It seems that aftera few days of bombing, Israel has started its pummelling of Gaza tonight which they have called "Operation Protective Edge" AKA - let's blow them them Palestinians up again.

The Palestinians will be punished badly and while they continue to fight for their rights, no one else seems to give anything buy verbal assistance.

Egypt, the southern neighbour of Gaza is in fact even an accomplice to the disasters that have befallen Gaza and if it could would probably be even more severe on the Palestinians than Israel.

The Muslim world is probably at the weakest most scattered than it has ever been, probably even weaker than after the Mongol invasion that destroyed Baghdad and created a period with weak muslim leadership lasting 2/3 centuries.

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I saw a link to a video with the caption “6th day of Ramadan” I may have misread it but it made me panic.  Nope, it wasn’t the 6th day today, but it was the 5th! The days are flying by and to make use of some clichés – this Ramadan doesn’t feel like a sprint or a marathon. It feels like an uphill battle. 

“The supplication of a Muslim for his brother in his absence will certainly be answered. Every time he makes a supplication for good for his brother, the angel appointed for this particular task says: ‘Ameen! May it be for you too’.” [Muslim].

Since the dua of the fasting person is accepted this is the best time to do it. But here is how you make it unique:

1. Do it for someone who wouldn’t expect it from you without telling that person to make it most sincere and for the sake of Allah.

2. Diversify the duas and people you make dua for so that you can be given different things. So in particular think of a person in each of the following categories and make dua for them daily:

Today at Prime Minister's questions, the UK Prime Minister paid his condolences to the families of three murdered Israeli teenagers.

However he did not pay his condolences or even mention the murder of a Palestinian teenager last night.

Nor for the 5 Palestinians killed by Israel while carrying out their searches the past 2 weeks. He hasn't bat an eyelid to the kidnap of over 400 Palestinians and the bombing of Gaza.

There was also no reaction to the cold blooded murder of Palestinian children by Israeli security forces in May of this year. The murders were caught on CCTV camera:

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That's the claim from this website/online course for learning classical arabic.

Apparently everyone else is teaching it wrong. It promises to get a lot covered in 21 days or something.

I decided to sign up to give it a try.

(Last time I tried a course on anything, I quit... and all I had to do was watch some videos!)

EDIT - Ive listened to the first video, and I think 4 others will be opened up over the next 4 days, but that will be a taster to encourage people to sign up to a paid for online course afterwards.

(The website is very marketing focussed... I hate marketing.)

It looks like the worst has been confirmed - 3 bodies have been found in the West Bank near the city of Hebron. They are suspected to be of the 3 missing Israeli teenagers.

At this moment we do not know who killed them or how they died, but their families must be devastated and the humanity in all of us feels their loss. The people in their kidnap/murder should be treatd as criminals (and I have not come across any evidence that this is definitely by Palestinians - there could be a nutty settler with an axe to grind or who is mentally unhinged...)

However this can also lead to a bigger catastrophe for the Palestinians.

Ramadan is a month when you deny yourself Halal things like food and sex.

Laying off the meats makes you think.

The month of Ramadan has stated and Shaytaan has been locked away.

Now we can focus on the demon within. We all have out issues and problems. Some of them we can clearly categorise as demons.

This is the month where we can build our reserves of patience and challenge the demons within. We wont win all the battles, but any victory over the self is a victory.

People are often easier to anger this month but we need to remember this is the easiest most obvious demon to challenge and beat. Other demons are deeper and may require acquiring more knowledge, overcoming prejudice, finding injustice and improving how we handle ourselves.

They're back.

for now.