IslamicLawBlog

Though known as a Supreme Hindu god, Vishnu is a universal deity who sends his avatars to all nations, cultures, and races. Vishnu has appeared in many avatars, the most famous of which are Krishna and Rama. Buddha is an avatar of Vishnu, though controversy shadows this avatar. Some see Jesus too as an avatar of Vishnu. Over time, the Vishnu appearances are countless, but only a few recognized, fewer understood. Vishnu has appeared in the form of a fish, turtle, boar, half-lion, dwarf, and perfect man. Vishnu preserves the evolution of life on the planet. The avatar of Vishnu is dark-complexioned in India, as Jesus is portrayed to be white-complexioned in Europe and North America. Other avatars with varied complexions and facial features descend in other parts of the world. Vishnu himself is not attached to any one color or complexion. Vishnu is meta-cosmic and meta-celestial being, boundless and illimitable. Some Vishnu manifestations are momentous and transformative, some momentary...

A careful study of the first caliphate (632-661 C.E.) demonstrates that the ISIS caliphate launched by Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in Iraq is a non-starter. A viable Islamic caliphate would most certainly abolish the kingdoms of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, and Morocco, the emirates of United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Oman, and the autocratic governments of Egypt, Syria, and Sudan. See the proposed map of the ISIS caliphate. A caliphate started by an ordinary warrior carries no weight with the Arab aristocratic families and no legitimacy with most Arab theologians, who see the Islamic caliphate as Allah's gift granted exclusively to the Quraysh tribe of Prophet Muhammad. A universal caliphate open to all Muslims of all ethnicities from Morocco to Indonesia (See the first commentary) to hold supreme office of the caliph is a heresy that very few theologians are likely to accept as a viable paradigm. In almost all systems, the highest office is shielded from "foreigners." Cons...

This series of commentaries, Unviability of Islamic Caliphate, will explain that Islamic caliphate in any form, much less in image of the fetishized first caliphate (632-661 C.E.), is an utter impossibility, even though the romance of a unified Muslim ummah, free of foreign occupations, comprised of all ethnic communities and denominations, devoted to peace, social justice, piety, and glorification of One God, is a dream ideology that fascinates millions of Muslims -- much like the utopias of global solidarity, environmental wholeness, scientific socialism, or racial purity that enchant other peoples and communities. The unviability of instituting a new caliphate questions the Western war on terror as well the wild conquest claims Muslim militants make to terrorize a nervous world. For decades, Arab militants in the Middle East have been praying for the creation of Islamic caliphate modeled after the first caliphate established in Medina after the death of Prophet Muhammad. To the su...

"Sue the bastards" is a catchy phrase invented in 1970 by Victor Yannacone, a U.S. lawyer and environmentalist, a trailblazer in cutting-edge litigation. The phrase, despite its critics, captures a sentiment for law-based empowerment against the hefty and mighty. Without fright, alarm, or vacillation, American Muslims are quietly 'suing the bastards" and asserting their civil liberties in courts - a quintessential American thing to do. A review of cases decided in 2015 reveal how American Muslims are claiming, sometimes pro se and sometimes with the help of pro bono and fee-paid lawyers, their rights against discrimination, hostility, and harassment. A symptomatic discrimination case, reported in Khan v. Hilton Worldwide, occurs at the Waldorf Astoria New York, a plush hotel located half a mile away from showy Trump Tower. In 2005, Ehsan Khan (no relation to the author) starts working as a "Café Attendant" at the Starbucks inside Read More

A bankruptcy court tells a gloomy story of student loans. Upon graduating from a school of dentistry in Wisconsin, Soler accumulated student loans in the amount of $200,000. Since then, repaying loans has been the primary predicament of Soler’s life. Soler has searched for higher paying jobs, worked with chronic back pain exasperated by her work as a dentist, and lived without many comforts cinematographed in the American dream of good life. After paying loan payments for eight years, a whopping $100,000 in total, Soler still owes $285,000. “With the accruing, compounding interest, in an effort reminiscent of Sisyphus, instead of gaining any ground with her mountain of loan debt, Soler has been going backwards.” A defeated Soler files for bankruptcy. See In re Soler, 261 BR 444 – Bankr. Court, Minnesota 2001. Soler’s story is anything but unique or unusual. It’s writ large across America. It highlights the existential consequences of massive debt with which various professionals, ...

It should come as no surprise, but it does for many, that money merchants founded and continue to govern America. See Debt Serfdom in America. The dominant narrative that America was established by “puritans” and “pilgrims” escaping religious atrocities sweeping across Europe is incompletely correct, used mostly for myth-making and finding a respectable origin for a powerful nation, the United States of America . But the dominant narrative conveniently if not deliberately whitewashes the plight of wretched debt servants brought from Europe to make profits for entrepreneurs. Just as vulnerable migrant workers are now imported from across the Mexican border to slog in the fields, poverty-stricken Europeans were transported from across the Atlantic to toil in the “New World” for the benefit of venture capitalists. An indentured servant – Read More

Press TV has conducted an interview with L. Ali Khan, a professor at the Washburn University from Kansas, to ask for his insight into the impact of political change in Myanmar on the fate of the country's Rohingya Muslims. Watch the Interview The following is a rough transcription of the interview. Press TV : It’s quite clear that Myanmar’s path towards democracy isn’t as democratic as many would like it to be. Khan : That’s very true. I think the National League for Democracy, which is the political party of the Nobel laureate has won landslide more than 70 percent of the seats in both houses; so, one would hope that the situation of Rohingyas will change, but I would suggest that there should be two international pressures that should be brought on the government of Myanmar. One is through the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the other is through the Human Rights Council. Now, we know that in the Human Rights Council, there’s a special rapporteur, who is mo...