As we begin the month of Muharram, it is important to remember the true purpose of the sacrifice by Imam Husayn at Karbala. Karbala is not meant to be a tragedy. No doubt, it brings us tears and causes us to reflect on Allah, but if it only brings us tears with no action, are we truly grasping the correct message? If we are saddened by our dark past but continue to perpetrate the same vices that cloud our history, have we actually learned anything?

Imam Husayn did not fight because his right (the caliphate) had been taken from him. All of the Imams, before and after him, had their rights taken away by those in power. What was so different under Yazid? Imam Husayn (peace be upon him) could have given allegiance to Yazid as a form of taqiyya. Instead, he resisted. Why?

The answer is that rights of the community of Muslims were being violated. The rights of Allah over the people were being ignored. The rights of Allah’s house were being desecrated. More than anything else, the blood of a human being is sacred. It is not lawful to kill even an animal without Allah’s permission. So, how can anyone kill a human being?

That is the question that Muslims today must ask themselves. Every human being has unalienable rights that cannot be taken away, even by the highest scholars or the most decorated rulers. The tears we shed for Imam Husayn are declarations that certain things are right and certain things are wrong. Allah is just, and certain things cannot be reinterpreted or explained away through conjecture. Murder is wrong. Female mutilation is wrong. Nationalism is wrong. Racism is wrong. Lying is wrong. Hoarding of wealth at the expense of the poor is wrong. Oppression is wrong. Torture is wrong. Every person in any form of leadership (even over their own household), must uphold certain principles, and it is the responsibility of their followers and patrons to ensure that they do uphold them.

In this way, there should be a little Imam Husayn in all of us, fighting injustice and calling all people to return to the path of Allah.

As-salaamu Alayka Ya Waritha Muhammadin Rasoulullah, Ya Aba Abdallah il-Hussayn!

I’ve decided to call it quits on this blog. It’s simply becoming too much work to keep this blog up and running while I have another, much more successful blog to maintain. I will keep this site open and post relevant news about the Lanterntorch.net organization, but all personal, technology-related, and work-related posts will move to my personal blog, LanternTorch.com (http://www.lanterntorch.com). I apologize for never getting the whole software thing going. Hopefully, I’ll have more time to do some stuff like that with less blogging on this blog.

This has been quite a new year for LTNET. In the month of January, our server has been attacked at least 5 times. None of them brought the server down, but it was annoying. I’ll post more technical stuff at LTOS. I try to leave my “techie” stuff off of LTCOM because there wouldn’t be room for anything else.

In the meanwhile, I intended to post something about Group Thikr. A weird thing happened last night, and somehow that post is missing. I’m at work now, so, I don’t have my personal library (I really need to digitize it).

PRI’s “The World” has an interview with a political consultant to Hamas, talking about their victory in the recent Palestinian parliamentary elections. It is definitely worth it to lend your attentive ear. I think you’ll see that the prospects for peace have actually gotten better rather than worse.

Finally, it’s good to see that Sunni Sister is back and blogging, alhamdulillah.

Oh yeah, another thing. I have to work tomorrow (Saturday)! It’s for a good cause though, inshaAllah.

Bismihi Ta’ala,

On behalf of all upstanding Muslim men in the world, I categorically denounce any acts of harassment against Sunni Sister or ANY other sister (especially my wife). Apparently, some men were not born from women, do not marry women, and do not have female children. I, however, have all three, and would become extremely violent (yes, I’ll use the J word…JIHAD against Muslims…It can happen), if anyone messed with my peeps.

Since these particular people have chosen to remain anonymous, I just want to let them know, you can click but you can’t hide. If you visit a web site, post comments on it, or email someone, you have left a trace of yourself, and you can be found.

But this blog post is not about punishing the perpetrators; it is about my support for the victim. We are with you, Sunni Sister. I speak on behalf of all the men of OneUmmah.net, Muslim Writers Society, and MuslimMessage.net when I say that you are not alone. For every pig-headed man who attacks a woman, there is another man to whack the pigginess out of him. I believe the 2nd caliph, Umar, said that, for some people Islam comes easily, for others, they need the stick.

Sister, I’ll hold the stick. You just keep blogging.

LISNews has a very interesting story (http://lisnews.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/23/1349211&from=rss) about Osama bin Laden’s quote (or misquote) from a book causing its sales to skyrocket in the US and other western countries.

While it is amusing to image that Oprah’s Book Club must compete with Bin Laden’s Book Club, it does raise some serious questions.

1. A news media (both western and arab) that passes over stories such as the alleged rape of a 21-year-old woman by 4 US marines in the Philippines, dwells on, and even embellishes the latest “Bin Laden Tapes” as though they are rap albums and he’s the latest “American Idol.”

2. Why isn’t credibility a factor in midst of this brouhaha? Oprah was held accountable for less-than-factual book club recommendation, yet very few have seriously questioned whether any of these magically and incredibly easily available Bin Laden tapes are real. In an age when even a less than competant movie maker could conceivably created a video tape of anybody doing anything, how much easier would it be to create an (translated) audio tape?

3. If Al-Jazeerah has access to Bin Laden on such a regular basis, why can’t the US army and “intelligence,” with all of their cutting-edge spying technology that they use on their own citizens, find him?

4. If Bin Laden writes his own book, will American libraries carry it? Will we be allowed to have it on our shelves?

5. If his book becomes a bestseller, will Oprah read it? Will it be her next book club book?