Rahma Al-Khawahir Saudi Woman Weightlifter Wins First Gold Medal in History of Tournament
New Age Islam News Bureau
28 October 2022
• Iranian Zar Amir Ebrahimi Resurfaces On World Stage After
Fleeing Iran
• All India Muslim Personal Law Board Likely to Revive
Women’s Wing Soon
• Uttar Pradesh: Muslim Women Perform Aarti of Lord
Ram in Lamahi Village
• Nasrul-lahi-l-Fatih Society Urges Nigerian Muslim
Women to Get Committed in God’s Service
• India: Two Women Wrap 2.65kg Gold around Leg In
Smuggling Attempt From Gulf Country
Compiled by New
Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/rahma-khawahir-saudi-weightlifter/d/128293
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Rahma Al-Khawahir Saudi Woman Weightlifter Wins First
Gold Medal in History of Tournament
(Supplied)
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October 28, 2022
RIYADH: The Saudi Games 2022, the largest national
sporting event in the history of the Kingdom, kicked off on Thursday morning.
The capital, Riyadh, will host the competition until Nov. 7 at 20 locations.
The women’s 48 kg weightlifting competitions, and
men’s 61 kg, were staged in the Riyadh Club hall.
Rahma Al-Khawaher won the gold in the 49 kg weight
category with a total of 117 kg, followed by Marie Al-Sihati in second place
with a total of 115 kg. Munira Al-Ruwaita achieved third place with a weight of
109 kg. The winners were presented with their medals by Princess Dalil bint
Nahar Al-Saud, deputy director of the Saudi Games.
In the men’s competition, Siraj Al-Saleem won the gold
medal in the 61 kg division with a total of 271 kg, followed by his brother
Mansour Al-Saleem with a total of 249 kg, and Jassem Al-Zouri was in third
place with a total of 239 kg. The winners were awarded their medals by Muhammad
bin Ahmed Al-Harbi, president of the Saudi Weightlifting Federation.
The camel race competitions hosted by Ramah Camel
Field were concluded on Thursday, where the Bakkar Marathon and the Qaadan
Marathon will also be held. The race resulted in the coach, Nayef Salim
Al-Juhani, winning first place with Al-Matiyah Al-Juri and the gold medal for
the Thanaya Bakkar Marathon. Bassam Al-Hwaiti won third place and the bronze
medal. The coach Suleiman Abdullah Al-Hwaiti won the Thanaya Qaadan Marathon,
achieving first place and the gold medal. Coach Ahmed Al-Hwaiti won the silver
medal and coach Eid Al-Juhani won the bronze medal. The winners were crowned by
Mohammed bin Hamad Al-Balawi, vice president of the Saudi Camel Federation.
In the men’s basketball competitions hosted by the
Green Hall at Prince Faisal bin Fahd Olympic Complex, Al-Fateh team achieved
third place and the bronze medal after winning the match against Al-Wehda with
a score of 88-67. The final match was between Uhud and Al-Ittihad — the winner
was Uhud by 79-65.
On Thursday, the goal ball competitions for people with
disabilities began, hosted by the Saudi Paralympic Committee in the Prince
Faisal bin Fahd Olympic Complex. Al-Rass beat Hail with a score of 12-2, Asir
and Al-Qassim had a 4-4 draw, Riyadh beat Taif with a score of 11-3, Al-Baha
won over Al-Jawf with a score of 10-0, Asir won over Hail with a score of 9-1,
and Al-Rass won over Al-Qassim with a score of 12-2.
In the futsal competitions, hosted by Al-Nasr Club,
four matches were held on Wednesday. In the men’s competitions, the results
were: Al-Qadisiyah tied 5-5 with Riyadh, Al-Nasr Club beat Al-Ula Club with a
score of 2-1, Al-Aardh team achieved a 11-2 victory over the Al-Majd team, and
the Al-Itiifaq team defeated Al-Sir 6-1.
In the women’s competitions, the Al-Shabab team beat
El-Himma by 10-1, and the Yamama team beat Al-Ahly 8-0.
The handball competitions at King Saud University
arena on Thursday saw the Al-Safa team beat Al-Khuwaildia with a score of
44-29, and Al-Nour won against Al-Adalah with a score of 44-24.
In the King Saud University hall, judo competitions
for men in the under 60 kg, under 66 kg, under 73 kg, under 90 kg and 90 + kg
divisions were held on Thursday.
On Friday, the women’s basketball competitions begin
at the Al-Hilal Club hall — four matches will be held between Riyadh and Jeddah
United, Al-Shula and Al-Nasr, Abha and Al-Ittihad, Al-Wahda and Al-Hilal — and
golf competitions will be held at the Riyadh Golf Club. Indoor rowing
competitions will be staged at the Leaders Preparation Institute at Prince
Faisal bin Fahd Olympic Complex.
Weightlifting competitions will continue at Riyadh
Club on Friday with the 59 kg competitions for women and 73 kg contests for
men. Also to be held will be the group stage competitions and quarter-final
competitions in the padel, judo competitions for women in the 63 kg weight
division, and handball competitions in three matches between Mudar and Hira,
Al-Khaleej and Al-Huda, and Zalqi. Al-Rawda, and the first-round matches of the
goal ball with four matches between Al-Jawf and Al-Taif, Al-Baha and Riyadh,
Al-Qassim and Hail, Al-Rass and Asir will be held.
The Saudi Games competitions will continue until Nov.
7, with the participation of more than 6,000 male and female players competing
in 45 sports, including five Paralympic sports.
Source: Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2189466/sport
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Iranian Zar Amir Ebrahimi Resurfaces On World Stage
After Fleeing Iran
“I sometimes think, for an
actress, I’m happy to have this much pain in my life,” said Zar Amir Ebrahimi,
adding, “I put everything into the movie, all my life.”Credit...Elliott Verdier
for The New York Times
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27/10/2022
Ninety-nine lashes and a prison sentence awaited Zar
Amir Ebrahimi in 2008 when she decided to flee Iran.
Ebrahimi, then a well-known TV star in Iran, was
charged with having sexual relations outside wedlock. She was ostracised and
harassed, her friends and co-workers interrogated.
“I lost my career. I lost my whole life. And at some
point, I became traumatised. I was scared to go to the street alone,” Ebrahimi
said in a recent interview. “The authorities did everything to me to just make
me more helpless and make me more scared. I think at some point, they wanted me
to get to suicide, just somehow remove myself from that society.”
Ebrahimi, now 41, decided she would not take any more
punishment. She fled to Paris, slowly remaking her life and adjusting to a
foreign culture. She started with babysitting and restaurant jobs. She has not
returned to Iran since.
“I can never see myself getting these lashes,”
Ebrahimi says.
Now, 16 years later, Ebrahimi has dramatically
resurfaced on the global stage. She stars in Ali Abbasi’s “Holy Spider,”
playing a journalist investigating a serial killer who is murdering women and
sex workers in the eastern Iranian city of Mashhad. At the Cannes Film
Festival, Ebrahimi won best actress for her performance.
The Iranian regime had tried to silence her, Ebrahimi
said. “And yet here I am.”
“Holy Spider,” which opens in theatres Friday, is
based on the 2001 case of Saeed Hanaei, who after confessing to the crimes was
celebrated as a folk hero by extremists and right-wing Iranian media. A dark
and complex portrait of an Iranian society of oppressive misogyny and simmering
injustice, “Holy Spider” has taken on new meaning following the protests that
have surged through Iran in recent weeks.
Nationwide anti-government protests were sparked by
the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of Iran’s morality
police. Demonstrations have been met by a crackdown by security forces that
have killed more than 200 people, including children, according to rights
groups. In cities around the world, many more have held protests in solidarity.
Exiled director
“Being here at this distance, watching all the videos
come out, it’s so hard. I need to participate somehow,” Ebrahimi said by Zoom
from Paris. “I think with this movie, I have a chance.”
Abbasi, who made the 2018 acclaimed thriller “Border”
and has directed episodes of the HBO series “The Last of Us,” is also an
Iranian exile. He lives in Copenhagen. (“Holy Spider” is Denmark’s Oscar
submission this year.) Politics, he said, never especially interested him as a
filmmaker. But he was troubled by the response to Hanaei’s murders, dubbed the
“spider killings” by local media and saw in the religious centre of Mashhad the
shadowy stuff of film noir. There, he says, is the duality of Iranian society,
with men make pilgrimages by day and hunt for drugs and prostitutes by night.
Abbasi initially tried to make the film in Iran but
could not secure permission. He shot it instead in Jordan. By then, Ebrahimi
had regained a foothold in the European film industry, working in various
capacities. She was initially Abbasi’s casting director. Only once the original
Iranian actress, fearing the regime’s response, bowed out of the film did
Abbasi ask Ebrahimi to play the part. He knew the role would resonate differently
with Ebrahimi.
“If there is one person I can say with good conscience
is an ambassador of Iranian women, an ambassador of the plight and the trouble
and who rose from the ashes, I think that person is Zar,” says Abbasi. “There
are bigger forces in play than that she’s just an excellent actor.”
“Holy Spider,” which Abbasi has called “the first
Persian noir,” does not shy away from the violence of its story. Critics have
compared it to David Fincher’s “Zodiac,” an inspiration to the director. One
victim is strangled by her hijab. Part of Iran’s government-mandated dress code
for women, the hijab has become a potent political symbol following the death
of Amini, who was arrested for violating hijab rules.
“One of the regime-friendly journalists asked me in Cannes:
‘Why is it that I insist on showing everything so pitch black?’” says Abbasi.
“If you look at what’s going on in the street right now in Iran, I don’t think
this is a pitch-black rendition of Iran. Maybe it’s almost too optimistic
because, in our movie, nobody is smashing anybody’s skull with a baton.”
Ebrahimi’s character in the film, Rahimi, is
fictional. But as a woman seeking justice for women in a male-controlled,
sexually-repressed society, she is a courageous protagonist who has come to
reflect both the current uprising and Ebrahimi’s own journey.
“It was really fictional,” says Ebrahimi, who became a
French citizen in 2017. “But now, the truth is, I just watched these women and
these men fighting for their lives and their freedom in the street, it’s just
like there are thousands of Rahimis right now. Rahimi has become a reality.”
Long journey
For Ebrahimi, “Holy Spider” represents the culmination
of a long journey.
“I channelled my own experience of life in this
character,” says Ebrahimi. “I never saw myself as a victim but at some point, I
think we are all victims of this system, of this mindset.”
“People don’t want this system anymore,” she adds. “As
a person who grew up in this system, I think we are almost 18 million actors
because we just learn how to lie and live a double life. At some point, I think
today, we are just tired of this lie and this game.”
“Holy Spider” arriving in theatres during such
political upheaval has catapulted both Ebrahimi and Abbasi into roles they
never expected and yet at the same time have prepared for their entire lives.
At the London Film Festival earlier this month, Ebrahimi said they each felt
absurd attending such an event while protesters clashed with authorities. On
the red carpet, Abbasi wore a cleric’s robe and blood-stained vampire teeth
while holding up a sign for Amini.
“I was sitting there crying: ‘I can’t any more talk
about this. I don’t know what to say, if I’m Iranian or not. I’m not a speaker
of these people,’” says Ebrahimi. “But I think we need to stay all together.
This movie gives me this opportunity and I have to use it.”
What is happening in Iran is a revolution, she says,
and “Holy Spider” bears a message: “You can’t anymore control us.”
“There’s no way back,” says Ebrahimi.
Source: The Arab Weekly
https://thearabweekly.com/zar-amir-ebrahimi-resurfaces-world-stage-film-released
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All India Muslim Personal Law Board likely to revive
women’s wing soon
Ziya Us Salam
OCTOBER 27, 2022
Chief of women’s wing Asma Zehra has alleged that the
wing was dissolved as women wanted to take a proactive role on hijab row
After much mudslinging in media, the women’s wing of the
All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) is likely to be revived shortly. A
five-member committee to frame the rules and regulations of the women’s wing
has been formed for the purpose. Besides convener SQR Ilyas, it includes two
women members — Atiya Siddiqua, veteran member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, and
Fatima Muzaffar, Islamic scholar from Tamil Nadu.
The women’s wing was dissolved earlier this month with
the chief of the wing, Asma Zehra, alleging that the wing was dissolved as
women wanted to take a proactive role on the hijab controversy in Karnataka
besides various other issues related to women. Following the dissolution on
October 18, Ms. Zehra tendered her resignation from the working committee of
the AIMPLB on October 23 stating, “I have been treated unjustly and not given a
fair trial. In the name of unity, the activities of women are being curtailed.
I stand by whatever I stated to the working committee.”
Denies the charge
The Board, however, refuted her allegation about
dissolution, stating, it was merely “restructuring” the women’s wing, and
likely to accommodate women on five committees, including those on reformation,
Shariah education, legal issues, both Islamic and constitutional, and Darul
Qaza, etc. That, however, failed to assuage many women members, and the Board
came under fire for muzzling women’s voice. Consequently, a committee to revive
the women’s wing has been formed. The committee’s recommendations are likely to
be submitted by the end of the year.
“Usually, the guidelines are framed before we start
any new forum, any new wing. In the case of women’s wing, we could not do that
back in 2015 when the wing was started under the guidance of Wali Rehmani who
was the General Secretary. For seven years, the wing operated without clear
guidelines, rules and regulations. After Mr. Rehmani passed away recently, a
need was felt to bring about an element of uniformity to its functioning. So,
we suspended the women’s wing and set up a committee to look into the
possibility of its revival shortly,” said Mr. Ilyas, adding, “The Board in no
way wants to muzzle women’s voice.”
The committee has had an online meeting already. Says
Ms. Atiya Siddiqua, a member of the committee, “Our brief is to tap women’s
skills for the benefit of the Board. There are enough talented women around.
They will give their inputs, As for Ms. Zehra’s allegation about the hijab, we
didn’t want to raise the issue through dharna, rally or protest marches, etc. Our
legal committee was handling it.”
According to a Board member, the change in the status
of women’s wing was on the cards for some time, and it had nothing to do with
the hijab issue in Karnataka, or the Supreme Court verdict on the matter. He
expressed disappointment that Ms. Zehra had chosen to go to media over an
internal matter.
Source: The Hindu
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Uttar Pradesh: Muslim women perform aarti of Lord Ram
in Lamahi village
Oct 27, 2022
VARANASI: When Kashi was celebrating Diwali on Monday
with religious fervour, Muslim women, giving a message of humanity and communal
harmony, performed the aarti of Lord Shri Ram and Mata Janaki in Lamahi
village. The celebration was organised by the Muslim Mahila Foundation and
Vishal Bharat Sansthan.
MMF president Nazneen Ansari said, "By changing
religion neither ancestors can change nor their Lord Ram. No one can separate
us from our ancestors and traditions". She said that India belongs to
Sanatani traditions for centuries. Whatever is here, all belong to Hindu and
Sanatani culture. If a temple of Lord Ram is built in Arab countries, then the
respect of the people there will also increase and violence in the name of
religion will end, she added.
The president of Vishal Bharat Sansthan and head of
Rampanth, Rajiv Sriguruji said that the Ram Aarti of Muslim women gives a
message to the world to adopt the path of Ram.
Source: Times Of India
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Nasrul-lahi-l-Fatih Society Urges Nigerian Muslim
Women to Get Committed in God’s Service
By Opeyemi Babalola
28 October 2022
Muslim women across the country have been urged to
always seek God’s face for solution to their challenges.
This plea was given yesterday at the conclusion of the
23rd yearly programme organised by members of the women’s wing of
Nasrul-lahi-l-Fatih Society, NASFAT, drawn from various zones and branches of
the society in the country.
Speaking on the theme of the event tagged ‘Muslim
Women in a Challenging World: Attaining Success here and Hereafter’, the guest
lecturer, Abimbola Lekki, described the challenges facing Nigerian Muslim women
as artificial barriers, which must not be allowed to stop them from reaching
their peak.
According to her, “there are even a lot of challenges
in this world before we move to the hereafter. We see women being marginalised,
hijab usage being an issue, even at the workplace Muslim women are perceived as
something else.”
She noted that it was high time Muslim women took worshipping
the almighty God seriously, adding that, “with him, solution is possible and no
challenges can overcome a true worshipper.”
In his keynote address, NASFAT President, Olaniyi
Yusuf, commended the efforts of the Muslim women for striving in the cause of
Allah to impact positively the lives of others.
He advised the Muslim women to get their Permanent
Voter Cards (PVCs) in order to vote in the upcoming 2023 general elections.
On her part, National Women Affairs Secretary,
Seweebah Kupolati, said that the yearly women’s week was to promote the mission
statement of the society by actively engaging in the development of human
capital, promoting Islamic values in family and community development.
She added that the National Women Management Committee
of the association would be launching a fundraising campaign with a target of
N200million to fund the women project: Phase 1- NASFATMother and Child
Hospital.
According to her, “The aim of establishing the health
facility is to support the priority agenda for our Society in four key areas of
Health, Education, Livelihood and Da’wah (HELD). The hospital will go a long
way to improve maternal and child care health indices, as well as help to
achieve universal and comprehensive healthcare coverage in the country.”
Source: Guardian Nigeria
https://guardian.ng/features/nasfat-urges-muslim-women-to-get-committed-in-gods-service/
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India: Two women wrap 2.65kg gold around leg in
smuggling attempt from Gulf country
27 Oct 2022
Mumbai Airport Customs held two Indian woman
passengers on Wednesday for allegedly illegally possessing 2.65kg of gold in a
wax form worth over a crore.
The accused were travelling from Dubai and were
carrying gold in wax form wrapped around their legs, said customs.
"Mumbai Airport Customs intercepted two Indian
lady passengers arriving from Dubai yesterday. On examination, it was found
that both were carrying 2.65kg of 24 carat gold in wax form valued at around
Rs1.39 crore wrapped in wax form around their leg. Both passengers
arrested," said Customs.
Earlier on October 14, the Customs department at
Mumbai airport arrested an Indian national with 16 kg of gold worth Rs8.40
crore, said officials on Thursday.
The man was travelling from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to
Mumbai.
On October 10, a man who attempted to smuggle gold by
dipping bath towels in liquid gold was apprehended by Customs officials at the
Kochi airport. The accused was identified as Fahad, 26, a native of Thrissur
who travelled to Kochi airport from Dubai.
The customs officials said this was the first time
they witnessed such a method of smuggling the precious metal.
Source: Khaleej Times
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