Q: What are your thoughts on how the media covers these issues? even your local paper, the New York Times you’ve been highly critical of it.

A: Do you want me to read my paragraph about my local paper?

…

“My feeling of superiority, and the sense of well-being that comes from that, increases with the number of poor people on the planet, whose lives are dominated by me or my proxies and who I nonetheless can completely ignore. I like to be reminded of those poor people, those unobstrusives. And then I like to be reminded of my lack of interest in them. For example while I eat my breakfast each morning I absolutely love to read my morning newspaper, because on the first few pages the newspaper tells me how my country treated the unobstrusives on the day before, deaths, beatings, torture, what have you… Then as I keep turning the pages, the newspaper reminds me how unimportant the unobstrusives are to me. And it tries to tempt me on its articles on shirts, to consider different shirts I would like to wear. Then it goes on as I turn the pages, to coax me to sample different forms of cooking, and then to experience different plays, films, different types of vacations.”

[Puts the book down]

In other words, the stories in the newspaper about Afghanistan are… partly true and partly false, but they are presented in a context that basically makes me feel alright about treating the people there as non-equals. Which obviously we do if we send an unmanned drone, and we are thinking of killing some person who we think is an enemy and we kill 15 members of his family. We wouldn’t do that to people who we thought were our equals, for example: friends.

Even if there was someone that we despised, or who wanted to kill us, in the middle of their family, we wouldnt kill the whole family, we just wouldn’t.

And the New York times helps me to take that as… totally normal!

-=-=-=-=-=-

Transcribed from Interview

Absolutely great.

Sahih Bukhari
Volume 9, Book 93, Number 471:

Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri:

A man heard another man reciting (in the prayers): ‘Say (O Muhammad): “He is Allah, the One.” (112.1) And he recited it repeatedly. When it was morning, he went to the Prophet and informed him about that as if he considered that the recitation of that Sura by itself was not enough. Allah’s Apostle said, “By Him in Whose Hand my life is, it is equal to one-third of the Quran.”

• welcome to those that come, farewell to those that leave. #fb #

Urwah ibn Mas’ood narrated:
“O people, by Allâh I have visited kings. I went to Caesar, Chosroes and the Negus, but by Allâh I never saw a king whose companions venerated him as much as the companions of Muhammad venerated Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allâh be upon him). By Allâh, whenever he spat it never fell on the ground, it fell into into the hand of one his companions, then they wiped their faces and skins with it. If he instructed them to do something, they would hasten to do as he commanded. When he did wudû’, they would almost fight over his water. When he spoke they would lower their voices in his presence; and they did not stare at him out of respect for him.”
( al-Bukhârî, 3/178, no. 2731, 2732; al-Fath, 5/388 )

• India trip – Agra – http://bit.ly/17daOx #

Sheikh Abdul Kerim – Visiting India – Agra – Fatehpur Sikri from Yursil on Vimeo.

Our visit with Sheikh Abdul Kerim Kibrisi to Agra, India.

Fatehpur Sikri (Urdu: فتحپور سیکری) is a city and a municipal board in Agra district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. The historical city was constructed by Mughal emperor Akbar beginning in 1570 and served as the empire’s capital from 1571 until 1585.

Akbar had inherited the Mughal Empire from his father Humayun and grandfather Babur. During the 1560s he rebuilt the Agra Fort and established it as his capital. With his wife Mariam-uz-Zamani he had a son and then twins, but the twins died. He then consulted the Sufi Saint Salim Chishti from the Chishti Order who lived as a recluse in the small town Sikri near Agra. Salim predicted that Akbar would have another son, and indeed one was born in 1569 in Sikri. He was named Salim to honor the saint and would later rule the empire as Emperor Jahangir. The following year, Akbar, then 28 years old, determined to build a palace and royal city in Sikri, to honor his pir Salim Chishti. The tomb of Salim Chishti, “Salim Chisti Ka Mazar” was built there within the grounds of the Jama mosque.

The name, Fateh is of Arabic origin and means “victory”, also in Urdu and Persian; Mughal Emperor Babur defeated Rana Sanga in a battle at a place called Khanwa (about 40 KM from Agra).