Kaushal,
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->G.Subramaniam Posted: Apr 16 2004, 11:54 AMÂ Â
Group: Members
Posts: 908
Member No.: 98
Joined: 3-October 03
<b>Nehru did not even hang Kasim Rizvi, the leader of the Razakars
I guess the muslim soldiers simply vanished with their rifles and in the name of secularisms it was hushed up Owaisi ( father of the current Owaisi ) was the assistant to Kasim Rizvi and runs the 'secular' MIM party in Hyderabad
Laik Ali another Razakar leader was clapped in prison He dressed up in a burkha and escaped He was given shelter in numerous muslim ghettos all over India and finally reached Pakistan When he reached pakistan, there was wild celebration by Indian muslims as normally happens when pakistan wins a cricket match</b>
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Realpolitik
Doctoring terrorism through education
By Balbir K. Punj
One of the âSecularâ myths is that Islamic terrorism is a product of poverty, illiteracy, and oppression. The âSecularâ formulation is that Islamic terrorism is completely divorced from the theology of faith. In other words nothing is wrong with the Islamic religious injunctions - only some Muslims are bad and do not abide by true Islam which preaches peace. One wonders how come most of the devout Muslims from Mohammed bin Qasim to Aurengzeb; and Said Qutb to Osama bin Laden have misunderstood Islam while âsecularistsâ alone (who perhaps had never turned a page of Quran and Hadith) understood it correctly.
âSecularistsâ also claim that modern education and economic opportunities (thus reservation) act as an anti-dote to Islamic fundamentalism. This âsecularâ postulation has times and again been pricked like a soap bubble by stinging realities. Tariq Ahmed Dar, the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba operative now in Delhi Policeâs net for financing and facilitating Delhi bomb blasts, is the latest to debunk that myth. Dar (33) is a science graduate who works as a sales representative for leading Pharmaceutical MNC Johnson and Johnson. He, as a freelance journalist, also contributed articles in a weekly Mount Valley magazine published from Srinagar. But he maintains a third vocation as a LeT operative.
LeT is no Irish Republic Army or ETA (Basque Terrorist Group) in Spain with a separatist agenda. In its pamphlet âWhy are We Waging Jihadâ the group identifies its agenda as restoration of Islamic rule over all parts of India. It views the dilution of Islamic authority in India after the death of Aurangzeb as a historic wrong that should be corrected. We might disagree over LeTâs capacity to do so but not on its intention. Now, when an educated person becomes a shareholder in such a project, and facilitates killing of innocents, how will our secularist friends explain that?
But what is true of Dar is truer about Osama bin Laden, Dr. Omar Saed Sheikh, late Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantasi of Hamas, or Mohammed Atta etc. Egyptian Ayman al Zawahri, number two man in Al-Qaeda, is a doctor whose family has produced a list of distinguished surgeons and doctors. They are educated, sometimes in the West. Some of them are super rich while others are well-off. The terrorists who participated in 9/11 kamikaze mission on WTC and Pentagon were affluent Saudis. Yet they worked for extending the medievalist agenda of Islam that calls for destruction or subjugation of non-Muslims. Is this not a paradox?
The point I wish to make is that âmodern educationâ par se, or affluence par se, does little to alleviate fundamentalism while illiteracy and poverty donât beget them. Islamic terrorism is not the result of disaffection or dissatisfaction. It is a product of an ideology masquerading as religion that divides humanity into Momins and Kafirs and the world into Dar-ul-Islam and Dar-ul-Harab. Until this ideology is not discredited and abandoned Islamic terrorism will only intensify not subside. And this can never happen until world community calls for a frank debate on Islam in media, academia and everywhere else possible. Any such exercise in Independent India is termed as communal by âSecularist cabalâ (read Congress, Communists and Muslim communalists combine).
Islamic terrorism is borne out of Islamic theology, but that is only half the story. It is the Madrasas, or Islamic seminaries, where this theology is hammered into the young and impressionable minds that are breeding grounds this intolerance. And it is the Muslim clerics, who have selflessly and incessantly, kept Islam alive through all thick and thin of ages responsible for this. Thus the Samaritan suggestion to modernise the madrasas is preposterous. To teach computer and science to a Madrasa student will be to provide a modern tool to perpetuate a medieval mindset.
But isnât this article about ânon-Madrasaâ products, often doctors and engineers, who took to Islamic terrorism? Truly, so and that is an enigmatic aspect of Islam. In other religions like Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism normally educated people have played the role of reformers and moderators. Most of them have made themselves unpopular with religious conservatives to champion the cause of equality, liberty and fraternity. In short there has been evolution in the history of all other religions. But, sadly the case is different with Islam.
Religious reformers are heroes in other religions but demonised in Islam. The very concept of reform runs contrary to Islam, which is proclaimed as the perfect religion for all mankind for all times to come. The Koran says- âThis day, I have perfected your religion for you, completed My favor upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religionâ (Al-Maaâidah 5:33). Thus human beings are not expected to think over it, improvise, fine tune, or question it. Anything that has to do with âfree thinkingâ is against Islam. While in adherents of other religion are often heard swinging between faith and doubt; believing and questioning God itâs not so in Islam. In Islam, which emerged amongst tribes of Arabia, there is no tradition for debate, dissension, introspection and consensus. There is only command, execution, obedience and punishment. This has created such a mindset in the entire community that an innovator is looked down upon while radicals enjoy more social acceptability.
Swami Vivekananda who visited America twice and stayed abroad for years did not like everything about the West. But did he say that the West should be destroyed, Christianity should be disbanded and Hinduism should be imposed upon westerners? No he spoke of cultural and intellectual exchanges between India and America. But Syed Qutb of Egypt was in the US for two years (1948-1950) and became disgusted with western civilization and ideologies. He returned to Egypt and became a militant Islamic thinker- and his book Milestones became the fountainhead of modern Islamic revivalism. He called for destruction of non-Islamic civilizations and ideologies and imposition of Islam.
The Muslims with modern education hardly have any standing in their own community that is under the stranglehold of clerics. The ârationalâ Muslims who write in newspapers are merely to befool us since most of us neither read Islamic theology nor its history.
(The writer a Rajya Sabha MP and Convener of BJPâs Think Tank can be contacted at bpunj@email.com)
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Mirwaiz summons APHC Executive body meeting
SRINAGAR, Dec 14 (SANA): Moderate Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has summoned an emergency meeting of the amalgam's Executive Committee and the General Council to discuss the latest situation.
A Hurriyat spokesman said here that Mirwaiz would brief the members of both the Executive Committee and the General Council about his meeting with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf at the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia on December 8 on the sidelines of the extraordinary two-day summit of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC).
He said the Hurriyat Chairman will also brief the participants about his visit to Istanbul in Turkey where he attended a two-day conference organised by 'Panos South Asia', an international non-governmental organisation (NGO).
The spokesman said at the meeting Mirwaiz Farooq will also give details about his participation at the OIC Summit, which was called by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to discuss challenges, including divisions in the Muslim world, the Iraq war and alleged European defamation of Islam.
The Summit discussed ways and means of strengthening of Islamic unity and solidarity for an effective response to the multiple challenges facing the Musli in the 21st century.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1576982,0008.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Internet beats ban on ânew Quranâ
Nandini R. Iyer
New Delhi, December 19, 2005
 Â
The True Furqan â a book that claimed to be the Quran for the millennium had caused much furore in Islamic circles since it was trying to "evangelise Muslims" â is banned in India. Last week, the government tabled a customs notification in Parliament informing the MPs of the decision to ban the book due to security considerations. Today, you can read the book-on the Internet.
The book has been the subject of controversy in the United States with some sections â both in the US and in other countries â objecting to it. They alleged that it was not an accurate translation of the Quran. Some even argued that it was an insult to Muslims.
The US government's Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) lists âA New American Quranâ on its website usinfo.state.gov under the heading âIdentifying Misinformationâ. Reacting to allegations that Washington was trying to impose A New American Quran on Muslims, the site asserts that âa small, private, evangelical Christian group in the United States has written a book called The True Furqan, which seeks to convert Muslims to Christianity, but this group has no connection with the US government."
The Customs Notification 78/2005 of September 7 states that, the Centre "hereby absolutely prohibits the import of the book entitled The True Furqan, subtitled âThe 21st Century Quranâ published in the United States of America by Omega, 2000 and Wine Press, including any extract, any reprint or translation thereof or any document reproducing any matter contained therein".
While no one questions the government's authority in imposing such a ban invoking security considerations, babudom has failed to realise that anyone can read the book online by paying as little as Rs 20 an hour in a cyber café and logging on to www.islam-exposed.org.
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http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?m...t&counter_img=4
Paving the way for Islamistan
It is time ulemas got rid of their obsolete ideas and accepted ijtehad which was permitted in early Islamic tradition, says Prafull Goradia
Some 46 organisations accompanied by 420 Muslim luminaries have reportedly presented a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and <b>urged that agricultural land in the possession of Muslims should be transferred from the law of the land to the Muslim Personal Law - rather like the rules of marriage and divorce.</b>
<b>If this ridiculous demand is met, the country would lose its sovereignty over lakhs of land parcels. These territories would become quasi-wakfs. According to Islamic theology, wakf properties belong to Allah the Merciful, which make every property a micro Islamistan.</b>
Article 43 of the Constitution declares that India is a secular state, which means that there should be a wall of separation between the state and religion. Moreover, one country should have one law, especially when the Constitution guarantees equality before the law to all its citizens. It was with this intention that Article 44 of the Constitution directed that India should have a common civil code (UCC).
Unfortunately, Jawaharlal Nehru did not have the courage to face up to Muslim pressure. He, therefore, transferred this article to the chapter of Directive Principles, instead of making it a fundamental right.
On the morrow of passing Hindu Code Bill, Nehru had said on the floor of parliament, "Well, I should like a civil code which applies to everybody but wisdom hinders. If he (the member) or anybody else brings forward a Civil Code Bill, it will have my extreme sympathy. But I confess I do not think that at the present moment the time is ripe in India for me to try to push it through. I want to prepare the ground for it."
UCC is also essential if justice is to be done to Muslim women, who continue to be treated as chattel. In the recent Imrana case, the victim was raped by her father-in-law; and thus her relationship with her husband overnight changed from that of a wife to that of a mother. That the father-in-law had committed a crime found little place in the discussion.
However revolting the experience of Imrana might be, it would seem even worse if the context of sharia is seen. According to Holy Quran by A Yousaf Ali, a woman requires four male witnesses to prove her complaint of having been raped. In case she fails to do so, she would be charged with being an adulteress to be stoned to death.
This view is supported by Chapter DCLXXX, 'Prescribed Punishment For An Adulterer And An Adulteress', of Sahih Muslim by Imam Muslim. In the 7th century Arabia, conditions might well have justified such rules. It is quite possible that the status of women was even worse and shariat might have improved the female lot. In similar vein, it is widely known that Prophet Muhammad destroyed 360 idols inside the Kaaba on his return from Medina. Such demolition might have been explicable in the 7th century, but for the Taliban to destroy the Bamiyan Buddha in the 21st century was surely an act of barbarism.
The lot of a Muslim woman is described at length by Professor Bernard Lewis in What Went Wrong? According to him, Islam classifies inferior people into three: Unbelievers or kafirs, slaves and women. In his words, the woman was obviously the worst placed of the three. The slave could be freed by his master; the unbeliever could at any time become a believer by his own choice. Only the woman was doomed forever.
This description is consistent with the supreme principle of the religion: That Allah is the only God and there is no other god. Since God is essential for the passage of man to jannat or heaven, it is necessary for him to be Muslim. Incidentally, the woman has no place in heaven. The only females in jannat are Houris who do not mensurate and their function is exclusively to provide pleasure to men (Sura iv, Ayat 56-78).
The wife was expected to give birth to as many children as possible. To ensure that she is obedient, it was best if she was not educated. The other advantage was that an uneducated mother would not realise the importance of studies for her children. The consequence would be that the next generation also would not question the ulema. Women are seldom allowed to pray in a masjid, nor hear the khutba or sermon customarily delivered on Fridays.
Islam and modernity are a contradiction in terms. In such a society, the woman had to be purdah nasheen (fully covered). Little wonder that sharia enjoins the penalty for a woman to be half that of a man and, in evidence, the testimony of two women to be equal to that of one man. If one goes by the number of wives permitted at a time, she is one fourth of a Muslim husband.
<b>The ulema realise the threat women pose to their tight grip over the ummah. Their ill treatment is the biggest faultline of Islam and this today is under attack. </b>For 14 centuries, the mullahs have guarded this faultline from breaching. Christianity did undergo reform, whereas Judaism did not change but it paid the price by shrinking.
Communism tried to hold firm but eventually it perished. Islam should accept ijtehad or independent reasoning, which was permitted in its early tradition. The 1400-year-old religion should catch up with time in India, as it has tried to do in West Asia.
<b>Pakistani Describes honor Killing of Daughters </b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Hundreds of girls and women are murdered by male relatives each year in this conservative Islamic nation, and rights groups said Wednesday such "honor killings" will only stop when authorities get serious about punishing perpetrators.
The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that in more than half of such cases that make it to court, most end with cash settlements paid by relatives to the victims' families, although under a law passed last year, the minimum penalty is 10 years, the maximum death by hanging.
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<b>Muslim burial for Malaysian hero </b>
Mr Moorthy's widow was in tears after Wednesday's ruling
A Malaysian mountaineering hero will be buried as a Muslim, against the wishes of his Hindu wife, who denied he had converted to Islam before his death.
The decision follows a High Court ruling that it cannot override the country's Islamic courts in matters of religious conversion.
An Islamic court had said the man, M Moorthy, had become a Muslim last year.
Lawyers say the case highlights problems faced by non-Muslims dealing with Malaysia's Islamic justice system.
"So much for good interracial relations," Haris Mohamad Ibrahim, a lawyer representing Malaysia's Bar Council, told The Associated Press.
"The judge has just told the widow and her family to go back and leave the body of their beloved to be buried by strangers."
<b>Coma </b>
M Moorthy, 36, was a Hindu when he became a national hero in 1997 as a member of the first Malaysian expedition to conquer Mount Everest.
But when he died a week ago family supporters and state Islamic officials jostled one another at the mortuary as each tried to claim his body.
An Islamic Sharia court subsequently upheld a claim by his former colleagues in the army that he had become a Muslim last year.
However his family, who want him to have a Hindu funeral, were not allowed to appear before the court to dispute his conversion because they are not Muslims.
The family went to the civil court and argued that Mr Moorthy was a practising Hindu right up to a recent accident when he fell from his wheelchair and lapsed into a coma.
<b>They say he was even interviewed for local television two months ago about his preparations for the Hindu festival of Diwali</b>.
But the High Court agreed with government lawyers who argued the civil court had no jurisdiction.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Jihad through rape: Attacks on Western women by Muslims </b>
By Sharon Lapkin
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 27, 2005
In Australia, Norway, Sweden and other Western nations, there is a distinct race-based crime in motion being ignored by the diversity police: Islamic men are raping Western women for ethnic reasons. We know this because the rapists have openly declared their sectarian motivations.
When a number of teenage Australian girls were subjected to hours of sexual degradation during a spate of gang rapes in Sydney that occurred between 1998 and 2002, the perpetrators of these assaults framed their rationale in ethnic terms. The young victims were informed that they were "sluts" and "Aussie pigs" while they were being hunted down and abused.
In Australia's New South Wales Supreme Court in December 2005, a visiting Pakistani rapist testified that his victims had no right to say no, because they were not wearing a headscarf.
And earlier this year Australians were outraged when Lebanese Sheik Faiz Mohammed gave a lecture in Sydney where he informed his audience that rape victims had no one to blame but themselves. Women, he said, who wore skimpy clothing, invited men to rape them.
A few months earlier, in Copenhagen, Islamic mufti and scholar, Shahid Mehdi created uproar when â like his peer in Australia â he stated that women who did not wear a headscarf were asking to be raped.
And with haunting synchronicity in 2004, the London Telegraph reported that visiting Egyptian scholar Sheik Yusaf al-Qaradawi claimed female rape victims should be punished if they were dressed immodestly when they were raped. He added, "For her to be absolved from guilt, a raped woman must have shown good conduct."
In Norway and Sweden, journalist Fjordman warns of a rape epidemic. Police Inspector Gunnar Larsen stated that the steady increase of rape-cases and the link to ethnicity are clear, unmistakable trends. Two out of three persecutions for rape in Oslo are immigrants with a non-Western background and 80 percent of the victims are Norwegian women.
In Sweden, according to translator for Jihad Watch, Ali Dashti, "Gang rapes, usually involving Muslim immigrant males and native Swedish girls, have become commonplace." A few weeks ago she said, "Five Kurds brutally raped a 13-year-old Swedish girl."
In France, Samira Bellil broke her silence â after enduring years of repeated gang rapes in one of the Muslim populated public housing projects â and wrote a book, In the hell of the tournantes, that shocked France. Describing how gang rape is rampant in the banlieues, she explained to Time that, "any neighborhood girl who smokes, uses makeup or wears attractive clothes is a whore."
Unfortunately, Western women are not the only victims in this epidemic. In Indonesia, in 1998, human rights groups documented the testimony of over 100 Chinese women who were gang raped during the riots that preceded the fall of President Suharto. Many of them were told: "You must be raped, because you are Chinese and non-Muslim."
Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported that in April 2005, a 9-year-old Pakistani girl was raped, beaten with a cricket bat, hanged upside down from the ceiling, had spoonfuls of chillies poured into her mouth, and repeatedly bashed while handcuffed. Her Muslim neighbours told her they were taking revenge for the American bombing of Iraqi children and informed her they were doing it because she was an "infidel and a Christian."
In Sudan â where Arab Muslims slaughter black Muslim and Christian Sudanese in an ongoing genocide â former Sudanese slave and now a human rights' activist Simon Deng says he witnessed girls and women being raped and that the Arab regime of Khartoum sends its soldiers to the field to rape and murder. In other reports, women who are captured by government forces are asked; "Are you Christian or Muslim?" and those who answer Christian, are gang raped before having their breasts cut off.
This phenomenon of Islamic sexual violence against women should be treated as the urgent, violent, repressive epidemic it is. Instead, journalists, academics, and politicians ignore it, rationalize it, or ostracize those who dare discuss it.
In Australia, when journalist Paul Sheehan reported honestly on the Sydney gang rapes, he was called a racist and accused of stirring up anti-Muslim hatred. And when he reported in his Sydney Morning Herald column that there was a high incidence of crime amongst Sydney's Lebanese community, fellow journalist, David Marr sent him an e-mail stating, "That is a disgraceful column that reflects poorly on us all at the Herald."
Keysar Trad, vice-president of the Australian Lebanese Muslim Association said the gang rapes were a "heinous" crime but complained it was "rather unfair" that the ethnicity of the rapists had been reported.
Journalist Miranda Devine reported during the same rape trials that all reference to ethnicity had been deleted from the victim impact statement because the prosecutors wanted to negotiate a plea bargain.
So when Judge Megan Latham declared, "There is no evidence before me of any racial element in the commission of these offences," everyone believed her. And the court, the politicians and most of the press may as well have raped the girls again.
Retired Australian detective Tim Priest warned in 2004 that the Lebanese gangs, which emerged in Sydney in the 1990s â when the police were asleep â had morphed out of control. "The Lebanese groups," he said, " were ruthless, extremely violent, and they intimidated not only innocent witnesses, but even the police that attempted to arrest them."
Priest describes how in 2001, in a Muslim dominated area of Sydney two policemen stopped a car containing three well-known Middle Eastern men to search for stolen property. As the police carried out their search they were physically threatened and the three men claimed they were going to track them down, kill them and then rape their girlfriends.
According to Priest, it didn't end there. As the Sydney police called for backup the three men used their mobile phones to call their associates, and within minutes, 20 Middle Eastern men arrived on the scene. They punched and pushed the police and damaged state vehicles. The police retreated and the gang followed them to the police station where they intimidated staff, damaged property and held the police station hostage.
Eventually the gang left, the police licked their wounds, and not one of them took action against the Middle Eastern men. Priest claims, "In the minds of the local population, the police are cowards and the message was, 'Lebanese [Muslim gangs] rule the streets.'"
In France, in the banlieues, where gang rape is now known simply as tournantes or âpass-around,' victims know the police will not protect them. If they complain, Samir Bellil said, they know that they and their families will be threatened.
However, Muslim women in the French ghettos are finally fighting back against gang rape and police non-action. They have begun a movement called, "We're neither whores nor doormats." They are struggling against the intrinsic violence that plagues their neighbourhoods and the culture that condones it.
In most French prosecutions, the Muslim rapists state that they do not believe they have committed a crime. And in a frightening parallel with the gang rapists in Australia, they claim the victim herself is to blame and accuse her of being a "slut" or a "whore."
According to The Guardian, during the recent French riots, a Saudi Prince with shares in News Corporation boasted to a conference in Dubai that he had phoned Rupert Murdoch and complained about Fox News describing the disturbances as "Muslim riots." Within half an hour he said, it was changed to "civil riots."
Swedish translator, Ali Dashti, stated that in Sweden when three men raped a 22-year-old woman recently, they said one word to her. "Whore." Such stories, according to Dashti, are in the Swedish newspapers every week. And, the politically correct "take great care not to mention the ethnic background of the perpetrators."
Sweden's English newspaper The Local reported in July that Malmo police commander Bengt Lindström had been charged with inciting racial hatred. He sent e-mails from his home computer to two city officials. To the head of healthcare, he wrote: "You...treat old Swedes who have worked hard building up the fatherland like parasites and would rather give my taxes to criminals called Mohammed from Rosengärd."
In Malmo, the third largest city in Sweden, the police have admitted, Dashti says, that they no longer control the city. "It is effectively ruled by violent gangs of Muslim immigrants." Ambulance personnel are regularly attacked and spat upon and are now refusing to help until a police escort arrives. The police are too afraid to enter parts of the city without backup.
In early 2005, Norwegian newspapers reported that Oslo had recorded the highest ever number of rape cases in the previous twelve months. However, Fjordman explained, the official statistics contained no data regarding "how immigrants were grossly over represented in rape cases", and the media remain so strangely silent.
Oslo Professor of Anthropology, Unni Wikan, said Norwegian women must take responsibility for the fact that Muslim men find their manner of dress provocative. And since these men believe women are responsible for rape, she stated, the women must adapt to the multicultural society around them.
The BBC pulled a documentary scheduled for screening in 2004, after police in Britain warned it could increase racial tension. "In these exceptional circumstances... Channel 4 as a responsible broadcaster has agreed to the police's request..." The documentary was to show how Pakistani and other Muslim men sexually abused young, white English girls as young as 11.
The number of rapes committed by Muslim men against women in the last decade is so incredibly high that it cannot be viewed as anything other than culturally implicit behaviour. It is overtly reinforced and sanctioned by Islamic religious leaders who blame the victims and excuse the rapists.
In three decades of immigration into Western countries, Islam has caused social upheaval and havoc in every one of its host countries. No other immigration program has encountered the problems of non-assimilation and religious ambiguity.
Everywhere in the world, Muslims are in conflict with their neighbours. And as Mark Steyn recently said, every conflict appears to have originated by someone with the name of Mohammed.
In July 2005, Melbourne Sheik Mohammad Omran told Sixty Minutes that "...we believe we have more rights than you because we choose Australia to be our home and you didn't. "
In the same interview visiting Sheik Khalid Yasin warned "There's no such thing as a Muslim having a non-Muslim friend, so a non-Muslim could be your associate but they can't be a friend. They're not your friend because they don't understand your religious principles and they cannot because they don't understand your faith."
Despite being told over and over by Islamic scholars, and witnessing massive influxes of Islamic crime, Western countries continue to believe in the reality of assimilation and moral relativism.
In Australia, Lebanese Christians have assimilated and become a respected part of our community. The Premier of Victoria is a Lebanese Christian as is the Governor Of New South Wales. However, Lebanese Muslims have encountered serious problems because of their refusal to accept our right to live our way of life. Nothing so clearly demonstrates that it is not an issue of race â but of culture.
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Jihad is 'Muslim obligation'</b>
A lawyer defending al Qaida-linked suspects standing trial for the 2003 suicide bombings in Istanbul told a court that jihad, or holy war, was an obligation for Muslims and his clients should not be prosecuted.
"If you punish them for this, tomorrow, will you punish them for fasting or for praying?" Osman Karahan -- a lawyer representing 14 of the 72 suspects -- asked during a nearly four-hour speech in which he read religious texts from an encyclopedia of Islam.
The November 2003 blasts targeted two synagogues, the British Consulate and the local headquarters of the London-based HSBC bank, killing 58 people.
The Arabic word jihad can mean holy war among extremists in addition to its definition as the Islamic concept of the struggle to do good.
Karahan spoke for three hours at the court in Istanbul.
"If non-Muslims go into Muslim lands, it is every Muslim's obligation to fight them," Karahan said.
A panel of three judges for the fiercely secular Turkish Republic listened to Karahan patiently, without speaking, as the defence lawyer read from four thick file folders.
Twenty-nine of the suspects were brought to the courthouse for the hearing, handcuffed and escorted by paramilitary police. They sat in the middle of the courtroom, surrounded by police.
More than a dozen other lawyers were also present but only Karahan spoke in the morning session.
Later in the day, several defendants acknowledged receiving training at foreign camps for Islamic militants or making plans to carry out acts of extremist violence, but all but one denied a link to the Istanbul bombings or to al Qaida.
news.scotsman.com/latest....2440692005 <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Dhimwit of the Month Honors
dhim·mi (dm) - A Qur'anic term that refers to a subjugated non-Muslim person living in a society dominated by Muslims. Second-class status is confirmed by the legal system and dhimmis do not share the rights of their Muslim masters. (ex. of use: "Hey Jimmy, if you want to be a Dhimmi, then you'd better learn how to shimmy.")
dhim·wit (dmwt) - A non-Muslim member of a free society that abets the stated cause of Islamic domination with remarkable gullibility or guile. A dhimwit is always quick to extend a sympathy to the enemy
that they are unwilling to allow their own defenders.
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Pages/Dhimwits.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->www.midday
<b>Muslim Man beheads sis for inter-caste marriage</b>
By: PTI
January 2, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Muzaffarnagar, UP: The elder brother of a 19-year-old girl here carried out an apparent 'honour killing' by allegedly beheading her while she was asleep at a hospital in Meerut, the police said today.
The girl Nargis was undergoing treatment at Meerut Medical College Hospital for stab wounds after her brother Naushad attacked her on December 16 for marrying outside their caste, they said.
She and her lover eloped on December 10 and returned to their houses here on December 16 after getting married, which was opposed by her parents, they said.
A panchayat also tried to pressurise the couple, but they refused to be swayed.
Naushad last night went to the women's ward and beheaded her while she was asleep and has since been absconding, they said. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Rest of world and great pinkoo and Indologist told me caste system only exist among Hindus.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'><span style='font-family:Impact'><!--emo&:bcow--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/b_cowboy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='b_cowboy.gif' /><!--endemo--> Blueprint for tackling jihad in India: http://www.indiacause.com/columns/OL_051120.htm</span></span>
Someone pls post this in BRF , thanks
Now that the "Catholic" Ratzinger too has an opinion many will be able to digest it.
When even the pope has to whisper
Jan 10, 2006
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HA10Ak01.html
When even the pope has to whisper
By Spengler
Islam is the unexploded bomb of global politics. US foreign policy -
the only foreign policy there is, for the United States is the only
superpower - proceeds from the hope that a modern and democratic
Islam will emerge from the ruins of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Through
democratic institutions, Washington believes, the long-marginalized
Shi'ites will adapt to religious pluralism. Ayatollah Ali al-
Sistani's Islam, fixed in amber since the High Middle Ages, will
metamorphose into something like American mainline Protestantism.
Alas, the available facts suggest that the opposite result will
ensue: more freedom equals more fundamentalism. Not the secular
Shi'ite parties but the pro-Iranian religious parties dominate the
Iraqi polls. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood quadrupled its vote
despite heavy-handed measures to intimidate its supporters; Hamas
threatens to displace Fatah in the Palestinian elections this month;
Hezbollah has become the strongest electoral as well as military
force in Lebanon; and, most important of all, Mahmud Ahmadinejad
crushed a more pragmatic opponent in last June's Iranian presidential
elections.
<<<<Islam was founded as a theocracy, such that the Western innovation of
church-state separation remains alien to its culture. Is it possible
for Islam to reform? >>>> A negative answer implies that Ahmadinejad's
January 5 call for world domination falls within the Islamic
mainstream. He told an audience of religious students, "We must
believe in the fact that Islam is not confined to geographical
borders, ethnic groups and nations. It's a universal ideology that
leads the world to justice. We don't shy away from declaring that
Islam is ready to rule the world. We must prepare ourselves to rule
the world." The previous day, the London Guardian leaked a European
intelligence report detailing Iran's efforts to acquire technology
required to build nuclear weapons. A very few writers, including this
one, have rejected the possibility of Islamic reformation, to the
stony contempt of universally accepted opinion.
<<<<@Now Pope Benedict XVI has let it be known that he does not believe
Islam can reform. This we learn from the transcript of a January 5 US
radio interview with one of Benedict's students and friends, Father
Joseph Fessio, SJ, the provost of Ave Maria University in Naples,
Florida, posted on the Asia Times Online forum by a sharp-eyed
reader.@>>>> For the pope to refute the fundamental premise of US policy
is news of inestimable strategic importance, yet a Google News scan
reveals that not a single media outlet has taken notice of what
Fessio told interviewer Hugh Hewitt last week. No matter: still and
small as Benedict's voice might be, it carries further than
earthquake and whirlwind.
Fessio described a private seminar on the subject of Islam last year
at Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer residence:
The main presentation by this [start new-window link here] Father
[Christian] Troll http://www.sankt-georgen.de/lehrende/troll.html was
very interesting. He based it on a Pakistani Muslim scholar [named]
Rashan, who was at the University of Chicago for many years, and Rashan's position was Islam can enter into dialogue with modernity, but only if it radically reinterprets the Koran, and takes the specific legislation of the Koran, like cutting off your hand if you're a thief, or being able to have four wives, or whatever, and takes the principles behind those specific pieces of legislation for the 7th century of Arabia, and now applies them, and modifies them, for a new society [in] which women are now respected for their full dignity, where democracy's important, religious freedom's important, and so on. And if Islam does that, then it will be able to enter into real dialogue and live together with other religions and other kinds of cultures.
And immediately the holy father, in his beautiful calm but clear way, said, well, there's a fundamental problem with that because, he said, in the Islamic tradition, God has given His word to Mohammed, but it's an eternal word. It's not Mohammed's word. It's there for eternity the way it is. There's no possibility of adapting it or interpreting it, whereas in Christianity, and Judaism, the dynamism's completely different, that God has worked through his creatures [emphasis added]. And so it is not just the word of God, it's the word of Isaiah, not just the word of God, but the word of Mark. He's used his human creatures, and inspired them to speak his word to the world, and therefore by establishing a church in which he gives authority to his followers to carry on the tradition and interpret it, there's an inner logic to the Christian Bible, which permits it and requires it to be adapted and applied to new situations.The interviewer then asked Fessio, "And so the pope is a pessimist about that changing, because it would require a radical reinterpretation of what the Koran is?" Fessio replied, "Yeah, which is it's impossible, because it's against the very nature of the Koran, as it's understood by Muslims."
That is precisely what I argued in an essay titled You say you want a reformation? on August 5, 2003:
Hebrew and Christian scripture claim to be the report of human encounters with God. After the Torah is read each Saturday in synagogues, the congregation intones that the text stems from "the mouth of God by the hand of Moses", a leader whose flaws kept him from entering the Promised Land. The Jewish rabbis, moreover, postulated the existence of an unwritten Revelation whose interpretation permits considerable flexibility with the text. Christianity's Gospels, by the same token, are the reports of human evangelists.
The Archangel Gabriel, by contrast, dictated the Koran to Mohammed, according to Islamic doctrine. That sets a dauntingly high threshold for textual critics. How does one criticize the word of God without rejecting its divine character? In that respect the Koran resembles the "Golden Tablets" of the Angel Moroni purported found by the Mormon leader Joseph Smith more than it does the Jewish or Christian bibles.
I claim no originality whatever in this matter, for I simply follow the leading Muslim authorities, who are unanimous that Islam is in no need of reform. The immutable character of Islamic revelation makes the subject of Koranic criticism into a minefield. It is universally known among scholars that alternative texts of the Koran have been discovered in various archeological sites - something of an embarrassment for the Archangel Gabriel - but the subject has disappeared from the media. [1] When Newsweek in 2004 published a brief mention of the work of the pseudonymous German philologist Christoph Luxenberg, the government of Pakistan seized the entire print run. Luxenberg became famous for re-translating the Koran to read that martyrs would receive raisins in Paradise rather than virgins. One finds nearly 12,000 Google references to Luxenberg but not a single hit on Google News. The subject, once so passionately debated in editorial columns, has vanished from the media in their entirety.
It is dangerous to publish anything that Muslims might interpret as blasphemy, as Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's largest newspaper, discovered when it published 12 cartoons of Mohammed, some portraying the Prophet in violent acts. Muslim protests and threats caused two of the cartoonists to go into hiding. After Arab foreign ministers condemned Denmark for refusing to act against the newspaper, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen offered a near-apology in his New Year's address.
Strange as it may seem, the pope must whisper when he wants to state agreement with conventional Muslim opinion, namely that the Koranic prophecy is fixed for all time such that Islam cannot reform itself. If Islam cannot change, then a likely outcome will be civilizational war, something too horrific for US leaders to contemplate. What Benedict XVI thinks about the likelihood of civilizational war I do not know. Two elements of context, though, set in relief his reported comments concerning Islam's incapacity to reform.
The first is that Benedict's comments regarding the nature of Muslim revelation are deliberate and informed, for his primary focus as a theologian has been the subject of revelation. In his 1953 doctoral thesis, biographer George Weigel reports, Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope,
... following Bonaventure, argued that revelation is "an act in which God shows himself"; revelation cannot be reduced to the propositions that result from God's self-disclosure, as certain forms of neo-scholasticism tended to do. Revelation, in other words, has a subjective or personal dimension, in that there is no "revelation" without someone to receive it. As Ratzinger would later put it, "where there is no one to perceive 'revelation', no re-vel-ation has occurred, because no veil has been removed". [2]
The Judeo-Christian view of revelation, as summarized above by Father Fessio, expresses the mutual love between Revealer and recipient of revelation, a concept alien to Islam. [3]
A second element of context is Benedict's admiration for the US separation of church and state. In an essay published in this month's issue of First Things, Benedict makes the remarkable (for a pope) statement that the US model is what the early church really had in mind. He proceeds from the famous argument of Pope Gelasius I (492-496) that "because of human weakness (pride!), they have separated the two offices" of king and priest. Neither the state church model of Northern Europe nor the secular model of France, Italy and Spain has sufficed, Benedict observes. But he continues:
Situated between the two [failed] models is the model of the United States of America. Formed on the basis of free churches, it adopts a separation between church and state. Above and beyond the single denominations, it is characterized by a Protestant Christian consensus that is not defined in denominational terms but rather in association with its sense of a special religious mission toward the rest of the world. The religious sphere thus acquires a significant weight in public affairs and emerges as a pre-political and supra-political force with the potential to have a decisive impact on political life.
It is useless to bemoan the fact that Americans do not understand what they are until a European comes along and explains it to them; that has been true since Alexis de Tocqueville. It is most promising that a European, indeed one who speaks with the authority of the throne of St Peter, has explained the difference between the Christian foundation of the US political system and theocratic Islam - even if the explanation came in the form of a stage whisper. I expect this to have profound consequences.
Later in the same essay, Benedict takes up a theme I have addressed over the years, namely the moral cause of Europe's demographic implosion (see Why Europe chooses extinction, April 8, 2003), writing:
Europe is infected by a strange lack of desire for the future. Children, our future, are perceived as a threat to the present, as though they were taking something away from our lives. Children are seen - at least by some people - as a liability rather than as a source of hope. Here it is obligatory to compare today's situation with the decline of the Roman Empire.My investigation of the causes of Europe's present decline was inspired by comments of then-cardinal Ratzinger in a book-length interview with the German journalist Peter Seewald published in 1996 as The Salt of the Earth. Nothing is really new in Benedict's present formulation except, perhaps, his sense of urgency as the hour grows late and the moment of truth approaches. In the cited essay, Benedict excoriates the pessimism of Oswald Spengler, who claimed to have discovered a deterministic pattern of rise and fall of civilizations. Instead, he argues that "the fate of a society always depends upon its creative minorities", and that "Christians should look upon themselves as just such a creative minority".
I agree with the pope, not with my namesake. My choice of nom de guerre is ironic rather than semiotic. The fact that the West still has such a leader as Benedict XVI in itself is cause for optimism. It might be too late for Europe, but it is not too late for the United States, and that is where the pope's mustard seeds may fall on fertile ground.
Notes
1. See Toby Lester, "What is the Koran?", in The Atlantic Monthly, January 1999.
2. God's Choice by George Weigel (HarperCollins: New York, 2005), p 167.
3. For more background see Oil on the flames of civilizational war, December 2, 2003.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Talibanisationâ stops Muslim studentsâ tour</b>
1/13/2006 3:00:30 AM New Indian Express
KOCHI: Call it âTalibanisationâ of the education sector. Fifty Muslim students of the St Augustines Girlâs High School, Kothamangalam, were asked not to join the school excursion following an NDF âfatwaâ against the itinerary covering Christian shrines.
Believe it or not, the decision was taken after the school authorities received a call from Deputy Director of Education (DDE) Sanu allegedly on behalf of the Education Minister âadvisingâ the headmistress to drop the students from the trip fearing NDF backlash. As usual the school planned the trip for the Standard X students on January 7, before their annual examination, to Mannanam in Kottayam, where the founder of the school, Chavara Kuriakose Elias, is laid to rest.
<b>The unrest started when alleged NDF activists threatened the school authorities with dire consequences if the Muslim students were taken to Mannanam.</b> Posters were pasted on the compound wall of the school warning against taking Muslim students on the trip.
Following the threat, the parents of the Muslim students gave a written statement to the school that the students were being allowed to join the excursion with their consent.
Some members of the NDF called up the DDE and Education Ministerâs office asking to prevent the Muslim students from joining the trip. As directed from the Education Ministerâs office, the DDE called up the school authorities at midnight of the day before the trip was planned and requested them not to take the Muslim students with them.
<b>The Muslim students who assembled on the school premises on the day of the trip were asked not to join the trip</b>. It is pointed out that with the communalisation issue being raked up by some Muslim outfits there was a sharp divide among the students, for the reasons unknown to them.
Sanu told this websiteâs newspaper that <b>the school authorities were advised to take an appropriate decision and not to force any student to join the trip</b>. He denied that the Ministerâs office had called to convey the message to the school and said that the decision was taken following several anonymous calls being received in this regard.
www.haindavakeralam.org/P...506&SKIN=K
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What would have happened if VHP or RSS asked same ?
Allah o Akbar ....
http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?m...t&counter_img=4
Why blame Abu Salem?
N Jamal Ansari
Underworld don and main accused in the 1993 bomb blast case Abu Salem is facing the music today and saner elements of the Indian society believe that those terrorists who perpetrated the serial blasts in Mumbai should be punished. The police in Maharashtra are making every effort to trace other criminals involved in the ghastly act.
However, there are others who are free and enjoying political positions. After the demolition of Babri mosque in 1992, Muslims protested the authoritarian forces. It was then that the Hindutva lobby embarked upon teaching a lesson to the Muslims. They targeted Muslims in two phases: December 1992 and January 1993. With the help of the Mumbai police, the Hindutva elements attacked the Muslims. Even after 13 years, one believes, it will not be out of context to remind that according to the Government figures submitted to the Srikrishna Commission, 872 people were killed, 1,829 were injured and 443 are still missing.
The Srikrishna Commission further charged that Shiv Sena leaders and the police made an unholy alliance to assault the Muslims. Even as the Srikrishna Commission Report is gathering dust, all those responsible, including the paper tiger of Matoshree, are roaming free.
Obviously, the Government of the day failed to prevent the Hindutva forces, when it demolished the Babri mosque in 1992. In the process civil, political and ethical systems collapsed in Maharashtra. It is now claimed that the building of a new Ram temple on the very site of the Babri mosque will "re-establish the lost glory of Hinduism" in India. It should be remembered that the Babri mosque was desecrated in December 1948 by introducing some idols in the dead of night. After 44 years, it was demolished.
The question is: How can the site of an outrageous offence be called a place of worship or pilgrimage? Can any religion put such a premium on fraud, deceit and brute force? Those who demolished Babri mosque and engineered post-demolition atrocities of Muslims are also roaming free. The irony is that they have been granted protection at public expense by the very State which failed to protect its Muslim citizens. Condemning the acts, eminent jurist Soli Sorabjee wrote, "After the shameful events at Ayodhya on December 6, we have forfeited our claim to be a civilised law-abiding society." (The Times of India, December 10, 1992).
When India became a democratic republic in 1950, the Constitution not only assured the dignity of an individual but also guaranteed the unity of the nation. In practice, however, the state has failed in containing the rising tide of Hindutva. If this negative development is not checked in time, it could pose a serious threat to the unity and integrity of the nation.
It is time we face certain truths. A system of evasion and concealment has been built not only to conceal the discordant forces, but also to shield and foster those who believe in Hindutva. The problem is not simply about the demolition of Babri mosque or the genocide engineered in Mumbai and Gujarat. It relates to political ideology that has engulfed every arm of the Indian state, including the police.
Given the background, is it not essential that saner elements of the Indian society break their silence and demand that justice should be done to the aggrieved? It is also time for those responsible for the demolition of the Babri mosque to be put behind bars.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The Muslim within </b>
Pioneer.com
Wrought with inner conflict, Radha Vij illustrates how a visit to Jama Masjid is more than meets the eye
To visit Jama Masjid in New Delhi is an exercise of travel through time and space. From the outer perimeter of the mosque to the inner walls of the marketplace, the narrow lanes are consumed with Muslims in Kufi-cap negotiating prices in Urdu.
There is a striking absence of women. Though the mosque is in the centre of Old Delhi, a walk in the Jama Masjid complex hints at what Saudi Arabian life might have been like in the 1920s. The place is both living testament to the diversity of India and poignant reminder of the segregation such diversity generates.
As a 23-year-old agnostic (with Hindu parents) American-born NRI living in India for the first time, my curiosity often overpowers the arbitrary need to adhere to social convention. For this reason, I decide to enter Jama Masjid for the evening call to prayer. Climbing up the epic mosque steps, I use my black shawl to cover my head and what I can of my western outfit, disregarding impolite comments that warn me the area is closed to all non-Muslims during prayers.
<b>I tell the subaltern men working as unofficial guards that I am an Indian only here to observe, respectfully. They tell me to leave. I remove my shoes. They turn away to shoo other foreigners from the complex.</b> I enter the mosque and sit down, quietly, on the outer walkway. My head is down; I am not making eye contact for fear that whoever's gaze I meet will tell me I am unwelcome.
A noise emanates from the inner room. Men rush to prayer as guards appear for one last sweep of the area. <b>They approach me again and tell me, "No Hindus allowed." Then they ask me if I am Muslim. I hesitate. Both men stare in disdain; they are anticipating a "no". I say "yes". They stare harder. I say, "Please; I am Muslim," and put my head down. They say, "Okay, leave her." Feeling a brief victory - a slight adrenalin rush - I raise my head only to meet curious glares.</b>
The call to prayer transforms hostile feelings in the air. The sound of namaz echoing is so beautifully melancholic - almost primal in its sense of despondency - that it ever so subtly leads the listener to a forlorn place of introspection. Men rise and fall in unison to the vibrations created by some celestial force. The mosque seems to breathe alive and stop time all at once as it stands in the sunset, larger than life, one hundred birds flying in rhythm to its song.
This is a space full of contradiction and beauty within a city wrought with tension and hurt. The call to prayer beckons sullen contemplation: An almost eerie sense of stillness. But the rush of men's feet hurrying out of the mosque is a time-starting signal that ends the definitive moment of prayer. It is back to the mundane, the earthly and the real.
Now, I begin to internalise the fragmented aspects of what I've just seen:<b> Women sitting far apart from men, the elderly sitting far from the young. There are so many layers of meaning within this call to prayer, but as I sit contemplating these, another guard asks me if I am Muslim. This time I do not answer.</b> For some reason, I want my last moments of peaceful contemplation to be honest. I turn around and start to leave.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The melancholy but austere and hauntingly introspective Jama Masjid (as Radha Vij describes it above) must surely reflect the somber and dignified mood of the prayer places where Great and Mighty Afghan-Turk-Mughal Kings must have prayed silently and full of emotion before they embarked on their Hindu slaughter du jour. I think they took a break after wiping out the first five villages; rested, and then took the sword of God to the next few hundred innocent throats. After a hard day's work, the Ghazis would have retired to the welcoming coolness of some place just like the Jama Masjid, and laid down to dream of the pearly maidens and nubile boys promised by Him in the fragrant reaches of Jannat.
Why do people have to see the segregation of women from men in the masjid to develop a feel for the barbaric nature of Islam?
Maulana X is a leading scholar associated with the
Ahl-i Hadith Muslim community in India. In this
interview with Yoginder Sikand he talks
about sectarianism and communalism and bitterly
critiques the Lashkar-i Tayyeba, a Pakistan-based
terrorist outfit associated with the Ahl-i Hadith
school of thought.
Maulana Xâs name has been withheld as after the
interview was held and the transcript shown to him he
suggested the deletion of key parts of this interview,
for reasons he did not disclose. Since these crucial
portions of the interview are of particular interest
the interviewer decided to preserve these sections
while not naming the interviewee.
Q: The Ahl-i Hadith are known to be strict puritans.
In Ahl-i Hadith literature religions other than Islam
and their adherents are generally painted in a very
negative light. Often, non-Muslims as well as Muslims
other than those associated with the Ahl-i Hadith are
portrayed as âenemiesâ and as, by definition, opposed
to Islam.
What do you feel about this?
A: Yes, it is true that some Ahl-I Hadith
writers do present other religions and Muslim sects
and their followers
in this way, but to generalise about any community
like this is
wrong. The Qurâan does not allow for these sorts of
sweeping
comments. I am personally opposed to this but we
cannot control what individual Ahl-i Hadith
scholars write. As I see it, Islam enjoins upon
Muslims to cultivate good relations with others.
Q: What sort of work, if any, has the Ahl-i
Hadith been engaged in to promote dialogue between
Hindus and Muslims?
A: To be honest, we have not given as much attention
to this as we should have. We have so many problems
within the Muslim community itself to address. I do
agree we need
to be far more active in promoting inter-community
dialogue than we have so far.
Q: What do you feel about the Lashkar-i Tayyeba, a
Pakistan-based terrorist outfit active in the ongoing
war in Kashmir and which is associated with the Ahl-I
Hadith school of thought?<b>
A: Many Indian Ahl-i Hadith leaders are opposed to all
forms of terrorism, and the Lashkar is engaged in
terrorism and so I am opposed to it as well. The
Lashkar
claims to be associated with the Ahl-i Hadith school
of thought but most of the people involved in it are
ignorant (jahil), crazy (sarfira) and stupid (ahmak)
youth. There are very few noted âulama associated with
it. </b>The fact of the matter is that those who run the
Lashkar are people whose claims of being leaders of
the Muslims were not seriously accepted by others so
they set up their own group. And they did not stop at
this. They even fiercely opposed respectable Ahl-i
Hadith âulama in Pakistan itself and are giving the
Ahl-I Hadith a very bad name. They are spreading
hatred against non-Muslims and also exhort Muslims to
hate others. <b>They
talk of establishing an âIslamic stateâ but when they
donât observe the rules of Islamic morality and donât
have true Islam in their hearts what is the use of
talking about an âIslamic stateâ? People like them
claim that they want to establish âGodâs ruleâ
(hukumat-i ilahiya) in India when they cannot even
establish Islam in their own families! </b>They are simply
defaming Islam by empty slogans of flying the Islamic
flag atop the Red Fort in Delhi! By politicising Islam
and dragging it in the streets like a commodity they
are spreading oppression.
Islam clearly states that peace is preferable to war,
and war must be launched only in self-defence. The
injustice of one community cannot justify a similarly
unjust response. But the Lashkar has killed numerous
innocent people, which is totally
un-Islamic. I will go so far as to say that the
Lashkar has nothing to do with Islam. They are simply
puppets in the hands of the Americans and the Pakistan
government.
Q: Groups like the Lashkar give added ammunition to
Hindutva forces in India. Would you
agree that Muslim and Hindu communalism feed on each
other?
A: Certainly they do. We in India must forcefully
rebut claims by groups such as the Lashkar, who
purport to speak on behalf of the Indian Muslims. We
should cherish and support Indian secularism and
democracy, rather than railing against it as
âun-Islamicâ. We should appreciate the fact that in
India, unlike Pakistan, we can still pray in our
mosques without being attacked by armed militants.
Q: So, if the Indian Ahl-i Hadith is opposed to groups
like the Lashkar, how is it that one hardly comes
across any statements in the press by Indian Ahl-i
Hadith condemning such groups?
A: Muslim leaders regularly issue such statements, but
the English
and Hindi press do not publish them. They take little
or no interest in Muslim issues. The only time they
write about us is when something negative or
controversial happens, such as when some maulvi issues
a controversial fatwa, and they make a big mountain of
a mole hill out of that.
Q: How do you envisage a just and sustainable
settlement of the Kashmir conflict?
A: When the Indian Constitution was framed, Kashmir
was provided with considerable autonomy through
Article 370, which needs to be revived and preserved.
I know for a fact that, contrary to the general
impression, not
many Kashmiris actually want to join Pakistan. See how
the Mohajirs are treated in Pakistan. It is likely
that the Kashmiris will meet the same fate. So, the
solution to the issue should be within the framework
of the Indian Constitution. The Government of India
should dialogue with the genuine representatives of
the Kashmiris.
Q: Your statement suggests that a section of the
Indian Ahl-i
Hadith has a different approach from that of its
counterpart in Pakistan.
A: The Ahl-i Hadith in both countries share a common
understanding as regards Islamic belief (âaqida) but
our politics are different. As many Indian Ahl-i
Hadith scholars
see it, in matters of faith we are Muslims first and
Muslims last, but when it comes to patriotism we are
Indians first and Indians last. Many Indian Ahl-i
Hadith scholars, most notably Abul Kalam Azad, were
staunch Indian patriots and opposed the Partition and
we should carry on in their path.
Q: Of late the Ahl-i Hadith and the Deobandis in India
and Pakistan have been at loggerheads, hurling charges
against each other, some of these bordering on
declaring the other as virtual apostates or infidels.
How do you look at this?
A: I think this is very unfortunate. The different
Muslim maslaks (schools of thought) must learn to
co-exist comfortably. We cannot destroy other maslaks
or religions, and we need to respect a personâs choice
of following a particular maslak or religion even if
we donât follow it ourselves. If you are sincere, you
should be soft towards others so that they appreciate
your good qualities and the good things in your maslak
or religion. The Qurâan tells us that when we talk to
others, it should be with kindness and wisdom. Hence,
I do admit that the tendency among some Ahl-I Hadith
scholars and âulama of condemning others, using shrill
rhetoric, is wrong. We cannot control what individual
Ahl-i Hadith maulvis do or say in their own capacity,
although we do tell our people that we should not
respond in this way. Yes, we need to logically defend
our particular beliefs if they are challenged, but we
should not descend, as some of us have, to the level
of abusing others.
Frankly, I think these seemingly never-ending heated
debates and mutual denunciations between the different
Muslim maslaks is sickening, the more so since there
are other crucial issues to be spending our time and
resources on, such as tackling poverty or communalism.
Often, behind these inter-maslak disputes is the quest
for personal gain and name. It is also true that
countering other maslaks is something that is
ingrained in the madrasa system today<b>. It is not, as
is sometimes alleged, that those who talk of madrasa
reforms are all motivated by anti-Islamic sentiments.</b>
They rightly see many madrasas as promoting this
narrow sort of thinking. This calls for the âulama of
the different maslaks to change their attitude and
promote tolerance, for other maslaks as well as for
other religions. Instead of relating to others in a
conflictual mode, we should do so with genuine respect
in a joint search for the truth through dialogue,
rather than, as at present, motivated by a desire to
condemn and defeat others. This is not what a genuine
search for truth is all about. That is just a means to
make oneself feel superior to others and leads to
conflict. We really need to listen others more
seriously, out of concern and respect. After all, God
has created all of us and he is the Sustainer of
everyone and surely He wants us to respect all of His
creation.
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