Contestants gear up for Quran award

Dubai: The Dubai International Holy Quran Award will host 75 contestants this year, with the event set to start on Ramadan 8 following a series of lectures starting on the first day of Ramadan.

The committee of the Dubai International Holy Quran Award (DIHQA) has so far approved the participation of 75 countries for this year's competition, which is 10 contestants fewer than last year.

Lectures

The award, in its 14th session, is held under the patronage of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

The lectures and the competition will be held at the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Many of the aspiring young contestants — the youngest this year is a 10-year-old Rwandan contestant, come from poor backgrounds, but from an environment that gives an importance to culture and religion in their daily lives.

For them, learning and memorising the Quran earns them a high status in their community, said Ebrahim Mohammad Bu Melha, Chairman of DIHQA's Organising Committee.

The competition will also be covered by numerous international TV channels, said Bu Melha.

The women's association in Al Hamriya and a public tent in Jumeirah will host a number of lectures from the first of Ramadan until September 11.

The lecturers include prominent figures in the Arab and Islamic world such as world-famous Egyptian preacher Dr Omar Abdul Kafi, Dr Mohammad Al Nabulsi, and Dr Yousuf Juma Salama, preacher at the Al Aqsa Mosque.

The Quran award started in 1997 (1418 Hijri) with only two elements: the competition and the Islamic Personality of the Year award. Today it has six additional sections: a local Quran contestant, a programme on memorising the Quran for prisoners, Islamic lectures, a UAE national programme, a recitation contest and Quran sciences programme.

Personality of the year

The international contest is set to begin on August 19. Five Islamic scholars in Sharia studies and Quranic sciences and readings from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the United States will be judging the contestants this year.

Contestants should be able to completely memorise the Quran and have full knowledge of Quran recitation.

The Islamic Personality of the Year will be announced during the competition. The winner gets an award of Dh1 million for his contribution and achievements in the Islamic world. The first three winners of the Quran recitation receive Dh250,000, Dh200,000 and Dh150,000. The fourth to tenth positions receive Dh65,000, Dh60,000, Dh55,000, Dh50,000, Dh45,000, Dh40,000 and Dh35,000.

Meanwhile, winners below the tenth position will be rewarded according to their evaluations as those above 80 per cent are rewarded Dh30,000 each, from 70 to 79 per cent receive Dh25,000 each and below 70 per cent get Dh20,000 ea

Gulfnews.com

Prophet's Mosque ready to welcome millions of visitors

Makkah: The Presidency for the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques has charted an intensive plan to receive visitors to the Prophet's Mosque during Ramadan, which starts next week, Shaikh Saleh Bin Abdul Rahman Al Hussain, chief of the presidency in Makkah, has said.

Speaking to reporters, Al Hussain said 1,970 workmen, including engineers, technicians and workers have been working at the Prophet's Mosque in Madinah to keep it clean and provide services for visitors.

A power station, fitted with large transformers, approximately seven kilometres away from the mosque, keeps the entire building cool by pumping cold, fresh air through a network connected to the structure's colonnades.

The Prophet's Mosque has six two-way elevators to provide worshippers access from the first floor.

Two sections have been set aside for women, on the eastern and western sides of the mosque. These sections can accommodate more than 50,000 women and have been fitted with separate toilets. The toilet facilities are kept clean round the clock.

Gulf News

Harrow Council to 'review' halal-meat menus in schools after furore
 

UK: HARROW Council will review plans to introduce halal-only meat menus in the borough's primary schools after a raft of complaints from parents.

Proposals have been laid down for firm Harrison Catering to provide schools meals for primary schools, extending a contract already in place in all but one of the borough's secondary schools.

However, a subsequent furore when the news became public was followed by complaints lodged with the council, with many upset that a non-halal meat option would not be available.

The council has now said it will review the situation when the new school term starts, and has rejected some claims in the media that pupils were being forced to eat halal meat.

A statement put out by the council on Friday, August 6, insisted: “The use of halal meat is common practice across London in many schools, public organisations and indeed restaurants, because of the need to provide segregated meat preparation.
 

Harrow Times

Saudi Arabia hopes giant clock will establish 'Makkah Time'
 

Makkah: Muslims around the world could be setting their watches to a new time soon when the world's largest clock begins ticking atop a soaring skyscraper in Islam's holiest city of Makkah.

Saudi Arabia hopes the four faces of the new clock, which will loom over Makkah's Grand Mosque from what is expected to be the world's second tallest building, will establish Makkah as an alternate time standard to the Greenwich median.

The clock is targeted to enter service with a three-month trial period in the first week of the holy month of Ramadan on or about August 12, according to the Saudi state news agency SPA.

It boasts four glimmering 46 metre-across faces of high-tech composite tiles, some laced with gold, sitting more than 400 metres over the Holy Haram compound.

The tower's height will reach 601 metres SPA said.

On its website, Premiere Composite, which is responsible for cladding the top section, including a shimmering spire topped by a golden crescent moon, puts the planned height at 590 metres.

That would make it the world's second tallest building - ahead of Taiwan's 509 metre Taipei 101, but well behind the Burj Khalifa, the 828 metre skyscraper inaugurated in Dubai in January.

Some 250 "highly qualified Muslim workers" were completing welding work on the clock's frame, SPA said.

More than six times larger in diameter than London's famed Big Ben, the clock faces, with the Arabic words "In the Name of Allah" in huge lettering underneath and will be lit with two million LED lights.

Some 21,000 white and green coloured lights, fitted at the top of the clock, will flash to as far as 30 kilometres to signal Islam's mandatory five-times daily prayers.

On special Muslim occasions, 16 bands of vertical lights will shoot some 10 kilometres up into the sky.

"Everyone is interested to see the clock, despite the lack of sufficient information about it, and its mechanism," said Makkah resident Hani Al Wajeeh.

"We in Makkah hope to be the world's central time zone, and not just have a clock to look at, to show off," he said.

The developer of the massive seven-tower Abraj Al Bait complex had kept the details of the clock a secret, but it is visibly in place now, adorned with the green crossed sword and palm symbol of the Saudi state.

Mohammad Al Arkubi, the manager of the Royal Mecca Clock Tower Hotel in the building below, said the installation of the clock, its faces made by the German-owned Dubai company, Premiere Composite Technologies, has been "a huge operation."

The clock reflects a goal by some Muslims to replace the 126-year-old Universal Time standard - originally called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) - with Makkah mean time.

At a conference in Doha in 2008, Muslim clerics and scholars presented "scientific" arguments that Makkah time is the true global meridian.

They said that Makkah is the centre of the world and that the Greenwich standard was imposed by the west in 1884.

Big does not begin to describe the Abraj Al Bait complex just across the street from the south gate of the Grand Mosque, the Muslim world's most sacred site.
 

Built by a government-controlled fund, the complex sits seven huge towers atop a massive podium. Six are between 42 and 48 stories, and in the middle is the clock tower, appearing nearly twice as tall as the others.

Moreover, the entire complex, with 3,000 hotel rooms and apartments, a five-story shopping centre and gigantic prayer and conference halls, will give it 1.5 million square metres of floor space, according to architects and construction industry reports.

At that it will tie Dubai International Airport's newest terminal three for the world's largest building by floor space.

The complex will sport three top-class hotels, the Fairmont, Raffles and Swiss Hotel. It will also have hundreds of luxury apartments, most of them designed to have a direct view of the Grand Mosque.

The project is part of the Saudi government's plan to develop Makkah to be able to receive as many as 10 million hajj Pilgrims every year, up from the current three million capacity.

That is necessary to accommodate a rapidly growing global population of Muslims, who have a duty to make a pilgrimage to Makkah at least once in their lifetimes, if possible.

At the peak of the Haj, according to architect Dar Al Handasah, the complex should accommodate 65,000 people.

The clock will be the focus. Elevators will take visitors up to a huge viewing balcony just underneath the faces, and also a four-story astronomical observatory and Islamic museum.

"The construction of the biggest clock in the world in the purest spot on the earth is a dream-come-true for Muslims," said Atif Felmban, who lives in the city.

"Before, we heard and saw famous clocks in the West. But today we can as Muslims be proud of this giant project," said Ahmad Haleem, an Egyptian living in the Muslim holy city.

"I might leave Makkah before the opening ceremony for the clock. But I will be keen to follow it and set my watch to it as soon as it is working," Haleem said. "It means an honour for a place, and time for me."
 

Gulfnews.com

Response to Dove threat
 

US: Pastor Terry Jones of The Dove Outreach Church, Gainesville, Fl is planning to commemorate September 11 by calling for “International Burn The Quran Day.".

The Islamic Centre of Southern California (ICSC) spokesperson Dr. Maher Hathout responded during the Friday prayer sermon on August 6, 2010.

Click here to listen to Dr Hathout.

Islam the new anti-communism?

Islam Centre near Ground Zero gets support from some quarters

Obama Strongly Endorses Islam Center Near 9/11 Site

WASHINGTON — President Obama delivered a strong defence on Friday night of a proposed Muslim community centre and mosque near ground zero in Manhattan, using a White House dinner celebrating Ramadan to proclaim that “as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country.”

After weeks of avoiding the high-profile battle over the centre — his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said last week that the president did not want to “get involved in local decision-making” — Mr. Obama stepped squarely into the thorny debate.

“I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. Ground zero is, indeed, hallowed ground,” the president said in remarks prepared for the annual White House iftar, the sunset meal breaking the day’s fast.

But, he continued: “This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are.”

In hosting the iftar, Mr. Obama was following a White House tradition that, while sporadic, dates to Thomas Jefferson, who held a sunset dinner for the first Muslim ambassador to the United States. President George W. Bush hosted iftars annually.

Aides to Mr. Obama say privately that he has always felt strongly about the proposed community centre and mosque, but the White House did not want to weigh in until local authorities made a decision on the proposal, planned for two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

Last week, New York City removed the final construction hurdle for the project, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spoke forcefully in favour of it.

The community centre proposal has led to a national uproar over Islam, 9/11 and freedom of religion during a hotly contested midterm election season.

In New York, Rick A. Lazio, a Republican candidate for governor and a former member of the House of Representatives, issued a statement responding to Mr. Obama’s remarks, saying that the president was still “not listening to New Yorkers.”

“With over 100 mosques in New York City, this is not an issue of religion, but one of safety and security,” he said.

Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 2008, has called the project “an unnecessary provocation” and urged “peace-seeking Muslims” to reject it.

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organization, has also opposed the center.

In his remarks, Mr. Obama distinguished between the terrorists who plotted the 9/11 attacks and Islam. “Al Qaeda’s cause is not Islam — it is a gross distortion of Islam,” the president said, adding, “In fact, Al Qaeda has killed more Muslims than people of any other religion, and that list includes innocent Muslims who were killed on 9/11.”
 

Noting that “Muslim Americans serve with honor in our military,” Mr. Obama said that at next week’s iftar at the Pentagon, “tribute will be paid to three soldiers who gave their lives in Iraq and now rest among the heroes of Arlington National Cemetery.”

Mr. Obama ran for office promising to improve relations with the Muslim world, by taking steps like closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and more generally reaching out. In a speech in Cairo last year, he vowed “a new beginning.”

But Ali Abunimah, an Arab-American journalist and author, said the president has since left many Muslims disappointed.

“There has been no follow-through; Guantánamo is still open and so forth, so all you have left for him to show is in the symbolic field,” Mr. Abunimah said, adding that it was imperative for Mr. Obama to “stand up to Islamophobia.”

Once Mr. Bloomberg spoke out, the president’s course seemed clear, said Steven Clemons of the New America Foundation, a public policy institution here.

“Bloomberg’s speech was, I think, the pivotal one, and set the standard for leadership on this issue,” Mr. Clemons said.

Mr. Bloomberg, in a statement, said: “This proposed mosque and community center in Lower Manhattan is as important a test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetime, and I applaud President Obama’s clarion defense of the freedom of religion tonight.”

Sharif el-Gamal, the developer on the project, said, “We are deeply moved and tremendously grateful for our president’s words.”

A building on the site of the proposed centre is already used for prayers, and some worshipers there on Friday night discussed the president’s remarks.

Mohamed Haroun, an intern at a mechanical engineering firm, said, “What he should have said was: ‘This is a community decision. Constitutionally, they have the right to do it, but it’s a community decision and we should see what the local community wants to do.’ ”

The New York Times

Mayor’s Stance on Muslim Center Has Deep Roots

Michael R. Bloomberg is a former Wall Street mogul with a passion for the rights of a private property owner. He is a Jew whose parents asked their Christian lawyer to buy a house and then sell it back to them to hide their identity in an unwelcoming Massachusetts suburb. And he is a politician who regards his independence as his greatest virtue.

That potent combination of beliefs and history, those closest to Mayor Bloomberg say, has fuelled his defence of the proposed Muslim community centre in Lower Manhattan — a defence he has mounted with emotion, with strikingly strong language and in the face of polls suggesting that most New Yorkers disagree with him.

“Something about this issue just really hooked into him,” said Howard J. Rubenstein, the powerful public relations executive, who is a friend of Mr. Bloomberg. “It deeply upset him.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s forcefulness has won him new admirers, but also a chorus of both familiar and fresh detractors. Reliable newspaper editorial allies have turned against him. Conservative pundits have mocked him (one called him “self-deluding”). Even some of his closest friends have angrily differed with him.
 

The New York Times

Q: Dear Kareema, my baby is 3 month old and I've got clearance from my doctor to start exercising. My problem is I don't know where to start and how to continue... I'd love to get back into shape and get some energy back into my body. Any suggestions?

A: Caring for your baby means caring for yourself too! The first thing you should try and do is rest while baby has a nap.
 

Keep your exercise routine simple by starting with short walks to raise your fitness level. This will also aid recovery, improve circulation and strengthen pelvic floor and tummy (core) muscles.

When you feel ready to move on, gradually increase your time and intensity of the walks. Always be aware of your posture by lengthening your spine and drawing your shoulders back and down. Gently draw in your tummy as well.

Try introducing a few different exercises into you routine as the weeks go by, eg. sit-ups, tricep-dips, push-ups, etc. These can be done at home, after your walks. Weight training will be good for toning your muscles as well.

Be sure to have rest days and stay hydrated at all times. A few Yoga sessions will do your deep muscles a world of good too and soon, if you are consistent and committed to your routine, you'll feel stronger and have more energy than before!

NJOY!