Iftar at a Hindu temple in communally sensitive Krishnapura

Suicide attack in Pakistan police colony kills 21

Islam will sooner or later dominate Europe: Italian priest

Muslims in Kerala take pledge against terrorism

Terrorists have planned attacks on Eid

This Eid, American Muslims pray for their safety

‘Iranian woman could be stoned to death soon’

Iran tells world ‘don’t make stoning rights issue’

Two US soldiers killed, nine wounded in Iraq

Over 550 people embrace Islam in Abu Dhabi

59 percent of Israeli teens don’t want Arab students in their class

Tribes clash in Kurram; 14 killed

2 Sunnis killed in Karachi

Jewish groups get most homeland security grants; few Muslim groups apply

Interfaith leaders: Fear, intolerance emerge over Islamic centre

Ayodhya a national issue, not political: Rajnath Singh

Kalyan issues warning before verdict

European Union calls it ‘barbaric’

US worried as pastor calls for Quran burning

Afghans Beat Pak Elite

Merkel Risks Muslim Anger

Another girls’ school destroyed in Kalam

UK to intensify relief efforts in Pakistan

Three killed in clash between tribes

US, allies should contain terrorists along Pak-Afghan border: IISS

Women rights violation

German police raids country’s biggest neo-Nazi group

 ‘200,000 students taking part in relief work’

India mulls judicial panel access to Kasab

Obama to mark September 11 at the Pentagon

Women hopefuls face particular risks in Afghan poll

Petraeus, NATO chief warn of Qur’an-burning repercussions

‘Lead exemplary lives by following Holy Book’

Imam behind NYC mosque back in US after Gulf trip

Weddings in the month of fasting — to be or not to be

Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau

Photo: An Iftar party at a Hindu temple in Krishnapura, Karnataka

Talking Is The Point 

The point is the talk itself. War may not happen, for conditions do not allow it, but talk of war very nearly serves the purpose of those who would like to see it happen. In short, war is best, but talk of war is a close second.

Such talk, from whichever perspective, helps build a siege mentality among an unsuspecting public. Whether you listen to arguments for or against, just the fact that you are listening to serious war talk all around you makes you feel you are, or soon could be, at war. And that opens you up to the idea of supporting the purchase of another aircraft bomber even if you can’t pay your mortgage instalment.

There is nothing new to this. Long before he propounded the clash of civilizations theory, Samuel P. Huntington made a name for himself by arguing that maintaining a large and fully equipped military was imperative for the United States even in times of peace. His book The Soldier and the State came out in 1957, when liberal Americans were wondering why they should spend millions of dollars on the military although the world war was well over and no new war was imminent. -- Saif Shahin

Ikhwanophobia.com highlights articles and statements by prominent Western media and political figures that are critical of the Brotherhood and Islam.

The website defines Ikhwanophobes - another term it coined - as those who believe Muslim Brotherhood members are religious fanatics, violent towards non-Muslims, and contemptuous of values such as equality, tolerance and democracy...

The Brotherhood, which supports Hamas in what it views as the legitimate armed resistance against Israel, has also been much criticised in the West for its position on suicide attacks inside Israel. -- Muhammad Shokry

An inconvenient truth

One beautiful September morning when the sky was unbelievably blue, the sunlight eerily ethereal and the air mystically magic, two silver jetliners flew straight into the Twin Towers killing everyone in them and destroying America’s most prized edifice. Hellfire followed. It took weeks, nay months to recover. The words ‘Taliban’ and ‘Al-Qaeda’ were introduced overnight in American diction. The world at large too discovered the term Al-Qaeda which before 9/11 was little known...

Nine years have gone by since 9/11, but the fires of hate, hostility and distrust among Muslims, Jews and Christians remain. They simmer at times; rage at others, but never go out. When one out of five Americans today firmly believes that President Barack Obama is a Muslim and not a Christian because he’s never seen attending church or carrying a Bible ala his predecessors Bill Clinton and George Bush, what is one to say?...

Fox News tells Americans that the Saudi prince is funding Islamic radicalism; it doesn’t want Americans to know that the same ‘guy’ is also funding Fox News! That’s the inconvenient truth. -- Anjum Niaz

In the 500 Most Influential Muslims 2010, Mr Winter is below the King of Saudi Arabia – who comes in at number one – but ahead of many more chronicled figures. He is ranked in an unspecified position between 51st and 60th, considerably higher than the three other British people who make the list – the Conservative Party chairman Baroness Warsi; the UK’s first Muslim life peer, Lord Nazir Ahmed, who was briefly jailed last year for dangerous driving; and Dr Anas Al Shaikh Ali, director of the International Institute of Islamic Thought – making him, at least in the eyes of the RISSC, Britain’s most influential Muslim...

In an increasingly secular Britain, sociologists suggest with regularity that “football is the new religion”. Winter understands the comparison. “Football has everything that is important to religion,” he says. “Solidarity, skill, ritual, the outward form of what looks like a sacred congregation. Except it’s not about anything.” Just don’t tell his brother. -- Paul Williams

Angelina Jolie meets flood victims in Pakistan

US drone kills five in North Wazirstan

Kashmir law empowering Army may be repealed

Danish 'Mohammed' cartoonist to receive German prize

Iraqi troops in the spotlight as bombers kill 12

Pak appeals people to boycott Indian channels

Oz Muslim leaders criticise Islamic cleric's 'call for beheading' Dutch politician

Wife Of Egyptian Jihadist Launches Political Campaign

Muslims can marry irrespective of their nationalities

Indian Muslim clerics in demand abroad during Ramzan

TTP says it will continue suicide attacks in Pakistan

Is this the Eid that Kashmir wants?

Afghan foreign troops death toll hits 500 for 2010

Commanders seek 2,000 new troops for Afghanistan

Harkat operative Zandal taken on fresh 5-day remand

Lawyer says Iranian woman could be stoned soon

Mohammed expresses solidarity with Bahrain

Five killed in vicious attack north of Baghdad: police

Lailatul Qadr observed

Charity is in the air, fitra stalls spring up

59 percent of Israeli teens don’t want Arab students in their class

Hollywood joins West Bank protest

Pakistan seeks royal pardon for prisoners

Afghans protest US church's plans to burn Qur'an

Panic grips Lahore after 2 low-intensity explosions

Another ASWJ activist shot dead in 12 hours

Ahead of 9/11 anniv, US Muslims get the jitters

Jundullah, the new al Qaeda

KP MPs propose joint strategy to fight terrorism

Saudi Arabia shuts down websites violating Fatwa orders

Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau

Photo: In this photo provided by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Angelina Jolie, left, the goodwill ambassador of UNHCR, sits with Pakistani flood-affected women during her visit to a camp for people displaced by heavy floods in Nowshera, Pakistan, on Tuesday.

More than half of Gaza's population are children. Though none of them has ever voted for Hamas, they're the designated targets of Israel's military operations and more generally, of the siege imposed upon Gaza. They're resilient children, standing up against a multitude of ailments and obstacles. According to a recent report of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, 52 percent of Gaza's children are anemic and suffer from serious nutritional problems due to the insufficiency of phosphorous, calcium and zinc in their food. The rate of respiratory illnesses they suffer is also cause for concern. -- Vittorio Arrigoni

The movement known as pasmanda tehreek (movement) is not coming with (any new divisions like those along) caste. In fact, the division was created and is maintained by the elite Muslim castes as it is in their interest. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, an upper caste, who also got entitled as Khan Bahadur by British Government, can be seen backing the inequality of the caste system. Many scholars ( vidwaan ) and priests ( mulla ) remain instrumental in this hierarchical construction. We are highlighting the issue, invoking the same category of caste, which was earlier maintained to sustain inequality, to demand justice ( haq ). -- Mohd. Noor Hasan Azad & Khalid Anis Ansari

Among the Indian Muslims, sectarian divisions continue to abound. Most Indian Muslims are Sunnis, and they are divided among themselves on the basis of school of jurisprudence (the majority being Hanafis, with a small minority of Shafi‘is and Ghayr Muqallids, who do not subscribe to taqlid or ‘blind following’ of any particular school of jurisprudence); and the basis of school of thought (mainly Deobandis, Barelvis, Ahl-e Hadith, Ahl-e Quran, and Jamaat-e Islami). Shias form a minority among the Indian Muslims, being mostly Ithna Ashari Imamis, but also Nizari and Mustalian Ismailis, these latter two being, in turn, divided into several different largely endogamous sect-like groupings. Each of these different Sunni and Shia formations has its own distinct understanding of Islam. -- Yoginder Sikand, NewAgeIslam.com

The issue is not of communalism or secularism. It is about the Rule of Law. Do Indian politicians believe in the Rule of Law or not? The answer is that they do only when they can use it as a stick to beat their opponents with. This issue will not go away. When the problem of Babri Masjid comes up, we will have to face it. The VHP/RSS consider that the location of the Masjid on Ram Janmabhoomi is a fundamentally aggressive act by the Muslims on the Hindu ‘nation’, although it may have been done five hundred years ago. The historicity of Ramchandra cannot be questioned nor can we point out similar destruction of Buddhist places of worship and their conversion into Hindu temples ,for example the Jagannath temple at Puri. We need another approach.

The issue of mandir/masjid was live in the 1980s and early 1990s when India was unsure of itself. Two prime ministers had been assassinated by then and there had been an economic crisis. Now, there is a new generation ready to vote. India is a success story and the future is bright. Does new India care about a 16th century dispute being revived in the 21st century? This is the issue which needs to be settled not in a court of law but by a verdict of the people of India. I propose we hold a nationwide referendum on the mandir/masjid issue. Let the nation decide whether we need continuing strife on this question or whether—as I would like us to—consecrate the ground with a multi-faith site of worship. -- Meghnad Desai

The court judgement over more than half-a-century-long Babri masjid land dispute is likely to come any day now. Some prominent Muslim leaders have wisely declared that they would accept any court verdict. But the Hindutva leaders stick to their stand that courts cannot decide matters of faith. This has created an atmosphere of uncertainly in the country. U.P. state government has organised a large police presence to ward off any potential conflagration arising out of the court verdict. Muslim politicians, some of them associated with the ruling UPA coalition at the centre, are probably thinking of ways in which any potential flare-up could be defused. But this is not to the liking of the Urdu Press. Quite frequently in the last weeks one has come across conspiracy theories that efforts are being made to subvert political processes to keep Muslims and the country away from any potential disaster. Apparently, for the Urdu Press, trying to keep the community and the country safe amounts to betrayal of the community’s natural ethos. Muslims must be perpetually engaged in confrontation. Confabulation or compromise cannot be their way. Sulh-e-Hudaibiya was the biggest betrayal in Islamic history. Most Muslims thought so then. Most Muslims think so now. New Age Islam presents one such report in its Urdu original along with an English translation. -- Editor

The sectarian strife has afflicted Pakistan virtually from the moment of its birth, but has escalated continuously since 1979, with the former President General Zia ul-Haq’s ‘Islamicisation’ of Pakistani politics. Shias resisted this process as a ‘Sunnification’ of Pakistan, since most of the laws and regulations introduced were based on Sunni Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence). Notably, in July 1980, 25,000 Shias gathered in Islamabad to protest the Islamicisation laws. However, the more the Shias protested, the more were they targeted, and the strife widened. Under Zia, sectarianism in Pakistan, especially in Karachi and South Punjab, became quite violent. The violence worsened after September 11, 2001, and the expulsion of the Taliban from Afghanistan, leading then President Pervez Musharraf to ban some 104 terrorist and religio-extremist groups, including the LeJ and SSP. ...

Reports indicate that Pakistani courts are yet to convict a single person in any of the country’s major terrorist attacks in the past three years. Instead, the Government is contemplating the release of as many as 390 suspects, detained on charges of having links with banned militant groups like SSP, LeJ and others. Officials of the Home Department, Punjab Police and Prisons Department confirmed the "gradual release" of detainees over the coming days, as not a single case had been registered against any one of them. This, despite the fact that an intelligence agency report to the Federal Government reveals that an escalation of sectarian violence could not be ruled out after release of these suspects in large numbers. -- Ajit Kumar Singh and Tushar Ranjan Mohanty

IN SHAKURPUR Basti, a teeming Muslim-dominated, workingclass neighbourhood in North Delhi, there is a four-storey building with a mosque on the ground floor. This is the Darul Ujloom Nizamia Ghausul Uloom Madrassa. On the face of it, there is nothing to set this madrassa apart from an estimated 35,000 madrassas in the country. But unknown to the community, the Darul Ujloom madrassa is subverting its foundational pact with both Allah and his followers. In many ways, madrassas are a cornerpiece in Islamic community life. They are seminaries where children go for religious education, and in poor neighbourhoods, for non-formal schooling. Most madrassas in India are affiliated either to the Deobandi, Barelvi or Ahl-i-Hadith sects and are funded by zakat — the com- passionate Islamic practice of people donating 2.5 percent of their income to support hospitals, charities or Islamic schools. Zakat donated to madrassas is meant to pay for maulvis’ salaries and free meals, clothing, books and lodging for children. In keeping with this tradition, the Darul Ujloom Madrassa, set up in 1992 by three maulvis of the Barelvi sect, is supposed to house 150 poor Muslim children and provide them with shelter, education and food. Far from doing this though, in a disturbing twist, TEHELKA found that the Darul Ujloom Madrassa was illegally sending its minor children out to work harrowing twelve hour shifts at nearby factories and sweatshops.-- Neha Dixit

Recent floods and landslides have created havoc in Pakistani occupied Gilgit-Baltistan. Conservative estimates put the deaths at 500, with more than half a million people losing their dwellings, farmland, moveable assets, ancestral graveyards, and places of worship, cultural activities and spiritual engagement to the floods. Around thirty thousand souls among the victims were already affected by the glacial outbursts which created artificial lake in Hunza in January and eliminated several villages. Government’s neglect towards the victims is like insult to the injury. -- Engineer Ghulam Ali Rinchen

Two days ago, Adil Najam’s website carried a photographic report of a different kind—of religious extremists attacking Shia processions in Lahore and Karachi, and killing dozens of people. “Pakistan is at war,” Najam wrote in anguish and despair. In recent years, Pakistan has witnessed a series of terrorist strikes targeting Shias, Ahmediyas and Sufis. This made me ponder over a troubling paradox. Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. Islam’s insistence on righteousness and God-consciousness is loud and clear, more emphatically so in the practice of fasting and prayers during Ramzaan. Why, then, do a minority of Muslims exhibit that streak of extreme intolerance which rejects other faiths as false or aberrant, seeks to violently suppress diversity within Islam, and never hides its ultimate goal of establishing a uniform and dogmatic interpretation of Islam as the reigning faith all over the world? -- Sudheendra Kulkarni