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Coffee The story goes that an Arab named Khalid was tending his goats in the Kaffa region of southern Ethiopia, when he noticed hi s animals became livelier after eating a certain berry. He boiled the berries to make the first coffee. Certainly the first record of the drink is of beans exported from Ethiopia to Yemen where Sufis drank …

We in the modern world often tend to look at the punishments prescribed in the Shari’ah as something really harsh. Beheading for murder, stoning to death for adultery and amputating hands for theft sometimes strike us as punishments that belong to another age and unsuited for the times we live in. However little do we stop to think that Islam …

Islam was about to be submerged in the whirlpool of the Mongol ardour of slaughter and destruction, as several Muslim writers had then expressed the fear, but Islam suddenly began to capture the hearts of the savage Tartars. The preachers of Islam accomplished the task by carrying the message of Islam to the barbaric heathen hordes. The conversion of the …

Moderation and temperance are keynote of Islam The simplicity of Islam, the powerful appeal and compelling atmosphere of its mosques, the earnestness of its faithful adherents, the confidence inspiring realization of the millions throughout the world who answer the five daily calls to prayer – these factors attracted me from the first. The broad-minded tolerance of Islam for other religions …

It is a common complaint among some non-Muslims that Islam would not have millions of adherents all over the world, if it had not been spread by the use of force. The following makes it clear, that far from being spread by the sword, it was the inherent force of truth, reason and logic that was responsible for the rapid …

It was a night of tranquility where peace reigned in the vicinity of mount 'Hira'. The unlettered Arab was seated in solitude in contemplation of the atrocities committed by his people. Suddenly an astounding figure appears before him from nowhere and commands the Arab in his mother tongue:  "Read!" The Arab, terrified by the situation replies in bewilderment: "I am …

A graduate of Cornell University, Brown University Medical School and George Washington University Hospital residency program, Laurence B. Brown is an ophthalmic surgeon, a retired Air Force officer, the medical director and chief ophthalmologist of a major eye center in the Middle East. The author of four books of comparative religion, he is also an ordained interfaith minister with a …

Islam is a religion that inevitably leads to the creation of a virtuous comprehensive culture and civilization which benefits not only Muslims, but also non-Muslims and all the other worldly creatures as well. Islam also creates individuals who through a complex hierarchy of institutions and establishments are organized in a community (ummah) which is well equipped to meet the challenges …

Little do we realize that events unfolding in the West today are bound to have serious implications for the Muslim world and indeed the world at large. One of these is of course the emerging Islamophobic sentiment in the West, particularly in Europe, which has recently manifested itself in hostility to such perceived Islamic symbols like the veil and minarets. …