After a while, one rapidly becomes accustomed to the painful fact that the internet is swarming with people, some of who are suffering from some fairly unpleasant personality disorders. Combine this with the other well-known fact that religions seem to equally be attractive to the sane and the clinically deranged alike; and one is left with the uncomfortable conclusion that if one is going to meet the loony online, it is most likely going to be during some sort of discussion about religion. Politics often acts as a similar magnet for the unhinged, offering boundless opportunities for paranoid personality disorders to manifest as conspiracy theories of one order or another. For this reason, for centuries perhaps, the unwritten rule of social interactions between strangers in England has been the ban on talk of politics or religion.

Iran Updates (VIDEO): Live-Blogging The Uprising

I don't care what others here will think of what I have to say. Pakistan has issues with national identity, national cohesion, national security, and its role in the Muslim world.

Pakistan has squandered American military aid, even President Obama has mentioned from the White House podium that Pakistan is "obsessed with India" and turns a blind eye to the extremism that now stages attacks against Pakistani cities.

Pakistan has a secular middle-class, that have failed in my opinion to ensure an equitable distribution of wealth and opportunity to all Pakistanis.

My anti-Pakistan bias is based in Afghan/Pushtun nationalism, where the Durand Line is seen as an artificially-imposed border by the British Raj, a line that divides southern Afghanistan from Afghanistan proper.

VIOLENT EXTREMISM

"In Ankara, (Turkey), I made clear that America is not and never will be at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject, the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as president to protect the American people."

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AFGHANISTAN

"We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case."

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IRAQ

Israeli alarm is growing over Barack Obama's perceived tilt away from the Jewish state and towards its historic Arab foes. Whether this shift is merely tactical, and related to the peace process,or of longer-term strategic significance, is actively debated. But the White House's changing outlook will be on display on Thursday when the US leader embraces Hosni Mubarak in Cairo.

Egypt's president is the authoritarian leader of a police state. While Obama symbolises equality, opportunity and democratic legitimacy, Mubarak represents an oligarchic ruling elite whose power is secured by a permanent state of emergency, arrest without trial, fear and torture. Human Rights Watch this week listed the systematic abuses that keep Mubarak in power.

From Jinnah's own lips,

Promoted to the front page

Any serious student of the Arabic language will want to own a copy of the illustrious "A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language", by JA Haywood and H M Nahmad.

First published in 1962, it has been through two editions and numerous reprints since - but has never been out of print. It remains the core grammar for most university level Arabic courses in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the Anglophone world.

At some 700 pages long, it is a hefty tome; and given that it is an academic text it is very expensive to buy in hard copy. However, courtesy of Shaykh Google and a little time, I have tracked down a scanned copy to download. It may be viewed, or saved (in either doc or pdf format) from the following site:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/8907360/Haywood-Arabic-Grammar

Jeffrey Fleishman and Noha El-Hennawy, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
4:13 AM PDT, May 21, 2009

Reporting from Cairo -- A billionaire developer and former member of the Egyptian Parliament was sentenced to death Thursday for ordering the murder of his former girlfriend, a troubled Lebanese pop singer whose body was found in her high-rise apartment in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai.

Time to add your favourite fiqh moments. I'll start:

Nizari Missionary Dr Abualy A. Aziz ("Missionary" is a traditional title: da'i) writes in his elucidation on the Nizari Ismaili Imami Shi'i tariqah that when one enters the prayer hall for services and greets the door-person with "Hai zindah!" (i.e. "he is alive", the Gujarati translation of "Allahu l-Hayyu", one of the 99 Beautiful Names), this is equivalent to having donated an elephant to charity.

I just love that someone somewhere once said, "Oh, but that is just like donating AN ELEPHANT to charity!"