The Day of Eid, Eid al-Adha -festival of sacrifice

The Sunnas of the Day of Eid:

Eid al-Adha "festival of sacrifice", also called Feast of the Sacrifice, the Major Festival, the Greater Eid and Bakrid is an important 3-day religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to honour the willingness of the prophet ʾIbrāhīm (Abraham) to sacrifice his young first-born son Ismā'īl (Ishmael)as an act of submission to God and his son's acceptance of the sacrifice, before God intervened to provide Abraham with a ram to sacrifice instead.

Like Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha begins with a Sunnah prayer of two rakats followed by a sermon (khuṭbah).

Eid al-Adha is the latter of the two Eid holidays, the former being Eid al-Fitr. The basis for the Eid al-Adha comes from the 196th verse of the 2nd sura of the Quran.

The word "Eid" appears once in the 5th sura of the Quran, with the meaning "solemn festival".The 3 days and 2 nights of Eid al-Adha are celebrated annually on the 10th, 11th and 12th day of Dhu al-Hijjah, the twelfth and last month of the lunar Islamic calendar.

Eid al-Adha celebrations start after the descent of the Hajj from Mount Arafat, a hill east of Mecca. The days of Tashriq are from the Fajr of the 9th of Dhul Hijjah up to the Asr of the 13th of Dhul Hijjah (5 days and 4 nights).

The sunnas of the Day of Eid al-Adha include:

1. To adorn oneself according to the Shariah, by:

a. Performing ghusl (this is a confirmed sunnah for the Eid prayer);

b. Brush one’s teeth, using a miswak if possible;

c. Apply perfume;

d. Wear the best clothing one possesses, without excess. White, when available, is optimal;

2. To wake up early, in order to prepare for the sunnas of the day;

3. To go early to the place the Eid prayer is taking place;

4. To delay eating until after the Eid al-Adha prayer;

5. To return from the Eid prayer by a different route to the one taken there, as established by the Prophet’s practice (Allah bless him & give him peace);

6. To walk, when reasonably possible without hardship;

7. To give the takbirs of Eid.

Syria-U.N. agree on terms of monitoring mission

Syria and the United Nations signed an agreement on Thursday on terms for hundreds of observers to monitor a ceasefire, but diplomatic wrangling still lies ahead to persuade the West the mission will have the clout needed to ensure peace.

An advance party of half a dozen U.N. observers are already in Syria observing a week-old truce, but the question of whether that can be expanded to a full-blown monitoring mission is up in the air, especially as a week-old ceasefire has yet to halt violence in the worst-hit parts of the country.

The 15-member U.N. Security Council - divided between Western countries that want to topple Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and Russia and China which support him - must agree the proposal to send a larger observer force. CONTINUE - - - - - - -

Abbas resign for peace, must quit: Israel

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman yesterday denounced Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas as the "greatest obstacle to peace" and said his resignation would be a "blessing."

The comments by Avigdor Lieberman drew an angry response from Palestinians, who accused him of calling for an assassination and appealed to the United States and the European Union to intervene.
Lieberman told reporters earlier Monday: "If there is one obstacle that should be removed immediately, it is. If he were to return the keys and resign, it would not be a threat, but a blessing."
Many other Western-trained Palestinians could replace him, Lieberman said.
Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, said that there will be no point of keeping the P.A while Israel continues its violations and settlement activities

Nobel laureate Maathai dies

Nobel peace laureate Wangari Maathai dies of Kenya.

NAIROBI: Kenya's Wangari Maathai, who won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her environmental work, has died of cancer, the campaigning movement she founded announced on Monday.

"It is with great sadness that the family of professor Wangari Maathai announces her passing away on 25th September 2011 at the Nairobi hospital after a prolonged and bravely borne struggle with cancer," the Green Belt Movement said in a statement.

Born in 1940, Maathai became a key figure in Kenya since founding the movement in 1977, staunchly campaigning for environmental conservation and good governance.

Since its founding, her organisation has planted some 40 million trees across Africa. In the 1970s, she also headed the Kenya Red Cross.


Maathai won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her environmental work and reforestation in her native Kenya.

She was the first woman in east and central Africa to earn a PhD, and also the first African woman and Kenyan to receive the Nobel Peace prize.

Outside Kenya, Maathai was involved in efforts to save central Africa's Congo basin forest, the world's second largest tropical forest.

Muslims to joined peace conference

Muslims to attend peace conference

Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri is to issue a declaration for global
peace at the Peace for Humanity event at Wembley Arena

More than 12,000 Muslims are to attend a peace conference at Wembley Arena.

The Peace for Humanity event is to be addressed by a leading Islamic scholar who will call for an end to terrorism and violence.

Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, founder of Islamic organisation Minhaj-ul-Quran International, which is behind the London conference, will issue a declaration for global peace, saying: "We reject unequivocally all terrorism because at the heart of all religions is a belief in the sanctity of the lives of the innocent.

Video messages of support from Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband will be shown to those attending.

Mr Clegg said: "Your conference today is even more important than usual - coming together to talk openly and candidly about the issues that can divide people but crucially the values that unite us too, tolerance, human rights, peace, and belief in opportunity for all, a faith in young people and their potential to learn from our mistakes, from the mistakes of the past, to help tackle discrimination and prejudice, building communities that are strong, where we take on our problems together."

Mr Miliband said in his message that the "values of tolerance, understanding and of bringing people together" demonstrated by the conference was "exactly what our society needs".
He said: "A month or so ago we saw the terrible riots that affected some of our major cities but what we also saw was the vast majority of people, right across this country, coming out, cleaning up and saying 'no' to the violence that we saw on our streets.

"It's exactly that message of peace, harmony and working together that I know your conference is designed to promote. And indeed the way you come at the issues that you'll be talking about today, your faith, is such an important part of British life."

A collective multi-faith prayer will be said at the event, and a campaign to get a million signatures to back the declaration for peace will be launched.

Afghans mourn peace broker Rabbani

 Afghans mourn peace broker Rabbani

Hundreds of Afghans marched in Kabul Wednesday to mourn Burhanuddin Rabbani, chairman of the government's peace council, whose assassination threatens to plunge the country into fresh turmoil.
Rabbani, president during Afghanistan's 1992-96 civil war and a warlord with a chequered human rights record, was killed at home Tuesday by a bomber thought to be a trusted emissary bringing a special message from the Taliban.
Although there has been no official word from the Taliban, his killing deals a heavy blow to already remote hopes of an imminent end to 10 years of fighting between Islamist insurgents and the Afghan government backed by Western troops.
President Hamid Karzai rushed back to Kabul from a visit to the United States and chaired an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss plans to give Rabbani an official funeral in the coming days, officials said.
"It will be tomorrow (Thursday) or likely the day after," Sataar Murad, a spokesman for Rabbani's Jamiat-i-Islami party, told AFP. "He will be buried in Kabul but an exact location has not been chosen yet."
Rabbani's killing was the most high-profile political assassination since the 2001 US-led invasion dislodged the Taliban.
That it happened in Kabul's supposedly secure diplomatic zone, close to last week's 19-hour siege which targeted the US embassy, again highlights a sharp rise in spectacular Taliban attacks in Afghanistan.
Under heightened security on Wednesday, several hundred mourners marched to Rabbani's home carrying giant pictures of him and wearing black headbands.
Karzai, whose relations with the West have soured drastically since his fraud-tained re-election in 2009, insisted Rabbani's assassination "will not deter us from continuing down the path we have started".
US President Barack Obama, who has said American combat troops will leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, said Afghans must be allowed to live "in freedom, safety, security and prosperity".
NATO's Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who heads up the alliance leading the foreign military effort to reverse Taliban momentum, said those behind the killing "will not prevail".
Members of Rabbani's entourage said the attacker and an accomplice were invited to his high-security villa as emissaries bringing "special messages" from the Taliban.
One source close to Rabbani, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the pair were not searched as a sign of trust.
The bomber detonated his explosives as he hugged Rabbani in greeting.
Although there were conflicting reports of who brought in the bombers, the source said they arrived with Mohammad Massom Stanikzai, one of Rabbani's deputies, who was one of four people wounded in the attack.
He added that Rabbani had just returned from Iran especially to meet the two, believing they were important Taliban figures.
Peace Council member Fazel Karim Aymaq said the two visitors claimed to have "special messages" from the Taliban and were thought to be "very trusted".
The High Peace Council put out a message Wednesday eulogising Rabbani as a "great leader of jihad" as well as its chairman.
"His martyrdom is an expression of his ultimate sacrifice to restore harmony in this country," the statement said.