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Islam, Women and Feminism
• The
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• 'Craziest
Persecution': Feminist Activist In Russia Faces Six Years In Prison On
Pornography Charge
• Feminist
Exhibition in Kyrgyzstan Forced To Confront Naked Truth About Societal
Attitudes
• British
Journalist Says Muslim Wife Was Told Southwest Air Treated Her ‘Like A Venomous
Snake’ On A Plane
• Investigation
Uncovers Israel-Based Group behind Bigoted Facebook Smear Campaign Aimed at US
Muslim Congresswomen
Compiled By New
Age Islam News Bureau
Islamic Society
Dr Shaz observes that after the demolition of Babri mosque in 1992 the
Muslim leadership was left with no work so All India Muslim Personal Law Board
(AIMPLB) jumped the bandwagon and through Babri issue the failed leadership
found a new refugee. He calls this leadership as Kaapu who just work to
intimidate Muslim masses from an unknown, perceived or constructed fear of
Hindus or government onslaught....
Islamic Society
Hundreds of singers have rendered it in genres ranging from Qawwali to
film songs. It is believed to have been originally written by Amir Khusro in
the 13th century and then added to by Bulleh Shah in the 17th century....
Spiritual Meditations
No matter how rebellious a man may be, no matter how much he may deny
God, in times of extreme difficulty, and he cries out to God in complete
helplessness. This is evidence that God is the voice of human nature....
Radical Islamism and Jihad
But keeping terrorists behind bars too long carries its own risks.
Draconian sentences can transform nobodies into martyrs and radicalise
prisoners’ relatives....
Current Affairs
Whatever be Bajwa’s eventual fate, a powerful Army chief in Pakistan has
consequences far beyond the territory under the Army’s control. New Delhi will
be watching the space very closely....
Urdu Section
حضرت عبداللہ بن عمر (رضی اللہ عنہ) بیان کرتے ہیں کہ
رسول اللہ (صلی اللہ علیہ وآلہ وسلم) نے فرمایا : اپنے فوت شدہ لوگوں کی نیکیاں
بیان کرو اور ان کی برائیوں کے ذکر سے باز رہو۔ (سنن ابوداؤد ‘ رقم الحدیث :‘ ٤٩٠٠) ......
The War Within Islam
And right when Middle Easterners are demanding to be treated as citizens
— not Sunnis or Shiites — Americans are devolving into Sunnis and Shiites or,
as we call them, Democrats and Republicans, with the same tribal mentality:
rule or die....
The War Within Islam
The UN, EU and all Western nations must condemn the violence and
savagery of the Iranian regime. The West must make it known that we stand
shoulder to shoulder with the protesters in Iran demanding regime change....
Islam and Science
If an assumption that the Qur’an inhibited science is correct, science
should have been dead soon after the advent of Islam and the Qur’an. On the
contrary, we see science flourished during the first centuries of Islam.
Instead of drowning themselves in ignorance with advent of the Qur’an and
Islam, Muslims became masters of Science for centuries....
BEST OF BEFORE ARTICLES
Radical Islamism and Jihad
The clergy is required to counter
the exclusivist Jihadi theology of violence and supremacism which is primarily
based on the traditional Islamic theology of consensus of all schools of
thought. This has to be done through a counter-narrative based on a new
inclusivist theology of peace and pluralism. But to do that the clergy will
have to work towards evolving a new theology that is different from the
traditional theology taught in madrasas. It is this age-old theology that is
used by Jihadis to propagate their message.
It cannot be stressed enough that
the reason Jihadis have been able to capture the imagination of thousands of
our youth the world over is that they are not saying anything new. They are
simply showing a way to practice what the ulema (religious scholars) have been
preaching. The Jihadi narrative is the traditional Islamic theological
narrative of Islam domination over all other religious beliefs, and eradication
of what it considers the biggest crimes humanity can commit, particularly shirk,
polytheism or idol worship, and kufr, rejection of the prophethood of
Hazrat Mohammad (pbuh). All the most eminent scholars of Islam from Imam
Ghazali (11th-12th century) to Imam Ibn-e-Taimiya (13th-14th
century), Mujaddid Alf-e-Saani Sheikh Sirhindi (16th-17th
century), Shah Waliullah Muhaddis Dehlavi (18th century) have shown
a vision of political Islam that was finally given a more definite form in the
20th century by Maulana Syed Abul A’la Maududi, Hassan al-Banna, and
Syed Qutb. The Jihadi ideologues of the 21st century may be
stressing some parts of this traditional narrative more vigorously and
downplaying some other aspects. But they are not saying anything that is
entirely new or radically different.
Jihadi literature has not dropped
from the sky all of a sudden. This is not the creation of Osama bin Laden or
so-called “Khalifa” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Their narrative of world domination,
fighting those who do not accept the message of Islam is basically what is
taught in all our madrasas. The definition of Jihad as fighting those who do
not accept the oneness of God and prophethood of Mohammad (pbuh) is found in
books of every school of Sunni fiqh (jurisprudence), be it Hanafi,
Malaki, Shafei or Hanbali. Indeed, even Shia theology does not differ much with
Sunnis in matters of political Islam. They too want world domination for Islam
and desire to subdue all non-Muslims.
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Islam and Politics
Indian Muslims must accept the SC’s Judgment without going to file any
review petition. They should close the chapter of contention between the two
communities by accepting whatever the Supreme Court has issued. ... This is
what the Maqasid Sharia demands today in its vast objectives including the
welfare of the society. It is time for Muslims to act upon universal teachings
of tolerance, patience, harmony and peace and thereby winning the hearts of
other fellow human beings including those who have great antipathy and
prejudice against Muslims, as any reaction to hate increases nothing but
hate...
Radical Islamism and Jihad
According
to the Hanafi Principles of Jurisprudence, one of the five situations in which
the literal (Haqiqi) meanings are not taken is due to the ‘Dalalat Siyaaq
al-Kalam’.
The
Hanafi principle ‘Dalalat Siyaaq al-Kalam’ refers to the situation where
the literal meaning of any word is dropped due to the context and structure (Siyaaq)
of the speech (Kalam). There are some clues, in such a situation, which
indicate that the literal meaning of the word is not meant....
The War Within Islam
It is only natural for
Muslims in India to be a little anxious as the country awaits the Supreme Court
verdict on the Babri Masjid-Ram Janam Bhoomi dispute at Ayodhya to be delivered
in a few days. A variety of rumours are floating which do not bear repetition
in any responsible section of our media. But these are making many Muslims
restive.
However, every challenge is
also an opportunity. The demolition of Babri masjid on 6 December 1992
presented Muslims with an opportunity. Now that the masjid was no more and
Muslims do not worship bricks and mortar or plots of land, they could have
forgiven the miscreants who demolished the mosque and moved on, gifting the land for building a temple. I
made this point in an article entitled “Opportunity for Muslims,” published by
The Hindustan Times, New Delhi, on 13 Jan 1995. This was reproduced on
NewAgeIslam.com on July 1, 2009.
Let me give you here some relevant excerpts from this article
written almost 25 years ago....
Islam and Politics
Thus, in case of a favourable verdict, Muslims must welcome the
judgment, but they should also be willing to gift the land to Hindus. In doing
this, they should not put any condition on the other side; they should just
gift the land as an act of pure goodwill. Such an act will not be an act of
cowardice; rather it will be from a position of strength. This gesture might
also become a turning point in Hindu-Muslim relations in India, which is
currently extremely vitiated due to a number of factors....
Radical Islamism and Jihad
Mr. President,
Islamophobia and Islamist
violence are both growing and in the unlikeliest of places. Recent attacks on
churches in Sri Lanka were as much of a surprise as the attack on mosques in
Christchurch. And now copycat attacks are taking place elsewhere. A vicious
cycle of xenophobic violence is in operation.
While the world suffers
from Jihadist violence, Muslims in particular suffer the most causalities in
sectarian wars incited by the Islamist Jihadist ideology. And yet, even almost
two decades after 9/11, Muslim nations continue to be in denial. Islamist
ideology based on the Islamic theology of consensus is absolved of any
responsibility for violent extremism.
The result is that Muslim
children continue to be taught in madrasas Islam supremacism and contempt for
other religions. Even explicitly violent passages have not yet been weeded out
from text books.
The terrorism it generates
takes many shapes. If Hindu, Sikh and Christian girls are abducted and forcibly
converted to Islam in Pakistan, this too essentially comes from contempt for
other religions taught in religious seminaries. In several countries including
Pakistan, some Muslims do not wait for courts to pass judgements to punish
those they consider guilty.
The Council should convince the offending
states to establish the rule of law on the basis of the UN Charter and repeal
unacceptable laws against freedom of religion and conscience.-----
Radical Islamism and Jihad
Dr
Ayman al-Zawahiri, you should have sought to understand the philosophy of
Kashmiriyat that reigns in Kashmir before writing your latest missive. The
Muslims of Kashmir have traditionally understood the message of Islam much
better than the fundamentalists and exclusivists who present Islam as a
totalitarian, fascist, political ideology of world domination, which seeks to
eliminate all the scores of religions sent by God before Prophet Mohammad. This
is the reason why even those Kashmiri politicians who now advocate secession
have contested elections for the legislative Assemblies constituted under
India’s secular and progressive constitution. This is the reason why only a few
Kashmiri youth have taken to the path of terror, which you call Jihad. Most of
the terrorism seen in the state of Jammu and Kashmir has been part of a proxy
war waged by neighbouring Pakistan for its own ends. Pakistan, of course, has
turned export of terrorism to a fine art, affecting all corners of the globe....
Radical Islamism and Jihad
Numerous fatwas (edicts) have
been issued by ulema (Islamic scholars) across the globe, particularly since
9/11 in a bid to stem the tide of Islamist terrorism. Tens of thousands of
ulema have endorsed these fatwas issued by influential institutions of Islamic
learning of all sects in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh as well as other parts of
the world. When issued, these fatwas inspired great expectations. As perceptive
and insightful an observer as Mr. Ziauddin Sardar proclaimed “the beginning of
the end of the war of terror” when a hundred thousand Deobandi ulema endorsed a
fatwa issued by the hundred-year-old Islamic madrasa in Deoband, India,
“unequivocally denouncing terrorism,” in June 2008. Similarly, Sufism-oriented
Barailwis, hard-line Salafis, Ahl-e-Hadeesis, have all denounced Islamist
terrorism in their separate or joint statements. But terrorist ideology
continues to attract our youth, particularly in the Indian state of Jammu and
Kashmir. What used to be merely a Pakistan-sponsored secessionist struggle is
showing signs of tuning into an Islamist struggle for the establishment of
Islamic Sharia through a universal Caliphate, very much redolent of the
objectives of the so-called Islamic State or ISIS. Popularizing the slogan of “Shariatya
Shahadat,” a militant leader Zakir Musa, Burhan Wani’s successor, even
threatened to kill Hurriyat leaders for calling Kashmir’s separatist movement
political and not religious. Calling them “hypocrites, infidels, followers of
evil”, the militant had warned to chop off their heads to be hanged in Lal
Chowk in Srinagar, “if they create hurdles in the path of making Kashmir an
Islamic State”....
Radical Islamism and Jihad
The U.N. Human Rights Council passed a resolution, proposed by Pakistan
on behalf of Islamic states, last March, condemning “defamation of religion” as
a human rights violation. Speaking for the 56-nation Organization of the
Islamic Conference (OIC), Pakistan said that “Islam is frequently and wrongly
associated with human rights violations and terrorism.” It called on states “to
deny impunity” for those exhibiting intolerance of ethnic and religious
minorities, and “to take all possible measures to promote tolerance and respect
for all religions and beliefs.”
However, Mr. President, news reports often emanate from Islamic
countries, particularly Pakistan, of intolerance of and disrespect for minority
religious beliefs. We also see free publication and distribution of Jihadi
literature associating Islam with and indeed promoting human rights violations
and extremist violence. Even school and madrasa text books are not free from
extremist and exclusivist teachings, asking Muslims to stay away from religious
and cultural celebrations of other religious communities. Pakistan’s notorious
anti-blasphemy laws ensure that members of religious minorities are either
lynched by mobs or awarded death sentences on mere accusations of blasphemy.
The case of a Christian lady Aasia Bibi, mercifully out of the country now, has
brought this issue to world’s attention. Ahmadiya Muslims are officially
excluded from Islam and even debarred from claiming to be Muslim in any way.
Like non-Muslim minorities, they too suffer indignities of various kinds in
their daily life. Hundreds of young Hindu girls are routinely abducted and
forcibly converted to Islam and raped in the name of marriage.
While this resolution seeks to protect Islam from defamation through any
association with terrorism, the religion is routinely defamed in Muslim
countries by publication of literature justifying violence against non-Muslim
civilians. The very title of a long essay in the Taliban mouthpiece
Nawa-e-Afghan Jihad was: ‘Circumstances in which the killing of innocent people
among infidels is justified.’
I would, therefore, urge the Council to ask the Muslim countries to
treat intolerance of minorities and Jihadi literature too as defaming the
religion of Islam....