B29-Assorted.txt
Modified 6/1/2009
Email grahamkendall74135@yahoo.com
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All are free to use any of this material without limit.
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===
Perhaps as many as 17 Spanish ships ran aground or sank off the Irish coast in
the fall of 1588, as the crippled Armada made its roundabout way home after its
defeat in the English Channel. The records of the period are incomplete, but
it's possible as many as 6,000 Spanish soldiers and sailors were dumped into
the sea. Of these, 2,000 or more simply drowned. One contemporary account
claimed that 1,100 bodies washed up on a five-mile stretch of beach.
Between 3,000 and 3,500 of the remainder were killed or captured by the
English or their Irish minions. The English had fewer than 2,000 troops to
maintain their hold on Ireland, so they resorted to the expedient of not
taking any prisoners. In one instance, several hundred Spaniards were induced
to surrender with the promise of honorable treatment, only to be methodically
butchered the next morning.
The richest or most prominent survivors were held for ransom, or for public
spectacle (the English always were a class act). Only a few hundred of the
castaways managed to make it to Scotland and to the Continent with the help of
sympathetic Irishmen, themselves no great lovers of the English, who at the
time were attempting to consolidate their grip on their miserable neighbor.
==
"Smithereens" first appeared in English in 1829 in the form "smiddereens,"
and most likely was borrowed from the Irish "smidirin," meaning "small bit
or fragment."
==
"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our
ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to
that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around." 
Ambrose Bierse (1908)
==
The only Semitic people mentioned as integrated into Egyptian society in
Ancient Egypt were the Hyksos and they date to the 1600-1500's BCE.
==
The term "Hillbilly" arose from the Scotch-Irish" movement into the
Southeast. It hails to Ireland and the Scottish occupation of the North
called the "Ulster Plantation" from where most of the
American "Hillbillies" came in the 17th and 18thcenturies. The supporters
in the North of Protestant William, Prince of Orange (William III) formed
an army againat Catholic James II. They were called "BillyBoys" and
"Hill Billys."
==
And does the Thirty Year's War count as a violent incident in the
history of the church? Actually, it's quite arguable that it
shouldn't: with Catholic France allied with Lutheran Sweden against
the Catholic Habsburgs, the religious aspect of the war is just a bit
muddled. But there were a lot of smaller wars involved in that mess
where the religious lines were a lot clearer (e.g. the Hussite Wars).
==
Singular of tamales is tamal.
==
In 1519 the Counts of Schlick, who lived near the small Bohemian town of Sankt
Joachimsthal (Saint Joseph's Valley) began minting their own coins from silver
found on their property. The coins had a picture of Saint Joseph on them, and
were called Joachimsthalers, latter shortened to thalers (pronounced in the
local dialect like 'daler', that rhymes with 'tailor'). The dahler became a
standard unit of currency in Germany until it was replaced by the Mark in 1873.
The English picked up the word, changing it from 'thaler' to 'daller' and
finally to 'dollar'. To the English a dollar was used to refer to any foreign
coin, in particular the Iberian pesos and pieces-of-eight. These coins were in
wide circulation in North America, and so when the Americans came to name their
own money, they used that term when they ditched the British pounds.
==
Archaeologists believe it is the work of the Old Kingdom Dynasty 4 society that
rose to prominence in the Nile Valley from ca. 3000 B.C. and built the Giza
Pyramids in a span of 85 years between 2589 and 2504 B.C.
==
It was King George V, a Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, that changed the name
to Windsor in 1917 after the royal castle in Berkshire. The stories coming
back from the battlefields in France during WWI cause an intense hatred of
anything German by the English public and it was embarrassing to have royals
with German names.
Which of course led to the only ever known joke by Kasier Bill. On
hearing it he is reputed to have said the Germans ought to rename
Shakespear's play as "The Merry Wives of Sax-Coburg and Gotha".
==
James Charles Stuart was the son of Mary Queen of Scots and
became king James VI of Scotland on her abdication ate the age of 13 months.
Scotland was ruled by a regent until James was 19 years old. In 1603, after
34 years as king of Scotland, Elizabeth I died and he was crowned James I of
England. He ruled England and Scotland for another 22 years and died of a
stroke in 1625. Although his mother was a Catholic, James was raised as a
Calvinist and was a staunch anti-papist.
==
British monarchs go back to Egbert of Wessex (802-839).
The oldest is Caradoc (Caractacus) or Boadicea (Budugga).

The word Britain is from the ancient celtic name Prydhain and the Romans
renamed it Brittania which they could pronounce
==
In 175 BCE Heliodorus murdered Seleucus IV, the brother of Antiochus Epiphanes,
in a failed attempt to size the Syrian crown. Antiochus moved quickly to take
the throne thereby succeeding Seleucus IV as ruler of the Seleucid kingdom. It
was Seleucus who sent Heliodorus, at the instigation of Apollonius, to plunder
the Temple at Jerusalem (II Maccabees 3:1-40, cf Daniel 11:10-16)
==
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's 'The Occult Roots of Nazism'.
==
Main Entry: gu'lag
Pronunciation: 'gu-"lag
Function: noun
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: Russian, from Glavnoe upravlenie ispravitel'no-trudovykh
lagerei chief administration of corrective labor camps
the penal system of the U.S.S.R. consisting of a network of labor camps;
==
According to the Oxford English Diction (Compact Edition), Hello has nothing
to do with hell, but instead is a variation of Hallo, which in turn stems
from Hollo. Another variant is Halloo, and the OED defined these terms as
cries made to attract the attention of a ferryman, or a shout or exclamation
to call attention.
==
Ln (x+1) = x - (x^2)/2 + (x^3)/3 - (x^4)/4 + (x^5)/5 ...
==
_The_Languages_of_China_ by F. Robert Ramsey
==
n rhetoric and cognitive linguistics, metonymy (in Greek meta = after/later and
onoma = name) is the use of a single characteristic to identify a more complex
entity. It is also known as denominatio or pars pro toto (part for the whole).
In rhetoric, metonymy is the substitution of one word for another with which it
is associated. Metonymy works by contiguity rather than similarity. Typically,
when someone uses metonymy, they don't wish to transfer qualities (as you do
with metaphor); rather they transfer associations which may not be integral to
the meaning.
The common figure "The White House said..." is a good example of metonymy, with
the term "White House" actually referring to the authorities who are symbolized
by the White House, which is an inanimate object that says nothing.
===

The integral of 1/x^x from x=0 to 1
is the sum of 1/n^n from n=1 to infinity.
1.291285997
===
The swastika is derived from the Sanskrit "svastika" and means "good to
be". In Indo-European culture it was a mark made on people or objects
to give them good luck. Also callled a fylfot
===
Hulagu Khan systematically beheaded 27 million persons in
Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and some neigboring regions, including 3 million
inhabitants of Baghdad, which he destroyed.
He was badly mauled by a temporary coalition of the Egyptian
sultan Baybars and the Knights of St. John about, 1257, and had to
curtail his activities. But he lived to old age.
==
641: The Library of Alexandria is destroyed by the Arabs.
Omar destroys the Persian Empire,
716: The Arabs conquer Lisbon,
732: Charles Martel defeats the Arabs at Tours,
France and stops the westward expansion of the religion.
==
The Protestant victory at the Battle of the Boyne, Ireland, was in 1690.
==
The city of Sydney in Australia was named by Captain Arthur Phillip in 1788
after the Home Secretary (or Secretary of State depending on your source),
Lord Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney and was originally called Sydney
Cove. The area is now known as Circular Quay.
==
The Vatican, after receiving $92 million in USD at the signing of the Lateran
Treaty in 1929 invested heavily in Italy's economy. One of those companies
made condoms.
==
www.aynrand.org/medialink) promotes the philosophy of Ayn
Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
==
Suppose:
a + b = c
Then:
4a - 3a + 4b - 3b = 4c - 3c
4a + 4b - 4c = 3a + 3b - 3c
4 * (a+b-c) = 3 * (a+b-c)
4 = 3

Find the error
--
0=0+0+0...
0=(1-1)+(1-1)+(1-1)...
0=1+(-1+1)+(-1+1)...
0=1+0+0+0+...
0=1
Find the error
==
The Twelve Caesars covers Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius (Caligula),
Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian
==
"The Black War of Van Diemen's Land" was the name of the official campaign of
terror directed against the Black people of Tasmania. Between 1803 and 1830 the
Black aborigines of Tasmania were reduced from an estimated five-thousand
people to less than seventy-five.
`In 1830 George Augustus Robinson, a Christian missionary, was hired to round
up the remaining Tasmanian Blacks and take them to Flinders Island, thirty
miles away. Many of Robinson's captives died along the way. By 1843 only
fifty survived.
==
Goldbach's conjecture.
Proposition P: Every even number greater than four is
the sum of exactly two prime numbers.
(examples 16=13+3, 28=23+5, etc)
This proposition has not been proved to be true.
However, this proposition has not been shown to
be false either. (In fact, mathematicians think
that it is true, and it has been confirmed to
be true up to 4*10^10
=====
In order to properly understand the book of Daniel we need to examine the
historical background. More than a century before the time of Daniel, the
Assyrians carried the ten tribes of Israel, which had declared their
independence after the death of Solomon, away into exile.
===
See the following excerpt from volume 3
of Warren Carroll's _A History of Christendom_, p. 316:
On November 18, 1282 Martin IV excommunicated Peter III
of Aragon for accepting the crown of Sicily, blaming him
for the March 30 revolt and massacre. At the same time
he granted full crusading indulgences to all who died
in battle against Peter to regain Sicily for Charles.
On January 13, 1283 he went so far as to formally proclaim
the the war to regain Sicily from Peter of Aragon for Charles
a crusade, and to authorize taking money from the proceeds
of the unprecedented crusade tax levied by the Council
of Lyons to help pay for it.
The following paragraph, which I have split in two for easier
reading, virtually rules out the idea of a children's
crusade in 1284. This is relevant to the historical
basis behind the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin,
of all things.
In designating the war against Sicily a crusade, Pope Martin IV
doomed all that remained of genuine crusading enthusiasm in Europe.
The crusades had originally been regarded strictly and solely
as a mobilization of Christendom against the infidel Muslim foe
who held the Holy Places. After Jerusalem was lost, the concept
of crusading was extended to apply to wars against heretics
(the Albigensians), schismatics (the Byzantine Greeks), pagans
(the Baltic people attacked by the Teutonic Knights), and
an Emperor (Frederick II) and his family widely believed, with
some reason, to be secret heretics or pagans.
These extensions, often of dubious justification, weakened
but did not totally discredit the crusading ideal. But not even
Pope Martin IV could seriously contend--nor did he try to contend--
that the Sicilians were heretics, schismatics, or pagans secret
or open. It was obvious to all that they were practicing Catholics,
however many sins they might have committed or however defiant
toward the Pope they had been. They might deserve to have
war waged against them; there could be no excuse for calling
such a war a crusade. Everyone knew it. It is hard to imagine
how Pope Martin IV could even have justified it to himself.
Carroll is a devout Roman Catholic, so these words carry
a lot of weight.
===
Book of Concord is a collection of doctrinal standards of the Lutheran church,
published in German (June 25, 1580) and in Latin (1584). Its publication
climaxed 30 years of effort to heal the schisms that had broken out in the
Lutheran movement after Martin Luther's death and to keep the Lutheran churches
from being absorbed into an all-Protestant union. After two political
conferences (in 1558 and 1561) had failed to produce agreement, the Protestant
princes of the Holy Roman Empire entrusted the project to several theologians,
who produced the Formula of Concord, an orthodox interpretation of the Augsburg
Confession, which was written primarily by Jakob Andrea and Martin Chemnitz and
ut in final form in 1577. The Book of Concord was subsequently compiled. It was
not adopted in total by all Lutheran churches, but it has remained the standard
of orthodox Lutheranism. It is still all under the Christian cultic umbrella.
At that time the house of
Judah, consisting of the remaining tribes, Judah and Benjamin, along with
some Levites, had been saved under their pious king Hezekiah. But in the
reign of his son Manasseh their sins became even worse than those of Israel.
So Jeremiah finally foretold that they, too, would go into exile, though
some would be allowed to return after seventy years.
==
Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, challenged the position of Assyria as
dominant world power in 626 BC. He progressively wore down Assyrian power
until in 612 BC he captured and destroyed their capital Nineveh. In 609 BC
all Assyrian resistance came to an end, and Egypt alone remained as
contender for world supremacy. In 606 BC Egyptian forces near the Euphrates
overthrew the Babylonian garrison there, and fighting continued for other
bridgeheads across the river.

Consequently, in 605 Nabopolassar sent an army led by his son Nebuchadnezzar
against the Egyptians based at Carchemish. The ensuing battle was decisive,
the Egyptians being almost entirely wiped out, while those who managed to
escape were overtaken and destroyed as they fled homewards through Syria and
Palestine.

The immediate effect of their victory was that the Babylonians conquered
these countries, which they called the Hatti-lands. However, the sudden
death of king Nabopolassar on 15th August 605 BC intervened before
Nebuchadnezzar could formally make the people his subjects. On hearing of
the death of his father, the crown prince gave instructions for the captives
he had taken from the Jews, Phoenicians, and Syrians to be taken to Babylon,
while he hurried home by the shortest route to be crowned king on 7th
September, 605 BC.

It is in this context that we can place the statement with which the Book of
Daniel begins: In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah,
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the
Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of
the house of God; and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of
his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god=94 (v. 1-2).

The Babylonian army had evidently begun to besiege Jerusalem, but it would
appear that Jehoiakim bought his freedom on this occasion by handing over as
ransom part of the vessels of the house of God, together with some of the
people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility. Among these
were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah (vv. 3
and 6). Since Nebuchadnezzar gave instructions for these captives to be sent
to Babylon before he hurried off at the end of August for his coronation, it
follows that Daniel and his companions were deported well within the third
year of Jehoiakim which ended in the autumn of 605 BC.

Owing to his sudden departure for Babylon and the subsequent coronation
ceremonies, it was not until the following year, 604 BC, that Nebuchadnezzar
was able to return to the Hatti-lands to accept the formal submission=
of its rulers, among whom was Jehoiakim king of Judah. He made a second attack
on Jerusalem in the spring of 597, when a large number of captives were
taken to Babylon, including the prophet Ezekiel. Jerusalem finally fell in
586 BC after a siege of two-and-a-half years. All this time Jeremiah had
been predicting this doom, and after the Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem
and the temple, he escaped to Egypt with a residue of the Jews and King
Josiah's daughters.

Three great prophets, Jeremiah who was King
Josiah's father-in-law, in Jerusalem, with Ezekiel.
======
In 332 B.C. Alexander the Great set out to conquer this strategic coastal base
blockaded Tyre for seven months. Again Tyre held on. But the conqueror used
the debris of the _abandoned mainland city_ to build a causeway and once within
reach of the city walls, Alexander used his siege engines to batter and finally
breach the fortifications. It is said that Alexander was so enraged at the
Tyrians' defense and the loss of his men that he destroyed half the city.
_The town's 30,000 residents were massacred or sold into slavery_. Tyre and the
whole of ancient Syria fell under Roman rule in 64 B.C.

http://www.lebanon.com/tourism/tyre/
===
_Hannibal_, by Ernle Bradford, Dorset Press, 1981
==
Sworn On The Altar Of God, A Religious Biography of
Thomas Jefferson, By Edwin S. Gaustad, W.B. Eerdman's Publishing Company,
Grand Rapids, Mich. (1996)
===
Jim Bradbury's _The Medieval Siege_
===
In the Sanskritic languages, the "a" ending is generally masculine (Shiva,
Ananda, Krisna), and the "i" ending is generally feminine (Gauri, Kali,
Parvati). This is especially present in the Vedas, with Indra, and his
wife Indri.
==
Memoirs, Correspondence and Miscellanies
from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson,\ edited by Thomas Jefferson Randolph
==
Japanese Buddhists spent a long time killing Christians after the Tokugawa
Shogunate was set up.
==
During the Japanese Edo period (1603-1867), the shogun required feudal lords
to maintain residences in the capital.
==
Between 1347 and 1350, the Black Death wiped out about one- third of
Europe's population.
===
Perhaps it was Charles Watson who first described Islam as
totalitarian in 1937, and proceeded to show how: \By a million
roots, penetrating every phase of life, all of them with religious
significance, it is able to maintain its hold upon the life of
Moslem peoples. Bousquet, one of the foremost authorities on
Islamic Law, distinguishes two aspects of Islam which he
considers totalitarian: Islamic Law, and the Islamic notion of
Jihad which has for its ultimate aim the conquest of the entire
world, in order to submit it to one single authority. We shall
consider jihad in the next chapter, here we shall confine
ourselves to Islamic Law.
Islamic Law has certainly aimed at controlling the religious,
social and political life of mankind in all its aspects, the life of
its followers without qualification, and the life of those who
follow tolerated religions to a degree that prevents their
activities from hampering Islam in any way\ [Hurgronje
264].The all-embracing nature of Islamic Law can be seen from
the fact that it does not distinguish between ritual, law (in the
European sense of the word), ethics and good manners. In
principle this legislation controls the entire life of the believer
and the Islamic community, it intrudes into every nook and cranny
everything, to give a random sample, from the pilgrim tax,
agricultural contracts, the board and lodging of slaves, the
invitation to a wedding, the use of tooth-picks, the ritual fashion
in which one's natural needs are to be accomplished, the
prohibition for men to wear gold or silver rings to the proper
treatment of animals is covered. Islamic Law is a doctrine of
duties, external duties, that is to say, those duties which are
susceptible to control by a human authority instituted by God.
However, these duties are, without exception, duties towards
God, and are founded on the inscrutable will of God Himself.All
duties that men can envisage being carried out are dealt with; we
find treated therein all the duties of man in any circumstance
whatsoever, and in their connections with anyone whatsoever
[Hurgronje 261].
Before looking at Islamic law in detail, we need to know why it
developed in the way it did.
NO SEPARATION OF STATE AND CHURCH
Jesus Christ himself laid down a principle which was
fundamental to later Christian thought: \ Render unto Caesar the
things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are
God's\[Matt.22.17]. These two authorities, God and Caesar,
dealt with different matters, ruled different realms, each had its
own laws and its own institutions. This separation of church and
state is non existent in Islam, indeed there are no words in
classical Arabic for the distinctions lay and ecclesiastical,
sacred and profane, spiritual and temporal. Once again, we must
look to the founder of Islam to understand why there was never
any separation of state and church. Muhammad was not only a
prophet but also a statesman, he founded not only a community
but also a state, and a society. He was a military leader, making
war and peace; and a lawgiver, dispensing justice. Right from
the beginning, the Muslims formed a community that was at once
political and religious, with the Prophet himself as head of state.
For the early Muslims, their spectacular victories was a proof
that God was on their side. Thus right from the start, in Islam,
there was no question of a separation between sacred history and
secular history, between political power and faith; unlike
Christianity which had to undergo three centuries of persecution
before being adopted by \Caesar.\
ISLAMIC LAW
The Sharia or Islamic law is based on four principles or roots (in
Arabic \usul\, plural of \asl\): the Koran; the sunna of the
Prophet which is incorporated in the recognised traditions; the
consensus (\ijma\) of the scholars of the orthodox community; the
method of reasoning by analogy (\qiyas\ or \kiyas\).
THE KORAN
The Koran, as we saw earlier, is, for Muslims, the very words of
God Himself. Though it contains rules and regulations for the
early community on such matters as marriage, divorce and
inheritance, the Koran does not lay down general principles.
Many matters are dealt with in a confusing and perfunctory
manner; and a far greater number of vital questions are not
treated at all.
THE SUNNA
The sunna (literally, a path or way; a manner of life) expresses
the custom or manner of life of Muslims based on the deeds and
words of the Prophet, and even that which was done or said in
his presence, and which was not forbidden by him. The sunna
was recorded in the traditions, the hadith, but these, as we saw
earlier, are largely later forgeries. Nonetheless, for Muslims the
sunna complements the Koran, and is essential for its proper
understanding; to clarify the Koranic vaguenesses and fill in the
Koranic silences. Without the sunna they would be at a loss for
details necessary for their daily lives.
The Koran and the Sunna are the expressions of God's command,
the definitive and inscrutable will of Allah, which must be
obeyed absolutely, without doubts, without questions, without
qualifications. But we still need some kind of interpretation of
the Sunna and the Koran,with all their attendant obscurities, and
this is the task of the science of Sharia (fiqh). The specialists on
law were called \faqih. The result was the founding of many
\schools\ of interpretation, four of which have survived to the
present day and divide between them the whole of orthodox
(sunni) Islam. Oddly, all four are considered equally valid.
[1] Malik ibn Abbas (died 795) developed his ideas in Medina
where he is said to have known one of the last survivors of the
Companions of the Prophet. His doctrine is recorded in the work
Muwatta which has been adopted by most Muslims in Africa
with the exception of Lower Egypt, Zanzibar and South Africa.
[2] Abu Hanifa (died 767), the founder of the Hanifi school, was
born in Iraq. His school is said to have given more scope to
reason and logic than the other schools. The Muslims of India
and Turkey follow this school.
[3] Al - Shafi'i (died 820) who was considered a moderate in
most of his positions, taught in Iraq and then in Egypt. The
adherents of his school are to be found in Indonesia, Lower
Egypt, Malaysia and Yemen. He laid great stress on the Sunnah
of the Prophet as embodied in the Hadith as a source of the
Sharia.
[4] Ahmad ibn Hanbal (died 855) was born in Baghdad.
Heattended the lectures of Al Shafi'i, who also instucted him in
the traditions. Despite persecution, ibn Hanbal stuck to the
doctrine that the Koran was uncreated. The modern Wahhabis of
Saudi Arabia are supposed to follow the teachings of ibn Hanbal.
When the various schools came under criticism for introducing
innovations without justification, for adapting religious law to
suit worldly interests and for tolerating abuses, the learned
doctors of the law developed the doctrine of the infallibility of
the consensus (ijma), which forms the third foundation of Islamic
law or Sharia.
IJMA
The saying \My community will never agree on an error\ was
ascribed to the Prophet, and in effect, was to make an infallible
Church of the recognised Doctors of the community as a whole.
As Hurgronje says, \this is the Muslim counterpart of the
Christian Catholic doctrine of ecclesiastical tradition: ' quod
semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est.'\ The notion
of consensus has nothing democratic about it, the masses are
expressly excluded; it is the consensus of suitably qualified and
learned authorities. However, there were still disputes as to
whose ijma was to be accepted: some only accepted the ijma of
the Companions of the Prophet, while others only accepted the
ijma of the descendants of the Prophet, and so on. The doctrine of
the infallibility of the consensus of the scholars, far from
allowing some liberty of reasoning, as one might have expected,
worked \in favour of a progressive narrowing and hardening of
doctrine; and, a little later, the doctrine which denied the further
possibility of 'independent reasoning ' sanctioned officially a
state of things which had come to prevail in fact\ [Schacht 69].
By the beginning of 900 A.D., Islamic law became rigidly and
inflexibly fixed because, to quote Schacht, \the point had been
reached when the scholars of all schools felt that all essential
questions had been thoroughly discussed and finally settled, and
a consensus gradually established itself to the effect that from that
time onwards no one might be deemed to have the necessary
qualifications for independent reasoning in law, and that all
future activity would have to be confined to the explanation,
application, and, at most, interpretation of the doctrine as it had
been laid down once and for all\ [Schacht 70,71]. This closing
of the gate of independent reasoning, in effect, meant the
unquestioning acceptance of the doctrines of established schools
and authorities. Islamic law until then had been adaptable and
growing, but henceforth, \became increasingly rigid and set in its
final mould. This essential rigidity of Islamic law helped it to
maintain its stability over the centuries which saw the decay of
the political institutions of Islam. It was not altogether
immutable, but the changes which did take place were concerned
more with legal theory and the systematic superstructure than
with positive law. Taken as a whole, Islamic law reflects and
fits the social and economic conditions of the early Abbasid
period, but has grown more and more out of touch with later
developments of state and society\ [Schacht 75].
KIYAS
Kiyas or analogical reasoning is considered by many learned
doctors to be subordinate, and hence less important than the other
three foundations of Islamic law. Its inclusion may well have
been a compromise between unrestricted liberty of opinion and
the rejection of all human reasoning in religious law.
THE NATURE OF ISLAMIC LAW
[1 ] All human acts and relationships are assessed from the point
of view of the concepts obligatory, recommended, indifferent,
reprehensible, forbidden. Islamic law is part of a system of
religious duties, blended with non-legal elements [Schacht 201].
[2] The irrational side of Islamic law comes from two of its
official bases, the Koran and the Sunna, which are expressions of
God's commands. It follows from the irrational side of Islamic
law that its rules are valid by virtue of their mere existence and
not because of their rationality. The irrational side of Islamic law
also calls for the observance of the letter rather than of the spirit,
this fact has historically facilitated the vast development and
acceptance of legal devices, such as legal fictions. For example,
the Koran explicitly prohibits the taking of interest, and, to quote
Schacht, \this religious prohibition was strong enough to make
popular opinion unwilling to transgress it openly and directly,
while at the same time there was an imperative demand for the
giving and taking of interest in commercial life. In order to
satisfy this need, and at same time to observe the letter of the
religious prohibition, a number of devices were developed. One
consisted of giving real property as a security for the debt and
allowing the creditor to use it, so that its use represented the
interest...Another...device consisted of a double sale...For
instance, the (prospective) debtor sells to the (prospective)
creditor a slave for cash, and immediately buys the slave back
from him for a greater amount payable at a future date; this
amounts to a loan with the slave as security, and the difference
between the two prices represents the interest...\ [Schacht 79].
How can we characterise the above practices? Legal fictions is
too kind an expression. Moral evasiveness? Moral hypocrisy?
Moral dishonesty?
[3] \Although Islamic law is a sacred law, it is by no means
essentially irrational; it was created not by an irrational process
of continuous revelation...but by a rational method of
interpretation, in this way it acquired its intellectualist and
scholastic exterior. But whereas Islamic law presents itself as a
rational system on the basis of material considerations, its formal
juridical character is little developed. Its aim is to provide
concrete and material standards, and not to impose formal rules
on the play of contending interests [which is the aim of secular
laws]. This leads to the result that considerations of good faith,
fairness, justice, truth, and so on play only a subordinate part in
the system\ [Schacht 397].
[4] Unlike Roman law, Islamic law brings legal subject matter
into a system by the analogical method , by parataxis and
association. Closely linked to this method is the casuistical way
of thinking, which is one of the striking aspects of traditional
Islamic law. \Islamic law concentrates not so much on
disengaging the legally relevant elements of each case and
subsuming it under general rules - as on establishing graded
series of cases\ [Schacht 205]. For example, in the question of
succession, we find discussions of the case of an individual who
leaves as sole inheritors his 32 great - great grandparents; the
rights of succession of hermaphrodites (since the two sexes do
not have the same rights), the inheritance of an individual who
has been changed into an animal, and, in particular, when only
half the individual has been transformed, either horizontally or
vertically.
Thus a soul-destroying pedantry, a spirit of casuistry took over.
As Goldziher says:
The task of interpreting God's word and of regulating
life in conformity to God's word became lost in absurd
sophistry and dreary exegetical trifling: in thinking up
contingencies that will never arise and debating
riddling questions in which extreme sophistry and
hair-splitting are joined with the boldest and most
reckless flights of fancy. People debate far-fetched
legal cases, casuistic constructs quite independent of
the real world... Popular superstition, too, furnishes the
jurists with material for such exercises.
Since...demons frequently assume human shape, the
jurists assess the consequences of such transformations
for religious law; serious arguments and
counterarguments are urged, for example, whether such
beings can be numbered among the participants
necessary for the Friday service. Another problematic
case that the divine law must clarify: how is one to
deal with progeny from a marriage between a human
being and a demon in human form... What are the
consequences in family law of such marriages? Indeed,
the problem of (marriages with the jinn) is treated in
such circles with the same seriousness as an important
point of the religious law.
[5] In what we would call penal law, Islamic law distinguishes
between the rights of God and the rights of humans. \Only the
rights of god have the character of a penal law proper, of a law
which imposes penal sanctions on the guilty. Even here, in the
center of penal law, the idea of a claim on the part of God
predominates, just as if it were a claim on the part of human
plaintiff. This real penal law is derived exclusively from the
Koran and the traditions [hadith], the alleged reports of the acts
and sayings of the Prophet and of his Companions. The second
great division of what we should call penal law belongs to the
category of \redress of torts\, a category straddling civil and
penal law which Islamic law has retained from the law of
pre-Islamic Arabia where it was an archaic but by no means
unique phenomenon. Whatever liability is incurred here, be it
retaliation or blood -money or damages, is subject of a private
claim, pertaining to the rights of humans. In this field, the idea of
criminal guilt is practically non-existent, and where it exists it
has been introduced by considerations of religious responsibility.
So there is no fixed penalty for any infringement of the rights of a
human to the inviolability of his person and property, only exact
reparation of the damage caused. This leads to retaliation for
homicide and wounds on one hand, and to the absence of fines on
the other\ [Schacht 399].
Summary:
Sharia is the total collection of theoretical laws which apply in
an ideal Muslim community which has surrendered to the will of
God. It is based on divine authority which must be accepted
without criticism. Islamic law is thus not a product of human
intelligence, and in no way reflects a constantly changing or
evolving social reality (as in European law). It is immutable,
and the fiqh or the science of the Sharia constitutes the infallible
and definitive interpretation of the Sacred Texts; infallible
because the group of Doctors of Law have been granted the
power to deduce from the Koran and the Traditions authoritative
solutions; and definitive because after three centuries, all the
solutions have been given. While European law is human and
changing, the Sharia is divine and immutable. It depends on the
inscrutable will of Allah, which cannot be grasped by human
intelligence, it must be accepted without doubts and
questions.The work of the learned doctors of the Sharia is but a
simple application of the words of Allah or His Prophet, it is
only in certain narrowly defined limits, fixed by God Himself
that one can use a kind of reasoning known as Qiyas, reasoning
bu analogy. The decisions of the learned having the force of law
rest on the infallibility of the community, an infallibility that God
Himself conferred through Muhammed on his community
[Bousquet, Hurgronje, Schacht].
CRITICISMS OF ISLAMIC LAW
(i) Two of the roots of Islam are the Koran and the Sunna
recorded in the Hadith. First, the Koran. We have already given
reasons as to why it cannot be considered of divine origin -- it
was composed sometime between the 7th and the 9th centuries,
full of borrowings from Talmudic Judaism, Apocryphal
Christianity, Samaritans, Zoroastrianism, and Pre-Islamic
Arabia. It contains historical anachronisms and errors, scientific
mistakes, contradictions , grammatical errors etc.. Second, the
doctrines contained therein are incoherent and contradictory, and
not worthy of a compassionate deity. Nowhere is there any proof
for the existence of any deity. On the other hand the Koran also
contains praiseworthy moral principles, even if not particularly
original -- the need for generosity, respect for parents, and so on.
But these are outweighed by unworthy principles: intolerance of
pagans, the call to violence and murder, the lack of equality for
women and non- Muslims, the acceptance of slavery, barbaric
punishments, the contempt for human reason.
(2) Goldziher, Schacht and others have convincingly shown that
most, and perhaps, all the traditions (Hadith) were forgeries put
into circulation in the first few Muslim centuries. If once this fact
is allowed ,then the entire foundation of Islamic law is seen to be
very shaky indeed. The whole of Islamic law is but a fantastic
creation founded on forgeries and pious fictions. And since
Islamic law is seen by many as \the epitome of Islamic thought,
the most typical manifestation of the Islamic way of life, the core
and kernel of Islam itself\, the consequences of Goldziher's and
Schacht 's conclusions are, to say the least, shattering.
(3) Priestly Power
That there is a will of God, once and for all, as to what man is to
do and what he is not to do; that the value of a people, of an
individual, is to be measured according to how much or how
little the will of God is obeyed; that the will of God manifests
itself in the destinies of a people, of an individual, as the ruling
factor, that is to say, as punishing and rewarding according to the
degree of obedience... One step further: the \will of God\ (that
is, the conditions for the preservation of priestly power) must be
known: to this end a \revelation\ is required. In plain language:
a great literary forgery becomes necessary, a \holy scripture\ is
discovered; it is made public with full hieratic pomp... With
severity and pedantry, the priest formulates once and for
all,...what he wants to have, \what the will of God is. \ From
now on all things in life are so ordered that the priest is
indispensable...\ Nietzsche 596,597
Muslim apologists and Muslims themselves have always claimed
that there were no clergy in Islam; but in reality, there was
something like a clerical class, which eventually acquired
precisely the same kind of social and religious authority as the
Christian clergy. This is the class I have been referring to
throughout this chapter as \the learned doctors\ or the \doctors of
law\, otherwise known as the \ulama.\ Given the importance
attached to the Koran and the Sunna (and Hadith), there grew a
need to have a professional class of people competent enough to
interpret the Sacred Texts. As their authority grew among the
community, they grew more confident and claimed absolute
authority in all matters relating to faith and law. The doctrine of
\ijma\ merely consolidated their absolute power. As Gibb says:
It was...only after the general recognition of ijma as a
source of law and doctrine that a definite legal test of
heresy was possible and applied. Any attempt to raise
the question of the import of a text in such a way as to
deny the validity of the solution already given and
accepted by consensus became a "bid'a", an act of
"innovation, that is to say, heresy" [Gibb 67].
The continuing influence of the ulama is the major factor why
there has been so little intellectual progress in Muslim societies,
why critical thought has not developed. Throughout Islamic
history, but especially in recent times, the ulama have actively
hindered attempts to introduce the idea of human rights, freedom,
individualism and liberal democracy. For example, the ulama
reacted violently to Iran's 1906 _ 1907 constitution, regarding it
as \unIslamic, they were totally opposed to the idea of freedom
contained within it. The ulama have been involved in the process
of Islamization in modern times in three countries in particular,
Iran,the Sudan and Pakistan. In each of these latter countries,
"Islamization" has effectively meant the elimination of human
rights, or their restrictions by reference to "Islamic criteria."
(4) Is the Sharia still valid?
We may well ask how a law whose elements were first laid
down over a thousands years ago, and whose substance has not
evolved with the times, can possibly be relevant in the 20th
century. The Sharia only reflects the social and economic
conditions of the time of the early Abbasids and has simply
grown out of touch with all the later developments -- social,
economic and moral. It seems improbable but we have
progressed morally -- we no longer regard women as chattel,
which we can dispose of how we will, we no longer believe that
those who do not share our religious beliefs are not worthy of
equal respect, we even accord children and animals rights. But
as long as we continue to regard the Koran as eternally true, with
an answer for all the problems of the modern world, we will
have no progress. The principles enshrined in the Koran are
inimical to moral progress.
===
What are the Seven Wonders of the World?

They are:
1.) The Pyramids of Egypt
2.) The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3.) The Colossus at Rhodes
4.) The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
5.) The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
6.) The Statue of Zeus at Olympia
7.) The Lighthouse at Alexandria

Of the seven (recorded by Antipater of Sidon in the second
century BC), only the pyramids are still standing.
==
The first known political
reformer, the Sumerian Urukagina, 3rd millennium B.C.
==