Author: Mohamed Marwen Meddah

Mohamed Marwen Meddah is a Tunisian-Canadian, web aficionado, software engineering leader, blogger, and amateur photographer.

Occupation As An Act Of God

Interesting post over at Lawrence Of Cyberia:

“The truth is that whether the Palestinians under Abu Mazen turn into three million wild-eyed jihadis or three million Mother Teresas, they will not be the deciding factor in whether they remain under Israel’s military rule. The Occupation is going to continue till the Israeli people decide – for reasons of morality or simple cost – that they will finally let go of “Greater Israel” and no longer rule over another people. ”

[Read On: Lawrence Of Cyberia]
[Via: Macvaysia]

Visual Dhikr

Visual Dhikr

While surfing around the web, I came across the site Visual Dhikr, which is for an art project launched by two UK Muslim artists Ruh Al-‘Alam and Abu Taha.

As muslims we are always looking back at our history and praising the achievments of our forbearers. Their amazing artistic and architetcural achievments that are a source of pride, as well as a valuable contributor to our unique cultural heritage, are becoming a thing of the past.

Visual Dhikr aims to help nurture the revival of Islamic Art in a contemporary fashion that compliments our lives, in our home, in the modern age.

I think this is so great.
I love the artworks that they’ve put on the site and think that it’s great they merge Islamic and contemporary art so beautifully.

[Site: Visual Dhikr]

‘They hate our policies, not our freedom’

The Christian Science Monitor reports that the US Defense Department confirmed the contents of a report by the Defense Science Board that is highly critical of the administration’s efforts in the war on terror and in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Muslims do not hate our freedom, but rather they hate our policies [the report says]. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing, support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states. Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.”

[Via: Yenayer]

The Truth About Muslims

William Dalrymple, historian and writer, wrote an article called “The Truth About Muslims” in which he takes on a number of books by Bernard Lewis, Richard Fletcher and Nabil Matar and gives some fascinating information about the relations between Muslims and non-Muslims through the centuries as well as the Islamic influence on the development of Western civilization.

“To the persecuted Monophysite Christians of Syria and Egypt, Muslims could be presented as deliverers. The same could be said of the persecuted Jews…. Released from the bondage of Constantinopolitan persecution they flourished as never before, generating in the process a rich spiritual literature in hymns, prayers, sermons and devotional work.”

Richard Fletcher, The Cross and the Crescent

Read The Truth About Muslims.

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Me

  1. I love all types of music from rock to pop to rnb to alternative to everything.
  2. I’ve lived more outside my home country Tunisia than in it.
  3. I wanted to study Genetic Engineering in University before finally going for Computer Science.
  4. As a kid, my favourite colour was red and then as I grew up it became blue (obviously).
  5. My movie watching record is 5 movies back to back, and then I ran out of movies.
  6. I’ve never broken a single bone in my body. (Thank God)
  7. Used to drink freezing cold Pepsi first thing in the morning.
  8. I had a guitar that I didn’t really know how to play.
  9. I would love to visit Australia, Japan and China.
  10. I’d love to live on a small secluded island in the middle of nowhere.

Helpless

With so much to do
In so little time,
I begin to wonder
Whether I should start to climb
To the place I want to be,
Or just sit and stare
Up there silently,
Without getting anywhere.

Days pass by like minutes
As my restless state grows,
Where will I be tomorrow?
No one really knows.

(Taken from Tahir Rashid‘s new poem “Helpless”.)

[More: Tahir Rashid Poetry]

Getting Over Blogger’s Block

Just like any writer, a blogger too can go through a period of writer’s block, or as maybe we should call it blogger’s block.

In fact a blogger is even more stressed by it because he feels some sort of obligation to blog whenever he’s in front of a pc with an internet connection 😛

Here are some things I do for inspiration. It doesn’t always work, but well, it helps a lot of times.

1. Check out the latest world news from my selected news sources.
2. Go through some blog indexes and community blogs to check out what other bloggers are linking to and talking about.
3. Take a spin through the blogs on my blogroll.
4. Go through some random blogs from my friend’s blogrolls.
5. Go back to my email inbox for interesting forwards.
6. Capture the first thought that crosses my mind.
7. Travel back in time through my memories.
8. Remember what stuff from my recent everyday life left an impression on me.

Any other ideas you’d like to share?

Dead wife as a coffee table

Jeff Green is a 32 year old american, in Arizona, whose wife passed away.
Due to the great pain he suffered due to her death, he did something totally out of character for a normal and sane person.

He said, “I could no longer take the pain that my wife’s death caused me and I brought her back home.” This is where Jeff’s story takes a twisted turn.
His wife, Lucy, was born with a heart condition that cut her life at the young age of 29. Lucy’s last words to Jeff were, “We will meet again in heaven.” These words served of no consolation to Jeff’s despair.

At the funeral, in an act of desperation, Jeff decided that he would not let Lucy leave him. “I called the cemetary caretaker and explained my feelings. I spoke with the authorities and got special permission to take my wife home with me. They thought it was strange, but I was allowed to take her with me. I’d rather have her at home than seven feet under ground. Lucy had a great sense of humor and I’m sure she would appreciate being my coffee table.” Jeff ordered a special glass casing that eliminates the decomposition of a dead body. “It cost me about $6,000.00, but it was worth it.”

Some of his friends and relatives, filled with fear, stop visiting Jeff. His true friends respected his decision and continue visiting him. Some even coment that it is a nice piece of furniture.

Now if this guy isn’t a twisted sick freak, I don’t know what is!

Ilkone Islamic Mobile Phone

Some time ago, while I was looking for a new mobile phone, I found this new brand of mobile phones called Ilkone. I had never heard of them before, and so even though they looked really nice, I just moved on to the next brand.

A couple of days later I found some ads about them in the local newspaper presenting their features and all.

It turns out this brand is rolling out some really cool looking, feature rich Islamic mobile phones.

Among its many features, ilkone’s i800 offers automatic precise prayer timing anywhere in the world, an alarm option which can be set to sound before and after the call to prayer (Azan) with actual Azan voice which could be automatically set to silence throughout prayer. It is also capable of establishing Qibla directions from anywhere in the world, automatically pointing towards Mecca, giving full text of the Holy Qur