Yesterday, a group of gunmen burst into the French Satirical Magazine Charlie Hebdo and killed atleast a dozen people.

The families of all those killed will be suffering right now and their pain can be easily felt and shared as a human connection (especially with others who have shared similar pain, especially through the chaos in the Muslim world).

Indiscriminate murder is wrong and against Islam.

If that is not enough of a statement for some who will question past acts of Charlie Hebdo, other news outlets have confirmed that some of those killed were actually friends of Muslims and fought against discrimination in France against Muslims and even supported Turkey joining the EU.

I've got a quiet admiration for Germany - they seem to be a hard working, productive no nonsense type of nation that doesn't fall for the normal marketing tricks.

However recently there has been a phenomenon of large rallies taking place across Germany:

Germany PEGIDA protests: Rallies over 'Islamisation'

Supporters and opponents of a group campaigning against what it sees as the "Islamisation" of Europe have held rival rallies across Germany.

There have been weekly protests by the Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West (Pegida) since October.

A record 18,000 people turned out on Monday at one rally in Dresden.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewp1atkSD3o&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1CPzFV_CoI[/youtube]

I think it is 8th of Rabbi ul Awwal tonight, tomorrow being the 9th.

While it is popular that the Prophet was born on the morning of the 12th, this does not have to be the date to celebrate the greatest mercy bestowed upon us. The date isnt important and Mawlid celebrations can and do take place all year around.

For those that do not take part in formal celebrations and even those that do, the link to the time of the year can be used as a reminder and a chance to learn more about Islam, the life and ways of the Prophet and use this as an excuse to try and improve our connection with God, the Prophet and Islam.

I just came across this article in the Guardian comment is free section.

I enjoy the free time voer christmas as much as the next person, but its important to not forget our faith and that Christmas - as indicated by the name - is a Christian festival.

You don't see people of other faiths falling over themselves for the need to fit in, so why do Muslims have this inferiority complex?

Have some backbone!

(PS Santa was Turkish)

Since I have this year focussed on Zionism (which is not the same as Judaism), I think it is prudent to also focus on some good work carried out by a Jewish organisation.

Islamophobia Watch has this article on the Jewish Student's Union suing a French Mangazine for incitement of racial hatred.

When I give in to a wrong desire – whether it be a sin or not bothering to fulfil one of my chores for the day I feel disabled to do anything else meaningful. I feel this way because I regret the wrong I have done but I fear the thing I need to will be tainted as a way of punishment for the wrong thing that I did. I believe doing wrong will affect my life so it’s almost a self fulfilling prophecy. It’s debilitating and has meant I have wasted days where I could have got things done yet doing something wrong meant I thought “I’ll do it tomorrow with a fresh start”. 

I know fearing the consequences isn’t a bad thing but then if I feared them so much I wouldn’t have given into my desires in the first place, right?

But everyone errs, right?

The story is from a Turkish english news website, Daily Sabah, refering to an investigotary piece in the Financial Times.

It states that ISIS has carried out house to house raids to arrest those foreigners who have not reported for duty and has executed around a hundred.

If you find that you made a mistake by going to Syria and ended up joining the wrong group (or joined the right group but after its defeat to ISIS you were given the choice of joining ISIS or death), you now have the options to either stay and die, try leaving and die or succeed in leaving and end up in prison.

Ok, after you put away your sunglasses, you will be able to take in the new colour scheme for The Revival website. (EDIT - ive changed it to more muted colours - nothing like the screenshot attached to this page.)

If you are reading this blog, this page may or may not be a different colour to the rest of the website.

Firstly, a new layer of paint has been applied to this website, making it all ... shiny. or radioactive.

On the plus side its big and bright, unlike the last iteration.

I have also added an option for members to choose from different colour schemes for their personal blog posts (and maybe in the future for other content too). To show off the feature I have chosen a non default colour scheme for my blog.