ever forget LOLLYWOOD. The following scene is taken from a TOP CLASS action movie which was made in the year 2000. You can imagine the situation of the film industry and the taste of the people if movies like this one are super hits.

Subtitles have been added and some mistakes have been pointed out. But one thing is very dominant in this movie. They never run out of ammo. A 30 round magazine can last many days and a shotgun with capacity of 8 rounds only can go on shooting as long as you want. Enjoy…

This Article Taken From: ROCKINGFACTS.COM

Useful Links: http://www.rockingfacts.com/funniest-action-movie-ever/#more-496

A True Love Story that Shocked the World

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 21:37:00 +0000

And many people think that animals/birds do not have a brain or feelings ?????

*Love Story of Barn Swallows*

Here his wife is injured and the condition is fatal. She was hit by a car as she swooped down the road.

This brought food and attended to her with love and compassion.

He brought her food again, but was surprised to find her dead. He tried to move her …. an effort rarely seen, the swallows!

Aware that his beloved fellow has died and he will never see her again, Cries with adoring love.

He stood beside her, sad for her death.

Finally, aware that he would never make her come back, standing next to her body with sadness and pain.

Song on This - Ae Khuda Tune Mohabbat Ye Banai Kioun Hai:

To Download: Right Click Here! To Save As A Target.

This Article is Taken From: WWW.ROCKINGFACTS.COM

Useful Link: http://www.rockingfacts.com/a-true-love-story-that-shocked-the-world/

A True Love Story that Shocked the World (Video Version)

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 21:18:00 +0000

This is the True Love Story that has shocked the millions of people around the world. People cried after seeing these pictures in America and Europe and even in Asia. It is said that photographer sold these pictures for a nominal fee to most famous newspaper in France. All copies of that the newspaper was sold the first day these pictures were published.

And many people think that animals/birds do not have a brain or feelings ?????

Credits:

Eidited By: Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)
Song: Ae Khuda Tune Mohabbat Ye Banai Kioun Hai
Article Taken From: www.rockingfact.com
Posted & WebSupport: www.khawajasblog.tk

The 1st Morning of 2011 in MurreeHills

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 17:07:00 +0000

The 1st Beautiful Morning of New Year 2011 in Murree Hills, 1st sunrises of 2011 in Murree Hills, with very pace and giving the wishes to all over the Pakistan, Hope this Sunrises bring lots of happiness to us and our Pakistan...!!!!

1st time in the history of Murree this 1st new year sunrises is captured by Khawaja Khalid Qayyum the Owner & the founder of MurreeHills.CO.CC website and the BLOG of Murree Hills.

On this NewYear of 2011 with this 1st Beautiful Morning of Murree Hills we announced the Lunch of most updated BLOG of Murree Hills, where you can find the most updates about Murree and its surrounding area's.

For Further Details Please Visit:
http://blog.murreehill.co.cc
OR
www.murreehill.co.cc

Credits:

Filmed & Edited By: Khawaja Khalid(Nomi Prince)
WebSupported: WWW.MURREEHILL.CO.CC

Muhammad Ali Jinnah(Father Nation Pakistan)

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 00:43:00 +0000

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia & Video's From YouTube

Mohammad Ali Jinnah (Urdu: محمد علی جناح, Sindhi: محمد علي جيڻا, Audio); December 25, 1876 – September 11, 1948) was a 20th century lawyer, politician,statesman and the founder of Pakistan. He is popularly and officially known in Pakistan as Quaid-e-Azam(Urdu: قائد اعظم — "Great Leader") and Baba-e-Qaum(باباۓ قوم) ("Father of the Nation").

Jinnah served as leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until Pakistan's independence on August 14, 1947 and Pakistan's first Governor-General from August 15, 1947 until his death on September 11, 1948. Jinnah rose to prominence in the Indian National Congress initially expounding ideas of Hindu-Muslim unity and helping shape the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Muslim League and the Indian National Congress; he also became a key leader in the All India Home Rule League. He proposed a fourteen-point constitutional reform plan to safeguard the political rights of Muslims in a self-governing India.

Jinnah later advocated the Two-Nation Theory embracing the goal of creating a separate Muslim state as per the Lahore Resolution. The League won most reserved Muslim seats in the elections of 1946. After the British and Congress backed out of the Cabinet Mission PlanJinnah called for a Direct Action Day to achieve the formation of Pakistan. The direct action by the Muslim League and its Volunteer Corps, resulted in massive rioting in Calcutta between Muslims andHindus. As the Indian National Congress and Muslim League failed to reach a power sharing formula for united India, it prompted both the parties and the British to agree to independence of Pakistan and India. As the first Governor-General of Pakistan, Jinnah led efforts to lay the foundations of the new state of Pakistan, frame national policies and rehabilitate millions of Muslim refugees who had migrated from India.

He died in September 1948, just over a year after Pakistan gained independence from the British Empire.

Early life

Jinnah was born Mahomedali Jinnahbhai (Gujarati: મુહમ્મદ અલી જિન્નાભાઈ) in Wazir Mansion, Karachi District, of lower Sindh. Sindh had earlier been conquered by the British and was subsequently grouped with other conquered territories for administrative reasons to form theBombay Presidency of British India. Although his earliest school records state that he was born on October 20, 1875, Sarojini Naidu, the author of Jinnah's first biography, gives the date as ”December 25, 1876”.

Jinnah was the first child born to Mithibai and Jinnahbhai Poonja. His father, Jinnahbhai (1857–1901), was a prosperous Gujarati merchant who had moved to Sindh from Kathiawar, Gujarat before Jinnah's birth. His grandfather, Poonja Gokuldas Meghji, was a Hindu Bhatia Rajput from Paneli village in Gondal state inKathiawar. Jinnah's ancestors were Hindu Rajputs; his grandfather had converted to Islam. Jinnah's family belonged to the Ismaili Khoja branch of Shi'a Islam, though Jinnah later converted to Twelver Khoja Shia Islam.

The first-born Jinnah was soon joined by six siblings, brothers Ahmad Ali, Bunde Ali, and Rahmat Ali, and sisters Maryam, Fatima and Shireen. Their mother language was Gujarati; in time they also came to speak Kutchi, Sindhi and English.The proper Muslim names of Mr. Jinnah and his siblings, unlike those of his father and grandfather, are the consequence of the family's immigration to the Muslim state of Sindh.

Jinnah was a restless student, he studied at several schools: at the Sindh-Madrasa-tul-Islam in Karachi; briefly at the Gokal Das Tej Primary School in Bombay; and finally at the Christian Missionary Society High School in Karachi, where, at age sixteen, he passed the matriculation examination of the University of Bombay.

Years in England

In London, Jinnah soon left the apprenticeship to study law instead, by joining Lincoln's Inn. It is said that the sole reason of Jinnah's joining Lincoln's Inn is that the welcome board of the Lincoln's Inn had the names of the world's all-time top-ten magistrates, and that this list was led by the name of Muhammad. No such board exists, although there is a mural which includes a picture of Muhammad. In three years, at age 19, he became the youngest Indian to be called to the bar in England.

During his student years in England, Jinnah came under the spell of 19th-century British liberalism, like many other future Indian independence leaders. This education included exposure to the idea of the democratic nation and progressive politics. He admired William Gladstone and John Morley, British Liberal statesmen. An admirer of the Indian political leaders Dadabhai Naoroji and Sir Pherozeshah Mehta, he worked with other Indian students on the former's successful campaign to become the first Indian to hold a seat in the British Parliament.

By now, Jinnah had developed largely constitutionalist views on Indian self-government, and he condemned both the arrogance of British officials in India and the discrimination practiced by them against Indians. This idea of a nation legitimized by democratic principles and cultural commonalities was antithetical to the genuine diversity that had generally characterized the subcontinent. As an Indian intellectual and political authority, Jinnah would find his commitment to the Western ideal of the nation-state developed during his English education– and the reality of heterogeneous Indian society to be difficult to reconcile during his later political career.

Western influences on personal life

The Western world not only inspired Jinnah in his political life. England had greatly influenced his personal preferences, particularly when it came to dress. Jinnah donned Western style clothing and he pursued the fashion with fervor. It is said he owned over 200 hand-tailored suits which he wore with heavily starched shirts with detachable collars. It is also alleged that he never wore the same silk tie twice.

Return to India

Muhammad Ali Jinnah as a young lawyer

During the final period of his stay in England, Jinnah came under considerable pressure to return home when his father's business was ruined. In 1896 he returned to India and settled in Bombay. Jinnah built a house in Malabar Hill, later known as Jinnah House. He became a successful lawyer, gaining particular fame for his skilled handling of the "Caucus Case" His reputation as a skilled lawyer prompted Indian leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak to hire him as defence counsel for his sedition trial in 1908. Jinnah argued that it was not sedition for an Indian to demand freedom and self-government in his own country, but Tilak received a rigorous term of imprisonment.

When he returned to India his faith in liberalism and progressive politics was confirmed through his close association with three Indian National Congress stalwarts Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta and Surendranath Banerjee. These people had an influence in his early life in England and they would influence his later involvement in Indian politics.

Early political career

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, as a young lawyer.

In 1906, Jinnah joined the Indian National Congress, which was the largest Indian political organization. Like most of the Congress at the time, Jinnah did not favour outright independence, considering British influences on education, law, culture and industry as beneficial to India. Jinnah became a member on the sixty-member Imperial Legislative Council. The council had no real power or authority, and included a large number of un-elected pro-Raj loyalists and Europeans. Nevertheless, Jinnah was instrumental in the passing of the Child Marriages Restraint Act, the legitimization of the Muslimwaqf (religious endowments) and was appointed to the Sandhurst committee, which helped establish the Indian Military Academy at Dehra Dun. During World War I, Jinnah joined other Indian moderates in supporting the British war effort, hoping that Indians would be rewarded with political freedoms.

Jinnah had initially avoided joining the All India Muslim League, founded in 1906, regarding it as too Muslim oriented. However he decided to provide leadership to the Muslim minority. Eventually, he joined the league in 1913 and became the president at the 1916 session in Lucknow. Jinnah was the architect of the 1916 Lucknow Pactbetween the Congress and the League, bringing them together on most issues regarding self-government and presenting a united front to the British. Jinnah also played an important role in the founding of the All India Home Rule League in 1916. Along with political leaders Annie Besant and Tilak, Jinnah demanded "home rule" for India—the status of a self-governing dominion in the Empire similar toCanada,New Zealand and Australia. He headed the League's Bombay Presidency chapter.

In 1918, Jinnah married his second wife Rattanbai Petit ("Ruttie"), twenty-four years his junior. She was the fashionable young daughter of his personal friend Sir Dinshaw Petit, of an elite Parsi family of Bombay. Unexpectedly there was great opposition to the marriage from Rattanbai's family and Parsi society, as well as orthodox Muslim leaders. Rattanbai defied her family and nominally converted toIslam, adopting (though never using) the name Maryam Jinnah, resulting in a permanent estrangement from her family and Parsi society. The couple resided in Bombay, and frequently travelled across India and Europe. In 1919 she bore Jinnah his only child, daughter Dina Jinnah.

In 1924 Jinnah reorganized the Muslim League, of which he had been president since 1919, and devoted the next seven years attempting to bring about unity among the disparate ranks of Muslims and to develop a rational formula to effect a Hindu Muslim settlement, which he considered the pre condition for Indian freedom. He attended several unity conferences, wrote the Delhi Muslim Proposals in 1927, pleaded for the incorporation of the basic Muslim demands in the Nehru report, and formulated the “Fourteen Points”

Fourteen points

Jinnah in traditional Sherwani

Jinnah broke with the Congress in 1920 when the Congress leader,Mohandas Gandhi, launched a law violating Non-Cooperation Movement against the British, which Jinnah disapproved of. Unlike most Congress leaders, Gandhi did not wear western-style clothes, did his best to use an Indian language instead of English, and was deeply rooted to Indian culture. Gandhi's local style of leadership gained great popularity with the Indian people. Jinnah criticised Gandhi's support of the Khilafat Movement, which he saw as an endorsement of religious zealotry. By 1920, Jinnah resigned from the Congress, with a prophetic warning that Gandhi's method of mass struggle would lead to divisions between Hindus and Muslims and within the two communities. Becoming president of the Muslim League, Jinnah was drawn into a conflict between a pro-Congress faction and a pro-British faction.

In September 1923, Jinnah was elected as Muslim member for Bombay in the newCentral Legislative Assembly. He showed great gifts as a parliamentarian, organized many Indian members to work with the Swaraj Party, and continued to press demands for full responsible government. He was so active on a wide range of subjects that in 1925 he was offered aknighthood by Lord Reading when he retired as Viceroy and Governor General. Jinnah replied: "I prefer to be plain Mr. Jinnah".

In 1927, Jinnah entered negotiations with Muslim and Hindu leaders on the issue of a future constitution, during the struggle against the all-BritishSimon Commission. The League wanted separate electorates while the Nehru Report favoured joint electorates. Jinnah personally opposed separate electorates, but then drafted compromises and put forth demands that he thought would satisfy both. These became known as the 14 points of Mr. Jinnah. However, they were rejected by the Congress and other political parties.

Jinnah's personal life and especially his marriage suffered during this period due to his political work. Although they worked to save their marriage by travelling together to Europe when he was appointed to the Sandhurst committee, the couple separated in 1927. Jinnah was deeply saddened when Rattanbai died in 1929, after a serious illness.

At the Round Table Conferences in London, Jinnah was disillusioned by the breakdown of talks. After the failure of the Round Table Conferences, Jinnah returned to London for a few years. In 1936, he returned to India to re-organize Muslim League and contest the elections held under the provisions of the Act of 1935.

Jinnah would receive personal care and support as he became more ill during this time from his sister Fatima Jinnah. She lived and travelled with him, as well as becoming a close advisor. She helped raise his daughter, who was educated in England and India. Jinnah later became estranged from his daughter, Dina Jinnah, after she decided to marry Parsi-born Christian businessman, Neville Wadia (even though he had faced the same issues when he married Rattanbai in 1918). Jinnah continued to correspond cordially with his daughter, but their personal relationship was strained. Dina continued to live in India with her family.

Leader of the Muslim League

Jinnah with his sister (left) and daughter Dina (right) in Bombay

Prominent Muslim leaders like the The Aga Khan, Choudhary Rahmat Ali and Sir Muhammad Iqbal made efforts to convince Jinnah to return from London (where he had moved to in 1931 and planned on permanently relocating in order to practice in the Privy Council Bar.) to India and take charge of a now-reunited Muslim League. In 1934 Jinnah returned and began to re-organise the party, being closely assisted byLiaquat Ali Khan, who would act as his right-hand man. In the 1937 elections to theCentral Legislative Assembly, the League emerged as a competent party, capturing a significant number of seats under the Muslim electorate, but lost in the Muslim-majority Punjab, Sindh and the North-West Frontier Province. Jinnah offered an alliance with the Congress – both bodies would face the British together, but the Congress had to share power, accept separate electorates and the League as the representative of India's Muslims. The latter two terms were unacceptable to the Congress, which had its own national Muslim leaders and membership and adhered to secularism. Even as Jinnah held talks with Congress president Rajendra Prasad, Congress leaders suspected that Jinnah would use his position as a lever for exaggerated demands and obstruct government, and demanded that the League merge with the Congress. The talks failed, and while Jinnah declared the resignation of all Congressmen from provincial and central offices in 1938 as a "Day of Deliverance" from Hindu domination,some historians assert that he remained hopeful for an agreement.

Jinnah delivering a political speech.

In a speech to the League in 1930, Sir Muhammad Iqbal mooted an independent state for Muslims in "northwest India." Choudhary Rahmat Ali published a pamphletin 1933 advocating a state called "Pakistan". Following the failure to work with the Congress, Jinnah, who had embraced separate electorates and the exclusive right of the League to represent Muslims, was converted to the idea that Muslims needed a separate state to protect their rights. Jinnah came to believe that Muslims and Hindus were distinct nations, with unbridgeable differences—a view later known as the Two Nation Theory. Jinnah declared that a united India would lead to the marginalization of Muslims, and eventually civil war between Hindus and Muslims. This change of view may have occurred through his correspondence with Iqbal, who was close to Jinnah. Later Jinnah went on to say that seed of Pakistan was laid the day first Hindu was converted to Islam. In the session in Lahore in 1940, the Pakistan resolutionwas adopted as the main goal of the party. The resolution was rejected outright by the Congress, and criticised by many Muslim leaders like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Syed Ab'ul Ala Maududi and the Jamaat-e-Islami. On July 26, 1943, Jinnah was stabbed and wounded by a member of the extremistKhaksars in an attempted assassination.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah founded Dawn in 1941, a major newspaper that helped him propagate the League's point of views. During the mission of British minister Stafford Cripps, Jinnah demanded parity between the number of Congress and League ministers, the League's exclusive right to appoint Muslims and a right for Muslim-majority provinces to secede, leading to the breakdown of talks. Jinnah supported the British effort in World War II, and opposed the Quit India movement. During this period, the League formed provincial governments and entered the central government. The League's influence increased in the Punjab after the death of Unionist leader Sikander Hyat Khan in 1942. Gandhi held talks fourteen times with Jinnah in Bombay in 1944, about a united front—while talks failed, Gandhi's overtures to Jinnah increased the latter's standing with Muslims.

Founding of Pakistan

Jinnah with Cabinet Mission

A letter by Jinnah to Winston Churchill

In the 1946 elections for the Constituent Assembly of India, the Congress won most of the elected seats, while the League won a large majority of Muslim electorate seats. The1946 British Cabinet Mission to India released a plan on May 16, calling for a united Indian state comprising considerably autonomous provinces, and called for "groups" of provinces formed on the basis of religion. A second plan released on June 16, called for the separation of India along religious lines, with princely states to choose between accession to the dominion of their choice or independence. The Congress, fearing India's fragmentation, criticised the May 16 proposal and rejected the June 16 plan. Jinnah gave the League's assent to both plans, knowing that power would go only to the party that had supported a plan. After much debate and against Gandhi's advice that both plans were divisive, the Congress accepted the May 16 plan while condemning the grouping principle. Jinnah decried this acceptance as "dishonesty", accused the British negotiators of "treachery", and withdrew the League's approval of both plans. The League boycotted the assembly, leaving the Congress in charge of the government but denying it legitimacy in the eyes of many Muslims.

Jinnah gave a precise definition of the term 'Pakistan' in 1941 at Lahore in which he stated:

Some confusion prevails in the minds of some individuals in regard to the use of the word 'Pakistan'. This word has become synonymous with the Lahore resolution owing to the fact that it is a convenient and compendious method of describing [it].... For this reason the British and Indian newspapers generally have adopted the word 'Pakistan' to describe the Moslem demand as embodied in the Lahore resolution.

Jinnah issued a call for all Muslims to launch "Direct Action" on August 16 to "achieve Pakistan". Strikes and protests were planned, but violence broke out all over India, especially in Calcutta and the district of Noakhali in Bengal, and more than 7,000 people were killed in Bihar. Although viceroy Lord Wavell asserted that there was "no satisfactory evidence to that effect", League politicians were blamed by the Congress and the media for orchestrating the violence. Interim Government portfolios were announced on October 25, 1946. Muslim Leaguers were sworn in on October 26, 1946. The League entered the interim government, but Jinnah refrained from accepting office for himself. This was credited as a major victory for Jinnah, as the League entered government having rejected both plans, and was allowed to appoint an equal number of ministers despite being the minority party. The coalition was unable to work, resulting in a rising feeling within the Congress that independence of Pakistan was the only way of avoiding political chaos and possible civil war. The Congress agreed to the division of Punjab and Bengal along religious lines in late 1946. The new viceroy Lord Mountbatten of Burma and Indian civil servantV. P. Menon proposed a plan that would create a Muslim dominion in West Punjab, East Bengal, Baluchistan and Sindh. After heated and emotional debate, the Congress approved the plan. The North-West Frontier Province voted to join Pakistan in a referendum in July 1947. Jinnah asserted in a speech in Lahore on October 30, 1947 that the League had accepted independence of Pakistan because "the consequences of any other alternative would have been too disastrous to imagine."

The independent state of Pakistan, created on August 14, 1947, represented the outcome of a campaign on the part of the Indian Muslim community for a Muslim homeland which had been triggered by the British decision to consider transferring power to the people of India.

Jinnah's vision for Pakistan

While giving an interview to American press representatives in July 1942, when asked by one of the journalists whether the Muslims were a nation or not, Jinnah replied:

We are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and ambitions, in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all cannons of international law we are a nation.

The Will of Quaid E Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah

The Historic Group Photograph of Quaid E Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah at his Last Visit to Islamia College, Peshawar, N-WFP, Pakistan (12.04.1948 CE) (Courtesy of Prof. Dr. Taskeen Ahmad Khan, Associate Dean, Associate Faculty of Urology, Khyber Medical University, Peshawar (nb: From the Personal Library File of Maj. Gen (Retd.) Anwar Sher Khan, Peshawar)).

The Legend of the above Historic Group Photograph of Quaid E Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Courtesy of Prof. Dr. Taskeen Ahmad Khan, Peshawar (nb: From the Personal Library File of Maj. Gen (Retd.) Anwar Sher Khan)).

A controversy has raged in Pakistan about whether Jinnah wanted Pakistan to be a secular state or an Islamic state. His views as expressed in his policy speech on August 11, 1947 said:

There is no other solution. Now what shall we do? Now, if we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous, we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor. If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make. I cannot emphasize it too much. We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities, the Hindu community and the Muslim community, because even as regards Muslims you have Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on, and among the Hindus you have Brahmins, Vashnavas, Khatris, also Bengalis, Madrasis and so on, will vanish. Indeed if you ask me, this has been the biggest hindrance in the way of India to attain the freedom and independence and but for this we would have been free people long long ago. No power can hold another nation, and specially a nation of 400 million souls in subjection; nobody could have conquered you, and even if it had happened, nobody could have continued its hold on you for any length of time, but for this. Therefore, we must learn a lesson from this. You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place or worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State. As you know, history shows that in England, conditions, some time ago, were much worse than those prevailing in India today. The Roman Catholics and the Protestants persecuted each other. Even now there are some States in existence where there are discriminations made and bars imposed against a particular class. Thank God, we are not starting in those days. We are starting in the days where there is no discrimination, no distinction between one community and another, no discrimination between one caste or creed and another. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one State. The people of England in course of time had to face the realities of the situation and had to discharge the responsibilities and burdens placed upon them by the government of their country and they went through that fire step by step. Today, you might say with justice that Roman Catholics and Protestants do not exist; what exists now is that every man is a citizen, an equal citizen of Great Britain and they are all members of the Nation. Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State. Jinnah, August 11, 1947 – presiding over the constituent assembly.

While this may seem to be an indication that Jinnah wanted a secular state, he also referred to Islam and Islamic principles:

The constitution of Pakistan has yet to be framed by the Pakistan Constituent Assembly. I do not know what the ultimate shape of this constitution is going to be, but I am sure that it will be of a democratic type, embodying the essential principle of Islam. Today, they are as applicable in actual life as they were 1,300 years ago. Islam and its idealism have taught us democracy. It has taught equality of man, justice and fairplay to everybody. We are the inheritors of these glorious traditions and are fully alive to our responsibilities and obligations as framers of the future constitution of Pakistan. In any case Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic State to be ruled by priests with a divine mission. We have many non-Muslims — Hindus, Christians, and Parsis — but they are all Pakistanis. They will enjoy the same rights and privileges as any other citizens and will play their rightful part in the affairs of Pakistan. Broadcast talk to the people of the United States of America on Pakistan recorded February, 1948.

It has been argued by many people that in this speech Jinnah wanted to point out that Pakistan would be a secular state as mostly people think that an Islamic state is a theocratic state. This perception, however, is wrong and is misinterpreted; the reason is that a true Islamic state is not a theocratic state, as stated by Jinnah in his speech.

On the opening ceremony of the state bank of Pakistan Jinnah pointed out that the financial setup of the state should be based on Islamic economic system.

We must work our destiny in our own way and present to the world an economic system based on true Islamic concept of equality of manhood and social justice. We will thereby be fulfilling our mission as Muslims and giving to humanity the message of peace which alone can save it and secure the welfare, happiness and prosperity of mankind. Speech at the opening ceremony of State Bank of Pakistan, Karachi July 1, 1948

It appears that Jinnah felt the state of Pakistan should stand upon Islamic tradition in culture, civilization and national identity rather than on the principles of Islam as a theocratic state.

In 1937, Jinnah further defended his ideology of equality in his speech to the All-India Muslim League in Lucknow where he stated, "Settlement can only be achieved between equals." He also had a rebuttal to Nehru's statement which argued that the only two parties that mattered in India were the British Raj and INC. Jinnah stated that the Muslim League was the third and "equal partner" within Indian politics.

Governor-General

Muhammad Ali Jinnah with Mohandas Gandhi in Bombay, September 1944.

Along with Liaquat Ali Khan and Abdur Rab Nishtar, Muhammad Ali Jinnah represented the League in the Division Council to appropriately divide public assets between India and Pakistan. The assembly members from the provinces that would comprise Pakistan formed the new state's constituent assembly, and the Military of British India was divided between Muslim and non-Muslim units and officers. Indian leaders were angered at Jinnah's courting the princes of Jodhpur, Bhopal and Indore to accede to Pakistan – these princely states were not geographically aligned with Pakistan, and each had a Hindu-majority population.

Jinnah became the first Governor-General of Pakistan and president of its constituent assembly. Inaugurating the assembly on August 11, 1947, Jinnah spoke of an inclusive and pluralist democracy promising equal rights for all citizens regardless of religion, caste or creed. This address is a cause of much debate in Pakistan as, on its basis, many claim that Jinnah wanted a secular state while supporters of Islamic Pakistan assert that this speech is being taken out of context when compared to other speeches by him.

On October 11, 1947, in an address to Civil, Naval, Military and Air Force Officers of Pakistan Government, Karachi, he said:

We should have a State in which we could live and breathe as free men and which we could develop according to our own lights and culture and where principles of Islamic social justice could find free play.

On February 21, 1948, in an address to the officers and men of the 5th Heavy Ack Ack and 6th Light Ack Ack Regiments in Malir, Karachi, he said:

You have to stand guard over the development and maintenance of Islamic democracy, Islamic social justice and the equality of manhood in your own native soil. With faith, discipline and selfless devotion to duty, there is nothing worthwhile that you cannot achieve.

The office of Governor-General was ceremonial, but Jinnah also assumed the lead of government. The first months of Pakistan's independence were absorbed in ending the intense violence that had arisen in the wake of acrimony between Hindus and Muslims. Jinnah agreed with Indian leaders to organise a swift and secure exchange of populations in the Punjab and Bengal. He visited the border regions with Indian leaders to calm people and encourage peace, and organised large-scale refugee camps. Despite these efforts, estimates on the death toll vary from around two hundred thousand, to over a million people. The estimated number of refugees in both countries exceeds 15 million. The then capital city of Karachi saw an explosive increase in its population owing to the large encampments of refugees, which personally affected and depressed Jinnah.

In his first visit to East Pakistan, under the advice of local party leaders, Jinnah stressed that Urdu alone should be the national language; a policy that was strongly opposed by the Bengali people of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). This opposition grew after he controversially described Bengali as the language of Hindus.

He controversially accepted the accession of Junagadh—a Hindu-majority state with a Muslim ruler located in theSaurashtra peninsula, some 400 kilometres (250 mi) southeast of Pakistan—but this was annulled by Indian intervention. It is unclear if Jinnah planned or knew of the tribal invasion from Pakistan into the kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir in October 1947, but he did send his private secretary Khurshid Ahmed to observe developments in Kashmir. When informed of Kashmir's accession to India, Jinnah deemed the accession illegitimate and ordered the Pakistani army to enter Kashmir. However, Gen. Auchinleck, the supreme commander of all British officers informed Jinnah that while India had the right to send troops to Kashmir, which had acceded to it, Pakistan did not. If Jinnah persisted, Auchinleck would remove all British officers from both sides. As Pakistan had a greater proportion of Britons holding senior command, Jinnah cancelled his order, but protested to the United Nations to intercede.

Quaid-E-Azam TookOoath as 1st Governor General:

Illness and death

The funeral of Jinnah in 1948.

Tomb of M.A. Jinnah in Karachi, Pakistan

Through the 1940s, Jinnah suffered from tuberculosis; only his sister and a few others close to him were aware of his condition. In 1948, Jinnah's health began to falter, hindered further by the heavy workload that had fallen upon him following Pakistan's independence from British Rule. Attempting to recuperate, he spent many months at his official retreat in Ziarat. According to his sister, he suffered a hemorrhage on September 1, 1948; doctors said the altitude was not good for him and that he should be taken to Karachi. Jinnah was flown back to Karachi from Quetta.

Jinnah died at 10:20 p.m. at the Governor-General's House in Karachi on September 11, 1948, just over a year after Pakistan's independence.

It is said that when the then Viceroy of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten, learned of Jinnah's ailment he said 'had they known that Jinnah was about to die, they'd have postponed India's independence by a few months as he was being inflexible on Pakistan'.

Jinnah was buried in Karachi. His funeral was followed by the construction of a massive mausoleum, Mazar-e-Quaid, in Karachi to honour him; official and military ceremonies are hosted there on special occasions.

He had two separate Funeral prayers: one was held privately at Mohatta Palace in a room of the Governor-General's House at which Yusuf Haroon, Hashim Raza and Aftab Hatim Alvi were present at the Namaz-e-Janaza held according to Shia Muslim rituals and was led by Syed Anisul Husnain, while Liaquat Ali Khan waited outside. After the Shia prayers, the major public Funeral prayers were led by Allamah Shabbir Ahmad Usmani a renowned Deobandi Muslim scholar and attended by masses from all over Pakistan.

Dina Wadia remained in India after independence, before ultimately settling in New York City. Jinnah's grandson, Nusli Wadia, is a prominent industrialist residing in Mumbai. In the 1963–1964 elections, Jinnah's sister Fatima Jinnah, known as Madar-e-Millat ("Mother of the Nation"), became the presidential candidate of a coalition of political parties that opposed the rule of President Ayub Khan, but lost the election.

The Jinnah House in Malabar Hill, Bombay, is in the possession of the Government of India but the issue of its ownership has been disputed by the Government of Pakistan. Jinnah had personally requested Indian Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru to preserve the house and that one day he could return to Mumbai. There are proposals for the house be offered to the Government of Pakistan to establish a consulate in the city, as a goodwill gesture, but Dina Wadia has also laid claim to the property, claiming that Hindu Law is applicable to Jinnah as he was a Khoja Shia.

After Jinnah died, Fatima Jinnah had asked the court to execute Jinnah's will under Shia law. Jinnah's family belonged to the Ismaili Khoja branch of Shi'a Islam, but Jinnah left that branch in 1901. Vali Nasr says Jinnah "was an Ismaili by birth and a Twelver Shia by confession, though not a religiously observant man." In a 1970 legal challenge, Hussain Ali Ganji Walji claimed Jinnah had converted to Sunni Islam, but the High court rejected this claim in 1976, effectively accepting the Jinnah family as Shia. Publicly, Jinnah had a non-sectarian stance and "was at pains to gather the Muslims of India under the banner of a general Muslim faith and not under a divisive sectarian identity." In 1970, a court decision stated that Jinnah's "secular Muslim faith made him neither Shia nor Sunni", and in 1984 the court maintained that "the Quaid was definitely not a Shia". Liaquat H. Merchant elaborates that "he was also not a Sunni, he was simply a Muslim".

nomi

Legacy

An Iranian stamp commemorating the centenary of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, printed in 1976.

In his biography of Jinnah titled "Jinnah of Pakistan", the historian, Stanley Wolpert, makes the following observation that succinctly describes the legacy of Jinnah and his footprint on history:

Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Muhammad Ali Jinnah did all three.

Pakistanis view Jinnah as their revered founding father, a man that was dedicated to safeguarding Muslim interests during the dying days of the British Raj. Despite any of a range of biases, it almost impossible to doubt, despite motive and manner, that there is any figure that had more influence and role in the creation of Pakistan than Jinnah.

Jinnah is popularly and officially known in Pakistan as Quaid-e-Azam (Urdu: قائد اعظم— "Great Leader") and Baba-e-Qaum (بابائے قوم) ("Father of the Nation"). His birthday is a national holiday in Pakistan.

Jinnah is depicted on all Pakistani rupee notes of denominations five and higher, and is the namesake of many Pakistani public institutions. The former Quaid-i-Azam International Airport, now called theJinnah International Airport, in Karachi is Pakistan's busiest. One of the largest streets in the Turkish capitalAnkara —Cinnah Caddesi — is named after him. In Iran, one of the capital Tehran's most important new highways is also named after him, while the government released a stamp commemorating the centennial of Jinnah's birthday. InChicago, a portion of Devon Avenue was named as "Mohammed Ali Jinnah Way". The Mazar-e-Quaid, Jinnah'smausoleum, is among Karachi's most imposing buildings. In media, Jinnah was portrayed by British actorsRichard Lintern (as the young Jinnah) and Christopher Lee (as the elder Jinnah) in the 1998 film Jinnah. In Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi, Jinnah was portrayed by Alyque Padamsee. In the 1986 televised mini-series Lord Mountbatten: the Last Viceroy, Jinnah was played by Polish actorVladek Sheybal.

Some historians like H M Seervai and Ayesha Jalal assert that Jinnah never wanted partition of India —it was the outcome of the Congress leaders being unwilling to share power with the Muslim League. It is asserted that Jinnah only used the Pakistan demand as a method to mobilise support to obtain significant political rights for Muslims. Jinnah has gained the admiration of major Indian nationalist politicians like Lal Krishna Advani—whose comments praising Jinnah caused an uproar in his own Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Jaswant Singhlikewise praised Jinnah for standing up to the Indian National Congress and the British. In August 2009, Singh was expelled from the BJP for writing a controversial book praising Jinnah, and shortly after, the state of Gujarat banned Singh's book because of its negative statements about Vallabhbhai Patel, the first home minister of India. However, Jaswant Singh's book does portray the failure of Jinnah's Ideology of Indian Muslim's forming a separate Kaum (Nation) evident from the separation of Bangladesh in 1971.

Criticism

Some critics allege that Jinnah's courting the princes of Hindu states and his gambit with Junagadh is proof of ill intentions towards India, as he was the proponent of the theory that Hindus and Muslims could not live together, yet being interested in Hindu-majority states. In his book Patel: A Life, Rajmohan Gandhi asserts that Jinnah sought to engage the question of Junagadh with an eye on Kashmir—he wanted India to ask for a plebiscite in Junagadh, knowing thus that the principle then would have to be applied to Kashmir, where the Muslim-majority would, he believed, vote for Pakistan.

Abul Ala Maududi and the Jamaat-e-Islami leadership openly criticized Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the leader of the drive to create Pakistan. Maududi later changed his view and supported the state of Pakistan, though he kept on opposing Jinnah. Jinnah believed that Pakistan should be a democratic state with the sovereignty invested in the people, a notion Maududi opposed as "western" and contrary to the sovereignty of Allah.

According to Akbar S. Ahmed, nearly every book about Jinnah outside Pakistan mentions the fact that he drank alcohol. Several sources indicate he gave up alcohol near the end of his life.

Apart from cultural legacies, it seems that Mohammad Ali Jinnah left a legacy as one of the most controversially portrayed figures in contemporary Asian history. From an Indian perspective, Jinnah tends to be depicted as a cunning and relentless force that compromised the unity of India to create Pakistan, for a range of religious, cultural, political, and personal motives; on the other hand Jaswant Singh, a member of Parliament and several times cabinet minister of the Indian government, viewed Nehru, not Mohammad Ali Jinnah, as causing the division of India into two separate states for Muslims and Hindus, mostly referring to his highly centralised policies for an independent India in 1947, which Jinnah opposed in favour of a more decentralised India. The split between the two was among the causes of two separate nations. It is believed that personal animosity between the two leaders led to the creation of two separate nations of Pakistan and India.

Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 20:11:00 +0000

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christmas or Christmas Day is a holiday observed generally on December 25 to commemorate the birth ofJesus, the central figure of Christianity. The date is not known to be the actual birthday of Jesus, and may have initially been chosen to correspond with either the day exactly nine months after Christians believe Jesus to have been conceived, the date of the Roman winter solstice, or one of various ancient winter festivals. Christmas is central to the Christmas and holiday season, and in Christianity marks the beginning of the larger season ofChristmastide, which lasts twelve days.
Although nominally a Christian holiday, Christmas is also celebrated by an increasing number of non-Christians worldwide, and many of its popular celebratory customs have pre-Christian or secular themes and origins. Popular modern customs of the holiday include gift-giving, music, an exchange of Christmas cards, churchcelebrations, a special meal, and the display of various decorations; includingChristmas trees, lights, garlands,mistletoe, nativity scenes, and holly. In addition, several figures, known asSaint Nicholas, Father Christmas, and Santa Claus, among other names, are associated with bringing gifts to children during the Christmas season.
Because gift-giving and many other aspects of the Christmas festival involve heightened economic activity among both Christians and non-Christians, the holiday has become a significant event and a key sales period for retailers and businesses. The economic impact of Christmas is a factor that has grown steadily over the past few centuries in many regions of the world.

The word Christmas originated as a compound meaning "Christ's Mass". It is derived from the Middle EnglishChristemasse and Old EnglishCristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038. "Cristes" is from Greek Christos and "mæsse" is from Latinmissa (the holy mass). InGreek, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ, and it, or the similar Roman letter X, has been used as an abbreviation for Christ since the mid-16th century. Hence, Xmas is sometimes used as an abbreviation for Christmas.
Etymology

Celebration
Further information: Christmas worldwide
Christmas Day is celebrated as a major festival and public holiday in countries around the world, including many whose populations are mostly non-Christian. In some non-Christian countries, periods of former colonial rule introduced the celebration (e.g. Hong Kong); in others, Christian minorities or foreign cultural influences have led populations to observe the holiday. Countries such as Japan and Korea, where Christmas is popular despite there being only a small number of Christians, have adopted many of the secular aspects of Christmas, such as gift-giving, decorations and Christmas trees. Notable countries in which Christmas is not a formal public holiday include People's Republic of China, (excepting Hong Kong and Macao),Japan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Thailand, Nepal, Iran, Turkey and North Korea. Christmas celebrations around the world can vary markedly in form, reflecting differing cultural and national traditions.

Among countries with a strong Christian tradition, a variety of Christmas celebrations have developed that incorporate regional and local cultures. For Christians, participating in a religious service plays an important part in the recognition of the season. Christmas, along with Easter, is the period of highest annual church attendance. In Catholic countries, the people hold religious processions or parades in the days preceding Christmas. In other countries, secular processions or parades featuring Santa Claus and other seasonal figures are often held. Family reunions and the exchange of gifts are a widespread feature of the season. Gift giving takes place on Christmas Day in most countries. Others practice gift giving on December 6, Saint Nicholas Day, and January 6, Epiphany.
The Nativity by Charles-François Poerson, 1667.
Date of celebration
For centuries, Christian writers accepted that Christmas was the actual date on whichJesus was born. In the early 18th century, scholars began proposing alternative explanations. Isaac Newtonargued that the date of Christmas was selected to correspond with the winter solstice, which the Romans called bruma and celebrated on December 25. In 1743, German Protestant Paul Ernst Jablonski argued Christmas was placed on December 25 to correspond with the Roman solar holidayDies Natalis Solis Invicti and was therefore a "paganization" that debased the true church. This thesis, however, was found to be dubious as there is no evidence that the feast of Sol Invictus was affixed by Aurelian to December 25. The celebration of Sol Invictusfeast on December 25 is not mentioned until the calendar of 354 and, subsequently, in 362 by Julian the Apostate in his Oration to King Helios. According to Judeo-Christian tradition, creation as described in the Genesis creation narrative occurred on the date of thespring equinox, i.e. March 25 on the Roman calendar. This date is now celebrated as Annunciation and as the anniversary ofIncarnation. In 1889, Louis Duchesnesuggested that the date of Christmas was calculated as nine months after Annunciation, the traditional date of the conception of Jesus.
The December 25 date may have been selected by the church in Rome in the early 4th century. At this time, a church calendar was created and other holidays were also placed on solar dates: "It is cosmic symbolism...which inspired the Church leadership in Rome to elect the winter solstice, December 25, as the birthday of Christ, and the summer solstice as that of John the Baptist, supplemented by the equinoxes as their respective dates of conception. While they were aware that pagans called this day the 'birthday' of Sol Invictus, this did not concern them and it did not play any role in their choice of date for Christmas," according to modern scholar S.E. Hijmans.
However, today, whether or not the birth date of Jesus is on December 25 is not considered to be an important issue in mainstream Christian denominations; rather, celebrating the coming of God into the world in the form of man to atone for thesins of humanity is considered to be the primary meaning of Christmas.

Some Christians have called for opposition to the commercialization of Christmas, since the exchange of purchased gifts has nothing to do with the philosophy of Christ.
Orthodox Christian Churches
For details on religious observances, see Christmas Eve.
Eastern Orthodox national churches, including those of Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Macedonia,Montenegro, Serbia and the Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem mark feasts using the older Julian Calendar. December 25 on that calendar currently corresponds to January 7 on the more widely usedGregorian calendar. However, other Orthodox Christians, such as the churches of Greece, Antioch,Alexandria, Finlandand the Orthodox Church in America, among others, began using theRevised Julian Calendar in the early 20th century, which corresponds exactly to the Gregorian Calendar. These Orthodox Churches celebrate Christmas on the same day as Western Christianity. Oriental Orthodoxchurches also use their own calendars, which are generally similar to the Julian calendar. The Armenian Apostolic Churchcelebrates the nativity in combination with the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6. Armenian churches customarily use the Gregorian calendar, but some use the Julian calendar and thus celebrate Christmas Day on January 19, and Christmas Eve on January 18 (according to the Gregorian calendar).
Commemorating Jesus’ birth
Main articles: Annunciation, Nativity of Jesus, and Child Jesus
Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary as a fulfillment of the Old Testament'sMessianic prophecy. The Bible contains two accounts which describe the events surrounding Jesus' birth. Depending on one's perspective, these accounts either differ from each other or tell two versions of the same story These biblical accounts are found in the Gospel of Matthew, namely Matthew 1:18, and theGospel of Luke, specifically Luke 1:26 and 2:40. According to these accounts, Jesus was born to Mary, assisted by her husbandJoseph, in the city of Bethlehem.

According to popular tradition, the birth took place in a stable, surrounded by farm animals, though neither the stable nor the animals are specifically mentioned in the Biblical accounts. However, a manger is mentioned in Luke , where it states, "She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." Early iconographicrepresentations of the nativity placed the animals and manger within a cave (located, according to tradition, under the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem). Shepherds from the fieldssurrounding Bethlehem were told of the birth by an angel, and were the first to see the child. The Gospel of Matthew also describes a visit by several Magi, or astrologers, who bring gifts of gold,frankincense, and myrrh to the infant Jesus. The visitors were said to be following a mysterious star, commonly known as theStar of Bethlehem, believing it to announce the birth of a king of the Jews. The commemoration of this visit, the Feast of Epiphany celebrated on January 6, is the formal end of the Christmas season in some churches.
Anbetung der Hirten (Adoration of the Shepherds) (c. 1500–10), by Italian painterGiorgio da Castelfranco
Christians celebrate Christmas in various ways. In addition to this day being one of the most important and popular for the attendance of church services, there are other devotions and popular traditions. In some Christian denominations, children re-enact the events of the Nativity with animals to portray the event with more realism or sing carols that reference the event. Some Christians also display a small re-creation of the Nativity, known as a Nativity scene or crèche, in their homes, using figurines to portray the key characters of the event. Prior to Christmas Day, theEastern Orthodox Church practices the 40-day Nativity Fast in anticipation of the birth of Jesus, while much of Western Christianity celebrates four weeks ofAdvent. The final preparations for Christmas are made onChristmas Eve.
A long artistic tradition has grown of producing painted depictions of the nativity in art. Nativity scenes are traditionally set in a barn or stable and include Mary, Joseph, the child Jesus, angels, shepherds and the Three Wise Men: Balthazar, Melchior, and Caspar, who are said to have followed a star, known as theStar of Bethlehem, and arrived after his birth.

Decorations and symbols
Main article: Christmas decoration
See also: Christmas tree, Christmas lights, Christmas stocking, and Christmas ornament
Clifton Mill in Clifton, Ohio is the site of this Christmas display with over 3.5 million lights.
The practice of putting up special decorations at Christmas has a long history. From pre-Christian times, people in the Roman Empire brought branches from evergreen plants indoors in the winter. Decorating with greenery was also part of Jewish tradition : "Now on the first day you shall take for yourselves the foliage of beautiful trees, palm branches and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. " (Leviticus 23:40)
Christians incorporated such customs in their developing practices. In the 15th century, it was recorded that in London it was the custom at Christmas for every house and all the parish churches to be "decked with holm, ivy,bays, and whatsoever the season of the year afforded to be green". The heart-shaped leaves of ivy were said to symbolise the coming to earth of Jesus, while holly was seen as protection against pagans and witches, its thorns and red berries held to represent the Crown of Thorns worn by Jesus at the crucifixion and the blood he shed.
Nativity scenes are known from 10th-century Rome. They were popularised by SaintFrancis of Asissi from 1223, quickly spreading across Europe. Different types of decorations developed across the Christian world, dependent on local tradition and available resources. The first commercially produced decorations appeared in Germany in the 1860s, inspired by paper chains made by children. In countries where a representation of theNativity Scene is very popular, people are encouraged to compete and create the most original or realistic ones. Within some families, the pieces used to make the representation are considered a valuable family heirloom.
The traditional colors of Christmas are green and red. White, silver and gold are also popular. Red symbolizes the blood of Jesus, which was shed in his crucifixion, while green symbolizes eternal life, and in particular the evergreen tree, which does not lose its leaves in the winter.
A Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, New York City
The Christmas tree is considered by some as Christianisation ofpagan tradition and ritual surrounding the Winter Solstice, which included the use of evergreen boughs, and an adaptation of pagantree worship. The English language phrase "Christmas tree" is first recorded in 1835 and represents an importation from the German language. The modern Christmas tree tradition is believed to have begun in Germany in the 18th century though many argue that Martin Luther began the tradition in the 16th century. From Germany the custom was introduced to Britain, first via Queen Charlotte, wife ofGeorge III, and then more successfully by Prince Albert during the reign of Queen Victoria. By 1841 the Christmas tree had become even more widespread throughout Britain. By the 1870s, people in the United States had adopted the custom of putting up a Christmas tree.Christmas trees may be decorated with lights and ornaments.
Since the 19th century, the poinsettia, a native plant from Mexico, has been associated with Christmas. Other popular holiday plants include holly, mistletoe, red amaryllis, andChristmas cactus. Along with a Christmas tree, the interior of a home may be decorated with these plants, along withgarlands andevergreen foliage. The display of Christmas villages has also become a tradition in many homes during this season. The outside of houses may be decorated with lights and sometimes with illuminated sleighs,snowmen, and other Christmas figures. Other traditional decorations include bells,candles, candy canes, stockings, wreaths, andangels.
Christmas lights and banners may be hung along streets, music played from speakers, and Christmas trees placed in prominent places.^[48] It is common in many parts of the world for town squares and consumer shopping areas to sponsor and display decorations. Rolls of brightly colored paper with secular or religious Christmas motifs are manufactured for the purpose of wrapping gifts.
In some countries, Christmas decorations are traditionally taken down on Twelfth Night, the evening of January 5.
Music and carols
Main article: Christmas music
Christmas carolers in Jersey
The first specifically Christmas hymns that we know of appear in 4th centuryRome. Latin hymns such as Veni redemptor gentium, written by Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, were austere statements of the theological doctrine of the Incarnation in opposition toArianism. Corde natus ex Parentis (Of the Father's love begotten) by the Spanish poetPrudentius (d. 413) is still sung in some churches today.
In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Christmas "Sequence" or "Prose" was introduced in North European monasteries, developing under Bernard of Clairvaux into a sequence of rhymed stanzas. In the 12th century the Parisian monk Adam of St. Victor began to derive music from popular songs, introducing something closer to the traditionalChristmas carol.

By the 13th century, in France, Germany, and particularly, Italy, under the influence ofFrancis of Asissi, a strong tradition of popular Christmas songs in the native language developed. Christmas carols in English first appear in a 1426 work of John Awdlay, a Shropshire chaplain, who lists twenty-five "caroles of Cristemas", probably sung by groups of wassailers, who went from house to house. The songs we know specifically as carols were originally communal folk songs sung during celebrations such as "harvest tide" as well as Christmas. It was only later that carols began to be sung in church. Traditionally, carols have often been based on medieval chord patterns, and it is this that gives them their uniquely characteristic musical sound. Some carols like "Personent hodie", "Good King Wenceslas", and "The Holly and the Ivy" can be traced directly back to the Middle Ages. They are among the oldest musical compositions still regularly sung.Adeste Fidelis (O Come all ye faithful) appears in its current form in the mid-18th century, although the words may have originated in the 13th century.
Child singers in Bucharest, 1841.
Singing of carols initially suffered a decline in popularity after the Protestant Reformationin northern Europe, although some Reformers, like Martin Luther, wrote carols and encouraged their use in worship. Carols largely survived in rural communities until the revival of interest in popular songs in the 19th century. The 18th century English reformerCharles Wesley understood the importance of music to worship. In addition to setting many psalms to melodies, which were influential in the Great Awakening in the United States, he wrote texts for at least three Christmas carols. The best known was originally entitled "Hark! How All the Welkin Rings", later renamed "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing". Felix Mendelssohnwrote a melody adapted to fit Wesley's words. In Austria in 1818 Mohr and Gruber made a major addition to the genre when they composed "Silent Night" for the St. Nicholas Church, Oberndorf. William B. Sandys'Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern (1833) contained the first appearance in print of many now-classic English carols, and contributed to the mid-Victorian revival of the festival.
Completely secular Christmas seasonal songs emerged in the late 18th century. "Deck The Halls" dates from 1784, and the American, "Jingle Bells" was copyrighted in 1857. In the 19th and 20th century, African American spirituals and songs about Christmas, based in their tradition of spirituals, became more widely known. An increasing number of seasonal holidays songs were commercially produced in the 20th century, including jazz and blues variations. In addition, there was a revival of interest in early music, from groups singing folk music, such as The Revels, to performers of early medieval and classical music.
Food
Further information: Christmas dinner
Christmas pudding
A special Christmas family meal is traditionally an important part of the holiday's celebration, and the food that is served varies greatly from country to country. Some regions, such as Sicily, have special meals for Christmas Eve, when 12 kinds of fish are served. In England and countries influenced by its traditions, a standard Christmas meal includes turkey or goose, meat, gravy, potatoes, vegetables, sometimes bread and cider. Special desserts are also prepared, such as Christmas pudding, mince pies and fruit cake. In Poland and other parts of eastern Europe and Scandinavia, fish often is used for the traditional main course, but richer meat such as lamb is increasingly served. In Germany, France and Austria, goose and pork are favored. Beef, ham and chicken in various recipes are popular throughout the world. The Maltese traditionally serveImbuljuta tal-Qastan, a chocolate and chestnuts beverage, after Midnight Mass and throughout the Christmas season. Slovaks prepare the traditional Christmas bread potica, bûche de Noël in France,panettone in Italy, and elaborate tarts and cakes. The eating of sweets and chocolates has become popular worldwide, and sweeter Christmas delicacies include the German stollen, marzipan cake or candy, and Jamaican rum fruit cake. As one of the few fruits traditionally available to northern countries in winter, oranges have been long associated with special Christmas foods.
Cards
Main article: Christmas card
Christmas cards are illustrated messages of greeting exchanged between friends and family members during the weeks preceding Christmas Day. The traditional greeting reads "wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year", much like that of the first commercial Christmas card, produced by Sir Henry Cole in London in 1843. The custom of sending them has become popular among a wide cross-section of people with the emergence of the modern trend towards exchanging E-cards!
Christmas cards are purchased in considerable quantities, and feature artwork, commercially designed and relevant to the season. The content of the design might relate directly to the Christmas narrative withdepictions of the Nativity of Jesus, or Christian symbols such as theStar of Bethlehem, or a whitedove which can represent both the Holy Spirit and Peace on Earth. Other Christmas cards are moresecularand can depict Christmas traditions, mythical figures such as Santa Claus, objects directly associated with Christmas such as candles,holly and baubles, or a variety of images associated with the season, such as Christmastime activities, snow scenes and the wildlife of the northern winter. There are even humorous cards and genres depicting nostalgic scenes of the past such as crinolined shoppers in idealized 19th century streetscapes.
Some prefer cards with a poem, prayer or Biblical verse; while others distance themselves from religion with an all-inclusive "Season's greetings".
Stamps
Main article: Christmas stamp
A number of nations have issued commemorative stamps at Christmastime. Postal customers will often use these stamps to mail Christmas cards, and they are popular with philatelists. These stamps are regular postage stamps, unlike Christmas seals, and are valid for postage year-round. They usually go on sale some time between early October and early December, and are printed in considerable quantities.
In 1898 a Canadian stamp was issued to mark the inauguration of the Imperial Penny Postage rate. The stamp features a map of the globe and bears an inscription "XMAS 1898" at the bottom. In 1937, Austria issued two "Christmas greeting stamps" featuring a rose and the signs of the zodiac. In 1939, Brazilissued four semi-postal stamps with designs featuring the three kings and a star of Bethlehem, anangel and child, the Southern Cross and a child, and a mother and child.
Both the US Postal Service and the Royal Mail regularly issue Christmas-themed stamps each year.
Gift giving
See also: Gift economy
The exchanging of gifts is one of the core aspects of the modern Christmas celebration, making the Christmas season the most profitable time of year for retailers and businesses throughout the world. Gift giving was common in the Roman celebration ofSaturnalia, an ancient festival which took place in late December and may have influenced Christmas customs. Christmas gift giving was banned by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages due to its suspected pagan origins. It was later rationalized by the Church on the basis that it associated St. Nicholas with Christmas, and that gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh were given to the infant Jesus by the Biblical Magi.
Legendary gift-bringing figures
Main articles: Santa Claus and Father Christmas
See also: Saint Nicholas and Saint Basil
Sinterklaas or Saint Nicholas, considered by many to be the original Santa Claus.
A number of figures of both Christian and mythical origin have been associated with Christmas and the seasonal giving of gifts. Among these are Father Christmas, also known as Santa Claus, Père Noël, and the Weihnachtsmann; Saint Nicholas orSinterklaas; the Christkind; Kris Kringle;Joulupukki; Babbo Natale; Saint Basil; andFather Frost.
The most famous and pervasive of these figures in modern celebration worldwide is Santa Claus, a mythical gift bringer, dressed in red, whose origins have diverse sources. The name Santa Claus can be traced back to the Dutch Sinterklaas, which means simply Saint Nicholas. Nicholas was Bishop of Myra, in modern day Turkey, during the 4th century. Among other saintly attributes, he was noted for the care of Children, generosity, and the giving of gifts. His feast on the 6th of December came to be celebrated in many countries with the giving of gifts. Saint Nicholas traditionally appeared in bishop's attire, accompanied by helpers, inquiring about the behaviour of children during the past year before deciding whether they deserved a gift or not. By the 13th century, Saint Nicholas was well known in the Netherlands, and the practice of gift-giving in his name spread to other parts of central and southern Europe. At the Reformation in 16th–17th century Europe, many Protestants changed the gift bringer to the Christ Child or Christkindl, corrupted in English to Kris Kringle, and the date of giving gifts changed from December the 6th to Christmas Eve.
The modern popular image of Santa Claus, however, was created in the United States, and in particular inNew York. The transformation was accomplished with the aid of notable contributors includingWashington Irving and the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840–1902). Following theAmerican Revolutionary War, some of the inhabitants of New York City sought out symbols of the city's non-English past. New York had originally been established as the Dutch colonial town of New Amsterdamand the Dutch Sinterklaas tradition was reinvented as Saint Nicholas. In 1809, theNew-York Historical Society convened and retroactively named Sancte Claus the patron saint of Nieuw Amsterdam, theDutchname for New York City. At his first American appearance in 1810, Santa Claus was drawn in bishops' robes. However as new artists took over, Santa Claus developed more secular attire. Nast drew a new image of "Santa Claus" annually, beginning in 1863. By the 1880s, Nast's Santa had evolved into the robed, fur clad, form we now recognize, perhaps based on the English figure of Father Christmas. The image was standardized by advertisers in the 1920s.
Santa Claus is famous around the world for giving gifts to good children
Father Christmas, a jolly, well nourished, bearded man who typified the spirit of good cheer at Christmas, predates the Santa Claus character. He is first recorded in early 17th century England, but was associated with holiday merrymaking and drunkenness rather than the bringing of gifts.In Victorian Britain, his image was remade to match that of Santa. The French Père Noël evolved along similar lines, eventually adopting the Santa image. In Italy, Babbo Natale acts as Santa Claus, while La Befana is the bringer of gifts and arrives on the eve of the Epiphany. It is said that La Befana set out to bring the baby Jesus gifts, but got lost along the way. Now, she brings gifts to all children. In some cultures Santa Claus is accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht, or Black Peter. In other versions, elves make the toys. His wife is referred to as Mrs. Claus.
There has been some opposition to the narrative of the American evolution of Saint Nicholas into the modern Santa. It has been claimed that the Saint Nicholas Society was not founded until 1835, almost half a century after the end of the American War of Independence. Moreover, a study of the "children's books, periodicals and journals" of New Amsterdam by Charles Jones revealed no references to Saint Nicholas or Sinterklaas. However, not all scholars agree with Jones's findings, which he reiterated in a booklength study in 1978; Howard G. Hageman, of New Brunswick Theological Seminary, maintains that the tradition of celebrating Sinterklaas in New York was alive and well from the early settlement of the Hudson Valley on.
Current tradition in several Latin American countries (such as Venezuela and Colombia) holds that while Santa makes the toys, he then gives them to the Baby Jesus, who is the one who actually delivers them to the children's homes, a reconciliation between traditional religious beliefs and the iconography of Santa Claus imported from the United States.
In Alto Adige/Südtirol (Italy), Austria, Czech Republic, Southern Germany, Hungary, Liechtenstein,Slovakia and Switzerland, the Christkind(Ježíšek in Czech, Jézuska in Hungarian and Ježiško in Slovak) brings the presents. The German St. Nikolaus is not identical with the Weihnachtsmann (who is the German version of Santa Claus/Father Christmas). St. Nikolaus wears abishop's dress and still brings small gifts (usually candies, nuts and fruits) on December 6 and is accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht. Although many parents around the world routinely teach their children about Santa Claus and other gift bringers, some have come to reject this practice, considering it deceptive.
History
Mosaic of Jesus as Christo Sole (Christ the Sun) in Mausoleum M in the pre-fourth-century necropolis under St Peter's Basilicain Rome.
Pre-Christian background
Dies Natalis Solis Invicti
Main article: Sol Invictus
Dies Natalis Solis Invicti means "the birthday of the unconquered sun".
Modern scholars have argued that the festival was placed on the date of the solstice because this was on this day that the Sun reversed its southward retreat and proved itself to be "unconquered". Some early Christian writers connected the rebirth of the sun to the birth of Jesus."O, how wonderfully acted Providence that on that day on which that Sun was born...Christ should be born", Cyprian wrote. John Chrysostom also commented on the connection: "They call it the 'Birthday of the Unconquered'. Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord . . .?"
Although Dies Natalis Solis Invicti has been the subject of a great deal of scholarly speculation,. the only ancient source for it is a single mention in the Chronography of 354, and modern Sol scholar Steven Hijmans argues that there is no evidence that the celebration precedes that of Christmas: "[W]hile the winter solstice on or around the 25th of December was well established in the Roman imperial calendar, there is no evidence that a religious celebration of Sol on that day antedated the celebration of Christmas, and none that indicates that Aurelian had a hand in its institution."
Winter festivals
Main article: List of winter festivals
A winter festival was the most popular festival of the year in many cultures. Reasons included the fact that less agricultural work needs to be done during the winter, as well as an expectation of better weather as spring approached. Modern Christmas customs include: gift-giving and merrymaking from RomanSaturnalia; greenery, lights, and charity from the Roman New Year; and Yule logs and various foods fromGermanic feasts. Pagan Scandinavia celebrated a winter festival called Yule, held in the late December to early January period. As Northern Europe was the last part to Christianize, its pagan traditions had a major influence on Christmas. Scandinavians still call Christmas Jul. In English, the word Yule is synonymous with Christmas, a usage first recorded in 900.
Christian feast
The New Testament does not give a date for the birth of Jesus. Around AD 200, Clement of Alexandriawrote that a group in Egypt celebrated the nativity on 25 Pashons. This corresponds to May 20. Tertullian(d. 220) does not mention Christmas as a major feast dayin the Church of Roman Africa. However, inChronographai, a reference work published in 221, Sextus Julius Africanus suggested that Jesus was conceived on the spring equinox, popularizing the idea that Christ was born on December 25. The equinox was March 25 on the Roman calendar, so this implied a birth in December. De Pascha Computus, a calendar of feasts produced in 243, gives March 28 as the date of the nativity. In 245, the theologianOrigen of Alexandria stated that, "only sinners (like Pharaoh and Herod)" celebrated their birthdays. In 303, Christian writer Arnobius ridiculed the idea of celebrating the birthdays of gods. However, since Christmas does not celebrate Christ's birth "as God" but "as man", this is not evidence against Christmas being a feast at this time. Moreover, the fact that the innovation rejecting Donatist Church of North Africa celebrated Christmas suggests that the feast had been established before the living memory of those who began that Church in311.
Feast established
The earliest known reference to the date of the nativity as December 25 is found in the Chronography of 354, an illuminated manuscriptcompiled in Rome. In the East, early Christians celebrated the birth of Christ as part of Epiphany (January 6), although this festival emphasized celebration of the baptism of Jesus.
Christmas was promoted in the Christian East as part of the revival of Catholicism following the death of the pro-Arian EmperorValens at theBattle of Adrianople in 378. The feast was introduced toConstantinople in 379, and to Antioch in about 380. The feast disappeared afterGregory of Nazianzusresigned as bishop in 381, although it was reintroduced by John Chrysostom in about 400.
The Examination and Trial of Father Christmas, (1686), published shortly after Christmas was reinstated as a holy day in England.
Middle Ages
In the Early Middle Ages, Christmas Day was overshadowed by Epiphany, which in the west focused on the visit of the magi. But the Medieval calendar was dominated by Christmas-related holidays. The forty days before Christmas became the "forty days of St. Martin" (which began on November 11, the feast of St. Martin of Tours), now known as Advent. In Italy, formerSaturnaliantraditions were attached to Advent. Around the 12th century, these traditions transferred again to theTwelve Days of Christmas (December 25 – January 5); a time that appears in the liturgical calendars as Christmastide orTwelve Holy Days.
The prominence of Christmas Day increased gradually after Charlemagne was crowned Emperor on Christmas Day in 800. King Edmund the Martyr was anointed on Christmas in 855 and KingWilliam I of England was crowned on Christmas Day 1066.
By the High Middle Ages, the holiday had become so prominent that chroniclers routinely noted where variousmagnates celebrated Christmas. King Richard II of England hosted a Christmas feast in 1377 at which twenty-eight oxen and three hundred sheep were eaten. The Yule boar was a common feature of medieval Christmas feasts. Caroling also became popular, and was originally a group of dancers who sang. The group was composed of a lead singer and a ring of dancers that provided the chorus. Various writers of the time condemned caroling as lewd, indicating that the unruly traditions of Saturnalia and Yule may have continued in this form. "Misrule"—drunkenness, promiscuity, gambling—was also an important aspect of the festival. In England, gifts were exchanged on New Year's Day, and there was special Christmas ale.
Christmas during the Middle Ages was a public festival that incorporated ivy, holly, and other evergreens. Christmas gift-givingduring the Middle Ages was usually between people with legal relationships, such as tenant and landlord. The annual indulgence in eating, dancing, singing, sporting, card playing escalated in England, and by the 17th century the Christmas season featured lavish dinners, elaborate masques and pageants. In 1607, King James I insisted that a play be acted on Christmas night and that the court indulge in games. It was during the Reformation in 16th–17th century Europe, that many Protestants changed the gift bringer to the Christ Child or Christkindl, and the date of giving gifts changed from December 6 to Christmas Eve.
Reformation into the 19th century
Ebenezer Scrooge and theGhost of Christmas Present. From Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, 1843
Following the Protestant Reformation, groups such as the Puritans strongly condemned the celebration of Christmas, considering it a Catholic invention and the "trappings of popery" or the "rags of the Beast." TheCatholic Church responded by promoting the festival in a more religiously oriented form. King Charles I of England directed his noblemen and gentry to return to their landed estates in midwinter to keep up their old style Christmas generosity. Following the Parliamentarianvictory over Charles I during theEnglish Civil War, England's Puritan rulers banned Christmas in 1647. Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeksCanterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways withhollyand shouted royalist slogans. The book, The Vindication of Christmas(London, 1652), argued against the Puritans, and makes note of Old English Christmas traditions, dinner, roast apples on the fire, card playing, dances with "plow-boys" and "maidservants", and carol singing. The Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 ended the ban, but many clergymen still disapproved of Christmas celebration. In Scotland, the PresbyterianChurch of Scotland also discouraged observance of Christmas. James VI commanded its celebration in 1618, however attendance at church was scant.
In Colonial America, the Puritans of New England shared radical Protestant disapproval of Christmas. Celebration was outlawed in Boston from 1659 to 1681. The ban by the Pilgrims was revoked in 1681 by English governor Sir Edmund Andros, however it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region. At the same time, Christian residents of Virginia andNew Yorkobserved the holiday freely. Pennsylvania German Settlers, pre-eminently theMoraviansettlers of Bethlehem,Nazareth and Lititz in Pennsylvania and the Wachovia Settlements in North Carolina, were enthusiastic celebrators of Christmas. The Moravians in Bethlehem had the first Christmas trees in America as well as the first Nativity Scenes. Christmas fell out of favor in the United States after theAmerican Revolution, when it was considered an English custom. George Washington attackedHessian (German) mercenaries on Christmas during the Battle of Trenton in 1777, Christmas being much more popular in Germany than in America at this time.
By the 1820s, sectarian tension had eased in Britain and writers, including William Winstanly, began to worry that Christmas was dying out. These writers imagined Tudor Christmas as a time of heartfelt celebration, and efforts were made to revive the holiday. In 1843, Charles Dickens wrote the novel A Christmas Carol, that helped revive the 'spirit' of Christmas and seasonal merriment. Its instant popularity played a major role in portraying Christmas as a holiday emphasizing family, goodwill, and compassion. Dickens sought to construct Christmas as a family-centered festival of generosity, in contrast to the community-based and church-centered observations, the observance of which had dwindled during the late 18th century and early 19th century. Superimposing his secular vision of the holiday, Dickens influenced many aspects of Christmas that are celebrated today in Western culture, such as family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games, and a festive generosity of spirit. A prominent phrase from the tale, 'Merry Christmas', was popularized following the appearance of the story. The term Scroogebecame a synonym for miser, with 'Bah! Humbug!' dismissive of the festive spirit. In 1843, the first commercialChristmas cardwas produced by Sir Henry Cole. The revival of the Christmas Carol began with William B. SandysChristmas Carols Ancient and Modern (1833), with the first appearance in print of 'The First Noel', 'I Saw Three Ships', 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'and 'God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen', popularized in Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
The Queen's Christmas tree at Windsor Castle, 1848. Republished in Godey's Lady's Book,PhiladelphiaDecember, 1850.
In Britain, the Christmas tree was introduced in the early 19th century following the personal union with theKingdom of Hanover, by Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen to King George III. In 1832 a young Queen Victoria wrote about her delight at having a Christmas tree, hung withlights,ornaments, and presents placed round it. After her marriage to her German cousin Prince Albert, by 1841 the custom became more widespread throughout Britain. An image of the British royal family with their Christmas tree at Windsor Castle, created a sensation when it was published in the Illustrated London News in 1848. A modified version of this image was published in the United States in 1850. By the 1870s, putting up a Christmas tree had become common in America.
In America, interest in Christmas had been revived in the 1820s by severalshort stories byWashington Irvingwhich appear in his The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon and "Old Christmas". Irving's stories depicted harmonious warm-hearted English Christmas festivities he experienced while staying inAston Hall, Birmingham, England, that had largely been abandoned, and he used the tractVindication of Christmas(1652) of Old English Christmas traditions, that he had transcribed into his journal as a format for his stories. In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote the poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (popularly known by its first line:Twas the Night Before Christmas). The poem helped popularize the tradition of exchanging gifts, and seasonal Christmas shopping began to assume economic importance. This also started the cultural conflict of the holiday's spiritualism and itscommercialism that some see as corrupting the holiday. In her 1850 book "The First Christmas in New England", Harriet Beecher Stowe includes a character who complains that the true meaning of Christmas was lost in a shopping spree. While the celebration of Christmas wasn't yet customary in some regions in the U.S., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow detected "a transition state about Christmas here in New England" in 1856. "The old puritan feeling prevents it from being a cheerful, hearty holiday; though every year makes it more so". In Reading, Pennsylvania, a newspaper remarked in 1861, "Even our presbyterian friends who have hitherto steadfastly ignored Christmas — threw open their church doors and assembled in force to celebrate the anniversary of the Savior's birth". The First Congregational Church of Rockford, Illinois, 'although of genuine Puritan stock', was 'preparing for a grand Christmas jubilee', a news correspondent reported in 1864. By 1860, fourteen states including several fromNew England had adopted Christmas as a legal holiday. In 1870, Christmas was formally declared a United StatesFederal holiday, signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant. Subsequently, in 1875, Louis Prang introduced the Christmas card to Americans. He has been called the "father of the American Christmas card".
Controversy and criticism
Main article: Christmas controversy
Throughout the holiday's history, Christmas has been the subject of both controversy and criticism from a wide variety of different sources. The first documented Christmas controversy was Christian-led, and began during the English Interregnum, when England was ruled by aPuritan Parliament. Puritans (including those who fled to America) sought to remove the remaining pagan elements of Christmas. During this period, the English Parliament banned the celebration of Christmas entirely, considering it "a popishfestival with no biblical justification", and a time of wasteful and immoral behavior.
Controversy and criticism continues in the present-day, where some Christian and non-Christians have claimed that an affront to Christmas (dubbed a "war on Christmas" by some) is ongoing. In the United States there has been a tendency to replace the greeting Merry Christmas with Happy Holidays. Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union have initiated court cases to bar the display of images and other material referring to Christmas from public property, including schools. Such groups argue that government-funded displays of Christmas imagery and traditions violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits the establishment by Congress of a national religion. In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled inLynch vs. Donnelly that a Christmas display (which included a Nativity scene) owned and displayed by the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island did not violate the First Amendment. In November 2009, the Federal appeals court in Philadelphia endorsed a school district's ban on the singing of Christmas carols.
In the private sphere also, it has been alleged that any specific mention of the term "Christmas" or itsreligious aspects was being increasingly censored, avoided, or discouraged by a number of advertisersand retailers. In response, the American Family Association and other groups have organized boycotts of individual retailers. In the United Kingdom there have also been some controversies, one of the most famous being the temporary promotion of the Christmas period as Winterval by Birmingham City Council in 1998. There were also protests in November 2009 when the city of Dundee promoted its celebrations as the Winter Night Light festival, initially with no specific Christmas references.
Economics
See also: Christmas in the media, Christmas tree production, Christmas tree cultivation, andChristmas Price Index
Christmas market in Metz, France.
Christmas is typically the largest annual economic stimulus for many nations around the world. Sales increase dramatically in almost all retail areas and shops introduce new products as people purchase gifts, decorations, and supplies. In the U.S., the "Christmas shopping season" starts as early as October. In Canada, merchants begin advertising campaigns just beforeHalloween (October 31), and step up their marketing following Remembrance Day on November 11. In the UK and Ireland, the Christmas shopping season starts from mid November, around the time when high street Christmas lightsare turned on. In the United States, it has been calculated that a quarter of all personal spending takes place during the Christmas/holiday shopping season. Figures from theU.S. Census Bureau reveal that expenditure in department stores nationwide rose from $20.8 billion in November 2004 to $31.9 billion in December 2004, an increase of 54 percent. In other sectors, the pre-Christmas increase in spending was even greater, there being a November – December buying surge of 100 percent in bookstores and 170 percent in jewelry stores. In the same year employment in American retail stores rose from 1.6 million to 1.8 million in the two months leading up to Christmas. Industries completely dependent on Christmas include Christmas cards, of which 1.9 billion are sent in the United States each year, and live Christmas Trees, of which 20.8 million were cut in the USA in 2002. In the UK in 2010, up to £8 billion was expected to be spent online at Christmas, approximately a quarter of total retail festive sales.
In most Western nations, Christmas Day is the least active day of the year for business and commerce; almost all retail, commercial and institutional businesses are closed, and almost all industries cease activity (more than any other day of the year), whether laws require such or not. In England and Wales, theChristmas Day (Trading) Act 2004 prevents all large shops from trading on Christmas Day. Scotland is currently planning similar legislation. Film studios release many high-budget movies during the holiday season, including Christmas films,fantasy movies or high-tone dramas with high production values.
One economist's analysis calculates that, despite increased overall spending, Christmas is a deadweight loss under orthodoxmicroeconomic theory, because of the effect of gift-giving. This loss is calculated as the difference between what the gift giver spent on the item and what the gift receiver would have paid for the item. It is estimated that in 2001, Christmas resulted in a $4 billion deadweight loss in the U.S. alone.Because of complicating factors, this analysis is sometimes used to discuss possible flaws in current microeconomic theory. Other deadweight losses include the effects of Christmas on the environment and the fact that material gifts are often perceived as white elephants, imposing cost for upkeep and storage and contributing to clutter.

Adam And Eve (AADAM AND HAWWA)

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 11:06:00 +0000

The First Man And Woman Created By GOD:

Adam (Hebrew: adam, dust, man,mankind,Arabic:Adam) and Eve (Hebrew: Hawwa, living one,Arabic: Hawwa were, according to the Book of Genesis of the Bible, the first man and womancreated by God. They are also credited as the first man and woman in Islam

Video Module:

Islamic Tradition

The Quran tells of (Adam) in the surah al-Baqara (2):30-39, al-A'raf (7):11-25, al-Hijr (15):26-44, al-Isra (17):61-65, Ta-Ha (20):115-124, and Sad (38):71-85.

The early Islamic commentator Muhammad ibn Jabberwacki adds a number of details to the Torah, based on hadith as well as specific Jewish traditions (so-called isra'iliyat). Tabari records that when it came time to create Adam, God sent Gabriel (Jibril), then Michael (Mika'il), to fetch clay from the earth; but the earth complained, saying I take refuge in God from you, if you have come to diminish or deform me, so the angels returned empty-handed. Tabari goes on to state that God responded by sending the Angel of Death, who took clay from all regions, hence providing an explanation for the variety of appearances of the different races of mankind.

According to Tabari's account, after receiving the breath of God, Adam remained a dry body for 40 days, then gradually came to life from the head downwards, sneezing when he had finished coming to life, saying All praise be to God, the Lord of all beings.Having been created, Adam, the first man, is described as having been given dominion over all the lower creatures, which he proceeds to name. As one of the people to whom God is said to have spoken to directly, Adam is seen as a prophet in Islam.

At this point, Adam takes a prominent role in Islamic traditions concerning the fall ofShaytan(Satan), which is not recorded in the Torah, but in the Book of Enoch which is used inOriental Orthodox churches. In these, when God announces his intention of creating Adam, some of the angels express dismay, asking why he would create a being that would do evil. Teaching Adam the names reassures the angels as to Adam's abilities, though commentators dispute which particular names were involved; various theories say they were the names of all things animate and inanimate, the names of the angels, the names of his own descendants, or the names of God.

When God orders the angels to bow to Adam one of those present, Shaytan Iblis in Islam, aDjinn who said why should I bow to man, I am made of pure fire and he is made of soil".), refuses due to his pride, and is summarily banished from the Heavens. Liberal movements within Islam have viewed God's commanding the angels to bow before Adam as an exaltation of humanity, and as a means of supporting human rights, others view it as an act of showing Adam that the biggest enemy of humans on earth will be their ego.

Eve is referred to in the Qur'an as Adam's spouse, and Islamic tradition refers to her by an etymologically similar name - (Hawwa) . In fact, although her creation is not recounted in the Qur'an, Tabari recounts the biblical tale of her creation, stating that she was named because she was created from a living thing (her name means living). The Torah gives an etymology for woman, or rather the Hebrew equivalent (ish-shah), stating that she should be calledwoman since she was taken out of man (ish in Hebrew). The etymology is regarded as implausible by most Semitic linguists.The Quran blames both Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit and as a punishment they were both banished from Heaven to the Earth. Muslims therefore interpret that this event does not pose a problem of women inferiority to men intrinsically. The concept of original sin doesn't exist in Islam. Adam and Eve were forgiven after they repented on Earth.

Al-Qummi records the opinion that Eden was not entirely earthly, and so, having been sent to earth, Adam and Eve first arrived at mountain peaks outside Mecca; Adam on Safa, and Eve on Marwa. In this Islamic tradition, Adam remained weeping for 40 days, until he repented, at which point God rewarded him by sending down the Kaaba, and teaching him the hajj.

The Qur'an also describes the two sons of Adam (named Qabil and Habil in Islamic tradition) that correspond to Cain and Abel.

Eve is said in local folklore to be buried in Eve Grave in Jeddah, KSA.

According to some Islamic traditions, Adam is buried beneath the site of the Kaaba in Mecca.Shi'a Muslims on the other hand, believe that Adam is buried next to Ali within Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf, Iraq.

Adam In The Qur'an

When Allah had created the heavens and the earth, He said to the angels,I will create a Khalifa on earth, someone to carry out my orders.They asked Allah,Will you place someone on earth who will make mischief and shed blood, while we praise you and glorify your name? And Allah said,I know what you know not.

So Allah created Adam (Alayhis-salam) out of clay, and taught him the names of all things. He placed the things before the angels and asked the angels to tell Him the names of them, but the angels answered, You are the exalted, and we know nothing except what you have taught us.Allah then asked Adam (Alayhis-salam) the same question, and Adam (Alayhis-salam) was able to answer correctly.

Allah ordered the angels to bow down to Adam (Alayhis-salam) and they did so. But Iblis, or Shaitan, did not bow down. When Allah asked,What kept you from bowing down when I commanded you ?Iblis answered, I am better than he. I was created from fire while he was made from clay.

Upon hearing this response, Allah threw Shaitan out of paradise, but Shaitan vowed that he would lie in wait for Adam (Alayhis-salam) and his descendants, trying to divert them from the Straight Way. To which Allah replied,If any of them follow you, Hell will I fill with you all.

Meanwhile, Allah had created a wife, Hawa, for Adam (Alayhis-salam), and he told them to live in the garden of paradise, Jannah, but he warned them to stay away from one particular tree, lest it bring harm to them. Shaitan started whispering suggestions to Adam and Hawa (Alayhis-salam). He spoke in such a clever way that they were convinced he was only concerned for their well-being. He told them that the forbidden tree would make them immortal and that they would live forever like the angels if they ate from it. Shaitan spoke so convincingly that Adam and Hawa (Alayhis-salam) believed him. As soon as they tasted the tree, they realized that they were naked, and started trying to cover themselves with leaves from the garden, for it now seemed wrong to be uncovered.

Then Allah called to them,Did I not tell you to stay away from that tree, and didnt I warn you that Shaitan was your sworn enemy?

Adam and Hawa (Alayhis-salam) were immediately full of remorse and begged for forgiveness and mercy from Allah. Allah ordered them out of Jannah and sent them to live on earth. He said,Therein shall you live, and therein shall you die, but from it you shall be taken out at last.Adam (Alayhis-salam) and his offspring began to live on earth according to Allahs command.

And so we are all the descendants of Adam and Hawa (Alayhis-salam), the first humans to be placed on earth. Here on earth we shall all live and die, and from here we shall all be made to return to Allah. It is our choice whether we shall be taken to Jannah or join the disobedient and deceitful Shaitan in Hell. Allah, in His infinite mercy, realizes that we will sometimes be led astray by Shaitan. Allah taught Adam (Alayhis-salam) some prayers for repentance and seeking pardon for wrongdoing.

Adam (Alayhis-salam) was the first prophet to bring Allahs message to mankind, so that we might know how to worship Allah and how to seek forgiveness for our mistakes. This message was completed to perfection by Allah through his last prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

The story of Adam (Alayhis-salam) can be found in the Quran, Surah 2, Ayat 30-37 and Surah 7, Ayat 10-27.

Eve in Islam

Eve is not mentioned by name in the Qur'an, she is nevertheless referred to as Adam's spouse, and Islamic tradition refers to her by an etymologically similar name - (Hawwa) .

Thus mention is found in verses 30-39 of Sura 2, verses 11-25 of Sura 7, verses 26-42 of Sura 15, verses 61-65 of Sura 17, verses 50-51 of Sura 18, verses 110-124 of Sura 20 and in verses 71-85 of Sura 38.

It is claimed in Islam that the bad thing they see (after eating the forbidden fruit) is not necessarily their naked body. It might refer to something else.

An important distinction between the notion of Eve in Islam, versus that found in pre-Islamic texts and belief systems, is that in Islamic texts and in the Muslim interpretive tradition - Adamand Eve share the temptation of Satan equally. Therefore, no burden is passed on from Eve to women-kind - and there is no original sin as sin cannot be inherited in Islam. (Moreover, in the Islamic tradition, Adam and Eve are forgiven for their transgression.

The Islamic scholar Tabari cites the biblical tale of Eve's creation, stating that she was named because she was created from a living thing (her name means living). The torah gives an etymology for woman, or rather the Hebrew equivalent (ish-shah), stating that she should be called woman since she was taken out of man (ish in Hebrew). The etymology is regarded as implausible by most Semitic linguists.

Traditionally, the final resting place of Eve is said to be the Eve Grave in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Gnostic And Manichaean Traditions

1) Gnostic Christianity has two unique texts containing stories of Adam and Eve: the Nag Hamadi textApocalypse of Adam and the Testament of Adam text. The creation of Adam as Protanthropos - the original man - is the focal concept.

(2) The Manichaean Gnostic sect believed that the Protanthropos was the World Soul , (Anima Mundi), sent to fight against darkness. The "Fall" meant the primordial man being delivered up to evil and swallowed in darkness, with the Universe as a whole coming into existence as a means of delivering the primordial Adam from Darkness. Sex between Adam and Eve was seen as the way in which darkness overcame the light.

Mani said, Then Jesus came and spoke to the one who had been born, who was Adam, and … made him fear Eve, showing him how to suppress (desire) for her, and he forbade him to approach her… Then that (male) archon came back to his daughter, who was Eve, and lustfully had intercourse with her. He engendered with her a son, deformed in shape and possessing a red complexion, and his name was Cain, the Red Man.

(3) Another Gnostic tradition held that Adam and Eve were created to help defeat Satan. The serpent, instead of being identified with Satan, is seen as a hero by the Ophite sect.

(4) Still other Gnostics believed that Satan's fall, however, came after the creation of humanity. As in Islamic tradition, this story says that Satan refused to bow to Adam. (As a result of his exclusive love of God, Satan felt that bowing to humankind was a form of idolatry.) This refusal led to the fall of Satan, recorded in works such as the Book of Enoch.

Later Abrahamic Traditions

Jewish Traditions

The Sibylline Oracles, dating from the centuries immediately around the time of Christ, explain the name Adam as a notaricon composed of the initials of the four directions; anatole (east), dusis (west),arktos (north), and mesembria (south). In the 2nd century, Rabbi Yohanan used the Greek technique of notarichon to explain the name as the initials of the words afer, dam, and marah, being dust, blood, and gall.

According to the Torah (Genesis 2:7), Adam was formed from dust from the earth,in theTalmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b) of the first centuries of the Christian era he is, more specifically, described as having initially been a golem kneaded from mud.

Even in ancient times, the presence of two distinct accounts of the creation of the first man (or couple) was noted. The first account says male and female [God] created them, implying simultaneous creation, whereas the second account states that God created Eve subsequent to the creation of Adam. The [Midrash Rabbah - Genesis VIII:1] reconciled the two by stating that Genesis 1,male and female He created them, indicates that God originally created Adam as a hermaphrodite, bodily and spiritually both male and female, before creating the separate beings of Adam and Eve. Other rabbis suggested that Eve and the woman of the first account were two separate individuals, the first being identified as Lilith, a figure elsewhere described as a night demon.

Genesis does not tell for how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, but the 2nd century BC Book of Jubilees, provides more specific information. It states (ch3 v17) that the serpent convinced Eve to eat the fruit on the 17th day of the 2nd month in the 8th year after Adam's creation. It also states that they were removed from the garden on the new moon of the fourth month of that year (ch3 v33). Other Jewish sources assert that the period involved was less than a day.

According to traditional Jewish belief Adam and Eve are buried in the Cave of Machpelah, inHebron.

This artical was taken from SQUIDOO.COM & Written By SamyRoumieh

Nano Nagle - The Presentation Sisters

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:37:00 +0000

Nano (full name Honora) Nagle (1718 – 26 April 1784) founded the "Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary" (also known as the "Presentation Sisters") in Ireland. Iona Presentation College in Perth, Australia was also named after her and the sisters. There are also other schools founded by or named after Nano Nagle.

Early Years:

Nano was born in Ballygriffin, Killavullen County Cork in 1718. As with many members of the Irish landed families, who had remained constant to the traditional Roman Catholic faith, Nano Nagle was sent to France to be educated.Education was being denied to them in Ireland unless they agreed to convert to the Church of Ireland. Nano's life in Paris, where the Nagles had many important social connections, was without a great deal of heed to the plight of the less well off of her country people.On her return from France she lived in Dublin for a while with her mother, but the deaths, in quick succession, of her father, mother and her sister Anne, caused her to return to her home at Ballygriffin (1718) and led to a decision to enter an Ursulines Convent in Ganmain Australia, where she was gradually persuaded that her life would more usefully be employed among her own people and in her own country where the light of education was barred to those of her religion under the Penal Laws.

The beginnings of Nano's ministry:

She returned from the French Convent in 1747 and set up the first Catholic school around this time. The proceedings had to be kept secret as what she was doing was outside the law. She proceeded slowly with a few children in a mud-cabin. She stole from hovel to hovel each day to gather the most needy people to teach, and night-time ministries to poverty-ridden elderly and sick in her hometown gave Nano the nickname The Lady with the Lantern. It was not long before Nano had over 200 children and she decided that it was time for a new school. She opened one on Philpott Lane on the North side of Cork City and soon she had seven schools: two for girls and five for boys. As her workload increased she realized that she would need help with her work. She came up with the idea to set up an Ursuline convent in Cork city which she would initially sponsor. Thus in 1771 the first Ursuline convent was established in Ireland; the first community was made up of four Cork women (who were professed at the Ursuline Convent in the Rue St Jacques, Paris, France) and a reverend mother. The original Ursuline convent built on Cove Lane (now Douglas Street) still survives (known as South Presentation Convent) and is a house of the Presentation Sisters to this day. Nano had four sisters and two brothers and their names were Ann, Mary, Catherine, Elizabeth, David, and Joseph. Her uncle Joseph had converted to the established church so that he could hold property on behalf of the Roman Catholic members of his family as was required under the Penal Laws then in force.

The Presentation Sisters:

The four vows of the Ursuline Sisters are poverty, chastity, obedience and education of all classes. Nano Nagle wished to concentrate on educating the poorest in society but this was incompatible with the Ursuline vow and so she determined to set up her own order: the Presentation Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1775 she entered with some companions on a novitiate for the religious life. The first house was on Cove Lane (now Douglas Street). With them she received the habit on 29 June 1776, taking the name of Mother Mary of St. John of God. They made their first annual vows 24 June 1777. She founded the first Presentation convent in Ireland at Cork which was opened on Christmas Day, 1777. Her first order was called the "Sisters of the Charitable Instruction of the Sacred Heart of Jesus", but it was later changed to "Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary", or the "Presentation Sisters". Today lay people and sisters work in carrying on Nano’s vision.

Final Illness and Death:

All her time was spent with the poor and she neglected herself; she soon fell ill with tuberculosis and died on 26 April 1784. Her last words were Love one another"....'Spend yourselves for the poor".

Before Nano Nagle died she told her sisters that God is happiness, never give up, help the children of the poor and trust in God. According to Sister Rose’s account, "On her deathbed Mother Nagle gave to her daughters the following injuction: 'Love one another as you have hitherto done.' As her legacy she bequeathed to them the treasure which she prized above all the wealth of the earth - the love of the poor of Jesus Christ.

Informative Links:

http://www.pbvm.org.au/
http://www.ipa.ozehosting.com/
http://www.nanonagle.com/
http://www.presentationsisterssf.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nano_Nagle

9/11: The Biggest Lie in History!

noreply@blogger.com (Khawaja Khalid (Nomi Prince)) — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 21:36:00 +0000

Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said in a stunning Prophecy 1,500 years ago:

Narrated Ibn Umar: "Once Allah's Apostle stood amongst the people, glorified and praised Allah as He deserved and then mentioned the Dajjal saying, "l warn you against him (i.e. the Dajjal) and there was no prophet but warned his nation against him. No doubt, Noah warned his nation against him but I tell you about him something of which no prophet told his nation before me. You should know that he is one-eyed, and Allah is not one-eyed." (Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 55, Number 553)"

The following film and images, and much more images in the film, expose the non-Muslim countries and how they are all dominated, controlled and governed by the one-eyed anti-Christ:

America and the West are controlled and governed by the ONE-EYED anti-Christ Dajjal!

(Click on any of the images to enlarge)

For anyone who still has doubts about 911, weigh out the facts and the overwhelming amount of evidence supporting the reality that the events of 911 were one big set-up.

This exposes the lies, disproving every aspect of the bogus 911 commission report put forth by the corrupt government.

Judge for yourselves, but investigate the facts and evidence before jumping to a conclsuion.

A comprehensive list of over 100 lies and omissions in the 911 commission report can be found in this link:

http://www.septembereleventh.org/newsarchive/2005-05-22-571pglie.php