needledocgal

2007-11-09T03:39:00.000-08:00

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commissar in his labyrinth-prakash karat

2007-11-09T03:35:00.000-08:00

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cover story
The Commissar In His Labyrinth
He’s not a mass politician. He’s never fought elections, he doesn’t intend to. Yet he’s charted a course to national centrestage. SANKARSHAN THAKUR reveals the enigmatic Prakash Karat
Early focus A rare photograph of Karat in his youth
He has a taste for murder. Should Manmohan Singh fall in the current jousting between the UPA and the Left over the nuclear deal with the United States, Prakash Karat will stand charged as the man with blood on his hands. But for all the Stalinist attributes that the 59- year-old CPMgeneral secretary is routinely, often flippantly, dart-boarded with, murder isn’t political doctrine for him; it’s literary preference. Patricia Cornwell’s compulsive Kay Scarpetta whodunits. But infinitely more than those, Ian Rankin’s dark Edinburgh crimes. Deep affections for place and persona might be at play here. Edinburgh is where Karat went to study politics as a young man in the late 1960s; and Rankin’s hero, Detective Inspector John Rebus, might bear a few critical, if also unlikely, likenesses to the man who has infused in a single declarative sentence the power to hold apart the world’s two largest democracies — “There will be serious consequences if the deal is operationalised.” The two men share more than a taste for a late evening sneak into Edinburgh’s Oxford Bar. Rebus, middle-aged, intense, irreverent, can be an obsessive man, dogged about fixations, frustratingly aloof, driven by inner wellsprings of conviction.Often, in the ongoing brinkmanship with the government, Karat may have felt framed into a corner by the chorus of blame. This is a good deal, why is this man being so stubborn? The 123 Agreement has won formidable, media-amplified, attestation. Sonia Gandhi. Manmohan Singh. The bulk of the scientific establishment. Even, with tactical riders, LK Advani. Even, for a significant moment before he inserted due amendments post-haste, N. Ram, mate, comrade, editor of The Hindu, the prolix Mahadev of rightpolitic.Or he may have sensed the dire burden of consequences piling at his door. Whoever wants an election now? Not even his own party, not his besieged fellows in West Bengal, not his embattled factions in Kerala. We’ll lose seats, has been the aggravated, though unendorsed, plea sounded from the party’s traditional strongholds — prevent precipitation.But, for Karat, this isn’t about provincial gains or losses; this is a war about winning the world, or at least about keeping the enshrined enemy — the United States — from taking it unchallenged. Those who know Karat up close would tell you he really has no sense of isolation or guilt. If anything, those things mean impositions of a worldview he doesn’t much careabout. If they are calling him intransigent and destructive, so be it. That’s something Karat can begin to feed on and relish; he revels in battle, and if it’s against the expanding evil empire, it can’t get bigger or more righteous. America is fundamental to his understanding of what’s wrong with the universe.When the Prime Minister warned history would be unforgiving if the deal with America wasn’t done, Karat was sharp and personal in retort. “History won’t forgive us if we collaborate in tying our destiny to the United Statesin perpetuity.” Those who dismiss his duel with Manmohan Singh as merely debating-room rhetoric probably misread him. There is no refuting that the Left’s quotient in parliamentary arithmetic is, and has been, limited. Equally, there is no refuting that it has enough to cripple or bring down the government. It may well be that the Left will earn diminished returns in a snap poll, but electoral arithmetic is not all the Left measures its weight by. There is the constituency of votes and the constituency of the idea; preserving the latter is critical to securing the former.
Prakash Karat with R. Umanath in New Delhi on August 22, 2007. Photo by Shailendra Pandey/Tehelka
Much more so to Prakash Karat than any other Communist frontrunner. Here’s a classical Marxist-Leninist, so viscerally committed to the purity and cohesion of ideology and organisation,he is often faulted for being unconcerned about the requirements of mass and electoral politics. He has contested only twice in life — a win and a loss in stakes for the presidentship of the JNU students’ union — and is unlikely ever to contest ever again. It can’t be he is disdainful of electoral politics, but there’s certainly a streak of indifference. The man who could bring down this Lok Sabha has never ever been to the houses of Parliament. Why? That’s merely one among many outposts of engagement. The headquarters is the Party. That’s where the command lies. That’s where the commander sits, dismissing extant concerns as minutiae, urging attention on the bigger picture: this isn’t about West Bengal or Kerala, this is about the world and about India’s place in it, act now or we shall be condemned to eternal subservience. America is neo-imperialism, it must be fought, whatever the cost. Karat is a past master at using Marxist theory to justify on-ground strategy. This is how he aligns his cadre, through high ideology, not realpolitik. “He’ll not blink on this one,” says a senior party colleague, “Prakash rarely does, because he has coldly thought most things through.”Decades ago, when still a student in Edinburgh, Karat had caught the eye of Victor Kiernan. The distinguished Marxist historian was keen that Karat pursue the intellectual life. The strait-jacket of organisation will choke the intellect in you, Kiernan counselled, don’t join the party, work the cause from without. Years later, Karat would pay sentimental tribute to his early mentor, publishing a volume of his selected works (Across Time and Continents, Leftword Books, 2003), but he quietly rejected that piece of advice. Well before he landed in Edinburgh, Karat had found his purpose and begun to pursue it.The formative influences on the man remain unclear — and Karat’s meditated reticence on his personal side have preserved the haze — but loneliness appears to have been among them. He is born into a family of matrilineal Palghat Nairs, well-heeled though not prosperous, past being feudal and seeking out the professions for sustenance. His father is a railway employee, posted far across the continent from native Elappulli, in Burma. Karat spends his early years unhinged in the antique land. His only sibling — a sister — dies of typhoid during the Burma days. Then, at age 12, his father passes away. Mother and son move to Madras. He schools there and begins to give off the first shine of promise — he bags an essay prize and a trip to Tokyo. On to the elite Madras Christian College where he meets N. Ram and P. Chidambaram. Spark merges with spark and makes a pool of light. It’s a journal called The Radical Review. It has things to sustain it — there’s the affluence of Ram and Chidambaram, there’s the ferment over America’s bull-headed misadventure in Vietnam. It’s a time heady with the air of resistance. Fidel Castro has repelled the Bay of Pigs; the CIA explosive in his cigar has turned a damp squib.Che Guevara has lectured the World Bank in battle fatigues at New York and emerged a raging legend from dirty death in the Bolivian jungles. Joan Baez is ripping America under guitar strings in the streets of Washington. By the time he arrives in Edinburgh on a scholarship, Karat’s world has become more churned, eddying in additional seductions. There is South African apartheid to rail against. He plungesinto protest, even gets rusticated for a spell. But that only whets his appetite for soldiering.He is never going to listen to sagely Kiernan. When he returned home in 1970, he was called in straight to the CPM, which by then had decided to move the Party Centre — the rganisation’s ideological engine — from Bengal to New Delhi. He began by assisting parliamentary party leader AK Gopalan, but he always remained in the field of vision of the then general secretary, P. Sundaraiyya, soon to become Karat’s favoured instructor. Sundaraiyya would have to quit the CPM over ideological differences in 1978, but, to date, the only portrait that adorns Karat’s office is his. Did N. Ram formally hook Karat with the CPM? Nobody’s telling. It’s true, though, that at the time, Ram had known Sundaraiyya better and longer than Karat. And he had a good sense of where Karat’s heart lay, what promise he held. Future general secretary of the party? Threeand- a-half decades is a long and risky period to lay bets over in politics, but there are those who never doubted where Karat would end up. Says a contemporary in the party, “We used to joke about it with him, sure, but everybody knew it was only half a joke. Prakash announced his course early, without having to say it. He was streets ahead intellectually, but it was more than just that. He was careful as a good careerist would be, straight and narrow and deep.” Like it is with several key aspects to the man, his rise to the top of the hierarchy — anointed youngest party boss at 57 at the Delhi Congress in April 2005 — remains subject to contrary interpretation, even within the party. Some say it’s a path coldly plotted, from sustained reserve of persona to focused employment of intellect to consistent firmness on ideology and programme. Others argue, weightily, that Karat’s ascent is a consequence of what he is and means rather than the other way round. Ramesh Dikshit, Lucknow-based academic and NCP leader, who set up the first JNU students’ union alongside Karat, says, “Prakash has got where he has entirely by dint of talent and commitment. I have my differences with him, and I left the party because of those, but that can’t stop me from admiring the man’s honesty and adherence to what he believes to be right. He is not a transparent man — he is dogmatic and puritan and Stalinist in political approach — but to hold on to all of that and articulate it intellectually speaks of rare ability and integrity. The CPM is not a party where people rise merely because someone influential takes a liking to you.”EVERY LIFE has a central stem around which it flowers or falters. For Karat, that’s always — and by unanimous agreement — been party ideology and programme. Talk around and you’ll get a sense of the near-astounding respect he evokes even in the bitterest adversary. And nobody doubts that for an ideology-driven party like the CPM, which refuses to repudiate Stalin and which remains theoretically committed to revolution, he makes the perfect choice as leader. Karat hasn’t come up idly promoted in the party backrooms; he’s zig-zagged his way, often aking choices that others at the time saw as futile deviations. If something made Sundariyya and Gopalan send Karat to build a students’ movement at the fledgling JNU when he had, to all intents, completed formal studies in Edinburgh, something also made Karat resolve to embrace the assignment. When he became secretary of the Delhi party in 1980, many thought he had erred; Delhi was, and remains, barren turf for the CPM, he should have gone for the Party Centre. Both decisions were to become ballast for Karat’s growing reputation within and outside the party. Did he jump onto the visiting Shah of Iran’s motorcade at the head of a violent protest as JNU president? Was he the lead disruptionist when the World Bank’s Robert McNamara came visiting? Did he steal British Prime Minister Edward Heath’s thunder in Delhi? Truth? Semi-myth? Take your pick, but you can’t tear any of that away from that substantive body called the Prakash Karat myth. Was he wasting away as Delhi party secretary? He was only getting a sounder and sounder grip on the many intricate and enigmatic ways the CPM conducts itself. “This was rare training,” reflects a Politburo member. “Being in Delhi and being perceptive, he remained close to the ideological and theoretical heart of the party even while he gained practical experience in how it is run.”There are those who credit — often in unkind ways, often in ways that give no due to Karat’s own qualities — the progress of his career to wife and partymate Brinda. She’s the pushy one, the ambitious one, she’s the key Karat. Even those who are unreserved in their admiration and respect for Prakash tend to wince when it comes to Brinda; he is, at least for them, the better half in that relationship. They would applaud Karat’s elevation to the top party job to the skies, but because the occasion was also attended by Brinda’s appointment to the Politburo, they labelled the Delhi party conference of 2005 “Coronation Congress”.Brinda Karat comes from the affluence of Kolkata’s Alipore. They met early in their party careers, Brinda, a bit of a Miranda House rage, having dumped a future with Air India in favour of fashionable leftwing politics, Prakash having arrived from long and studied convictions. It must be said, though, there is little to suggest that Brinda’s convictions about her political choice have not become deeper over the years. Neither is it that she’s ever betrayed a chink in commitment. It was a love that was wholesomely blessed by the party; when they decided to get married in 1975, in the thick of Karat’s underground Emergency days, Harkishen Singh Surjeet took it upon himself to pick an appropriately auspicious date — November 7, the anniversary of the October Revolution in the New Calendar.For critics of Brinda Karat, it’s not all down to subjectivities of personality. And it isn’t entirely personal either, for with her high-profile seats in the Politburo and in Parliament, Brinda is an important political mover as well; at a very human level, she does evoke jealousies and those often become part of internal faction play. But a lot of the reservations about her also have to do with her to-the-mannerborn background and her insistence on preserving it in her private space. It’s almost with a sense of deep hurt that a contemporary of Karat’s pulls out a wart at the end of extended showering of praise. “If there’s one blemish to him,” he says wistfully, “it is that he continues to live with the Roys.” Reference to Prannoy and Radhika Roy, the success-couple behind NDTV, brother-in-law and sister to Brinda. Karat retains his spartan party-given flat in the MPS’ hostel at Vitthalbhai Patel House, but home remains the Roys’ residence in South Delhi. Many find the contradictions between Communism and class comfort disturbing but if there is a disjunct, it remains a finely-managed one. On a day that Karat fires ultimatums at the government, Prannoy comfortably slips into his studio seat to announce that 60 percent of those aware of the details of the nuclear deal disapprove of the CPM’s stand. Also, that his polls suggest Karat’s tactics will substantially reduce the party’s numbers in parliament. Karat, on his part, is able to display his disdain with equal ease. “So NDTV is still doing polls?” he remarked sardonically to a friend upon being told. “Haven’t they learnt any lessons from their embarrassments in UP?” Beyond a point, little that transpires in the Roy-Karat home cramps either side. Beyond a point, how relevant or consequential is it to dwell on the personal in a nation that never seems to mind the presence of family or dynasty in public life? Old friend amesh Dikshit will vouch that the lifestyle of the Roys hasn’t rubbed off on Prakash, personally or politically. “He came home for dinner a couple of years ago. He was already a very important man. I knew he declined all VIP treatment the Mulayam Singh government was eager to offer. He came in a friend’s car and returned late at night on the pillion of my nephew’s scooter.”COMMUNISTS, BY dint of training, are wont to underplay the role of the individual in politics. This isn’t a crisis Prakash Karat has created single-handed; the party, irrespective of the noises being made in West Bengal and Kerala, is behind him, it unanimously backs the line. The Left as a whole is behind him, he isn’t stringing them along by force. And to a preponderant degree,that’s true. The Left today lives out of its opposition to America and the American way of life; any Communist would be loath to be seen endorsing the US. Even so, questions linger about whether another leader in Karat’s place would have dealt with it differently. Predecessor Surjeet, for instance, or Comrade Sitaram Yechury. “Without compromising on line, they would probably have calibrated this more flexibly,” says a CPM leader, “I can see Surjeet playing this out in his mind beyond a mid-term poll, I can see him imagining another fractured Lok Sabha, I can see him grappling with the difficult dilemma of having to possibly support the UPA again in order to keep the BJP out of power. Karat is too much of a puritan to pay much heed to the practicalities of politics.”But there is more that handicaps Karat in a fluid political setting than merely the fact of his being hidebound and clinical. He wants to play the public game as a recluse. In a democracy that thrives on the elasticities of what can be achieved over a conversation, his distaste for engagement can become a huge drawback. Sitaram Yechury must dirty his hands with the required wheeling-dealing; very often he also ends up earning a bad name for it. Karat himself will militate against the idea that his personality has come to bear upon the course of this crisis. In nuanced and key ways, he may be wrong. Paying tribute to EMS Namboodiripad in the party’s ideological quarterly, The Marxist, in 1998, he wrote: “EMS is a striking example of how an individual’s life and work acquires a tremendous impact when harnessed to the theory and practice of Marxism. When the individual is a person of EMS’ exceptional intellectual ability and depth of vision, veritably, theory becomes a powerful force and in the hands of a creative practitioner like EMS, it produces the impulses for a powerful movement.” As he marches up the Coromandel Coast, blazing a firm red line of limits to how much of America he can bear with, Karat surely must have his sights peeled on whether his impulse carries the intimations of an upsurge. The crisis is yet unfolding, nobody seems in a desperate hurry. Meantime, Rankin’s at work in Edinburgh. Another dark murder is in the making.
Sep 15 , 2007
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Singing & Music: Islamic View

2007-10-12T03:16:00.001-07:00

Singing & Music: Islamic View

What Does Islam Say on Music?

2007-10-12T03:11:00.000-07:00

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Living Shari`ah > Fatwa Bank

Question and Answer Details
Name of Questioner
Shi`sha` - Egypt
Title
What Does Islam Say on Music?
Question
Dear scholars, As-Salaam `Alaykum. I am teacher in a public school and I would like to help my non-Muslim colleagues as well as my Muslim community. Our problem in my school is that music is a subject of the curriculum but more and more students come to say parents are not willing anymore to let them listen to music. I also know that some of us Muslims consider music Haram while others listen to it. Where is the line? Is choir forbidden? What instruments are forbidden? A lot of Muslim parents are worrying around Christmas. What can we do to reassure and help parents and at the same time build trust between parents and teachers? Jazakum Allah khayran.
Date
14/Aug/2002
Name of Counsellor
Ahmad Kutty
Topic
Singing & Music
Answer
Wa`alykum As-Salaamu Warahmatullahi Wabarakaatuh. In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger. Dear questioner, thanks for your question, which reflects the great confidence you place in us. We implore Allah Almighty to help us serve His cause and render our work for His Sake. In his response to the question you posed, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states: “Music is an issue that has been hotly debated by scholars of the past and the present. While many of them have been generally inclined to condemn all forms of music, with the singular exception of ad-duff (tambourine) in weddings, quite a few of them have taken a more positive approach of considering only music containing sensual, pagan, or unethical themes or subliminal messages as being categorically forbidden. The latter view seems to be more consistent with the general nature of Islam, which is undoubtedly a complete way of life that caters to all of the genuine human instincts and needs within permissible limits. Thus, to say that all music is forbidden in Islam does not seem to agree with the balanced approach of Islam to issues of human life and experience. Traditions often cited by the first group scholars to justify condemnation of all musical instruments and music, according to some scholars, are considered as either spurious, or phrased in such way solely because of their associations with drinking, dancing, and sensuality. While everyone agrees that all forms of music that contain pagan, sensual themes, or subliminal messages are clearly forbidden, the latter group of scholars considers all forms of music free of such themes and messages as permissible. As a matter of fact, we know from the authentic traditions that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, not only allowed music in the weddings but also listened to girls singing: While listening to girls singing on such an occasion, he interrupted them only once when they sang the following verse, “In our midst is a prophet who knows what will happen tomorrow”; whence, the Prophet, peace be upon him, told them, “Cut this sentence out, and continue singing what you have been singing earlier.” There is nothing in the sources to indicate that the above permission is limited to the occasion of wedding, as some people tend to think. In light of these, according to the last mentioned group of scholars, music that is deemed to be free of un-Islamic and unethical themes and messages, the same is true of musical instruments so long as they are not used for the above, have been considered as permissible. But we have to stress that Islam clearly prohibits mixed dancing of males and females.” Excerpted, with slight modifications, from: www.islam.ca You can also read: Islam's Stance on Music
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Islam and music

2007-10-12T03:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.submission.org/

Music - the amazing gift of God

It is a great blessing from God that He committed in our service everything. The Quran does not exclude music from His blessings. Music is one of God's wonderful creations. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that music can make us feel good!

[45:13] He committed in your service everything in the heavens and the earth; all from Him. These are proofs for people who reflect.

[39:62] GOD is the Creator of all things, and He is in full control of all things

It takes some rigorous science to figure out whether the "feel good" generated by music can be measured. And then, science wants to know: do those "feel good" measures correlate with any health benefit? Help you heal? Lessen post-surgery nausea and pain? Trigger enough optimism to get you into a post-heart-attack exercise routine?

[49:18] GOD knows all the secrets in the heavens and the earth; GOD is Seer of everything you do.

[16:78] GOD brought you out of your mothers' bellies knowing nothing, and He gave you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brains, that you may be appreciative.

Today, new interest in alternative therapies, combined with advances in "cognitive neuroscience" and tools such as the functional MRI, which lets researchers track the brain's blood flow related to mental activities, has spurred researchers to take a closer look at music's neurological effects.

[2:255] GOD: there is no other god besides Him, the Living, the Eternal. Never a moment of unawareness or slumber overtakes Him. To Him belongs everything in the heavens and everything on earth. Who could intercede with Him, except in accordance with His will? He knows their past, and their future. No one attains any knowledge, except as He wills. His dominion encompasses the heavens and the earth, and ruling them never burdens Him. He is the Most High, the Great.

At Harvard Medical School's Institute for Music and Brain Science, researchers are studying the effects of music on pain and stress in premature infants, measuring heart rate, oxygenation and respiratory rate. "What evidence we have in hand really does show that music makes a difference," says the institutes's director, Dr. Mark Jude Tramo, a practicing neurologist.

[16:53] Any blessing you enjoy is from GOD. Yet, whenever you incur any adversity you immediately complain to Him.

Almighty God
[6:59] With Him are the keys to all secrets; none knows them except He. He knows everything on land and in the sea. Not a leaf falls without His knowledge. Nor is there a grain in the depths of the soil. Nor is there anything wet or dry, that is not recorded in a profound record.

Some studies show music can reduce the need for blood-pressure medications after heart surgery and help babies in the neonatal intensive care unit gain weight, he says. But our brains are hardwired for music, he says, and our brains' complex response to it might play an important adjunct role in health.

[59:24] He is the One GOD; the Creator, the Initiator, the Designer. To Him belong the most beautiful names. Glorifying Him is everything in the heavens and the earth. He is the Almighty, Most Wise.

[14:34] And He gives you all kinds of things that you implore Him for. If you count GOD's blessings, you can never encompass them. Indeed, the human being is transgressing, unappreciative.

A study of music's effect on patients is under way at one very high-tech area at Seattle's Northwest Hospital & Medical Center: the Heart Catheterization Laboratory. Here, amid imaging equipment and monitors, randomly selected patients listen through a specially designed pillow to the sounds of oboe, harp and cello, along with bird songs and waterfalls. In the cath lab, patients are awake as doctors push a long, thin catheter through an artery, typically reached by an incision in the groin. Dye is injected and tracked to show blockages. Afterward, patients will be asked a series of questions: What sounds did they notice? How do they rate the lab's sound environment? How high was their anxiety during the procedure?

God
[6:102] Such is GOD your Lord, there is no god except He, the Creator of all things. You shall worship Him alone. He is in control of all things.

[16:18] If you count GOD's blessings, you cannot possibly encompass them. GOD is Forgiver, Most Merciful.

The study also is being conducted at hospitals in Denmark and Canada. Dr. Per Thorgaard, study organizer and chief physician of anesthesia and intensive care at Aalborg University Hospital in Aalborg, Denmark, says about 400 patients will participate in this study, one of a series he hopes will lead to research into music's role in long-term healing.

[31:20] Do you not see that GOD has committed in your service everything in the heavens and the earth, and has showered you with His blessings - obvious and hidden? Yet, some people argue about GOD without knowledge, without guidance, and without the enlightening scripture.

[16:116] You shall not utter lies with your own tongues stating: "This is lawful, and this is unlawful," to fabricate lies and attribute them to GOD. Surely, those who fabricate lies and attribute them to GOD will never succeed.

Janice Johnson was at Northwest for a second heart catheterization and procedure to unblock an artery. The first time, she was tense and stayed that way. She was tense — until the music began. "It was such a relaxing piece of music that you just went somewhere else," says Johnson, who found herself transported to a Japanese garden, where the sound of a waterfall transfixed her. She lost track of what was going on in the cath lab — including her back pain, which was worse lying flat, as she had to do on the procedure table. "The music was really soothing," she says.

Do Not Prohibit Lawful Things
[5:87] O you who believe, do not prohibit good things that are made lawful by GOD, and do not aggress; GOD dislikes the aggressors.

The Disbelievers Unappreciative
[16:83] They fully recognize GOD's blessings, then deny them; the majority of them are disbelievers.

Match beats to the tempo you want for your activity. At least one small study showed that cancer patients' heartbeats synchronized with a musical beat, with a bit of training. So if you want to work hard, look for fast beats; if you want to relax, don't reach for the rock 'n' roll. Some music experts advise counting beats in the music to help it do the job for you — 120 to 135 beats per minute for fast walking, 126 for step aerobics and 160 for jogging, for example. Dr. Michael Thaut, director of the Center for Biomedical Research in Music at Colorado State University, says rhythm can modulate the timing of firing patterns of neurons in the brain.

[55:77] Which of your Lord's marvels can you deny?
[55:78] Most exalted is the name of your Lord, Possessor of Majesty and Honor.

[40:64] GOD is the One who rendered the earth habitable for you, and the sky a formidable structure, and He designed you, and designed you well. He is the One who provides you with good provisions. Such is GOD your Lord; Most Exalted is GOD, Lord of the universe.

The operating room is an "ominous, stark, foreign environment, kind of scary," says Robert Loveland, a retired construction manager who also listened to music during his heart catheterization last month. "You've got four or five, maybe six people circling you in a place that's very foreign to you — it's very unsettling."
Loveland, 66, hopes Northwest makes music a regular feature in the cath lab or other areas where patients are awake during procedures.

They Believe in God Yet, They Are Going to Hell
[39:38] If you ask them, "Who created the heavens and the earth?" they will say, "GOD." Say, "Why then do you set up idols beside GOD? If GOD willed any adversity for me, can they relieve such an adversity? And if He willed a blessing for me, can they prevent such a blessing?" Say, "GOD is sufficient for me." In Him the trusters shall trust.

[38:27] We did not create the heaven and the earth, and everything between them, in vain. Such is the thinking of those who disbelieve. Therefore, woe to those who disbelieve; they will suffer in Hell.

At first, some of the doctors at Northwest were skeptical. "In medical school, when I trained in the 1980s, the focus was really on science and less on personal issues such as comfort and emotional states of mind and well-being," says Dr. Gary Weeks, a cardiologist. "It's only when you get out in the practice of medicine that you realize that the emotional and non-physical aspects impact the patient's sense of health and well-being."

[35:3] O people, remember GOD's blessings upon you. Is there any creator other than GOD who provides for you from the heaven and the earth? There is no other god beside Him. How could you deviate?

[67:23] Say, "He is the One who initiated you, and granted you the hearing, the eyes, and the brains. Rarely are you appreciative."

Studies have shown music can lower blood pressure and heart rate, as well as levels of stress. One, published in 2003 in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, showed that relaxing music after a psychologically stressful task stopped the increase of cortisol, a stress hormone, whereas in silence, the hormone continued to increase for 30 minutes.

Innovated Prohibitions Condemned
[7:32] Say, "Who prohibited the nice things GOD has created for His creatures, and the good provisions?" Say, "Such provisions are to be enjoyed in this life by those who believe. Moreover, the good provisions will be exclusively theirs on the Day of Resurrection." We thus explain the revelations for people who know.

[40:62] Such is GOD your Lord, the Creator of all things. There is no god except He. How could you deviate?

Other small studies suggest links with heart rates, blood pressure, respiration, muscle tension, motor responses and skin temperature. Weeks sees a connection. "If a patient leaves the procedure feeling less stressed and more self-confident, they will be more likely to return to a higher level of activity," he says.

[46:3] We did not create the heavens and the earth, and everything between them except for a specific purpose, and for a finite interim. Those who disbelieve are totally oblivious to the warnings given to them.

Dr. William Nichols, an anesthesiologist who also works in Northwest's cath lab, says he's intrigued that music appears to reduce post-operative nausea and pain in some people. Looking at "risk" vs. "benefit," he sees an equation he likes: "Nobody has had an allergic reaction to music yet, as far as I know," he says.

The Major Commandments
[6:151] Say, "Come let me tell you what your Lord has really prohibited for you: You shall not set up idols besides Him. You shall honor your parents. You shall not kill your children from fear of poverty - we provide for you and for them. You shall not commit gross sins, obvious or hidden. You shall not kill - GOD has made life sacred - except in the course of justice. These are His commandments to you, that you may understand."

Researchers from the sleep clinic at the University of Toronto are developing a new type of music - "brain wave music." This music is created by studying individual brain waves and then creating music to match the patterns formed by the waves. The researchers believe that this special music will lead to deeper relaxation and greatly improved sleep.

[15:98] You shall sing the praises of your Lord, and be with the prostrators.
[15:99] And worship your Lord, in order to attain certainty.

Sadly, music is prohibited based on so called hadith falsely attributed to the prophet. Majority of Muslims fail to understand that hadiths are not the words of the prophet. Additionally, they fail to understand that the Quran is the only hadith of the prophet that was sent down to him from God.

Which Hadith?*
[45:6] These are GOD's revelations that we recite to you truthfully. In which Hadith other than GOD and His revelations do they believe?

Quran, the Whole Quran, and Nothing But the Quran
[6:19] Say, "Whose testimony is the greatest?" Say, "GOD's. He is the witness between me and you that this Quran* has been inspired to me, to preach it to you and whomever it reaches. Indeed, you bear witness that there are other gods* beside GOD." Say, "I do not testify as you do; there is only one god, and I disown your idolatry."

Quran: Fully Detailed*
[6:114] Shall I seek other than GOD as a source of law, when He has revealed to you this book fully detailed?* Those who received the scripture recognize that it has been revealed from your Lord, truthfully. You shall not harbor any doubt.

[10:59] Say, "Did you note how GOD sends down to you all kinds of provisions, then you render some of them unlawful, and some lawful?" Say, "Did GOD give you permission to do this? Or, do you fabricate lies and attribute them to GOD?"

[13:16] Say, "Who is the Lord of the heavens and the earth?" Say, "GOD." Say, "Why then do you set up besides Him masters who do not possess any power to benefit or harm even themselves?" Say, "Is the blind the same as the seer? Is darkness the same as the light?" Have they found idols besides GOD who created creations similar to His creations, to the point of not distinguishing the two creations? Say, "GOD is the Creator of all things, and He is the One, the Supreme."

The Majority of People Do Not Believe
[12:103] Most people, no matter what you do, will not believe.
[12:104] You are not asking them for any money; you simply deliver this reminder for all the people.
[12:105] So many proofs in the heavens and the earth are given to them, but they pass by them, heedlessly!
The Majority of Believers Destined for Hell
[12:106] The majority of those who believe in GOD do not do so without committing idol worship.

[1:2] Praise be to GOD, Lord of the universe.

Peaceful Friday, salaam and God bless you,

M. Irtaza

Ref: 1. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
2. http://sleepdisorder.about.com/
2. English translation of the Quran by Dr. Rashad Khalifa
For more about music and singing in the religion of Islam (Submission to God alone,) please click here
info@submission.org

bouquet

2007-01-25T02:20:00.000-08:00

abbi falls

2006-08-21T02:23:00.000-07:00

Bylakuppa

2006-08-21T02:20:00.000-07:00

madikeri abbi falls

2006-08-21T01:56:00.000-07:00

view from rajas seat

2006-08-21T01:48:00.000-07:00

Making of a martyr

2006-03-24T04:10:00.000-08:00

The Kabul bookseller, the famous reporter, and a 'defamation' of a nation

2006-03-24T04:06:00.000-08:00

Are we just what we eat?

2006-03-24T04:00:00.000-08:00

Islam has become its own enemy

2006-03-24T03:51:00.000-08:00

2006-03-24T03:44:00.000-08:00

sometimes silence is golden

2005-12-15T02:25:00.000-08:00

sometimes silence may sound golden sitting across in a cafetaria table sipping cappuccino accompanied by soothing Elotn Johns "canlde in the wind" ratrely batting the eyelids
but certainly not now...............
so come and say something..............

2005-11-29T23:18:00.000-08:00

hope you glanced through it ............tell me hows it looks...........Im not seriously creating a blog ..........its just a platform for both of us to share our feelings..........once u post something it will become alive n kicking..........

2005-11-25T23:55:00.000-08:00

none in the world but you who could see through my words n deeds ...........hope u might not have forgotten ur tall claim that u r the only one who could make the right sense out of my illegible hurriedly drafted worst scribblings ..................who else can make such a claim other than u ,as who had seen my bare soul but you

2005-11-25T03:40:00.000-08:00

this is exclusively meant for us .whenever you manages to take some time off your

busy hospital schedule post anything
here.........feelings,poems,photos,views ,worries ,

joys,jokes, abt friends n family,sports,cinema anything

and everything that you wanna share with... as it is meant for two of us

only ..never reveal the blog id to anyone...........once you start showering it with

your inner views I too will flood it my share of emotions ,feelings and views

I dont want anybody,however close they are, to visit except 2 of us

2005-11-25T03:18:00.000-08:00

hi !
its exclusively for us, none in the universe will

ever be able to go through it bcos this blog is

meant for two uniquely built human beings and

they will share their inner views and their emotions without any vail

with eachother........and there will be no

constrains that will desist them from going all

out ...........its meant for two who bare their souls to each other shedding all masks and pretensions
and the access to this blog is secured to

them only............they will maintain it till their death

without fail..........the one who dies first will

maintain and will pass the baton to his\her kids

whenever it seems necessary...............

this blog will keep track both of our lives ,every

minute incidents worth sharing will beposted

here .............