Muslim teacher at Catholic school?

At 11 a.m., the silence in Khadija Ali's advanced math class is broken only by squeaking
markers, creaky sneakers on jigging feet and the drone of the AC battling 90-degree heat.
Finally, Ali's voice rings out:
"Show!"
Six whiteboards hit the air.
Ali inspects their work: "Correct. Correct...
"Not correct."
Nick Peabody, 14, forgot to simplify his answer. She takes him through the explanation and,
moments later, they launch into the next problem - one of dozens these middle-schoolers will
complete in this 60-minute period, and just a fraction of the pages of problems they'll get for
homework over the upcoming spring break.
All that work pays off.
Ali's advanced math students at Holy Family Cathedral School in Orange have dominated the
Mathfax national competition since she was hired in 2002. For eight years running, Ali has
put a student in the top 10. This year, nine of the top 10 competitors were Ali's students.
Margaret Harlow, principal at Holy Family, describes Advanced Math thusly: "It's another
zone in there."
Ali's students have gone on to the Ivy League and some are on their way to becoming
engineers or scientists. And other educators at Holy Family talk about her class as if it's a
kind of minor miracle. But to get there, Ali, a Muslim teacher at a Catholic school, has
managed a miracle of her own.
Though conflict over perceptions of the Muslim faith have touched as close to home as
Disneyland and UCI and the Villa Park town plaza, a different narrative has emerged at Holy
Family Cathedral - two cultures finding harmony amid strife.
To get there, they needed a common denominator. They found it in Ali.
The only hint that Holy Family Cathedral School has arguably one of the best math programs
in the country is in the dozens of plaques that occupy most of the wall to the right of Ali's
whiteboard. What's the secret?
Ali's accented voice reveals it crisply.
"Discipline."
In India, where Ali was educated, discipline is key to academic success - and academic
success is key to everything else.
With 40 kids packed in a class, if there was no discipline, no one learned. If you didn't learn,
you couldn't pass the exams that weed out most students trying to get into good high schools
and universities.
Only a sliver (in 2005, just 7 percent) of India's college-age population gets in to universities.
In a nation where about a third of the population is poor and hunger remains rampant by
Western standards, education is, quite literally, a matter of survival.
Graduating from that system (University of Mumbai) helped make Ali the most intimidating
teacher at Holy Family.
Just six kids get into her advanced math class. To get there, they must score above 80 percent
on a test that Ali obtains from Cal State Fullerton.
"I have to make sure that they can handle the work," Ali says.
And the work is unceasing. Ali calls her teaching style 'drill and skill.' Next to her desk,
there's a cart sagging with the weight of binders full of transparencies and teaching materials.
"She doesn't just give you homework... she makes you learn it," says former student Brittany
Duhn, now a sophomore at Foothill High School in Tustin.
"She's small, but intimidating."
She's also caring.
Justine Mationg didn't pass Ali's entrance test the first time she took it. Or the second.
But after a summer spent working with Ali, Mationg passed the test and got into Advanced
Math, where students work as a team, often explaining problems to each other.
This year, at 14, she won the Mathfax competition.

In 2002, when she interviewed for the job at Holy Family, Ali came qualified. She had 26
years of experience, and had been nominated Teacher of the Year in her previous job, at John
Muir Middle School in Los Angeles.
Principal Harlow says Ali was exactly what she was looking for.
But she also knew Sept. 11 was still fresh on the minds of every American, and that she had
to consider the possibility that some parents wouldn't like the idea of entrusting the best
minds at the school to a Muslim teacher.
"I had some concerns," Harlow says.
The fear even reached Ali in the parking lot on the day of her interview. She left her hijab in
her car.
But Harlow says she was interested in another lesson. She didn't want Holy Family to be a
sheltering, monocultural school, the kind she'd seen elsewhere. And, after talking with her
priest, Harlow took the risk.
"We should teach children to respect everybody. That's part of Christ's message too."
The initial reaction to Ali wasn't all positive. But soon, Harlow, began hearing from parents
ecstatic over their kids' math scores. And she'd see Ali in her hijab cheering on students at
softball games and cooking Indian food on Olympic Day, a school event that celebrates world
cultures.
Now, Ali and Harlow have struck a balance respecting both faiths.
At lunch, Ali performs her daily prayers. But, later in the day, she might attend Mass, too, as
part of a school function.
In conversation, Ali is quick to point out that chapters in the Quran discuss Jesus and Mary.
In Ali's world, religion isn't divisive.
"There's a lot of similarity," Ali says.
Ali was educated in Catholic schools alongside Catholics, Hindus and Muslims. She's taught
math to African Americans and Latinos in Los Angeles and to Muslims at Orange Crescent
School, where non-Muslim teachers wear hijabs to make Muslim students and parents
comfortable.
"We are all children of God," she says.
Growing up, Ali learned eight languages. English isn't her best, but it's not the one she needs
in the classroom.
As Harlow says: "She speaks math."

Shaping consciousness through Islam
Disorientated and demoralised, the Islamic community in the early 20th century was under
siege from enforced secularism in Turkey, Iran and elsewhere.
With Marxism filtering away its younger members, it began a journey of discovery. It sought
a solution to its problems by finding a new 'self'.
Islamists returned to the Quran for insights. The Quran is not a blueprint for politics or a
state: It is, as it states frequently, nothing new.
The Quran is a 'reminder' of old truths, already known to us all. One of which is that for
humans to live together successfully society must practice compassion, justice and equity.
This insight lies at the root of political Islam. It is a principle that represents a complete
inversion of the 'Great Transformation'.
Instead of the pre-eminence of the market to which other social and community objectives are
subordinated, the making of a society based on compassion, equity and justice becomes the
overriding objective - to which other objectives, including markets, are subordinated.
It is revolutionary in another aspect: Instead of the individual being the organisational
principle around which politics, economics and society are shaped, the Western paradigm
again is inverted.
It is the collective welfare of the community in terms of such principles - rather than the
individual - that becomes the litmus of political achievement.
In short, Islamists are re-opening an old debate - one that is at the root of both Western and
Islamic philosophy. Posed by Plato, that debate questions the purpose of politics. Some
Westerners are troubled that after 200 years of settled opinion, the Western paradigm is being
questioned anew.
One American conservative commented to me recently that with Descartes, the West had
discovered 'objective truth' through science and technology. It had made 'us' rich and
powerful and Muslims could not bear that. They knew that ultimately they would be forced to
acquiesce to Western 'truth'.
But the Islamist revolution is more than politics. It is an attempt to shape a new
consciousness - to escape from the most far-reaching pre-suppositions of our time.
It draws on the intellectual tradition of Islam to offer a radically different understanding of
the human being, and to escape from the hegemony and rigidity of the Cartesian mindset.

It is a voyage of discovery to a new 'self' that is far from complete. It has many shortcomings,
but its intellectual insights offer Muslims (and Westerners) the potential to step beyond the
shortcomings of Western materialism.
This is what excites and energises. As a Hezbollah leader replied to me when asked what the
Iranian Revolution had signified for him, he said unhesitatingly that Muslims were free to
think Islamically once again.
It is not possible therefore to make sense of the Iranian or wider Islamic resistance without
understanding it as a philosophic and metaphysical event, too. It is the omission of this latter
understanding that helps explain repeated Western misreadings of Iran, its Revolution and
events in the region.
Of course, there is another side to Islamism: Islam, like Christianity, has witnessed, from the
outset, a struggle between a narrow, literalist and intolerant interpretation in opposition to the
intellectual tradition grounded in philosophy and reasoning and in transforming knowledge.

Though not at all perceived by most Western analysts, who see them only through the prism
of opposition to Israeli occupation, movements such as Hezbollah and Hamas are part of the
latter, intellectual tradition.
Perversely, for the past 50 years, it is to the literalists, often called Salafi, that the West has
looked to circumscribe 'threats to its interests' in the Middle East - emulating Cold War
containment thinking.
The Saudi orientation of Salafism has been used by the West to counter Nasserism, Marxism,
the Soviet Union, Iran and Hezbollah; but in so using the literalist puritan orientation, the
West has misunderstood the mechanism by which some Salafist movements have migrated
through schism and dissidence to become the dogmatic, hate-filled and often violent
movements that really do threaten Westerners, as well as other Muslims, too.
Ironically, the West of the Enlightenment is situated on the wrong side of the divide - backing
dogma versus the open intellect of religious evolution. It is perhaps not surprising that a
literalist and dogmatic West has contributed to literalism in Islam also.
But the West, by holding on to this flawed perception that it is supporting docility and
'moderation' against 'extremism', paradoxically has left the Middle East a less stable, more
dangerous and violent place.
Alastair Crooke, a former British intelligence (MI6) agent, heads the Conflicts Forum in
Beirut
Ignorant Certainty
Now that the end of the world didn't happen, I can't stop thinking about it. What chutzpah,
what a diminished worldview, not simply to make such a prediction, but - even more
incomprehensible, to my relentlessly self-questioning mind - to know you'll be among the
saved.

In 1011, a guy like Harold Camping would probably have been able to generate more panic
than bemusement. A millennium later, with science taught in the public schools and all, we
have a little more collective resistance to such thundering certainty leaping from highway
billboards. I confess, however, to feeling a deep, reptilian tug last Friday morning, as I saw
the sign - SAVE THIS DATE, MAY 21, 2011, CHRIST IS COMING - while driving
through eastern Wisconsin. Yikes, that's tomorrow.

What lingers for me in the aftermath of "life goes on (at least for a while)" is an alarmed
sense of the power of ignorant certainty. Fanatical preachers are nothing more than the
caricature of this power, which, in 2011, thrives like a virus in the American body politic.

"Today we presented legislation that advances our national security aims, provides the proper
care and logistical support for our fighting forces, and helps us meet the defense challenges of
the 21st century."

Thus spake U.S. Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee, in a press release two weeks ago announcing the committee's approval
of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 - which contains provisions
so alarming it has been dubbed, by David Swanson, "arguably the worst bill ever considered
likely to pass into law," and even sparked an editorial in the New York Times.

Among the egregious provisions in the legislation, which awaits a vote on the House floor, as
Swanson and many others have pointed out, are a crippling of the implementation of the new
START treaty and a halting of the process of nuclear weapons reduction, keeping our nuke
stockpile at Cold War levels; a total allotment of $690 billion for the Departments of Defense
and Energy (including $119 billion to fund the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, $18
billion for ongoing nuclear weapons research and development, and funding for various other
highly questionable weapons programs and systems); and allowance for the indefinite
detention of current and future Guantanamo prisoners.

But the big, scary thing about this piece of legislation - the thing that summons a newer,
deeper irrationality from the pit of our collective paranoia - is the provision that would
expand the "war on terror," at presidential discretion, to the whole world.

As the Times editorial put it: "Osama bin Laden had been dead only a few days when House
Republicans began their efforts to expand, rather than contract, the war on terror. Not content
with the president's wide-ranging powers to pursue the archcriminals of Sept. 11, 2001,
Republicans want to authorize the military to pursue virtually anyone suspected of terrorism,
anywhere on earth, from now to the end of time."
The bill circumvents Congress and the Constitution and would allow the Executive Branch to
wage war solely at its own discretion. "It would allow military attacks against not just Al
Qaeda and the Taliban," the Times explains, "but also any 'associated forces that are engaged
in hostilities against the United States.'" It authorizes, with its excruciatingly vague language,
a sort of global manifest destiny.

And this brings me back to the idea of ignorant certainty - a certainty about who should live
and who should die - that is the driving force not just behind religious fanaticism but, far
more dangerously, behind the politics of empire.

The ignorant certainty of Harold Camping is essentially innocuous. He wasn't calling on
believers to dispatch suspected sinners to their just deserts in eternity, simply to relax in the
belief that God would do it himself. But the ignorant certainty of the politically powerful
leaves nothing to God. The killing is done on their initiative and at their discretion - and it's
real.

This is war, and it has thrived as vibrantly in democracies as it has in autocracies. It could
even be argued that the democratization of war and glory, the promotion of everyman from
squire to swordsman, has fanned the flames of war. Consider the history of the 20th century
(and the first tenth of the 21st). Democratic governments, while generally holding themselves
blameless, have been responsible for a large percentage of the carnage wrought by modern,
industrial wars.

And the United States of America, the original democracy, now devotes about two-thirds of
its energy and treasure to war and defense. With the invention of the "war on terror" - a term
as vague and meaningless as "war on evil" or "war on sin" - the political true believers and
the economic beneficiaries of war found a way to keep the game alive indefinitely. NDAA
2012 would create the legal framework to disconnect "terror" from the 9/11 atrocities and
guarantee the future of war, at the mere cost of the national soul.

Something feels like it's about to end. It's not the world, just what's left of American
democracy. Once an interesting experiment in human sanity, it may prove unequal to its
internal forces of fear and greed.
Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, contributor to One World,
Many Peaces and nationally syndicated writer.

Taking the Wheel
Most women in America don't think twice about hopping in their cars and hitting the open
road to run errands, pick the kids up from school or simply enjoy a long leisurely drive.
However, in Saudi Arabia, women are still banned from driving despite several high profile
incidents over the years that has thrust the global media's attention on the issue. This past
week the issue was once again brought into the limelight as a female Saudi Arabian citizen
took to the wheel and later posted the video on the popular social-networking site YouTube.
With her brother in the passenger seat, 32-year-old Manal al-Sharif, took a short spin that
landed her in the slammer. The drive was deliberate as al-Sharif herself revealed in a recent
interview in which she lamented her frustration for not being able to find a taxi one night, "I
had to walk on the street for half an hour looking for a cab. I was harassed by every single car
because it was late at night and I was walking alone. I kept calling my brother to pick me up,
but his phone wasn't answering. I was crying in the street. A 32-year-old grown woman, a
mother, crying like a kid because I couldn't find anyone to bring me home." Al-Sharif learned
to drive in the United States and holds a driver's license from America. However, in her
homeland, only men are issued driver's licenses.
According to Saudi Arabian authorities, al- Sharif broke several laws after she got behind the
wheel including, "bypassing rules and regulations, driving a car within the city, enabling a
journalist to interview her while driving a car, deliberately disseminating the incident to the
media, incitement of Saudi women to drive cars, and turning public opinion against the
regulations." Scores of Saudi citizens have rallied behind al-Sharif and begun to question the
veracity of the driving ban on women especially when there is nothing on the books that
legally bars a woman from driving.
Soon after her incarceration, a Facebook page was erected entitled 'We are all Manal al-
Sharif: a call for solidarity with Saudi women's rights' The page has already garnered 19,000
likes. Another fan page related to the women's driving ban in Saudi Arabia is also getting a
lot of support, to the tune of 6,000 likes so far, albeit for all of the wrong reasons. The page
encourages Saudi Arabian men to beat their female relatives with a heavy brocaded rope
known as the "Iqal", which adorns the Saudi Arabian men's headdress, should any of the
women demand driving rights.

Al-Sharif remains in prison and her fate is yet to be determined. Some analysts have
predicted she will stay in prison for five days, however it remains to be seen if she will face
further penalties for deliberately flaunting the driving ban. Meanwhile, another Saudi Arabian
woman copied al-Sharif's drive this week and was swiftly arrested at a local supermarket.
However, she was only held for a few hours and released.
Source: The Muslim Observer - Sumayyah Meehanm
A Call of Peace to the Israelis
These days the Middle East is once again the scene of bloodshed. Israeli troops are
employing the most ruthless and cruel methods against Palestinians. The Israeli Army is
ruthlessly bombing Palestinian settlements, shooting at children and trying to make Palestine
uninhabitable. Some Palestinian radicals, on the other hand, are attacking Israeli civilian
targets and spreading violence with their terrible suicide attacks aimed at women and
children.
Our heartfelt wish as Muslims is for the anger and hatred on both sides to die down, for the
bloodshed to stop and for peace to come to the Middle East. We oppose both the Israeli
killing of the innocent and the bombing of innocent Israelis by some radical Palestinians.In
our view, the most important condition for this blind conflict to come to an end and for real
peace to be established in the Middle East is for both sides to genuinely and honestly
understand and implement their own beliefs.
The conflict between Israel and Palestine has taken on the identity of a 'religious war'
between Jews and Muslims, whereas in fact there is absolutely no reason for such a war of
religion. Both Jews and Muslims believe in God, love and respect the same prophets, and
possess the same moral principles. They are not enemies. On the contrary, they are allies in a
world in which atheism and hatred of religion are widespread. Based on that fundamental
principle, we call on the Israelis (and all Jews).
1) Muslims and Jews believe in one God, the creator of the universe and all living things. We
are all God's servants, and to Him we shall return. So why hate each other? The holy books
we believe in are different, but we all abide by those books because we believe they are the
revelations of God. So why should we fight one another?
2) Instead of Muslims, would the Israelis rather live among atheists or pagans? The Bible is
full of passages describing the terrible cruelties inflicted on the Jews by pagans. The terrible
genocide and cruelty inflicted on the Jews by atheists and unbelievers (such as the Nazis,
anti-Semitic racists or communist regimes such as Stalin's Russia) are clear for all to see. The
atheist forces in question hated the Jews because they believed in God, and that is why they
oppressed them. Are not Jews and Muslims on the same side against these atheist, communist
or racist forces that hate them both?
3) Muslims and Jews love and respect the same prophets. The prophets Abraham, Isaac,
Joseph, Moses or David are at least as important for Muslims as they are for Jews. The lands
where these holy figures lived and served God are at least as holy for Muslims as they are for
Jews. So why drown those lands in blood and tears?
4) The fundamental values of Israel are also sacred to us Muslims. The word 'Israel' is the
name of the Prophet Jacob, who is praised in the Quran and remembered with great respect
by Muslims. The Magen David (Star of David) is the holy symbol of the prophet David for us
too. According to the Quran, synagogues are places of worship that Muslims must protect.
(Quran, 22:40). So why should members of the two religions not live together in peace?
5) The Torah commands Jews to establish peace and security, not to occupy other lands and
spill blood. The people of Israel are described as 'a light unto the nations.' As Rabbi Dovi
Weiss has said:
"The Jewish people are commanded by Almighty God to live in peace with all peoples and
nations on the face of the globe. Our agenda is simple It is to humbly worship the Creator at
all times. As Torah Jews we are called upon to feel and express our sense of compassion
when any person or group of human beings suffers." 1
If the Israelis continue to treat the Palestinians as they are now, they may be unable to
account for that to God. Those Palestinians who kill innocent Israelis, on the other hand, may
be unable to account for those murders. Is it not a duty in the eyes of God to put an end to the
fighting, which is dragging both sides deeper into satanic violence?
We invite all Jews to consider these facts. God commands us Muslims to invite Jews and
Christians to a 'common formula':
Say, "O People of the Book! Let us rally to a common formula to be binding on both us
and you: That we worship none but God; that we associate no partners with Him; that
we erect not, from among ourselves, Lords and patrons other than God." (Quran, 3:64)
This is our call to the Jews, a People of the Book: As people who believe in God and obey
His commands, let us come together in the common formula of 'faith.' Let us love God, the
Lord and Creator of all of us. Let us abide by His commands. Let us pray to God to lead us
further on the path of righteousness. Let us bring love, compassion and peace to each other
and the world, not hostility, blood and tears.
That is where the solution to the Palestinian question and other conflicts in the world lies.
Come, let us find a solution together. The deaths and suffering of so many innocent people
remind us every day what an urgent task this is.
How can the Palestinian Question be resolved?
Based on the principles of toleration and moderation we have outlined above, it is possible to
solve the Palestinian question, which has caused so much bloodshed in the Middle East over
the last 50 years. In our view, the establishment of peace depends on these two conditions:
1) Israel must immediately withdraw from all the territories it occupied during the 1967 war
including East Jerusalem. The occupation that has existed since must come to an end. That is
an obligation under international law, U.N. Security Council resolutions and the concept of
justice. All of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip must be recognized as belonging to an
independent State of Palestine.
2) East Jerusalem, which is home to the important temples of all three theistic religions must
be administered by the Palestinian administration, yet this city should have an exclusive
status. Jerusalem must be made a free city in which members of all three religions can carry
out their obligations in peace.
When these conditions are brought about, Israelis and Palestinians will have recognized each
others' right to exist, shared the Palestinian lands, and resolved the status of Jerusalem, the
subject of a great argument, in a manner satisfactory to the members of all three religions.
Our hope is that the constant hostility of the last 50 years or so, the prejudice, killing and
slaughter will come to an end, that the innocent Palestinian people can secure a homeland that
can provide them with the peace, security and well-being they deserve, and that Israel will
abandon its policy of aggression and occupation, that wrongs its own people as well as the
Palestinians, thus allowing it to live in peace with its neighbors within its legal pre-1967
borders.
Harun Yahya is a pen name used by Mr. Adnan Oktar. Born in Ankara in 1956, Adnan Oktar
is a prominent Turkish intellectual. Completely devoted to moral values and dedicated to
communicating the sacred values he cherishes to other people, Oktar started his intellectual
struggle in 1979 during his education at Mimar Sinan University's Academy of Fine Arts.
1. "The Torah Demands Justice for the Palestinians" Presented by Rabbi Dovid Weiss of
NKIAt Time Square in Manhattan on Friday afternoon, June 1, 2001.
http://www.netureikarta.org/speeches.htm
Do we have good morals?
Having good morals is a prime responsibility
Character formation is the most important aspect of Islamic personality. That is why we can
see that the goal of Islam - of the concepts, worships and teachings relating to values,
attitudes, morals and behavior is to create an Islamic personality. The Prophet has stated the
foremost purpose of being sent down in this world and the method of his mission in the
following words.
"I have been sent for the purpose of perfecting good morals." Inculcating good manners
among the people and purifying them as per the noble teachings of Islam was the ultimate
responsibility given to the Prophet and after him the believers are to set an ideal example
of Islamic Character before the public.
The Qur'an has made it very clear that following the footsteps of the Prophet in the high
esteemed character and morals is a vital aspect of being an example Muslim. God says: "And
by the mercy of God, you dealt with them gently and had you been severe and harsh hearted,
they would have broken away from about you. So pass over (their faults) ask (God's)
forgiveness for them; and consult them in the affair. Then when you have taken a decision,
put your trust in God, certainly God loves those who put their trust (in God)" (Al-Qur'an
3:159)
So a Muslim must possess noble character which attracts people to him. When God sent
Prophet Moses and Haroon to Pharaoh He said to them: "You tell him soft words." He may
accept the guidance and fear God. It is natural that people like those who speak gently and
decently and hate those who are harsh and hard in behavior.
The great message which has left an indelible impression on the history was the unique
personality of Prophet Mohammad . God has praised him. "And verily, you O Mohammad
are on an exalted character" (Al-Qur'an 68:4) The Prophet practically proved how to fulfill
this noble goal to his companions. The purpose of which was nothing else but to strengthen
the moral character of people so that the world of beauty and perfection may be illuminated
before their eyes and they may try to achieve it consciously and with knowledge. The Qur'an
says: "verily as for those who believe and do righteous deeds, certainly we shall not suffer to
be lost the reward of any one who do his righteous deeds in the most perfect manner" (Al-
Qur'an 18:30).
Treat others with generosity
Islamic character is divine character. It is to treat others with the same generosity and charity
as Almighty God shows to man. Islam has set the norms in this pattern by saying "If you are
merciful, forgiving and magnanimous, God is the forgiving, the merciful. That is to say that
we are supposed to adopt a posture similar to God's in our dealings with others. God forgives
people their mistakes and does not deprive them of His mercies because of their errors. Thus
magnanimity becomes the cardinal principle of Islamic Character.
Helpfulness and benevolence towards others
The highest standard of Islamic character entails helpfulness and benevolence towards others.
The very existence of a believer is beneficial to others since Islam teaches the lowest branch
of belief is removing the disturbance from the way. So the believer passing through a way is
useful to others. His words are useful to every one. Because Islam has taught "whoever
believe in God and the life here after, let him tell good things to keep quiet."
Patience
Patience is another ingredient which makes the believers character commendable and
appreciable. It has been taught that patience is one half of faith. Marvelous examples of
patience on various occasions can be drawn from the life of the Prophet .
Sincerity, honesty, humility, justice, patience, straightforwardness, keeping promise
...
Islamic ethics and moral as stated in the Holy Qur'an and Sunnah embrace the consideration
of all those moral excellencies known to the world, such as sincerity, honesty, humility,
justice, patience, straightforwardness, keeping promise, charity, meekness, politeness,
forgiveness, goodness, courage, veracity, sympathy, tolerance, decency, cooperation and
other ethical instruments and rules of conduct recommended and upheld by Islam. A
luminous feature of Islamic system of life is that it teaches comprehensive manners to all
mankind with mercy, sympathy and consideration.
Speak the truth
The first among the deeds which tops the list of good manners is to speak the truth and be
steadfast in it regardless of its consequences. The Prophet teaches: "The best of crusades is to
speak the truth before a tyrant ruler. 'Speak the truth no matter how bitter it may be.' Keep
away from ill thinking because ill thinking is the greatest falsehood."
Avoid Jealousy, backbiting, falsehood ...
By prohibiting jealous, backbiting, falsehood, wickedness and all other harmful things Islam
arrange the ground steady for emulating divine principles of Islamic character which provide
a peaceful living in this world and the hereafter. The major criterion in Islamic living is the
eternal words of The Prophet that "Actions rest on motives."
What are Good Manners?
Good Manners mean the commission of those virtuous deeds by which human perfection is
achieved which entitles a human being, in its true senses to be referred to as the best of
creation. The effect of adopting these manners, propounded by Islam is that humankind
receives tranquility, peace, harmony, happiness, love, affection, justice, equality and
whatever a human being desire for a healthy and peaceful living.
Responsibility towards God and responsibility towards fellow beings
All these teachings are formed considering the responsibility entrusted upon human beings. It
is clearly mentioned that humankind has a dual responsibility to perform. One is in relation to
himself and his obligations to the Creator, the other one is in relation to his external world
and commitments to the creatures and fellow beings.
The former has to express in a process of self-development, physical, intellectual and
spiritual. In other words, man's responsibility is to invite to God, so to say, exercise His right
to dwell in the individual and urge him to use properly the balance set in his nature. The idea
is in conformity with the Qur'anic exhortation. "O you who believed if you help (the cause of)
God, He will help you and set your feet firm" (Al-Qur'an 47:7).
Obligations to one's self and obligations to society
The other responsibility lies in developing social consciousness and in caring for the welfare
of others. The two terms may as well be styled as "Obligations to one's self" and "obligations
to society." The two types of responsibilities are not to be regarded as exclusive. They are
merely two faces of one and the same attitude towards life, of the same activity proceeding
from it and signify the character of the mind one has to develop. It is this mind which matters
in determining responsibility for every human action.
Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi (September 25, 1903 - September 22, 1979), was a Pakistani
journalist, theologian, Muslim revivalist leader and political philosopher, and a major 20th
century Islamic thinker