One more quote... (it's hot here, forgive me)

asSalaam 'aleykum; as I can't actually write (or think clearly these days, waiting on a knife-edge for confirmation of your status tries the patience of many, bureacracy kills ('death of a thousand paper-cuts')...

I wish all my friends and family well, 'and may Allah inflict those who don't love me with... love for me' (Shaykh Muzaffer Ozak al-Jerrahi, rahimuLlah, quddus Allahu sirruhu)...

surah Tawba, qala Allahu ta'ala: (ayat 100-102)
SHAKIR: And (as for) the foremost, the first of the Muhajirs and the Ansars, and those who followed them in goodness, Allah is well pleased with them and they are well pleased with Him, and He has prepared for them gardens beneath which rivers flOw, to abide in them for ever; that is the mighty achievement.
SHAKIR: And from among those who are round about you of the dwellers of the desert there are hypocrites, and from among the people of Medina (also); they are stubborn in hypocrisy; you do not know them; We know them; We will chastise them twice then shall they be turned back to a grievous chastisement
SHAKIR: And others have confessed their faults, they have mingled a good deed and an evil one; may be Allah will turn to them (mercifully); surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/009.qmt.html

one more thought from the scholar of Cambridge, Abdul-Hakim Murad, written before 2001, and all the more evocative for that - why? because you know it's hot in here:

THE POVERTY OF FANATICISM
'Blood is no argument', as Shakespeare observed. Sadly, Muslim ranks are today swollen with those who disagree. The World Trade Centre, yesterday's symbol of global finance, has today become a monument to the failure of global Islam to control those who believe that the West can be bullied into changing its wayward ways towards the East. There is no real excuse to hand. It is simply not enough to clamour, as many have done, about 'chickens coming home to roost', and to protest that Washington's acquiescence in Israeli policies of ethnic cleansing is the inevitable generator of such hate. It is of course true - as Shabbir Akhtar has noted - that powerlessness can corrupt as insistently as does power. But to comprehend is not to sanction or even to empathize. To take innocent life to achieve a goal is the hallmark of the most extreme secular utilitarian ethic, and stands at the opposite pole of the absolute moral constraints required by religion.
There was a time, not long ago, when the 'ultras' were few, forming only a tiny wart on the face of the worldwide attempt to revivify Islam. Sadly, we can no longer enjoy the luxury of ignoring them. The extreme has broadened, and the middle ground, giving way, is everywhere dislocated and confused. And this enfeeblement of the middle ground, was what was enjoined by the Prophetic example, is in turn accelerated by the opprobrium which the extremists bring not simply upon themselves, but upon committed Muslims everywhere. For here, as elsewhere, the preferences of the media work firmly against us. David Koresh could broadcast his fringe Biblical message from Ranch Apocalypse without the image of Christianity, or even its Adventist wing, being in any way besmirched. But when a fringe Islamic group bombs Swedish tourists in Cairo, the muck is instantly spread over 'militant Muslims' everywhere.

read at http://masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/fgtnrevo.htm