From The Guardian: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi: The new face of Libyan defiance by Jamie Doward

Colonel Gaddafi's son was educated in London and has friends in the City and Westminster. Or he did until last week.

Geneva places a high premium on guarding secrets, but rumours are a different currency. Amid momentous scenes being played out across the Middle East last week, sources in the Swiss financial centre were privately gossiping about a visit to Geneva earlier this year by Farhat Bengdara, the governor of the Central Bank of Libya.

According to one popular rumour, Bengdara had visited Geneva with a purpose. He was there to make changes to key Swiss accounts, into which flow hundreds of millions of dollars of Libyan oil money that are then allocated to the Libyan Investment Authority and the Libyan Central Bank.

Financiers in Geneva gossip that, as far back as 17 January, Bengdara established that four new names would be added as signatories on three crucial accounts controlling much of the money. The signatories were Colonel Muammar Gaddafi; his son Khamis, who heads Libya's infamous martyrs' battalion; the Libyan leader's daughter Aisha; and his son Saif al-Islam.

Where Libya's petro-dollars may have been channelled in the weeks since tensions first erupted across the Arab world is hard to say. But those who know him would be surprised if Saif did not hold the answers.

The westernised 38-year-old, who studied at the London School of Economics and enjoys close friendships with senior British politicians and financiers, has become the focal point of the conflict now threatening to rip Libya apart.

Whereas Gaddafi senior has always been seen in the west as a dictator – albeit one brought back into the fold – Saif, a trained architect who established a medical charity and was considered his father's heir apparent, held out the promise of a new dawn.

As far back as 2002, Saif told an interviewer that Libya needed democracy. "It's policy number one for us. First thing democracy, second thing democracy, third thing democracy," Saif said, using a rhetorical technique he was to repeat last week to far more sinister effect.

With mercenaries flooding the streets of Libya's major cities and horrifying stories of murder and mayhem emerging in piecemeal fashion via social networking sites, despite a government-enforced news blackout, such a promise now looks spent.

Saif's desire to act as a mouthpiece for his father has lent the tragic scenes unfolding in Libya a surreal, sometimes ridiculous dimension. His appearances in front of the television cameras suggest a man increasingly unhinged. Arms folded, jaw firmly out, Saif is a manifestation of defiance. It is clear he is very much his father's son, albeit, as one Twitter user wryly observed, someone who seems to have styled himself sartorially on Stringer Bell, the drug lord in the US cop show The Wire.

The similarities may not stop there. A man who reportedly likes to keep tigers and falcons, "Saif is urbane, charming and psychotic", according to one person who has met him. This appraisal seemed to be confirmed last Sunday night when Saif appeared on domestic television to threaten a civil war in which his father's regime "will fight to the last minute, until the last bullet".

By Thursday he was on CNN promising that the violence in his country would make Libya "stronger, more united". Saif pledged: "Libya will have a better future as one united nation. [We will] not let a bunch of terrorists control our country and our future."

Displaying a hubris that is likely to be replayed in video clips for years to come, Saif boasted that his family had a "Plan A, Plan B and Plan C". But all of the plans, it transpired, were the same: "To live and die in Libya."

These were the fulminations of a man whose options were increasingly limited. It was a far cry from 2008 when, having collected his doctorate from the LSE, Saif pledged to donate £1.5m to the university for a global governance unit. "I've come to know Saif as someone who looks to democracy, civil society and deep liberal values for the core of his inspiration," Professor David Held, a political theorist at the LSE, said at the time.

Last week, while the university was reconsidering its links to Saif as a "matter of urgency", Held too was reappraising his former pupil. "My support for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was always conditional on him resolving the dilemma that he faced in a progressive and democratic direction," Held said. "His commitment to transforming his country has been overwhelmed by the crisis he finds himself in. He tragically, but fatefully, made the wrong judgment."

Whether others, however, will be quick to break their ties remains to be seen. Saif's connections extend into the City of London and Westminster.

Saif is an acquaintance of Lord Mandelson and met the former Labour minister at a Corfu villa the week before it was announced that the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, would be released from a Scottish prison. The two men met again when they were guests at Lord Rothschild's mansion in Buckinghamshire.

Rothschild's son and heir, Nat, also a close friend of Mandelson, held a party in New York attended by Saif in 2008. Saif in turn invited Nat Rothschild to his 37th birthday party in Montenegro, where the financier is investing in a luxury resort.

Prince Andrew, too, has played host to Saif at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle and the two men have also met in Tripoli. Others whom Saif classes as good friends include Tony Blair and, bizarrely, the late Austrian far-right leader, Jörg Haider.

On Friday night, at the end of a week in which hundreds are believed to have died and Saif's credibility in the west evaporated, the man whose name means "Sword of Islam" in Arabic appeared delusional. "Everything is calm," Saif told a group of foreign journalists who had been invited to the Libyan capital.

"If you hear fireworks, don't mistake it for shooting," Saif added, smiling as he greeted the press outside a luxury hotel boasting a glittering lobby and chandeliers. But the calm was unnatural. It was the quiet of empty streets that would normally be bustling on a Friday night.

Saif insisted that much of the reporting was "lies" spread by a hostile media and denied claims his father's forces had bombed civilians. "We are laughing at these reports," he said, urging reporters to interview "hundreds or thousands" of people for themselves.

"The biggest problem is the hostile media campaigns against us. They want to show Libya is burning, that there is a big revolution here," he said. "You are wrong. We are united. Peace is coming back to our country."

A few miles away the thousands of desperate migrant workers besieging Tripoli airport, kept out by police using batons and whips, told a different story.

Fom Al-Jazeera: Libya's revolution headquarters

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122753146444424.html

Pro-Mubarak Supporters Were, At Least in Part,Released Prisoners

This is a transcript, provided by Twitter user @Elazul of a video which was posted by an Egyptian Facebook user identifying himself as Eng Amen. The video features the interrogation of pro-Mubarak supporters who were captured during the recent uprising in Egypt.




Questioner: "You son, you the one rolling around on his right side, who let you escape from prison?"

Man #1: [indecipherable]

Questioner: "What? Raise your voice!"

Voice off camera: "I will confess everything."

Man #1: "Why don't you talk to Youssef, sir."

Questioner: "What happened?"

Man #2: "What happened is that all the police, the inspectors and the police controlling the prison themselves, they dressed in civilian clothes, I swear, and they got weapons and they destroyed the prison doors and the prison themselves, and they let us out."

Questioner: "Which prison are you from?"

Man #2: "440."

Man #3: "I'm from 430."

Questioner: "Wadi Natroun Prison?"

Man #2: "Yes."

Man #2: "Sir, they hit us with tear gas. They said whoever doesn't leave they will kill i swear. We were dying by the [indecipherable]."

Questioner: "Enough, enough, enough."

Questioner: "So you came from Hadaye El Obba?

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122753146444424.html

How The Support of The Key Tribes is Crucial to Ghaddaffi

From the BBC News Website: Who's Propping up Gadaffi? by Frank Gardner

Unlike in Egypt or Tunisia, it is not the conventional military that holds the balance of power in Libya.

Instead, it is a murky network of paramilitary brigades, "revolutionary committees" of trusted followers, tribal leaders and imported foreign mercenaries.

The actual Libyan Army is almost symbolic, a weakened and emaciated force of little more than 40,000, poorly armed and poorly trained. It is part of Col Muammar Gaddafi's long-term strategy to eliminate the risk of a military coup, which is how he himself came to power in 1969.

So the defection this month of some elements of the army to the protesters in Benghazi is unlikely to trouble Col Gaddafi. Not only can he do without them, his security apparatus has not hesitated to call in air strikes on their barracks in the rebellious east of the country.

So, who is propping up his regime and allowing it to stay in power while two of its neighbouring leaders have fled amid a massive momentum for regime change throughout the Middle East?

Internal Security
Like many countries in the region, Libya has an extensive, well-resourced and brutal internal security apparatus.


Col Gaddafi is usually flanked by his personal guards when he appears in public Think East Germany's Stasi or Romania's Securitate pre-1989, where no-one dared criticise the regime in public in case they were reported to the feared secret police, and you can see the similarities.

During my own visits to Libya I have always found it hard to get ordinary people to speak freely on the record to a journalist, as government "minders" are always watching and noting who says what.

Some of Col Gaddafi's own sons have worked in internal security but today, the key figure in Libya's security apparatus, both internal and external, is Gaddafi's brother-in-law, Abdullah Senussi.

A hardliner with a thuggish reputation, he is strongly suspected of being the driving force behind the violent suppression of protests, notably in Benghazi and the east of the country.

As long as he keeps advising Gaddafi to tough it out there is little chance of his stepping down.

The Paramilitaries
Libya has a number of "special brigades" answerable not to the army but to Gaddafi's Revolutionary Committees.

One of these is believed to be commanded, at least nominally, by one of Col Gaddafi's maverick sons, Hannibal, who clashed recently with Swiss police in Geneva after allegations he abused hotel maids there.

The paramilitaries, sometimes known as the "People's Militia", have so far been largely loyal to Col Gaddafi and his close circle known in Arabic as Ahl al-Khaimah - "People of the Tent".

If the paramilitaries changed sides and joined the protesters en masse this would seriously undermine Col Gaddafi's ability to survive.

The Mercenaries
This has been one of the darker and particularly disturbing facets of the Libyan uprising.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
Libya-watchers are now speculating whether Col Gaddafi's regime will carry out its own self-fulfilling prophecy of civil war ”
End Quote There are persistent reports that Col Gaddafi's regime has been making extensive use of hired African mercenaries, mostly from the Sahel countries of Chad and Niger, to carry out atrocities against unarmed civilian protesters.

Libyan witnesses say they have been firing from rooftops into crowds of demonstrators, in essence carrying out the orders that many Libyan soldiers have refused to obey.

Col Gaddafi has long fostered close relations with African countries, having turned his back on the Arab world some time ago, and there are an estimated 500,000 African expatriates in Libya out of a total population of six million.

The number of those serving as pro-Gaddafi mercenaries is thought to be quite small but their loyalty to his regime is said to be unquestioned and there are reports of extra flights being laid on to bring in more in recent days.

The Tribes
Libya, like the other Arab revolutionary republics of Yemen and Iraq, is a country where your tribe can help define your loyalties, but in recent years the tribal distinctions have blurred and the country is less tribal now than it was in 1969.

Continue reading the main story
Do Libya's tribal ties matter?
Col Gaddafi himself comes from the Qadhaththa tribe. During his 41 years in power he has appointed many of its members to key positions in his regime, including those for his personal safety.

Just as Saddam Hussein did in Iraq and President Saleh has in Yemen, Col Gaddafi has been adept at playing off one tribe against another, ensuring that no one leader risks posing a threat to his regime.

Libya-watchers are now speculating whether Col Gaddafi's regime will carry out its own self-fulfilling prophecy of civil war and deliberately arm the tribes loyal to the regime to put down the protest that has already seen it lose the eastern half of the country.

The Fall of Benghazi

The northern Libyan city of Benghazi is the beginning and crux of the revolt against Col Muammar Gaddafi.

"When local people there came out to protest last week, they were fired on from a huge army base in the centre of the city with heavy artillery, including anti-aircraft guns.

In response, they simply took on the army, with homemade petrol bombs.

They loaded construction site vehicles with petrol and rammed them against the walls of the barracks, and ground down the troops inside.

After two or three days of bitter fighting - with the aid of some defection from the government side - they took the base, defeating some of the country's most elite forces."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12573890

Muammar Gaddafi:method in his 'madness' by Brian Whitaker, Comment is Free

"People of Libya!" the broadcast began, "In response to your own will, fulfilling your most heartfelt wishes, answering your incessant demands for change and regeneration ... your armed forces have undertaken the overthrow of the reactionary and corrupt regime, the stench of which has sickened and horrified us all. At a single blow your gallant army has toppled these idols and has destroyed their images ... From this day forward, Libya is a free, self-governing republic."

It was 1 September 1969, and the young army captain seated at the microphone to announce the coup was Muammar Gaddafi – then only 27 and a fervent admirer of the Nasserist revolution in neighbouring Egypt. Yesterday, he was again broadcasting to the nation and this time the tables were turned. It is no longer the "decadent regime" of King Idris under attack, but that of Gaddafi himself.

In the four decades since he came to power, Gaddafi's behaviour has shocked and amused the world in roughly equal measures – from his bizarre sense of fashion to his appearance on Monday leaning out of something resembling a popemobile and holding a white umbrella. As a Jordanian psychiatrist once told me while we watched Gaddafi's televised performance at an Arab summit: "I meet people like him every day in my hospital."

But mad as they may seem, his actions usually have some kind of logic, even if it's a logic that others, not attuned to the Gaddafi way of thinking, fail to recognise. When he drove through Africa throwing money out of his car window, he was making a serious point: foreign aid is often misused or ends up in the wrong hands, so why not just let ordinary people pick it up off the street?

It was the same on Monday with the popemobile episode. In answer to claims that he had fled the country, he posed for the cameras outside a building that every Libyan would recognise – his former home in Tripoli (the one the Americans bombed in 1986, killing his daughter).

He was back at the bombed-out house on Tuesday, suitably dressed in khaki and declaring himself "a fighter". It was an angry, defiant speech – and mercifully short by Gaddafi's standards, lasting only an hour or so. It was also, in a strangely malevolent way, an honest speech. Gaddafi let rip, talking of "honour" and expressing all the feelings that Ben Ali and Mubarak would probably like to have expressed in their last presidential broadcasts, if only they hadn't been wearing a suit and tie and trying to look dignified.

Gaddafi, of course, doesn't see himself in the Mubarak/Ben Ali mould. He doesn't see the uprising as a mass rebellion against his leadership but as a flare-up of old tribal rivalries – a reactionary movement bent on destroying the revolutionary spirit of the world's first and only people's jamahiriya.

These rivalries are a constant undercurrent of Gaddafi's rule but have usually been played out in the mosques and football stadiums rather than on the streets. Just over 10 years ago, for example, shortly after Gaddafi's football-mad son, Saadi, became captain of the Tripoli team, the city of Benghazi – long regarded as a centre of opposition to the regime – suffered a series of humiliating defeats on the pitch.

In one match, in the summer of 2000, Benghazi was leading 1-0 at half-time, but in the second half the referee dutifully awarded two penalties to Tripoli along with an offside goal. The Benghazi players walked off in protest but Saadi's guards ordered them back and the match ended with a 3-1 victory to Tripoli.

Shortly afterwards, Benghazi played al-Baydah (the home town of Saadi's mother). Following another suspect penalty, Benghazi fans invaded the pitch and the game was abandoned. Arriving back in Benghazi, the fans set fire to the local headquarters of the Libyan Football Federation (chaired, of course, by Saadi) and the authorities retaliated by dissolving the Benghazi club and demolishing its premises.

Given the history, it's not surprising if Gaddafi sees the current insubordination as more of the same (though on a much more serious scale) and, moving on from bogus penalties, is determined to suppress it with whatever force may be necessary to preserve the "historic march" of his revolution.

One of the key points in Tuesday's speech, emphasised by its symbolic setting, was that his regime had withstood bombing "by 170 aircraft under the leadership of nuclear countries like America, Britain and Nato" – implying that where they failed local rebels cannot succeed.

He also explained why – unlike Ben Ali and Mubarak – he cannot resign. Technically, this is correct since Libya has no president. Gaddafi constantly asserts that he is just an ordinary Libyan citizen (though of course very little happens without his approval). His title, "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution", is not a public office but a description of his historical role. Thus, it can never be taken away from him or bestowed on anyone else.

But Gaddafi does have one very important thing in common with Ben Ali and Mubarak. By continuing to bask in the glories of 1969, he has lost touch with his people. Most Libyans alive today have no recollection of King Idris or the revolution that overthrew him. For them, it's part of Libya's past. But not part of its future.

Full Length and Excerpted Articles on The Situation in Libya

Sins of the father, sins of the son

Wikipedia image showing Ghaddaffi and Yugoslav president Josep Broz Tito, in 1975


"Ever since his ascension to power, through a military coup, in 1969, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has used every piece of revolutionary rhetoric in the book to justify his actions, which include consolidating power in the hands of his relatives and close associates and creating a network of security forces and militias to coerce Libyans into conforming to the whims of his cruel regime.

Through his support for revolutionary movements in different parts of the world - ones, of course, which did not endanger his own rule - he has sought to portray himself as the 'defender of the oppressed', earning the wrath of the West in the process. But the people now courageously defying his regime's savage suppression are sending the message that anti-Western slogans, even if occasionally backed up by support for just causes, can no longer sustain oppressive regimes in the region.

Ghaddaffi with Serbian president,Boris Tadic (image from Wikipedia)


A new era is underway in which leaders will be judged on their ability to represent the aspirations of the people and in which they will be held accountable for their actions. Issuing rallying cries against a foreign enemy, even when that enemy is very real, while inflicting injustice on one's own people will no longer be permitted.

Post-colonial Arab regimes, including those that rode the waves of or even at one point genuinely represented anti-colonial resistance, have had to resort to a reliance on secret police and draconian laws to subordinate their subjects. The lesson is clear: Without a representative democracy, Arab republics have metamorphosed into ugly hereditary dynasties that treat their countries like their own private companies.

While trampling over the interests of his own people, Gaddafi has modeled himself as the champion of the Palestinian cause, reverting to the most fiery verbal attacks on Israel. But this is a recurring theme in a region where leaders must pay lip service to the plight of the Palestinians in order to give their regime the stamp of 'legitimacy'. Gaddafi's 'support', however, did not prevent him from deporting Palestinians living in Libya, leaving them stranded in the dessert, when he sought to "punish the Palestinian leadership" for negotiating with Israel.

image from BBC



But even more cynical than his "pro-Palestinian" stand is his exploitation of the plight of the African people by anointing himself the leader of the continent. It is tragic, if reports prove to be true, that he used migrant sub-Saharan African labourers against the Libyan protesters. But it is, sadly, very believable that a ruthless dictator, driven hysterical by the prospect of losing his wealth and power, might pit the poor and marginalised against the poor and oppressed."

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201122271939751816.html

The Colonels

Abu Musa al-Ash'ari said, "I visited the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, with two of my cousins. One of them said, 'Messenger of Allah, give us authority over some of what Allah, the Mighty and Exalted, has appointed you over.' The other said something similar. He said, 'By Allah, we will not appoint anyone over this matter who asks for it nor anyone who is eager for it." [Agreed upon]

Colonel Ghaddaffi's eagerly awaited speech, which Libyans were no doubt hoping would herald his departure,was short and given in his usually inimitable style. This time, rather appropriately given his Leninist inspired ideals, he was in a Soviet era looking van and was holding aloft a huge umbrella. He told of how he wasn't in Venezuela, but in Libya, and that he'd been talking to youth in Green Square.


Clearly, he was trying to present himself as a kindly "grandfather of the nation" figure and the uprising (for which mosques throughout Libya have been broadcasting the call, "Come for Jihad")as nothing more than a falling out and nothing that a chat with the youth down on Green Square couldn't sort out.

And in other news:
The use, by the government of Bahrain, of foreign citizens (mainly Jordanian and Pakistani) to oppress Bahrainis is not just limited to the armed forces. It appears that the torture of Bahraini's was, at one point, overseen by a British policeman by the name of Colonel Ian Henderson AKA The Butcher of Bahrain.

This wouldn't have escaped government attention- the contined good relations between the UK and Bahrain, in spite of clear evidence of the Khalifa families use of torture, certainly makes the "humanitarian" mission in Afghanistan sound all the more ridiculous.

"Israel Has a Phd in Deception"

Interestingly, this Imran Hossein lecture was given in 2003- some time before the Israeli invasions of both Gaza and southern Lebanon- and, in it, he suggests that Israel is planning wars of aggression which will be presented as self-defence.

[Message From Libya] TELL THE WORLD WHAT IS HAPPENING TO US!!!!!

Libyan man lamenting lack of pressure placed on Ghaddaffi by the international "community". Poor sound quality

George Galloway on Sky News' "Evident Bias"

Protest outside Libyan embassy in London

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12519676

Quran Recitation by A Sudanese Qari

Part of Surah Anfal, Eighth Chapter of the Holy Quran, recited by Imam az-Zain,an imam of a mosque in Khartoum:

Tala Al Badru Alayna

From wikipedia:

Tala‘ al-Badru ‘Alaynā (Arabic: طلع البدر علينا) is a traditional Islamic song (Nasheed) that the Ansar sung to the Prophet Muhammad(May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) upon his arrival at Yathrib after completing the Hijra in 622 CE. The song is currently over 1400 years old, and one of the oldest in the Islamic culture.

Tala ‘al Badru ‘Alayna


Chorus:

Tala al badru ‘alayna
Min thaniyati-al Wada’
Wajaba Shukru ‘alayna
Ma da’a lillahi da’

O the white moon rose over us
From the valley of Wada’
And we owe it to show thankfulness
Where the call is to Allah

Ayyuha-al Mab’uthu feena
Ji’ta bi-al amru muta’
Ji’ta sharafta-al Madeenah
Marhaban ya khayra da’

O you, who were raised amongst us
Coming with the words to be obeyed
You have ennobled this city
Welcome O caller to God’s way

True Poverty is to Rely on Other than Allah

"Among the rules for commanding the good and forbidding the wrong is to depend less on others and eliminate desire for what they have, so as not to have to compromise one's principles. A story is told about one of the early Muslims who used to get meat each each day from the neighbourhood butcher for his cat. He noticed something blameworthy about the butcher, so he returned home and turned out the cat before returning to reprimand the man, who retorted, "From now on,I'm not going to give a thing for your cat", to which he replied,"I did not censure you til I gave up both the cat and any desire for what you have." And this is the fact of the matter. One cannot reprimand others as long as one is anxious for two things: the things that people give one, and their approval and praise of one."

-Imam al-Ghazali (May Allah have marcy on him)

How the Muslims Killed Dracula by Shibli Zaman

Born in the Ottoman Principality of Wallachia, Romania in 1435 AD, he was known as Radu al III-lea cel Frumos to his Romanian countrymen, Yakışıklı Radu Bey to the Turks, Radu al-Wasim to the Arabs, and Radu the Handsome in English. This ally and childhood friend of Sultan Mehmet II was instrumental in the conquest of Constantinople for Islam. Radu’s participation in that conquest ensured that Mehmet II would go down in history as “Fatih,” or “Conqueror.” Radu was the Ottomans’ secret weapon against the Safavids to the East and the Serbs, Romanians and Hungarians to the West. The Muslim world owes much to this hero of Islam, yet they recorded little other than cursory references to him, perhaps for fear of taking away from Fatih Sultan Mehmet’s limelight. The Byzantines recorded Radu as a reviled despot due to their hatred for his conversion to Islam and instrumental role in ending the Byzantine Empire.

Yet, this Ottoman general had a greater war, a war against darkness. He hunted the very progenitor of the vampire legend who impaled his enemies and drank their blood – Vlad al III-lea Ţepeş, also known as Vlad Drăculea, who would go down in infamy as, simply, Dracula. The character of Professor Abraham Van Helsing was no more than a figment of Bram Stoker’s terrifying imagination, but Sultan Mehmet II and Radu cel Frumos were perhaps the first and only true vampire hunters in history.


The Blood Brothers



Looking back, Radu’s devotion to Islam and to Sultan Mehmet II could be traced to the political alliance of their respective fathers before them. Vlad II from the House of Drăculeşti (“House of the Dragon”) was an ally and vassal of Sultan Mehmet’s father, Sultan Murad II. Vlad II had 4 sons: Mircea II, Vlad IV Călugărul (“The Monk”), Vlad III who would come to be known as Dracula, and Radu III cel Frumos (“The Handsome”). As a gesture of unity with the Sultan, Vlad II offered his sons, Dracula and Radu, to serve the Ottoman Sultan. Under the Janissaries they studied the Qur’an, Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Islamic Theology and Jurisprudence, and, coveted above all, Turkish military strategy and tactics of war.



The Ottoman special forces who held a higher status both militarily as well as socially than the rank and file were the Janissaries and the Sipahis. The Janissaries were the elite infantry of the Ottoman military as well as the personal bodyguards of the Sultan and his family. The Sipahis were the elite cavalry who surrounded the Sultan in battle and would be sent to deal with the most stubborn of adversaries. They were the commandos and special forces of their day. Though the Sipahis were almost exclusively Turkic in origin as demanded by Sultan Mehmet II himself in his treatise of law entitled Kanun Nameh-e-Sipahi (“Law Book of the Sipahis”), the Janissaries, within whose ranks Dracula and Radu found themselves, were conversely converts to Islam.



The young Dracula continually abused and rebelled against his hosts earning himself imprisonment and castigation. Due to the heavy handedness of the Turks in response to his insolence, he developed a compounded and complex series of grudges. He hated his father for allying with the Turks, which he saw as a betrayal of the Order of the Dragon to which his father had sworn an oath. The Order of the Dragon was a Christian fraternity whose sole aim was to wipe out Islam from the Balkans forever. Dracula hated Radu for his successes and the favor the Turks bestowed upon him. He was filled with jealousy for the then young Mehmet II who, like him, was a prince, but, very unlike him, lived in splendor. He was also jealous of his brothers Mircea and Vlad the Monk due to what he perceived as his father’s preference for them. His sentiments for Mircea however, would teeter between jealousy and awe. It is from him that the young Dracula learned the terror tactic of impaling thousands to create forests of the dead.



Radu remained faithful to Islam and the Sultan and spent his entire life in battle on the frontiers of the Ottoman Empire, vanquishing the most difficult adversaries of the Empire. His natural knack for battle was unparalleled even amongst the Janissaries and elite Sipahis of the Ottoman military, and he would be called upon frequently to subdue any foe that seemed insurmountable. It is reported that he turned the very course of Near Eastern history when he stopped the mighty Ak Koyunlu from overrunning the Ottomans, an event that, if not stopped, would have definitely changed the faces of both the Middle East and Europe today. For this very reason, he was called upon to face the threat from his homeland of Wallachia that neither the elite Janissaries nor the Sipahis could route.

The Conquest of Constantinople



“On the third day after the fall of our city, the Sultan celebrated his victory with a great, joyful triumph. He issued a proclamation: the citizens of all ages who had managed to escape detection were to leave their hiding places throughout the city and come out into the open, as they were to remain free and no question would be asked. He further declared the restoration of houses and property to those who had abandoned our city before the siege, if they returned home, they would be treated according to their rank and religion, as if nothing had changed.” (George Sphrantzes, 1401-1478, Byzantine Christian chronicler and witness of the fall of Constantinople)



It was a time of relief and rejoicing. It was a relief for the inhabitants of Constantinople who expected a prompt culling following the fall of their city. It was a time of celebration for the entire Muslim world for this historical conquest of a city that has remained, to this very day, the capital of the Turks. Yet as Sultan Mehmet II rode into the city victorious, a glance over to his childhood friend and chief of the Janissaries, Radu cel Frumos, son of Vlad II Duke of Wallachia, may have served as a sobering reminder that to the North, beyond the spoils of Byzantium, their fiercest enemies lay in wait. Among those enemies was the most feared of them all, Dracula, who just so happened to be Radu’s own brother.

The Rise of Dracula



Opportunistic betrayal was the way of Wallachia’s rulers and in one such brief betrayal, Vlad II silently allowed his older sons, Mircea and Vlad IV, to launch an insurrection after which Mircea impaled all his prisoners upon stakes. The young Dracula loved the sight of this and later joined Mircea in further insurrections against the Ottomans as well as the rival Dăneşti clan supported by the Hungarian warlord, John Hunyadi. Ultimately, Hunyadi overran Dracula’s father, slew him in the marshes of Bălteni and blinded and buried Mircea alive at Târgovişte. Hunyadi installed a Dăneşti prince, Vladislav II, over Wallachia. In his ambition and lust for power, Dracula put aside any vengeful sentiments for his slaughtered father and brother and allied with Hunyadi and served him as an adviser. As John Hunyadi went to face the Turks at Belgrade in modern day Serbia, Dracula attacked and slew Vladislav and took the throne for himself. As fortune would have it, a plague broke out amongst Hunyadi’s camp, infecting him which lead to his death. Sultan Mehmet was severely wounded in the battle. These events left Dracula to rule Wallachia uninterrupted for 6 years. It was the only time he ruled his home for so long.


The Impaler



“I have killed men and women, old and young… We killed 23,884 Turks and Bulgarians without counting those whom we burned in their homes or whose heads were not cut by our soldiers.” (Dracula, in a letter to Matthias Corvinus bragging of his tyranny)



As Sultan Mehmet approached what appeared to be a fetid balding forest of rotting trees in the distance he soon realized the horror of what he approached. They were so close to their destination – the Wallachian capital of Târgoviște -that he was in no mood for this puzzling sight. But the figures became more clear as the steeds in the cavalry grew unruly and the infantry felt ill. Before him stood 20,000 impaled bodies of innocent men, women and children, all victims of Dracula in that winter of 1462.



Dracula’s Muslim upbringing, albeit abandoned in deference to opportunity, and fluency in Turkish enabled him to move about the Ottomans’ most secured camps freely as a Turk without being noticed. This had deadly consequences for the Muslims. Dracula had entered Serbia with his men all dressed as Turkish Sipahis and slaughtered all the Muslim villagers, and those non-Muslims friendly to them that they could find. The intent was to leave a horrifying memento for Sultan Mehmet whom they knew to be soon taking their capital city. They erected this unholy monument in a bid to alarm the Sultan and terrorize his troops in hopes that they might turn around and retreat home.



What is remarkable is that there are no records of mass desertion of Ottoman troops after witnessing this. They pressed on unflinchingly. However, some historians have suggested that Sultan Mehmet II lost his taste for hunting down the ‘vampire’ following this invasion of Wallachia and left the task up to the only one who was capable of hunting down Dracula and killing him. After taking the Wallachian capital of Târgoviște, Mehmet returned home, leaving the hunt to Radu. After all, it would take someone who knew the mind of Dracula to defeat him, and none fit this bill better than his own brother.



This event earned Dracula the name of Vlad Ţepeş, the Romanian word “Ţepeş” meaning “Impaler”. Legend has it that if you look closely at the word you can see Dracula’s fangs dangling beneath as a hidden warning to the vampire’s terrible lust for blood.


Radu vs. Dracula: Brothers in Blood



As Târgoviște was taken, Dracula fled towards Transylvania in hopes of finding refuge with John Hunyadi’s son Matthias Corvinus. As was typical of Dracula’s opportunism and lack of reverence for religion, he offered to become Catholic in order to win Corvinus’ favor. He scorched the earth and slaughtered all the living in his path leaving a wake of desolation and writhing impaled bodies. He would not give up his homeland to the Muslims that easily. He began a beleaguering campaign of guerilla warfare that the elite Ottoman Sipahis could not endure. It is said he slaughtered 15,000 of the Ottoman soldiers in one single night. Still, as the mightiest of the Ottomans fled, Radu was undeterred seemingly driven by what can only be interpreted as an austere piety, to end the bloody reign of his haplessly misguided brother. None remained to fight Dracula save Radu and his fellow Romanian Muslim Janissaries.



The brothers fought lingering battles for the throne of Wallachia and Radu’s control of the region increased staggeringly with Dracula receiving less and less support from Matthias Corvinus in Hungary. In a strange twist of fate, Corvinus, the one to whom Dracula retreated, had him imprisoned for 12 years on charges of high treason. The people of Wallachia and their Christian nobles had enough of Dracula’s terror and put their support behind Radu who was pronounced Voivod, Prince and Ruler of Wallachia in 1462. Radu ruled the land prosperously for 11 years until his death while Dracula wasted away in a Budapest prison patiently waiting to rise again from the darkness.


Dracula’s Release and Final Battle



After Radu’s death in 1473, Dracula was released from prison. He immediately assembled an army and invaded Bosnia, slaughtering its Muslim population and impaling 8,000 on stakes in a forest of human bodies. Once again, Dracula had arisen from the darkness with the objective of eliminating Islam from the Balkans forever. He finally acquired the throne of Wallachia after his departed brother, but only for a month. Sultan Mehmet invaded Wallachia to remove this profanity from the throne his dear friend Radu had vacated in death. In 1476 the forces of Sultan Mehmet faced the forces of Dracula in Bucharest, Romania. Dracula’s army was overrun in a blitz and all were killed, including Dracula himself. The vampire had been slain. News of this did not suffice. His head was cut off and preserved in a jar of honey and sent to Constantinople. There, in a fitting end, Dracula’s head was impaled upon a stake in the center of Constantinople for all to see. There was to be no doubt or mystery.



The Muslims had finally, at last, killed Dracula.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

References

■Dracula: Essays on the Life and Times of Vlad Ţepeş, Kurt W. Treptow

■Vlad III Dracula: The Life and Times of the Historical Dracula, Kurt W. Treptow

■The Complete Dracula, Radu Florescu, Raymond T. McNally

■Vlad Ţepeş, Prince of Walachia, Nicolae Stoicescu

■Tarikh al-Dawlah al-`Uthmaniyyah fi-l `Usur al-Wusta (Arabic), Dr. Mahmud al-Huwayri

■Al-`Uthmaniyin fi-l Tarikh wal-Hadharah (Arabic), Dr. Muhammad Harb

■Tarikh al-Dawlah al-`Uthmaniyyah (Arabic), Dr. Ali Hassoun

■Al-Sultan Muhammad al-Fatih (Arabic), Dr. Sayyid Ridwan


(Via Suhaib Webb's website)

An Excerpt from "Muslims ,Music and Islam in America- Is there a connection?" by Akil Fahd

(photo taken from the webpage,Tabaqaat al-Amrikiyyeen: Pioneering Muslim leaders and Communities)

" ..What can be shown is a relationship between jazz music or at the very least jazz musicians serving as conduits for the spread of Islam in America for previous generations.


In his essay "The America I have seen" the Eyptian Sayyid Qutb once wrote "The American is primitive in his artistic tastes, whether in his judgment of art or his own artistic works. Jazz music is his music of choice. It is this music that the savage bushmen created to satisfy their primitive desires, and their desire for noise on the one hand, and the abundance of animal noises on the other. The American’s enjoyment of jazz does not fully begin until he couples it with singing like crude screaming. And the louder the noise of the voices and instruments, until it rings in the ears to an unbearable degree, the greater the appreciation of the listeners."


Yet it was their involvement with the cultral arts and jazz in particular which brought many artist into contact with Muslims and Islam.

Early American Muslim da'ees (missonaries, callers to Islam) such Shaykh Daoud Ahmed Faisal, Al-hajj Talib Ahmad Dawud (Alfonso "Barrymore" Rainey), Idrees Sulieman (Leonard Graham), Al-Hajj Abdullah Rasheed Ahmad (Lynn Hope), Abdullah Ibn Buhaina (Arthur "Art" Blakey) and Daud Salahuddin all had been jazz musicians at one point.



A number of Islamic organizations were founded by these da'ees (callers to Islam) in their efforts to prostylitize, Shaykh Daoud Faisal founded the Islamic Propagation Center of America/Islamic Mission to America, the Muslim Village Madinah al-Salaam and the more enduring State Street Mosque (now known as Masjid Daoud), Al-Hajj Talib Dawud founded the Muslim Brotherhood, USA, al-Hajj Abdullah became a teacher at the Philadelphia unit of the Addeynu Allahu Universal Arabic Association (AAUAA) and Abdullah Ibn Buhaina's New York apartment was used as an Islamic mission when he formed the all Muslim jazz band, the Messengers (later renamed The Jazz Messengers).

So ubiquteous were Muslim be-bop jazz musicians in the 1940's and 1950's that in 1957 Langston Hughes wrote the short poem "Be-Bop Boys" Imploring Mecca / to acheive / six discs / With Decca, as an ode to Muslim jazz musicians praying for success with their record companies.

Later in the 1960's musicians who would become Muslim da'ees include Imam al-Hajj Koli Ahmad Tawfiq who founded the Mosque of the Islamic Brotherhood (MIB), Imam Yusuf Muzaffarudin Hamid who formed the Islamic Party of North America (IPNA) , Daud Salahuddin was Amir of the Chicago unit of the IPNA and Imam Dawoud Adeyola who became Imam of Muslim Village Jabul Arabiyya the orginally the West Valley unit of the AAUAA.

During 1959 Al-Hajj Talib Ahmad Dawud (husband of the great Muslim jazz singer Dakota Staton aka Aliyah Rabia) formed a jamaat (Muslim Community) in Detroit under the aupices of the Muslim Brotherhood, USA (an Ahmadiyya affiliate) and by 1961 he had 125 members. Also in Detroit as jazz moved to post be-bop avant-garde, Muslim jazz musicians would continue leading roles as da'ees. Philadelphia native Shaykh Ahmad Mubarak Abdullah Mutakalim (Shaykh Mubarak) founded Masjid Kalimaat in the late 1960's, then in 1971 Shaykh Mubarak joined with Detroit natives Imam Abdul Jalil (Muhammud Bey Abdul Jalil) and his wazir Furuq Z Bey (members of the avant-grade jazz group Griot Galaxy and the "Bey tribe" community that formed around them) to form the Masjid (Mosque) As-Salaam Orthodox Islamic Movement in Detroit.

So from the above, which is hardly exhaustive I would say there is considerable evidense that there has been missionary efforts on the parts of Muslim jazz musicians..."

Sheikh Akil Fahd, is an imam and Muslim community activist based in Detroit, and is himself of African-American herritage. He has recently set up a group to discuss, and share details, of the various African-American Islamic movements that have existed, over the years, across the United States. African-Americans are thought to make up around about 42% of all Muslims living in the United States.

On the Ephemeral Nature Of This World

"Be in this world as if you were a stranger or a traveller. If you survive until the evening, do not expect to be alive in the morning, and if you survive until the morning do not expect to be alive in the evening. Take from your health for your sickness and take from life for your death."

-Prophet Muhammed (salla Allahu alehi wa salam/may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)

San Valentin and Other Matters

Since it's the day of that cynical marketing plot aimed at making an idol of romatic love (no prizes for guessing which) I think the following quote, from the Andalusian scholar, Ibn Hazm (7 November 994–15 August 1064)(456 AH)is particularly apt:

"Love- May Allah exalt you!-Is in truth a baffling ailment, and its remedy is in strict accord with the degree to which it is treated; it is a delightful malady, a most desirable sickness. Whoever is free of it likes not to be immune, and ...whoever is struck down by it yearns not to recover."

Ibn Hazm (rahim Allah) appears to be categorising romantic love (between human beings, not between the servant and Creator) as a spiritual sickness. I believe this is an appropriate categorisation as such "love" can become so all consuming that it takes one away from the remembrance of Allah and can make people act unwisely.

Hassan al-Basri (may Allah have maercy on him) mentioned that love of the dunya (this wordly life) and love for Allah can not co-exist in the same heart. That is not to say that Islam opposes love of that which exists in this temporal world; quite the contary, in fact. What Hassan al-Basri is speaking of is love which exceeds the limits set by Allah.

An affinity for the natural world, if it's a means by which we contemplate and praise the Creator, sanctifies what might otherwise be a mere hobby. Another person might,for example, take pleasure in their work, knowing that Allah has provided them with such work as a means of fulfilling their financial obligations and spending in charity. Alternatively, they could turn their work into an all consuming pursuit of money for its own sake.

Gai Eaton spoke of how the signs of Allah,especially those occuring in the natural world, if not recognised as such and instead loved for their own sake, can in fact take us away from Allah, The Exalted. In his book, "King of the Castle" he said:

"Paganism in the proper sense of the term is an idolatry applied to the natural world, but it is also, in most cases, the debris of a religion in the final stages of decay, when its adherents, like dogs sniff at the pointed finger rather than going where the finger points; idolatry, animism, fetishism and other such aberrations bear all bear witness to the fact that phenomena which were once adored as symbols of transcendent realities have come to be worshipped for their own sakes."

On the subject of Valentines Day, secular festivals have a lot in common with the religious practises of the pre-Islamic Arabs in Mecca. For example,as custodians of the idols,they charged people to access the kabbah (where the idols were held). Valentine's day, for its part, has its own idols (ie., cards, roses,heart shaped rubbish that cost about 10p to make in China). Custodians are in the form of gift shop owners, chocolatiers and restauranters in the current era.


Ibn Hazm was an Andalusian philosopher, litterateur, psychologist, historian, jurist and theologian born in Córdoba, present-day Spain.

Hassan al-Basri (Abu Sa'id al-Hasan ibn Abi-l-Hasan Yasar al-Basri), (642 -728 or 737), also known as Imam Hasan al Basri, was a well-known Sunni Muslim theologian and scholar of Islam who was born in Medina from Persian parents.

Charles Le Gai Eaton (Hasan le Gai Eaton or Hassan Abdul Hakeem) (1921 – 26 February 2010) was born in Switzerland and raised as an agnostic by his parents.He received his education at Charterhouse and at King's College, Cambridge. He worked for many years as a teacher and journalist in Jamaica and Egypt. He then joined the British Diplomatic Service. Eaton converted to Islam in 1951.

-biographical information from Wikipedia

Exit Mubarak

Allahu Akbar! Allah is The Greatest!

Greatly pleased to learn of Mubarak's resignation/ overthrow. Everything that occurs does so by Allah's Leave; our role is simply to exert the maximum amount of effort, for His Sake, and He will surely do the rest.

In His Limitless Wisdom, Allah bestowed, upon the protestors, a power, fearlessness and patience. The sincere supplications of those within and outside of the country have, also, clearly been accepted. The hearts of the armed forces and/or those in power (depending on the view of Mubaraks' demise to which you subscribe) were also not left unaffected by The Changer of Hearts.

Ultimately, although people will wax lyrical about the final straw, Mubarak's fall from grace (as with all matters) lay in the the Hands of Allah.

Dicatators,National and Domestic

Quite a few people have drawn parallels between the relationship of a dictator to the governed and that of an abusive husband (or wife) to their quarry. Those unfamilar with the dynamics of such relationships, in particular the concept of "trauma bonding," are at a loss to understand why wives, in spite of the atmosphre of severe oppression, return time and again or,in other cases, endure what to others would be intolerable. I think the answer lies in the what those working win the field of abuse call "trauma bonding" whereby, in between episodes of severe repression, an abuser will do or say that which gives hope to the abused. Often, just at the point where the abused seems ready to give up,rise up or leave. The abused, whose psychology has been subtly altered by years of their abuser's mood swings, can overly identify with these good episodes and wonder as to whether they had perhaps been mistaken or somewhat harsh in their judgement of him. The good periods are, in truth,a manipulative part of the abuse and not distinct from it and are designed to ensure the continued compliance of the subject.

Just as with domestic dictators, dictators who preside over a larger land masses, and for whom the occasional act of benevolence has failed to stem uprisings, use much the same psychologial weaponry. Talk of leaving, or questing after freedom or protests are met by both types of dictator (often with feigned benevolance) as evidence of a conspiaracy against him by outside elements. In the case of an Arab leader, the finger of blame may be pointed towards the Americans or, more usually, the Israeli's, whilst the domestic dictator will lay the blame at the abused's own family, divorcees (intent on making the abused wife as miserable as them) or radical feminist separatists. At no point does the dictator ever acknowledge that the abused's grievances are legitimate.

If the abused manges to extricate themselves from the abuser's vice-like psychological grip then the dicatator may grudgingly accept to implement changes.But, scratch below the surface,and you'll find that the willingness to change derives not from a sense that they have acted inappropriately or oppressively but out of an indulgence for the opressed (or at least that is how it will be presented). Therefore, any changes will be tokenistic and will not herald real change whether on the national or in the domestic sphere.Change can only occur when the oppressed's feeling are consider as important as those of the dicator himself and he permits of himself the possibilty that his policies might be wrong, misguided or cruel. Dictataors, perhaps out of deepset low-self esteem, never doubt themselves, and rarely take advice from others, (others existing only to shore up the wholly positive god-like image of themselves as creatures without need). Note how Hosni Mubarak, in his interview with ABC News, emphasised his being tired of politics and that his unwillingness to resign derived from his duty to Egypt and not from any psychological neediness for power and control. Thus, in one line, he neatly dismissed the views of a good part of the Egyptian populace (who would very much like him to go), asserted the supremacy of his views and presented what is, in truth, extreme selfishness as a selfless act of sarifice.

Some abused individuls, like the Tunisian populace, are able to make that break cleanly and this is facilitated in part by the stength of the will of the dictator to hold onto his territory. Whilst ,for others, leaving is a rather more complicated affair.

Let us pray that the Muslim Brotherhood and all other concerned parties will not fall for the rhetoric and pseudo-indulgence of Mubarak.

"...Speak The Truth Even If It Be Against Yourself."-Allah's messenger (May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)

"I just break the dishes made of earth, while you break Allah's dishes-you break human beings."

-Shaykh Hasan al-Yusi(1631-1691) speaking against the Sultan of Morocco

The Land of Pharoah

‎"The pro-democracy protesters are unarmed and have been peaceful at every step. But the pro-Mubarak thugs are arriving in buses and are armed — and they’re using their weapons."

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/the-view-from-tahrir/?src=tptw

Pro-Mubarak on horseback attack protesters in egypt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLwdt-GFS_U


The pro-Mubarak supporters' presence, and attacks on the crowd, might be used to legitimise violence against the anti-Mubarak protestors. Mubarak is clearly not going to give up easily.May Allah ensure the safety of all protestors and thwart the attempts of Mubarak and his cronies to discredit and divide the protestors.

Al-Jaazeera reports that their cameras have been confiscated which strongly suggests the Mubarak regime are intent on heavy handed violence to quell the protests.He would rather this than leave, as per the request of his people. Reinforces how empty his words of last night were.The European Union are being as hypocritical as ever by calling for restraint on both sides, thus nicely discrediting the protestors,and, again, avoiding all calls for him to step down so that if he were to stay, he would continue to do their bidding.

Tony Blair describes Mubarak as 'immensely courageous and a force for good' | World news | guardian.

The Pro-mubarak supporters who have been out on the streets are nothing more than a collection of plain clothed paramilitary police and other criminal elements who have have been paid to stir up trouble.The Mubarak regime and indeed the US government are keen to discredit the legions of protestors. To do otherwise would reveal to the world, what the Arabs have long known, which is that the US has been bribing a despot (with foreign "aid") in return for his assuring the continued persecution of the Palestinians by the state of Israhell.