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Qaradawi Fiqh on Jihad
August 13, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, probably the single most influential living Sunni Islamist figure, has just written a major book entitled Fiqh al-Jihad (The Jurisprudence of Jihad) which decisively repudiates al Qaeda's conception of jihad as a "mad declaration of war upon the world." At the same time, he strongly rejects what he calls efforts to remove jihad completely from Islam, and strongly reaffirms the duty of jihad in resisting the occupation of Muslim lands, specifically mentioning Israel as the arena of legitimate resistance. Qaradawi's intervention has thus far received no attention at all in the English-language media. It should, because of his vast influence and his long track record as an accurate barometer of mainstream Arab views.
His book, described by the Egyptian newspaper al-Masry al-Youm last week in a seven part series, is far more important than the much-discussed "recantations" and "revisions" of former jihadist intellectuals such as Dr. Fadl (Sayid Imam) and the leaders of the Gama'a Islamiya. The internal revisions by ex-jihadists (which Qaradawi praises) may influence that tiny group of extremists, and demonstrate cracks in their intellectual foundations. But for the most part, the mass Arab public has never heard of and doesn't care about them. And unlike the Gamaa leaders or Dr. Fadl, Qaradawi did not produce his revisions from an Egyptian prison cell (hence Ayman Zawahiri's cutting rejoinder to Dr. Fadl, that Egyptian prisons hadn't had fax machines back in his day). Qaradawi is different. Qaradawi, an intensely controversial figure in the West, appears on a weekly al-Jazeera program and is probably the single most influential Sunni Islamist figure in the Arab world. The Egyptian-born Qaradawi is closely associated with the Muslim Brotherhood (he reportedly turned down an invitation to become its Supreme Guide because he felt he had more influence from his base in Doha). He is a populist whose views generally reflect widespread attitudes in the region — he strongly endorses democracy, for instance, while also supporting Hamas attacks against Israelis. Whether he leads or follows popular opinion is a difficult and fascinating question — but either way, he is quite a useful barometer.
His criticism of al Qaeda is not new — he condemned 9/11 and has engaged in a number of public polemics with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and with the leaders of al Qaeda. But the timing of this book merits attention. His views generally closely mirror trends within wider mass public opinion will reach a far wider swathe of the Arab mainstream and will likely have far greater impact than did the internal revisions which received such attention in the West. His intervention strengthens the impression that al Qaeda's extreme form of salafi-jihadism is on the wane in the Arab world, but political Islam and the spirit of muqawama (resistance) remains strong.
Qaradawi's text deserves lengthy discussion, but a brief summary here will have to suffice. Fiqh al-Jihad stakes out the centrist (wasatiyya) ground where Qaradawi has always comfortably resided (he has authored dozens of books about wasatiyya concept). He rejects two trends: those who seek to eliminate jihad completely from the Muslim world, stripping it of its power and its ability to resist (which is how he sees the project of much of so-called moderate Islam or secularists); and those who apply it indiscriminately in a mad campaign of killing of all with whom they disagree (like al-Qaeda). Straw men, yes. But very effectively allowing Qaradawi to distinguish between al Qaeda's excesses and the legitimacy of resistance to occupation and to Israel.
Qaradawi also offers an intriguing broadening of the concept of jihad, away from violence to the realm of ideas, media, and communication — which he calls the "jihad of the age." The weapons of this jihad should be TV, the internet, email and the like rather than guns. Persuading Muslims of the message of Islam and the importance of this jihad in the path of God should be the first priority, he argues: "the jihad of the age, a great jihad, and a long jihad." He also goes into great detail about the different forms of jihad, the need for pragmatism, and the diverse nature of possible relations between Muslims and non-Muslims.
There is much more to Qaradawi's text worth discussing, including his views on international law (he deploys Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to depressing effect), his form of argumentation, his categories of jihad, his conceptions of Muslim relations with non-Muslims, and much more. Parts of it are deeply problematic, others are surprisingly forthcoming. But for now, I mainly want to signal the appearance of this important text, which deserves close attention from all those interested in such matters.
Convincing the Soul of the Muslim world: A New Drive for 'Common Sense'
July 23, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Ruby Amatulla
It has taken a long bloody history to convince many parts of humanity that it is only through constructive engagements and integrated efforts– and not through wars, conflicts and exploiting others – that a win-win situation is possible in human affairs.
After hundreds of years of incessant bloodshed and violence, Europe finally came to grips with this truth. Seeing the enormous effects of the integration and cooperation of the diverse community of the 50 states across the Atlantic – Europe, after World War II and its massive death and destruction — started to pursue constructive engagement and integration in its own affairs.
Today, another vital part of humanity – containing 1.5 billion Muslims — appears not to take heed of this truth. A mosaic of different tribes, sects, ethnicities and groups of Muslims remain deeply divided, unstable and conflict-prone.
Despite controlling 76% of the world's oil reserves, this huge community has failed to assert itself as a legitimate power-broker or a significant partner in the affairs of the world. The state of affairs of many key areas of the Muslim world remains degrading and disturbing.
The cause of the grim reality in the Muslim world is its failure to unite, integrate and engage constructively, both among its own populace and with others. And this failure is largely, if not entirely, due to the absence or lack of an 'impartial' and balanced rule of law.
We often talk about equality and freedom as being essential factors of democratic rule, but we fail to recognize its paramount influence in stabilizing and integrating a nation. With the existence of an 'impartial' rule of law that prohibits destructive ways of resolving issues in society and that does not allow any group to take undue advantage over others by virtue of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, etc., the people ultimately accept and build a culture of coexistence and constructive engagement.
This is the key to integrating a nation on the fundamental ideas of equality and liberty.
I am convinced that America, by providing the most forceful and impartial system of due process, has become the superpower in our time. By providing the most progressive program of integration to the most diverse community in the world it has tapped a treasure that is unparalleled in its importance and impact in leading a nation towards prosperity.
This is the secret of America's enormous success.
Good governance is the solution for a dysfunctional state. An accountable, transparent and representative government stabilizes a society. Serious grievances and the possibility of turmoil are less likely, as the citizens hold the ultimate power. The legitimacy of that governance increasingly builds up trust and confidence among its people and institutions to participate and help sustain a stable and consistent pattern of rule. The broad decision making process and the balance of power in a democratically managed society work as shields against tendencies of tyranny and/or domination of one group by another. Self-rule offers important incentives for a society to become stable and progressive.
Importantly for the deeply-religious Muslim world, a democratic system does not need to be 'secular,' if secularism is defined as a system discouraging religion. A good governing system should not be averse to religion — as religions and religious institutions play a vital and profoundly important role in society — but it must be impartial as to a specific religion and/or a specific interpretation of a religion. 'Impartial' rule of law and avoiding endorsing a religion is how the conflict-prone Thirteen Colonies were saved from disintegration.
Democracy provides a secure environment for all its citizens to practice their respective faiths. If a government maintains neutrality in its rule of law and enforces the resolution of conflicts only through constructive engagements among its citizens, it builds a stable society with a mindset of coexistence, integration and collective welfare.
The Quran is unequivocal in commanding that: 'There is no compulsion or imposition in religion.' [2:256]. A faith or conviction must be the outcome of the exercise of free will, for which an individual is responsible only to God and to no one else in the society.
Therefore a state that enforces a religious injunction, or an interpretation [denominations or sects] thereof, violates this fundamental tenet of Islam by enforcing on those who do not believe or accept that interpretation of faith.
A democratic spirit was exemplified in the very first Muslim community under the leadership of the Prophet Muhammad (s) in Medina fourteen centuries ago. The Charter of Medina has amazing similarities with the constitution drafted more than eleven hundred years later among the Thirteen Colonies who united to form the United States of America.
The similarities among these documents are to be found in their establishment of federalism, impartiality, consultative decision-making processes and the use of constructive engagement to resolve disputes.
These structures allowed the society to maintain security and functionality, as well as to provide freedom of religion. They also allowed diverse groups of people – in the case of Medina then, the Muslims, Jews, and Pagans – to manage their own community affairs and maintain their own lifestyles within the greater legal framework of society . This paramount example of the Prophet (s) has largely gone unnoticed by the Muslim world.
More than two hundred years ago a small pamphlet called "Common Sense" made a huge impact among the people of the Thirteen Colonies and their leaders. It allowed them to come together and fight against the British, the most formidable power then, to establish self-rule. How powerful and constructive this self-rule has been to integrate the most diverse community in the world and to create a superpower!
More than two hundred years later, a Muslim citizen of the nation that 'Common Sense' helped to establish is wondering what degree of human welfare could flow out of a new drive for common sense in one of the most vital parts of humanity: the Muslim world with which the interest and welfare of the world is intricately and profoundly connected! Facing the enormous challenges of our time, how badly needed is that drive!
Muslims Count Michael Jackson as One of Our Own
July 16, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Iftekhar Hai, San Mateo County Times
THE UNTIMELY death of Michael Jackson became international news, and it has affected many people, including my children and grandchildren.
I dedicate this column to the philosophical and spiritual turmoil I felt when I heard Jackson died June 25 of an apparent cardiac arrest.
He had an extraordinary charisma, absolute innocence and a childlike charm that never left him.
As his music spread all over the world, bringing him wealth and recognition, he slowly transformed his God-given African texture and features into something else.
I could never explain this part of his life to my children.
He appeared to have a genuine concern for children and wanted to offer them a world that was denied to him as a child because of the abuses he claimed to have suffered.
I was very happy for him last year when he reportedly became a Muslim in Bahrain. He had apparently followed the footsteps of his brother Jermaine Jackson, who converted to Islam 20 years ago and found peace when he gave up drinking, drugs and womanizing. Michael Jackson admired this kind of change in him.
So in search of peace, he lived in Bahrain.
For some time, Jackson thought of making an album in Bahrain to promote spirituality and signed a contract. However, when he returned to America, he was too afraid of the consequences of aligning with the Islamic faith.
Islamophobia is a curse in America. He was advised by close associates and sincere friends not to go public with his new found spirituality.
He remained in his own closet of spirituality that few outside his close circle knew.
American pop culture is not about religion but about a world of fantasy — a flamboyant facade. And he sunk deeper and maintained a lifestyle that increased his dependency on drugs.
He lost all peace of mind and self-control to such an extent that his personal doctor said, "I had to wake him up with medication and had to put him to sleep with the help of medication."
Michael Jackson is a trivial pursuit of American popular culture.
In my culture we say, "this was a bud that was cut before it could fully blossom."
Practically, we have powerful people who worship money and power and who are constantly defeating any new ideas that challenge the status quo. Jackson — who was sweet, innocent and talented — fell victim.
I am obsessed with the question, "Why couldn't Elvis and Michael Jackson remain famous, rich and on a musical pedestal and still live a drug-free and spiritual life?"
Ali Akbar Khan of Berkeley was such a musician, who gained great wealth, fame and popularity and left more than 1,000 students who are spiritually elevated musicians.
Michael Jackson's death to all of us is one that is sobering. One can climb to fame, acquire great wealth and riches, but death comes knocking without much fanfare.
Nevertheless, Jackson's very public death is a powerful reminder that no matter how famous, talented or wealthy one is, death comes sometimes sooner than later.
He has now entered a world of extraordinary perception, a world that makes his "Thriller" video seem mundane.
Given Michael's r eported conversion to Islam last year, Muslims count him as one of our own, and we pray that he can finally find the peace he never found in this world and that he is in a place, God willing, of mercy, forgiveness and solace.
Iftekhar Hai is president of United Muslims of America Interfaith Alliance and a resident of South San Francisco.
Niqabi, Interrupted
July 13, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
Wearing my niqab is a choice freely made, for spiritual reasons
By Naima B.Robert
I put on my niqab, my face veil, each day before I leave the house, without a second thought. I drape it over my face, tie the ribbons at the back and adjust the opening over my eyes to make sure my peripheral vision is not affected.
Had I a full-length mirror next to the front door, I would be able to see what others see: a woman of average height and build, covered in several layers of fabric, a niqab, a jilbab, sometimes an abayah, sometimes all black, other times blue or brown. A Muslim woman in 'full veil'. A niqabi.
But is that truly how people see me? When I walk through the park with my little ones in tow, when I reverse my car into a parking space, when I browse the shelves in the frozen section, when I ask how to best cook asparagus at a market stall, what do people see? An oppressed woman? A nameless, voiceless individual? A criminal?
Well, if Mr Sarkozy and others like him have their way, I suppose I will be a criminal, won't I? Never mind that "it's a free country"; never mind that I made this choice from my own free will, as did the vast majority of covered women of my generation; never mind that I am, in every other respect, an upstanding citizen who works hard as a mother, author and magazine publisher, spends responsibly, recycles and tries to eat seasonally and buy local produce!
Yes, I cover my face, but I am still of this society. And, as crazy as it might sound, I am human, a human being with my own thoughts, feelings and opinions. I refuse to allow those who cannot know my reality to paint me as a cardboard cut-out, an oppressed, submissive, silenced relic of the Dark Ages. I am not a stereotype and, God willing, I never will be.
But where are those who will listen? At the end of the day, Muslim women have been saying for years that the hijab et al are not oppressive, that we cover as an act of faith, that this is a bonafide spiritual lifestyle choice. But the debate rages on, ironically, largely to the exclusion of the women who actually do cover their faces.
The focus on the niqab is, in my opinion, utterly misplaced. Don't the French have anything better to do than tell Muslim women how to dress? Don't our societies have bigger problems than a relative handful of women choosing to cover their faces out of religious conviction? The "burka issue" has become a red herring: there are issues that Muslim women face that are more pressing, more wide-reaching and, essentially, more relevant than whether or not they should be covering with a niqab, burqa or hijab.
At the end of the day, all a ban will do is force Muslim women who choose to cover to retreat even further – it is not going to result in a mass "liberation" of Muslim women from the veil. All women, covered or not, deserve the opportunity to dress as they see fit, to be educated, to work where they deem appropriate and run their lives in accordance with their principles, as long as these choices do not impinge on others' freedoms. And last time I looked, being able to see a woman's hair, legs or face were not rights granted alongside "liberté, egalité et fraternité".
As a Muslim woman living in the UK, I am so grateful for the fact that my society does not force me to choose between being a practising Muslim and an active member of society. I have been able to study, to work, to establish a writing career and run a magazine business, all while wearing a niqaab. I think that that is a credit to British society, no matter what the anti-multiculturalists may say, and I think the French coul d learn some very valuable lessons from the British approach.
So, three cheers for those women who make the choice to cover, in whatever way and still go out there every day. Go out to brave the scorn and ridicule of those who think they understand the burka better than those who actually wear it. Go out to face the humiliating headlines. Go out to face the taunts of schoolchildren. Go out to fight another day. Go out to do their bit for society and the common good. Because you never know, if Mr Sarkozy and his supporters have their way, there could come a day when these women think twice about going out there into a society that cannot bear the way they look. And, who knows, I could be one of them.
And, while some would disagree, I think that would be a sad day.
Na'ima B. Robert is the founding editor of SISTERS , a magazine for Muslim women and author of 'From My Sisters' Lips ', a look at the lives of British Muslim women who cover.
At Peace at Last
July 2, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Hamza Yusuf
As a little boy, Michael Jackson had an extraordinary charisma — as well as an absolute innocence — that was disarmingly charming. It captivated millions of Americans and eventually people around the world.
As the years went by, his career took strange turns and he slowly turned white, transforming his face eerily into a pale and ghastly masque, perhaps to conceal the pain of alienation from his own self and family. He was also rumored to have unsavory predilections that would never have been suggested if one used the rigorous criteria of Islam before hurling an accusation. Despite the rumors, he appeared to have had a genuine concern for children, wanting to provide them with a world that was denied to him as a child due to the abuses he claimed to have suffered.
I was very happy for him last year when he reportedly became a Muslim. He had apparently followed the footsteps of his dignified and intelligent brother, Jermaine, who converted to Islam 20 years ago and found peace. It seemed befitting that Michael sought refuge from a society that thrives on putting people on pedestals and then knocking them down. He was accused of many terrible things, but was guilty of perhaps being far too sensitive for an extremely cruel world. Such is the fate of many artistic people in our culture of nihilistic art, where the dominant outlet for their talents is in singing hollow pop songs or dancing half-naked in front of ogling onlookers who often leave them as quickly as they clung to them for the next latest sensation.
In the manner of Elvis or the Beatles, Michael is unwittingly both a cause and a symptom of America's national obsession with celebrity, currently on display in the American Idol mania. Celebrity trumps catastrophe every time. Far too few of us make any attempt to understand why jobs are drying up, why mortgages are collapsing, why we spend half-a-trillion dollars to service the interest on the national debt, why our government's administration, despite being elected on an anti-war platform, is still committed to two unnecessary and unjust wars waged by the earlier administration, wars that continue to involve civilians casualties on an almost daily basis. Instead, we drown in trivia, especially trivia related to celebrity. And the response to Michael's death is part of the trivial pursuits of American popular culture. The real news about death in America is that twenty Iraq and Afghan war veterans are committing suicide every day. But that does not make the front page nor is it discussed as seriously as the King of Pop's cardiac arrest.
Nevertheless, Michael's very public death notice is a powerful reminder that no matter how famous or talented or wealthy one is, death comes knocking, sometimes sooner than later. Michael has now entered a world of extraordinary perception, a world that makes his "Thriller" video seem mundane. It is a world of angels and demons, and questions in the grave, a world where fame is based upon piety and charity. Given Michael's reported conversion to Islam last year, Muslims count him as one of our own, and we pray that he can finally find the peace he never found in this world and that he is in a place, God willing, of mercy, forgiveness, and solace.
My Father: Lion of the Desert
June 27, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
A Talk with Mohamed Omar al Mukhtar, son of the famous Omar al-Mukhtar.
By Khaled Mahmoud, Asharq Al-Awsat
Cairo–In this interview, Asharq Al-Awsat speaks to Mohamed Omar al Mukhtar, the son of Libyan resistance leader Omar al Mukhtar who fought against Italy's occupation of Libya in the 1920s and 1930s, which eventually led to his execution.
Mohammed al Mukhtar, 87, who accompanied Libyan leader Colonel Muamaar Gaddafi to Italy, spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat by telephone briefly before resorting to a mediator, Jalidi Khatrish, the Media Advisor to the Libyan Embassy in Rome, due to health reasons. The interview was conducted under the supervision of Hafed Gaddour, Libya's ambassador to Rome.
Q) How did you feel when you first landed in Italy and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was waiting for you?
A) I felt proud to be the son of a great Mujahid who was martyred after resisting the Italians. They admitted their crimes, in particular the crime of executing the Mujahid of all Mujahideen [Omar al Mukhtar].
Q) Has the matter of your father's execution been laid to rest with Italy?
A) This has been a good step and God willing it will be successful and mark the beginning of good ties based on equality and mutual interests.
Q) What does your visit to Rome represent and how do you feel?
A) It feels good.
Q) How did you feel when Berlusconi hugged you?
A) It was good.
Q) Gaddafi has a picture of your father pinned to his chest. How did you feel about that?
A) We were honoured by that.
Q) What is your message to the Italian people?
A) Now that there has been reconciliation, we are friends.
Q) Do you believe that all issues have been settled with the Italians?
A) Yes of course. They are not how they were in 1911 under [Benito] Mussolini. This is a new generation and we look forward to improved ties between Libya and Italy.
Q) How has your family responded to this visit?
A) The whole family is delighted at the visit.
Q) What is your message to the Italian people?
A) We hope that this visit and my presence alongside our brother leader [Gaddafi] will mark the beginning of new relations between the two countries after a dark chapter of Italian colonization of our country ended.
Q) It was the first time that an Arab leader has pinned a picture of an Arab martyr killed by Westerners to his chest. What does this mean to him and to you especially as the son of that martyr?
A) It is a good sign and we are proud of it. The leader Muammar Gaddafi is faithful to the martyrs and the Mujahideen who resisted the Italian occupation under the leadership of my father Omar al Mukhtar, may his soul rest in peace.
Q) What is your message to the Libyan people?
A) I would tell them that Italy's acknowledgment and apology is addressed to the Libyan people, and there is no doubt that this honours the entire Libyan nation and we can hold our heads high thanks to the revolution and to Colonel Gaddafi.
Q) How do you view Italian official and media attention that was paid to your visit to Rome?
A) I have been received well and this exceeds me to the entire Libyan nation, especially Colonel Gaddafi.
Q) It is as if Omar al Mukhtar's soul is being felt in Italy.
A) Yes, no doubt, and this of course pleases us.
Q) Is there anything you'd like to say to our readers?
A) I would like to wish them success in their work in the best interest of the entire Arab and Islamic world.
Houstonian Corner (V11-I27)
June 27, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
Both Best of Times & Most Crucial Times in Pakistan: Imran Khan
The World Affairs Council (WAC) is one of Houston's most prominent citizen forums. Through guest speakers and over 80 seminars and events, WAC gives chance to people of different view points on various issues to make presentation, especially matters related to current world events. Idea is to promote better understanding of international relations and contributes to national and international policy debates. The result is a better educated citizenry and the advancement of Houston as an important international center. Some of the prominent speakers at WAC have been: Madeleine Albright; James Baker, III; Prince Bandar Bin Sultan; Fernando Henrique Cardoso; Wesley Clark; William S. Cohen; Thomas Friedman; Robert Gates; George Mitchell; General Colin Powell; David Rockefeller; Lech Walesa; and Fareed Zakaria.
This past Monday, prominent philanthropist, sports and political figure of Pakistan Imran Khan gave a candid presentation to hundreds of WAC members on "Future of Pakistan" at a special luncheon at Omni Hotel. Program was sponsored by the Pakistani-American Council of Texas (PACT). President of PACT Sajjad Burki, Executive Members of PACT & Pakistani Community and Council General of Pakistan in Houston Aqil Nadeem were in attendance.
In his presentation, Imran Khan gave detailed history of Pakistan; South Asian Region; cultural traits of people of Afghanistan and Northwestern Pakistan; and much more. He said USA Government is not getting proper advise about this things and in his recent meetings with Senators Kerry and Ackerman, he has asked them to find right people to know more about the people of the area. Imran himself have gone on a road journey of all these areas and written books like "Indus Journey: A Personal View of Pakistan" and "Warrior Race: A Journey Through the Land of the Tribal Pathans".
Imran Khan said that Pakistan is going through unprecedented times in her short 62 years history. Citing incidents of the rough times Chief Justice of Supreme Court Iftikhar Chaudhry and Media in Pakistan have gone through in the past few years, Imran Khan said that today what we see in Pakistan was never seen before in the history of Pakistan, which is that the Judiciary and Media are independent. Elections are just one of the means to have democracy, but actually institutions like Judiciary and Media are what really build good democracy. True test of the independence and Vibrancy of Judiciary and Media will come, when the next General Elections will be held.
Imran Khan said while on one hand we have seen optimism through successful struggles of Judiciary and Media (which got overwhelming support from the public): On the other hand, Pakistan is plagued by the wrong policies of the war on terror, which have been implemented by Governments of USA and Pakistan (he has been against the policies used in war of terror from the very beginning). Terrorism is an idea and ideas are not fought by military powers. Reason is when one applies power, terrorists, who are not regular armies; they retreat into civilian populations or into other hide-outs, and massive collateral damage of innocent people means more recruits towards terrorist side. After 9/11, clearly AL-Qaeda was the main force and Talebans were not. The Talebans merely asked for proof and said they will hand over AL-Qaeda suspects if given proofs: That could have been easily done.
Imran further said that terrorism is a political issue and has nothing to do with any religion. Past eight years and similar war in Ireland are proofs that this war on terror can only finish with dialogue, as such a process clearly identifies, who are the wrong guys and then they can be surgically removed or even in cases won back into own camp. There is need to isolate the terrorist and not giving them opportunities to get more recruits through indiscriminate bombing and use of force. At present, what is happening in Swat has public backing: However this is also known that to catch about 5,000 persons, Government of Pakistan has displaced 3.5 Million persons, creating a catastrophe of mammoth proportions. Now if these 5,000 persons have run away like gorillas do and not captured, these 3.5 Million Displaced Pakistanis will demand the Government for retribution and God Forbidding if nothing is done, we have potential of more violence, as these 3.5 Million people have lost their entire livelihood.
As such discourse has to start at the earliest and such dialogues will result in several disappointments, rejections and failures, but past evidence and loud thinking clearly show that to persevere with the process of dialogue and avoidance of making way for people to join terrorist camps, is what will eventually bring peace and end the ideology of terrorism. He said Benazir Bhutto would have been better in situation like this.
Four Centers of ISGH Successfully Hosted ICNA Annual Knowledge & Skills Competition
For the past fifteen times, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) Houston Chapter organized Islamic Knowledge and Skills Competition for various age groups of 4 and 19 at the University of Houston and Rice University. This year through the sponsorship of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston (ISGH), ICNA Houston Chapter organized competitions at four ISGH Centers (Adel Road, Bear Creek, Synott Road and Hwy 3). These year maximum numbers of youth were able to participate. Finalists from each zone will now compete at the 4th ICNA-MAS South Regional Conference at Rice University on July 04th, 2009 (more info at www.icnasouth.com). For more information, one can call 1-866-CUB-ADAM.
Houstonian Corner (V11-I26)
June 18, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
Aligarh Bachchon Ka Ghar: A Distinctive Orphanage in India
Mozaffar Ali of ALigarh Bachchon Ka Ghar Orphanage came to Houston last week as guest of Helping Hand. During his stay, he went on Radio Sangeet for an interview, talked to persons at Madrasae Islamiah after Mughrib Prayers and met community members at Shahnai Restaurant.
Mozaffar Ali informed the significance of taking care of an orphan in Islam. He said that this orphanage was started at Qasimpur Road Aligarh with 10 children in 1998 and today has around 120 orphans. Idea is to support the orphans till the age of high school. Some of the goals and objectives of the orphanage are to develop teamwork, self-reliance and competitive spirit among these children and to save children from forced labor, illiteracy, begging and deprivation. The orphanage compound can take around 100 children and it is already housing 120 children. New construction on the second storey is needed over the existing orphanage and it will consist of three halls (each can be constructed for $7,500). On each child, the orphanage spends about $1,000/year. A bus carries children to various schools in the area and on return in the evening; children go through extracurricular and moral building activities plus complete their homework.
Mozaffar Ali placed a target for the Houston Community to raise $7,500 (only) for one of these three halls of this project, of which $6,500 have been collected. For more information on ALigarh Bachchon Ka Ghar, one can visit their website www.ALigarhChildren.Org and for all Tax Deductible contributions, visit www.HelpingHandOnline.Org (mention ALigarh Bachchon Ka Ghar in the comments).
Ghazali Education Trust Pakistan Imparting Education to 35,000+ Children: Waqqas Anjum
"You have an excellent opportunity to donate education by becoming supporter of Ghazali Education Trust, one the largest Educational Networks' of Pakistan. Our ultimate goal by the Grace of God is to have 100% literacy in Pakistan. Ghazali Education Trust was established in 1997 under the society act as a Non-Profit, Non-Governmental and Non-Political Organization:" These were the sentiments of Syed Waqqas Anjum, as he organized two seminars in North and Southwest Houston about Ghazali Education Trust (GET), where professional DVD presentations were done to appraise the community about the progress of GET.
"By the Blessings of God, we at Ghazali Education trust (GET) are now encompassing 1,500 miles of Pakistan and are in 30 Districts of Pakistan, with 278 Schools, 1,560 Teachers; and 35,000+ Students, of which about 16,400 are Orphans and Needy. GET is not just constructing schools; we develop teachers through our training institutes and develop up-to-date and state-of-the-art syllabus for our students to excel in their professional lives (this is approved by the Government). People can donate with three of our many contributing options: Adopt a Child $125/Year; Adopt a School $1,250/Year; and LifeTime Membership $1,250:" Added Syed Waqqas.
GET has projected to expand our network to 50 Districts by 2015, with at least one Model Cluster School in each District. GET has started a pilot project of vocational courses for Grade VII to X to develop much needed skills in our students. GET provides a comprehensive library, science lab and computer lab in each of our campuses. In order to streamline our processes and be transparent, we have divided GET into these departments: Pakistan Rural Education Program; Resource Mobilization; Ghazali Colleges for Women; Research & Development; Orphan / Needy Support Program; and Land Acquisition & Construction:" Continued Syed Waqqas.
For more information on GET, one can visit their website www.Get.Org.PK or call 832-366-3351 and for all Tax Deductible contributions, visit www.HelpingHandOnline.Org (mention GET Pakistan in the comments).
Response to the Muslim Evolutionists
April 13, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Hakim Jensen
The subject of evolution is extremely incendiary among Muslims, which is a surprise to me as a convert.
I was raised on evolution, and would have considered anyone an ignoramus who denied it—until I accepted my faith.
I had previously accepted the lies spoon-fed to me from infancy to age 24. Now, however, things are different. My religion states clearly that Adam and Eve were the first members of our race of people, and all of today's people are descended from them—and Allah made nations and tribes from them. My job is to believe my religion if I want to adhere to it. And I believe it—it makes more sense to me than any alternative. And now I actually devote some thought to it instead of mindlessly parroting the stupidities of those who taught me evolution.
Belief in the unseen is part of Islam. There are many miraculous events which are described in Qur`an which cannot be explained according to the natural laws of this universe. The only explanations come from belief in the unseen world—there is not really any way around that. The essential distinction between believers and unbelievers is belief in the unseen world. Allah, angels, messengers, holy books, the Day of Judgment, and destiny, both the good and the bad: these are elements of our faith which we must believe in or our faith is not complete. And you cannot explain away those unseen things, or reduce them to footnotes in an otherwise purely physical world.
But now I see that many Muslims don't want to believe. They consider all of the actual beliefs and practices of Islam to be anachronistic embarrassments better tucked away as far as possible towards the back of the closet. As Muslims, our lives do not rotate around seen things, or around the physical world. And certainly our lives do not rotate around imitating unbelievers in their unbelief. Let them be rich and fat and happy—they are still living off the fat of the accomplishments of Muslims, whether algebra, trigonometry, medicine, astronomy, or other creations of Muslims, which in reality make their modernity possible—and unfortunately they lose themselves completely in their lives of waste and dramatic overconsumption. Islam is what gave unbelievers the very comfort and prosperity in which they take so much pride. But now Muslims imitate those unbelievers, in their stupidity, because they want the wealth and pleasure which Allah gave the unbelievers.
Those who run after this life, leaving Islam behind or covering it up, are making a mistake. Allah gave us difficulty in this life. Those who love Allah, and those who love Prophet (s), face extreme difficulty and poverty. Prophet (s) told Companions that. That is not an indication that we are on the wrong way. Our Holy Prophet (s) faced hunger beyond our imagining, saw his Companions tortured and killed, faced people who wanted to kill him and all his people, was himself wounded and tormented. Some Companions were tortured, forced to revoke their faith. It is actually an indication of our being good Muslims when we also face difficulty, although we hope not to face so much difficulty as those who came before us. It is not a dishonor to us that we face difficulty, or that Muslims are poor around the world. That is an indication of our goodness. Some people from other religions prefer this world over the next—so in this world they get to enjoy themselves, but we Muslims hope for the next world, and we seek our God's pleasure in this world—believing in Him despite our being unable to see Him; acting on our belief in Him sometimes to our own physical detriment—it builds our own honor that we do this. That said, if someone becomes wealthy but keeps his religion properly, that is tremendous good luck for him; it is good, not bad. A grateful wealthy person is better than a poor worshipper.
In imitating the unbelievers, Muslims betray us and support the arguments of the unbelievers, for example in evolution.
There are fundamental logical flaws in evolution. Evolution is a theory which pretends to explain a process of development that leads to the multiplicity of organisms that exist today. And yet the essential underpinning of that system is missing. There is no explanation for how the first life came into being. As Harun Yahya has shown, scientists are unable to create from primordial soup even the building blocks of life, simple proteins, let alone coalesce millions of proteins into a living organism and breathe life into it in one go. It is completely impossible. You can shoot lightning at ocean water all day long, and no frog is going to jump out of the soup. No amoeba will ever be created and pulse and migrate around a petri dish, inspired to life by a scientist who didn't first put that amoeba there after bringing it from wherever God had previously put it.
There are other flaws with evolution. Darwin could not have known that the mutations of organisms only happen within preset boundaries. A cat can be bred through multiple generations to favor only characteristics that were hidden within the genetic material of its ancestors. It cannot be bred into a dog, no matter how many generations you devote to the task. Nor can an ant's grandchildren be fish; nor can a crow, however bred, produce an ostrich or a chicken. If that is true under the direct manipulation of human breeding, then how can random mutations progress in ordered fashion from one species to another to build millions of species? If I am wrong, prove it. Breed any pair of cats into a dog (no direct genetic manipulation by injecting canine genes—that's cheating). If your friend is on a train on tracks between Washington and New York, don't sit at the Berlin train station waiting for him, because he is never going to arrive there. He is also not going to arrive in Paris or London, unless there is direct intervention from the unseen world. You have to wait at some point on the connected tracks between Washington and New York.
But Islam explains everything without any flaw. Believers have a consistent explanation from their faith. In Islam there is an explanation for everything, for all of the so-called evidence that people use to argue against the underlying realities that are quite clearly explained in Islam. There is no logical flaw, the explanation is consistent and permits growth to our own understanding far beyond where we currently are scientifically. There is no religious limit to our scientific understanding as Muslims. Islam fed scientific inquiry, and did not retard it.
The basic explanation is this. There were 124,000 Adams, as stated in the hadith that Jibril (as) asked "Which Adam do you mean?" Our grandfather Adam was the last of those 124,000. That is the explanation for the footprints and other evidence of mankind that have been found from before our Adam. There have only been approximately 7,000 years since the flood of Noah. In the past there were many creatures, some of which were destroyed by Allah, or some of which were transformed by Allah. Dinosaurs became small, punished by God. Even in Qur`an are examples given of communities of people who were transformed into other creatures, apes or pigs. Species found only in fossil form simply are extinct species, or much diminished species that could still be living as far from humans as possible—they are not transitional life forms. If Allah wants animals to transform, He can make them transform—that does not invalidate Muslims' understanding of the origin of all living things. But as a general pattern that is not how humans came into being. Allah could have made amphibious creatures, that does not mean that fish turned into frogs. If you look at Allah's creation, He makes things appear as trees—many variations from a central theme—the similarities and the multiplicity of small variations are only evidence of the beauty and symmetry of His all-powerful design. The existence of one leaf next to another does not indicate that the first leaf has just climbed from the spot now occupied by the other leaf.
The so-called transitional human forms much promoted in bumper stickers and false depictions of progression from hunch-backs to homo sapiens sapiens are all fakes, forgeries, or either humans or apes—they are not as advertised, stepping stones between apes and humans. And this also Harun Yahya has shown in his arguments.
Everything about life indicates the existence of a planner, even the existence of a blueprint stamped on every cell of each creation—DNA.
In fact, Qur`an is so perfect and magnificent that it itself can be studied scientifically. In the glory days of Islam, people did study Qur`an. There are amazing facts, much discussed by believers but much ignored by those who battle for evolution—there are many facts about Qur`an which show an inhuman beauty and symmetry and order, as a small example consider that the word angel appears exactly as many times as the word devil, 88. Or that if you look at the very middle two words in Qur`an, they say "Be soft"—an instruction intended to be found by a diver who dove deep with belief into study of God's Holy Words. There are many other examples—please forgive me if I have made any mistake in the two I have cited. But the fact of the awesome precision of the Holiest Book is evidence that it itself is a valid subject for scientific study. These are only small examples of Qur`an's central planning and order.
Islam itself can be studied scientifically. The Prophet (s) should be studied scientifically—his example is more beneficial than studying the number of legs on ants, or whatever scientists waste their time studying. Those who worship science should not try so desperately to pry our fingers away from the study of our own lovely religion.
Now if you don't want to believe what Allah said, you are free. You can contradict Islam, contradict Qur`an, try to argue that Qur`an is not literal, say whatever you want, say you don't have to believe. You are free. Say your grandfather is an ape. Say your grandfather is a mosquito. Marry an ape yourself. Marry a donkey, marry a mosquito. Do what you want. But if you say those things, as a favor to me I am just asking that you not say you are Muslim. If you worship science, and not God. If you imitate the unbelievers, and shun the practices of the Holy Prophet (s). We are Muslim, so we want to believe what Allah tells us in Qur`an, and we want to follow the example of our Holy Prophet (s). And we want to devote ourselves to what Allah said—so please do not try to distract us and dissuade us, persuade us and subdue us.
In fact, to sum up, there are two explanations for the "origin of the species," as the idiot Charles Darwin called it. One is Darwinism, logically incomplete, based only on the world that is visible to unbelievers; the correct one is creation, it is logically complete, but based on the world known only to believers, to those who believe in the unseen. So choose your camp, but choose wisely. Because there are consequences to your decision. Choose the logically consistent explanation that explains everything, or choose the idiotic explanation that unbelievers love, which does not even bear up to logical scrutiny, and for which you may be punished.
It is remarkable even that unbelievers are able to persuade themselves to accept the pure stupidity of evolution. But at least it makes sense—cast adrift with no knowledge of the truth, they have to cast about and it is understandable that they could invent a childish explanation for the world around them—after all they don't know any better. But it is a shame beyond shamelessness that Muslims and other believers bow and scrape and otherwise abase themselves to the abomination, the utterly moronic theory of evolution, which lies at the foundation of almost all of the pure evil of the last 100 years, Nazism first of all.
Pakistan–Towards Theocracy?
March 19, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
Courtesy Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy
Women in burqas and children from the Bajaur and Mohmand agency areas wait to be registered at a refugee camp near Peshawar in January. Today a full-scale war is being fought in FATA, Swat and other "wild" areas of Pakistan, with thousands dying and hundreds of thousands of displaced people streaming into cities and towns.
FOR 20 years or more, a few of us in Pakistan have been desperately sending out SOS messages, warning of terrible times to come. Nevertheless, none anticipated how quickly and accurately our dire predictions would come true. It is a small matter that the flames of terrorism set Mumbai on fire and, more recently, destroyed Pakistan's cricketing future. A much more important and brutal fight lies ahead as Pakistan, a nation of 175 million, struggles for its very survival. The implications for the future of South Asia are enormous.
Today a full-scale war is being fought in FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas), Swat and other "wild" areas of Pakistan, with thousands dying and hundreds of thousands of IDPs (internally displaced people) streaming into cities and towns. In February 2009, with the writ of the Pakistani state in tatters, the government gave in to the demand of the TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistani Taliban Movement) to implement the Islamic Sharia in Malakand, a region of FATA. It also announced the suspension of a military offensive in Swat, which has been almost totally taken over by the TTP. But the respite that it brought was short-lived and started breaking down only hours later.
The fighting is now inexorably migrating towards Peshawar where, fearing the Taliban, video shop owners have shut shop, banners have been placed in bazaars declaring them closed for women, musicians are out of business, and kidnapping for ransom is the best business in town. Islamabad has already seen Lal Masjid and the Marriot bombing, and has had its police personnel repeatedly blown up by suicide bombers. Today, its barricaded streets give a picture of a city under siege. In Karachi, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), an ethnic but secular party well known for strong-arm tactics, has issued a call for arms to prevent the Taliban from making further inroads into the city. Lahore once appeared relatively safe and different but, after the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, has rejoined Pakistan.
The suicide bomber and the masked abductor have crippled Pakistan's urban life and shattered its national economy. Soldiers, policemen, factory and hospital workers, mourners at funerals, and ordinary people praying in mosques have been reduced to hideous masses of flesh and fragments of bones. The bearded ones, many operating out of madrassas, are hitting targets across the country. Although a substantial part of the Pakistani public insists upon lionising them as "standing up to the Americans", they are neither seeking to evict a foreign occupier nor fighting for a homeland. They want nothing less than to seize power and to turn Pakistan into their version of the ideal Islamic state. In their incoherent, ill-formed vision, this would include restoring the caliphate as well as doing away with all forms of western influence and elements of modernity. The AK-47 and the Internet, of course, would stay.
But, perhaps paradoxically, in spite of the fact that the dead bodies and shattered lives are almost all Muslim ones, few Pakistanis speak out against these atrocities. Nor do they approve of military action against the cruel perpetrators, choosing to believe that they are fighting for Islam and against an imagined American occupation. Political leaders like Qazi Husain Ahmed and Imran Khan have no words of kindness for those who have suffered from Islamic extremists. Their tears are reserved for the victims of predator drones, whether innocent or otherwise. By definition, for them terrorism is an act that only Americans can commit.
Why the Denial?
To understand Pakistan's collective masochism, one needs to study the drastic social and cultural transformations that have made this country so utterly different from what it was in earlier times. For three decades, deep tectonic forces have been silently tearing Pakistan away from the Indian subcontinent and driving it towards the Arabian peninsula.
This continental drift is not physical but cultural, driven by a belief that Pakistan must exchange its South Asian identity for an Arab-Muslim one. Grain by grain, the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a rich Muslim culture in India for a thousand years.. This culture produced Mughal architecture, the Taj Mahal, the poetry of Asadullah Ghalib, and much more. Now a stern, unyielding version of Islam – Wahabism – is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years.
This change is by design. Twenty-five years ago, under the approving gaze of Ronald Reagan's America, the Pakistani state pushed Islam on to its people. Prayers in government departments were deemed compulsory, floggings were carried out publicly, punishments were meted out to those who did not fast in Ramadan, selection for university academic posts required that the candidate demonstrate knowledge of Islamic teachings, and jehad was declared essential for every Muslim.
Villages have changed drastically, driven in part by Pakistani workers returning from Arab countries. Many village mosques are now giant madrassas that propagate hard-line Salafi and Deobandi beliefs through oversized loudspeakers. They are bitterly opposed to Barelvis, Shias and other Muslims, who they do not consider to be proper Muslims. Punjabis, who were far more liberal towards women than Pashtuns, are now also beginning to take a line resembling the Taliban. Hanafi law has begun to prevail over tradition and civil law, as is evident from recent decisions in the Lahore High Court.
K.M. Chaudhry/AP
Pakistan's Ministry of Education estimates that 1.5 million students are getting religious education in 13,000 madrassas. These figures could be quite off the mark. Commonly quoted figures range between 18,000 and 22,000 such schools. Here, students at the Jamia Manzoorul Islam, a madrassa in Lahore.
In the Pakistani lower-middle and middle-middle classes lurks a grim and humourless Saudi-inspired revivalist movement which frowns on every expression of joy and pleasurable pastime. Lacking any positive connection to history, culture and knowledge, it seeks to eliminate "corruption" by regulating cultural life and seizing control of the education system.
"Classical music is on its last legs in Pakistan; the sarangi and vichtarveena are completely dead," laments Mohammad Shehzad, a music aficionado. Indeed, teaching music in public universities is violently opposed by students of the Islami Jamaat-e-Talaba at Punjab University. Religious fundamentalists consider music haram. Kathak dancing, once popular with the Muslim elite of India, has no teachers left. Pakistan produces no feature films of any consequence.
As a part of General Zia-ul-Haq's cultural offensive, Hindi words were expunged from daily use and replaced with heavy-sounding Arabic ones. Persian, the language of Mughal India, had once been taught as a second or third language in many Pakistani schools. But, because of its association with Shiite Iran, it too was dropped and replaced with Arabic. The morphing of the traditional "khuda hafiz" (Persian for "God be with you") into "allah hafiz" (Arabic for "God be with you") took two decades to complete. The Arab import sounded odd and contrived, but ultimately the Arabic God won and the Persian God lost.
Genesis of Jehad
One can squarely place the genesis of religious militancy in Pakistan to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the subsequent efforts of the U.S.-Pakistan-Saudi grand alliance to create and support the Great Global Jehad of the 20th century. A toxic mix of imperial might, religious fundamentalism, and local interests ultimately defeated the Soviets. But the network of Islamic militant organisations did not disappear after it achieved success. By now the Pakistani Army establishment had realised the power of jehad as an instrument of foreign policy, and so the network grew from strength to strength.
The amazing success of the state is now turning out to be its own undoing. Today the Pakistan Army and establishment are under attack from religious militants, and rival Islamic groups battle each other with heavy weapons. Ironically, the same Army – whose men were recruited under the banner of jehad, and which saw itself as the fighting arm of Islam – today stands accused of betrayal and is almost daily targeted by Islamist suicide bombers. Over 1,800 soldiers have died as of February 2009 in encounters with religious militants, and many have been tortured before decapitation. Nevertheless, the Army is still ambivalent in its relationship with the jehadists and largely focusses upon India.
Education or Indoctrination?
Similar sentiments exist in a large part of the Pakistani public media.. The commonly expressed view is that Islamic radicalism is a problem only in FATA and that madrassas are the only jehad factories around. This could not be more wrong. Extremism is breeding at a ferocious rate in public and private schools within Pakistan's towns and cities. Left unchallenged, this kind of education will produce a generation incapable of living together with any except strictly their own kind. Pakistan's education system demands that Islam be understood as a complete code of life, and creates in the mind of the schoolchild a sense of siege and constant embattlement by stressing that Islam is under threat everywhere.
The government-approved curriculum, prepared by the Curriculum Wing of the Federal Ministry of Education, is the basic road map for transmitting values and knowledge to the young. By an Act of Parliament, passed in 1976, all government and private schools (except for O-level schools) are required to follow this curriculum. It is a blueprint for a religious fascist state.
The masthead of an illustrated primer for the Urdu alphabet states that it has been prepared by Iqra Publishers, Rawalpindi, along "Islamic lines". Although not an officially approved textbook, it has been used for many years by some regular schools, as well as madrassas, associated with the Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), an Islamic political party that had allied itself with General Pervez Musharraf.
The world of the Pakistani schoolchild was largely unchanged even after September 11, 2001, which led to Pakistan's timely desertion of the Taliban and the slackening of the Kashmir jehad. Indeed, for all his hypocritical talk of "enlightened moderation", Musharraf's educational curriculum was far from enlightening. It was a slightly toned-down copy of that under Nawaz Sharif which, in turn, was identical to that under Benazir Bhutto, who inherited it from Zia-ul-Haq.
Fearful of taking on powerful religious forces, every incumbent government refused to take a position on the curriculum and thus quietly allowed young minds to be molded by fanatics. What might happen a generation later has always been a secondary matter for a government challenged on so many sides.
The promotion of militarism in Pakistan's so-called "secular" public schools, colleges and universities had a profound effect upon young minds. Militant jehad became part of the culture on college and university campuses. Armed groups flourished, invited students for jehad=2 0in Kashmir and Afghanistan, set up offices throughout the country, collected funds at Friday prayers, and declared a war without borders. Pre-9/11, my university was ablaze with posters inviting students to participate in the Kashmir jehad. After 2001, this slipped below the surface.
For all his hypocritical talk of "enlightened moderation", General Pervez Musharraf's educational curriculum was far from enlightening. It was a slightly toned-down copy of that under Nawaz Sharif which, in turn, was identical to that under Benazir Bhutto, who inherited it from Zia-ul-Haq. (From left) Zia-ul-Haq, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf.
The madrassas
The primary vehicle for Saudi-ising Pakistan's education has been the madrassa. In earlier times, these had turned out the occasional Islamic scholar, using a curriculum that essentially dates from the 11th century with only minor subsequent revisions. But their principal function had been to produce imams and muezzins for mosques, and those who eked out an existence as "moulvi sahibs" teaching children to read the Quran.
The Afghan jehad changed everything. During the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, madrassas provided the U.S.-Saudi-Pakistani alliance the cannon fodder needed for fighting a holy war. The Americans and the Saudis, helped by a more-than-willing General Zia, funded new madrassas across the length and breadth of Pakistan.
A detailed picture of the current s ituation is not available. But, according to the national education census, which the Ministry of Education released in 2006, Punjab has 5,459 madrassas followed by the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) with 2,843; Sindh 1,935; Federally Administrated Northern Areas (FANA) 1,193; Balochistan 769; Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) 586; FATA 135; and Islamabad capital territory 77. The Ministry estimates that 1.5 million students are getting religious education in the 13,000 madrassas.
These figures could be quite off the mark. Commonly quoted figures range between 18,000 and 22,000 madrassas. The number of students could be correspondingly larger. The free room, board and supplies to students, form a key part of their appeal.
But the desire of parents across the country is for children to be "disciplined" and to be given a thorough Islamic education. This is also a major contributing factor.
For the rest of this article, please visit our website: www.muslimobserver.com.
Madrassas have deeply impacted upon the urban environment. For example, until a few years ago, Islamabad was a quiet, orderly, modern city different from all others in Pakistan. Still earlier, it had been largely the abode of Pakistan's hyper-elite and foreign diplomats. But the rapid transformation of its demography brought with it hundreds of mosques with multi-barrelled audio-cannons mounted on minarets, as well as scores of madrassas illegally constructed in what used to be public parks and green areas. Now, tens of thousands of their students with little prayer caps dutifully chant the Quran all day. In the evenings they swarm around the city, making bare-faced women increasingly nervous.
Women – the Lesser Species
Total separation of the sexes is a central goal of the Islamists. Two decades ago the fully veiled student was a rarity on Pakistani university and college campuses. The abaya was an unknown word in Urdu; it is a foreign import. But today, some shops in Islamabad specialise in abaya. At colleges and universities across Pakistan, female students are seeking the anonymity of the burqa. Such students outnumber their sisters who still dare show their faces.
While social conservatism does not necessarily lead to violent extremism, it does shorten the path. Those with beards and burqas are more easily convinced that Muslims are being demonised by the rest of the world. The real problem, they say, is the plight of the Palestinians, the decadent and discriminatory West, the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, the Kashmir issue, the Bush doctrine, and so on. They vehemently deny that those committing terrorist acts are Muslims or, if faced by incontrovertible evidence, say it is a mere reaction to oppression. Faced with the embarrassment that 200 schools for girls were blown up in Swat by Fazlullah's militants, they wriggle out by saying that some schools were housing the Pakistan Army, who should be targeted anyway.
Abdul Rehman/Reuters
This high school at Qambar in the Swat valley was among the 200 schools for girls destroyed by the S wat Taliban led by Mullah Fazlullah.
The Prognosis
The immediate future is not hopeful: increasing numbers of mullahs are creating cults around themselves and seizing control over the minds of worshippers. In the tribal areas, a string of new Islamist leaders have suddenly emerged: Sufi Mohammad, Baitullah Mehsud, Fazlullah, Mangal Bagh…. The enabling environment of poverty, deprivation, lack of justice, and extreme differences of wealth is perfect for these demagogues. Their gruesome acts of terror and public beheadings are still being perceived by large numbers of Pakistanis as part of the fight against imperialist America and, sometimes, India as well. This could not be more wrong.
The jehadists have longer-range goals. A couple of years ago, a Karachi-based monthly magazine ran a cover story on the terrorism in Kashmir. One fighter was asked what he would do if a political resolution were found for the disputed valley. Revealingly, he replied that he would not lay down his gun but turn it on the Pakistani leadership, with the aim of installing an Islamic government there.
Over the next year or two, we are likely to see more short-lived "peace accords", as in Malakand, Swat and, earlier on, in Shakai. In my opinion, these are exercises in futility. Until the Pakistan Army finally realises that Mr. Frankenstein needs to be eliminated rather than be engaged in negotiations, it will continue to soft-pedal on counter-insurgency. It will also continue to develop and demand from the U.S. high-tech weapons that are not the slightest use against insurgents. There are some indications that some realisation of the internal threat is dawning, but the speed is as yet glacial.
Even if Mumbai-II occurs, India's options in dealing with nuclear Pakistan are severely limited. Cross-border strikes should be dismissed from the realm of possibilities. They could lead to escalations that neither government would have control over. I am convinced that India's prosperity – and perhaps its physical survival – demands that Pakistan stays together. Pakistan could disintegrate into a hell, where different parts are run by different warlords. Paradoxically perhaps, India's most effective defence could be the Pakistan Army, torn and fractured though it may be. To convert a former enemy army into a possible ally will require that India change tack.
To create a future working alliance with the struggling Pakistani state, and in deference to basic democratic principles, India must be seen as genuinely working towards some kind of resolution of the Kashmir issue. It must not deny that the majority of Kashmiri Muslims are deeply alienated from the Indian state and that they desperately seek balm for their wounds. Else the forces of cross-border jehad, and its hate-filled holy warriors, will continue to receive unnecessary succour.
I shall end this rather grim essay on an optimistic note: the forces of irrationality will surely ca ncel themselves out because they act in random directions, whereas reason pulls in only one. History leads us to believe that reason will triumph over unreason, and humans will continue their evolution towards a higher and better species. Ultimately, it will not matter whether we are Pakistanis, Indians, Kashmiris, or whatever. Using ways that we cannot currently anticipate, people will somehow overcome their primal impulses of territoriality, tribalism, religion and nationalism. But for now this must be just a hypothesis.
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy is Professor and Chairman of the Physics Department, Qaid-e Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Examples of Advanced Ancient Technology
By Harun Yahya
Excerpted from the book A Historical Lie: the Stone Age
The Nimrud Lens
A discovery made by the archaeologist Sir John Layard in 1850 raised the question of who actually used the first lens? During a series of excavations in what is now Iraq, Layard discovered a piece of a lens dating back 3,000 years. Currently on display in the British Museum, this fragment shows that the first known lens was used in the days of the Assyrians. Professor Giovanni Pettinato of the University of Rome believes that this rock-crystal lens—which, according to him, is a major discovery shedding considerable light on the history of science—could also explain why the ancient Assyrians knew so much about astronomy, having discovered the planet Saturn and the rings around it.
To what use was this lens put? That answer may be debatable, but it's still obvious that not all bygone societies lived simple lives, as evolutionist scientists maintain. Past societies made use of science and technology, built deeply-rooted civilizations and enjoyed advanced life styles. Only limited information regarding their daily lives has come down to us today, but practically all we know shows that none of these societies ever underwent evolution.
The Baghdad Battery
In 1938, the German archaeologist Wilhelm König discovered a vase-like object now known as the "Baghdad Battery." But how was it concluded that this object, some 2,000 years old, was used as a battery? If it actually was used as a battery—which the research carried out certainly indicates—then all theories to the effect that civilization always progresses and that societies in the past lived under primitive conditions, will be totally demolished. This earthenware pot, sealed with asphalt or bitumen, contains a cylinder of copper. The bottom of this cylinder is covered with a copper disk. The asphalt stopper holds in place an iron rod, suspended down into the cylinder, without making any contact with it.
If the pot is filled with an electrolyte, a current-producing battery is the result. This phenomenon is known as an electrochemical reaction, and is not far different from the way that present-day batteries work. During experiments, between 1.5 and 2 volts of electricity was generated by some reconstructions based on the Baghdad Battery.
This raises a very important question: What was a battery used for 2,000 years ago? Since such a battery existed, obviously there must have been tools and devices that it powered. This once again shows that people living 2,000 years ago possessed far more advanced technology—and by extension, living standards—than was previously thought.
The Mayans: Another Civilization That Refutes the Idea of the Evolution of History
Almost all evolutionist publications have one thing in common: All of them devote considerable space to imaginary scenarios regarding why some biological structure or characteristic of a living thing might have evolved. The striking factor is that all the stories evolutionists dream up are depicted as scientific fact. The fact is, however, that these accounts are nothing more than Darwinist fairy tales. Evolutionists seek to present the scenarios they come up with as scientific evidence. Yet these accounts are all entirely misleading, of no scientific worth, and can never constitute evidence for evolutionist claims.
One tale so frequently encountered in the evolutionist literature is that of allegedly ape-like creatures turning into human beings, and of primitive man gradually becoming a social entity. Despite there being no scientific evidence to support them, reconstructions of these supposed primitive human beings—in which they are depicted as walking only semi-upright, grunting, walking together with their "cave-families" or hunting with crude stone tools—are the best known parts of this scenario.
These reconstructions amount to an invitation to imagine and believe. With them, evolutionists seek to convince people not on the basis of concrete facts, but of fantastic speculation, because these are based on their authors' prejudices and preconceptions, rather than on scientific facts.
Evolutionists have no qualms about keeping these stories in the professional literature, nor about presenting them as if they were scientific truth, even though they are well aware of the erroneous nature of their accounts. However, these scenarios so frequently voiced by evolutionists constitute conjectures, not scientific evidence, for the theory of evolution, because there is no evidence that Man is descended from an ape-like ancestor. In the same way, no archaeological or historical evidence suggests that societies evolve from the primitive to the more advanced. Man has been Man ever since he first came into existence, and has created different civilizations and cultures in all periods of history. One of these civilizations is the Mayan, whose remains still inspire amazement today.
Historical sources refer to a tall figure in white robes who came to the communities living in this region. According to the information contained on monuments, the belief in a single God spread for a short time, while advances were made in science and art.
The Mayans: Expert Mathematicians
The Mayans lived in Central America around 1,000 BCE, at a considerable distance from other advanced civilizations like those in Egypt, Greece and Mesopotamia. The most important features of the Mayans are the scientific advances they made in the fields of astronomy and mathematics, and their complex written language.
The Mayans' knowledge of time, astronomy and mathematics was a thousand years ahead of that of the Western world at the time. For example, their calculation of the Earth's annual cycle was a great deal more accurate than any other such calculations before the invention of the computer. The Mayans used the mathematical concept of zero a thousand years before its discovery by Western mathematicians, and used far more advanced figures and signs than their contemporaries.
The Mayan Calendar
The Haab, the civil calendar used by the Mayans, consisting of 365 days, is one of the products of their advanced civilization. Actually, they were aware that a year is slightly longer than 365 days; their estimate was 365.242036 days. In the Gregorian calendar in use today, a year consists of 365.2425 days. 67 As you can see, there's only a very small difference between the two figures—further evidence of the Mayans' expertise in the fields of mathematics and astronomy.
The Mayans' Knowledge of Astronomy
Three books which have come down to us from the Mayans, known as the Maya Codices, contain important information concerning their lives and astronomical knowledge. Of the three—the Madrid Codex, the Paris Codex and the Dresden Codex—the latter is the most important in terms of showing the depth of the Mayan knowledge of astronomy. They possessed a very complex system of writing, of which only less than 30% has been deciphered. Yet even this is enough to show the advanced level of science they attained.
For example, page 11 of the Dresden Codex contains information about the planet Venus. The Mayans had calculated that the Venusian year lasted 583.92 days, and rounded it up to 584 days. In addition, they produced drawings of the planet's cycle for thousands of years. Two other pages in the codex contain information about Mars, four are about Jupiter and its satellites, and eight pages are devoted to the Moon, Mercury and Saturn, setting out such complicated calculations as the orbits of these planets around the Sun, their relationships with one another, and their relationships with the Earth.
So accurate was the Mayans' knowledge of astronomy that they were able to determine that one day needed to be subtracted from the Venusian orbit every 6,000 years. How did they acquire such information? That is still a matter of debate for astronomers, astro-physicists and archaeologists. Today, such complex calculations are made with the help of computer technology. Scientists learn about outer space in observatories equipped with all kinds of technical and electrical apparatus. Yet the Mayans acquired their knowledge 2,000 years before the invention of present-day technology. This yet again invalidates the thesis that societies always progress from a primitive to a more advanced state. Many bygone societies had just as advanced a level of civilization as current ones, and sometimes even more so. Many communities today have not yet achieved the levels attained by societies in the past. In short, civilizations sometimes move forwards and at other times backwards, and both advanced and primitive civilizations sometimes exist at the very same time.
Network of Roads in the Ancient Mayan City of Tikal
Tikal, one of the oldest Mayan cities, was founded in the 8th century BCE. Archaeological excavations in the city, which stands in wild jungle, have unearthed houses, palaces, pyramids, temples and assembly areas. All these areas are connected to one another by roads. Radar images have shown that in addition to complete drainage system, the city also enjoyed a comprehensive irrigation system. Tikal stands neither by a river nor by a lake, and it was found that the city made use of some ten water reservoirs.
Five main roads lead from Tikal into the jungle. Archaeologists describe them as ceremonial roads. Aerial photographs show that Mayan cities were linked to one another by a large network of roads totaling some 300 kilometers (190 miles) in length and demonstrating detailed engineering. All the roads were made from broken rocks and were covered over with a light-color hard-wearing layer. These roads are perfectly straight, as if laid out with a ruler, and the important questions remain of how the Mayans were able to determine direction during the construction of these roads and what equipment and tools they used. The evolutionist mentality cannot provide rational and logical answers. Because we are dealing with a marvel of engineering, hundreds of kilometers long, it is crystal-clear that these roads are the product of detailed calculations and measurements and the use of the necessary materials and tools.
Controversial Bestseller Shakes the Foundation of the Israeli State
February 5, 2009 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
What if the Palestinian Arabs who have lived for decades under the heel of the modern Israeli state are in fact descended from the very same "children of Israel" described in the Old Testament?
And what if most modern Israelis aren't descended from the ancient Israelites at all, but are actually a mix of Europeans, North Africans and others who didn't "return" to the scrap of land we now call Israel and establish a new state following the attempt to exterminate them during World War II, but came in and forcefully displaced people whose ancestors had lived there for millennia?
What if the entire tale of the Jewish Diaspora — the story recounted at Passover tables by Jews around the world every year detailing the ancient Jews' exile from Judea, the years spent wandering through the desert, their escape from the Pharaoh's clutches — is all wrong?
That's the explosive thesis of When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?, a book by Tel Aviv University scholar Shlomo Zand (or Sand) that sent shockwaves across Israeli society when it was published last year. After 19 weeks on the Israeli best-seller list, the book is being translated into a dozen languages and will be published in the United States this year by Verso.
Its thesis has ramifications that go far beyond some antediluvian academic debate. Few modern conflicts are as attached to ancient history as that decades-long cycle of bloodletting between Israelis and Palestinians. Each group lays claim to the same scrap of land — holy in all three of the world's major Abrahamic religions — based on long-standing ties to that chunk of earth and national identities formed over long periods of time. There's probably no other place on Earth where the present is as intimately tied to the ancient.
Central to the ideology of Zionism is the tale — familiar to all Jewish families — of exile, oppression, redemption and return. Booted from their kingdom, the "Jewish people" — sons and daughters of ancient Judea — wandered the earth, rootless, where they faced cruel suppression from all corners — from being forced to toil in slavery under the Egyptians, to the Spanish massacres of the 14th century and Russian pogroms of the 19th, through to the horrors of the Third Reich.
This view of history animates all Zionists, but none more so than the influential but reactionary minority — in the United States as well as Israel — who believe that God bestowed a "Greater Israel" — one that encompasses the modern state as well as the Occupied Territories — on the Jewish people, and who resist any effort to create a Palestinian state on biblical grounds.
Inventing a People?
Zand's central argument is that the Romans didn't expel whole nations from their territories. Zand estimates that perhaps 10,000 ancient Judeans were vanquished during the Roman wars, and the remaining inhabitants of ancient Judea remained, converting to Islam and assimilating with their conquerors when Arabs subjugated the area. They became the progenitors of today's Palestinian Arabs, many of whom now live as refugees who were exiled from their homeland during the 20th century.
As Israeli journalist Tom Segev summarized, in a review of the book in Ha'aretz:
There never was a Jewish people, only a Jewish religion, and the exile also never happened — hence there was no return. Zand rejects most of the stories of national-identity formation in the Bible, including the exodus from Egypt and, most satisfactorily, the horrors of the conquest under Joshua.
But this begs the question: if the ancient people of Judea weren't expelled en masse, then how did it come to pass that Jewish people are scattered across the world? According to Zand, who offers detailed histories of several groups within what is conventionally known as the Jewish Diaspora, some were Jews who emigrated of their own volition, and many more were later converts to Judaism. Contrary to popular belief, Zand argues that Judaism was an evangelical religion that actively sought out new adherents during its formative period.
This narrative has huge significance in terms of Israel's national identity. If Judaism is a religion, rather than "a people" descended from a dispersed nation, then it brings into question the central justification for the state of Israel remaining a "Jewish state."
And that brings us to Zand's second assertion. He argues that the story of the Jewish nation — the transformation of the Jewish people from a group with a shared cultural identity and religious faith into a vanquished "people" — was a relatively recent invention, hatched in the 19th century by Zionist scholars and advanced by the Israeli academic establishment. It was, argues Zand, an intellectual conspiracy of sorts. Segev says, "It's all fiction and myth that served as an excuse for the establishment of the State of Israel."
Zand Gets Slammed; Do His Arguments Stand Up?
The ramifications of Zand's argument are far-reaching; "the chances that the Palestinians are descendants of the ancient Judaic people are much greater than the chances that you or I are its descendants," he told Ha'aretz. Zand argues that Israel should be a state in which all of the inhabitants of what was once "British Palestine" share the full rights and responsibilities of citizenship, rather than maintaining it as a "Jewish and democratic" state, as it's now identified.
Predictably, Zand was pilloried according to the time-tested formula. Ami Isseroff, writing on ZioNation, the Zionism-Israel blog, invoked the customary Holocaust imagery, accusing Zand of offering a "final solution to the Jewish problem," one in which "No auto da fe is required, no charging Cossacks are needed, no gas chambers, no smelly crematoria." Another feverish ideologue called Zand's work "another manifestation of mental disorder in the extreme academic Left in Israel."
That kind of overheated rhetoric is a standard straw man in the endless roil of discourse over Israel and the Palestinians, and is easily dismissed. But more serious criticism also greeted Zand's work. In a widely read critical review of Zand's work, Israel Bartal, dean of humanities at the Hebrew University, slammed the author's second assertion — that Zionist academics had suppressed the true history of Judaism's spread through emigration and conversion in favor of a history that would give legitimacy to the quest for a Jewish state.
Bartal raised important questions about Zand's methodology and pointed out what appears to be some sloppy details in the book. But, interestingly, in defending Israel's academic community, Bartal supported Zand's more consequential thesis, writing, "Although the myth of an exile from the Jewish homeland (Palestine) does exist in popular Israeli culture, it is negligible in serious Jewish historical discussions." Bartal added: "no historian of the Jewish national movement has ever really believed that the origins of the Jews are ethnically and biologically 'pure.' " He noted that "[i]mportant groups in the [Zionist] movement expressed reservations regarding this myth or denied it completely."
"As far as I can discern," Bartal wrote, "the book contains not even one idea that has not been presented" in previous historical studies. Segev added that "Zand did not invent [his] thesis; 30 years before the Declaration of Independence, it was espoused by David Ben-Gurion, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and others."
One can reasonably argue that this ancient myth of a Jewish nation exiled until its 20th century return is of little consequence; whether the Jewish people share a common genetic ancestry or are a far-flung collection of people who share the same faith, a common national identity has in fact developed over the centuries. But Zand's central contention stands, and has some significant implications for the current conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
Changing the Conversation?
The primary reason it's so difficult to discuss the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is the remarkably effective job supporters of Israel's control of the Occupied Territories — including Gaza, still under de facto occupation — have done equating support for Palestinian self-determination with a desire to see the destruction of Israel. It effectively conflates any advocacy of Palestinian rights with the specter of Jewish extermination.
That's certainly been the case with arguments for a single-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Until recent years, advocating a "single-state" solution — a binational state where all residents of what are today Israel and the Occupied Territories share the full rights and responsibilities of citizenship — was a relatively mainstream position to take. In fact, it was one of several competing plans considered by the United Nations when it created the state of Israel in the 1940s.
But the idea of a single, binational state has more recently been marginalized — dismissed as an attempt to destroy Israel literally and physically, rather than as an ethnic and religious-based political entity with a population of second-class Arab citizens and the legacy of responsibility for world's longest-standing refugee population.
A logical conclusion of Zand's work exposing Israel's founding mythology may be the restoration of the idea of a one-state solution to a legitimate place in the debate over this contentious region. After all, while it muddies the waters in one sense — raising ancient, biblical questions about just who the "children of Israel" really are — in another sense, it hints at the commonalities that exist between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. Both groups lay claim to the same crust of earth, both have faced historic repression and displacement and both hold dear the idea that they should have a "right of return."
And if both groups in fact share common biblical ties, then it begs the question of why the entirety of what was Palestine under the British mandate should remain a refuge for people of one religion instead of being a country in which Jews and Arabs are guaranteed equal protection — equal protection under the laws of a state whose legitimacy would never again be open to question.
Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.
Sufism in South Asia
December 4, 2008 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Geoffrey Cook, MMNS
San Francisco–I am in the midst of the insanity of moving, but I am trying to keep up with my basic compilations early in the morning or late into the night.
I would like to discuss three presentations made last year (Summer of 2007) –in the Asian Art Museum — as part of the bi-annual meeting of the American Council of Southern Asian art in this City here on the Western shores of San Francisco Bay. I found the talks to be slight in news content; thus, I have previously refrained from composing on them, but because of circumstances, they have become a practicable article, and make an acceptable historical feature on an ancient vital Islamic tradition. An article on this form of piety stated that Sufism "…is a…mystical dimension of Islam" where meditation plays an integral part.
People talking about Islam usually mention Sunnis and Shi'a; among Sunnis are also Sufis – there is mutual tension between Sufis and Wahhabi/Salafis. Salafis accuse the Sufis, saying "…[Sufism] has never played a part in normative Islam."
A position with which your author extremely disagrees!
First, your journalist acknowledges that his main sources for his background on the Sufis in an historical and contemporary context are an excellent unsigned, thorough yet concise article on the Internet encyclopedia, Wikipedia. My second source is a review essay I wrote on a book that is considered the main Western source on Sufism. Unfortunately, I do not have the piece at my fingertips; therefore, I am paraphrasing it ex aqua.
Sufism has gained much of its doctrine through accretion from the mystic environ of religious clusters that Islam absorbed in its Eastward expansion. Accordingly, to several Western scholars, Sufism arose initially in the Western Mahgreb in a region of present-day Morocco where Christianity had been repressed three hundred years before. There was a yearning for the type of mysticism found in monasteries of the old religion, but in the Qur`an there is a strong injunction to marry and procreate! The early "Order" solved this "problem" by creating brotherhoods of married men who followed Muslim law carefully. As their Society traveled into new lands, they met new converts. For instance, the Sufic poet, Rumi, who has had a considerable influence over contemporary thought here in the West's, name derives from the word "Roman" (i.e., the Eastern Roman Empire ruled from Byzantine) in the local language of Anatolia at that time. The Turks had held that province from which Rumi wrote for a comparatively short time. Thus, his family must have been fairly recent converts. Sufic thought gained much when it crossed into India. The great poet Kabir, who some scholars claim was a Sufi was not fully Islamized, even though he did accomplished the hajj, for he referred to God both in the Hindu terminology as Ram and, also, as Allah interchangeably in his poetry! Traditionally, in the Sufi-dominated Districts of India, the Hindus revere the Islamic Saints as much as their own.
Yet the traditional Islamic scholarship on the Sufis view their development in quite a different manner. The Sufic thinkers trace their origins through the Prophet (Blessed be his Name!) himself. To quote an early Sufi, their teaching "…is a science through which one can know how to travel in the presence of the Divine…"
Their beliefs and persons have been persecuted by more fundamental (and, thereby, less mystically inclined) individuals. Consequently, their writings and practices took on an esoteric, secretive tone.
In the early centuries, Iman Al Ghazali answered that Sufic doctrine was compatible with Islamic law conclusively. In fact, "Sufism…is the central organizing principle of many…[other] Islamic groupings."
With the rise of more strident forms of Islam, Sufism is currently under duress. In many regions the repression made them illegal, and forced them underground. For instance, the Turkish government compelled the whirling dervishes into a mere entertainment. Yet there are areas in the Muslim world where they are still strong. To understand the attitude for an inquirer, a Sufi master was quoted as saying, "…the seeker must not self-diagnose" the situation.
The Islanicists have no sympathy for the Sufi reverence for saints, and their pilgrimages to the holy tombs for religious merit. In my following comments, these pilgrimages and the places of devotion and worship will be placed in context.
Persianate culture had a dominant position in the old Hindustan even before the rise of the Mughal Empire. An Indo-Persian culture dominated from western Persia well into the Subcontinent after the Muslim Empires in India, and Sufism had dominated Persian thinking before it crossed from Southwest into South Asia. Now, Sindh (presently in Pakistan) had been Islamic since the Ninth Century of the Common Era (i.e., A.D.). Sufism came forward with the Islamic conquest, but not from the top to the bottom. It burst through at the "grassroots" level (i.e., bottom up), and was greatly embedded in the evolving Indo-Persian Islam. The "Missionaries" were the humble, holy Pirs, a type of holy men with which the Medieval Indians could easily culturally identify. Soon, converted Indians adapted Islam and the Persian Worldview of Islam – even though they may not have chosen Shi'a religious views.
An Afshan Bokari pointed out that female devotees upheld the high ideals of religiosity within the Timurid Empire, and were the mainstay of the Mosques during this period which not only included India, but Iran into Mesopotamia – even into Syria — and a good extent of Central Asia. The Empire, founded by the Sunni military genius Emir Timur (Shakespeare's Tamerlane) was comparatively short-lived. Most of the acquisition of territory occurred during the late Fourteenth into the early Fifteenth Centuries (C.E.). This brief Imperial sway not only spread S.W. Asian ideas, but mystical Islam. as well. This can be termed a Timurid "ideology." Mystical Islam centered on feminine participation, also. This is markedly at odds with the modern Islamicists' dogma. A site was shaped into the sacred by an association with a saint or a sacred act, etc. This confine almost became a "…second Mecca!"
The major contemporary art historian, Catherine Asher, from Minnesota spoke on the "Sufic Shrines of Shahul Hamid in India and Southeast Asia." The basic style of the Sufic shrines spread into Peninsular and Insular S.E. Asia forming a consistent Southern Asian approach to sacred space. On the emigration of the righteous Pirs, it is hard to determine fact from legend. The Enlightened man often died in his travels. South Indian Islam, from which Southeast Asian cultural religiousness derived, assumed many traits of traditional Hinduism – in this case the veneration of exceptionally piously devout men, and this practice advanced ever eastward. Males were encouraged to go to the tombs, besides, for a sort of "darshan," or, in the Islamic cognizance, a type of religious merit. Basically, the Sufis' influence flowed over three different faiths because the Pirs exhibited extraordinary powers to do miracles in their lifetime, and to bequest assistance from the tomb to his devoted believers – whatever the saint's follower's religiosity!
Kishwar Rizvi talked about a shrine in the present Pakistani Punjab that was built around circa 1300 (C.E.). Most of the devoted came from the minority Shia community there. Further, there are many Sufic elements in the shrine, for it revolves around the casket of a Saint endowing the building as sared space. Women still retain a great responsibility in sustaining the shrine's sacredness. On the other hand, sexual degenerates are attracted to the location because of the laissez faire attitudes of the worshippers which may detract from the great postiveness of the greater Movement to more mainstream Muslims.
In this essay, your scribe has tried to describe a living tradition in Islam in historical and conteporary terms that has been repressed by the main thrust of the religion today, but is still strong among the common people in particular localities all over the World, and, furthermore, has brought many Westerners to the Qur`an, for its mystical saving methodologies.
Israeli Bestseller Breaks National Taboo : Idea of a Jewish People Invented, Says Historian
October 16, 2008 by TMO · Leave a Comment
Courtesy Jonathan Cook, antiwar.com
No one is more surprised than Shlomo Sand that his latest academic work has pent 19 weeks on Israel`s bestseller list – and that success has come to the history professor despite his book challenging Israel's biggest taboo. Dr. Sand argues that the idea of a Jewish nation – whose need for a safe haven was originally used to justify the founding of the state of Israel – is myth invented little more than a century ago.
An expert on European history at Tel Aviv University, Dr. Sand drew on extensive historical and archaeological research to support not only this claim but several more – all equally controversial. In addition, he argues that the Jews were never exiled from the Holy Land, that most of today`s Jews have no historical connection to the land called Israel and that the only political solution to the country's conflict with the Palestinians is to abolish the Jewish state. The success of When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? looks likely to be repeated around the world. A French edition, launched last month, is selling so fast that it has already had three print runs.
Translations are under way into a dozen languages, including Arabic and English. But he predicted a rough ride from the pro-Israel lobby when the book is launched by his English publisher, Verso, in the United States next year.
In contrast, he said Israelis had been, if not exactly supportive, at least curious about his argument. Tom Segev, one of the country`s leading journalists, has called the book `fascinating and challenging.` Surprisingly, Dr. Sand said, most of his academic colleagues in Israel have shied away from tackling his arguments.
One exception is Israel Bartal, a professor of Jewish history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Writing in Haaretz, the Israeli daily newspaper, Dr. Bartal made little effort to rebut Dr. Sand`s claims. He dedicated much of his article instead to defending his profession, suggesting that Israeli historians were not as ignorant about the invented nature of Jewish history as Dr. Sand contends.
The idea for the book came to him many years ago, Dr. Sand said, but he waited until recently to start working on it. `I cannot claim to be particularly courageous in publishing the book now,` he said. `I waited until I was a full professor. There is a price to be paid in Israeli academia for expressing views of this sort.`
Dr. Sand`s main argument is that until little more than a century ago, Jews thought of themselves as Jews only because they shared a common religion. At the turn of the 20th century, he said, Zionist Jews challenged this idea and started creating a national history by inventing the idea that Jews existed as people separate from their religion.
Equally, the modern Zionist idea of Jews being obligated to return from exile to the Promised Land was entirely alien to Judaism, he added.
`Zionism changed the idea of Jerusalem. Before, the holy places were seen as places to long for, not to be lived in. For 2,000 years Jews stayed away from Jerusalem not because they could not return but because their religion forbade them from returning until the messiah came.
The biggest surprise during his research came when he started looking at the archaeological evidence from the biblical era.
`I was not raised as a Zionist, but like all other Israelis I took it for granted that the Jews were a people living in Judea and that they were exiled by the Romans in 70AD.
`But once I started looking at the evidence, I discovered that the kingdoms of David and Solomon were legends.
`Similarly with the exile. In fact, you can`t explain Jewishness without exile. But when I started to look for history books describing the events of this exile, I couldn`t find any. Not one.
`That was because the Romans did not exile people. In fact, Jews in Palestine were overwhelming peasants and all the evidence suggests they stayed on their lands.`
Instead, he believes an alternative theory is more plausible: the exile was a myth promoted by early Christians to recruit Jews to the new faith. `Christians wanted later generations of Jews to believe that their ancestors had been exiled as a punishment from God.`
So if there was no exile, how is it that so many Jews ended up scattered around the globe before the modern state of Israel began encouraging them to `return`? Dr. Sand said that, in the centuries immediately preceding and following the Christian era, Judaism was a proselytizing religion, desperate for converts.
This is mentioned in the Roman literature of the time.` Jews traveled to other regions seeking converts, particularly in Yemen and among the Berber tribes of North Africa. Centuries later, the people of the Khazar kingdom in what is today south Russia, would convert en masse to Judaism, becoming the genesis of the Ashkenazi Jews of central and eastern Europe.
Dr. Sand pointed to the strange state of denial in which most Israelis live, noting that papers offered extensive coverage recently to the discovery of the capital of the Khazar kingdom next to the Caspian Sea.
Ynet, the website of Israel`s most popular newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, headlined the story: `Russian archaeologists find long-lost Jewish capital.`
And yet none of the papers, he added, had considered the significance of this find to standard accounts of Jewish history.
One further question is prompted by Dr. Sand`s account, as he himself notes: if most Jews never left the Holy Land, what became of them?
`It is not taught in Israeli schools but most of the early Zionist leaders, including David Ben Gurion [Israel`s first prime minister], believed that the Palestinians were the descendants of the area's original Jews. They believed the Jews had later converted to Islam.`
Dr. Sand attributed his colleagues` reticence to engage with him to an implicit acknowledgement by many that the whole edifice of `Jewish history` taught at Israeli universities is built like a house of cards.
The problem with the teaching of history in Israel, Dr. Sand said, dates to a decision in the 1930s to separate history into two disciplines: general history and Jewish history. Jewish history was assumed to need its own field of study because Jewish experience was considered unique.
`There's no Jewish department of politics or sociology at the universities. Only history is taught in this way, and it has allowed specialists in Jewish history to live in a very insular and conservative world where they are not touched by modern developments in historical research.
`I`ve been criticized in Israel for writing about Jewish history when European history is my specialty. But a book like this needed a historian who is familiar with the standard concepts of historical inquiry used by academia in the rest of the world.`
This article originally appeared in The National, published in Abu Dhabi.
Muslim scientists and thinkers–Abu Hamid al-Ghazali
September 11, 2008 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Syed Aslam
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, also known in west as Algazel, was born at Tus, Iran in the year 1058 CE. His father died while he was very young. He received his early education at Tus and at the age of fourteen he went to Gurgan. Here he studied Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) and after seven years he moved to the city of Nishapur and became the student of famous scholar Abu Maali Juwayni.
He soon acquired a high standard of scholarship in religion, philosophy and fiqh. The vizier of the Seljuk Sultan, impressed by his scholarship, appointed him as a Professor at the Nizamiyah University of Baghdad, which was the most reputed institution of learning at that time.
After a few years, however, he gave up his academic pursuits and worldly interests and became a wandering ascetic.
After spending some time in Jerusalem, Makkah and Medina he came back to Tus and spent several years in seclusion. He finally ended his seclusion, opened a Sufi school khanakah and started teaching and lecturing. He remained in Tus until his death in December of 1111 CE.
Among the Muslim theologians, al- Ghazali was the most influential; in addition he was a philosopher, a Jurist and a Sufi mystic. He was a prolific writer, authoring more than 70 books. Probably his major work, the multi-volume Ihya ul-Uloom ud-Din, (The Revival of Religious Sciences), can be divided into four parts, which cover perhaps all aspects of Islam, including Islamic jurisprudence, theology and Sufism.
In this series he pointed out that the traditional teaching about Islam did not convince him in his adolescence. His conviction came later, through his Sufi mystical experience. In his autobiography; The Deliverance from Error, he recounts how his spiritual crisis was resolved by a light from God, the key to all knowledge. The Sufi mystical experience brought changes in his theological thought.
Al-Ghazali authored two books on Islamic theology, The Middle Path in Theology and The Jerusalem Epistle. In both books the theological position he expressed matches with the Asharite school of thought. He wrote three books on Aristotelian logic, The Standard Measure of Knowledge, The Touchstone of Proof of Logic and The Just Balance.
Al-Ghazali was very much interested in logic and philosophy, and he studied intensively while he was teaching at Baghdad. He composed two books on philosophy; The Intention of the Philosopher, in which he has summarized his own conclusions about philosophy, and set the stage for the second book; The Incoherence of the Philosophers. In this book he has used exhaustive logic against philosophers. He vehemently rejected Aristotle, Plato and all Muslim philosophers starting from eighth century who incorporated the ancient Greek philosophy into Islamic theology. The main among them were al Kindi, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. Point by point, he refuted their arguments.
For 100 years his arguments were unchallenged. Ibn Rushd, an Andalusian philosopher, made a counter-argument in his book The Incoherence of the Incoherence, but the epistemological course of Islamic thought had already been set by al-Ghazali.
Al-Ghazali divided knowledge into three categories; praiseworthy, permissible and blameworthy–which he has discussed in his book Ihya Ulum-id-Din (Revival of the Religious Sciences). All learning connected to religion is praiseworthy, but when mixed with other than religion sometimes becomes blameworthy. Learning medicine and mathematics he said are permissible and declared it as farze Kefayah, not ferze Ayin. If a man in a town or a locality acquires such knowledge, the whole community get absolved from the sin.
In his book al-Mustasfa which he wrote towards the end of his life, he stated that arithmetic and geometry are pure rational sciences and as such not recommended for study. They fluctuate between false and true knowledge that yield no practical application. He saw no usefulness in the study of physics and said some part of the subject as it was understood in his time contradicted the Shariah and thus were useless or blameworthy.
Al-Ghazali believed in the certainty of God which he experienced by mystic revelation, a phenomena he said was beyond logic or sensory perception. He argued that you can not prove the presence of God by logic or philosophy, and saw philosophy as largely a waste of time and inadequate for discovering the truth. Contingent events, he said, are not subject to natural physical cause, but are direct result of God's constant intervention. This concept of God is consistent with the Asharite school of theology.
Al-Ghazali's work had a widespread influence on western medieval scholars especially Thomas Aquinas. He received wide recognition in the religious institutions of the Ottoman empire, southeast Asia, and Africa. In the Indian subcontinent, he enjoyed wide recognition both among the Deobandi school as well as the arch-rival Barelwi school.
The Hui People and the Earthquake
May 29, 2008 by TMO · Leave a Comment
By Geoffrey Cook, MMNS
Alameda (Calif.)–May 26, 2008–The recent tragedies that have overtaken Southeast Asia and the Far East have impacted Muslim communities — although in a minority there; i.e., Burma (see my recent article on the subject in this paper a few weeks ago), and Sichuan (China). Today I shall spend my time on that huge Chinese Province devastated by the massive earthquake of mid-month (May).
We in the West do not think of Islam as a major force outside the Middle East, but the People's Republic of China has 56 officially recognized minorities. Ten of those are from the Muslim ummah. The estimates of the Muslim population in Chinga vary from 10 to 100 million — making that country one of the twenty most populous Muslim countries upon our globe.
The Muslim people there are divided into those ten recognized groups plus smaller grouping – all based on ethnicity. The Hui are the largest of the ten distinct Muslim ethnic groups. Some say the Hui Muslims are the descendants of Arab, Persian and Turkish Muslim immigrants who intermarried with the local Han (majority) Chinese people. Others say they are descended from Companions who emigrated in the early days of Islam to mainland China. There are approximately ten million Hui Muslims in China. Their culture is the same as that of the majority Han Chinese with the difference that the Hui practice Islam and do not eat pork or drink alcohol. Much of the Hui homeland is in the region of the epicenter of the devastating earthquake in Sichan Province.
Historically speaking — other than the practice of Islam — there is not much difference from the Han (majority Chinese). For the Huis, being a Muslim means belonging to an (independent) subethnic group, and thus their ["academic" or formal] knowledge of Islam is practically non-existent to the point that they do not even know the basic pillars of Islam, and yet they consider themselves Hui. On the other hand, there are recent Han Chinese converts who follow Islam much more stringently than the Hui, but they do not like to be called Hui because they are purely Han Chinese. Like Christianity, Islam crosses the boundaries of race and ethnicity. For the Musim, all that is necessary is the simple (paraphrased) Credo (in Engish): "I bear witness that there is no god except God (Allah), and Muhammad is the messenger of God!" (s).
Back to China's disaster and her peoples (the traditional Hui Musims and the newer Han converts), in terms of lifestyles, the two groups are almost identical – to the point of speaking the same language. Even amongst the Hui one will find people who eat pork, though, and even drink alcohol; so it is difficult to tell where the Hui begins or the Han ends.
Unfortunately, with the immensity of the destruction, I could not locate articles that addressed directly — with hard facts and figures — the impact of the earthquake upon the Hui and other Chinese Musims and their immediate needs. Therefore, because of their populace's concentration, it is unfortunately fair to assume that the Hui have been unevenly affected by the tragedy.
Even before the devastation, Islamic Charities had been active in China improving the lives of poorer Chinese citizens irrespective of religion. Beijing has recently expressed their gratitude to all the Musim charities working towards the humanitarian relief of their citizens – most especially to the Muslim relief workers, for with their geographical closeness to the disaster, they were some of the first to arrive into the interior with relief.
Community News (V9-I39)
September 20, 2007 by TMO · Leave a Comment
Faith communities urged to shine the light on post-911 discrimination
CHICAGO, IL—Two leading faith-based publishers – one Muslim, one Christian – urged that faith communities "shine the light" on a disturbing pattern of discrimination across America in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
"We live in a xenophobic country," said the Rev. John Buchanan, editor and publisher of The Christian Century magazine. "We thought we had [even] taken care of anti-Semitism and that has been popping up here and there. One of the things we must do is name it [xenophobia] and keep shining a light on it."
Buchanan, who is also pastor of Fourth Presbyterian Church here, was responding to a presentation from Imam Malik Mujahid, president of the largest Islamic publishing house in the U.S., who had offered some alarming statistics about what he called "the unreported domestic war on terror."
Since September 11, 2001, Mujahid said, 500,000 Muslims have been interviewed by the FBI. Mujahid estimated 24% of Muslim American households have had a visit from the FBI. He estimated 28,000 have been detained or deported. Mujahid said special prisons for Muslim prisoners have been established since 9/11 and "Halliburton has a government contract to build more."
Mujahid, who is imam to three mosques and chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, said he constantly hears critics claim that Muslim leaders do not condemn terrorism. Muslim leaders have been doing that all along, he said, pointing to a unanimous resolution of the U.S. Senate praising Muslim leaders for speaking out. That resolution got virtually no media attention, he noted.
Both religious leaders shared their thoughts on "The Legacy of 9/11 on Media, Faith and Society." The interfaith dialogue, held on the sixth anniversary of the 2001 terrorism events, was hosted by the Communication Commission of the National Council of Churches USA (NCC) meeting near the national headquarters of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, one of the NCC's 35 member communions.
Mujahid had many examples of what he says Muslims call "Islamophobia" but he particularly pointed to the swearing in of Keith Ellison, the first Muslim American elected to the U.S. Congress. Last December Rep. Virgil Goode (R.-Va.) had made anti-Muslim remarks regarding Ellison's use of the Koran in the private ceremony in taking his oath of office.
"There was no statement from the Republican Party" objecting to Rep. Goode's remarks, he said. "There was no statement from President Bush."
Buchanan acknowledged the National Council of Church's role in speaking up on behalf of those who are being scapegoated in our country but said, "the evangelicals have just 'out-mediaed' us in the past few years." He urged moderate mainline churches to speak out more loudly on behalf of "our Muslim brothers and sisters" and protest Islamaphobia when it is seen.
"We must say no to the late D. James Kennedy's notion that this is a Christian nation and we must do all we can to elect Christians to office to keep it that way," Buchanan said. "We must say no to Franklin Graham's statements…[that disparage] Muslims."
Buchanan said, we must concentrate on the "inclusive and tolerant tradition" that is in all of our sacred texts. He read from Isaiah 19 as an example of "the inclusive view of God?that's worth knowing about and talking about."
"What are you going to do with information like that?" asked the Rev. Michael Livingston, NCC president, who was moderator of the discussion. "The level of ignorance and lack of awareness in the religious community, this war, this is part of our legacy," Livingston told the church communicators. He challenged his audience to "move this legacy in a different direction."
The National Council of Churches USA is the ecumenical voice of 35 of America's Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, historic African American and traditional peace churches. Those member communions represent 45 million faithful Christians in 100,000 congregations in all 50 states.
Chicago cabbies get tickets while praying
CHICAGO, IL–Muslim taxi drivers in Chicago have alleged that as many as 500 of them have been ticketed for parking vehicles in access lanes near O'Hare Airport while pray at a nearby prayer trailer. The trailer has been set up by the city for making it convenient for observant drivers to pray. Cab drivers claim that despite providing them with the location, the city punishes them with hefty fines for using it.
The tickets ranging from $50 to $80 can cut a driver's daily profits into half.
"The financial impact, at least from a revenue standpoint, is huge," says Wolfgang J. Weiss, one of the managing directors of the Chicago Professional Taxicab Drivers Association. "We just want them to back off."
Aviation Department spokesman Greg Cunningham said authorities do not want to interrupt Muslims and their prayer habits, according to Chicago Suntimes. But he contends that cabbies must follow the rules at a facility that needs to be clear of traffic in order for operations to run smoothly and safely.
"It's a temporary parking and holding area," Cunningham said. "If a vehicle blocks off other vehicles from leaving the facility, it becomes a problem."
Malaysian Fulbright scholar to visit Montgomery County
Rosnani Hashim, professor of education at the International Islamic University in Malaysia, will be at Montgomery County Community College from Oct. 18 until Nov. 11.
During her stay, Hashim will engage in scholarly activities both at the college and in the community.
In Malaysia, Hashim has taught educational philosophy, history and sociology from the Islamic perspective since 1987 at the International Islamic University.
She has written extensively on Islamic education and its roles and position in a multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-faith society like Malaysia, and she has lectured abroad on the issues of Muslim worldview, education, curriculum and women.
Hashim holds a doctor of philosophy (PhD) degree in education from the University of Florida, a master of science degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Wisconsin and a bachelor's in mathematics from Northern Illinois University.
She has served as the vice president of Women's Affairs for the Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia, and she has published six books and has written more than 30 articles, book chapters and papers.
"It's tremendously prestigious that our students will have the opportunity to interact with another Fulbright scholar," said Aaron Shatzman, dean of social science and writer of the Fulbright scholar application.
"We are among a very elite group of institutions to be awarded a visiting specialist under this program. Dr. Hashim will afford both the college and community at large a valuable perspective into higher education from a Muslim point of view."
"The presence of a Fulbright scholar on our campuses is yet another demonstration of the high quality and excellence of the education and cultural outreach that we provide to our students and the community," said Karen A. Stout, president of Montgomery County Community College. "We are deeply honored to welcome a scholar of Dr. Hashim's stature to our institution."
The Fulbright Visiting Specialist program "Direct Access to the Muslim World" is sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State and administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES) in Washington, D.C.
Interfaith support for Jewish temple
FAYETTEVILLE, AK–When a Jewish congregation was facing opposition from the community over its plans to construct a synagogue in the Butterfly House neighborhood, help came from an unexpected quarter. Fadil Bayyari, a practicing Muslim, approached the congregation and offered to provide contracting services at cost.
Bayyari was aware of similar opposition faced by Muslims across the nation and wanted to help.
" Having that partnership with a practicing Muslim and Palestinian Arab, we really feel that spirit will cross religious boundaries and attract people from all walks of life, " said Ralph Nesson, a member of the fundraising committee.
Mosque proposed in Manchester
MANCHESTER, CT–The Connecticut town may get its first mosque soon, if the plans of a group of local Muslims are approved.
The Association of Muslim Community is requesting a special exception to allow a place of worship in a residential zone. The group hopes to renovate a small, single-family house at 232 Woodland St. and convert it into a mosque, Association of Muslim Community Treasurer Tarek Ambia said.
Ambia said the group consists of about 25 to 30 Muslims, most of them Manchester residents, who now travel to East Hartford, Hartford, and Windsor to worship and who would like to establish a mosque closer to their homes.
"They feel like they should have something here locally," Ambia said.
Town regulations allow places of worship in residential zones as long as they meet several requirements in areas such as parking and screening between the place of worship and nearby homes.
Plan to build first Mosque in Hawaii questioned
A Muslim group in Hawaii is soliciting donations to build what would be the Island's first mosque. The "Masjid Al-Baqi Project" plans to acquire a house in the Kona Highlands subdivision and convert it into a mosque.
But the plan has already attracted media scrutiny after the seller of the house and her listing agent say that the house is in escrow but not for Syed Kamal Majid, the only person named in the documents connected with the Mosque project.
The listing agent says the buyers are "a Hawaiian family" and have noting to do with any mosque plan.
MAS Freedom Launches 'Faith over Fear and Justice for All' Campaign in Texas
KATY, TX—The Muslim American Society has launched a campaign to fight attempts to slander and intimidate the Muslim community of Katy, Texas. The Muslim community is facing stiff opposition for its plans to build an Islamic center.
Opponents of the center, who own property adjacent to the site of the proposed Islamic Center of Katy, have initiated an Anti-Muslim campaign, which includes the use of a misleading internet website address that continues to post extremely derogatory and inflammatory propaganda directed against the Muslim community and Prophet Muhammad (s).
The purpose of the Faith Over Fear and Justice for All Initiative, according to MAS Freedom Executive Director Mahdi Bray, is to "encourage and build a positive interfaith atmosphere that affirms the right of all people of faith to live in freedom from intimidation and hatred, and that builds bridges of real understanding and mutual respect for the good of the entire community."
Book Reviews
April 5, 2007 by TMO · Leave a Comment
Lebanon: A House Divided
By Sandra Mackey
W. W. Norton & Company
The author of The Saudis and The Iranians, Sandra Mackey, a veteran journalist and expert on Middle Eastern culture and politics, has republished her 1989 volume Lebanon: Death of a Nation with a new introduction with the latest occurrences in Lebanon; giving the reader a better comprehension of this sometimes misunderstood country.
Going over Lebanon's history, including the civil war of 1975-89, Mackey also makes sense of the divisions between Lebanon's religious and cultural groups; Lebanon's toleration of Hezbollah; and Iran's financial support for Lebanon.
Lebanon will be beneficial to those looking to gain knowledge beyond news media reports.
The book can be purchased at bookstores for $15.95.
Even Angels Ask: A Journey to Islam in America
By Jeffrey Lang
Amana Publications
A professor of mathematics, Jeffrey Lang, a Catholic turned agnostic, became a Muslim in the early 1980s.
In Even Angels Ask, Lang shares with the reader the experiences of American Muslim converts and young Muslims who find it difficult to follow the faith of their parents in American society.
In chapter one, Lang discusses how young American Muslims leave their religion as they get older. He finds that the children of Muslim parents, asked about their religion, say often that their parents are Muslim but that they do not belong to any particular religion.
Has the Western way of life changed their perspective of Islam?
In chapter two, Lang talks about God and the Qur'an; quoting verses; the Beautiful Names; life; prayer; worship; temptation; the Prophet (s) and so forth.
Chapter three discusses the struggles converts go through as they try to decipher what ritual portions of the religion they see are from "Islam" and which are not a part of Islam but non-religious cultural practices.
Chapter four takes the reader into the life of a Muslim and Muslim convert as they bear witness to Islam and follow the five pillars of their faith.
Chapter five, titled "The Best of Communities" goes over Lang's experiences after he became a Muslim and the reactions of non-Muslims and other Muslims.
In Chapter six, he discusses "The Road Ahead" for newcomers, immigrants Muslims, the community and society.
- Even Angels Ask is a must read for Muslims and non-Muslims wanting to understand the difficulties and trials young and converting Muslims go through in America. The book can be purchased online or at bookstores.
Hispanic Muslims in Atlanta Overcome Anti-Muslim stereotypes
March 1, 2007 by TMO · Leave a Comment
Caption: (from left to right) Converts Ismail Watters, Nidhal Watters, Maryan Watters and Siri Carrión pray to Allah in their living room in Snellville, Georgia.
By Ana Catalina Varela, Independent Submission
Adapted by TMO from an article originally published in Mundo Hispanico, a Spanish-language weekly in Atlanta, Georgia.
Hispanic Muslims in Atlanta are set on changing the negative image that some in the Latino community might have of them. That is the mission of the Atlanta Latino Muslim Association (ALMA), a group founded by Siri Carrion, a Puerto Rican woman who is also Muslim.
Wearing her hijab and kneeling, Carrion starts preparing to pray alongside her four children. One of them, Ismail, raises his hands and starts by saying the 'adhan, inviting the angels into this family's living room.
Carrion, who grew up in Northern California as a Muslim, moved to Georgia about eight years ago and saw the need for Latino Muslims to come together.
She is the founder of ALMA, the first group in the state that seeks to unite Hispanics who profess Islam, to create a venue for them to share their culture and religion.
"As Latino Muslims we seek unity and also to educate the rest of the Hispanic community about Islam, especially with the war in Iraq and after 9/11, there are some who have a negative perspective of what it is to me Muslim," said Carrion.
She explains that one of the main reasons why ALMA was founded were to raise awareness in the community about Islam and to provide access to information in Spanish to those who want to learn and understand the religion.
"We currently have about 20 members who come from countries like Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, Cuba and Puerto Rico, just to name a few. As Latinos and Muslims, we speak the same language, eat similar foods and have similar cultural perspectives, and we also share the same faith," she added.
Carrion, who works as a tax administrator for a business in the city of Marietta, also dispels the myths that some have of Muslim women. Being Muslim and a woman have not been an obstacle for her to become an example for her two young daughters.
The oldest of them, 13 year-old Maryam, looks up to her and wears her hijab proudly to school every day.
"I was raised in Islam but I was not forced to use the hijab. I chose to use it as an adult. But my daughter chose to wear it since she was young. She does so with pride and has never been teased at school, she is proud to believe in Islam and the other children see her as a faithful Muslim," said Carrion.
Posted on her fridge, she has a picture of one of the hijacked planes flying into one of the World Trade Center towers on September 11. She explains that her purpose in doing so is to reject those violent actions and to remind her children that they are not like those men. They are a family of peace-seeking, God-loving Muslims.
SE Michigan, Vol. 9 Iss. 4
January 18, 2007 by TMO · Leave a Comment
'Eidul Ghadeer at Islamic House of Wisdom
Reported by independent reporter Amanda Khalil
Dearborn Heights–January 13–The Islamic House of Wisdom held its annual celebration of Eid Al Ghadeer on Saturday. It was a sizeable community event commemorating Prophet's (s) praising Sayyidina Ali (kw).
'Eidul Ghadeer is an event celebrated by Shi'a in connection with the hajj. According to their tradition, upon the completion of the Prophet Muhammad's (s) final hajj he stopped in Ghadeer Khum whereupon he announced some core principles of Shi'a belief. .
Upon entering the IHW, aromas of delicious foods and the echo of chatter filled the room. Guests of the dinner enjoyed a scrumptious array of foods, drinks, and desserts. A recitation of the Qur`an permeated the guests' ears for all to savor. It was an event that kindled the warmth of family and community togetherness.
There were lectures in Arabic and English on the importance of the hajj and the wisdom behind it. Hajj represents prayer, charity, education; submission to God's will, total connection, and is a purifying process. They said hajj should be a deep spiritual revolution in a person's mind, heart, and soul. Imam Elahi said, "the lesson one learns on the spiritual journey of hajj should be taken back to every corner of the world as a light and purity to all the nations."
Imam Jowad spoke of the symbolism of the hajj, "Imagine waking up and seeing such a large number of people rising in the morning, almost as if they were rising from the graves in a sort of metaphorical symbolism for the resurrection, and a humbling experience as one sheds the possessions and comfort of the worldly life for a deeper connection and understanding." He urged Muslims as they come back from hajj to remember the comforts of this life that they lost on hajj, and carry that appreciation of what they have been blessed with in their hearts. When they see someone without a bed, remember when they didn't have a bed and feel compassion for humanity.
Imam Mohammed Elahi discussed the importance of togetherness and unity amongst all Muslims on the Hajj, "During the pilgrimage peoples of diverse nations and languages unite together in prayer, love, and brotherhood, which we should take an example from, lighting the way to unify the Sunni and Shi'a schools of thought in order to work together in peace and harmony for a common goal of understanding and communication."
Carly Chirifi, a Muslim convert who attended the lectures commented on the evening saying, "It was a really welcoming atmosphere. It gave me a sense of togetherness, and the lectures really opened my mind about hajj on a spiritual level. It improved my faith, and I'd recommend all people regardless of their faith to attend events such as these to open one's mind; and elevate their understanding of the humanity and unity we all share."
Local ladies go formal
By Beena Inam Shamsi
Southfield–January 14–Muslim Women Up! has found a unique way of helping today's young women. Sometimes you just need to get dressed to the nines.
Recently, MWU celebrated its second annual "all sisters ball" at Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel in Southfield, Mich. Women of all ages came, dressed in their evening gowns. There were no men allowed.
"It gives the young girls the opportunity to dress up and meet with other Muslim girls," said Mimo Debryn, a guest attending the ball and an advisor of the Youth of America of the Unity Center in Bloomfield Hills.
MWU is a non-profit social- and community-based organization. Its purpose is to welcome all Muslim women regardless of race, class, or culture. It is working hard to bridge community gaps and form a community of true sisterhood.
The event started at around 6 p.m. with Qur`an recitation and a speech on strengthening the `ummah, followed by games, dinner,, a fashion show and dancing. It was a picture-perfect evening.
The chairman of MWU and a mother, Khadijah Abdullah, said, "I have found huge segregation in the Muslim community. Girls don't know other girls. We are losing a lot of girls because of it. Lack of knowledge is causing this segregation. Looking at my own daughter, I don't want to see her lost." She said she wants the girls to realize they are not alone and Islam is a way to help everyone.
Initiating Muslim events has increased Islamic knowledge and promoted personal religious growth.
"There is still culture segregation, where Indian goes to the Indian events, Pakistanis goes to their Pakistani events and Arabs goes to theirs. When you grow up here, you are growing within diversity. Muslim Women Up! is a wonderful opportunity to bring the community together," Debryn said.
The chair of the youth council, Yasmeen Thomas was the inspiration behind the organization. She was confused between her Muslim and non-Muslim relatives. She couldn't decide which path to choose and then she thought about organizing a platform for young women to come forward and have fun within the Islamic norms. "I thought I was the only one with the problems but there were other girls as well. It is a place to reach out to young sisters," she said.
Abdullah said a cohesive community could be built by introducing girls to other girls. MWU has brought a positive change for the young girls. "Last year there were three races; 90 percent African American, 3 percent European and 7 percent Arabic. This time we have seven races," Abdullah said.
MWU also offers a monthly spa day to bring together the sisters of all communities for a day of pampering said the publicity chair, Raina Thomas.
Every month, teens from ages 14-19, get together for a sleepover where they are provided with Muslimah counselors to create a safe place where they can talk out their issues and begin on a road to better communication, self-awareness, self-esteem and family relationships.
MWU's meetings take place in once a month. Meeting are the last Saturday of the month from 3-5 pm starting February 24, 2007.
For more info or to join MWU call Khadijah at 313 205 8764.
CIOM meeting to discuss recent acts of vandalism
Dearborn–A meeting of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan (CIOM) was held last week, comprising about 25 local community leaders from the Sunni and Shi'a communities. The meeting was held in the wake of some very unfortunate acts of vandalism earlier, apparently by radical Sunnis against Shi'a two mosques and several other businesses. Prominent local imams including Imam Qazwini of the Islamic Center of America, Imam Elahi of the Islamic House of Wisdom, Imam El-Amin of the Detroit Unity Center, and Imam Mohammad Moosa of the Bloomfield Unity Center, among other prominent guests, were present.
The focus of the discussion was on promoting congenial relations between all of the different leaders, to maintain a good and friendly basis and not to be at odds with one another, so that cooperation and communication are facilitated at times of crisis when it is important for all communities to work together.
Another meeting is scheduled on February 5th at the Islamic American University.
Free Fibromyalgia Workshop
Press Release: Livonia–a local authority will be appearing at the Carl Sandburg Library for a free workshop on Wed., January 31, 2007 at 7 pm to "reveal the shocking truth behind what can be causing Fibromyalgia. This event is sponsored by the National Wellness Foundation, a non-profit organization.
To register fro the free workshop, call 248-426-0201 and leave a message.