Where is your faith; Boko Haram

 Dear Boko Haram
   I  know you may not see or read this letter, but I will write it any way.  I do respect the fact that you don't want to acquire western education or in some instances you  selectively accept some aspects of western education that agree with  your interpretation of Islam and junk the ones that you don accept, that is okay too, after all you are entitle to your God or Allah giving right to chose and decide what you wan to eat , drink worship, wear, etc. because you are human.
     I also don't know if you are aware that , all the  civilized countries of the world came together and have something call 'Universal Human Rights' which  derived most of its sources from what we believe is rights giving to us by Allah, like the right to make a choice of who or what we want to worship.  I hope you are with me and know what I am trying to bring to your attention.  You see I don't need to be a clergy to point out some basic flaws in your interpretation of Islam,  what about the Surat , in which the Holy Qur'an made it clear in( Surat Kaffirun)  or Holy Qur'an Chapter 109. on how to peacefully co-exist with the 'ahalun kittab' people of the book or Jews and Christian...
  I know that you claimed to be defending yourselves, come on now, the Christians are not the ones fighting you, if you have any bone to pick, it should be with the federal government..  I hope you will come across this and at least have compassion on the poor Christians you are unleashing your TERROR on, attacking a church on Christmas day and killing innocent people may be a message to your neighbors but it is UN~ISLAMIC may Allah Guide us all. Where is your Iman?  What will you say if your fellow Nigerians who are not Muslims storm a local mosque in Ramadan during Lailatul Qadar and start shooting Innocent women and children? Shame Unto you
   Merry Christmas
      Pious Ali

December blues and the fight over Public Square, Can we share both?

   The month of December means many things to different  people, to some its the end of the year and they have to take stock of the past year and make changes, personal and professional improvements, to others its the time of  annual resolution which  doesn't  go pass the first few weeks of the next month or year.To many faith traditions and cultures it is time to celebrate and worship and give thanks to  what ever they believe in... it's also one of the most controversial times of the year as  Jews, Christians, African Americans, Buddhist, Zoroastrians , pagans  and many others in between  celebrate different religious and holidays across the world, here in the USA where we pride our selves for being the most diverse country ( in the history of the world) culturally and religiously, we are locked in a brawl over who have the right to display their faiths symbols in public square as if that will change or alter the diverse nature of this great country of ours.
       Everyone  knows that some  Americans observe Christmas as a circular holiday, but we also have others who celebrate it as a religious holiday and want it to remain as such, and there are those that don't belong to any of the two groups and are protesting the public display of Christmas images, or the mentioning of Christmas in public school songs, they want to replace that with the words 'holidays' my question is is there a way we can agree to disagree on this issues? is it possible to celebrate the diversity we have in a very solemn way as we go through this controversial month? can we live and let others live, is it possible for our schools to have two versions of every Christmas/Holiday songs, one for those that celebrate and the other for those who don't? and can our city halls have the  traditional, Christmas trees/ wreath / the menorah (Hanukkah) and the candles that represent Kwanzaa, the atheist symbols that represents the celebration of 'Yule',  will that make us all happy? Can we live and let others live.......
 
Below are the Holidays in December:  2011


December 5    Ashura    (Islam) 

December 8    Bodhi Day (Buddhist)

December 8    Immaculate Conception    (Christian) 

December 21-28    Hannukah    (Jewish)

December 22    Yule    (Pagan/Wiccan)

December 25    Christmas    (Christian)

December 26  Kwanzaa (African Americans)

December 26    Zarothost Diso