I was reminded of the conversation in the editor-in-chief’s office while reading some comments on Aiman Reyaz’s article ‘Does Islam Allow Wife-Beating’, which highlight how Arab culture is being propagated worldwide in the name of Islam, how Muslims in non-Arab nations are being told to pray in Arab-style mosques and, indeed, wear Arab dresses.

The irony is profound. The confusion of the Muslim who must look and behave like an Arab in his own country, and then act like someone from his own country when he goes to the Arabian peninsula, is at the heart of the intellectual and spiritual dilemma facing Islam today. What does it mean to be a Muslim? Is it to assume a particular physical appearance (beards, Burqas) and particular social and moral values (eating beef, beating wives)? If yes, what is the source of this appearance and these values? Are they actually Islamic, or are they just Arab?...

 

As far as Sunni world is concerned, the first stubborn citadel of ultra secularism fell to this force in Turkey. This Turkish mass revolution came in full secular, democratic and peaceful manner. This was a miracle in the given Turkish scenario. It was accomplished by dint of the very ideological methods and tools which, to me, seem fit to be attributed as Islamic secularism. This Turkish experience was an eye opener in many ways to other Islamic revivalist movements and especially to Ulama, who are still relying on traditional thinking and are clinging to old stereotypes. …

Europe

Bradford Imams seek action on sexual grooming

Man jailed in UK for keeping Pak daughter-in-law as sex slave

India

India bows to US pressure, cuts Iran oil import by 11%

58697 Kashmiri migrants in country: Govt

Africa

Sharia Law Imposed in Mali

Tunisian Islamists join jihad against Syria's Assad

North America

Bush Says U.S. Must Stand by Reformists in Arab Spring

US sanctions Dawood Ibrahim's top aides Chhota Shakeel, Ibrahim Tiger Memon

French Afghan exit would impact Nato: US expert

South Asia

Taliban release video tape of Bannu jail assault

Bangladesh Denies Bail to 33 Opposition Leaders

Pakistan

Saeed serves legal notices on journos; seeks Rs. 100mn as damages

Relations with Nato, US at critical juncture: Gilani

Arab World

Anti-Qaeda sweep kills 53 across south Yemen

Southeast Asia

Indonesia: sexy clothes and dance moves will corrupt young people

Complied by New Age Islam News Bureau

Photo: Syed Zafar Hussain and Imam Musta Qeem Shah with the Imams’ statement on sexual grooming

For Details and More Headlines from All Regions, Please click, ‘More’

 

In the second part Believers are to follow the example set in the first part of 33-56. But in response Muslims remind God to do His duty that He has already done! This is very much like the salawaat (saw/pbuh) Muslims recite every time they take the Messenger’s name, although God has assured in Quran that He is “well pleased with them 9-100” and therefore has blessed them.

Conventionally speaking, one always ‘salutes’ one’s elders and seniors, like soldiers to their Officers. Then if God salutes the Messenger, does that mean that God treated the Messenger as ‘senior’ to Himself? The whole thing defies logic to the point of tears. But that is religion. (Greetings appear many times as “Salaamun” in Quran).....

 

A swarm of criticism has been levelled against Mona Eltahawy's recent Foreign Policy cover story on the state of women in the Arab world. The Quran is written in Arabic. And the people of Egypt, the largest Arabic-speaking Muslim country in the world, largely believe it to be the immutable, divine word of God -- Women are not allowed to recite it while they're menstruating. That is how much it's revered....

 

American President Barack Obama recently changed his mind on the question of homosexual marriage after a conversation with his wife and daughters. He said he realised that history was moving in their direction and that, sooner or later, such marriages would become widely accepted. Did he not discuss with his family the indignity of keeping individuals in prison without charges and without trial (for both in Israel and in the United States, dozens of widely recognised innocents remain behind bars)? Did his wife and daughters not help him understand that history cannot absolve states that legalise arbitrary arrest and torture.....

 

Sisters under the scarf: Fighting on the front line

Reports of Violence against Afghan Women are Sign of Change

Fabricated ‘farewell sex’ story casts shadow on Egypt women’s rights

Anti-Sharia Legislation Passes Undercover of ‘Women’s Rights’ Rhetoric

Afghan woman pushes for rights from behind the wheel

Crime Stoppers offers $200,000 reward in Iranian woman’s killing

Complied by New Age Islam News Bureau

Photo: Violence Against Afghan Women are Sign of Change

 

There is no doubt Tunisia is not Iran and the Tunisian revolution is not the same as the Islamic Revolution in Iran and Ghannoushi is not like Imam Khomeini, but how do these issues concern the West? Why is this powerful Tunisian movement so insistent on reassuring the West?...

 

The number of Muslims living in Madison County may be small, but they represent 20 percent of the world population. Beshir says it only makes sense to learn more about this faith shared by millions of people. "What we believe in doesn't need to be agreed upon by everybody else, but it will help for the majority to know more about the minority," he says. Through greater knowledge, he hopes will come greater understanding and acceptance…..

 

Islam, he said, was a faith while democracy was a mechanism for settling differences and breeding a harmonious society. He recounted how his views had changed and said it was because he decided to adopt a prisoner-of-conscience status. His captors began to support him once they were convinced that he was not a terrorist…..

 

مرکزی دھارے کی ہندو برادری کئی اہم اصلاحات کے دور سے گزر رہی ہے اور ان میں سے کئی قرآنی پیغامات کے عین مطابق ہیں، جن میں خاص طور سے  ذات پات کے نظام کے خاتمے، خواتین کو وراثت میں حق دینے کے لئے، ایک بیوہ کی دوبارہ شادی کے حق وغیرہ ہیں۔ دوسری طرف ہندوستانی مسلمان اصلاحات کی مخالفت کر رہے ہیں ٹھیک اسی طرح جیسےان کے  آبا و اجداد نے برطانوی ہندوستان میں کیا تھا جس کے نتیجے میں ہندوستان سے  ان کو خود مسلط اخراج، اور جس نے بین مذہبی نفرت اور فسادات کی فضا کو  پیدا کرنے میں مدد کی تھی۔  اگر مسلمان مرکزی دھارے میں شامل ہندو طبقے کی ترقی پسندی کے تیز اقدام کے ساتھ ساتھ چلنے کو  برقرار رکھنے میں ناکام رہتے ہیں تو  وہ ہندوستانی معاشرے کے اچھوت اور مغلوب کے طور پر ختم ہو جائیں گے اور ان لوگوں کے قہر کا شکار ہوں  گے جو ہندوستان  کو  چمکانا چاہتے ہیں اور  تعلیم یافتہ مسلمان اس خود عائد تباہی کے لئے اکیلے ذمہ داری ہوں گے۔

अगर मुसलमान मुख्य धारा के हिंदू वर्ग की प्रगतिशीलता के तेज कदमों के साथ तालमेल बनाए रखने में नाकाम रहते हैं तो हिंदुस्तानी समाज के अछूत और अभागे के तौर पर खत्म हो जायेंगे। और उन लोगों के क़हेर का शिकार होंगे जो हिंदुस्तान को चमकाना चाहते हैं और शिक्षित मुसलमान इस खुद आयेद तबाही के लिए अकेले जिम्मेदारी होंगे। इसके साथ ही लेखक न्यु एज इस्लाम से दरख्वास्त करता है कि वो RTE के मदरसों में विस्तार का समर्थन करने के लिए एक अभियान की शुरुआत करे।

This morning, he came to me asking to see a doctor. He said his ears were full of wax which rattled when he shook his head, and he wanted it removed. Then he tentatively asked me whether it was because of the earphones, and admitted that he had stopped using them for the past month anyway. Now that he mentioned it, I recall that I haven’t seen him with the gadget on for a while now, and can hear soft music from him room.....

Afghanistan’s liberal, West-supported president Hamid Karzai last week endorsed a “code of conduct” issued by an influential council of clerics that allows husbands to beat wives under certain circumstances. This has opened up a can of worms. Could the humane, compassionate feminist religion that Muslims believe Islam is, possibly allow wife-beating?

“I do not want this husband...He does not dominate me”? Said a woman, according to a rather weird preacher of his version of Islam. Is There Really a Need to “Admonish”, “Refuse” and “Beat” wives? What is Islam’s view on the subject of wife-beating? Does the Quran really allow it, as many Muslims claim? One of the more controversial issues in Islam is the Quran’s authorization for husbands to beat disobedient wives. This is found in chapter 4, verse 34. Additional references on wife beating are found in Prophet Muhammad’s traditions (hadith), and biographical material (sira). Many people condemn Islam because of this harsh “sanction”; many Muslims seek to mollify or defend it and many Muslims use this to their advantage to “rule over” their wives. Before jumping to any conclusion, the best thing would be …

 

بعض النساء لا يمكن العيش معهن بدون عصاة

A respected Deobandi scholar and prolific Urdu columnist on religious issues, Maulana Nadeemul Wajidi seems to be asking editors and contributors of New Age Islam, among some other Urdu columnists, why they criticize ulama (Islamic scholars) so much. As a matter of fact we value ilm a great deal and we naturally have the highest respect for the repositories of ilm that ulama are supposed to be. But if Juhala (ignoramuses) start claiming to be ulama on the basis of knowledge of books through rote learning while they are stopping the Muslim community from acquiring real ilm for which the Prophet asked us to go even as far as China (a country utterly devoid of Muslims at that time but full of non-Muslim scholars and artists), how is one to treat them. In the current article itself translated by Arman Neyazi of New Age Islam, the Maulana (itself an anomaly and perhaps “shirk” as this term should only refer to God) claims that Ilm (Knowledge) means knowledge of Deen.

Now, how on earth can one possibly feel any respect for such worthies who have spent a lifetime in madrasas and yet are so ignorant even of the history of madrasas, history of the greatest Muslim scientists, products of madrasas, who laid the foundation of modern European civilization? It’s not just a few ulama, as Maulana Saheb claims, who are making a few mistakes, it is the entire Darul Ifta of all such institutions in practically all schools of thought, that is making a mockery of Islam. And that is essentially because the so-called ulama are so awfully ignorant of current realities and sciences and arts other than some rote learning of the Quran and Hadees  that they cannot but make the Muslims a laughing stock and an object of Islamophobia. I hope readers of New Age Islam will have more to say on the subject. – Sultan Shahin, editor, New Age Islam

…there are illiberal democracies, too, where the majority’s power isn’t checked by constitutional liberalism, and the rights and freedoms of all citizens are not secured. This is a risk for the post-Arab Spring countries, and even for post-Kemalist Turkey. The real debate, therefore, is whether Islam is compatible with liberalism.  The main bone of contention is whether Islamic injunctions are legal or moral categories….