Are we the Chosen ones? - By Ali Al-Baghli

Dr. Ali Al-Baghli, Former Minister of Oil, Kuwait, and supporter of the Dawoodi Bohras, once again comes to the rescue of Bohras by expressing his opinion in the column in ARAB TIMES, Kuwait's leading newspaper.

Please click on the URL below to know more...
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/opinion/view.asp?msgID=1330

By Mr. Ali Al-Baghli, Former Minister of Oil, Kuwait.

ONE can only be ashamed of the noise created by some religious extremists in the country over the last few days. The entire hullabaloo was about a building under construction in an ideal housing area — South Surrah (Haiteen). Residents of the area thought that a Husseiniya was being built for the Bohra community in Kuwait. So, where did these citizens go? The answer is well-known — they went to one of the members of the 2006 Parliament who is known for his non-progressive ideas. MP Waleed Al-Tabtabaei, who represents Kaifan, took it upon himself to voice the opinion of the residents of Haiteen because his future electoral constituency will include this area. He started issuing some extremist statements and criticized the construction of a “temple” for Bohras. (Al-Tabtabaei used the word ‘temple,’ which is a place of worship for non-Muslims like Buddhists and Hindus).

Bohras are a peaceful community who came to Kuwait decades ago. They supported Kuwait during the Iraqi invasion in 1990. The spiritual leader of Bohras Sultan Mohammed Burhanuddin was a close friend of HH the late Amir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and is also close to the current Amir HH Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah. Bohras are Muslims who believe in God and follow the teachings of Islam. Reality dawned when people came to know the building under construction was not a Husseiniya for Bohras but a house. Someone had purchased the building to live with his brothers and their families as he wanted to be close to his family.

I want to ask those who created the racket to put themselves in the place of Bohras and imagine they are living in a foreign country … and if they wanted to construct a house of worship and if people of the neighborhood objected to the construction of their praying place what would they do?

e-mail: albaghlilaw@hotmail.com

Barakaat of Wajebaat in Shehrullah

As Shehrullah approached daddy told me that they were going for wajebat araz to Hasanfeer and Aliasger was to join them. I thought of asking Qusai bs about myself as well. The amount was too small to be counted but karam is the word I would utter as I was told that I could go alone and not join my family. We had prepared to leave on the 1st night itself and the farman arrived that no one come to Hasanfir if their rozas are missed due to hadd al-qasr.

It was on the 9th that Qusai bs called me and said that you should leave immediately. He said that Qutbuddin bhai Virpurwala (Daruwala) was arranging for the tickets. Soon I was told that we were to leave the next day itself in an Indian Airlines flight directly to Ahmedabad.

We reached Ahmedabad on the 11th of Shehruallah, Tuesday. A group of 6 including myslef, Qutub bhai, Abdul Husain bhai, Juzer bhai Kagalwala and his daughter and Idris bhai Janoowala. A car was arranged by Juzer bhai to pick us from the airport. We went to the roza, did ziyarat and left immediately for Hasanfir.

As and when we reached we were in a dilemma weather to return to Ahmedabad or stay at Hasanfir or go somewhere else for the night, Sidhpur perhaps. When we were told that Saylawi was close-by. After completing the wajebat formalities and getting our cards, offering the gongas, as Idris bhai terms it, we all were pretty calm except for him. He was in a fix, as he did not get the cards for he had come without informing Yunus Bs. After offering our first namaz of Shehrullah with Huzurala (TUS) we left for Selavi, we freshened up and dumped our luggage and returned to Hasanfir for Maghrib Isha Namaaz. Idris bhi was in Hasanfir as we made the trip. After namaaz we returned to Selavi. The gonga talk was all over and the name came into existence.

Wednesday, 12th of Shehrullah was the big day. We started early at 7 to reach Hasanfir from Selavi (Mazar of Mowlai Noor Bhai Saheb). We were early and the nizaam was very nice. Within an hour of Maula's arrival we were finished with Qadambodi. Huzurala (TUS) blessed me with nazar and dua as I did Qadambosi and araz was done by Yunus BS that I was a moallim. A Shawl was given in Tashreef by Maula (TUS) and we were all relaxed and calm that our wishes had been fulfilled. After Zohr/Asr Namaaz we returned to Selavi, did ziyarat in Dhinoj en-route to Ahmedabad. On the way we had quails for dinner.

It was scorching in Ahmedabad as we reached late at night. We had to go to a hotel which was not a luxury at all, except for the A/C. The next day we took the domestic flight to Mumbai and we decided to leave for Pune with Qutub bhai. We reached Pune quite late. Had dinner in a restaurant and slept the night at Qutub bhai's inlaws. He was quite a host. We enjoyed every bit of the trip thanks to him.

We returned from Mumbai to Sharjah Int'l Airport on the 6th of October 15th of Shehre Ramadan with barakaat of Qadambosi, dua mubarak of Aqamawla (TUS), namaaz, ziyarat Duat Kiram in Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Hudud Fozola in Selavi, Dinoj and Pune.

May Allah bless our beloved Mawla (TUS) with a long life in sehat and afiyat. Ameen

Shehrullah - The days of piety have arrived

The Month of Ramadan is known as Shehrullahil Moazzam meaning the glorified month of Allah. These days Muslims around the world observe fasts day long and engross themselves in Ibadat. The hearts and eyes weep in repentence of past sins and the body parts tire themselves in seeking the mercy of Allah by offering namaaz, alms, observing fasts, reciting the Quran-e-Majid and Duas. Mumineen Mukhliseen are blessed by the bounty of the presence of waliullah amongst them and thus are sure of acceptence of the joh'dal muqil.

Myself a humble slave of Allah and a servant of his wali, have been long waiting for these days of grace and mercy should I get a moment of Allah's grace and the happiness and joy of my Moula (TUS).

Here I quote "The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it." Woodrow Wilson

Certain things have been a habit to me which are too hard to break and some of the built in nature needs to be altered. It is a huge tidal wave that needs to be crossed and I am sure my Moula (TUS) is always with me. Just a small support of loved ones is what would make the journey easy, for I am swimming against the stream of my own unconscience self.

May Allah bless our beloved Moula (TUS) a long and healthy life. Ameen

Another blunder in Malumaat (Information)

The one stop Information portal has again made a bid into securing itself as the top news agency of our times. The Chief editor of the Information Channel had strictly ordered the so called official reporter of malumaat to deny photographs for the sake of exclusive coverage and look what the exclusive information portal does:

http://malumaat.com/pics/darussalam/1427/shaban/wadah_from_nairobi06.jpg

Wadah from Nairobi?? or was it Dares Salaam. I guess its the same place who cares any ways.

The more stubborn thing to do was place a long distance call to the genuine photographer who loves to share his moments with Moula (captured in photos) with Mumineen worldwide and in an enthusiasm to do so sends the pics to all major portals of the community. This photographer was told that the information portal LOOSES interest in publishing them when they are sent to everyone, because they are not exclusive. Now its clear that its truely a one stop shop after all.

Anyone here who watches the indian soap Kittu might see this as the BNS boss attitude.

The Baby is fine, Alhamdolillah

On Sunday, Maria and the baby were home at 7 PM everything being normal and good as expected by Dua of Moula (TUS), many thanks and shukr to Allah.

Around mid-night I had to take her to Central Hospital as she was shivering and had turned blue. She also had a mild fever. A padeatric was called and he diagnosed her of being dehydrated. We came back home with a few adol drops and had given her some water and top-milk. I checked her temprature in the morning and she was having 37.5. At 8 AM the doctor saw her again and said that she seemed fine with no symptoms to worry about nor any fever. Her reflexes were also good.

At around 6 PM the same day, Monday, we took her to the government hospital and she was taken in at the emergency and admitted to the Qasimmiya Hospital. The doctor was quite young and took time to see her. She weighted 2750 gms tonight, which was around 8% less from birth as per the doctor's calculations. He took some blood for blood culture and kept her under observation the whole night. The nurses and the medical staff at Qasimiya are very nice and cooperative. Maria had to stay back at the hospital. The next day we were told that she had a dehydration fever and that she was normal now but should be kept and eye on just to be sure.

The doctor dis-charged her at around 10 Pm upon insisting that the mother and child were not comfartable at the hospital and should leave if medical advice permitted so. Finally, we came home and now I feel a bit relaxed. Many thanks to my Moula (TUS) whom we kept remembering throughout these days.

The one thing I learned was that if its an emergency in Sharjah, then the Govt. Hospital should be approached just for the sake that they have doctors for all faculties round the clock and they take utmost care of the patient. The baby was kept at the hospital for more then 24 hours with excellent care and medical treatment and not a penny charged.

Web Hosting for Jamaats

Six years with NextGen - mumineen.org Team surfing the WWW, writing articles, moderating a huge community like DBNet and publishing the web. It has been a long race and good horses are never tired. The same time I had spent with promoting my hosting business and devoloping internet solutions for people. As technology evolves and as we see shifts in paradigms we learn and get nurtured by experiance in the school of life.

The year 1427 H was a turning point for mumineen.org we had a server melt down soon after Ashara and we started to think about aborting our unmanaged servers donated by Ali Dhoon to shared hosting. One of our team members suggested Dream Host and here we are. We have shifted most of our site to Dreamhost with a new site design in mind with more goody features and stuff for our visitors bu the mailing list is really missed. Ezmlm is missed by all the mods and all are sure that mailman sucks to the very last bit.

Ezzi.Net has generously provided an opteron for mumineen.org and we are not quite sure what we are to do with it. Another server is an Athlon with a CPanel installation as promised by Ali Dhoon. This is a new server we are planing to provide jamaats hosting on.

I configured the server and created a single reseller with Bohra.net domain and created DNS entries through WHM. Unfortunately the DNS was broken and the IPs that AHP had given me were not for our use.

I talked to Dan for repairing the DNS but he didnt. All he did was remove the wrong IPs and alot a few more for our use. Dan was not of much help with the DNS and the dnsstuff was also showing the errors. The next step was that I took the innitiative to go through CPanel documents, blogs and forums to figure out what was wrong and finally fixed the DNS and completed the security tweaks that were needed for the server. We added 2 more domains for jamaats to use, jamaats.net and jamaats.info. Another domain was attalim.net which we intend to use for the madrasas. Finally I am through with the server set-up and the service was launched on Friday, 18 August 2006.

One thing pending is the Reverse DNS (PTR) record which I cannot figure out. Maybe someday I might be able to fix it.

Above all it was a good learning experiance and I found many free SSH providers in the proccess which helps me hop my local proxy and use the SSH host as a proxy to surf the web. YG has written a how-to for that and I shall post it on the blog soon.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

This is Dale Carnegie's summary of his book, from 1936

Table of Contents

1. Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
2. Six Ways to Make People Like You
3. How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking
4. Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

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Part One

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

1. Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

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Part Two

Six ways to make people like you

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
6. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.

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Part Three

Win people to your way of thinking

1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2. Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.
6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
9. Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge.

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Part Four

Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

A leader's job often includes changing your people's attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this:

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
2. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
5. Let the other person save face.
6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."
7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.