ShiaMan14

No, it was not better because then the entire narrative would be that "Ali is mawla/khalifa" during hajj ONLY. So he held an independent event to highlight its importance. It was best to do it post hajj since that was the largest gathering of Muslims at that time.

Salaam. This is in Toronto: Islamic Shia Ithna-Ashari Jamaat of Toronto

May be its coincidence that ISIS came to prominence after US lost Iraq. May be its coincidence that ISIS came to more prominence after US failed to remove Assad in Syria. And now ISIS is resurrecting in Afghanistan after US left. Fool me once...

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Allah forgives sins as per His promise. You just have to be patient brother. You will get what you deserve when Allah deems the timing to be right - that is right way to think about it. Sometimes the test is how patient can you be because you should not lose hope in Allah just because you don't get something.

Stay strong . Whatever you are going through will come to pass inshallah. Hz Zainab (عليه السلام) saw her entire family massacred before her eyes but when asked how she felt Allah treated her, she responded, "I see nothing but the glory of Allah.". So even in your darkest hour, Allah is there for you.

The vetting process would have to be very stringent. We've discussed this before and I may have even volunteered to sponsor the food (tabarruk)

Br. @Abu Hadi has a great point here. A lot of us are confusing cursing with telling fact based truths. He just provided a recap of our issues with the first 3 Caliphs and Hz Aisha without cursing them. Unfortunately, telling the truth has become problematic these days to where our children have no idea about the actions of these individuals and the ramifications of those actions. As I heard from a shia kid several years ago, "I can't hate Abu Bakr, I am sure he was a better Muslim than us." This happens because we've started refraining from speaking the truth.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A blast went off Friday at a mosque packed with Shiite Muslim worshippers in northern Afghanistan, killing or wounding at least 100 people, a Taliban police official said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, which took place in Kunduz, the capital of Kunduz province, but militants from the Islamic State group have a long history of attacking Afghanistan’s Shiite minority. Dost Mohammad Obaida, the deputy police chief for Kunduz province, said that the “majority of them have been killed,” in reference to the victims. He said the attack may have been carried out by a suicide bomber who had mingled among the worshipers inside the mosque. “I assure our Shiite brothers that the Taliban are prepared to ensure their safety,” Obaida said, adding that an investigation was underway. If confirmed, a death toll of dozens would be the highest since U.S. and NATO forces left Afghanistan at the end of August and the Taliban took control of the country. The Taliban have been targeted in a series of deadly attacks by rival IS militants, including shooting ambushes and an explosion at a mosque in the capital of Kabul. The Kunduz explosion went off during the weekly Friday prayer service at the Gozar-e-Sayed Abad Mosque. The Friday noon prayer is the highlight of the Muslim religious week, and mosques are typically crowded. Witness Ali Reza said he was praying at the time of the explosion and reported seeing many casualties. Photos and video from the scene showed rescuers carrying a body wrapped in a blanket from the mosque to an ambulance. The stairs at the entrance of the mosque were covered in blood. Debris from the blast covered the floor and the mosque's lofty ceiling was charred black. A resident of the area, Hussaindad Rezayee, said he rushed to the mosque as soon as the explosion went off. “I was busy at home doing construction work, and when the prayers started, the explosion happened," he said. “I came to look for my relatives, the mosque was full." Earlier Friday, the chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the Shiite mosque was the target and that a “large number” of worshippers were killed and wounded. He said Taliban special forces had arrived to the scene and were investigating the incident. The Taliban leadership has been grappling with a growing threat from the local Islamic State affiliate, known as the Islamic State in Khorasan. IS militants have ramped up attacks to target their rivals, including two recent deadly bombings in Kabul. IS has also declared war on Afghanistan's minority Shiites and has taken responsibility for some of the worst attacks targeting the community, including attacks on their mosques in Kabul and the western province of Herat. The United Nations mission in Afghanistan condemned Friday's attack, saying it was “part of a disturbing pattern of violence” targeting religious institutions. Previously, IS had claimed a bombing on Sunday outside Kabul's Eid Gah Mosque that killed at least five civilians. Another attack on a madrassa, a religious school, in Khost province on Wednesday was not claimed. The local Islamic State affiliate also claimed responsibility for the horrific Aug. 26 bombing that killed at least 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. military personnel outside the Kabul airport in the final days of the chaotic American pullout from Afghanistan. Since the U.S. pullout, IS attacks have been mostly in eastern Afghanistan — the regional base for the IS affiliate — and in Kabul. In northern Kunduz province, ethnic Hazaras, who are mostly Shiites, make up about 6% of the province’s population of nearly 1 million people. The province also has a large ethnic Uzbek population that has been targeted for recruitment by the IS, which is closely aligned with the militant Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Friday's attack, if claimed by IS, will also be worrying for Afghanistan’s northern Central Asian neighbors and Russia, which has been courting the Taliban for years as an ally against the creeping IS in the region. https://www.yahoo.com/news/explosion-afghan-mosque-leaves-casualties-102342628.html

To make your case: Son of Afghanistan’s Former Defense Minister Buys $20.9 Million Beverly Hills Mansion But I would like to extend the bribe into how US companies get some of these contracts to build facilities. Halliburton got it in Iraq and came back from being a bankrupt company. Black & Veatch built the power plant in Afghanistan and so on. So we bribe the Afghanis to then use our favored companies to build Afghanistan while our infrastructure is crumbling. Those trillions could have and should have been spent here.

Here are 10 of the starkest examples of 'waste, fraud and abuse' (CNN)Half a billion dollars of aircraft that flew for about a year. A huge $85 million hotel that never opened, and sits in disrepair. Camouflage uniforms for the Afghan army whose fancy pattern would cost an extra $28 million. A healthcare facility listed as located in the Mediterranean Sea. These are part of a catalog of "waste, fraud and abuse" complaints made against the United States' reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan -- an effort totaling $145 billion over 20 years -- made by the United States' own inspector general into the war. But the in-depth audits detailing these findings have, for the most part, been taken offline at the request of the State Department, citing security concerns. The total cost of the war, according to the Pentagon, was $825 billion, a low-end estimate: even President Joe Biden has cited an estimate that put the amount at over double that -- more than $2 trillion, a figure that factors in long-term costs such as veterans' care. The interest on the debt runs into hundreds of billions already. The $145 billion reconstruction effort lacked oversight, leading to Congress to set up the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in 2008. SIGAR published quarterly reports that gained less attention at the time than was commensurate with the expenditure they addressed, critics said, and were sometimes denied the information they needed by the Pentagon -- especially when it came to assessing security in the country. A State Department spokesperson told CNN they had asked SIGAR to "temporarily" remove the reports, owing "to safety and security concerns regarding our ongoing evacuation efforts." They added SIGAR had the authority to restore them "when it deems appropriate." What follows are 10 notable cases, stripped of identifying details, collated by CNN over the years. 1) Kabul's winter blanket The Tarakhil power plant was commissioned in 2007 as a backup generator for the capital, in case electricity supply from Uzbekistan was compromised. A vast, modern structure, it ran on diesel-fueled turbines, supplied by a brand-name engineering giant. There was one catch: Afghanistan had scant diesel supply of its own and had to ship the fuel in by truck -- making the plant too expensive to run. The facility itself cost $335 million to build, and had an estimated annual fuel cost of $245 million. The most recent SIGAR assessment said at best it was used at just 2.2% capacity, as the Afghan government could not afford the fuel. USAID declined to comment. 2) A half-billion-dollar fleet of cargo planes that flew for a year Afghanistan's fledgling air force needed cargo planes. In 2008, the Pentagon chose the G222 -- an Italian-designed aircraft designed to take off and land on rough runways. That first year, according to a speech made by SIGAR's chief John Sopko, citing a USAF officer, the planes were very busy. But they would not be sustainable. The aircraft were only noticed by SIGAR when Sopko noticed them parked at Kabul airport and asked what they were doing there. Six years after the procurement was launched, the 16 aircraft delivered to Afghanistan were sold for scrap for $40,257. The cost of the project: $549 million. 3) The $36 million Marines HQ in the desert, neither wanted nor used Sopko said in a speech this 64,000-square foot control center in Helmand epitomized how when a project starts, it often cannot be stopped. In 2010, the Marines were surging troop numbers in Helmand, the deadliest part of Afghanistan. A command and control center on the main base of Camp Leatherneck was ordained as part of the effort, although Sopko recalled the base commander and two other marine generals said it was not needed as it would not be completed fast enough. Sopko said the thought of returning the funds allocated to Congress was "was so abhorrent to the contracting command, it was built anyway. The facility was never occupied, Camp Leatherneck was turned over to the Afghans, who abandoned it." It cost $36 million, was never used, and seems to have been later stripped by the Afghans, who also never appeared to use it. Major Robert Lodewick, a DoD spokesman, said in a statement the SIGAR report contained "factual errors," objected to how it implied "malfeasance" by some officers, and said the $36 million figure included ancillary costs like roads to the HQ. 4) $28 million on an inappropriate camouflage pattern In 2007, new uniforms were being ordered for the Afghan army. The Afghan defense minister Wardak said he wanted a rare camouflage pattern, "Spec4ce Forest," from Canadian company HyperStealth. A total of 1.3 million sets were ordered, costing $43-80 each, as opposed to $25-30 originally estimated for replacement uniforms. The uniforms were never tested or evaluated in the field, and there is just 2.1% forest cover across Afghanistan. In testimony, Sopko said it cost taxpayers an extra $28 million to buy the uniforms with a patented pattern, and SIGAR projected in 2017 a different choice of pattern could have saved a potential $72 million over the next decade. DoD spokesman Lodewick said the report "overestimated" the cost, and "incorrectly discredited the value of the type of pattern selected," adding a lot of the fighting in Afghanistan occurred in verdant areas. 5) $1.5 million daily on fighting opium production The US spent $1.5 million a day on counter-narcotics programs (from 2002 to 2018). Opium production was, according to the last SIGAR report, up in 2020 by 37% compared to the year before. This was the third-highest yield since records began in 1994. In 2017, production was four times what it was in 2002. A State department spokesperson noted "the Taliban have been the primary factor contributing to poppy's persistence in recent years" and "that the Taliban have committed to banning narcotics." 6) $249 million on an incomplete road An extensive ring road around Afghanistan was funded by multiple grants and donors, totaling billions during the course of the war. Towards the end of the project, a 233-kilometer section in the North, between the towns of Qeysar and Laman, led to $249 million being handed out to contractors, but only 15% of the road being built, a SIGAR audit reported. Between March 2014 and September 2017, there was no construction on this section, and what had been built deteriorated, the report concluded. USAID declined to comment. 7) $85 million hotel that never opened An extensive hotel and apartment complex was commissioned next to the US Embassy in Kabul, for which the US government provided $85 million in loans. In 2016, SIGAR concluded "the $85 million in loans is gone, the buildings were never completed and are uninhabitable, and the U.S. Embassy is now forced to provide security for the site at additional cost to U.S. taxpayers." The audit concluded the contractor made unrealistic promises to secure the loans, and that the branch of the US government who oversaw the project never visited the site, and neither did the company they later hired to oversee the project. A State department spokesperson said they did not manage the construction and it was "a private endeavor." 8) The fund that spent more on itself than Afghanistan The Pentagon created the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO) expanded from Iraq to include Afghanistan in 2009, for whose operations in Afghanistan Congress set aside $823 million. Over half the money actually spent by TFBSO -- $359 million of $675 million -- was "spent on indirect and support costs, not directly on projects in Afghanistan," SIGAR concluded in an audit. They reviewed 89 of the contracts TFBSO made, and found "7 contracts worth $35.1 million were awarded to firms employing former TFBSO staff as senior executives." An audit also concluded that the fund spent about $6 million on supporting the cashmere industry, $43 million on a compressed natural gas station, and $150 million on high-end villas for its staff. DoD spokesman Lodewick said SIGAR did not accuse anyone of fraud or the misuse of funds, took issue with "weaknesses and shortcomings" in the audit, and said "28 of TFBSO's 35 projects met or partially met their intended objectives." 9) The healthcare facility in the sea A 2015 report into USAID's funding of healthcare facilities in Afghanistan said that over a third of the 510 projects they had been given coordinates for, did not exist in those locations. Thirteen were "not located in Afghanistan, with one located in the Mediterranean Sea." Thirty "were located in a province different from the one USAID reported." And "189 showed no physical structure within 400 feet of the reported coordinates. Just under half of these locations, showed no physical structure within a half mile of the reported coordinates." The audit said that USAID and the Afghan ministry of Public Health could only provide "oversight of these facilities [if they] know where they are." USAID declined to comment. 10) At least $19 billion lost to "waste, fraud, abuse" An October 2020 report presented a startling total for the war. Congress at the time had appropriated $134 billion since 2002 for reconstruction in Afghanistan. SIGAR was able to review $63 billion of it -- nearly half. They concluded $19 billion of that -- almost a third -- was "lost to waste, fraud, and abuse." DoD spokesman Lodewick said they and "several other U.S. Government departments and agencies are already on record as having challenged some of these reports as inaccurate and misleading" and that their conclusions "appeared to overlook the difference between reconstruction efforts that may have been mismanaged willfully/negligently and those efforts that, at the time of the report, simply had fallen short of strategic goals." https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/07/asia/us-afghanistan-spending-waste-intl-cmd/index.html

Salaam, Sometimes people can't raise their level so they try to bring higher folks down to their level. Allah is great; people are not.

Only Allah's choicest people go through severe trials and tribulations.

Salaam, I am sorry to hear you are going through this. I think all of us have a crisis of faith every now and then. The first recommendation I have is not definitely continue your salah. Once you get your faith back (and you will inshallah), then you won't have qada salah to make up for . I read your post several times and what immediately jumped out at me was that all your issues are people related. While it is easier said than done, you shouldn't let bad people impact your good faith. To put it another way, you are letting people impact your relationship with Allah in a negative manner. I will cite a quote from Hz Zainab when she was asked how she found Allah treated her after Karbala. Most of us would be distraught and lamenting about how could Allah let this happen. Her response was the opposite. She responded, "I found nothing but the glory of Allah". She did not let the actions of people determine her faith in Allah. I hope this quote inspires you into reading up more about Hz. Zainab and may be it will help move the needle in the direction of Allah.