Interview
Poor
Hindus will be equally affected, like it happened in Assam. They are going to
be equally excluded and targeted and they all will stop working. They will all
be searching for documents; they will be bribing people to get documents....
I, for example, set up a school and I must say the amount of
encouragement that I got was phenomenal. There are 5,000 children studying in
it and 40% of them are girls. I have never felt any communal discrepancy.
Secularism is still alive in Kashmir....
Before the 1980s, Kashmir was a model of peaceful coexistence. Kashmiri
Pandits had 25% to 30% government jobs in the system. Successive PMs of India
were Pandits. They were not just Pandits but they identified themselves very
closely with Kashmir, particularly Jawahar Lal Nehru and Indira Gandhi....
Over the weekend, Iran vowed major retaliation for Suleimani’s death,
which led the United States to suspend diplomatic and military operations in
Iraq. On Sunday, the U.S.-led coalition announced that it was at least
temporarily halting operations against Isis....
...the Muslims in India should be like the Franciscans, who, with deep
commitment, declared their convictions from the housetops rather than remaining
reclusive and withdrawn from public life. That’s what Muslims should do, while
eschewing violence....
You mentioned how youth activism has risen in the last decade, and what
has given me hope is that the last decade was a decade of youth activism, but
the next one is going to be about youth change-making, and that's what gives me
hope. ...
Mosques have been reduced to a male monopoly. It stems both from lack of
understanding of Islamic principles and well-entrenched patriarchal forces.
Indian men forget that when the Azaan (prayer call) is pronounced from mosque,
both men and women are invited...
Our desires are unlimited, but our capacity is limited. Due to our
limitations, we cannot fulfil all our desires. So, it is realistic to control
our desires. ...
We must
realise our duty and not try to traverse in the opposite direction as had
happened in 1986 in the Shah Bano case...
I think that I can be a good role model for lost kids. A lot of teenagers in the West, having an identity crisis and mental breakdown, turn to a coping mechanism through drugs or religion or something else....
From the theological point
of view, we worship the same God. The Quran clearly says so. I could cite innumerable passages from the
Quran which speaks of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and Jesus. You are not a
perfect Muslim if you do not worship all these prophets. …
Coming on the heels of the
horrific bombings of Christian churches in Sri Lanka, for which ISIS has taken
credit, there’s no doubt that losing their geographical foothold in Syria and
Iraq was no death blow to the insurgents or their murderous interpretation of
Islam….
But by his
recent decision to recognise Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights,
President Trump has made it exceedingly difficult to obtain backing for the
plan, however sound it may be. ...
No one really
knows, but some of the ISIS operatives that were caught fleeing ISIS’s last
territory in Syria were carrying huge amounts of cash, like $20,000. There are
also reports that ISIS has invested some of its cash in local businesses...
The Pakistan
military has stopped even pretending that elected civilians run the country’s
affairs. ‘The military and the civilian government are on one page’ is the new
mantra in Pakistan. All it means is that the civilian veneer has become thinner
than before....
Pakistan’s
version of Islam is somewhat sophisticated because it is amended to fit the
narrative of the government and to justify all of its wrongdoings. It is
heavily influenced by militant ideologies and false prophecies of conquering
the entire Indian subcontinent....
There is only
one Islam, but we believe it is a flexible religion that interacts with each
environment, with each age, provided that we understand Islam properly and
exercise the laws of Ijtihad in terms of free interpretation and free
understanding....
This life is
like one day, while the next life is eternal. Discussing the purpose of life is
a parent’s most important job. True success is to gain God’s approval. But I
don’t think many parents discuss this issue with their children because they
only focus on this world....
n a path breaking message for the World Day of
Peace 2019, Pope Francis writes, “Everyone can contribute his or her stone to
help build the common home. ...
Additionally, a
nuclear war would dramatically lower temperatures, possibly throwing the planet
into a new Ice Age. The effects of a
nuclear war on agriculture would be very marked. Atmospheric scientists tell us that even a
“small” nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which each side used 50
nuclear weapons on the other side’s cities would put enough soot into the
stratosphere to block warming sunlight, shorten growing seasons, and cause mass
starvation leading to some two billion human deaths. A major nuclear war would produce even more
severe effects, including the possibility of destroying most complex life on
the planet....
The relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims, the relationship of Muslims with the state, and Muslims’ relationship to the prevailing legal system wherever they live … Within the classical tradition, the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims is assumed to be one of segregation and enmity....
Do you think the issues raised about Trump's connections to Russia should concern NATO?
Yes, especially as we do not know the full extent of those connections. What Trump may be hiding presents problems to both the American public and to NATO allies. By the way, if the Democrats win one or both houses of Congress in November 2018, they will likely release Trump's tax returns, which will provide some insight into this topic...
It should not be absolutely impossible to discern the calling of God, for it makes no sense that God calls us and yet would give us no clue to this calling! The providential turnings in our life, as long as we are on a sincere search for our individual vocation, will tell us about what God wants from us. This includes the voice of our conscience, inspirations from reading Holy Scriptures and the lives of holy persons and the messages of our life experiences and encounters with certain persons and events. Listening to the voice of God in the spirit of prayer and meditation is very helpful in this regard....
My hope is that
our leaders don’t act like a 21-year-old from Brooklyn who wants to avenge his
brother’s death, but that they will be the adults in the room, develop a grand
strategy to protect the U.S., our allies and our interests and not fall for the
sunk-cost fallacy, where we are continuing to invest in Afghanistan because of
costs already incurred....
Despite
contemporary perceptions that homosexuality is a Western phenomenon, same-sex
dynamics of many varieties are an integral part of Islamic history and culture.
The Quran contains no word that means “homosexuality” as an abstract idea
denoting a sexuality of men who desire pleasure with other men or a sexuality
of women who desire pleasure with other women. The closest the Quran comes to
directly addressing homosexual people is the phrase “men who are not in need of
women or have no sexual guile before women.” The Quran presents this phrase
descriptively in neutral tone, not linked to denunciation or legal
proscription....