Today's children could die at a younger age than their parents as preventable diseases reach epidemic levels, the UK's leading hospitals warned today.
Doctors from Liverpool's Alder Hey Children's Hospital said the number of avoidable health complaints such as obesity and tooth decay were booming.
As a result they were spending an increasing amount of time dealing with avoidable conditions.

Dr Steve Ryan, medical director at Alder Hey, said: 'It just shouldn't be happening.
'These children should not be suffering from these problems and they should not be here at this hospital.
'People are starting to say maybe this is a generation where children will be dying before their parents.'
Alder Hey is one of Europe's biggest children's hospitals, providing care for more than 200,000 children each year.
One of the areas most affected is the dental department. More than half of the 1,000 dental operations carried out each year are on children under the age of six.
Research has shown people with gum disease and tooth decay have a higher risk of heart disease.
Meanwhile between 500 to 1,000 children a year end up in hospital because they are exposed to their parents' smoking.
Another report predicted that eight out of 10 men and almost seven in 10 women will be overweight or obese by 2020.
BBC's Panorama programme 'Spoilt Rotten? claims around £1m and hundreds of hours of treatment time are being spent each year treating obesity, tooth decay, alcohol abuse and health complaints associated with passive smoking.

By Ahmad As-Sowayyan

Editor-in-chief — Al-Bayan Magazine

Image
I was on a visit to one of the Islamic centers in Germany when I noticed a woman dressed in full Islamic hijab. I had never seen such proper hijab in the West. Glad because of what I had seen, I thanked Almighty Allah. Later, a friend suggested that I learn from her husband about how she had become a Muslim — which I did.

Her husband related: My wife is German. She is an obstetrician and gynecologist. She used to have a clinic for treating sexually transmitted diseases, which could infect women. She conducted vast research in this area, and one of the specialists suggested that she go to another country where the demographics may show different results in order to make her research more comprehensive.

She went to Norway and stayed there for three months. There she found results similar to the ones reached in Germany. So, she decided to go to work in Saudi Arabia for a year. And she began to read about the history and culture of this Muslim country. At that point, she felt contempt toward the Muslim woman. She wondered how these women could submissively accept the hijab. She saw it as quite humiliating.

A Turning Point
The husband continued to relate the story of his wife's conversion, and he quoted her as saying:

When I arrived in Saudi Arabia, I discovered I had to wear a cloak over my body. I hated that. It made me feel like a prisoner, and I felt extremely humiliated by it. I decided, however, to accept that as the price I had to pay to complete my medical research.

Eventually, Almighty Allah guided me to the understanding that the dignity and honor of women are in virtue and hijab.
I worked for four continuous months at the clinic, and I saw hundreds of women. I did not come across a single case of sexually transmitted diseases. I began to feel bored and somewhat restless. When seven months had gone by without adding a thing to my research, I became frustrated. I left the clinic one day, feeling angry and upset. One of the Muslim nurses asked me about what was bothering me, and I told her about it. She smiled and said something in Arabic, which I could not understand. When I asked her to explain, she said, "What you are seeing is the fruit of virtue; it is the reward that we get for following the guidance of Almighty Allah, Who says:

(For Muslim men and women, for believing men and women, for devout men and women, for true men and women, for men and women who are patient and constant, for men and women who humble themselves, for men and women who give in Charity, for men and women who fast (and deny themselves), for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in Allah's praise — for them has Allah prepared forgiveness and great reward.) (Al-Ahzab 33:35)
I was really touched by the Qur'anic verse quoted by the nurse. I started to think about it, and I continued to read more of the Qur'an and the hadiths. Eventually, Almighty Allah guided me to the understanding that the dignity and honor of women are in virtue and hijab. I realized that most of what was written about the hijab in the West is from a Western standpoint, which has little understanding of true virtue and dignity.

I started to think about how the West had managed to change our views on hijab. And to make a long story short, any way I looked at it, I found that virtue came to change and became a rarity as a result of the media using women to alter the norms of the society. What I fear most today is that Muslims end up following that same road of liberalism and shamelessness. Following the way of life of our religion is our only hope of salvation from the same fate.

It is truly disturbing that AIDS has begun to be evident in the Arab region. This disease is the result of the collapse of a value system and the spread of sexual corruption. We find that the values and ethics of Islam are constantly under attack in the media. People are flooded with movies and programs that reflect total lack of shame and virtue. I know this may sound outrageous to non-Muslims. But, it is true that we today live in a world that feeds itself sins and illicitness disguised under the cover of freedom and modernism. What would one expect to happen next? It has to be more of the same fruits we are getting now.

We can only escape from such madness and corruption by being committed to our faith and by observing the laws set by Almighty Allah at all times.

In a Qur'anic verse, Almighty Allah warns:

(Indeed, those who like that immorality should be spread among those who have believed will have a painful punishment in this world and the Hereafter. And Allah knows and you do not know.) (An-Nur 24:19)


 

By Dr. H. A. Hellyer

Research Fellow

The subject "Islam and the Future of Europe" would have been "Islam and Europe" in the 1980s when we identified these two things as almost mutually exclusive. In the 1990s, we might have said "Islam in Europe," and the discourse was about a foreign element at work within our continent. We could have good relations, but we were Europeans and they were Muslims.

We have moved on somewhat since those days. We have two competing paradigms now. The first you can see by looking at some of the new additions to what passes as popular literature: "What Went Wrong?"; Radical Islam's War Against America; Prophet of Doom; Militant Islam Reaches America; Where Civilizations Collide. In this worldview, Islam is to be feared, and it is to be feared as something foreign.

The second paradigm, which is less media sensationalistic but more rooted in history, is the realization that the past and the present of Europe cannot be envisaged without examining the contribution and effects of Muslims and Islam. One non-Muslim author wrote, "Europe owes Islamic civilisation for assisting in its birth." In art, in culture, in science, and in intellectual thought, Europe and the Middle East exchanged and benefited from each other, which are matters of historical record for anyone who wishes to read them. Please note that I said "Europe and the Middle East," not "Europe and the Muslim world," because the Muslim world existed in Europe since the 7th century. The Muslim world is Spain and Portugal, and it existed since 711. The Muslim world is Sicily. The Muslim world is Lithuania and Poland. The Muslim world is the Ottoman Empire. The Muslim world is the effect on Saint Thomas Aquinas. The Muslim world is the Renaissance. That is what the Muslim world is in Europe's past; and in Europe's present, the Muslim world is 20 to 30 million European citizens.

Two Stereotypes

But we talk here about the future of Europe, a continent in the midst of a great search, looking for its soul and its place in the world. We also talk about the same search going on in Europe's Muslim communities, as they find not their soul, which is Islam, but their place.

It is the issue that the far right parties in particular use to make themselves more popular.
Two stereotypes abound about Europe and Muslim Europeans. The first is that everything is fine, and no one needs to worry about anything vis-à-vis Europe and its Muslim populations. The other stereotype is that Muslims are persecuted in Europe. These are both woefully ill-informed stereotypes, and they both have elements of truth. It is suitable that we examine them closely.

In the face of phenomenal changes to their societies resulting from European integration, modernity, and so forth, Europeans currently find themselves in an identity crisis that is continually exploited. A lot of authors talk about Muslim identity crisis, but a much deeper crisis is among the non-Muslim majority. This is an issue of growing importance, whether on the political left, right, or in the center. Unfortunately, it is the issue that the far right parties in particular use to make themselves more popular. The question that many Europeans are asking themselves now is "we are tolerant? Are we too tolerant?"

Instead of confronting that problem of identity on a fundamental level, taking into account the new dynamics, some are simply using the "problematic Muslim" as an excuse to escape answering the true conundrum of defining what it is to be "European." We call this a "cop out" — avoiding the issue, failing to deal with what must be dealt with. Unfortunately, it is not entirely unsurprising.

Problems With Pluralism

Historically, Europe has often had severe problems with pluralism. The Spanish Inquisition happened in Europe. The Holocaust happened in Europe. The Bosnian genocide happened in Europe. On the other hand, the end of slavery began as a European movement. The human rights projects that became so pivotal in the world began as European ideas. And Europe has learned a lot from its history. But at the same time, many sectors of European societies feel vulnerable about the dissipation of the cohesion of society and the nation. And we have to take it very seriously because it is a real problem, and often, Muslim communities may not be blamed, but they do not always help.

There are some sectors, both within the Muslim community and within the majority, that identify the historical contribution of Islam to Europe and build a Muslim European identity. It is very easy, actually, considering the historical links and the common values that exist between the fundamentals of European culture and Islamic precepts. But it is also easy to go the other way. In a crisis, many people look for the easy way out, and just condemn the other, whether from within the Muslim community or the non-Muslim majority. That is not a positive future.

The discussion over the future is taking place now, and everything you have seen in the news over the past few months — the Pope's comments on Islam, the comments of the British minister on the face veil (niqab), the banning of the face veil in some parts of Europe, the banning of the hijab in French and German schools — relates directly to the search of Europe to find her soul again. Unfortunately, rather than searching for her own soul, she often demonizes the soul of one of her sons.

Creative Minority

In a speech to the Italian senate some years ago, Pope Benedict XVI — before he became pope — mentioned Arnold Toynbee's belief that every civilization requires a creative minority to renew itself, and that Europe needed that now. Modernity, migration, globalization, secularism; all of these things and more had affected more change than Europe could handle, and a creative minority was needed to achieve a balance. Whether European Muslim communities prove to be a part of that creative minority or not is uncertain, but not impossible. It is a tough time for European Muslims, for European non-Muslims, and for Europe as a whole, but it is an exciting one.

In a class I teach on Muslims in Europe at the American University in Cairo, we recently discussed the issue of fiqh al-aqalliyat or the "jurisprudence for minorities". In brief, the philosophical basis behind the argument for such an idea is that Muslims in the West live as doubly marginalized communities; they are estranged from the Muslim world because they do not live in countries where Muslims are a majority, and thus are similar to extra supplements of the Muslim world elsewhere. And they are estranged from their neighbors in Europe, as a minority.

Muslims in Europe

Growing numbers of Muslims in Europe are rejecting such ideas of marginalization for a number of reasons:

• The history of Islam in Europe is an old and clearly indigenous one, far older, for example, than Islam in many parts of the Muslim world.
• The large immigrant communities are now in their second, third, fourth, and fifth generations and do not recognize any home other than Europe.
• A growing convert community accepts no myth of return to "home countries" nor do they accept that they must reject the culture of these new parts of the Muslim world in the West.

Modernity has been a positive force in some respects and negative in others, but it is certainly overwhelming.
As these communities begin to relate their existence as Muslims in their new Western contexts, there has been a growing trend for these communities to reject the idea emanating from much of the Muslim world that they are not really supposed to be there, that it would make much more sense for them to be in the "Muslim world." But when they look at their history, they see that their religious freedom is upheld far better in Europe than in much of the Muslim world. They see that Muslims lived as minorities for hundreds of years in places like sub-Saharan Africa and China, where Islam is older than it is in Egypt, and that those minorities contributed to Islam in magnificent ways.

Those historical minorities were on the edge. They were on the frontier. But this did not stop them. On the contrary, it inspired them. The Hadith collections that the entire Sunni Muslim world treats as sacrosanct came from people who lived as minorities. Imam Al-Shafi`i, the founder of what is now probably the most widespread of the classical Islamic schools of law, lived and died as the member of a religious minority in this country; remember that the Egyptian Muslim community was a minority for hundreds of years.

Modernity

Importantly, there is also a contribution coming from Muslim movements in the West to the Islamic world because they live in the heart of the new frontier of the 21st century, a frontier that we generally call modernity.

Modernity has been a positive force in some respects and negative in others, but it is certainly overwhelming. Cultures and societies have been affected in astounding ways. Here is a rough numerical estimation: The world probably changed more in the 200 years between 1800 and 2000 than it did in the 800 years between 1000 and 1800. Most of the Muslim world has doubly suffered from modernity, in part because of colonialism and in part because it never charted a course by which it could navigate modernity while remaining true to its essential values. There are still parts of the Muslim world where religious legal scholars argue on the assumption that the world economic system operates under a gold standard. And we could mention other topics, but the point is well made.

On the other hand, the Muslim populations of the West, in Europe as well as in North America, are in the heart of modernity and understand it, by and large, far better than their Eastern counterparts. Yet they do not have the historical pedigree in Islamic intellectual thought that places like the center of the Muslim world have. The exchange of ideas and the flow of information that is currently going on is a fruitful exchange. A couple of hundred years from now, Azhari students may be reading books written not in Cairo or Damascus but in Paris or New York.

Stranger things have happened. No one would have dreamed in the 8th century that the khalifah of all the Muslims would be a Turk in Istanbul. Nor that in Yemen, where Islamic legal thought has been going on for a thousand years, Malaysian scholars would be brought from the relatively new Muslim populations of the Far East to teach. Toynbee's idea of a creative minority that renews civilizations holds true in this regard as well.

All that was different then was that people had a vision to look beyond the moment. The potential for that to happen again already exists. European culture is like the soil of what could be a beautiful garden, and the fundamentals of Islam are noble seeds to plant therein. Whether we will see trees of splendor and magnificence coming to fruition is dependent on whether European Muslims and European non-Muslims alike will show courage or succumb to fear. It is truly our choice, and may we make the right one.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. H.A. Hellyer, a fellow at the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick (UK) and Director of the research consultancy, the Visionary Consultants Group (VCG). He is a United Nations ‘Global Expert’ on Muslim/non-Muslim relations, political philosophy, the interplay between religion and modernity, and counter-terrorism in the West & the Middle East. He is the author of Muslims of Europe: the 'Other' Europeans. His official website is www.hahellyer.com.

International troops opened fire on a bus carrying Afghan civilians today, killing four people and setting off anti-American protests by furious locals.
Witnesses said the bus, which was travelling in Kandahar province's Zhari district, had pulled over to allow an American convoy to pass when gunfire broke out.
The shooting left another 18 people wounded, 12 of whom were taken to a military hospital.

Nato said it was investigating the incident and would not reveal the nationality of the troops involved.
Passenger Rozi Mohammad, who was interviewed at hospital, said the bus had just left the Kandahar terminal when it pulled over to allow the convoy to take over.

Shooting broke out as the third or fourth American vehicle went by, he said, with gunfire coming from the direction of the convoy.
'They just suddenly opened fire, I don't know why. We had been stopped and after that I don't know what happened,' he said.
Within hours, scores of Afghans had blocked the main highway out of Kandahar city with burning tires, chanting 'Death to America,' and calling for the downfall of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, himself a Kandahar native.
Karzai issued a statement condemning the attack and expressing condolences to the victims.

'This shooting involving a civilian bus violates Nato's commitment to safeguard civilian life,' Karzai said.


'The Americans are constantly killing our civilians and the government is not demanding an explanation,' said resident Mohammad Razaq.

'We demand justice from the Karzai government and the punishment of those soldiers responsible.'
The shooting came as two suicide bombers attacked an Afghan intelligence services compound in Kandahar, which is the largest city in southern Afghanistan.
Afghan forces shot and wounded one of the attackers, who then detonated his explosives belt.

The second bomber was also killed, although it wasn't clear if he too had blown himself up.
Two intelligence agents and a teacher at a nearby school were injured in the attack, according to Ahmed Wali Karzai, the head of Kandahar's provincial council.
Kandahar was the seat of the Taliban regime ousted in 2001 and insurgents remain active there despite a heavy presence of foreign forces.
Nato is gearing up for long-anticipated allied operation to push the Taliban out of Kandahar, from which the hardline Islamic movement emerged as a political and military force in the 1990s.
Securing it is key to the U.S. military and Nato's aim of turning around the war, but anger stirred by civilian deaths could undercut local support.
The top Nato commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has issued strict orders to his troops to try to reduce civilian casualties.
Kandahar spokesman Ayubi said the provincial government strongly condemned the shooting.
Nato spokesman Mst. Sgt. Jeff Loftin said the alliance had dispatched a team to the scene to investigate, but didn't say whether its troops were responsible for the civilian deaths.
At least 2,412 Afghan civilians were killed in fighting last year, an increase of 14 percent from 2008, according to the United Nations.


     

It echoes the plot of a Hollywood blockbuster, but the deaths of seven British troops at the hands of a highly-trained and highly-skilled Afghan sniper in Sangin is a very real problem.
During a five-month killing spree, the sniper has stalked the 3rd Battalion, the Rifles, picking off individuals including a British sniper who was on the lookout for the shooter himself.
Three of those killed were considered among the best in their field.
Now the SAS is hunting the sniper who is stalking them across the streets of the city considered the most dangerous in Afghanistan.
The scene is chillingly reminiscent to the storyline of the 2001 film Enemy at the Gates, in which Jude Law and Ed Harris play rival Soviet and German snipers stalking each other across Stalingrad during World War II.

It is thought the Taliban killer may have been trained in neighbouring Iran or by Al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan. His youngest victim was just 19.
'Their sniper is giving us real problems and we've not yet worked out how to take him down,' said a senior British Army officer who recently visited the town in Helmand province.
'Our snipers are some of the best-trained and capable soldiers we have. When you lose one it is telling you something.'
Another soldier added: 'The Taliban sniper must watch our guys for days to wait for the best situation to open fire and still make his escape.

'So far he has not been taken down, even though the SAS have carried out several forays into the area.'
In total some 53 British servicemen have been killed in the vacinity of Sangin in the last 12 months, with 12 times the average casualty rate for Nato forces in the country
The senior officer added: 'There seem to be enough spy drones and troops for the size of area. The conclusion is the Taliban have outside help — from either Iran or Al-Qaeda in Pakistan — to train up their guys.'
Major-General Gordon Messenger, UK spokesman for operations in Afghanistan, said: 'The casualty toll in Sangin is tragically high but our forces remain very much on the front foot and are determined to maintain the progress that they and their predecessors have achieved.'


     

This is the baby-faced 'Black Widow' suspected of blowing up herself and scores of commuters on the Moscow underground this week.
Looking like an Islamic extremist version of Bonnie and Clyde, Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova, 17, and her husband, a notorious militant leader, pose with guns.
Abdurakhmanova became a widow last year when Umalat Magomedov, an Islamist rebel in the southern republic of Dagestan, was shot by Russian agents.
Police believe she blew herself up at the Lubyanka metro station on Monday, underneath the FSB security service headquarters, to avenge the deaths of those killed by Russian troops fighting rebels in the Caucasus region.

The teenager, named in Moscow's Kommersant newspaper yesterday, and another suicide bomber killed 40 people in their attack. A further 90 were injured.
The second bomber is believed to be 20-year- old Markha Ustarkhanova, who last year ran away from her parents' home to marry warlord Said-Emin Khizriev, a rebel leader in war-torn Chechnya. He was killed in a Russian operation in October.
Abdurakhmanova's 30-year-old husband Magomedov died when traffic police began shooting down a car in which he and three other militants were travelling in in the town of Khasavyurt, Dagestan.
Monday's rush hour attack, in which Abdurakhmanova and an accomplice are believed to have detonated explosive vests 40 minutes apart, has prompted fears of a wave of Black Widow suicide bombings in Russia.

These fears intensified on Wednesday when a bomb at a school in Dagestan, which borders Chechnya, left 12 people dead.
According to Russia's Kommersant newspaper, Abdurakhmanova's husband was the leader of a terrorist group in Dagestan linked to the Islamist movement of Doku Umarov, who today claimed responsibility for the metro bombings.
Umarov, who leads Islamic militants in Chechnya and other regions in Russia's North Caucasus, said in a video posted on a pro-rebel website that the twin suicide attacks were an act of revenge for the killing of civilians by Russian security forces.
He warned that attacks on Russian cities would continue.
Police released photographs of the facial remains of the two bombers this week. The woman who carried out the second bombing has not been identified but Kommersant claims it was a 20-year-old Chechen woman Markha Ustarkhanova.


     

1)  A prophet like Moses:

2) From the brothers of the Israelites:

3) God will put His words in the mouth of this prophet:

Note that God has said in the prophecy of Deuteronomy 18, “If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account.” (Deuteronomy, 18:19).  This means that whoever believes in the Bible must believe in what this prophet says, and this prophet is the Prophet Muhammad .


      

This information on lightning was discovered recently.  Until 1600 AD, Aristotle’s ideas on meteorology were dominant.  For example, he said that the atmosphere contains two kinds of exhalation, moist and dry.  He also said that thunder is the sound of the collision of the dry exhalation with the neighboring clouds, and lightning is the inflaming and burning of the dry exhalation with a thin and faint fire.  These are some of the ideas on meteorology that were dominant at the time of the Quran’s revelation, fourteen centuries ago.

      

The internal waves cover the deep waters of seas and oceans because the deep waters have a higher density than the waters above them.  Internal waves act like surface waves.  They can also break, just like surface waves.  Internal waves cannot be seen by the human eye, but they can be detected by studying temperature or salinity changes at a given location.